Which ship would you serve on?

[Chardok]

I rather liked the excelsior if for no other reason than it simply SCREAMED 80's-stye SFX shipdesign. Did it not? Look at her! She looks like the Caprice Classic of fed ships! and as we all know, I'm an 80's freak.

And, again, as we all know, I'm not gay, but Sulu has got a god-damned sexy, better than Barry white uber fuck me in the ass silky baritone voice that shakes the very rafters. Love it!

And I don't know why you guys hate Tuvok so much! I thought he was semi-cool!

[Metrion Cascade]

I rather liked the excelsior if for no other reason than it simply SCREAMED 80's-stye SFX shipdesign. Did it not? Look at her! She looks like the Caprice Classic of fed ships! and as we all know, I'm an 80's freak.

And, again, as we all know, I'm not gay, but Sulu has got a god-damned sexy, better than Barry white uber fuck me in the ass silky baritone voice that shakes the very rafters. Love it!

And I don't know why you guys hate Tuvok so much! I thought he was semi-cool!

That's completely illogical. You can't just like them. You have to follow my standards (survival chances) because I want to argue instead of simply asking people which they prefer (preference being subjective and preventing me from getting into a pissing contest). Even though I'm not going to attempt any similar defense of my own equally subjective choice.</mike mode>

[Uraniun235]

I rather liked the excelsior if for no other reason than it simply SCREAMED 80's-stye SFX shipdesign. Did it not? Look at her! She looks like the Caprice Classic of fed ships! and as we all know, I'm an 80's freak.

IIRC, from the Star Trek 3 special features, the person who came up with the Excelsior design we all know and love approached it with the concept of "What if the Japanese had designed the Enterprise?".

Personally, I find the E-D more aesthetically pleasing than the E-E. It just seems more like the big starship it is (well, okay, big in terms of Star Trek) than the E-E does.

[FOG3]

I rather liked the excelsior if for no other reason than it simply SCREAMED 80's-stye SFX shipdesign. Did it not? Look at her! She looks like the Caprice Classic of fed ships! and as we all know, I'm an 80's freak.

And, again, as we all know, I'm not gay, but Sulu has got a god-damned sexy, better than Barry white uber fuck me in the ass silky baritone voice that shakes the very rafters. Love it!

And I don't know why you guys hate Tuvok so much! I thought he was semi-cool!

That's completely illogical. You can't just like them. You have to follow my standards (survival chances) because I want to argue instead of simply asking people which they prefer (preference being subjective and preventing me from getting into a pissing contest). Even though I'm not going to attempt any similar defense of my own equally subjective choice.</mike mode>

Because you made claims that Mike pointed out were incorrect as opposed to just expressing an opinion, whiner.

[Darth Wong]

Their ship wasn't superior to the Scimitar, and I said so. Nor was Voyager superior to any of the Borg cubes it went up against, or the E-nil's shuttle superior to the Doomsday machine.

Perhaps you should learn to read. You were arguing that it was the best ship out of all the Enterprises because it beat the Scimitar. Not only is this totally false (the Scimitar soundly defeated it in battle, and only lost through command stupidity) but it is irrelevant to the question of whether it's the best ship to serve on.

I'd rather be Luke Skywalker in that X-wing than any other person in Star Wars. Or a grunt on Voyager than captain of the Yamato. Luke's fighter doesn't have to be the best in the fleet to prove that his situation and accomplishments were the best depicted. Hell, that's the theme of more war and sci-fi movies than I can name. David beating Goliath.

Irrelevant. If someone asked you whether you'd rather be on Home One or in an X-Wing, you'd be crazy to say you'd rather be on the X-Wing. Survival probability is much higher on Home One.

Nor do I have to prove jack shit. This is not a logical debate when we're factoring in shit like "Kirk is the man" and "ooh, miniskirts."

Those kinds of arguments make no pretense of a logical basis. Yours, on the other hand, did. Unfortunately for you, it turned out to be fallacious.

I need no reason whatsoever to be more impressed with the E-E's performance against the Scimitar's than with the E-A's performance against Chang. I just am.

And that is relevant to your survival prospects on one vs the other ... how? As long as you're basing your argument on survival (which you did, before backpedaling to your whiny "but it's just a subjective opinion!" bullshit), your chances of death or assimilation are far greater if you're randomly dumped onto the E-E somewhere in its timeline than if you're randomly dumped onto the E-Nil.

Name one ship as heavily armed, with the same weapons coverage, helmed by anyone who'd predict Shinzon's actions. I can name one right off the bat that would have no chance of hitting the Scimitar even once - Defiant. And the E-nil would have taken weeks longer just to get out of Romulan space.

Any one of those ships could have easily had its ass kicked and then rammed the Scimitar out of desperation when Shinzon parked his stupid ass right in front of them, just like the E-E.

I'm not trying to win anything. This is not a debate, and you making one up because you'd like to win a pissing contest doesn't change that.

You made a claim (that the E-E is the most survivable posting) which happens to be false. Your pathetic attempts to evade, whine, and attack the motives of the person who points that out do not change anything.

In other words you can't make choices or do anything to affect your own actions, so you're no longer a person. Bullshit. By that standard you're functionally a zombie or bridge console no matter where you go.

What part of 'second-rate crewman" do you not understand? As a character in that universe, you would have presumably grown up in that universe, and you would not be importing knowledge of the future based on your extensive viewing of Star Trek episodes. When someone asks how you would fare as a Somalian, would you just respond that you'd use your frequent-flier miles to get back home? Wow, you're incredibly weaselly when you're on your period, aren't you?

Would it work or not? Oh, I forgot. We're zombies.

See above.

Fuck you rectally with a ten foot lightsabre ten times every day for the rest of your life. With no lube. The E-E is the best ship and Picard has nice legs because I fucking say so. It's called an opinion.

Stop trying to introduce "Picard's legs" into this. I never disputed that statement, because it was obviously subjective, and not subject to debate. However, your other statements, about "the Scimitar's conventional weapons were gone from the Enterprise's attack" and "Honestly the rest of the ships on the list are embarrassments by comparison" are not subjective opinions, and are subject to debate. Your hopeless black/white fallacy is that either everything related to this thread is completely objective, or everything related to this thread is completely subjective. Sorry, you're wrong.

YOU have already admitted that this is mainly subjective:

Ahem. Factors in favour of the E-Nil:

1. All of the women wore miniskirts.
2. Kirk is The Man.
3. All of the women wore miniskirts.
4. McCoy is the finest STD treatment specialist in the known universe. No matter what you picked up from the alien chick you reamed last night, he'll fix you right up.
5. All of the women wore miniskirts.
6. Most of the crew made it back alive after their five-year tour, although it's true that wearing a red shirt and going down to a planet on an away mission was pretty much a death sentence. Hopefully, you can be a nondescript engineering crewman.
7. All of the women wore miniskirts.
8. The ship was not destroyed until the original crew had long since rotated out.
9. All of the women wore miniskirts.

Now let's look at the other choices. The E-D suffered just as many bizarre deaths as the E-Nil did, and there were probably a lot of crewmen who were killed or seriously injured during the crash in STG. The E-E was mostly assimilated by the Borg on one of its first missions; I'll take a pass on that one. The Excelsior is a big unknown; you just don't know what happened on that ship. But we know that they had already stopped issuing the miniskirts for female crewmembers by then. Defiant wasn't even big enough to have second-rate characters, and I can think of a lot of placed I'd rather be than Voyager.

Kirk's Enterprise, all the way.

And how does that constitute an admission that it's "subjective" to state falsely that the Enterprise managed to defeat the Scimitar in battle, when it was resoundingly defeated, or that it's "subjective" to say that every other ship on the list is a tactical "embarrasment" compared to the E-E?

If you ever jump on me again for an opinion no less based in personal taste than your own, I will simply fucking ignore you, pissant.

Awwww, is the widdle wady going to cwy?

You made some statements which were subjective, and some statements which were objective, and false. I criticized the objective statements, and you don't have the integrity to simply admit error and move on, so you desperately try to pretend that I was criticizing your coment on Picard's legs even though I never mentioned it once. Do you really think you're fooling anyone? Do you really think these emotional outbursts of yours will impress me or anyone else?

Maybe some fucking height issues or something. I don't know or care what your fucking problem is, but I will simply ignore your testosterone-poisoned Napoleon complex ass and be done with it, slut.

FUCK YOU MIKE.

Awww, poor baby. I went and made her cry. Boo hoo!!!

[Metrion Cascade]

Their ship wasn't superior to the Scimitar, and I said so. Nor was Voyager superior to any of the Borg cubes it went up against, or the E-nil's shuttle superior to the Doomsday machine.

Perhaps you should learn to read. You were arguing that it was the best ship out of all the Enterprises because it beat the Scimitar. Not only is this totally false (the Scimitar soundly defeated it in battle, and only lost through command stupidity) but it is irrelevant to the question of whether it's the best ship to serve on.

And HOW the E-E survived the battle doesn't alter your chances of survival if you're serving on it. The fact is, they survived. The standard of survivability you're trying to set here (statistics rather than actual events) reduces your survival on all of these ships to zero. All of them faced situations where they survived by a fluke or someone else's hand and would otherwise have been destroyed.

lmao...you are simply a liar. I never said the victory against the Scimitar was a reason. And I'll decide what factors matter in making a ship good for me to serve on, not you. Maybe I'm going after the best chance of death in battle, or have a religious devotion to being assimilated by the Borg and then cooked in plasma.

I'd rather be Luke Skywalker in that X-wing than any other person in Star Wars. Or a grunt on Voyager than captain of the Yamato. Luke's fighter doesn't have to be the best in the fleet to prove that his situation and accomplishments were the best depicted. Hell, that's the theme of more war and sci-fi movies than I can name. David beating Goliath.

Irrelevant. If someone asked you whether you'd rather be on Home One or in an X-Wing, you'd be crazy to say you'd rather be on the X-Wing. Survival probability is much higher on Home One.

I didn't say ANY X-wing pilot vs. any other person. I said Luke Skywalker in his X-wing vs. any other person. Luke Skywalker survived, making your chances as him 100%. We were not asked this question from the perspective of a grunt who knows nothing. We were asked as SDnetters who've seen these ships' exploits and can pick multiple ships from multiple centuries based on them.

Nor do I have to prove jack shit. This is not a logical debate when we're factoring in shit like "Kirk is the man" and "ooh, miniskirts."

Those kinds of arguments make no pretense of a logical basis. Yours, on the other hand, did. Unfortunately for you, it turned out to be fallacious.

I need no reason whatsoever to be more impressed with the E-E's performance against the Scimitar's than with the E-A's performance against Chang. I just am.

And that is relevant to your survival prospects on one vs the other ... how? As long as you're basing your argument on survival (which you did, before backpedaling to your whiny "but it's just a subjective opinion!" bullshit), your chances of death or assimilation are far greater if you're randomly dumped onto the E-E somewhere in its timeline than if you're randomly dumped onto the E-Nil.

You just live on creating false arguments to attack, you little liar. I don't have to argue a subjective choice just because one factor I didn't include might be objective. I didn't base my "argument" that I prefer the E-E on anything, because the choice is not debatable in the first place. If you want to argue survivability by itself, that's fine. Say so. But I'm not arguing a primarily subjective choice based on what you think is ONE objective reason (that I never said was the deciding reason or even a major one). My reasons, again:

I'd want the E-E. Reasons:

- tactically pwns everything else on the list (unless you mean Voyager as of "Endgame," in which case I'll take Voyager)
- it might get refitted with Adm. Janeway's armor and torpedoes eventually
- never blew up
- IIRC, the worst exploding console was Geordi's station in "Nemesis," and that was just a few sparks
- holosuites that have never gone haywire
- Picard has a song that amuses me
- Picard has a nice voice
- Picard has nice legs Wink
- Picard's addiction to weed in "Nemesis" can be cured by Crusher
- Riker is gone
- Troi is gone
- Data is gone, so there's only one person on the ship with his inflection - me
- ground vehicles at last
- it's fucking gorgeous to look at
- no real enemies left as of "Nemesis"
- I don't have to deal with Spock, Scotty, any of the TOS airhead bimbos, Wesley Crusher, Riker, Troi, anyone from Voyager
- I may have to take occasional orders from Janeway, but at least she's not on a ship anymore
- no miniskirts for me to flaunt my clit ring in
- no boob-smashing TOS movie uniforms
- no heels
- mini transporters

Hmmm...no mention of the Scimitar there...one reference to the ship blowing up and one to exploding consoles. Nothing stating that the ship is statistically more survivable than the others all around or that I even claim to know what ship was most survivable. And no, "never blew up" doesn't say jack about survivability in Trek. The E-D blew up what, a dozen times without killing its crew? The E-A blew up with nobody on board. The Defiant blew up and damn near everyone escaped. Voyager blew up twice and most of the crew still made it home with half the people who died coming back to life along the way.

Name one ship as heavily armed, with the same weapons coverage, helmed by anyone who'd predict Shinzon's actions. I can name one right off the bat that would have no chance of hitting the Scimitar even once - Defiant. And the E-nil would have taken weeks longer just to get out of Romulan space.

Any one of those ships could have easily had its ass kicked and then rammed the Scimitar out of desperation when Shinzon parked his stupid ass right in front of them, just like the E-E.

Stolen concept fallacy, asshole:

And really all that needs proving is that the E-E did better than any of the other ships on the list would have.

Wrong yet again, since the question only asks which ship you would serve on. It says nothing about taking these ships out of their respective eras. If you serve on the E-Nil with Kirk, then you obviously serve when Kirk was alive. If you serve on the E-D with Picard, then you obviously serve in the TNG era.

Well, now that you've conceded that we can move ships from era to era for tactical comparisons...

Shinzon would not have sat in front of any other ship, because he doesn't have a hardon for any other captain. So now that his sentimentality is factored out, how do you propose for any of the other ships to beat the Scimitar in any way, shape, or form? Especially since the E-E shouldn't have been able to pull it off? Picard's course of action was based in a personal understanding of Shinzon's thinking that no other captain has. The E-D would have been destroyed in the first volley. The Defiant can only fire forward so they wouldn't flush the Scimitar out. And remember - the Scimitar's cloak was dropped by using Troi's telepathy to target them. So first you've got to drop a cloak that can't be penetrated by the E-E, a ship with sensors better than anything else on the list (with the possible exception of Voyager) until proven otherwise.

I'm not trying to win anything. This is not a debate, and you making one up because you'd like to win a pissing contest doesn't change that.

You made a claim (that the E-E is the most survivable posting) which happens to be false. Your pathetic attempts to evade, whine, and attack the motives of the person who points that out do not change anything.

You have not demonstrated that the E-E is less survivable, or demonstrated that I have any reason to start at the beginning of First Contact (which would make little difference).

In other words you can't make choices or do anything to affect your own actions, so you're no longer a person. Bullshit. By that standard you're functionally a zombie or bridge console no matter where you go.

What part of 'second-rate crewman" do you not understand? As a character in that universe, you would have presumably grown up in that universe, and you would not be importing knowledge of the future based on your extensive viewing of Star Trek episodes. When someone asks how you would fare as a Somalian, would you just respond that you'd use your frequent-flier miles to get back home? Wow, you're incredibly weaselly when you're on your period, aren't you?

Straha did not say we had to forget having seen the movies. He didn't say how we get onboard these ships either. If you don't know what you know, and can't even pick a job based on your abilities, that is not you serving on that ship. If we can choose multiple ships from multiple series, and even which crew, we're not regular in-universe Starfleet grunts. We're ourselves, SDnetters who've seen the movies and shows and are choosing based on that. And you agree:

Ahem. Factors in favour of the E-Nil:

1. All of the women wore miniskirts.
2. Kirk is The Man.
3. All of the women wore miniskirts.
4. McCoy is the finest STD treatment specialist in the known universe. No matter what you picked up from the alien chick you reamed last night, he'll fix you right up.
5. All of the women wore miniskirts.
6. Most of the crew made it back alive after their five-year tour, although it's true that wearing a red shirt and going down to a planet on an away mission was pretty much a death sentence. Hopefully, you can be a nondescript engineering crewman.
7. All of the women wore miniskirts.
8. The ship was not destroyed until the original crew had long since rotated out.
9. All of the women wore miniskirts.

Now let's look at the other choices. The E-D suffered just as many bizarre deaths as the E-Nil did, and there were probably a lot of crewmen who were killed or seriously injured during the crash in STG. The E-E was mostly assimilated by the Borg on one of its first missions; I'll take a pass on that one. The Excelsior is a big unknown; you just don't know what happened on that ship. But we know that they had already stopped issuing the miniskirts for female crewmembers by then. Defiant wasn't even big enough to have second-rate characters, and I can think of a lot of placed I'd rather be than Voyager.

Kirk's Enterprise, all the way.

Would it work or not? Oh, I forgot. We're zombies.

See above.

Fuck you rectally with a ten foot lightsabre ten times every day for the rest of your life. With no lube. The E-E is the best ship and Picard has nice legs because I fucking say so. It's called an opinion.

Stop trying to introduce "Picard's legs" into this. I never disputed that statement, because it was obviously subjective, and not subject to debate. However, your other statements, about "the Scimitar's conventional weapons were gone from the Enterprise's attack" and "Honestly the rest of the ships on the list are embarrassments by comparison" are not subjective opinions, and are subject to debate. Your hopeless black/white fallacy is that either everything related to this thread is completely objective, or everything related to this thread is completely subjective. Sorry, you're wrong.

None of my listed reasons for choosing the E-E are objective ones, even though you'd like to find some to refute. And yes, the Scimitar's weapons were gone due to the E-E's attack, whether that attack followed the rules of war or not.

My overall choice is subjective (either completely, or primarily). The subject of survivability chances (which was not part of my stance) is another (yes, objective) issue that can be debated separately.

YOU have already admitted that this is mainly subjective:

Ahem. Factors in favour of the E-Nil:

1. All of the women wore miniskirts.
2. Kirk is The Man.
3. All of the women wore miniskirts.
4. McCoy is the finest STD treatment specialist in the known universe. No matter what you picked up from the alien chick you reamed last night, he'll fix you right up.
5. All of the women wore miniskirts.
6. Most of the crew made it back alive after their five-year tour, although it's true that wearing a red shirt and going down to a planet on an away mission was pretty much a death sentence. Hopefully, you can be a nondescript engineering crewman.
7. All of the women wore miniskirts.
8. The ship was not destroyed until the original crew had long since rotated out.
9. All of the women wore miniskirts.

Now let's look at the other choices. The E-D suffered just as many bizarre deaths as the E-Nil did, and there were probably a lot of crewmen who were killed or seriously injured during the crash in STG. The E-E was mostly assimilated by the Borg on one of its first missions; I'll take a pass on that one. The Excelsior is a big unknown; you just don't know what happened on that ship. But we know that they had already stopped issuing the miniskirts for female crewmembers by then. Defiant wasn't even big enough to have second-rate characters, and I can think of a lot of placed I'd rather be than Voyager.

Kirk's Enterprise, all the way.

And how does that constitute an admission that it's "subjective" to state falsely that the Enterprise managed to defeat the Scimitar in battle, when it was resoundingly defeated, or that it's "subjective" to say that every other ship on the list is a tactical "embarrasment" compared to the E-E?

If you ever jump on me again for an opinion no less based in personal taste than your own, I will simply fucking ignore you, pissant.

Awwww, is the widdle wady going to cwy?

You made some statements which were subjective, and some statements which were objective, and false. I criticized the objective statements, and you don't have the integrity to simply admit error and move on, so you desperately try to pretend that I was criticizing your coment on Picard's legs even though I never mentioned it once. Do you really think you're fooling anyone? Do you really think these emotional outbursts of yours will impress me or anyone else?

You still haven't demonstrated that I've made any objective statements that were false. Regardless of the means, the E-E and crew beat the Scimitar and I am more impressed with that feat than any other, for purely subjective reasons (maybe it was a better victory because I care more about the E-E crew than the E-A, or because the Bassen Rift made a pretty background for it). And yes, referring to anything as an "embarrassment" is about as subjective as it gets.

Maybe some fucking height issues or something. I don't know or care what your fucking problem is, but I will simply ignore your testosterone-poisoned Napoleon complex ass and be done with it, slut.

FUCK YOU MIKE.

Awww, poor baby. I went and made her cry. Boo hoo!!!

Actually this is quite a bit of fun precisely because you get me riled. Sports do that, I guess. Okay, nice bit of "good game" handshaking action there, now get back to pissing me off so I can own you a little more.

And before you say I've admitted that we're debating my choice of ship, note: we've finally started a debate. Not over choice of ship, but over whether these choices are subject to refutation. And possibly one about survivability, if you like.

[Darth Wong]

And HOW the E-E survived the battle doesn't alter your chances of survival if you're serving on it. The fact is, they survived.

With heavy casualties, including 100% of the personnel in the forward saucer area, not to mention casualties throughout the rest of the ship from the impact. And this is the same ship which was once nearly assimilated by the Borg.

The standard of survivability you're trying to set here (statistics rather than actual events) reduces your survival on all of these ships to zero. All of them faced situations where they survived by a fluke or someone else's hand and would otherwise have been destroyed.

Wrong. See above.

lmao...you are simply a liar. I never said the victory against the Scimitar was a reason. And I'll decide what factors matter in making a ship good for me to serve on, not you. Maybe I'm going after the best chance of death in battle, or have a religious devotion to being assimilated by the Borg and then cooked in plasma.

Then say so, instead of arguing that the E-E kicked the Scimitar's ass, which is what you were saying before your furious backpedaling.

I didn't say ANY X-wing pilot vs. any other person. I said Luke Skywalker in his X-wing vs. any other person. Luke Skywalker survived, making your chances as him 100%.

Totally irrelevant to a thread about being an anonymous second-rate crewman, thus introducing an element of randomness and risk. Obviously, if you can pick main characters who can survive, you completely circumvent the idea of the thread.

You just live on creating false arguments to attack, you little liar. I don't have to argue a subjective choice just because one factor I didn't include might be objective. I didn't base my "argument" that I prefer the E-E on anything, because the choice is not debatable in the first place. If you want to argue survivability by itself, that's fine. Say so.

I already did. You're just so emotional that you can't deal with it, so you furiously lash out at everything I'm saying. If you wish to simply ignore that part of your post and say that you'd prefer to be on the E-E because of Picard's legs, I'd have no problem with that. But you have repeatedly claimed that the E-E had the best tactical record, which is sheer nonsense. In three outings, it was nearly assimilated by the Borg, heavily damaged by the So'na, and suffered very high casualties during a battle with the Scimitar, including all of the personnel in the forward saucer section and probably a good portion of the crew in the rest of the ship as well (impact shock was bad enough on the bridge, which is a relatively safe place to be in such a situation). In all three cases, a massive cop-out was required in order to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

If you think this represents the best possible choice among possible crew postings in terms of survivability or tactical record, it's quite clear that you're either on drugs or so hysterically upset about being called on a lie that you've just got to try and struggle to scratch out a semblance of victory no matter how desperate and deceptive you have to be.

Hmmm...no mention of the Scimitar there...one reference to the ship blowing up and one to exploding consoles. Nothing stating that the ship is statistically more survivable than the others all around or that I even claim to know what ship was most survivable. And no, "never blew up" doesn't say jack about survivability in Trek. The E-D blew up what, a dozen times without killing its crew? The E-A blew up with nobody on board. The Defiant blew up and damn near everyone escaped. Voyager blew up twice and most of the crew still made it home with half the people who died coming back to life along the way.

More evasive nonsense. I was quite obviously talking about your subsequent posts, in which you insisted that every other ship was a tactical "embarrassment" compared to the E-E. Far from it; the original E-Nil was a far more feared battlewagon in its era than the E-E in its era.

Any one of those ships could have easily had its ass kicked and then rammed the Scimitar out of desperation when Shinzon parked his stupid ass right in front of them, just like the E-E.

Stolen concept fallacy, asshole:

Care to explain why?

Well, now that you've conceded that we can move ships from era to era for tactical comparisons...

Not at all; I have just shown that one of your statements was clearly wrong. It hardly represents a concession to your ridiculous claim that ships should be taken out of time and placed in each others' places to see which one is better. By that moronic token, we could simply take any one of the incidents in which Spock's mind-meld was crucial to victory, dumped the E-E in it, and then proclaimed that the E-E loses.

Shinzon would not have sat in front of any other ship, because he doesn't have a hardon for any other captain. So now that his sentimentality is factored out, how do you propose for any of the other ships to beat the Scimitar in any way, shape, or form?

By your moronic logic, the E-Nil wins because Nomad wouldn't have thought Picard was its creator. These arbitrary "stick one ship in another scenario" tricks of yours are a waste of time. The E-Nil was a far greater tactical threat in its era than the E-E in its era. Anything else is just more desperate handwaving on your part.

You have not demonstrated that the E-E is less survivable, or demonstrated that I have any reason to start at the beginning of First Contact (which would make little difference).

It would make "little difference" in survivability to start yourself just prior to the ship being mostly assimilated by the Borg, eh? And you still think the Scimitar battle was an example of high survivability? It's quite clear that you are on drugs.

Straha did not say we had to forget having seen the movies. He didn't say how we get onboard these ships either. If you don't know what you know, and can't even pick a job based on your abilities, that is not you serving on that ship.

Since you are serving on that ship as a useful crewman rather than wandering around asking how to use basic tools, it's pretty obvious that it's not you with your present knowledge. I would have hoped you'd be able to understand this without having it spelled out for you.

If we can choose multiple ships from multiple series, and even which crew, we're not regular in-universe Starfleet grunts. We're ourselves, SDnetters who've seen the movies and shows and are choosing based on that. And you agree:

Ahem. Factors in favour of the E-Nil:

1. All of the women wore miniskirts.
2. Kirk is The Man.
3. All of the women wore miniskirts.
4. McCoy is the finest STD treatment specialist in the known universe. No matter what you picked up from the alien chick you reamed last night, he'll fix you right up.
5. All of the women wore miniskirts.
6. Most of the crew made it back alive after their five-year tour, although it's true that wearing a red shirt and going down to a planet on an away mission was pretty much a death sentence. Hopefully, you can be a nondescript engineering crewman.
7. All of the women wore miniskirts.
8. The ship was not destroyed until the original crew had long since rotated out.
9. All of the women wore miniskirts.

Now let's look at the other choices. The E-D suffered just as many bizarre deaths as the E-Nil did, and there were probably a lot of crewmen who were killed or seriously injured during the crash in STG. The E-E was mostly assimilated by the Borg on one of its first missions; I'll take a pass on that one. The Excelsior is a big unknown; you just don't know what happened on that ship. But we know that they had already stopped issuing the miniskirts for female crewmembers by then. Defiant wasn't even big enough to have second-rate characters, and I can think of a lot of placed I'd rather be than Voyager.

More strawman nonsense. What item on that list involves me being able to increase my chances of survival by drawing upon my knowledge as an SD.Netter? All of my arguments involve simply noting which ship would give me the highest probability of survival if I'm one of the crew. I don't need to import my prescience of future Trek events.

None of my listed reasons for choosing the E-E are objective ones, even though you'd like to find some to refute. And yes, the Scimitar's weapons were gone due to the E-E's attack, whether that attack followed the rules of war or not.

Why do you harp on the "rules of war?" Did I ever mention the "rules of war?" Of course not. My problem is your implication that the E-E is somehow superior because of its ability to slowly ram another ship which stupidly parks itself in front.

My overall choice is subjective (either completely, or primarily).

Maybe if I keep pointing it out, you'll eventually notice that I did not respond to your original post, but rather, to subsequent posts in which you claimed that every other ship was a tactical "embarrassment" compared to the E-E.

The subject of survivability chances (which was not part of my stance) is another (yes, objective) issue that can be debated separately.

And debated quite badly on your part, since your claims on that matter are completely wrong.

Actually this is quite a bit of fun precisely because you get me riled. Sports do that, I guess. Okay, nice bit of "good game" handshaking action there, now get back to pissing me off so I can own you a little more.

Ah, it looks like you're starting to suffer from Black Knight Syndrome.

And before you say I've admitted that we're debating my choice of ship, note: we've finally started a debate. Not over choice of ship, but over whether these choices are subject to refutation. And possibly one about survivability, if you like.

Ah, I guess you're backpedaling away from that little line about how every other enterprise was a tactical "embarrassment" compared to the E-E in order to act as though I made it up, right? Quick! Try to distract everybody so they won't notice!

[Metrion Cascade]

And HOW the E-E survived the battle doesn't alter your chances of survival if you're serving on it. The fact is, they survived.

With heavy casualties, including 100% of the personnel in the forward saucer area, not to mention casualties throughout the rest of the ship from the impact. And this is the same ship which was once nearly assimilated by the Borg.

The forward saucer is crew quarters. People are not in their quarters when the captain yells "battle stations." Nor is there reason to assume that there would be notable casualties throughout the ship. One guy died because he was hanging from a Styrofoam catwalk. The ship is not made of Styrofoam catwalks that flip over when the wind blows (in fact that catwalk's presence is best explained by saying that section was a turbolift shaft under repair). The captain warned everyone by comm to brace for impact long before the impact itself. If the old man can survive that impact by holding on to his armrests sans seatbelt and looking determined, so did damn near everyone else.

The standard of survivability you're trying to set here (statistics rather than actual events) reduces your survival on all of these ships to zero. All of them faced situations where they survived by a fluke or someone else's hand and would otherwise have been destroyed.

Wrong. See above.

You're still arguing from how dangerous the general situation was rather than actual events (no E-E crew deaths at all were shown during the collision, making risk of offscreen death estimates). If you're sizing up E-nil and busted Constitution class vs. Doomsday Machine without knowing how it ultimately turned out, the Doomsday Machine should be expected to win. But it didn't, because the people involved made choices that altered the outcome.

lmao...you are simply a liar. I never said the victory against the Scimitar was a reason. And I'll decide what factors matter in making a ship good for me to serve on, not you. Maybe I'm going after the best chance of death in battle, or have a religious devotion to being assimilated by the Borg and then cooked in plasma.

Then say so, instead of arguing that the E-E kicked the Scimitar's ass, which is what you were saying before your furious backpedaling.

Quote where I said the E-E 'kicked the Scimitar's ass.' I didn't. I said they did a lot better than they should have, and that they should have lost but for the crew. Going up against a superior ship, doing your damnedest, and outperforming what your ship should be capable of is a hell of an accomplishment even if you ultimately lose.

I didn't say ANY X-wing pilot vs. any other person. I said Luke Skywalker in his X-wing vs. any other person. Luke Skywalker survived, making your chances as him 100%.

Totally irrelevant to a thread about being an anonymous second-rate crewman, thus introducing an element of randomness and risk. Obviously, if you can pick main characters who can survive, you completely circumvent the idea of the thread.

You just live on creating false arguments to attack, you little liar. I don't have to argue a subjective choice just because one factor I didn't include might be objective. I didn't base my "argument" that I prefer the E-E on anything, because the choice is not debatable in the first place. If you want to argue survivability by itself, that's fine. Say so.

I already did. You're just so emotional that you can't deal with it, so you furiously lash out at everything I'm saying. If you wish to simply ignore that part of your post and say that you'd prefer to be on the E-E because of Picard's legs, I'd have no problem with that. But you have repeatedly claimed that the E-E had the best tactical record, which is sheer nonsense.

I never said shit about the E-E's tactical record. I said "pwns everything else on the list," meaning if they went up against each other. And that I'm impressed with their performance against the Scimitar relative to their ship's abilities is subjective as well.

In three outings, it was nearly assimilated by the Borg, heavily damaged by the So'na, and suffered very high casualties during a battle with the Scimitar, including all of the personnel in the forward saucer section and probably a good portion of the crew in the rest of the ship as well (impact shock was bad enough on the bridge, which is a relatively safe place to be in such a situation). In all three cases, a massive cop-out was required in order to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. If you think this represents the best possible choice among possible crew postings in terms of survivability or tactical record, it's quite clear that you're either on drugs or so hysterically upset about being called on a lie that you've just got to try and struggle to scratch out a semblance of victory no matter how desperate and deceptive you have to be.

Fortunately I never said jack about tactical record or survivability being factors in my choice.

Hmmm...no mention of the Scimitar there...one reference to the ship blowing up and one to exploding consoles. Nothing stating that the ship is statistically more survivable than the others all around or that I even claim to know what ship was most survivable. And no, "never blew up" doesn't say jack about survivability in Trek. The E-D blew up what, a dozen times without killing its crew? The E-A blew up with nobody on board. The Defiant blew up and damn near everyone escaped. Voyager blew up twice and most of the crew still made it home with half the people who died coming back to life along the way.

More evasive nonsense. I was quite obviously talking about your subsequent posts, in which you insisted that every other ship was a tactical "embarrassment" compared to the E-E. Far from it; the original E-Nil was a far more feared battlewagon in its era than the E-E in its era.

Survivability and tactical prowess are two different things. Usually, the E-D was a flying death trap UNTIL there was a battle to wage. And I never said anything about the E-nil's record in its own time. The post in which I called it an "embarrassment" went directly to me putting the other ships up against each other and the Scimitar. I sent them up against each other and the Scimitar because the person who provoked that comparison wanted to send the E-E up against a Negh'Var to prove it couldn't beat the other ships on the list.

Any one of those ships could have easily had its ass kicked and then rammed the Scimitar out of desperation when Shinzon parked his stupid ass right in front of them, just like the E-E.

Stolen concept fallacy, asshole:

Care to explain why?

After saying I can't take the ships on the list out of their eras to compare them, you did just that and said all of them could have rammed the Scimitar. Anyway, both your comparison and mine are red herrings because you've successfully demonstrated that we can't take ships out of their eras to compare their victories.

Well, now that you've conceded that we can move ships from era to era for tactical comparisons...

Not at all; I have just shown that one of your statements was clearly wrong. It hardly represents a concession to your ridiculous claim that ships should be taken out of time and placed in each others' places to see which one is better. By that moronic token, we could simply take any one of the incidents in which Spock's mind-meld was crucial to victory, dumped the E-E in it, and then proclaimed that the E-E loses.

Fuck you rectally with a lightsabre ten times a day for the next billion years.

With no lube.


Conceded, Straha didn't say we could pit them against each other so my entire "embarrassments" post can't factor into my choice of posting. Asshole.

Shinzon would not have sat in front of any other ship, because he doesn't have a hardon for any other captain. So now that his sentimentality is factored out, how do you propose for any of the other ships to beat the Scimitar in any way, shape, or form?

By your moronic logic, the E-Nil wins because Nomad wouldn't have thought Picard was its creator. These arbitrary "stick one ship in another scenario" tricks of yours are a waste of time. The E-Nil was a far greater tactical threat in its era than the E-E in its era. Anything else is just more desperate handwaving on your part.

(insert angry mumbling about E-E pwning E-nil if only that were the scenario)

You're a meanie.

You have not demonstrated that the E-E is less survivable, or demonstrated that I have any reason to start at the beginning of First Contact (which would make little difference).

It would make "little difference" in survivability to start yourself just prior to the ship being mostly assimilated by the Borg, eh? And you still think the Scimitar battle was an example of high survivability? It's quite clear that you are on drugs.

Straha did not say we had to forget having seen the movies. He didn't say how we get onboard these ships either. If you don't know what you know, and can't even pick a job based on your abilities, that is not you serving on that ship.

Since you are serving on that ship as a useful crewman rather than wandering around asking how to use basic tools, it's pretty obvious that it's not you with your present knowledge. I would have hoped you'd be able to understand this without having it spelled out for you.

We can't be completely ourselves, and we can't be specific characters, so some amalgam is in order to justify saying that it's us serving, a mix of your real life self and a Starfleeter. Okay, by that standard I'll concede that you wouldn't know the future. But it also means (consistent with you worrying about STDS when no redshirt ever got them) that we are partially ourselves rather than total zombies and can make some decisions that would alter our chances. Compared to most Starfleeters, this gives us some advantage. Even without knowing the future, there are a whole lot of actions in Trek by redshirts and everyone else that a real person looking at the same situation would never have made.

If we can choose multiple ships from multiple series, and even which crew, we're not regular in-universe Starfleet grunts. We're ourselves, SDnetters who've seen the movies and shows and are choosing based on that. And you agree:

Ahem. Factors in favour of the E-Nil:

1. All of the women wore miniskirts.
2. Kirk is The Man.
3. All of the women wore miniskirts.
4. McCoy is the finest STD treatment specialist in the known universe. No matter what you picked up from the alien chick you reamed last night, he'll fix you right up.
5. All of the women wore miniskirts.
6. Most of the crew made it back alive after their five-year tour, although it's true that wearing a red shirt and going down to a planet on an away mission was pretty much a death sentence. Hopefully, you can be a nondescript engineering crewman.
7. All of the women wore miniskirts.
8. The ship was not destroyed until the original crew had long since rotated out.
9. All of the women wore miniskirts.

Now let's look at the other choices. The E-D suffered just as many bizarre deaths as the E-Nil did, and there were probably a lot of crewmen who were killed or seriously injured during the crash in STG. The E-E was mostly assimilated by the Borg on one of its first missions; I'll take a pass on that one. The Excelsior is a big unknown; you just don't know what happened on that ship. But we know that they had already stopped issuing the miniskirts for female crewmembers by then. Defiant wasn't even big enough to have second-rate characters, and I can think of a lot of placed I'd rather be than Voyager.

More strawman nonsense. What item on that list involves me being able to increase my chances of survival by drawing upon my knowledge as an SD.Netter?

I've conceded you don't know the future. But if you are yourself in any sense, you will probably be smarter than the average redshirt. And apparently get more STDs.

All of my arguments involve simply noting which ship would give me the highest probability of survival if I'm one of the crew. I don't need to import my prescience of future Trek events.

Why not simply add up all the onscreen deaths for each series and movie and compare them? Going by every single situation and trying to guess a random crewman's chances at the outset is pointless. I'd look at many of those situations and say there was no practical chance of survival at all.

None of my listed reasons for choosing the E-E are objective ones, even though you'd like to find some to refute. And yes, the Scimitar's weapons were gone due to the E-E's attack, whether that attack followed the rules of war or not.

Why do you harp on the "rules of war?" Did I ever mention the "rules of war?" Of course not. My problem is your implication that the E-E is somehow superior because of its ability to slowly ram another ship which stupidly parks itself in front.

If you mean superior to the rest of the list, it doesn't matter because we're not comparing them (see concession above). If you mean superior to the Scimitar, it wasn't. The Scimitar should have destroyed the E-E. I was saying the E-E survived a situation that from the outset looked unsurvivable, based on factors that would not have applied to any other ship on the list or even another Sovereign class.

My overall choice is subjective (either completely, or primarily).

Maybe if I keep pointing it out, you'll eventually notice that I did not respond to your original post, but rather, to subsequent posts in which you claimed that every other ship was a tactical "embarrassment" compared to the E-E.

Only against the Scimitar and the E-E directly did I say they'd be embarrassments. I have made no statements whatsoever concerning any ship's overall tactical record in its own era.

The subject of survivability chances (which was not part of my stance) is another (yes, objective) issue that can be debated separately.

And debated quite badly on your part, since your claims on that matter are completely wrong.

Actually this is quite a bit of fun precisely because you get me riled. Sports do that, I guess. Okay, nice bit of "good game" handshaking action there, now get back to pissing me off so I can own you a little more.

Ah, it looks like you're starting to suffer from Black Knight Syndrome.

And before you say I've admitted that we're debating my choice of ship, note: we've finally started a debate. Not over choice of ship, but over whether these choices are subject to refutation. And possibly one about survivability, if you like.

Ah, I guess you're backpedaling away from that little line about how every other enterprise was a tactical "embarrassment" compared to the E-E in order to act as though I made it up, right? Quick! Try to distract everybody so they won't notice!

You did make it up. I was calling them embarrassments in the context of them fighting each other or the Scimitar, not their in-era tactical records against contemporary foes.

And really all that needs proving is that the E-E did better than any of the other ships on the list would have. Honestly the rest of the ships on the list are embarrassments by comparison. The E-D would have been completely destroyed by the Scimitar's opening volley. The Defiant would have lasted a bit longer than the E-D and probably Voyager, but it wouldn't have scored a single hit on the Scimitar with those PPCs, and the E-E actually survived and took out the Scimitar's weapons.

The only way any ship on the list is superior to the E-E is if you're assuming Voyager as of "Endgame," in which case it could obliterate the rest of the list ten times before breakfast. Except you'd go mad from serving with that crew.