Star Trek The General Star Trek Thread - From TOS to Corporate Schenanigans

[Lord Sovereign]

That wouldn't solve any of the problems people had with Wesley in any way.

In a weird way, Master and Commander: the far side of the world, effectively executed semi-Wesley like characters quite well. As it's set during the Napoleonic Wars aboard a British frigate, there are a bunch of midshipmen (effectively officers in training) who are incredibly young, approximately twelve years old no less. Now child characters are usually infuriating, but you end up really liking these kids as they grow into their own as proud officers of King George's navy. But there's the thing: whilst these young uns do help out, they are still children and junior officers at best. They are learning from those older and wiser than them instead of showing up their superiors.

Portraying Wesley as a very young man having to earn his place aboard the Enterprise and eventually come into his own, preferably in battle, could even serve as an emotional anchor for the audience. Granted, you'd have to rip out a lot of his super skills, as his arc would be becoming a good officer of Star Fleet/becoming a man instead of being the super duper bestest at everything with a special destiny Gary Stu.

 

[bintananth]

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.

Child actors often don't become superstars.

@Lord Sovereign,

The "kids" who were midshipman in Master and Commander actually outranked everyone but Captain Aubrey, Lt. Pullings, and Lt. Mowett.

At the end of the film, in ST terms, Midshipman Blakley basically has Data's job.

 

[nemo1986]

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.

Actually he has done a lot of voice action in anime, cartoons and video games. Mostly additional voices but he has done some live acting since Next Gen.

 

[Agent23]

[That TE="nemo1986, post: 255065, member: 1038"]
Actually he has done a lot of voice action in anime, cartoons and video games. Mostly additional voices but he has done some live acting since Next Gen.
[/QUOTE]
That is hardly success.And tbh he will never go beyond TNG.
Also, he shilled for Sarkeezian.
The guy is a massive turd IMO.

 

[bullethead]

Rick Berman did Wil Wheaton dirty a few times too, like making the writers add scenes to season 3 episodes that got cut before airing, just so Wil couldn't go do a movie he wanted to do.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I never liked early Wesley, but I didn't utterly hate the character. I agree with @Lord Sovereign that if he had been framed as a young man learning from his elders, he would have been likeable. He became more likeable after he stopped being a regular and occasionally came back as a guest.

I liked Wesley in the two later episodes where he really feels the pressure of trying to win/retain Picard's respect. That one where Wesley was going away from the Enterprise and crash landed on that desert planet with Picard, and the episode where Wesley got caught pulling a banned flight stunt that got his wingman killed and he covered it up, and his career was trashed and his relationship with Picard ended. That felt awful, in a bittersweet way.

Kinda sad that he didn't get a good send off. I think Wesley appeared one more time where he went traversing the universe with some weird guy, or something. That was unsatisfying. I think it would have been nice to see Wesley try to carve out a life for himself after he left Starfleet. He didn't even show up in All Good Things. He was filmed at Riker's wedding in Nemesis, but his footage was cut.

 

[bintananth]

Actually he has done a lot of voice action in anime, cartoons and video games. Mostly additional voices but he has done some live acting since Next Gen.

He also posts on Fark from time-to-time. They have a special tag just for him, which is kinda saying something because Fark is not known for being nice and the kinds of fuckery they can get up to when they don't like someone is, shall we say, "interesting".

 

[S'task]

In part that's because they follow the design rules, with the defiant breaking only rule 2 and the others following all of them.

It's even arguable that the Defiant might adhere to Rule 2. When you look at the Defiant from a low angle you'll note that the Nacelles hang lower than the hull and that the hull dips back up, which means there's a chance the Nacelles have that 50% visibility. At a minimum they HAVE visibility between each other, which means that the Defiant is at least making an effort to adhere to the rule, even if it isn't perfect.

Some reference images of the studio model (from here) to help see what I'm getting at:

 

[bintananth]

It's even arguable that the Defiant might adhere to Rule 2. When you look at the Defiant from a low angle you'll note that the Nacelles hang lower than the hull and that the hull dips back up, which means there's a chance the Nacelles have that 50% visibility. At a minimum they HAVE visibility between each other, which means that the Defiant is at least making an effort to adhere to the rule, even if it isn't perfect.

Some reference images of the studio model (from here) to help see what I'm getting at:

The Defiant-class is basically "this is an actual Federation warship" and even that's a "hotel in space" in terms of crew accommodations compared to what I'd design.

 

[Undertone]

The Defiant-class is basically "this is an actual Federation warship" and even that's a "hotel in space" in terms of crew accommodations compared to what I'd design.

And yet the sickbay is garbage, as if no one ever gets injured in a fight.

Either that or it was intentionally designed with a perspective that most casualties would be fatal.

what is going on with Wesley Crusher?

Nothing new as far as I can tell. So long as Gene was still alive, Wesley was a character that could do no wrong, and eventually they did some more dramatic things with the kid, but mostly it was tiresome, in no small part because there was no shortage of characters around (Geordi, Data, Barclay, etc) to sound exactly the same notes, be it "tech thing solves problem 3 minutes before credits" or "awkward nerd misses social cue"

4. Bridge must be on the top of the primary hull.

The rest of the rules are down to style, but Rule 4 has never made any sense. Especially as the viewscreen in TOS is a configurable display and not a window.

What nuBSG got right about starship design is putting the command centre... in the centre. Behind walls and armour and such.

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.

I like this, and in the fanfic stacks, this is almost fanon already! Pretty much all you have to do is ignore three scenes in "Family" -- the writers of the new shows are taking more liberties than that.

 

[Battlegrinder]

And yet the sickbay is garbage, as if no one ever gets injured in a fight.

Either that or it was intentionally designed with a perspective that most casualties would be fatal.

Eh, not really? It's a 4 bed sickbay for a ship of like 50 people, that seems fair. If anything it's proportionally oversized, compared something like the enterprise D that had like dozen beds for a thousand people.

The rest of the rules are down to style, but Rule 4 has never made any sense. Especially as the viewscreen in TOS is a configurable display and not a window.

What nuBSG got right about starship design is putting the command centre... in the centre. Behind walls and armour and such.

Eh. The "we put the CIC in the center of the ship, cause we're a smart hard sci-fi setting that blah blah blah" is one of those tropes that I'm getting sick of seeing in sci-fi lately, regardless of how much sense it does or doesn't make. And given the generally poor durability of ST ships against ST weapons when the shields are down, I don't really think putting the bridge in the center of the hull would help much.

 

[Captain X]

Well, it's better than the current trend of nuTrek which literally turned the viewscreen into a windshield. Plus on real ships, the CIC is deep in the ship, and the bridge is just there to steer the ship with, with the commander actually being in the CIC and telling the bridge what to do.

 

[bintananth]

Eh, not really? It's a 4 bed sickbay for a ship of like 50 people, that seems fair. If anything it's proportionally oversized, compared something like the enterprise D that had like dozen beds for a thousand people.

A warship with a crew of about 50 doesn't even have a sickbay. The officers' wardroom is where casualties are taken and their dining room table is where emeregency surgeries are done by someone who probably isn't a doctor.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Eh. The "we put the CIC in the center of the ship, cause we're a smart hard sci-fi setting that blah blah blah" is one of those tropes that I'm getting sick of seeing in sci-fi lately, regardless of how much sense it does or doesn't make. And given the generally poor durability of ST ships against ST weapons when the shields are down, I don't really think putting the bridge in the center of the hull would help much.

Yeah, that's a bugaboo of mine too. When a weapon has already defeated the ship's shields and armor, it's unlikely twenty feet of air and a couple of layers of space!sheetrock wall are going to miraculously provide enough protection to matter. Most ships that don't have some kind of armor get cored by a direct hit if their shields are down, no chance being in the middle of the ship will provide any protection.

Spoiler: Example

/spoiler]

 

[Typhonis]

The rest of the rules are down to style, but Rule 4 has never made any sense. Especially as the viewscreen in TOS is a configurable display and not a window.

What nuBSG got right about starship design is putting the command centre... in the centre. Behind walls and armour and such.

Actually, it was done that way so the audience has a sense of scale. You can see how big the bridge is and when you see it atop the saucer section you realize how big the whole ship is. Hell, the Constitution-class had two bridges. One in the saucer section, at the top and a second fully functional one in the main hull.

 

[Agent23]

He also posts on Fark from time-to-time. They have a special tag just for him, which is kinda saying something because Fark is not known for being nice and the kinds of fuckery they can get up to when they don't like someone is, shall we say, "interesting".

What is Fark exactly?
Looks like some news website.

 

[bintananth]

What is Fark exactly?
Looks like some news website.

It's a news aggregator with a comment section filled with people who are just there for "pass the popcorn". Drew Curtis - the site's owner - ran for Kentucky Governer in 2015.

It's full of trolls.

 

[Agent23]

It's a news aggregator with a comment section filled with people who are just there for "pass the popcorn". Drew Curtis - the site's owner - ran for Kentucky Governer in 2015.

It's full of trolls.

So kind of like reddit or 4chan, but more obscure.

I guess they just have a different way of enjoying his spergouts.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Oddly enough, positioning the bridge/CIC outside the superstructure can be quite sensible. Aside from the more obvious line of sight provision, you have made more room in the main superstructure for extra shield generators, engines, or juice for your main guns.

 

[Captain X]

Yeah, that's a bugaboo of mine too. When a weapon has already defeated the ship's shields and armor, it's unlikely twenty feet of air and a couple of layers of space!sheetrock wall are going to miraculously provide enough protection to matter. Most ships that don't have some kind of armor get cored by a direct hit if their shields are down, no chance being in the middle of the ship will provide any protection.

Spoiler: Example

/spoiler]

Kind of a bad example given how much of a meme easily destroyed Mirandas were on that show at that point. Actually one of my own annoyances with the show at that time was how shields didn't ever seem to be a thing during the Dominion War for any of the VFX shots, as if the artists forgot they were supposed to have them.