Makes sense given the era.
Maybe they don't have dedicated launchers due to how large those tubes are? They're generic large rail guns for launching just about anything (Discovery is a Scientific Vessel still).
Spoilers DSC Starships and Technology - Season Two Thread
- Thread starter Mark_Nguyen
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The aft tubes certainly are - the torpedo caliber is the same as in the 22nd and 24th centuries, but the tubes are huge. Then again, the aft tubes are never called "torpedo tubes".
For those wondering how long it takes to construct a big starship in the 23rd century, the trailer for this week suggests six months, tops. Or at least we see a D7 orbiting Boreth, even though those were supposedly only dreamed up at the start of this season.
Then again, perhaps the thing going for L'Rell's new design is that it's super-simple and thus quick and easy to mass-produce - the answer to massive losses of more complex ships in Burnham's War?
Timo Saloniemi
For those wondering how long it takes to construct a big starship in the 23rd century, the trailer for this week suggests six months, tops. Or at least we see a D7 orbiting Boreth, even though those were supposedly only dreamed up at the start of this season.
Then again, perhaps the thing going for L'Rell's new design is that it's super-simple and thus quick and easy to mass-produce - the answer to massive losses of more complex ships in Burnham's War?
Timo Saloniemi
You gotta admit, those fancy ornate "Gothic-Inspired" NON-Klingon like Klingon ships that we saw last season on DSC must be REALLY time intensive to manufacture.
The more Klingon like ships that we are used to seems to be far simpler in terms of shape / detail / geometry.
Ergo 6 months is pretty astounding for getting things out of the Shipyards into Testing / ShakeDown.
Also of note is that most of the ornate ships never did much fighting. They were among the ships summoned by T'Kumva, but subsequently only the BoP, the cool and ornate Qugh destroyer and a couple of those flat D7 lookalikes took part in fighting the war (say, the design actually called "D7" in "Choose Your Pain", but also called "BoP" there, did appear but never fired a shot in the war AFAIK).
Perhaps the others were civilian yachts for the House bigwigs - logical choices for random arrival to a summons few took seriously? Now that the TOS style D7 is back, this impression could be reinforced on screen by showing the gothic designs in civilian or secondary tasks. (For some reason, TPTB are really unwilling to show anything beyond the chief hero and villain ships, though. Are the other Starfleet models of too poor quality or what?)
Timo Saloniemi
Perhaps the others were civilian yachts for the House bigwigs - logical choices for random arrival to a summons few took seriously? Now that the TOS style D7 is back, this impression could be reinforced on screen by showing the gothic designs in civilian or secondary tasks. (For some reason, TPTB are really unwilling to show anything beyond the chief hero and villain ships, though. Are the other Starfleet models of too poor quality or what?)
Timo Saloniemi
I am still waiting to see close up, detailed images of the tugs from earlier this season. They were the ones towing the crippled Enterprise.
This season seems to have the Discovery and the NCIA-93 in the boondocks of the Beta Quadrant. So, it would make sense that we have not seen other Federation starships.
This season seems to have the Discovery and the NCIA-93 in the boondocks of the Beta Quadrant. So, it would make sense that we have not seen other Federation starships.
That reminds me of my fanwank for why we only saw DSC-style ships in the first season. The older Kelvin-looking ships were on the homefront, and the newest TOS-style ships were out on the frontier, so most of the ships on the relatively-quiet Beta Quadrant borders were moderately-aged NCC-1200-1600 vintage ships; the borders were important enough to need frequent patrols, but not lively enough for it to make sense that the majority of them would be the newest ships. There were probably Constitutions, Mirandas, Saladins, Einsteins, and so on fighting in the war, but not as many as the generation of ships that was already deployed to that area.
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And the Galaxy-class starships, mentioned in the Treaty of Sheliak.
The Treaty of Armens makes mention of a Galaxy-class in use during the 23rd century (when the treaty was signed in 2255). Though it could be a type of ship used by Starfleet, rather that a specific class of ship.
Interesting; never knew there was a reference to an older Galaxy class in that treaty. How ironic that the Enterprise-D happens to be a Galaxy class starship, then, huh?
What FASA called the Reliant-class, fandom called the Avenger-class and canon eventually called the Miranda-class was referred to in a couple of 80's novels as the Galaxy-class.
With so many variations about, it's plausible they're all right.
Discovery fires aft torpedoes in "What's Past Is Prologue". From obscure centerline aft positions, mind.
Mark
Mark
Those aft tubes they’ve used multiple times are clearly multi-purpose. Photorps being one of many options. Single-person “ball” craft, probes and casket pods included.
Could the "aft" torpedo shot actually have been fired from a forward launcher? It is essentially a guided missile. It could be fired from the front with almost no velocity, quickly moved down or up a little to avoid the banking ship, then accelerated backward to the rear target after the ship passes. From the angle on screen, the ship physically blocks the forward launch point from the viewer, and then it would look like it appeared coming out of the back of the ship without an obvious launch point. Just an idea.
We have plenty of reason to believe over-the-shoulder shots are both possible and practiced. Certainly the torps are agile enough, as seen in a couple of cases; and certainly certain instances of firing would best be interpreted as such, including the one we get bearing coordinates for in "The Changeling", say.
Thanks to blurry VFX, the first season firings in DSC aren't particularly damning yet. And we have incentive to interpret them in a particular way. Torps do seem to come from all sorts of places, but should a science ship have two dozen launchers, or two? Sure, the lack of "proper" launchers might prompt Lorca to adopt all sorts of garbage chutes as "auxiliary launchers", but that'd be hell on ordnance logistics, especially if one has to mind getting these projectiles primed with antimatter. So we might plead just one launcher per pylon, close to the nacelle (a prime user of antimatter, yay!), and say that the dispersion witnessed when Lorca destroys the Ship of the Dead is due to the torps having a bit of initial trouble finding their way to the only recently decloaked target...
The particular type of shot where a bow launcher hits a target to the aft and down is sorta seen in VOY "Resolutions", where a glowing projectile visually and verbally identified as a torpedo blows up Tuvok's big antimatter container bomb that defeats the Vidiians. It doesn't come from the aft launchers, there's no belly launcher, but nothing stops us from thinking it came from a forward launcher and then dove straight down and a bit aft.
Timo Saloniemi
Thanks to blurry VFX, the first season firings in DSC aren't particularly damning yet. And we have incentive to interpret them in a particular way. Torps do seem to come from all sorts of places, but should a science ship have two dozen launchers, or two? Sure, the lack of "proper" launchers might prompt Lorca to adopt all sorts of garbage chutes as "auxiliary launchers", but that'd be hell on ordnance logistics, especially if one has to mind getting these projectiles primed with antimatter. So we might plead just one launcher per pylon, close to the nacelle (a prime user of antimatter, yay!), and say that the dispersion witnessed when Lorca destroys the Ship of the Dead is due to the torps having a bit of initial trouble finding their way to the only recently decloaked target...
The particular type of shot where a bow launcher hits a target to the aft and down is sorta seen in VOY "Resolutions", where a glowing projectile visually and verbally identified as a torpedo blows up Tuvok's big antimatter container bomb that defeats the Vidiians. It doesn't come from the aft launchers, there's no belly launcher, but nothing stops us from thinking it came from a forward launcher and then dove straight down and a bit aft.
Timo Saloniemi
There's not THAT much precedent for this in Trek - for the most part Starfleet torpedoes are portrayed as direct-fire, single vector projectiles. On occasion (TUC) they're effectively heat-seekers, at least once (DS9) we've basically seen a torpedo fall away from the launching vessel before accelerating away, and only one class of ship (Galaxy in early TNG) do we see a cool thing where a cluster launches and then each torpedo peels off on its own separate straight line.
Mark
Mark
Additional notes:
- According to MemAlpha, someone has indeed counted the people in the shuttlebay for Airiam's funeral at over 200. Discovery clearly has enough space for it. Guess it's one more reason Burnham is still sharing a billet with Tilly, besides, you know, "friendship". :P
- Dr. Culber is back in his medical whites, without any fanfare and with the commander's pips he had when he originally died. Also, only he and Pollard are mentioned in any medical talk as though they're the senior medical staff on board.
Mark
- According to MemAlpha, someone has indeed counted the people in the shuttlebay for Airiam's funeral at over 200. Discovery clearly has enough space for it. Guess it's one more reason Burnham is still sharing a billet with Tilly, besides, you know, "friendship". :P
- Dr. Culber is back in his medical whites, without any fanfare and with the commander's pips he had when he originally died. Also, only he and Pollard are mentioned in any medical talk as though they're the senior medical staff on board.
Mark
I guess we just lack any reason to think torps wouldn't be agile homing weapons.
I mean, if they weren't, if there was the possibility that they might miss because the ship isn't pointed the right way, then we would be hearing things like "we now have a firing solution for torps" or "they are out of our cone of fire still". This never happens - if the heroes can lock on to the enemy, then torps can be fired whenever phasers can, in terms of dialogue and effects alike.
Naturally most torps would fly straight, because generally the players head for the target they wish to hit when firing torps. That is, in terms of technobabble, they ought to do that basically every time, because torps are for medium to long engagement ranges and thus shouldn't be fired en passant. There are a couple of exceptions, but DSC isn't a prime offender there. Klingons may fire torps recklessly, such as in "Para Bellum", but Lorca or Pike don't, and Saru only did in the extreme tight spot of absolutely having to come close to the mycelial sphere before firing in "What is Past". Funnily curving torpedo flightpaths might be part and parcel of the emergency there.
Timo Saloniemi
I mean, if they weren't, if there was the possibility that they might miss because the ship isn't pointed the right way, then we would be hearing things like "we now have a firing solution for torps" or "they are out of our cone of fire still". This never happens - if the heroes can lock on to the enemy, then torps can be fired whenever phasers can, in terms of dialogue and effects alike.
Naturally most torps would fly straight, because generally the players head for the target they wish to hit when firing torps. That is, in terms of technobabble, they ought to do that basically every time, because torps are for medium to long engagement ranges and thus shouldn't be fired en passant. There are a couple of exceptions, but DSC isn't a prime offender there. Klingons may fire torps recklessly, such as in "Para Bellum", but Lorca or Pike don't, and Saru only did in the extreme tight spot of absolutely having to come close to the mycelial sphere before firing in "What is Past". Funnily curving torpedo flightpaths might be part and parcel of the emergency there.
Timo Saloniemi
No torpedo action this week. But no shortage of kabooms.
I mean, DSC is now Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings crammed in one, or at least the good bits. Nothing much explodes here but my mind.
- Our heroes confirm there's a fourth signal there. They are surprised to learn it's over Boreth, even though it (like Kaminar) is a proximal location and the fix ought to be easy to get. So the initial seven were nowhere near the eventual seven? Wouldn't the Klingons have raised all hell if there was a Red Burst on the skies over Boreth back at the start of the season?
- Both Tyler and L'Rell blurt out the "secrets" of Boreth (and the whole son-dropped-off-in-a-wicker-basket thing) like Spock ranting about his pon farr to random passersby. Turns out Boreth wasn't just a random light in the sky that old Kahless (or should that be Kahlesh now?) happened to point at when handwaving - it's home to a cache of time crystals. Which is a good case of self-justifying - a secret inherently involving time loops would be one that could loop back to the time of Kahless easily enough.
- L'Rell arrives in a ship rather clumsily explicated as a D-7. Pretty as all hell, with extra lights all over to establish all possible scales from twenty meters to two kilometers if need be.
- The heroes in turn arrive by spore-jumping, which probably is good for stealth as regards both Control and the Klingons.
- Burnham then leaves in a shuttle, though, suggesting the distances involved are insignificant as such. Her destination is an oddly behaving S31 ship; those would have every excuse to swarm the vicinity of Klingon space, of course.
- The ship, apparently registered NI-1101 or somesuch in that funny font where N is like an upside-down U, has vented out her crew, which really ought to take some doing unless there was lots of transporter activity involved. But perhaps our heroes and the one survivor skip this bit in their dialogue that only talks about venting?
- The "survivor" naturally turns out to have been co-opted by Control, and is brought down by repeated firing of phaser bolts plus subsequent magnetizing of the ship's floor to prevent the released nano-goo from getting to Burnham. And this time it is magnetizing, as in electromagnetism; I wonder why ramping up the gravity wouldn't have worked just as well or better, "In a Mirror, Darkly" style?
- What happened to phaser beams? Leland's rifle emitted one last week, and Landry's rifle was capable of this as well all the way back in "Context". Are these Type 2 pistols bolt-only? The nano-goo would have been better dealt with by beams, obviously. (SGM for some reason fires away without aiming, making it look really funny that Burnham's bolts actually find their targets!)
- The heroes return to Boreth by unknown means, but the S31 ship they commandeered is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps a good safety precaution - blowing her up should cost the heroes nothing.
- They finally get around to deciding that the Discovery ought to be blown up, too. Only, they prevaricate, opting to blow her up en route to wherever rather than right there, even though they supposedly could evacuate to Boreth or to L'Rell's ship or even that reverse-commandeered S31 if she wasn't annihilated.
- They are probably motivated by "nearly 30" S31 ships heading their way, though, making survival of evacuees dubious even if the Sphere data is successfully blown up. That's "almost their entire fleet", at least as far as the heroes know. A homogeneous fleet of the one CGI model they can afford, I gather, although that's sorta odd.
- Won't the Klingons respond to this S31 invasion? The heroes spot those ships easily enough... And Control shouldn't be motivated to give them Starfleet-only IFF data or anything.
So... Boreth is Big. As in, here we thought for fifty years that Klingons were just random bad guys, but turns out they're the keepers of dark powers and possibly the secret true heroes of this universe, Severus Snape style. Why, the Timekeeper (the timecrystalmagically aged son of Tyler/Voq and L'Rell, of all things) even indicates the name Qo'noS is exactly what it sounds like, a nod to old Kronos itself! So now our Fellowship of the Double-Ring-Starship has not just one, not just two, but three superweapons to destroy in whatever magic volcano they can find (plenty of those on Boreth, but it apparently won't suffice for their Mordor): the Spore Drive, the Sphere Data, and the Time Crystals. And they only have until 2264 or so to do that, or else it's Not. Prime.
Oh, and the engine room of a Class J training ship looks exactly like that of a Crossfield, at least in Pike's time-dreams, while the beeping chair is a delightfully convincing reinterpretation. And Pike in the dream wears a beautiful Kirk-style wraparound with five stars on the epaulets - so Fleet Captain may be one step above plain Captain after all!
Timo Saloniemi
I mean, DSC is now Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings crammed in one, or at least the good bits. Nothing much explodes here but my mind.
- Our heroes confirm there's a fourth signal there. They are surprised to learn it's over Boreth, even though it (like Kaminar) is a proximal location and the fix ought to be easy to get. So the initial seven were nowhere near the eventual seven? Wouldn't the Klingons have raised all hell if there was a Red Burst on the skies over Boreth back at the start of the season?
- Both Tyler and L'Rell blurt out the "secrets" of Boreth (and the whole son-dropped-off-in-a-wicker-basket thing) like Spock ranting about his pon farr to random passersby. Turns out Boreth wasn't just a random light in the sky that old Kahless (or should that be Kahlesh now?) happened to point at when handwaving - it's home to a cache of time crystals. Which is a good case of self-justifying - a secret inherently involving time loops would be one that could loop back to the time of Kahless easily enough.
- L'Rell arrives in a ship rather clumsily explicated as a D-7. Pretty as all hell, with extra lights all over to establish all possible scales from twenty meters to two kilometers if need be.
- The heroes in turn arrive by spore-jumping, which probably is good for stealth as regards both Control and the Klingons.
- Burnham then leaves in a shuttle, though, suggesting the distances involved are insignificant as such. Her destination is an oddly behaving S31 ship; those would have every excuse to swarm the vicinity of Klingon space, of course.
- The ship, apparently registered NI-1101 or somesuch in that funny font where N is like an upside-down U, has vented out her crew, which really ought to take some doing unless there was lots of transporter activity involved. But perhaps our heroes and the one survivor skip this bit in their dialogue that only talks about venting?
- The "survivor" naturally turns out to have been co-opted by Control, and is brought down by repeated firing of phaser bolts plus subsequent magnetizing of the ship's floor to prevent the released nano-goo from getting to Burnham. And this time it is magnetizing, as in electromagnetism; I wonder why ramping up the gravity wouldn't have worked just as well or better, "In a Mirror, Darkly" style?
- What happened to phaser beams? Leland's rifle emitted one last week, and Landry's rifle was capable of this as well all the way back in "Context". Are these Type 2 pistols bolt-only? The nano-goo would have been better dealt with by beams, obviously. (SGM for some reason fires away without aiming, making it look really funny that Burnham's bolts actually find their targets!)
- The heroes return to Boreth by unknown means, but the S31 ship they commandeered is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps a good safety precaution - blowing her up should cost the heroes nothing.
- They finally get around to deciding that the Discovery ought to be blown up, too. Only, they prevaricate, opting to blow her up en route to wherever rather than right there, even though they supposedly could evacuate to Boreth or to L'Rell's ship or even that reverse-commandeered S31 if she wasn't annihilated.
- They are probably motivated by "nearly 30" S31 ships heading their way, though, making survival of evacuees dubious even if the Sphere data is successfully blown up. That's "almost their entire fleet", at least as far as the heroes know. A homogeneous fleet of the one CGI model they can afford, I gather, although that's sorta odd.
- Won't the Klingons respond to this S31 invasion? The heroes spot those ships easily enough... And Control shouldn't be motivated to give them Starfleet-only IFF data or anything.
So... Boreth is Big. As in, here we thought for fifty years that Klingons were just random bad guys, but turns out they're the keepers of dark powers and possibly the secret true heroes of this universe, Severus Snape style. Why, the Timekeeper (the timecrystalmagically aged son of Tyler/Voq and L'Rell, of all things) even indicates the name Qo'noS is exactly what it sounds like, a nod to old Kronos itself! So now our Fellowship of the Double-Ring-Starship has not just one, not just two, but three superweapons to destroy in whatever magic volcano they can find (plenty of those on Boreth, but it apparently won't suffice for their Mordor): the Spore Drive, the Sphere Data, and the Time Crystals. And they only have until 2264 or so to do that, or else it's Not. Prime.
Oh, and the engine room of a Class J training ship looks exactly like that of a Crossfield, at least in Pike's time-dreams, while the beeping chair is a delightfully convincing reinterpretation. And Pike in the dream wears a beautiful Kirk-style wraparound with five stars on the epaulets - so Fleet Captain may be one step above plain Captain after all!
Timo Saloniemi
I was also wondering why Burnham didn't turn up the juice when she was firing at the assimilated Gant. We saw in "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Man" that DSC phasers have "kill" settings for both "burn a hole through you" and "vaporize you," and, honestly, when I'm shooting a corpse puppeteered by nanites, more disintegration is better in my book.
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