Actually, that's not true either. Spock's line in TWOK refers to Khan's "two-dimensional thinking," as the latter insists on flying Reliant within the same horizontal plane.
--Sran
ST III: Self destruct question
- Thread starter HigHurtenflurst
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Actually, that's not true either. Spock's line in TWOK refers to Khan's "two-dimensional thinking," as the latter insists on flying Reliant within the same horizontal plane.
--Sran
Dammit, you are right!
^ Sran, I don't mean it's a direct quote. It's more an example of one-upmanship. Spock said Kahn was limited by his thinking in two dimensions, then the Borg Queen criticises Picard for thinking in only three.
I see what you mean, I thought that too.
Sometimes if a movie makes you think of another movie it can give that movie you're watching a little boost, but sometimes if a movie isn't that good to begin with or does it too often, you want to just stop watching and go watch the better movie(s) it's reminding you of.
Identifying ships visually is wrought with peril in general: getting confused because the ship used to be one of ours is not a statistically significant risk compared with getting confused because the ship merely looks like it could be one of the enemy's.
I guess it could be said that when spies steal design secrets and these are applied in shipbuilding, "theft" or "change of ownership" then results in confusion. Capital ships in WWI looked more or less alike regardless of whether they were British, German, Austrian or Italian - largely because all of those were British by original design anyway. In contrast, WWII had the IJN and USN sport very distinct silhouettes that could not be easily confused and OTOH could be considered "nationally associated" in generic terms - i.e. "any ship with these features must come from the Japanese stock" and "only Americans would design ships like that".
Today, every frigate out there looks alike, as all frigate building (of any relevance) stems from NATO or its members and allies designing those on the cheap, in joint projects that usually collapse but still leave the various parties pursue designs that are barely independent in terms of silhouette. But things were much worse back in the days of sailing, where every ship from sloop to first-rate looked identical at the first glance, save for the colors they flew and the exact rigging (but the later could change drastically between battles, and the former could of course change even during battles!).
Any "that ship used to be one of ours, which is why we ignored the fact that she was shelling us" moments must be rare in history - other reasons for confusion are so much more likely. But any "that ship used to be one of theirs, which is why we fired at her in our excitement" moments are probably much rarer still. (Or perhaps such things are used as excuses after the fact, but the real reasons for confusion probably lie elsewhere.)
Timo Saloniemi
^ In the alternate-history novel "Weapons Of Choice", when a military experiment gone awry catapulted a 21st century multinational naval task force across 80 years of spacetime to the middle of the American task force steaming to take on the Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway, the humans were rendered unconscious in the transit. The artificial combat intelligences operating the ships' computers assumed that some nearby frigates (sold to the Indonesian Navy post WW2 in the alternate-history and were being operated by threat forces in the year 2021) had concluded some kind of nerve gas warfare against the future-ships, and commenced to blowing the dogshit out of the American task force.
Fantastic book, the first in a very rich trilogy, if you are so inclined.
Fantastic book, the first in a very rich trilogy, if you are so inclined.
(There were US frigates / destroyer escorts at this fictional Midway? What were they doing there?)
I'd assume that Trek combatants would be extremely wary of IFF mistakes, considering the extensive sharing of ship designs. Say, in "Heart of Glory", Riker stares at a common design of transport ship until the ship turns enough to reveal her pennant art, then declares "Talarian!". This nicely highlights the risks: in apparent lieu of any sort of ID beacon activity (to be expected in combat, too, not just when facing derelicts), last-ditch visual identification is the only way to be certain... Perhaps this is why so many battles are fought point blank?
Timo Saloniemi
I'd assume that Trek combatants would be extremely wary of IFF mistakes, considering the extensive sharing of ship designs. Say, in "Heart of Glory", Riker stares at a common design of transport ship until the ship turns enough to reveal her pennant art, then declares "Talarian!". This nicely highlights the risks: in apparent lieu of any sort of ID beacon activity (to be expected in combat, too, not just when facing derelicts), last-ditch visual identification is the only way to be certain... Perhaps this is why so many battles are fought point blank?
Timo Saloniemi
I can't actually imagine any pre-war destroyers surviving to 2021 actually. Midway was only six months into the war, the new stuff was barely getting out there in June. Most of those old ships have been retired even from foreign navies by now. Some built during the war still function, but very few earlier ships are in combat service. I think there is one 1930s ship in the Mexican Navy, but it was pretty badly maintained even ten years ago. There are some 1940s ships in service, but those are being replaced by newer or even smaller ships as they wear out after 70 years of service.
I went back and reread that segment of "Weapons Of Choice". I was mistaken...when the 2021 task force emerged in the middle of the Midway battle group, with all of the 2021 folks unconscious, someone on a 1942 heavy cruiser saw the Japanese flag on one of the fancy ships (a Japanese cruiser, the Siranui, was in the multinational fleet) and opened fire, hitting the bridge and killing most of the 2021 crew, and a lower-ranking officer below decks was one of the first to regain consciousness, with the ship's autonomous systems recognizing him as the highest-ranking survivor and requesting permission to return fire; he granted it and Siranui opened up on the 1942 folks, blowing the dogshit out of the Midway battle group and sinking two carriers before everyone woke up and de-escalated the battle.
Needless to say, there was some 'splainin' to do...
Anyway, great book. I cannot recommend it more highly.
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