flipper wrote:

On Sat, 21 Aug 2010 09:22:00 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


flipper wrote:

On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:16:34 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Tom Del Rosso wrote:

Tim Williams wrote:
Sometimes, they'll do an episode where some story happens, which
changes itself, so only you, the viewer, know anything happened. The
universe is still the same as last week. They did that a few times
on TNG.

I liked the environmentalist episode where they discovered that warp speed
was destroying space, so they had to be limited to warp 5 or so, from then
on. Next week, it was back to warp 9!!!


A common effect of scripts written by warped minds...

TNG was 'politically correct' from the get go and nothing highlighted
it more than Pickard's one chance to destroy the 'crystalline entity'
and all he wants is to 'talk' to the damn thing.


PC and SF just don't go together.

Well, PC doesn't go with reality either.

TOS handled the juxtaposition between 'fight' and 'negotiate' with
much more range, nuance, and balance.


Which would be what would happen in real life.

Precisely. That's what makes for good sci-fi, or anything else for
that matter.


I wrote a Sci-Fi trilogy about 25 years ago. When the main
characters offer help to a planet who's sun is about to go nova won't
stop bickering long enough to listen, they tell them they are leaving
them to their own fate. Suddenly they started to listen.


One of the more amusing ones is Errand of Mercy where Kirk starts off
to 'warn' the Organians of impending Klingon occupation, finds himself
compelled to take 'guerilla action' but gets incensed when the
Organians 'interfere' and is eventually humiliated during his
'defense' of 'the right' to make war and kill millions (which isn't
what he 'meant' but was the 'effect' of it).

I knew the series
would be crap when they announced that the 'saucer section' could
separate from the rest of the ship. IOW, they weren't prepared for
their missions, and devised a way to run and hide.

Eh, you're being too harsh and making unwarranted assumptions.
Separable sections is simply prudent.


Not the way they implemented it. It would have made more sense to
leave the civilians behind, or do missions with pairs of ships.


The original E could separate too but there was never any indication
it could 're-mate' back up again. Makes sense that the engine nacelles
could be jetsoned too if things went catastrophically wrong.

As for TNG, I can remember two times they separated 'in action' but in
neither case did they 'run'.


I watched very little of TNG. It made me ill to watch the pathetic
plot lines.


However, the re-mating capability which, of necessity, would
compromise integrity always seemed to me a bit of a contrivance for a
questionable strategy in the rarest of circumstances.


It was an excuse to carry non essential humans, as part of the lame
PC concept. IE: They are in no real danger, because they can leave any
time.


Only the 'battle' section has warp capability so the saucer would,
Borg battle notwithstanding, only be able to, as Scotty lamented,
wallow like a garbage scow against a warp driven star ship and sending
the weaker off to 'safety', as Crusher did, puts one dangerously close
to the situation Commodore Decker found himself in with his crew
beamed down to the third planet. I.E. Under most circumstances one
would imagine the weaker section could be easily picked off.


Yes. Any enemy could tell it was an under powered piece of junk, and
destroy it right away.


Pickard was the worst ship's captain of anything I've ever seen or
read in Science Fiction in the last 50 years.

Hehe. Well, it's obvious I'm no Pickard fan but methinks you're a bit
tough on him.


I call them like I see them.