/stg/ Star Trek General

But there is a duck, user.

Deck 2, above Worf's quarters.

>In space, no one can hear you quack.

But there is no crew lounge with a duck pond. Substandard. It only shows how much the Federation ahd to cut out to make a warship. Remember the sacrifices that duck made.

You have moved me with your eloquence. The lounging duck for you, user.

There is a fish in this one.

Just wondering what Wayland Yutani corp has provided to the starfleet.

Atmosphere processors, obviously.

Probes gradually turn into torpedoes, huh?

At some point I imagine it's a standard 'fire anything not containing ensigns' casing.

They make excellent coffins too.

They might make for neat ad-hoc assault pods as well, for those rare cases when you want to board the Klingons, but the transporter just tore souls from the bodies of an away team and a shuttle would inevitably go 400 years back in time.

The pod would likely hit a quantum fissure and get transported into the Mirror Universe.

At least they'd have a small chance of turning up again sometime.

40kified runabout for you sir.

With sexier uniforms, no doubt

Not to mention goatees. Crew beard saturation would go up by an order of magnitude, possibly making the campaign a lot better.

It's not really a fair comparison.

Andorians presumably have their weird genders backed up by actual biology rather than muh feelz, are an actual warrior race rather than an SJW whine master and formed their own functional and robust society rather than being a cancerous growth on an existing one.

Also the whole swearing loyalty to the Empty Throne of Andor thing is pretty badass.

It's not, but the guy running the Big Game offhandedly called a recent bout of gender politics we heard about 'Andorian bullshit' and it spread from there.

HAs anyone ever tried making their own alternate time line for Star Trek?

When did it diverge and what did it end up looking like?

>timeline

TNG movies never happened.

>result

Beautiful.

Not even First Contact?

I wrote an alternate future for the Terran Empire, getting into how their Dominion war went. Essentially:
>Terrans discover wormhole and accept Dominion help in wiping out the Cardassian-Klingon alliance.
>Dominion help them recapture Earth, Terran Empire is re-established, in name only, as the name carries weight in the Alpha Quadrant. O'Brien named Emperor.
>Dominion-Terran alliance goes on epic rampage, before Dominion start fucking with the Terrans like they did the Cardies in regular timeline
>Dominion stage a full coup and Terran fleet is whittled down to less than 100 ships.
>Terrans run, unwittingly fleeing into Romulan Space, where it becomes a stand-off between the Romulan fleet, wanting everyone to get out of their space, the Terrans wanting to run from the Dominion and the Dominion trying to nuke the Terrans out of history.
>One hot-headed Alpha Hadar orders his ship to open fire on the Romulans, with the Terrans aiding the Romulans in driving off the Dominion.
>O'Brien meets with the Romulan Senate and convinces them that the Dominion will come for the Romulans next.
>Now a 3-way war between the Romulan-Terran alliance, the Dominion and the Klingon-Cardassian alliance.
>In this universe the Breen join the Klingon-Cardassian alliance, rather than the Dominion, with the Romulans managing to get the Gorn and Nausicaans onboard to join their side.
>Klingon-Cardassians manage to take back Terok-Nor and mine the Wormhole to cut off Dominion reinforcements

That's about as far as I got, but I think it would be fun seeing how those alliances would go, with the Terrans forced to work with the Romulans, Gorn and Nausicaans and the Dominion using Earth as their home-base.

Allow me to introduce you to the Yamato class Federation dreadnought.

Did I stutter?

The action parts are fine. It's the characterization and the plot that leaves something to be desired. It's like the writers forgot that Picard worked out some of his demons with his asshole brother, and decided that having a dumb "let's get this rocketship built!" bit was just the perfect way to stretch the movie to 90 minutes.The less said about the Borg Queen the better.

I play STO too, and frankly, it looks terrible. Those nacelles are too far away from one another, and I'm not partial to the lines of the stardrive section. Playing around with the pylons might get a decent kitbash out of it though.

I would disagree with most of what you wrote. I found the building the rocket ship to be an enjoyable and comfy experience and liked the character of Zefram Cochrane was enjoyable.

Having an argument with your asshole brother isn't going to remove those sorts of demons. When the Borg show up again it give Picard 'Nam flashbacks, this and he can hear them singing in his brain. First Contact was not Picard as Picard, it was Picard driven to madness by anger and fear.

>The less said about the Borg Queen the better.
But yeah, I will agree with this completely.

Still better than Star Trek: The Slow Motion Picture or Insurrection.

To each their own. I'm willing to share my opinion, but I'm not interested in yelling at people for having different taste. Have another dreadnought.

Speaking of which, even though I like it, there are features I'm not fond of, like the fat middle pylon.

Is this where the shuttle jocks hand out?

On the Messenger or any other Intrepid, most likely.

On Voyager? No, because Janeway has standing orders that the shuttle bay should be empty and accessible to anyone, so that she can have sport when they steal a shuttle.

She'll also make the poor sods who would normally be stationed down there build new ones as needed.

I've got one for ya.
A timeline where, rather than returning the Enterprise-C to the past, Picard makes the decision to draft it in as part of Starfleet's last roll of the dice: Operation Unthinkable.

The USS Phoenix, named for the ship of fallen war hero Benjamin Maxwell, is an experimental vessel designed as a dedicated warship. Essentially it's the Akira class but with a stolen Klingon claking device. Section 31 has developed another genesis torpedo in secret and armed the Phoenix with it. Whilst the rest of starfleet mounts a diversionary assault to retake the Laurentian system, the Phoenix makes it's way towards Quo'nos under cloak.

The Klingons commit a huge fleet to push back the Federation assault. The battle is brutal, spanning the entirety of the Laurentian system. By the end of the day, both sides have taken horrendous losses and there is no clear victor. The Klingon Chancellor, Duras, is content to throw more forces at the enemy, as he knows it's only a matter of time before the Federation surrenders.

Meanwhile, the Phoenix makes its way to the heart of Klingon space undetected. Sitting in orbit around the capital of the empire, the crew await a final confirmation order. The president of the Federation sends a message to the High Council. He offers them one last chance to make peace, before more lives are lost. The Klingons respond by promising the Federation a slow cowardly death. With all hope for a peace settlement gone, the order is given.

In a matter of seconds, the surface of Quo'nos is cleansed of all life. Billions die in an instant. The Klingon retaliation is brutal. they throw their ships at the Federation with no thought for mercy of self preservation. But time now favours Starfleet. Without a central government, supply lines collapse. Dozens of houses each claim the right to rule the Empire and before the Klingons can land the killing blow on Earth, they turn on themselves.

cont...

...The war doesn't really end, but the Klingons are no longer able to field a respectable force. The Empire exists as Feudal Japan did. Numerous clans, all claiming loyalty to Khaless but warring with one another for territory and power. Needless to say, the Romulans have a field day.

The Federation is deeply wounded, not only by the damage done in the war, but also by the actions of Starfleet in order to save it. The people no longer trust that the Federation is living up to its ideals. Civil unrest is common. increasingly, Starfleet Security and Intelligence are seen patrolling the streets. Notable dissidents have a nasty habit of disappearing. The Federation is still a utopia, but only for those loyal to the new order.

As for interstellar relations, dozens of worlds with traditionally strong bonds to the Federation turn their backs on them. Romulus essentially returns to the long silence, content instead to expand into Klingon space. Cardassia fortifies its border with the Feds and increases military production, putting more strain on its mining facilities over Bajor.

From then on, there is a clear understanding that you don't go to war with earth. They will go to any length to survive.

Does the Galaxy class only have 1 mess hall/lounge? In TNG, 10-forward isn't much bigger than the mess we see in Voyager. For a crew of 1000, you would imagine she would have either a much larger food area or multiple lounges of similar size.

We only see the senior officer mess/bar. I imagine the actual crew mess and enlisted recreation areas to take up an entire deck.

See I'm not sure if that's the case. We see low ranking officers and enlisted crew in 10 forward. Those 4 ensigns hung out there when off duty. O'Brien went there regularly. And we see a lot of new crew members of varying ranks show up there all the time.

In that case it's a bar/rec area, as evidenced by having mood lighting and a bartender instead of an efficient stack of replicators. The latter part of the post still applies.

I'm pretty sure that "10 forward" referred to the entire forward section of deck 10, which could easily fit multiple mess halls or the like.

I like it, but (and I think you've mentioned this before) Operation Unthinkable probably isn't the right name for this thing.

Unthinkable was the allied contingency plan to attack the Soviet Union immediately after the surrender of Nazi Germany.

What would be more in line with what you're talking about was Britain's plans for if the Nazis ever invaded the Isles. Such as annexing Ireland to turn it into a refugee camp, deploying chemical weapons against beachheads and enemy cities and Operation Vegetarian, which involved dropping anthrax-infected seedcakes onto German cattle pastures.

Basically throwing out every article of war that they'd maintained up to that point.

Well, after much frustrated searching, I found a decent resolution Galaxy class MSD.The problem is, it's too damn big to upload.

Here's a link:

>usslafitte.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/SaturnMSD-Lrg.png

I'm uploading the Nova class MSD instead.

>Here's a link:
Damn, the warp core is so much bigger than I thought it was. I mean, I guess it makes sense for a ship that large, but...

That's actually pretty small compared the Ambassadors Warp Core, or the size of the Connie Refits one compared to the size of the ship.

DEM Easter Eggs!

>or the size of the Connie Refits one compared to the size of the ship.
Got one for that?

...

Yeah, I saw that like five seconds after I hit post. I need to stop skipping over most of the stuff at the start of the thread.

Well, I do have an Ambassador.

Here: What I will do is attach the Yamato for this gent, even if I'm the jerk who was maligning her.

I meant for this guy:

I have no idea what any of this means, so I am happy. Pays to be old and out of touch.

I wish I was in ignorance of this blight.

Andorians aside, is it possible to play Star Fleet Battles online, via TTS or Vassal or somesuch, and not require a referee?

What the hell is a greebly, and why would you label a random one?

It's the term for a random thing put onto a physical model to give it character. Probably an easter egg.

>What the hell is a greebly, and why would you label a random one?

Greebles and Nurnies are the physical bits of surface texture added to sci-fi models to break up large flat surfaces. Its a term originally coined by Martin Bowyer and Chris Foss in the 70's, when they were the lead model-maker and artist on "Alien", though Bowyer had been using it for a few years already in modelmaking in things like "space 1999". George Lucas likes to claim they invented it for Star Wars, but the british model-makers had been doing it for years; Kubrick used them in 2001, where they were called "widgets".

So "Random Greeble" on a sci-fi deck plan is an in-joke by the artists.

someone here watches sfdebris i see

As much as I love the MSDs and blueprints of these ships, Starfleet engineering is immensely frustrating for anybody who like to study ship design.

There's no equivalent to transverse bulkheads. That is, really big, really heavy sections of hull which are there to both strengthen the hull and subdivide it in the case of damage control. Now, before you say "but Structural Integrity Fields!", I understand. I'm not saying SIFs aren't hugely important for starships. I'm saying that ships should have BOTH. Largely because while SIFs are super-useful, they still require power. A large chunk of hull will still be there providing strength and assisting in d-con no matter what happens. SIFs let you get away with *less* heavy bulkheads, not "none".

Weapons are generally just stuck to the surface of the hull. That is, there's no "depth" to the weapon system. While energy weapons don't require the number of support systems that projectile weapons do (ammo feeds, recoil supports, etc), there's still stuff you can put inside the hull to help reinforce the fact that bigger guns actually have a cost. To strain the analogy, it's like a modern destroyer's 5" gun turret. Except for the magazine, it's almost entirely self-contained in the turret. Meanwhile, a 16" gun requires a huge volume of internal space. Starfleet ships are constructed similar to the concept of a 16" gun being strapped to the bow of that destroyer; one little self-contained turret. There's no massive banks of capacitors, or heat exchanger systems (given space is a terrible radiator). I just hate it in sci-fi where guns are strapped to the outside of a ship with no thought to their internal volume.

This is more what I'd prefer; original USS Thunderchild on the left with the phaser strip basically tacked on to the hull. Meaningful amount of internal volume taken up by the phaser support systems on the right.

The biggest problem with it is that MSDs are two dimensional cutaways and the saucer is pretty wide. And the MSDs are done by people who probably have never built a ship before, so there's tons of space wasted on things that seem "useful" but aren't. Hell, Jefferies Tubes never show up on these things, but sprawling conduit ways should be clearly marked.

I think a lot of the problems with the MSDs is that because it is just a slice through the centre to give reference to key systems (I assume it's supposed to be an animated display for quick reference when shit breaks), a lot of that support equipment is going to be lost.

Deckplans though have no excuse, and yeah, there should be a lot more space devoted to equipment in many of them. Otherwise, why all the Jefferies tubes to access it?

I think FASA deckplans are the only ones that feature that, along with things like fuel cells, cargo holds, supply containers, and ammunition storage, and most of them are not canon.

>Andorians presumably have their weird genders backed up by actual biology rather than muh feelz, are an actual warrior race rather than an SJW whine master and formed their own functional and robust society rather than being a cancerous growth on an existing one.
But that's wrong senpai.

Andorians are famous for their feels, and while they are really not a warrior race, (they really aren't) they are sometimes aggressive and have aggression as part of their culture, which is a result of their overly emotional nature.

>most of them are not canon.
And?

>they are really not a warrior race, (they really aren't)
They are a warrior race. They are the blue blood nobles to the klingon barbaric hordes. Their main military arm are even called the Imperial Guard, which if you know a thing or two about Napoleonic warfare calling your regiment guards is a way to say "badass elites."

Nothing, it just seems like a lot of the people here think it's important.

And if you know your 40k is a way to say "Billions of helpless meat per army"

Most of these are fan made. So, always, always take them with a grain of salt (or the whole shaker, depending).

Even then... some of Trek's ship designers/model makers don't always care what would make something functional. The deflector on the D'deridex is shown on-screen as being some kind of big disruptor rather than the functional thing that keeps the ship from being perforated by dust and other debris.

They also cut away the interior, which was supposed to be thicker, because that huge space in the middle was originally for taking on supplies, and cargo; for housing shuttles and fighters. And for providing barracks space for troops. We're talking a starship potentially capable of carrying 10k+.

But, the model makers, designers, and special effects guys just don't talk to each other as much as you'd expect. Heck, the set designers have to make something functional that you can shoot a TV show in and won't cost as much as building the "real thing".

Here's the pic of the warbird shooting from its main deflector. Probert didn't design the ship that way, that's just what the fx guys decided looked cool.

But the answer literally is SIF. Trek ships (pretty much all of them) literally can't work without the SIF. They're pretty much hit points. Once your SIF is gone, you're dead. You need to remember the apocalyptic energies and stresses put on a ship even in normal operation. Every know-nothing complains about how the Enterprise doesn't work, because all its bits are connected by skinny necks. They'd be right, if it weren't for the fact that SIF makes everything OK. The Enterprise would break itself apart with even minor maneuvers without SIF, but with SIF everything is just dandy.
And all that's even before thinking about combat. A single photon torpedo is Tsar-Bomba-tier, and that's normal Starfleet load. I'm sure the Klingons, etc., put a lot more boom into their weapons. A

New Star Trek rpg snding out playtests soon

modiphius.com/star-trek.html

The TNG tech guide for the Galaxy-Class does back this up; if all SIF is down you're limited to maneuvering thrusters only; even impulse will tear the ship apart. There's something like six generators, EACH of which can handle the entire ship (docked saucer), but you're supposed to drop out of warp immediately (with nothing fancy, just a field-collapse) if you're ever down to just one backup, and stop fucking moving if you're down to actually using it.

Also technically you could operate no problem at warp without it. You're not accelerating, after all. The problem is that anything, anything at all (subspace eddies, glitches, differential field fluctuations, nearby stars, ANYTHING) will basically apply enough force to shred the ship then and there.

He pointed that out. SIFs are great, but what stops all your air from leaving if you don't have the heavy bulkheads? Subdivisions for damage control is incredibly important, and leaving it completely aside in favor of something that stops working when the power does is a TERRIBLE idea.

I think the queen worked if it was taken as a particular adaptive strategy to assimilate Data, but not as a cardinal rule that the Borg need a Queen.

Please don't use 40k in a polite discussion involving logic and historical precedence.

Is there any race in Star Trek universe that is into collective consciousnes without being assholes about it?

Do Binars count?

Kinda. I'd classify them as more as a limited shared consciousness than a general collective one.

>but what stops all your air from leaving if you don't have the heavy bulkheads?
emergency forcefields

No him, but have you followed the conversation at all?

The point was that bulkheads don't require power. Capacitors, batteries, whatever, eventually the power runs out. Power you're using to keep your forcefields up is power you aren't using to maintain stuff like life support. If you have bulkheads capable of containing internal explosions and spalling (ie more than just basic "walls"), then if your ship is disabled you can evac the wounded sections, turn the sections where the bulkheads held up into a lifeboat, and wait until rescue for a lot longer because you aren't using the life support power to keep the forcefields on and your air in.

It's a fair point, and it's kind of dumb that Trek doesn't use these at all. The only emergency bulkhead I can recall ever seeing is the one seperating the Ent-D's Warp Core from the forward half of engineering (with the pool table). Because that'll help when the core goes critical, or something.

Why have a hull at all? Just shape a forcefield around your interiors. Think how much weight you'd save!

Why stop there?
Have just one material ship and have it project an entire fleet.

It's funny 'cause it's true!

Photonic fleet mother fuckers!

Not him, but I'd say it's a measure both of how reliable power is seen as being for the federation, but also how arrogant they've gotten about it. SIF runs on fusion as does impulse; you only need antimatter for the really heavy spatial distortions like FTL travel, and even on a Galaxy's old drive it's still just a 'booster' to fusion until Warp 8 (at warp 8 it's finally a 1:1 M/A ratio). Even portable crap seems to have mostly regenerative energy sources; which actually brings us many questions like "why don't they ever use shuttles/runabouts for emergency power in all those episodes where they lose power source but not their grid".

On the one hand, the difference in structural capacity between even the toughest bulkheads and a thin sheet of duranium with an SIF running through it makes the former seem rather unimpressive, and when structural integrity is finally failing it's usually after everything else on the ship has started coming apart at the seams anyways.

On the other hand, mass isn't particularly an issue for either impulse nor warp (the latter being inertialess) and surely A BIT of resilience from a neutronium bulkhead along at least particularly critical points of the frame would be the wise thing to do just in case.

couldn't the photonic fleet just project further photonic fleets?

They're doing that increasingly as time goes on, as seen on the timeships in the 31st century (forcefields and spacefolding). Those things must blow up something fierce when anything finally makes them fail.

Actually really fucking useful and doable in STO, although that takes place 50 years after voyager.

Not yet; they're fairly real and can project some nasty energy, but they're still short-lived dissipating energy constructs that are initially produced by an actual vessel... for now.

To be fair STO also has photonic ground troops. Give it 50 more years and all wars will be fought with holographic assets.

I'm considering screen-capping the last several posts on this line with the title, "why Star Trek gets stupider the further the timeline goes."

Because goddamn, that's stupid. Even if it makes perfect sense in universe, it's fucking stupid and boring.

Aren't the engineer officers basically wearing fabbers/replicators now, or are they still beaming in those turrets?

Because it's sure as fuck still working when in a zone you cannot transport to...

Both. Though they have that orbital bombardment option even in a sealed space station.

Boring, yes, but not stupid.

Let's face it; we ourselves are moving towards drones and inhuman replacements. That the federation's doing the same thing is not surprising in the least.

There are few things I approve of quite as much as I do of that ability.

That is the ground-combat dream of anyone in command of a fucking starship.

I hate that it's an engineering power when the Tactical one is just summoning a bunch of redshirts.