Did the E-D really do that badly in GEN?

[RedImperator]

Do we have any goddamn clue why nobody bothered to change the shield frequency?

Because the script said so.

[Uraniun235]

Do we have any goddamn clue why nobody bothered to change the shield frequency?

Because it may be set in stone. Which makes the defeat even worse in regards of design.

What of Best of Both Worlds and the "changing shield frequency to try and prevent the borg from locking on with tractor beams."?

[Chris OFarrell]

Do we have any goddamn clue why nobody bothered to change the shield frequency?

Because it may be set in stone. Which makes the defeat even worse in regards of design.

I dobut it. In BOBW, they established a 'software' patch to the shield generators which let them rotate the shield freqencies (I think in a rotation, not a random setting) to try and last against the Borg. They commented about a new chip being installed that would automaticly retune the phasers (and you would think a similar chip for the shields would be installed) to a new frequency after every discharge. In BOBW, they could only set the weapons to a new general 'band', allowing only a couple of shots prior to the Borg addapting. By FC, phasers have a new setting built into them for a random rotating freqnecy on the phasers.

In Voyager we had comments about shield freqnecy matching/rotation in 'unity' as part of the ships standard defence against the Borg. And in Equinox when the Equinox used telemetry from the Evil Holodoc to match its torpedo frequency to Voyagers shields. At least here Tuvok was smart enough to manualy change the frequency every ten seconds, though Evil Doc sinmply kept passing on the information. Still no sign of the computer driven automatic modulation changes though.


The REASON they didn't have Riker instantly order shield modulations to be randomly changed every two seconds was the same reason they didn't have him order worf to commence rapid fire with all weapons on maximum yield. Because B&B simply wanted to cheat us out of a nice cool battle and give us ANOTHER technobabble victory against an enemy.

[JodoForce]

What of Best of Both Worlds and the "changing shield frequency to try and prevent the borg from locking on with tractor beams."?

Why does a friggin TRACTOR BEAM have to match the frequency of the SHIELDS to tractor the HULL??

[Chris OFarrell]

What of Best of Both Worlds and the "changing shield frequency to try and prevent the borg from locking on with tractor beams."?

Why does a friggin TRACTOR BEAM have to match the frequency of the SHIELDS to tractor the HULL??

Because otherwise the shields deflect it?

[Lord Pounder]

I can definatley remember the quote "Never again would a ship of the line be under threat from an 80to ship". I'll do some hunting later and try and find the quote but i'm certain that the BoP was 80years old.

[JodoForce]

Because otherwise the shields deflect it?

So you mean that unless the shield frequency of the enemy ship has been taken via some bullshit spy ploy your tractor beam is useless?

Then again, I don't know jack about ST tractors. But if they mount them on most ST ships like they do with SW it'd largely be a waste of space.

[Crazedwraith]

Do we have any goddamn clue why nobody bothered to change the shield frequency?

Because the script said so.

Bare in mind who would be making theese changes. Geordie, so the Duras sisters would be able to compensate pretty quickly.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Do we have any goddamn clue why nobody bothered to change the shield frequency?

Because the script said so.

Bare in mind who would be making theese changes. Geordie, so the Duras sisters would be able to compensate pretty quickly.

Actually the tactical officer (Worf) would be making the frequency changes.

[Crazedwraith]

Because the script said so.

Bare in mind who would be making theese changes. Geordie, so the Duras sisters would be able to compensate pretty quickly.

Actually the tactical officer (Worf) would be making the frequency changes.

I suppose but surely Geodis master screen would show the changes. It depends if changing the frequency is a built in function or if geordis gonna have to go and wack the dam thing with a quatuam sledgehammer

[Chris OFarrell]

Your assuming Geordi would be constently staring at the screen showing the shield modulations. Which is wrong as we see him running around the engine room back and forth constently when the battle was underway. In fact he didn't stare at the screen, he walked past it and Lursor rewound and enhanced the frame with the modulation.

Even when they SAW the modulation the first time, it took them twenty seconds to enhance the image, get the modulation and input it. Even IF Geordi was staring at the screen and not moving, if you varied the modulation every couple of seconds, they would not have time to reset their weapons, fire and penetrate before the shield blocked them.

[Chris OFarrell]

Because otherwise the shields deflect it?

So you mean that unless the shield frequency of the enemy ship has been taken via some bullshit spy ploy your tractor beam is useless?

As I said. ST shields block tractor beams. Unless you know the shield frequency. Though the Borg appear to be the only race that can addapt their weapons to your frequency from the outside, able to detect it somehow. Otherwise it appears to be impossible.

Then again, I don't know jack about ST tractors. But if they mount them on most ST ships like they do with SW it'd largely be a waste of space.

Why? Just cause you can't use them against shielded targets? There are plenty of other things you can use them against.

[Old Plympto]

On another note. can anyone tell me why the heck they evacuated the sick bay before saucer sep? Isn't the sick bay in the saucer section anyway, and should be designed for optimum protection of its occupants in the worst catastrophe?

[Isolder74]

On another note. can anyone tell me why the heck they evacuated the sick bay before saucer sep? Isn't the sick bay in the saucer section anyway, and should be designed for optimum protection of its occupants in the worst catastrophe?

You have got a point there! of course it might have gotten moved in some refit we never heard about.

[Tribun]

On another note. can anyone tell me why the heck they evacuated the sick bay before saucer sep? Isn't the sick bay in the saucer section anyway, and should be designed for optimum protection of its occupants in the worst catastrophe?

Seems to be some strange logic, to move the sickbay from the saucer section to the battle section. Maybe they wanted a policy like "They won't dare to seperate, if the sick and injured are in danger, and to have to protect them, will motivate them to fight to death".

[Isolder74]

According to the Star Trek Encyslopedia the sick bay is suppost to be located on Deck 12 in the saucer section. The evacuation scenes is Generations ire making less and less sense every time I watch them. There has to be a second sick bay for the battle section if it is inteanded to operated seperate from the dish section so maybe that is what we see getting evacuated. I am stabbing at the dark here....

[Drach]

It would make more sense anyway to have more than one sickbay on a ship that size, with over a thousand people on board and power conduits that explode that much you'd about have to have more than just one

[Dark Primus]

The BoP was stated to be 20 years old in Generations according to Picard.

[Uraniun235]

IIRC according to non-canon specs there's two sickbays in the saucer section. Maybe they were moving everyone into specified locations for people to be at in the event of an emergency landing?

[Alyeska]

IIRC according to non-canon specs there's two sickbays in the saucer section. Maybe they were moving everyone into specified locations for people to be at in the event of an emergency landing?

You mean the forward sections that were crashing through the mountains?

What gets me is WTF were so many civies doing in the stardrive section? There is hardly a fucking thing down there besides equipment. Not many lifeboats and not all that much room. Hell, no holodecks and IIRC NO quarters down there.

Now I do have a possible explination for the sickbay thing. The E-D was in the middle of a battle and people were getting injured. They had to be treated quickly and its possible that rather then move to the main sickbay, they were taken to the one on the battle section (IIRC TMs say one exists). Crusher brings her medical staff down to this one to work on the people. This is partialy supported by the fact that all the battle damage was on the Stardrive section (except for exploding bridge consoles).

[Uraniun235]

IIRC according to non-canon specs there's two sickbays in the saucer section. Maybe they were moving everyone into specified locations for people to be at in the event of an emergency landing?

You mean the forward sections that were crashing through the mountains?

Er, no, I meant moving people deeper into the saucer. I don't know where the sickbay(s) are.

[Old Plympto]

IIRC according to non-canon specs there's two sickbays in the saucer section. Maybe they were moving everyone into specified locations for people to be at in the event of an emergency landing?

You mean the forward sections that were crashing through the mountains?

Er, no, I meant moving people deeper into the saucer. I don't know where the sickbay(s) are.

But it didn't seem to me that they did. I might be wrong since I last saw GEN 147 years ago, but as Alyeska said didn't they evacuate the patients from whichever sickbay to the forward crew compartments with windows???

[TurboPhaser]

Another point, why did the windows shatter? I thought Starfleet made their windows out of transparent aluminium......?

Thankyou all for your comments. I really dont think the E-D is as fragile as a lotta people think. Its just that we remember the episodes where the E-D was outclassed easily. And really, with all the different aliens running around, its bound to happen. Heres a few incidents that come to mind regarding the E-D's capabilities.

In 'The Best of Both Worlds', in the first engagement, the Enterprise received a hull breach in the engineering section, plus other damage, but its warp core and engines still worked fine. And no concern was said about the cores stability. I think thats pretty damn good.

And also in 'The Chase', The Enterprise received several direct hits to its warp nacelle after the SIF was increased. No shields were observed. And afterwards, the Enterprise could go into warp immediatley.

And in 'The Arsenal of Freedom', the Enterprise received a battering from that robot thing, the Enterprise's shields were failing, so they received considerable damage, but again the warp drive didnt fail.

Those are just the examples that come to mind. So, I reckon the E-D is a tougher bird than we give her credit for.

[ClaysGhost]

I thought that Riker might hold back on the torpedos because the shield grid had been damaged in some way; in that entertaining TNG episode with the "soliton" probe, it was implied that ion radiation from a torpedo going off close to the Enterprise would pass through gaps in their damaged shields and present a hazard to the crew in the unprotected areas of the ship. If the torpedoes and disrupters that initially passed through the shields and hit the hull left gaps in the shields as a result of damaging the shield grid, then the same situation might apply.

But then I don't see why they couldn't fire a torpedo from the aft launcher, have it swing around behind the BOP and go off there - presumably the BOP's shields and hull would provide effective screening against any radiation, as long as the torpedo was close enough to the BOP's rear when it exploded.

All this doesn't explain why Riker tried a single phaser shot and then decided against continued firing. I don't remember the film well, but were the BOP's shields said to be holding after the phaser shot? "Shields holding" seems to be an almost SW-type phase of shield operation where no leak-through damage occurs, although I'm not quite sure about that (any counter-examples?).

But then Riker could have rolled the ship through 90 degrees to where the saucer dorsal and ventral arrays could have a shot at the BOP's forward shields simultaneously (pitching forward would put 3-5 arrays in a firing position, but he'd be exposing the ridiculously-placed bridge even more). If the BOP could cope with the two saucer arrays attacking its forward shields simultaneously, then what were the mentalist sisters talking about when they claimed that the Enterprise grossly outmatched them? They could decloak at close range and render the Enterprise torpedoes unsafe and be in exactly the same position - even if they couldn't penetrate the Enterprise's shields, they'd not be in any danger themselves from its phasers.

I don't think the BOP being 20 years old makes much difference - I don't know how long spaceframes would be expected to serve in the Klingon empire, but I doubt that it's only a couple of years. Even if this particular unit hadn't been upgraded at all over 20 years, the BOP generally seems a very powerful ship, with a small crew (of apparently very variable size) but significant firepower capable of taking on more generalist, less combat-orientated but larger Federation ships.

[greenmm]

Do we have any goddamn clue why nobody bothered to change the shield frequency?

True reason: it would have ruined B&B's dramatic crash-into-the-planet-and-let-us-build-a-new-Enterprise scene. Plus, the ST law that says you never use a technobabble solution again (unless, of course, the same enemy, i.e. Borg, shows up again).

Logical reason: Since they didn't know that Geordi's VISOR had the transmitter in it (which I find very hard to believe, but that's another argument), they didn't know how the Duras sisters had figured out their shield frequency. Without knowing how it was initially done, they may have (erroneously, as it would turn out) assumed that changing the shield frequency would do nothing.

Because it may be set in stone. Which makes the defeat even worse in regards of design.

Having it set in stone, aside from contradicting other episodes, would be impossible, since you'd have major problems. If the frequency were unchangeable, all you'd have to do is capture a Starfleet ship and check their frequency code... assuming, of course, that Starfleet didn't use a separate and unique shield code for each ship (possible, but would show more intelligence on the part of Starfleet's ship designers than we've seen).

Of course, what I can't figure out is why you'd even need to see the shield status display to figure out the frequency. I mean, all shields in ST apparantly work off the same basic principles, right? And ship sensors are able to not only read shield status (i.e. on/off, levels remaining, fluctuating/stable) but also the status of another ship's main power system and warp core. So... if they can detect the energy being emitted by the shield emitters, and whether said shields are fluctuating (i.e amplitude of the shields and their wave signature)... why the hell can't they read the frequency of the shields. I mean, honestly... a few hundred MHz? That's a few hundred cycles every microsecond, or at best maybe 1 cycle per nanosecond. I'm almost positive we've seen ST ships able to recognize time durations much smaller than a nanosecond before. Unless they're thinking the sensor/tactical officer has to manually notice and detect the cycling himself, just like sonar operators used to have to do...