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Poll: Sovereign Saucer Sep

Wowbagger

Wowbagger

Commodore
Commodore
So I just had a fairly epic argument over a piece of collaborative fanfic. I want to use the Sovereign's long-debated saucer separation ability in the climax of our story, because it would be, to coin a phrase, "kickass." (It is also useful for story reasons--I'm not doing it for its own sake.) My co-author heard the idea and absolutely opposed it, because it is not established on screen as being possible for a Sovereign, and is therefore a deus ex machina.

So you, Trekkies, are the audience. I'm honestly curious what Trekkies think:
 
They used it in the recent TNG relaunch novel Resistance, and Shatner used it in one of his books. There's now precedent for it, so I guess if real authors can do it, fans can too.
 
Blink and keep reading. IMHO, the only reason for ever having a saucer on a starship in the first place is the ability to separate it.

For emergency jettison and atmospheric entry, that is. I don't see many other plausible reasons for splitting a starship in two, because we see our hero ships perform most tasks just fine when in one piece.

Timo Saloniemi
 
I'd go for it, myself. I agree with Timo, I'd submit that all the Starfleet designs with saucers and a 'neck' are designed specifically to separate, whether we actually saw it or not - Sovereign and Intrepid included. It may not be intended as a frequent tactic á la first season TNG but I'd suspect it's there for emergencies. As Timo says, why have that design at all if not to allow separation of the habitation areas from the dangerous drive areas?
 
Well John Eaves who designed it did say his sketches included the ability to separate.
 
Personally, I just can't see where the separation plane would be. There's no clear "seam" on the miniature/CG model. Looking at it, it seems to me that the "arrowhead" shape on the underside of the saucer would pretty much have to stay with the engineering section while the "tongue" shape on the dorsal side of the ship, stretching back from between the impulse engines, would have to stay with the saucer. But the rest is a mystery. And in the FC scenes where you see the ventral side of the saucer up close, the "arrowhead" portion certainly seems to be of a piece with the rest of the saucer, not separable.

I've seen some fan blueprints showing the hulls separated from each other, but the line of separation shown on the plans doesn't correspond to anything on the exterior of the ship.

So if Eaves did put a separation capability into the ship, I'd like to know where he intended the split to go.
 
sovsep.jpg


Don't remember where I got that; there's probably a bigger version running around somewhere. I know it's not 'canon', but since Eaves designed it, it's good enough for me.
 
Oh, so the "tongue" would stay with the secondary hull, and only part of the "arrowhead" would. Hmm, yeah, I can see that now. I was looking in the wrong places, but now that I know where to look, I can definitely see where the "seam" is on the model. Thanks for providing the sketch!
 
I'd probably say no to a saucer sep on a sovereign - why didn't they separate the saucer when the borg invaded engineering in first contact? didnt the borg make their way up to deck 11 which had the deflector dish on it (which isn't a part of the saucer) which means they weren't any higher than that before i.e. not in the saucer section. A separation in that instance would have allowed the crew to completely retake the saucer and use it's systems to retake the engineering section.

Please correct me if I'm wrong I haven't watched FC for a while and may have the decks wrong!
 
Since the D could separate, it is logical that the E can, too. I wouldn't care one way or the other.
 
I could probably name numerous instances on TV when they could've separated the E-D's saucer section but didn't. Though the first example that springs to mind was in DS9's "The Jem'Hadar" -- why have the Odyssey evacuate the civilians to the station and take the intact ship through the wormhole rather than just leaving the saucer behind?

In that case, the reason was one of production logistics -- the only separable miniature, the ILM 6-footer, was cumbersome to work with. In the case of FC, I'd say the reason was story-driven -- the plot required the whole ship to be in danger. (Also because they'd used saucer sep in the previous film and it would've seemed repetitive.) Either or both of those factors came into play routinely on TNG, which was why the saucer-sep capability was so rarely used.

So the failure to use saucer separation in one instance can't be taken as proof that the capability didn't exist, since we know there are instances where the capability did theoretically exist but wasn't used.
 
^Besides, even if they had separated the ship in FC, you've still got the Borg controlling the half of the ship with all the heavy weapons.
 
^Exactly what I was about to post. I don't see the advantage of separation in this situation. It might have worked as an escape tactic if the Borg were too occupied to go after them, but wouldn't have helped them to stop the Borg. Once separated, all the Borg had to do was raise shields to deny the crew access to the engineering section. Ceding control of the more powerful half of the ship wasn't a sound tactic.
 
Next up for debate, Defiant class landing struts: Fact, or fiction?

Well.. Fictional fact or factional fiction, that is...

err..wait..

hey, i just noticed star trek isn't real. aww.
 
^Well, they're in the DS9 Tech Manual...and the Defiant is smaller than most saucer sections...so I don't see why not.
 
Personally, I don't have strong feelings about it, but untill something onscreen directly contradicts the ability of the Sovereign class to separate, separate away. On the other hand, it's supposed to be fiction for the purposes of entertianment. Just go for it and all other opinions on the matter be damned.
 
Another person who would just keep reading. It wouldn't fly in the face of anything established, I just would have figured they didn't have much cause to do it before the events of the story.
 
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