Deep Space Nine fleet battles - a thread for nitpicking

[Uraniun235]

or, "reasons i think deep space nine fleet battles are shit: the effortpost"


Introduction

Sometimes people (both on the internet and in real life) talk about how much they love Deep Space Nine and often they cite the kickin' rad epic battles that take place in the series thanks to the Dominion War. I am here to tell them that those fleet battles are not so hot, primarily by presenting a list of grievances I have with the presentation of those battles.


This isn't a response to any post or thread made recently that I am aware of, nor to any specific post or person in the past that I can recall. This also isn't 100% serious and I know I took at least a couple of shortcuts, so I'll acknowledge up-front there may be some things I may have forgotten or overlooked. In fact, it's mostly just griping.


Grievances

Starships constantly shaking during battle. Constantly. I can only wonder if DS9 was forced to hire a cameraman with Parkinson's.[1]

Defiant's bridge exploding into a shower of sparks on nearly every hit, even when the shields were at full-strength.[2] Additionally, said explosions causing such injury that important officers must be relieved of duty for immediate treatment during battle. [3]

Inconsistent durability; some ships are able to absorb enormous amounts of damage while other ships are smashed immediately. Similarly, ships often appear to not have shields at all (even non-Federation ships).[4]

Captain Sisko being granted command of many starships, while retaining direct command of his own starship.[5]

Fleet battle presentation is severely lacking - often there are swaths of ships just sitting in the background doing nothing (or several ships just lazily floating past DS9 as the station chucks out a few phaser bursts), the distribution of ship classes is uninspired at best and lazy at worst (shit let's just copy/paste a few Galaxys in there, then spam a bunch of Excelsiors and Mirandas), and there's little in the way of a visual narrative to show the audience how the battle is progressing.

Battles too often turn on a miraculous development - either it's the fucking Klingons diving out of the sun, or some stupid technobabble development (and subsequent counter-development)[6], or even the god damn Prophets literally vanishing a whole fleet from the wormhole.

(also I got a little tired of DS9 completely jizzing out all over the fucking Klingons)


The Federation and allies seemingly losing or stalemating a majority of fleet battles[7] against an enemy frequently described as being masters at mass-production of war materiel[8], yet somehow doing well enough to make a push on the enemy home base even before the Cardassians switched sides.


In general, a narrative that fails to support the conclusion of the war as presented.


Notes

[1]See: USS Odyssey and runabouts in The Jem'Hadar, USS Lakota in Paradise Lost, USS Defiant in almost every other battle.

[2]Seriously? This happens in nearly every fight the Defiant gets into.

[3]Series finale; the shields are still up, but O'Brien's shoulder is so badly fucked up that Bashir orders him to sickbay.

[4]Includes: Sacrifice of Angels (see the Federation fighters strafing Cardassian warships and inflicting severe hull breaches, or other ships being smashed around - meanwhile Defiant takes hit after hit after hit with no visible hull damage), Tears of the Prophets where most every starship (except Defiant! ) shows immediate heavy damage on the first hit from the Cardassian weapons platforms.

[5]Captain Sisko commands a Federation fleet numbering roughly 600 ships in Sacrifice of Angels. Additionally, he is given command of the entire Romulan force in the series finale after the Romulan flagship is destroyed.

[6]Again, Tears of the Prophets with the super-invincible weapons platforms (and the technobabble solution to that problem), or The Changing Face of Evil and the sudden reversal thanks to the Breen super-death-ray.

[7]Bashir reports that the 7th fleet lost 98 ships (out of 112) in an engagement shortly prior to A Time to Stand. In the same episode, O'Brien' remarks that the war has been raging for three months, and he has not personally seen a single Starfleet victory. In later episodes, we hear that the Dominion has successfully conquered Betazed, and is preparing to use it as a staging point for an attack against Vulcan; a Breen force is also able to penetrate all the way to Earth and attack San Francisco.

[8]So masterful, in fact, that Sisko and Martok were convinced that a failure to quickly resolve the war by striking Cardassia itself could eventually lead to a stalemate or a Dominion victory.


Counter-ripostes

"b-b-but Star Trek ship bridges ALWAYS explode into a shower of sparks whenever they get hit"

If you watch TOS and TNG you see a lot of episodes where the Enterprise takes hits - even severe hits (like in The Doomsday Machine, or The Changeling, or The Tholian Web; in TNG, The Arsenal of Freedom, or Q Who, or The Best of Both Worlds, or Darmok, or Descent (Part II)) and doesn't blow $20 of fireworks. DS9 took what used to happen infrequently and overdid it. (I'm pretty sure this also carried over into Voyager.)


"oh you don't think sisko should have led fleets of ships? well, why do you hate DS9/Sisko/black people?"

I don't have a problem with the character of Ben Sisko becoming a successful fleet commander at all. I think it's cool to show him starting out as just a commander getting stuck with an undesirable post, and eventually earning promotions and decorations and leading more ships and men in battle than any starring captain we've seen before.

That said, I think it's silly for Sisko to be commanding dozens (or hundreds!) of ships while still directly commanding his own ship, and I think it would have been silly for anyone else we've seen either. This isn't a slam against the character, it's a slam against the writers. I think Sisko should have been made Commodore (or "rear admiral lower half", whatever), especially given the prominent role he played in commanding the most strategically vital point in the war, planning the campaign against the Dominion, and leading dozens (and hundreds!) of ships in battle.

("but admirals don't go into battle" well then what were admiral ross and general martok doing in the series finale? bullshit on you sir.)


"well if you consider [some jargonated bullshit about fictional technology and economy] then clearly it's not so preposterous after all"

For the purposes of this thread I'm not as interested in establishing the in-universe consistency of it all as I am in picking apart discussing the effectiveness of presentation and writing to create a compelling spectacle and story.


"Isn't this just a bunch of nitpicking?"

Well, to an extent, yeah. Most of these by themselves wouldn't be a big issue. But when it's all put together I think it shows that the fleet battles in DS9 weren't particularly well-crafted - I think a lot of the hype around them has just been Trek fans greedily latching onto the fact that a fleet battle happened at all in Star Trek.


"CGI wasn't as good back then!!"

By the time Sacrifice of Angels had aired, Babylon 5 had already finished its fourth season - and that fourth season had some bitching space battles. CGI was plenty mature enough to handle excellent space battles. Okay, so maybe the Star Trek production team wasn't as experienced with CGI production - but that doesn't invalidate any criticisms of their work.

(Although I'm inclined to think that Babylon 5 battles were at their best when they were focused on smaller engagements, and faltered with the biggest battles - so maybe the lesson here is that they should have focused on smaller battles...?)


"a-bloo-bloo babylon 5 why are you such a whore for jms"

Actually this came about because I was watching a different series with way-awesome space fleet battles.


Conclusions

- DS9 ain't all that

- Bridge explosions should be used *sparingly* (but can still be awesome at the right time)

- The "copy, paste" operation in [whatever the hell program they used to make fleet battles] should be used *sparingly* and with appropriate selection when constructing imaginary battle fleets.

- Ron Moore (and/or his associates) may be a little too attached to the "suddenly out of fucking nowhere...!!!" plot twist


Further Viewing

- Babylon 5

- Legend of the Galactic Heroes

[Stofsk]

I agree with almost everything you have to say Uraniun. I would also add that the way battles in Trek are forced is also a big problem.

Take Sacrifice of Angels. We're lead to believe that the Federation must clash with the Dominion fleet in deep interstellar space... why can't nobody go around? This is space for christ's sake, how can you even think about 'intercepting' someone in deep, deep interstellar space?

"FTL sensors"

Yeah yeah - ok, here's another reason: DS9 is a battlestation with tons of weapons. Wouldn't it make sense for the Dominion fleet to orbit near the station, knowing full well that the Federation (and the Klingons) will want to try and retake it (for the purposes of preventing the take down of the minefield)? Wouldn't it make sense to use DS9's weapon platforms to defend against the Federation ships attempting to storm and board it? And wouldn't it make the Federation's eventual victory more fitting if the in-house saboteurs like Kira and co. commandeered the weapons systems and began to use them to target the Dominion instead?

All of this could even have been achieved before the minefield was 'deactivated'. And I have problems with the minefield blowing up in a kind of domino effect. Indeed, I think it would have made for a more interesting story, because there wouldn't be a deus ex machina in the form of Emissary Ben appealing to the Prophets to intervene. Instead, the heroes just get their shit together better than the bad guys - which is how it should be. RDM likes to write himself into a corner, which is a shame.

Incidentally Uraniun, I disagree with you regarding the presentation of space battles in DS9. Having watched both DS9 and Babylon 5, while I loved B5 (at the time), even then I wasn't as impressed with its vfx. I actually got more a kick out of watching Galaxies kicking ass and Mirandas getting blown up than a lot of what I saw in B5. That's not to say that B5 was bad, and to reinforce your point at least B5 put some good ideas into place (the way Star Furies manoeuvre and take out raiders behind them by simply spinning around while still moving forward was really good).

[Bellator]

The Federation and allies seemingly losing or stalemating a majority of fleet battles[7] against an enemy frequently described as being masters at mass-production of war materiel[8], yet somehow doing well enough to make a push on the enemy home base even before the Cardassians switched sides.

Multiple fronts?

[Teleros]

1. Re ships shaking & consoles exploding, the trouble is finding ways of showing the drama on a ship in the middle of a pitched fleet engagement otherwise. DS9 took the quick & dirty route out.

2. I seem to recall an interview about the DS9 battles that stated that the reason they cut the shield CGI from the ships was to let them get more action in - I guess it comes down issues with rendering the extra effects or a lack of time.

3. I agree that Sisko being in command of a ship plus many others was a mistake. That is one of the good things I liked about B5 - Sheridan having to run it from a proper fleet command (although that Minbari holographic system was rubbish, it should be said). And it's not as if we didn't see him getting stressed whilst in that role either.

4. See my second point with regard to the overall presentation of fleet battles.

5. These are the decisive battles though (mostly, anyway), so a few surprises are allowed. I know what you mean though.

[Skylon]

The Federation and allies seemingly losing or stalemating a majority of fleet battles[7] against an enemy frequently described as being masters at mass-production of war materiel[8], yet somehow doing well enough to make a push on the enemy home base even before the Cardassians switched sides.

This factor pissed me off about the Dominion War more than anything, but maybe not the way you are describing it. The War starts, Sisko mines the Wormhole, the Dominion is winning initially, but Damar, Dukhat and all the Dominion/Cardassian bigwigs make it clear they NEED those reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant to win in the long run. I can buy that from a plot POV. Starfleet re-takes DS9 in SoA, and the Wormhole aliens intervene guaranteeing the Dominion will never get those reinforcements.

What direction does the war proceed to take? Starfleet and the Klingons are STILL taking it in the ass. It's as though the Dominion never really needed those doubtless VAST resources of the Gamma Quadrent, and half the fucking galaxy can be held off by the Cardassians, which is essentially the only industrial base the Dominion has to work off of (who, a few seasons before, we saw the Klingons rape). Yes, there is that shit with the Breen as Dominion allies, but that wasn't until late in season 7. I expected from SoA on, the war to start taking a downward spiral for the Dominion...instead we always hear about how the UFP and Klingons are getting screwed (until of course, a battle with the mighty Defiant happens).

SoA should have been treated like Midway. Instead of all the "woe, we are losing!", we should have seen, the Dominion become more, and more desperate like the Japanese in WWII, but still losing. DS9's moral ambiguity can remain over what is the price of victory, with an enemy as tenacious as that. Heck, my favorite episode of the series (on its own merits), "By the Pale Moonlight". Cardassia could be so well defended that the UFP/Klingons NEED the Romulans help to invade it.

[DaveJB]

RDM likes to write himself into a corner, which is a shame.

Just so we're not mis-blaming anyone here, RDM actually only wrote one episode with any large-scale fleet battles in DS9 - namely The Die is Cast. You can maybe lay the stupidity of the Cardassian/Romulan plan in that episode at his feet, but RDM didn't write any Dominion War episodes with major fleet engagements, it was mostly one-on-one battles that he handled.

What direction does the war proceed to take? Starfleet and the Klingons are STILL taking it in the ass. It's as though the Dominion never really needed those doubtless VAST resources of the Gamma Quadrent, and half the fucking galaxy can be held off by the Cardassians, which is essentially the only industrial base the Dominion has to work off of (who, a few seasons before, we saw the Klingons rape). Yes, there is that shit with the Breen as Dominion allies, but that wasn't until late in season 7. I expected from SoA on, the war to start taking a downward spiral for the Dominion...instead we always hear about how the UFP and Klingons are getting screwed (until of course, a battle with the mighty Defiant happens).

To be fair, it was implied early in the sixth season that while the Dominon may have been cut off from the Gamma Quadrant, they had already established enough of a beach-head in the Alpha Quadrant that they could have potentially taken down the Federation and Klingons without reinforcements anyway. It wasn't until the Romulans turned on them that they started to have major problems.

[Uraniun235]

I still think Skylon made the stronger case for it, but either way I think the progress of the war feels very contrived.

Incidentally Uraniun, I disagree with you regarding the presentation of space battles in DS9. Having watched both DS9 and Babylon 5, while I loved B5 (at the time), even then I wasn't as impressed with its vfx. I actually got more a kick out of watching Galaxies kicking ass and Mirandas getting blown up than a lot of what I saw in B5. That's not to say that B5 was bad, and to reinforce your point at least B5 put some good ideas into place (the way Star Furies manoeuvre and take out raiders behind them by simply spinning around while still moving forward was really good).

B5 certainly had issues with the larger fleet battles, especially with big ships sitting in the background not doing much. I think that series was at its strongest when presenting more limited engagements, like the showdown between B5 and the Centauri battlecruiser, or the battle between the White Stars and the Omega destroyers at Proxima - confrontations which built up a lot of tension and released it explosively.

One thing I think that B5 did decisively better were sound effects and music - the music is a hell of a lot more exciting and the sound effects have a lot more oomph to them. Part of me wonders if the Star Trek producers made a conscious decision at some point to cut out any strong bass from the sound effects (and music).

[DaveJB]

One thing I think that B5 did decisively better were sound effects and music - the music is a hell of a lot more exciting and the sound effects have a lot more oomph to them. Part of me wonders if the Star Trek producers made a conscious decision at some point to cut out any strong bass from the sound effects (and music).

Yep - starting with the third season of TNG, they started watering a lot of things down. Most famously the music, which led to Berman firing composer Ron Jones when he wouldn't tow the party line, but in retrospect I've noticed the sound effects were a lot less pronounced after the first two seasons as well. For instance, whenever the Enterprise decelerated from warp drive in the first two seasons, it made this deep roaring sound, kind of like a plane coming in to land, but after that it just made this little squeaking noise when leaving warp.

Thinking about it, I personally felt that the battle in The Doomsday Machine, even the original version with its cheap models and crummy optical effects, was just as exciting as the vast majority of battles featured in the later shows; heck, maybe even a bit more exciting. I suspect that had a lot to do with the score, sound effects, and probably the performances as well - all things that seemed to lose power under Berman's leadership of Trek.

[Stofsk]

Can I just say first, thanks DaveJB for setting me straight about RDM and the Dominion War episodes. I'll take your word for it.

I still think Skylon made the stronger case for it, but either way I think the progress of the war feels very contrived.

Agreed, most dissatisfying.

Incidentally Uraniun, I disagree with you regarding the presentation of space battles in DS9. Having watched both DS9 and Babylon 5, while I loved B5 (at the time), even then I wasn't as impressed with its vfx. I actually got more a kick out of watching Galaxies kicking ass and Mirandas getting blown up than a lot of what I saw in B5. That's not to say that B5 was bad, and to reinforce your point at least B5 put some good ideas into place (the way Star Furies manoeuvre and take out raiders behind them by simply spinning around while still moving forward was really good).

B5 certainly had issues with the larger fleet battles, especially with big ships sitting in the background not doing much. I think that series was at its strongest when presenting more limited engagements, like the showdown between B5 and the Centauri battlecruiser, or the battle between the White Stars and the Omega destroyers at Proxima - confrontations which built up a lot of tension and released it explosively.

I actually liked B5 in the early seasons more than in the later seasons. Especially the early depiction of Star Fury battles. But I think the point I was trying to make was that the vfx just didn't seem to grab me and at times felt unconvincing. The Battle of Proxima is one of my favourites though, there's something about it which really gives the impression that there are specific tactics, it's not just 'charge at that wall of ships!' like in SoA. It might have been the discussion Sheridan has with Marcus about how these ships are obviously Clarke loyalists, these ships aren't, but are outnumbered by the former, and then you have these ones which are unknown quantities. The tension derived in not knowing how bad the fight will be based on how many Omegas opposed Sheridan.

One thing I think that B5 did decisively better were sound effects and music - the music is a hell of a lot more exciting and the sound effects have a lot more oomph to them. Part of me wonders if the Star Trek producers made a conscious decision at some point to cut out any strong bass from the sound effects (and music).

Shit yeah. We know Berman stipulated the 'boring music' thing, which was an amazing creative decision. That was for TNG at least IIRC, but it might be it influenced DS9 as well.

The problem I had with DS9 though was more focus on boring stories and characters and less about the 'big picture' depiction of the war. Episodes like 'In the Pale Moonlight' are classics in that sense because they actually do - at least a little - show that there's a larger story going on than just what we see on DS9 and the main cast. In terms of the vfx, I liked a lot of the Trek battles just because. But the sfx and music has always been subpar in TNG+ Trek that it's a crying shame. But like you pointed out above with the examples from B5, there's more that goes into a battle than just vfx or sfx - tension needs to be made and you don't get that from a lot of the Trek battles. Unfortunately, there is a precedent set that you don't need smart and clever tactics to win, you just need to [TECH] the [TECH] by [TECHING] the [WHATEVER DEVICE] to rape the enemy up the ass... or pray to wormhole gods to intervene. SoA is decried for this, but also 'Tears of the Prophets' which had Ben Kenobi-er, Sisko stumble off the Defiant bridge because he felt a great disturbance in the force-er, call for help from the prophets. Leaving Kira in charge. Who then order the technobabble solution to that battle's problem.

[Themightytom]

Yep - starting with the third season of TNG, they started watering a lot of things down. Most famously the music, which led to Berman firing composer Ron Jones when he wouldn't tow the party line, but in retrospect I've noticed the sound effects were a lot less pronounced after the first two seasons as well. For instance, whenever the Enterprise decelerated from warp drive in the first two seasons, it made this deep roaring sound, kind of like a plane coming in to land, but after that it just made this little squeaking noise when leaving warp.

Thinking about it, I personally felt that the battle in The Doomsday Machine, even the original version with its cheap models and crummy optical effects, was just as exciting as the vast majority of battles featured in the later shows; heck, maybe even a bit more exciting. I suspect that had a lot to do with the score, sound effects, and probably the performances as well - all things that seemed to lose power under Berman's leadership of Trek.

The remastered version is good, and also "Balance of Terror" which is among my favorite.

Regarding the exploding consoles. Cheap way to cause drama. there have to plenty of ways to show a close and immediate threat to the character even if they ARE separated from all the outside pandemonium. B5 did it with a fricking window. Watching your main character go "Oh SHIT" as a ship near-collides does just as good a job of reminding the audience whats going on as having a gold shirt thrown across the room by an exploding flat screen. Additionally, rather than using the hammer-on-the-head reminder, draw teh audience into empathy. nBSG did a pretty good job of this in Exodus.

They HAD a cunning plan, they executed, and you Felt suspense when Adama acknowledges, "No, we can't take out four." and you were like "They know they're fucked" just the crew stills struggling valiantly in the next scene, the situation so dire that the Admiral isn't directing the battle, he's helping with DAMAGE CONTROL ("Pass up the cord")

Moreover have the consequences were something we care about.With the Pegasus barreling into the Cylons, I for one was thinking "FUCK! They finally had a state of the art awesome ship, and now they're left with the shitty one??" At that point I knew retaking the colonies was never going to happen, and that's why that battle was awesome.

DS9 imitated in a lot of ways an arc plot, but clung to the weekly reset button at a level challenged only by SG-1 as far as I'm concerned, though to their credit, Jadzia stayed dead. even if it was a lame death. because of the need to keep things stable enough that all was well at the end off the episode, i don't think they were really able to HAVE a good spacebattle. They were too restricted by style

[Skylon]

To be fair, it was implied early in the sixth season that while the Dominon may have been cut off from the Gamma Quadrant, they had already established enough of a beach-head in the Alpha Quadrant that they could have potentially taken down the Federation and Klingons without reinforcements anyway. It wasn't until the Romulans turned on them that they started to have major problems.

It's been awhile since I have seen most of the "Occupied DS9" arc (SoA aside), but I remember it seeming pretty damn urgent for the Dominion to take that minefield down. Not to mention season 5 ended with DS9 being sacrificed so that the UFP/Klingons could destroy a major Dominion shipyard (guess it wasn't that major, the way the war went). What I found contrived was that it was as though the Dominion had transplanted half its damn troops, ships and infrastructure for making both into the Alpha Quadrant.

Thinking about it, I personally felt that the battle in The Doomsday Machine, even the original version with its cheap models and crummy optical effects, was just as exciting as the vast majority of battles featured in the later shows; heck, maybe even a bit more exciting. I suspect that had a lot to do with the score, sound effects, and probably the performances as well - all things that seemed to lose power under Berman's leadership of Trek.

I rate "Balance of Terror" as one of the best space-battle episodes of a sci-fi series, and there are few effects shots, and those there are, are well, 60's TV. It mostly relies on the actors and the score. Spock's call of "one small metal cased object!" indicating the Romulans had dropped a nuke was one of the best "Holy shit!" moments presented in Trek.

"Run Silent, Run Deep" in space, was better than anything TNG and its successors presented.

[Anguirus]

B5 certainly had issues with the larger fleet battles, especially with big ships sitting in the background not doing much. I think that series was at its strongest when presenting more limited engagements, like the showdown between B5 and the Centauri battlecruiser, or the battle between the White Stars and the Omega destroyers at Proxima - confrontations which built up a lot of tension and released it explosively.

Not sure what you mean here, because the Battle of Proxima was one of the largest fleet engagements we saw.

It's hard for me to pick a favorite battle in B5, but the BVR engagement in "The Long, Twilight Struggle" was pretty awesome. I also liked "Severed Dreams"...Mike has pretty thoroughly dissected it, but I can't help liking it anyway. And the battle between the White Stars and Clark's Shadow Destroyers wasn't terribly well choreographed, but it's incredibly kinetic and brutal (it only lasts a minute or two and we go from a dozen destroyers and thirty White Stars to two White Stars).

As for "Star Trek style" battles...part of my brain hates them, but part of my brain grew up with them and thus responds to them in a really visceral way. I really loved "Way of the Warrior," again, I can't help it. I never forgave them for the Breen plot device and the stock footage battles in season 7 though.

[DaveJB]

I never forgave them for the Breen plot device and the stock footage battles in season 7 though.

I remember an interview with one of the show's writers, and he talked about how the battles in What You Leave Behind were 99% stock footage. In a nutshell, they "accidentally" blew their entire remaining FX budget for the season on The Changing Face of Evil, and had a hard time getting the money together for any new special effects shots for the following episodes (to say nothing of the finale).

[Uraniun235]

Not sure what you mean here, because the Battle of Proxima was one of the largest fleet engagements we saw.

The ones I'm thinking of are where they massed the multi-nation fleet against the Shadows - I think the first time was late season 3, and the second was "Into the Fire" where they exposed the big lie of the Shadow wars.

[Gramzamber]

One thing I could never get over in DS9 battles is the Jem'Hadar using ramming as an opening tactic.
Was this supposed to make them look badass? Cause they looked like retards to me. Then again what was worse is that this actually worked, slicing fully shielded fresh into battle Klingon ships in two. What, do they make their battlecruisers out of balsa wood?

[Anguirus]

Not sure what you mean here, because the Battle of Proxima was one of the largest fleet engagements we saw.

The ones I'm thinking of are where they massed the multi-nation fleet against the Shadows - I think the first time was late season 3, and the second was "Into the Fire" where they exposed the big lie of the Shadow wars.

LOL, I guess this proves your point because I wasn't even thinking about those as the greatest battles.

What's funny is that in story terms they are the most amazing achievements of the younger races, and I certainly feel that in the context of the episode itself. But studying them in isolation they aren't among the most impressive battles of the series.

However, the part where a Thunderbolt Starfury casually blows a Vorlon fighter to shreds in "Into the Fire" always amuses me.

[Stofsk]

Ramming was used twice from memory - once in 'The Jem'hadar' at the end of season two, which was used to drive home a point ('We don't care that you're retreating, we'll kick you even when you're down, even if it kills us. We're crazy motherfuckers.') and once more in 'Tears of the Prophets' which admittedly doesn't make sense. It seems that they immediately went to ram the klingon ships. Those ships might have been damaged or something, or crewed with skeleton crews. I got the impression the writers wanted us to show how desperate the Dominion defenders were getting.

Ramming isn't and shouldn't be a viable tactic, that said, I don't see why ramming a ship wouldn't result in heavy damage to the ship getting rammed.

[Vympel]

Battles too often turn on a miraculous development - either it's the fucking Klingons diving out of the sun, or some stupid technobabble development (and subsequent counter-development)[6], or even the god damn Prophets literally vanishing a whole fleet from the wormhole.

This is a problem a lot of writers fall into, not just in Star Trek. They wrongly believe, for the sake of drama, that the odds must be against the heroes and some sort of trick or surprise at best (or DEM at worst) must save the situation at the last moment.

(will add some more later)

[The Romulan Republic]

I really loved "Way of the Warrior," again, I can't help it.

I like it too.

But as others have pointed out, its TOS (and its films) that really excel at battles. Even the special effects are actually okay (especially considering how old they are). I'm not too impressed by DS9's poor CGI.

I personally think Balance of Terror is perhaps a bit overrated, but The Doomsday Machine is one of my favorite episodes of all of Star Trek, for the reasons DaveJB pointed out among others. Also, consider the battles from The Wrath of Kahn, and even The Undiscovered Country and The Search for Spock (if that incident with the Klingons even counts as a battle). All have equal or more drama compared to the best of TNG and after.

Ramming was used twice from memory - once in 'The Jem'hadar' at the end of season two, which was used to drive home a point ('We don't care that you're retreating, we'll kick you even when you're down, even if it kills us. We're crazy motherfuckers.') and once more in 'Tears of the Prophets' which admittedly doesn't make sense. It seems that they immediately went to ram the klingon ships. Those ships might have been damaged or something, or crewed with skeleton crews. I got the impression the writers wanted us to show how desperate the Dominion defenders were getting.

It was used in the second to last episode of DS9 as well, during the attack on Cardassia.

[tim31]

The Search for Spock (if that incident with the Klingons even counts as a battle).

Weapons fire was exchanged, and a capital ship was effectively lost; it's a battle. You can call it a skirmish if it makes you feel more comfortable.

[Themightytom]

I personally think Balance of Terror is perhaps a bit overrated, but The Doomsday Machine is one of my favorite episodes of all of Star Trek, for the reasons DaveJB pointed out among others. Also, consider the battles from The Wrath of Kahn, and even The Undiscovered Country and The Search for Spock (if that incident with the Klingons even counts as a battle). All have equal or more drama compared to the best of TNG and after.

Wow, agree to disagree on the ST: Undiscovered Country battle being anything short of lame.

No attempts to maneuver, no attempts to strobe around with the phasers, and the Excelsior came right in next to the Enterprise instead of acknowledging "Hey you know what they got this, lets go save the president."

Sure the Enterprise probably would have been toast, but compared to the risk of failure, Sulu's decision was contrived, as was Kirk's disinterest in doing anything more complicated than "Back off, back off!" hell they didn't even seem to try to progress towards the planet!

For me the drama generated by Chang's narrative was totally undermined by the contrived scenario, they even elderly "My hands shake" McCoy to help Spock retrofit the torpedo instead of you know.. anyone else.

That was the same color of Fail that haunted DS9's battles. Create the tension don't force it where it doesn't fit.

[Anguirus]

With how hard the Excelsior was hit with its shields UP, how on earth was it supposed to drop its shields and send a crew down? Sending a shuttle would have been even riskier.

And Spock's allowed some fleeting moments of illogic where McCoy is concerned. He was right there, not performing any essential duty at that moment, and I didn't see his hands shaking in that scene.

If you want to take on the ST6 battle fine, but I'm not sure what that leaves us left. The ST2 battle makes as little sense, with its sudden discovery of the third dimension.

[Batman]

Half discovery at any rate. Kirk & Co STILL maneuver the big E in ways that just HAPPEN to keep it aligned in the same plane the Reliant is.

[Themightytom]

With how hard the Excelsior was hit with its shields UP, how on earth was it supposed to drop its shields and send a crew down? Sending a shuttle would have been even riskier.

And Spock's allowed some fleeting moments of illogic where McCoy is concerned. He was right there, not performing any essential duty at that moment, and I didn't see his hands shaking in that scene.

If you want to take on the ST6 battle fine, but I'm not sure what that leaves us left. The ST2 battle makes as little sense, with its sudden discovery of the third dimension.

Well ST II gets a little more leeway in it because
a. the character to character confrontation ahs been built up not only through the obvious previous appearence of Kahn, but because that confrontation is the backbone of the movie, kirk vs kahn. In st VI it was kirk vs This New Guy With An Eyepatch.
b. The three dimensional maneuvering wasn't the instant gimmick win that the heat seeking photon torpedo was, which by the fricking way, they went out of their way to mention the "Cataloguing gaseous anomalies" foreshadowing, Only On The Wrong Ship??? The enterprise first had to get away playing on Kahn's inedperience with the prefix code, then they had to use codes to fool Reliant into dicking around while they made repairs, THEN they tricked Kahn into following them into the admittedly convient Nebula of Death(tm) and FINALLY they used the final trick with the maneuvering. That wasn't even the end of it! They had Trusted Friend Commits The Selfess Act for the win to really win the day/ it wasn't a one-shot drama thrill problem solver, it was a series of steps. it was significantly better paced and for the most part more well thought out. The cosnequences of Star trek II were Chekov nearly killed everyone because of kahn's nefarious deeds, Captain Terel, whom we didn't really know, but seemed an ok bloke died, Scotty's nephew died leaving a bloody handprint on Kirk, and of course the obvious, Spock died amidst a moving sacrafice.
These weren't aprt of the abttle, but the battle itself was woven into the plot so thoroughly that you can't really watch the battle without it being affected by those elements.

Star trek VI rather, had the abttle as a self contained scene having lost any momentum it had somewhere around kirk LITERALLY wrestling with himself and Chekov making an ass of himself. The battle would ahve to be AMAZING to fire the movie back up from such a dead stop, and it just wasn't.

[Skylon]

For me the drama generated by Chang's narrative was totally undermined by the contrived scenario, they even elderly "My hands shake" McCoy to help Spock retrofit the torpedo instead of you know.. anyone else.

The entire battle, specifically the part with Spock and McCoy, works more because of affection for the characters than anything else. I thought was the best way to send off the bickering pair. In spite of all their arguments, all their disagreements, when Kirk needed them they did their job as a team. It was contrived, but it was one of my favorite character moments of the film.