In Modern Trek, Why Is the Enterprise Always Weak?

[JD]

HRHTheKING said:

Nebusj said:

HRHTheKING said:
In GEN, it also seemed odd that they kept the crucial shield frequency in open view with no visible means of security,

... in the center of Main Engineering, where it was shown to the Chief Engineer, in the middle of battle-ready conditions. Yes, you need security, but you also need to let the people who are authorized to see this information see it under circumstances when they need to see it.

Now, the signals intelligence of all Our Heroes has been ... less than spectacular.

It needs to be displayed on a screen? There's no other way for the Chief Engineer and perhaps his essential staff to be given that information then keep it secret?

Agreed. You would think they Geordi would have just known it by that time. I mean he was the cheif engineer and he had been in that position for six years, you would think by that point he would have enough time to memorize something that important.

 

[Dayton3]

6th day of XMe$$ said:
It must be pointed out that the original 1701 was nearly always in danger of blowing up or losing power..Number 4 shield was always toast in battle. The 1701 took as much of a pounding and was placed in as much jeopardy as the ships in modern Trek, something the TOS/Anti-Bermanistas seem to forget on a regular basis.

Did you read my list?

Always, in the original series, the Enterprise faced overwhelming force or the circumstance were specially written for the ships weakness.

You never saw the stuff that happened to the Enterprise-D in "Rascals" or "Generations" or to the Defiant in "One Little Ship"

 

[Cyke101]

^ I think it's okay in the Defiant's case. I mean, the one instance you mention it getting pounded by a fighter is *greatly greatly greatly* outweighed by 90% of all its other appearances, where it would engage entire squadrons of Klingons, Cardassions, and Jem Ha'Dar by itself, plus having the distinction of surviving a Borg Cube explosion at close range and with virtually no power. Heck, to hell with its wartime record, as it's just more of the same destructive goodness, but on a bigger scale.

I mean, let's take some things into perspective, eh? Not everyone is on their A-game. Heck, whenever the Defiant is on its C-game, it still takes out three Dominion attack ships in ten seconds.

As as for Voyager getting seized by the Kazon, keep in mind that it was heavily outnumbered by ships that, while not more powerful, had the numbers advantage. And even then, Voyager still took out about three of their ships. Using this logic, it's like calling the Borg a bunch of losers because they lost a Cube to 'only' a couple hundred of primitive Starfleet vessels.

Or, let's turn the tables, here: out of all the feats that Kirk's Enterprise had under its belt, it was still hijacked by hippies once. It doesn't make sense, especially on a military ship, but I think we can all forgive Kirk in the face of all the other accomplishments the Enterprise and her crew had achieved before or since then.

 

[Nebusj]

JD said:

HRHTheKING said:
It needs to be displayed on a screen? There's no other way for the Chief Engineer and perhaps his essential staff to be given that information then keep it secret?

Agreed. You would think they Geordi would have just known it by that time. I mean he was the cheif engineer and he had been in that position for six years, you would think by that point he would have enough time to memorize something that important.

Sure. I mean, unless things like shield frequencies and nutations were things that might be changed on the fly in response to an attack. But, of course, when have we ever heard about the characteristics of a shield being adjusted ... oh, wait. They do change, as per ``Clues''.

So I suppose we're back to this: is the Chief Engineer entitled to know the shield frequency? If he by some chance is entitled to this information, may it possibly be shown to him in main engineering? Or must he run up to the Captain and ask ``Mother may I?'' before receiving the information?

 

[Brolan]

CoveTom said:
The answer is simple. The writers chose to make the ships as strong or as weak as they felt that week's story dictated, with little or no concern for what was established previously. The writers, I'm sure, would argue that this was necessary to the drama and that they were serving the plot rather than technical continuity. But I would argue that it's just lazy writing. And it got lazier as time went on.

I agree that a ship, even our beloved Enterprise, cannot be invincible if there is to be drama. I don't dispute that at all. The problem I have is that they were constantly changing the capabilities of the ships in question. If they had established that the Enterprise was more powerful than Ship A but less powerful than Ship B and stuck with that, it would be fine. But, instead, they continually redefined what a ship could do based on the story of the week.

As Joe Jennings said on the TWOKE DVD features, you have to establish your framework -- the rules of the show -- and then you have to be honest within those rules. Otherwise, it's not particularly believable. And I think that's very obvious the more they chose not to stick with the rules, ala Voyager's magical ability to never be damaged.

You got it exactly right. Many fans see the Star Trek universe as fixed, consistant, and solid. Writers see the Star Trek universe as a ball of clay to be shaped as they see fit to tell a story.

 

[Dayton3]

Cyk

Or, let's turn the tables, here: out of all the feats that Kirk's Enterprise had under its belt, it was still hijacked by hippies once.

"Hippies" that included one of the greatest scientists in the Galaxy, a top diplomats son (one can assume well educated and connected), and a woman who had attended Starfleet Academy.

 

[Cyke101]

Dayton3 said:

Cyke said:

Or, let's turn the tables, here: out of all the feats that Kirk's Enterprise had under its belt, it was still hijacked by hippies once.

"Hippies" that included one of the greatest scientists in the Galaxy, a top diplomats son (one can assume well educated and connected), and a woman who had attended Starfleet Academy.

And Voyager was beaten by a Kazon fleet that had superior numbers, superior focus, a suicide bomber located by a crucial section of the ship, and a tactician from the Alpha Quadrant who knew exactly how Janeway and Chakotay operated and knew exactly how to strike Voyager's weakspots

Suddenly, Voyager getting hijacked by the primitive Kazon doesn't seem so farfetched anymore. So I don't see how Kirk's defeat gets a pass while Janeway's is a severe penalty. Besides, as I said, Kirk's loss to the hippies in no way undermines any of his victories against, say, the Doomsday Machine or V'Ger. Just any other prime-ship's losses don't negate its overall track records against the Borg, the Dominion, or the Suliban.

The point is, you can hem and haw at all these 'defeats' that the E-D, Defiant, and Voyager's taken, but then you have to examine the context, just like what you did for Kirk. Like, why the writer would have the ship lose in the first place.

 

[Star Wolf]

Nebusj said:

JD said:

HRHTheKING said:
It needs to be displayed on a screen? There's no other way for the Chief Engineer and perhaps his essential staff to be given that information then keep it secret?

Agreed. You would think they Geordi would have just known it by that time. I mean he was the cheif engineer and he had been in that position for six years, you would think by that point he would have enough time to memorize something that important.

Sure. I mean, unless things like shield frequencies and nutations were things that might be changed on the fly in response to an attack. But, of course, when have we ever heard about the characteristics of a shield being adjusted ... oh, wait. They do change, as per ``Clues''.

So I suppose we're back to this: is the Chief Engineer entitled to know the shield frequency? If he by some chance is entitled to this information, may it possibly be shown to him in main engineering? Or must he run up to the Captain and ask ``Mother may I?'' before receiving the information?

The entire situation is just bad writing by movie writers who ignored the TV show. They copied a gambit used on TWOK and ignored TNG standard since first contact with the Borg. The shields frequencies are set up to randomly change along with phaser frequencies to slow down Borg assimalation. There is no reason for a man to see a printout with what they were.

 

[Cyke101]

^ I think that's too technical that has no real bearing on the narrative.

MY question, like others have asked before me is: why didn't the Enterprise just unload all of its weapons? There were massive holes in the ship at the very start of the battle, which *should* have clued Riker in as to how grave the situation was.

 

[number6]

Dayton3 said:

6th day of XMe$$ said:
It must be pointed out that the original 1701 was nearly always in danger of blowing up or losing power..Number 4 shield was always toast in battle. The 1701 took as much of a pounding and was placed in as much jeopardy as the ships in modern Trek, something the TOS/Anti-Bermanistas seem to forget on a regular basis.

Did you read my list?

Always, in the original series, the Enterprise faced overwhelming force or the circumstance were specially written for the ships weakness.

You never saw the stuff that happened to the Enterprise-D in "Rascals" or "Generations" or to the Defiant in "One Little Ship"

That's because the show only ran three years.

Here's My List

In three years the 1701 was:

Disabled by a couple of little old women wearing butts on their heads.
Threatened by a dude with silver eyes.
Disabled and captured by a 6 year old Clint Howard.
Crippled by a pimp and three hos.
Threatened by a salt vampire.
Disabled by a drunken irishman.
Taken over by an adolescent with a chip in his shoulder.
Sabotaged by an officer who didn't get to be Captain.
Taken over again by little old ladies with butts on their heads.
Disabled by a rabbit.
Taken over by a Q in training who only wanted to "play."
Disabled by a gay boy in tights, forcing Kirk to fight a giant Gekko.
Crippled by a dude who takes sheets of red plascit into an alternate universe to fight himself.
Threatened by a computer.
Taken over by a goverment with suicide booths.
Taken over by Tatto's sidekick.
Taken over and disabled by love spores.
Disabled by glowing orbs of light masquerading as gay old men.
Distroyed by McCoy going through a huge donut and saving Hitler's girlfriend.
Threatened by flying pancakes.
Captured by two puppets made of pipe cleaners.
Tricked by a Klingon transmission.
Disabled by a giant hand.
Almost destroyed by a giant windsock.
Threatened by Jack the Ripper.
Almost destroyed by V'ger's older brother.
Captured by Vaal.
Crippled by old age.
Captured by a single android owned by the pimp in season one.
Taken over by balls of fur.
Threatened by spinning space thingy.
Captured by three coloured brains in a snowglobe.
Threatened by big cloud.
Almost destroyed by giant amoeba.
Threatened by an OG.
Taken over by 5 space aliens who turn people into dodecahedrons.
Pwned by a big glowing globe.
Attacked by Not so cute or cuddly alien space nazis.
Crippled by a different computer.
Eeed Pleb Neeesta.
Sabotaged by space ho's boy toy.
Captured by romulans as a result of Kirk's major bout with PMS.
Captured by six children and the Rolling Stone's Lawyer.
Disabled by a disembodied brain in a toaster oven.
Taken over by little old men with butts on their heads.
Captured by a web that takes over half the episode to spin.
Captured and taken over by another spinning thingie.
Taken over 5 aliens on speed.
Captured by Lee Meriweather.
Taken over by interstellar Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken.
Threatened by a different cloud.
Captured by space hippies.
Captured by Brahms.
Captured by Abraham Lincoln.
Taken over by a vindictive ex girlfriend.



Just because you hate modern Trek doesn't mean that the 1701 in TOS wasn't faced with equally silly and implausible situations.

In the World of Star Trek by David Gerrold, Gerrold pointed this fact out almost as eloquently as I just did.


There were obviously episodes in all series that either just sucked or the writers were having a bit of fun with notions of the absurd. This happens in every series, not just Trek.

 

[Noname Given]

Dayton3 said:
Look at the original series.

Enterprise

1) Withstood attacks from the monstrous planet killer in "The Doomsday Machine"

2) Defeated a Romulan warship that featured two brand new weapons & tactical systems in "Balance of Terror".

3) Withstood more than 30 direct hits from TEN Romulan warships with little damage "The Deadly Years".

4) Endured internal sabotage and repeated direct hits from a Klingon cruiser with little damage "Elaan of Troyius"

5) Withstood attacks by a very tough Gorn ship while suffering little damage "Arena"

6) Withstood attacks by a specially equipped Orion suicide ship said to be "more powerful than any ship possibly could be" by Spock and subsequently destroyed the Orion in "Journey to Babel".

7) Shrugges off multiple direct hits fired by a Klingon warship. Subsequently destroyed the Klingon ship while suffering litte damage "Errand of Mercy".

Absorbed FOUR energy bolt hits equivalent to NINETY photon torpedos and survived "The Changeling".

9) Withstood substantial ground fire from surface installations "Return of the Archons" & "A Taste of Armageddon"

If writers in the original series were able to handle having a starship dang near indestructible.........then why have later writers had to make the Enterpris and other laad ships be weak and vulnerable?

Which is why MANY TOS fans (myself among them) CHEERED in the theatre when we FINALLY saw Khan actually damage the ship. It was one of the series cliches that many fans didn't care for (that the 1701 took TONS of punishment; yet they'd hit the enemy with on Phaser blast, or a Photon Torpeo - and said enemy would eithter blow up, self-destruct, or run off).

Now trhe reson for this was also known (that the budget was tight; and they didn't want to screw with the ship model for one episode - and there ARE notible episodes where the 1701 is clearly either outmached or on the defensive, namely - Corbomite Manuever, Balance of Terror, Arena, and The Doomsday Machine.

But then you have episodes like Day of the Dove (1701 is ambushed , blows away that attacker, suffers very minor damage); The Changling (With the whole badly written sequence where the 1701 absorbs and deflects energy equal to 90 Photon Tordedos; then Kirk after firing ONE Photon, is shocked and amazed that something else could absorb that much energy, and survive...un, hello..); The Deadly Years, where (after Balance of Terror the 1701 holds out against a small fleet of Romulan Warbirds - using the same Plasma Torpedo that was SO deadly in BoT); Journey To Babel - another 'one hit' wonder Phaser Hit; The Tholian Web - yet another 'one hit' wonder senario; and Elann of Troyius where the 1701 using only impulse power withstands 3 weapons run from a top of the line Klingon Cruiser; ad then fires ONE volley of Photon Torpedos that severly damages the Klingon ship, and sends it packing.

About the only story where a 'near invicible' 1701 made sense in the story context was The Ultimate Computer.

So, again, while there WERE episodes that showed the 1701 evenly matched, or outclassed; their was a larger preponderence of 'super ship' episodes that many TOS fans felt were 'over the top' (even back in the day that the original 'Star Trek' series was new); and one of teh popular aspects of the film The Wrath of Khan was seeing the 1701 FINALLY get a visible scratch; and having a true knock down, drag out, ship to ship battle with an evenly matched opponent.

As for TNG, I think it had the same issues, as, until the Borg showed up; the 1701-D generally outclassed EVERYTHING it met, and Picard was constantly firing Phasers at lower power settings, so he wouldn't blow the oppent up. IMO - TOS and TNG were very similar in this respect, again, with a few exceptions here and there.

 

[Dayton3]

I still maintain that modern Trek seemed to go out of the way to make the Enterprise look weak.

The thing is,in "The Best of Both Worlds" the Enterprise-D is plainly said by the Borg to be "the strongest ship in the Federation fleet".

In the original series, all that is clearly stated is that the Enterprise "there are only 12 like it in the fleet".

Let me put it this way, as someone said above

If the Enterprise-D could survive against the Borg, it should've been able to laugh at fleets of Klingon, Ferengi, and even Romulan ships.

If Voyager could survive multiple Borg encounters, they should've been able to destroy the entire Kazon fleet ten times over.

 

[igrokbok]

6th day of XMe$$ said:

Dayton3 said:

6th day of XMe$$ said:
It must be pointed out that the original 1701 was nearly always in danger of blowing up or losing power..Number 4 shield was always toast in battle. The 1701 took as much of a pounding and was placed in as much jeopardy as the ships in modern Trek, something the TOS/Anti-Bermanistas seem to forget on a regular basis.

Did you read my list?

Always, in the original series, the Enterprise faced overwhelming force or the circumstance were specially written for the ships weakness.

You never saw the stuff that happened to the Enterprise-D in "Rascals" or "Generations" or to the Defiant in "One Little Ship"

That's because the show only ran three years.

Here's My List

In three years the 1701 was:

Disabled by a couple of little old women wearing butts on their heads.
Threatened by a dude with silver eyes.
Disabled and captured by a 6 year old Clint Howard.
Crippled by a pimp and three hos.
Threatened by a salt vampire.
Disabled by a drunken irishman.
Taken over by an adolescent with a chip in his shoulder.
Sabotaged by an officer who didn't get to be Captain.
Taken over again by little old ladies with butts on their heads.
Disabled by a rabbit.
Taken over by a Q in training who only wanted to "play."
Disabled by a gay boy in tights, forcing Kirk to fight a giant Gekko.
Crippled by a dude who takes sheets of red plascit into an alternate universe to fight himself.
Threatened by a computer.
Taken over by a goverment with suicide booths.
Taken over by Tatto's sidekick.
Taken over and disabled by love spores.
Disabled by glowing orbs of light masquerading as gay old men.
Distroyed by McCoy going through a huge donut and saving Hitler's girlfriend.
Threatened by flying pancakes.
Captured by two puppets made of pipe cleaners.
Tricked by a Klingon transmission.
Disabled by a giant hand.
Almost destroyed by a giant windsock.
Threatened by Jack the Ripper.
Almost destroyed by V'ger's older brother.
Captured by Vaal.
Crippled by old age.
Captured by a single android owned by the pimp in season one.
Taken over by balls of fur.
Threatened by spinning space thingy.
Captured by three coloured brains in a snowglobe.
Threatened by big cloud.
Almost destroyed by giant amoeba.
Threatened by an OG.
Taken over by 5 space aliens who turn people into dodecahedrons.
Pwned by a big glowing globe.
Attacked by Not so cute or cuddly alien space nazis.
Crippled by a different computer.
Eeed Pleb Neeesta.
Sabotaged by space ho's boy toy.
Captured by romulans as a result of Kirk's major bout with PMS.
Captured by six children and the Rolling Stone's Lawyer.
Disabled by a disembodied brain in a toaster oven.
Taken over by little old men with butts on their heads.
Captured by a web that takes over half the episode to spin.
Captured and taken over by another spinning thingie.
Taken over 5 aliens on speed.
Captured by Lee Meriweather.
Taken over by interstellar Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken.
Threatened by a different cloud.
Captured by space hippies.
Captured by Brahms.
Captured by Abraham Lincoln.
Taken over by a vindictive ex girlfriend.



Just because you hate modern Trek doesn't mean that the 1701 in TOS wasn't faced with equally silly and implausible situations.

In the World of Star Trek by David Gerrold, Gerrold pointed this fact out almost as eloquently as I just did.


There were obviously episodes in all series that either just sucked or the writers were having a bit of fun with notions of the absurd. This happens in every series, not just Trek.

Boy, reading that list of colorful decriptions reminds me just how much more imaginative and creative TOS was over TNG and all the other spin-offs. Back before re-configuring the sensor array was the magic cure-all for all boring anomalies that seemed to threaten the ship every other episode.

 

[Plum]

6th day of XMe$$ said:
Captured by a single android owned by the pimp in season one.

...lost it riiiight here.

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

6th day of XMe$$ said:

Dayton3 said:

6th day of XMe$$ said:
It must be pointed out that the original 1701 was nearly always in danger of blowing up or losing power..Number 4 shield was always toast in battle. The 1701 took as much of a pounding and was placed in as much jeopardy as the ships in modern Trek, something the TOS/Anti-Bermanistas seem to forget on a regular basis.

Did you read my list?

Always, in the original series, the Enterprise faced overwhelming force or the circumstance were specially written for the ships weakness.

You never saw the stuff that happened to the Enterprise-D in "Rascals" or "Generations" or to the Defiant in "One Little Ship"

That's because the show only ran three years.

Here's My List

In three years the 1701 was:

Disabled by a couple of little old women wearing butts on their heads.
Threatened by a dude with silver eyes.
Disabled and captured by a 6 year old Clint Howard.
Crippled by a pimp and three hos.
Threatened by a salt vampire.
Disabled by a drunken irishman.
Taken over by an adolescent with a chip in his shoulder.
Sabotaged by an officer who didn't get to be Captain.
Taken over again by little old ladies with butts on their heads.
Disabled by a rabbit.
Taken over by a Q in training who only wanted to "play."
Disabled by a gay boy in tights, forcing Kirk to fight a giant Gekko.
Crippled by a dude who takes sheets of red plascit into an alternate universe to fight himself.
Threatened by a computer.
Taken over by a goverment with suicide booths.
Taken over by Tatto's sidekick.
Taken over and disabled by love spores.
Disabled by glowing orbs of light masquerading as gay old men.
Distroyed by McCoy going through a huge donut and saving Hitler's girlfriend.
Threatened by flying pancakes.
Captured by two puppets made of pipe cleaners.
Tricked by a Klingon transmission.
Disabled by a giant hand.
Almost destroyed by a giant windsock.
Threatened by Jack the Ripper.
Almost destroyed by V'ger's older brother.
Captured by Vaal.
Crippled by old age.
Captured by a single android owned by the pimp in season one.
Taken over by balls of fur.
Threatened by spinning space thingy.
Captured by three coloured brains in a snowglobe.
Threatened by big cloud.
Almost destroyed by giant amoeba.
Threatened by an OG.
Taken over by 5 space aliens who turn people into dodecahedrons.
Pwned by a big glowing globe.
Attacked by Not so cute or cuddly alien space nazis.
Crippled by a different computer.
Eeed Pleb Neeesta.
Sabotaged by space ho's boy toy.
Captured by romulans as a result of Kirk's major bout with PMS.
Captured by six children and the Rolling Stone's Lawyer.
Disabled by a disembodied brain in a toaster oven.
Taken over by little old men with butts on their heads.
Captured by a web that takes over half the episode to spin.
Captured and taken over by another spinning thingie.
Taken over 5 aliens on speed.
Captured by Lee Meriweather.
Taken over by interstellar Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken.
Threatened by a different cloud.
Captured by space hippies.
Captured by Brahms.
Captured by Abraham Lincoln.
Taken over by a vindictive ex girlfriend.



Just because you hate modern Trek doesn't mean that the 1701 in TOS wasn't faced with equally silly and implausible situations.

In the World of Star Trek by David Gerrold, Gerrold pointed this fact out almost as eloquently as I just did.


There were obviously episodes in all series that either just sucked or the writers were having a bit of fun with notions of the absurd. This happens in every series, not just Trek.

:thumbsup: Best laugh I've had today, or in a while actually. No wonder some people think we're goofy!

 

[Cyke101]

Dayton3 said:
I still maintain that modern Trek seemed to go out of the way to make the Enterprise look weak.

The thing is,in "The Best of Both Worlds" the Enterprise-D is plainly said by the Borg to be "the strongest ship in the Federation fleet".

In the original series, all that is clearly stated is that the Enterprise "there are only 12 like it in the fleet".

Let me put it this way, as someone said above

If the Enterprise-D could survive against the Borg, it should've been able to laugh at fleets of Klingon, Ferengi, and even Romulan ships.

If Voyager could survive multiple Borg encounters, they should've been able to destroy the entire Kazon fleet ten times over.

Ugh, E-D only survived its Borg encounters through either brains or, really, something very close to divine intervention. Each time it faced the Borg, it was in a *very* real danger of getting blown to smitherens, and the kicker is that the Borg barely fought back.

Its survival was never based on sheer strength and durability, but through human ingenuity and imagination, which, guess what, are huge themes in all of Trek. You're confusing physical strength with wit.

Let's take it down this route: the original 1701 survived V'Ger, a ship that could convert entire space stations and possibly planets into bits of holographic data with a single shot. By your logic, the 1701 should have spanked Khan and the Reliant with a hand phaser.

 

[TGTheodore]

It was also frequently "not ready" or "grossly understaffed" in the TOS films.

TMP - Refit not completed
TWOK - Cadet Crew
TSFS - The shit beat out of it, and then it dies finally
TFF - Crappy second-hand ship not ready to zip through space
TUC - Hmmmm ... seems okay. What happened?
GEN - Ent-B not completed, crew not well-acquainted (or trained, apparently)

--Ted