Happy / Crappy Landings

[Lord Poe]

See, this is what happens when I get bored:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UIvFdTXJPs

Discuss.

[Bounty]

Guest narration by Stephen Hawking I hear. There's a few bits that sound chopped off during the IH landing.

Few points:

You might want to point out Data levelled out the ship before impact. Without mentioning, you make it sound like the ship dropped like a stone and survived.

The E-D didn't benefit from a level runway to crash on, so you'd expect a bumpier landing.

The topsoil breaking the window is certainly a... unique theory - but wouldn't you expect more dirt inside the bridge if it broke the skylight? Or heavy rocks? Or even see the skylight's debris fall down right after the soil lands on the saucer?

Wasn't there talk of the fireships using tractors to guide the IH hand, or was that refuted?

As for the crew not being tossed around, maybe the IH has the antigrav seats mentioned in the TPM:ICS.

[AK-047]

I had thought Anakin told everyone to strap down as they entered the atmosphere. The crash webbing/seat belts would have kept them where they were. Maybe I need to watch RotS again.

[Lord Poe]

You might want to point out Data levelled out the ship before impact. Without mentioning, you make it sound like the ship dropped like a stone and survived.

I didn't want to do a shot-for-shot narrative. The movie is well known; this fact isn't kept by anyone. In any case, this didn't seem to help matters much. This was far from an adequate landing.

The E-D didn't benefit from a level runway to crash on, so you'd expect a bumpier landing.

You're kidding, right? They landed in a valley, which is a hell of a lot softer than the runway IH landed on! Not to mention the fact that the saucer was DESIGNED to land on surfaces like that. And, it still had its impuse engines, and it was in one piece.

The topsoil breaking the window is certainly a... unique theory - but wouldn't you expect more dirt inside the bridge if it broke the skylight? Or heavy rocks? Or even see the skylight's debris fall down right after the soil lands on the saucer?

Well, I've heard Trekkies say it broke because the saucer plowed through a mountain, which no one else has ever seen. What do you propose broke the dome? The stress of the impact? That would be even worse, wouldn't it?

Wasn't there talk of the fireships using tractors to guide the IH hand, or was that refuted?

I'll have to look in the novelization, as I don't recall hearing it in the movie. The fireships "guided" IH to the landing strip, but I don't recall tractors being involved

As for the crew not being tossed around, maybe the IH has the antigrav seats mentioned in the TPM:ICS.

Not sure. I'll have to consult the ROTS:ICS.

I had thought Anakin told everyone to strap down as they entered the atmosphere. The crash webbing/seat belts would have kept them where they were. Maybe I need to watch RotS again.

Anakin did tell them to strap in. But crash webbing wouldn't have helped the Enterprise crew, seeing as their chairs were thrown all over the bridge.

[Bounty]

I didn't want to do a shot-for-shot narrative. The movie is well known; this fact isn't kept by anyone. In any case, this didn't seem to help matters much. This was far from an adequate landing.

No prob, it's just an idea.

You're kidding, right? They landed in a valley, which is a hell of a lot softer than the runway IH landed on!

...point. I was thinking of the hills tossing the ship around, but the loose soil would cushion the blow.

What do you propose broke the dome? The stress of the impact? That would be even worse, wouldn't it?

I don't think it matters that it's "worse" when it fits the visual evidence. There's no mounds of mud inside the bridge, so it must've been either the stress of the impact or one of those random bridge explosions, except at the ceiling.

I'll have to look in the novelization, as I don't recall hearing it in the movie. The fireships "guided" IH to the landing strip, but I don't recall tractors being involved

I don't have the novel, but I could've sworn someone suggested it in a previous IH landing thread. Then again, "guiding" can just mean they cleared the route to the spaceport, so if there's nothing to support the idea it's probably something I misremembered.

Not sure. I'll have to consult the ROTS:ICS.

I'm not trying to suggest they had to have been installed in the IH, just that it's a technology that's available and it'd explain why even the captain's seat doesn't have a seatbelt.

[Mange]

You should get bored more often, Wayne!

[Sidewinder]

An amusing commentary on the strengths of the shipbuilding materials used in the 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars' universes. Is that your own voice on the commentary, Mr. Poe?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Very nice comparison.

Yes, it sucks to be a Trekkie.

[Jericho Kross]

Ah! star wars ships, built strong to last long

[Jark]

Out of curiousity, how do these 2 scenes compare to Voyager crashing into that ice planet in that one time travel episode where they built a new drive?

I saw the episode a while ago and on the surface, it didn't appear to suffer as much damage to the outer hull as the saucer section did in Generations. I believe Voyager also came in at a steeper angle and might have been going even faster than the saucer was, but I can't be too sure about that.

True the crew was killed, but if we're talking about damage to the ship itself, might that be a better comparison to the IH?

[Bounty]

Yes, it sucks to be a Trekkie.

Only if you have some sort of emotional investment in whether or not your fictional universe beats the other guy's equally fictional universe. For the rest of us, it's just a passtime.

[chitoryu12]

True the crew was killed, but if we're talking about damage to the ship itself, might that be a better comparison to the IH?

If the crew is killed, it's automatically worse than a crash where the crew lived without a scratch. I'd rather have nothing but my chair left and survive then be killed and have an intact ship.

[Jark]

If the crew is killed, it's automatically worse than a crash where the crew lived without a scratch. I'd rather have nothing but my chair left and survive then be killed and have an intact ship.

Yes, it was a worse crash, but Voyager appeared to take less structural damage, as far as I can tell then the saucer section in Generations.

The footage was pretty fast on-screen, but we did get some close-ups of Voyager. If anyone can analyze it, maybe we can take a closer look and compare to the Generations crash. Things like the broken window can be compared to see if the windows on Voyager broke as well.

[Dark Flame]

Yes, it was a worse crash, but Voyager appeared to take less structural damage, as far as I can tell then the saucer section in Generations.

The footage was pretty fast on-screen, but we did get some close-ups of Voyager. If anyone can analyze it, maybe we can take a closer look and compare to the Generations crash. Things like the broken window can be compared to see if the windows on Voyager broke as well.

I'm pretty sure that this pertains to ST ships, but at least as far as car crashes go, the more structural damage the car takes, means that there was less energy to be absorbed by people's bodies. Therefore, if the ship (or car) is still intact, all that energy has to be spent somewhere, and most likely it's spent on the people inside it.

[Jark]

I'm pretty sure that this pertains to ST ships, but at least as far as car crashes go, the more structural damage the car takes, means that there was less energy to be absorbed by people's bodies. Therefore, if the ship (or car) is still intact, all that energy has to be spent somewhere, and most likely it's spent on the people inside it.

I'm looking through a trascript of the episode right now, it's called Timeless. Here's what occured when Voyager was headed towards the planet

SEVEN: They're not compensating for the phase variance. The slipstream is collapsing.
JANEWAY: Full power to the deflector.
TUVOK: No effect.
PARIS: Our hull is buckling!
JANEWAY: Shields at maximum! Hold her steady, Tom.
PARIS: It's no use, we're losing attitude control. Inertial dampers offline!

CHAKOTAY: Voyager's been thrown into normal space.
KIM: Alter our slipstream course. We've got to go back.
CHAKOTAY: We can't! Even if they survived re-entry at this velocity, we wouldn't.
KIM: What are you saying? We've got to find them!
CHAKOTAY: Ensign, there's no choice.

PARIS: Captain, we're just a few parsecs from the Alpha quadrant.
JANEWAY: Not exactly how I wanted to cross the finish line.
TUVOK: Hull breach on decks five through ten. We're losing life support. If we don't land the ship we're risking structural collapse.
PARIS: I'm reading a planet nine million kilometres ahead. It's class L.
JANEWAY: Do it. We're coming in too fast! Reverse thrusters. All hands, brace for impact!



Possibly it was the inertial dampeners being offline that killed the crew in this instance, but the Enterprise D saucer section still had those online? In the Deep Space Nine episode The Ship, we heard that inertial dampener failure could kill the crew when the ship accelerated

DAX
These men didn't die in the
crash... they've been dead for
hours.

SISKO
What killed them?

DAX
Massive osteo-necrosis. Every
bone in their bodies has been
shattered.

O'BRIEN
Sounds like inertial damper
failure -- the ship accelerated
and people were thrown into the
bulkheads.

Maybe this was just sort of a reverse of that? Without the inertial dampeners to protect them when Voyager hit the ice the crew were tossed around like rag dolls and all killed.

[Jark]

Oh, I forgot I can't edit in this forum. I wanted to add to the above the question of weather the IH had an equivelant system to inertial dampeners still active when they landed.

[Jark]

Oh, while not a starship per se, another incident does come to mind. It was an episode of Voyager where the Delta Flyer crashed into a planet and was buried deep underground. The episode was Once Upon a Time, and I've found some dialogue from it

WILDMAN: Got it. Class M atmosphere, nickel-iron core, bemonite mantle.
PARIS: Bemonite. I want to land this shuttle, not bury it.
WILDMAN: Seventy three thousand kilometres, bearing zero mark four.
TUVOK: We've entered the upper atmosphere.
WILDMAN: Nothing but impact craters, volcanoes. We can't land here.
TUVOK: The storm is closing. Increasing shields to maximum.
PARIS: Just keep us away from the volcanoes and we'll be okay.
WILDMAN: I've got a big meteor crater, five hundred kilometres across, three point seven deep.
PARIS: I'll take it.
TUVOK: Starboard thrusters are down.
PARIS: Tuvok, if you don't have something positive to say.
WILDMAN: We're coming in too fast!
PARIS: Hang on! The flyer has landed.
TUVOK: She needs immediate medical assistance.
WILDMAN: What happened?
PARIS: We made it.
WILDMAN: Delta Flyer's first landing. Where?
PARIS: About three kilometres beneath the surface. At least our primary hull's still in one piece.

PARIS: Nice bedside manner, Tuvok. Sam, I'm going to give you a mild sedative and something for the pain. Any chance we could abandon the shuttle, make our way on foot?
TUVOK: Unlikely. Not only are we buried under several kilotons of rock, but the atmosphere in this cavern is flooded with fluorine gas.


I know it's not a full sized starship, but it should at least be composed of the same sort of materials as Voyager. I guess the problem is what exactly bemonite is, since it appears to be a made-up material. At least we can see what it looks like in some pictures, if nothing else

Here's a page with some shots just after they crashed.

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... 154&page=4

The bottom row on this page has pictures of a cleared out area a few meters from where the Flyer was buried.

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... 54&page=10

In this instance even though they had plowed through a fair bit of some sort of rock, the shuttle managed to hold up quite well.


Also, while not a Federation ship, there was that Jem Hadar warship from the episode I mentioned earlier, The Ship. It fell from orbit and impacted into the side of a rocky hill. I'm only going by memory here, but I think it was buried about 80 meters or so into the rockface, and it suffered no hull breaches. According to the script, this was the only damage

DAX
No hull breaches. The only damage
I could find is a crushed guidance
thruster -- or what looks like
one.



I'm also looking at the pictures Trekcore has of the episode Timeless which I was speaking about above. They have some pretty clear shots of Voyager crashing

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... =97&page=9

It's hard to tell if any windows might've been broken from these pictures alone, unfortunately.

[Setesh]

Oh, while not a starship per se, another incident does come to mind. It was an episode of Voyager where the Delta Flyer crashed into a planet and was buried deep underground. The episode was Once Upon a Time, and I've found some dialogue from it

WILDMAN: Got it. Class M atmosphere, nickel-iron core, bemonite mantle.
PARIS: Bemonite. I want to land this shuttle, not bury it.
WILDMAN: Seventy three thousand kilometres, bearing zero mark four.
TUVOK: We've entered the upper atmosphere.
WILDMAN: Nothing but impact craters, volcanoes. We can't land here.
TUVOK: The storm is closing. Increasing shields to maximum.
PARIS: Just keep us away from the volcanoes and we'll be okay.
WILDMAN: I've got a big meteor crater, five hundred kilometres across, three point seven deep.
PARIS: I'll take it.
TUVOK: Starboard thrusters are down.
PARIS: Tuvok, if you don't have something positive to say.
WILDMAN: We're coming in too fast!
PARIS: Hang on! The flyer has landed.
TUVOK: She needs immediate medical assistance.
WILDMAN: What happened?
PARIS: We made it.
WILDMAN: Delta Flyer's first landing. Where?
PARIS: About three kilometres beneath the surface. At least our primary hull's still in one piece.

PARIS: Nice bedside manner, Tuvok. Sam, I'm going to give you a mild sedative and something for the pain. Any chance we could abandon the shuttle, make our way on foot?
TUVOK: Unlikely. Not only are we buried under several kilotons of rock, but the atmosphere in this cavern is flooded with fluorine gas.


I know it's not a full sized starship, but it should at least be composed of the same sort of materials as Voyager. I guess the problem is what exactly bemonite is, since it appears to be a made-up material. At least we can see what it looks like in some pictures, if nothing else

Here's a page with some shots just after they crashed.

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... 154&page=4

The bottom row on this page has pictures of a cleared out area a few meters from where the Flyer was buried.

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... 54&page=10

In this instance even though they had plowed through a fair bit of some sort of rock, the shuttle managed to hold up quite well.

From the description what ever 'bemonite' is it is easily penetrable with little energy transfer. We have no idea how fast they were going, but its safe to say that this stuff must be absurdly pliable for rock.

Also, while not a Federation ship, there was that Jem Hadar warship from the episode I mentioned earlier, The Ship. It fell from orbit and impacted into the side of a rocky hill. I'm only going by memory here, but I think it was buried about 80 meters or so into the rockface, and it suffered no hull breaches. According to the script, this was the only damage

DAX
No hull breaches. The only damage
I could find is a crushed guidance
thruster -- or what looks like
one.

Actually that makes a great deal of sense. If your going to have soldier who routinely kill opponents by crashing into them you build the ship to survive intact as long as possible thereby doing more damage.

I'm also looking at the pictures Trekcore has of the episode Timeless which I was speaking about above. They have some pretty clear shots of Voyager crashing

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... =97&page=9

It's hard to tell if any windows might've been broken from these pictures alone, unfortunately.

Timeless crash video

It looks like most of the damage was taken by the lower half of the ship. One of the nacelles takes a hard hit, and its hard to see in this video but the lower half of the deflector dish is damaged as well.

Still going to have to agree with the earlier conclusion that it was inertial dampener failure. The initial sudden deceleration from hitting the planet injured or killed the crew. Any who survived injured probably froze to death within an couple of hours as Tuvok stated the life support was already failing. Coupled with cold extreme enough to preserve them for the intervening time they never had a chance.

[Lord Poe]

I don't have the novel, but I could've sworn someone suggested it in a previous IH landing thread. Then again, "guiding" can just mean they cleared the route to the spaceport, so if there's nothing to support the idea it's probably something I misremembered.

I checked the novel, and there's nothing in there about it. I checked the ICS, and nothing was mentioned either. Frankly, it would have ruined the scene to have the "greatest pilot in the galaxy" simply being towed in.

Out of curiousity, how do these 2 scenes compare to Voyager crashing into that ice planet in that one time travel episode where they built a new drive?

I saw the episode a while ago and on the surface, it didn't appear to suffer as much damage to the outer hull as the saucer section did in Generations. I believe Voyager also came in at a steeper angle and might have been going even faster than the saucer was, but I can't be too sure about that.

As the video showed, it came in level. Also from the episode, six of the lower decks were compacted into one.

[Ender]

I don't have the novel, but I could've sworn someone suggested it in a previous IH landing thread. Then again, "guiding" can just mean they cleared the route to the spaceport, so if there's nothing to support the idea it's probably something I misremembered.

I checked the novel, and there's nothing in there about it. I checked the ICS, and nothing was mentioned either. Frankly, it would have ruined the scene to have the "greatest pilot in the galaxy" simply being towed in.

It's cleanly refuted by common sense anyways - those fireships are a fractionf the size and mass of the IH. Tractors connecting them would only drag the fireships down, and not do a damn thing for the IH. Irresistible force vs very movable objects and all that. Only possible support would be the way the extinguishing agent travels in a straight line despite the fact they are all moving that fast.

[Lord Poe]

It's cleanly refuted by common sense anyways

And when has that stopped VS Trekkies?

- those fireships are a fractionf the size and mass of the IH. Tractors connecting them would only drag the fireships down, and not do a damn thing for the IH. Irresistible force vs very movable objects and all that. Only possible support would be the way the extinguishing agent travels in a straight line despite the fact they are all moving that fast.

Liquid Laser Extinguishing Agent!

[The Evil Shadow]

I wonder how fast those terk ships were going.
how fast was the IH going anyway?

[Lord Poe]

I wonder how fast those terk ships were going.
how fast was the IH going anyway?

No idea. Another thing; the IH wasn't tumbling out of control, either, even though it had no drive engines left. It maintained a steady, upright course. Anyone have theories on that?

[Thanas]

Might this be the due to steering thrusters? It would probably make sense to have thrusters in the forward hull portion for maneuvers. If R2 or Anaking immediately compensate using force coordination, it might work.

Only problem: I didn't see any thrusters firing.

[SirNitram]

I can only provide two theories: Repulsor engines, since it's now in atmosphere, or, and I am leery of suggesting it, telekinesis.