I guess we're also not to think about how after fifteen more years of development the technology went from being able to move things across the galaxy to around 500 feet.Shhh... you're not supposed to think of those things...
Spoilers ST Prodigy - StarShips & Technology Season 2 Discussion
- Thread starter David cgc
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Fifteen years of reverse engineering, not development. And it went from a giant planet-based tower to a module that looked like it was about the size of a suitcase (or, if you go with the design intent over what made it into the episodes, a smallish navigational deflector).
In the hundreds of years Starfleet probably has tons of technology that they forgot about because it is very situational. If you don't have time to skim through all the technical journals or have someone like Data on board that can access possibilities on the fly any given captains not going to know about even a quarter of all the tech doodads that Starfleet can pull off.
There's no indication it has such a limited range.
Presumably the Shrike was in orbit when it used the Portal technology on a SF building which they destroyed.
Depending on which orbit the Shrike was in, it has a minimum range of anywhere between 160 km to 35,786 km - quite possibly much larger than this if the ship wasn't in orbit (dunno if it would be allowed into orbit in the first place).
That said, its limited range capabilities when fighting the Titan-A were mainly observed for combat situations and 500 feet is still too small of a range even for visuals we saw at 'spitting distances'... plus, you need to take into account cinematic camera and angles which distort stuff - its possible the Portal tech requires visual range, but there's no indication that's the case... if they can track you on sensors, then they can create a portal from huge distances - thing is, the Titan and Shrike were fighting in a nebula, so that had been obstructing the sensors and can account for the small range.
Useful, yes.
But here's the thing, the Shrike was destroyed.
In Trek, it would seem that if you destroy a working piece of technology, they never bothered in creating schematic backups to manufacture a new one.
Remember what happened when the Spore drive Mk2 was destroyed with Book's ship in S4 of Disco?
They made such a huge deal out of it that it made 0 sense.
It looks like making backups of schematics isn't a standard practice and once the tech is destroyed, its gone forever.
Of course this makes 0 sense whatsoever.
With SF (and especially Daystrom institute, they would probably have backups of backups in remote locations).
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While the initial Portal Energy Projectile travel range could be great, the connected tunnel's range seems quite small given how close the Entrance/Exit Apertures are with each other.
It's more than enough to do it's job.
Except when it is convenient for plot purposes.
Remember, how would the Ferengi be able to create a Mini Genesis device if a schematic wasn't made somewhere for them to steal and use.
We saw the Mini-Genesis Device at the end of last seasons Lower Decks.
I concur, no technology should be "Truly Lost Forever", that's why multiple backups of the schematics should be kept in various locations.
I would argue the Shrike's ability to generate a portal over long distances isn't a problem, so long as it can maintain sensor lock on a target.
The Titan and Shrike were fighting in a nebula which was messing with the sensors, so it stands to reason that's the primary limit in 'range' that was observed.
If the nebula wasn't a factor, the chances are Shrike could have used the Portal tech on the Titan over large distances.
Warp likely distorts the portal tech ability to accurately make a window, or the Titan crew were masking their Warp trail (which is more likely).
The Ferengi being able to make their own mini Genesis device even without the schematics is plausible given the kind of tech they have.
But it IS more likely they got their hands on the schematics instead since I can't really picture the Ferengi spending money on R&D to develop their own.
As for the tech not being really lost forever... yeah, that's what it SHOULD be like. Given the redundancy of SF systems, not to mention the seeming omni-presence of Federation database on every starship, outpost, starbase, etc... its EXTREMELY unlikely that backups of schematics wouldn't be made - they could be encrypted yes, but overall accessible if you have a sufficiently high clearance.
That STILL doesn't explain why was such a huge deal made of the spore drive MK2 prototype when it was stolen by Book.
I mean, sure, he stole UFP property, but its not the end of the world even if it was destroyed... just replicate another one from the schematics and still send Disco to either make Book stand down or destroy his ship if she can't.
End of.
But no... for this one, apparently, schematics apparently were never taken (or their backups)... which also raises the question... how the heck did they construct it in the first place if they hadn't kept all the research files in the computer?
But they were fighting at STL, so we don't know if Warp Drives have any affect on it.
We didn't see any interaction between Warp Drives & the Portals.
Exactly!
They're probably stored in secure locations / vaults, a link to it on the local databases might exit, but it would tell you where you would roughly need to go to, to ask for access.
Stealing Government Property is never good.
It does take time to re-create a new Proto-Type, but the problems were solved and he died.
It was kept on computers, I'm sure his assitant had backup files, just in case.
As smart as Ruon Tarka was, I'm sure his assitant would take care of alot of the small details.
A bit of Nova-class too.
I like Voy-A. It's funny how back in the day lots of people talked about how the Enterprise-E was similar to Voyager and now they've gone and combined two of those ships from the same era to make something that, in my opinion, is not exactly original but pretty darn cool. It's kinda everything I want in a successor.
