A future history of StarTrek.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-02-21 05:25pm

This is a sort of future timeline involving the Klingons, Romulans, and Federation that I've been batting around. Tell me what you think.

This starts with the Dominion War. During the War, all the Houses in the Empire which controlled ships were pushing Jem'hedar and Cardassian incursions from their space and preparing to sally forward to push into Cardassian space. Due to the incredible losses just pushing them back from their stab toward Qo'nos, most of the Houses were having to commit their entire forces to the advance, and to try and match what the Humans and Romulans were putting forward. But Klingon territory still needs ships to protect and control it. Some Houses were going to have to stay behind.

House K'vag was an new house in the Empire. It was a military house, with a squadron of ships, but it's not in high regard on the council due to some military failures. Nothing really dishonorable, but just pesky bad luck. K'vag himself, a middle aged Klingon at the head of his House, had some friends in the Council, but more enemies. During the Civil War caused by the Duras', his House had stayed neutral, but the suspicion that he had secretly supported the Duras' had hung over his head. While he wasn't lost in the purge that followed the end of the Civil War, his reputation was uneasy at best. These two factors combined dealt him a blow. During the reorganization of forces in preparation for the advance, his House sent to a sector on an unimportant stretch of the Klingon/Romulan border and his command relocated to a dismal landgrant on a planet far from any glory to be won. Gowron had said smugly that it was his reward for service to the Empire, but for a Klingon of low standing, it was a sentence. But K'vag was still loyal and swallowed his pride, and went to the rear.

The war with the Dominion ended without House K'vag, and Klingon ships returned home to their families. Some with great glory and standing, others in shame, but none with as many ships or squadrons as they had before they saw battle in Cardassian space. The Klingon Imperial fleet had been devestated by the war and their infrastructure either destroyed or overworked. The Klingon empire begun the costly task of rebuilding. Unfortunately, their were problems, namely the Romulans. Even after the incident with the Scimitar and their close ties with the Federation mellowing them, they took it upon themselves to be more aggressive with the Klingons. Having much of their fleet still intact and their infrastructure still riding the war-time economy, the Romulans began to throw its weight around the border. Romulan ships began moving into systems that was disputed territory and harrassed Klingon ships.

Skirmishs began to happen. These were mostly disruptor duels between single ships or at most handfuls of ships and never resulted in major damage to either party. Most of the time, the ships would shoot their disruptors and once it looked like the shields were beginning to fail they'd withdrawl from the battle. To the shame of the Klingon empire, the Romulans had much greater forces to put into the fray and the Klingons were spread thin, causing Klingon commanders to slink away from battle. This was intolerable, but the Empire had lost it's tooth in the Dominion War and the Federation certaintly wasn't going to intercede.

House K'vag was hit in these skirmishes, with only one squadron to their name, the Romulans frequently moved into disputed systems and harrassed his squadron. K'vag could not afford to lose any ships, but his reputation was bad as it was. In a fit of rage, after his house reported having to evacuate a red drawf system that they were mining for helium-3, Gowron publically questioned whether K'vag deserved his landgrant at all.

Things, however, were about to turn around for him and his House. Part of his job was to map and catalog his sector. One day, one of his ships reported that they had found something very interesting indeed. Around one of the planets there was a group of automated satilites, protecting an alien outpost of unknown origin. The ship was heavily damaged when one of the satillites fired on it. It's said that K'vag laughed when he read this report, because he knew his luck was about to change. The satillite that fired on the ship was a tiny thing, little more than the size of a grown man, but one shot from it's X-Ray laser had effortlessly blew through the ships shield and nearly blown off it's wing. K'vag ordered fully half of his squadron to the system and attacked the outpost. Despite losing nearly ten ships in the battle, K'vag had hit the jackpot. The outpost had been stripped by it's builders and had been evacuated, mothballed with the possible intent that they'd return, which they never did. Most of the technology was gone, but the most important piece of machinery in the base, the power plant complete with it's attached computer system remained. Two weeks after his engineers disconnected it, K'vag returned to Qo'nos a hero.

They never managed to build a powerplant as powerful or as effective as the alien powerplant, or even figure out exactly how it worked. The Klingon scientists pushed too hard and the computer system realized something was sufficently wrong that scuttled the plant. But what they did have was the basic principles and equations for an entirely new branch of high-energy science, one that dwarfed their power production. This would revolutionize the Empire. It had been six years since the plants discovery and now K'vag was in high standing in the council, making many friends and allies now. The Nal'var spacedocks, home of the high-energy labratory around Qo'nos, had finished buffing out the bugs on a new powerplant and began installing them on Klingon ships. Unsing his influence, K'vag had his squadron, along with the second that he aquired, installed with the new powerplants. This vastly increased the range of the ship and also greatly increased it's shield power. They weren't yet able to substantially increase the output of their weapons; their disruptors were already putting out as much power as they could handle, but they were able to design a weapon to fit on the Negh'var battleship. K'vag arranged to have his personal battleship be the first to carry the weapon.

But despite his recent success, K'vag was bitter. He had been sent to the rear during the Dominion war and since the end had had to put up with Romulans raiding his space and sneers at his inability to stop them. He had some scores to settle.

The incident that followed greatly worried the Federation, who received the battle log after "some wires were accidently crossed in an old Romulan communications relay". In a planetary system in House K'vags sector, two Romulan warbirds were patrolling the orbit around one of the planets which they had an operation on when they encounted a solitary Klingon Bird of Prey. To the lead Romulan commander, this was an opportunity to score another insult on the Klingons and further his military record, so his ship and his wingman attacked the Bird of Prey. The battle that resulted was greatly suprising. Despite dozens of hits from both Romulan warbirds, the Bird of Prey's shields remained incredibly high. The battle dragged on, and the Bird of Prey continued tagging them again and again, while they were barely scratching it. The commander of the second Romulan ship, a prudent man, suggested that they withdrawl from the system to report on this disturbing event, but the head commander wouldn't have it. There was no way he was going to allow a solitary Bird of Prey to force two Warbirds into retreat. His career would be finished by that sort of embarrassment. The lead commander authorized the use of torpedoes on the Bird of Prey. The second commander, realizing that this would be a serious escolation of force, had his ship connect with the local network and began transmitting the ships log of the incident along with his own record claiming that it was not his idea to fire torpedoes on the BoP to the Romulan command, in order to clear himself of responsiblity for the incident (this is also how the particular log of the battle fell off the back of a transport into StarFleet intelligences hands).

The Romulans fired on the Bird of Prey, and succeeded in severely depleting it's shields after nearly 12 hits. This is what K'vag was waiting for. His person battleship decloaked and turned it's new weapon on the Romulan warbirds. The lead ship was destroyed spectacularly. The second ship began to run, but it's received a hit to it's engine from a glancing shot from the battleship. Without shields or engines, the Romulan ship was boarded. Later that week, before the High Council, K'vag brought the Romulan commander before the High Council and personally decapitated him. With the Romulan's head still in his hands, K'vag promised before the Empire that the execution of the Romulan was the first of many, because it was the single for his ships to cross into the disputed territory and pay back all the insults the Romulans had dealt them in full.

****

That's as far as I've gotten in the timeline of events.

Robert Walper · Post by **Robert Walper** » 2004-02-21 05:41pm

I like it.

Are you going to add more?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-02-21 07:26pm

Not to nitpick, but some dates here and there would help with the time scale.

Looks good, though.

Natorgator · Post by **Natorgator** » 2004-02-21 07:27pm

Wow, I love it. Very interesting...

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2004-02-21 08:48pm

I'd like to read this in a full blown fanfic. It shows a lot of potential IMHO.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2004-02-21 08:58pm

Can we assume that a Klingon-Federation War will be coming?

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-02-21 09:18pm

paladin wrote:Can we assume that a Klingon-Federation War will be coming?

A cold one, perhaps. I figured in my events that K'vag orders his ships to move against the Romulans, it's several years after the events of Nemesis. By this time, I figure that the Romulans and the Federation will start to have serious investments with each other and the Federation isn't going to want to jeapordize that by siding with the Klingons, considering that K'vag's invasion is major escolation from the border skirmishes they've been having recently.

Not only that, but the new Klingon power source is going to revolutionalize their military and industry. In the coming decades, the Klingons, assuming that bad things don't happen, will be growing by leaps and bounds and may just become the dominant military power in the Alpha Quadrant. THe Klingons with all that power are going to be a bitch to live with.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-02-22 03:38am

What happened with Martok taking over the Empire from Gowron?

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2004-02-22 06:29am

I liked it. I wonder why fans are coming up with far much better ideas then the current ST producers does.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-02-22 06:46am

Why Klingons though? From what I understand of the Dominion War, the Klingons were the hit the hardest of all the Big Three - do they have the infrastructure and R&D capabilities to support a massive re-armament?

This reads like a fanfic-in-progress. Any plans?

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-02-22 01:47pm

Stofsk wrote:Why Klingons though? From what I understand of the Dominion War, the Klingons were the hit the hardest of all the Big Three - do they have the infrastructure and R&D capabilities to support a massive re-armament?

This reads like a fanfic-in-progress. Any plans?

They don't. That's the understated problem with K'vag's plan. By my count, it's been seven years since the end of the Dominion War and while they got lucky with the powerplant, they don't have very many newtype ships and their fleets (particularly their battleship fleet) aren't up to strength yet. The new powerplants will help, but the problem is that K'vag is going to start a war that the Klingons can't decisively win. K'vag is mad by this point. Thanks to the culture he was brought up in, being forced to rule a fief at the edge of space far from any battle where he might earn glory for nearly a decade and then being a cheap source of victories by Romulan commanders send him over the twist.

I chose the Klingons because of their situation, actually. By the end of Nemesis, the Federation's immediate problems are largely solved. The Dominion is no longer a threat, Cardassia was blasted into the stone age, the Romulans now have a government that is actually friendly toward them, and no one else is much of a bother. Then you've got the Romulans, which we know very little about except that they've got a pro-human government right now and I suspect that they are currently cementing a better relationship with Earth.

But the Klingons are ripe for Interesting Times. Their economy and infrastructure was smashed by the Dominion War and much of their fleet was lost. This means that alot of Houses are going to be devalued, since they've lost their ships, while others are going to find themselves in high standing simply because their squadrons are by and large intact. This is going to lead to some ugly politics. Meanwhile, races and people with scores to settle are going to be trouble for them now that they've lost their tooth, and the Romulans, while not going to actively push a war, are going to give them no end a hard time, grabbing disputed systems on their border. Since the Klingons fancy themselves Warriors and Conquerers, suddenly finding themselves at the bottom of the heap is not going to play well. Some Houses are going to want to take over, because they've still got enough ships to control key sectors. Others will no doubt become anti-Federation and claim that their pitiful state is the Federations fault, because the Dominion War was the Federations war, not theirs (as untrue as that really is). This Interesting Time can lead to terrible acts and heroic feats.

Also, I'm not terribly satisfied with the Klingons of TNG. As they are, they come across as fanatically regilious warrior thugs. They could be interesting to explore, to probe how this happy state of existance works for them and how it got their from the vastly different Klingons of TOS.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-02-22 01:48pm

Chris OFarrell wrote:What happened with Martok taking over the Empire from Gowron?

What happened was that I've seen far more TNG than I have DS9, so I forgot that he took over.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-02-22 02:44pm

On the Klingons history: How they got to where they are, which is speculation by me.

Pre-TOS, actually contemporary to Enterprise, the Klingons had an interstellar fuedal state, actually similar to the Imperium in Dune. There was a central Imperial government, but it actually has only a bit of military power itself. The strength of the Empire lies in the greater and lesser Klingon Houses. Klingon Houses, the ones that rule planets and planetary systems at any rate, have their own militaries, organized into squadrons. That's not to say that there aren't any other sorts of Houses, like ones of tend to do civil engineering or agriculture, but outside of the Empire you'd never see or hear of those, as they are part of the fiefs that the Imperial government bestowed upon the Houses.

This generally worked for the early Klingons, it's how they've been doing things for hundreds of year since before the time of Kahless after all. There is some powerplays, some squabbles between houses, but by and large the system is stable, so long as they can continually expand to keep pressure within the system down.

But something goes wrong with the system. The Klingons expand outward until, bump, it hits the edge of other beings, races they've never heard of like the Romulans, and Andorians, and Vulcans and Tholians. Unlike the races they've encounted before, these races are as strong as they are. Suddenly, their expansion grinds and slows. Now they can't continually gain systems to meet the demands of power hungry Houses. While there are more systems to get on some fronts, some of the Houses looking to increase their control turn inward. What they can't take from the Romulans or Tholians, they'll take from weaker Houses than can't defend themselves. For the next thirty years, the Klingon Empire collaspes into a constant series of civil wars and broken alliances. The Imperial government tries to maintain order for a while, but the council is broken and the Imperial government simply doesn't command enough of the fleet to maintain control. Chaos reigns across the Empire.

During this time of chaos, among the smaller military Houses and the farmers and scientists and engineers and accountants who are too low in standing due to not being Warriors form a nationalist movement. This movement is unheard of in Klingon history. It denounces fuedalism and the church of Kahless, and promotes a strong central largely secular government. They've got alot of people on board, but all the ships are controlled by the great Houses. So the leader of the movement took a ship and left Klingon space in a voyage to Romulus. After a heroic appeal to the Romulan government, an alliance is formed.

At this point in history, the great Houses are exhausting their forces in attempts to gain control. Driven by glory hungry leaders with more honor than sense, their ships are lost in droves and millions of warriors are dying annually. When the people of the national movement rose up, backed by fresh Romulan battle fleets, the Houses were too exhausted from thirty years of constant war to put up a credible defense. The final civil war (for this era anyway) ended over the skies of Qo'nos where the last of the great Houses ships were broken by scores of Romulan ships as thousands of people stormed the seat of the Imperial government. Thousands of executions and trials later, in place of the old fuedal houses sat the heir to the Leader of the nationalists (who martyred himself earlier).

This was a radically different structure than the previous Klingon systems. While on the ground, for the workers and scientists and engineer, things only got better. While they had the arduous task of rebuilding their society, they no longer had to worry about being drafted to fight in some war or being transfered to some other fiefdom on another world at the whim of their overlords. However for the religious Houses and military Houses (very often the same Houses), this was a bitter pill to swallow. Their ships were taken from them, their fiefs stripped and controlled from Qo'nos or by local governors, and their swords melted down. But the government was backed by the Romulans and others who were glad to not be raided by some Klingon Lord, so their was nothing they could do but join the military to keep influence.

However, to make sure the House lords didn't attempt to have a coup to return to fuedalism, the Klingon central government took the unprecented move of moving all major power production for all ships and spaceborn industry to one government controlled moon in orbit of Qo'nos, Praxis. This would later mean the end of the government, but for a long time this was the Sword of Damocles that the national government held over the Houses to keep them loyal.

*****

This is the history of the Klingons from the Enterprise period up to the TOS era, in my own speculation.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-02-23 12:19am

closet sci-fi fan wrote:Very interesting... it could also explain the smooth headed Klingons as well. After the rebellion, former peasants of a conquered species that would never be admitted into the military(at least the navy) under the Fuedal system were suddenly permitted. The TOS klingons we see are actually those conquered species. After TOS, those species would be stripped of rank once the central government is overthrown and the fuedal system reinstated.

I was thinking of that, actually, that many members of the nationalists would surgically alter themselves to show their loyalty to the party (which would explain why Worf wouldn't want to talk about it, the nationalists would be a huge embarrassment to a Kahless-fearing warrior klingon), but that doesn't explain Klingons who appear in TOS as smooth headers and then reappear later as ridge headers. I'm not worrying about the smooth/ridged debate, I was more worried about touching on why the Klingons are culturally different in TOS rather than what we see in Enterprise and TNG+. Plus, I wanted to establish why the Klingons and Romulans originally had that alliance. This is important, because I foresee a movement in the future history of the return of the Nationalists who are sick of the warrior culture, because by and large, the nationalist movement worked and it was only the Praxis disaster that brought it down..

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2004-02-24 12:08am

I love it! I can't wait till the fic gets written!

buzz_knox · Post by **buzz_knox** » 2004-02-24 10:07am

IIRC, Gowron was killed by Work prior to the end of the Dominion War. So, the references to him after the War should properly be to Martok.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-02-28 07:30am

I like it. It shows a lot of promise

Major Diarrhia · Post by **Major Diarrhia** » 2004-02-28 01:17pm

Cool, two things though. Failure, any failure, is dishonourable to Klingons. Only victory is honorable. In ST only primitve civilizations use X-Ray lasers. The Feudal system seems to be instated sometime before ENT. The honor stuff only became big sometime before TNG. Shields in Trek seem to lose "integrity" rather than drain energy when they are hit, as evidenced by the VOY episode where the Fed captain of the Equinox(?) ordered his shields dropped for I think 14 seconds in order for them to reform faster. Shields seem to take a constant drain of energy rather than only draining energy when hit, evidence for this comes form the TNG ep where Worf turns his comm badge into a shield emitter. He says it will last 18(?) seconds, no mention of how many hits it will take is made, indicating that at the very least it drains power constantly.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-02-28 01:27pm

Major Diarrhia wrote:Cool, two things though. Failure, any failure, is dishonourable to Klingons. Only victory is honorable. In ST only primitve civilizations use X-Ray lasers. The Feudal system seems to be instated sometime before ENT. The honor stuff only became big sometime before TNG. Shields in Trek seem to lose "integrity" rather than drain energy when they are hit, as evidenced by the VOY episode where the Fed captain of the Equinox(?) ordered his shields dropped for I think 14 seconds in order for them to reform faster. Shields seem to take a constant drain of energy rather than only draining energy when hit, evidence for this comes form the TNG ep where Worf turns his comm badge into a shield emitter. He says it will last 18(?) seconds, no mention of how many hits it will take is made, indicating that at the very least it drains power constantly.

Heh, that seems like more than two things.

-Why would any failure be dishonorable? There is a such thing as honorable defeats, especially when you simply can't win a battle. I never got the impression that the Klingons were so far gone that they were at the degree of, say, the bushido code.

-Why would only primitive civilizations use X-Ray lasers? With a decent power source, I don't see why X-Ray lasers aren't excellent weapons. In fact, X-Ray lasers, theoretically, are downright vicious.

-I said that Klingon fuedalism was in place during ENT (as far as the first episdoe at least) and some time afterwards my hypothetical nationalist revolution happened.

-And so what about the shield?

Major Diarrhia · Post by **Major Diarrhia** » 2004-02-29 04:32pm

Gil Hamilton wrote: Heh, that seems like more than two things.

-Why would any failure be dishonorable? There is a such thing as honorable defeats, especially when you simply can't win a battle. I never got the impression that the Klingons were so far gone that they were at the degree of, say, the bushido code.

-Why would only primitive civilizations use X-Ray lasers? With a decent power source, I don't see why X-Ray lasers aren't excellent weapons. In fact, X-Ray lasers, theoretically, are downright vicious.

-I said that Klingon fuedalism was in place during ENT (as far as the first episdoe at least) and some time afterwards my hypothetical nationalist revolution happened.

-And so what about the shield?

-I wrote first and didn't look back.

"In battle nothing is more honorable then winning" - Worf
-Every time we hear talk of honor by Klingons in the end it's always about victory. And whenever it's about dishonor it's about defeat and still living or making your family look bad through defeat and still living.

You get honor through victorious battle, or by death from a more powerfull enemy. For them, in the end all that matters is that they did their best.

What this means for the Klingons is this; if you didn't die in battle and were defeated, you didn't try hard enough. So if you continue to live, you live in dishonor and thus dishonor your family. So they have to kill themselves, or if they hold off, fight victorious battle. This is also why they kill prisoner and wounded, for them it is the only honorable thing to do.

Nothing else reaches the importance of victory or death in combat under Klingon honor. So no, there is no honorable defeat, unless you die doing it.

- That's just how it Trek is, EM weapons seem to be considered primitive. Remember the episode where Picard says their nav shields are imune to laser. Sure, almost no one totaly belives that, I don't. At the very least the nav shields probably cause a scattering effect severaly lowering the intensity of EM weapons. So eventualy you could reach an effective level of fire power using a laser in Trek, but why bother when you could use a particle weapon and get orders of magnitude better effect. Also, advanced races in Trek always seem to have a propritary weapon system, like Borg energy draining tracotor beams, Voth energy neutralizers, etc.

-I think my point was that a better power source won't allow for better recharge rates, if you even said that, only better emitters or set up would allow for better recharge rates.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-02-29 05:02pm

Failure, any failure, is dishonourable to Klingons.

I could have sworn there was at least one line that was something along the lines of "there is no shame in being defeated by a superior enemy."

Major Diarrhia · Post by **Major Diarrhia** » 2004-02-29 10:13pm

Uraniun235 wrote:
Failure, any failure, is dishonourable to Klingons.
I could have sworn there was at least one line that was something along the lines of "there is no shame in being defeated by a superior enemy."

Yeah, if you die in the process.

Maybe that is an exception but I'm pretty confident in them not beliving in living to fight another day.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-02-29 11:49pm

Major Diarrhia wrote:-I wrote first and didn't look back.

"In battle nothing is more honorable then winning" - Worf
-Every time we hear talk of honor by Klingons in the end it's always about victory. And whenever it's about dishonor it's about defeat and still living or making your family look bad through defeat and still living.

You get honor through victorious battle, or by death from a more powerfull enemy. For them, in the end all that matters is that they did their best.

What this means for the Klingons is this; if you didn't die in battle and were defeated, you didn't try hard enough. So if you continue to live, you live in dishonor and thus dishonor your family. So they have to kill themselves, or if they hold off, fight victorious battle. This is also why they kill prisoner and wounded, for them it is the only honorable thing to do.

Just because nothing is more honorable than winning does not mean that losing or withdrawing before you can lose is dishonorable. Refusing to fight a foe that you have no chance of defeating or withdrawing before I foe can defeat you is not dishonorable, it's the sign of a prudent warrior. Even societies with extreme codes of honor when it comes to fighting, like the Spartans or the fuedal Japanese knew this. In fact, it was considered honorable in either to refuse a fight against a superior foe or concede a duel (but never getting your ass kicked and then surrendering!), when defeat is more than possible. But going into a fight where you can't win and refusing to withdrawl from battle when the tide against you is not honorable, it's stupid and a waste of resources. I'm sure that any command, Klingon or not, is much more glad that the commander of a warship returned it from battle, rather than getting the ship blown up because the commander was too "honorable" to withdraw when the tide was against him. After all, an interstellar starship represents a horrendously large amount of resources (they ain't cheap, you know) and getting them blown up is worse than it getting sunk thanks to a thick captain.

- That's just how it Trek is, EM weapons seem to be considered primitive. Remember the episode where Picard says their nav shields are imune to laser. Sure, almost no one totaly belives that, I don't. At the very least the nav shields probably cause a scattering effect severaly lowering the intensity of EM weapons. So eventualy you could reach an effective level of fire power using a laser in Trek, but why bother when you could use a particle weapon and get orders of magnitude better effect. Also, advanced races in Trek always seem to have a propritary weapon system, like Borg energy draining tracotor beams, Voth energy neutralizers, etc.

Which, of course, is a crock of shit. If navigational deflectors had that effect on EM energy, then we wouldn't be able to see through them, or they'd be distorted or have lower intensity. Yet we can see right through them without any visual impediment at all.

Secondly, just claiming that none of the advanced races use them means nothing about their effectiveness. I suppose you think that the turret on a modern tank is more powerful than one of the huge guns on a WW2 battleship, just because the tank gun is far more advanced, right? So far, you haven't typed a single thing that demonstrates that lasers are inferior or useless weapons. What matters is the performance, not whether the weapon is a Super Zappotron Reverse Polarity Mojoeon Ray or just a good old fashioned ruby red laser.

-I think my point was that a better power source won't allow for better recharge rates, if you even said that, only better emitters or set up would allow for better recharge rates.

Why wouldn't they? If you have more power available, you can pump more power to your emitter, meaning that they are not only stronger in intensity, but can refresh faster.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-03-01 06:18am

Major Diarrhia wrote:Cool, two things though. Failure, any failure, is dishonourable to Klingons. Only victory is honorable. In ST only primitve civilizations use X-Ray lasers. The Feudal system seems to be instated sometime before ENT. The honor stuff only became big sometime before TNG. Shields in Trek seem to lose "integrity" rather than drain energy when they are hit, as evidenced by the VOY episode where the Fed captain of the Equinox(?) ordered his shields dropped for I think 14 seconds in order for them to reform faster. Shields seem to take a constant drain of energy rather than only draining energy when hit, evidence for this comes form the TNG ep where Worf turns his comm badge into a shield emitter. He says it will last 18(?) seconds, no mention of how many hits it will take is made, indicating that at the very least it drains power constantly.

Interesting. So shields recharge faster when thety are lowered ?

Major Diarrhia · Post by **Major Diarrhia** » 2004-03-01 10:48am

Gil Hamilton wrote: snip

You have a point there, I remember a story Kahles told Worf were a warrior was standing outside the gates of a city and a storm was coming. The warrior was trying to prove his bravery. Kahles goes out there and tells the warrior he is unwise to stand in the face of certain and pointless death when it can be avoided.

Which, of course, is a crock of shit. If navigational deflectors had that effect on EM energy, then we wouldn't be able to see through them, or they'd be distorted or have lower intensity. Yet we can see right through them without any visual impediment at all.

All I'm saying is that there must be a reason why Picard said the nav shields were imune to EM weapons, I'm offering a possibiliyt. It sounded good because it is similar to what B5 defences do, scatter incoming fire.

Secondly, just claiming that none of the advanced races use them means nothing about their effectiveness. I suppose you think that the turret on a modern tank is more powerful than one of the huge guns on a WW2 battleship, just because the tank gun is far more advanced, right? So far, you haven't typed a single thing that demonstrates that lasers are inferior or useless weapons. What matters is the performance, not whether the weapon is a Super Zappotron Reverse Polarity Mojoeon Ray or just a good old fashioned ruby red laser.

Then why don't the advanced races use EM weapons, the only reason I can think of is that lasers aren't as effective as particle weapons in Star Trek.

Why wouldn't they? If you have more power available, you can pump more power to your emitter, meaning that they are not only stronger in intensity, but can refresh faster.

Because it's been shown that shields reform faster when they are down. They should charge at the same rate up or down if shield integrity were a matter of power input.

evilcat4000 wrote:Interesting. So shields recharge faster when thety are lowered ?

Yes, explicitly shown in the VOY episode with the Equinox. It's one of the season two parters. episode Equinox 1&2 season 5.