Did the Enterprise-D not live up to its reputation?

[RAMA]

Yes, that's why I underlined canonized in "Perfect Mate", though the manual made it canon when it was released.

One word? Hell, we can pretty much make anything canon by taking a single word and spinning it whichever way we choose.

Guess we don't need another go around on how the printed materials are not canon.

The materials in the manual are basically souped up reproductions of the info writers were given. McCoy's daughter was mentioned in the TOS "bible" but never used in an episode, but lot's of fans believe he has a daughter. At least in this case Cetacean ops HAS been mentioned in multiple shows, it appeared in an offically licensed Paramount product sanctioned by Gene Rodenberry, Mike Okuda, and Rick Sternbach, and the actual realization was made by the designer of the E-D himself. What more do you need to know?

Designing the Cetacean Ops

“Cetacean Ops” is a facility onboard the Enterprise-D that, though referred to only twice—in the episodes, “The Perfect Mate” and “Yesterday’s Enterprise”—speaks to the imagination of fans every since Rick Sternbach and Mikael Okuda described and depicted it in their Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual as containing dolphins!
It is stated in the Manual that guidance and navigation research is conducted by a cetacean crew of twelve Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus gilli) who are apparently supervised by two Takaya’s Whales (Orcinus orca takayai). The “Takaya’s Whale” is not an actual species; the name is a homage to the fictional character, “Noriko Takaya” of the Japanese animated series, Aim For The Top! Gunbuster in which “espers and electronic-brained [bottlenose] dolphins” navigate a spaceship.
According to Sternbach, Cetacean Ops was never shown, “since the expense would have been prohibitive, but we did convince the writers to have Geordi ask a visiting official if they ever saw the dolphins.” The entire facility was his idea from the start. “I’m convinced,” he writes in the Manual, “that, even if they’re not intelligent enough to pilot a starship, they can still teach us a few things about other life forms.”
Star Trek: Online

From October through December 2005, Andrew Probert, senior illustrator on Star Trek: The Next Generation, worked with the game designer and art director of Perpetual Entertainment’s Star Trek Online to design previously unseen interiors of a Galaxy class starship. The Star Trek Online project was later taken over by another company, yet Probert’s designs remain and give us a glimpse of what could have been.

The underlined text also shows INTENT!
RAMA

 

[Warped9]

Problem is your "self evidence" is not accepted by 100% of the people, and is an opinion.
RAMA

Same as yours.

 

[Nero's Shadow]

The enterprise D was the biggest starfleet vessel built at the time and IMO she was classed as a explorer vessel she still had the most advanced weapons that starfleet could make.

And as well we saw in DS9 episodes the galaxy class could hold it's own look at episodes like sacrifice of angels, tears of the prophets.? These galaxy class ships we saw were all kicking ass against enemy vessels.

 

[YARN]

^^ It isn't just me. I vividly recall the reaction of many in the audience when the saw the Enterprise destroyed in The Search For Spock up on the big screen. A lot of people, including me, were visibly moved and bothered by it. Now flash forward some years to Generations when we witnessed the E-D being wrecked and I actually heard cheers and exclamations from members of the audience---quite a different reaction.

GR and the TOS writers projected their ideas of how some pilots and seamen develop feelings toward their ships. Individuals have been known to do the same thing with their cars. That wasn't done with the TNG E as it was handled as little more than another piece of hardware.

I didn't hate or dislike the E-D, but the writers failed to make it seem larger-than-life or give it any sense of real presence. It's simply how the ship was presented onscreen. And note that I wasn't one of the ones cheering when it was wrecked. On the flip side I didn't feel moved by it either.

Yep, I was there too. When the TMP Enterprise went down, the breath was sucked out of the audience.

And when the Enterprise D went down? The audience simply embraced this as one of the big special effects sequences.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

The Dominion only defeated a Galaxy class starship by a suicide mission in their first appearance!!
RAMA

Actually it looked like the Dominion were holding their own against the Odyssey no doubt becuase they had more manuverable ships that could shoot through Federation sheilds at that time.

 

[Saquist]

It's not just that.
There "seems" to have been something with the Jem'Hadar shields in that episode. Odessey and once of those runnabouts poured a considerable amount of fire power in one those ships and it just shrugged it off.

But that part the crappy planning of the logicistics of DS9 that's at fault. They could never decided what ship was more powerful than the next ship. I have honestly never seen a series do such a BAD job setting tier standards between ships.

I mean one day a Galaxy can't take down an attack ship
Then a Bird of Prey kills one in three shots?
Defiant kills one in three shots all the time..
But Valiant needs six quantum torpedos to kill one.
Then Cardassian ships can kill one in two shots...

There is no rhyme or reason to the ship tiers in DS9 at all.

 

[Vanyel]

The Dominion only defeated a Galaxy class starship by a suicide mission in their first appearance!!
RAMA

Actually it looked like the Dominion were holding their own against the Odyssey no doubt becuase they had more manuverable ships that could shoot through Federation sheilds at that time.

To me it looked more like they were playing with the Odyssey. Right after their first strike she lost her port nacelle and reported damage and causalities on multiple decks.

Just cause it was a cool fight.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzARkU5l2JE[/yt]

 

[Jax]

^ Cool battle but the problem is The USS Odyssey just stands there, its not moving trying to spread out the fire its taking on its hull. If TNG had the budget of DS9 and later ST shows + a network interfering, ENT-D would of kicked mroe ass on screen.

 

[Saquist]

You can't really tell if Odyssey is moving or not.
These speeds are relative but one thing is for sure her manuverability is nothing to the attack ship.

I like to ignore the appearance of speed in these times because it's difficult to do in the model age.

 

[Joshonator]

they had to make it a but underpowered, it wouldn't be fun to watch if at any time it could just blow up whatever was in it's way.

 

[Flashover]

^ Cool battle but the problem is The USS Odyssey just stands there, its not moving trying to spread out the fire its taking on its hull. If TNG had the budget of DS9 and later ST shows + a network interfering, ENT-D would of kicked mroe ass on screen.

I understand that WAS supposed to be the Enterprise-D getting destroyed, with all hands.

They decided (incorrectly I might add) to take TNG to the Big Screen instead so they wrote in another Galaxy Class ship instead.

 

[Takeru]

I understand that WAS supposed to be the Enterprise-D getting destroyed, with all hands.

No, it wasn't. I have no idea what fans came up with that stupid idea, but it was decided long before this episode was produced that TNG would get movies and even if they had destroyed the D on DS9, they wouldn't have killed off the crew.

 

[Saquist]

I concur.
Fan Wank.

 

[mswood]

The poster probably took a quote out of context. There was a quote by one of the writers of DS( wanting to show that the Jem'Hadar was an extreme level threat. And they specifically used a Galaxy Class ship to show that even TNG's ship would not have survived.

Of course one really only needs to watch Generations to show that a ship that shields don't work is going to be in for a serious fight. And I loved that they used ships ramming each other at high speeds, to take out a vessel. As we see Riker consider doing that has a last resort for the vastly more powerful Borg Cube.

Just like we see several Jem'Hadar repeat this tactic an take out a large number of various Klingon Ships just as easily, and those ships did have shields.

 

[Cyke101]

You can't really tell if Odyssey is moving or not.
These speeds are relative but one thing is for sure her manuverability is nothing to the attack ship.

I like to ignore the appearance of speed in these times because it's difficult to do in the model age.

I take that approach with many of TNG battles. Yesterday's Enterprise is probably the best example in my head: the dialogue indicates a battle over vast distances and very fast speeds, but on screen we see see the battle play out like every other TNG battle where the Enterprise seems remarkably still and stoic, not unlike the Odyssey.

 

[Saquist]

You can't really tell if Odyssey is moving or not.
These speeds are relative but one thing is for sure her manuverability is nothing to the attack ship.

I like to ignore the appearance of speed in these times because it's difficult to do in the model age.

I take that approach with many of TNG battles. Yesterday's Enterprise is probably the best example in my head: the dialogue indicates a battle over vast distances and very fast speeds, but on screen we see see the battle play out like every other TNG battle where the Enterprise seems remarkably still and stoic, not unlike the Odyssey.

In Yesterday's Enterprise the battle didn't just seem to be low speed but also slow time...like they were fighting near a singularity.

 

[Cyke101]

I missed this bit:

It's not just that.
There "seems" to have been something with the Jem'Hadar shields in that episode. Odessey and once of those runnabouts poured a considerable amount of fire power in one those ships and it just shrugged it off.

But that part the crappy planning of the logicistics of DS9 that's at fault. They could never decided what ship was more powerful than the next ship. I have honestly never seen a series do such a BAD job setting tier standards between ships.

I mean one day a Galaxy can't take down an attack ship
Then a Bird of Prey kills one in three shots?
Defiant kills one in three shots all the time..
But Valiant needs six quantum torpedos to kill one.
Then Cardassian ships can kill one in two shots...

There is no rhyme or reason to the ship tiers in DS9 at all.

I'd draw an exception for the Valiant, only because they were cadets (reusing Defiant footage, no less). They didn't need to use six quantums but they were probably going for the overkill for whatever reason (hubris and ego, maybe). I'd imagine that with the distance and time they were gone and the amount of action they had, if they used six quantums for every fighter, they would run out of ammo very quickly.

But I see what you're saying on the whole and I largely agree. I'd throw in a bit of Voyager and *maybe* Enterprise too, but not to the extent of DS9. Essentially, ships merely function as the plot requires them to. My personal favorite? How DS9's torpedoes received one *hell* of a power boost, sometimes blowing up otherwise-healthy Klingon battleships in one shot.

You can't really tell if Odyssey is moving or not.
These speeds are relative but one thing is for sure her manuverability is nothing to the attack ship.

I like to ignore the appearance of speed in these times because it's difficult to do in the model age.

I take that approach with many of TNG battles. Yesterday's Enterprise is probably the best example in my head: the dialogue indicates a battle over vast distances and very fast speeds, but on screen we see see the battle play out like every other TNG battle where the Enterprise seems remarkably still and stoic, not unlike the Odyssey.

In Yesterday's Enterprise the battle didn't just seem to be low speed but also slow time...like they were fighting near a singularity.

The only kicker is that nothing in the episode denotes, hints, or implies that some external force is slowing down time or shearing the vessels while they do battle. The battle moves at a pace that we've seen before in previous episodes, but on a larger scale. So to me, the only way to reconcile such a pace is a compromise between dialogue and onscreen evidence, rather than taking an either/or approach to the material.

 

[JarodRussell]

The Yamato got taken out by a computer virus & the Odessey by a kamikaze Jem-Hadar fighter, so there's some on screen evidence of the class being weak in some respects.

Haha, that's kinda totally missing the point of those scenes.

The Jem'Hadar fighters were supposed to be totally badass, unlike anything the Alpha Quadrant has ever encountered. And the Yamato was destroyed by a computer virus of an ancient culture that was technologically far beyond the Federation.

 

[Saquist]

I'd draw an exception for the Valiant, only because they were cadets (reusing Defiant footage, no less). They didn't need to use six quantums but they were probably going for the overkill for whatever reason (hubris and ego, maybe). I'd imagine that with the distance and time they were gone and the amount of action they had, if they used six quantums for every fighter, they would run out of ammo very quickly.

I couldn't believe it... a plethora of shots from the canons and 6 quantums to take out one attack ship....and what about the outer ship...did it just leave...I don't know.

But I see what you're saying on the whole and I largely agree. I'd throw in a bit of Voyager and *maybe* Enterprise too, but not to the extent of DS9. Essentially, ships merely function as the plot requires them to. My personal favorite? How DS9's torpedoes received one *hell* of a power boost, sometimes blowing up otherwise-healthy Klingon battleships in one shot.

Yeah DS9 was out of control.
I didn't watch alot of ENT but Voyager was pretty stable about what it could do. One exception is species 8472. NO ONE notices this though. A bio ship blows away a cube like it's nothing then Voyager takes all these glancing shots. Like when the shuttle deck is struck or when a glancing shot grazes it's shield while in fluidic space. That was just ..dumb.

The only kicker is that nothing in the episode denotes, hints, or implies that some external force is slowing down time or shearing the vessels while they do battle. The battle moves at a pace that we've seen before in previous episodes, but on a larger scale. So to me, the only way to reconcile such a pace is a compromise between dialogue and onscreen evidence, rather than taking an either/or approach to the material.

I think that in other episodes the oponents are usually standing still... This is the first time we see orchestrated ship actions. Normally it's one on one.

 

[Cyke101]

Yeah DS9 was out of control.
I didn't watch alot of ENT but Voyager was pretty stable about what it could do. One exception is species 8472. NO ONE notices this though. A bio ship blows away a cube like it's nothing then Voyager takes all these glancing shots. Like when the shuttle deck is struck or when a glancing shot grazes it's shield while in fluidic space. That was just ..dumb.

Hah, that's exactly what I was thinking of when I mentioned Voyager. I understand that at least this case, there's a technobabble explanation for how Voyager could beat a ship the Borg couldn't, but it just furthered the complaint that 8472 was depowered too quickly.

The only kicker is that nothing in the episode denotes, hints, or implies that some external force is slowing down time or shearing the vessels while they do battle. The battle moves at a pace that we've seen before in previous episodes, but on a larger scale. So to me, the only way to reconcile such a pace is a compromise between dialogue and onscreen evidence, rather than taking an either/or approach to the material.

I think that in other episodes the oponents are usually standing still... This is the first time we see orchestrated ship actions. Normally it's one on one.

I'll check back with you on this one. On the other hand, while searching youtube videos for some other thread, I came across the battle in The Council on Enterprise. There we clearly see NX-01 moving along with the fleet against the sphere, but it's shot in a way that if there wasn't so much action going on, you wouldn't tell the NX-01 was moving at all; rather, all the other ships helped create that feeling. It's a really nice touch that helped increase the fluidity to an action packed scene, but it also emphasizes relativism in moving space battles, I believe the kind of relativism we imply or search for with the Odyssey and the Enterprise-D.