Star Trek The General Star Trek Thread - From TOS to Corporate Schenanigans
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Videos are neat, but the narration could use a rework.
STO Ships are Canon! | Star Trek Online
So, a couple ships from STO are getting brought into canon. Sort of, it's Picard and I still refuse to acknowledge it as being real star trek. But I suppose it fixes the issue of Picard reusing and copy pasting designs, since at least taking stuff from STO lets them use a wider variety of models.
The four ships chosen are....odd. They're all updated redesigns of Canon ships:
Miranda: Reliant
Shepard: Gagarin
Galaxy: Ross
Nebula: Sunderland
That's a very odd decision, because canonically I don't think the federation have ever built one of these redesign ships, every class is its own design, at most it will echo a past design (like the Nebula echoing the Miranda). STO has a number of unique designs, like the Avenger, the Odyssey, the command battlecruisers, the Jupiter carrier, etc, that would fit into canon just fine.
And additional oddity is the Ross and the Sunderland. The Nebula class is based on the Galaxy, sharing the same saucer and nacelles and having a very similar secondary hull.
However, the Sunderland class is not based on the Ross, it's based on a different GCS descendent, the Andromeda class. It's very strange to break the link between the two ships by not having the two designs match.
So, a couple ships from STO are getting brought into canon. Sort of, it's Picard and I still refuse to acknowledge it as being real star trek. But I suppose it fixes the issue of Picard reusing and copy pasting designs, since at least taking stuff from STO lets them use a wider variety of models.
The four ships chosen are....odd. They're all updated redesigns of Canon ships:
Miranda: Reliant
Shepard: Gagarin
Galaxy: Ross
Nebula: Sunderland
That's a very odd decision, because canonically I don't think the federation have ever built one of these redesign ships, every class is its own design, at most it will echo a past design (like the Nebula echoing the Miranda). STO has a number of unique designs, like the Avenger, the Odyssey, the command battlecruisers, the Jupiter carrier, etc, that would fit into canon just fine.
And additional oddity is the Ross and the Sunderland. The Nebula class is based on the Galaxy, sharing the same saucer and nacelles and having a very similar secondary hull.
However, the Sunderland class is not based on the Ross, it's based on a different GCS descendent, the Andromeda class. It's very strange to break the link between the two ships by not having the two designs match.
bintananth
behind a desk
I think ST always did itself a disserive when the creators strayed too far from the TOS/TNG layout.STO Ships are Canon! | Star Trek Online
So, a couple ships from STO are getting brought into canon. Sort of, it's Picard and I still refuse to acknowledge it as being real star trek. But I suppose it fixes the issue of Picard reusing and copy pasting designs, since at least taking stuff from STO lets them use a wider variety of models.
The four ships chosen are....odd. They're all updated redesigns of Canon ships:
Miranda: Reliant
Shepard: Gagarin
Galaxy: Ross
Nebula: Sunderland
That's a very odd decision, because canonically I don't think the federation have ever built one of these redesign ships, every class is its own design, at most it will echo a past design (like the Nebula echoing the Miranda). STO has a number of unique designs, like the Avenger, the Odyssey, the command battlecruisers, the Jupiter carrier, etc, that would fit into canon just fine.
And additional oddity is the Ross and the Sunderland. The Nebula class is based on the Galaxy, sharing the same saucer and nacelles and having a very similar secondary hull.
However, the Sunderland class is not based on the Ross, it's based on a different GCS descendent, the Andromeda class. It's very strange to break the link between the two ships by not having the two designs match.
Once you've got a design paradigm you should stick to it.
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
Should've picked one of STO's more unique looking designs, like the Destiny.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
The Defiant, Prometheus and NX class were pretty cool.
Voyager was kinda meh but it looked like a logical expansion of what we had prior, aside for the silly,foldable necelles.
Was the Akira introduced in TNG or DS9,btw?
First Contact
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
As someone who is something of an outsider when it comes to Star Trek, might I ask what is going on with Wesley Crusher? From the bits I've seen of him he strikes me as a rather irritating character who's reputation among fans isn't undeserved, although it seems I've only scratched the surface. Just how bad is he?
On top of that though, for some reason there's also an avalanche of reddit posts defending him. As in, to the point where people trip over themselves to defend almost to the extent that New BSG fans defend Gaius Baltar (one of the worst people in fiction, who's hands are drenched in blood, and an he's insufferable author's pet to boot).
On top of that though, for some reason there's also an avalanche of reddit posts defending him. As in, to the point where people trip over themselves to defend almost to the extent that New BSG fans defend Gaius Baltar (one of the worst people in fiction, who's hands are drenched in blood, and an he's insufferable author's pet to boot).
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
Wesley was a self-insert created by Berman or Braga.
So, the quintessential Mary Sue.
Some people actually liked Wil Wheaton because at one point he pushed himself as a nerd and a friend to the fans.
However, he is in actuality a massive suck up and shill.
Wesley IIRC went on a trip with some omnipotent alien called the Traveler,IIRC,there was an excellent fic where said creature assimilated him.
Typhonis
Well-known member
I thought Wesley was Rodenberry's special little character given how he was treated and such in Seasons 1-3 then got dropped like a hot potato after his death.
He's a literal Gary Stu created by Eugene Wesley Roddenberry. Basically a boy wonder who none of the grown-ups listen to, which the writers apparently didn't know how to handle to well, and rapidly devolved into a running joke of how lame the character was. This was, of course, really unfair to Wil Wheaton, as the writers would gang up on him at conventions right along with the fans, even though it was them that wrote his character that way.
As for how bad he is, he's at his worst in the first season. Literally the first regular episode, they get the crew drunk, and he was no exception. So while everyone else was trying to get laid, he was hacking the ship's intercom system to fool everyone out of main engineering so he could use a model tractor beam he built to project a force-field (somehow) to lock everyone out and take over the ship. For whatever reason, he lets one drunk guy in with him, who rips all the control chips out of the wall and disables the ship, which is sitting right next to star that's about to explode. A giant chunk of said star is thrown in their direction, and the solution Wesley comes up with is to turn the tractor beam that's being used on a ship they've taken in tow into a repulsor beam to push themselves away from the stellar fragment and give drunk Data just that little bit more of time he needs. The chief engineer balks at this solution when he suggests it, citing that it will take a very long time of laying down conduits or some other bullshit and Wesley just asks "why not just see it in your head?' and taps at the computer screen to technobabble a solution in a few seconds. This kind of thing is fairly typical of him early on. Not long after, a mysterious alien shows up and explains how very special Wesley is to the crew (and the audience). And not long after that, he ends up breaking some stupid law on some stupid planet that was based on some hedonist fantasy Roddenberry had that demands he be executed, as this is the only punishment this planet has for any law being broken. The upshot of this is that the crew breaks the Prime Directive to rescue him and pisses of this primitive planet's techno-god in the process. Much, much later, as the writers apparently got more frustrated with the character, he ends up causing the ship to get taken over by one of his science experiments (nanobots), and also at one point traps his mother in a tiny universe he somehow accidentally created. This is fairly typical of Wesley stories later in his time on the show, though toward the end of his run he also occasionally gets to save the ship for stupid shit like addictive games and even got to make out with Ashley Judd. Later on he ended up leaving the show, though I can't remember the exact specifics for why, but I think it might have been aspirations for his budding movie career, and it wouldn't surprise me if he just got frustrated with how his character was turning out (much like Denise Crosby) and didn't want to be type-cast, which unfortunately ended up happening anyway. And now Wil Wheaton is some kind of a nerd icon, for some reason, and since he's shared his own behind the scenes stories, a lot of people will go nuts defending both him and his character because they apparently can't separate the two. Frankly it makes more sense to defend Gaius Baltar than Wesley Crusher.
...
What was the question again?
Oh, right, how bad was he? Well, I think he was intended to be a character that the children in the audience were supposed to identify with, and have some fantasy fulfillment from since he got to be an "acting ensign" and fly the ship before eventually going to Starfleet Academy and becoming a Starfleet officer. However, the execution of this managed to be both out of touch and condescending at the same time. Much as George Lucas would make the same mistake with Anakin Skywalker over a decade later, which is to assume that kids would want to see themselves in a character who is their age rather than an adult character. It also didn't help that Wesley was about the biggest dweeb ever, either.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
Dunno, he might have been Rodenberry's self-insert, but he sucked off one of the B&Bs.
Dude, Braga didn't even start writing on the show until a few years into it, and it wasn't until toward the end of the show that he become a producer. It didn't become "B&B" until VOY, where he apparently lost the ability to write but insisted on doing it anyway.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
Holy shit, I didn't realise it was that bad. Poor concept and poor execution make for story telling diarrhea.
I'd say it's hit or miss, but mostly hits. Most of the newer designs still follow the traditional Roddenberry rules for ship design:
1. Nacelles must be in pairs
2. Nacelles must have at least 50% line of sight on each other across the hull
3. Nacelles must be full visible from the front
4. Bridge must be on the top of the primary hull.
Very few designs, either in canon or STO, break even one rule.
Should've picked one of STO's more unique looking designs, like the Destiny.
That's probably not wise. STO didn't really nail down the art style for their original designs until Delta rising and thier first T6 ships, stuff like the science vessel and star cruiser just don't quite look right.
In part that's because they follow the design rules, with the defiant breaking only rule 2 and the others following all of them.
In fairness, that's season one TNG. Everything is at thier worst in season one.
IIRC it was the constant "Wesley saves the ship" stories that put the final nails in his coffin, and that wasn't really his fault, the showrunners had a bunch of scripts along those lines that they planned to consolidate into one or two stories, but then there was a writer's strike and they ended up having to use all of them.
bintananth
behind a desk
Wil Wheaton actually hates the ST character he played.
Typhonis
Well-known member
I came up with a way to make Wesley work. However it involves changing the timeline just a wee bit. Specifically When Wesley is born.
OK Jack Crusher dies, Picard goes to talk to Beverly. She does not want to be alone that night and he spends the night.
Sixteen years later she reports to the Ent-D with her 15 year old son. A son Picard had no clue existed and looks familiar to him. He and almost everyone else thinks Wesley is Jack's son. He's actually Picard's.
Have him be a science and engineering genius and go from there.
OK Jack Crusher dies, Picard goes to talk to Beverly. She does not want to be alone that night and he spends the night.
Sixteen years later she reports to the Ent-D with her 15 year old son. A son Picard had no clue existed and looks familiar to him. He and almost everyone else thinks Wesley is Jack's son. He's actually Picard's.
Have him be a science and engineering genius and go from there.
That wouldn't solve any of the problems people had with Wesley in any way.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
Yeah, and aside for playing himself on Big Bang Theory and narrating some of Scalzi's crap he hasn't done anything since then.
Karma is a bitch.