Telemachus Remo

Thanks for the warm greetings everyone, it's definitely nice to be back in the fleet. And happy new year everyone

I'm interested... I read the Captain's Tables and Section 31 - both are pretty good. I haven't read a single TOS book (unless you count the Shatner ones), so I'd be pretty interested in that. Does Capt.'s Tables cover all series too? Sadly I've only been able to find one of the Invasion books (VOY: The Final Fury). Another good series was the DS9 Rebels one. I read three of the four of Deep Space Nine's Mission Gamma books (I can't find #2 anywhere!) as well as both Avatars and Rising Son. Can't wait to buy Unity though I can only find it in hardcover. I would also recommend (for any VOY lovers) that you read the two-parter set after Endgame and the series finale. Homecoming and the Farther Shore are well written and I love them. So are we still on for this... or did it die away?

Just to throw in a little more to our discussion: If you observe the scene taking place outside the window on the Ent-J, you can see clearly a Prometheus-class vessel as well as a Dauntless one. Now officially the Dauntless isn't a Starfleet ship class, even though its been used here at UFOP, and it does make a little sense that in the 26th Century, if that's when we finally get Slipstream drive to work (which isn't that great speculation-wise, since I don't think it'll take two centuries to get it working), that the first class to use it would be reminiscent (if not exactly the same as) the Dauntless from [VOY: Hope and Fear]. But why, 200 years in the future, would we still have a Prometheus? Now the Dauntless might not be a Dauntless, we don't see it up close, but the Prometheus is almost absolutely a Prometheus, at least going by the way we see it! Doesn't it sound a little unplausible for the Prom to be that far in the future, kind of like the NX-Enterprise fighting alongside Voyager or the Ent-D/E?

Well then I guess that only one Enterprise was odler than 10. (Sorry I never got to see much of TOS, and its on space just as I get home from school everyday. I get to see the last 5-10 minutes at most. But I have seen ST3 - I have it on DVD! Can't believe I missed that part though...)

If anyone manages to find an screen captures, feel free to post them. We could use them in this discussion. I'm trying to figure out how to get one off my tape of the display, but I'm having no luck yet. (My computer doesn't like me much)

Ah, okay, I think I understand now. The first time I saw the display (which I assume is a MSD), I thought it displayed the NX-Enterprise, but then I looked at it closer the second time (and paused my tape). If you look carefully, yes the saucer is similar, but the nacelles are entirely different. The pylons are almost triangular and shoot out at sharp angles from the saucer. There appears to be no drive section at all. Now the shape of the saucer is a little bizarre, because in recent vessels the saucer has been eliptical or an "arrow-head" (Sovereign, Prometheus, Intrepid) instead of a circular shape (like the Galaxy), but the Ent-J was almost a perfect circle (or oval). Why would Starfleet go back on their design advances? Perhaps the new shape turned out to be less efficient at high warps, even though it was originally deemed to be better suited for them. But if we take the shape of the "Dauntless" to be any indication of what a high warp-speed (or in its case slipstream) efficient hull shape would be, then the arrow-head idea was better. Am I making any sense?

(No T'Preen you haven't gone nuts... well, not for that anyway!) Dopper, I don't understand what you meant about the ship's schematic... care to explain a little better for me? As for the whole cloaking thing, well, I don't think it was cloaked because it was being hit during the battle. Also if it was cloaked then you wouldn't really see the nacelles of the ship would you? (At least I think that's what those things were) I don't see any reason for the Enterprise-J to have gone back in time. It would seem like there would be no reason too. It makes sense that the -J is that period of time, given the average life span of the Enterprises. Actually, I would have placed the -L, or perhaps even the -K, in that time instead. But it all depends on the life span of the vessels. As for the -J suffix being an insult, I don't think it is. Not all vessels actually make it to the 50 (or 100 according to DITL.ORG) expected life span. Yes, many may have been blown up... but couldn't they also have disappeared or been lost in space. Perhaps they became outdated and a new vessel was created because the advanced technologies couldn't be put into that vessel. Remember the Enterprises have always been Starfleet's flagship, so they usually are state-of-the-art vessels. Even if the -D hadn't been destroyed by the Duros sisters (it was them right?), then I think it would have been phased out when the Sovereign or Prometheus came into production anyway. (Thanks by the way, I never knew the Enterprise lasted 20 years! Never followed TOS too much, - way before my time - since technically even TNG was...)

Okay, for all of you out there who still watch Enterprise, or at least watched the last two episodes that aired on UPN (Azati Prime and Damage), I'd like to start a little discussion of what we see about the Trek future and such. In Azati Prime, Archer is brought to the future by Daniels once again - this time to the year 2454 (approx.), and onboard the Enterprise-J, during what he calls the historic Battle of Kroton 5. During the brief few minutes he's there we learn a few interesting things about the future. First of all, its interesting that the Enterprise of 2454 (less than 75 years in the future from current Trek) has the suffix of -J to it. That means that in less than 75 years, which is only about 3/4 of a starship's expected lifetime, Starfleet manages to go through the Enterprises-E, -F, -G, -H, and -I. That's five ships in 75 years, which averages to about one ship every fifteen years. Now compared to most ships that's about a sixth of its expected life time, but for an Enterprise that's actually not bad. The Enterprise-D lasted 7 years (one for each season of the show), and not a single one lasted more than 10 years as far as we know. Now let's talk about the brief glimpse we get of the inside of the ship. Am I the only one to notice that Starfleet's traditional silver bulkheads and decor has been replaced with a dark brown? How about the control interfaces? They're no longer blue and orange for the most part, but entirely green and black. Is anyone else reminded of the Borg's interfaces by this, especially the circular fashion of the controls? Does this mean that the Borg have been conquered and assimilated into the Federation, or is it merely an alliance or technology exchange? Was Seven of Nine's expertise used to "Borgafy" Federation technologies? Or where Ginan right, and the Borg and Federation have reached a mutual understanding? Now yes, I may be over analyzing this last bit, but, why was there such a huge window in the room? Next, let's look at the Master Systems Display that we see. Traditionally, they've only been found in Engineering and on the Bridge, so why is there one in such a deserted section of the vessel (for not once do you see or hear anyone but Daniels and Archer)? Now, the vessel is a logical take on hull construction advancement, with its saucer section, and the two pylons/nacelles, with no visible drive section. Daniels mentions a bunch of races in his dialogue, when he explains what the Federation is to Archer. He says that they all lived peacefully together as part of the Federation, until the Sphere Builders arrived. Then he says a bunch of races - humans, andorans, vulcans, trill - that we already know belong to the Federation. But that's not all, he also says the Cardassians, Klingons, Romulans, Bajoran, Xindi, and one called the Altrans (you can't make out clearly what he says - but that's what the Closed Captioning states). Who are these Altrans? When did the Cardassians, Klingons, Romulans and Bajorans join the Federation? Now for my brief thought on "Damage". When the holographic girl appears to the Council (without the Reptillians present), did anyone notice how much she resembled the female Founder? I checked it out and she is the same actress, but why would they reuse the same facial/skin make-up theme? Just for budget purposes, or for another reason? Now assuming that she was one of the "sphere builders" would that mean that they were the Founders or the Founders were descendants of them? Anyone else want to bat around any ideas for these episodes?