Only believable if we assume that no equipment on NX-01 can detect ship hidden with hologram so there is regress in technology from 2018 to 2150s. And we must also forget about Xyrylians and Sulibans and cloak technology in Romulan mines.
USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?
- Thread starter EJD1984
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Only believable if we assume that no equipment on NX-01 can detect ship hidden with hologram so there is regress in technology from 2018 to 2150s. And we must also forget about Xyrylians and Sulibans and cloak technology in Romulan mines.
The Romulan starship cloak was immune to the 31st century super scanner, only the older mine model was visible.
The holographic camoflage did not cloak the drone, once they had it's warp signature, they could track it anywhere. They just didn't have targetting scanners good enough to keep up with it's sudden harring movement to avoid fire.
The true cloak was only ever seen in Minefield, and the novelverse where it nearly cost the Coalition the war building massive sensor nets around entire star systems to pick up displacement at the edge of the field, the physical mass of the ship moving through it.
The holographic camoflage did not cloak the drone, once they had it's warp signature, they could track it anywhere. They just didn't have targetting scanners good enough to keep up with it's sudden harring movement to avoid fire.
The true cloak was only ever seen in Minefield, and the novelverse where it nearly cost the Coalition the war building massive sensor nets around entire star systems to pick up displacement at the edge of the field, the physical mass of the ship moving through it.
I just realized a solution CBS can totally still do (even after 2 seasons) that everyone here kinda forgot (or chose to forget):
*Last scene of Season 2* Bunham's log - "Discovery is destroyed, Enterprise is destroyed. The red protomolecule infestation is everywhere throughout what was previously known as Federation. Stamets, before dying taught me how to use the mycelium network. I have used it 14,000,605 times to see if there are any ways of this sitution. I only found one that fixes everything. I need to go back in time 40 years and prevent my own birth. It's the only way. We're in the endgame now. Good bye universe!"
Yeah, that's the part where I think the Romulan Drone was intended as a sort of "retcon" of the stealth technology. Because how it was depicted in "Minefield" was more akin to the 24th century stealth technology. But then the Drone in the Romulans-three parter had a much more time-appropriate stealth technology. But it was presented as even more technological advanced than the one in "Minefield". So I guess the thought behind all that was simply that the cloaking devices in Minefield were retconned to have been slightly more advanced holographic cloaks as well. It also fits pretty good with the cloaked mine actually hitting the ship - in that it was still physically there, just invisible.
And that's when 'only the visuals are rebooted' falls apart.
Nope
Yes.
I actually wouldn’t mind that idea - that technology has regressed. Or at least *looked* like it had regressed. Future things can look like 1960s tubes but they can have any function the writers want. If they’re clever and creative enough they can explain why it all looks so groovy so that we, the audience, aren’t scratching our heads saying “that don’t look like no future”Only believable if we assume that no equipment on NX-01 can detect ship hidden with hologram so there is regress in technology from 2018 to 2150s. And we must also forget about Xyrylians and Sulibans and cloak technology in Romulan mines.
Spock: that would explain a great many things...
Like why we never see or hear from Michael again. Or why Sarek didn’t mention her when he broke down in TNG (he didn’t mention sybok either - but that’s irrelevant since TFF was all Kirk’s dream).
Who are the arbiters of when it is and when it isn’t a retcon? The producers? The fans? Proponents of the visual reboot? Opponents of the visual reboot? When is a retcon not a retcon? When it’s ajar?
Star Trek has done retcons before, didn't make what ever series/movie it was a reboot.
There comes a point, where you've retconned so much, that it still ends up a reboot. A reboot by a thousand retcons.
It didn't have stealth. It could look like other ships, it showed up on all sensors. Enterprise isolated it's warp signature without it even being in the same star system and could track all it's movements after that. Once they shared it with the other Coalition ships, it couldn't go anywhere without being tracked and the Rommies called them home.
Romulan ships had cloaks at that point still, they just avoided showing it again. But they have had full on cloaks since before 2152, better than anyone else had at the time.
Well, that doesn't really solve Enterprise's cloak "problem", since the Suliban had claking tech too and that one was almost certainly not the same as the Romulans'.
I think everyone should have cloaks. Cloaks all around. Then we can start a cult.
Yup.
Right there.
So does that render all discussion here about interpreting retcons moot? As in, should we view the producers like the Cardassian people view Central Command: an infallible dictatorial authority that is above reproach?
Obviously you’re right of course - the people making the show decide what they want to retcon. Yet we have arguments being made here that certain things should or should not be interpreted as retcons for the purposes of rationalising changes we may either like or dislike. And does a thousand retcons make a reboot?
And do I care? I didn’t care that the Melbourne became excelsior class whilst simultaneously being a nebula class ship at the same point in history. I care a little more that the whole visual aesthetic of the original series-adjacent era doesn’t suggest TOS as much as I’d like it to.
But Star Trek exists in this odd state of being simultaneously correct and contradictory whilst being both fluidic and rigid in its reasoning, and also linear and nonlinear in its storytelling.
I may have melted my brain.
Yes. They reference those events in "Shockwave" when seeing through the Suliban cloak.
Keep in mind the NX-01 had several significant technological updates in the meantime, including a full refit after the XIndi-War and technological exchange with the Vulcan after they changed their leaderships.
It's still possible the Romulan "cloaking device" was the very same magic holographic cloak just turned on to be invisible, instead of aping another ship. And it showed this ship could alter it's warp signature to look like other's, if it's capable to change that on a whim, it's also able to try to make it blend with background radiation.
Really, it might have simply been that Enterprise season 2 sensor weren't up to the task of detecting this holographic cloak, while upgraded season 4 sensors were. It's not that the "Minefield"-cloak was so advanced. But that Enterprise's sensors pre-technology exchange were simply not up to the task.
Which wuld make a lot more sense for how the Romulans acted in that three-parter: If they had a functioning 24th century cloak at that point - one that Vulcans et a. couldn't detect - they would have used it.
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