- Dealt with the Xindi / Sphere Builder threat in what was, ultimately, an incredibly effective way. Archer went from the classic human "blow them up" to managing to make common cause. Yes, some horrendous foulups and downright murderous incidents along the way; line him up with pretty well every major human leader in history.
- Supported the Syrannite cause, housed Surak's Katra and eventually restored the Kir'Shara to Vulcan. Put the Vulcans back on the path of pacifism and logic that leads to them becoming the Federation's conscience.
- Earnt the respect of the Andorians, allowing him to prevent the Romulans from starting a Vulcan / Andorian war.
- Dealt with the "Terra Prime" sect effectively.
Along the way; numerous blindingly stupid incidents, and the occasional horrific mistake (principally, dealing with the Valakians in "Dear Doctor", although it's not clear what Archer *could* have done anyway).
So, I'd say that Archer got the *really* big stuff right - the events that shape the future of the quadrant. That's not too bad given his complete lack of prior knowledge (whoever said he was a trained diplomat? I thought he was a test pilot by trade...).
The oddest thing about *any* of the Trek series is the lack of trained diplomatic personnel on these ships which are supposed to make first contact.
A lot has been said that is very good about Archer's development into a more effective captain later on, so I won't repeat what's been said better.
His willingness to be the man in the center chair and take the awesome responsibility of being humanity's representative, and let history judge as it will was always impressive.
Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker
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So, I'd say that Archer got the *really* big stuff right - the events that shape the future of the quadrant. That's not too bad given his complete lack of prior knowledge (whoever said he was a trained diplomat? I thought he was a test pilot by trade...).
after reading through this thread, and hearing it said often, I have been wondering the same thing... I don't remember seeing in the show anywhere where it said he was trained as a diplomat....
I agree, the writing was off the wall a lot for Archer and many of the crew... but, that being said... Archer and the crew often lacked common sense in many interactions... the dog peeing on the tree for one. Why did he bring the dog for first contact?? The reactions of the officers to other races made no sense many times. It should be common sense you don't interfere with the lifestyles of other races.
on the other note brought up about weapons, torpedoes specifically, the same could be said for ENT. They had a limited number and where/how did they get replacements. They always seem to have plenty available. In the other series where they live way in the future, replicators could make nearly anything out of thin air... so components could've been made and assembled onboard.
Oh well, it's sci-fi... you could explain away anything if you want to
the dog peeing on the tree for one. Why did he bring the dog for first contact??
It wasn't first contact. They'd already met that species before and invited them onto Enterprise, and angered them by.... well, something about eating, I forget the specifics on that one.
I do think people need to stop focusing on him threatening to pee on the tree himself. That was just venting frustrations to his first officer because his life long pet was seriously ill and these aliens had been nothing but infuriating in both encounters. Saying that.... yeah, it was daft to take Porthos with him in the first place.
Enterprise's torpedos, they didn't seem to fire too many of them between stopovers. Certainly enough to maintain a good supply on board. They got a restock at the end of season 2, another at the start of season 4. Once they got the cannons installed, they seemed to prefer using them over torpedos. Was it ever mentioned how many they had to begin with? I know they did on Voyager, but I don't think Enterprise did.
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A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
It wasn't first contact. They'd already met that species before and invited them onto Enterprise, and angered them by.... well, something about eating, I forget the specifics on that one.
I do think people need to stop focusing on him threatening to pee on the tree himself. That was just venting frustrations to his first officer because his life long pet was seriously ill and these aliens had been nothing but infuriating in both encounters. Saying that.... yeah, it was daft to take Porthos with him in the first place.
Enterprise's torpedos, they didn't seem to fire too many of them between stopovers. Certainly enough to maintain a good supply on board. They got a restock at the end of season 2, another at the start of season 4. Once they got the cannons installed, they seemed to prefer using them over torpedos. Was it ever mentioned how many they had to begin with? I know they did on Voyager, but I don't think Enterprise did.
Oh right, I forgot about that... yeah, I think it was that they invited them to lunch and were "eating in front of them" the horrors... except they should've asked if there are protocols for meeting the race or any race before inviting them aboard...
I don't think that there was ever any mention of load out on Enterprise... but it seemed every time they were in the armory, there was so little space to keep LOTS of torps...
Archer did some seriously dumb things but considering he was humanity's first Starfleet captain and essentially writing the book as he went, I just can't bring myself to put him in the same category as Janeway, who had all of his mistakes and tons more to learn from, in theory, before she ever got off the ground.
One of Archer's biggest errors as a captain, though, was to not demand absolute adherence to human medical ethics by Phlox, or outright have a human CMO to supervise him. As an exchange officer, Phlox should not have been allowed to run things "his way."
I mean, even in my stories, even as trustworthy as we know Berat to be, there is a REASON he can never hold the fleet commander spot and had something happens to ch'Harrell, command of the fleet would have passed to a CAPTAIN, not to Berat officially. (Obviously that captain would have had to lean on Berat greatly, for experience and guidance, but the power to make final decisions would be left in Starfleet hands.) And when Berat commanded a Starfleet vessel before his promotion to vice admiral, he was told in no uncertain terms to do it the Starfleet way and not the CDF way, and his performance was monitored to make sure that happened.
But no, Archer let Phlox run things his way according to unacceptable medical ethics. Is that human-centric? Perhaps, but in the sense that this was NOT a combined military service at the time, so humans DID hold near absolute sway as to what happened.
I cut a bit more slack to Archer for T'Pol's interference--that was a nasty political situation and unfortunately she WAS in effect his handler/political officer, and he knew it.
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Oh right, I forgot about that... yeah, I think it was that they invited them to lunch and were "eating in front of them" the horrors... except they should've asked if there are protocols for meeting the race or any race before inviting them aboard...
I don't think that there was ever any mention of load out on Enterprise... but it seemed every time they were in the armory, there was so little space to keep LOTS of torps...
oh well
All I remember is the line "You eat like you mate." He should have checked things before, but I guess it's a learning experience he should have gone through.
You're right, the Armoury didn't have many loaded (I think there were only 1 on each launcher and 4 on the back wall. So maybe 4 on the opposite wall that we rarely got to see?). But I always figured those were the ones locked and ready to be loaded and launched, with the rest of them stashed in a room next door/underneath with a mechanism for rolling them into the Armoury when in battle. Like the way the Enterprise-A had that torpedo storage room in Undiscovered Country.
*******************************************
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
Oh right, I forgot about that... yeah, I think it was that they invited them to lunch and were "eating in front of them" the horrors... except they should've asked if there are protocols for meeting the race or any race before inviting them aboard...
I don't think that there was ever any mention of load out on Enterprise... but it seemed every time they were in the armory, there was so little space to keep LOTS of torps...
oh well
I never liked the idea that these ships carried a limited amount of torps with no ability to replenish them. I think these ships should be able to replicate/make more torpedoes. These ships are supposed to go on 5 year missions where no one has gone before and being able to replenish at a starbase or replenishment ship seems a bit far fetched.
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All I remember is the line "You eat like you mate." He should have checked things before, but I guess it's a learning experience he should have gone through.
You're right, the Armoury didn't have many loaded (I think there were only 1 on each launcher and 4 on the back wall. So maybe 4 on the opposite wall that we rarely got to see?). But I always figured those were the ones locked and ready to be loaded and launched, with the rest of them stashed in a room next door/underneath with a mechanism for rolling them into the Armoury when in battle. Like the way the Enterprise-A had that torpedo storage room in Undiscovered Country.
which says it had a magazine of 125 photon, 25 spatial, 150 nuclear and 75 conventional...
don't know if the specs are even close... but it's interesting...
Archer never defected to the Xindi, nor did he defect to the Klingon Empire. In fact, he never betrayed his people at all, and he did kind of stick up for T'Pol during the HIV allegory episode.
I am a radical feminist, and as such have no fear of being controversial. Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and I love it.
Properly, it's duct tape, as it was first created to use in repairing air ducts; however, one of the biggest producers of the stuff uses the brand name Duck Tape, so that's appropriate too.
One of my brothers took a stab at being a race driver once; in those circles, they refer to it as "hundred-mile-an-hour tape", because when you have to tape something back on with it, you should try to stay below 100 mph for fear of the repair failing under stress.
The way I heard it the original is called Duck Tape because it works even if the surfaces are wet. I once tested this by taping a gutter with it during a rainstorm. Said gutter was next to the door and was splashing people. Worked great. It still leaked a little, but it wasn't splashing everyone who walked through the door.
Problem is they explicitly state in "The Cloud" that they have no way of refilling the magazine.
Which, by the way, doesn't make a lick of sense on closer examination. Lore-wise photon torpedoes are just guided missiles with matter/antimatter warheads. Most of the parts are probably replicateable; the only tricky part would be the antimatter (and they can probably get that from friendly-ish aliens such as the Sikarians and Baneans).
The way I remember it the problem was not having a supply of antimatter to use as the explosive. The casing was easily made.
I never liked the idea that these ships carried a limited amount of torps with no ability to replenish them. I think these ships should be able to replicate/make more torpedoes. These ships are supposed to go on 5 year missions where no one has gone before and being able to replenish at a starbase or replenishment ship seems a bit far fetched.
"Five-year mission" was only ever used in reference to the Ent-Nil, and despite the opening narration they and the Ent-D spent most of their deployments in or near civilized space, not the boonies where the Federation had no presence at all. Voyager was the only exception to that rule, and then only because it was kidnapped: even the NX-01 could get resupply from allied or otherwise friendly warp-capable aliens.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
NX-01 was never meant to be far from Earth-dominated space; they went after the Xindi because she was the only ship even vaguely capable of completing the mission, especially after they worked out that trick to handle the feedback from the phase cannon so as to actually boost the weapon's output.
They also didn't have replicators, because for some reason that particular wrinkle on transporter technology was in canon not figured out yet (store the pattern, use it to configure random matter into what you want). Without the materials to build new warheads, they had what they had - and in the beginning, they were using nuclear-fusion warheads, because photonic torpedoes were still in development. And I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be keen on loading my ship with a supply of unstable radioactives suitable for building nuclear warheads, especially without force fields existing yet...
CHAKOTAY: We have a complement of thirty eight photon torpedoes at our disposal, Captain.
JANEWAY: And no way to replace them after they're gone.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
That was episode SIX out of.... a hundred or so? I forget...
It's simple. Janeway's statement was about their current situation. AT THE TIME, they did not have a way to manufacture torpedos... yet.
The point is, as previously stated, the writers set up a potentially interesting (if iffy lore-wise) limitation for this crew that was supposed to be stuck out there decades from any Starfleet support, then completely ignored it and didn't even bother acknowledging that they'd done so, pretty much for no other reason than because the TNG crew hadn't needed to worry about that (just like they hadn't needed to worry about interpersonal conflict in a crew that wasn't composed of a combo of trained Starfleet personnel and conscripted Maquis). Any of the zillion episodes where they ran across friendly aliens, they could've just stuck in a line to the effect of, "Oh, and we got the antimatter stocks refilled so we don't have to worry about fuel or photorps for a while," but they were too lazy to do that, just like they were too lazy to give a consistent personality and character development to anybody but the Doctor, Neelix, and Seven.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
And I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be keen on loading my ship with a supply of unstable radioactives suitable for building nuclear warheads, especially without force fields existing yet...
The materials for creating a nuclear warhead (fisson or fusion) really aren't unstable at all. The only problem with those materials is the radiation, but even that is easily shielded against even with our present level of technology. Really, the only unstable part (with present technology) is the detonator which is a small amount of a conventional explosive and even that will only detonate if given the proper impulse. Take that detonator out of the warhead and you have a very small unstable thing and a big, very heavy thing that you could hit repeatedly with a sledgehammer and not cause a KABOOM.
TL;DR
Nuclear materials are not gunpowder. They won't spontaneously go "KABOOM" on you as you fly around the sector.
The point is, as previously stated, the writers set up a potentially interesting (if iffy lore-wise) limitation for this crew that was supposed to be stuck out there decades from any Starfleet support, then completely ignored it and didn't even bother acknowledging that they'd done so, pretty much for no other reason than because the TNG crew hadn't needed to worry about that (just like they hadn't needed to worry about interpersonal conflict in a crew that wasn't composed of a combo of trained Starfleet personnel and conscripted Maquis). Any of the zillion episodes where they ran across friendly aliens, they could've just stuck in a line to the effect of, "Oh, and we got the antimatter stocks refilled so we don't have to worry about fuel or photorps for a while," but they were too lazy to do that, just like they were too lazy to give a consistent personality and character development to anybody but the Doctor, Neelix, and Seven.
They did actually do that, just not so blatantly in several episodes.
You know the ones where they salvage stuff or trade for stuff?
The materials for creating a nuclear warhead (fisson or fusion) really aren't unstable at all. The only problem with those materials is the radiation, but even that is easily shielded against even with our present level of technology. Really, the only unstable part (with present technology) is the detonator which is a small amount of a conventional explosive and even that will only detonate if given the proper impulse. Take that detonator out of the warhead and you have a very small unstable thing and a big, very heavy thing that you could hit repeatedly with a sledgehammer and not cause a KABOOM.
TL;DR
Nuclear materials are not gunpowder. They won't spontaneously go "KABOOM" on you as you fly around the sector.
Funny enough, antimatter weapons are the exact opposite. If you lose containment on the antimatter, there's gonna be a KABOOM no matter what you do. At worst for a nuke, you might deal with radiation and the nuclear material leaking out, and any issues that arise from those two things. Antimatter, if that gets out...you dead.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Archer had allot of character growth. He went from taking his dog on a walk through a sacred park. To Learning how to argue diplomatic style, and basically writing the book for founding a Federation by the end.
Archer was a great captain because he made the hard decisions that some of his subsequent compatriots may have never been able to make. (For instance Archer raided a ship for it's warp coils, basically stranding it. Because he needed them to complete the mission.)
I couldn't see Kirk, Picard, or Sisko doing this. Janeway on the other hand was a little bit bipolar. so... depends on if she's having a good day.
Archer was Loyal. He helped rescue his friends daughter. Even though it meant possibly being late for the Federation. He went out of his way to stand up for his crew.
Finally decided to make a sig.
I see allot of them with a character, and ship.
though I'm not sure which ship to put on there...
I'll think about it. This will do for now.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Funny enough, antimatter weapons are the exact opposite. If you lose containment on the antimatter, there's gonna be a KABOOM no matter what you do. At worst for a nuke, you might deal with radiation and the nuclear material leaking out, and any issues that arise from those two things. Antimatter, if that gets out...you dead.
Oh yes. I was just correcting a previous poster who thought the nuclear materials used in nuclear weapons were unstable.
I think the Yamato was destroyed by her Iconian-addled computer deciding to dump the contents of the AM pods. That goes to show just how nasty that stuff could be!
The materials for creating a nuclear warhead (fisson or fusion) really aren't unstable at all. The only problem with those materials is the radiation, but even that is easily shielded against even with our present level of technology. Really, the only unstable part (with present technology) is the detonator which is a small amount of a conventional explosive and even that will only detonate if given the proper impulse. Take that detonator out of the warhead and you have a very small unstable thing and a big, very heavy thing that you could hit repeatedly with a sledgehammer and not cause a KABOOM.
TL;DR
Nuclear materials are not gunpowder. They won't spontaneously go "KABOOM" on you as you fly around the sector.
The masses used in an individual warhead are subcritical. I guarantee you, though, if you gather enough purified Pu-239 together in one place, there's going to be a reaction. And you aren't going to like the results, even if the output is primarily thermal. (Melting holes in the hull of your starship is not a good way to start the day, not to mention irradiating the crew.)
So no, the NX-01 did not carry the materials needed to build new fusion warheads. They had a loadout of them, of course - but the ship design assumed they'd be able to put into port to resupply every so often. (And once the phase cannon came online, the fusion torpedoes were actually the lesser of the two weapon systems.)
I used to work in nuclear-war planning. And once the barriers between the masses of plutonium have been removed, the hard part is actually keeping your bomb from going KABOOOM! before you're ready. Made plotting flight courses for bombers tricky. (Note: If your weapons are armed and prepared for deployment, avoid the neutron flux from other explosions, or you're going to have a very bad day.)
Now, if you're proposing to keep subcritical masses of Pu-239 in separate cadmium-shielded containers, far away from each other, that could work - but you'd need a considerably larger ship than Archer had at his disposal.
Antimatter, on the other hand, can be kept safely in one chunk, because it's not radioactive as such - just don't let it contact normal matter, and you're fine.
and in the beginning, they were using nuclear-fusion warheads, because photonic torpedoes were still in development. And I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be keen on loading my ship with a supply of unstable radioactives suitable for building nuclear warheads, especially without force fields existing yet...
where are you getting that from? the article for spatial torpedoes on MA says nothing about them being armed with nuclear warheads - fission OR fusion
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
where are you getting that from? the article for spatial torpedoes on MA says nothing about them being armed with nuclear warheads - fission OR fusion
I'm getting that from canon references to "atomic missiles" being used in the first Romulan War ("Balance of Terror"), as well as to some vaguely-recalled references from ENT.
I'm getting that from canon references to "atomic missiles" being used in the first Romulan War ("Balance of Terror"), as well as to some vaguely-recalled references from ENT.
Memory Alpha isn't always right...
yeah, i'm not trusting anything TOS says about atomic munitions after the whole 'troyians use nuclear side-arms' nonsense
and they were probably antimatter munitions anyway, and the only reason they got called atomic was because gene roddenbury - along with a good majority of humanity - didn't know a god-damn thing about how antimatter works back in the 60s, since we got this little gem from obsession
GARROVICK: Just think, Captain, less than one ounce of antimatter here is more powerful than ten thousand cobalt bombs.
and there was reportedly a point at which kirk said a pound of antimatter could destroy a solar system, though i can't find which episode it was, or if he even actually said it
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
yeah, i'm not trusting anything TOS says about atomic munitions after the whole 'troyians use nuclear side-arms' nonsense
and they were probably antimatter munitions anyway, and the only reason they got called atomic was because gene roddenbury - along with a good majority of humanity - didn't know a god-damn thing about how antimatter works back in the 60s, since we got this little gem from obsession
and there was reportedly a point at which kirk said a pound of antimatter could destroy a solar system, though i can't find which episode it was, or if he even actually said it
That or it was due to the Cold War and he was trying to make it culturally relevant.
If there's one thing Archer could do, it's take a beating and keep getting back up. The man had a staggering resistance to pain despite getting butt kicked.
The intent was actually to point out how primitive the weapons were back then, as opposed to "modern" phaser banks and photon torpedoes. (In ENT, they did introduce photonic torpedoes in I think the third season, or was it the fourth?) Be that as it may, the weapons aboard NX-01 when she first left dock included nuclear torpedoes. And canonically, they did not manufacture torpedoes aboard ship, any more than a modern fast-attack sub manufactures torpedoes onboard, or an Army FOB includes an armorer who can hand-load bullets for the rifles.
Comments
- Dealt with the Xindi / Sphere Builder threat in what was, ultimately, an incredibly effective way. Archer went from the classic human "blow them up" to managing to make common cause. Yes, some horrendous foulups and downright murderous incidents along the way; line him up with pretty well every major human leader in history.
- Supported the Syrannite cause, housed Surak's Katra and eventually restored the Kir'Shara to Vulcan. Put the Vulcans back on the path of pacifism and logic that leads to them becoming the Federation's conscience.
- Earnt the respect of the Andorians, allowing him to prevent the Romulans from starting a Vulcan / Andorian war.
- Dealt with the "Terra Prime" sect effectively.
Along the way; numerous blindingly stupid incidents, and the occasional horrific mistake (principally, dealing with the Valakians in "Dear Doctor", although it's not clear what Archer *could* have done anyway).
So, I'd say that Archer got the *really* big stuff right - the events that shape the future of the quadrant. That's not too bad given his complete lack of prior knowledge (whoever said he was a trained diplomat? I thought he was a test pilot by trade...).
The oddest thing about *any* of the Trek series is the lack of trained diplomatic personnel on these ships which are supposed to make first contact.
that's the oddest thing too as well, and no psychologist as well
His willingness to be the man in the center chair and take the awesome responsibility of being humanity's representative, and let history judge as it will was always impressive.
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after reading through this thread, and hearing it said often, I have been wondering the same thing... I don't remember seeing in the show anywhere where it said he was trained as a diplomat....
I agree, the writing was off the wall a lot for Archer and many of the crew... but, that being said... Archer and the crew often lacked common sense in many interactions... the dog peeing on the tree for one. Why did he bring the dog for first contact?? The reactions of the officers to other races made no sense many times. It should be common sense you don't interfere with the lifestyles of other races.
on the other note brought up about weapons, torpedoes specifically, the same could be said for ENT. They had a limited number and where/how did they get replacements. They always seem to have plenty available. In the other series where they live way in the future, replicators could make nearly anything out of thin air... so components could've been made and assembled onboard.
Oh well, it's sci-fi... you could explain away anything if you want to
It wasn't first contact. They'd already met that species before and invited them onto Enterprise, and angered them by.... well, something about eating, I forget the specifics on that one.
I do think people need to stop focusing on him threatening to pee on the tree himself. That was just venting frustrations to his first officer because his life long pet was seriously ill and these aliens had been nothing but infuriating in both encounters. Saying that.... yeah, it was daft to take Porthos with him in the first place.
Enterprise's torpedos, they didn't seem to fire too many of them between stopovers. Certainly enough to maintain a good supply on board. They got a restock at the end of season 2, another at the start of season 4. Once they got the cannons installed, they seemed to prefer using them over torpedos. Was it ever mentioned how many they had to begin with? I know they did on Voyager, but I don't think Enterprise did.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
Oh right, I forgot about that... yeah, I think it was that they invited them to lunch and were "eating in front of them" the horrors... except they should've asked if there are protocols for meeting the race or any race before inviting them aboard...
I don't think that there was ever any mention of load out on Enterprise... but it seemed every time they were in the armory, there was so little space to keep LOTS of torps...
oh well
One of Archer's biggest errors as a captain, though, was to not demand absolute adherence to human medical ethics by Phlox, or outright have a human CMO to supervise him. As an exchange officer, Phlox should not have been allowed to run things "his way."
I mean, even in my stories, even as trustworthy as we know Berat to be, there is a REASON he can never hold the fleet commander spot and had something happens to ch'Harrell, command of the fleet would have passed to a CAPTAIN, not to Berat officially. (Obviously that captain would have had to lean on Berat greatly, for experience and guidance, but the power to make final decisions would be left in Starfleet hands.) And when Berat commanded a Starfleet vessel before his promotion to vice admiral, he was told in no uncertain terms to do it the Starfleet way and not the CDF way, and his performance was monitored to make sure that happened.
But no, Archer let Phlox run things his way according to unacceptable medical ethics. Is that human-centric? Perhaps, but in the sense that this was NOT a combined military service at the time, so humans DID hold near absolute sway as to what happened.
I cut a bit more slack to Archer for T'Pol's interference--that was a nasty political situation and unfortunately she WAS in effect his handler/political officer, and he knew it.
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All I remember is the line "You eat like you mate." He should have checked things before, but I guess it's a learning experience he should have gone through.
You're right, the Armoury didn't have many loaded (I think there were only 1 on each launcher and 4 on the back wall. So maybe 4 on the opposite wall that we rarely got to see?). But I always figured those were the ones locked and ready to be loaded and launched, with the rest of them stashed in a room next door/underneath with a mechanism for rolling them into the Armoury when in battle. Like the way the Enterprise-A had that torpedo storage room in Undiscovered Country.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
I never liked the idea that these ships carried a limited amount of torps with no ability to replenish them. I think these ships should be able to replicate/make more torpedoes. These ships are supposed to go on 5 year missions where no one has gone before and being able to replenish at a starbase or replenishment ship seems a bit far fetched.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
... and he got it on with a fellow captain ...
yeah. I had the same thought... I went googling, and found:
http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints/starfleet-vessel-enterprise-nx-01-sheet-1.jpg
which says it had a magazine of 125 photon, 25 spatial, 150 nuclear and 75 conventional...
don't know if the specs are even close... but it's interesting...
My character Tsin'xing
"Five-year mission" was only ever used in reference to the Ent-Nil, and despite the opening narration they and the Ent-D spent most of their deployments in or near civilized space, not the boonies where the Federation had no presence at all. Voyager was the only exception to that rule, and then only because it was kidnapped: even the NX-01 could get resupply from allied or otherwise friendly warp-capable aliens.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
They also didn't have replicators, because for some reason that particular wrinkle on transporter technology was in canon not figured out yet (store the pattern, use it to configure random matter into what you want). Without the materials to build new warheads, they had what they had - and in the beginning, they were using nuclear-fusion warheads, because photonic torpedoes were still in development. And I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be keen on loading my ship with a supply of unstable radioactives suitable for building nuclear warheads, especially without force fields existing yet...
Nope. /10chars
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
It's simple. Janeway's statement was about their current situation. AT THE TIME, they did not have a way to manufacture torpedos... yet.
My character Tsin'xing
The point is, as previously stated, the writers set up a potentially interesting (if iffy lore-wise) limitation for this crew that was supposed to be stuck out there decades from any Starfleet support, then completely ignored it and didn't even bother acknowledging that they'd done so, pretty much for no other reason than because the TNG crew hadn't needed to worry about that (just like they hadn't needed to worry about interpersonal conflict in a crew that wasn't composed of a combo of trained Starfleet personnel and conscripted Maquis). Any of the zillion episodes where they ran across friendly aliens, they could've just stuck in a line to the effect of, "Oh, and we got the antimatter stocks refilled so we don't have to worry about fuel or photorps for a while," but they were too lazy to do that, just like they were too lazy to give a consistent personality and character development to anybody but the Doctor, Neelix, and Seven.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
The materials for creating a nuclear warhead (fisson or fusion) really aren't unstable at all. The only problem with those materials is the radiation, but even that is easily shielded against even with our present level of technology. Really, the only unstable part (with present technology) is the detonator which is a small amount of a conventional explosive and even that will only detonate if given the proper impulse. Take that detonator out of the warhead and you have a very small unstable thing and a big, very heavy thing that you could hit repeatedly with a sledgehammer and not cause a KABOOM.
TL;DR
Nuclear materials are not gunpowder. They won't spontaneously go "KABOOM" on you as you fly around the sector.
You know the ones where they salvage stuff or trade for stuff?
My character Tsin'xing
Funny enough, antimatter weapons are the exact opposite. If you lose containment on the antimatter, there's gonna be a KABOOM no matter what you do. At worst for a nuke, you might deal with radiation and the nuclear material leaking out, and any issues that arise from those two things. Antimatter, if that gets out...you dead.
Archer was a great captain because he made the hard decisions that some of his subsequent compatriots may have never been able to make. (For instance Archer raided a ship for it's warp coils, basically stranding it. Because he needed them to complete the mission.)
I couldn't see Kirk, Picard, or Sisko doing this. Janeway on the other hand was a little bit bipolar. so... depends on if she's having a good day.
Archer was Loyal. He helped rescue his friends daughter. Even though it meant possibly being late for the Federation. He went out of his way to stand up for his crew.
I see allot of them with a character, and ship.
though I'm not sure which ship to put on there...
I'll think about it. This will do for now.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Oh yes. I was just correcting a previous poster who thought the nuclear materials used in nuclear weapons were unstable.
I think the Yamato was destroyed by her Iconian-addled computer deciding to dump the contents of the AM pods. That goes to show just how nasty that stuff could be!
So no, the NX-01 did not carry the materials needed to build new fusion warheads. They had a loadout of them, of course - but the ship design assumed they'd be able to put into port to resupply every so often. (And once the phase cannon came online, the fusion torpedoes were actually the lesser of the two weapon systems.)
I used to work in nuclear-war planning. And once the barriers between the masses of plutonium have been removed, the hard part is actually keeping your bomb from going KABOOOM! before you're ready. Made plotting flight courses for bombers tricky. (Note: If your weapons are armed and prepared for deployment, avoid the neutron flux from other explosions, or you're going to have a very bad day.)
Now, if you're proposing to keep subcritical masses of Pu-239 in separate cadmium-shielded containers, far away from each other, that could work - but you'd need a considerably larger ship than Archer had at his disposal.
Antimatter, on the other hand, can be kept safely in one chunk, because it's not radioactive as such - just don't let it contact normal matter, and you're fine.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Memory Alpha isn't always right...
and they were probably antimatter munitions anyway, and the only reason they got called atomic was because gene roddenbury - along with a good majority of humanity - didn't know a god-damn thing about how antimatter works back in the 60s, since we got this little gem from obsession
and there was reportedly a point at which kirk said a pound of antimatter could destroy a solar system, though i can't find which episode it was, or if he even actually said it
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
My character Tsin'xing