Star Trek 09 review thread

[Kodiak]

A valiant effort, good sir! However, still doomed. Even if this is the case, the drill has to shoot through thousands of kilometres of material to reach the core, and there will be huge amounts of material evpourating and getting in the way throughout the process. Dropping it through a few dozen km of atmosphere to get closer will not make any significant difference.

Then perhaps it's sole purpose is to function as an extraction unit and a means of getting equipment into the drill area? It could be a "gas-molecular-extractor" TM drill that's designed to vaporize the material, then suck in the vaporized material in to tanks and extract it later through chemical processes. I'm operating of course on the assumption that the design isn't ridiculous and it has a specific function other than to advance the plot.

Also, why was this mining vessel armed to the teeth with quantum-phase-fluxing warheads that blow starships to ribbons? Was that ever discussed?

[Agent Sorchus]

And what if the foolish chain was more of a safety device on the original ship. IF it is dangerous enough it would be a good idea to lift it away from the main body of the civilian ship as a safety precaution.

Probably the sanest rationalization of the stupid chain.

[Nephtys]

A valiant effort, good sir! However, still doomed. Even if this is the case, the drill has to shoot through thousands of kilometres of material to reach the core, and there will be huge amounts of material evpourating and getting in the way throughout the process. Dropping it through a few dozen km of atmosphere to get closer will not make any significant difference.

Then perhaps it's sole purpose is to function as an extraction unit and a means of getting equipment into the drill area? Also, why was this mining vessel armed to the teeth with quantum-phase-fluxing warheads that blow starships to ribbons? Was that ever discussed?

The same reason that a modern oil tanker armed with some remote control toy boats with plastique strapped on them can sink a Ship-of-the-Line. Even if performance is oddly weapon-like in the case of the Narada, it doesn't seem too preposterous. It's a lot more elegant than 'The Narada stopped at Torpedo Mart and bought a few crates of Borg-B-Gone Mk.9 MIRV Awesomerockets'.

[erik_t]

I know that space-born lasers will dissipate such that they are ineffective after passing through enough atmosphere. I thought that the dangling-chain drill was there so that it would be at an effective operating range while the ship itself remained in orbit. If the drill has to be, for instance, within 20-40 miles of the drilling surface in order to function properly, this would explain the need for a chain when the ship can't get that close to the surface by itself.

Also, it's entirely feasible that since the mining ship is supposed to be an all-in-one utility vehicle that this drill platform is designed to be lowered into the hole, once complete, and assist in the extraction of materials.

A valiant effort, good sir! However, still doomed. Even if this is the case, the drill has to shoot through thousands of kilometres of material to reach the core, and there will be huge amounts of material evpourating and getting in the way throughout the process. Dropping it through a few dozen km of atmosphere to get closer will not make any significant difference.

It doesn't have to be the material in the way (or lack thereof); it could be the sheer distance. First of all, any sensible beam of any kind is going to have non-ideal properties, including some nonzero spreading. And of course the damned thing glows, but this is probably a negligible loss.

Anyway, based on the visuals, it's obvious that they didn't reach the core of Vulcan; the destruction event was decided anisotropic with respect to Vulcan's latitude and longitude. If they only sought to get, say, 1000km down, and wanted to stay in a sensibly high orbit (to avoid the space junk around Vulcan? to follow SOP? to minimize the amount of fuel and reaction mass they had to burn to hover over some spot?), then lowering the drill on a chain would be quite sensible.

This does not excuse the unfortunate silliness of the chain's appearance, the only thing that truly was jarring to me from a SOD point of view.

[Drooling Iguana]

If something requires a lot of power to operate, you keep it closer, not farther. Why give yourself the headache of needing to run it through such a long conductor?

My thinking was that the forcefield unit needs to be on the ground, but is unable to carry enough power on its own to operate, necessitating a linkup with the ship in orbit. Unless you've either got some means to efficiently transfer usable energy from the ship to the ground without a physical link, or you're able to land the ship on the planet's surface every time you need to drill, you're going to need something to connect the ship to the planet's surface.

[Kodiak]

A valiant effort, good sir! However, still doomed. Even if this is the case, the drill has to shoot through thousands of kilometres of material to reach the core, and there will be huge amounts of material evpourating and getting in the way throughout the process. Dropping it through a few dozen km of atmosphere to get closer will not make any significant difference.

Then perhaps it's sole purpose is to function as an extraction unit and a means of getting equipment into the drill area? Also, why was this mining vessel armed to the teeth with quantum-phase-fluxing warheads that blow starships to ribbons? Was that ever discussed?

The same reason that a modern oil tanker armed with some remote control toy boats with plastique strapped on them can sink a Ship-of-the-Line. Even if performance is oddly weapon-like in the case of the Narada, it doesn't seem too preposterous. It's a lot more elegant than 'The Narada stopped at Torpedo Mart and bought a few crates of Borg-B-Gone Mk.9 MIRV Awesomerockets'.

It just occurred to me that the Narda could be using the equivalent of "space blasting-caps" as weapons. It's not unreasonable to think that the ship was designed to mine out asteroids many times the size of the ship and those missile could be used to blast them apart.

Also, I'm beginning to think more and more that the platform is intended for use as a reclamation device, one that can be lowered to the work area and then send up vaporized material through the cable as a conveyor. This would be an efficient way of getting the raw material from the surface to space.

[Junghalli]

Maybe the long, hanging drill was necessary because, if you're going to be digging a hole to the centre of a planet you're going to have to do something to prevent said hole from collapsing on you before you get anywhere close to your goal. They likely needed a sophisticated system of force fields to keep the hole intact long enough to drop the red matter in, and they might have been difficult to align from orbit.

If they could do that though you have to wonder why they needed this drill at all. Just push this forcefield into the center of the planet and push the rock open.

Let's face reality here: the creators of the film clearly had no idea that a planet is mostly liquid. They treated Vulcan as a giant rock, so if you can drill into it, then you can just drop something down the resulting hole. Remember that the platform was disabled before they dropped the red matter down the hole, and you could clearly see the hole. If Vulcan were a more realistic planet, hot lava should have been shooting up out of it. Even when the planet collapsed, it looked all dry on the inside.

I'm pretty sure realistically it wouldn't matter anyway: even if Vulcan was solid all the way to the bottom I really don't see a 6000 km deep unsupported open shaft being able to hold itself up. I'm pretty sure it would collapse in on itself faster than you could drill.

Anyway, based on the visuals, it's obvious that they didn't reach the core of Vulcan; the destruction event was decided anisotropic with respect to Vulcan's latitude and longitude.

Personally I suspect the drill only actually was there to punch through the crust. It's marginally less stupid than the idea that they drilled all the way to the center of the planet.

[Richardson]

The drill's mechanics suggest that it may be meant more for remote drilling into asteroids. The 'random vents of fire' on top of it appear that they could be used for manuvering thrusters, and that thing had a helluva recoil when first fired. You can see the chain jerk when it starts firing on San Fran bay. The spikiness of the chain could be more Narada random-bling, as has been suggested about the whole overall shape of the ship.

It makes sense, if you think about it for a moment.

You want to drill into this nice asteroid, but for whatever reason, you don't want to get too close to it. Now then, you've got this nice 50 km long chain (given how deep into the atmosphere from orbit it was at Vulcan), and you've got hazardous asteroid.

Hmmm.....


Also, much of the Narada's 'moria-esque' space makes sense as well, if you consider that that chain has to go somewhere. Why not that big huge cavern?

[Connor MacLeod]

Part of me wants to think the Drill was originally part of some other separate platform (manned?) that went out and drilled, but for some reason (damage or crew limitations perhaps) they needed to rig it up to a chain as they did, so it was more of an ad-hoc design. Say like the mining ship normally carries a buncha smaller mining ships that detach and operate away from the ship. Perhaps remotely powered by it or something. Or maybe the drill has some adverse effects on technology close to the ship (Trek is no stranger to making up radiations like that). If the drilling platforms were damaged/destroyed and not easily replaced, they may have had to figure out a different way to deploy it, especially with limited resources. A chain is stupid, but it would (presumably) work well enough for Nero's purposes. Perhaps whatever drilling platforms might (hypothetically) exist originally had their propulsion/hover and/or life support systems damaged (so they coudl no longer hang there unsupported, and/or be operated easily.)

I've still got nothing on the tentacles, aside maybe for some technobabble forcefield wank of some kind.

[Connor MacLeod]

Oh hell if I'm going to speculate, I'll offer another possibility. Is it possible that the spikes may have in some form originally been some sort of energy transmission device, for the hypothetical mining platforms I spoke of? Or maybe they were designed as transmission devices of some kind (remotely operating them might make more sense than manned now that I think about it. but if the platform's control systems were damaged independent or wireless operation may not be possible. Perhaps the chain is not just to holdit up, but to control or direct it, sorta like some wire guided munitions?)

I wanna say they got "mutated" by some technobabble if the look of the spiky bits doesnt support remote transmission. I heard somewhere that the ship suppposedly got ahold of borg crap somewhere and got zombiefied. That might bea nother thing. Maybe the Borg tech interacting with the original Narada fucked some things up (like the drones or their original control systems.)

[Connor MacLeod]

I'm pretty sure realistically it wouldn't matter anyway: even if Vulcan was solid all the way to the bottom I really don't see a 6000 km deep unsupported open shaft being able to hold itself up. I'm pretty sure it would collapse in on itself faster than you could drill.

Anyway, based on the visuals, it's obvious that they didn't reach the core of Vulcan; the destruction event was decided anisotropic with respect to Vulcan's latitude and longitude.

Personally I suspect the drill only actually was there to punch through the crust. It's marginally less stupid than the idea that they drilled all the way to the center of the planet.

I'm inclined to agree. Its not the first time in sci fi the term "core" got abused like that. The Shadow Planet Killer in B5 was commonly claimed to drill its missiles down to the "core", yet it simply blasted craters in the crust.

Now that I'm thinking on it, I'd be worried about the recoil issue with the platform and that flexible chain, which is going to limit the kinda firepower it coudl output (barring technobabble NDFing type stuff), so not having it blast so deep probably would make more sense.

Also, scratch what I said earlier about the "dangerous radiation" bit, since I missed where others mentioned it and it clearly doesn't work.

[An Ancient]

Perhaps it's to do with the jamming effect the thing seemed to have? It screwed up transporters and sensors for the Federation ships, granted the Narada is centuries newer tech but perhaps this means that it can resist the disruption, but the drill has to be a certain distance away, otherwise it's to much even for them?

[Bounty]

Perhaps it's to do with the jamming effect the thing seemed to have? It screwed up transporters and sensors for the Federation ships, granted the Narada is centuries newer tech but perhaps this means that it can resist the disruption, but the drill has to be a certain distance away, otherwise it's to much even for them?

Welcome to fifteen pages ago?

[tim31]

It just occurred to me that the Narda could be using the equivalent of "space blasting-caps" as weapons. It's not unreasonable to think that the ship was designed to mine out asteroids many times the size of the ship and those missile could be used to blast them apart.

While in the movie the thought occurred to me as well. It was then that I cast my mind back to seismic charges as seen in ATOTC. Imagine that in the new Trek?

*silence*

B-WOOONG!

That would have been the sound of your hardcore crossover fan's heads exploding.

[Surlethe]

Also, I'm beginning to think more and more that the platform is intended for use as a reclamation device, one that can be lowered to the work area and then send up vaporized material through the cable as a conveyor. This would be an efficient way of getting the raw material from the surface to space.

So you're saying that the drill is actually a backpack space elevator they jury-rigged to punch through the crust?

If this "red matter" stuff forms a black hole, one wonders why they had to punch through the crust, anyway; why couldn't they just drop the shit on the surface and let it eat the planet up from there?

[Junghalli]

If this "red matter" stuff forms a black hole, one wonders why they had to punch through the crust, anyway; why couldn't they just drop the shit on the surface and let it eat the planet up from there?

I asked the same thing. One possibility that was brought up was the black hole would have an easier time growing in the dense mantle, where it could suck in surrounding material more easily.

[Darth Wong]

If this "red matter" stuff forms a black hole, one wonders why they had to punch through the crust, anyway; why couldn't they just drop the shit on the surface and let it eat the planet up from there?

It's pretty clear that the people in Star Trek have no idea what a black hole is. That applies to either the in-universe characters or the writers; take your pick. Just treat the object you see as a red-matter vortex, invoke some of the usual meaningless "subspace" technobullshit and call it a day.

[Kodiak]

Also, I'm beginning to think more and more that the platform is intended for use as a reclamation device, one that can be lowered to the work area and then send up vaporized material through the cable as a conveyor. This would be an efficient way of getting the raw material from the surface to space.

So you're saying that the drill is actually a backpack space elevator they jury-rigged to punch through the crust?

Step 1. Use drill to punch hole into crust
Step 2. Vaporize desired materials w/ drill
Step 3. Use space-lift/elevator to move materials into orbit
Step 4. Use platform to load/unload necessary personnel and equipment into drill site.
Step 5. Re-process materials on the mother-ship and when finished, retract dril
Step 6. ???
Step 7. Profit!

[Darth Wong]

If you wanted to mine M-class planetary surfaces, you wouldn't do it directly with a spaceship. That's just plain silly. You would drop pre-fab installations onto the surface. A mining spaceship would presumably mine things from much smaller bodies such as asteroids and small moons.

This is like trying to design a modern blue-water ship which could reach way out onto the shore and mine from land with giant cranes and machines hooked up to the ship on cables. Who cares if you could find a way to make it work? The whole idea is silly.

[erik_t]

If this "red matter" stuff forms a black hole, one wonders why they had to punch through the crust, anyway; why couldn't they just drop the shit on the surface and let it eat the planet up from there?

It's pretty clear that the people in Star Trek have no idea what a black hole is. That applies to either the in-universe characters or the writers; take your pick. Just treat the object you see as a red-matter vortex, invoke some of the usual meaningless "subspace" technobullshit and call it a day.

I will argue until I'm blue (red?) in the face that this remains decidedly preferable to exactly the same strange phenomenon "explained" with the word "quantum", which has been par for the course for the last two decades.

[Richardson]

I must also point out that this is Trek, and Nero appears to be moderately genere-savvy. Sure, the same thing could be done from atop the crust, but it's more adventagous for him to position it as deeply as possible, to prevent any chance of starfleet doing what it's known to do best and save the day. It's a hell of a lot harder to reach something placed 100-1000 miles down than something on the surface, and by the time a fleet ship could have gotten a clear shot at doing something, if it was placed that far down, it would be too late to save the planet anyway, with a critical mass likely to have been reached, to say nothing of the sheer damage to the planet even if they do manage to pull the singularity, or neutralize it, or whatever the hell they would do.

It doesn't make sense if you're not genere savvy, but as soon as you start considering the capibilities of in-universe forces, the whole 'bury it too deep to reach' starts looking reaaaallly attractive, and considering his offensive capibilities, he didn't really have to be worried about fleets bothering him while he worked.

[Oskuro]

This is like trying to design a modern blue-water ship which could reach way out onto the shore and mine from land with giant cranes and machines hooked up to the ship on cables. Who cares if you could find a way to make it work? The whole idea is silly.

But it would look awesome! Wich is what the movie was aiming for, incidentally.

[Junghalli]

I must also point out that this is Trek, and Nero appears to be moderately genere-savvy. Sure, the same thing could be done from atop the crust, but it's more adventagous for him to position it as deeply as possible, to prevent any chance of starfleet doing what it's known to do best and save the day. It's a hell of a lot harder to reach something placed 100-1000 miles down than something on the surface, and by the time a fleet ship could have gotten a clear shot at doing something, if it was placed that far down, it would be too late to save the planet anyway, with a critical mass likely to have been reached, to say nothing of the sheer damage to the planet even if they do manage to pull the singularity, or neutralize it, or whatever the hell they would do.

Honestly, I think it's the other way around. I mean, you're saying he has two options:

1) Park his ship over the target world. Dangle a giant vulnerable chain into the atmosphere for 20 minutes or however long it takes to drill through the crust. Drop the red matter into the hole.

2) Drop a red matter missile on the planet and have it blow up on the surface. This will take about twenty seconds, going by the movie.

Which one sounds more complicated and failure-prone to you? I know which one sounds more likely to cause Murphy to bite me in the ass to me: it's the one that takes way longer and involves me having to dangle some huge vulnerable drilling mechanism into the target world's atmosphere for a prolonged time. If Nero had elected to go with Option # 2 Earth would have gone the way of Vulcan.

[Havok]

The only good reason I can come up with for the space chain is that is is meant to be maneuverable in space itself. The men inside it actually operate it and pilot it around, and possibly into, large asteroids that they want to break up if need be with out spending the time of clearing a path through less valuable asteroids in the way.

[tim31]

With the chain as a safety redundancy? I dunno Hav... Why wouldn't they just be carrying a bunch of Mole Miners on board?