Some similarly designed ships with exposed bridges didn't have the luxury of shields . . .
The Enterprise is the oddest design is sci-fi
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Some similarly designed ships with exposed bridges didn't have the luxury of shields . . .
To me, the Enterprise always looked like something that took full advantage of being built in space rather than on Earth.
Oh, wait...
Years ago I helped my son build one of the plastic model kits. Yes, the pylons were a colossal annoyance, and would break off at the slightest mishandling.
But then again, we had a gravitational field with which to contend.
A civilization that has to give a second thought to those kinds of "energy costs" doesn't build an interstellar spaceship like the Enterprise.
That's a good point, but whenever we see torpedoes turn/home in on a target, they've usually got a huge turning arc, which means quite a bit more time for the torpedo to reach its target should the saucer be in the way.
Additionally, the Galaxy has one *huge* and *wide* saucer, too. It's good for aesthetis, but if a torpedo needs to turn "up," it's got a long way to go before it hits the right angle.
The Enterprise-E had a few torpedo launchers added in Nemesis to basically cover all sides of the ship. That sort of plays down the theory of the torpedoes being extremely maneuverable and agile, I think.
Then again, that's all speculation on my end.
I have never seen a torpedo turning with a large arc except in Undiscovered country and then it was specially rigged. I don't think you can fire it upward if the launcher is pointing forward.
I feel I have to comment on this, at least in regards to TOS. One gets the distinct impression from the powers that be (writers, directors, actors, Gene, etc) intended for shields & screens to be the only real defense the Enterprise had. Any hit that could get through the shields meant the ship was a goner. Even from a pacing point, you'll notice how tension ramps up when the shields are about to give. Only after TWOK was the concept that the ship could take weapons fire invented, and then dramatic pacing for shieldless hits in later Trek became common place.
In TOS, we never really saw the Enterprise fire all her weapons, plus whenever she fought it was mostly from one angle. You tend to be forgiving of older SFX since it creates a kind of bias as to ship tactics and other things. Nobody ever attacked them from above, for example.
I mention that because while I give the TOS-E a pass, I can't do that for the E-D. Their most powerful forward weapon has a decent area of fire, but if the enemy is hovering above you (say, in a primo spot to blast the exposed bridge), your torpedo launcher is at the worst possible spot! It's blocked by one of the thickest areas of the ship, too! Ugh.
When the E-E had torpedo launchers behind the neck that could fire up, I was a bit relieved. But then schematics say there's only one quantum torpedo launcher, and it's located *surprise* below the saucer section once again. Bah!
However Voyager had at least 2 torpedo launchers. 1 was fired from below the saucer and went forwards. The other was fired from the top of the saucer (behind the bridge) and went aft (likely that whoever designed the Intrepid class was aware of these issues).
Phasers on TNG's Enterprise can fire in any direction. And Photon Torpedoes can be rigged with homing devices which can make them travel in an arc.
But who thought of that stuff in 1965? Roddenberry was too busy arguing with NBC executives to keep his cast in tact (remember Nimoy being too alien and having looking too much like the devil and having the first international class including an African-American woman in an intelligent, important position???)
Besides, Star Trek was supposed to be about the PEOPLE in space, not the technology. It wasn't until TNG came along that we really started talking physics.
But who thought of that stuff in 1965? Roddenberry was too busy arguing with NBC executives to keep his cast in tact (remember Nimoy being too alien and having looking too much like the devil and having the first international class including an African-American woman in an intelligent, important position???)
Besides, Star Trek was supposed to be about the PEOPLE in space, not the technology. It wasn't until TNG came along that we really started talking physics.
NBC was all for an "international cast." In fact I think they insisted on it. Their problems were with Spock ( as you stated) and GR casting his girlfriend as a female lead.
I feel I have to comment on this, at least in regards to TOS. One gets the distinct impression from the powers that be (writers, directors, actors, Gene, etc) intended for shields & screens to be the only real defense the Enterprise had. Any hit that could get through the shields meant the ship was a goner. Even from a pacing point, you'll notice how tension ramps up when the shields are about to give. Only after TWOK was the concept that the ship could take weapons fire invented, and then dramatic pacing for shieldless hits in later Trek became common place.
In TOS, we never really saw the Enterprise fire all her weapons, plus whenever she fought it was mostly from one angle. You tend to be forgiving of older SFX since it creates a kind of bias as to ship tactics and other things. Nobody ever attacked them from above, for example.
I mention that because while I give the TOS-E a pass, I can't do that for the E-D. Their most powerful forward weapon has a decent area of fire, but if the enemy is hovering above you (say, in a primo spot to blast the exposed bridge), your torpedo launcher is at the worst possible spot! It's blocked by one of the thickest areas of the ship, too! Ugh.
When the E-E had torpedo launchers behind the neck that could fire up, I was a bit relieved. But then schematics say there's only one quantum torpedo launcher, and it's located *surprise* below the saucer section once again. Bah!
However Voyager had at least 2 torpedo launchers. 1 was fired from below the saucer and went forwards. The other was fired from the top of the saucer (behind the bridge) and went aft (likely that whoever designed the Intrepid class was aware of these issues).
In that regard, sure. I mentioned the E-E specifically because it seemed to cover all angles, even moreso than Voyager did (And for the record, Voyager has four tubes, two forward and two aft). Still, just b/c the E-E and Voyager had more coverage doesn't retroactively forgive the E-D for that design flaw
Assuming that's true, that's pretty weird and somewhat backwards of 24th century tech, considering that 21st century warheads have guidance systems as a standard feature and don't need to be specially rigged on the fly or beforehand.
But I've always assumed that torpedoes have always had a standard guidance system anyway. Not a perfect system by any means, but a system nonetheless.
The design is actually very sound. If you know anything about the future of space travel, the power generated by those engines would have to be seperated from the main crew compliment to protect them from heat and radiation exposure. As far as the bridge, there is always aux control. When it comes to weapons tho it comes up short, but back in the sixties, like khan, we were thinking more along the lines of two dimensional battle than three dimensional arenas of conflict. As far as the design being fragile, that's why they came up with the ship's integrity field, but remember as well, there is no resistance in space.
As far as symbolism in the ship design, the first written encounter with the Romulans decribed the ship as a shield, two swords and a war club.
As far as symbolism in the ship design, the first written encounter with the Romulans decribed the ship as a shield, two swords and a war club.
Obviously.
I don't understand why an enemy would hover above you? Torpedo launchers are basically 24th century chase guns, like on old sailing ships. You're either going to be going after someone when attacking them, or running away, that's why you need fore and aft. Why would you need one firing upwards or sideways?
Are you talking about the actress or the character? Nichelle Nicols is African-American but Uhura, I believe, is East African...
I never thought it was that strange, but that's probably because it was a pretty well-established concept by the time I was born.
What are you talking about? What first written encounter?
Because there are three dimensions in space
Besides, 99% of the time, torpedoes in Trek are usually depicted as simply things that go boom -- big, powerful, messy. If you wanted to disable key sections of a target and reduce their performance, phasers (like scalpels) are the way to go, and phaser arrays pretty much eliminate the blind spot on many ships.Say what you will about the E-E Vs. the Scimitar battle, but the E-E's dorsal and ventral launchers were pretty handy in at least hitting the Scimitar.
Keep in mind, this is taking into account Trek physics, where torpedoes can come from all sides (the Dominion War, for example) and ships are only a few kilometers apart in battle, at least lately. In TOS, you got the impression of ships in battle fighting over huge gulfs of space b/c you rarely saw the Enterprise and the enemy in the same shot. Dialogue said they'd be 500,000 km from a target and thus couldn't be in the same shot. With such distances in mind, then you'd be right, you don't need torpedo launchers all over the place b/c of travel times.
Then TNG came along and to show off its impressive FX, ships would be fighting in the same shot. But that also meant they were fighting much closer than sometimes even the dialogue would give (thousands of kilometers apart according to Data, but on screen they're only really like 5 kilometers apart). That became the standard in Trek, and suddenly every ship would fight in close quarters.
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No... It was in something called a book.
Back in the day, they used to write short stories about the different TV episodes and publish them in paperback. I probably have dozens in either the attic or garage. Couldn't tell you which one, but it's there.
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Yeah, I know what a book is. I used to sell them, back in the day.
No... It was in something called a book.
Is this from the Blish adaptation of "Balance of Terror"? He took quite a few liberties and was often working from first drafts rather than shooting scripts.
You also have to remember that who ever wrote that didn't design the ship, create the Romulans or write the original episode. And IIRC, originally the Romulan ship was supposed to be an "Earth" ship the Romulans had stolen. (I might have read that in a book).
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