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

[Isolder74]

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.

Yes the Visor....
Why did no one check the visor or give him a spare one until the one he beamed over with had been checked.

The Visor was used by The Romulans to mind control Gieordi once and it has been used as a remote link by them before as well.

To quote Scotty

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, Shame on me!

[greenmm]

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.

Yes the Visor....
Why did no one check the visor or give him a spare one until the one he beamed over with had been checked.

The Visor was used by The Romulans to mind control Gieordi once and it has been used as a remote link by them before as well.

To quote Scotty

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, Shame on me!

Because they're trusting souls who think everyone else in the universe is friendly, even though every other alien race tends to shoot first at them?

Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't check it out. In fact, I'm very surprised Geordi the uber-engineer didn't think to check it out.

Oh, wait, that's right... Geordi has to have things go spectacularly wrong before his divine muse shits on his head and hands him the Magic Technobabble-Ball of Answers...

[Isolder74]

well any US MP would have given The guy a complete strip search to ensure that the capturee was not carring any bugs. The US POW in Irag were not sent back to immidiate service

But in the Federation all is done is a simple physical!

[Typhonis 1]

Ugh...this was a joke why didn`t Riker order the rear phasers to fire at the BOP as they turned????

[Patrick Degan]

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.

Actually, that's another strike against this movie and the whole frequency brainbug in Trek. Detecting frequency from an external source is not difficult —it only requires a feedback loop and a counter. Very basic capability and one which made the whole plot-point of planting a spy camera in the VISOR wholly unnecessary. It just did not occur to the stupid writers that all the Klingons had to do was to simply fire a low-powered laser at the Enterprise's shields and read the return oscillation in the beam.

The other reason why the frequency brainbug in Trek is basically stupid should be obvious to anybody with any knowledge of radio-jamming.

[Patrick Degan]

The failures at Veridian are far more due to the incompetence of the Enterprise's command staff than defects in the ship. But it really does not say much for the mighty Federation Flagship that relatively minor damage was sufficent to catastrophically destabilise the warp reactor and put the systems for ejecting the thing totally out of commission.

[Isolder74]

The failures at Veridian are far more due to the incompetence of the Enterprise's command staff than defects in the ship. But it really does not say much for the mighty Federation Flagship that relatively minor damage was sufficent to catastrophically destabilise the warp reactor and put the systems for ejecting the thing totally out of commission.

Yes they did not return fire with their complete asenal

how could losing the shield make the Enterprise-D suddenly on par with the tiny Klingon Bird of Prey?

They did not have hostile enviroment gear in the Engine room so when they have a Plasma Coolent leak they cannot stay and fix the problem! The E-Nil had better equiptment(see TMP, TWOK)

The ship on the outside showed no visible damage yet the Relient (and the E-nil) had been torn to shreads(several major hits including having a Warp engine blown off) and it was still ticking!

How did having to maintain Station to intercet a missile prevent them from turning the BoP into spacedust?

Why couldn't they detect Soran's shields on the surface they should have stood out like a beacon!

Why were they searching for lifeforms on a planet anyway? Itsn't it a class M planet? There would have been tons of life down there. Since it was know to be uninhabited a search for technology would have been better.

[seanrobertson]

Actually, that's another strike against this movie and the whole frequency brainbug in Trek. Detecting frequency from an external source is not difficult —it only requires a feedback loop and a counter. Very basic capability and one which made the whole plot-point of planting a spy camera in the VISOR wholly unnecessary. It just did not occur to the stupid writers that all the Klingons had to do was to simply fire a low-powered laser at the Enterprise's shields and read the return oscillation in the beam.

The other reason why the frequency brainbug in Trek is basically stupid should be obvious to anybody with any knowledge of radio-jamming.

The laser idea is a VERY good one.

I doubt the old BoP had an actual laser onboard. That which is most likely their nav deflector already doubles as a torpedo launcher too, so it won't be the Swiss Army knife that Federation counterparts are.

But then, they should be equipped with a laser for the reason stated. That could prove invaluable in fighting the kind of opponents that easily outgun the little Birds; e.g., D'Deridex, Ferengi D'Kora and even Cardassian cruisers.

There's a question of how well the laser would interact with the cloaking device (if it could at all), but as you said, it wouldn't take a powerful beam by any means. Even when operating independently, a Klingon BoP could probably remain hidden long enough to prep a devastating alpha strike based on the little spotlight trick. (I don't see a Warbird, Cardassian ship or GCS doing real well after she's lost her bridge in the first volley. Any following defensive measures would be too uncoordinated...we're not dealing w/ ISDs, after all.)

I think that's not only too smart for the Klingons (or anyone else) to try, but in their minds, it's potentially too risky. Maybe they're hung up in a false dichotomy, believing something to the effect that, "While we're reading the oscillations in the beam, they'll be blowing us to kingdom come!"

Put another way, they feel that their time would be better spent shooting real weapons at their opponent.

Why not do both? The Bird is pretty weak next to huge capships like a GCS, but it can withstand a few phaser strikes or a handful of torpedoes. It could well weather some big opponents' assaults long enough to pull the laser trickeroo. If anything, the Bird's relative weakness could give them a strategic advantage, inasmuch as they're not taken seriously enough by the Rikers and such of the galaxy.

[Patrick Degan]

It wouldn't have required any special trickery to employ the laser as part of their scanning of the Enterprise, nor anything more powerful than a low-kilowatt optical laser. It could have easily been accomplished while Lursa and B'etor were parlaying with Picard.

Indeed, this is such a basic task that you'd think it would be standard to any starship's scanning protocols.

[Patrick Degan]

Why couldn't they detect Soran's shields on the surface they should have stood out like a beacon!

Why were they searching for lifeforms on a planet anyway? Itsn't it a class M planet? There would have been tons of life down there. Since it was know to be uninhabited a search for technology would have been better.

Indeed, when you think about it, the simple solution to stopping Soran is so hideousle easy and obvious that it only underscores the incompetence of the Enterprise command staff in this movie.

Put the Enterprise into a circumpolar orbit to completely cover the globe with a surface-search. Locate Soran's base or his lifesigns (one humanoid on Veridian III —the uninhabited planet— should have stuck out like a sore thumb) and open up with a phaser barrage on the surface. If the forcefield around Soran's launcher is impenatrable, send down a few photon torpedoes to bombard the area and rock the ground enough to knock the missile off its launch platform.

It would have been so absurdly simple to stop Soran that it's not even funny to think of it.

[seanrobertson]

It wouldn't have required any special trickery to employ the laser as part of their scanning of the Enterprise, nor anything more powerful than a low-kilowatt optical laser. It could have easily been accomplished while Lursa and B'etor were parlaying with Picard.

Indeed, this is such a basic task that you'd think it would be standard to any starship's scanning protocols.

Oh, I agree; don't let all of that verbal footwork fool you

I was just trying to figure out why the characters would dismiss it as a viable tactic. False dichotomy-type thinking is my best guess *sigh*

The laser'd have the added benefit of shield remodulations less effective, too. You could keep the beam in constant contact with the enemy's shield and, if they decided to start switching up on you, it's easy enough to simply re-read the oscillations (as described) and update your firing solutions.

I definitely think any competent commander's first volley would destroy his/her effectively shieldless opponent, though. That'd make remodulations and all that crap wholly worthless. You must be intact to shift the frequency of your shields

Seriously though, other than sheer incompetence--which I grant, of course, is possible--could there be any other reasons why lasers have not been used in TNG/DS9/etc. like this? Is there some property inherent to their kind of shielding that'd mess this up?

It'd probably require technobabble of a sort, but I'm not sure if that explanation is truly more complicated than "all Star Trek people who need to read your shield frequency are total morons" which, wiping sleep from my eyes, is the only alternative that comes to my mind.

[Patrick Degan]

Seriously though, other than sheer incompetence--which I grant, of course, is possible--could there be any other reasons why lasers have not been used in TNG/DS9/etc. like this? Is there some property inherent to their kind of shielding that'd mess this up?

Not really. It's simply that the writers are too lazy or stupid to think through the problem or do some basic research or even read a book before going to the keyboard. They've gotten so caught up with their ridiculous technobabble and their brainbugs and obsessions over what does or doesn't "sound cool" that they don't bother. Even if they don't feel obligated to explain anything (would that were so), you'd think at the very least that halfway competent writers would have come up with a less clumsy plot device and one which doesn't make their characters look like morons.

[TurboPhaser]

The ship on the outside showed no visible damage yet the Relient (and the E-nil) had been torn to shreads(several major hits including having a Warp engine blown off) and it was still ticking!

Are you nuts? We saw several gashes in the hull of the Enterprise, in particular when it seperates.

[Alyeska]

The ship on the outside showed no visible damage yet the Relient (and the E-nil) had been torn to shreads(several major hits including having a Warp engine blown off) and it was still ticking!

Are you nuts? We saw several gashes in the hull of the Enterprise, in particular when it seperates.

Indeed.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans ... ations.jpg

[Lord Pounder]

But in the Reliant -vs- Enterprise Nil the Enterprises entire engineering section was scared and hit much worse. Is it a fact of life that newer isn't better?

[JodoForce]

Seriously though, other than sheer incompetence--which I grant, of course, is possible--could there be any other reasons why lasers have not been used in TNG/DS9/etc. like this? Is there some property inherent to their kind of shielding that'd mess this up?

Maybe because the shield does not reflect light?

Oh, and ST shield frequencies probably aren't really frequencies--I mean if they were really frequencies, then even if your weapon isn't on the same frequency and phased to go through the shield, on average your weapon will still be at half power when the shield is at minimum strength--and the damage reduction level the shields offer is way more than 50%.

[greenmm]

But in the Reliant -vs- Enterprise Nil the Enterprises entire engineering section was scared and hit much worse. Is it a fact of life that newer isn't better?

Or, as was pointed out, the Reliant was able to survive loss/destruction of one of its warp nacelles, while the E-D had a warp core breach/explosion when that Reliant/Miranda-class ship clipped/damaged one of its nacelles...

[Isolder74]

The ship on the outside showed no visible damage yet the Relient (and the E-nil) had been torn to shreads(several major hits including having a Warp engine blown off) and it was still ticking!

Are you nuts? We saw several gashes in the hull of the Enterprise, in particular when it seperates.

Indeed.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans ... ations.jpg

Only superficial damage compared to the damage seen to the Enterprise and the Relient in the TWOK. The E-A took more visible damage than that in TUC.

[Isolder74]

Of course it would help to know what they mean by modulation in sheild modulation. In radio, modulation is the small band of frequencies that osilates around the carrier wave. All FCC aproved Radio Stations have a modulation band that they own and use for their station(their number like 88.8 is the carrier frequency.)

[Patrick Degan]

Seriously though, other than sheer incompetence--which I grant, of course, is possible--could there be any other reasons why lasers have not been used in TNG/DS9/etc. like this? Is there some property inherent to their kind of shielding that'd mess this up?

Maybe because the shield does not reflect light?

Every time we've seen a weapon hit on a deflector shield, there's been a visible blister observed. Even if the optical laser went all the way through to the hull, the interference in the return beam would be a dead giveaway.

Oh, and ST shield frequencies probably aren't really frequencies--I mean if they were really frequencies, then even if your weapon isn't on the same frequency and phased to go through the shield, on average your weapon will still be at half power when the shield is at minimum strength--and the damage reduction level the shields offer is way more than 50%.

Anything that has an oscillation —by definition— has frequency. A deflector is an energy field, it is transmitted outward from the ship, and it cycles as power is fed into it. That results in oscillations in the shield envelope surrounding the ship and that oscillation rate therefore is the shield's frequency.

[Zed Snardbody]

In regards to the sick bay issue. Looking at the complete blue prints of the GCS, not sure if its cannon though. The enerprize has a great deal of "aide stations", rehab labs, and a numbers of smaller medical bays in the engenering section. Perhaps that is what we saw in the evac scenes.

[Alyeska]

But in the Reliant -vs- Enterprise Nil the Enterprises entire engineering section was scared and hit much worse. Is it a fact of life that newer isn't better?

Actualy the E-D took far more serious damage. Multiple torpedo strikes (E-Nil only had one) and up to two dozen disrupter strikes.

[Tribun]

But in the Reliant -vs- Enterprise Nil the Enterprises entire engineering section was scared and hit much worse. Is it a fact of life that newer isn't better?

Actualy the E-D took far more serious damage. Multiple torpedo strikes (E-Nil only had one) and up to two dozen disrupter strikes.

But the hits on the E-D were random and not very well aimed. But still the ship blew up.

The E-nil was sliced open by the Relaint like a turkey at the engenieering section, and was already battle ready a few hours later already. Or, to quote Spock: "They exactly knew were to hit us."

To compare it, while the E-nil survived this extreme damage, the E-D would have blown up surely with the same damage.

[Alyeska]

But in the Reliant -vs- Enterprise Nil the Enterprises entire engineering section was scared and hit much worse. Is it a fact of life that newer isn't better?

Actualy the E-D took far more serious damage. Multiple torpedo strikes (E-Nil only had one) and up to two dozen disrupter strikes.

But the hits on the E-D were random and not very well aimed. But still the ship blew up.

The E-nil was sliced open by the Relaint like a turkey at the engenieering section, and was already battle ready a few hours later already. Or, to quote Spock: "They exactly knew were to hit us."

To compare it, while the E-nil survived this extreme damage, the E-D would have blown up surely with the same damage.

Actualy several of the hits were in critical areas. The E-D sustained heavy torpedo damage on the forward engineering section (relatively close to egineering), damage to the impulse engines, and damage on the warp pylons. While the Duras sisters were toying with the E-D, they also struck it in several critical areas.

[Isolder74]

Must have been off screen because all we saw them do was miss ecept for the first shot. It still doesn't bode well for the crew's competence because it was the last hit that caused the problem. So, if Riker had vaped the BoP like he should have, this ship would not have been lost. For the loss of the E-D we deserved a real battle not a technobable copout! The bird of Prey was outdated as identified by Worf, it was still carring a engineering flaw that had been fixed in the Klingon fleet. So for what reason do we have to justify the Federation best ship being killed by a Klingon piece of junk salvaged from their scrapyard? Even with the Enterprise's shields being comprimised there is nor excuse. now if the Duras sisters had used the time parlaying with Picard to summon more ships to aid them that would have been much better. Then we can add the shield trick and have real bang up battle on the poor E-D! Soran wanted the Enterprise eliminated so there appears to be good chance that the ship could stop his plan. Also wouldn't the spot where the ribbon intersected the planet have been the best place to look first for Soran's little base?