USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?

[BillJ]

FYI I do understand that cloaking devices in ENT and DSC are violations of continuity.

I think Enterprise is easier to gloss over if one wants. Taking place a century prior, one can chalk it up to either poor record keeping or lost records. The Discovery one is just plain hard to explain, and requires us to tap dance with ideas that just don't really fit. They go out of their way to show how good the Klingon cloak actually is. I'd say it would qualify as a "practical invisibility screen". In a war that Spock was at the very least a member of Starfleet during, and likely was involved in some capacity. Secrecy also doesn't work as the Klingons were using them all over the place during the war, which was why it was so critical that Discovery comes up with a way to break it.

I've been a fan of Star Trek, and to a lesser extent the rest of the franchise for as long as I've been alive (even Discovery does some things right). Some things are easier to reconcile than others, and I don't like having to reconcile something that makes a character that prides himself on his accuracy look flat incompetent. I don't like it when its Spock, I wouldn't like it if it were done to any other character in the franchise.

As in all things, your mileage may vary.

 

[Jadeb]

I can't get that worked up about the cloak thing. That anyone in the 23rd century would be surprised by cloaking technology seems silly, but especially the captain of a starship encountering the unknown. Further, Spock talks about "selective bending of light," as though the sensors are cameras, which is rather odd. But the dialogue was written to convey the concept to 20th century people, and I'm OK with that. I don't need to scrutinize it any more than the writer intended, and I can't really fault subsequent writers for wanting to use what seems like rather predictable future technology.

Much more hard for me to accept is TNG's crazy idea to redesign the Romulans. The cloak mcguffin is only there to reveal that they look like Vulcans, and the contrast between the two identical races is the whole appeal.

 

[Tuskin38]

As far as the phaser goes, modify the trigger and add some subtle grips....but what they did was go overboard.

Not really? It isn’t that much more detailed then the original one, just slap some blue paint on it.

Star Trek's version of the 2250s is a specific setting. You can't claim you're using that setting while reinventing it from scratch. It's disingenuous.

Star Trek is fictional, not a historical period price.

They haven’t reinvented the lore though. Everything will still happen the way we saw in TOS, and TNG etc. They just updated the visuals.

 

[ITDUDE]

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

I think Enterprise is easier to gloss over if one wants. Taking place a century prior, one can chalk it up to either poor record keeping or lost records.

I thought it was just a mediocre holonovel.

 

[ITDUDE]

I thought it was just a mediocre holonovel.

RRrrrr, never mention that holo-crap ever again

 

[Tuskin38]

It was called a 'historical' program. They never said it was fictional.

But you could take it as being as accurate as a history book, as there is no way they'd have perfect visual records of those events. Just log files and personal accounts.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

They just updated the visuals.

Thanks to DS9 (calling out the Klingon differences) and Enterprise (augment virus), explaining visual differences is part of the lore of Star Trek.

 

[cooleddie74]

22nd century Suliban and Romulan cloaking technology is easy to explain if you consider that Starfleet and other Coalition member species classified their intelligence on both species' tactical capabilities and both the Temporal Cold War(from the point of view of Archer and his senior officers) and the Earth- Romulan War took place more than 100 years before Kirk's tenure on the Enterprise.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Funny that years later, in DS9 'Trials and Tribble-ations' and Enterprise 'In a Mirror, Darkly', they did not feel the need to update the design of either the Enterprise or the Defiant. I don't recall legions of people complaining about how old and unrealistic the Connie looked. It was the opposite. They liked seeing it again. And it was not out of place.

To then change things quite a lot for Discovery makes no real sense unless it is a different timeline.

There has been talk of taking the Kelvin timeline back to the original. It would only make sense if they had the Enterprise just as it was in TOS, because going back to the original timeline would mean that only the actors would be different.

 

[BillJ]

I can't get that worked up about the cloak thing. That anyone in the 23rd century would be surprised by cloaking technology seems silly, but especially the captain of a starship encountering the unknown. Further, Spock talks about "selective bending of light," as though the sensors are cameras, which is rather odd. But the dialogue was written to convey the concept to 20th century people, and I'm OK with that. I don't need to scrutinize it any more than the writer intended, and I can't really fault subsequent writers for wanting to use what seems like rather predictable future technology.

More than anything, it points to just an overall lack of creativity. Why was it so crucial for Klingons to have cloaks? If it is a predictable future technology (and its important to put it in based on that train of thought), why not just give it to everyone and call it a day?

They could've just given the Klingons a stealth tech if stealth was that important to the story. Paint the ships black and say they absorb the sensor energy. Making them hard to spot and track.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

More than anything, it points to just an overall lack of creativity.

That's super-hard to disagree with.

 

[BillJ]

That's super-hard to disagree with.

Thing is, they could've basically looked up an SR-71 Blackbird and applied the things known about it to a (pre-Discovery) D-7 . Which has a vaguely similar shape.

 

[BillJ]

Just a side note: looking at the SR-71 (which I knew very little about until just now), I'd have never guessed it was designed and built in the 1960's.

 

[cooleddie74]

Yep. And there was a supersonic bomber variant of the plane that never saw active duty but would have given America a strategic bomber capable of close to if not more than Mach 3.

 

[Jadeb]

Just a side note: looking at the SR-71 (which I knew very little about until just now), I'd have never guessed it was designed and built in the 1960's.

Silly, everyone knows that designs from the 1960s look hopelessly dated. Now, if the SR-71 had been designed in the mid-'70s, it could be the height of modernity.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Silly, everyone knows that designs from the 1960s look hopelessly dated. Now, if the SR-71 had been designed in the mid-'70s, it could be the height of modernity.

I raised this point earlier in a discussion with another poster but I’m still curious as to equivalent 60s designs with which we could compare the Enterprise - as I figured there must be dozens of 60s starship designs that would corroborate the unsubstantiated theory that the enterprise is “dated”. I didn’t get a reply yet and I’m impatient so I had a look at other 60s craft myself.

Some examples I found that could be comparable to the Enterprise (in that they are fictional craft in sci-fi shows) include:

The TARDIS
Fireball XL-5
The Jupiter 2
The mobeius (is that it? The one from “voyage to the bottom of the sea”?)

So, a short summary of each one:

TARDIS - 50s police box. Cult ship in its own right - but literal product of the 1950s, based on a real thing.

Fireball XL-5 - rocket ship. With boosters. Fit for Captain Proton.

Jupiter 2 - shiny flying saucer like its out of mars attacks. Giant window on the front.

Mobeius - giant shiny hammerhead shark type submarine. Giant window on the front.

Yes. That is only 4 examples.

However, I’m keen to discuss other examples of sci-fi ships similarly famous to the Enterprise from the 1960s that might support the currently unsupported idea that the enterprise is “dated”. Because the very brief survey above shows that sci-fi craft have very little in common with the Enterprise.

It is not a rocket ship.
It is not based on a real thing.
It does not have a giant window on the fro-

Well that last one is debatable. But does anyone have any further examples in support of the “dated old enterprise” design? Where’s admiral Morrow at? He also felt like the Enterprise has had her day.

 

[Rahul]

Silly, everyone knows that designs from the 1960s look hopelessly dated. Now, if the SR-71 had been designed in the mid-'70s, it could be the height of modernity.

lol.

 

[BillJ]

Silly, everyone knows that designs from the 1960s look hopelessly dated. Now, if the SR-71 had been designed in the mid-'70s, it could be the height of modernity.

I wasn't trying to prove any kind of point, I had always thought the SR-71 was a product of the 80's. It just shows my ignorance about aircraft.

 

[Tuskin38]

Eaves used some elements from 70s and older aircraft on some of his DSC designs.