i was going to bring up the defiant having always had ablative armor, but...the MA page on it seems to imply that when sisko first brought the ship to DS9 for the gamma incursion mission, it DID NOT have the armor yet - the first time we actually hear about it is during way of the warrior
hell, i don't even think it had the armor during the events of defiant, the episode - because otherwise the ship should have been a more even match for those three keldons instead of being considered outgunned...the cardassians aren't exactly known for having especially strong military hardware, after all
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.
And that is extremely lousy writing to use the excuse of everything is classified to justify Discovery's existence. I am not sure what is worse, the entire season is a dream excuse or the everything is classified excuse.
The "we are going to classify it" excuse is one of the oldest in Trek. why else do you think none of the incredibly powerful stuff they discover is never mentioned or seen again?
There is a huge difference between classifying some dangerous technology and classifying an entire Starfleet ship, crew, and all of their missions so they are effectively erased from history. Classifying the Spore Drive, Discovery's trip to the Mirror Universe, and the Sphere data is consistent with Starfleet classifying dangerous technology like the Genesis Device, time travel, Iconian Gateways, Phase Cloak, etc, but not erasing people's identities just so Discovery doesn't violate TOS canon by making Discovery irrelevant to TOS.
i was going to bring up the defiant having always had ablative armor, but...the MA page on it seems to imply that when sisko first brought the ship to DS9 for the gamma incursion mission, it DID NOT have the armor yet - the first time we actually hear about it is during way of the warrior
To address both yours and Rattler's points:
1) I never said ablative armour was classified - I specifically said USS Defiant's ablative armour was classified.
2) How do either of you propose Sisko fits the Defiant with ablative armour (presumably on recommissioning, but at any rate by 'Way of the Warrior'), and keep that protection in any state of repair without someone at Starfleet Operations knowing about it? At the very least someone would notice a significant amount of this advanced, not-widely-deployed hull armour go missing and put two and two together.
3) Even if Bentine (Benteen, whichever it is) was only familiar with Defiant's specs as built... It would take any competent naval officer all of 1 minute to pull out the latest copy of Jane's and look at the capabilities of the ship in question, not even considering the fact the Defiant is on their own side. Aside from which, we know from other Star Trek episodes that the up-to-date specs for a ship can be pulled up on computer rapidly, which would logically be done as the ship engaged. QPQ, if Bentine was not made aware by her own officers or her own knowledge about the Defiant's fitment of ablative armour, then either the USS Lakota was manned by rank incompetents who shouldn't even be in charge of a garbage scow, or Defiant's armour wasn't in the general database. If she was made aware of it via the official record, then her statement of someone fitting Defiant with Ablative Armour "without notifying Starfleet Operations" doesn't make sense.
And that is extremely lousy writing to use the excuse of everything is classified to justify Discovery's existence. I am not sure what is worse, the entire season is a dream excuse or the everything is classified excuse.
The "we are going to classify it" excuse is one of the oldest in Trek. why else do you think none of the incredibly powerful stuff they discover is never mentioned or seen again?
There is a huge difference between classifying some dangerous technology and classifying an entire Starfleet ship, crew, and all of their missions so they are effectively erased from history. Classifying the Spore Drive, Discovery's trip to the Mirror Universe, and the Sphere data is consistent with Starfleet classifying dangerous technology like the Genesis Device, time travel, Iconian Gateways, Phase Cloak, etc, but not erasing people's identities just so Discovery doesn't violate TOS canon by making Discovery irrelevant to TOS.
The Royal Navy classified the loss of HMS Audacious in 1914, with most of her crew, until 1919, including the status and whereabouts of her crew (about 1000 men). Not even the families of the crew knew their loved ones had been killed until 5 years after the fact. Militaries can keep such things a secret if they need to - and there's a difference between knowing a secret and knowing that a secret is being kept.
probably the same way millions of tons of resources for a secret drydock and massive, heavily-armed black ops warship were funneled to one of saturn's moons without starfleet operations knowing about 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.
probably the same way millions of tons of resources for a secret drydock and massive, heavily-armed black ops warship were funneled to one of saturn's moons without starfleet operations knowing about it
Somehow, I don't get the impression that Sisko was the type to get Section 31's help for anything.
And that is extremely lousy writing to use the excuse of everything is classified to justify Discovery's existence. I am not sure what is worse, the entire season is a dream excuse or the everything is classified excuse.
The "we are going to classify it" excuse is one of the oldest in Trek. why else do you think none of the incredibly powerful stuff they discover is never mentioned or seen again?
There is a huge difference between classifying some dangerous technology and classifying an entire Starfleet ship, crew, and all of their missions so they are effectively erased from history. Classifying the Spore Drive, Discovery's trip to the Mirror Universe, and the Sphere data is consistent with Starfleet classifying dangerous technology like the Genesis Device, time travel, Iconian Gateways, Phase Cloak, etc, but not erasing people's identities just so Discovery doesn't violate TOS canon by making Discovery irrelevant to TOS.
The Royal Navy classified the loss of HMS Audacious in 1914, with most of her crew, until 1919, including the status and whereabouts of her crew (about 1000 men). Not even the families of the crew knew their loved ones had been killed until 5 years after the fact. Militaries can keep such things a secret if they need to - and there's a difference between knowing a secret and knowing that a secret is being kept.
Still doesn't disprove that it is lousy writing to erase all the events of a prequel to make it fit established canon.
I attribute the lack of knowledge on Benteen's part to the fact that the Defiant was a one of a kind prototype. She may have been familiar with her original specs, but not the upgraded specs when Defiant was pulled out of mothballs.
I don't even know if she had her armor when they mothballed her in the first place. She was sheved because she was overpowered and almost ripped her own nacelles off.
To me its plausible that Sisko had the ship rearmed and armored when pulling her out of mothballs. He said it himself, she wasn't perfect, but she has teeth.
As for the talk about the TOS Enterprise's phaser banks and torpedo launchers... its really hard to say. Due to when it was filmed, TOS didn't exactly have the ability to show us a lot of different angles for weapons fire. And in most cases it looked like the torpedos were firing from the same point as the phasers. When we hit the TMP era, we had more defined weapon hardpoints.
So for the phasers, I'm more inclined to believe she had similar weapon hardpoints to her TMP refit. I just really don't know where the forward launcher is. 1960s tech didn't exactly make it easy to see. Some say the torpedo launcher is on the very front of the saucer, some have it around the ventral sensor dome of the saucer... its just... really hard to determine where.
The idea of a track system for the phaser banks... it sounds like a precursor to the phaser strips in TNG. But if the TOS Connie had them... why did they switch to more static emitter banks in TMP?
And the reason the TOS Enterprise looked like she could tank everything was because they couldn't show physical damage to the model. They did with the Constellation, but that was a seperate model. As technology advanced, it would become easier to show battle damage and different angles for weapons, and less and less need to reuse stock footage.
And the Constellation STILL was able to keep on going.
probably the same way millions of tons of resources for a secret drydock and massive, heavily-armed black ops warship were funneled to one of saturn's moons without starfleet operations knowing about it
Sometimes it is easy to hide things in plain sight.
There is a huge difference between classifying some dangerous technology and classifying an entire Starfleet ship, crew, and all of their missions so they are effectively erased from history. Classifying the Spore Drive, Discovery's trip to the Mirror Universe, and the Sphere data is consistent with Starfleet classifying dangerous technology like the Genesis Device, time travel, Iconian Gateways, Phase Cloak, etc, but not erasing people's identities just so Discovery doesn't violate TOS canon by making Discovery irrelevant to TOS.
They didn't classify her entire existence. Officially Discovery was lost with all hands.
After a pitched battle with Control's forces, Burnham successfully opened the wormhole, taking Discovery through with her. Pike, his first officer Una, Spock, and acting Section 31 chief Tyler all reported to Starfleet Command that Discovery was destroyed with all hands. Spock furthermore recommended that in order to prevent such incidents with Section 31 from happening again, that all participants in the event were to be barred from talking about Discovery, her crew, or her spore drive under penalty of treason. (DIS: "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2")
All they had to do was wait for everyone with knowledge of the events and her Spore Drive to die of old age, and lock the data about the Spore Drive away. As far as the Galaxy was concerned, USS Discovery was destroyed.
I attribute the lack of knowledge on Benteen's part to the fact that the Defiant was a one of a kind prototype. She may have been familiar with her original specs, but not the upgraded specs when Defiant was pulled out of mothballs.
I don't even know if she had her armor when they mothballed her in the first place. She was sheved because she was overpowered and almost ripped her own nacelles off.
To me its plausible that Sisko had the ship rearmed and armored when pulling her out of mothballs. He said it himself, she wasn't perfect, but she has teeth.
As for the talk about the TOS Enterprise's phaser banks and torpedo launchers... its really hard to say. Due to when it was filmed, TOS didn't exactly have the ability to show us a lot of different angles for weapons fire. And in most cases it looked like the torpedos were firing from the same point as the phasers. When we hit the TMP era, we had more defined weapon hardpoints.
So for the phasers, I'm more inclined to believe she had similar weapon hardpoints to her TMP refit. I just really don't know where the forward launcher is. 1960s tech didn't exactly make it easy to see. Some say the torpedo launcher is on the very front of the saucer, some have it around the ventral sensor dome of the saucer... its just... really hard to determine where.
The idea of a track system for the phaser banks... it sounds like a precursor to the phaser strips in TNG. But if the TOS Connie had them... why did they switch to more static emitter banks in TMP?
And the reason the TOS Enterprise looked like she could tank everything was because they couldn't show physical damage to the model. They did with the Constellation, but that was a seperate model. As technology advanced, it would become easier to show battle damage and different angles for weapons, and less and less need to reuse stock footage.
If the TOS Enterprise had the same hardpoints as the TMP refit then it would have fired phasers from the rim of the saucer the same way the TMP ship did.
Also, the TOS phasers (in beam mode) were shown coming from the front of the sensor dome ring (about 1 o'clock and 11 o'clock) while the photon torpedoes (and proximity bolts) were shown coming from further back, on either side of the ring at around 3 and 9 o'clock positions. Technically they probably should have been higher (there were small, shallow indents in the AMT version of the ship just above the ring that were identified as the torpedo tube locations, though I am not sure the big model had them).
The torpedo thing is complicated by the fact that for budget reasons they had to use the same visuals for both the bolt-mode phasers and the torpedoes, but at 3 and 9 position combined with the distance and the low-res TV screens that double use is reasonable if the phasers are on the ring and the tubes just above them on the main part of the hull.
The not being able to show damage thing is true enough, but the fact is that according to dialog they did not have big holes blown in the hull they way the DSC version does. If you listen carefully to Uhura during some of the battle scenes she dispatches damage control teams into breached areas right away, which is reasonable for small holes but not if there were holes that a person could get thrown out of the ship through.
Technically, Klingon disruptors should have cleared fairly large patches of the ceramic coating with the creeping disintegration effect when the shields went down and the tritanium armor caught the bolts so the brass-colored armor showed though, but that would not have been economically feasible with the cost of special effects in the '60s since it would mean less reusability of the shots. Any holes in the armor and pressure hull underneath would probably have been too small to see at the 480i resolution of the TV at the time even with a perfect signal had they chosen to try and show them anyway.
There is a huge difference between classifying some dangerous technology and classifying an entire Starfleet ship, crew, and all of their missions so they are effectively erased from history. Classifying the Spore Drive, Discovery's trip to the Mirror Universe, and the Sphere data is consistent with Starfleet classifying dangerous technology like the Genesis Device, time travel, Iconian Gateways, Phase Cloak, etc, but not erasing people's identities just so Discovery doesn't violate TOS canon by making Discovery irrelevant to TOS.
They didn't classify her entire existence. Officially Discovery was lost with all hands.
After a pitched battle with Control's forces, Burnham successfully opened the wormhole, taking Discovery through with her. Pike, his first officer Una, Spock, and acting Section 31 chief Tyler all reported to Starfleet Command that Discovery was destroyed with all hands. Spock furthermore recommended that in order to prevent such incidents with Section 31 from happening again, that all participants in the event were to be barred from talking about Discovery, her crew, or her spore drive under penalty of treason. (DIS: "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2")
All they had to do was wait for everyone with knowledge of the events and her Spore Drive to die of old age, and lock the data about the Spore Drive away. As far as the Galaxy was concerned, USS Discovery was destroyed.
Section 31 wasn't the problem with Discovery's classification, but time travel. "Regulation 157 Section 3 requires Starfleet Officers to abstain from participating in historical events. Any residual trace or knowledge of Discovery's data or the Time Suit offers a foothold for those who might not see how critical, how deeply critical, that directive is. Therefore, to insure the Federation never finds itself facing the same danger, all officers remaining with knowledge of these events must be ordered to never speak of Discovery, its spore drive, or her crew again under penalty of treason." As far as the Galaxy was concerned, the USS Discovery wasn't destroyed, but never existed by being erased from history. Of course, it is possible that Starfleet never used Spock's suggestion since it was taken under advisement and not an order by an Admiral or some other high-ranking Starfleet officer.
If they were only classifying the Spore Drive, Time Suit, Red Angel, Sphere Data, Mirror Universe, and Control, then there is no need to classify the existence of Discovery and her crew. Just create some false reports about Discovery and her crew that removes any evidence about everything that is classified and have Discovery being destroyed by some run-of-the-mill spatial anomaly. Being unable to even speak about the existence of Discovery and her crew under penalty of treason is overkill.
If they were only classifying the Spore Drive, Time Suit, Red Angel, Sphere Data, Mirror Universe, and Control, then there is no need to classify the existence of Discovery and her crew. Just create some false reports about Discovery and her crew that removes any evidence about everything that is classified and have Discovery being destroyed by some run-of-the-mill spatial anomaly. Being unable to even speak about the existence of Discovery and her crew under penalty of treason is overkill.
They DID create a false report though. They reported Discovery as destroyed, I believe citing an accident. Spock suggesting they bury it under treason threat was just to ensure that nothing gets out. Overkill perhaps, but considering Discovery had data that could very well change the galaxy... probably justified to make sure that no one tries to go looking for her.
If they reported that Discovery was still intact somewhere in time and space... then someone would go looking for her. Might not be right then, but eventually. So... again, as far as the galaxy is concerned, Discovery is nothing more than debris scattered across a sector. AND technically speaking... they do have debris to confirm that. The wreckage of ISS Discovery, which apparently was close enough to USS Discovery to misidentify during the war.
There was no mention of the time suit, Red Angel, or Sphere Data. And the only evidence of the Mirror Universe (Georgiou and actual sensor data from the MU) left with Discovery.
Let me respond with another question - what happened in Roswell, NM, in 1947?
Did anything actually happen in Roswell, NM, in 1947?
How can you prove your answer to be correct? What are your official sources? What actual data do you have regarding events, if any? And how much is still hidden behind a fog of Cold War security classification?
If we go by STO, Discovery's Spore Drive was revealed in 2412, well over a hundred years. And only because J'ula had a Mycelial based weapon. However as far as I'm aware, in Canon the Spore Drive was never revealed after Discovery "was destroyed".
The Mirror Universe was encountered again during Kirk's time as Captain of the Enterprise, which revealed that element, but it was still relatively classified up into DS9 in the 2370s.
Even if the Spore Drive was revealed... it was probably put next to other failed technologies like Genesis and Excelsior's Transwarp Drive.
The main reason to classify Discovery's activities was to keep the Sphere Data out of the wrong hands. So... better to report the ship, and by proxy the data, lost.
Let me respond with another question - what happened in Roswell, NM, in 1947?
Did anything actually happen in Roswell, NM, in 1947?
How can you prove your answer to be correct? What are your official sources? What actual data do you have regarding events, if any? And how much is still hidden behind a fog of Cold War security classification?
Everyone knows something happened at Roswell even if no one know what it was for sure. Coverups and iron fisted classification tends to draw more attention to something instead of making people forget about it. And in the case of a technology like the spore drive, if any hint of that got into the conspiracy theories then people would tend to research it and could possibly come up with something like J'Ula's weapon or worse just from fumbling around in the dark.
As to what actually happened at Roswell, one of the theories that make the most sense is that it was some kind of nuclear materials air shipment that went wrong and ended up jettisoned or whatever. It could have even been a lost atomic bomb, without being armed all it would do on impact would be to smash apart.
The strange 'alien' cloth could have been the teflon sheeting that was used to pack nuclear materials at the time, it can actually do the spread out on the table without a wrinkle trick reported by witnesses, and radiation from a broken container or ruptured bomb could explain the burns and sickness some of the people had. We will probably never know for sure, but the incident, while classified was far from quiet, and the Discovery exploits would be much the same.
that was nukes built during the height of the cold war - specifically american nukes; they didn't have the safety features they did back in 1947, so even an unarmed one might still have exploded - or at least scattered large amounts of radioactive materal all over the desert...and soviet ones didn't have much of any regardless
that's why in the movie Atomic Train, they were so worried about the train derailing, not just because of the massive amount of hazardous materials aboard, but also because there was a cold war-era soviet nuke aboard which could have easily exploded on impact...which it didn't - it exploded because of an idiot in a helicopter dropping water all over leaking sodium metal
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.
There are an alarming number of nuclear weapons accidents from the Cold War which were declassified recently. I believe at least two bombs accidentally fell out of their aircraft (not in the same incident) over the States. I'm sure @jonsills will be able to correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe in one case the bomb had actually managed to arm itself on impact.
The culture around nuclear weapons safety at times was scary.
In fact, Roswell may have been completely uneventful in 1947. "Everyone knows" lots of things that just aren't so. Hell, I've been dealing with folks who tell me "everyone knows" the President of the United States can launch nukes anywhere he wants without being overridden by anybody (only true at DefCon 1, when nuclear attack from another source is imminent; anything lower goes through the Joint Chiefs for verification before orders are issued).
Based on what little information I have been able to scrape together, I suspect that something did happen, and that it had to do with a failed test-launch of an early spacecraft (the descriptions in some witness testimony of the "aliens", for instance, is a pretty fair match for the test dummies used at the time). However, I cannot prove any of it, because even the question of whether or not an incident occurred is classified.
The incident Ryan refers to would appear to be the 1961 crash of a B-52 in Goldsboro, NC. Two nuclear bombs fell out; one was found intact, with all but one of its six arming switches active, and only that last switch and the arm/safe switch preventing detonation. The second disintegrated on impact - fortunately, as Lt. Jack ReVelle, the bomb-disposal tech called in, wrote:
Until my death I will never forget hearing my sergeant say, "Lieutenant, we found the arm/safe switch." And I said, "Great." He said, "Not great. It's on arm."
In fact, Roswell may have been completely uneventful in 1947. "Everyone knows" lots of things that just aren't so. Hell, I've been dealing with folks who tell me "everyone knows" the President of the United States can launch nukes anywhere he wants without being overridden by anybody (only true at DefCon 1, when nuclear attack from another source is imminent; anything lower goes through the Joint Chiefs for verification before orders are issued).
Based on what little information I have been able to scrape together, I suspect that something did happen, and that it had to do with a failed test-launch of an early spacecraft (the descriptions in some witness testimony of the "aliens", for instance, is a pretty fair match for the test dummies used at the time). However, I cannot prove any of it, because even the question of whether or not an incident occurred is classified.
The incident Ryan refers to would appear to be the 1961 crash of a B-52 in Goldsboro, NC. Two nuclear bombs fell out; one was found intact, with all but one of its six arming switches active, and only that last switch and the arm/safe switch preventing detonation. The second disintegrated on impact - fortunately, as Lt. Jack ReVelle, the bomb-disposal tech called in, wrote:
Until my death I will never forget hearing my sergeant say, "Lieutenant, we found the arm/safe switch." And I said, "Great." He said, "Not great. It's on arm."
That sounds right, it was definitely North Carolina where the incident occurred.
I read an interesting short story years ago where Roswell was a bunch of time travelers that went back in time to see what Roswell was about. If I remember correctly, the time travel machines crashed into each other which resulted in the 'alien debris.'
In fact, Roswell may have been completely uneventful in 1947. "Everyone knows" lots of things that just aren't so. Hell, I've been dealing with folks who tell me "everyone knows" the President of the United States can launch nukes anywhere he wants without being overridden by anybody (only true at DefCon 1, when nuclear attack from another source is imminent; anything lower goes through the Joint Chiefs for verification before orders are issued).
Based on what little information I have been able to scrape together, I suspect that something did happen, and that it had to do with a failed test-launch of an early spacecraft (the descriptions in some witness testimony of the "aliens", for instance, is a pretty fair match for the test dummies used at the time). However, I cannot prove any of it, because even the question of whether or not an incident occurred is classified.
The incident Ryan refers to would appear to be the 1961 crash of a B-52 in Goldsboro, NC. Two nuclear bombs fell out; one was found intact, with all but one of its six arming switches active, and only that last switch and the arm/safe switch preventing detonation. The second disintegrated on impact - fortunately, as Lt. Jack ReVelle, the bomb-disposal tech called in, wrote:
Until my death I will never forget hearing my sergeant say, "Lieutenant, we found the arm/safe switch." And I said, "Great." He said, "Not great. It's on arm."
Addendum: I should have noted (as the time gap is germane to the conversation) that this was all revealed in 2013, fifty-two years after the events. Prior to that, it was known that a B-52 had crashed there (hard to hide that sort of thing) and that the USAF had purchased part of the land it fell on and sequestered it, but that was all.
Having a starship be lost with all hands during an interstellar war would be nothing unusual; as the very existence of the DASH system was highly classified at the time (and regarded as a failure, as the only two ships to use it were indeed lost with all hands, rather gruesomely in the case of the Glenn), locking mycelial tech away in an archive somewhere like the box with the Ark at the end of Raiders and leaving everyone unaware of its existence would be not only possible, but easy. The only reason we've learned about it two centuries later is because of J'Ula and her little toy.
The Glenn incident is obviously an analogy to the USS Eldritch from the nearly as infamous conspiracy theory about the Philadelphia Project. As I said before though it is impossible to keep a lid on something like that (even if it is a hoax) so the thing the do in the real world is cover it with disinformation instead of trying to lock it away like it never happened.
In the case of DASH, the more realistic thing to have done would have been to simply omit details like the spores and tardigrade from the official regular "classified" record overview and instead say that it was some form of experimental quantum slipstream drive that proved to be unstable and impractical or simply didn't work. There could be a superclassified record behind that one with the real information or they could have erased it and made it living memory only with no written version.
The spinning hull sections could even be used to throw people off the scent by saying (in the false record) that they were spinning duranium with a complex warp field enhanced charge to cause the quantum breach (charged duranium can be used for gravity plating in a pinch according to Neelix, and was possibly what polarizing the armor was all about in ENT) and start "surfing" the slipstream.
Anyone who got wind of it (and no security is perfect) could waste gobs of time trying to get it work, to no avail. And the best part is the tin-foil hat crowd would help bury it under mounts of utter nonsense as they tried to apply their own crazy theories to it.
Comments
hell, i don't even think it had the armor during the events of defiant, the episode - because otherwise the ship should have been a more even match for those three keldons instead of being considered outgunned...the cardassians aren't exactly known for having especially strong military hardware, after all
#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!"
There is a huge difference between classifying some dangerous technology and classifying an entire Starfleet ship, crew, and all of their missions so they are effectively erased from history. Classifying the Spore Drive, Discovery's trip to the Mirror Universe, and the Sphere data is consistent with Starfleet classifying dangerous technology like the Genesis Device, time travel, Iconian Gateways, Phase Cloak, etc, but not erasing people's identities just so Discovery doesn't violate TOS canon by making Discovery irrelevant to TOS.
To address both yours and Rattler's points:
1) I never said ablative armour was classified - I specifically said USS Defiant's ablative armour was classified.
2) How do either of you propose Sisko fits the Defiant with ablative armour (presumably on recommissioning, but at any rate by 'Way of the Warrior'), and keep that protection in any state of repair without someone at Starfleet Operations knowing about it? At the very least someone would notice a significant amount of this advanced, not-widely-deployed hull armour go missing and put two and two together.
3) Even if Bentine (Benteen, whichever it is) was only familiar with Defiant's specs as built... It would take any competent naval officer all of 1 minute to pull out the latest copy of Jane's and look at the capabilities of the ship in question, not even considering the fact the Defiant is on their own side. Aside from which, we know from other Star Trek episodes that the up-to-date specs for a ship can be pulled up on computer rapidly, which would logically be done as the ship engaged. QPQ, if Bentine was not made aware by her own officers or her own knowledge about the Defiant's fitment of ablative armour, then either the USS Lakota was manned by rank incompetents who shouldn't even be in charge of a garbage scow, or Defiant's armour wasn't in the general database. If she was made aware of it via the official record, then her statement of someone fitting Defiant with Ablative Armour "without notifying Starfleet Operations" doesn't make sense.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
The Royal Navy classified the loss of HMS Audacious in 1914, with most of her crew, until 1919, including the status and whereabouts of her crew (about 1000 men). Not even the families of the crew knew their loved ones had been killed until 5 years after the fact. Militaries can keep such things a secret if they need to - and there's a difference between knowing a secret and knowing that a secret is being kept.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
#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!"
Somehow, I don't get the impression that Sisko was the type to get Section 31's help for anything.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
Still doesn't disprove that it is lousy writing to erase all the events of a prequel to make it fit established canon.
And the Constellation STILL was able to keep on going.
Ahhh, TOS ROCKS!
Sometimes it is easy to hide things in plain sight.
They didn't classify her entire existence. Officially Discovery was lost with all hands.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Discovery
All they had to do was wait for everyone with knowledge of the events and her Spore Drive to die of old age, and lock the data about the Spore Drive away. As far as the Galaxy was concerned, USS Discovery was destroyed.
If the TOS Enterprise had the same hardpoints as the TMP refit then it would have fired phasers from the rim of the saucer the same way the TMP ship did.
Also, the TOS phasers (in beam mode) were shown coming from the front of the sensor dome ring (about 1 o'clock and 11 o'clock) while the photon torpedoes (and proximity bolts) were shown coming from further back, on either side of the ring at around 3 and 9 o'clock positions. Technically they probably should have been higher (there were small, shallow indents in the AMT version of the ship just above the ring that were identified as the torpedo tube locations, though I am not sure the big model had them).
The torpedo thing is complicated by the fact that for budget reasons they had to use the same visuals for both the bolt-mode phasers and the torpedoes, but at 3 and 9 position combined with the distance and the low-res TV screens that double use is reasonable if the phasers are on the ring and the tubes just above them on the main part of the hull.
The not being able to show damage thing is true enough, but the fact is that according to dialog they did not have big holes blown in the hull they way the DSC version does. If you listen carefully to Uhura during some of the battle scenes she dispatches damage control teams into breached areas right away, which is reasonable for small holes but not if there were holes that a person could get thrown out of the ship through.
Technically, Klingon disruptors should have cleared fairly large patches of the ceramic coating with the creeping disintegration effect when the shields went down and the tritanium armor caught the bolts so the brass-colored armor showed though, but that would not have been economically feasible with the cost of special effects in the '60s since it would mean less reusability of the shots. Any holes in the armor and pressure hull underneath would probably have been too small to see at the 480i resolution of the TV at the time even with a perfect signal had they chosen to try and show them anyway.
Section 31 wasn't the problem with Discovery's classification, but time travel. "Regulation 157 Section 3 requires Starfleet Officers to abstain from participating in historical events. Any residual trace or knowledge of Discovery's data or the Time Suit offers a foothold for those who might not see how critical, how deeply critical, that directive is. Therefore, to insure the Federation never finds itself facing the same danger, all officers remaining with knowledge of these events must be ordered to never speak of Discovery, its spore drive, or her crew again under penalty of treason." As far as the Galaxy was concerned, the USS Discovery wasn't destroyed, but never existed by being erased from history. Of course, it is possible that Starfleet never used Spock's suggestion since it was taken under advisement and not an order by an Admiral or some other high-ranking Starfleet officer.
If they were only classifying the Spore Drive, Time Suit, Red Angel, Sphere Data, Mirror Universe, and Control, then there is no need to classify the existence of Discovery and her crew. Just create some false reports about Discovery and her crew that removes any evidence about everything that is classified and have Discovery being destroyed by some run-of-the-mill spatial anomaly. Being unable to even speak about the existence of Discovery and her crew under penalty of treason is overkill.
They DID create a false report though. They reported Discovery as destroyed, I believe citing an accident. Spock suggesting they bury it under treason threat was just to ensure that nothing gets out. Overkill perhaps, but considering Discovery had data that could very well change the galaxy... probably justified to make sure that no one tries to go looking for her.
If they reported that Discovery was still intact somewhere in time and space... then someone would go looking for her. Might not be right then, but eventually. So... again, as far as the galaxy is concerned, Discovery is nothing more than debris scattered across a sector. AND technically speaking... they do have debris to confirm that. The wreckage of ISS Discovery, which apparently was close enough to USS Discovery to misidentify during the war.
There was no mention of the time suit, Red Angel, or Sphere Data. And the only evidence of the Mirror Universe (Georgiou and actual sensor data from the MU) left with Discovery.
Let me respond with another question - what happened in Roswell, NM, in 1947?
Did anything actually happen in Roswell, NM, in 1947?
How can you prove your answer to be correct? What are your official sources? What actual data do you have regarding events, if any? And how much is still hidden behind a fog of Cold War security classification?
The Mirror Universe was encountered again during Kirk's time as Captain of the Enterprise, which revealed that element, but it was still relatively classified up into DS9 in the 2370s.
Even if the Spore Drive was revealed... it was probably put next to other failed technologies like Genesis and Excelsior's Transwarp Drive.
The main reason to classify Discovery's activities was to keep the Sphere Data out of the wrong hands. So... better to report the ship, and by proxy the data, lost.
Everyone knows something happened at Roswell even if no one know what it was for sure. Coverups and iron fisted classification tends to draw more attention to something instead of making people forget about it. And in the case of a technology like the spore drive, if any hint of that got into the conspiracy theories then people would tend to research it and could possibly come up with something like J'Ula's weapon or worse just from fumbling around in the dark.
As to what actually happened at Roswell, one of the theories that make the most sense is that it was some kind of nuclear materials air shipment that went wrong and ended up jettisoned or whatever. It could have even been a lost atomic bomb, without being armed all it would do on impact would be to smash apart.
The strange 'alien' cloth could have been the teflon sheeting that was used to pack nuclear materials at the time, it can actually do the spread out on the table without a wrinkle trick reported by witnesses, and radiation from a broken container or ruptured bomb could explain the burns and sickness some of the people had. We will probably never know for sure, but the incident, while classified was far from quiet, and the Discovery exploits would be much the same.
that's why in the movie Atomic Train, they were so worried about the train derailing, not just because of the massive amount of hazardous materials aboard, but also because there was a cold war-era soviet nuke aboard which could have easily exploded on impact...which it didn't - it exploded because of an idiot in a helicopter dropping water all over leaking sodium metal
#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!"
The culture around nuclear weapons safety at times was scary.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
Based on what little information I have been able to scrape together, I suspect that something did happen, and that it had to do with a failed test-launch of an early spacecraft (the descriptions in some witness testimony of the "aliens", for instance, is a pretty fair match for the test dummies used at the time). However, I cannot prove any of it, because even the question of whether or not an incident occurred is classified.
The incident Ryan refers to would appear to be the 1961 crash of a B-52 in Goldsboro, NC. Two nuclear bombs fell out; one was found intact, with all but one of its six arming switches active, and only that last switch and the arm/safe switch preventing detonation. The second disintegrated on impact - fortunately, as Lt. Jack ReVelle, the bomb-disposal tech called in, wrote:
That sounds right, it was definitely North Carolina where the incident occurred.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
Having a starship be lost with all hands during an interstellar war would be nothing unusual; as the very existence of the DASH system was highly classified at the time (and regarded as a failure, as the only two ships to use it were indeed lost with all hands, rather gruesomely in the case of the Glenn), locking mycelial tech away in an archive somewhere like the box with the Ark at the end of Raiders and leaving everyone unaware of its existence would be not only possible, but easy. The only reason we've learned about it two centuries later is because of J'Ula and her little toy.
In the case of DASH, the more realistic thing to have done would have been to simply omit details like the spores and tardigrade from the official regular "classified" record overview and instead say that it was some form of experimental quantum slipstream drive that proved to be unstable and impractical or simply didn't work. There could be a superclassified record behind that one with the real information or they could have erased it and made it living memory only with no written version.
The spinning hull sections could even be used to throw people off the scent by saying (in the false record) that they were spinning duranium with a complex warp field enhanced charge to cause the quantum breach (charged duranium can be used for gravity plating in a pinch according to Neelix, and was possibly what polarizing the armor was all about in ENT) and start "surfing" the slipstream.
Anyone who got wind of it (and no security is perfect) could waste gobs of time trying to get it work, to no avail. And the best part is the tin-foil hat crowd would help bury it under mounts of utter nonsense as they tried to apply their own crazy theories to it.