ST Picard - Starships and Technology Season One SPOILER Discusssion

Discussion in 'Trek Tech' started by Mark_Nguyen, Jan 24, 2020.

  1. DEWLine

    DEWLine Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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  2. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The dialogue paints the system as an active defense based on killer nodes of some sort. Not what I'd call a "planetary shield", for the purposes of that separate argument. That is, you can fly through if you don't mind getting shot into pieces in the process.

    Not much help against phaser bombardment of the surface, then. Unless there's a separate shield component we didn't get to see.

    Makes sense. Although no doubt being busy also involves traveling a lot in and around Romulan space. And we might speculate that doing so is slow going, due to the collapse of infrastructure: you need permits from warlords, or escort, and roundabout routes and whatnot. Perhaps staying put would be mandatory every now and then, and Picard just happens to get stuck with Elnor, hence the two becoming an item, as opposed to the two being an item and Picard thus choosing to stay.

    Picard's old badge would appear to be a super-secret way of contacting Raffi. But quite possibly standard Federation commnets can be trusted with secret messages once the contacting is said and done, and implants might be the standard way to access those nets.

    Such as the total lack of mention? In this timeline, Scotty has come up with the theory (or so Spock claims, perhaps solely to bolster the ego of the depressed engineer), but there is no mention of practice. And the Dominion capacity is but a rumor, not really confirmed by "Covenant" where a much shorter beaming to a waiting ship would better fit Dukat's means and lying about it his psych profile. Had the capacity really existed, we probably would have seen it play a role in the war. (So what the heck was Worf rambling about, really?)

    And in theory, the reporter does imply Picard went directly from the/an Enterprise to the Evacuation Pundit job. Although that may just be the press taking shortcuts for the benefit of the readers.

    ...Getting those letters of transit from the warlords?

    Basically every era of Trek is compatible with the idea that warp involves cooldown periods - that is, it's not incompatible with this. We might simply traditionally meet our heroes during the cooldowns, which sort of punctuate the dull passage and thus perhaps serve as conversation pieces, resulting in plot-relevant dialogue.

    The horizontally elongated, runabout-style portholes are chiefly found on the lower deck in the exterior view. Only two decks are really accounted for, though.

    DSC gave us a spectrum of messaging means. Perhaps something similar to the message from Culber that Stamets was watching and we were eavesdropping on, from an odd and distorted angle? That'd be "watching" all right, as opposed to the more interactive holotainment we usually got in TNG, DS9 and VOY.

    I'm sorta seeing the former. There's an economy of designs so far: instead of numerous kitbashes, we could well be getting variable geometry and lots of re-skinning.

    Well, it is round. No real need to assume 30 minutes sharp, over 27.2 or 31.47 - the heroes aren't involved in split-second countdowns in this respect.

    They just need to properly wrap it in leaves. (Against their thighs like Carmen?)

    Makes sense that there would be a theme to the bottle (just like there's to wine bottles), but not a single design.

    Good point. I guess future socks are different...

    Given that the tugs had no names painted on, but did have the "Tug ????/??" pennants, I'd not immediately consider the Nightingale one of those. And indeed the tugs might have been unrelated to the evacuation fleet except as the regular means by which Utopia Planitia got raw materials from external sources, for building whatever it would be building at given times.

    But if Starfleet did have evacuation assets before Romulus blew, it's pretty natural for them to have possessed a (not necessarily particularly numerous) Wallenberg class, featuring a USS Nightingale...

    Remarkably, this is the first time in Trek that the Romulan design (or any Romulan design) is actually called a Bird of Prey...

    ...Despite obviously cutting through whatever is feeding warp power to the nacelle. Unless, say, it's a self-contained unit...

    Also, Seven cuts through a structure that has a brightly glowing trailing edge. I wonder what that was, since the traditional impulse engines appear to be at their traditional spot at the stern of the main hull.

    Then again, Kirk never got a chance to aim, much less hit.

    Then again again, no shields were ever mentioned in connection with Kirk's old fight.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  3. KamenRiderBlade

    KamenRiderBlade Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    You can only fly through once you give them the correct access code and they open up a corridor for you to pass through which is randomly selected, you have 1 minute to travel through. Otherwise you will be subjected to Kill Fire.
     
  4. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Exactly. So no direct evidence of shielding in the Trek sense, physically blocking transit - just of sentinels that try to gun you down if you refuse to stop.

    "A shield of orbital killer drones" is what they call it, FWIW. Way denser than anything we saw in DS9 (or failed to see in the other spinoffs that mentioned orbital defenses). I wonder why Earth or Mars didn't have one in evidence, if it's so visually in-your-face...

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  5. Mark_Nguyen

    Mark_Nguyen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I'm not sure. Seven's ship (corsair?) is disabled and explodes when it definitely crashes against a shield wall, with parts bouncing along it after impact. Unless the grid includes millions of small, shielded drones which effectively create a surface?

    It's also worth noting that the grid itself iS seen firing, but never clearly.When seven first appears on the scene, she actually fires at a point on the grid that had just fired on La Sirena.

    Mark
     
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  6. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    True, it seems to be both: killer nodes shooting deadly beams and connected to each other by beams, too, and then shield surfaces between those. That's a lot of machinery in orbit. And yes, Freecloud seems to have a bit of a green hue above the atmosphere as well. Might be green skies is a price planets have to pay for safety and security. Or then frontier places like these keep their defense grids on or at least idled all the time, while Mars and Earth can afford to shut down the glowing bits until really needed.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
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  7. Mark_Nguyen

    Mark_Nguyen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Starting my technical rewatch of 105 and stopped early to dissect (pun intended) the Icheb-Seven scene. Aside from being really emotionally powerful, I got looking closely at some Borg-related notes:

    - Icheb was a science officer on the USS Coleman, and yet was wearing red when he was captured. OTOH, he was "doing recon" for the Fenris Rangers when he was caught, so perhaps he was undercover? Otherwise, why would he be wearing a uniform while on leave and working for a non-Starfleet organization, and wouldn't Starfleet have a problem with that regardless?

    - Icheb is missing his cortical node. It's in Seven now (per VOY "Imperfection") and probably takes the cake as the most significant, insignificant easter egg of the series so far. Ironically enough, said node walks in the door just as the implant pirate starts up her drill, and hovers it right over where the little Borg door for said node would be.

    - Icheb had both eyes when he was rescued from the Collective, and yet here his left eye is an implant or a replacement containing some Borg tech. It's been surmised that he still had both his natural eyes and that one would have been replaced soon enough before his original cube got all whatevered... It's also been noted that Borg assimilation tech tends to work from the inside out once a subject is infected with nanites, and the left eye is pulled out and replaced with a big implant later; so his left eye may still be natural but backed up with some Borg tech in preparation for the eventual replacement, or it could have been an implant from the get go.

    - Also, Icheb had no other visible Borg implants on his face - at first I thought this was a goof (or that he'd had them removed), but the little thingy above his left eye was seen in the medical pan that the lackey tosses his eye into. Furthermore, his left eyebrow is shaved where the doodad was sitting (in Voyager it was inconsistently on top of his eyebrow or not), and there's a bloody outline from where it would have been. Great little detail!

    - OTOH, Icheb had a couple patches of scarred skin where other implants would have been, notably around his left temple, and that was absent. Guess some things can be cosmetically fixed, though it always made me wonder why all of Voyager's Borglings had similar scars while Seven's non-implant skin was always so smooth and blemish-free. ;)

    - Bonus: Seven bursts onto the scene shooting what might be the same pistol type that the Starfleet flashback security guys were wielding on Mars a couple episodes back, which is in the same time frame. We haven't talked about Starfleet small arms much yet, but at least in the flashback we saw that by the mid 2380s they had finally seen the light and started using pistols like everyone else. I regret the loss of less typically-weaponey phasers, but truth be told the TNG-era phasers were always an ergonomic nightmare, auto-targeting explanation conceits or not. By "Nemesis" they were more pistol-like, but smaller to the point that they were getting tough to be seen from the money angles when being fired. This does probably go against what we've seen in VOY "Endgame", despite it being an aborted timeline.

    Mark
     
  8. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Good point about Icheb's uniform in an otherwise carefully thought out scene. The color need not be an issue: Wesley's much-sciencey adversaries from "Pen Pals" were split between blue and mustard, say. But the very fact that he'd don the uniform while on leave and under employ of a competing organization... Then again, the audacity of sneaking in under the pretense of being Starfleet! It sounds more like Icheb actually deserted while on leave, and thus didn't worry much about disciplinary action.

    The clumsy "pistols" could be considered submachine guns in a setup where the lighter sidearms (not relevant to the story) still are dustbusters or crickets... Jean-Luc "Action" Picard would obviously have H&K MP5s stashed under his tables and pillows, but Jean-Luc "Diplomat" Picard might theoretically also do concealed-carry with one of 'em TNG Derringers or Berettas.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  9. Mark_Nguyen

    Mark_Nguyen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The pistols in Chateau Picard, or at least the one under the desk, had a lovely brown, mottled texture on the grip - not at all Starfleet issue IMO. On the other hand, the twin rifles with which Seven goes all John Woo can definitely be seen as evolutionary upgrades to the First Contact series of rifles; and her hero pistol (meaning that it's lit and really detailed) look more like cousins of the rifle than of the dust/cricket series, so I'm guessing it's more from that collection as well. No reason that they can't all exist concurrently, though.

    One thing in common with most of the hand weapons seen thus far is the presence of a guard around the front of the grip, like the TNG-era Romulan pistols. I'm guessing this show's prop designer sees that guard as a catch-all "futuristic weapon" feature. This episode features non-Starfleet chrome-plated pistols without a guard, but the glowing red lights certainly won't have anyone mistaking it's a contemporary weapon. Rios similarly has a grey weapon which almost looks inspired by the ENT phase pistols.

    Mark
     
  10. KamenRiderBlade

    KamenRiderBlade Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I'm just glad that they went back to bolt firing for the Small Arms for the StarFleet side.

    Standing there firing beams for that few seconds is such a liability IMO.
     
  11. SoM

    SoM Captain Captain

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    Given that dermal regenerators are usually shown to leave blemish-free skin, it's the fact that they ever had scars which is really the oddity, rather than Seven not having scars.
     
  12. Henoch

    Henoch Rear Admiral Premium Member

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    Probably, its the residual borg nanites fighting against the healing process to maintain its missing implants.
     
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  13. matthunter

    matthunter Admiral Admiral

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    What was Icheb's final rank, did anyone count the pips?

    My thought as to him wearing red but being the "Science Officer" on the Coleman is that he might actually have been the XO if the Coleman was a science vessel.

    Hmm, Memory Alpha has him as a Lieutenant, but that wouldn't preclude XO on a small science ship (and do we really think Bjayzl's organization is powerful enough to mess with anything above a small Starfleet vessel in an ambush? Even if they are stealthy enough to get away without Starfleet reprisal).
     
  14. matthunter

    matthunter Admiral Admiral

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    Seven was human. Icheb's species was from the Delta Quadrant, so Federation dermal regeneration might be less effective as it has no baseline info on their species.
     
  15. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, all that makes sense to me (either that, or he could have been an engineer on the ship.) I somehow doubt the Coleman was a Sovereign class vessel.
     
  16. Mark_Nguyen

    Mark_Nguyen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It's worthwhile to point out that the older Icheb from "Shattered" wore a red uniform; and it was impossible to tell if in that future (2394 per Memory Alpha) that particular possible Voyager was still lost in the DQ or not.

    It's entirely possible that this Icheb was wearing two different hats on a smaller ship. He was wearing two full pips, though not referred to as anything but a "young science officer".

    Mark
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2020
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  17. Lance

    Lance Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I feel like it's boxier somehow, not necessarily a ground up redesign but there seem to be some straighter lines where the original had curves, and the deflector definitely feels different.

    I've been wondering if I'd imagined it. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who saw it. :)
     
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  18. NCC-73515

    NCC-73515 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    If they had returned, they'd have newer uniforms
     
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  19. Tomalak

    Tomalak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'm thinking the Coleman was not unlike the Grissom or Equinox - a small science ship.

    Equinox had a lieutenant as XO, although it's possible a more senior officer originally had the role and was killed, allowing Burke to step up. He's also called "commander" by Janeway, confusingly.

    It's not impossible that Saavik was the Grissom's XO. She was wearing white trim rather than grey. IIRC Bob Fletcher intended that simply to mean she was head of the science department, and I believe she has a grey slash on her sleeve. I don't think we see anyone with a higher rank, aside from Esteban. There's also the TOS/TMP assumption that science officer and XO go together - Spock, Decker/Sonak and Chekov.

    Shattered implies they were still in the Delta Quadrant, and Icheb may well be Voyager's XO by that time. Possibly under Captain Kim? It always struck me as odd that Janeway made no planning for the 70 year voyage. The remaining crew would have been geriatric by the time they made it home, so they needed to start having babies!
     
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  20. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Well, that would mean giving up, sort of. If a generations-long return really were accepted, why not accept settlement somewhere along the route instead? Janeway wanted her crew to get home; her ship be damned...

    (Perhaps Burke's predecessor wasn't the casualty on the Equinox - perhaps his one dark collar pip was? They'd never find it until they got the lights repaired!)

    Timo Saloniemi
     
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