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The General Star Trek Thread of Earl Grey Tea, Baseball, and KHHHAAAANNNN
- Thread starter The Librarian
- Start date
Why is it that Romulans can freely move about in the neutral zone but if a Federation ship enters it they go apeshit and attack it?
And while we are at it why would the Federation agree to a banning of cloaking device when Romulans have had it for ages. Besides anytime Federation wants a cloaked ship they just give Qo'noS a call anyway since the Klingons have had it for ages too.
And while we are at it why would the Federation agree to a banning of cloaking device when Romulans have had it for ages. Besides anytime Federation wants a cloaked ship they just give Qo'noS a call anyway since the Klingons have had it for ages too.
Stallion Dan
Member
Neither are allowed in the neutral zone, Roms don't get caught because they are usually cloaked.
Part of the treaty with the Romulans to keep peace was that the federation would not develop nor use cloaking devices on their ships.
Stallion Dan
Member
Either side entering without advanced warning and good cause is a act of war. The feds not gonna try start war over it though if they don't have to, meanwhile Roms kick up a fuss to get a 1-up on feds.
The Romulan cloak was invented in the TOS era, back when the Federation and Klingons were in a cold war, and the Klingons didn't have cloak yet. Kirk/Spock stole the Romulan one and the Federation reverse-engineered it, which started an arms race. A peace treaty was eventually signed, and as part of the treaty the Federation agreed to give back the stolen cloak. Since the Federation had reverse-engineered it and they couldn't put the genie back into the bottle, they agreed to a total ban on cloaking technology. It was a concession made at a bargaining table, and the Federation seemed pretty satisfied with the result.
Romulan ships were encroaching on the border because hawks in their leadership wanted to provoke a new war with the Federation. They don't want to simply break the treaty and start a war, they want to provoke the Federation into being the ones to break the treaty. If a Federation ship is seen in the Neutral Zone, the Romulans can confront it and declare war, handwaving away their own presence in the Zone as a response to the illegal Federation incursion. If a Romulan ship is discovered in the Neutral Zone, the Federation tries to shoo it back into Romulan space so they can pretend they never saw it, because the Federation doesn't want war with the Romulans.
funkystudent
Member
If the federation are not allowed cloaks then what cool shit are the Romulans not allowed do in return?
I hear galactic domination is pretty cool.
funkystudent
Member
Ya know. Now that I think about it Trek never really went deep on the Romulans like they did with Klingons and Vulcans
I bet that would be some nice empty space in Trek Lore for Discovery to fill if they wanted.
I think there is some exsiting timeline stuff that would need to be hand waved away but whatever. I am sure Memory Alpha will get over it.
I bet that would be some nice empty space in Trek Lore for Discovery to fill if they wanted.
I think there is some exsiting timeline stuff that would need to be hand waved away but whatever. I am sure Memory Alpha will get over it.
Henchmen21
Banned
They could have if Nemesis didn't suck so much
weemadarthur
Member
Continue their probable takeover of Federation territory. The feds were going to lose that war, so they made more concessions than the other side.
funkystudent
Member
Now that I think about it, if the feds where banned from using cloaking devices that means they probably had made working ones.
God damn it why did Enterprise have to die. So much cool shit could have happened.
God damn it why did Enterprise have to die. So much cool shit could have happened.
It doesn't have to be an equal trade of both sides agreeing to handicap themselves technologically, leaving themselves at the mercy of their neighbors. It was the resolution of grievances that were being aired during peace talks.
Federation: We want peace.
Romulus: You stole our cloaking device!
Federation: How about if we give it back to you?
Romulus: You looked at it. You can never un-look at it. You already made ten copies.
Federation: How about if we destroy those copies, and promise to not make any more. Us making another cloaking device would be a treaty violation.
Romulus: Hmmm, yeah, I suppose that would do it...
Cloaking devices aren't really the Federation's style. These guys march around in brightly-colored dress uniforms and wave the Federation flag wherever they go. They like peace treaties. They're not really into sneak attacks. Denying themselves cloaking technology gives them a chance to spend their resources on other things, like powerful sensors designed to detect cloaked ships.
It was a good deal for the Federation, and a couple decades later it was the Romulans (who believe in infinite expansion for their Empire) who found themselves wanting to find a face-saving way to get out of the treaty.
TOS said that pre-TOS, the Federation had explored cloaking technology, but the power requirements were immense, leaving nothing for other essential ship functions like weapons or mobility. After the Romulans figured out how to make it work, Kirk/Spock stole one and Scotty got it hooked up on the Enterprise in a matter of minutes. Then they sent it to Starfleet for reverse-engineering.
The treaty happened after TOS.
Not to mention subverting the entire ethos of Trek, to seek out new life and new civilizations... but fuck all that, gotta save the crew from depressing reunion parties and Tuvix getting some hereditary disease that was coming to him anyway.
And they made her Admiral.
Btw, are we to believe that Federation and the rest didn't know of the Trill until Odan, despite the fact that Curzon was a Federation ambassador long before that and mentored Sisko in the past as well. I guess it's just one of those things that get retconned, like the Trill ridges being replaced with spots.
This is what I don't understand though, they can handwave their presence by claiming Federation is the aggressor in the neutral zone. But why can't the Federation say the same? They know Romulans do not want to be the aggressor so if the Federation simply claim that the Romulans are making an aggressive move (especially when Romulan ships are discovered first by Federation in Neutral zone), then they will just go away. Also I don't think I ever really remember seeing Romulus outside of those two episodes with Spock in TNG where they spend half of the time in a cave when in Romulus.
This is what I don't understand though, they can handwave their presence by claiming Federation is the aggressor in the neutral zone. But why can't the Federation say the same? They know Romulans do not want to be the aggressor so if the Federation simply claim that the Romulans are making an aggressive move (especially when Romulan ships are discovered first by Federation in Neutral zone), then they will just go away. Also I don't think I ever really remember seeing Romulus outside of those two episodes with Spock in TNG where they spend half of the time in a cave when in Romulus.
Because the Federation doesn't want to accept that they're looking at treaty violations. This enables the Romulans to essentially walk all over the Federation (to an extent).
If the Romulans see the Federation inside the Neutral Zone, they can shout "Treaty violation! Our truce is broken. We're allowed to go to war now and it's all your fault. We have sworn statements and corroborating evidence."
If the Federation sees Romulans inside the Neutral Zone, they could shout "Treaty violation!", but they don't want to do that, because they see open war with Romulus as a very bad thing. Romulus is putting effort into trying to break the treaty (without being seen to be breaking the treaty, and cloaking technology helps with that kind of sneakiness), while the Federation is making efforts to keep the treaty in place.
Anything the Romulans do inside the Neutral Zone will be "painted" by Romulan spin doctors in the most positive light possible, while anything the Federation does in there will be painted by those same Romulan spin doctors in the most negative light possible. That means that the Federation has to walk on eggshells and be very careful about how they are perceived. And over on the Federation side of the border, Federation spin doctors will allow a shadow to fall over sketchy Romulan activity, while they record and document everything that they themselves do, to make sure they have abundant info to disprove any false claims.
The same way Russia can keep buzzing countries with bombers but if we were to retaliate they'd kick up a major fuss to try and extort some favourable conditions. Or think back to what happened with Georgia and Assetia. It's not rocket science.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
If Voyager was just a normal show it would have been "okay". It just got stuck with the albatross of being a Lost in Space "homage" and it never did anything good with that.
maybe federation didn't even realize they were the same species
trials and Tribble-ations said:
TheSecondSpitter
Member
Not sure why producers didn't just give DS9 Trills a different name, especially since they followed none of the TNG Trills background info.
And they were on Earth as far back as when McCoy was in pre-med school, as one of the Dax hosts got jiggy with him.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Easy to lose track of all those T-Races.maybe federation didn't even realize they were the same species
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Wasn't even really a depressing reunion. Everyone seemed to have happy lives. Janeway screwing with time was for nothing more than to try and assuage her own guilt about a few members of the crew she actually cared about.
Stallion Dan
Member
Watched the Voyager episode with Kes travelling backwards in time.
We see three Ocampa babies in this, one fully Ocampa, one half Ocampa, and one quarter Ocampa. Kes, her daughter and grandson.
They all have human ears!!!
Also it must really suck knowing they got erased from the timeline, in fact Kes seemed to be ok with this, since.at the end she didn't try getting closer to Tom and seemed ok with him and B'Elenna getting closer, unless she was planning to stay quiet on when B'Elenna dies in which case she's ruthless.
We see three Ocampa babies in this, one fully Ocampa, one half Ocampa, and one quarter Ocampa. Kes, her daughter and grandson.
They all have human ears!!!
Also it must really suck knowing they got erased from the timeline, in fact Kes seemed to be ok with this, since.at the end she didn't try getting closer to Tom and seemed ok with him and B'Elenna getting closer, unless she was planning to stay quiet on when B'Elenna dies in which case she's ruthless.
I'm pretty sure the Trill were a well known species (in-universe) before the TNG episode, and the Trill in that episode was a federation ambassador for them. The fact that they had symbiotes was news, but otherwise they were established members of the federation. I don't think that conflicts with anything we learn about Dax.
The ridges vs. spots though, that's obviously retcon.
HappenstanceUK
Member
I need to try and find the review of Endgame where the writer talks about how while it is a terrible story/finale, its the right kind of terrible story with Janeway acting completely in character with her history of bad decisions and stubbornness. It kind of made me feel better about the finale.
JonnyDBrit
Member
So, I'm up to the Romulan missions in the Federation campaign for STO. They've pretty much completely revamped these... and seemingly have forgotten along the way that the whole
thing was supposed to be this big reveal. Nobody reacts to the
being brought up in casual conversation as something strange, or you know, warranting further question.
Iconian
Iconians
The Hamburglar
Banned
Why did Beverly never crush Picards balls? I feel sorry fo him.
Henchmen21
Banned
I know you're trying to go for the joke but to be serious for a second, it's why I prefer Pulaski over Crusher. Pulaski wasn't afraid of going one-to-one with Picard if she felt she had to. Crusher was way too weak (except once in the episode "Ethics" from season 5. The only time I saw Crusher actually have some balls and that was against a guest character)
I think it was implied that maybe she did have sex with Picard when they were younger, before she chose Jack Crusher (or maybe they didn't, whatever). In their older age, with Jack Crusher out of the picture, they had the option of doing it, but they're older and they don't need sex as badly as horny teenagers do, and they didn't want to complicate their relationship and risk screwing up what they already had with each other.
No need to feel sorry for Picard. He has plenty of options to get it on with the ladies. If he wanted to have sex with Beverly and he made the first move, there seems to be pretty good odds that she'd be agreeable.
The Hamburglar
Banned
as a character pulaksi was far better. was there any reason why we got her for one series and bev disappeared then came back? Was crusher meant to be alternative T&A to troi?
Crusher was basically an afterthought in the character development department (apparently she was mostly just "Wesley's mom" initially and became the CMO to save a character) and it shows. I've never found a good explanation for why the execs didn't want her back, but the move to Pulaski makes me think that they were trying to recapture some Bones McCoy magic, especially regarding her attitudes to Data (the Spock surrogate.)
It never really washed for me, though. McCoy's comments would come up as straight-up bigotry if not for the fact that he and Spock verbally spar (Spock gets plenty of times to give as good as he got) and they actually care for each other. Data cannot trade blows, so Pulaski's "you're not a real boy" schtick comes off as bullying, even if I see her point.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Gates Macfadden quit or was fired after season 1, and Muldar didn't want to come back after season 2, at which point the behind the scenes staff changed and Macfadden came back.
I actually like Pulaski as well, even if she was basically just a clone of Bones.
The Hamburglar
Banned
One thing that pisses me off about Picard is the amount of times some gobbers fire on the enterprise and he just sits there not even fighting back.
Hasn't it been heavily implied that there one of the producers was being... Sexually inappropriate. And when he left she returned?
There's also the fact that Spock was actively rejecting emotion in favor of logic, while following the ancient traditions of his people, who had all made the same choice.
Meanwhile, Data was essentially alone in the universe, and was legitimately trying his best to be more human. It's literally the core of his character. And then here comes Pulaski to shit on his efforts at every opportunity by telling him over and over he's not good enough and he'll never be good enough.
HappenstanceUK
Member
I like to think that Picard just opened an airlock one day and let Pulaski drift out into space without anyone noticing when he heard there was a chance Beverley might return.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I have no idea, but that makes sense...
I think there were also rumors that it was somebody else who sexually harassed her (could've been Patrick Stewart telling dirty jokes for all we know), and when she reported that person to her boss, they ignored her.
In any case, the person in question was Maurice Hurley. Rick Berman confirmed that Hurley and McFadden hated each other, so Hurley fired McFadden after season 1, but then after season 2, Hurley himself was fired and Berman took over because everyone else hated Hurley.
Diana Muldaur didn't like working on TNG so she asked to leave, so Berman asked McFadden to come back, and she was happy to do it now that Hurley was gone.
funkystudent
Member
Pulaski wasnt amazing but it would have been nice if they did something else with her in a later season or series. She was never mentioned again.
Also I as thinking today. You know what massive jump in quality in TNG between S2 and S3? Suddenly the entire production is way better. The scripts are way better. etc.
Why did that happen? I could understand a small bump in quality over time but it was such a big refresh. Never knew the backstory.
Also I as thinking today. You know what massive jump in quality in TNG between S2 and S3? Suddenly the entire production is way better. The scripts are way better. etc.
Why did that happen? I could understand a small bump in quality over time but it was such a big refresh. Never knew the backstory.
JonnyDBrit
Member
Several changes to behind the scenes crew. Michael Piller and Ronald Moore came in on the writing front, while Robert Blackman joined as a costumer designer, becoming head of costume design for the franchise in short order. His first job? Replacing the costumes of the regular cast - they went with wool instead of spandex.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Oh yeah, one thing I didn't mention about DS9 and Voyager is that there's a director who LOVES slow motion. If you ever watch the show again, you'll find that any time someone gets shot, they'll be hit and jump back in a completely unnecessary slow motion shot. It's kind of funny seeing it over and over again if you're marathoning through the show.
Though my distaste for the Kelvin Timeline is a matter of record, I'd love to see a TV series pick up the pieces from the destruction of Romulus in the Prime Timeline. The political tension should be palpable -- the Romulans put all their hopes in a Federation ambassador to save their homeworld, and he failed. The Star Empire is left without its centre, and the Romulans are antagonised. So much potential for political sabre-rattling. I know Star Trek Online did some things with it, but I'd really prefer to have an official, TV series cover this period.
And the new capital of the Star Empire would need to have some Eastern Roman Empire references, or it's a wasted opportunity to maintain thematic consistency. I'd prefer to see it named Theodossia, but some derivative of Constantine or Justinian could work too.
And the new capital of the Star Empire would need to have some Eastern Roman Empire references, or it's a wasted opportunity to maintain thematic consistency. I'd prefer to see it named Theodossia, but some derivative of Constantine or Justinian could work too.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Heh, it does look like that at times. Well, without the bouncing. lol
I always love behind the scenes stuff that reminds me how ridiculous things look before effects go in. "The Way of the Warrior" has some great synchronized pratfalls for all the Bajoran and Klingon guys on the station.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
^ Sometimes I wonder what batleth fighting would look like if competent martial artists were hired instead of guys with stage combat training. Would it even be a viable weapon?
JonnyDBrit
Member
Its not impossible, and you can sorta see the fundamentals for how it could work thanks to Harry Kim and Darth Maul over here. But it would require someone that, yeah, practised with it and didn't just try to swing it like a sword or an axe. Honestly I think the biggest oddity is that its often treated as a duelling weapon when it should really be more for crowd control and disarmament.
I mean, that could just be a quirk of Klingon culture, but yeah in terms of looking at the weapon it doesn't seem like it should normally be used via swinging. It's got a lot of grips and a lot of edges, seems like a weapon that's designed for close quarters to control distance between your foe and you. If it were meant for swinging around, I don't see why it'd be so heavy and why it would have so many hand guards.
Of course the fight choreography in Star Trek at best is enjoyable, and at worst is outright ridiculous. In the Worf v. Gowron fight, for instance, they're basically just using them as swords.
It's worth noting the guy who came up with it had some martial arts experience, so it's not like it was designed by some fanciful artist.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
It does seem kind of impractical... if you're just swinging it around in a flurry, I could see someone just knocking it out of your hand. And yeah, it just sort of turns into an awkward sword when people attack each other.
The Hamburglar
Banned
I always felt the guy who played darth maul should have got more work. he does good stunt work and wasn't a bad actor.