Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

[137th Gebirg]

Discovery's treatment of S31 was problematic from literally the beginning. When Fuller was still in charge, Disco was supposed to be under S31 control, hence the security goons with the eeeevil black insignias. This was thankfully scrapped once he left (albeit replaced with the equally problematic MU plot).

They were and are, first and foremost, a highly secretive shadow ops organization. Only DS9 really portrayed them correctly. ENT's use of them was okay, but by then they were starting to get a little too public. Into Darkness fucked them all up completely with Admiral Ends-Justify-The-Means and his USS Azzkicker dreadnought (that he had a fucking MODEL of on his desk!), and they've been wrong ever since.

The writers just simply don't know how to deal with an invisible force like that, which led to a lot of problems down the line. If the S31 series gets fully green-lit, they REALLY hire someone who actually WORKED as a dark operator IRL to serve as a consultant and get this shit right or it's just going wind up being Get Smart in space.

 

[The Old Mixer]

What's really to stop the Romulans from warping out and then approaching at a completely different angle to commence planetary bombardment?

Settlement's not on that side of the planet...?

 

[Dukhat]

Settlement's not on that side of the planet...?

They could just beam down to the planet and gun the androids down.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Settlement's not on that side of the planet...?

They can still come in from a skewed trajectory, instead of approaching head-on, they can come in at a slant, fly under the Fed ships at speed (with full shields on to prevent burning up in the atmosphere) and just carpet-bomb the whole colony in a single strafing run, then jump into warp while still in the atmosphere. Sure, it will suck most of the air off the planet (if not outright fry it) in the process but who cares, because everything is already dead and...well... Romulans.

They could just beam down to the planet and gun the androids down.

Yep, that too. Or beam down an armed quantum torpedo warhead on a timer. Crater-city with no loss of Romulan life.

In short, there are MANY things the Romulans could have done to completely negate the Federation's presence there. There were already prepared to start a potential war over this planet. Why not go all the way?

 

[The Old Mixer]

They could just beam down to the planet and gun the androids down.

Not if they weren't in transporter range, or on the opposite side of the planet.

They can still come in from a skewed trajectory, instead of approaching head-on, they can come in at a slant, fly under the Fed ships at speed (with full shields on to prevent burning up in the atmosphere) and just carpet-bomb the whole colony in a single strafing run, then jump into warp while still in the atmosphere. Sure, it will suck most of the air off the planet (if not outright fry it) in the process but who cares, because everything is already dead and...well... Romulans. Yep, that too. Or beam down an armed quantum torpedo warhead on a timer. Crater-city with no loss of Romulan life.

In short, there are MANY things the Romulans could have done to completely negate the Federation's presence there. There were already prepared to start a potential war over this planet. Why not go all the way?

The Federation ships could move, too. They weren't a stationary defense.

 

[Kpnuts]

one that has no dramatic stakes except for Admiral Cornwell's heroic self-sacrifice to detonate the Section 31 photon torpedo before it can cause catastrophic damage to the Enterprise

Even that was so badly written and contrived it just fell flat, for me at least.

 

[Kpnuts]

The battle between the Klingon ship and the Gagarin was dynamic and well-shot, but yeah, a lot of space combat in the new series is pretty mediocre.

Personally my main issue is I'm not a fan of the ultra contrasty, grainy, shaky-cam style they use, so even when a scene is well shot it doesn't really hit home with me.

 

[Dukhat]

Not if they weren't in transporter range, or on the opposite side of the planet.

That would depend on what transporter technology was like in 2399.

 

[137th Gebirg]

The Federation ships could move, too. They weren't a stationary defense.

If they blitzed in quick enough, the Fed vessels wouldn't be able to react quickly.

If I were Oh, this is what I would do:

• Have 3/4 of my main force arrive at the planet as has already been shown, leaving the remaining quarter under cloak, hidden in some kind of nearby anomaly or nebula so that it couldn't be detected by long range scan
• If the Fed fleet never arrived, Plan A goes into effect by direct planetary bombardment following the destruction of the flower ships
• If the Fed fleet arrived, keep them busy with empty posturing while Plan B goes into effect, sending an encrypted subspace transmission to the reserve fleet to approach the planet on a low vector, bringing them in laterally and perpendicular to the main attack axis of the Feds
• Proceed to low-orbit carpet bomb and/or beam-down warhead and/or unstable singularity core
• Immediate emergency warp out
• Once the Feds see what happened behind them, put the sunglasses on, smirk at Riker and warp out the main fleet as the Feds are left with their jaws on the deck watching the planet crust as it cracks beneath them

I've been playing way too much STO.

That would depend on what transporter technology was like in 2399.

Yep - transwarp beaming seems to be the thing now, where they can send people from one star system to another, or from one planet to a ship in warp. They ostensibly had this tech in the 23rd century alternate universe, why not the 24th century prime universe? Beaming someone (or something) to the other side of the planet should barely break a sweat for them.

 

[fireproof78]

and one that has no dramatic stakes except for Admiral Cornwell's heroic self-sacrifice to detonate the Section 31 photon torpedo before it can cause catastrophic damage to the Enterprise.

That's a fair point but I appreciated Cornwell's sacrifice.

Into Darkness fucked them all up completely with Admiral Ends-Justify-The-Means and his USS Azzkicker dreadnought (that he had a fucking MODEL of on his desk!), and they've been wrong ever since.

I thought they made more sense in Into Darkness. Discovery remains to be scene. However on this point...

If the S31 series gets fully green-lit, they REALLY hire someone who actually WORKED as a dark operator IRL to serve as a consultant and get this shit right

Yes, please. And maybe a military consultant too.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Absolutely!

 

[Gonzo]

Personally in Oh's place I would have just said fire at will.

Same for Riker's now that I think about it.

Too much preparing to fire and not enough actual firing being done.

As Tuco said, "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk.".

 

[137th Gebirg]

Sadly, that's a pretty universal trope in the action-adventure genre. I like this one the best for folks who are particularly talky:

 

[fireproof78]

Too much preparing to fire and not enough actual firing being done.

I just put it on fear.

 

[Gonzo]

I just put it on fear.

More about plot than anything else really, I wont go into detail here due to spoilers just in case some haven't seen it yet.

 

[fireproof78]

More about plot than anything else really, I wont go into detail here due to spoilers just in case some haven't seen it yet.

Sure but that's pretty much all of Star Trek. As much as I admire to the passion of the Zhat Vash they are defined by one thing-fear. Faced with actually destroying their enemy I got a sense of fear too.

I might be reading in to it, which is fine by me. But, I truly think that there was a fear there too.

 

[Dukhat]

If they were that fearful, Riker’s posturing wouldn’t have affected them in the least. They would have still attacked the planet even if it cost them all their lives.

 

[fireproof78]

If they were that fearful, Riker’s posturing wouldn’t have affected them in the least. They would have still attacked the planet even if it cost them all their lives.

Which is why I think that fear gave them pause.

 

[Dukhat]

Which is why I think that fear gave them pause.

That’s not how fanatics think.

 

[fireproof78]

That’s not how fanatics think.

Then she should have attempted to kill the synthetics and died in the attempt.