Star Trek: Picard

Kup

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Geordi outright says it is the only functional ship without the network. So those others either are on the network or they are not functional. Perhaps what he's been doing with D is somewhat secret, but the other museum ships are all disabled.
I thought this made enough sense why they didn’t grab the other ships too. The D was warp capable purely by chance, because it was an (unsanctioned??) pet project of Geordi. The others are there, probably sans a warp core (though why did they leave the cloaking device?).
 

Copper Bezel

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Yeah I don't buy that there's any sensible reason for the other ships not to be functional, but I guess at least they said it, so it counts.

It does raise the question why any of the ships, including the Enterprise D, would be allowed to have live weapons. Actually seems a bit absurd really, it's not like fighter planes in air shows do. And photon torpedoes are something they'd have to actually make and load, but Worf's comment about weapon systems makes it sound like they have the full complement of what the D was normally capable of. Did Geordi actually load up his secret garage restoration project with nukes?
For my part, I did not want them to grab every famous ship and have them all go into some battle with 1 person running them and I'm glad they didn't do that. I have my fingers crossed that what they do on the finale will make sense as something that one ship can do. Whether they are headed to the evil Starfleet or to the Cube, having the Enterprise-A, Defiant, and Voyager along for the ride would not change their odds of winning a fight. The writers HAVE to figure out something that 7 people can do to save the day.
Their odds against a Borg cube would unquestionably be slightly better with the Defiant or Voyager. Minuscule, but still better. We know how these things go, though; there's going to be a science thing they have to do to uninfect the fleet, a chosen one thing Jack's going to have to do to beat the evil, and a shooty-fly thing they're going to have to do long enough to give the other two things enough time to happen. Because Star Trek.

I think showing off some slick maneuvers and then getting vaporized as canon fodder would be a pretty fitting end for all these hero ships and also exactly what I'd expect the distraction battle to look like. As it looks right now, I bet they won't even have the balls to blow up the D again.

It just struck me again what an odd conceit it is that they copied Picard's memories and personalities into a robot and set it free and everyone, even his former employers, acknowledge him as being Picard. The robot actually gets Picard's rank and is invited to make speeches. If that is fine, then Ent-D tooling around on Venture's stardrive should certainly be fine.
Breaking my brain, man. You're far from the only person to fall prey to this bad and dumb idea in relation to Picard, or be banging on about it long after it's relevant to anything, but it's been two seasons and I really thought we were done with it by now. Star Trek did once, too. They had to invent special magic to explain why this philosophical dead end, known as the "transporter problem", doesn't apply to, you know, transporters, the device after which it is named. Not "teleporters", the generic term, but "transporters" from Star Trek, because the "problem" was invented by someone watching TOS (and retconned in response in TNG with the same handwave later used, shock of all shocks, in Picard S1). So the franchise that has been saying "OMFG get over it" since the 1980s. You've had over three decades, folks. If you like troll math philosophy, just say it's magic instead, like the show does.

(Picard's "former employers" are of course by contrast exceptionally pragmatic through long experience with much weirder jive. Riker didn't lose his post when it was discovered that he was a transporter duplicate that bounced off a cloud, and someone somewhere had to read the report explaining that Lt. Commander Data's head was now 500 years old. I have to assume that just as we see in Lower Decks, this sort of thing is commonplace, and Picard probably wasn't even the first admiral to come back as a robot duplicate. hug, didn't Kirk do that in that Shatner book series?)

I might argue that having an original spaceship as a historical keepsake might be more important than having an original brain, which might have significantly less sentimental value attached, but the whole damn villain plot this season is already hanging on their having retrieved Picard's original tumor, which I feel pretty amply illustrates that what counts as the real thing has a whole lot to do with who's doing the counting and for what reason.
 

The Predaking

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Yeah I don't buy that there's any sensible reason for the other ships not to be functional, but I guess at least they said it, so it counts.

It does raise the question why any of the ships, including the Enterprise D, would be allowed to have live weapons. Actually seems a bit absurd really, it's not like fighter planes in air shows do. And photon torpedoes are something they'd have to actually make and load, but Worf's comment about weapon systems makes it sound like they have the full complement of what the D was normally capable of. Did Geordi actually load up his secret garage restoration project with nukes?

Well, when Space dock was above Earth, it was unarmed, and just had amazing shields. Once they moved it to Avanthi, or wherever they said it was, I imagine that they finally armed the station with some defensive weapons such as Photon Torpedoes. Also, I am pretty sure that Geordi can build those too.
 

TM2-Megatron

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Geordi outright says it is the only functional ship without the network. So those others either are on the network or they are not functional. Perhaps what he's been doing with D is somewhat secret, but the other museum ships are all disabled.
Ships on active display at museums are typically stripped of all sensitive hardware and fully disarmed. It's possible that all those other ships can't just be loaded up with photons and set loose. The actual torpedo launchers and phaser array hardware have probably been completely removed.

There's also no way Voyager still has all that future anti Borg tech... transphasic torpedoes and ablative armor. Without that, a fully armed D is still a far better choice against the Borg. The "fat one that nobody wants" class may not be an outright warship, but when armed to the teeth and with no families aboard to worry about, it's a bit of a tank in its own right. The Defiant-class, while originally intended to fight the Borg, was a failed design until Capt. Sisko commandeered it and O'Brien worked out the kinks in the design. After that it was more just a general battleship, and isn't really any kind of special weapon against the collective at this point.
 

Copper Bezel

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Ships on active display at museums are typically stripped of all sensitive hardware and fully disarmed. It's possible that all those other ships can't just be loaded up with photons and set loose. The actual torpedo launchers and phaser array hardware have probably been completely removed.

There's also no way Voyager still has all that future anti Borg tech... transphasic torpedoes and ablative armor. Without that, a fully armed D is still a far better choice against the Borg. The "fat one that nobody wants" class may not be an outright warship, but when armed to the teeth and with no families aboard to worry about, it's a bit of a tank in its own right. The Defiant-class, while originally intended to fight the Borg, was a failed design until Capt. Sisko commandeered it and O'Brien worked out the kinks in the design. After that it was more just a general battleship, and isn't really any kind of special weapon against the collective at this point.
If they're fully armed, the Defiant has quantum torpedoes and those pulsed phasers, and of course the tiny profile. Voyager doesn't have as much going for it, but it's certainly faster than the D. I'm unconvinced that the Galaxy class's ability to take a couple more hits on a lucky day would make the difference.

(Edit)
Well, when Space dock was above Earth, it was unarmed, and just had amazing shields. Once they moved it to Avanthi, or wherever they said it was, I imagine that they finally armed the station with some defensive weapons such as Photon Torpedoes. Also, I am pretty sure that Geordi can build those too.
I know Geordi can build them, it'd just be an absolutely crazy thing to have done before today. But maybe he just transported them over from the station, you're right, that's a little more reasonable.
 
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Axaday

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Their odds against a Borg cube would unquestionably be slightly better with the Defiant or Voyager. Minuscule, but still better.
[/QUOTE]

If you want the benefits that Defiant and Voyager could bring, you need someone firing and someone piloting.
 

Axaday

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It does raise the question why any of the ships, including the Enterprise D, would be allowed to have live weapons. Actually seems a bit absurd really, it's not like fighter planes in air shows do. And photon torpedoes are something they'd have to actually make and load, but Worf's comment about weapon systems makes it sound like they have the full complement of what the D was normally capable of. Did Geordi actually load up his secret garage restoration project with nukes?
In the clip that's been thrown all around this thread, Geordi says that drones are loading torpedoes as they speak.
 

Copper Bezel

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Yeah, I'd forgotten the line, but I'm taking The Predaking's interpretation that the station had its own photon torpedoes for defense, and the drones are transferring them from the station to the Enterprise, which wasn't just randomly packing the whole time.
 

Axaday

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Yeah, I'd forgotten the line, but I'm taking The Predaking's interpretation that the station had its own photon torpedoes for defense, and the drones are transferring them from the station to the Enterprise, which wasn't just randomly packing the whole time.

Maybe it also serves as a star base and starships routinely resupply there.
 

TM2-Megatron

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I mean, a Starbase that size would probably typically carry tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of torpedoes. Even functioning as a musuem (and presumably nestled somewhere deep and safe within Federation space) it would theoretically need to defend itself (or those priceless ships) now and again.

One of the musuem ships I kind of wish they'd shown more up-close is the NX-01... or rather the refit-version of it from the Ships of the Line Calender, which was apparently in there among the other ships. I'm just glad Riker's kicked his habit of loitering in its kitchen giving bad advice and making worse food.

If they're fully armed, the Defiant has quantum torpedoes and those pulsed phasers, and of course the tiny profile. Voyager doesn't have as much going for it, but it's certainly faster than the D. I'm unconvinced that the Galaxy class's ability to take a couple more hits on a lucky day would make the difference.

I'm hoping Geordi's baked a few surprises into the rebuilt D, but regardless, they're not brute-forcing their way out of this. The main advantage of quantums is that they're faster and achieve higher yields (than standard photons). Even if the D is old, it's being loaded up with photon torpedoes a few decades more advanced, and with any luck the drones are pouring in some more antimatter to turn them into ultra-high yield warheads.
 

Kalidor

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The true villain exposed!
conspiracylg-800x576.png
 

Kup

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This close to the finale, and avoiding the trailer for each week, I’m not sure if I should click on that or not…
 

Tuxedo Prime

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It's just me being funny. It's not a real spoiler
Although fans have wanted them to come back.

They did in DS9 Relaunch novels, and it's offhandedly mentioned in a Shatnerverse novel that Picard and crew dealt with the first of three incursions, for whatever that's worth....
 

Copper Bezel

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I'm hoping Geordi's baked a few surprises into the rebuilt D, but regardless, they're not brute-forcing their way out of this. The main advantage of quantums is that they're faster and achieve higher yields (than standard photons). Even if the D is old, it's being loaded up with photon torpedoes a few decades more advanced, and with any luck the drones are pouring in some more antimatter to turn them into ultra-high yield warheads.
Valid. My sudden suspicion that I'm being taken for a ride on feels alone might really be unwarranted. And I agree, they're not going to be taking on the fleet or the cube in a fair fight here, I expect that the point is going to be to distract and delay one of the two long enough for Geordi and Data to take down the fleet network and Jack to do something about the biological one. Maybe you're right and being able to take a couple more hits really will be the thing that saves the day.
 

The Predaking

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I watched the sneak peak for this week's episode. No spoilers for the 90 second clip, but it really felt like a scene from TNG.
 


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