What is/are the worst or most unbelievable plot convenience device(s)
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Re: What is/are the worst or most unbelievable plot convenience device
They intended to build an entire fleet to battle the Borg. When the Borg did return, the only Defiant class ship that was fighting it was the Defiant itself.
And when the dominion war came, the defiant seemed to be a small minority compared to the other ships. Let's say at least 8 total have been seen so far, in many various engagements.
However, a lot of research went into the Prometheus, during the war, (the middle of it) and around this time the Fed came very close to losing it, simply from a severe loss of ships and fleets.
It was proven that every one Defiant could take out maybe 5 Jem Hadar ships. Not mass producing it was a strange move.
Counselor Troi must be very powerful, if she can sense the feelings of other people on a ship --that possibly could be about a mile away or more, and separated by total space.
Bu she does, and they never explained that one.
They intended to build an entire fleet to battle the Borg. When the Borg did return, the only Defiant class ship that was fighting it was the Defiant itself.
And when the dominion war came, the defiant seemed to be a small minority compared to the other ships. Let's say at least 8 total have been seen so far, in many various engagements.
However, a lot of research went into the Prometheus, during the war, (the middle of it) and around this time the Fed came very close to losing it, simply from a severe loss of ships and fleets.
It was proven that every one Defiant could take out maybe 5 Jem Hadar ships. Not mass producing it was a strange move.
Counselor Troi must be very powerful, if she can sense the feelings of other people on a ship --that possibly could be about a mile away or more, and separated by total space.
Bu she does, and they never explained that one.
Re: What is/are the worst or most unbelievable plot convenience device
For all we know, however. When we saw the battle, the Enterprise only joined at the tail end; and by that point, Starfleet had been fighting the Borg for a fairly long time. We know it must have been a long battle because it started while the Enterprise was in the Romulan Neutral Zone, and it takes time to travel back to Earth. Also, at the rate that Starfleet was losing ships left and right from what we actually saw, it could perhaps be inferred that the fleet was much larger when it engaged the Borg.
Building one Prometheus doesn't mean Starfleet ignored building other Defiants, however -- there's nothing on screen to imply that. If there's one thing Starfleet likes to do, it's to build different classes simultaneously, it seems, and Starfleet tends to be quite good at multitasking.
Additionally, we don't really know how long it takes to build a Defiant. Sisko managed to get the original in somewhat working order in the span of a year, but it was deemed unsafe and unready, and needed a few more months between seasons (and even then, there were still malfunctions and O'Brien spent time refining the Defiant between episodes). And that's still fairly quick when one considers the years it takes to build other classes like the Intrepid.
But time and again, we also hear of other fleets engaging the Dominion in grand battles that we just don't see. So we're making a fair number of assumptions here: we don't know what the building process looks like, what the true timetable of construction would be, and we don't really see the full scale of the war, either. For all we know, Defiants could be more common in other fleets, or just spread out more (the Battle of Bajor had 600 ships, but there was only enough budget to show a few dozen), or that Starfleet had begun larger scale production but the war ended too soon, or any number of factors.
In any case, the time between the debut of the Defiant and the end of the war is only a few years apart; the "mass-produced" ships we saw in DS9's fleet battles came from decades of gradual building. The most common vessels were the Mirandas and Excelsiors, which has a headstart that's decades long that very few modern ships would have the time to enjoy -- even the first Galaxy-class starships started construction years and years before Defiant. That could be why we see even fewer vessels like the Nebula, Steamrunner, and Intrepid, even though they're older than the Defiant. And even then, we still have visual proof that, by the end of the war -- or indeed, by the time Voyager returned -- there were several more Defiants at Starfleet's disposal, clearly indicating an increased rate of production.
For all we know, however. When we saw the battle, the Enterprise only joined at the tail end; and by that point, Starfleet had been fighting the Borg for a fairly long time. We know it must have been a long battle because it started while the Enterprise was in the Romulan Neutral Zone, and it takes time to travel back to Earth. Also, at the rate that Starfleet was losing ships left and right from what we actually saw, it could perhaps be inferred that the fleet was much larger when it engaged the Borg.
Building one Prometheus doesn't mean Starfleet ignored building other Defiants, however -- there's nothing on screen to imply that. If there's one thing Starfleet likes to do, it's to build different classes simultaneously, it seems, and Starfleet tends to be quite good at multitasking.
Additionally, we don't really know how long it takes to build a Defiant. Sisko managed to get the original in somewhat working order in the span of a year, but it was deemed unsafe and unready, and needed a few more months between seasons (and even then, there were still malfunctions and O'Brien spent time refining the Defiant between episodes). And that's still fairly quick when one considers the years it takes to build other classes like the Intrepid.
But time and again, we also hear of other fleets engaging the Dominion in grand battles that we just don't see. So we're making a fair number of assumptions here: we don't know what the building process looks like, what the true timetable of construction would be, and we don't really see the full scale of the war, either. For all we know, Defiants could be more common in other fleets, or just spread out more (the Battle of Bajor had 600 ships, but there was only enough budget to show a few dozen), or that Starfleet had begun larger scale production but the war ended too soon, or any number of factors.
In any case, the time between the debut of the Defiant and the end of the war is only a few years apart; the "mass-produced" ships we saw in DS9's fleet battles came from decades of gradual building. The most common vessels were the Mirandas and Excelsiors, which has a headstart that's decades long that very few modern ships would have the time to enjoy -- even the first Galaxy-class starships started construction years and years before Defiant. That could be why we see even fewer vessels like the Nebula, Steamrunner, and Intrepid, even though they're older than the Defiant. And even then, we still have visual proof that, by the end of the war -- or indeed, by the time Voyager returned -- there were several more Defiants at Starfleet's disposal, clearly indicating an increased rate of production.
IrishNero
Commodore
Re: What is/are the worst or most unbelievable plot convenience device
I guess my list is more of an annoyance list than a list of actual plot convenience devices. I'm as annoyed as anyone else about things like fixing issues by going back in time (if that were possible, why wouldn't you do that in every case?)
I'm really bugged by the whole warp thing. Presumably, you're speeding along at speeds that are multiples of the speed of light, yet you can be approached by other ships from behind (or beamed aboard, or fired upon by weapons that are visibly slower than even subsonic speeds).
Cryptography: OK, we're presumably scrambling our messages with crypto that is hundreds of years more advanced than what we currently have, which means that we'd probably be employing some form of extremely advanced cryptography (such as quantum cryptography). Yet, we seem to break crypto schemes and decode messages at ease just prior to an attack or another game-changer. Now That's a plot convenience device...
Another annoyance is the beaming of persons on or off of ships at will. What's the friggin' point of even having a ship if you really have no control over who gets onboard, or stays aboard?
Shields: Why have shields down at any point in time? Why would you not want a barrier up that could protect you from debris, rogue sneak attacks and random beam-aboard aliens intent upon sabotage? Seems to me that much of the bad stuff comes at times when shields are down. And for Pete's sake, why do the shields never stop anything when things get rough?
Time: With the universe being roughly 13 billion years old, are you going to tell me that every species is going to have more or less the same technologies? Heck, we're only a little over 100 years separated from the World War I and yet I'm pretty sure that we could decimate any military in the world of that time with the flip of a switch using today's technology and yet somehow, the whole universe has the same stuff (with the exception of cloaking, which apparently we need to steal in order to conveniently advance a storyline).
Finally, the holodeck: Why oh why would anyone want to spend any amount of time away from that little convenience on-board? They'd be forced to ban me from the place. Yet it seems that it's always available whenever senior officers (and only senior officers) want or get to use it to enjoy home? Please...I can't even get into a racquetball court at the local gym without signing up and waiting for a half-hour.
Toilets: No one in the history of Star Trek has ever needed to go to the John. Where are they? See them anywhere? And yet they're eating and drinking all of the time.
OK, I'm done.
I guess my list is more of an annoyance list than a list of actual plot convenience devices. I'm as annoyed as anyone else about things like fixing issues by going back in time (if that were possible, why wouldn't you do that in every case?)
I'm really bugged by the whole warp thing. Presumably, you're speeding along at speeds that are multiples of the speed of light, yet you can be approached by other ships from behind (or beamed aboard, or fired upon by weapons that are visibly slower than even subsonic speeds).
Cryptography: OK, we're presumably scrambling our messages with crypto that is hundreds of years more advanced than what we currently have, which means that we'd probably be employing some form of extremely advanced cryptography (such as quantum cryptography). Yet, we seem to break crypto schemes and decode messages at ease just prior to an attack or another game-changer. Now That's a plot convenience device...
Another annoyance is the beaming of persons on or off of ships at will. What's the friggin' point of even having a ship if you really have no control over who gets onboard, or stays aboard?
Shields: Why have shields down at any point in time? Why would you not want a barrier up that could protect you from debris, rogue sneak attacks and random beam-aboard aliens intent upon sabotage? Seems to me that much of the bad stuff comes at times when shields are down. And for Pete's sake, why do the shields never stop anything when things get rough?
Time: With the universe being roughly 13 billion years old, are you going to tell me that every species is going to have more or less the same technologies? Heck, we're only a little over 100 years separated from the World War I and yet I'm pretty sure that we could decimate any military in the world of that time with the flip of a switch using today's technology and yet somehow, the whole universe has the same stuff (with the exception of cloaking, which apparently we need to steal in order to conveniently advance a storyline).
Finally, the holodeck: Why oh why would anyone want to spend any amount of time away from that little convenience on-board? They'd be forced to ban me from the place. Yet it seems that it's always available whenever senior officers (and only senior officers) want or get to use it to enjoy home? Please...I can't even get into a racquetball court at the local gym without signing up and waiting for a half-hour.
Toilets: No one in the history of Star Trek has ever needed to go to the John. Where are they? See them anywhere? And yet they're eating and drinking all of the time.
OK, I'm done.
Re: What is/are the worst or most unbelievable plot convenience device
In the case of number 3 they might orient themselves to the Galactic plane.
In the case of number 3 they might orient themselves to the Galactic plane.
IrishNero
Commodore
Re: What is/are the worst or most unbelievable plot convenience device
Say that to their face.
The klingons have pink blood!!! (of all people, huh?
Say that to their face.
Re: What is/are the worst or most unbelievable plot convenience device
But I thought it was blue for both sexes, to ward off demons and evil spirits?
Also, so that's where Pepto-Bismol comes from!
But I thought it was blue for both sexes, to ward off demons and evil spirits?
Also, so that's where Pepto-Bismol comes from!
Re: What is/are the worst or most unbelievable plot convenience device
In Undiscovered Country, it was a small patch on Kirk's back, which actually fits the topic of this thread! It's a small yet painfully obvious patch on the back of his uniform. Maybe ...they thought it was a rank insignia?
The under-the-skin pellet was from Patterns of Force, and it was the locator they used so the Enterprise could track them; later repurposed to get them out of the cell. Unclear from what distance that would be able to work.
In Undiscovered Country, it was a small patch on Kirk's back, which actually fits the topic of this thread! It's a small yet painfully obvious patch on the back of his uniform. Maybe ...they thought it was a rank insignia?
Re: What is/are the worst or most unbelievable plot convenience device
I thought it looked like a baby tribble.
In Undiscovered Country, it was a small patch on Kirk's back, which actually fits the topic of this thread! It's a small yet painfully obvious patch on the back of his uniform. Maybe ...they thought it was a rank insignia?
I thought it looked like a baby tribble.
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Re: What is/are the worst or most unbelievable plot convenience device
Reminds me of a song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwhAq3F8NCE
Reminds me of a song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwhAq3F8NCE
