/STG/ - Star Trek General

I really just want them to lay off the humour a bit. There's the groundwork for good bridge crew banter there but it keeps on being thrown off by these stilted one-liners.
Otherwise I think the actual plots have been entertaining and the overall feel is that of an upbeat space adventure.

The cameo at the end was great too.

They're struggling to find the balance, and a lot of the banter seems improvised. Some of it I actually quite like because it's very genuine feeling. And at other times it's just not landing right, or distracting a bit. However, I do like that it's kept minimal, they're not trying to pull a Red Dwarf. And if it is at least partly improvised like I suspect, there's a good chance they'll just get better at it.

I'd hate to see it go entirely though as I think the interpersonal banter stuff makes the crew seem that much more relatable. It's one of those things DS9 managed to do now and again, more than any other 'trek series I'd say. On that line though, now that I've thought of it I'm surprised there isn't a Spock/McCoy styled pairing going on. Though I guess that kind of focus might take away from the ensemble piece thing they've got going on with everyone getting a bit of spotlight. Which has also been nice as they manage to jam in moments where they show that they're actually quite good at their jobs, even though they're not the massively varied skill packing uber-people of Star Fleet's finest.

This is pretty accurate to real life. Uniform refreshes happen fast and furious.

Also flag officers can design their own uniforms, more or less.

The episodes all seem excellent until Seth McFarlane has to make a poop joke.

Frakes will direct anything, but direct it well.

I'm sure Seth McFarlane is tired of getting advice from the internet about the bad jokes.

The fourth episode was excellent as an homage but also as a way of exploring the bridge officer dynamics.

One thing I've been really liking is attention to certain details. Such as having pockets on the uniform. Or specifically in that 4th episode, the dropping off the message buoy and the saying at the end they'll be sending along people to help sort things out properly, it's filling in things that have bugged me about 'trek. Especially that last one, so many times even just a throwaway line of the same would have improved the ending of an episode.

>Frakes will direct anything, but direct it well.

Didn't he do Insurrection? I mean it's not Generations but it's also not exactly Undiscovered Country either.

Exactly. He has no standards for what he'll direct, but he's very good at directing. Which can't exactly save terrible scripts, but it doesn't exacerbate the failings of mediocre ones.

Frakes didn't write Insurrection though (Michael Pillar did), so he has that going for him.

I want him to show up as a Gorn extra on Discovery just so he can finally have "Gorn Frakes" on his resume.

Insurrections problems lie in the script. Even Paramount executives saw that and sent a memo how to fix it. But for some reason alot of the changes never happened and we got the movie we did.

There were too many changes by the writer, not too few. Paramount did want a light hearted adventure more than the writing staff did though.

Wtf The Orville is actually really good

I didn't think Seth Macfarlane had it in him after the abortion Family Guy turned into, though I guess it only really turned to shit after he handed off writing duties to other people.

I'm enjoying Orville a lot more than I thought I would. I was afraid it was going to be a "laugh at what stupid loosers these people are" sort of show. But the characters are actually likable. It has its rough edges, but it's just getting started. I think these first few episodes have been better than most of TNGs first season.

So I've been messing around with the Discovery uniforms in STO and they're not that bad with recolours. Oh it doesn't look amazing but you can salvage it into the three primary colours. Big issue I have however are the com-badges. Your emblem is the only way to tell your rank & department. That just doesn't fit Star Trek imo. The WOK uniforms had the coloured stripes remember. The discovery ones you're looking at someone's tits to work out who & what they are. Too bad if you're behind them

It's also funny that after all the meming at STD for Burnham possibly being a tranny, the Orville now has the lead on that count.

I'm only just now getting into Star Trek, everything I know about it is just pop culture osmosis. How common is armor in Starfleet? Do most never bother with it because of how powerful phasers are? It seems like it'd still be useful for away teams since, even if it can't protect against advanced weaponry, it can still protect against environmental hazards or primitive weapons. Unless regular Starfleet uniforms are some kind of super-durable fabric in and of themselves.

>I think these first few episodes have been better than most of TNGs first season.
Hundred percent with you there. I'd say the pilot was average, the second episode was weak and the third & fourth was good.

TNG on the other hand had a really bad pilot and didn't get better than so-so for the whole season. So yeah. Orville has impressed me

In universe they're supposed to be super armor pajamas by TNG and later, but everyone else is carrying anti tank weapons as sidearms.

I am 100% surprised Burnham isn't a gay tranny

I'm honestly really enjoying it so far and I usually don't like Seth Macfarlane's stuff. I honestly think the critics were way too harsh on it, and that as the season goes on they ease up on it a bit.

I think someone under age 35 had a talk with the production team about what a horrible branding/memetic mistake it would be to reduce the main character to a literal gay nigger from outer space.

I don't know either, I'm really surprised it got that low. I wonder how many episodes they got and what got screened

Yeah, episode 3 and 4 really jumped in quality. Though I personally liked episode 2 more than the pilot.

She is probably going to still be gay

That makes sense. I just always wondered how crew members weren't constantly suffering bruises, concussions, and broken limbs from the ship shaking every time it gets hit in combat.

Then again this is the future so they can probably fix any of those in a like, a minute at most, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as they say.

I made mine black, used the mirror-ENT belt with the dagger, the Intel gloves, and the TOS Terran Empire chest pin. Looks pretty good. Add mustache to twirl and it's perfect.

Armor really isn't used. There's not a lot you could feasibly do when a hand phaser can put out enough energy to completely disintegrate someone. While it would make sense to have some armor or expedition clothing, we rarely see either (though we HAVE seen them, notably in TOS, the TOS era movies, TNG, and ENT).

Allegedly (alleged by no-one who isn't anonymous) they're being paid to give it bad ratings so it's competition looks better. On the one hand we know this does happen from time-to-time on the other I'd be surprised that FOX would allow that to happen to one their properties. They usually don't let ratings affect what they kill or not.

>The episodes all seem excellent until Seth McFarlane has to make a poop joke.

Wasn't that episode 2? With the illusion of his father talking about colon stuff?

It always kind of bothered me that no one ever wore any kind of protective equipment. Maybe I'm just an autist or something.

Even if a phaser can disintegrate you, it would be smart to wear a helmet or kneepads or something while you're climbing around uncharted wilderness.

Reasonably attractive lesbians have been a staple of scifi for decades. Jadzia already explored the topic on DS9.

I'd be more inclined to believe that critics went into it expecting it to be like Seth Macfarlane's other works with poop jokes and an overabundance of pop culture references, but I haven't really noticed much of that.

2 was disappointing to me, Alara's arc did nothing for me since it was so cookie-cut and the aliens weren't all that interesting. Meanwhile I thought the pilot served it's purpose and didn't get boring at any point.

Exactly. Burnham is going to be gay

It's basically a visual media thing - plot importance is inversely proportional to the amount of armor you wear. That's why hardened warriors in thick faceless armor get shrekt by science officers in spandex.

Maybe. It makes sense I guess. I'd believe it, it's just that I'm surprised there'd be so many critics with that particular of a taste

Why not just wear personal shields? I'm surprised the Combadges aren't considering how they've been swiss-knifed into everything else

It wasn't anything new but I appreciated Alara's arc after spending years of 'God fucking dammit wesley'. Seeing the new rookie actually fucking it up and needing some advice to understand that she doesn't always know best.

That and to be honest, I find Alara fucking adorable a lot of the time.

I did go into it expecting not to like it. I ended up re-watching the pilot episode so that I could see it again without a dislike of Seth Macfarlane's other stuff ruining it.

It seems like he does semi-serious semi-comedy better than pure comedy. Or possibly just that he hasn't had time to turn each of them into a parody of themselves.

Same reason we never got a Voyager sequel. Above a certain power level, scifi becomes too alien for dumb TV writers to generate episode plots from.

Starfleet is never shown using armor in the shows. The Elite Force video game has "hazard suits" but that's non-canon.

The only races that really use boy armor in Star Trek are Kligons and Hirogen. The Klingons have it for hand-to-hand combat. It doesn't do jack against energy weapons. Hirogen actually does offer some protection against energy weapons, but they make a big deal about how advanced and awesome it is.

>boy armor

To be fair, TNG's first season was mostly hastily-retreaded scripts that were originally written for Phase II. Once they got out of that rut and Gene died, things got a lot better. If you ever want a serious laugh, read through the FASA Trek TNG books; they were based heavily on the writer's guide for season one. The later book has >only< photos and info from the Writer's Guide. Among other things, they use Armin Shimmerman's "no teeth" makeup test for the Ferengi, include the Ferengi and those stupid parasites as the major villains, and actually explicitly mention the Klinks joining the Federation (which was supposed to be the case already, but Yesterday's Enterprise kind of scuttled that). Then FASA got the Executive Paddle, unfortunately.

If anyone wants to hear more about that I'll have some time to write it up tomorrow, but in the meantime I encourage you to have a look at the books. If for no other reason than Jeff Laubenstien's hilarious illustrations.

Shields are, sadly, a bit dull in TV stuff for personal scale (For a ship they work better as you can punch through the shield and tear up the ship without it being game over).

Without a shield, you can take a glancing hit and be hurt or down but not dead but if there are shields they tend towards 'Shields are holding, all is good' and 'Shields have failed, why is this guy not dead?'

It's sorta the opposite of why STO went with personal shields. That in a video game it's goofy as fuck to take 10-20 hits without slowing to your flesh. Otherwise you get Voyager's issue where guns never fucking kill anything because they seem to be set to 'Medium punch' levels.

>Otherwise you get Voyager's issue where guns never fucking kill anything because they seem to be set to 'Medium punch' levels.

There's another question, how many different settings do phasers have, and what's Starfleet's policy on "Stun" vs. "Kill"?

>Seeing the new rookie actually fucking it up and needing some advice to understand that she doesn't always know best.
I guess I can see this. Personally I've seen this episode in tons of other shows, all the while completely blocking out Wesley and his shit character. But I guess it is a good counter to Wesley.
>That and to be honest, I find Alara fucking adorable a lot of the time.
Damn Straight. She's a very watchable character. I wish I had more pictures

>Or possibly just that he hasn't had time to turn each of them into a parody of themselves.
Apparently he pitched it as a straight homage and FOX insisted he put jokes in. Given that I think this is his love child right now and isn't going to let it get out of hand, especially since he's playing the main character so he can't just hand it off on someone else

>how many different settings do phasers have
At least 12, based on lines from TNG about the maximum setting being level 12.

>what's Starfleet's policy on "Stun" vs. "Kill"
Stun basically all of the time, Kill if shit doesn't stun.

Per Kira teaching Ziyal, the standard TNG era phaser rifle has 15 power settings from "mild stun" to mass disintegration. The Cardassian phaser rifle was simpler, more reliable, and packed a slightly harder punch. It was an obvious expy for Vietnam era M16s and AKMs.

Given how the Dominion guns destroy your entire body in one hit, stuff like personal shields and the like might actually bring things down to a manageable level while still allowing for escalation. "due to your shields these guns won't kill you in one hit and you'll just get wounded. The only stop projectiles though so remember you combat training" kind of thing.

And the Dominion standard setting for a prison camp is "leave no evidence"

Literally did nothing wrong. All fucking Klingons must fucking hang.

Here's a screenshot I just took. I forgot to say that I also use the Technician 1 chest gear since it looks like you could hand grenades or equipment on it.

They do wear some stuff in some of the movies. In particular the security armor and helmets in Undiscovered Country (scroll down or search "security uniform". But, it's never consistent.

>MUTINY

Going by the Last Unicorn RPG they have 'A bloody lot'

Stun(Light, Medium, Heavy) Heavy runs the risk of killing at point blank range but is generally safe. It's what was used in The Undiscovered Country to kill the two assassins. Kill and Disintegrate have similar sub-categories for a bloody lot of fine control. On top of this you have stuff like 'Wide beam' or 'Continuous fire' (For using it like a cutting torch).

In comparison, disruptors start at 'Heavy stun' and tend to have less subcategories within kill and disintegrate as they care a lot less about fine control and more about putting a guy in the dirt. It's a weapon, not a tool.

>Sucker punching superior officer because your shitty plan hinges on shit you can't account for
>Failing anyway
>Killing the guy you made it your mission to capture
Yeah no

That looks nothing like it though, it could be any jacket. I think to make things work you can't just black out every detail, that's just not trying

>They do wear some stuff in some of the movies. In particular the security armor and helmets in Undiscovered Country (scroll down or search "security uniform". But, it's never consistent.

That's also part of it. Budget. With armour, you need an extra uniform for each cast member (And extras) for 'They think they'll need to fight' and Star Trek has often been on the border of it's budget at the best of times.

So the movies can do that but the TV series often can't.

That's the STD uniform in black because he's supposed to mirror universe.

I meant to link this:

>memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Starfleet_uniform_(late_2270s-2350s)

>Killing the guy you made it your mission to capture
All because he killed the Captain. Remember she switched setting on the gun JUST because of that. She is definitely gay and scissored the Captain

BEHOLD

Hey now, the TOS film era FASA books are grade A aside from the terrible ships. There's a clear spirit of adventure and age of sail vibe in every book and adventure. It's just TNG was dumb as shit to start. Be sure to post the Bad Dragon Ferengi neural whip though.

I just started playing STO and apparently that's one you have to spend real money on. NOPE. Although I have to say the Stargazer class looks worse.

Cheyenne has grown on me.

It's a shame the nacelles aren't standing like they should be. I do wish there was a little more bulk in the rear of the saucer to give the impression of an actual engineering section

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What about the movies?

The thing is, I agreed with her until she went crazy and tried to mutiny.

Cardassian or Orion Security Officer? Either would be Female

Cardassian. They're just an all around better alien. Interesting culture, history, and design. Orions are just spray painted slavers with pheromones

Tholian renegade. Maximum oddness.

>Shields are, sadly, a bit dull in TV stuff for personal scale
Nothing about Star Trek ground combat makes much sense for exactly that reason.

An earnest phaser battle shouldn't look anything like a gun fight. The things are too powerful and versatile. They can blast through slabs of solid rock. They have wide beam settings that can sweep over a whole area. Yet when we see Dominion War ground battles everyone acts like they're holding a semi-automatic rifle, because that's what works for TV.

Yeah, it's the nature of TV. If you go too weird/away from what people expect you worry about losing viewers or making the message harder to sell (In the case of the dominion war stuff).

Rate my Uniform /stg/ I'm going for a Sixties vibe.

Honestly? I'd take getting sewn into the Motion Picture uniforms plus wearing full facial prosthetics. Tone down the white and the pastels. Please.

I really like the Vulcan, it works in blue. Maybe the Yellow next to her. The rest is meh.

Imagine a fight between two groups of D&D Wizards who can cast Disintegrate and Fireball at will. That's what a phaser battle should look like.

I now very much want to put a TNG vacuum cleaner hand phaser in with the loot. I should make a flowchart for figuring it out too like they did with the laser weapons in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

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>Sucker punching
Pinching*

certainly sixties i guess

>Given how the Dominion guns destroy your entire body in one hit
That's not true, there's several episodes where someone survives a Dominion rifle hit. It's a minor plot point in one episode even, where it's stated that it somehow has an anti-coagulant and the ensign dies a slow bleeding death over the course of the episode. The episode where they're salvaging the crashed Dominion ship.

Also Nog survived a shot by one.

> Also Nog survived a shot by one.

So did Jadzia.

On the other hand, American Dad became good after he went hands-off.

I guess its different to most energy weapons that would probably cauterise the wound.

I don't get how people are butthurt over the "Vulcan hello" Vucans are well established as being violent dicks who'd shoot first if they thought you were unable or unworthy of being reasoned with, they were even worse in the Enterprise era.

They've only loosened up as a civilisation well into the TNG era.

No one's butthurt over it. They might have been back when ENT was new, but ENT got to paint the Vulcans with the stupid brush, so instead of them controlling their emotions through logic, using ritual as an outlet for them as the need arises, and generally revering Surak for an implied long period of time, we got Archer returning Surak's katra to the wayward semi-crazy Vulcans.

Shooting first is exactly what ENT Vulcans would do. But I think this is an accidental continuity with ENT, rather than intentional.

Every Vulcan was an asshole even before ENT, it's just ENT shows them being the same kind of asshole who doesn't have to deal with the moderating influence of the Federation.

I mean, every Vulcan but Spock. Maybe his human DNA mellowed him out.

Alara is good, it really is nice to see the young character fuck up rather than be as good at everything as anyone else.

Bortus is also rather good, I'm glad that he's really not a Worf-clone (so easily could have been) and the relationship dynamic he's got adds something the others don't have as pretty much everyone else in the command crew is single, occasionally dating in the confirmed case of Alara and a gelatinous blob trying to woo her in the case of the doctor. Still having to look up character names though for as some reason they're just not sticking with me. I suspect this is just because I am lousy at names, I mean 'Dr. Claire Finn' isn't exactly that hard to remember. 'Yaphit' (the blob) might well be though. Apparently he's an engineer?

I am kinda surprised that Bortus's husband isn't a crewman though. Still, from what we've seen it looks like that's an oddity on the ship, doesn't seem to be a bunch of family and kids around.

But she was raised by Vulcans, and being gay would be illogical.

So she'll discover she's gay during the series.

Sigh.

I wouldn't say you have to spend money. It just takes a fuckload of time to get what you want if you don't.

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