Doug Drexler defends the NX-01/Akira differences on "Trekyards"

[gerbil]

I don't think that's very fair to Starfleet in the 22nd century at all. They hadn't gone as far into the unknown as they were with Enterprise but they had ships and space stations within the solar system and around the local neighborhood. The interstellar shipping industry was well decades old by the time Enterprise takes place, for instance.

If anything, Enterprise probably had fewer crew doing fewer tasks because the ship does less than future ships do.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I don't think that's very fair to Starfleet in the 22nd century at all. They hadn't gone as far into the unknown as they were with Enterprise but they had ships and space stations within the solar system and around the local neighborhood. The interstellar shipping industry was well decades old by the time Enterprise takes place, for instance.

Yeah, but Stafleet didn't draw from the experiences of the shipping industry when they designed the Enterprise or planned their missions. The only person on the ship who had ever been to an alien planet was Travis, and he was one of the lowest ranked officers on the ship.

From the invention of powered flight to the creation of the Army Air Corps took almost 24 years, and even then it took them a while to codify the tactics and procedures that allowed for efficient air and ground operations to run those machines. Starships are hundreds of times more complex than that, and space is far larger and weirder.

If anything, Enterprise probably had fewer crew doing fewer tasks because the ship does less than future ships do.

And if Enterprise had been equipped with a simple S-band radar, lidar, telescopes and a 30mm gatling gun, this would be a good point.

 

[Ithekro]

Starfleet navigation up to that point seemed to be mostly, set course for system six, go to warp, and wait several months or years until they get there. Most systems they were going to were within 20 light years of Earth and most charted by the local species already (Vulcans for instance). Most ships are going between Warp 1.2 and Warp 2 for those voyages. A few of the newer Starfleet ships and possibly so purchased vessel are making Warp 3 or Warp 4. The NX-01 is their first Warp 5 starship and likely the only ship Earth has that can go that fast during 2151. In the following years I can see the class that Intrepid is part of as well and the additional NX-class ships increasing the number of Warp 5 or at least Warp 4+ ships in Starfleet past one ship. With the idea that the ship was would be USS Franklin was also around and a Warp 4 ship, adds to this idea. Though I wonder if she had a different style of engine compared to the Archer designed Warp 5 warp core. More like what we see in style to the Kelvin type drives.

Perhaps they are competing starship warp drive designs, sort of like how the old FASA based fictions had the Leeding Engines Ltd. and Shuvinaaljis Warp Technologies respectively.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I kind of doubt they were competing designs, considering Franklin's fairly high registry number. I'm actually thinking that Franklin was an older class starship -- even older than the Intrepid, maybe -- that was one of the first ships to be retrofitted with a new warp four engine The transporter system not being entirely man-rated is one datapoint in favor of this, IMO.

 

[Ithekro]

I mean in terms of warp engine styling and methods. USS Kelvin is still a canon ship, and I would assume so is USS Franklin. Yet they have different warp styles to what we would see in ENT and TOS, and certainly different to TMP era and later TNG era warp travel. So could this be competing design styles or methods of how one enters warp space?

 

[Arpy]

He/they seemed to skirt the issue until a ways into the interview, then basically admitted that, yes, the Akira was heavy inspiration for the new Enterprise. The issue isn't that they aren't identical but that the basic Enterprise configuration that we know was abandoned for the new series in favor of one heavily influenced by the peripheral fan-favorite Akira's. Fans and powers that be don't seem to be capable of just saying, "Yeah, that's the case. It was an artistic choice and lots of people like it, even if you don't," because they see that lots of others don't. And although it was an artistic choice (not life or death, nor anything counter to the laws of physics or what have you) there's this constant (drama inducing) spin on the issue, instead of a tossing up of the hands and saying oh well, it's done.

 

[KeithM]

I would have loved that.. it would be in the style of the newer Battlestar Gallactica. That bridge had all sorts of controlled chaos occurring as standard operating procedure. Much like an actual naval warship, submarine, etc.

Except that is not how an actual naval vessel works. "Chaos", controlled or not, is the last thing you want to see on a warship which is why training emphasizes talking calmly and clearly as much as possible and not having people running all over the place.

On Galactica, there were four things all taking place on the bridge at the same time: ship navigation, fighter control, fleet control, and ship's weapon systems.

No one in their right minds would put them all in the same location. The equivalent of air traffic controllers (handling flight operations, aka launching and recovery) would be in their own space. You might combine ship combat and fleet operations all in one room, but they'd be separate from the ship's bridge and flight ops.

The other issue with Galactica is that the ship was *specifically*--and this was an actual plot point--designed to be as non-automated and non-networked as possible to counteract Cylon hacking. This is not an issue in Star Trek. Greater and greater automation is the norm, not the exception, so Galactica provides a poor example of what a Starfleet vessel, even a "primitive" one, would look like.

 

[KeithM]

From the invention of powered flight to the creation of the Army Air Corps took almost 24 years, and even then it took them a while to codify the tactics and procedures that allowed for efficient air and ground operations to run those machines.

But not everything has to be re-invented from scratch, assuming people aren't morons.

What you said was true because people were devising a completely new system that had absolutely no precedent. It took time to work out the doctrine for how to run an air force because *no one had anything like an air force*. That is not the case with Starfleet, even from their beginnings. You're planning on operating large vessels that will be away from their bases for extended periods of time with largish crews that allow constant mission activity when they're away. Hmm, what examples could there be for large ships away from their ports...with large crews...mission activity... Hey, guys, why don't we start on the basis of how a wet navy does it? I mean, it's only like they have a few centuries of working the bugs out in terms of organization and operation. Maybe we start from there?

Focusing on differences in technology is ignoring the forest for the trees.

 

[Ithekro]

Ship operating procedures seemed fairly standard on Enterprise. What they lacked was exploration and combat procedures. Earth probably dealt with pirates on occasion, but when most of your starships can only make Warp 2, and only recently do you have ships doing maybe Warp 3 or 4, and this new ship can maybe make Warp 5 on a good day, your ships tend to be late getting places. A Starfleet ships will probably not be able to "save the day" in a pirate attack if it isn't really much faster than the freighters, and certainly not up to chasing down the pirate ships. So combat procedures are likely a newer thing, or generally unused thing for Starfleet up until Enterprise.

Most of their local stars have been explored or were settled by civilian agencies before Starfleet was founded. They didn't have a real procedure, since exploration trips were either one way, or would take a considerable length of time to get there and back again. Missions for Starfleet would consist of long voyages of boring followed by months to years of system patrols near an Earth colony, followed by another long voyage of boring to get back to Earth. At maybe Warp 2.

As a reminder, most close stars will be six months or so away from each other at Warp 2, and anything farther out will take much longer.

 

[Idran]

Most of their local stars have been explored or were settled by civilian agencies before Starfleet was founded.

There's about 1400 star systems just within 50 light years of Sol. There's no way that most of them were explored by the time Starfleet was founded. I mean, Sigma Draconis is less than 20 light years away, and it took 200 years to get a direct check-out as opposed to a long-distance survey.

There's a lot of stuff to explore pretty close to Sol. I'd bet there are a few local space stars that still haven't really been explored by Starfleet even in the TNG era, just because other missions have taken higher priority.

 

[Ithekro]

There's about 1400 star systems just within 50 light years of Sol. There's no way that most of them were explored by the time Starfleet was founded. I mean, Sigma Draconis is less than 20 light years away, and it took 200 years to get a direct check-out as opposed to a long-distance survey.

There's a lot of stuff to explore pretty close to Sol. I'd bet there are a few local space stars that still haven't really been explored by Starfleet even in the TNG era, just because other missions have taken higher priority.

There is a lot of stuff, but when your ships can only travel 8 light years per year at maximum warp (warp 2), you don't get very far. If one undertook at Five Year Mission like Kirk, in the early 22nd century, from Earth and expected to return to Earth at the end of the mission, your starship would barely reach Sigma Draconis before having to turn back. You get maybe three to four months to survey the system, then travel home for about 28 months. And that is only if you could maintain Warp 2 for the entire trip there, which most ships could not do until maybe the decade before the NX-class is launched.

Earth ships are slow, and it is debatable if they have the consumables/range to spend 30 months to get any single place only to spend 30 months getting back. And there maybe or maybe not being food stuff supplies at the destination. Water and hydrogen would not be a problem usually, but proteins for the resequencer might be an issue. With not much realistically between destinations in most cases. So 30 months of a lot of nothing twice.

 

[Idran]

That's even more reason why most stars in local space wouldn't have been explored or settled before Starfleet was founded, though.

 

[Ithekro]

I figure most of the local stars would have been explored by the Vulcans, who have faster drives, and the humans picked some to settle early on.

Either way, that does not help Starfleet to have exploration procedures prior to Enterperise's mission.

 

[Idran]

Oh, all right, I thought you meant specifically explored by humans. I'm not sure that I'd say "most" even then (the pre-Syrranite administrations didn't seem that interested in exploration for exploration's sake rather than exploration with a specific scientific or diplomatic purpose judging by Enterprise, and I'll point out Sigma Draconis again, a couple dozen light-years away with multiple known M-class planets and yet not even a science ship sent to the system to check things out from orbit before the 2260s), but a good portion, I imagine so, yeah.

Though honestly, I think I still agree with your conclusion anyway that they didn't seem to have standard procedures in place for exploration in the pre-Federation days, so this is more just me quibbling than really disagreeing.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

But not everything has to be re-invented from scratch, assuming people aren't morons.

Some things do, even if people aren't morons. Just because somebody out there knows a really good way of doing something doesn't mean the people who WORK FOR YOU know how to do that. Intellectual capital isn't always completely accessible to a new organization, and sometimes you have to build your own rather than try to lure/buy/tempt it away from other organizations that are still using and/or protecting their own.

A good example of this is the development of SpaceX's exploration programs. While they did in fact draw on a lot of the scientific and engineering background developed by those who came before them, alot of the practical issues that make their rockets and capsules worked had to be developed by trial and error. Even when they finally managed to get experienced people working for them from the astronaut program and the broader aerospace industry, they STILL had to do some things from scratch, just because the applications of what they were using those techniques for were so radically different.

As Buzz Aldrin once put it, specifically about SpaceX: "They don't even know all the things they don't know." They literally had to bust their asses for years just to figure out questions they were supposed to be asking. They're still doing it now; it's a VERY long process.

What you said was true because people were devising a completely new system that had absolutely no precedent.

Exactly. Just like Starfleet, your assertions to the contrary. Earth had NEVER built an interstellar exploration force using starships capable of FTL travel. They were doing everything for the first time and had no idea what was going to work and what wasn't. The only way to find out was to try things and learn from experience.

You're planning on operating large vessels that will be away from their bases for extended periods of time with largish crews that allow constant mission activity when they're away. Hmm, what examples could there be for large ships away from their ports...with large crews...mission activity... Hey, guys, why don't we start on the basis of how a wet navy does it?

You're planning on operating large machines that will attack at high speed in support of far less mobile infantry. Hmmm... what examples could there be for large things that attack at high speed with more mobility than infantry... hey guys, why don't we start on the basis of how mounted cavalry does it?

It took the air corps TEN YEARS to figure out what a fucking stupid idea that was. I suspect it took Starfleet even longer.


Put it simply: starships aren't boats anymore than tactical fighters are horses. They're analogous in some ways (soldiers who ride in helicopters call themselves "air cavalry, even!") but they are not the same thing and don't use anything close to the same tactics.

 

[publiusr]

They STILL had to do some things from scratch, just because the applications of what they were using those techniques for were so radically different.

As Buzz Aldrin once put it, specifically about SpaceX: "They don't even know all the things they don't know." They literally had to bust their asses for years just to figure out questions they were supposed to be asking. They're still doing it now; it's a VERY long process. .

And some of what is learned doesn't lend itself to being put in textbooks--unless you have someone who is both a great foreman and a great writer who can put things to paper even as it happens

 

[Brainsucker]

The problem is that NX-1 has the shape and rendering that similar to starship in TNG era. That's why I think that ST: Ent is not happen in Prime Universe, but another one. A universe that created after what happen in the First Contact. The black woman who follow Picard around the Enterprise has seen the ship and ships model in Picard's ready room. So that's what the thing that change the history. She sees what shouldn't be seen. And that event resulted with an idea to create a ship that has TNG era model.

The other excuse is that one of the Enterprise Crew was left behind at the time of First Contact. Either because of the Enterprise computer problem or they thought that he died. So he / she helps the Earth to build a ship that has TNG era taste of shape. He / she can't create a complex technologies like what the USS Enterprise E has, Because the industrial capability on Earth still so primitive and replicator technology, specially the industrial grade replicator is not exist. But he / she can help with the theory and lay the foundation for transporter, warp engine, etc technologies, so the Earth can obtain advanced technologies like Transporter, gravity generators, and others faster.

 

[Mytran]

All good, except that Riker and Troi in TATV seem to be fully aware of the ENT Archer and his Enterprise, suggesting it is part of their timeline, not an alternate one

 

[Crazy Eddie]

All good, except that Riker and Troi in TATV seem to be fully aware of the ENT Archer and his Enterprise, suggesting it is part of their timeline, not an alternate one

Well, alternate-timeline Riker and Troi are aware of it.

It sort of depends on to what extent we can really believe that TATV really fit into the continuity of "The Pegasus." It doesn't seem like it does, and more importantly, it doesn't even fit into the overall narrative, since nothing that happens in TATV seems to even be relevant to Riker's issue. It's almost as if the alternate timeline version of The Pegasus is a completely different situation that, while similar in some ways, is actually more similar to what happened in TATV than what happened in the actual TNG episode.

 

[Mytran]

The whole episode with Riker & Troi is troublesome, but I would have been remiss if I didn't at least mention it

In my head canon, the NX01 holodeck adventures that we see Riker & Troi peek in at during TATV are part of a series of holonovels. The work was adapted in the 24th century from the logs of (the real) Captain Archer and various other pioneer captains of the time, along with a more than generous dose of poetic license thrown in by the author to "update" the material and make it more "relateable" to his intended audience. He even managed to persuade Captain Riker and his new wife to participate in a promotional short, just before they set off on the USS Titan!

Why Riker owed this author a favour I do not know, but it neatly explains his increased age, as well as how he found time during the Pegasus crisis to slip off to the holodeck so much; he didn't.
It also lets Archer and his crew off the hook for some of the more idiotic decisions and behaviour we witnessed in ENT, some of which cross the border of inexperience and demonstrate gross incompetence or downright negligence.

In other words - everyone comes out looking better!