I suppose we can all find contradictory episodes to support one theory or another. But if the tech is not and has never been all that different from normal transporters, how does it get past shields?
I'd say it's radically different - it's just not necessary to build all-new machinery to implement it, because Federation hardware is so flexible to begin with. It always is, after all.
Probably for the "Bloodlines" effect, you just turn the subspace carrier wave to three hundred when the knob is only labeled up to ten, and accept the known risks. But if you know a bit more, you can adjust half a dozen other existing knobs according to a secret formula and make it a lot safer.
Why don't ships use it to beam weapons past shields?
In ST:ID, they might just barely have invented something to make that difficult. Or then it's a plot hole.
In TNG, it seems it takes a lot of genius or luck to get the thing to work reliably. Sending weapons blindly is a bad idea, not because the weapons might get hurt (although they
might blow up on your face because of that), but because they might end up just about anywhere.
How could the Enterprise D detect and follow it's carrier wave but have no chance of detecting the incoming signal.
Because the former is a long-duration phenomenon while the latter is transient?
I think maybe I'm prejudiced because I don't like what the potential of transwarp/subspace beaming means for the franchise. At least in its earlier forms they had the good sense to say it was too dangerous to use. NuTrek seems to be saying it's dangerous but let's use it anyway - it speeds up the plot.
Quite. Then again, ST:ID seemed to do some tying up of loose ends from STXI, so we might hope for a continuing pattern of "fixes". They've now made use of the "Old Spock knows helpful things" concept and shown how it can backfire big time; they've tackled the "Kirk is a young hothead" issue and shown that even with Pike's backing, this will make his holding on to captaincy very, very difficult. They might tackle the plot effects of transwarp beaming next...
The Narada doesn't just have powerful weapons, it has a SHED LOAD of powerful weapons.
Of one type only. And we don't really know if that is even a proper weapon. Certainly it's highly inefficient against a prepared starship, which can shoot down 100% of the "missiles" with ease, at least if they are targeted against some other victim (both the
Kelvin and the
Enterprise achieve this).
If her weapons are powerful because they are just standard 24th century weapons why wouldn't her shields be designed to stand up to those standard 24th century weapons let alone 23rd century weapons... space piracy does still exist.
And nobody today arms or armors ships against piracy. It's simply not cost-effective; if anything, it increases the risks of piracy, because the villains now have the incentive to come aboard and rob the guns and armor!
Turning a drilling rig into a fighting vessel is probably flat out impossible at any century. Turning one into an instrument of devastation is trivial in comparison, as long as the opponent is unprepared.
Narada did seem very slow, which is fine and most of her bulk would be for storage and ore processing... except she still managed to destroy 47 ships, travel from Rura Penthe to Vulcan in a day, and destroy 7 or so Federation ships.
To nitpick, we never learned she would have been anywhere near any place called "Rura Penthe" at any point. We didn't even learn that she would have been near a Klingon prison planet - we only learned that such a planet supposedly sent the message that Starfleet intercepted.
Again, they overplayed their hand. Why mention so many Klingon ships, why send so many starships to investigate an earthquake on Vulcan? They only needed two to make the point. TWoK was fun precisely because the ships were evenly matched and they had to outwit each other. Bigger explosions don't necessarily make a better movie.
Strongly agreed. But if the Klingon battle report was a Nero ruse, then of course it has to feature fantastic odds...
I don't want starships landing on planets
I definitely do. After all, there never was any reason why they could not.
I get the impression that the writers don't view the new franchise through the prism of 23rd century technology but rather more like 24th century tech with knobs on.
I have the nagging feeling the tech is viewed through the prisms of nuBSG and Star Wars exclusively.
On the general issue of dialing it up or down, ST:ID at least preempts most plotholes by
a) having supervillains, so that whatever they do is inherently possible, and
b) having them be at odds with each other, so that whatever they
fail to do can be excused as villain A not wanting to support the efforts of villain B too much.
That's cheap, but it works.
Timo Saloniemi