Did Riker intentionally wreck the Enterprise?

[cardinal biggles]

Rotate shield frequencies. Fire a barrage of photon torpedoes, phasers, and death to the uncloaked and weak BoP. Separate the ship to present two targets. Engage warp drive long enough to get their bearings and then return. - What Riker should have done.

Sit there doing nothing until the ship is irreparably damaged. Blow up the BoP using technobabble. - What Riker actually did.

We keep blaming Riker, but it's really Ron Moore and Brannon Braga who are at fault. They wanted to crash the Enterprise since the Season 6 finale, but there wasn't money in the FX budget to pull something like that off, not on TV before the days of affordable, decent-looking CGI. That's why a master tactician ("Peak Performance," "Best of Both Worlds II") just sits there and lets the Klingons batter the Federation's flagship to shit: cool visual effects. (To be fair, the crash sequence was excellent. An awesome job by the artists and technicians at ILM.)

 

[Lance]

Thirdly, OP is operating from the notion that Deanna is *only* a psychiatrist, when she is (in fact) a Leiutenant Commander and a part of the command circle. To expect she hasn't driven a ship before, when we're otherwise led to believe that all crewmembers have got training in something as basic as that, is to give her a discredit. I'd argue that the fact she managed to land the saucer on the surface without sustaining massive casualties among the crew speaks well of her abilities. Just because someone's main job is being a shrink doesn't mean they don't know how to do anything else!

"I have rerouted auxiliary power to lateral thrusters. Attempting to level our descent." -Lt. Commander Data, Star Trek Generations

There you go. Data crashed the ship.

 

[inflatabledalek]

[


Seriously though...if he's one of the best pilots in all of starfleet and the ship is in danger of losing control....he really should be at the helm even if he is the CO. I'm sure someone as qualified can multi-task and give orders while steering the ship.

As indeed he did in Insurrection. Where was his old Amiga joystick when he needed it the first time?

 

[Cyke101]

But I'm convinced that, if it WAS intentional, it was to hide evidence of the illegal poker gambling ring that he was running out of his own quarters.

Hide the evidence from whom? Picard knew his command crew had a regular poker game going.

There's friendly poker among colleagues... and then there's dark, underground, illicit, unsanctioned, financial gambling. Black market items. Under the table, hush-hush. The weekly senior staff poker game is merely a front.

And we all know that the parasites that nearly took over Starfleet didn't get Riker -- because he didn't need it. He's a shady one, that Riker.

 

[Lance]

[


Seriously though...if he's one of the best pilots in all of starfleet and the ship is in danger of losing control....he really should be at the helm even if he is the CO. I'm sure someone as qualified can multi-task and give orders while steering the ship.

As indeed he did in Insurrection. Where was his old Amiga joystick when he needed it the first time?

Nah, it was more of a 1999 vintage 'Sidewinder Pro' style IBM PC joystick. I wonder if he had to calibrate it before use?

 

[HIjol]

But I'm convinced that, if it WAS intentional, it was to hide evidence of the illegal poker gambling ring that he was running out of his own quarters.

Hide the evidence from whom? Picard knew his command crew had a regular poker game going.

Who cares anyway.....there's no money in the 24th century so they were literally playing for worthless plastic chips.

If they wanted to make it worth something then it should have at least been strip poker.

Hmmmm...I thought they were playing for Holodeck Ration Coupons. Little Known Fact:

Reg "The Forger" Barclay was a Master Forger of Holodeck ration coupons.

[


Seriously though...if he's one of the best pilots in all of starfleet and the ship is in danger of losing control....he really should be at the helm even if he is the CO. I'm sure someone as qualified can multi-task and give orders while steering the ship.

As indeed he did in Insurrection. Where was his old Amiga joystick when he needed it the first time?

Nah, it was more of a 1999 vintage 'Sidewinder Pro' style IBM PC joystick. I wonder if he had to calibrate it before use?

“The USB/Game Port Device you are trying to connect is not recognized" .

It was Amiga and Intel's fault the ship crashed.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

Rotate shield frequencies. Fire a barrage of photon torpedoes, phasers, and death to the uncloaked and weak BoP. Separate the ship to present two targets. Engage warp drive long enough to get their bearings and then return. - What Riker should have done.

Sit there doing nothing until the ship is irreparably damaged. Blow up the BoP using technobabble. - What Riker actually did.

We keep blaming Riker, but it's really Ron Moore and Brannon Braga who are at fault. They wanted to crash the Enterprise since the Season 6 finale, but there wasn't money in the FX budget to pull something like that off, not on TV before the days of affordable, decent-looking CGI. That's why a master tactician ("Peak Performance," "Best of Both Worlds II") just sits there and lets the Klingons batter the Federation's flagship to shit: cool visual effects. (To be fair, the crash sequence was excellent. An awesome job by the artists and technicians at ILM.)

Of course it's their fault for creating such a weak and meaningless ending for the E-D.

I can't help but blame Frakes though a little for agreeing to do it and not saying "Sorry but I'm not going to let you trash my character that way. Think of some thing better.

Nimoy was extremely protective of Spock and often flat out said "This is stupid. Spock wouldn't do it. Think of another way." I think at times he was too defensive but if that scene had been in a TOS film where Kirk was gone and Spock loses the Enterprise to a vastly inferior opponent in large part because of bad decisions in his part, Nimoy would have blown a gasket and said "Hell no I'm not going to to film a scene where you take a character with Spock's intelligence and experience and turn him into an imbecile for the plot's sake.

And I think Nimoy would have been totally justified, as would have Frakes if he said "No way."

 

[Cyke101]

For further proof of Riker's less-than-exemplary behavior, one only need to check out his Google search history.

 

[Timo]

Rotate shield frequencies. Fire a barrage of photon torpedoes, phasers, and death to the uncloaked and weak BoP. Separate the ship to present two targets. Engage warp drive long enough to get their bearings and then return. - What Riker should have done.

I don't see how any of these would work.

1) Rotate shields? Well, now they are rotated - and the Klingons know the new frequency, as it was their inside man who did the rotating. (Then again, we have never heard of shield rotation helping any against a threat other than the Borg, so why should Riker think it would be of help now?)
2) Fire a lot? Riker did. The E-D only ever fires one beam at a time; two or three isn't better, it's just splitting your available destructive power. Yet the Klingons said their shields were holding... As if not believing that this should be possible. A bit of Soran magic there?
3) Engage warp? The Klingons sucker-punched the warp core with their first two torpedoes, so I very much doubt warp would be in working order. But it wouldn't make sense to withdraw anyway, not initially, as Riker is supposedly facing a massively inferior opponent and OTOH needs to protect the planetside assets, to wit, his skipper. Later in the battle, warping might occur to Riker, but surely it would also occur to the Klingons, who only need to wait for Riker's inevitable return if their ship's inferior speed doesn't allow them to chase. If Riker doesn't return, the Klingons have won.

This is a bit like listing all the things that LaForge "should have done" to keep the warp core from blowing. There's no good reason to think he didn't do those, or abandon those as unviable, before stating that nothing could be done. He's the expert, after all.

Sure, the fight might have been a bit more satisfactory with more exterior shots showing exchanging of fire, rather than just interior scenes with sounds of fighting in the background. But that's TNG for you: "tell, don't show".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lance]

^ As Timo says, careful examination of the sequence ( and goodness only knows I've examined it more closely than is probably healthy ) actually suggests there's a lot of action happening 'off stage', ie that the Enterprise gets pelted by more barrages from the Klingon ship than the one or two we actually get to "see", and that there's more stuff going on down in engineering than we get to "see", etc. Furthermore, the usual suggestion we hear that Riker just sits on his hands and does nothing while the ship gets attacked by the BOP is simply ludicrous, as in the movie he's pacing the bridge getting suggestions the whole time trying to figure a way out of the situation.

I'm left to conclude that the people who critcize the scene for Riker's apparent lack of action haven't watched the same movie I did.

 

[HIjol]

For further proof of Riker's less-than-exemplary behavior, one only need to check out his Google search history.

"Why is space black?"



"Breasts"


Jesus, Cyke , you are killing me!!!

 

[Timo]

"Why is space black?"

Actually, that's one of the major mysteries of science, to which no truly satisfactory answer has been found so far...

Or was that "breasts"?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Turd Ferguson]

My personal favorite "Can holodeck safeties prevent STDs?"

 

[Cyke101]

My personal favorites: "Kobayashi Maru Walkthrough" and "Kobayashi Maru Cheat Codes"

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

Yeah, Riker's place was in the center of the bridge, taking in reports about what's going on from all around him, not to be distracted by trying to pilot the ship or some other function.

And at that point in time, Enterprise was going down anyway. There's nothing Riker could've done to change that by taking the helm himself.

Thirdly, OP is operating from the notion that Deanna is *only* a psychiatrist, when she is (in fact) a Leiutenant Commander and a part of the command circle. To expect she hasn't driven a ship before, when we're otherwise led to believe that all crewmembers have got training in something as basic as that, is to give her a discredit. I'd argue that the fact she managed to land the saucer on the surface without sustaining massive casualties among the crew speaks well of her abilities. Just because someone's main job is being a shrink doesn't mean they don't know how to do anything else!

Not entirely relevant and I an being nitpicky here, but I believe Troi was actually a full Commander at this point. Was just a little surprised this hadn't already been picked up on.

But to the OP. Of course here didn't. Firstly, he's way too dull and unimaginative for that.

 

[Lance]

^ Fair dues, re: Commander Troi.

I've watched the whole battle scene more times than I can even count, and I really don't get where this particular ''internet criticism'' that Riker somehow just sits on his ass and let's Enterprise get blown apart comes from. I hear that being claimed all of the time, and I'm just like: "Have these people even watched the same movie I did?".

For the whole battle scene he's pacing the bridge getting answers. He acts decisively to find a way to beat the Klingons, consulting with Worf about how to decloak the bird of prey, and it's *hardly* his fault that they've already gotten a fast advantage. The battle is seemingly over within minutes, precisely *because* Riker was quick to turn the tables around. The warp core breach, as actually presented in the movie, is just some dumb random thing that nobody can do anything about.

The Enterprise could have been written as being in battle with a Pillsbury Dough Boy delivery van in space, and the outcome of the battle would've been exactly the same.

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

^ Fair dues, re: Commander Troi.

I've watched the whole battle scene more times than I can even count, and I really don't get where this particular ''internet criticism'' that Riker somehow just sits on his ass and let's Enterprise get blown apart comes from. I hear that being claimed all of the time, and I'm just like: "Have these people even watched the same movie I did?".

For the whole battle scene he's pacing the bridge getting answers. He acts decisively to find a way to beat the Klingons, consulting with Worf about how to decloak the bird of prey, and it's *hardly* his fault that they've already gotten a fast advantage. The battle is seemingly over within minutes, precisely *because* Riker was quick to turn the tables around. The warp core breach, as actually presented in the movie, is just some dumb random thing that nobody can do anything about.

The Enterprise could have been written as being in battle with a Pillsbury Dough Boy delivery van in space, and the outcome of the battle would've been exactly the same.

I completely agree and I am but no means a Riker fan. Mostly because I think he lacks personality.

I also think Troi gets undeserved bad press for being at the helm when the saucer crashes too. I lost count of how many times in the 90s I heard the phrase "women drivers" in relation to that scene. Annoyingly sexist, and completely contrary to the situation of there being no way to prevent the crash (or at least I'm sure that was the intention behind the writing of the scene).

It was all an excuse to get a shiny new ship for the next film. (Though personally I prefer the D to the E, but don't think I did at the time).

 

[FormerLurker]

I think Deanna did pretty well, considering she landed without landing gear, and managed to not kill anyone on the ship or the ground.

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

I think Deanna did pretty well, considering she landed without landing gear, and managed to not kill anyone on the ship or the ground.

Me too. The comments I heard were just a reflection of how casually sexist modern culture can still be. It was an excuse to lambest female drivers for no good reason.

 

[Karzak]

Now, fast forward seven years. The Enterprise is engaged in battle with a twenty year old Klingon Bird of Prey, Riker is intentionally not rotating the shield frequency, and when the pilot console explodes, he orders clearly the most capable pilot on the ship to helm: one Counselor Deanna Troi. The psychiatrist. Let me repeat that. The psychiatrist.

I get that this thread is a joke, but holy crap I am so tired of this "blame Troi for being a bad driver" schtick.

Firstly: Troi isn't a psychiatrist. She's a psychologist. Secondly, she's not JUST a psychologist. She's also a trained Starfleet officer and a full commander.

Thirdly: As we have seen innumerable times, just about every Starfleet officer in the 24th century is trained as with basic piloting skills. Picard, Riker, Data, Geordi, Crusher, Wesley, Worf, Tasha, Ro, Barclay, Sisko, Dax, Bashir, O'Brien, Nog, Janeway, Chakotay, Paris, Kim, Tuvok... even Neelix, Seven, Garak, Dukat, Odo and Kira seemed to be able to fly Federation ships with relative ease. Fucking SCOTTY who hadn't flown a single ship in 75 years was able to just waltz onto a shuttle and leave with no training. Even Jake and Nog were able to figure it out pretty quickly.

Clearly, Starfleet ships are pretty user-friendly and easy to fly.

So I get really irritated by the perpetuation of this tired "joke" that because Troi's a woman, she's a bad driver and thus "crashed" the ship, a "joke" which makes no sense when you consider the context of the scene and events depicted.