tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-122512522024-03-13T14:53:53.326-05:00ST-v-SW.Net: The BlogQuick Notes, Personal Observations, and Other Vs. Debate MiscellanyGuardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.comBlogger467125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-79555127301079675742023-09-23T20:34:00.012-05:002023-09-23T20:49:14.705-05:00Chrono-Volumetrics Addendum: Epistemological Consistency<p><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>'ve had a couple of issues crop up lately that really call attention to the problem of consistently dealing with certain sorts of data. My focus at the moment is Star Trek vessel registries, but this actually applies to a lot of other information presented outside of dialog or camera shot.</p><p>See, there's typically been a little bit of fudgery among the Trek canon tech aficionados insofar as vessel registries and certain other data obtained from backstage sources, and at some point I slipped into it myself. <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>I've commented before on the <a href="https://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWstcanon.html#III-D-3" target="_blank">Star Trek canon</a> page in regards to how best to use backstage info. The point I made at the time was that class names, for example, could be used for ease of reference, but not as the basis of arguments.</p><p>Even for the <a href="https://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWvolumetrics2.html" target="_blank">Chrono-Volumetrics page</a> and starship registries thereon, I actually did a pretty good job, keeping the First Contact ships in parentheses "until I get around to confirming the visibility of them in the film/episodes where they appear," discounting the never-seen Lantree registry in favor of the Reliant, and so on. </p><p>Alas, sometime between then and recently, I forgot about all that. Certainly in the case of TNG-era backstage-supplied registries, I'm pretty sure that I've had some pet theories about TNG class chronologies based on them in recent years. It's probably been ten years or so since the Chrono-Volumetrics page, so I suppose I have a bit of an excuse. As I've started running up against various oddities and issues, having forgotten that I'd previously been a good boy in regards to backstage info, I started this post as part mea culpa and part effort see if I could codify a backstage-inclusive approach a little better.</p><p>Oopsies.</p><p>So, let's have something of a guest blog, where the "guest" is me from before I rediscovered my previous hardline approach. In the interests of clarity, I'll use a different font for the already-written parts.</p><p>On with the show:</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Preface</span></h3><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Technically, there are a ton of registries that I've referenced that I shouldn't know, canonically speaking, simply because they just weren't really visible. I'm not even talking here about data gleaned off a freeze-frame, but instead stuff that literally can't be seen. Oh sure, we'd learn via various sources that such-and-such model was relabeled for such-and-such episode, but, really-really, if it ain't visible on the screen then it ain't canon.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Let's use, just as an example, the USS Venture. You can clearly see her registry here, right?</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPFeOVxhZZ6msjaTske2LatH1_dM9Hp-j_SBh78zip6xWtU9h05MBtiBVc5mKwxaSU_eZa_TJuml2AXNY1HRhfiOUu34e1I7QazOE3DIz04VlnabBuXVHiYjCAqtSWQlzSkvor4HwagPcmgG5YcI2xHXYysyWVu64bZ391mWXtPM1J_i4jIlH7zQ/s936/2023-0825-041150UTC-Cap00237-936x275.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="936" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPFeOVxhZZ6msjaTske2LatH1_dM9Hp-j_SBh78zip6xWtU9h05MBtiBVc5mKwxaSU_eZa_TJuml2AXNY1HRhfiOUu34e1I7QazOE3DIz04VlnabBuXVHiYjCAqtSWQlzSkvor4HwagPcmgG5YcI2xHXYysyWVu64bZ391mWXtPM1J_i4jIlH7zQ/w640-h188/2023-0825-041150UTC-Cap00237-936x275.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In fact, the four-foot model had the "All Good Things" future 3-nacelle stuff mostly removed and the model was physically relabeled for this appearance as the Venture, NCC-71854 . . . not that you can tell <b><i>at all</i></b>, the way it ended up being shot. </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">At least in the Venture's case we can at least pretend that some imaginary super-high-res version would allow us to read the registry, since they did physically alter it. But, really, a strict-canon fellow like me probably shouldn't 'know' the registry of the Venture at all.</span><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />One is naturally reminded at this point of the Star Wars Expanded Universe and all the various 'backstage' retcon fixes -- communicated via the old StarWars.com forums and such -- meant to try to fix internal contradictions or contradictions against the Lucas canon. Like backstage Trek info, it was "knowledge" that really ought not have been considered as such versus the actual mainline canon. The problem with EU-Philes, after all, "is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." Are Trek tech fans really any different?<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Well, yes, at least a bit. It's highly likely that had producers wanted to know the registry of the USS Venture to have some character state it, they'd have asked Okuda and the gang and gone with 71854 (unless they had a good reason not to). The same was <b><i>not</i></b> true when it comes to EU data getting treated as real data for Lucas or his universe.</span></div></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Besides models, there are various display screens and the like. See, films and television are audio-visual mediums. We, the audience, are absorbing information not only from the words said but also the things we see or can read on screen. The full experience of sight and sound makes up the universe as we observe it. And, just as a crime drama might show a rap sheet for some hoodlum rather than halt all drama by having an actor read a list of crimes for half an hour, data on padds or tactical readouts have allowed various facts about starship registries to be presented without the need for an actor to read off a number or without engaging in costly model relabeling and special effects work to show it off.</span><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">That said, such data can be a little sketchy, as <a href="http://www.st-v-sw.net/CanonWars/STCanon.html#III-D-6" target="_blank">I referenced many years ago</a> insofar as "hard canon" versus "soft canon". The written word on the page and the special effects cleared by producers are the highest canon items . . . some little label or blurb whipped together by some intern in the art department on a tight schedule can't really be expected to outweigh direct statements, but -- in the absence of contradiction or at least strong contrariness -- it seems they're as canon as anything else, operationally.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I say that since we can hardly ignore stuff that the producers haven't quite cleared, after all. There's the story of the DS9 producers breaking the next season after "A Call to Arms"[DSN5] and realizing that the last shot as presented was a tremendous problem. It was supposed to be the Defiant and Rotarran, having just escaped from the freshly lost station, arriving into the welcoming arms of the waiting Federation fleet. Instead, as I've put it before, the shot as aired "caused a panic in the DS9 writing room because it made it look as if the fleet was going to go kick ass right the hell now." This was the origin of the damaged fleet shot that opened the next season.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1OUeGhCfqSnSKX3T212RRNl-CxWu8TJ87npw6Mfkfo8cl0SEcGtxoKVIosLjAoSfSdor6zjnGRIcjYtg_wam23Ov7ykCR2Voj21f7i_leua5PVLXqrJBUsZo0PHXHNeolR--VCTMb43WyFp-cWjR_lgKLDkHfrhvM7tF-JfYgxMew109MwiPCfA/s391/DSN5-CalltoArms-LastShot.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="391" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1OUeGhCfqSnSKX3T212RRNl-CxWu8TJ87npw6Mfkfo8cl0SEcGtxoKVIosLjAoSfSdor6zjnGRIcjYtg_wam23Ov7ykCR2Voj21f7i_leua5PVLXqrJBUsZo0PHXHNeolR--VCTMb43WyFp-cWjR_lgKLDkHfrhvM7tF-JfYgxMew109MwiPCfA/s320/DSN5-CalltoArms-LastShot.gif" width="320" /></span></a></span></div><span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: verdana; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6eXr6a7htmgkppFMKBi3p6zMX5I0xWcTAHOZiDofYen0vBGroB-M3whVoi96wkpgUmFfuWp4J8muU-1TTnL0VSQFaMeGkIx5zcVzSbh-lx8plrxR9LT90CfUYqLdj9EZznHZkoB_P8W9m-3FlTmTJF6yRdbCBuRbMMWfpJy-Hd9RQAtx7SBiyCQ/s692/atimetostand_009.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="692" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6eXr6a7htmgkppFMKBi3p6zMX5I0xWcTAHOZiDofYen0vBGroB-M3whVoi96wkpgUmFfuWp4J8muU-1TTnL0VSQFaMeGkIx5zcVzSbh-lx8plrxR9LT90CfUYqLdj9EZznHZkoB_P8W9m-3FlTmTJF6yRdbCBuRbMMWfpJy-Hd9RQAtx7SBiyCQ/s320/atimetostand_009.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">While that is a case of visual effects details serving as feedback causing adjustment in the writing room, it is also a rather extreme example. Chances are small that some random screen in the background with a throwaway bit of art department flair would, by itself, serve as any sort of 'straitjacket' (to use the hack writer's term for continuity precedents) to the writers and producers. But, as noted, had the registry of the Venture been a topic of discussion in some future episode, it would almost certainly have been given as 71854. It's not even "soft canon" as it was never seen on screen -- just backstage info -- and yet it's universally accepted by Trek fandom.</span></p></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: verdana;">What to do? </span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Well, that's what brings this to the fore at the moment . . . see, confronted with similar bits of info recently, my temptation was to ignore them, in keeping with what I really should do. But, given the use of the Venture et al., I can't really do that, can I? </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">After all, I've also long used the 2245 date for the Enterprise, as another example of background info.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;">Fortunately, as I was tidying up the preface, I realized that 2245 date was used with the explicit caveat that it was an exception, and indeed, it appears I had not used the Venture's NCC or other questionably-visible ones at all on the site. Jolly good, then. However, thinking I had, I'd already soldiered on . . . and this ends up as a sort of exploration of what one would potentially accept if one were trying to be consistent about things:</p><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">With the Venture in mind, let's consider other info. Lately, I've been seeing what can be gleaned about the late 22nd and early 23rd Century Federation Starfleet. We don't know much of this time, direct from the show . . . we know of the USS Essex, NCC-173, a Daedalus Class Starfleet ship lost in 2167, per "Power Play"[TNG5]. Beyond that, we get the Enterprise, NCC-1701, built in 2245. And that, really, was about it.</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">However, with a little bit of backstage stuff included, we get more info. But, frankly, I don't know where to draw the line.</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It started with:</span></p></span><div><span><h3 style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">1. The Starships of Franz Joseph</span></h3></span><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I've long been aware that Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual ships appeared on Star Trek II and especially Star Trek III computer screens. <a href="http://www.trekplace.com/article09.html">Trekplace</a> long ago had that info, and <a href="https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/sftm.htm">EAS</a> also reviewed it. However, operationally, I never really included them in my overall thinking . . . much like Okuda, et al.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Recently, however, I decided to at least include them in my collection of digital models and for volumetric analysis, and SketchUp user <a href="https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/user/1146677053508013118112556/JAFisher44?hl=en">JAFisher44</a> had created some perfectly good renditions of the ships in question. But, I found myself confronted with the delightful model of the Ptolemy bearing a registry NCC-3800, which is close to the NCC-3801 that was in the SFTM image that was used on-screen in the films. This, of course, doesn't fit the clear chronology of registries that began appearing in the TMP era and which continued in the TNG era, so for later display purposes I was first going to just remove the leading "3" to make it a more sensible number.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div></div><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: verdana; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Special/FJ-SFTM/SFTM-Ptolemy-JAFisher44-3removed.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="800" height="259" src="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Special/FJ-SFTM/SFTM-Ptolemy-JAFisher44-3removed.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div style="font-family: verdana;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">However, realizing I was thereby creating new information, I literally removed the registry from the model entirely, which was unsatisfying (and frankly sort of silly looking with just "NCC -" hanging out) but had the advantage of not creating false information . . . at least in principle. (For all I know those would best be NAR or something else entirely.)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Special/FJ-SFTM/SFTM-Ptolemy-JAFisher44-regdelete.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="800" height="179" src="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Special/FJ-SFTM/SFTM-Ptolemy-JAFisher44-regdelete.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This wasn't the only issue to deal with in that vein. The Hermes, for example, bore the registry of NCC-585 in the SFTM, and while that registry wasn't readable in the film it was, along with a lot of other information, on the screen, albeit without clear association with the USS Hermes name.</span></div></div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: verdana; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Movies/ST3-HermesView-Top.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="210" height="207" src="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Movies/ST3-HermesView-Top.jpg" width="244" /></a><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Movies/ST3-HermesView-Data.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="206" data-original-width="193" src="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Movies/ST3-HermesView-Data.jpg" /></a></span></div></div><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.neutralzone.de/database/Federation/Other/SaladinClass.htm" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The visually identical "Destroyer" (the Saladin Class) is even worse, with an NCC of just 500.</span></a></p><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Is there really any difference between the Hermes registry and that of some other ship registries we got from backstage during the TNG era? No, not really. What about the Ptolemy registry? No, not really . . . though in the case of the Ptolemy we can at least argue that the information is contradictory, but the Hermes doesn't allow such an argument. After all, what's it contradictory to, really? Sure, it's low as hell, but that's about all that can be said.</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Visually, the ships bearing the TOS style may seem odd, but, frankly, we have little evidence to the contrary. At best, we can just presume that the saucers and nacelles we see only approximate the TOS style, allowing some alternative detailing to occur. This would allow for something about as far from the TOS style as the Pacific 201 fan production's ship, for example, but that's about it.</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: verdana; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirS0CrFwF9Tet4Btq9Pd_xyZNPjYVXm4ZLxun9hp6eqw1eLYZfmOiFIMlxUcH-_6NALngbGP8UMGaDYBWJvQhkRMeDyOKiqGJ48TSF4xbNlzOMmahfhKN_QiXr30j_Zq4-iaTnwln3FwXmujg5OK8LJLS4U-iEHddAha22bMMBFGEqZrsZ3kXsiw/s880/Pacific201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="880" height="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirS0CrFwF9Tet4Btq9Pd_xyZNPjYVXm4ZLxun9hp6eqw1eLYZfmOiFIMlxUcH-_6NALngbGP8UMGaDYBWJvQhkRMeDyOKiqGJ48TSF4xbNlzOMmahfhKN_QiXr30j_Zq4-iaTnwln3FwXmujg5OK8LJLS4U-iEHddAha22bMMBFGEqZrsZ3kXsiw/w400-h341/Pacific201.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p style="font-family: verdana;"></p><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">However, there's only so far we can go with that before we've strayed from the images on the screen.</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>(Note: On the good side, though, with apologies to JAFisher, I think I can take the Hermes out of my main collection. The 1-to-1 TOS look is, effectively, supposition.)</i></span></p><p style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;">Of course, referring back to our point about the Venture's NCC getting used by producers, there was never any likelihood of Okuda breaking out the Franz Joseph ships intentionally. Indeed, one could argue that they could technically be ignored simply because there was, for whatever reason, no likelihood of them ever appearing on-screen -- except for the time they did -- or having more information desired by producers. </span></p><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Beyond the registry, of course, there's the readable word "Scout" and all that info blurbed on the lower right of the Hermes screen, with references to vessel mass, dimensions, armament, speed, and more. Sure, it's unreadable on the films, but we know what it says from the SFTM. Where do we draw the line?</span></div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div></span></div><span><div style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">While the FJ issue could be swept under the rug, things have only gotten worse. </span></div></span><div><span><h3 style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">2. The Cargo Ships of TOR</span></h3><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In the remaster of TOS there was an NCC registry that I found troublesome. In this case, it's for the drone freighter Woden that drone Enterprise computer controller M-5 found so offensive in "The Ultimate Computer". Previously this was just a reuse of the Botany Bay model, but for TOR they swapped it out for a model based on the grain ships from TAS, a style they'd also used for the Antares from "Charlie X". The Woden's <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Woden" target="_blank">registry</a> cannot be seen but we're told the ship is marked NCC-325.</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Besides the fact that's low as all hell -- that's less than double the registry of the Essex, NCC-173, a Daedalus Class ship <i><b>lost</b></i> (not <i>built</i>) in 2167 -- it also seems an undesirable precedent to have Starfleet-operated naval ore freighters left with NCC registries after being "converted to automation". NCC'ed drones just seem icky somehow. But if I accept the Venture's registry, how can I not accept the remastered Woden's? In general, I really can't.</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Even if I tried to avoid NCC-325, the Antares herself is almost as bad.</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr22G0y7s-D8rUikvhAYfmu1-tDyHxXqsK4UNTbOuMuDmKx_4HMHyrjNxmJclcRNZtVTTL3U2BW2QZRsQyp57Kk_8Wd5KWiJ60QK135oqpVeCa1df4hpM5FrBw0hiyd6l782wu9_QfuORECxN0hySz5TfsrNTh6M3I98wwEfPsP2PwTLDtsIs9bw/s750/Antares.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="750" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr22G0y7s-D8rUikvhAYfmu1-tDyHxXqsK4UNTbOuMuDmKx_4HMHyrjNxmJclcRNZtVTTL3U2BW2QZRsQyp57Kk_8Wd5KWiJ60QK135oqpVeCa1df4hpM5FrBw0hiyd6l782wu9_QfuORECxN0hySz5TfsrNTh6M3I98wwEfPsP2PwTLDtsIs9bw/w400-h240/Antares.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(The nacelle reads NCC-501)</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-family: verdana;"></p><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">(Now, there is one unique "out" in this case. If I were really set on ignoring it or other TOR details, I actually can do so. The last known good canon policy statement regarding the remaster of the Original Series, from Okuda himself, is that evidence from either version can be used, case by case. In other words, we have free reign to pick and choose. That would, however, make me feel kinda dirty, and dealing with that is a whole 'nother post. For the time being, then, I'd prefer to either (a) take TOR in its entirety or (b) not just discard TOR data without a very good reason involving words like "breaks continuity" or "clear error" or "obvious in-joke".)</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Potentially, this type of ship, with its somewhat unique "fat-capped" nacelles (referring to the larger circumference of the aft and forwardmost bits) represent an older type of nacelle that should be considered.</span></p><h3 style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">3. Ship Lists</span></b></h3><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Beyond the Franz Joseph ships, a great deal of vessel name and registry data has come from various lists shown on various displays in the franchise. From the <a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2023/08/chrono-volumetrics-addendum-court.html" target="_blank">first such chart at Starbase 11</a> to the embarrassingly named but nevertheless informative <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Fleet_Battle_Group_Omega" target="_blank">Starfleet Battle Group Omega chart</a> from <i>Star Trek: Nemesis</i>, and with many examples in-between, such charts probably provide the largest percentage of vessel registries known, far exceeding model labeling events. And, outside of obvious in-jokes like <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Heart_of_Gold" target="_blank">NCC-42</a> or <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Sherlock_Holmes" target="_blank">NCC-221B</a>, folks tend to accept those registries (or, if you're a Memory Alpha editor, you accept those, too, because you don't even get the jokes).</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">However, there are occasions where the charts are not exactly as readable as we'd like to pretend, though we tend to try to use the information anyway, especially if there's a backstage-info "alley-oop" of the screens getting provided. Of course, the remastering of TNG to HD has been a great help in this regard. Compare the torment of <a href="http://flare.solareclipse.net/ultimatebb.php/topic/6/2732.html" target="_blank">this Flare thread</a> about trying to read a "Starship Deploy Status" chart in standard definition versus the current version of the Memory Alpha article in the link (where the chart's almost perfectly readable. Still, though, there are charts or screens or dedication plaques that, even in high definition, just can't be read, but if we get information about them we tend to still use it. </span></p><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">An example is the <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Starship_Mission_Assignments" target="_blank">Starship Mission Assignments</a> screen from Star Trek VI. While some of the info is the same as the more legible <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Operation_Retrieve" target="_blank">Operation Retrieve briefing chart</a> info, some is just not legible on screen at all, yet those of us hungry for details tend to use them . . . though using the unseen fourth page seems especially naughty.</span></p><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But what to do in the case of clearly contrary data?</span></p></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">4. The Excelsior Study Models</span></h3><span><p style="font-family: verdana;"></p></span></div><span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not yet written was this one more section. A realization had also struck about the Excelsior study models. One, the "Alka-Selsior" (an in-joke I was going to either ignore or ascribe to some alien language), bore a registry of NCC-1404. That put the vessel as having a likely build date in the 2220s.</span></div></span><p></p></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6h_WXIDd23MDOmSk73Yoe1uaD_nD60QHZSMwcTgbP_d2qzKfafVRwgYJjhxrKsbXdNMLv9qXqCh71_fUYCNOCuNjh5RSf8ix5qgn90h3zRj8un_nicl-uw-MI_yKEgXuzFRHLrrCj9SMmLUnrUO1vAwXm3HViKepDZ_IsT0NwMdfH8tqvS_YdlA/s1000/USS_Excelsior_study_model_by_Nilo_Rodis_as_USS_Alka-Selsior.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="1000" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6h_WXIDd23MDOmSk73Yoe1uaD_nD60QHZSMwcTgbP_d2qzKfafVRwgYJjhxrKsbXdNMLv9qXqCh71_fUYCNOCuNjh5RSf8ix5qgn90h3zRj8un_nicl-uw-MI_yKEgXuzFRHLrrCj9SMmLUnrUO1vAwXm3HViKepDZ_IsT0NwMdfH8tqvS_YdlA/w400-h263/USS_Excelsior_study_model_by_Nilo_Rodis_as_USS_Alka-Selsior.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>As can readily be seen, short of arguing for a nacelle-replacing refit (which tended not to happen after the 2270s or 80s), the ship doesn't quite fit the TOS aesthetic. It does resemble the Oberth Class aesthetic, however, and those ships have registries in the low 600s. Rather than presume a refit, I've been pondering that they always looked like that, reflecting an alien influence ... say, an 'Andorian strain' ... distinct from the round nacelles of the human-built craft of the era. This could simply be another example of such a more diverse fleet, and as I pondered the late 22nd and early 23rd Century Starfleet, I was basically going to be heading in that direction. The art deco nacelles of the Enterprise refit of TMP (and the Miranda before her, in my view) would thus tend to reflect a union of these styles, to some extent, and a more unified fleet.<br /><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">5. Quasi-Conclusion<br /><br /></h3><div>Incidentally, where I was headed would've basically required me to have a history from 2161 to 2271ish that featured the Daedalus Class at the founding of the Federation, with the "warp seven beauties" class mentioned in "These Are The Voyages"[ENT4] appearing somewhat soon after.<br /><br />The Antares type would pop up early on, as well, perhaps in the 2170s, with the Oberth Class being an early joint Andorian-human contribution in the 2180s. In-between, by necessity, would have to be the Saladin and Hermes types, despite their TOS appearance. Somewhere in all this I'd have included the Medusan type, as well. Circa 2210 the Constitution or an early version would've entered stage left, with that NCC-1404 circa 2230. Finally the TOS Constitutions were built in 2245, with the Mirandas appearing around a decade later. Somewhere in the mix that funky sliver of a McQuarrie ship seen in the ST3 starbase would've appeared, probably fifty years old at the time.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've mentioned previously resisting the idea, but, let's once again note that it's not impossible that the Constitution Class actually was the follow-on to the Daedalus, especially given the possibility of this being the shape of the early Constitution . . . it would only require an example of a far lower NCC:</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXO1QcU5ujt_JrviHHTC1nfp66pon-mOH0a5cCoj2P0t5qBcBzwmxI9Jd4p-ADSyoVaabUmZjNhfwG6yuK5Ab288BffFpn4iVbfpSVV_Oxwko5EMla8XdBAZJSeHuS8bez_ACJ3nlnNHIsy5TGMwOk13eGIPVXMbhZRMFJ43IwK4tHP4KlVLcVCw/s954/TOS-HullPressureCompartments.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="702" data-original-width="954" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXO1QcU5ujt_JrviHHTC1nfp66pon-mOH0a5cCoj2P0t5qBcBzwmxI9Jd4p-ADSyoVaabUmZjNhfwG6yuK5Ab288BffFpn4iVbfpSVV_Oxwko5EMla8XdBAZJSeHuS8bez_ACJ3nlnNHIsy5TGMwOk13eGIPVXMbhZRMFJ43IwK4tHP4KlVLcVCw/s320/TOS-HullPressureCompartments.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>While some of those semi-canonical possibilities are tantalizing and others are just annoying, there are things that are very much canon . . .<br /> </div><h3 style="text-align: left;">6. Actual Conclusions</h3><div><br /></div><div>1. The Antares type dates back to NCC-501 at least, and as of the TOS era features a slightly unique nacelle type.</div><div>2. The Oberth Class dates back to the low NCC-600s, if not 602 itself. </div><div>(Ships of similar vintage were running around in the 2272 timeframe, e.g. the Revere 595.)</div><div>3. A vessel with spherical hull and TOS-style nacelles was active near the Medusan homeworld in the 2260s, and this may have been a ship of older vintage and more numerous construction.</div><div>4. As of the 2280s, the ship classes known as Ptolemy, as well as the Hermes, definitely exist. I don't see any need to have the Hermes/Saladin split, though the Hermes hull definitely has scout and destroyer variants. They appear to have TOS-style nacelles and the saucers likely have a TOS or near-TOS aesthetic, though very little is known of the types.</div><div><br /></div><div>I hope to expand on these and other details over time.</div>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-71875220944395279692023-09-11T06:42:00.000-05:002023-09-11T06:42:13.030-05:00USS Republic NCC-1371<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoN4PpeRtXofQ0Ge9KpI0jt_PBDGDvzRDLellLkU9vErFe1eq6Luu8ffbiIzseFsfFugdmkzj18OEaXSW2ifyUEEawWsbudLA3FrSuNVmTg8_Nklozr8LRgklp1rM40wNtAZabYTwtzaaepa3lcKn4oEsioaIIjB7x6VGQxdKUhVa_KuIZhIrAYg/s429/2023-0911-114036UTC-Cap00292-429x96.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="96" data-original-width="429" height="72" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoN4PpeRtXofQ0Ge9KpI0jt_PBDGDvzRDLellLkU9vErFe1eq6Luu8ffbiIzseFsfFugdmkzj18OEaXSW2ifyUEEawWsbudLA3FrSuNVmTg8_Nklozr8LRgklp1rM40wNtAZabYTwtzaaepa3lcKn4oEsioaIIjB7x6VGQxdKUhVa_KuIZhIrAYg/s320/2023-0911-114036UTC-Cap00292-429x96.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>It is a common assertion that the "United Starship Republic, number 1371" was a Constitution Class ship like the Enterprise, NCC-1701, based on the term "Starship". We might also note that the name "Republic" fits nicely in the naming scheme of a class named "Constitution".</p><p>Beyond that, however, nothing points to the idea of the Republic as a Constitution Class as having any merit, and I thus propose that this is not so. <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>We first hear of the ship in "Court Martial" simply as a vessel to which Kirk and his old friend, former Academy instructor Finney, had been assigned "some years" after their time at the Academy together. This suggests the ship was active, likely in the late-2250s.</p><p>The only other detail we hear about is that the ship had "atomic matter piles" aboard. Per Memory Alpha, this terminology should be associated with "atomic piles", an early term for a fission reactor based on the stacking of uranium and graphite moderator in layers. It is also possible that this is related to the "energy pile" aboard the Antares from "Charlie X"[TOS1], though these two thoughts are not necessarily contrary to each other.</p><p>Star Trek IV would seem to counter the hypothesis from Memory Alpha. Spock notes: </p><blockquote><p> "If memory serves, there was a dubious flirtation with nuclear fission reactors resulting in toxic side effects. By the beginning of the fusion era, these reactors had been replaced, but at this time, we may be able to find some."</p></blockquote><p>This would seem to make "atomic matter piles" as a fission based power source (even on an auxiliary level) dubious at best. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHUERRMZAlkKLPtTv-JxLdkXQmtQw-2Ss7E1613VjjxG506XFrTBK7NhYfoI_ae5DmoGKGpqbDEhqVBzCh1sIMvLPBx6xdSW8sl6k8_tIBlLRyLWazt28Y6UYVKzBHAtpXl38O__-2xqCuwQfkBdi4x9UKoUC2ZmVZiQcMNNXWPnlq_vDYCMPYXA/s1440/FinneyAtomicDooby.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHUERRMZAlkKLPtTv-JxLdkXQmtQw-2Ss7E1613VjjxG506XFrTBK7NhYfoI_ae5DmoGKGpqbDEhqVBzCh1sIMvLPBx6xdSW8sl6k8_tIBlLRyLWazt28Y6UYVKzBHAtpXl38O__-2xqCuwQfkBdi4x9UKoUC2ZmVZiQcMNNXWPnlq_vDYCMPYXA/s320/FinneyAtomicDooby.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Dubious asserted meaning for "atomic matter pile" is not to be <br />confused with Finney's apparent Atomic Doobie Pile.</div><p>Still, it remains the case that the Antares was an old ship, and, even if fission is unrelated to the "atomic matter pile", it seems to also be an old system of a sort never heard of again, and notably not heard of aboard the Constitution Class Enterprise.</p><p>The Republic was still active in 2293, her name, registry, and Neutral Zone patrol mission visible on a chart titled "<a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Starship_Mission_Assignments" target="_blank">Starship Mission Assignments</a>". At this point the ship was at least about 35 years old and likely very much older, given her low registry.</p><p>Two other details now become relevant. </p><p>First, we have Picard's note to Scotty in "Relics" confirming familiarity with the Constitution Class based on the fact "there's one in the fleet museum". Based on the conversation, this was clearly not an Enterprise, regardless of any later alternate universe confusion. If the Republic was a Constitution Class ship then it plausibly could've been the one in the museum, but that brings us to the next point.</p><p>That is, second, we hear of a training ship Republic in a conversation aboard the Valiant between a Red Squad cadet Collins and Jake Sisko. She notes that they were on a training cruise, leading Jake to ask: </p><blockquote><p>"So this was a training ship? Like the other one, the, er, the Republic?"</p></blockquote><p>The cadet replies: </p><blockquote><p>"Not quite. The Republic's an old ship. I don't think she's left the Terran system in fifty years."</p></blockquote><p>This puts a ship named Republic as an old ship that hasn't even left the solar system since circa 2321.</p><p>It is, of course, entirely possible that the Republic 1371 was retired shortly after 2293, or even destroyed on the very Neutral Zone patrol we hear of, with the name quickly recycled onto a new ship. This new ship, for whatever reason, doesn't manage to have nearly so long a service life, relegated instead to a training ship sometime prior to 2321, by which time its advanced age seemingly precludes travel beyond Earth's solar system.</p><p>However, that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, prima facie.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">(Oh sure, we can work up a story where another ship gets relegated to training, easily enough . . . maybe NCC-1371 was retired and the new Republic, NCC-3171 or whatever, was built a few years later, perhaps even of antique parts. Insert your own concept here . . . maybe it was of an unknown and quickly retired class (but one similar enough to existing ships to warrant keeping it), or maybe after the Tomed Incident in 2311 or just some other random episode of bad luck on a science mission she was no longer capable of high warp due to spaceframe damage. Rather than scrap a relatively new bird, she became a training ship, and off we go. It's plausible enough, albeit rather ad hoc.)</p></blockquote><p>Despite some creative possibilities, it seems much more likely that the training ship in question is the Republic, 1371. Given Picard's commentary, and given that his Academy years would've been circa 2323 to 2327 (around the last time the Republic left the Terran system), Picard would likely have trained on the Republic. If she were a Constitution Class ship, then it would've been relevant to note the training aboard one to Scotty rather than make him feel like a museum piece, himself.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">(One could here argue that a training ship and a museum ship need not be mutually exclusive concepts, and thus that the training ship Republic and the museum Constitution are the same ship. While technically true -- a few US Navy sailors train on the sailing vessel USS Constitution, for example (which is still in active commission, unlike the typical museum ship) -- that's a weak argument. A ship identified as a training ship and a ship identified as a museum ship are functionally different concepts, even if training occurs on some museum ships. Like the Republic replacement hypothesis, this is ad hoc.)</p></blockquote><p>So, all indications are that the Republic 1371 still exists as of 2371 as an Academy training vessel. And, thanks to Picard's commentary, it is apparent that she's not a Constitution Class vessel, but another ship type entirely.</p><p>Alas, we have no way of knowing what kind of vessel it was. The fleet between the Federation's founding in 2161 and the launch of the Enterprise in 2245 is largely unknown. By certain averages and the registry number, I would propose a construction date for the ship of circa 2223, but one's mileage may vary. Thanks to the Constellation 1017 and possibly Eagle 956, we know that the ship was a rough contemporary of some early-build Constitutions, but that's about all we know.</p><p>We'll explore the possibilities in another post.</p>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-75912562251748171202023-09-01T03:36:00.004-05:002023-09-02T21:45:26.601-05:00Volumetric Confirmations<p><span style="font-size: x-small;">(The below was originally written in 2022 and not quite polished for publication.)</span></p><p>"<span style="font-size: large;">I</span>lithi Dragon" <a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2022/07/starships-and-continuity-of-style.html" target="_blank">recently commented</a> that some of the entries in the Starship Volumetrics section might be off, based on experiences with deriving volumes for different models being employed as part of a large game mod effort. I was, of course, suitably horrified, but having just done a little confirmatory experiment with a Galaxy Class warp nacelle, I didn't panic. </p><p>Much.<br /></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>The reason for the nacelle maneuver was that someone did a 2-D side view comparison of the Enterprise-D nacelle and the Titanic, which was cool. But, of course, I knew that this was missing the difference of width and other factors, so I naturally put together a <a href="https://twitter.com/STvSW/status/1539375750842925056" target="_blank">quick little video of the Titanic atop a warp nacelle</a> and, also an art deco-inspired poster version as a follow-up, though of course it would be much better if SketchUp did lit internally objects properly, natively . . . </p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC4knNr_2EGB-VyrkVJ4CVTMz7lrY--CWE5CU-9CGdxUdzVjk-KZqEIt1lC8YjSCU5W3vITYhBA9o2MZ2j5g5Kqi4mEv6PGVnOKmztGDwtmvL0qiGJcZIXdAL2EGEVbfgnRXC4lOq1JqkQIXd0LqOQ-YSCpbhlnq9g0NkJdKVhQFI7zcX1SNI/s915/Screenshot%202022-06-21%20164634.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="880" data-original-width="915" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC4knNr_2EGB-VyrkVJ4CVTMz7lrY--CWE5CU-9CGdxUdzVjk-KZqEIt1lC8YjSCU5W3vITYhBA9o2MZ2j5g5Kqi4mEv6PGVnOKmztGDwtmvL0qiGJcZIXdAL2EGEVbfgnRXC4lOq1JqkQIXd0LqOQ-YSCpbhlnq9g0NkJdKVhQFI7zcX1SNI/w269-h260/Screenshot%202022-06-21%20164634.jpg" width="269" /></a><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzmEdO4fcLBglsEkHqC2cNbY04eSx9nqfc9eHM9hlfSi2ve_ZI3OlRX6p15zi8VmEpNcyIFP_2UdjI' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">The part that gave me pause was that, although I was pretty sure I'd calculated the Titanic volume before, I couldn't find where I'd posted it. So, rather than reinvent the wheel, I did a quick search and saw where <a href="https://titanic19120412.weebly.com/buoyancy.html" target="_blank">some Titanic website</a> had a volume of 400,000 cubic meters or so. </span> I freaked out because an entire Galaxy nacelle ought to come out to around 280,000 cubic meters, per the old reckoning, so how the devil could that thing be another third of a nacelle when it was scarcely longer, no taller, and like half as wide?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">After finding a nacelle, cleaning it out, and doing some testing, I became convinced that the nacelle figure was right . . . and in further looking, that Titanic website's estimate for the Titanic was wildly over the line. The Titanic was 269 meters long, a maximum of 29.2 wide, and from keel to the top of the smokestacks was 53.3 meters ... if you treat that as a rectangular box, that's 404,000m³, but the ship was most assuredly not a box. (Alas, I never did find my Titanic calcs . . . I think maybe I'd started some for <a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2014/05/sinking-ships.html" target="_blank">this post</a>? I don't know.)</div> </div><div style="text-align: left;">So the nacelle was fine . . . but what about the rest of the ship? Dragon's statement was that not just the Galaxy, but the Nebula and the Sovereign also were off. I trust that Dragon, so how borked is my stuff?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><br />Well, I think I'm actually good*. It's become harder to find models available for use now that 3-D printers exist. That's because these models can have a purpose other than doing your own renders or being a volume-minded dork, so a bunch of folks are keen on trying to sell their models, no matter the quality or lack thereof. However, if you're persistent, you can still find ways to acquire them. <p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: right;"></div><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>---------------</p><p>* What does "good" mean, here?</p><p>Let's ponder our terms for a moment. There will never be a perfect value for the Galaxy Class starship's volume, for various reasons. Most notable among those reasons is the question: which one? I don't mean Enterprise versus Venture or Yamato versus Challenger. I simply mean that there are a surprising number of models that have represented the ship. Most people know about the graceful original six foot model and the chonky-boi "bulldog" four-footer with beefier lines and thicker paneling, putting my opinion of it nicely here. That's all bad enough. However, there was another small two-foot physical model in service from the start, and let's not forget the various ones blown up in that time-loop episode, and the special crashed saucer, the CGI versions . . . well, suffice it say, <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Galaxy_class_model" target="_blank">the list is extensive</a>.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"> So at that point, which one are we using? That big fat shuttlebay on the back of the crash saucer is going to have an effect on volume, as will the more muscular upper secondary hull of the four-foot Bulldog, not to mention the thickened saucer. Needless to say, there will be variation. How much? Certainly up to several percent. After all, if we're dealing with a simple circular saucer a hundred meters across and ten meters thick, we have a total volume of 78,500 cubic meters, thanks to v=hπr². Adding one percent to the thickness (taking it up to 10.1 meters) will only add about one percent to the volume, now 79,300m³. But, if we instead add one percent to the diameter (101 meters, or 50.5 radius), that'll get squared, and our final volume will be 80,100m³, or two percent different. Doing both gets us up by three percent. That may not sound like much, but remember that we're only dealing with flat pancake shape, here. If you imagine the Enterprise-D saucer as a <i>set</i> of flat pancakes for volume calculation purposes, then having many rather wider than they might otherwise be (as would be the case for a bulldog-esque saucer) and having more of them (for a vertically thicker saucer) will make differences add up pretty dang fast.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>---------------</p></blockquote><p>I've selected a particularly svelte Galaxy Class, most closely resembling the six foot model as she appeared in Star Trek: Generations. Let's run through all the steps, here, from conversion to the final confirmation of the volume reading.</p><p>First, a note that my <a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2010/03/kumari-and-model-ridiculousness.html" target="_blank">old technique</a> for Bridge Commander model use doesn't work anymore, generally proving my idea that software gets crappier over time, but there is an <a href="https://twitter.com/STvSW/status/1543708007934066688" target="_blank">alternative technique</a> available, and BC models have improved greatly in quality as computer hardware has improved. As I mention in the linked Twitter thread, I don't <b>need</b> pretty, well-textured models for my purposes. Indeed, my personal favorite models to use are of the style of modeler <a href="https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/50b4429cefe9cbae80ca37c1d4e14abd/USS-Rhode-Island" target="_blank">"Fort Opus" from the SketchUp 3-D Warehouse</a>. These are not and never will be photorealistic, and that isn't the goal. What you see, though, is what you get . . . there are no textures being used to fake detail. (There are some really, really crappy models out there that have great crappiness-hiding textures.) Every window you see is a cut into the hull. Every detail is <i>a detail</i>. Every colored surface is a real colored surface, not just a texture wrap hiding a blank piece of digital cardboard. This is, in short, the good stuff, even if it does look a tad cartoonish.</p><p>That said, few modelers cater to my needs . . . and by that I mean "zero".</p><p>So, let's take the aforementioned <a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/startrekbridgecommmander/mods/4012" target="_blank">Bridge Commander: Remastered</a> Enterprise-D. I'll be covering the process of model conversion in another post, but suffice it to say that one can get a model from STBC to SketchUp 7 with only a minor amount of torment.</p><p>So now we have a SketchUp 7 model, ready for use with our SketchUp 7 volume integration tool. The tool basically works by making slices of the model a certain number of times and calculating volume based on those slices. By analogy, if you didn't know how to calculate the volume of a sphere, you could cut it into a hundred slices, do the volume of the hundred really short cylinders you made (with some fudging for the edge angles), and come up with a figure that was at least relatively close to a sphere's actual volume. Obviously, this technique is useful for complex shapes like starships, too, but as with many things (even the Bridge Commander game) it requires that the object volume not have openings or gaps in the outer surface. Additionally, you really don't want any extraneous geometry on the inside, either, since you end up with an 'outer wall' on the inside, which just confuses the thing.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnXX-yZr2ZMEmS1P3ri0chRqE5vt0ufqmdFSeg55V1P4o0_KTbrVdqyLNBuinbYo-utcLgkqjpV91spzjbkdVs0DUELp5w6LhdYdFm0B9bZmVTzzLie4n7as5HOexphuRRVC-HWZ9XNiu2nUkz3pcDs2LjLlOHOwgWWFKAJKTniBHP4qKgHME/s712/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry-finalmessybusiness.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="712" data-original-width="430" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnXX-yZr2ZMEmS1P3ri0chRqE5vt0ufqmdFSeg55V1P4o0_KTbrVdqyLNBuinbYo-utcLgkqjpV91spzjbkdVs0DUELp5w6LhdYdFm0B9bZmVTzzLie4n7as5HOexphuRRVC-HWZ9XNiu2nUkz3pcDs2LjLlOHOwgWWFKAJKTniBHP4qKgHME/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry-finalmessybusiness.jpg" width="193" /></a></div><p>Being impatient, I tend not to give the models a once-over at this point and instead just run the volume tool at "5% accuracy" (20 slices) and see what happens, 'cause sometimes I get lucky. In this case, however, I don't. As you can see from the pic to the right, it took . . . oh, a few tries.</p><p>If you'll pardon me for going all Sybok, here's the part where I share my pain so we gain strength from the sharing:</p><p>I ran through a few iterations, changes of angle, and so on, and never did get what seemed to me to be a complete volume based on the visual feedback of the slices and their absence. That is why I adore the volume plugin I use, though, and <b>refuse to use one that doesn't</b> feature that sort of feedback.</p><p>The first attempt resulted in a figure of 4.27 millon cubic meters, which is much lower than the 5.8 million I have on the Volumetrics page.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQKkv19e7TlIKd2kC2CtWmsdUaXjaS3IqLKT6DmVtbE7kXXjWfNv16FAU5743asJ1fHWexNggFIgYx--oeWH46ucvDkaEitJSBfT9_JzhaEclGI4jDnd8ZNrbSKDEENDt8IsVJpXhz8qKZVgrhXfUfIcDzslLzl9y39TSZidY9Lgk22x0ULB4/s1342/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry1a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="1342" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQKkv19e7TlIKd2kC2CtWmsdUaXjaS3IqLKT6DmVtbE7kXXjWfNv16FAU5743asJ1fHWexNggFIgYx--oeWH46ucvDkaEitJSBfT9_JzhaEclGI4jDnd8ZNrbSKDEENDt8IsVJpXhz8qKZVgrhXfUfIcDzslLzl9y39TSZidY9Lgk22x0ULB4/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry1a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDAGHR-d0zbqowqL0BxSu1QOVBgLvcHBZymobrqO3krjeo__kRLIqhqzvpizxZa72CJoGr7W2E6ToP0xVGB8-hDHq_wVDuyVGG8PahLB-uMiKSNbw46iwZQyJGlg75evm3JW7AKz3OwW07EnV4SeF-RL7F95Ye6zAW1yTUJGWSekByNyZ93KQ/s1014/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="1014" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDAGHR-d0zbqowqL0BxSu1QOVBgLvcHBZymobrqO3krjeo__kRLIqhqzvpizxZa72CJoGr7W2E6ToP0xVGB8-hDHq_wVDuyVGG8PahLB-uMiKSNbw46iwZQyJGlg75evm3JW7AKz3OwW07EnV4SeF-RL7F95Ye6zAW1yTUJGWSekByNyZ93KQ/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry1.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><br /></div>As you can see, there's a big section around the center of the saucer missing, another down around deck 39ish, and a few other things going on, like the upper neck . . . oh, and the nacelle pylons are completely missing. Oops. I tried again at different accuracy and did <b>worse</b>.<br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkoew5CMiB-6W0zJ22DxCSYSwkvXw9ubuRxQsfd6b52EM_65CThzUQgAS1Anujp7VZJKgtWBiNWNLAuNCm_v1qlt-bywcZPdBOFwlXcSFHVKKgm1OFbk-Q0g9FwxP85EfPyjRtz47kZfbahbo5daOy5R0SaqENeClbRF7FBMc6y0fM7eugpyg/s1125/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="559" data-original-width="1125" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkoew5CMiB-6W0zJ22DxCSYSwkvXw9ubuRxQsfd6b52EM_65CThzUQgAS1Anujp7VZJKgtWBiNWNLAuNCm_v1qlt-bywcZPdBOFwlXcSFHVKKgm1OFbk-Q0g9FwxP85EfPyjRtz47kZfbahbo5daOy5R0SaqENeClbRF7FBMc6y0fM7eugpyg/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Before you go in ready to start hacking away at the model, there are other things to try. This plugin is oriented to the 'world' of the modeling space, not the model. That is to say, if you change the orientation of the model, the slices remain level to the 'ground', which can help you get around problems sometimes. I generally tend to raise the nose 90 degrees and try again, which is basically what I did here.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhw31fa9FbJ-he8NFH5VQJ0IIDFtnqYMxntSvnnP3JKpuCQSyNLBtv_nR3ePYl_gMqYShFEySHITMMfrHG2sdJc4batei8BbSYeUvirDsOU4dHJorkKHzbfOE-ljCfZIGZ4c0J_M2suH8TAtNWGSOAV7uTOoZqUNmuSvyY39briORgzi36QYA/s901/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="901" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhw31fa9FbJ-he8NFH5VQJ0IIDFtnqYMxntSvnnP3JKpuCQSyNLBtv_nR3ePYl_gMqYShFEySHITMMfrHG2sdJc4batei8BbSYeUvirDsOU4dHJorkKHzbfOE-ljCfZIGZ4c0J_M2suH8TAtNWGSOAV7uTOoZqUNmuSvyY39briORgzi36QYA/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>That resulted in 5.2 million cubic meters at 2%, but with some obvious missing bits at the nacelles. </p><p>Honestly, I could stop here and declare the 5.8 million figure basically verified. Perhaps as much as half of each nacelle's volume is missing, which by itself puts us at 5.5 millionish, and if there's any other large gap or set of small gaps then we're within a point or two. However, I tend to be a perfectionist, and at this point I am thinking the "Received Wisdom" model was probably rather bulldog-like and I'd love to know a more graceful, Probert-esque figure.</p><p>I decided to try rolling the model instead, which in this case didn't do a bit of good.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkfx7euhhRMOeL_8wiqJUqbXFU9a3ktz6DmX8JUwkKJt7qP6dtboQbvHkPyds-DNmeMI7n4IxtsOF1_FNijbNlXBj88QL9VGO7Y22mmNP36wQcLRe5vPlmKBGkGdV7y6bKyDtI0cOIWh1C5pLr9uQyZByG_grdXkzCJcQNMZjTn3BtkB3pdCo/s792/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="655" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkfx7euhhRMOeL_8wiqJUqbXFU9a3ktz6DmX8JUwkKJt7qP6dtboQbvHkPyds-DNmeMI7n4IxtsOF1_FNijbNlXBj88QL9VGO7Y22mmNP36wQcLRe5vPlmKBGkGdV7y6bKyDtI0cOIWh1C5pLr9uQyZByG_grdXkzCJcQNMZjTn3BtkB3pdCo/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry4.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><p>I landed at 4.6 million, with big obvious chunks of saucer missing, seemingly along the saucer impulse engines . . . suggesting there's probably an 'open' in those areas where they join the rest of the saucer. There was also a strange gap along the entire saucer midline, as if the bridge might have a problem, and a separate smaller issue on the secondary hull. I decided to try going straight up again but with a rotation, and while it did much better, it was still imperfect.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwoec2LHw5VTn-b1gy1CtkeEwUncs5AmhKe13NnE4DiWwrJ3nU9Z4ZmdlOhbJaDNA-DxpjbfWunvLzWzLrPEyUraO5-zAvQFgFFz8-KHe5opsBPmUvXn59lnTfwcDAm3INkPJPuZ5PQo0J0q_nqBjz9Cd2ArWPDa4wbUz6vSx-bDBn5Ih0LLw/s813/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="747" data-original-width="813" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwoec2LHw5VTn-b1gy1CtkeEwUncs5AmhKe13NnE4DiWwrJ3nU9Z4ZmdlOhbJaDNA-DxpjbfWunvLzWzLrPEyUraO5-zAvQFgFFz8-KHe5opsBPmUvXn59lnTfwcDAm3INkPJPuZ5PQo0J0q_nqBjz9Cd2ArWPDa4wbUz6vSx-bDBn5Ih0LLw/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>So at this point, it seemed as if a nacelle root repair job might do the trick. I switched to a special "style" which colors the outside faces yellow and the inner faces red as a quick way to see if there are any reversed faces or internal issues causing problems. Sure enough, the nacelle pylons intruded into the nacelles, and there was a 'cap' of sorts blocking things off. </p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFDlIMs9Nicw-C7H4PiINzzLq_UPDGeXVzW5dGEKfJtrZntNOV8zkNTBu_HTXhbGck4LXWux0bjc8S9u9motd5U_mEtiKzj9o7jGF57lcVd1FRGRspFhnbBquZdCJ1Or1Wpf8lKQH2fZkzU3s8alU3ogq2Uq3Sw_29x1-yb8_bin8GeCREas/s1414/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry5-3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="808" data-original-width="1414" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFDlIMs9Nicw-C7H4PiINzzLq_UPDGeXVzW5dGEKfJtrZntNOV8zkNTBu_HTXhbGck4LXWux0bjc8S9u9motd5U_mEtiKzj9o7jGF57lcVd1FRGRspFhnbBquZdCJ1Or1Wpf8lKQH2fZkzU3s8alU3ogq2Uq3Sw_29x1-yb8_bin8GeCREas/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry5-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking forward from behind the port pylon</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zk_Bw12a6tUGUq0rlF6jN0Q67zMuBOrsl4H5jpG-67zelwiOTB6UiqUxESQIfuuFXBv85zF57F2LAstcmi_24CwFYj7Jltkk5MF2sE6VyHgbIyxOUQ5rfNKMFjKHCqqUqg3Qm5BHgKXr35CSuHPKtT7IrIVE1EmZzRVfJM4AQtw3Ywgjakg/s1207/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry5-9whatremains.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="1207" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zk_Bw12a6tUGUq0rlF6jN0Q67zMuBOrsl4H5jpG-67zelwiOTB6UiqUxESQIfuuFXBv85zF57F2LAstcmi_24CwFYj7Jltkk5MF2sE6VyHgbIyxOUQ5rfNKMFjKHCqqUqg3Qm5BHgKXr35CSuHPKtT7IrIVE1EmZzRVfJM4AQtw3Ywgjakg/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry5-9whatremains.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Starboard nacelle, extended pylon visible</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifDal1537RyZ9mrNyLowkHGMahxbKZXcdXfQDJ61U_hckfI4SEOTYf-DkZ1PGLCpvicaQvYTMP9DTqzHubcM1sr_YSVfUQAYZpdL1Acwkr2F6pPKItUcYQ1P3ByDWs4Fa6XMcFddT5eoEMatz1kWh_9mQHQQ1JMgrVF2rakN9jbfFtHI9GUUs/s1240/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry5-7othernacelle.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="808" data-original-width="1240" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifDal1537RyZ9mrNyLowkHGMahxbKZXcdXfQDJ61U_hckfI4SEOTYf-DkZ1PGLCpvicaQvYTMP9DTqzHubcM1sr_YSVfUQAYZpdL1Acwkr2F6pPKItUcYQ1P3ByDWs4Fa6XMcFddT5eoEMatz1kWh_9mQHQQ1JMgrVF2rakN9jbfFtHI9GUUs/w342-h209/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry5-7othernacelle.jpg" width="342" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Starboard pylon interior looking up at 'cap'</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zk_Bw12a6tUGUq0rlF6jN0Q67zMuBOrsl4H5jpG-67zelwiOTB6UiqUxESQIfuuFXBv85zF57F2LAstcmi_24CwFYj7Jltkk5MF2sE6VyHgbIyxOUQ5rfNKMFjKHCqqUqg3Qm5BHgKXr35CSuHPKtT7IrIVE1EmZzRVfJM4AQtw3Ywgjakg/s1207/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry5-9whatremains.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div></div><p>I cleared out one and just decapped the other and tried again. This helped, but no changes I tried to accuracy or vessel angle would solve the fact that there remained an underlying issue. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_SDdnzqwjFp-8MWww18t-_S37mmRrKI9LU52xe5dTWOrLGXNLhceSS7t7yMym0VlmUkx_hMW8r6CchoQgPXJA0uZFr3j0koxysyuoUJrOTg0RVPKnahFZICnfLoqhCnrHKVbaTFEcdcmQ9eOn69XFRK-ScqnmWrEfOnC74LAMvgQuAUYmCFM/s709/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="709" data-original-width="699" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_SDdnzqwjFp-8MWww18t-_S37mmRrKI9LU52xe5dTWOrLGXNLhceSS7t7yMym0VlmUkx_hMW8r6CchoQgPXJA0uZFr3j0koxysyuoUJrOTg0RVPKnahFZICnfLoqhCnrHKVbaTFEcdcmQ9eOn69XFRK-ScqnmWrEfOnC74LAMvgQuAUYmCFM/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry6.jpg" width="315" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8wR_4gJNx3DyfzW9YgLeb7uKJUjpSA82KS9BUisrA__ytSQgVnDmKjyxcTzTlqJokZa_ceVqRT4vxVuoy_Hx3uo96AZEYbJ4p6rl4S8qyKDatTKWFB_tsTIi6bqI8psECfJzdlppT44EAy17kMoCjLu8kvTyAGgOdP6V5TwPaXAlk-6WkIM8/s1158/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry7&8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="1158" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8wR_4gJNx3DyfzW9YgLeb7uKJUjpSA82KS9BUisrA__ytSQgVnDmKjyxcTzTlqJokZa_ceVqRT4vxVuoy_Hx3uo96AZEYbJ4p6rl4S8qyKDatTKWFB_tsTIi6bqI8psECfJzdlppT44EAy17kMoCjLu8kvTyAGgOdP6V5TwPaXAlk-6WkIM8/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry7&8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Finally, it dawned on me that this model could separate, with finished stardrive "cobra-head" and saucer aft cradle. I decided to separate the ship and do it that way. I had the saucer happy enough, I thought, but the drive section was still being a punk. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd8ymw7S9KhDLS-mD4ULY0zv3iTXHTF45_2Vl8JlzGmkxmGuP0_jph0vG3ijpFchsrJBnd-4QpnEQ17CKwmc4RwK1IZp4ns7yJYXHDBskWd6muV4ery8IIQXn7McAwgUTtzSH3bp7Q3Q4rqftViLvvB6AtGH4bxFW_h_kP-hC7is_1mU5NTw8/s1078/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry9.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="706" data-original-width="1078" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd8ymw7S9KhDLS-mD4ULY0zv3iTXHTF45_2Vl8JlzGmkxmGuP0_jph0vG3ijpFchsrJBnd-4QpnEQ17CKwmc4RwK1IZp4ns7yJYXHDBskWd6muV4ery8IIQXn7McAwgUTtzSH3bp7Q3Q4rqftViLvvB6AtGH4bxFW_h_kP-hC7is_1mU5NTw8/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">(The above being a "5% accuracy" try, I re-ran the saucer at 0.5% and got almost exactly 3.7 million with no apparent gaps, though I expected more to show up (see below). That's a 5.9% difference. Mileage can vary.) </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKPqSff4KhWN_NfCF5rUia86Dutka57zq4t_aKrQqmQOHHasRx7MExRfQ9NIMU65APq9000S_Nhb5GO5Hry3ALSpyDhl0oYkxf3kCx3goLjC7_1F7MdzxSJDufSIKX6XRW-37PYHc8fqLQSTacoyYKv9_wAHMvmQlNjg3TSIVMkN14-rUWWvI/s880/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="880" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKPqSff4KhWN_NfCF5rUia86Dutka57zq4t_aKrQqmQOHHasRx7MExRfQ9NIMU65APq9000S_Nhb5GO5Hry3ALSpyDhl0oYkxf3kCx3goLjC7_1F7MdzxSJDufSIKX6XRW-37PYHc8fqLQSTacoyYKv9_wAHMvmQlNjg3TSIVMkN14-rUWWvI/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjQGGU07gsApaAVuqqg0Er1FcEXS1Tj0ma_Ta4i9hrg4aA1q8SF7fTHGrsYgd9tzUlzL-Z2I7-RPonl6W29JKIPJwqEapL0YZ37Te-zSeLs5EGTmQcgH336Whi7pwqjotN38udT3ebX4Hr7AKLV6zkZ6HT5r_QzXa4fZOJLiyPWHGwn_TVS6o/s673/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="598" data-original-width="673" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjQGGU07gsApaAVuqqg0Er1FcEXS1Tj0ma_Ta4i9hrg4aA1q8SF7fTHGrsYgd9tzUlzL-Z2I7-RPonl6W29JKIPJwqEapL0YZ37Te-zSeLs5EGTmQcgH336Whi7pwqjotN38udT3ebX4Hr7AKLV6zkZ6HT5r_QzXa4fZOJLiyPWHGwn_TVS6o/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>So, I cleared out the other nacelle, and discovered that it was my lazy experiment of leaving the intrusion that was jacking up both nacelles. Once I finished the cleanout process on the starboard nacelle, everything was great:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRVMAe0IvwBOfFC-Nqjdq8VVHKmFTSd3K3YDWjC2Z8KaQoGAM4eRs7I6ELfz-EH9z66i_yx_kp20ZxOk87c0eNgJKDVR4oT6XbebVXfbMcsjS3aaqak_IImEtyd3wZTV5UGYeLZpu90iV53WA9useBad-wS8p4IRceOKAbctYxoY4T66UU2fE/s649/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="649" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRVMAe0IvwBOfFC-Nqjdq8VVHKmFTSd3K3YDWjC2Z8KaQoGAM4eRs7I6ELfz-EH9z66i_yx_kp20ZxOk87c0eNgJKDVR4oT6XbebVXfbMcsjS3aaqak_IImEtyd3wZTV5UGYeLZpu90iV53WA9useBad-wS8p4IRceOKAbctYxoY4T66UU2fE/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Being a glutton for punishment, I then manually docked the sections (gaining new respect for Riker in the process), and had "just one more" go at a volume for the combined ship. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ITPFQr3ob9i_x2sGovzh1RBbg29x99ToDu1oiZR-rC7KN4s7tiLZN5lzvcLnkmetSSwtrecur21qXXxJRPET9GCUy7GINjJUC4Vain63cXxJEK_N3MoexCq07sNxO1D46w1ba86OLhErJ-q23nOopiEbekltrddQU5LIK4aDi8mSPYkxt6U/s1512/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry13&14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="1512" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ITPFQr3ob9i_x2sGovzh1RBbg29x99ToDu1oiZR-rC7KN4s7tiLZN5lzvcLnkmetSSwtrecur21qXXxJRPET9GCUy7GINjJUC4Vain63cXxJEK_N3MoexCq07sNxO1D46w1ba86OLhErJ-q23nOopiEbekltrddQU5LIK4aDi8mSPYkxt6U/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry13&14.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9GlvQ_aCwZ1f9DVjVr3O2EafRMe35Z25dHLd0Vox4v8NQEbUWsF0niyGcJq5Vo_kRYr3Pk6VTnteKuYCObw00iQFtrGSZBJJdlcL_OsHqQlkRz93LYMTZLZ2Bkmd1TdsKX791AH9KbpTcj5qWbcZ-iMWmUyLtWMDq_N_lXpoHYkpdCIXxXd8/s681/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry15.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="559" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9GlvQ_aCwZ1f9DVjVr3O2EafRMe35Z25dHLd0Vox4v8NQEbUWsF0niyGcJq5Vo_kRYr3Pk6VTnteKuYCObw00iQFtrGSZBJJdlcL_OsHqQlkRz93LYMTZLZ2Bkmd1TdsKX791AH9KbpTcj5qWbcZ-iMWmUyLtWMDq_N_lXpoHYkpdCIXxXd8/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry15.jpg" width="263" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBwCsoSeZAsTT2XGxiDCBscTPIawWYHZEhEeXkPX3EAzuZPP9dj56_2KWybB1Dw8ec9vFD-id67SFp0ZkfGZZ_B-J8nX9NPjpwX-dQFfAXPe9GZW15T_I3y4DsPAv0NE9Dynz4c8wi1-UDdet7yDSuKjBj1zpe65Xv277-PAujJWsTPOTwYAw/s637/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="637" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBwCsoSeZAsTT2XGxiDCBscTPIawWYHZEhEeXkPX3EAzuZPP9dj56_2KWybB1Dw8ec9vFD-id67SFp0ZkfGZZ_B-J8nX9NPjpwX-dQFfAXPe9GZW15T_I3y4DsPAv0NE9Dynz4c8wi1-UDdet7yDSuKjBj1zpe65Xv277-PAujJWsTPOTwYAw/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry16.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Needless to say, I found an issue:</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOLib5BdWs1qobmvq5I4RndMIXODhqg2M7Da1Kg7JL_yyoxrmbPly0fzByrqKqoK_6YMRgiRTkW_LNFL9nOmmsywOnfzdM2WvBLKoT7e60Z-4VEgVfu17ldLfgKG7MulLvshqScBzILRaGuqKNOG40E5SeJ5bPCIGN-B-RqoliPRl3ukfyrhg/s678/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry17a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="655" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOLib5BdWs1qobmvq5I4RndMIXODhqg2M7Da1Kg7JL_yyoxrmbPly0fzByrqKqoK_6YMRgiRTkW_LNFL9nOmmsywOnfzdM2WvBLKoT7e60Z-4VEgVfu17ldLfgKG7MulLvshqScBzILRaGuqKNOG40E5SeJ5bPCIGN-B-RqoliPRl3ukfyrhg/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry17a.jpg" width="309" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFikVqMaVRLAgb1Y6e9YZJSviabvLA0BEZSBF_tlWbUExcsOO3s-dxlLeC0Bd-q9ViBtO-g9de8K5p8IxNAcPZa1vvx_i96x7mkGoStGCENqu2TslC6_bgc1_AbhKWmsX_fYWsCfmm7Du8mJsbRWfQpY2g1psTwbckHtuyzbaqB_fue57thZw/s1285/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry17b.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="472" data-original-width="1285" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFikVqMaVRLAgb1Y6e9YZJSviabvLA0BEZSBF_tlWbUExcsOO3s-dxlLeC0Bd-q9ViBtO-g9de8K5p8IxNAcPZa1vvx_i96x7mkGoStGCENqu2TslC6_bgc1_AbhKWmsX_fYWsCfmm7Du8mJsbRWfQpY2g1psTwbckHtuyzbaqB_fue57thZw/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry17b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzcG1m33Y31igTEpS-KskvAQ3V1eVtr_fkAHdWAquaatjPWloAa1eOpjk1FUBApdn_h_z1El_p43Hh8KE98L4droFLSCwyxXQ4QZwmHP8I6Cod_IUPckp3SynQvyadiIG_1Tdw_skeg0K8WcRSBxbkAYYt3HvPe-9cikH3Pptsnb19i0XD5x0/s1522/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry17c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="679" data-original-width="1522" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzcG1m33Y31igTEpS-KskvAQ3V1eVtr_fkAHdWAquaatjPWloAa1eOpjk1FUBApdn_h_z1El_p43Hh8KE98L4droFLSCwyxXQ4QZwmHP8I6Cod_IUPckp3SynQvyadiIG_1Tdw_skeg0K8WcRSBxbkAYYt3HvPe-9cikH3Pptsnb19i0XD5x0/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry17c.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Those saucer impulse engines and/or the stardrive battle bridge and/or the deflector dish were still taking a chunk out of the ship. With her vertical and nose-up, you can see the gap going all through the neck and secondary hull. So, even though I'd landed at about 5.5 million cubic meters with the nacelles fixed (as predicted, woot), my perfectionist tendencies were intensifying even as the thought of tackling the problems horrified me. </p><p>So, I returned the ship to normal orientation, then pitched the nose up just thirty degrees, hoping the problem around the saucer impulse deck would be quite minimized at that angle, unable to affect the secondary hull at all. Unfortunately, this revealed two other problem spots . . . something's still wrong at the nacelle roots, and there's (still) a mid-saucer problem, with all of these forcing me back down to 5.27 million cubic meters.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGq9fqR0TUtTAQIxq_kAHBq1aCL0YY-KvsQ8FhbxD_eHWiSARzotNhzsb-5a56AP0Q_Be-G5uNQHeXWbXVehD8PoRQDe2NaZSkjjCB55bTc5NVqPmKA8fDyb_Xul-aB9wYNvT92LSqh6ODG5hHuCoqxfvzouPFhk0jdUNVSPuSd8yGqus2G0w/s1401/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry18.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="1401" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGq9fqR0TUtTAQIxq_kAHBq1aCL0YY-KvsQ8FhbxD_eHWiSARzotNhzsb-5a56AP0Q_Be-G5uNQHeXWbXVehD8PoRQDe2NaZSkjjCB55bTc5NVqPmKA8fDyb_Xul-aB9wYNvT92LSqh6ODG5hHuCoqxfvzouPFhk0jdUNVSPuSd8yGqus2G0w/s320/Galaxy-STBCR-voltry18.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>The good part about this outcome is that it cured my perfectionism regarding this model. The way I see it, the six foot graceful Enterprise-D model probably runs around 5.6 or 5.65 million cubic meters, compared to the 5.82 million of the four foot Bulldog. Sure, that's like an entire starship's worth of variation, but (a) that's what happens with a big ship, and anyway (b) it's a 3% or maybe up to 4% difference, which ain't bad. </p><p>I can live with it. </p><p>Figure confirmed.</p>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-64257771569425654812023-08-24T21:33:00.002-05:002023-08-29T20:08:43.205-05:00Chrono-Volumetrics Addendum: The Court Martial Chart<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> A</span>t Starbase 11 in "Court Martial", Commodore Stone had a chart entited "Star Ship Status" with NCC numbers and percentages of completion, presumably of repairs like those for the Enterprise. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Series/TOS/TOR1-CourtMartial-StarShipStatus-2view.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="800" height="423" src="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Series/TOS/TOR1-CourtMartial-StarShipStatus-2view.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>Due to the focus, angle, and the font itself, folks have had issues distinguishing the digits even in the age of enhanced resolution from the Remastered show. However, there's a very simple fix for that, as many programs allow a deskew option these days, especially on mobile operating systems where a "scan" of a document via photograph may need to be straighted up.</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Series/TOS/TOR1-CourtMartial-StarShipStatus-Enhancedeskew.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="686" height="362" src="http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Series/TOS/TOR1-CourtMartial-StarShipStatus-Enhancedeskew.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p><span>With it deskewed, something should become quite evident. Those sixes and eights that have so confused folks for so long are of different widths in whatever font is used, there. Look down at the second to last entry, NCC-1685, for an obvious example. The 6 is 11 or 12 pixels in width, while the 8 is approximately 14 pixels wide. Similarly, 1697 shows a 9 that is obviously wider than the number to its left.</span></p><p><span>If we go by this standard instead of straining to decide if there's any gap between the upper right and center right on a possible 6 or 8, it suddenly becomes more obvious. NCC-1631 is definitely the Intrepid, for example, and not 1831 as sometimes argued.</span></p><p><span>In the deskew, one number actually looks rather higher than the others. </span> The fifth entry seems to have a second digit slightly wider than the third, which would imply that it is an eight compared to the six next to it. </p><p>While it's generally been concluded that the fifth number is 1664 (which has been assigned via <a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2023/08/fanon-to-canon.html" target="_blank">fanon to canon</a> as the USS Excalibur), this method might seem to point to the number being 1864. That, of course, is the Reliant from Star Trek II. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsD1FNeGHYhFvWSfSPCM-gWL7ZNxuIG-hViVFkwHCt7y6eD0hBUwC5QhCLH9AjT-747TPXEEpAqMZMbVRF9tpaTOU-de57Bpo7eY_HsOxwH3TPbMrU1t2mGGdXK2Y2Lz-0nFtqsRhx8fCMNJj94zphRna45gjaoCVD-J1ejNOjuREmt535PuIKrg/s800/USS_Reliant.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="335" data-original-width="800" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsD1FNeGHYhFvWSfSPCM-gWL7ZNxuIG-hViVFkwHCt7y6eD0hBUwC5QhCLH9AjT-747TPXEEpAqMZMbVRF9tpaTOU-de57Bpo7eY_HsOxwH3TPbMrU1t2mGGdXK2Y2Lz-0nFtqsRhx8fCMNJj94zphRna45gjaoCVD-J1ejNOjuREmt535PuIKrg/w640-h268/USS_Reliant.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>However, the appearance of it being an eight there is more illusory or 'artifactual' than anything . . . compare that faux eight with the wide nine in the next entry or the monster eights in the second- and third-to-last. Additionally, the top collage wider shot (blown up to the lower left of it) seems to show a six more evidently. Finally, consistency with the rest of the chart, which seems to exclusively contain 16xx and 17xx, would suggest it should be a six and not an eight.</p><p>In conclusion, there are a lot of different lists and takes on that chart overall. I myself have previously stated that the chart had numbers above 1800 based on a misread of the once-super-low-resolution digits. However, the chart reads as follows:</p><p>NCC-1709<br />NCC-1631<br />NCC-1703<br />NCC-1672<br />NCC-1664<br />NCC-1697<br />NCC-1701<br />NCC-1718<br />NCC-1685<br />NCC-1700<br /><br />Or, in NCC order:<br /><br />NCC-1631<br />NCC-1664<br />NCC-1672<br />NCC-1685<br />NCC-1697<br />NCC-1700<br />NCC-1701<br />NCC-1703<br />NCC-1709<br />NCC-1718</p><p>These would later be mashed together with a backstage ship name list for Enterprise sister ships (as if they were all at Starbase 11 at the same time) by Greg Jein, and that info would be adopted by Mike Okuda and, eventually, canonized visually for most of the vessels. I've <a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2023/08/fanon-to-canon.html" target="_blank">covered that story</a>, but discussing the results of it will have to wait for another time.</p>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-35117970588453747052023-08-22T15:59:00.002-05:002023-08-29T20:08:21.594-05:00Fanon to Canon<p><span style="font-size: x-large;">S</span>ometimes, popular fan ideas get adopted into the actual canon of a universe. Maybe this is sometimes okay, but as often I think it tends to be silly . . . and I say this as someone who's had his work adopted into sci-fi canon.</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>In the interests of brevity, we'll focus on some stuff from Star Trek's Original Series. The long pause of Trek in the 70s allowed the early fandom and novel writers to generate their own ideas with virtually nothing to stop them. This included certain tropes that were either generated out of whole cloth or, at best, overblown, and other things that were somehow completely forgotten or ignored.<br /><br /><div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Uhura</h4><p></p><p>Star Trek under Roddenberry aimed toward believability -- explicitly -- even amongst the trappings of spaceships and rayguns. Thus, while the characters are indeed iconic to us and, in-universe, can be very good, the 'reality' in the fictional universe is that these are real people with strengths and weaknesses. </p><p>For example, a recent Discoverse Trek episode had folks from the post-TNG Discoverse era raving about Uhura and the languages she spoke, a bit of old fanon that had also shown up in the JJ Abrams Kelvinverse. It's not clear where this idea came from. Uhura spoke English and her native Swahili in the Original Series, but otherwise displayed no aptitude for languages . . . this was most notable in Star Trek VI, when she and the rest of the bridge crew were breaking out Klingon dictionaries and she was butchering pronunciations. </p><p>A communications officer understanding language concepts helps, I'm sure, but her specialty could be anything from subspace transmission theory to antennae to encryption algorithms to department management. In the age of reliable automated translators basically capable of reading the mind of a frickin' cloud, I'm not sure how much knowledge of multiple languages would be necessary as a qualification or expectation for a communications department head working on the bridge. </p><p>Indeed, from that list of possibilities, we see her engaged in the technical things rather than linguistics in the Original Series. She had the idea of a subspace bypass circuit in "Who Mourns...", and was the best person to execute it despite not having done such work in years, over and above any of Scotty's engineers. She was also very familiar with the status of Romulan codebreaking in "The Deadly Years".</p><p>The Uhura of the Star Trek Original Universe wasn't a super-linguist.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Constitution Registries</h4><p>Then there's the matter of Constitution Class registries. This is long since a done deal and part of the Trek canon, but it still annoys me.</p><p>In early 1975, the Original Series was long-gone except in re-runs, the Animated Series had ended, and there was nothing on the horizon except for the conclusion of Blish's episode novelizations. Even Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual wouldn't land until November. There was, in other words, very little Trek material available, and it was all open to lots more speculation than we have nowadays after decades more Trek canon has been made. Thus, we had the fandom telling each other new stories and analyzing Trek as best they could via conventions and fan-published materials. One such fan was Greg Jein, and an idea of his that circulated was submitted to a fanzine as an article. That article was "<a href="http://www.trekplace.com/article10.html" target="_blank">The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship</a>". </p><p>At its most basic level, this was an article where a fan took two pieces of data (a list of ship name suggestions from The Making of Star Trek book and the NCC numbers on the wall at Starbase 12 in "Court Martial"[TOS1] and crammed them together in a way that knowingly made no sense. I'm not going to speak ill of Jein, here, for his idea had to then be popularized and insisted upon elsewhere (paging Mike Okuda), but suffice it to say that even though Jein acknowledges that his thesis makes very little sense, it was nevertheless made. </p><p>I'm not sure why Okuda picked this to go with over Franz Joseph's NCC assignments, especially considering that, even if there were issues with using Franz Joseph's material, Okuda had the option of making up whatever he wanted. </p><p>Nevertheless, what ended up happening was that a random assemblage of NCC numbers on a wall chart was assigned to the Constitution Class ships, forever . . . and (by extension) the weird notion that most of a particular class of ship were at a single starbase and under repair simultaneously for no apparent reason.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3E9rekkvlpAfsSkkYyb_Yc6_iJ8RvjHxjDV1N65z3MHJvx25cvzp75HEhlg4P-GyjCVTLPqTmsOUwjEUvHaZZG1UiU2tEV2y1XJ-967kwePTHLcsJowyG5I1M-ni3EcFX1D7GLVrgEz9HoASenawkldMA3vpFeW_dX3ExOb-T4ByIyOPSLoTvsA/s497/USS_Intrepid_29.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="497" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3E9rekkvlpAfsSkkYyb_Yc6_iJ8RvjHxjDV1N65z3MHJvx25cvzp75HEhlg4P-GyjCVTLPqTmsOUwjEUvHaZZG1UiU2tEV2y1XJ-967kwePTHLcsJowyG5I1M-ni3EcFX1D7GLVrgEz9HoASenawkldMA3vpFeW_dX3ExOb-T4ByIyOPSLoTvsA/s320/USS_Intrepid_29.webp" width="320" /></a></div><p>We could excuse it completely had it been made earlier or argued differently . . . after all, the wall chart said "Star Ship Status" and the Enterprise plaque read "Starship Class", right? That could've left ships like the Enterprise as the entire starship fleet, back when the distinction was made between mere spaceships and proper starships. Alas, that wasn't the argument . . . it was knowingly assigning those numbers to ships like Enterprise even while knowing other ships existed. </p><p>Now we're stuck with it.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Conclusion</h4><p>Look, we're all going to keep drawing and teasing conclusions out of the material we have. Put another way, fans of the Original Universe of Star Trek are going to squeeze that fruit for every bit of juice we can get out of it . . . every iota of information. The trick is to make sure those conjectures are reasonable and based very carefully and rationally on the evidence itself, not some made up thing (popular or otherwise). Just because something is "known" in the fan community doesn't make it true, and even if something is true in an alternate Trek universe that doesn't make it true in the Original Universe, even if the fanon thinks so. </p><p>Stick to the facts . . . it's the only way not to get stuck in crap.</p></div>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-83930371136591083292022-11-02T12:09:00.005-05:002022-11-02T12:15:11.294-05:00Starship Taxonomy: Class and Type<p></p><blockquote> "Are you willing to help us overpower the Romulan B-type Warbirds we may encounter? Are you prepared to help us detect them through their cloaking shields? You see my problem, Admiral."</blockquote><p></p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>- Captain Jean-Luc Picard to Romulan Admiral Alidar Jarok, 2366</p><p>Picard later refers to the "Warbird Class starship", presumably the Federation designation of the D'Deridex Class. On this and, as I recall, another occasion on screen (but not <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Borg_type_03" target="_blank">this</a>), spacecraft were referred to not just by class, but with an additional letter designator, suggesting subtypes. I don't think we need a huge <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomic_rank" target="_blank">taxonomic heirarchy</a> here, but the simple fact is that the Enterprise-B, for instance, would thus seem to be a B-Type Excelsior (conveniently). The Enterprise refit and 1701-A would be a B-type (or perhaps C-type or D-type) Constitution.</p><p>There's more than just this, though . . . including some surprises.<br /></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><h3 style="text-align: left;">Precedent</h3><h4 style="text-align: left;">Lettered Types</h4><p>Picard's use of "B-type Warbird" seems to be similar to the current letter suffixes used to reflect differences among certain aircraft types, such as how the F-15 fighter has minor variants like the F-15A versus the F-15C. In the case of those two, the latter is an upgraded version of the former. However, the F-15B isn't an upgraded F-15A, but instead a two-seater. Then there's also the F-15E, which is a multi-role (fighter/bomber) two-seat aircraft rather than just a fighter, so in principle one could have F-15Cs being built as fighter complements alongside the F-15E multi-role strike aircraft. </p><p>In other words, it doesn't necessarily imply advancement and improvement, but can also simply imply difference of other kinds, perhaps permanent. </p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Numbered Blocks and Flights</h4><p>The fighter lettered type system works a little differently than the older <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_United_States_Tri-Service_aircraft_designation_system#Block_number" target="_blank">block</a> designations. With blocks, one would basically always have an (imaginary) F-99, for example, whether it was Block 1 or Block 50. However, with lettered types, the block system can be somewhat graduated. In the case of the US Air Force <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon_variants#Main_production_variants" target="_blank">F-16</a> Falcon, the block system at first appears to be a mere subset of the lettered types, but in the case of single-seat A and C types, the block numbers never overlap, but instead rise consistently. </p><p>Interestingly, the presence of significant upgrades is not the trigger for letter types versus blocks, nor are the types and blocks necessarily in chronological arrangement. The F-16A and B Block 20 came eight years after the F-16C and D, by which point they'd reached Block 50 and 52. The Block 15 F-16A and B featured changes in exterior surfaces, hardpoints, radar . . . a huge change, yet we didn't hit C and D until Block 25.</p><p>(The 50 and 52 scheme is a bit of a throwback to the far older US military aircraft designation system which is too convoluted to go into . . . suffice it to say that the old system had a lot to do with the manufacturer, meaning an aircraft -- like the Corsair with its famous oddly-bent wings -- made by more than one manufacturer could end up as the F4U, the F3C, the F2G, and more. In the case of 50/52, it's about the engine manufacturer.)</p><p>The US Navy also uses blocks with a Roman numeral, in a manner similar to aircraft lettered types, such as for the new <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia-class_submarine#Blocks" target="_blank">Virginia Class</a> subs, though they also use the term "flight" in a similar manner, as with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles-class_submarine#Flights" target="_blank">Los Angeles Class</a> subs or the <a href="https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Media/News/SavedNewsModule/Article/2647779/us-navy-launches-first-flight-iii-guided-missile-destroyer-the-future-jack-h-lu/" target="_blank">Arleigh Burke Class</a>.</p><p>Some of these lettered types or numbered blocks and flights could be things to which one could upgrade . . . the F-16V, now renamed the F-16 Viper, is Block 70/72, and certain Block 40 F-16Cs are being upgraded to this standard. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Starships</h3><p>Applying all this to Star Trek starships, we might expect the Hood, NCC-42296, to have been a rather different numbered block or flight at construction than the Repulse, 2544, but, while one could suggest they're a different lettered type, I'd tend not to ... structurally, they're identical. </p><p>So, the way I figure it, the Lakota in DS9 was an Excelsior Class, B-type, Block/Flight/Refit (Something). You could use a year, but that might not be good. After all, the Lakota was a tactically uprated Excelsior B-type, whereas there's no reason you couldn't have one optimized more for scientific duties in the same year. That said, since we don't know the "actual" number, or even technically the lettered type (it could be that there was another significant Excelsior mod that appeared before the Enterprise-B, and of course there's no reason Starfleet couldn't have other types to which the Lakota belonged), there's no reason not to say Block 2372.</p><p>Finally, I'd tend to use Block over Flight simply because "Flight 1234" sounds too much like a commercial airline trip.</p><p>The only small issue is what's always been done for ships of unknown classes . . . the "Valdore-type", for example. Is that confusing against "B-type"? I don't think so.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Model Differences</h3><p>The Constitution, as I mentioned earlier, <i>could</i> have more than just two types. We should pause here to contemplate what I mean. I base that on the fact that certain older ships like the Constellation 1017 were exclusively represented by an AMT model kit with difference to the usual set of filming models used for the Enterprise, at least in the original effects. We could thus argue that this ship actually is of a fundamentally different (albeit quite similar) series of shapes to the Enterprise 1701, and that this may in fact represent the A-type. Additionally, the original pilot "The Cage" featured exclusively shots of the 33-inch (a.k.a. 3-foot) filming miniature in the few ship exteriors shown at the start and end, save for one shot of the early pilot version of the 11-foot used in the bridge zoom-in sequence. There are some differences in the structural lines of those two models, most notably in the saucer underside where the three-footer's lower saucer decks are a bit fatter (i.e. more convex) than the 11-footer. One is tempted to squeeze in a type just from the 33-inch . . . or else to discard the 33-inch's differences as being those of a prototype model, which it basically was. </p><p>However, there's also the little detail of shipboard graphics of the Enterprise which also have that same saucer shape, along with different shapes for the secondary hull and the nacelles. While we could also discard these, there's actually precedent for the Enterprise of one shape having onboard graphics of a prior shape, such as Chekov's security graphics that appeared in Star Trek III, lifted from Franz Joseph's technical manual:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTM8bBoFriqJ01MV0gq5MH7Z8VyAM0byujeZGTypKTyucgNUck1QNoayM2csIEElN9p3UKur2GrXAAoPCaI1XGIvebnZMHDKnTwdHbKFXBfDZYd7NZyW7TKnsx2dd217Tmj3s8QNIWvZWL7mhTqxAwJaO04d1yamgkDtnfemrUcBWBLDmy91E/s582/FranzinCanon1a%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="258" data-original-width="582" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTM8bBoFriqJ01MV0gq5MH7Z8VyAM0byujeZGTypKTyucgNUck1QNoayM2csIEElN9p3UKur2GrXAAoPCaI1XGIvebnZMHDKnTwdHbKFXBfDZYd7NZyW7TKnsx2dd217Tmj3s8QNIWvZWL7mhTqxAwJaO04d1yamgkDtnfemrUcBWBLDmy91E/s320/FranzinCanon1a%20(2).jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div><p>Some would protest, at this point, noting that the Enterprise herself had different models representing her, including another AMT model kit. This is true, but in the case of the Enterprise the very point is that there are multiple models representing the same ship. Yes, one can argue that the Constellation's model was merely an attempt to represent a starship like the Enterprise, and that's true, but there's simply no evidence that the Constellation looks any other way.</p><p>Further, it may suprise you that the Ambassador, Galaxy, and even the Sovereign all have multiple possible types. The Enterprise-C has significant structural differences from the Zhukov model, for instance (and I'd kick myself for not sharing with you the awesome <a href="https://www.gamefront.com/games/bridge-commander/file/dj-ambassador-class" target="_blank">DJ Curtis Ambassador</a> which is totally my headcanon C-type Ambassador).</p><p>There were also <a href="https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/sovereign.htm" target="_blank">significant structural changes for the Sovereign Class</a> between the films, including alterations of the saucer-secondary dorsal connections and changes to the nacelle and pylon angling and position . . . a not-insignificant refit. Add in that one doesn't just slap on weapons and store antimatter warheads in any old room, and the Nemesis Enterprise-E is quite a different bird than the First Contact ship we saw. Is it enough to be another type? You be the judge. At minimum, such rapid extensive refitting suggests a failed class of vessel, but then I'm not a Sovereign fan anyway.</p><p>Then there's the Galaxy . . . but I'll have to save that mess for another occasion.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-91491585049965464022022-07-01T22:50:00.001-05:002023-08-29T20:09:52.532-05:00Starships and Continuity of Style<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.st-v-sw.net/Projects/Nacelles/Excelsior-NewOrleans01sm.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="222" data-original-width="441" height="101" src="http://www.st-v-sw.net/Projects/Nacelles/Excelsior-NewOrleans01sm.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>he Star Trek Original Universe was fantastic for many reasons, but not the least of them was an effort at stylistic consistency with the ships over the fifty years of production. A knowledgeable fan could look at a Federation starship and be able to tell you, within a handful of decades at worst, about when the ship class had been designed and first built over the two hundred year history of Starfleet . . . or pick out when something just doesn't look right.<div><br /></div><div>Such stylistic consistency is not something you just accidentally happen upon. <br /><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>You can't just stumble into this sort of thing, or at least not completely. Based on four main datapoints -- the original series Enterprise, the movie refit, the Excelsior, and the then-new Galaxy Class -- the folks involved in bringing the universe to life as the series continued to progress looked at the details and drew a stylistic timeline to which they adhered pretty well.<br /><p></p><p>This equates to a modern person being able to look at a car and land within a decade or so, even before today's wacky desperate-to-be-different designs. Show me a car with round replaceable headlights and shiny silver trim around the windshield and I'm in the mid-20th Century. Add on curved window glass producing a barrel shape for the car rather than a slab-sided look and I'm in the 1960s or 70s. Swap to a rectangular headlight and I'm probably in the 1980s. Ditch the replaceable headlights for funky plastic ones and we're into the 1990s, and then you start curving those, et cetera.</p><p>Original Universe starships work the same way. Give me a wide oval saucer section and we're sometime after 2340 or so, since the ones before that were circular (even the NX). Give me a circular saucer and black-grilled nacelle without visible glowing Bussard collector and we're looking at a late 23rd Century style of design, in the 2270-2290 range. Give me a simple-looking design with round nacelles and we're talking mid-23rd at the latest. And it goes on from there. </p><p>Indeed, the main difference between starships and cars, insofar as stylistic continuity, is that registries suggest some members of a class of ship get constructed long after the initial design and build of the class, e.g. the late-model Mirandas with 3xxxx registries, late-model Excelsiors with 4xxxx registries, and so on. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfpBwQagdc0eMEFeiA4SUC7xpT3jT12Xo_sknwWsxWfuvGHBn1NtPRNxhytVcs-Q97IF-MZgr78EqLvm5dBG-bIQiBluBY-eFKleKEluCiS2kEEZB6K9Vql_aer_75LGjZloNwkKxvzOWoY6zqC7FFCWg_nPZjyA2_BFT-JPqgwJ2bZCETe2c/s1536/1955-Ford-Thunderbird-top-vs.-2005-Ford-Thunderbird-bottom-1536x1280.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1536" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfpBwQagdc0eMEFeiA4SUC7xpT3jT12Xo_sknwWsxWfuvGHBn1NtPRNxhytVcs-Q97IF-MZgr78EqLvm5dBG-bIQiBluBY-eFKleKEluCiS2kEEZB6K9Vql_aer_75LGjZloNwkKxvzOWoY6zqC7FFCWg_nPZjyA2_BFT-JPqgwJ2bZCETe2c/w200-h167/1955-Ford-Thunderbird-top-vs.-2005-Ford-Thunderbird-bottom-1536x1280.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.motorbiscuit.com/1955-ford-thunderbird-2005-ford-thunderbird/" target="_blank">1955 vs 2005</a></td></tr></tbody></table>This goes beyond equivalent retro automotive styling . . . it was one thing to have a 2005 Thunderbird that resembled the 1955 model, but it would be something else completely to literally build what seems a one-to-one external copy. That would be insane, right?</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, yeah, about that.</div><div><br /></div><div>First flown in 1976, before Star Trek: The Motion Picture hit theaters, a new variant of F-15 is being built and flown now, almost fifty years later, and long after far more advanced airframes like the F-22 have taken to the skies, or even more advanced airframes like the YF-23 have been languishing.</div><div><p></p><p>The new build F-15EX fighters may have minor exterior differences from the earlier F-15s, but they're not readily apparent to the untrained eye but for an extra set of weapon attachment hardpoints further out on the wings. And yet, despite looking the same, we're also talking about leaps in technology, such as from hydraulic and cable-actuated controls to fiber optics-based fly-by-wire.</p><p>(Using 2285 for the Excelsior, that would be like building a new ExcelsiorEX in 2331. Why do so? Well, the new F-15s, despite differences, are riding on a proven airframe, and are still cheaper than the process of designing and testing and altering the major maintenance planning and ground support gear for a new aircraft. Indeed, there's also a parallel insofar as both the F-15 and Excelsior are proven Cold War designs, and in the F-15s case suddenly new ones are needed because we've been dawdling in the post-Cold War peace, and new threats are emerging. Translated to Trek, perhaps the fleet languished from 2293ish until 2311 or so, had a burst of building, then it stopped but some frames were done, then languished again for a time until something else happened and the frames were put to use, et cetera, and it was quicker and easier to make Excelsiors than anything else (or at least easy to make some extra Excelsiors) when all that occurred.)</p><p>One would think, then, that the Excelsior Class USS Hood, NCC-42296, is quite a bit different from the Excelsior Class USS Repulse, NCC-2544, under this way of thinking. Maybe it is, though the exterior details look virtually unchanged. Of course, given one of my pet thoughts, one is left to wonder why the nacelles didn't change. </p><p>As the opening image of New Orleans-style nacelles on a B-type Excelsior makes plain, this is a thing I've tended to imagine for many years. And, as you can see . . . </p><p><a href="https://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Nacelles/Miranda-Intrepid02.jpg" style="clear: center; float: center; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Nacelles/Miranda-Intrepid02.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="https://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Nacelles/Miranda-Intrepid01.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="553" data-original-width="800" height="186" src="https://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Nacelles/Miranda-Intrepid01.jpg" /></a><br /><br /> . . . Voyager-esque nacelles even makes Mirandas almost look cute and cuddly, like little baby starships, even if the styles technically clash.</p><p>After all, given that one of the most notable events in the Star Trek canon is the Enterprise 'refit' between TOS and TMP, a refit which completely changed the look of the ship, the lack of appearance changes for apparent new-build ships is very odd indeed. On the other hand, given that the Enterprise was fairly quickly put out to pasture as a training ship, only a bit more than a decade after the extensive rebuilding, it may be that there was something ultimately unsatisfactory about the effort to rebuild a ship this way.</p><p>For all this stylistic continuity, however, we do run up against some ships that strain it, toward the end.</p></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p style="text-align: left;">"The late 24th Century saw some significant starship design departures from what we'd observed from Starfleet prior. To be sure, there were always some rather unique approaches to starship design that would pop up from time to time, and in some cases the classes of ship that resulted worked well and were built and operated for a long while. The classic example is the Oberth Class, an early Starfleet heavy tug that so often appeared as a science ship with an underslung add-on sensor package that later versions of the vessel often included it as a default secondary hull." </p></div></blockquote><div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p> - From: "300 Years of Starfleet: A Fake History I Made Up Just Now", by Unnecessary Madeupalienname, 2461.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p>One thing we learned from all the time spent in the Star Trek Original Universe from 2364 to 2375 (plus glimpses through 2379) is that the Galaxy Class starship was not a revolutionary design, in-universe, but instead a deeply conservative one. While she was undoubtedly the queen of the stars, all the derivative models presented as being ships older than the Galaxy . . . classes like Nebula, New Orleans, Springfield, Cheyenne, Challenger, <a href="https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/wolf359.htm" target="_blank">et cetera</a>, ad nauseum (<a href="https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/ds9tm.htm" target="_blank">sometimes literally</a>) . . . make it clear that the shapes and even many of the design details existed for many years prior to the Galaxy's introduction. </p><p>However, it seems she was just about the last of her kind. The last ship that seems to carry any significantly similar parts is the Danube Class runabout with her boxy space-truck version of the Galaxy's nacelles. The only other vessels we've seen with registries in the 7xxxx range are the Defiants, the Intrepids, the Novas, and the Sovereigns, with maybe a Prometheus in there, too. Of those, the Intrepid is the closest in style, but even then only on account of general surface details. The Sovereign, with its mottled hull, wildly different deflector, lengthy nacelles, and overall harsh and angular look (including a hideously terraced underside), looks nothing like the Galaxy breed or even any of her stablemates but for a passing resemblance to the Nova. The Defiant's equally odd, but with reason insofar as her unique design intent. The Nova, which is rather oddly first of these, by registry, is the love child of all of them.</p><p>In other words, starship design experienced some sudden and as yet unexplained changes in the late 2350s or early 2360s, just as the Galaxy Class was appearing. Suddenly gone would be the smooth nacelles, except for in the Danube and, arguably, the Intrepid, with the preference leaning toward triangular tapering nacelles. Suddenly gone would be the wide elliptical saucer in favor of narrow ellipses or somewhat dart-shaped versions. Suddenly gone would be secondary hulls with a taper to delicate edges for sensor palettes, and in their place would be somewhat tubular hulls, either wider than tall or taller than wide. Suddenly gone would be graceful combinations of saucer and secondary hull across a tall neck (where applicable), and in its place would be sharp and disjointed kludgings that look like hasty neck deletions from one side and graceful masterwork from the other (here referencing the sharp joint of the area around the deflector on Voyager and the Nova versus more graceful dorsals, and the just-plain awful area around the shuttlebay on the Sovereign versus her graceful ventral, neither of which compare favorably to the Nebula's comparative artfulness).</p><p>Even internally, we saw some departures from prior vessels. In the case of the Sovereign and Intrepid, gone are the round-backed consoles that had been seen on Federation ships for a century. For the Sovereign and Defiant, gone are the standardized Starfleet internal corridors. Indeed, there's basically nothing consistent between the Intrepid and Sovereign bridges at all. Even the Sovereign's bridge chairs look more like Klingon chairs.</p><p>Out of universe, of course, the reasons are simple. Producers wanted the ships for specific shows to be readily distinguishable, since they think people are on the verge of confusing the Enterprise with a Star Destroyer even on their best days. Beyond that bit of projectionism, there's also their desire for fresh and new stuff even just a year or two after something else, leading to them wanting to avoid too much Intrepid in their Sovereign, continuity be damned. </p><p>(They found just the right person for that job in the designer John Eaves, whose designs largely have continuity only with each other in the form of repeating designs elements even across species. (Not to give him grief -- how many ships have you designed and <a href="https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/delta_ass/blog/star-trek-the-laziness-of-john-eaves/90537/" target="_blank">how different were they</a>? -- but once your brain locks on to certain features of the <a href="https://startrekships.tumblr.com/post/182245834896/federation-scout-ship-coming-to-eaglemoss" target="_blank">Insurrection Scout</a>, like the forked nose or that funny curve surrounding the upper round docking port in the middle, you'll start to realize they appear in <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e5/6c/62/e56c626f5a11233f5ad5751c1486f5ae.jpg" target="_blank">almost</a> <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vWuxMrM4q48/UaELJe6KNKI/AAAAAAAAHpk/7Z0loSdNsrE/s1600/breen-8.jpeg" target="_blank">every</a> <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/711005859897868782/" target="_blank">single</a> <a href="https://brytrek.blogspot.com/2013/08/star-trek-concept-art-john-eaves-jem.html" target="_blank">design</a>. There's even <a href="https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Earth_Starfleet_transport" target="_blank">a whole ship</a> that's just that funny curve on top of itself over and over and which doesn't fit the rest of the Earth fleet at all. Then there's the nacelle style with outer curve he cannot escape for alien designs, the love of funny little slanted breadboxes sticking out (either in symmetric form like on the back of either version of <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/711005859897868686/" target="_blank">this thing</a>, or 'aero' form, where they're wider at the rear, the latter being best exemplified by the Scimitar's weird upper rear boxes), and the general slashing angularness that shows up randomly on everything just to break up the monotony.)</p><p>In universe, these sudden changes and going off in different directions seems like chaos. This level of scattery-ness is the sort of thing one finds at the start of an industry, when all the kinks haven't been worked out, rather than a mature field, unless something drastic has changed. Once a bit of chaos is introduced, a variety of discarded ideas can come out to play. But what, really, could the chaos be, and why would so many ship systems and design cues get changed? Certainly the encounters with the Romulans and the Borg could be used as an excuse, to an extent, as could the issue leading to the Warp Five Speed Limit, but that potential panic, even if it came out amongst the shipwrights, would hardly change the underlying science of warp drive that seemed, at least previously, to favor wide elliptical saucers and relatively smooth hulls . . . not that the show ever directly suggested such.</p><p>In my head, there seems to have been some sort of separation in design and construction between two groups, a Utopia Planitia-led group that ended up with the Intrepid, and another group in San Francisco that created the Sovereign. I'd even happily go with the Sovereign being created somewhere else or by an alien species in the Federation, really . . . an Andorian team, or a Federation-Klingon alliance team . . . something, with the Nova being created by a confused guy looking around at all the chaos and trying to bring it all together, then ending up with a mess of a ship that can't even exceed warp eight. </p><p>And yet, even as things got weird at the end, Enterprise did fairly well in its own time, and of course any chaos I've called out here is better than the Trek that followed. The <a href="https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/discovery_federation.htm" target="_blank">Star Trek: Discovery fleet</a> features a mix of saucer shapes (including the wide elliptical T'Plana-Hath and possibly Europa, or the elongated Clarke and Zimmerman), a hopeless mish-mash of nacelle designs (including the Eaves-shape ones on the Shenzhou), and so on, with even relatively unobtrusive ships like the Kerala type (an upside-down Shenzhou with different nacelles and less obnoxious pylon superstructure) being styled overall much more like the Sovereign than the original Constitution Class she was intended to be a contemporary of.</p><p>None of that matters to the Original Universe, of course, but it just goes to show how comparatively well-made the TNG era of production really was.</p><p>Those were the good ole days, and boy how we miss them.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p></div>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-88386954179529521852022-05-10T18:37:00.001-05:002022-05-10T18:37:19.035-05:00May 10, 2022 at 05:49PM on Reddit's STBridgeCommander<div class="md">
<p>Bridge Commander and its modding community don't seem to get as much respect as they should. The sad thing for me is the fact that so many modding forums and resources seem to be gone, with the Wayback Machine only having snippets, so the "winging it" I've been doing for years seems now to be just about all there is to do. I've been working on telling those few stories over at my new <a href="https://stvsw-gaming.blogspot.com/">sub-blog</a>, though I could probably move them here, as well.</p>
<p>Do you have any mod resources you'd like to share or post?</p>
</div>
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Submitted May 10, 2022 at 05:49PM by STvSWdotNet https://ift.tt/FCBPnJj
Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-68221190103999926832022-05-08T16:42:00.002-05:002023-08-29T20:10:10.580-05:00Spatial Torpedo Technology and The Romulan War<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0elBYpLOkvLz78AFFSxPbi7aHZ-un-3fROpkXIlqlGnYgq66-USecAsWe-rqg7v1rMBdvFpgvfRiGsCM96j1Ed2-HzAwiYmnxs0F24A7lJ39XnWYB7DD4EE9bicqi34gYBP3mzKYMMAymwokznpBZe839wFWFEVni3rz3Mhwy33eZ9gGHMlQ/s640/vlcsnap-2022-05-08-15h10m41s924.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="640" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0elBYpLOkvLz78AFFSxPbi7aHZ-un-3fROpkXIlqlGnYgq66-USecAsWe-rqg7v1rMBdvFpgvfRiGsCM96j1Ed2-HzAwiYmnxs0F24A7lJ39XnWYB7DD4EE9bicqi34gYBP3mzKYMMAymwokznpBZe839wFWFEVni3rz3Mhwy33eZ9gGHMlQ/w200-h110/vlcsnap-2022-05-08-15h10m41s924.png" width="200" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>he original weapons loadout aboard the NX Class ship featured spatial torpedoes, but the destructive technology and yield was never specified. We can make some guesses, however, and clear up a few myths that seem to have cropped up.<br /><br /><br /><span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Assumptions and History</h3><p>The weapons are often assumed to be nuclear devices of some kind, based on Spock's historical note in "Balance of Terror"[TOS1] regarding the Romulan War:<br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">"As you may recall from your histories, this conflict was fought, by our standards today, with primitive atomic weapons and in primitive space vessels which allowed no quarter, no captives, nor was there even ship-to-ship visual communication. Therefore, no human, Romulan, or ally has ever seen the other. Earth believes the Romulans to be warlike, cruel, treacherous, and only the Romulans know what they think of Earth. The treaty, set by subspace radio, established this Neutral Zone, entry into which by either side would constitute an act of war. The treaty has been unbroken since that time."</p></blockquote><p>The important elements for our purposes are that "this conflict was fought [...] with primitive atomic weapons and in primitive space vessels which allowed no quarter [...] nor [...] ship-to-ship visual communication."</p><p>For starters, as a matter of 20th Century nuclear nomenclature, atomic bombs are generally considered fission devices, as opposed to hydrogen or thermonuclear weapons which were of the fusion type. There are other alternatives like boosted fission devices and such where the label "atomic" could still be used, and of course some might argue that "atomic" could serve as a generic synonym for "nuclear", but I wouldn't expect Spock to be so imprecise as to employ the latter. That said, the Romulan ship fought by the Enterprise 1701 carried "old style" nuclear warheads, for self-destruct purposes. The detonation of one 100 meters from the Enterprise produced radiation burns against several crewmen near the outer parts of the ship. However, this proves little, since although radioactive fallout is most associated with fission and fission-fusion weapons, even a pure fusion device could output sufficient quick-decaying neutron and other radiation to cause injury.</p><p>People have tried to reconcile Spock's description with what we see in Star Trek: Enterprise, and I acknowledge that it isn't easy. For the Enterprise show, ship-to-ship visual communication even in first contact situations with alien species was commonplace, and the Enterprise herself, while undoubtedly less capable than a Constitution Class starship, hardly seems to justify the label "primitive", even "by our standards today". Moreover, per "Silent Enemy"[ENT1], she had sensors capable of reading the DNA of opposing crews within their (unshielded) ships, and this worked while being fired upon. That no Earth ship or Andorian or Tellarite vessel would've ever scanned a Romulan ship or debris of one during the Romulan War and found "Vulcan DNA" seems unlikely, at best, though not impossible given various Romulan tech related to defeating sensors, and the obvious chance of simple misidentification.</p><p>However, I view the NX Class as something akin to the Space Shuttle compared to the capsule-based human-rated space vehicles that came before and which have come after. The space shuttle was a fantastic vehicle and ahead of its time, but built in support of (and to inspire) a level of spaceflight that didn't materialize in the vessel's lifetime. Thus, we've 'dropped' back to capsules. Similarly, the NX Class was probably the pride of the service during the Romulan War, and what few photonic torpedoes that could be produced probably did a great job, but the real workhorse were other types of ship, such as the Daedalus Class that appears based on far easier, simpler manufacture.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJETbgoyInjRbFuPRzIenqTuU8029W6D8X9sBXsmpWbbVXpqC98a2fsV02-OEds9Oafvlk-xHBOrWacBI4v6JqyexVb35ESL-ILqrJpp0kFWgsp_PlZXObempT5G_ZxBhCC3Tv4Wss7V2aeyRnrHqPt01DZar3Uzu3p6nkyOyoDo7LVubN5RQ/s512/Sisko-Daedalus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="512" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJETbgoyInjRbFuPRzIenqTuU8029W6D8X9sBXsmpWbbVXpqC98a2fsV02-OEds9Oafvlk-xHBOrWacBI4v6JqyexVb35ESL-ILqrJpp0kFWgsp_PlZXObempT5G_ZxBhCC3Tv4Wss7V2aeyRnrHqPt01DZar3Uzu3p6nkyOyoDo7LVubN5RQ/s320/Sisko-Daedalus.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Putting it Together</h3><p>All that said, Spock's quote doesn't quite specify atomic torpedoes. It proves atomic weapons were used, but not in what theater or what way. That they're mentioned before the "primitive space vessels" could be taken to suggest that Spock wasn't specifying the armament of the vessels with respect to space combat at all. Imagine a nuclear WW3 on Earth but with bombers and land-based ICBMs deleted, with submarine-launched short-range nuclear missiles as the only weapon, and now throw that concept into space. That should give you the approximate flavor of what I'm suggesting, here. In such a scenario, space-sub versus space-sub battles might still use comparatively mundane torpedoes, just as our nuclear-armed subs use 'boring' torpedoes today.</p><p></p><p>This is, then, similar in concept to certain notions of war after WW2. Some thought conventional armies with conventional weaponry had been made obsolete thanks to the bomb, but this turned out to not be entirely true.</p><p>To be sure, neither side seeing the other largely precludes army-based or unit-on-unit surface action using small arms, and precludes the normal sort of warfare involving capture of enemy territory. It does not preclude orbital bombardment of Earth and allied planets, however, and may not preclude the orbital bombardment of Romulan planetary targets . . . indeed, one could even posit intercontinental or similar-range weapons fired back and forth by troops on opposite sides of a planet provided that neither side had adequate space superiority to manage a deep-scan look-see at the opposite side. </p><p>Drones and remotes for land warfare are also quite plausible, though give the comparative lack of it in the Dominion War it would necessitate careful construction of the argument, e.g. jamming.</p><p>The Romulan War could thus have been a horrible total-war sort of conflict featuring whole colonies and perhaps the homeworlds of species, some we know or some we never heard of, spammed with atomic weapons launched from space or even worlds. Certainly the Romulans were throwing nuclear warheads, presumably atomic weapons, around, and if used against inhabited worlds these could serve to deny planets to the enemy by preventing recolonization. It is possible that the Earth alliance did the same, or else fought the war defensively almost in its entirety. (Some have argued the Battle of Cheron is properly spelled the Battle of Charon, which shares the name of Pluto's moon, and in that context is associated with the war. This could represent a final destruction of the Romulan fleet just as it was to attack Earth.)</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Earth's Ascendance</h3><p>Indeed, it is tempting to ponder at least minimal atomic hits on Tellar, Andor, and perhaps even Vulcan as a way to explain the relative absence of these species from the Federation and Starfleet in TOS and even TNG eras. Earth, backwards but untouched, could Marshall Plan their way into Federation prominence, with Tellar and Andor leaning on Earth for support in the aftermath. This works with or without Vulcan getting hit, which is dependent on whether the war was in part a Romulan blood feud with their Vulcan cousins or if they left Vulcan alone because of the relationship. While Vulcan, advanced but increasingly insular, might not have been especially prominent thanks to their shift in philosophy, I tend to favor the idea of Vulcan taking some hits, as well, and of course I imagine all the worlds might've had impacts to at least outlying colonies. This would also factor in to Earth's proverbial heroic narrative, since Earth was the most recent prior victim of an atomic horror and could help other worlds recover quickly.</p><p>No, technically it is not necessary for the homeworlds to be hit, at least not seriously, but it does make the war much more interesting and helps explain Earth's dominance. Then again, it's called the "Earth-Romulan War", which seems unfair if like every world *but* Earth was hit. It could simply be that Earth was at a great distance and her shipyards were never hit, compared to the allies.</p><p>Beyond that, all we know is that at some point someone saw a Romulan ship's belly, and of course we know the Romulans of a century later tended to self-destruct rather than be captured, but beyond this we have little. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Spatial Torpedo Possibilities</h3><p>Given this, we can still imagine fission or fusion torpedoes in use, and thus spatial torpedoes being of nuclear technology. On the other hand, they could be something else, like some exotic explosive as might be found on <a href="https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/observations/nightterrors.htm" target="_blank">the list</a> from the TNG episode "Night Terrors". In that list are notations about "conventional sarium krellide explosives" and ultritium, among other options. </p><p>(We could even add <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnium_controversy" target="_blank">nuclear isomer explosives</a> to the list, if they aren't represented already. These are theoretical, but involve nuclear isomers which would, in principle, be a couple of orders of magnitude less energetic than nuclear weaponry but far more energetic than simple chemical explosives. I imagine discoveries of this and similar types are already on that list.)</p><p>At about a half meter, or around a foot and a half, wide, the spatial torpedo is on par with a number of small nuclear munitions of the 20th Century:<br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>- The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)#M388_nuclear_round" target="_blank">M388 'atomic watermelon'</a> used in the "Davy Crockett" battlefield system, which used a 0.276m <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54" target="_blank">W54</a> warhead likely to have had a quarter of a kiloton potential yield, the smallest ever produced </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>- The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-26_Falcon" target="_blank">AIM-26 Falcon</a> nuclear air-to-air missile, also with W54</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>- The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie" target="_blank">MB-1 / AIR-2 Genie</a> air-to-air missile with its 0.44m wide <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W25_(nuclear_warhead)" target="_blank">W25</a> warhead package, rated for 1.5 kilotons</p><p>- The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile)#Variants" target="_blank">BGM-109A TLAM-N</a> or the BGM-109G nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles, with either the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W80_(nuclear_warhead)" target="_blank">W80</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W84" target="_blank">W84</a> warheads, at diameter of 0.3 or 0.33 meters, both with variable yields up to 150 kilotonnes.</p></blockquote><p>However, we've seen the warhead of a spatial torpedo, and it is far smaller than the torpedo's diameter, and looks and is of an apparent weight nothing like what we would expect of a 20th Century fission warhead. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUmiCe-QxG-BF-Z--qvbKvz5l2ptFGOs0NtBk_eYtslt4HVbHOLniNqEDY28IS1W_eHjoFAsmFy-Ou33aNt7b_e1wynS3SzkryU6RHSQzpE0OnVyQZpqiKm-6ozTXMfe55ZQRUgr2u1O67Z3Dj_ZlXVcAh8YNCh29Q27Apn3pKp8fJ8sdffyg/s1914/future-tense-516.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1914" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUmiCe-QxG-BF-Z--qvbKvz5l2ptFGOs0NtBk_eYtslt4HVbHOLniNqEDY28IS1W_eHjoFAsmFy-Ou33aNt7b_e1wynS3SzkryU6RHSQzpE0OnVyQZpqiKm-6ozTXMfe55ZQRUgr2u1O67Z3Dj_ZlXVcAh8YNCh29Q27Apn3pKp8fJ8sdffyg/s320/future-tense-516.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Instead, it resembles the red glowing sarium krellide power cells of phasers and (presumably) phase pistols. Even assuming it is a sarium krellide based device, it could still represent merely the first fusion-inducing stage of a pure fusion device, depending on sarium krellide's potential yield and what else is in that nosecone area.</p><p>Then again, there is reason to think Earth wouldn't have used atomic weaponry under normal circumstances. Much as the Eugenics Wars led to a ban on genetic engineering, Earth's WW3 experience may have led to avoidance of nuclear weaponry. </p><p>It's not clear if this represented giving up yield, though. Spatial torpedoes were never seen to be that much more destructive (if at all) than the quarter kiloton Romulan minefield device . . . but then, when striking ship hulls, even with "full disruptors" and with torpedoes set similarly, photon torpedoes hardly represented much differently, either (e.g. <i>Star Trek: Generations</i>). Since we never saw spatial torpedoes hitting a clearly quantifiable target, then, it's impossible to say with any certainty what the yields were.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Conclusions</h3><p>The Romulan War was a vicious campaign of atomic weapon deliveries via Romulan spacecraft and/or warp missile delivery systems against the worlds of Earth and her allies. Eventually the allies were able to defeat Romulan fleets and weapons, but at great cost and without the ability to finally invade the Romulan star system. </p><p>For Earth, pre-war style NX Class starships and their photonic torpedoes, both being difficult to build and scarce in number, were supplanted in mainline use by Daedalus Class ships and assorted wartime munitions, including the traditional spatial torpedo, which used conventional sarium krellide explosives to allow for notable but not extremely high yields. These ships, combined with remaining pre-war Vulcan ships and the fleets of Andor, Tellar, and other allies, were nevertheless a great success.</p><p>Earth, having long enjoyed diplomatic successes thanks to its Starfleet, was also able to come out of the conflict relatively unscathed. She had become a proverbial 'arsenal of democracy', her ships serving all the allied worlds and with wartime construction support from all, and so it was that Earth became the seat of government for the new United Federation of Planets.</p>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-79209927494457805512022-02-02T11:37:00.001-06:002022-02-02T11:37:53.892-06:00January 31, 2022 at 05:30PM on Reddit's Tenagrahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8b0yuBIOps<br />
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Submitted January 31, 2022 at 05:30PM by STvSWdotNet https://ift.tt/iY2Alkpmo
Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-84997592964086375802021-11-08T07:30:00.002-06:002022-01-14T12:02:07.974-06:00The 2260s Starfleet Flashlight<p>Alternate title: Matches? We Don't Need No Vulcan Matches!<br /><br />I seem to have discovered a gaping hole in all the Trek tech geekery currently available online. But, to be honest, I'd forgotten this existed, too.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><br />For many moons now, my memory was in error . . . for some reason I thought that when Kirk and the gang were skulking about in the US Air Force base in "Tomorrow is Yesterday", that Kirk had merely grabbed a local flashlight. In my mind I can almost see the corrugated metal of an old incandescent Ray-o-Vac Sportsman or EverReady Captain in his hand . . . about three D-cells for the size of it. I'm guessing this came from watching some low-res version ages ago and interpolating the pixels as best I could, or maybe it was his brief stop by some random display case and a chuckle, but in any case I queued up the episode the other day amidst a flashlight kick, hoping to identify the now-antique, and blammo, my mind was blown.</p><p>Even on super prop sites that can track when a communicator prop got damaged when Takei grabbed it without its consent, there's zip-zilch-zero about what Kirk was actually carrying.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="http://www.st-v-sw.net/images/flashlights/TOS-Flashlight-TomorrowIsYesterday.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="800" height="445" src="http://www.st-v-sw.net/images/flashlights/TOS-Flashlight-TomorrowIsYesterday.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, part of this is that it's relatively uninteresting compared to other props. The design is somewhat dull . . . it's basically (almost exactly) a smaller version of LaSalle's signalling device from "Squire of Gothos", which is also Kirk's viewscreen fix-o-matic from "The Doomsday Machine), but without the spiky stepped clear part and instead with what may as well be a clear version of a modern plastic soda bottlecap on top. There are no apparent controls, though there are two red lines that appear to be three-dimensional (i.e. not mere paint) linear structures along the side of the 'bottlecap' lens, which we can assume may rotate for settings. Underneath that is what appears to be an aspheric (convex) lens for the actual light.</div><div><br /></div><div>The faked beamshot using a spotlight or similar is well-done, and such a tight spotlight would be a good choice for stealthiness if you're going with a light rather than some sort of light amplification technology (e.g. night vision). Of course, literally nothing else was stealthy about the landing party, including the officers beaming down in their plain gold duty uniforms with shiny material on them, with no apparent sensor support from the ship, not to mention a flashlight with what today would be a wildly unusual amount of side spill from a 'bottlecap' lens seemingly dedicated to the purpose (which, of course, it was, to ensure that the audience understood a flashlight was in use). Contrasted with the classic Orilux WW1 and WW2 flashlight's low-observability features, however, this light seems a tad odd. </div><div><br /></div><div>(They didn't even bother to use a tricorder to detect the basic electronic indicator of door openings and such, meaning they got defeated by the 1960s equivalent of a modern home alarm system. Compare this to Enterprise, wherein Archer and team boarded a stealth ship with sensor support from the NX Class ship ("Shockwave, Pt. I"(ENT1)), and Archer's scanner could defeat a 20th/21st Century car alarm ("Carpenter Street"(ENT3)). Kirk was being curiously amateurish. But, I digress . . . )</div><div><br /></div><div>I decided to have a little fun with the whole thing over on Reddit's /r/flashlight subforum. I ended up just making up some specs myself, for kicks, the the style of one of the flashlight enthusiast review sites . . . </div><div><br /></div><div>************************************</div><div><br /></div><div><div><i>*With apologies to 1Lumen.com, I found a light to review myself. Please note that this is just a "quickie" fake write-up for fun . . . I did no refresher research and no math (not that doing both wouldn't have been fun, just time-consuming). The below is thus laden with little more than scientificalisms, technobabble, and handwavium, with made-up bits like the tail-switch where, in reality, a poorly-hidden power cable existed.*</i></div><div><br /></div><div>1. Starfleet Flashlight (2267)</div><div>2. Build Quality</div><div>3. Emitter and Optics</div><div>4. Size and Comparison</div><div>5. User Interface</div><div>6. Power Source</div><div>7. Performance</div><div>8. Beamshots</div><div>9. Final Verdict</div><div><br /></div><div><b>**Starfleet Flashlight (2267) Specifications**</b></div><div></div><blockquote><div><div> Brand/Model Starfleet Hand Torch-2210/45</div><div> Emitter 1x laser-initiated microfusion arc light (CRI 100)</div><div> Beam Intensity Up to 130 million candela (8.7 kilometer range @ 1 lux)</div><div> Power Source 1x Sarium Krellide power cell, deuterium tank</div><div><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> (field rechargeable with water source), tritium slug</div><div> Material Duranium</div><div> Modes 12 Onboard Programmable, plus external control tie-in</div><div> Blinkies Programmable strobe/beacon</div><div><div> Optics Fusion confinement, aspheric forcefield, </div><div><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> quantum electrochromic "bottlecap" </div><div> Waterproof UFP1589 (vacuum-rated, but deep submersion </div><div><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> in gas giants not recommended)</div></div></div><div><br /></div></blockquote><div><b>**Introduction**</b></div><div><br /></div><div>At first glance, this light is deceptively simple. It appears to be nothing more than a very basic truncated metallic teardrop body with a lens up front. Indeed, whereas most UFP interfaces of the later mid-23rd Century are laden with multicolored buttons, this flashlight has only one, a lightly-recessed lit tailswitch assembly in the smaller rear truncation.</div><div><br /></div><div>The current tailswitch, a 2245 upgrade from the original powered light within a duranium switch in the original 2210 model, does additional duties as an emergency tritium storage vessel of last resort and as an unpowered 'firefly' auxiliary light emitter. An additional clear rotating control collet at the front (surrounding the side-spill portion of the "bottlecap" outer lens) offers twelve modes in field use, with additional control options.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>**Build Quality**</b></div><div><br /></div><div>57 years on, the main body continues the original 2210 appearance of a smooth, bare-metal look, while still being surprisingly grippy thanks to its amphibian-inspired nanopolymer coating. The design is showing its age aesthetically, however. While it still looked fresh compared to the phaser pistols of the 2250s, even sharing the rotating control mechanism and shiny metal appearance of certain portions of the pistol, it generally looks out of place in current landing party kit. Modern tricorders and phasers have generally shifted toward dark tones and even an almost leather-like textured look on tricorder external panels. However, thanks to the shiny appearance, one is less likely to *need* a tricorder to find the flashlight.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dated aesthetics or not, being machined duranium, the main body is virtually indestructable, passing shuttlecraft landing pad tests with ease, even with the heavier warp-capable Class F shuttles currently in service. Early forcefield issues have been resolved, and there have been no instances of the units melting themselves down due to malfunction while in use since the 2220's.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>**Emitter and Optics**</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Remarkably advanced when it first appeared, the microfusion arc emitter system replaced the older, simpler emitters and radioisotope battery systems that had been used since Earth Starfleet days. </div><div><br /></div><div>Once activated, the automatic pre-charge of confined deuterium and tritium stream is struck by pico-second lasers powered by the sarium krellide cells. The lasers are slightly forward of the main reaction site, near the forward maximum extent of the outermost part of the teardrop body, and pointed slightly rearward to prevent eye damage in front of the unit. The fusion cycle begins quite quickly but requires a brief ramp-up to reach what some call its "hot idle" state, with enough useful light for most purposes. (Some liken this to ancient incandescent bulbs.)</div><div><br /></div><div>At this point, the reaction is generating enough energy to help the power cell sustain a small internal forcefield, shaped to both protect the innards of the light to allow higher power levels and to provide an adjustable aspheric lens effect at the front aperture, allowing for more options in light output selection. A final physical emitter window on the exterior, surrounded by a rotating collet, rounds out the unit. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's here at the end where much of the magic happens. The rapid quantum electrochromic emitter window, also known as the QE window or "bottlecap" depending on the crewman, is capable of producing myriad effects in concert with the aspheric forcefield. By default, the forcefield does not allow passage of the more hostile possible radiation and frequencies from the microfusion "lamp", leaving the bottlecap to only need to adjust for diffusion effects. However, the forcefield can be configured to allow for passage of various parts of the spectrum, with the QE window controlling the colors, color shifting, et cetera.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>**Size**</b></div><div><br /></div><div>While featureful, the simple fact is that this is not a tiny flashlight, nor is it a good size in modern use, due in part to its deuterium tankage needs. While a friendly enough size for manipulation by most species, the unit was designed to be carried in the landing party field jackets which recently fell out of general use. As a result, the form factor is not even as conducive to belt carry as the smaller Phaser One units now in service, meaning a landing party is the odd position of perhaps having to have someone carrying a bag or other storage unit just to have a standard-issue flashlight on-hand, while at the same time they're equipped with a beam-shooting device capable of making rocks glow or starting fires.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>**User Interface**</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The forward-clicky tailswitch and rotating collet outside the emitter window side spill area are the two easy field interfaces. In general use, the twelve settings available are usually defaults starting with an automatic output based on a simple passive system of light sensors and room/area size detection. Further twists (usually counterclockwise) step through five brightness modes up with varying focus and diffusion, two UV and two other colored-light options, a special signalling or momentary-on mode, and field recharge mode. The collet can be rotated directly to step through modes or pulled out slightly and rotated for mode-skipping. None of this is revolutionary, and much of it would be familiar to flashlight users since circa the Eugenics Wars and World War III on Earth.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the original 2210 light, one of the twelve default mode settings could be swapped for a mode group change feature, effectively allowing over a hundred different possible modes. However, this option was eventually dropped</div><div><br /></div><div>Computer pre-programming for landing party missions and on-site tricorder programming, signalling, and even active mode selection are also available, and really make the unit shine. For special landing party missions, as an example, one can pre-select modes that might feature only light frequencies that local fauna cannot see, in concert with a wearable system if needed. Alternately, a strobing action might be included that could affect the brains of opposing forces, replicate firelight, or any other need. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the earlier versions of the light the tricorder and light only had to be in close proximity for synchronization and control to be initiated via an active signal from the tricorder. However, after a 2214 incident with Orion forces featuring advanced signal polling and detection, the twelfth mode setting was reserved for computer control access. In 2236 this was finally changed to only require direct contact of the light to tricorder or computer terminal, after which control is maintained via rotating-frequency signals.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>**Power Source**</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The microfusion "lamp" is, of course, a tiny reactor, with the onboard energy recovery system helping to keep the sarium krellide power cells recharged after each power-intensive activation. The tritium slug and deuterium tanks can allow for a tritium-rich burn producing extra neutrons for conversion of onboard electrolysis-derived hydrogen to deuterium. For this step, the unit must be submerged in a body of water for six hours at a time for field refueling through filtered ports alongside the tailswitch, powered by the sarium krellide cell, with submersion helping with thermal management as there is no forcefield available for the electrolysis process.</div><div><br /></div><div>Rapid on-off cycles are, of course, not recommended, as the sarium krellide power cell would be depleted before it could be recharged.</div><div><br /></div><div>This system also allows the unit to serve as a small generator or power bank to recharge other systems wirelessly, albeit at low overall efficiency.</div><div><br /></div><div>With a fully charged power cell and full loads of fusion fuels, field recharging not being considered, the power available is up to 1,138 watts (typically lower in use, of course), with a "hot idle" low-output endurance of 47 days. The tritium tailswitch can, of course, last for years if the main emitter is not in use. The tritium slug is the only operational consumable that has to be field-replaceable, but landing parties can carry more than one.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>**Performance**</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The microfusion "lamp" is easily able to blind the user, temporarily or permanently, from uncontrolled reflection. The aspheric forcefield combined with the quantum electrochromic system can, at the same time, make for a very safe light that isn't too bright to use, and which can even make for a very gentle spot-beam light, similar to an early popular 21st Century light-emitting-diode flashlight or 20th Century stage spotlight.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>**Final Verdict**</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>*Kinda lame; I'll take ten, please.*</i></div></div><div><br /></div>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-90475838795027180782021-11-05T06:46:00.003-05:002022-01-11T13:51:04.492-06:00Scaling Yardsticks<p>Let's face it: a ship side view marked in hundreds of meters is somewhat academic. To fix this, it helps to have a model, real or 3-D CG, and other models to scale. To that end, I have picked some worldwide-common larger objects to compare vehicles and vessels against.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-title.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="800" height="56" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-title.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<p>This is not an entirely original idea, of course. One of the Okuda/Sternbach reference works relates a story wherein they drew the Enterprise-D over the Paramount backlot and it blew everyone's mind. I had a similar experience fifteen years ago when seeing a "Tallguy" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq0wVRuUFLk" target="_blank">video</a> wherein he inserted a cutout of himself all over the Enterprise from the Original Series to give a sense of scale. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tq0wVRuUFLk" width="320" youtube-src-id="tq0wVRuUFLk"></iframe></div><br /><p>The Stage 9 project was also very good for this, as you'd get to virtually walk around the Enterprise-D main shuttlebay, which is way bigger than you realize (yes, <i>you</i>, and me, too, even after seeing it). More recently, I've taken some SketchUp models in my collection and loaded them into Google Earth renditions of my area, just to have my mind blown all over again despite the fact that I am, I think, pretty keen on this whole Starship Volumetrics and scaling thing. Additionally, I've played around with this sort of idea in other ways over recent years . . . I have a huge SketchUp file with tons of smaller vessels in it . . .</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/110m-and-below.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="800" height="189" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/110m-portrait.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>I started with Star Trek shuttles like the Type-6 and Star Wars fighters like the X-Wing and TIE Fighter, then finally had to stop myself at the 110 meter range (the Klingon Bird of Prey) because it was just getting crazy. Scattered throughout and even atop the vessels are Ford Crown Victorias, the quintessential American police car of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. (A BoP just isn't complete without a Crown Vic as a hood ornament, donchaknow.) </p><p>That's part of the beauty of having things to scale . . . you can hold them together and see the true size. Even better, doing it with computer models allows you to really mash things up, overlapping things in ways you never could with physical models. That's why I don't intend to simply keep things statically placed, but more on that later.</p><p>As for the Crown Vic, despite their presence in such far-flung locales as Moscow and the Middle East (not to mention, hilariously, <a href="https://youtu.be/KTBjBKKGzgo" target="_blank">the Autobahn</a>), and their ubiquity in American movies, the Vic is not necessarily the best yardstick outside the United States. Still, I think that the proper effect can still be replicated fairly well provided some pretty universal yardsticks are in-hand. These yardsticks need to be things that are almost instantly recognizable and that most anyone around the world should be able to approach and touch and experience. And, really, having more than two or three nose-to-tail is pretty useless, in my opinion . . . the imagination begins to falter. </p><p>Cars *in general* are universal, yes, but there's a big difference between various cars worldwide, just as seeing "Tallguy" only gives the roughest approximation of normal-size people. And, despite certain recent cars being popular worldwide, such as the Toyota Corolla, I wanted to be sure the yardstick was not only common but also *recognizable*, which modern cars only barely are. Even then, it only lasts until being totally changed in the next soulless iteration for the next faux-obselecence redesign. Similarly, I almost included the circa-1990 Toyota Hilux, a vehicle known around the world. When not appearing in Back to the Future or being beaten up by the Top Gear lads, they're often seen as "<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/shittytechnicals/comments/lsjpgl/high_luxury/" target="_blank">s***ty technicals</a>" with some gimpy weapons system bolted into the truck bed. Alas, they've changed so much over the last couple of decades (not to mention the varieties available at the time I'm interested in) that it just didn't seem proper, despite the relatively handy size.</p><p>However, there are certain cars and other objects that transcend decades and borders. So here's what I'm going with, in size order.</p><p><b>1. SketchUp People</b><br />Source: 3D Warehouse, Google/Trimble, included<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-people.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="784" data-original-width="800" height="196" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-people.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p>These come with SketchUp, and are included just because. </p><p><b>1A. 5'10" 2-D Stormtrooper</b><br /><b>Height: 1.778 meters</b><br />Source: 3D Warehouse, "DROO", https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/c11f6cfd-d919-4c19-a4fb-c4687cfc9c26/Stormtrooper-2D-Scale-Figure-510</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-trooper.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="732" data-original-width="399" height="200" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-trooper.jpg" width="109" /></a></div><p>Clonetroopers would've been better, I suppose.</p><p><b>2. WW2 Willys Jeep</b><br />Distribution: Worldwide<br /><b>Length: 3.1 meters</b><br />Source: 3D Warehouse, "AntonioR", https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/u4c55763c-3e74-4bb1-8067-374f32c58005/Jeep-Willy-m-38</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-Jeep.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="733" height="229" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-Jeep.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Modern Jeep Wranglers are somewhat fatter than the original (see in the gallery <a href="https://www.topgear.com/car-news/concept/modern-day-willys-jeep" target="_blank">here</a> and great pictures <a href="https://www.firecontroltowers.com/fort-miles-willys-jeep-wrangler.php" target="_blank">here</a>), but, internationally, Jeeps of the small original dimensions (or nearly so) are still made and around, e.g. the Indian Mahindra Jeep clone. It should thus be relatively easy to find a copy or compare to a slightly fatter modern variant . . . just make sure it isn't the four-door. </p><p><b>3. 1940 Volkswagen Beetle</b><br />Distribution: Worldwide<br /><b>Length: 4.09 meters</b><br />Source: 3D Warehouse, "vilfacio", https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/22c4f5dfe91870dfdc54423bc9cf9d34/Volkswagen-Beetle-1940</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-VW.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="800" height="190" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-VW.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>My model is of the 1940 KDF-Wagen, but mostly because it's the lowest-poly model available (thus easy on my PC's tired gerbil). A symbol of fascist economics loved in the 1960s by their communist cousins in the US, styling varied slightly but sizes never changed all that much . . . even the 1970s alternate long-nose "Super Beetle" was only three inches longer. This vehicle was made in numerous markets for <i>eighty frickin' years</i>, with Mexico production ending in 2019, and there are plenty around the world. After recently questioning their ubiquity, I saw one in a random driveway just this past week. </p><p><b>4. 2003-2011 Ford Crown Victoria</b><br />Distribution: North America, Europe, Middle East<br /><b>Length: 5.39 meters</b><br />Source: 3D Warehouse, "FOOF3R", https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/ee409a6c3ea062b13d4e35ba1985c7c2/Crown-Victoria-Police-Car</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-CrownVic.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="800" height="214" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-CrownVic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Not the most ubiquitous item worldwide, as noted above, but I like it. While some US police jurisdictions have retired them outright or relegated them to secondary tasks, I have adequate odds of laying hands on a Vic in minutes by calling 9-1-1, swinging through the parking lot of an assisted-living facility or bingo hall, or checking the Wal-Mart parking lot for those stripped police cars people buy. </p><p>Also, while the styling is a tad different than the 1992-2002 model and way different than the boxy 1980s version, the length didn't change, which is rather handy. Moreover, the Mercury version is basically identical, and Lincoln's Town Car is also very close in size.</p><p><b>5. Intermodal shipping container, standard height, 40 foot version</b><br />Distribution: Worldwide<br /><b>Length: 12.19 meters</b><br />Source: 3D Warehouse, "CassieS", https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/0c6c369c-7261-49a6-ad70-f57c38fd2119/shipping-container</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-Container-withextras.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="800" height="381" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-Container-withextras.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>I appreciate, even as a Metric-American, that the entire planet is stuck with ships smothered in containers using American-design footage. They're everywhere. Epic troll.</p><p>The three cars fit atop it, with just a bit of Vic hanging off. So it goes.</p><p>I almost included the "Eurotainer" tank that looks like a primitive version of Geordi's containment unit from "The Child"(TNG2), and I looked at the standard contoured air cargo container, but neither quite fit my needs.</p><p><i><b>January 2022 Edit:</b></i><br /><br /><b>The Number Between Five and Six: Tennis Court</b><br />Distribution: Worldwide<br /><b>Length: 23.77 meters</b><br />Source: 3D Warehouse, jumble of characters, apparently originating with a "Danny"<br />https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/cd85a0bbd05e4a3ca67210eeab485ee6/Tennis-Court</p><p>(pic)<br /></p><p>After seeing Jonathan McDowell share a post of telescope mirror sizes compared to a tennis court, it finally occurred to me that a tennis court was probably a great idea. After all, not only are these easier to fit and probably much more numerous than the baseball diamond you'll see next, they're probably somewhat easier to get to than the shipping containers, for many people.<br /><br />A basketball court doesn't work out quite as well, as there are differing dimensions between the NBA and international versions -- almost a meter, enough to be annoying -- and amateur courts, even professionally built and installed, have wildly variable dimensions. However, I've included a couple of marks to represent a 28.7m by 15.2m NBA court atop the below:</p><p><i><b>End Edit</b></i></p><p><b>6. Regulation Baseball Diamond</b><br />Distribution: North America, South America, Asia, et al. <br /><b>Length: 27.43 meters (home plate point to first base)</b><br />Source: 3D Warehouse, "Mitch B", https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/91cfc3173ddb88ed424d146585259440/Regulation-Baseball-Field</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-baseballdiamond.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="800" height="293" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-baseballdiamond.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>All around the world folks use the same rules, so one of these should be relatively easy to find for many folks. After all, I'm told by Darth Vader himself that the one constant throughout the years has been baseball . . . and I'm quite certain Benjamin Sisko, as written by Michael Piller, would also approve. </p><p>Everything on the baseball diamond is scaled off of the point at the back of home plate. As such, I have placed the shipping container in line with this, as well as the nose of the next item:</p><p><b>7. Boeing 747-400</b><br />Distribution: Worldwide<br /><b>Length: 70.6 meters</b><br />Source: 3D Warehouse, someone's now-missing modification of "Romio", https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/5e164e8a0b2affadc0b510176b1651a3/Boeing-747-400F</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-747-withextras.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="800" height="370" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-747-withextras.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-747-withextras2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="800" height="338" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-747-withextras2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>At 70ish meters and still in production for another few minutes, this is an easily-recognized air icon that will be around for awhile. Unlike basically any other commercial aircraft that comes in various versions, the 747 was basically always the same length and, of course, is matched only by the A380 in recognizability. Seriously, there are more numerous commercial aircraft, but it's scarcely worth trying to distinguish them. </p><p>One delightful fact is that the 747 is almost exactly one half of the refit Enterprise saucer, a fact I'd never have known without scale models mashed together. Another good reason to include the 747 is Air Force One. After all, we tend to imagine the small 110m Klingon Bird-of-Prey, some 40 meters longer, as almost too tiny in Trek scales, and yet AF1 is a three-deck command ship with multiple rooms and areas.</p><p>Military planes seemed useless to include since they're not as accessible, though in the spirit of encouraging Brandon I'd like to point out that the C-17 Globemaster III almost made the list, given the readily accessible scaling videos against human beings in 2021.</p><p><b>8 (Temporary)</b> ... USS Enterprise CVN-65<br />Length: 342.29 meters<br />Source: 3D Warehouse, "Gacek", https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/556e912204419e6c301f8fac813ad2e3/USS-Enterprise-CVN-65</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-CVN65-withextras.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="800" height="410" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-CVN65-withextras.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-DiamondFit.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="571" data-original-width="800" height="456" src="http://st-v-sw.net/Projects/Volumetrics/Scaling/Yardstick3-DiamondFit.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>I wasn't sure where to go from the 747 for scaling reference, nor was I sure I needed to. Beyond a certain size, one may as well just stick with the academic yardstick of a reference to meters. Even multiple 747s nose-to-tail just gets mentally messy, fast . . . even if you conceive of it properly, it just isn't a thing that you can experience directly.</p><p>However, I still wanted something in the hundreds-of-meters range, even though that really exceeds the realm of things that can be approached and experienced, broadly speaking. The problem is that there's very little of that size that's not some object in a fixed location. Cruise ships exist, of course, but they come in various sizes. I could've used something like the Titanic, what with assorted museums and such with recreations to scale, but of course Cameron's subscale model for the movie messed up people's perceptions otherwise.</p><p>I finally settled on the Enterprise, CVN-65, on the grounds that it would serve, not as a <i>tactile</i> yardstick, but merely as a conceptual one, a comparison against a real floating city. The baseball diamond is hanging off all kinds of ways, just to maintain the idea of keeping everything against the point of home plate. </p><p>But literally as I write this, it dawns on me that I'd been aboard an aircraft carrier before . . . </p><p><b>8. Essex Class Aircraft Carrier</b><br />Distribution: Currently coastal mainland US<br /><b>Length: 265.786 meters </b><br />Source: 3D Warehouse, "Leon", https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/4bf87798ced867b48a051e7db577150e/CV-38-USS-Shangri-La</p><p>Upon further review, I'll be replacing the Enterprise with the Essex Class. I've been aboard one, and it appears that a total of four of them are accessible for tours in the United States . . . two on the east coast (Intrepid and Yorktown), one off Texas (Lexington), and one on the west coast (Hornet, not to mention the larger Midway). It's not the worldwide accessibility I would prefer, but it'll have to suffice . . . adjust to your own nearby-ish big ships or land features as appropriate.</p><p>(Across the Atlantic, for instance, HMS Warrior and the Russian cruiser Aurora are about half the length of an Essex . . . HMS Victory is the length of the 747. Britain's strong maritime tradition appears related to a large number of museum ships, so feel free to shop around.)</p><p><b>9. MOAR</b></p><p>If I need a larger size reference, it would have to just be a Borg Cube, with its undisputed 3km scale . . . then maybe the Death Star . . . then perhaps the Moon . . . then . . . oh nevermind.</p><p>Seriously, though, at some point it really will be academic . . . to an extent, anyway. I can stand on Earth but that doesn't mean I really mentally grasp the size of the thing in any functional way.</p><p><br /></p><p>Hopefully, that should suffice. In my next post, I'll share some fun I've already had with this setup . . .</p>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-39233121946363959762021-10-27T01:40:00.004-05:002021-10-27T01:53:47.745-05:00FilibusterosWhat's to stop a Federation citizen from getting a wee scout ship and whipping the ass of a planet like modern Earth?<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />This is by no means a new concept. I discussed the idea <a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2009/12/prime-directive-absurdity-on-angel-one.html" target="_blank">back in 2009</a>. But a recent Reddit thread reminded me of the idea, and a linguistic lament.<br />
<br />
See, there's an old pair of terms that have been repurposed. Just as pirates had "booty", so too did the same root via the Dutch give the world vrijbuiters ... "free-booters". This term's more nautical origins dropped away at one point so the term referred to landlubbers, and in the modern age the term is more associated with <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/07/freebooting_stolen_youtube_videos_going_viral_on_facebook.html" target="_blank">Facebook and bootleg videos</a> ("boot" there as part of "bootleg" being footwear rather than Dutch booty or anything gluteal, because <i>English is a crackhead language</i>).<br />
<br />
But freebooters were also known as filibusters, and I trust that term's modern repurposing needs no explanation to American readers. Politician filibusters ... basically talking endlessly (moreso than usual) ... are pretty popular these days, from awesome tour de force filibusters of Ted Cruz to the short and strange one by a nasty faux trailer park momma from Texas who sought to defend Gosnellian slaughterhouse horrors.<br />
<br />
"Filibuster" came from the Spanish "filibustero", itself derived from "vrijbuiter", and given our use of "conquistador" I figure just using the Spanish term is best now, at least until someone else ganks it for something else.<br />
<br />
So, back to the matter at hand ...<br />
<br />
Given the prediction by the 20th Century Roman from "Bread and Circuses"[TOS] that a hundred phaser-armed men could defeat the combined armies of their world, and given the recent phaser vs. tank conversations that are pretty clearly pro-phaser, and given the fact that even a flippin' runabout could probably pick off most military forces of Earth at its leisure, what's really to stop such things?<br />
<br />
As I noted on the Reddit thread: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I have often wondered how the Federation polices such things. One can
imagine Ferengi or Federation filibusteros grabbing a few surplus KBoPs
and deciding to have a go at a species akin to 20th Century Earth.
Filibustero (and smaller-scale planetary privateering) interdiction
missions would probably happen not-infrequently over the two centuries
of Trek, and would presumably be a norm among most spacefaring races.
Consider "Civilization"[ENT] which even featured an advanced species
taking steps to hide itself from advanced passersby as it mucked about.</blockquote>
Presumably the Federation would have to surround the system with some sort of sensor net to monitor for spacecraft activity, though I don't think we've ever heard of such a thing. It seems as if they might want to put something in orbit or on a nearby moon, but that could be a bad idea if left too long (one can imagine early LEO or lunar probes or manned missions bumping into a small monitoring satellite or similar -- already an old sci-fi story anyway -- and causing no end of consternation for the Prime Directive guys ... speaking of which, I think that was the name of the Reeves-Stevens book that had such ideas in mind).<br />
<br />
Of course, outside Federation space, it seems like it'd be open season. Certainly the crappier areas of the Delta Quadrant we observed ought to feature a number of such occurrences, over and above the lost Ferengi doing it. Certainly we saw an area of a world protected from such occurrences by some friendly and unknown ancient alien race in "Natural Law"[VOY7]. Interestingly, the Klingons were both victims and perpetrators of, er, filibusteroism. Conquered, or at least sacked, by the Hur'q in the 1400s, the Klingons were in the 23rd Century known to muck about with pre-warp cultures, though there is no evidence of this occurring on a filibustero basis.<br />
<br />
Instead, the most nefarious thing usually done by warp-capable buttheads is to fly by pre-warp planets and snatch a few people for labor or food without making much of a fuss. This is covered adequately in reference to Earth by the Trekspertise Youtube channel . . .<br />
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<br />
Generally speaking, the secrecy attached to the actions of such space highwaymen is odd. If I need to collect some ants, I might grab some group off an ant trail or I might just as well grab a stick and poke it into the mound and keep the stick. Either way, I don't particularly care if the ants see me. By analogy, this is little different than landing a shuttle at a secluded farm and taking the farmhands versus landing outside any City Hall for a quick snatch. Certainly transporters make that even more plausible.<br />
<br />
The "Civilization" example is the height of secrecy, both in regard to other passersby and the civilization they were among. Then again, if the Malurians in that episode had found a source for a weapon-related isotope and wanted to keep it private, it makes sense they might seek to hide their activity from sensors, but would they really need to hide from the locals? <br />
<br />
Meanwhile, we haven't seen as much, if any, indication of 'primitives protection' in Star Wars. While Star Trek has its share of pre-warp cultures that have had contact made, and accidents have happened wherein the truth of extraterrestrial civilization is revealed, it seems that in most cases the contact is left as minimal as possible. However, in Star Wars, contact seems to be as the party in power pleases.<br />
<br />
The natural example to use here is the Ewoks, a tree-dwelling stone-age gang of teddy bears who get a very visible battlestation built over their heads, a shield generator built right in their woods, and who are thereafter informed by the Rebellion of the full measure of galactic events and asked to participate. (From a Prime Directive standpoint I rather think Federation personnel would have no problem with the Rebel exposition and recruiting, given the damage done already, but it is interesting and worth noting.)<br />
<br />
We've also seen other primitive cultures with plenty of contact. Star Wars humans apparently colonized Naboo and mined it for plasma, perhaps ignorant of the Gungan natives initially, and indications were that this happened only within the past several centuries. The icemen of the Pantora moon also come to mind, and in that episode, "Trespass"(TCW1), the lack of anything resembling a Prime Directive is pretty explicit. <div><br /></div><div>There's more, but suffice it say that a 21st Century planet like ours is much better off in the Star Trek galaxy, I would think.<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-61682943971126547642019-07-01T15:52:00.000-05:002019-07-01T15:55:20.566-05:00The Logic of Terok NorOrbital ore processing is such an odd concept in a lot of ways. While not clearly stated, it is implied that the uridium ore that Terok Nor (later known as Deep Space Nine) processed came up from Bajor's notorious mines. But, even if antigravs are amazingly cost-effective, why ship bulk ore to the tune of several kilotons per day up to orbit?<br />
<br />
Seriously, stop and imagine having humanity's primary oil refinery in orbit, today. All those oil tankers criss-crossing the planet would instead need to be launched to orbit, with the products dropped (gently!) back down for use. You think you pay a lot for gasoline now?<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Of course, those oil tankers all over the oceans are often carrying crude oil, not refined fuels, which is basically the same thing as shipping ore around anyway. However, we ship crude oil all over the place because we use almost every bit of it in various ways and for a variety of reasons, but the input at the station was ore mixed with other undesired rock, with no suggested use for the waste rock . . . we don't even know what they did with that.<br />
<br />
And, of course, refined fuel is rather more volatile than crude oil. I'd be fine boarding an ocean-going oil tanker, but a jet fuel tanker would give me pause. Similarly, uridium was unstable after processing, less so beforehand . . . it could potentially reacted violently to electric charges, but with more effort involved.<br />
<br />
One could say they wanted to do it all in orbit anyway to avoid processing it on the surface where lightning and such could occur, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. For one, we're pretty good at lightning protection even now, and I can pretty much guarantee that a suitable, even shielded structure could be built on the surface with far less trouble than a space station. Second, they had to have so many Bajorans on the station anyway that they really didn't gain a great deal in security.<br />
<br />
The best option I can think of is that perhaps the uridium was from asteroids elsewhere in the system and the mines of Bajor were for stripping everything else. We're told so little about uridium . . . it's only significant appearance is from "Civil Defense"(DSN3) . . . that this could easily be true. Then Terok Nor as a concept works somewhat better, and in that way having the station in orbit of Bajor would make it a central distribution point for both uridium and other substances from the planet.<br />
<br />
However, we're still basically talking about having the administrative center of your planetary Occupation and your strip-mining operation sitting in the middle of a large, potentially explosive refinery. This seems kinda nuts even if . . . perhaps especially if . . . your options are limited due to security concerns related to the Occupation. The only idea I can really come up with is that the station wasn't originally the administrative center of the Occupation but, as security on the surface rapidly deteriorated, the situation was such that the giant moat that low orbit represents, even at a potentially explosive location, seemed preferable to the surface.<br />
<br />
The reason a separate administrative station couldn't be built or was considered inappropriate somehow is not clear. My best guess would be something philosophically akin to the "Cardassian architecture" of the raised commander's office Sisko noted in the pilot. Cardassia's primary goal was resources, with the Occupation only a means to that end. The leader of the Occupation's primary job was probably viewed as keeping the uridium and other material flowing, so whether he or she lived on the surface or on the station was inconsequential . . . but having a separate 'sky castle' altogether might've been viewed rather harshly by superiors, those under the leader's command, or both.<br />
<br />
Had there been a separate 'sky castle' administration station, it would've been as much a target as Terok Nor, and would've needed similar defenses . . . no mere orbital office a la ST:TMP would've worked. Such a small and individually-undefended station only functions because of Federation control of Earth orbit, which was less of a given at Bajor. Moreover, the Cardassians living on the surface of Bajor, subject to everything from cold weather to resistance attack, would've potentially viewed it as an ivory tower, a subject of envy or ridicule, compared to the leader living on a working station.<br />
<br />
That all said, the Cardassian Occupation had many other aspects of note that relate to this. For instance, we're never given any sense of anything besides Terok Nor and forces on Bajor in place in the system, despite its proximity to Federation space. We can easily dismiss the idea of them building shipyards there, but why not a larger strategic presence? There's no sense of Bajoran space or orbit having been secured by anything besides the stray vessel or the station itself, be it orbital platforms or a larger, more tactically-minded outpost. Presumably, this suggests either that they always viewed the Occupation as temporary (perhaps always intending to dump the humanitarian problem onto the Federation later), or that they did have more of a presence in the system and it was slowly wound down over time as the mines 'dried up'. The notion of an outpost in orbit . . . which could serve as a separate sky castle . . . seems not to be the case, however.<br />
<br />
Alternately, and perhaps more hopefully, the Cardassians had to fight so hard to keep just the mines going and the workers locally fed that deeper integration of Bajor into the Cardassian economy . . . the placement of industry, capital investments, placement of long-term defensive positions, and so much more . . . became something that didn't look promising from a relatively early period in the Occupation.<br />
<br />
Though it took generations to finally expel the Cardassians, that's probably when the Resistance truly won the day.Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-3157388813704610432018-10-24T21:18:00.002-05:002018-10-24T21:25:13.692-05:00CanonWars: Discovery and Trek Continuity<P>Reposting from my <a href="http://canonwars.blogspot.com/2018/10/discovery-and-trek-continuity.html">CanonWars blog</a>:
<P>In an interview with Digital Spy, Kurtzman, co-creator and showrunner of Star Trek: Discovery, was asked about keeping consistent with the novels and comics. Of course, any production staffer asked that in the 90s would've said they weren't part of the canon continuity, besides the little oops-broken handshake agreement not to use Shelby in DS9 while the Calhoun books used her . . . the exception proving the rule.
<P>Kurtzman answered much differently, however, specifically placing them in the continuity that his universe as Trek show developer follows.
<blockquote> "<b>Everybody is always trying to maintain continuity</b>," Kurtzman told us. "But given the 50 plus years of Star Trek, it literally becomes impossible because people decide that they want to follow a character in a <b>book series after the show has been cancelled</b>, and so they'll invent stories."
<P>"And then 15 years later, a new show will come on that will take that character back and you can't be consistent with everything. <b>Our goal is always to try, always, always to try and never to negate what has existed in the novels and graphic novels but it is a literal impossibility.</b>"
<P>"And part of <b>what has kept Trek going for so long is</b> everyone's wonderful imagination to keep writing <b>books</b> and keep making <b>graphic novels</b> and keep making <b>shows</b>. And at a certain point, given the volume of things that are out there <b>it's just impossible for everything to sync up perfectly. So we give it our best effort</b>."
</blockquote>
<P>Source: http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/star-trek-discovery/news/a868679/star-trek-boss-impossible-to-fix-canon/
<P>Bolding mine.
<P>The big takeaway from that is that Kurtzman didn't mean what everyone thought he meant when he said they were working hard to avoid "violating canon" on the new CBS productions like Discovery.
<P>Most assumed that he meant not going contrary to the prior live-action Trek, but that was assuming a definition for both "violating" and "canon". For the former, some have argued that canon isn't violated so long as no one in prior live-action Trek specifically stated that no such thing as spore drive existed in the 2250s, for example. I find such a requirement a rather unique point of view, as direct negation alone cannot possibly serve as a rational standard. For the latter, of course, the exact meaning of "canon" is rather important. Since he includes the books and comics, we now know his definition was never the same.
<P>Such quotes don't come along often, but with further review we can confirm this reading. Ten years prior, Kurtzman said:
<blockquote>
Alex Kurtzman: We did a lot of reading of the books. <B>I think we consider the books canon to a large degree so it’s very important to us to stay consistent</b>. But there is a bit of a hole and there’s actually different mythologies about {Kirk & Spock's} history so it’s a matter of staying consistent but also figuring out how you can play around a little bit anchored by the rules
</blockquote>
<P>Source: https://trekmovie.com/2008/09/19/orci-kurtzman-trek-very-true-to-canon-even-books/
<P>TrekMovie even identifies it as him treating the "Star Trek EU" as canon.
<P>Thus, Kurtzman has revealed that the canon policy he's operating under is totally different than the one used during the Roddenberry- and Berman-era of Trek production, instead matching the JJ-verse's. Through the end of Enterprise and the Viacom split, Star Trek canon included only live-action Trek, with ultra-rare, explicit exception.
<P>By adding in novels & comics generally, most never intended to be canon anyway, Kurtzman has fundamentally altered the Trek universe. This is more than the references we had before of them consulting "The Final Reflection" by John Ford for background material… that's little different in principle than using a WW2 submarine flick for inspiration. Making it canon, however, is a much different animal.
<P>For example, if I take Battlestar Galactica and declare that Stargate SG-1 is suddenly canon in that universe, I just radically altered Battlestar Galactica at the stroke of a pen. But can I say I altered it, or is it that I have made a new universe different from what existed before?
<P>Clearly, the answer can only logically be the latter, because such a fundamental shift in meaning and fact cannot work any more than one can have a visual-only reboot of an audio-visual medium (e.g. replacing TOS visuals with clips from Star Wars).
<P>Still, many view Discovery as true Trek because it is, to borrow a phrase, the next closest continuer of the Trek shows of the past. It was marketed that way, after all. And naturally, one can argue that the rights-holder can modify their universe via a change in canon policy as they see fit. I agree.
<P>Indeed, in the case of subtraction, this can have only a limited effect on the universe. If one were to decanonize DS9 or The Empire Strikes Back, for instance, we would lose information but there'd still be the same story thereafter. Similarly, a minor clarification in the margins, or even minor additions, don't break the universe. Major additions, however, do.
<P>In the earlier 'BattleStargate' example, BSG's owners could claim that it was the same BSG universe as before, but this is a fundamental impossibility. Even had they been written so as not to contradict (in which case they'd have already been in the same universe), any new production of BSG that referenced SG-1 would be a break from what came before.
<P>They can change the universe with a penstroke, in other words, but that doesn't negate the fictional reality and continuity that existed prior to the shift.
<B>
<P>In effect, what we have here is Tuvix, the being created when a transporter accident merged the characters of the Vulcan Tuvok and the nutty alien Neelix. If the classic Trek canon is Tuvok and the books and comics continuities are Neelix, what Kurtzman has done with Discovery is not to give us more Tuvok, but to execute a transporter accident and give us Tuvix.</b>
<P>Why would I, to learn about Tuvok, waste my time on Tuvix? Tuvix can tell me things about Tuvok but only via a distorted lens, so I might as well stick with what Tuvok said. This is doubly true when Tuvix seems to sometimes "reimagine" assorted Tuvok things, add in new contrary info, and otherwise get Tuvok details wrong.
<P>This is not to suggest Tuvix is bad, mind you, or that it is bad for you to like him. However, pretending he is Tuvok is pretty silly.
<P>Some might argue the analogy and say the change is merely an addition of new information, as if giving Tuvok new memories, but that's not the case. The very identity of Trek is altered just as surely as Tuvok's DNA was . . . and his uniform, too.
<P>While perhaps not as emotionally satisfying as having CBS explicitly say it is a reboot, the same effect is achieved over and above Fuller's previous "reimagine" comments or listing all the myriad differences in history, technology, culture, et cetera ad nauseum. STD's universe is not the same as the one first seen in Star Trek: The Original Series and last seen in Star Trek: Enterprise. It inhabits a new universe that includes other material, like the Star Wars EU before it.
<P>Indeed, calling it a reboot might be unfair, as a reboot is usually something new. This is just something completely different.Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-33486435205035309832017-07-20T12:28:00.000-05:002017-07-22T08:22:42.320-05:00The Fail of BloggerBlogger is horrible. While trying to recover my work when it randomly ate all my formatting and links on what had grown into an almost-complete, research-and-math-heavy post, it decided to eat my entire post instead. Because Blogger sucks, this loss was unrecoverable. My apologies for the reduction in quality caused by Blogger's epic failure to do its one job.<br />
<br />Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-15836928230487981692017-07-17T22:56:00.001-05:002017-07-22T11:26:52.942-05:00Trek Moderne is #NotMyTrekUgh.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><i>(Note: This is an out-of-order piece amidst a series of unpublished articles, so please take it with the mind that there is a greater body of work to which this is attached.)</i><br />
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Where the hell did the saucer pieces go, and why? It wouldn't reduce the mass, because now you have to bulk up the structure at the four skinny points, you've added a large surface area that must be covered in exterior hull, et cetera.<br />
<br />
I mean, a certain adventurousness in design is something that we've seen among many races since TOS . . . the long-necked Klingon battlecruiser, the Constitution nacelle pylons and slender neck, et cetera. Even the Vulcan cruisers in Enterprise with their warp rings secured only at the bottom were adventurously illogical, one would think. It gives a certain feel of tech advancement, stylistically . . . "we are SO more advanced than you" . . . just as the Probert-TNG featured all that curving and swooping in the somewhat bulkier designs. This was largely lost in the blockier late-TNG era's bulkier bulkiness, save for the unoriginal E-E, which was the result of a kinky one-night stand between Probert's A and D with sharp objects.<br />
<br />
But then we come back to this. I don't mind a bridge dome as a dome-dome . . . that was neat on the ship teaser and I have dug that in other designs. However, this ship is the epitome of blockiness, what with the rectangular nacelles and blocky triangle engineering hull. To then have this weirdness going on with the saucer is as irrationally incongruous as Church's sweeping Monsterprise secondary bits attached to a bigger, squatter, less graceful saucer. <br />
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In short, it fits perfectly amidst the crap that is Trek Moderne.
Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-83339431673894343292017-05-06T00:01:00.001-05:002017-05-06T00:01:19.195-05:00QotD 2017-0504: The One Where I Defer to the MasterIn case you ever suspected that I analyze this stuff too much, please allow me to point to an exhaustively researched post by someone detailing the senior officers' poker game from "Lower Decks"(TNG). With this, I hereby abdicate any potential claim to any title which in any way resembles "He of Excessively-Detailed Analysis":<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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"Lower Decks is a good poker episode because it has two separate games going at the same time and is one of the few (only?) episodes to show a poker game played exclusively by guest stars. The back and forth editing between the Senior and Junior officer's game makes it slightly tricky to follow the action, so I replayed the scenes several dozen times in order to sort everything out. So here is my detailed breakdown of the Senior Officer’s poker game in “Lower Decks”. I hope nobody has done this before because it was kind of a big waste of time.<br />
<br />
I will do a Part 2 that covers the horrible play of the Junior Officers later.<br />
<br />
In a circle we have Laforge dealing to Riker, Worf, Crusher, and Troi in that order. Each player has one card up, one card down. See [chart](http://i.imgur.com/xO687xx.jpg). EDIT:<br />
[Thanks for correcting my error](https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/6841dm/poker_in_the_lower_decks_geordis_drunk_worf_is_a/dgvrp0a/). Silver chips are worth 10, copper chips 25. Worf (high card J♥) opens with 20. Crusher (10♠), Troi (4♦), Geordi (8♣), and Riker (8♦) call. Nice, easy action. A perfect normal and acceptable round of poker. So far so good.<br />
<br />
Next card dealt, and Troi (4♦4♠) opens with 20, showing way too much of her hole card in the process. Watch your hole card girl! Crusher is showing some iteration of 10 and 2 (I will get into the continuity error later), Worf J♥ 5♠ and Riker has 8♦4♦ (with 7♦ in the hole… the only hole card we see in this hand). Anyway, everyone calls. And this is where it starts to get stupid.<br />
<br />
First off, Laforge has no business calling here. He’s showing 8♣6♥. Maybe his hole card is a 7 to have him drawing to a weak straight, but that would be horrible play on his part. We never see his hole card, but we know he doesn’t have a 6 or 8 in the hole because he didn't hit the full house. Staying in for no reason and catching those running 6’s didn’t do Laforge any favors either, given Riker got lucky and hit his flush. Laforge should never have been in this hand and it cost him.<br />
<br />
Of course, all of this can be easily explained if we consider that Geordi is probably drunk. More on that another time maybe.<br />
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We also know that Crusher doesn’t have a 10 or 2 in the hole, and we know Troi doesn’t have a J or a 4, since if they did they would have had hit a full house on 5th street and won the hand.<br />
<br />
Worf, of course, has nothing. Worf is never an aggressive player, so nobody should expect a strong play like a raise. If he were a better player, he could raise it up and try to buy the pot. After all, Worf lead off the first round of betting and wasn’t raised, so he could be representing a pair. A true warrior might have gone with a big raise here even after picking up a 5♠. But Worf limps in almost every hand. For all his pretensions, he is not an aggressive poker player. Weak.<br />
<br />
Anyway, Troi’s bet is good, and I can easily see Riker calling it on a draw, but Laforge and Worf should have all folded right here. In other words, against good players this hand probably would have been heads up Troi and Riker, and *maybe* Crusher. <br />
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Next card! There was an off-screen bet of 25. Worf J♥ 5♠ K♣, Crusher 10♠2♣10♣, and Troi 4♦4♠Q♠ have all called. Then Laforge 8♣6♥6♣ slurs his word: “fwifty” like a gobshite.<br />
<br />
Hold on… who opened the betting? Crusher would have been first to act with top pair, but she must have checked because Laforge wouldn’t have had the opportunity to raise to 50 if everyone just called. What this means is that Crusher might have opened with an extremely small bet of 10 (possibly too small at this point to be legal, depending on rule variants), followed by a smooth call by Laforge, a raise to 25 by Riker which is called by Worf, Crusher, and Troi, then followed inexplicably by a re-raise from a drunken Laforge. Or maybe Crusher and Laforge checked it to Riker, who is then check-raised by Laforge (more on that later). Regardless, Laforge couldn’t have started the betting, because then he would have raised his own bet, and even Worf knows not to bet here. So I think it’s pretty conclusive that the betting was checked to Riker, who bet 25.<br />
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Still with me?<br />
<br />
Anyway that’s a bad play by Crusher, who should have been able to take this down with a big bet. The only hands that could beat her at this stage is if Troi is holding a third 4 in the hole or two pair (no), or if Worf’s hole card pairs his J or K (of course not), or if Laforge has a six in the hole (he doesn’t). Riker is only drawing at this stage. If Crusher had another 10 in the hole, she might consider checking to set a trap (usually a mistake), but we know her hole card is worthless because she doesn't hit the full house. Since she isn’t strong enough to be setting a trap, Crusher should be betting aggressively right here.<br />
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At a key moment, Crusher muses “You’re bluffing”. But is Riker bluffing? If so, WTF is he bluffing about? Taking a chance on a flush draw? Having what, at best, two aces? So what? No wonder Riker doesn’t respect her.<br />
<br />
And what about Riker’s chances on the draw? There are 6 diamonds showing: Riker’s 8♦ 4♦ A♦ 10♦, Troy’s 4♦ and (I think) Worf’s 6♦… It’s kinda hard to see on my laptop. That means there’s 7 diamonds still out there, making up 21.87% of the deck even with 6 diamonds showing.<br />
<br />
So anyway, the betting finally gets to Geordi and he slurs “50” in Riker’s direction. The implication here is that he is doubling Riker’s bet of 25. Now. if it was Riker who opened with 25, it is an interesting bet for a few reasons.<br />
<br />
Riker is showing a diamond flush draw, but is also representing possibly an Ace in the hole. Riker is the only player with an Ace on the board, and he was just calling the whole way until he got that A♦. Did he pair up? There are still 3 aces in the 37 cards in the deck that we don’t see, which means about 8% of the deck are Aces (very slightly above the average distribution).<br />
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Riker might instead have another 8 or a 4. There are two 4s out (Troi) and one 8 (Laforge); if he is pairing up 8’s or 4’s, one might expect cautious play, which would explain the calls. As for the draw, there are always exceptions but good players typically don’t open betting on a draw hand. They are more likely to hope it gets checked around while noting the strength of the draws out there. Of course, Riker hasn’t in fact paired up. He has a 7♦ in the hole and is drawing for the diamond flush. His aggressive play on the draw suggests two things about Riker:<br />
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1.He firmly believes he will be lucky enough to hit his flush<br />
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2.He knows he is so fearsome that will be able to bully his opponents out of the pot even if he doesn’t hit his flush.<br />
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Either way, Riker should be expecting Laforge’s raise.<br />
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Back to Laforge. When he says “50”, it could mean he either wants to raise 50 (thereby putting in 75) or he is “seeing the 25 and raising 25, to 50”. There’s no way to know unless one were to count the chips already in the pot, but my laptop isn’t going to give me the resolution I need to do that. I’ll go on the assumption that he put two 25 chips in. So Laforge is raising despite having the middle pair on the board (Crusher’s 10’s, Troi’s 4’s). Why is he betting out of turn? Is he holding or bluffing at a set of 6’s, or hiding another 8 to make two-pair, or just drunk?<br />
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Keep in mind, Laforge is check- raising Riker here. That’s pretty aggressive play. You can draw two conclusions from this:<br />
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A. Laforge is trying to bully Riker, or<br />
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B. Laforge doesn’t understand what he is doing<br />
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I don’t see Laforge bullying Riker, ever, but Riker responds as if his testicles have been threatened. "Here’s your 50, [pregnant pause] and 100 more,” he says. Smug, string-betting asshole.<br />
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This is a monster raise, very aggressive since Riker is still on a draw. In other words, it’s not just that Riker is betting big that he will be lucky enough to hit his flush. He is also betting big hoping to get everyone else to fold now even though he is showing the weakest hand (not counting Worf). <br />
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Depending on their hole card, all the other players could possibly hit a full house on the 5th card and beat Riker’s flush. And Riker has a bit better than 1 in 5 to hit that flush on 5th street. His re-raise is a massive overbet value-wise. Even though he goes on to hit his flush, any one of his shipmates would have been justified in making a big re-raise here. If Riker is such a great player, he’d have to get off his draw eventually.<br />
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But despite how heated things just got, Troi keeps on blathering about the Junior officers (and quite literally talking out of turn, I might add). Hypnotised by her story, Worf calls the bet with only J♥5♠K♣. Terrible play by Worf, weak play by the others.<br />
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By the way, the pot is now 875 “credits”. I’ve assumed an ante of 10, the smallest chip value we see.<br />
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For the final card, a small continuity problem: Laforge announces that Crusher has “10s and Deuces” when he deals her a 10♠, with 10♣and 2♣ and 2♠ already showing. But she already had 10♠ 2♣ 10♣ on the last round of betting! Error! I bet I am the first person in history to notice that. Or maybe need new glasses.<br />
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So after the cards are dealt, Worf folds J♥5♠K♣6♠ immediately. He folds *before* his turn to act, mind you, even before anyone bets. He ran from the battlefield. Such cowardice!<br />
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Riker 8♦4♦A♦10♦, who hit his flush, tries to lure Laforge 8♣6♥6♣6♠ into an obvious trap: “It looks like it’s just you and me. You going to go another 50?” But wait, was that a bet? With trip 6's, it's Laforge turn to act, so Riker might just be suggesting an amount for Geordi to open with. Or maybe Riker is betting out of turn. Geordi needs to think. <br />
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While he is thinking, why are Crusher and Troi out of this hand anyway? When did they fold? They didn’t show that! They were dealt cards on 5th street, so they didn’t fold on the last round. Makes no sense. Did they also insta-fold right after Worf for no reason? I need a reason. Why? It’s true that Will hit his last card, but that was a lucky break.<br />
The correct play is to bet and he has it you pay him off; strong play would backfire here but pay off in the long run. They should be betting, not folding! Bad play! I'm not impressed by their folds AT ALL , especially because they folded out of turn, instantly, without speaking, not on camera, for no reason...<br />
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But I guess it’s just Riker and Laforge somehow.<br />
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And this is the part that gets me pissed. So at this point, everyone keeps talking about the Junior officers, but Worf changes the subject. TRIGGER WARNING! Worf blurts out: “I do not believe he is bluffing”.<br />
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WHAT THE HELL WORF??? How dare he comment on a hand he has already folded? This crap will get you warned in a casino. Epic foul. Makes me so mad. Worf is lucky Geordi didn’t follow his illegal advice, or else Will might have put him on the graveyard shift for two weeks. That blunder by Worf almost cost Riker 50 meaningless chips!<br />
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So anyway Geordi "calls" the 50. But Will didn't even bet. None of this makes sense. <br />
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Anyway Riker shows the flush and everybody is surprised.<br />
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Bad poker. But the Junior Officers are way worse.<br />
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The End."<br />
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Source: "Billiam_Shartner" on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/6841dm/poker_in_the_lower_decks_geordis_drunk_worf_is_a/" target="_blank">Reddit</a>Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-45364150008554505792016-11-05T23:00:00.002-05:002016-11-05T23:00:17.595-05:00QotD 2016-1105 - Nuke the Bastards"[L]et's remember we've actually seen a starfleet captain, on his own initiative, bomb a planet to drive out the population, and relieve no censure for it from Starfleet. We've seen no such thing in canonical star wars {...} two out of the four main Starfleet captains have given, in earnest, the order to destroy planets."<br />
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- NecronLord, 2016-0614, "Have Trekkies used these arguments?", bbs.stardestroyer.net<br />
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That is an impressive point when put that way. Of course, using statistics ("two out of the four main") is a bit wrong-headed since we were shown rather more interesting characters than mere bog-standard Starfleet captains. I rather doubt <a href="http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Lantree" target="_blank">Captain Isao Telaka</a> had a log entry more interesting than a complaint about someone's manners, for instance.<br />
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And indeed, all four Federation Starfleet captains we followed made some rather hardcore choices.<br />
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Sisko bombed Maquis colonies to render them uninhabitable, Kirk fully intended to kill off one side in a war that he was only tangentially dragged into . . . yes, both of those are true. But let us also remember that Janeway and Picard had their moments, too. <br />
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Starfleet itself showed some of the same tendencies. One recalls the plan to destroy the Borg Collective via the geometric malware that was to be delivered via Hugh, as well as Picard later being dressed down for *not* using it. And that was with a Starfleet barely removed from the era of the <a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2005/10/tng-space-hippies-theory.html" target="_blank">Space Hippies</a>, meaning that's impressive indeed.Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-33727683133202397712016-06-06T21:53:00.001-05:002016-06-06T21:53:29.755-05:00Inside Baseball Follow-upAlmost two years ago I <a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2014/08/inside-baseball.html">said</a>:<br />
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"A few years ago I had a Drupal version up and running, but the image handling at the time was so poor that the idea of actually converting the existing 200 pages over to it was a nightmare, and it never went any further. The new logo was kinda neat, though . . . maybe at some point I can even find it and show it to you."<br />
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Ta-da:
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In the grand scheme it is hardly revolutionary, but for me it was a stylistic departure insofar as the font treatment went, one that managed to work out pretty kickass, albeit perhaps not the most original-est thing ever.<br />
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Anyway, I prefer to keep promises, even if it is something like 22 months later.Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-64790218742363878692015-12-26T05:10:00.000-06:002015-12-26T05:10:14.194-06:00My Force Awakens Review... doesn't exist yet, because, in the fine tradition of my <a href="http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6383&start=60" target="_blank">not bothering to see<i> Star Trek: Into Darkness </i>for five months</a>, I took the rare opportunity a couple nights ago to see a film in a theater by going to see <i>The Martian</i> instead. Great picture! The classroom ending could've been skipped, but all in all it was remarkably good, even if I had quibbles with the realism at times.<br />
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As for <i>Star Wars: The Force Awakens</i>, the issue I have, as noted previously (<a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2015/04/tarkula-rasa.html" target="_blank">1</a>, <a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2015/05/tarkula-rasa-pt-ii-list.html" target="_blank">2</a>, <a href="http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2015/09/unanalyzable.html" target="_blank">3</a>), is that just as JJ-Trek isn't related to the Trek universe of TOS, TNG, et al., the new Disney universe isn't the same universe as that of Lucas. I consider this to basically be <i>Vector Prime</i> insofar as events mattering to the original universe or being worthy of analysis.<br />
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I will see it at some point, I am sure, and discuss the wacky technology in side notes just as with JJ-Trek, but it matters to me less than my recent binge-watch of the second season (to date) of <i>Rebels</i>. It's fun and all, but it's not real <i>Star Wars</i>.<br />
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I am well-spoiled, though. And may I say from that spoling that I much prefer the original Lucas idea of Han and Leia grilling burgers in the backyard, and have even come up with an alternate sequel trilogy, perhaps similar to the one Lucas made the story for that Disney discarded, which allows for that to still be so while creating a more compelling and meaningful storyline for this generation than the plot-hole-riddled only-in-Hollywood meaningless nonsense I am hearing about.<br />
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But that is a tale for another blog post.<br />
<br />Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-79319159099419014082015-12-24T08:42:00.000-06:002015-12-26T05:10:57.900-06:00SMoST: WheelsIf I had the kind of time I did in the old days, I would do an in-depth article about vehicle suspension and handling design uaing the Nemesis dune buggy as example / whipping boy that would constitute a primer of sorts, bringing together sci-fi nerdistry and gearheads / petrolheads.<br />
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The Argo buggy is in many ways a real throwback. Before you assign that statement a level of obviousness with a rank of Captain or above, consider it beyond the mere notion of a dune buggy on Star Trek, or a modern-speed dune buggy with such a huge, obvious engine compartment in the same movie as a lapel-pin transporter device, or the floppy phaser cannon, or the lack of enclosed crew cabin or even windshield, necessitating safety glasses for probably the first time in Trek.<br />
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See, the notion of Starfleet designers working out camber, toe, offset, kingpin, Ackermann angles and duranium tie rods, and so on isn't necessarily beyond the pale . . . any designer of any wheeled anything will hit that stuff eventually, and wheels aren't going to become obsolete just because antigravs exist. After all, while keeping contact with the ground brings challenges, there's nothing yet like having it when it comes to braking and steering. Just try driving a hovercraft.<br />
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But the use of coils and shock-absorbing struts as clearly visible on the buggy, and arguably even the mechanical linkages as seen altogether, is quite old-fashioned. The thing about suspension setups now is that it is a set-and-forget system, as it were . . . other than supercars with different mode selections (and even including those, really), most vehicles are configured a certain way and that's it. Smooth level road driving, crowned road driving, off-road, rain/snow/ice . . . you're going to war with the suspension configuration you have, mechanically "programmed" by your vehicle designer and mechanic.<br />
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One can readily imagine a 'floating' architecture at each wheel that allows for on-the-fly adjustments to camber, Ackermann, and so on, enabling a level of adaptability and load balancing when cornering that the buggy clearly lacked, all without sway bars of a certain rigidity and other modern ways of dealing with the issues. Rapid tire inflation changes (or the moon-rover mesh tire equivalent) could be useful dealing with bumps and such. A system could exist that gives the benefits of a modern firm suspension while keeping much superior road contact. You'd need CGI to show it on screen, and it might look funny to have tires keeping contact as if shooting back downward right after a pothole shot the wheel up into the fender, but that's what sci-fi requires sometimes. If you can't show it, say it, and move on.<br />
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The only advantage to certain old-fashioned systems is robust reliability. A Ford Model T engine might not generate a lot of power or be supremely efficient . . . you can pretty much forget variable valve timing or ECM control of fuel-air mixture or 600 horses . . . but you also have an engine that is dead simple, light enough to disassemble and repair easily enough with basic tools, and, perhaps more importantly, doesn't even require a water pump for cooling. And instead of a starter motor or even a rolling start of a manual transmission (good luck with an automatic), you can crank it by hand.<br />
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Even having a driver at all may seem a throwback in years to come if the self-driving car revolution happens as some want. And yet, gizmos can fail, be it self-driving whatzits or high-tech suspensions, and you don't want them failing at 60 miles per hour on rough terrain. Further, designing a system with new metallurgy but with the same old design can be badass . . . imagine a '65 Mustang frame's rigidity if you made it in tritanium to the same thicknesses. But considering it still takes an antigrav-equipped shuttle to deploy the thing, and that it is an open-cab design (meaning the occupants are exposed to whatever elements would make high-falutin' gizmos fail), there are limits to how far we can excuse the buggy's throwbacks.<br />
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All in all, it was, as we already knew, one of Trek's most embarrassing mistakes.<br />
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<br />Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-6005483003373802112015-12-07T04:59:00.002-06:002015-12-26T05:11:13.500-06:00Anti-Anti-Vaxxer WisdomSorry I haven't been around. Unlike last year's announced end-of-year hiatus, this year's required extra real-world time snuck up on me.<br />
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But I couldn't help but post when I chanced upon some things which, while technically unrelated, smacked me as all-too familiar.<br />
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See, I passed by some anti-vaxxer nonsense online. For those still unaware after the Disneyland measles debacle, these are people who claim that vaccines cause death, autism, and all sorts of other issues and that, presumably like Area 51, Lizard-People, cancer cures, and the 30 MPG V-8 designed in the 70s, the government and Big Industry are in cahoots to suppress the truth.<br />
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While organized resistance to anti-vaxxers seems to be surprisingly minimal, there are some folks out there in the trenches. True, the public image of anti-vaxxers as laughingstocks after Disneyland makes trench warfare seem unnecessary, but just as we saw when the Saxtonites embarrassed themselves with harassment of Traviss et al. and made themselves pariahs in the fan community, it doesn't mean they silenced themselves forevermore with a proper sense of shame . . . they just kept plugging away, and even reinvented themselves as kinder and gentler wrong-headed folks.<br />
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In any case, one anti-anti-vaxxer still fighting the good fight is a fellow who calls himself Orac (so you know I was gonna like him right away).<br />
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And he's written some bits that I simply find delightfully familiar:<br />
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"I sense a disturbance in the antivaccine Force, which is, of course, by definition the Dark Side.<br />
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Whenever I sense such a disturbance, there are a number of possible reactions that it provokes in me. One such reaction is alarm, as when antivaccine activists say something that is just clever enough to sound plausible enough that it might cause trouble. It never is, of course, but it often takes a close reading and some research to figure out what the game is and deconstruct the nonsense. Sometimes, my reaction is amusement, as when an antivaccine activist says something that is so hilariously dumb, so over-the-top in its scientific ignorance that it provokes chuckles or even guffaws as I read it […]. Sometimes, my reaction is boredom, pure ennui. Such reactions are generally reserved for antivaccine nonsense that is so unimaginative, so derivative of lies and misinformation that antivaccinationists have been flogging before, that I’d really prefer to let the cup pass. However, I can’t, because I feel duty-bound […]."<br />
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http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/01/15/david-kirbys-back-and-this-time-his-anti-vaccine-fear-mongering-induces-ennui/<br />
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That pretty well covers my general take on things. For example, SciFights.Net was getting coverage here when it graduated from "amusement" and "ennui" to "just clever enough to sound plausible" levels of wrong-headedness, which might've gone unnoticed had he not sought to tangle with me directly with goofy attacks. Now that he's focusing on the new Disney universe he's largely left the field, to my mind, but I'm sure there will be more to come from him later.<br />
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Speaking of, Orac quotes someone else making a familiar point against foes:<br />
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"This is, by the way, the same mistake that astrologers make (remember that crusty pseudoscience?). They look at many variables then cherry pick the outliers."<br />
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http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/08/05/the-cdc-whistleblower-william-thompson-appears-to-have-gone-full-antivaccine/<br />
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This is the crux of the Versus Debate. Folks like me seek to gather all the evidence and find the logical best-fit, discarding outliers like "The Die is Cast" yields or Star Trek V warp speeds. Opponents, however, will plant their standards on the most ridiculous calculations of the most preposterous throwaway lines and call you all manner of names for refusing to agree with their cherry-picking. And if you dare play their game in reverse, such as with the Leia arm shot, ooh boy that really gets their goat.<br />
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This is all why I have said before that this topic, irrelevant as it is in a world of rising terrorism, statist collectivism, loony environmentalism, and so on, is still a good practice area for how to think and how to analyze arguments. You can see, in what should be a fun debate, the sorts of foolishness that can have real repercussions elsewhere. Even the death threats this debate has spawned are educational in that regard, as nutty folks will be nutty over any enterprise.<br />
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My goal, as ever, is not to tell you what to think, but to help show you how. Thanks for visiting.<br />
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<br />Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-38755153899092510782015-11-03T10:00:00.000-06:002015-12-26T05:11:51.585-06:00New TrekMy interest in the news of the new show peaked at "high curiosity" at seeing the headline about a new Trek series. Then I read the article itself. <a href="http://nypost.com/2015/11/02/cbs-is-already-ruining-the-star-trek-tv-reboot/" target="_blank">The NY Post has a great write-up that covers the problems</a>.<br />
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Don't get me wrong ... I don't want to sound like the old curmudgeon who rejects anything new, because I'm not.<br />
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That said, though, I just don't trust modern Hollywood to get within light-years of correctly doing Trek.<br />
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For that to be overcome you'd have to show me that it was somebody like Ron Moore, Ira Behr, Manny Coto, or some wanktastic alliance of the three running it. Instead we get part of the JJ-Trek writing team. Kurtzman has a fine-looking resume, sure, in the sense of making profitable Hollywood fluff, but all indications are that he's a fruit loop like his old pal Orci. I haven't seen most of his work, but titles like "Cowboys & Aliens" and his work with shallow blockbusters do not inspire. What little I have seen of Scorpion was only watchable because of the death stares of Robert Patrick and the eminently stare-at-the-TV-worthy Katharine McPhee. That's casting, not story. A good story can overcome bad casting ... Person of Interest caught my attention despite main dude Jim Caviezel (though the other nerdy dude and Amy Acker's spot-on psycho-hottie performance do counterbalance).</div>
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Back to the point, though, to borrow from not-Trek, I have a very bad feeling about this. Fortunately, though, the decision to put it on a subscription service that will fail (a la the UPN decision back in the day, but worse) probably means it will not trouble us for very long. Even though it is now cheaper and easier than ever to make sci-fi that looks like it has decent production values, a sci-fi show is a rather ambitious original series and flagship for such a service, especially with the bar having been set so high in the past.</div>
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This also pretty much guarantees no DS9 in HD for the foreseeable future, which is a huge loss, and I presume they'll want to strip Trek off of Netflix soon. I'd pay to see DS9 in HD, but CBS insists on not shutting up and taking my money. Instead, they want to waste it. They will do so without my support.</div>
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Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12251252.post-80023668968545294822015-10-17T19:04:00.001-05:002015-12-26T05:12:13.527-06:00Odo's Golden ShowersSomeone on Reddit's DaystromInstitute asked the other day whether Odo could enjoy sex. This led to a thought so terrible that I naturally had to share:<br />
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<blockquote>
I
imagine Odo and other shapeshifters could construct the required pieces
and even the nervous system and brain involved in the enjoyment, but I
never got the sense their minds were susceptible to the <a href="http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Kelvan" target="_blank">Kelvan</a> problem
wherein the stimuli of their new bodies altered their minds. As Odo
said, when he was a rock one would scan a rock, but he didn't become
dumb as a rock in the process of assuming its shape. It was a more Zen
sort of thing. </blockquote>
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So I assume Odo could enjoy pleasing the ladies like no one else
ever, and perhaps even get the fine details right all the way to the
male climax ... as long as the partner didn't freak out when it changed
from white to gold*. But I rather doubt he experienced the primal
sensations and climactic pleasure as human males might. The changeling
mind doesn't seem to work that way. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
(* I seldom if ever think of golden showers, but now I'll never think of them the same way again. Thanks, Internet.) </blockquote>
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Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284444370958467313noreply@blogger.com0