Why didn't the Pegasus just explode when it was starting to rephase inside that asteroid? I mean, I love how it looked embedded in the rock, but it just never made sense to me.
The Pegasus...
- Thread starter gillmanjr
- Start date
When I saw this episode, I got mad at the end. Picard says "drop the cloak" and I thought "What are you doing?! Just leave! Let the Romulans sit there waiting." Maybe they should have set a time delay charge to blow up the asteroid. The Romulans just wanted to capture the Enterprise and it's secrets. They aren't your friends.
Is Starfleet not even allowed to experiment or run tests with cloaking technology? I don't understand this treaty. It sounds like the Federation fought a war with the Romulans, using cloaks, and lost the war. How else is it permissible for them to use cloaking technology, including the "Phase Cloak" as seen in The Next Phase, but the Federation is not?
Help me understand this, Peekard!
Is Starfleet not even allowed to experiment or run tests with cloaking technology? I don't understand this treaty. It sounds like the Federation fought a war with the Romulans, using cloaks, and lost the war. How else is it permissible for them to use cloaking technology, including the "Phase Cloak" as seen in The Next Phase, but the Federation is not?
Help me understand this, Peekard!
There need not have been war, just the promise of one. The Federation would automatically lose, because what defense can there be against cloaked attack at, say, Earth? Oh, Starfleet might subsequently destroy the entire Romulan Star Empire and dance on its grave, but the UFP would still have lost the war on Day One.
Romulans of course would know that the reverse would be true if the UFP gained effective cloaking. So they won't be lenient about it!
Timo Saloniemi
Romulans of course would know that the reverse would be true if the UFP gained effective cloaking. So they won't be lenient about it!
Timo Saloniemi
But there was a war. What power can the Romulans Lord over the Federation, that the Federation cower before them so often. They've been caught plotting to destroy of capture the enterprise numerous times.
When Picard caught them testing their own phasing cloak, what was there reaction? kindly receive Picard's aid and then destroy his ship, and kill everyone on board.
When Picard caught them testing their own phasing cloak, what was there reaction? kindly receive Picard's aid and then destroy his ship, and kill everyone on board.
When? We never heard of one. That is, no war with the Romulans after the introduction of cloaking.
The power of being their very closest neighbors, with invisible ships for first strike capacity. Sort of like, say, Cuba having SLBMs deployed two miles from the US coast and promising to fire every single one of them if the US as much as publishes a pro gradu paper submarine or ABM technology.
And Picard has never been able to prosecute, rather heavily suggesting the Romulans have the strategic drop on them.
The Romulans can threaten with war. It's not as if they will actually launch one, though, because then they would lose and die. But it's not as if the UFP can risk anything on that, either, because then they die.
Timo Saloniemi
I don't think they were only concerned about the gravitation pull of the asteroid. They were concerned about going INSIDE of the asteroid because to Data's knowledge no starship had ever been taken inside a large celestial body like that. There could be things going on inside, both gravitational and magnetic, that are unknown. In fact this could very well be true in reality, let alone in Star Trek.
Any episode where the Enterprise was about to go into battle. "The Defector" springs immediately to mind.
Picard had two dilemmas: He had to both go into the asteroid to find the Pegasus, and keep the Romulan warbird at bay at the same time. Logically, if the ship has separation capabilities, and the entire ship could fit in the asteroid as the episode showed, then logically the best scenario would have been to keep the better-armed-and engined half of the ship (stardrive) outside to make sure the Romulans didn't attack, and let the weaker, impulse-powered half of the ship (saucer) enter the asteroid with minimal crew. That way if something went wrong, the stardrive section would have better defenses and could more easily escape while the weaker saucer was abandoned and the skeleton crew either beamed aboard the stardrive or sacrificed.
And that's even more of an impetus to only send in the saucer instead of the stardrive section or the entire ship. If there was a problem inside the asteroid where the unknown forces would keep them stuck, then at least they'd be able to beam to the stardrive section outside the asteroid and escape.
Except that the bulk of the ship's habitable area was contained in the saucer...it's unclear that all of the civilians could realistically be relocated to the stardrive.
I'm also reasonably sure that variable X would have prevented beaming from inside the asteroid to outside it.
I'm also reasonably sure that variable X would have prevented beaming from inside the asteroid to outside it.
Funnily enough, the heroes probably gave us X themselves: in order to hide the signature of the wreck, they blanketed the asteroid in radiation that their own transporters quite probably are just as unable to penetrate as the Romulan sensors were!
While the inside of the asteroid could be full of unexpected dangers, gravitic pull should never be one of them. Even if the walls of the cave were lined with black holes, that would still be orders of magnitude too little to endanger the ship, a machine built specifically to deal with much higher accelerations with great precision and speed. And that's with impulse engines alone, so dragging the bulky and vulnerable warp nacelles along should not be much of an advantage.
Timo Saloniemi
While the inside of the asteroid could be full of unexpected dangers, gravitic pull should never be one of them. Even if the walls of the cave were lined with black holes, that would still be orders of magnitude too little to endanger the ship, a machine built specifically to deal with much higher accelerations with great precision and speed. And that's with impulse engines alone, so dragging the bulky and vulnerable warp nacelles along should not be much of an advantage.
Timo Saloniemi
That was kind of a dumb move. They don't want the Romulans to know about the asteroid. Picard is like "Where's the Romulan Ship?" "Oh, they're really far away now. We're good to go!"
If they could track the Romulan ship, couldn't the Romulans also track them going back to that special asteroid?
If they could track the Romulan ship, couldn't the Romulans also track them going back to that special asteroid?
Of course, and it was an acknowledged story point. The E-D could not return to the asteroid at a time of their own free choosing, but had to create a fake "search pattern", conforming to which would innocently take them back to the asteroid. Which was not "special" any more, now that the heroes had done the camouflaging.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Exactly. Which made the return look innocent rather than deliberate. And they could now do a quick in-and-out job, having prepared for it (that is, no longer needing Data's "six hours" of in situ preparation), so it wouldn't matter whether the Romulans could see them going to the asteroid or not.
What is ruled out, incidentally, is that they would not have faked a schedule but would only have waited for those mandatory six hours specified by Data. They return at 0800 hours "tomorrow", after all.
Timo Saloniemi
What is ruled out, incidentally, is that they would not have faked a schedule but would only have waited for those mandatory six hours specified by Data. They return at 0800 hours "tomorrow", after all.
Timo Saloniemi
Actually, both of those examples would fit with the TNG Tech Manual description of the saucer not having a warp engine but a "warp sustainer coil" that allows it to accept a handoff warp field from the stardrive section, in order that it doesn't immediately drop to sublight once separated at warp speeds (torpedoes have the same system for warp-firing). The field decays slowly, so if separated at high warp, the saucer probably gets a few hours of warp travel.
Neither of the examples fits that model - in fact, both directly establish the model as false.
In "Encounter at Farpoint", the saucer quite explicitly stayed a full hour at warp, not mere minutes. That is, the combined ship was traveling towards Deneb IV; the threat of Q made her flee in the opposite direction (we saw the U-turn) at extreme warp for several minutes at least; and then the saucer separated. One hour later, the saucer made it to Deneb IV orbit nevertheless, having traveled the distance of several extreme-warp-minutes in a matter of one hour. (And yes, the saucer may have spent some of that hour at impulse. But the more, the greater this makes its warp performance in compensation.)
In "Arsenal of Freedom", the saucer received no warp boost from the stardrive section. If it were technically possible to give such a boost, LaForge should be hanged, drawn and quartered and then shot twice for failing to provide the boost.
The former episode establishes significant warp performance for the saucer (which the dialogue implied was separated at warp, even though the visuals show the separation taking place at impulse). The latter established the ability of the saucer to accelerate to interstellar speeds all on its own, plus the inability to benefit from stardrive boost.
Timo Saloniemi
In "Encounter at Farpoint", the saucer quite explicitly stayed a full hour at warp, not mere minutes. That is, the combined ship was traveling towards Deneb IV; the threat of Q made her flee in the opposite direction (we saw the U-turn) at extreme warp for several minutes at least; and then the saucer separated. One hour later, the saucer made it to Deneb IV orbit nevertheless, having traveled the distance of several extreme-warp-minutes in a matter of one hour. (And yes, the saucer may have spent some of that hour at impulse. But the more, the greater this makes its warp performance in compensation.)
In "Arsenal of Freedom", the saucer received no warp boost from the stardrive section. If it were technically possible to give such a boost, LaForge should be hanged, drawn and quartered and then shot twice for failing to provide the boost.
The former episode establishes significant warp performance for the saucer (which the dialogue implied was separated at warp, even though the visuals show the separation taking place at impulse). The latter established the ability of the saucer to accelerate to interstellar speeds all on its own, plus the inability to benefit from stardrive boost.
Timo Saloniemi
Maybe the saucer section is equipped with one or more subspace resonators capable of generating/maintaining low-warp. http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Subspace_resonator
For the sake of curiosity, why didn't they build other models with the ability to separate?
The saucer has warp drive, lol? Perhaps it can press on in the wake of the stardrive section but I don't think it has warpdrive itself. The first season is very weak on bedding in the exact capacities of the ship, I wouldn't use inconsistencies to pole vault to the idea that the saucer has a warp core of its own.
Undermines the need for warp nacelles at all. And if there's two independent warp systems, there's plenty of episodes were the crew mysteriously refuse the saucer warp drive to escape. Nah, I don't buy it.
Undermines the need for warp nacelles at all. And if there's two independent warp systems, there's plenty of episodes were the crew mysteriously refuse the saucer warp drive to escape. Nah, I don't buy it.
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