Babylon 5 vs. DS9
Frederick Pagniello
1) Why did the Klingons employ strafing runs of DS9? Given that beam
weapons can fire at considerable distance, it makes little sense to
enter into close-range combat and put a ship at unnecessary risk.
Yes, the Klingons are fierce warriors, but not stupid. Unless you
have unlimited resources...
2) Hasn't _anyone_ ever heard of defensive warfare? Like, wouldn't
both the Federation and Klingon Empire (and everyone else) have
developed sophisticated devices to fool the targeting systems of
photon torpedos? Given the expense of a capital ship, it seems
_highly_ unlikely that one would send it into battle without
equiping it with as many defensive devices as possible.
3) One of the dumbest ideas I've ever seen was the boaring of DS9 by
the Klingons, who were armed with batlevs. They were sitting ducks,
and were beaten back. Yes, given a sufficiently large force, they
probably wouold have taken the stattion...with a loss of life that
would have been unacceptable. As soon as the Kligons beamed into
the station they were phasered if there were DS9 personal in the
vicinity. Of course, the Japanese did engage in suicidal attacks
against American forces in the island campaigns in the Pacific, but
I suspect that it was more out of desperation. Someone who is more
knowledgeable than me, I would be most greatful is you would give
us a good analysis; it seems that the wild banzai charges would never
have been used if the Japanese were winning the battles.
4) I suggest that people read about the night battles that occured
between the American and Japanese naval forces in the Guadelcanal
area, in which so many ships were sunk that the location of the
battle was called "Iron-bottom Sound". Apparently, before the
introduction of radar one used search lights to target an enemy ship
and hopefully blasted him out the water before he did the same to
you. The introduction of radar changed all that, making it possible
to blast an enemy ship without his being able to return fire as he
couldn't see you. Of course, battles are _never_ that safe. Anyway,
a good maxim in battle is to keep your mouth shut and your ears and
eyes open; let the other guy announce his position before you do.
There isn't much call for second place...
From what I can tell, it seems that B5 gives a far better depiction of what
space-battles would be like, than Trek. Acrobatic roles and other moves are
best portrayed in Star Wars, which does not not seem to strive for scientific
accuracy; that does not seem to be Lucas's goal, which there is nothing
wrong with it. By the by, battles in Star Trek were conducted at long-range
in the old series, although there was one episode "Journey to Bable" where
the Enterprise was attacked via strafing run. But then, the attacker was on
a suicide mission and could expend all his energy, having no intention of
returning to base. And he was coming in at full speed, which made hitting
him almost impossible. The Klingon ships attacking DS9 were cominng in at
_slow_ speeds, sitting ducks for any weapons. (Check out the movie "633
Squadron"; talk about a suicide run! Also - the attack on the interogation
building by a lone Mosquito bomber at full throttle and at tree-top level;
that's got to be a rush and then some...)
Jah sai was fraitan thata faihu ana agra fram wairam thaim gredagam,
Frederick James Pagniello.
Dave Mansell
> In <469a93$n...@hamblin.math.byu.edu> piet...@bert.cs.byu.edu (John P
> Pietrzak) writes:
> >
> >In article <465u29$o...@muss.cis.mcmaster.ca>
> u921...@muss.cis.McMaster.CA (N. Donovan) writes:
> >>
> >>In article <4641hd$t...@ravel.seattleu.edu>, Teklu
> <Te...@seattleu.edu> wrote:
> >>>Last season, Babylon 5 had far better special effects
> >>>and battles than DS9 had.
> >>>
> >>HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH!
> >[etc.]
> >>
> >>In case anyone actually believes this, I have FOUR simple words:
> >>
> >> THE DEFIANT STRAFING SHIPS
> >
> >As a person who actually believes this, I have a great deal more than
> >just four words for a response. :) In Deep Space Nine the past
> >season, we've seen fleets of ships for the first time in any Trek,
the
> >Defiant performing more acrobatically than any ship in the show to
> >date, and lots of new and interesting weaponry... Definitely an
> >improvement.
> >
> >However, in B5, we have more and bigger fleets of ships, more varied
> >ship operations (they aren't always just blowing up other ships), and
> >more detailed special effects. (Not to mention that they almost get
> >the physics right, rather than doing Star Wars' "airplanes in space"
> or
> >Star Trek's "ocean-going vessels in space".)
> >
> >(spoilers for individual 2nd season B5 episodes follow...)
> >
>
>
>
> >
> >In "Revelations" and "And Now For A Word", we have detailed actions
> >between small groups of fighter-sized spacecraft, using fleet tactics
> >for agressive and/or defensive purposes. "Points of Departure" pits
> >two much larger fleets of fighters against each other. In "All Alone
> >in the Night", a medium-sized capital ship overwhelms a small patrol
> of
> >fighter craft, and is itself overwhelmed later by a larger fleet of
> >fighters in conjunction with a capital ship of their own. (For a
> >victim's-eye view of being in a single-seater ship as a capital ship
> >blows you to smithereens, see "A Spider in the Web.") Individual
> >capital ships also slug it out between each other in "Points of
> >Departure," "Revelations," and "And Now For A Word."
> >
> >In "The Coming of Shadows," we get to see what a theoretically
> complete
> >fleet formation should look like, as the ceremonial procession
> bringing
> >the Centauri Emperor to the station includes a flagship, a few
smaller
> >battleships, a screen of small cruisers or large destroyers, and
> >several dozen fighters, all flying in (3D) formation. As well, a
> small
> >fleet engagement occurs in this episode, as a number of large capital
> >ships ambush and destroy a relatively small planetary defense force,
> >and a smaller, mixed group of fighters and cruisers take on the
> >reinforcements sent to aid the planet. "Acts of Sacrifice" shows
part
> >of a pitched battle between two slightly larger fleets, while "The
> >Long, Twilight Struggle" actually shows an entire (if abbreviated)
> >battle between two complete fleets, involving long-range weapons
fire,
> >pickets of fighters engaging each other, and finally the capital
ships
> >bringing their main weaponry to bear upon each other.
> >
> >And then, there are transportation ships ("The Geometry of Shadows,"
> >"The Long Dark," etc.), maintenance ships (from the gigantic
> >gate-construction and exploration vessel in "A Distant Star" to the
> >tiny maintenance 'bots in "And Now for a Word"), immobile space
> >habitations (including B5 itself and part of the planetary defenses
in
> >"The Coming of Shadows"), and several planetary landings ("Gropos,"
> >"In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum," and "The Long, Twilight Struggle").
> >
> >(And, the second season of B5 isn't over yet! At least, I haven't
> seen
> >the last two episodes yet, although it seems everyone else on the net
> >has already. I make no guarantees that I've remembered all of the
> >various FX sequences of B5 season 2 either, there's been so many of
> >them...)
> >
> >John
>
> Given all the hype that B5 fanatics (and JMS himself stated) regarding
> the Narn/Shadows "Fleet" confrontation over the Centari supply world,
I
> felt a bit cheated because I didn't feel that it was even close to
some
> of the CGI I've seen on B5 in the past:
>
> 1) I'm sorry, but given all the build up to this point, and the fact
> that the Narn commander kept saying that this will be one of the
> biggest offenses the Narn have mounted (as well as it being a last
> ditch effort to slow the Centari advance) -- is FIVE CAPITAL SHIPS
> all that the Narn could muster?? -- I was laughing when I saw
> this, and was thinking "Boy, some offensive.."
I suggest you recount. The fleet consisted of somewhere between 8 and 15
Cruisers and large numbers of fighters. you can see this if you watch
the scene in hyperspace. Seven Narn heavy cruisers were shown being
destroyed, but there is no reason to suppose that that is all of the
ships that were present. Indeed in several shots you could see beams
from Shadow cruisers in the background, presumably firing at other
capital ships. Remember this is an attempt to film a a real space
battle. Unlike WoTW the ships being engaged did not line up in order to
make DS9's job easier. They were spread out over a reasonably large area
of space, and engaging an enemy who were some considerable distance
away. Not standing (metaphorically) next to each other and slugging it
out.
>
> 2) As for tatics, I'm sorry, but if you're going all out on a "last
> ditch effort"; after being informed that "Four ships of unknown
> configuration are closing", the LAST words I would expect the
> Fleet Commander to say is "Can we retreat back into Hyperspace?"
> I mean, come on, you call that tatics? A more believe able Fleet
> Tatic would be to have the majority of the Fleet pull back giving
> support fire to a small group of picket ships sent forward to
> engage and test the "unknown" ememy's combat capability, or
> SOMETHING more than "I guess we'll have to engage them." The
> Narn tatics were laughable. The only shot I found well done was
> the Narn Cruiser cleaved in two by the Shadow's energy beam.
When confronted with an unknown enemy in a situation where he expected
a Centauri planetary defence fleet, the Commander's first thoughts were
likely to be that this was an ambush (especially after G'Kar's warning).
Like any good commander his first reaction is to find out what his
options are, and thus he asked if they were capable of retreating. They
were not, and so his only remaining option is to engage. Remember B5
attempts to be as realistic as possible. In space there is no
atmosphere to limit range. There is no need to close to within a few
kilometers, his vessels were probably already within range of the enemy
who were approaching at speed. Had his ships started to pull back they
would have had to turn (they're large capitol ships remember, using
a thrust propulsion system - they can't turn on a sixpence) leaving
themselves as sitting ducks. Similarly those no point in sending out a
picket of smaller ships when you are already in range of the opponents
beam weapons (limited diffusion in space remember).
So what did he do? Launch mines into the path of the oncoming ships
(partly to slow them down and gain time) and follow up with long range
beam weapons. Unfortunately his opponents were not only faster and more
maneuverable, they also had MUCH more effective weapons.
I guess you missed the really method the Shadows used to launch their
fighters to engage the Narn fighters, or the way they collapsed the
jumpoint to prevent the survivors escaping?
> I like both DS9 and B5, but as far as fleet actions go, DS9's "Way
> of the Warrior" was executed much better. It had a variety of shots
> (from a varietyof angles) of weapons being deployed. The scene where
> they show the Photon Torpedo's point of view as they fly out and
> destrory an old style Klingon Battle Cruiser was interesting; as well
> as the shots of a variety of weapons being deployed with some hits,
> and some misses, etc.
Wait for "A Fall of Night" then, you'll see where they got the idea.
> As for the tatics in "Way of the Warrior", Sisko
> didn't do that much, but what he did MADE SENSE - firing all odd
> numbered torpedo tubes, followed by even numbered torpedo tubes,
> followed by Phasers at close range, and lastly letting the individual
> Fire Control Officers fire at will. Was it simplistic? Yes.
Umm, there was no need for the Klingons ever to get into close range.
Look at modern combat now. the majority is carried out at extreme range.
In any case Sisko was helped by the Klingons conveniently lining up like
a duck shoot so he could conentrate his fire...
> But it made a hell of a lot more sense than the Narn tatics in their
> "Big" Fleet engagement of five Cruisers.
I suggest you talk to a Naval Officer about which set of tactics made
more sense.
In any case Sisko was fighting opponents of similar technology.
The Narn were on a hiding to nothing.
How long do you think a group of world war II to planes would survive
against a modern fighter?
> --
> she...@ix.netcom.com * Co-Founder of SHERBERT PRODUCTIONS *
> (aka: Phillip Sral) (a fan dubbing group)
pw...@ibm.net
>Wait for "A Fall of Night" then, you'll see where they got the idea.
If it hadn't come out yet, then how could Ds9 know about it. Besides,
from what you said, it seems that WOTW was broadcast first- couldn't
it be a simple coincidence by any chance?
>Umm, there was no need for the Klingons ever to get into close range.
>Look at modern combat now. the majority is carried out at extreme range.
>In any case Sisko was helped by the Klingons conveniently lining up like
>a duck shoot so he could conentrate his fire...
I agree about not having to engage at close range, but they didn't
line up! Didn't you see them come from above, below and both sides
in the "arial shot" and other shots.
>I suggest you talk to a Naval Officer about which set of tactics made
>more sense.
The difference is that space is more of a 3-d field. No gravity to limit
stratagies and ship performance as much.
>How long do you think a group of world war II to planes would survive
>against a modern fighter?
uh... about 200 WWII planes against one modern fighter? the modern fighter
would hold out for a while but not that long. I mean one collision between
the WWII plane and the modern one and the modern one's toast.
DS9 almost wasted the Klingons- one station against 200 Klingon ships.
That's got to say something about level of technology.
V.W.
David Stinson
>In <VA.0000001...@citsoft.co.uk>, Dave Mansell <da...@citsoft.co.uk>
writes:
>
>from what you said, it seems that WOTW was broadcast first- couldn't
>it be a simple coincidence by any chance?
THE FALL OF NIGHT was broadcast in early August in the UK, with a large amount
of ST poeple over there for WorldCon and other Trek conventions. There's also
a "top this" kind of thing that goes on between effects guys in Hollywood, to
see who can get the most out of one shot. Since there are effects people who
work on both shows, I would not be surprised to know that the guys at
Paramount may have seen the effects shots from TFON.
As has been said before by the guys on both sides- in this kind of
competition, its the audience that wins.
************************************************************************
** David A. Stinson ** Web Page: http://www.procom.com/~daves *
** dsti...@ix.netcom.com***********************************************
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Carlos G Diaz III
>
>In <VA.0000001...@citsoft.co.uk>, Dave Mansell
<da...@citsoft.co.uk> writes:
>
>from what you said, it seems that WOTW was broadcast first- couldn't
>it be a simple coincidence by any chance?
Uhhhh, maybe because it was shown in England back in July and I have
had a tape of all 4 episodes since August. I like DS-9 but I think the
desperation was played out quite well for the Narn, much better then
the Klingons against the Cardassians.
>
>>Umm, there was no need for the Klingons ever to get into close range.
>>Look at modern combat now. the majority is carried out at extreme
range.
>>In any case Sisko was helped by the Klingons conveniently lining up
like
>>a duck shoot so he could conentrate his fire...
>
>I agree about not having to engage at close range, but they didn't
>line up! Didn't you see them come from above, below and both sides
>in the "arial shot" and other shots.
>
This is TV remember.....
>>I suggest you talk to a Naval Officer about which set of tactics made
>>more sense.
>
>The difference is that space is more of a 3-d field. No gravity to
limit
>stratagies and ship performance as much.
>
>>How long do you think a group of world war II to planes would survive
>>against a modern fighter?
>
>uh... about 200 WWII planes against one modern fighter? the modern
fighter
>would hold out for a while but not that long. I mean one collision
between
>the WWII plane and the modern one and the modern one's toast.
They can out run them dummie.
>
>DS9 almost wasted the Klingons- one station against 200 Klingon ships.
>That's got to say something about level of technology.
>
>V.W.
No it is Star Trek, why is it that the USS Enterprise can fight and win
against the Borg but the USS Oddessy gets pasted by 3 Jem'Haddar ships.
I think that the Klingons would have easily overwhelmed the station
with a mass attack at one point, and why did they beam over soldiers
with bat'leths, are they that stupid, if you are going to board an
enemy ship try sending the soldiers with big weapons and then send over
allot more. I liked the episode but come on you knew who was going to
win, I was hoping they would have to abandon the station and go to
Bajor.
Carlos'94
Dave Mansell
> In <VA.0000001...@citsoft.co.uk>, Dave Mansell
<da...@citsoft.co.uk> writes:
> >Wait for "A Fall of Night" then, you'll see where they got the idea.
>
> If it hadn't come out yet, then how could Ds9 know about it. Besides,
> from what you said, it seems that WOTW was broadcast first- couldn't
> it be a simple coincidence by any chance?
The Fall of Night was aired in the Uk in early august.
>
> uh... about 200 WWII planes against one modern fighter? the modern
> fighter would hold out for a while but not that long. I mean one
> collision between the WWII plane and the modern one and the modern
> one's toast.
Nope. The modern fighter wouldn't have to go anywhere near the WW II
planes.
>
> DS9 almost wasted the Klingons- one station against 200 Klingon ships.
> That's got to say something about level of technology.
Exactly - it goes against everything we learnt in the past about
relevant differences between Klingon and Federation technology. DS9
should have been able to hold its own against half a dozen or so Klingon
ships. Against a fleet of that size it should have been toast.
> V.W.
Mike Hopkins
pw...@ibm.net writes:
>>How long do you think a group of world war II to planes would survive
>>against a modern fighter?
>
>uh... about 200 WWII planes against one modern fighter? the modern fighter
>would hold out for a while but not that long. I mean one collision between
>the WWII plane and the modern one and the modern one's toast.
Well, a modern fighter attack the WWII fighters long before they
can fire back and it stay out of range due to far greater speed
and the fact that it can also climb higher and travel farther.
Since this is an obvious talking about the far superior Shadow
ships vs. the Narn ships it should note as the series has shown:
The Shadow ships have a far superior means of going in and out
of hyperspace which give then an avantage similar to cloaking
device on Trek.
The Shadow ships can take far more punishment then the Narns
can. The Narns injured one Shadow cruiser after it had already
passed through an energy mine field and then was hit on the same
spot by the combined forward firepower of three Narn capital ships.
The Shadows can take out a Narn capital ship in a second and if
anything their cutting beam is a bit of overkill.
The Narns know nothing about the Shadows. The Shadows know about the
Narns. That gives the Shadows a rather large advantage in and of
itself.
The Shadows have the ability to affect minds as shown in previous
episodes and the comics. Plus in "The Fall of Night" which is
two episodes away a Shadow cruiser is described and one of its
characteristics is that there is a scream in your mind as it goes
past you.
>DS9 almost wasted the Klingons- one station against 200 Klingon ships.
>That's got to say something about level of technology.
That is not very impressive. The reason why DS9 won was that the
writers were on DS9's side. Even with the new defenses, it was
very inconsistent with previously established strengths of the
various powers. Unlike the UFP, all the Klingon ships were dedicated
warships, warships that have been established to be very capable.
Can anyone honestly believe that all those ships would not be able
to give DS9 some visible damage? And when DS9's shields when down,
all the Klingons would have to do to kill those Cardies would be to
fire a few photon torpedoes. Instead open fire with everything they
had and destroying the station they beam over Klingon warriors
armed with bat'telhs instead of phasers or disruptors. It made for
some nice footage, but it made no sense what-so-ever. And of course
maybe if the Klingons did bother with DS9 in the first place and
instead used those ships against the Cardassians, they might have
actually taken Cardassia. TWotW, while having many really good
parts, had numerious improbabilities and numerious inconsistancies with
previous episodes. This made the battle fall a bit flat to me.
Mike Hopkins
Ted McCoy
Carlos G Diaz III <losm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>No it is Star Trek, why is it that the USS Enterprise can fight and win
>against the Borg but the USS Oddessy gets pasted by 3 Jem'Haddar ships.
The Enterprise never actually defeated the Borg in battle; the Borg were
defeated when Data put them to sleep.
Ted
Phillip Sral
>
>
>>
>> That is not very impressive. The reason why DS9 won was that the
>> writers were on DS9's side. Even with the new defenses, it was
>> very inconsistent with previously established strengths of the
>> various powers. Unlike the UFP, all the Klingon ships were >>
dedicated
>> warships, warships that have been established to be very capable.
>> Can anyone honestly believe that all those ships would not be able
>> to give DS9 some visible damage? And when DS9's shields when down,
>> all the Klingons would have to do to kill those Cardies would be to
>> fire a few photon torpedoes. Instead open fire with everything they
>> had and destroying the station they beam over Klingon warriors
>> armed with bat'telhs instead of phasers or disruptors. It made for
>> some nice footage, but it made no sense what-so-ever. And of course
>> maybe if the Klingons did bother with DS9 in the first place and
>> instead used those ships against the Cardassians, they might have
>> actually taken Cardassia. TWotW, while having many really good
>> parts, had numerious improbabilities and numerious inconsistancies
with
>> previous episodes. This made the battle fall a bit flat to me.
>>
>> Mike Hopkins
>The Klingons obviously did not want to destroy the stattion. They
wanted to take it intact. They may be Klingons but they are not
>stupid. Why would they want to destroy their closest base to the
>wormhole?
I agree with the statement immediately involved, and think it's funny
how both Klingon enthusiasts and B5 Fanatics (not fans, please note the
difference) keep saying "The fight was stupid because the Klingons
could have destroyed the station easily..." The Klingons were engaging
DS9 for three main reasons:
1) Gauron wanted the new Cardassian leaders alive so that they could be
tested, and he could determine whether or not the Dominion was in
fact behind the recent Cardassian coup.
2) To capture the station for use by Klingon forces during/after the
Cardassian invasion campaign. You DON'T send boarding parties in to
a facility you are attacking if ALL you plan to do is blow it up.
3) To gain control over the Wormhole (which is where any further
Dominion attacks would originate from).
BTW - for all the people who are claiming that the Klingon boarding
parties were only armed with swords, look again, and you see that when
the Klingons first beamed onto DS9's 'bridge', they fired a few
disruptor shots (one that took out a guard, and another that missed
Worf). They then moved into 'close' combat with their swords. Why
would they do this:
1) They are trained to use them.
2) The 'bridge' personnel had no hand to hand weaponry.
3) In close combat, it's hard for your immediate opponent to fire their
phaser at you (or for someone not involved to take a shot, given the
high probability he/she could hit the wrong person).
Also, the Prommenade Klingon boarding parties DID have disruptors, and
were using them to good effect (there was a shot of a DS9 Security
Guard flying back and falling off a catwalk area due to a disruptor hit
as well as a few other scenes as well).
Had the Klingons beamed over boarding tems, and then blown up the
station, THEN you could make the argument that the tatics used made
little to no sense. Face it, the Klingons were effective and took
heavier casualties (Ship-wise) because the reason behind the attack was
to capture DS9 intact. (Which to me shows that the Klingons are
actually more itelligent then most fans give them credit for). ;)
--
she...@ix.netcom.com * Co-Founder of SHERBERT PRODUCTIONS *
(aka: Phillip Sral) (a fan dubbing group)
We specialize in english-parody dubs
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Lars Joreteg
Yes, but the argument is about plot convinience.
Look at the Defiant. When it fits the plot, it kicks ass. ("WotW", "The Die
is Cast") But when it doesn't, the Defiant sucks and breaks down.
("The Search, pt2").
But c'mon! A fleet of klingon ships can't take out DS9? If the
Federation is that superior in weapons tech, why are the klingons a
threat at all?
________
- Lars | _____] "It can be a dangerous
| | ___ place, but it is our
Lars Joreteg <*> |__|[_ \ last best hope
<ljor...@puc.edu> B A B__ Y \ L| O N ...for peace."
Computer Science ( \__/ | - B5 intro, season 1
\______/
Lisa Steele
> Worf). They then moved into 'close' combat with their swords. Why
> would they do this:
> 1) They are trained to use them.
> 2) The 'bridge' personnel had no hand to hand weaponry.
> 3) In close combat, it's hard for your immediate opponent to fire their
> phaser at you (or for someone not involved to take a shot, given the
> high probability he/she could hit the wrong person).
Lets add that firing energy weapons around a bridge's control panels or
outer hull might be a BAD idea. (We can assume that the replicated
disruptors in the episode with the Cardassian anti-terroism program had
the location of the important panels programed in an didn't fire at them.)
--Lisa
Dennis C Hwang
>In <VA.0000001...@citsoft.co.uk>, Dave Mansell <da...@citsoft.co.uk> writes:
>
>from what you said, it seems that WOTW was broadcast first- couldn't
>it be a simple coincidence by any chance?
Well, it *could* be.
But "The Fall of Night" was complete a matter of months ago and has been
shown in the UK already. The only reason folks in the US haven't seen it
yet is because of the infamous "Delay the Final Four" decision by PTEN.
I don't know what kind of production schedule DS9 is on, but it wouldn't
be surprising if "The Fall of Night" had already been completed by the
time the DS9 folks got to work on "The Way of the Warrior".
--Dennis
xenopathologist at large!
Eric Tolle
>>Wait for "A Fall of Night" then, you'll see where they got the idea.
>from what you said, it seems that WOTW was broadcast first- couldn't
>it be a simple coincidence by any chance?
Actually, AFN came out quite a few weeks ago. The season was delayed
in America, but England saw the episodes at the beginning of summer.
I do think that it's probably a coincidence...
>>Umm, there was no need for the Klingons ever to get into close range.
>>Look at modern combat now. the majority is carried out at extreme range.
>I agree about not having to engage at close range, but they didn't
>line up! Didn't you see them come from above, below and both sides
>in the "arial shot" and other shots.
Ah no, frankly it looked like the SE people had watched an old WW2
movie about the air force. The main thing, was they should have been
far enogh away that the stations photon torpedoes coulden't track them.
Hell, the stations not going to be manuvering, they should have fired at
extreem range- given the size of the station, they should have been
able to target at farther then two miles away.
>The difference is that space is more of a 3-d field. No gravity to limit
>stratagies and ship performance as much.
Precisely. So why were they clumped together like a bunch of Dauntless
dive bombers? Why were they so close to the station? Why the hell
wern't they using some actual tactics?
>DS9 almost wasted the Klingons- one station against 200 Klingon ships.
>That's got to say something about level of technology.
Actually, that has more to say about bad writing, special effects, and
a complete lack of tactical sense.
Eric Tolle unde...@mcl.ucsb.edu
"An' then Chi...@little.com, he come scramblin outta the terminal room
screaming "The system's crashing! The system's crashing!"
-Uncle RAMus, 'Tales for Cyberpsychotic Children'
Jasen V Edralin
: The Klingons obviously did not want to destroy the stattion. They wanted
: to take it intact. They may be Klingons but they are not stupid. Why
: would they want to destroy their closest base to the wormhole?
Okay, now explain why the Klingon Battle Fleet (tm) didn't do coordinated
phaser fire set on heavy stun when the shields were down. That woulda
taken out everyone except possibly Odo, and I wouldn't bet on him against
a hundred or so PROPERLY ARMED (phasers, morons, not glorified
polearms...this is the future, dammit!) Klingon Space Marines.
-Marc
: k
John P Pietrzak
>In <VA.0000001...@citsoft.co.uk>, Dave Mansell <da...@citsoft.co.uk> writes:
>
>>Look at modern combat now. the majority is carried out at extreme range.
>>In any case Sisko was helped by the Klingons conveniently lining up like
>>a duck shoot so he could conentrate his fire...
>
>line up! Didn't you see them come from above, below and both sides
>in the "arial shot" and other shots.
The very fact that the Klingons were obviously "above," "below," and
"to both sides," and that the camera was taking an "aerial shot" just
goes to show that Star Trek still doesn't do space battles right...
John
John W Kennedy
>I disagree. The acting is bad because it's just not believable, and
>this is far more true for B5 than for Voyager or even DS9. Voyager may
>have stupid plots half the time, but when the actors are actually
>acting, they are fairly believable. Sure everything may be a bit too
>sanitised, and it would be nice if there were a science fiction TV show
>with the type of acting (and characters) that one sees on the various
>popular cop/crime/detective shows (or even unrelated shows like Picket
>Fences), but on B5 everything is far too sanitised. Perhaps it's
>because there is just not enough conflict between the main characters
>(something STTNG was very guilty of), or because Sheridan just isn't
>supposed to be a very authorative guy.
I issued a challenge over a year ago that still hasn't been taken up. Have
you ever acted or directed and been paid for it? I have yet to find anyone
who has, who does not think that the acting on B5 is first rate, whereas most
of the acting on ST:V, and all the new ST's, has been of the "choose a schtick
and stick to it, no matter what" school. Kate Mulgrew is downright
embarrassing with her continual striking of Peter-Pan attitudes. In fairness
to the members of the several casts, though, I have to say that one-note
acting is what they're being paid to do; several of them have demonstrated
real ability, occasionally on ST, but more usually in other venues. In
fairness to ST, I also have to say that this is normal for series television.
There is not one regular on B5 that I would hesitate to cast in a physically
appropriate leading role in Shakespeare, Euripides, or Tennessee Williams,
based on what I have seen on B5 alone. I can't say that of _any_ ST cast
member but Shatner, Nimoy, and Stewart, and nowadays I'd be hesitant about
Shatner. (There are several others that I would be happy to cast in
the classics based on what I have seen them do elsewhere, and there is no-one
so bad that I'd bar him from auditioning.)
Timothy Randolf Nuessler
Lars Joreteg <ljor...@puc.edu> wrote:
>On 23 Oct 1995, Ted McCoy wrote:
>
>> In article <46fa9k$p...@ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>,
>> Carlos G Diaz III <losm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> >No it is Star Trek, why is it that the USS Enterprise can fight and win
>> >against the Borg but the USS Oddessy gets pasted by 3 Jem'Haddar ships.
>>
>> The Enterprise never actually defeated the Borg in battle; the Borg were
>> defeated when Data put them to sleep.
>
>Yes, but the argument is about plot convinience.
>Look at the Defiant. When it fits the plot, it kicks ass. ("WotW", "The Die
>is Cast") But when it doesn't, the Defiant sucks and breaks down.
>("The Search, pt2").
> But c'mon! A fleet of klingon ships can't take out DS9? If the
>Federation is that superior in weapons tech, why are the klingons a
>threat at all?
> ________
> - Lars | _____] "It can be a dangerous
I think people are forgetting two important things about the attack on
DS9. Firstly, most of the Klingon ships were OLD. If you watch the
episode again, you'll notice that a lot of the ships are the old style
battle cruisers from TOS days. I'm sure that Federation Technology
improved enought o be more effective agaisnt 80 year old weapons.
Secondly, the station didn't win the fight. They survived long enough
for reinforcements to arrive. It wasn't that the station was superior,
but that Gowron's forces would be caught between the station, which had
more firepower than Gowron was counting on, and the federation forces
that were coming. If DS9 had no help, it would have been toasted, but
reinforcements came. Furthermore, the Klingons could have kept fighting,
but they would have lost a substantial amount of their forces. Faced
with fighting a war with the Federation, the Cardassians, the Founders,
etc.. they thought it better to withdraw, rather than sacrifice the
empire for one battle.
Tim
David Ingham
Not really. I can think of several ways the Klingons could have
disabled the station once the shields were down, and caused no
more damage then they already had:
Beam over a few bombs and take out the bridge & its crew.
Beam the station personel over to your ship or out into space
(my personel favorite). Don't tell me that they couldn't
"lock on" to their signals because many times they have beamed
over whatever they wanted.
Beam tear gas or the Star Trek equiv. over and incapacitate
the station.
And finally, Beam over some real warriors who are capable of defeating
someone in combat. The Klingons are supposed to be these awesome
warriors but they always get beat up.
Heck, the more I think about it, they could just beam out entire walls
and expose critical sections of the station to space along with any
defenders nearby.
--
| David Ingham |
| They were even more magnificent than I had imagined. I had read |
| every book and seen every play and movie about construction |
| workers yet nothing prepared me for the incredible surge of joy |
| and awe I felt when these glorious mythical creatures walked |
| through that door. The gods had descended from heaven and were |
| now standing in my parents' kitchen. |
| --- Chris Elliot |
silver
: pw...@ibm.net writes:
: >>How long do you think a group of world war II to planes would survive
: >>against a modern fighter?
: >
: >uh... about 200 WWII planes against one modern fighter? the modern fighter
: >would hold out for a while but not that long. I mean one collision between
: >the WWII plane and the modern one and the modern one's toast.
: Well, a modern fighter attack the WWII fighters long before they
: can fire back and it stay out of range due to far greater speed
: and the fact that it can also climb higher and travel farther.
the modern fighter has far fewer than air-to-air missles. whilethe rest of the
guns on it are an advancement, and we have cooler targetting, it would still
have to fly within a zone of probability of taking some damage against
200 WW II ships.
now, if you take say 5 modern fighters against, say, 20 WW II fighters
(i.e. if you take 5 shadow death-boom megaships against 20 Narn heavy
cruisers)... it's over over-the-horizon and before the WWII fighters know
there's an engagement to be losing.
the Narn fared considerably better ;)
: >DS9 almost wasted the Klingons- one station against 200 Klingon ships.
: >That's got to say something about level of technology.
: That is not very impressive. The reason why DS9 won was that the
: writers were on DS9's side. Even with the new defenses, it was
: very inconsistent with previously established strengths of the
: various powers. Unlike the UFP, all the Klingon ships were dedicated
: warships, warships that have been established to be very capable.
: Can anyone honestly believe that all those ships would not be able
: to give DS9 some visible damage? And when DS9's shields when down,
: all the Klingons would have to do to kill those Cardies would be to
: fire a few photon torpedoes. Instead open fire with everything they
: had and destroying the station they beam over Klingon warriors
: armed with bat'telhs instead of phasers or disruptors. It made for
: some nice footage, but it made no sense what-so-ever. And of course
: maybe if the Klingons did bother with DS9 in the first place and
: instead used those ships against the Cardassians, they might have
: actually taken Cardassia. TWotW, while having many really good
: parts, had numerious improbabilities and numerious inconsistancies with
: previous episodes. This made the battle fall a bit flat to me.
I agree, had the Klingon objective been to annihilate DS9, they should have
had it... but I don't agree that the battle made "no sense whatsoever"...
say, for example, their battle objective was to capture the station and use it
as a staging point into Cardassian space and to keep an eye on the wormhole.
what would they do then?
oh, #1 they'd bluster about wanting to wipe it out to dishearten the opponent,
scare the opponent, and hopefully disinform the opponent.
#2 they'd try to do minimal actual damage to the station, to reduce rebuild
time...
#3 they'd disable the shields and attempt a boarding action intent on
scrubbing officers and guards
THAT's what would make sense if they wanted the station 'alive'... oh, wait,
that's what they did, isn't it? hrm. guess their objectives went beyond what
they told Sisko their obectives were. Imagine the audacity to not lay all
their plans bare to their enemy!
Even if their goal was simple extermination of the Cardassian ruling dudes,
which I doubt, they could still have a much better bargaining position later
if they could say "well, of course, we damaged the station getting at the
Cardassian scum, but we did minimal damage; just enough to achieve our
objectives"... which could mean the difference between war with Everyone and
uneasy cease-fire with all but one race at a time. Far be it from me to accuse
Galron of foresight, but I doubt you can be utterly incompetent and achieve
his status... even the Klingons know that if Everyone wanted them, their
chance for glory would be remarkably short and probably not sung of much by
the victors... and it's obvious that they didn't want war the with Federation,
or they wouldn't have stopped at threat of reinforcements. So they didn't want
to waste the station, they just wanted to be able to say "we went in and did
what we needed to without killing too many extras"...
however, I think they planned to capture the station and pick on the Bajorans,
and avoid war the Feddies by some fool logic about Sisko obviously going
against Fed orders and blah and blah...
Now let's mount some quantum photons on DS9... ;)
PS - I wholly believe that being a fan of DS9 is not contradictory to being a
fan of B5. DS9 is one of the best things to happen to the Trek universe in a
while... it still uses jargon particles and jargon devices more than I'd like,
but less often than TNG did, relying more on characters. characters which,
while in no physical danger, do not entirely reset between episodes. Of
course, it'd be cooler if they had A Plan and that plan included waxing majors
if that is necessary.. but it's still well done. IMHO, YMMV.
(notice I don't defend liking B5, but defend liking DS9... that is a function
by which you can partially order the set of my tastes)
--silver Harloe-- sil...@eden.com http://www.eden.com/~silver
"I am the soul of honor, kindness, mercy, and goodness.
Trust me in all things."
pw...@ibm.net
>>>How long do you think a group of world war II to planes would survive
>>>against a modern fighter?
>>would hold out for a while but not that long. I mean one collision between
>>the WWII plane and the modern one and the modern one's toast.
>They can out run them dummie.
They? One modern plane. Remember? Also, we're not talking about
how well that modern plane can retreat. We're talking about how
well it would be able to fight against such overwhelming odds.
>No it is Star Trek, why is it that the USS Enterprise can fight and win
>against the Borg but the USS Oddessy gets pasted by 3 Jem'Haddar ships.
The thing is that The Enterprise didn't and wouldn't have a chance in an
all-out firefight. It'd get wasted in seconds. The only reason it won
is because they got Picard back and were able to access the Borg Neural
Net through Data. If Data weren't on board and/or if the borg hadn't taken
Picard in the first place, Earth would be toast. Besides, I think
the Odessey faired pretty well against the Jem'hadar, of whom little was
known at that time. It didn't have the weapons power of the Defiant, even
though the Galaxy Class does have enough guns.
V.W.
Matuse
>In article <46c5qc$3h...@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net> pw...@ibm.net writes:
>>In <VA.0000001...@citsoft.co.uk>, Dave Mansell <da...@citsoft.co.uk> writes:
>>
>>>Look at modern combat now. the majority is carried out at extreme range.
>>>In any case Sisko was helped by the Klingons conveniently lining up like
>>>a duck shoot so he could conentrate his fire...
>>
>>line up! Didn't you see them come from above, below and both sides
>>in the "arial shot" and other shots.
>
>The very fact that the Klingons were obviously "above," "below," and
>"to both sides," and that the camera was taking an "aerial shot" just
>goes to show that Star Trek still doesn't do space battles right...
Funny, and here I thought that space was a 3 dimensional enviornment, yet
with a clear up and down (relative to the station).
Perhaps you think that them lining up on a single plane to form a nice
even formation (and superior targets, in addition to blocking each
other's field of fire), and then had the camera angle pointed towards
nothing would have been preferable.
--
"I accept"
"To accept is to yield"
"To yield is to allow oncoming traffic the right of way"
John Benn
>Mike Hopkins (mike1...@delphi.com) wrote:
>
>
>I agree, had the Klingon objective been to annihilate DS9, they should have
>had it... but I don't agree that the battle made "no sense whatsoever"...
>say, for example, their battle objective was to capture the station and use it
>as a staging point into Cardassian space and to keep an eye on the wormhole.
>what would they do then?
>oh, #1 they'd bluster about wanting to wipe it out to dishearten the opponent,
>scare the opponent, and hopefully disinform the opponent.
>#2 they'd try to do minimal actual damage to the station, to reduce rebuild
>time...
>#3 they'd disable the shields and attempt a boarding action intent on
>scrubbing officers and guards
The VERY FACT that the issue of whether or not the Klingons were
trying to destroy DS9 is in dispute is a testimony to the poor writing
in the episode. How can anything be debated? The episode did indeed
make no sense...
>PS - I wholly believe that being a fan of DS9 is not contradictory to being a
>fan of B5. DS9 is one of the best things to happen to the Trek universe in a
>while... it still uses jargon particles and jargon devices more than I'd like,
>but less often than TNG did, relying more on characters. characters which,
>while in no physical danger, do not entirely reset between episodes. Of
>course, it'd be cooler if they had A Plan and that plan included waxing majors
>if that is necessary.. but it's still well done. IMHO, YMMV.
>(notice I don't defend liking B5, but defend liking DS9... that is a function
>by which you can partially order the set of my tastes)
DS9 is OK. The writing is VERY AVERAGE. The production values are
higher than B5's though. I'm not crazy about the way they basically
threw this Klingon thing in for NO REASON. It's ridiculous. It's
impossible to care about the story of DS9 since the motivations of
the major races are horribly inconsistent and usually unrealistc.
"Way of the Warrior" really was just an arcade shoot 'em up plot
with some good acting. That's all. All of the military stuff was
completely inconsistent with everything that has gone on before...
--
*** Insanity is part of the times. You must learn to embrace ***
*** the madness and let it fire you.--Londo Mollari, Babylon-5 ***
Dave Mansell
(IMO)the tremendous improvement in Deep Space 9 recently that we can
actually have a reasonable discussion on the motives of the various
characters, their long term aims and the implications. To me, DS9 has
become interesting, something that sadly has not been the case since
early TNG. It shows to me that there IS hope for the ST franchise.
Of course as a B5 fan I like to put this down to the effect of
competition, but in any case, provided both shows continue,
everybody wins!
Dave Mansell
(da...@citsoft.co.uk).
No sig today, sig tomorrow, there's always a sig tomorrow
Matthew W Buckley
vs. DS9 by Jasen V Edralin@uhunix.i
>
> : Lets add that firing energy weapons around a bridge's control panels or
> : disruptors in the episode with the Cardassian anti-terroism program had
> : the location of the important panels programed in an didn't fire at them.)
> : --Lisa
>
> the control panels.
> -Marc
Klingons probably don't HAVE a stun setting. :)
Also, firing a stun beam may accidentially set off the explosives behind
every control panel.
_ _ __
/ \/ \ | | | | |__| | | /__ Read it upside
| | | \__|___|__ | |__ | | \ down!
| | | __ | __|___|__ | | |
| | __| | | | \ | | | #######################################
| | |__| | | | | \_/\_/ # Matthew Buckley: mb...@andrew.cmu.edu
#######################################
Homepage: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/andrew/usr/mbbi/www/mbbihome.html
John P Pietrzak
>
>I agree with the statement immediately involved, and think it's funny
>how both Klingon enthusiasts and B5 Fanatics (not fans, please note the
>difference) keep saying "The fight was stupid because the Klingons
>could have destroyed the station easily..." The Klingons were engaging
>DS9 for three main reasons:
>
>1) Gauron wanted the new Cardassian leaders alive so that they could be
> tested, and he could determine whether or not the Dominion was in
> fact behind the recent Cardassian coup.
>
>2) To capture the station for use by Klingon forces during/after the
> Cardassian invasion campaign. You DON'T send boarding parties in to
> a facility you are attacking if ALL you plan to do is blow it up.
>
>3) To gain control over the Wormhole (which is where any further
> Dominion attacks would originate from).
Ok, I agree with you, but riddle me this: whenever the Federation is
shown engaging something (on TNG, DS9, or whatever), they punch through
the shields, KNOCK OUT THE ENGINES/WEAPONRY, and then send over actual
people. This seems like an amazingly logical progression to me: it
makes the opponent helpless with respect to your ship, and you can
perform boarding actions at your leisure. Why would the Klingons
completely ignore such a valuable and effective tactic?
John
John P Pietrzak
>In article <46irag$9...@hamblin.math.byu.edu> piet...@bert.cs.byu.edu (John P Pietrzak) writes:
>>
>>The very fact that the Klingons were obviously "above," "below," and
>>"to both sides," and that the camera was taking an "aerial shot" just
>>goes to show that Star Trek still doesn't do space battles right...
>
>Funny, and here I thought that space was a 3 dimensional enviornment, yet
>with a clear up and down (relative to the station).
Ah, but they weren't just up and down with respect to the station; they
were up and down with respect to the station and EACH OTHER. In other
words, there was some universal standard of direction being applied.
>Perhaps you think that them lining up on a single plane to form a nice
>even formation (and superior targets, in addition to blocking each
>other's field of fire), and then had the camera angle pointed towards
>nothing would have been preferable.
Well, at least it would have been preferable to ships which, going
"under" the station, kept their orientation "up" in such a way that
their (fixed) weapons mounts were pointing away from the station. At
the very least, they could have tilted or rolled or something in order
to allow continuous fire at the station. (For goodness sakes, some of
them were wasting their closest approach by not being in the right
orientation at the right time...)
John
Drakkir
>Ok, I agree with you, but riddle me this: whenever the Federation is
>shown engaging something (on TNG, DS9, or whatever), they punch through
>the shields, KNOCK OUT THE ENGINES/WEAPONRY, and then send over actual
>people. This seems like an amazingly logical progression to me: it
>makes the opponent helpless with respect to your ship, and you can
>perform boarding actions at your leisure. Why would the Klingons
>completely ignore such a valuable and effective tactic?
>John
Not only that, how come nobody has caught onto the fact that you could
beam over sleeping-gas canisters or concussion grenades or something
once a ship has dropped its shields. You could render the entire crew
helpless before you expose any of your troops to harm.
Sincerely,
Drakkir
dra...@texas.net
no one of consequence
]<pw...@ibm.net> wrote:
]]losm...@ix.netcom.com (Carlos G Diaz III ) writes:
]]>>>How long do you think a group of world war II to planes would survive
]]>>>against a modern fighter?
]]>>uh... about 200 WWII planes against one modern fighter? the modern fighter
]]>>would hold out for a while but not that long. I mean one collision between
]]>>the WWII plane and the modern one and the modern one's toast.
]]
]]>They can out run them dummie.
]]
]]They? One modern plane. Remember? Also, we're not talking about
]]how well that modern plane can retreat. We're talking about how
]]well it would be able to fight against such overwhelming odds.
]*sigh* Go look up some data on the planes you are thinking of. Most
]modern fighters couldn't take out more than a dozen or so WWII-era
]fighters before running out of ammo. This could give time for the
]survivors to fly over to the modern fighters base and, since you weren't
]thinking about the logistical aspects and neglected air defenses, blast
]the crap out of the runways and hangars. Oops.
]
]Technology is useful, but not everything in a battle.
]
][While you're at it, look up Soviet design philosophy for their fighters
]and tanks.]
*blush* Um, I just realized I was following up the wrong person. Could
the person who thought a modern fighter was so Sierra Hotel read the
above?
["I will not post when I'm up too late.. I will not post when..."]
--
|Patrick Chester (aka: claypigeon, Sinapus. Yeah, I moved)wol...@io.com|
|Member Lovely Angels Fan Club/Fire Support Team/Cleanup Crew |
|"Weep for the future, Na'Toth. Weep for us all..." G'Kar, "Revelations"|
|Wittier remarks always come to mind just after sending your article....|
Todd Bolitho
The most important thing to remember about modern planes is how much FASTER they are than WWII
vintage aircraft. This would give the modern pilot the advantage of engaging and disengaging
combat at will. Add to this the fact, that modern weapons fire from much greater distances, and
it becomes clear how quickly a modern fighter could destroy WWII aircraft. The vintage craft
would never even get a modern fighter in range.
Todd Bolitho CFI377585409
Lars Joreteg
> In article <46f4m6$d...@independence.ecn.uoknor.edu>,
> mike1...@delphi.com says...
> >
> >eir cutting beam is a bit of overkill.
> >
> > The Narns know nothing about the Shadows. The Shadows know about the
> > Narns. That gives the Shadows a rather large advantage in and of
> > itself.
> >
> You are wrong. I don't remember the episode but G'Kar and a bunch of
> Narn's were fighting one or more shadow ships right at the beginning of
> the episode. G'Kar was able to get away but the rest of the Narn's bought
> the farm. It is logical to assume G'Kar made a report to the Narn
> homeworld about the firefight.
YES, but the Shadows know much MORE about the Narns then vice versa. The
argument is still valid.
________
- Lars | _____] "It can be a dangerous
pw...@ibm.net
>Most modern fighters couldn't take out more than a dozen or so WWII-era
>fighters before running out of ammo. This could give time for the
>survivors to fly over to the modern fighters base and, since you weren't
>thinking about the logistical aspects and neglected air defenses, blast
>the crap out of the runways and hangars. Oops.
The thing is that that was my poing in the first place! (not paying attention
here?)
Vince
Lars Joreteg
>
> > Not only that, how come nobody has caught onto the fact that you could
> > beam over sleeping-gas canisters or concussion grenades or something
> > once a ship has dropped its shields. You could render the entire crew
> > helpless before you expose any of your troops to harm.
>
> That's because Star Trek is Technology Without Consequences. Has anybody
> at Paramount really given any thought to what replicator technology
> would do to a society?
No.
richard welty
Johnny Piscitello <joh...@haldi.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
> (And by the way, B5 sucks.)
> -John Piscitello
it's always good to see useful and intelligent contributions
to the discourse.
perhaps you'll manage to come up with one someday.
cheers,
richard
--
``All who have raced there know that the earth is flat and ends in the
sand at turn 2. The emotional rewards of driving this turn flat out
are just as intense as the physical consequences of blowing it''
-- Bruce MacInnes on Bridgehampton Race Circuit (1957-1995?)
John Benn
>>In article <46jh03$2...@boris.eden.com>, silver <sil...@eden.com> wrote:
>>>Mike Hopkins (mike1...@delphi.com) wrote:
>>
>> The VERY FACT that the issue of whether or not the Klingons were
>>trying to destroy DS9 is in dispute is a testimony to the poor writing
>>in the episode. How can anything be debated? The episode did indeed
>>make no sense...
>
>nuts. The logic of the script is entirely consistent. The Klingons were
>attempting to take over the station to ensure the security of the alpha
>quadrant from the Dominion. Their aim was to destroy its shields, beam over,
>and take it over with landing parties.
Why landing parties? Why not sleeping gas? Why couldn't they
take DS9 the sitting duck? It really makes little sense.
> Then they would move in and defend the alpha quadrant from DS9.
They commited an act of war against the Federation! How was this
going to help their cause?
> Why did they stop? Because DS9 kicked their asses, and because
>a whole fleet of Federation ships were closing in to stop them.
6 ships!!! 6 lousy ships stopped the whole Klingon force! This
was ridiculous.
> Get it? Got it? Good. (And by the way, B5 sucks.)
You have a serious attitude problem. You haven't managed to
level a single intelligent argument against the Battle of Gorash 7
and yet you sit there with your fingers in your ears when everyone
identifies the glaring errors in "Way of the Warrior".
Since when does 6 ships represent a big threat to 60 Klingon
Battle Cruisers? Since when did 400 Klingon Battle Cruisers
mysteriously appear? Where were these things when the Borg attacked
their ally The Federation, 4 or so years ago? It's horribly
inconsistent with past Trek history. The Federation couldn't muster
more than 26 ships during the Klingon civil war. Are we to believe
that the Klingons have been sitting there with 400 ships for the
last X number of years and haven't tried to take out the Romulans?
Get a grip. There's no logic to the sudden appearance of dozens
of ships in the Trek universe except for the obvious Paramount
executive meetings which dictated that it should happen.
John Benn
Michael L. Booth <mb0...@american.edu> wrote:
>In article <46f4m6$d...@independence.ecn.uoknor.edu>,
>mike1...@delphi.com says...
>>
>>eir cutting beam is a bit of overkill.
>>
>> The Narns know nothing about the Shadows. The Shadows know about the
>> Narns. That gives the Shadows a rather large advantage in and of
>> itself.
>>
>You are wrong. I don't remember the episode but G'Kar and a bunch of
>Narn's were fighting one or more shadow ships right at the beginning of
>the episode. G'Kar was able to get away but the rest of the Narn's bought
>the farm. It is logical to assume G'Kar made a report to the Narn
>homeworld about the firefight.
>
Heavy Cruiser has ever lived to tell the tale...
Michael J. King Sr.
>In article <46f4m6$d...@independence.ecn.uoknor.edu>,
>mike1...@delphi.com says...
>>
>>eir cutting beam is a bit of overkill.
>>
>> The Narns know nothing about the Shadows. The Shadows know about the
>> Narns. That gives the Shadows a rather large advantage in and of
>> itself.
>>
>You are wrong. I don't remember the episode but G'Kar and a bunch of
>Narn's were fighting one or more shadow ships right at the beginning of
>the episode. G'Kar was able to get away but the rest of the Narn's bought
>the farm. It is logical to assume G'Kar made a report to the Narn
>homeworld about the firefight.
While G'Kar is a well thought of Ambassador and Narn of action, I get the
feeling the ruling council disregard his rantings about the Shadows as
overzealous religious fervor. When the Shadows destroyed the Narn cruiser at
Z' Ha' Dum' they wouldn't send a second ship sorta like 'Well it is G'Kar so
send a ship out of respect but not a second.' Also The dogfight between
G'Kar's squadron and the Shadow fighters was witnessed by G'Kar alone with no
concrete evidence.Yes I know fighters and Narn vanished but as we know in SFTV
merde happens and ships and people are lost, often unexplained.The Kai Ri
wouldn't send out recons after the big cruiser got sliced and diced so why
would they for a few fighters? I assume the Narn leaders would rather blame
the situations on bad luck, chance etc. than on some all powerful religious
myths that no one but G'Kar has seen. Sorry to be so longwinded but hopefully
you get my point! Later.Mike#139
Young Ned of the Hill
>In article <46f4m6$d...@independence.ecn.uoknor.edu>,
>mike1...@delphi.com says...
>>
>>eir cutting beam is a bit of overkill.
>>
>> The Narns know nothing about the Shadows. The Shadows know about the
>> Narns. That gives the Shadows a rather large advantage in and of
>> itself.
>>
>You are wrong. I don't remember the episode but G'Kar and a bunch of
>Narn's were fighting one or more shadow ships right at the beginning of
>the episode. G'Kar was able to get away but the rest of the Narn's bought
>the farm. It is logical to assume G'Kar made a report to the Narn
>homeworld about the firefight.
This is true, although the facts of a report of an enemy with incredibly
powerful weapons and seemingly indestuctible ships, plus the apparent
(to an opposing pilot) to vanish and then just reappear at will wouldn't
be of much use in a combat situation. It's tough to plan strategy or
tactics against an opponent with unknown limitations and vulnerabilities.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
They don't pay me enough| bgr...@scf.usc.edu | We're everywhere, for your
to speak their opinions!|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| convenience. -PsiCorps
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=finger me for GC3.1=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Lisa Steele
Jasen V Edralin (ja...@uhunix.its.Hawaii.Edu) wrote:
> Uh, Stun setting shouyldn't mess with the outer hull, and probably not
> the control panels.
I didn't think Klingon weapons had a stun setting. <grin>
--Lisa
Christopher B. Stone
Please do not post articles about Babylon 5 in the Star Trek groups.
Discussion of Babylon 5 is off-topic in the Star Trek groups, and should
be conducted in rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.
Genuine comparisons between the two series should be posted to
rec.arts.startrek.misc.
Thank you for your cooperation.
In article <Pine.BSD/.3.91.9510260942...@ecf2.puc.edu>,
Lars Joreteg <ljor...@puc.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> >eir cutting beam is a bit of overkill.
>> >
>> > The Narns know nothing about the Shadows. The Shadows know about the
>> > Narns. That gives the Shadows a rather large advantage in and of
>> > itself.
>> >
>> You are wrong. I don't remember the episode but G'Kar and a bunch of
>> Narn's were fighting one or more shadow ships right at the beginning of
>> the episode. G'Kar was able to get away but the rest of the Narn's bought
>> the farm. It is logical to assume G'Kar made a report to the Narn
>> homeworld about the firefight.
>
>YES, but the Shadows know much MORE about the Narns then vice versa. The
>argument is still valid.
--
Chris Stone
cbs...@phoenix.princeton.edu * http://www.princeton.edu/~cbstone
"Consensus is the negation of leadership." -Margaret Thatcher
David Stinson
Please do not post articles about Deep Space 9 in the Babylon 5 groups.
Discussion of Deep Space Nine is off-topic in the Babylon 5 groups, and should
be conducted in rec.arts.startrek.*.
Genuine comparisons between the two series should be posted to
where Mr. Stone doesn't have to look at them.
Turnabout is fair play
In article <46p1la$2...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>,
cbs...@tucson.princeton.edu (Christopher B. Stone) wrote:
>Ladies and gentlemen:
>
>Please do not post articles about Babylon 5 in the Star Trek groups.
>Discussion of Babylon 5 is off-topic in the Star Trek groups, and should
>be conducted in rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.
>
>Genuine comparisons between the two series should be posted to
>rec.arts.startrek.misc.
>
>Thank you for your cooperation.
>
>In article <Pine.BSD/.3.91.9510260942...@ecf2.puc.edu>,
>Lars Joreteg <ljor...@puc.edu> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >eir cutting beam is a bit of overkill.
>>> >
>>> > The Narns know nothing about the Shadows. The Shadows know about the
>>> > Narns. That gives the Shadows a rather large advantage in and of
>>> > itself.
>>> >
>>> You are wrong. I don't remember the episode but G'Kar and a bunch of
>>> Narn's were fighting one or more shadow ships right at the beginning of
>>> the episode. G'Kar was able to get away but the rest of the Narn's bought
>>> the farm. It is logical to assume G'Kar made a report to the Narn
>>> homeworld about the firefight.
>>
>>YES, but the Shadows know much MORE about the Narns then vice versa. The
>>argument is still valid.
************************************************************************
** David A. Stinson ** Web Page: http://www.procom.com/~daves *
** dsti...@ix.netcom.com***********************************************
** DA...@procom.com ** "Gonna need another Timmy!" -Baby Sinclair *
** dast...@aol.com ******************************* Dinosaurs! *
************************************************************************
Jim Walters
: In article <DH2oI...@news.uwindsor.ca> be...@uwindsor.ca (John Benn) writes:
: >In article <46o800$l...@GRAPEVINE.LCS.MIT.EDU>,
: >Johnny Piscitello <joh...@haldi.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
: >> No, the fact that you two are disputing the issue means you're both
: >>nuts. The logic of the script is entirely consistent.
: >take DS9 the sitting duck? It really makes little sense.
: Sleeping gas? Are you crazy? How exciting would *that* be to
: watch on television? "Oh, Captain...the Klingons have beamed over
: sleeping gas." You f-ing idiot. Klingons like to *battle*, they don't
: fight like sissies with sleeping gas. Man, are you being ridiculous.
No, the Klingons are f-ing idiots if they insist upon launching a frontal
assault when more effective and less dangerous tactics are available.
How the heck did they ever gain an empire when they squander their forces
so foolishly?
:
: >> Why did they stop? Because DS9 kicked their asses, and because
: >>a whole fleet of Federation ships were closing in to stop them.
:
: > 6 ships!!! 6 lousy ships stopped the whole Klingon force! This
: >was ridiculous.
:
: Oh, this is such nonsense. Look, DS9's weapons systems kick ass.
: What's the problem with that? They've had a whole year to prepare. And where
: are you getting this 6 ships statistic from? I never saw any Fed ships
: in that battle.
Pay attention. The Klingons backed off when Sisko told the Klingons that
he had re-enforcements coming. It was clearly stated that this relief
force was only 6 ships. Are we really supposed to believe that the HUGE
Klingon fleet was so afraid of 6 ships that it would back off? What's
next, a Borg cube retreating from the Enterprise because a runabout
showed up? The relief force was insignificant compared to the size of
the Klingon fleet.
It would make more sense if the Klingon's reasoned that DS9 is run by
Starfleet, but belongs to Bajor. Attacking DS9 was an act of war against
Bajor, not the Federation. Attacking the relief force WOULD be an attack
against the Federation, and the Klingons weren't ready for that.
Unfortunately, the script doesn't follow that logic. It seemed to assume
that attacking DS9 WAS an attack against the Federation.
:
: >> Get it? Got it? Good. (And by the way, B5 sucks.)
:
: > You have a serious attitude problem. You haven't managed to
: >level a single intelligent argument against the Battle of Gorash 7
: >and yet you sit there with your fingers in your ears when everyone
: >identifies the glaring errors in "Way of the Warrior".
:
: Oh, stop being such a child. How can we have an "intelligent
: argument" when we're *talking about a tv show*. For pete's sakes,
: I'm arguing over television. I can't believe this.
"WHAT? You want me to say something INTELLEGENT? How DARE you!"
If you are going to bother to say anything at all, at least you should
say something that makes sense. You are trying to have it both ways by
arguing about a TV show, and then saying that anybody ELSE who argues
about a TV show is a fool. I think you are trying to change the subject
because you were unprepared to deal with logic.
:
: > <babbling deleted>
: > Get a grip. There's no logic to the sudden appearance of dozens
: >of ships in the Trek universe except for the obvious Paramount
: >executive meetings which dictated that it should happen.
:
: When they called it "Babble-On 5", they were talking about
: you!. Yadda yadda yadda "Klingons", yadda yadda yadda "Paramount execs",
: blah blah blah "Trek sucks". This is *so* tired....I gotta be nuts
: to argue with someone like you.
Another example you your hatred of intellegent discussion?
: -John Piscitello
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
--
Jim Walters
jwal...@clark.net "Putting the DOH! in Aikido"
Mike Hopkins
I wrote the following about the Narns:
>>>> > The Narns know nothing about the Shadows. The Shadows know about the
>>>> > Narns. That gives the Shadows a rather large advantage in and of
>>>> > itself.
Someone replied:
>>>> You are wrong. I don't remember the episode but G'Kar and a bunch of
>>>> Narn's were fighting one or more shadow ships right at the beginning of
>>>> the episode. G'Kar was able to get away but the rest of the Narn's bought
>>>> the farm. It is logical to assume G'Kar made a report to the Narn
>>>> homeworld about the firefight.
[deletion]
I suggest that a review of "Revelations" is in order.
G'Kar saw three or four (not remember the exact count) of the Shadow fighters.
That is all. He did not see the very deadly Shadow cruisers (the spider ships).
Plus his government did not take his report (or at least his conclusions) very
seriously. The Narns sans G'Kar were completely ignorant of an nearly
unstopable alien force aiding the Centauri and even G'Kar is probally unaware
to the degree of which the aliens have been involved. The Narn attack force
was expecting to be in a rather significant fight against the Centauri when they
made the attack.
Mike Hopkins
R. Tang
Johnny Piscitello <joh...@haldi.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <DH2oI...@news.uwindsor.ca> be...@uwindsor.ca (John Benn) writes:
>>> Why did they stop? Because DS9 kicked their asses, and because
>>>a whole fleet of Federation ships were closing in to stop them.
>> 6 ships!!! 6 lousy ships stopped the whole Klingon force! This
>>was ridiculous.
> Oh, this is such nonsense.
Well, yes, but not the way either of you think.
Not to let this degenerate into a B5/Trek flamefest, but from a
strategic viewpoint, a battle of six mobile ships with a stationary
emplacement vs. a large mobile fleet (50+) is not as cut and dried as
many so-called fans seem to think.
Fleet composition is VERY relevant here. Six dreadnaught class
ships plus base vs. one dreadnaught plus 49 battlecruisers and destroyers
is probably a no-contest win for the stationary forces; you can attack on
two fronts and you have the stationary emplacement, which can mount
bigger guns and more ammunition.
On the other hand, take away the stationary emplacement, and it's
an easy win for the larger fleet.
The relevant point here is concentration of fire. You concentrate
your firepower on one ship at a time (or, at least, enough fire to INSURE
a kill). This is quite possible for a stationary emplacement like DS9.
This is NOT possible for a mobile fleet vs. a base; you may be able to
pick off individual emplacements, but not necessarily whole banks. In the
balance, DS9 will get scores of clear kills while the invading fleet
MIGHT be able to force a temorary shield failure.
Hmmmm......doesn't this sound familiar?
--
Roger Tang, gwan...@u.washington.edu, Artistic Director PC Theatre
STILL just another theatre geek....
The most unAmerican thing you can say is "He/she makes too much money."
Christopher B. Stone
Please do not post material about Babylon 5 in the Star Trek groups.
Such material is off-topic in the Star Trek groups. Likewise, all
articles about Star Trek belong in rec.arts.startrek.*, and not in
rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.
Only direct, substantive comparisons between Star Trek and Babylon 5
should be crossposted; and these should appear in rec.arts.startrek.misc
only.
Thank you for your cooperation.
In article <DH2oK...@news.uwindsor.ca>, John Benn <be...@uwindsor.ca> wrote:
>In article <46nb1b$h...@paladin.american.edu>,
>Michael L. Booth <mb0...@american.edu> wrote:
>>In article <46f4m6$d...@independence.ecn.uoknor.edu>,
>>mike1...@delphi.com says...
>>>
>>>eir cutting beam is a bit of overkill.
>>>
>>> The Narns know nothing about the Shadows. The Shadows know about the
>>> Narns. That gives the Shadows a rather large advantage in and of
>>> itself.
>>>
>>You are wrong. I don't remember the episode but G'Kar and a bunch of
>>Narn's were fighting one or more shadow ships right at the beginning of
>>the episode. G'Kar was able to get away but the rest of the Narn's bought
>>the farm. It is logical to assume G'Kar made a report to the Narn
>>homeworld about the firefight.
>>
>
> He did. It was ignored. No Narn who has ever encountered a Shadow
>Heavy Cruiser has ever lived to tell the tale...
>
>--
>*** Insanity is part of the times. You must learn to embrace ***
>*** the madness and let it fire you.--Londo Mollari, Babylon-5 ***
Tom Salyers
In a previous article, joh...@haldi.lcs.mit.edu (Johnny Piscitello) says:
> Sleeping gas? Are you crazy? How exciting would *that* be to
>watch on television? "Oh, Captain...the Klingons have beamed over
>sleeping gas." You f-ing idiot. Klingons like to *battle*, they don't
>fight like sissies with sleeping gas. Man, are you being ridiculous.
Carrying on the proud MIT tradition of having all the social skills of
a lobotomized aardvark, I see....
--
Tom Salyers "Now is the Windows of our disk contents
IRCnick: Aqualung made glorious SimEarth by this Sun of Zork."
Denver, CO ---Richard v3.0
Matuse
>In article <46gk94$8...@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com> she...@ix.netcom.com (Phillip Sral ) writes:
>>
>>I agree with the statement immediately involved, and think it's funny
>>how both Klingon enthusiasts and B5 Fanatics (not fans, please note the
>>difference) keep saying "The fight was stupid because the Klingons
>>could have destroyed the station easily..." The Klingons were engaging
>>DS9 for three main reasons:
>>
>>1) Gauron wanted the new Cardassian leaders alive so that they could be
>> tested, and he could determine whether or not the Dominion was in
>> fact behind the recent Cardassian coup.
>>
>>2) To capture the station for use by Klingon forces during/after the
>> Cardassian invasion campaign. You DON'T send boarding parties in to
>> a facility you are attacking if ALL you plan to do is blow it up.
>>
>>3) To gain control over the Wormhole (which is where any further
>> Dominion attacks would originate from).
>
>shown engaging something (on TNG, DS9, or whatever), they punch through
>the shields, KNOCK OUT THE ENGINES/WEAPONRY, and then send over actual
>people. This seems like an amazingly logical progression to me: it
>makes the opponent helpless with respect to your ship, and you can
>perform boarding actions at your leisure. Why would the Klingons
>completely ignore such a valuable and effective tactic?
They didn't. They targeted the main central tower of the station, and
knocked out 2 shield generators (out of how many, I know not), and then
proceeded to try and board the station. Its easier to disable a starship
(on an absolute scale) because there is 1 site to hit that will reduce
all its defenses to zilch (although this is somewhat hard to do without
causing the ship to explode)...the resources on a station are vast
(having 2 shield generators to knock out is a luxury no starship can afford),
and thats (part of the reason) why they failed.
--
"I accept"
"To accept is to yield"
"To yield is to allow oncoming traffic the right of way"
Brad Ackerman
(R. Tang) wrote:
> Not to let this degenerate into a B5/Trek flamefest, but from a
>strategic viewpoint, a battle of six mobile ships with a stationary
>emplacement vs. a large mobile fleet (50+) is not as cut and dried as
>many so-called fans seem to think.
>
> Fleet composition is VERY relevant here. Six dreadnaught class
>ships plus base vs. one dreadnaught plus 49 battlecruisers and destroyers
>is probably a no-contest win for the stationary forces; you can attack on
>two fronts and you have the stationary emplacement, which can mount
>bigger guns and more ammunition.
>
> On the other hand, take away the stationary emplacement, and it's
>an easy win for the larger fleet.
>
> The relevant point here is concentration of fire. You concentrate
>your firepower on one ship at a time (or, at least, enough fire to INSURE
>a kill). This is quite possible for a stationary emplacement like DS9.
>This is NOT possible for a mobile fleet vs. a base; you may be able to
>pick off individual emplacements, but not necessarily whole banks. In the
>balance, DS9 will get scores of clear kills while the invading fleet
>MIGHT be able to force a temorary shield failure.
Don't forget that a space station can have a significantly larger M/AM
reactor than any dozen starships. This allows for some *very* high power
phasers.
--
Brad Ackerman
br...@iag.net
John Benn
Johnny Piscitello <joh...@haldi.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <DH2oI...@news.uwindsor.ca> be...@uwindsor.ca (John Benn) writes:
>> Why landing parties? Why not sleeping gas? Why couldn't they
>>take DS9 the sitting duck? It really makes little sense.
>
> Sleeping gas? Are you crazy? How exciting would *that* be to
>watch on television? "Oh, Captain...the Klingons have beamed over
>sleeping gas." You f-ing idiot. Klingons like to *battle*, they don't
>fight like sissies with sleeping gas. Man, are you being ridiculous.
The point isn't that it would be boring, but that they had
technology at their disposal that could have accomplished the job
and yet chose not to use it. This is horrible and another example
of the writers not having thought about the implications of trans-
porters. I'm not going to argue from the standpoint of "let's
throw logic out the window so that we can have a really kick ass
battle". This is writing for primitives. Whether you prefer the
outcome to the sleeping gas outcome really doesn't disprove my point
about Trek being inconsistent.
>>> Then they would move in and defend the alpha quadrant from DS9.
>>
>> They commited an act of war against the Federation! How was this
>>going to help their cause?
>
> It wasn't. They were being stupid. That's why they backed off.
They still committed an act of war. Are we to believe that
Klingons have managed to become a threat when they consistently
act like idiots?
>>> Why did they stop? Because DS9 kicked their asses, and because
>>>a whole fleet of Federation ships were closing in to stop them.
>
>> 6 ships!!! 6 lousy ships stopped the whole Klingon force! This
>>was ridiculous.
>
> Oh, this is such nonsense. Look, DS9's weapons systems kick ass.
>What's the problem with that? They've had a whole year to prepare. And where
>are you getting this 6 ships statistic from? I never saw any Fed ships
>in that battle.
They were winning against DS9 and then 6 ships were coming to the
aid of DS9 and all of a sudden the Klingons were scared. It made zero
sense.
>>> Get it? Got it? Good. (And by the way, B5 sucks.)
>
>> You have a serious attitude problem. You haven't managed to
>>level a single intelligent argument against the Battle of Gorash 7
>>and yet you sit there with your fingers in your ears when everyone
>>identifies the glaring errors in "Way of the Warrior".
>
> Oh, stop being such a child. How can we have an "intelligent
>argument" when we're *talking about a tv show*. For pete's sakes,
>I'm arguing over television. I can't believe this.
Well, thank you for proving my point.
>> <babbling deleted>
>> Get a grip. There's no logic to the sudden appearance of dozens
>>of ships in the Trek universe except for the obvious Paramount
>>executive meetings which dictated that it should happen.
>
> When they called it "Babble-On 5", they were talking about
>you!. Yadda yadda yadda "Klingons", yadda yadda yadda "Paramount execs",
>blah blah blah "Trek sucks". This is *so* tired....I gotta be nuts
>to argue with someone like you.
Fine. I'm sorry that you can't argue and must resort to such
infantile behavior. I'm sorry if I've wasted your time.
John Benn
Johnny Piscitello <joh...@haldi.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <46r3k4$l...@clarknet.clark.net> jwal...@clark.net (Jim Walters) writes:
>>
>>No, the Klingons are f-ing idiots if they insist upon launching a frontal
>>assault when more effective and less dangerous tactics are available.
>>How the heck did they ever gain an empire when they squander their forces
>>so foolishly?
>
>They're not a bunch of sleeping gas sissies. The fact that it gets them
>into trouble from time to time is what makes them so interesting.
>Let them be fools - it's entertaining.
Unfortunately there are never any consequences of them acting
like idiots. I wouldn't mind them being idiots if they burned for it.
>>Pay attention. The Klingons backed off when Sisko told the Klingons that
>>he had re-enforcements coming. It was clearly stated that this relief
>>force was only 6 ships. Are we really supposed to believe that the HUGE
>>Klingon fleet was so afraid of 6 ships that it would back off?
>
> Fine. The script should have said '60', but is said '6'.
>Who cares? Are we really going to sit here and cry about how *awful*
>DS9 is because of a single number in a script? It costs 2 million
>a week to pull off this show. *Hundreds* of people work on it every
>week. And we're going to act like idiots and scream about the number
>of ships in the Fed fleet.
Are we to assume that they MEANT to say 60? We can only judge a
script by what's on the screen. Why do you give so much lattitude
to incompetents?
>>If you are going to bother to say anything at all, at least you should
>>say something that makes sense. You are trying to have it both ways by
>>arguing about a TV show, and then saying that anybody ELSE who argues
>>about a TV show is a fool. I think you are trying to change the subject
>>because you were unprepared to deal with logic.
>
> No, the point I am making is that all of this is nonsense.
>There's no logic being discussed here. One guy's talking about
>Paramount executives, you're going off about how DS9 belongs to
>Bajor, and there are cockamamie theories about bombing DS9 with
>laughing gas.
You aren't listening. You're hearing what you want to hear.
The whole thread has been about the illogical "Way of the Warrior".
DS9 IS owned by Bajor.
> The internal logic of the show is entirely consistent.
>The Klingons wanted DS9 to protect the alpha quadrant. They tried to
>take it by force. DS9 kicked their asses, and a fleet of Fed ships
>were closing in. And it was clear this was all a setup from the Founders.
>So they backed off.
I'm not disputing the premise. It's the execution of said
premise that is so lacking and inconsistent. Where did all the
Klingon battle cruisers come from? Why not make everyone take
the blood test? Why not use the most effective weapons? Why
is the Federation so wimpy compared to the Klingons? etc...
> Get it? Got it? No? Okay, fine. You must be a television writer.
>How else would you wax so eloquent on Star Trek.?
Attitude...
>>: When they called it "Babble-On 5", they were talking about
>>: you!. Yadda yadda yadda "Klingons", yadda yadda yadda "Paramount execs",
>>: blah blah blah "Trek sucks". This is *so* tired....I gotta be nuts
>>: to argue with someone like you.
>>
>>Another example you your hatred of intellegent discussion?
>
> Look, if someone were saying something intelligent, your
>question would have meaning. All I've seen so far is ridiculous
>rantings about the number 6, laughing gas, and Paramount executives.
I'm not surprised that this is all you saw. It's not all of what
was written though. You must live in a barn to have all that straw
lying around...
John Benn
R. Tang <gwan...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>In article <46qtat$q...@GRAPEVINE.LCS.MIT.EDU>,
>Johnny Piscitello <joh...@haldi.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>>In article <DH2oI...@news.uwindsor.ca> be...@uwindsor.ca (John Benn) writes:
>>>> Why did they stop? Because DS9 kicked their asses, and because
>>>>a whole fleet of Federation ships were closing in to stop them.
>>> 6 ships!!! 6 lousy ships stopped the whole Klingon force! This
>>>was ridiculous.
>> Oh, this is such nonsense.
>
>ships plus base vs. one dreadnaught plus 49 battlecruisers and destroyers
>is probably a no-contest win for the stationary forces; you can attack on
>two fronts and you have the stationary emplacement, which can mount
>bigger guns and more ammunition.
>
> On the other hand, take away the stationary emplacement, and it's
>an easy win for the larger fleet.
>
> The relevant point here is concentration of fire. You concentrate
>your firepower on one ship at a time (or, at least, enough fire to INSURE
>a kill). This is quite possible for a stationary emplacement like DS9.
>This is NOT possible for a mobile fleet vs. a base; you may be able to
>pick off individual emplacements, but not necessarily whole banks. In the
>balance, DS9 will get scores of clear kills while the invading fleet
>MIGHT be able to force a temorary shield failure.
>
The problem is that the Klingons were winning. There's no
reason why they didn't just dispatch about 10 battle cruisers to
intercept the Fed's 6 ships while the rest of the force finish
DS9 off. 2 Klingon battle cruisers have beaten the Enterprise
up before. There's no way that 10 battle cruisers wouldn't
be able to take out 6 Fed cruisers given that they weren't all
of Galaxy Class. It was really inconsistent with past Trek
force composition and capability.
John Benn
>In article <DH2oI...@news.uwindsor.ca> be...@uwindsor.ca (John Benn) writes:
>
>>Why couldn't they
>>take DS9 the sitting duck?
>
>armies that outnumbered them 10:1 (or better) for THOUSANDS of years: It
>took better than the attacks were able to give.
These are two completely different things. The weapons at the
Klingon's disposal have been shown capable of destroying DS9 if they
get enough shots in. Why not just bombard it at a distance? There's
a BIG difference between DS9 as a fortress and the Maginot Line...
>>> Why did they stop? Because DS9 kicked their asses, and because
>>>a whole fleet of Federation ships were closing in to stop them.
>>
>> 6 ships!!! 6 lousy ships stopped the whole Klingon force! This
>>was ridiculous.
>
>6 ships plus the station...and the station was giving them a hard enough
>time as it was. The Federation doesn't build warships (except for 1 :)), but
>that doesn't mean their ships are wimps.
Another problem. How did the federation fend off the Klingons,
Romulans, Borg, Ferengi and Cardassians for YEARS without any
warships? You're reaching...
>> Since when does 6 ships represent a big threat to 60 Klingon
>>Battle Cruisers?
>
>There were not 60 battlecruisers.
There were between 50 and 60.
>>Since when did 400 Klingon Battle Cruisers
>>mysteriously appear?
>
>Since never...which would be why they never mentioned at any point of the
>show that there were 400 ships involved.
At one point in the show they mentioned that the 150 ships attacking
the Cardassians were 1/3 of the Klingon fleet. I rounded down.
>>Where were these things when the Borg attacked
>>their ally The Federation, 4 or so years ago?
>
>Too far away to help in time?
I'm doubting it. The Klingons border the Federation. You can
get to Earth from Kling in less time than the Borg could get to
Earth...
>>It's horribly
>>inconsistent with past Trek history.
>
>Its totally consistant, you just lack a brain.
Thank you for your reasoned comments.
>>The Federation couldn't muster
>>more than 26 ships during the Klingon civil war.
>
>Space is very large, getting significant amounts of ships to a place (and
>26 ships is a *lot*) takes time...which Gowron did not have.
Gowron had a HUGE fleet at his disposal. There are 400 ships.
Surely some of them must have been capable...
>>Are we to believe
>>that the Klingons have been sitting there with 400 ships for the
>>last X number of years and haven't tried to take out the Romulans?
>
>Which 400 ships might these be?
>
>> Get a grip. There's no logic to the sudden appearance of dozens
>>of ships in the Trek universe except for the obvious Paramount
>>executive meetings which dictated that it should happen.
>
>Dozens <> 400. Ever heard of shipyards?
Dozens in the final scene. Hundreds overall. Shipyards? Come on.
If it were that easy to crank out ships, the Klingons would have been
commanding the space ways long ago..
Drakkir
>In article <46r5e8$8...@nntp4.u.washington.edu>, gwan...@u.washington.edu
>(R. Tang) wrote:
>>
>> The relevant point here is concentration of fire. You concentrate
>>your firepower on one ship at a time (or, at least, enough fire to INSURE
>>a kill). This is quite possible for a stationary emplacement like DS9.
>>This is NOT possible for a mobile fleet vs. a base; you may be able to
>>pick off individual emplacements, but not necessarily whole banks. In the
>>balance, DS9 will get scores of clear kills while the invading fleet
>>MIGHT be able to force a temorary shield failure.
>Don't forget that a space station can have a significantly larger M/AM
>reactor than any dozen starships. This allows for some *very* high power
>phasers.
Well if we go by the Patented Different colors for different weapons
effects trick. Notice that DS9's phasers and torpedoes were gold
instead of the traditional red. We must assume that DS9's had totally
different weapons than a standard starship. Presumably since gold is
the color for the much vaunted weapons systems of the Defiant, we have
to assume that they are big brothers to the Defiant's It had
different weapons, and a hell of a lot more of them.
The previous poster brought up a valid point. DS9 would have been
much more effective (not that it wasn't) if it would have concentrated
fire on the larger ships first. Take out a commandship, and the rest
of the fleet may fall into disarray. DS9's tactics seemed to be, fire
in all directions and we may hit a Klingon ship. (luckily there was
enough Klingon to make it hard to miss one!)
Sincerely,
Drakkir
dra...@texas.net
Emery Calame
>
>br...@iag.net (Brad Ackerman) wrote:
>Well if we go by the Patented Different colors for different weapons
>effects trick. Notice that DS9's phasers and torpedoes were gold
>instead of the traditional red. We must assume that DS9's had totally
>different weapons than a standard starship. Presumably since gold is
>the color for the much vaunted weapons systems of the Defiant, we have
>to assume that they are big brothers to the Defiant's It had
>different weapons, and a hell of a lot more of them.
Yeah, I noticed that the Klingons have dumped the forward photon
torpedo on their D-7's for a red beam thingie(maybe a disruptor) and
begun firing big green beams and sparks that apparently out do the
older red ones. BOP's have used green ones for a while, but not larger
ships. Anyway green is apparently the deadlier type of beam around.
The Flagship Gowron was on fired the big green spark thing that
actually brought the shields down. Weird huh?
Some of the Defiant's weapons(the quantum torps) sound like the noises
from the old video game GORF.
>The previous poster brought up a valid point. DS9 would have been
>much more effective (not that it wasn't) if it would have concentrated
>fire on the larger ships first. Take out a commandship, and the rest
>of the fleet may fall into disarray. DS9's tactics seemed to be, fire
>in all directions and we may hit a Klingon ship. (luckily there was
>enough Klingon to make it hard to miss one!)
>
Hmm. I think they wanted it intact so that Gowron would be able to call
it off when he saw that it would be a bloody battle.
BTW whatever happened to that miraculous meta-phasic shielding we are
supposed to believe contributed to the defeat of the former Borg/Lore
cultists?
And if they really wanted the Cardassian council, why didn't they Back
down after the first exchange and leave several ships cloaked after the
general rereat and the minute the stations shields dropped locate them
and beam them aboard and then take off for Klingon space? Seem to me
that would have solved all their problems. Krudge (from STIII) would've
done it! :)
Em
Emery Calame
writes:
The Star Trek Universe has a big problem explaining how the
>peaceful, kind, joyful Federation can survive when every multi-planet
>government they run into is militarized, aggressive, and conquest
oriented.
>
> Maybe it works like Niven's Known Space. Humans are just so
good
>at war they don't have to try all that hard. :-)
I thought that Niven revealed in Ringworld that the Puppeteers had bred
humans for luck so they could use us as a screen when they left the
exploding galaxy in their world ships? Humans were whupping the K'zin
because they were insanelt lucky instead of infinitly more resourceful.
Maybe you are thinking of Fred Saberhagen's Berserker/Earth-descended
Human setting ? Y'know, where Terrans were the only race who was still
able to fight the berserkers effectively due to the fact that the were
still immature barbarians and primitives at heart?
Em
Daniel M. Silevitch
eme...@ix.netcom.com (Emery Calame ) wrote:
:In <46un7v$h...@gaia.ns.utk.edu> ve...@web.ce.utk.edu (David Veal)
No, it's definitely the Known Space universe. A relevant quotation is
from _The_Man-Kzin_Wars_I_. Roughly paraphrasing, it goes like
"The Man-Kzin Wars began when a Kzinti destroyer attacked an unarmed
human colonyship. This was a fatal mistake for the Kzinti, of course.
They discovered that the reason that humans decided to study war no
more was that humans were so very very good at it..."
From memory, so I probably mangled it.
As for the puppeteers, I believe that they ran into the humans only
after the first two or three Kzin wars, and didn't have all that much
to do with human victory in the later ones.
(The Berserker universe does have a similar theme, though)
-dms
"No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms
forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom.
Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The
Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them, again. Though it
take a thousand years, we will be free." Babylon 5, The Long Twilight Struggle
PBlase
Who cares? Are we really going to sit here and cry about how *awful*
DS9 is because of a single number in a script?
The joy and beauty of Science Fiction is in the attention to detail,
especially technical detail. If you watch a western (set in the 1800's)
and see a contrail in the sky, or the hero pulls out a Colt automatic, it
kind of wrecks it; if you watch a Civil war show and Lee surrenders at Ft
Sumpter, then you would wonder. Although I do enjoy watching the various
ST shows, there lack of internal consistancy and failure to attend to
engineering and scientific details spoils the show for me considerably.
John Benn
David Veal <ve...@web.ce.utk.edu> wrote:
>In article <DH6AJ...@news.uwindsor.ca>, John Benn <be...@uwindsor.ca> wrote:
>>In article <matuseDH...@netcom.com>, Matuse <mat...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>>Possibly for the same reason that fortified positions have held off
>>>armies that outnumbered them 10:1 (or better) for THOUSANDS of years: It
>>>took better than the attacks were able to give.
>>
>> These are two completely different things. The weapons at the
>>Klingon's disposal have been shown capable of destroying DS9 if they
>>get enough shots in. Why not just bombard it at a distance? There's
>>a BIG difference between DS9 as a fortress and the Maginot Line...
>
>destroy it. Working to *not* destroy a target is a whole lot harder than
>if your job is to simply vaporize it. And you're even more handicapped if
>the target you're trying not to destroy doesn't have the same problem.
Not at all. Punch a hole through the shields and then sleeping
gas here we come...
> There are probably a lot of things on Deep Space Nine the
>Klingons would want, not the least of which are detailed observations of
>the wormhole and a live changeling to play with.
>
>>>6 ships plus the station...and the station was giving them a hard enough
>>>time as it was. The Federation doesn't build warships (except for 1 :)), but
>>>that doesn't mean their ships are wimps.
>>
>> Another problem. How did the federation fend off the Klingons,
>>Romulans, Borg, Ferengi and Cardassians for YEARS without any
>>warships? You're reaching...
>
> The Star Trek Universe has a big problem explaining how the
>peaceful, kind, joyful Federation can survive when every multi-planet
>government they run into is militarized, aggressive, and conquest oriented.
>
> Maybe it works like Niven's Known Space. Humans are just so good
>at war they don't have to try all that hard. :-)
Yeah. Maybe. :)
David Veal
>In article <matuseDH...@netcom.com>, Matuse <mat...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>Possibly for the same reason that fortified positions have held off
>>armies that outnumbered them 10:1 (or better) for THOUSANDS of years: It
>>took better than the attacks were able to give.
>
> These are two completely different things. The weapons at the
>Klingon's disposal have been shown capable of destroying DS9 if they
>get enough shots in. Why not just bombard it at a distance? There's
>a BIG difference between DS9 as a fortress and the Maginot Line...
The Klingons were clearly trying to capture the station, not
destroy it. Working to *not* destroy a target is a whole lot harder than
if your job is to simply vaporize it. And you're even more handicapped if
the target you're trying not to destroy doesn't have the same problem.
There are probably a lot of things on Deep Space Nine the
Klingons would want, not the least of which are detailed observations of
the wormhole and a live changeling to play with.
>>6 ships plus the station...and the station was giving them a hard enough
>>time as it was. The Federation doesn't build warships (except for 1 :)), but
>>that doesn't mean their ships are wimps.
>
> Another problem. How did the federation fend off the Klingons,
>Romulans, Borg, Ferengi and Cardassians for YEARS without any
>warships? You're reaching...
The Star Trek Universe has a big problem explaining how the
peaceful, kind, joyful Federation can survive when every multi-planet
government they run into is militarized, aggressive, and conquest oriented.
Maybe it works like Niven's Known Space. Humans are just so good
at war they don't have to try all that hard. :-)
--
David Veal ve...@web.ce.utk.edu / ve...@gateway.ce.utk.edu
"Of course the government and the newspapers lie. But in a
democracy they're not the *same* lies!" - GURPS Illuminati
David Veal
> Not at all. Punch a hole through the shields and then sleeping
>gas here we come...
As someone else pointed out, that would be very much out of
character for the Klingons. Romulans and Feds maybe, but Klingons have
been established to be combat-nuts even when it is entirely inappropriate
or downright stupid.
--
David Veal ve...@web.ce.utk.edu
Jason Eudy
: I'm doubting it. The Klingons border the Federation. You can
: get to Earth from Kling in less time than the Borg could get to
: Earth...
I lost track of what side of which subject you're arguing for, but in
my opinion you ruin your credibility on whatever subject by stating
the Klingon homeworld as "Kling." If you're not sure of something, don't
state it as a fact, especially if it's not relevant to your point,
because then you give people like me a chance to nitpick.
Jason Eudy
: That's because Star Trek is Technology Without Consequences. Has anybody
: at Paramount really given any thought to what replicator technology
: would do to a society?
I am having trouble grasping this.
What WOULD replicator technology do to a society?
John Benn
The Klingon homeworld is "Kling" whether trekkies want to admit it
or not. It's ridiculous and it's something that they've tried to
sweep under the rug but a Klingon said it in an early episode.
By the way, I'm arguing for the truth. :)
John Aegard
I said:
: That's because Star Trek is Technology Without Consequences. Has anybody
: at Paramount really given any thought to what replicator technology
: would do to a society?
Jason Eudy said:
> I am having trouble grasping this.
> What WOULD replicator technology do to a society?
Being more than a few levels beneath God, I couldn't tell you exactly.
I realize that this willing admission of non-omniscience makes me unique
on UseNET, but please bear with me...
I'd like to see Star Trek consider the effects of replication tech. A
replicator is a piece of technology that renders *every other*
manufacturing process obsolete. We don't need farmers, or miners, or
Ford plants, or anything. As long as the energy never runs out, we can
replicate *anything*. Inventing a replicator would be the most
significant accomplishment a society could hope for.
Unfortunately, Paramount has never been bold enough to consider the
question of what happens when you have this "replicator" device that
can magically manufacture anything. Such a question would make for
interesting SF, but I doubt that Trek has the balls to pull it off.
Consider, also, that most venerable piece of trecknology, the transporter.
Okay, so you can get from place to place *really* fast now. But what about
the other uses of a transporter? Seems to me like a transporter would
completely change the face of boarding actions -- just like the one we
saw a few weeks ago. Why not just beam the Operations crew off the station
into your brig (or vaccuum) when your target's shields collapse? How
about the techs working to get the shields back online? Beam 'em into space
and watch 'em kick, and Deep Space Nine is yours, nicely intact, ready
to save the Alpha Quadrant from the Dominion. I don't think that any
chain of command could survive a transporter attack like this.
If _I_ can think of this battle tactic, then I'm sure some Klingon High
Goombah can. There is some merit to the assertation that tactics like
this would make poor drama, but listen to this...
"Captain Sisko, your shields are down. If you do not capitulate and
surrender Deep Space Nine to me at once, I will transport random members
of your crew as well as members of the station's civilian population into
vaccuum. You will comply with my demands immediately."
Now, that's drama, and internally consistent drama as well.
To conclude -- Trek does not consider fully the ramifications of the
magical technology that it posits.
<as an aside, I think that John Benn's idea about sleep gas is an okay
one, but an effective countermeasure is too easy to come by in the form
of a vacc suit.>
Johnzo.
Young Ned of the Hill
>John Aegard (joh...@bnr.ca) wrote:
>: That's because Star Trek is Technology Without Consequences. Has anybody
>: at Paramount really given any thought to what replicator technology
>: would do to a society?
>I am having trouble grasping this.
>What WOULD replicator technology do to a society?
My guess is that it would stagnate a society into a non-achieving, hedonistic,
theme-park-esque type of place. Every need or want would be satisified at the
touch of a button (at least the material ones), and everyone would have access
to all things. Necessity is the mother of invention, and there would be almost
no necessity left unfilled, so there's not much motivation for anyone to work
at anything. Of course, the engineers and technicians who kept the replicators
and power supplies running would rise to an almost godlike status and probably
within a few generations find some way (if it existed) to exploit the masses,
and would at the same time sink into an ignorance of how to create and into a
position of glorified caretakers.
Just my $.03
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
They don't pay me enough| bgr...@scf.usc.edu | We're everywhere, for your
to speak their opinions!|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| convenience. -PsiCorps
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=finger me for GC3.1=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
P.S. There's some good stuff along these lines in Anderson's
_The Boat of a Million Years_. The book starts a little slow, but
once it picks up, it's very good.
Tom McLean
> The problem is that the Klingons were winning. There's no
> reason why they didn't just dispatch about 10 battle cruisers to
> intercept the Fed's 6 ships while the rest of the force finish
> DS9 off. 2 Klingon battle cruisers have beaten the Enterprise
> up before. There's no way that 10 battle cruisers wouldn't
> be able to take out 6 Fed cruisers given that they weren't all
> of Galaxy Class. It was really inconsistent with past Trek
> force composition and capability.
I think you're wrong there. The design of the (Hypothetical)
Klingon war strategy has been compared to that of the Soviet Union in
our times. The Klingons rely on both offensive capability and
numbers, whereas the Federation relies on Ship to Ship superiority and
weapons plateform quality. This means that 6 Klingon crusers don't
match up evenly to 6 Federation crusers. And if you noticed, most of
the ships attacking DS-9 were Birds of Prey, ships designed almost
exclusively for offense with very little defensive technology. The 6
Federation ships were indeed important as they presented an outcome
that was uncertain for Gowran.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom McLean
Journalism
Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario
Email address: tmc...@chat.carleton.ca
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Pawtowski
>
>saw a few weeks ago. Why not just beam the Operations crew off the station
>into your brig (or vaccuum) when your target's shields collapse? How
>about the techs working to get the shields back online? Beam 'em into space
>and watch 'em kick, and Deep Space Nine is yours, nicely intact, ready
You know, there is a cheap and easy "defense" to this trick that Trek
could do if it had to- someone invent little pins with a few blinkly
lights and call them "transporter nullifiers", and say anything they're
attached to can't be transported. Sprinkle them liberaly thorugh the
station's important components and the crew, and they're immune to being
teleported out.
Geeze, look, more technobabble....:-)
Eric
--
epaw...@vt.edu----------------------------------------------------
Technicon 13 - SF&F return to SW Virginia! March 22-24, 1996.
Guests: Author L.E. Modesitt, Games designers Lori&Corey Cole,
Artist Ruth Thompson
David Veal
Jason Eudy <je1...@xx.acs.appstate.edu> wrote:
>John Aegard (joh...@bnr.ca) wrote:
>: That's because Star Trek is Technology Without Consequences. Has anybody
>: at Paramount really given any thought to what replicator technology
>: would do to a society?
>
>I am having trouble grasping this.
>
>What WOULD replicator technology do to a society?
It would virtually eliminate scarcity, probably the most
fundamental issue people have to deal with. Assuming a plentiful supply
of energy (which Star Trek seems to assume), you've got virtually
unlimited material wealth. At the very least what are you going to do
with people who build things other than replicators? Or chefs who are no
longer necessary? Or any number of jobs that will require only a very
few people once you have replicators to do it for you?
Bethany Jo Weber
Coming from someone who knows nothing about this, but:
I don't see where the assumption that there is an unlimited amount of
available energy for replicators comes from. If that were the case, we
should be able to replicate starships, planets, suits, etc... and there
would be no need for spacedocks (or tailors -- and that would be a
terrible blow to DS9...)
I suppose my assumption has always been that the replicator, besides
being limited in the complexity of items it can produce, also requires so
much energy to create objects that for most applications, it's preferable
just to use the real thing. For example, people on planets, where supply
difficulties are not an issue, would eat real food, while people on
starships would eat replicated food. Clearly agriculture is still
considered important on Bajor. Of course, some Next Generation episodes
have implied that people in the 24th centurey don't cook, so perhaps the
theroy is totally invalid.
Perhaps people want non-replicated items as a staus symbol. Obvously,
there's a perception that replicated food isn't as good as the real thing.
Clearly there *is* still a need for raw materials, artisians,
agriculture, etc. in the Star Trek universe. This would seem to imply
that replicators aren't capable of everything we think they are. After
all, Star Trek is in no way obligated to create a wierd super-device and
then explore how society changes becuase of it -- and IMHO, a show based
on a society where everyone gets a free lunch would probably be very
dull. (Besides being sopiled by the aforementioned lack of tailors. :-) )
I'll stop rambling now. :-)
`_________
/ \ / /
._) \ / / Bethany Weber, official weredragon of Rice University
) // /
( / / . "Let me get this straight. You know her. She
( )../ \ knows you. But she wants to eat him. And
/ \ \ everybody's OK with this?"
" " __) -Timon, "The Lion King"
"The day has come! Behold, people of the Eldar and the
Fathers of Men, the day has come!"
-JRR Tolkien, "The Silmarillion"
"The truth is usually just an excuse for lack of imagination."
-Garak, DS9, "Improbable Cause"
John Benn
>: magical technology that it posits.
>
>the 20th century in space! For all the advancements they've apparently
>made, society has changed very little that I can tell. Was society in
>the 1700's the same as it is now? On a human level, sure ... but there are
>also major differences. So while Star Trek may not always demonstrate
>the ramifications of technology upon society, Babylon 5 fails to address
>changes that may occur in society independent of technology.
This is rubbish. In the B5 universe there is a united Earth where
homosexuality is not even an issue, where the beliefs of every other
human are respected at a social level and no one is forced to conform
to the dominant religion or lack thereof. This is hardly the same as
today. It's a world where Jews and Arabs have buried the hatchet,
where the entire world is free and democratic (though there are
threats to these freedoms). B5 is not 20th Century in space. It's
humanity in space. Given the non-existene of replicators it's
reasonable to assume that poverty and hunger can still exist 264 years
from now.
>Believe me, I have watched Babylon 5 since it started, and I have tried to
>like it, and it is an interesting show, but that is one of the things about
>it that turns me off -- the people may as well be on a 20th century space
>station.
B5 is far less 20th century than Trek is 18th century. Everyone on
Trek listens to classical music and loves horseback riding and spanish
galleys etc... I'm not implying that you find this to be acceptable
either but I think it's far more natural to assume that social
problems will still exist to a certain degree in the future and that
characters will more closely identify with elements in the recent past
as opposed to 500 years in the past. People know and identify alot
more with events 200 years ago (Napoleanic wars, American Civil War
etc..) than with those further back...
>Plus those computer graphics give me a headache...
Hmm....
Anyone who doesn't see the differences between 2259 in the B5
universe (we control 14 star systems for godsakes) and 20th
century earth just isn't looking hard enough.
Dale Brouwer
>>: at Paramount really given any thought to what replicator technology
>>: would do to a society?
>>
>>I am having trouble grasping this.
>>
>>What WOULD replicator technology do to a society?
>
> It would virtually eliminate scarcity, probably the most
>fundamental issue people have to deal with. Assuming a plentiful supply
>of energy (which Star Trek seems to assume), you've got virtually
>unlimited material wealth. At the very least what are you going to do
>with people who build things other than replicators? Or chefs who are no
>longer necessary? Or any number of jobs that will require only a very
>few people once you have replicators to do it for you?
Hell, Once you make ONE replicator, industry & manufacture stops.
R&D goes crazy, cause you can make prototypes instantly for free.
No ever needs to build another replicator, just use the first one.
Nothing would be rare or unique anymore (you can forget about being a
collector of originals).
With a combination of a replicator, transporter & computer,
you can eliminate most if not all the crew, and anyone attacking
would be able to get nowhere without sufficient power,
as damaged parts could be beamed out, and replaced by new identical
parts beamed back into place.
Hell with the holodeck healing people temporarily; a replicator/transporter
could replace damaged cells one by one until disease or injury disappeared.
Enemy attcking? Beam new replicated photon torpedos outside the
ship with proper momentum to collide with the enemies shield.
With all the infinite possibility tech in just the three basic building
blocks (computers, replicators, transporters), the whole Star Trek
universe becomes pointless drek.
Star Fleet are a bunch of morons to be where they are in technological
development.
And this is only one of Star Trek's many continuity/premise problems.
--
| Wheels within wheels in a spiral array, | Dale Brouwer, |
| A pattern so grand and complex, | Computer Science Student, |
| Time after time we lose sight of the way, | University of Waterloo. |
| Our causes can't see their effects. -NP | Amiga Owner => Enlightened! |
Drakkir
>John Aegard (joh...@bnr.ca) wrote:
>: That's because Star Trek is Technology Without Consequences. Has anybody
>: at Paramount really given any thought to what replicator technology
>: would do to a society?
>I am having trouble grasping this.
>What WOULD replicator technology do to a society?
A number of posters have pointed out the HUGE advantages replicator
technology would do to a society, but what about the ills? Seems to
me that transporter/replicator tech would lead to the dangers
presented in the classic Sci-Fi movie "Forbidden Planet."
[For those of you who missed it, the alien society of the Krell (or
Krull, it's been a while) were so advanced, they could answer any
desire or whim but the use of a machine which would bring your very
thoughts into being. Clearly the Krell never developed psychology, or
ignored it in their arrogance, but in one night the entire race was
destroyed when their subconscious desires and terrors were suddenly
brought to life.] The point of the story was, the more powerful the
technology, the greater a risk to society it becomes. A 1950's
example for us would be the Nuke. Currently, a bigger threat may come
from genetic research.
Surely if you can replicate something down to the molecular level,
you can edit the pattern and change things at the molecular level.
(We have seen Scotty exist in a 'pattern buffer" for a couple of
decades, so surely you could study, copy, and edit that pattern at
will.) Clearly the danger of accidentally creating a new and
dangerous (virus, bacteria, prion, organism) is massive. Since every
major power has transporter/replicator tech, surely one of them would
try to create the ultimate (warrior, virus, creature, weapon). It is
a threat that (read could be an interesting plot) seems to be ignored.
Also, it should fundamentally change warfare. A soilder gets shot,
you quickly beam him up, replicate the damaged tissue (with the help
of the original pattern from the initial transport) and beam him back
into the fray ready for more. Whichever side had the most
transporters, largest pattern buffer memory, most replicators and
fastest computers to do all reforming, would never lose a conflict for
lack of troops. This would increase a sides ability to take dangerous
risks since you could replace any fallen troops (unless they are
literally blown to bits) with fresh new replacements. (This is of
course ignoring the ability to clone troops on a massive scale using
replicator technology. You could materialize 10 men for every 1 you
dematerialize.)
Sincerely,
Drakkir
dra...@texas.net
Craig Powers
there. I'm not sure it should anyway.
The Renaissance Man (ala...@babylon5.babcom.com) wrote:
: Quoth ve...@web.ce.utk.edu (David Veal):
: ] Niven changes perspective in Known Space whenever the fancy
: ] strikes him. He's written stories and novels from both perspectives, and
: ] to a certain degree both are equally valid. Unfortunately I don't
: ] remember the specific story at the moment, but it's the one where the
: ] humans run into the Kzin for the first time and kill them with their
: ] communications laser.
Would you (DV) be referring to the one published in IASFM? The name escapes
me, but I might be able to supply enough of the plot to jog someone's memory
as to the title.
: Actually, it was their photonic drive. Which happened to be a Big Fuckin'
: Laser (tm).
If the story being referred to is what I think it is, he (DV) is right. The
laser used was a BIGASS laser used for communication between the exploration
ship and earth.
--
Craig Powers NU ChE class of '98
cpo...@lynx.dac.neu.edu
eni...@coe.neu.edu http://www.coe.neu.edu/~enigma
Visit the NU Hockey home page! http://www.coe.neu.edu/~enigma/nuhockey
Jason Eudy
: ] It has been stated many times already that the replicator cannot
: ] replicate complex organic molecules or complex electrical or mechanical
: ] devices.
: But they CAN reproduce nutritious food? Haven't had much exposure to
: the biological sciences, have you boy?
He means DNA. Vitamin C is nothing compared to DNA. Plus replicators
do not have Heisenberg compensators, therefore they cannot replicate
anything living.
: ] Furthermore, the replicator still needs to be *programmed* to
: ] repicate specific things -- meaning that there must not only be a
: ] battalion of programmers at the ready, but also a battalion of scientists to
: ] reverse-engineer everything in existence so the programmers know what to
: ] program.
: Excellent point. Fully understanding the composition of something and
: then describing it reliably down to the molecule could require the services
: of man-eons of labor to support. An fair arguement could be made that this
: is what a large sector of Trek society actually does.
Come on -- a large sector? With billions and billions of people, could you
consider the number of scientists and programmers needed for replicators
to be large? After all, you can just copy the patterns from one to another.
: ] And then there's the problem of the unavoidable rate of error that occurs
: ] in replicating materials, making such things as crystals and polymers
: ] inherently flawed and never as good as the real thing.
: I doubt simple things like crystals would be much of a problem if you
: can reproduce things like turkey and Earl Grey tea. In fact, I'm sure
: the replicator could make crystals more perfect than is ever found in
: nature.
The error rate in earl grey tea wouldn't be noticed ... did Picard ever
say "Hmmm ... this tastes a few molecules off..." But the error rate in
a crystal would be considerably more important.
: ] You need to be able to get a solid lock on a person in order to be able
: ] to transport them. That is the other function of the combadge. Under
: ] normal circumstances, a skilled transporter chief *might* be able to get a
: ] tenative lock based on nothing more than a life reading, but there is no
: ] way that is going to happen in a battle situation.
: Well, this might be a fair argument given realistic thinking by the
: writers. However, Trek has violated this principle many MANY times.
: You are on seriously shakey grounds if you try to assume a consistent
: methodology to Trek science. There have been many times that people
: were snatched against their will without the benefit of a comm badge
: to betray them.
Name one.
: ST tech is completely magic.
Hypospray? Laser as a tactical weapon? Automatic doors? Neural net?
Tricorder? Android? Antimatter? All of this either exists or is being
developed, and it doesn't sound like magic to me.
: ] You might then get the idea that you could just fire a transporter beam at
: ] the hull of another ship, converting it into energy and letting it disipate
: ] (explosively) at the point of impact. Well, guess what, that's what a
: ] phaser is.
: Then why do people shot with phasers simply vanish instead of wiping
: the entire city-sized area around them off the map? (Or should that
: be a state-sized area?)
: Stop being so silly.
Go show Ben Franklin a laptop computer and see if he thinks it's magic...
Mark Jeffrey
>If the story being referred to is what I think it is, he (DV) is right. The
>laser used was a BIGASS laser used for communication between the exploration
>ship and earth.
Correct. The earth ship had a slow ion drive and could not escape the faster Kzin ship.
The story was "The Warriors", and the reason the Kzin were defeated was that their
sensors and their telepath both reported that the human ship carried no weapons. They
overlooked the fact that human inventiveness can be a very powerful weapon in itself.
Mark.
--
The opinions expressed in this message are my own personal views
and do not reflect the official views of Microsoft Corporation.
David Veal
Scott Silvey <sc...@swindle.XCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>] Furthermore, the replicator still needs to be *programmed* to
>] repicate specific things -- meaning that there must not only be a
>] battalion of programmers at the ready, but also a battalion of scientists to
>] reverse-engineer everything in existence so the programmers know what to
>] program.
>
>Excellent point. Fully understanding the composition of something and
>then describing it reliably down to the molecule could require the services
>of man-eons of labor to support. An fair arguement could be made that this
>is what a large sector of Trek society actually does.
Not with transporter technology. Based on what they've shown, why
wouldn't it be possible simply to, say, cook a turkey, put it in a
transporter, dematerialize it, and save the pattern? If you're capable
of reducing something to a computer record, and recreating something with
the replicator, why create the record manually in the first place?
>] And then there's the problem of the unavoidable rate of error that occurs
>] in replicating materials, making such things as crystals and polymers
>] inherently flawed and never as good as the real thing.
>
>I doubt simple things like crystals would be much of a problem if you
>can reproduce things like turkey and Earl Grey tea. In fact, I'm sure
>the replicator could make crystals more perfect than is ever found in
>nature.
If you've got control at the sub-atomic level (which they've got
to have to pull of transmission of living beings), then it's unreasonable
to say there's a theoretical limit with replicators. Star Trek attempts
to explain it as a storage problem. That is, replicators generally don't
produce things as well as transporters because it would take too much
storage space to store things at that level for a long period of time.
But that's simply an engineering question. Even if we believe you
couldn't pull it off for your basic food groups, that wouldn't prevent
specialized applications and installations which did nothing else. It
couldn't help but be cost effective.
>] Furthermore, to prevent further tangents, you must remember that the
>] energy equivalent of any mass transported must be routed through the
>] power systems of the ship doing the transporting. Transporting a
>] humanoid is relatively easy, but do you have any idea how much energy
>] would be produced by trying to replicate/transport large sections of
>] super-dense duranium hulls? E=mc^2 tends to frown on such things.
The very first thing you have to explain is how the transporter
re-materializes a human being with no receiving mechanism, which is
something I don't think they've ever even addressed.
I don't recall who it was (Niven?) who also asked about matter
transmission: what do you do with all that excess energy? Moving from
an orbit to the surface of a planet is losing a *lot* of potential energy.
Where do you bleed that off to? Store it until they come home?
Incrdbil
>joh...@bnr.ca (John Aegard) wrote:
>>Consider, also, that most venerable piece of trecknology, the transporter.
>>Okay, so you can get from place to place *really* fast now. But what about
>>the other uses of a transporter? Seems to me like a transporter would
>>completely change the face of boarding actions -- just like the one we
>>saw a few weeks ago. Why not just beam the Operations crew off the station
>The other thing that has always bothered me about the transporter is the
>fact that it could be used as a cloning device. If you can digitize a
>human being, you can copy and edit them as well (just like in Windows).
>Hell, you could have templates for the ultimate scounts/warriors/medics
>or whatever and just beam as many of them as you want everytime you need
>to explore a planet, rather than risking your highest ranking officers
>the way Trek always does.
>But I can live with the "established" Trek technology. It's part of the
>universe, and you either accept it or don't watch the show. What bugs me
>is how they always whip up these miracle devices in the last five minutes
>of the show, inventions that would transform society yet are never heard
>of again.
>For example, consider the show where Dr. Pulaski had that aging disease.
> In the last few minutes, the transporter crew "reset her DNA" using
>records from her last transport. In other words, a bunch of engineers
>whipped together the secret of immortality, off the cuff, not to mention
>a method to cure all diseases that could possibly exist. No serious
>sci-fi author would EVER allow his characters to come up with a device
>like this, unless the existence of said device was the whole point of the
>fiction.
>From a dramatic viewpoint, it absolutely sucks too. You know that, no
>matter what happens, Wesley/Geordi/Data/the ship's computer can invent a
>magical device to save the crew just in time for the closing credits.
>It's very lazy and uninspired writing.
>I really like one scene in Babylon 5 where they seemed to poke fun at
>this. I can't remember the name of the episode, but it was one where
>they had to find a fugitive on the station. Garibaldi walked up to
>Sheridan and said "No problem! Let the computer whiz handle it!" He
>then outlined what he was going to do, using a flurry of Trek style
>technobabble. What happened? Sheridan's doors started opening and
>closing repeatedly. Garibaldi said "Sorry" and slunk off, leaving
>Sheridan to curse at the god damned computer.
>Which depiction of computers seems more accurate to you?
Larry you are so right
o defend Star Trek, while reading the tech manual, it admitted that
that use of the episode was a vast mistake, an abuse of technology the
usually try to screen out, as poor writers often cover their flaws by
technobabble
John P Pietrzak
: In article <46mk66$n...@hamblin.math.byu.edu> piet...@bert.cs.byu.edu (John P Pietrzak) writes:
: >
: >Ok, I agree with you, but riddle me this: whenever the Federation is
: >shown engaging something (on TNG, DS9, or whatever), they punch through
: >the shields, KNOCK OUT THE ENGINES/WEAPONRY, and then send over actual
: >people. [...] Why would the Klingons
: >completely ignore such a valuable and effective tactic?
: They didn't. They targeted the main central tower of the station, and
: knocked out 2 shield generators (out of how many, I know not), and then
: proceeded to try and board the station. Its easier to disable a starship
: (on an absolute scale) because there is 1 site to hit that will reduce
: all its defenses to zilch (although this is somewhat hard to do without
: causing the ship to explode)...the resources on a station are vast
: (having 2 shield generators to knock out is a luxury no starship can afford),
: and thats (part of the reason) why they failed.
But, wait a minute here. If the shields are low enough to allow
transporters to work, they must be low enough to allow weapons fire to
get through, right? Whether or not they could have reached the main
power source for DS9, the gun emplacements were open and easy to
reach. They should have been reducing DS9's ability to shoot back
before sending over troops, shouldn't they? It's what the Feds would
have done...
John
Dave Mansell
< lots of stuff about B5 being the 20th Century in Space snipped >
Go back 250 years - look at society, is it that much different from what
we have now? In those 250 years, despite huge marches in technology,
have we eliminated poverty?, hunger?, disease?, opression?, prejudice?,
crime?, war? - I think not.
Basically humanity has changed very little since the 18th century, or
indeed since the 12th century. why should that change in the future?
Look at the 18th century ideas of the utopian future, they look petty
silly now. Progress always has been, and will very probably continue to
be very slow as each generation has to learn many of the same lessons
anew. It's what we do as individuals that matters, transcending our
limitations. This is what Babylon 5 is about, ordinary people reaching
into themselves and doing extrodinary things.
: *** Insanity is part of the times. You must learn to embrace ***
: *** the madness and let it fire you.--Londo Mollari, Babylon-5 ***
> If that tag line isn't 20th century, I don't know what is.
and 19th, 18th, 17th, 16th, 15th, 14th, 13th, 12th, 11th.....
Get the point?
Dave Mansell
(da...@citsoft.co.uk).
I am becom deth the destroyr of words
Nigel Tzeng
no one of consequence <wol...@io.com> wrote:
><pw...@ibm.net> wrote:
>]losm...@ix.netcom.com (Carlos G Diaz III ) writes:
>]>>>How long do you think a group of world war II to planes would survive
>]>>>against a modern fighter?
>]>>uh... about 200 WWII planes against one modern fighter? the modern fighter
>]>>would hold out for a while but not that long. I mean one collision between
>]>>the WWII plane and the modern one and the modern one's toast.
>]
>]>They can out run them dummie.
>]
>]They? One modern plane. Remember? Also, we're not talking about
>]how well that modern plane can retreat. We're talking about how
>]well it would be able to fight against such overwhelming odds.
Given unlimited ammo yeah...not a big deal. DS9 had "unlimited" ammo
in the sense it had sufficient magazine space or energy to last the
battle.
A better analogy (given shields) is the Iowa against 200 WWI era
dreadnaughts. She should be able to go through a large number of them
before her magazines run dry...all without taking a scratch in return.
Of course put the Iowa at point blank range and it doesn't apply.
>*sigh* Go look up some data on the planes you are thinking of. Most
>modern fighters couldn't take out more than a dozen or so WWII-era
>fighters before running out of ammo. This could give time for the
>survivors to fly over to the modern fighters base and, since you weren't
>thinking about the logistical aspects and neglected air defenses, blast
>the crap out of the runways and hangars. Oops.
I'm not sure about that...I think that a lot of current day fighters
have longer legs (with conformal fuel tanks anyway) than their WWII
compatriots.
You might also note that it takes a hell of a lot longer for the WWII
fighter to get to the base than the fighter does...which allows a few
sorties back and forth to the fighter cloud before it gets to the base
which for most WWII fighters they aren't going to "blast the crap" out
of because they don't have the firepower to take out a modern hardened
base for good.
Well, I suppose they could land and assault it with .45's.
>Technology is useful, but not everything in a battle.
>
>[While you're at it, look up Soviet design philosophy for their fighters
>and tanks.]
What about it? US vs Soviet equipment shows that technology does play
a major part when you can shoot faster/harder/accurately and you're
mostly immune to return fire. I'll take an equal dollar/ruble force
of M1s against T80s all else being equal.
>--
>|Patrick Chester (aka: claypigeon, Sinapus. Yeah, I moved)wol...@io.com|
Nigel
David Veal
>>Nothing would be rare or unique anymore (you can forget about being a
>>collector of originals).
>
>are flaoting around? Millions? Yet the original is still worth more than
>a $1.50 that you can get a copy for.
You do run into the prolbem that now not only do you have good
forgeries, you can have copies which are indistinguishable from the
original down to the atomic level... talk about a forger's dream.
Trevor Bradley
>Incrdbil wrote:
>: Larry Partridge <lpar...@intranet.on.ca> wrote:
>: >I really like one scene in Babylon 5 where they seemed to poke fun at
>: >this. I can't remember the name of the episode, but it was one where
>: >they had to find a fugitive on the station. Garibaldi walked up to
>: >Sheridan and said "No problem! Let the computer whiz handle it!" He
>: >then outlined what he was going to do, using a flurry of Trek style
>: >technobabble. What happened? Sheridan's doors started opening and
>: >closing repeatedly. Garibaldi said "Sorry" and slunk off, leaving
>: >Sheridan to curse at the god damned computer.
>: >Which depiction of computers seems more accurate to you?
>So what you are saying is that you think and hope that computers 250 years
>from now will be unreliable and prone to errors?
From experience with software engineering, they *will* be as
unreliable and prone to errors. Maybe worse than they are now.
--
Trevor Bradley | Burnaby, BC, Canada
tbra...@sfu.ca | Simon Fraser University, Burnaby Mountain
WWW URL | http://uptown.turnpike.net/T/tbradley/
Nigel Tzeng
>
>>How long do you think a group of world war II to planes would survive
>>against a modern fighter?
>
>uh... about 200 WWII planes against one modern fighter? the modern fighter
>would hold out for a while but not that long. I mean one collision between
>the WWII plane and the modern one and the modern one's toast.
Depends on whether you give the modern aircraft unlimited ammo.
>DS9 almost wasted the Klingons- one station against 200 Klingon ships.
>That's got to say something about level of technology.
Yes, that it is incredibly inconsistant. That's what really turned me
off. If it were a few Klingon cruisers I'd believe it but the entire
Klingon navy was practically there. If the Fed can upgrade stations
to that level of firepower and protection a hostile Klingon Empire is
an act of stupidity and they suck wind as a viable threat and as a
"warrior" race.
I'd take their future posturings as serious as I take Iraq's. Not
very.
>V.W.
Nigel
PS I can believe that Starfleet would win against the Klingons
(although in TNG they were losing) in a normal fight much as I would
expect the Royal Navy fleet to get chewed up by the USN...but not at
point blank range. After all that is "classically" the strongest
position for the Klingons. It doesn't get any better than that for
them...kinda like having your missile boats next the CVN you need to
kill.
John Benn
Tom McLean <tmc...@chat.carleton.ca> wrote:
>John Benn (be...@uwindsor.ca) wrote:
>
>> The problem is that the Klingons were winning. There's no
>> reason why they didn't just dispatch about 10 battle cruisers to
>> intercept the Fed's 6 ships while the rest of the force finish
>> DS9 off. 2 Klingon battle cruisers have beaten the Enterprise
>> up before. There's no way that 10 battle cruisers wouldn't
>> be able to take out 6 Fed cruisers given that they weren't all
>> of Galaxy Class. It was really inconsistent with past Trek
>> force composition and capability.
>
> I think you're wrong there. The design of the (Hypothetical)
>Klingon war strategy has been compared to that of the Soviet Union in
>our times. The Klingons rely on both offensive capability and
>numbers, whereas the Federation relies on Ship to Ship superiority and
>weapons plateform quality. This means that 6 Klingon crusers don't
>match up evenly to 6 Federation crusers. And if you noticed, most of
>the ships attacking DS-9 were Birds of Prey, ships designed almost
>exclusively for offense with very little defensive technology. The 6
>Federation ships were indeed important as they presented an outcome
>that was uncertain for Gowran.
You need to rewatch the episode again to get your numbers
straight. While you're at it, watch a few TNG episodes to see
the Enterprise getting it's ass kicked by 2 Klingon Birds of Prey.
My point was that the episode was completely inconsistent with
prior Trek. It may conform with your own personal view of the
Klingons but that has no place in any objective analysis.
--
Matuse
>] It has been stated many times already that the replicator cannot
>] replicate complex organic molecules or complex electrical or mechanical
>] devices.
>
>But they CAN reproduce nutritious food? Haven't had much exposure to
>the biological sciences, have you boy?
Creating organic molecules is one thing...creating LIVING ORGANISMS is
quite another.
>] You might then get the idea that you could just fire a transporter beam at
>] the hull of another ship, converting it into energy and letting it disipate
>] (explosively) at the point of impact. Well, guess what, that's what a
>] phaser is.
>
>Then why do people shot with phasers simply vanish instead of wiping
>the entire city-sized area around them off the map? (Or should that
>be a state-sized area?)
They get blasted into sub-space :)
--
"I accept"
"To accept is to yield"
"To yield is to allow oncoming traffic the right of way"
Matuse
>
>Nothing would be rare or unique anymore (you can forget about being a
>collector of originals).
The original is *always* the original. How many prints of the mona lisa
are flaoting around? Millions? Yet the original is still worth more than
a $1.50 that you can get a copy for.
Figure maybe $100 if its an oil copy and not just a scanned type
copy...still no comparison with the original.
>With a combination of a replicator, transporter & computer,
>you can eliminate most if not all the crew, and anyone attacking
>would be able to get nowhere without sufficient power,
>as damaged parts could be beamed out, and replaced by new identical
>parts beamed back into place.
Problem being that transporters are not so precise. Can put a person on
the ground, but inserting a small part into the exact configuration
required to run a ship system would be difficult...especially if the ship
gets rocked in even the slightest degree by incoming fire.
>Enemy attcking? Beam new replicated photon torpedos outside the
>ship with proper momentum to collide with the enemies shield.
Watch as they kill you with one shot while your shields are down to
perform such a transport.
CHRISTOPHER L HOLT
Eudy) writes:
|> From: je1...@xx.acs.appstate.edu (Jason Eudy)
|> Newsgroups:
|> rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5,alt.tv.star-trek.ds9,rec.arts.startrek.current
|> Subject: Re: Babylon 5 vs. DS9
|> Followup-To:
|> rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5,alt.tv.star-trek.ds9,rec.arts.startrek.current
|> Date: 1 Nov 1995 16:51:18 GMT
|> Organization: Appalachian State University
|> Lines: 16
|> Message-ID: <4788i6$3...@lester.appstate.edu>
|> References: <46a9cg$p...@ixnews7.ix.netcom.com>
|> <46f4m6$d...@independence.ecn.uoknor.edu>
|> <q-2310950...@lvl-mac050.usc.edu> <46gk94$8...@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>
|> <46mk66$n...@hamblin.math.byu.edu> <46nvoo$m...@empire.texas.net>
|> <46oh8r$k...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>|> <471n8k$p...@lester.appstate.edu>
|> <473gjo$r...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> <4740uo$h...@news.worldlinx.com>
|> <476q74$m...@konza.flinthills.com>
|> NNTP-Posting-Host: xx.acs.appstate.edu
|> X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
|>
|> Incrdbil wrote:
|> : Larry Partridge <lpar...@intranet.on.ca> wrote:
|>
|> : >I really like one scene in Babylon 5 where they seemed to poke fun at
|> : >this. I can't remember the name of the episode, but it was one where
|> : >they had to find a fugitive on the station. Garibaldi walked up to
|> : >Sheridan and said "No problem! Let the computer whiz handle it!" He
|> : >then outlined what he was going to do, using a flurry of Trek style
|> : >technobabble. What happened? Sheridan's doors started opening and
|> : >closing repeatedly. Garibaldi said "Sorry" and slunk off, leaving
|> : >Sheridan to curse at the god damned computer.
|>
|> : >Which depiction of computers seems more accurate to you?
|>
|> So what you are saying is that you think and hope that computers 250 years
|> from now will be unreliable and prone to errors?
Sorry to say this, but the computers aren't the cause of the errors. Errors
have plagued computers since they started, and unless you can find someone who
never makes mistakes and always finds the correct program to write and writes it
perfectly, errors will still continue to be a problem in computers. And that
person will eventually die to be replaced by (more than likely) an imperfect
person. So it's not that we "hope" computers will be prone to errors, it's
just realistic.
Chris Palmer
>In article <475q97$g...@swindle.XCF.Berkeley.EDU> sc...@swindle.XCF.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Silvey) writes:
>>] It has been stated many times already that the replicator cannot
>>] replicate complex organic molecules or complex electrical or mechanical
>>] devices.
>>
>>But they CAN reproduce nutritious food? Haven't had much exposure to
>>the biological sciences, have you boy?
>
>Creating organic molecules is one thing...creating LIVING ORGANISMS is
>quite another.
God knows that trying to defend Trek's "science" is a hopeless task. I've
decided that everything in Roddenbery's universe runs on magic and
that everything can be explained by coining a new form of energy, a new
particle, or a new type of subspace anomaly. Gack.
HOWEVER, (my second post tonight with a big HOWEVER :-) )
The explaination from the writer's guide and the new book The Physics of
Star Trek (I read the excerpt in this month's Wired) is that the
transporters encode and transmit information down to the quantum
level (using Heisenburg Supressors, no less) while the replicators
only resolve to the coarse atomic/molecular level. Hence, complex
organics can be created by replicators, but if you ran a human through
a replicator, you *might* get a living creature, but you wouldn't get
the same person (I guess they're viewing the quantum level state as
a sort of soul -- you wouldn't have the same brain patterns and stuff).
This is the reason that a replicator can reproduce a gourmet meal, but,
to most people, it just doesn't taste right, so they had to hire Neelix.
The Physics of Star Trek except did go into the energy requirements
and computational complexity (impossibility?) of transporter and replicator
technology and pretty much dismissed it as what it is, a plot device
invented in the late 60's to keep them from having to film planetary
landings every week on a low budget show. If they had the foresight, they
should have called it something like "gating" and explained it in terms
of the warp drive instead of the disintegration/reintegration.
The excert did not try to explain how the transporter could be used to
"filter" that disease from Dr. Pulaski (?) and why that couldn't be used
to cure any disease, or why you couldn't "resurrect" someone killed in action
from their last beam down/up. It did mention that the actual atoms are
transmitted, and used that as an excuse for not "cloning" people except
that Riker and Kirk were both "doubled" in a transporter mishap, so that
shoots that theory to hell. Even if you needed the atoms, a replicator
could dupe the gross structure which could be re-integrated using the transporter
pattern buffer. Plot and logic holes big enough to drive a starship through.
Finally, on a related subject, as anyone ever read The Eternity Brigade by Stephen
Goldin? It involved a transporter type technology which was used to digitize
and store mercenary soldiers. If you survived a battle, you got a shore leave,
then they re-digitized you with your new experiences. If you were killed in
battle, big deal, you lost your experience, but you got resurrected just the same.
At first, you were disintegrated during the digitizing, but later they improved
so you could just be scanned. So, you could fight a battle, be re-scanned, then
retire, but subjectively, you would walk into the scanning chamber, then wake up
on a distant world and be prepped for a new battle. Sure, one of "you" would be
soaking up some rays on a pleasure planet and sipping Pina Coladas by the beach,
but the other chain of existence was trapped in a hell of constant war. The book
covered thousands of years in which the main character fought hundreds of battles, but
only aged a few years. I haven't read it in years and I've been trying to find a copy
to replace my lost one.
--
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Jason Eudy
: God knows that trying to defend Trek's "science" is a hopeless task. I've
: decided that everything in Roddenbery's universe runs on magic and
: that everything can be explained by coining a new form of energy, a new
: particle, or a new type of subspace anomaly. Gack.
I said it once and it looks like I need to say it again.
Go show Ben Franklin a laptop computer. See if he thinks it's magic.
Jason Eudy
R. Tang
>In article <DHBu0...@cunews.carleton.ca>,
>Tom McLean <tmc...@chat.carleton.ca> wrote:
>>John Benn (be...@uwindsor.ca) wrote:
> You need to rewatch the episode again to get your numbers
>straight.
Yes, do. I think you'll find quite a few Birds o Preys in the
attack fleet.
>While you're at it, watch a few TNG episodes to see
>the Enterprise getting it's ass kicked by 2 Klingon Birds of Prey.
Don't think that happened. It may have been hurt by two dreadnought
class ships, but that's completely different.
As well, tactics with multiple ships change. (And you're still
forgetting the potential of a stationary emplacement).
>My point was that the episode was completely inconsistent with
>prior Trek.
And when have we seen a Federation base in battle before?
--
Roger Tang, gwan...@u.washington.edu, Artistic Director PC Theatre
STILL just another theatre geek....
The most unAmerican thing you can say is "He/she makes too much money."
ben debaan
>>John Benn (be...@uwindsor.ca) wrote:
>>
>>> The problem is that the Klingons were winning. There's no
>>> reason why they didn't just dispatch about 10 battle cruisers to
>>> intercept the Fed's 6 ships while the rest of the force finish
>>> DS9 off. 2 Klingon battle cruisers have beaten the Enterprise
>>> up before. There's no way that 10 battle cruisers wouldn't
>>> be able to take out 6 Fed cruisers given that they weren't all
>>> of Galaxy Class. It was really inconsistent with past Trek
>>> force composition and capability.
the problem wasn't the immediate 6 fed ships - it was political
problem. the 6 federation ships meant that if Galron continued the
fight, the federation would join in and the war would become a 2 front
affair.
Cptn. Cisco offered him the alternative of "ignoring" the whole
attack if the klingons would back off.
in the immediate battle the klingons would have won, yes. but if they
had kept on fighting and captured DS9 they would have had 3 enemys -
the fed, the cardassians, and a possible attack thru the wormhole.
Galron decided that winning the battle wasn't worth losing the war.
thus it was more the political grand strategy that forced the peace
than the immediate battle.
Sesterhenn Steven J
>Ok, maybe not, but Babylon 5 (and I assume you are Babylon 5 fan) is just
>the 20th century in space! For all the advancements they've apparently
>made, society has changed very little that I can tell. Was society in
I agree with both points... ST has magical technology that is unrealistic
and B5 seems to not have much new technology. But I think that's part of
what makes B5 fun to watch... it does seem a lot more realistic in terms of
what Earth (space) will be like a century from now because we can
identify things in the show with today. It doesn't seem 1,000 years
into the future like ST:TNG does.
>Plus those computer graphics give me a headache...
Yeah, sometimes I think they should loan the special effects team from
"Space Above and Beyond", which to me seem pretty good.
I like both shows so this isn't a flame into either. I just like sci-fi
and whatever criticisms I have I live with cause I can't change
anything. I'll change the channel if I can't live with it.....
Cheers everyone!
Sesterhenn Steven J
>He means DNA. Vitamin C is nothing compared to DNA. Plus replicators
>do not have Heisenberg compensators, therefore they cannot replicate
>anything living.
I thought Heisenberg compensators were just something made up to explain
how matter could move that fast through space, something to keep
physicists quiet over the so-called "Heisenberg principle." They had
nothing to do with DNA. Am I on track here?
Steve
Sesterhenn Steven J
> I don't recall who it was (Niven?) who also asked about matter
>transmission: what do you do with all that excess energy? Moving from
>an orbit to the surface of a planet is losing a *lot* of potential energy.
>Where do you bleed that off to? Store it until they come home?
>--
That sounds like the MOST valid criticism about transporters yet. Seems
to violate basic physics principles if you ask me. Hmmm, how many meters
is it from orbit to the surface? PE=mgh would have to add up I'd think.
But I've only taken 3 semesters of college physics so if there are any
physics degree holders out there?
Steve
Tom McLean
> In article <DHBu0...@cunews.carleton.ca>,
> Tom McLean <tmc...@chat.carleton.ca> wrote:
> >
> >> The problem is that the Klingons were winning. There's no
> >> reason why they didn't just dispatch about 10 battle cruisers to
> >> intercept the Fed's 6 ships while the rest of the force finish
> >> DS9 off. 2 Klingon battle cruisers have beaten the Enterprise
> >> up before. There's no way that 10 battle cruisers wouldn't
> >> be able to take out 6 Fed cruisers given that they weren't all
> >> of Galaxy Class. It was really inconsistent with past Trek
> >> force composition and capability.
> >
> >Klingon war strategy has been compared to that of the Soviet Union in
> >our times. The Klingons rely on both offensive capability and
> >numbers, whereas the Federation relies on Ship to Ship superiority and
> >weapons plateform quality. This means that 6 Klingon crusers don't
> >match up evenly to 6 Federation crusers. And if you noticed, most of
> >the ships attacking DS-9 were Birds of Prey, ships designed almost
> >exclusively for offense with very little defensive technology. The 6
> >Federation ships were indeed important as they presented an outcome
> >that was uncertain for Gowran.
> You need to rewatch the episode again to get your numbers
> straight. While you're at it, watch a few TNG episodes to see
> the Enterprise getting it's ass kicked by 2 Klingon Birds of Prey.
> My point was that the episode was completely inconsistent with
> prior Trek. It may conform with your own personal view of the
> Klingons but that has no place in any objective analysis.
Although your reply felt vague and a little hostile to me, I
think one of your points was that I somehow have my numbers wrong.
The only numbers I spoke of were those reffering to 6 cruiser against
6 cruisers. As for your reference to the episode where the Enterprise
C alters the future, in that episode the Enterprise D is attacked by 3
Birds of Prey. During the battle the Enterprise purposefully takes a
pummeling, refusing to evade fire, in order to give the Enterprise C
time to escape.
Your right about one thing. Star Trek has never really made
it clear how big a Bird of Prey is next to a fed ship like, say, a
galaxy class Enterprise. If you notice they are never close up and
next to each other but are always facing each other or in a position
where it is difficult to tell size.
If anything, the season premier of DS9 finally confirmed the
actual size and capabilities of Birds of Prey as shown by the ratio
between them and the larger Klingon cruisers. We now know how big
they are, and how strong they are, whereas before it was shady and not
written in stone. Just watch the effects clips and you will see what I mean.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom McLean
Email address: tmc...@chat.carleton.ca
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Eudy
: This is rubbish. In the B5 universe there is a united Earth where
: homosexuality is not even an issue, where the beliefs of every other
: human are respected at a social level and no one is forced to conform
: to the dominant religion or lack thereof. This is hardly the same as
: today. It's a world where Jews and Arabs have buried the hatchet,
: where the entire world is free and democratic (though there are
: threats to these freedoms). B5 is not 20th Century in space. It's
: humanity in space. Given the non-existene of replicators it's
: reasonable to assume that poverty and hunger can still exist 264 years
: from now.
It's humaity in space, the beliefs of all are respected, the world is
free and democratic, and yet they can't find a way to eliminate poverty?
You seem to think the only way to do such a thing is to invent the
replicator. The reason I say Babylon 5 is the 20th century in space is
because we have no idea what kind of social revolutions may take place in
the next 250 years, and it makes no attempt to represent that. Star Trek
presents a society free of many of the problems that plague us today
but doesn't attempt to explain how that came about -- as it rightly
shouldn't, because if the authors were that brilliant they would be
reforming society instead of writing Star Trek
: B5 is far less 20th century than Trek is 18th century. Everyone on
: Trek listens to classical music and loves horseback riding and spanish
: galleys etc... I'm not implying that you find this to be acceptable
: either but I think it's far more natural to assume that social
: problems will still exist to a certain degree in the future and that
: characters will more closely identify with elements in the recent past
: as opposed to 500 years in the past. People know and identify alot
: more with events 200 years ago (Napoleanic wars, American Civil War
: etc..) than with those further back...
Consider the TOS episode "The Way to Eden." Remember the music on that
episode? It may have been "groovy" back then and seemed to people then
that it would be in style 300 years in the future, but that episode has
not aged well. On the other hand, classical music HAS been popular for
the past 200 years and there is no indication that will change.
Also, you point out aspects of what people enjoy, and then later you
say that people identify more with recent events, and cite two wars. While
wars often shape technology, they usually don't shape what people enjoy
doing, unless of course they enjoy killing. So I don't think events in the
future are going to abolish horseback riding or classical music.
Besides, you seem to think that Picard constitutes "everyone." Riker listens
to jazz, not classical. Worf enjoys Klingon opera. Data writes poetry
and paints. Geordi plays with imaginary women on the holodeck. Worf
builds models. Data and Picard solve mysteries. Crusher dances and writes
plays. Worf fights with monsters on the holodeck.
Go to DS9. Dax fights with monsters on the holodeck. Sisko enjoys baseball.
Bashir and O'Brien play tennis and darts. Garak hems dresses. Jake writes
stories. Morn gets drunk. Quark steals everything that isn't tied down.
The point is, an attempt has been made to give most everyone some kind of
personal life or hobby other than listening to classical music and riding
horses. What does Sheridan do? That's a good question.
: Anyone who doesn't see the differences between 2259 in the B5
: universe (we control 14 star systems for godsakes) and 20th
: century earth just isn't looking hard enough.
: --
: *** Insanity is part of the times. You must learn to embrace ***
: *** the madness and let it fire you.--Londo Mollari, Babylon-5 ***
If that tag line isn't 20th century, I don't know what is.
Young Ned of the Hill
>Scott Silvey (sc...@swindle.XCF.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
>Come on -- a large sector? With billions and billions of people, could you
>consider the number of scientists and programmers needed for replicators
>to be large? After all, you can just copy the patterns from one to another.
>: I doubt simple things like crystals would be much of a problem if you
>: can reproduce things like turkey and Earl Grey tea. In fact, I'm sure
>: the replicator could make crystals more perfect than is ever found in
>: nature.
>The error rate in earl grey tea wouldn't be noticed ... did Picard ever
>say "Hmmm ... this tastes a few molecules off..." But the error rate in
>a crystal would be considerably more important.
But if the ability to reproduce molecules is there, a crystal is nothing
more than a loop in the program with coordinates incremented recursively.
Up above you seemed to imply that that sort of thing is easy. Also, random
errors shouldn't be a problem since the strength of a machine (dating back
to the printing press or farther) lies in its ability to do repetitive jobs
consistently the same many many times.
>: ST tech is completely magic.
>Hypospray? Laser as a tactical weapon? Automatic doors? Neural net?
>Tricorder? Android? Antimatter? All of this either exists or is being
>developed, and it doesn't sound like magic to me.
Warp drive? Transporters? Replicators which can produce a hot and seasoned
dead turkey but not a living one (I'd have to say that a thanksgiving
dinner is more complex molecularly than a plain, living turkey) Shields?
That thing doctors wave over almost any wound to heal them instantly?
Most of the many "particles of the week"? Subspace? (or is that just another
name for "hyperspace"?) Holodecks capable of forming solid holograms as
well as intelligent beings capable of taking over the ship?
Don't try to pass of Trek as hard SF, or even anything grounded in scientific
fact. The thing which usually stops Trek as a whole from being considered
serious science fiction by literary definitions isn't that most of the
technology is fantastical, but that it often doesn't have the same properties
from episode to episode, thus losing any hope of a truly coherent universe for
the stories to take place in.
>: ] You might then get the idea that you could just fire a transporter beam at
>: ] the hull of another ship, converting it into energy and letting it disipate
>: ] (explosively) at the point of impact. Well, guess what, that's what a
>: ] phaser is.
>: Then why do people shot with phasers simply vanish instead of wiping
>: the entire city-sized area around them off the map? (Or should that
>: be a state-sized area?)
>: Stop being so silly.
>Go show Ben Franklin a laptop computer and see if he thinks it's magic...
What does that have to do with the above question? If an average person
were converted into energy (as was asserted above), they would take out
at least several city blocks in the ensuing explosion. Comversion of
1g of matter produces about 9x10^13 Joules of energy (enough to power a
100W light bulb for for 28000 years, 80000 times that would be released
by converting an 80kg (approx 177 pound) person.
Of course Ben franklin would think a laptop computer is magic, although he
would have little use for it beyond novelty value, but that has nothing to
do with the discussion about phasers.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
They don't pay me enough| bgr...@scf.usc.edu | We're everywhere, for your
to speak their opinions!|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| convenience. -PsiCorps
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=finger me for GC3.1=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
John Benn
Jason Eudy <je1...@xx.acs.appstate.edu> wrote:
>John Benn (be...@uwindsor.ca) wrote:
>
>: This is rubbish. In the B5 universe there is a united Earth where
>: homosexuality is not even an issue, where the beliefs of every other
>: human are respected at a social level and no one is forced to conform
>: to the dominant religion or lack thereof. This is hardly the same as
>: today. It's a world where Jews and Arabs have buried the hatchet,
>: where the entire world is free and democratic (though there are
>: threats to these freedoms). B5 is not 20th Century in space. It's
>: humanity in space. Given the non-existene of replicators it's
>: reasonable to assume that poverty and hunger can still exist 264 years
>: from now.
>
>It's humaity in space, the beliefs of all are respected, the world is
>free and democratic, and yet they can't find a way to eliminate poverty?
>You seem to think the only way to do such a thing is to invent the
>replicator.
I didn't say that. I said that poverty "could" still exit not
that it "would" necessarily. I don't understand what your problem
is with this. We live in a free democratic society now and we still
have poor and hungry people living in the streets...
>The reason I say Babylon 5 is the 20th century in space is
>because we have no idea what kind of social revolutions may take place in
>the next 250 years, and it makes no attempt to represent that. Star Trek
>presents a society free of many of the problems that plague us today
>but doesn't attempt to explain how that came about -- as it rightly
>shouldn't, because if the authors were that brilliant they would be
>reforming society instead of writing Star Trek
It does make the attempt to examine that. The added tolerance
and cooperation that was needed to bring us to the stars would be
a good place to start... What you're saying is that you don't like
B5 because it doesn't postulate a utopic paradise. If this is the
case then our discussion is over. If you think that future SF can
only present one view (the irony is so thick you could butter toast)
then we have nothing further to discuss.
>Consider the TOS episode "The Way to Eden." Remember the music on that
>episode? It may have been "groovy" back then and seemed to people then
>that it would be in style 300 years in the future, but that episode has
>not aged well. On the other hand, classical music HAS been popular for
>the past 200 years and there is no indication that will change.
Sure classical music is popular but when's the last time you
walked into a bar (like the Zocalo area) and heard classical music?
I'm sure that characters on B5 (Londo is a good example) like
classical music, but they don't go around acting like British Lords
and attending symphonies on the station every 2 weeks, and their
tastes VARY. It's sad to see an entire cast liking just about
everything that is old and classical. Incidentally, since rock was
invented relatively recently I'd say the verdict is still out on its
popularity in 200 years...
>Also, you point out aspects of what people enjoy, and then later you
>say that people identify more with recent events, and cite two wars. While
>wars often shape technology, they usually don't shape what people enjoy
>doing, unless of course they enjoy killing. So I don't think events in the
>future are going to abolish horseback riding or classical music.
I didn't say that either. I'm merely pointing out that Trek's
obsession with old "classical" arts and activities doesn't really
make sense. Everyone is into these things on Trek. In the B5
universe Garibaldi is into motorcycles, Londo likes classical music,
G'Kar likes musicals, Sheridan likes modern (2259) music, Delenn
doesn't get into much of anything (her religious nature) and so
forth... There is diversity and it lends strength to the cast.
In TNG in particular there was little diversity as if to say that
a better world can only come about if we agree on everything.
I'm sorry, but this isn't going to happen to humanity. We aren't
going to agree on everything and we have to live with that and
deal with it. That's one of the points to B5; that there WILL
be problems and arguments and that these will have to be resolved
if we're to move forward...
>Besides, you seem to think that Picard constitutes "everyone." Riker listens
>to jazz, not classical. Worf enjoys Klingon opera. Data writes poetry
>and paints. Geordi plays with imaginary women on the holodeck. Worf
>builds models. Data and Picard solve mysteries. Crusher dances and writes
>plays. Worf fights with monsters on the holodeck.
But everyone is involved in "light" classical activities.
Everyone like jazz, classical, horseback riding and spanish galleys
in the Trek universe. It's just that certain characters like certain
things more. No one ever says to Riker: "I'm not crazy about Jazz."
They love everything. They would string daisies about the Enterprise
if they got the urge. It's refreshing to see Ivanova listening to
light music and than seeing Garibaldi working on a motorcycle and
eating pizza and than seeing Londo and Vir argue about Centauri opera.
It gives life to the show.
>Go to DS9. Dax fights with monsters on the holodeck. Sisko enjoys baseball.
>Bashir and O'Brien play tennis and darts. Garak hems dresses. Jake writes
>stories. Morn gets drunk. Quark steals everything that isn't tied down.
I like the fact that Sisko enjoys baseball and that Bashir and
O'Brien plays darts. The rest is pretty uninspiring. DS9 is better
at showing "life" than TNG ever was though.
>The point is, an attempt has been made to give most everyone some kind of
>personal life or hobby other than listening to classical music and riding
>horses. What does Sheridan do? That's a good question.
Sheridan like oranges and baseball for starters. Also, realize
that B5 is actually telling a story and that there are somewhere
around 10+ major characters on the show. There isn't as much time
for goofing around. You may not like this but B5 fans want to see
an epic story with consequences and can live without whole episodes
about Data's poetry etc... Also understand that Sheridan is the
worst character to chose for comparison because all of the 1st season
characters did get really well developed with the "filler" episodes.
There isn't as much filler now and so Sheridan didn't get scads of
hobbies.
I'm not trying to say that Trek is "bad" but I am arguing that
B5 shows a diverse cast with many changes to the way humans operate
in the year 2259. Not everyone agrees with those social changes and
not all social problems have been eliminated. But, it's certainly
NOT the 20th century in space any more than Trek is the 18th century
in space.
I was pointing to all of the "classical" high brow references
in Trek to illustrate a point: Trek is stuck into the "classical"
as much as B5 is stuck into the "modern" (I believe it's more).