Trek 09 Starfleet weapons, organization, etc. [Spoilers]

[Havok]

I give a shit, if it is going to be an official part of the back story. We just don't know if it is yet.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Except nobody gives a shit about the never-referenced stuff in the comicbook?

Suitable explanation=! holds your personal interest. I haven't read the comic book myself and it sounds about as retarded as anything from the dregs of TNG, but it's not like we have a lot else to go on here.

[AMT]

Except nobody gives a shit about the never-referenced stuff in the comicbook?

Except that, according to the Producers and Directors (IIRC), the comics are considered canonical to the backstory of the movie?

[Darth Wong]

Oh for fuck's sake, Trekkies are already trying to start up this whole "canon" thing again? Star Trek has never allowed the third-party materials to define its continuity before; why would it start now, when it has just jettisoned so much existing material?

[AMT]

Oh for fuck's sake, Trekkies are already trying to start up this whole "canon" thing again? Star Trek has never allowed the third-party materials to define its continuity before; why would it start now, when it has just jettisoned so much existing material?

Because the policy seems to be changing? For instance, using aspects from certain novels to flesh out the movie, and the direct tie-in comic.
Usually, direct tie-in's can be considered canonical.

And note: I'm not a 'Trekkie'. I'm a sci-fi fan. Please don't tar me with a Trekkie brush, or a Warsie brush, or the like. Thank you.

[Darth Wong]

And do we have some source for this claim about their policy, other than you?

PS. You're wrong about the "fleshing out" bit being a new direction. They've done that many, many times before in Star Trek. The TNG Technical Manual is a good example.

[Jade Owl]

Out of curiosity I was looking for any statements regarding the canon status of the comics and I found this. The interview itself is completely intranscendental, but look the panel from the comic that accompanies it. It shows the Narada before its “Borg upgrades”. It looks a lot smaller, doesn’t it? Just how much Borg crap are they supposed to have piled up on it?

[Lonestar]

Personally, I like the idea that the RSE has some law mandating that commercial vessels larger than a certain size have to equipped for merchant cruiser work in wartime. It would explain nicely the Narada smashing to pieces TOS-era starships.

Alternatively, the Narada may have operated in some part of the RSE(or outside of it) were it could not rely on the Navy to come riding to the rescue, and so was equiped with heavy weapons. Illegal mining operations, maybe?

I got nothing for the over all design of the ship, or the giant scrap iron chain.

[erik_t]

Personally, I like the idea that the RSE has some law mandating that commercial vessels larger than a certain size have to equipped for merchant cruiser work in wartime. It would explain nicely the Narada smashing to pieces TOS-era starships.

I am very fond of this idea. It continues to flesh out Degan's age-of-sail sort of feel, which I think is a good metaphor.


As for the chain... sigh. I think you can contort your mind such that the overall prong-ness of the ship makes sense, but there's just no salvaging that stupid chain.

[Darksider]

That ship on the first panel is the Narada?

It doesn't look anything like the one in the film. It looks far less retarded, and actually seems to fit the 24th century Romulan design scheme better.

They still have the retarded mining platform on a giant hook though.

[Darwin]

Pic of the pre-modified Narada for folks who don't have the comic:

[Erik von Nein]

Buh? Well, I guess there goes the justifications for the spikey bits covering the ship being mining equipment.

I kind of wish they had stuck with that design. Oh, well.

By the way, what's the deal with this "Borg upgrades" business? What Borg upgrades? When did they do that? Etc.

[TimothyC]

At the "Secret Romulan Base" after Romulus was blown up.

[Erik von Nein]

What're they dong with Borg tech?

[Gandalf]

What're they dong with Borg tech?

I'll have to check when I get home tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure someone just mentions that the ship has a bit of Borg tech in it.

There's no mention of how much or what it does.

[Lonestar]

So, question: How is it that the RSE, which is considered a military and scientific peer to the UFP, was unable to come up with it's own Red Matter to stop the nova? They use singularities in their propulsion plants. Or why didn't they begin a massive evacuation of Romulus and moving off to another part of the RSE?

For that matter, if the RSE *didn't* have Red Matter, how did the "we can stop this because we have a singularity-generating substance" conversation go? I'm sure that went over well with the RSE leadership.

[Havok]

That is one of the biggest plot holes in the whole story Lonestar.... what happened to the brains of the Romulans?
I mean, I assume that their "Empire" doesn't just encompass Romulus (oops byebye Remus too) and that they could have moved the majority of the population off world, but nah, that is silly, lets let Spock, of the hated Vulcans save our world. He said he would and Vulcans never lie so we can just chillax.

[Darth Wong]

It begs so many questions: as I pointed out before, if this was Romulus' own star, how is the planet going to be habitable long-term even if the plan succeeds? How could their planet have been habitable while their star was collapsing prior to nova? How did they expect it to be habitable afterwards, if it was orbiting a black hole instead of a main-sequence star? And if it was an adjacent star rather than their own star, they should have had years to prepare before the radiation hit them. This "OMG I couldn't get there in time" scene with Spock makes absolutely no sense either way.

[Havok]

Well they call it the Hobus Star, so I think that rules it out being their home systems star. So that leaves the years, decades, to prepare issue on the table. Which seems to be even fucking worse. At least if it was the Romulan star, they could have been all "The Senate didn't believe the scientists" ala Jor-El and Krypton, which while still tremendously stupid, at least cuts down on the time factor somewhat.

Really the only thing I can think of that gives the "Running Late" thing any credence is if they had to come up with some way to transport and deliver the Red Matter and that is what caused the delay.

This is why I'm curious as to the canon issue, as I believe, the back story and "explanations" are in the lead up comic.

[Darth Wong]

If it's a neighbouring star, then the whole thing is stupid beyond belief, and no amount of backstory can save it. At a minimum, we're talking about years before the radiation hits them. But more importantly, even if Spock does get there and convert the original supernova into a black hole just before it hits Romulus, so what? The new black hole is not going to reach out over vast interstellar distances and "claw back" all of the radiation that was released years ago.

As I said, the new Star Trek may be fun, but it's also really, really dumb.

[Havok]

Oh you will get no arguments from me that it isn't dumb. Luckily though, it is a lot of fun. I just have a need to figure things out in an In Universe POV.

[Darth Wong]

Oh you will get no arguments from me that it isn't dumb. Luckily though, it is a lot of fun. I just have a need to figure things out in an In Universe POV.

Have you ever tried to figure out VOY:Threshold in an in-universe POV? Some things simply can't be retconned into a semblance of rationality no matter how hard you try. You simply have to accept that this is written for people who know absolutely nothing about science.

PS. Of course, there's always the escape hatch: simply assume that the character who describes this stupid shit for us is wrong. He could be stupid, he could be careless, he could be lying.

[Galvatron]

If it's a neighbouring star, then the whole thing is stupid beyond belief, and no amount of backstory can save it. At a minimum, we're talking about years before the radiation hits them.

Didn't the Praxis incident already sorta set a precedent for this kind of thing in Trek?

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Praxis

[Darth Wong]

If it's a neighbouring star, then the whole thing is stupid beyond belief, and no amount of backstory can save it. At a minimum, we're talking about years before the radiation hits them.

Didn't the Praxis incident already sorta set a precedent for this kind of thing in Trek?

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Praxis

Only for funky subspace nonsense, like their subspace-dependent space ships. The Praxis explosion blew off the ozone layer on Quo'nos, but that's its parent planet. That's somewhat more comprehensible than a supernova somehow destroying a planet light-years away in such a short time that Spock can't get there in time in his white hamster-powered gyrocopter.

[Bilbo]

Oh you will get no arguments from me that it isn't dumb. Luckily though, it is a lot of fun. I just have a need to figure things out in an In Universe POV.

Have you ever tried to figure out VOY:Threshold in an in-universe POV? Some things simply can't be retconned into a semblance of rationality no matter how hard you try. You simply have to accept that this is written for people who know absolutely nothing about science.

PS. Of course, there's always the escape hatch: simply assume that the character who describes this stupid shit for us is wrong. He could be stupid, he could be careless, he could be lying.

You kind of have to assume that Spock is getting a bit senile. He mentions once or twice that the Supernova in question threatened the entire galaxy. A statement that makes no sense what so ever.

Though I guess one could write enough backstory to kind of explain this. One could create some story about how subspace is very very thin in this region Romulan space due to their use of Singularity based warp drives. We have the TNG episode which states that subspace can get damaged by excessive use of warp.

Then you could have some really bad trek-babble about how a supernova going off this close to the thin regions of subspace will send subspce shockwaves throughout the galaxy. These shockwaves will of course travel at warp speed and destroy Romulus in a matter of hours instead of years.


You could then also explain the shit ton of Red Matter, much more than it appeared Spock needed to stop destroy the supernova, as extra he was going to use tto somehow intercept and stop these warp shockwaves by dropping bits od Red Matter in their path.