Said it before and will say it again: JJ Abrams HATES that space is big. He is literally incapable of writing for an environment where the characters can't lookup and see everything that's happening anywhere else in the entire cosmos. Not even on a monitor - they have to be able to see galactic events unfolding in real time with their own eyes peering skyward.
That was my biggest problem with the Force Awakens.
The Starkiller Base destroys a bunch of planets that is assumed to be within separate solar systems. All these explosions are visible from the Rebel base and happen in seconds after each other. The weapon would have to travel faster than light and might produce a tiny flash of light produced by tachyons, but it would not be visible from a planet lightyears away since the explosion would have to be about the size of a solar system or bigger to be noticeable. The other possibility is that all the planets are in the same solar system, but that is just as unlikely without massive planetary engineering that is beyond the capabilities of the current Star Wars galaxy.
As the page jonsills linked noted, this is not a new problem, and it's something Star Trek has had problems with, too. In TNG: "Redemption" we're expected to believe that 23 starships can provide sufficient coverage on the entirety of the minimum several-light-year-long Klingon-Romulan border to keep any Romulan ships from supporting Duras. And in Star Trek VI Sulu says they're heading home on impulse power from roughly 1,000 LY away. Impulse is the ship's sublight engine; do the math.
I assumed Sulu meant that they were using "Full Impulse Power" at that moment.
And that they were also doing WARP Jumps in between "Cataloging Gaseous Planetary Anomalies" along their route back home through the Beta Quadrant.
Also remember that in The Motion Picture, it was indicated that Half Impulse was about half the speed of light. (.5c)
So Full Impulse is probably pretty darn fast. (though not as fast as the actual Speed of Light)
So, they're headed home, some 1000 lightyears away, at full impulse, which is apparently a significant fraction of c. So they should be there in only, say, 1200 years. Of course, given Lorentz transformations, that might seem like only a few decades ship-time...
Silly Rabbit...
I guess you decided to completely ignore the point I made about the Excelsior probably also using WARP Drive at times, and that they were using Impulse AT THAT MOMENT, while doing the scientific research/cataloging AND heading back home.
After all, they used their WARP Drive to quickly get to Khitomer to help Kirk.
On the same level of criticism used for Abrams, all we have to go by is what the characters said. And Sulu said they were headed home, a 1000-ly journey, at "full impulse". Nobody said anything in there about "warp jumps", which would be silly anyway - why slow to sublight when you're not actively observing the phenomenon? The warp drive works on a continuous basis, you know, not like the Jump Drive in nBSG or the stutterwarp in Traveller.
Face it, the point is proved, Abrams isn't the only one who doesn't grasp how frigging huge space is. Absolutely mind-bogglingly big. I mean, you might think it's a long way down the road to the chemists', but that's just peanuts to space! Listen...
I never had a horse in the "JJ-is-a-pile-of-krap-director" competition.
I truly could not care less about his hand-wavium Si-Fi nonsense.
I was simply using some Trek-Imagination-Logic to explain why Sulu said what he said in the situation given.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
You know, I've never really understood why everyone is so quick to dismiss the Excelsior's experimental engines as being a failure. In TNG they changed how the warp scale worked so that it became an exponential curve leading to the unreachable Warp 10. Occam's razor would suggest that the change in warp scales was because the Excelsior's new engine design was a success and became standard issue within Starfleet.
because it didn't have a transwarp drive anymore by that time
says who? :P aside from the hand waving it away, thats a lore gap thats always bugged the hell outta me
I've always just figured the prototype was a dud. I mean, I know we only saw it fail after Scotty sabotaged it, but that doesn't preclude it having also failed offscreen during a proper flight test.
You know, I've never really understood why everyone is so quick to dismiss the Excelsior's experimental engines as being a failure. In TNG they changed how the warp scale worked so that it became an exponential curve leading to the unreachable Warp 10. Occam's razor would suggest that the change in warp scales was because the Excelsior's new engine design was a success and became standard issue within Starfleet.
like I said... a huge gap in the lore that has bugged the hell outta me
Oh please.... The Sisko carefully chose a weapon that would not kill people unless exposed for several hours or days....
But getting back to TW... one suggestion I've heard is that it was not a radically new technology in the same way that Borg TW is, but rather an improved warp drive.
Oh please.... The Sisko carefully chose a weapon that would not kill people unless exposed for several hours or days....
That doesn't matter. Sisko deliberately attacked a civilian target, end of discussion.
Consider this: what if his information on the colonists' ability to evacuate had been incorrect? That kind of sh*t happens in war. And it would mean thousands of men, women and children guilty of nothing more than expressing a political view contrary to Earth's (barmy) wishes died an agonizing death. That is an utterly reprehensible act no matter which way you slice it, and no, it doesn't matter that he got the idea from Eddington. Sisko should have been stripped of his command and dishonorably discharged right along with him.
But because the writers were more interested in making Le Miz references than in writing a sensible story, we got that BS.
"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"
I've seen your dislike for ENT and the AR, but I did know you liked DS9, I just guessed you were more of a TNG Targ.
I'd probably call the Ent-D bridge home, yes. But I like the character depth DS9 brought whereas TNG only got there rather late.
That's some odd wording there. My age is easy enough to work out from my comment, so unless you're unsure about your own, it's not exactly theoretical .
'Technically' or 'basically' would work better if it's the same range.
I don't think the messages are irrelevant on the whole, just that the backstory behind them is less apt. 'It's easy to be a saint in paradise' sums it up. I prefer DS9 because, on the whole, the messages are the same as in TNG, but still hold true when humanity is on the brink as opposed to when humanity is just drifting around scanning stuff and waxing poetical.
There are certain points I know we'd disagree on (Section 31) or I don't know which way you'd go (Sisko vs. the Marquis or 'In the Pale Moonlight' and 'Inter Armistilldon'tknowthetitle') but the core principles of cooperation and exploration of self I still enjoy. I just think they are on better display in DS9 than in TNG.
Not exactly on this same topic but though people have disagreed with Sisko and Ross' actions in the aforementioned episodes, they were still undertake in the middle of a war. I have much greater disdain for Picard's actions in early TNG, such as his praise for Riker for letting people die needlessly.
I can't really defend early TNG. Season 1 and 2 are so full of idelogical supremacy and straight forward racism and sexism it's scary. The scripts weren't that backward in TOS in the 60s and that's saying something
However, overall we deal with a utopia. A vision of Earth (not even humans in general) surpassed petty actions and realized that unity and the betterment of all is the better way to go instead of isolation. TNGs UFP didn't need S31 and "martyrs for the cause" to prevail, it was as it was shown to us. A pacifistic society founded on cooperation and the ability to withstand disrupting elements and come out on top of every conflict it had to fight but quickly sought to end. A strong inclusive and liberal society which is completely perverted by the notion that it needs (war) criminals to prevail, at this point the whole UFP simply collapses because it is just a big lie. And I get that people dig that, it's edgy, it's "real", but it wasn't the way it was written. While S31 is still a villian in DS9, Sisko's action and the council's decision are already too late 90s grimdark in my taste. I can overlook Sisko though as it was a personal story rather than a idelogical one. Sisko has been a broken, troubled man since Wolf 359 and it showed and was brilliantly performed by Mr. Brooks, but it's not always the "right" thing he did but I never got the feeling the show wanted to portray it as such. While the action is without question unjustifyable it was a great character moment.
I was looking at the episode list for TOS yesterday (for AoT) and came to the same conclusion.
Some TOS episodes were rather light entertainment and some had some really questionable messages even considering the context they were written in. But TOS biggest moments were the plea for inclusion and cooperation in a world ready to tear itself apart. Again, the said thing is we came kinda full circle today and it's again highly relevant.
It's not a civilian target. It was the base of operations from which a Maquis cell attacked a Cardassian planet.
Because a cell operated from a colony it's suddenly not a civilian target any more? By that logic you could bomb every middle eastern city to the ground having some sort of radical element to them... oh, wait...
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
SISKO: Commander, prepare two quantum torpedoes. Have engineering attach a cargo pod with two hundred kilograms of trilithium to each torpedo.
WORF: Yes, sir, but
SISKO: But what?
WORF: The extra mass of the cargo pods will make the torpedo less effective. Maquis Raiders are small and manoeuvrable.
SISKO: I'm not planning to fire at any ships, Mister Worf. Major, what is the nearest Maquis colony.
KIRA: Solosos Three. Less than an hour away.
SISKO: Helm, set a course for Solosos Three.
DAX: Aye, sir.
SISKO: Major, I want you to send the following message on all Maquis frequencies. To all the members of the Maquis resistance. This is Captain Sisko of the USS Defiant. In response to the Maquis's use of biogenic weapons in their recent attacks, I am about to take the following action. In exactly one hour, I will detonate two quantum torpedoes that will scatter trilithium resin in the atmosphere of Solosos Three. I thereby will make the planet uninhabitable to all human life for the next fifty years. I suggest evacuation plans begin immediately. What are you waiting for, people? Carry out your orders.
(Later, orbiting Solosos Three.)
WORF: Set torpedo targets to fifty kilometres above ground level.
CREWWOMAN: Aye, sir.
WORF: Lock. Ready, Captain.
SISKO: Time?
KIRA: One minute left. And still no transport ship activity or any other sign that they're beginning to evacuate.
SISKO: Commander Worf, prepare to fire torpedoes on my mark.
WORF: Detach safeties on torpedoes one and two.
KIRA: Incoming message. It's Eddington.
EDDINGTON: (hologram) What are you really up to, Javert? Do you expect me to believe that a decorated Starfleet officer, the pride of the service, is going to poison an entire planet?
SISKO: That's exactly what I'm going to do.
EDDINGTON: You're bluffing.
SISKO: Am I? Commander, launch torpedoes. Commander, I said launch torpedoes!
WORF: Aye, sir.
(Two lights impact the atmosphere, and it starts turning yellow.)
KIRA: The trilithium resin is dissipating throughout the biosphere. The Maquis are scrambling their transport ships. They're starting to evacuate.
EDDINGTON: Do you realise what you've done?
SISKO: I've only just begun. I'm going to eliminate every Maquis colony in the DMZ.
EDDINGTON: You're talking about turning hundreds of thousands of people into homeless refugees.
SISKO: That's right. When you attacked the Malinche you proved one thing, that the Maquis have become an intolerable threat to the security of the Federation, and I am going intend to eliminate that threat.
EDDINGTON: But think about those people you saw in the caves, huddled and starving. They didn't attack the Malinche.
SISKO: You should have thought about that before you attacked a Federation starship.
(Sisko turns his back on the Eddington hologram)
SISKO: Helm, lay in a course for Tracken Two, warp six. Commander, prepare two more torpedoes.
NOG: Engine Room, bridge. Warp six.
DAX: Set course zero five zero mark one seven nine.
WORF: Unlock safeties on torpedoes three and four.
EDDINGTON: Can't you see what's happening to you? You're going against everything you claim to believe in, and for what? To satisfy a personal vendetta?
SISKO: You betrayed your uniform!
EDDINGTON: And you're betraying yours right now! The sad part is, you don't even realise it. I feel sorry for you, Captain. This obsession with me, look what it's cost you.
SISKO: Major, shut that thing off! Commander Worf, prepare to launch torpedoes!
EDDINGTON: Wait! If you call off your attack I'll turn over all our biogenic weapons.
SISKO: Not enough.
EDDINGTON: All right, Javert. I'll give you what you want. Me.
(Transmission ends)
Solosos III merely pledged allegiance to the Maquis. The laws of war that have been in effect since World War II, which are supposed to be obeyed by every civilized power on Earth, state that just because a civilian salutes a different flag does not give you the right to use military force against them ever: a civilian becomes a military target only if he takes up arms. And I strongly doubt that Coon and Roddenberry's Federation would have ever discarded that principle.
At least when Eddington betrayed his oaths, he did it openly.
"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"
It's not a civilian target. It was the base of operations from which a Maquis cell attacked a Cardassian planet.
Solosos III merely pledged allegiance to the Maquis. The laws of war that have been in effect since World War II, which are supposed to be obeyed by every civilized power on Earth, state that just because a civilian salutes a different flag does not give you the right to use military force against them ever: a civilian becomes a military target only if he takes up arms. And I strongly doubt that Coon and Roddenberry's Federation would have ever discarded that principle.
At least when Eddington betrayed his oaths, he did it openly.
And you're going to take Eddington's word for it?
Actually here's something to consider.... What defined whether something was a Maquis planet? I'm going with willing complicity with terrorist acts, including but not limited to, attacking Cardassian civilians.
Yes, and the US and allies were carpet-bombing civilian targets during the war for a long time before the nukes. I specifically said "after", in reference to the postwar version of the Geneva Conventions, which were written as a direct result of those kinds of atrocities, too, not just the Holocaust.
It's not a civilian target. It was the base of operations from which a Maquis cell attacked a Cardassian planet.
Solosos III merely pledged allegiance to the Maquis. The laws of war that have been in effect since World War II, which are supposed to be obeyed by every civilized power on Earth, state that just because a civilian salutes a different flag does not give you the right to use military force against them ever: a civilian becomes a military target only if he takes up arms. And I strongly doubt that Coon and Roddenberry's Federation would have ever discarded that principle.
At least when Eddington betrayed his oaths, he did it openly.
And you're going to take Eddington's word for it?
When he's being the most honest person in the entire scene? You're damn straight I am, which is not a sentence I ever thought I'd utter about him. The man is a genocidal *sshole with delusions of grandeur, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.
But I don't need to rely on Eddington's word: I have Sisko's word. He explicitly chose Solosos III because it was the closest Maquis-friendly planet to his current position. If it was a military target, you'd think he would've mentioned something to that effect, like, I dunno, "Starfleet Intelligence says the Maquis have been storing inverse tachyon whatevers here": it would've made his crew more willing to comply. Which, by the way, they're just as culpable for war crimes as he is. Remind me, what's the rule about following an illegal order?
Actually here's something to consider.... What defined whether something was a Maquis planet? I'm going with willing complicity with terrorist acts, including but not limited to, attacking Cardassian civilians.
Until that episode there's no canonical evidence of Maquis attacks on civilian targets. No, not even in "The Maquis, Part II": they were after a Cardassian weapons depot. The Maquis are simply fighting a guerrilla war against two superior militaries. And if you'll recall, the whole thing started with the Cardies secretly arming their own colonists and encouraging them to start a proxy war with the Federation side. Whereas the Federation hung theirs out to dry because they were so proud of that horribly drafted treaty they'd signed with a government that was violating its obligations before the ink was dry on the original ceasefire for God's sake!
And just because your enemy starts going after civilian targets does not give you the right to reciprocate.
"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"
My point is that the Maquis were by definition NOT civilian targets as they were armed "freedom fighters" living in places where they KNEW the Cardassians were legally allowed to carpet bomb them into oblivion. What the Sisko did was far more merciful than the alternative.
My point is that the Maquis were by definition NOT civilian targets as they were armed "freedom fighters" living in places where they KNEW the Cardassians were legally allowed to carpet bomb them into oblivion. What the Sisko did was far more merciful than the alternative.
According to Starfleet they were terrorists that were disrupting the peace and attempting to break up the Cardassian-Federation peace. They were hunted as such. carpet bombed or no, the Maquis were doomed before they started because they lacked numbers, resources and contacts
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
My point is that the Maquis were by definition NOT civilian targets as they were armed "freedom fighters" living in places where they KNEW the Cardassians were legally allowed to carpet bomb them into oblivion. What the Sisko did was far more merciful than the alternative.
You're still not getting it. Even if the Federation has legalized chemical weapons use, do you know for a fact that every man, woman, and child on Solosos III was actively involved in the Maquis?
"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"
Just for the sake of argument, here's a real-world comparison:
This is the city of Al-Raqqah, population about 220,000 as of the 2004 Syrian census. It's also the capital city of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, hereafter referred to by its Arabic acronym Daesh because they hate being called that. Daesh unambiguously is a terrorist group, and in addition is engaged in genocide, sex slavery, wanton destruction of archaeological sites, and about a million other things I haven't even begun to think about yet.
Now let's assume the winds on a given day are such that any radioactive fallout from simply dropping a tactical nuke on Al-Raqqah would be contained. This is probably meteorologically impossible, but let's assume it can be done for the sake of argument. Does the fact that Daesh is headquartered in Al-Raqqah mean we can legitimately warn them we're going to destroy the city, wait a few hours, then just drop a nuke on the place and go home?
OF COURSE IT BLOODY DOESN'T! Better than 90% of the people in that city are just folk like us trapped between a small group of complete lunatics, a government that has been caught red-handed using chemical weapons and barrel bombs on its own citizens, and coalition airstrikes. They're as much victims of this war as the people Daesh and its followers have killed in Ankara, Beirut, Paris, and San Bernardino; to just glass the city would be a horrific act.
But that's exactly what Sisko did to an entire planet whose leaders were allegiant to a far less heinous group than Daesh.
"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"
One could argue that the effects of a nuclear bomb would be much more immediate than was the intent here, though. Your comparison is flawed - Sisko gave ample warning of his actions so that the Maquis would be capable of evacuating in time, and picked a weapon that would give them time to evacuate even after the attack.
Which doesn't mean that there wasn't some harm done by displacing the colonists in question, but compared to the amount of people that would have been displaced or harmed by further Maquis use of the biogenic weapons... *shrugs* He probably made the best of a bad situation.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
My point is that the Maquis were by definition NOT civilian targets as they were armed "freedom fighters" living in places where they KNEW the Cardassians were legally allowed to carpet bomb them into oblivion. What the Sisko did was far more merciful than the alternative.
You're still not getting it. Even if the Federation has legalized chemical weapons use, do you know for a fact that every man, woman, and child on Solosos III was actively involved in the Maquis?
Maquis operated on a lot of colonies in the DMZ and had a lot of sympathizers within the colonists because they were basically abandoned by the Federation when those worlds were handed to the Cardassians, i doubt very much that the majority cared to be pawns of Cardassian rule once more and were not happy with the Federation.
I cant imagine there would be that many innocent people left in the colonies considering the border wars about 25 years before hand.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
My point is that the Maquis were by definition NOT civilian targets as they were armed "freedom fighters" living in places where they KNEW the Cardassians were legally allowed to carpet bomb them into oblivion. What the Sisko did was far more merciful than the alternative.
You're still not getting it. Even if the Federation has legalized chemical weapons use, do you know for a fact that every man, woman, and child on Solosos III was actively involved in the Maquis?
Maquis operated on a lot of colonies in the DMZ and had a lot of sympathizers within the colonists because they were basically abandoned by the Federation when those worlds were handed to the Cardassians, i doubt very much that the majority cared to be pawns of Cardassian rule once more and were not happy with the Federation.
I cant imagine there would be that many innocent people left in the colonies considering the border wars about 25 years before hand.
That, too - although the 'child' bit does make it likely that there were at least some people who were caught in the crossfire without really doing anything to provoke it.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
One could argue that the effects of a nuclear bomb would be much more immediate than was the intent here, though. Your comparison is flawed - Sisko gave ample warning of his actions so that the Maquis would be capable of evacuating in time, and picked a weapon that would give them time to evacuate even after the attack.
Which doesn't mean that there wasn't some harm done by displacing the colonists in question, but compared to the amount of people that would have been displaced or harmed by further Maquis use of the biogenic weapons... *shrugs* He probably made the best of a bad situation.
The only reason I used a nuke was because to my knowledge a chemical weapon that only becomes lethal a few hours after dispersal does not exist on Earth. The Raqqa analogy is actually quite apt. Read the script of the scene for God's sake: his warning had absolutely no effect. The Solosans didn't believe a serving Federation officer was mentally capable of such an act, and for good reason, until Sisko actually fired on the planet.
And his entire plan relied on the ability of thousands of people to be able to drop everything and pack themselves into whatever ships were available in the TRIBBLE end of nowhere in mere hours. Never mind the morality of the situation, that is a logistically terrible plan. Sisko was very, very lucky.
My point is that the Maquis were by definition NOT civilian targets as they were armed "freedom fighters" living in places where they KNEW the Cardassians were legally allowed to carpet bomb them into oblivion. What the Sisko did was far more merciful than the alternative.
You're still not getting it. Even if the Federation has legalized chemical weapons use, do you know for a fact that every man, woman, and child on Solosos III was actively involved in the Maquis?
Maquis operated on a lot of colonies in the DMZ and had a lot of sympathizers within the colonists because they were basically abandoned by the Federation when those worlds were handed to the Cardassians, i doubt very much that the majority cared to be pawns of Cardassian rule once more and were not happy with the Federation.
I cant imagine there would be that many innocent people left in the colonies considering the border wars about 25 years before hand.
How many different ways and times do I have to spell it out? Having sympathies for an enemy group does not a legitimate military target make. I could theoretically tweet that Daesh is the bestest thing ever until the cows come home, but unless and until I actually try to fly off and join them I'm protected by the First Amendment and basic human rights.
Post edited by starswordc on
"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"
However, overall we deal with a utopia. A vision of Earth (not even humans in general) surpassed petty actions and realized that unity and the betterment of all is the better way to go instead of isolation. TNGs UFP didn't need S31 and "martyrs for the cause" to prevail, it was as it was shown to us. A pacifistic society founded on cooperation and the ability to withstand disrupting elements and come out on top of every conflict it had to fight but quickly sought to end. A strong inclusive and liberal society which is completely perverted by the notion that it needs (war) criminals to prevail, at this point the whole UFP simply collapses because it is just a big lie. And I get that people dig that, it's edgy, it's "real", but it wasn't the way it was written. While S31 is still a villian in DS9, Sisko's action and the council's decision are already too late 90s grimdark in my taste. I can overlook Sisko though as it was a personal story rather than a idelogical one. Sisko has been a broken, troubled man since Wolf 359 and it showed and was brilliantly performed by Mr. Brooks, but it's not always the "right" thing he did but I never got the feeling the show wanted to portray it as such. While the action is without question unjustifyable it was a great character moment.
I agree that TNG's future is the one we all want (the latter series ones obviously. Nobody wants 'Code of Honour' in their future ) but the TNG crew are still aliens to my eyes. That's not to say some episodes don't really hit home (Worf almost being paralysed is one) or that all of DS9 does speak to me ('Prophet and Lace' speaks to nobody I'd imagine). But DS9 showed the ch1nks in TNG's armour, namely that whilst the Federation could build a utopia, the Breen, Borg, Dominion, Romulans, and Klingons were waiting. That I think helped the characters from DS9 because some were clearly TNG era Federation characters (Bashir, O'Brien, Dax, Worf) who all go through the same changes from TNG style DS9S1 and 2 along with the audience.
Some TOS episodes were rather light entertainment and some had some really questionable messages even considering the context they were written in. But TOS biggest moments were the plea for inclusion and cooperation in a world ready to tear itself apart. Again, the said thing is we came kinda full circle today and it's again highly relevant.
A Russian in the middle of the Cold War. Could you imagine the accusations of pandering or PC gone mad if a Middle Easterner were to lead the new show? Or worse...
...A woman!
Edit: Bloody hellfire! 'Ch1nks in the armour' is censored!? What repressed three year old wrote the bleeding filter?
Post edited by artan42 on
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
(...)
How many different ways and times do I have to spell it out? Having sympathies for an enemy group does not a legitimate military target make. I could theoretically tweet that Daesh is the bestest thing ever until the cows come home, but unless and until I actually try to fly off and join them I'm protected by the First Amendment and basic human rights.
I think not many people around here are even capable of imagining what it might be having ones home town wiped out because somewhere in the town a group of nutjobs plans and executes their criminal actions from. "We" don't live in the part where this happens, "we" only do it to others and those people truly must be fully aware that this kind of punishment comes over them because they don't leave their homes when some foreign man calls them evil.
The whole situation in DS9 illustrates these kinds of occurences rather well. It's no defense of Maquis acts to call Sisko's actions wrong. And the character of Ben Sisko also breaks slowly over these decisions he has made. It's a very well portrayed, but his actions, as with many real life parallels that can be drawn, are indefensible. I'm especially disappointed in hindsight that Worf didn't refuse to fire the torpedoes. It would have been in character to do so.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
I'm especially disappointed in hindsight that Worf didn't refuse to fire the torpedoes. It would have been in character to do so.
A case can be made either way here. Yes, it's dishonorable to fire on unarmed civilians - but it's also dishonorable to disobey a superior officer, especially since the Klingon Empire has no concept of "illegal orders". The question would then become, which is the greater dishonor?
I really wanted to see an episode in there somewhere in which Sisko had to confront what this conflict was turning him into. That would have made for epic TV, and Avery Brooks would have had an excellent time with it. Sadly, it was not to be...
(...)
How many different ways and times do I have to spell it out? Having sympathies for an enemy group does not a legitimate military target make. I could theoretically tweet that Daesh is the bestest thing ever until the cows come home, but unless and until I actually try to fly off and join them I'm protected by the First Amendment and basic human rights.
I think not many people around here are even capable of imagining what it might be having ones home town wiped out because somewhere in the town a group of nutjobs plans and executes their criminal actions from. "We" don't live in the part where this happens, "we" only do it to others and those people truly must be fully aware that this kind of punishment comes over them because they don't leave their homes when some foreign man calls them evil.
The whole situation in DS9 illustrates these kinds of occurences rather well. It's no defense of Maquis acts to call Sisko's actions wrong. And the character of Ben Sisko also breaks slowly over these decisions he has made. It's a very well portrayed, but his actions, as with many real life parallels that can be drawn, are indefensible. I'm especially disappointed in hindsight that Worf didn't refuse to fire the torpedoes. It would have been in character to do so.
Thank you. I'm glad somebody here gets it.
And yes, I would've expected Worf to refuse the order, too: the man who accepted the discommendation of his entire family rather than do something he believed dishonorable (namely going along with Gowron pulling a Dubya on the Cardassians).
"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"
especially since the Klingon Empire has no concept of "illegal orders".
illegal? no - dishonorable, yes, and the whole basis of how the klingon promotional system works is based off such a thing - if the first officer feels the captain is being dishonorable with his actions, he can (and is in fact REQUIRED to) challenge that captain for control of the ship
of course, trying that on a federation ship would've gotten worf kicked out of starfleet, but he could've at least refused without it being a stain on his honor
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.
Sisko's actions doesn't bother me in the slightest. The lack of follow up bothered me. But then again the whole Marquis plot was side-winddled into DS9 in order to set up VOY, who did an even worse job with it!
The other, character based bits of the plot still work out, Sisko's actions were in character, even Worf's were, he is scared of Sisko after all.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
well, i'd like to rant about all the idiots all mudslinging each other over the whole 'boxers vs. briefs' thing...to hell with that, i say - just run around in the fur like me
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.
Comments
I never had a horse in the "JJ-is-a-pile-of-krap-director" competition.
I truly could not care less about his hand-wavium Si-Fi nonsense.
I was simply using some Trek-Imagination-Logic to explain why Sulu said what he said in the situation given.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
hmm.. that reminds me.... ID had in one of the maps of Federation space a cryptic reference to a transwarp network...
My character Tsin'xing
like I said... a huge gap in the lore that has bugged the hell outta me
But getting back to TW... one suggestion I've heard is that it was not a radically new technology in the same way that Borg TW is, but rather an improved warp drive.
My character Tsin'xing
That doesn't matter. Sisko deliberately attacked a civilian target, end of discussion.
Consider this: what if his information on the colonists' ability to evacuate had been incorrect? That kind of sh*t happens in war. And it would mean thousands of men, women and children guilty of nothing more than expressing a political view contrary to Earth's (barmy) wishes died an agonizing death. That is an utterly reprehensible act no matter which way you slice it, and no, it doesn't matter that he got the idea from Eddington. Sisko should have been stripped of his command and dishonorably discharged right along with him.
But because the writers were more interested in making Le Miz references than in writing a sensible story, we got that BS.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
My character Tsin'xing
I'd probably call the Ent-D bridge home, yes. But I like the character depth DS9 brought whereas TNG only got there rather late.
I can't really defend early TNG. Season 1 and 2 are so full of idelogical supremacy and straight forward racism and sexism it's scary. The scripts weren't that backward in TOS in the 60s and that's saying something
However, overall we deal with a utopia. A vision of Earth (not even humans in general) surpassed petty actions and realized that unity and the betterment of all is the better way to go instead of isolation. TNGs UFP didn't need S31 and "martyrs for the cause" to prevail, it was as it was shown to us. A pacifistic society founded on cooperation and the ability to withstand disrupting elements and come out on top of every conflict it had to fight but quickly sought to end. A strong inclusive and liberal society which is completely perverted by the notion that it needs (war) criminals to prevail, at this point the whole UFP simply collapses because it is just a big lie. And I get that people dig that, it's edgy, it's "real", but it wasn't the way it was written. While S31 is still a villian in DS9, Sisko's action and the council's decision are already too late 90s grimdark in my taste. I can overlook Sisko though as it was a personal story rather than a idelogical one. Sisko has been a broken, troubled man since Wolf 359 and it showed and was brilliantly performed by Mr. Brooks, but it's not always the "right" thing he did but I never got the feeling the show wanted to portray it as such. While the action is without question unjustifyable it was a great character moment.
Some TOS episodes were rather light entertainment and some had some really questionable messages even considering the context they were written in. But TOS biggest moments were the plea for inclusion and cooperation in a world ready to tear itself apart. Again, the said thing is we came kinda full circle today and it's again highly relevant.
Because a cell operated from a colony it's suddenly not a civilian target any more? By that logic you could bomb every middle eastern city to the ground having some sort of radical element to them... oh, wait...
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Check your source again, mark. This is the entire script of the scenes in question:
Solosos III merely pledged allegiance to the Maquis. The laws of war that have been in effect since World War II, which are supposed to be obeyed by every civilized power on Earth, state that just because a civilian salutes a different flag does not give you the right to use military force against them ever: a civilian becomes a military target only if he takes up arms. And I strongly doubt that Coon and Roddenberry's Federation would have ever discarded that principle.
At least when Eddington betrayed his oaths, he did it openly.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
care to explain?
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Actually here's something to consider.... What defined whether something was a Maquis planet? I'm going with willing complicity with terrorist acts, including but not limited to, attacking Cardassian civilians.
My character Tsin'xing
When he's being the most honest person in the entire scene? You're damn straight I am, which is not a sentence I ever thought I'd utter about him. The man is a genocidal *sshole with delusions of grandeur, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.
But I don't need to rely on Eddington's word: I have Sisko's word. He explicitly chose Solosos III because it was the closest Maquis-friendly planet to his current position. If it was a military target, you'd think he would've mentioned something to that effect, like, I dunno, "Starfleet Intelligence says the Maquis have been storing inverse tachyon whatevers here": it would've made his crew more willing to comply. Which, by the way, they're just as culpable for war crimes as he is. Remind me, what's the rule about following an illegal order?
Until that episode there's no canonical evidence of Maquis attacks on civilian targets. No, not even in "The Maquis, Part II": they were after a Cardassian weapons depot. The Maquis are simply fighting a guerrilla war against two superior militaries. And if you'll recall, the whole thing started with the Cardies secretly arming their own colonists and encouraging them to start a proxy war with the Federation side. Whereas the Federation hung theirs out to dry because they were so proud of that horribly drafted treaty they'd signed with a government that was violating its obligations before the ink was dry on the original ceasefire for God's sake!
And just because your enemy starts going after civilian targets does not give you the right to reciprocate.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
My character Tsin'xing
According to Starfleet they were terrorists that were disrupting the peace and attempting to break up the Cardassian-Federation peace. They were hunted as such. carpet bombed or no, the Maquis were doomed before they started because they lacked numbers, resources and contacts
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
You're still not getting it. Even if the Federation has legalized chemical weapons use, do you know for a fact that every man, woman, and child on Solosos III was actively involved in the Maquis?
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
This is the city of Al-Raqqah, population about 220,000 as of the 2004 Syrian census. It's also the capital city of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, hereafter referred to by its Arabic acronym Daesh because they hate being called that. Daesh unambiguously is a terrorist group, and in addition is engaged in genocide, sex slavery, wanton destruction of archaeological sites, and about a million other things I haven't even begun to think about yet.
Now let's assume the winds on a given day are such that any radioactive fallout from simply dropping a tactical nuke on Al-Raqqah would be contained. This is probably meteorologically impossible, but let's assume it can be done for the sake of argument. Does the fact that Daesh is headquartered in Al-Raqqah mean we can legitimately warn them we're going to destroy the city, wait a few hours, then just drop a nuke on the place and go home?
OF COURSE IT BLOODY DOESN'T! Better than 90% of the people in that city are just folk like us trapped between a small group of complete lunatics, a government that has been caught red-handed using chemical weapons and barrel bombs on its own citizens, and coalition airstrikes. They're as much victims of this war as the people Daesh and its followers have killed in Ankara, Beirut, Paris, and San Bernardino; to just glass the city would be a horrific act.
But that's exactly what Sisko did to an entire planet whose leaders were allegiant to a far less heinous group than Daesh.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Which doesn't mean that there wasn't some harm done by displacing the colonists in question, but compared to the amount of people that would have been displaced or harmed by further Maquis use of the biogenic weapons... *shrugs* He probably made the best of a bad situation.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Maquis operated on a lot of colonies in the DMZ and had a lot of sympathizers within the colonists because they were basically abandoned by the Federation when those worlds were handed to the Cardassians, i doubt very much that the majority cared to be pawns of Cardassian rule once more and were not happy with the Federation.
I cant imagine there would be that many innocent people left in the colonies considering the border wars about 25 years before hand.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
That, too - although the 'child' bit does make it likely that there were at least some people who were caught in the crossfire without really doing anything to provoke it.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
And his entire plan relied on the ability of thousands of people to be able to drop everything and pack themselves into whatever ships were available in the TRIBBLE end of nowhere in mere hours. Never mind the morality of the situation, that is a logistically terrible plan. Sisko was very, very lucky.
How many different ways and times do I have to spell it out? Having sympathies for an enemy group does not a legitimate military target make. I could theoretically tweet that Daesh is the bestest thing ever until the cows come home, but unless and until I actually try to fly off and join them I'm protected by the First Amendment and basic human rights.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Ich entschuldige mich @dasverärgertSchwein. Fühlen Sie frei, mein Deutsche zu beheben, wenn ich jemals es sprechen.
I agree that TNG's future is the one we all want (the latter series ones obviously. Nobody wants 'Code of Honour' in their future
A Russian in the middle of the Cold War. Could you imagine the accusations of pandering or PC gone mad if a Middle Easterner were to lead the new show? Or worse...
...A woman!
Edit: Bloody hellfire! 'Ch1nks in the armour' is censored!? What repressed three year old wrote the bleeding filter?
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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I think not many people around here are even capable of imagining what it might be having ones home town wiped out because somewhere in the town a group of nutjobs plans and executes their criminal actions from. "We" don't live in the part where this happens, "we" only do it to others and those people truly must be fully aware that this kind of punishment comes over them because they don't leave their homes when some foreign man calls them evil.
The whole situation in DS9 illustrates these kinds of occurences rather well. It's no defense of Maquis acts to call Sisko's actions wrong. And the character of Ben Sisko also breaks slowly over these decisions he has made. It's a very well portrayed, but his actions, as with many real life parallels that can be drawn, are indefensible. I'm especially disappointed in hindsight that Worf didn't refuse to fire the torpedoes. It would have been in character to do so.
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I really wanted to see an episode in there somewhere in which Sisko had to confront what this conflict was turning him into. That would have made for epic TV, and Avery Brooks would have had an excellent time with it. Sadly, it was not to be...
Thank you. I'm glad somebody here gets it.
And yes, I would've expected Worf to refuse the order, too: the man who accepted the discommendation of his entire family rather than do something he believed dishonorable (namely going along with Gowron pulling a Dubya on the Cardassians).
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
illegal? no - dishonorable, yes, and the whole basis of how the klingon promotional system works is based off such a thing - if the first officer feels the captain is being dishonorable with his actions, he can (and is in fact REQUIRED to) challenge that captain for control of the ship
of course, trying that on a federation ship would've gotten worf kicked out of starfleet, but he could've at least refused without it being a stain on his honor
#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!"
Sisko's actions doesn't bother me in the slightest. The lack of follow up bothered me. But then again the whole Marquis plot was side-winddled into DS9 in order to set up VOY, who did an even worse job with it!
The other, character based bits of the plot still work out, Sisko's actions were in character, even Worf's were, he is scared of Sisko after all.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
#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!"