"you broke your little ships"

[sojourner]

The line in the thread title has bugged me a bit. It's said by Lilly in First Contact to Picard during the whole "Ahab" scene. The reason it's always bothered me is that at this point Lilly has never seen a federation ship. From memory, I don't believe the gold models were labeled. To her couldn't the models just as easily have been some kind of modern art piece? It's not like she grew up with Star Trek like the audience and would recognize the silhouette of any version of the enterprise.

 

[Therin of Andor]

To her couldn't the models just as easily have been some kind of modern art piece? It's not like she grew up with Star Trek like the audience and would recognize the silhouette of any version of the enterprise.

Huh? Don't they look like any number of Airfix or AMT model kits that kids have been assembling since plastic was invented?

 

[BillJ]

The line in the thread title has bugged me a bit. It's said by Lilly in First Contact to Picard during the whole "Ahab" scene. The reason it's always bothered me is that at this point Lilly has never seen a federation ship. From memory, I don't believe the gold models were labeled. To her couldn't the models just as easily have been some kind of modern art piece? It's not like she grew up with Star Trek like the audience and would recognize the silhouette of any version of the enterprise.

Since she worked on the Phoenix she probably recognized the warp nacelles.

 

[zar]

It's not like she grew up with Star Trek like the audience and would recognize the silhouette of any version of the enterprise.

She had been doing some research earlier.

 

[The_Baroness]

From memory, I don't believe the gold models were labeled. .

If you look at this image http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Sovereign_observation_lounge_(2373).jpg you can just about make out some gold rectangles in the cabinet that could easily be labels.

Even if all they said was "USS Enterprise NCC-1701" "USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A" etc it wouldn't be hard to work out what they were. (Particularly as by this point Picard had referred to his ship as The Enterprise.

 

[JarodRussell]

To her couldn't the models just as easily have been some kind of modern art piece? It's not like she grew up with Star Trek like the audience and would recognize the silhouette of any version of the enterprise.

Huh? Don't they look like any number of Airfix or AMT model kits that kids have been assembling since plastic was invented?

The point is that the shape of Star Trek ships is so weird that somebody who has never seen the show would never recognize it.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The point is that the shape of Star Trek ships is so weird that somebody who has never seen the show would never recognize it.

Really? A woman who helped Zefram Cochrane design twin nacelles?

 

[Amaris]

To her couldn't the models just as easily have been some kind of modern art piece? It's not like she grew up with Star Trek like the audience and would recognize the silhouette of any version of the enterprise.

Huh? Don't they look like any number of Airfix or AMT model kits that kids have been assembling since plastic was invented?

The point is that the shape of Star Trek ships is so weird that somebody who has never seen the show would never recognize it.

Why not? Simple observation would fill in details quickly enough.

 

[Kemaiku]

They look like little space ships, and the woman was building one herself, several of the aspects of which were carried into the ships the models represented, I'd be more surprised if she hadn't figured it out.

 

[Timo]

The choice of the word "ship" is the odd thing there. The intent of the display case is obvious enough, familiar from the general military setting of the 20th and 21st century Earth. But I'd think most of the space service officers who would have desktop or shelf models would have "rockets", "spacecraft", perhaps "planes" there. When did the idea develop that astronauts would be operating "ships"? There's no indication that Lily or Cochrane would have considered their warp test rig a "ship".

Then again, Picard does mention his "ship" repeatedly in conversations with Lily. In the "sounds Swedish" discussion, Lily is already familiar with the nomenclature and asks how big Picard's ship is. It should then be a fairly obvious leap to thinking that Picard's little models are ships, regardless of what they look like. Although I'd still think there would be a 50% chance of Lily thinking that those things might be spacecraft being carried aboard Picard's ship, the way an aircraft carrier skipper might display F-18 and A-6 models there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

From memory, I don't believe the gold models were labeled. .

If you look at this image http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Sovereign_observation_lounge_(2373).jpg you can just about make out some gold rectangles in the cabinet that could easily be labels.

Even if all they said was "USS Enterprise NCC-1701" "USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A" etc it wouldn't be hard to work out what they were. (Particularly as by this point Picard had referred to his ship as The Enterprise.

Didn't all the ships have the wrong plaques? Or was that just Nemesis?

 

[The_Baroness]

From memory, I don't believe the gold models were labeled. .

If you look at this image http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Sovereign_observation_lounge_(2373).jpg you can just about make out some gold rectangles in the cabinet that could easily be labels.

Even if all they said was "USS Enterprise NCC-1701" "USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A" etc it wouldn't be hard to work out what they were. (Particularly as by this point Picard had referred to his ship as The Enterprise.

Didn't all the ships have the wrong plaques? Or was that just Nemesis?

I dunno about that - but - even if they had, I don't see how Lily would know they were wrong. So what if they call the Enterprise C the "D" or the B, the Defiant - it would still be pretty obvious that they were ships, if only from the USS prefix.

 

[Satyrquaze]

The OP is based on the mistaken observation that Lily (a woman who assisted quite heavily in the design and construction process of the Phoenix) is at the very least unobservant in the extreme, or is a complete idiot.

Prior to the scene in question, Lily spent probably several hours roaming the Enterprise-E, and also spent several minutes on the Bridge (where there is a giant Master Systems Display dominating the back wall).

I recall on the E-D, there was a model, a painting, a computer display, or some other image of the ship in almost every single room on the Enterprise. In fact, a cursory check of the Enterprise-D bridge turns up no less than ten images of the Enterprise on display for the casual observer who happens to be on the there at the time.

You don't think that maybe she saw at least one visual representation of the ship she happened to be on all that time and not manage to put two-and-two together when she came across the model display in the Observation Lounge?

Seriously, you don't have to be The Batman to figure out what the model display might be.

 

[indolover]

Induction? Deduction? how else do human beings reason things out?

 

[MacLeod]

Lets examine the evidence

1.>You are on a large spaceship
2.>You see a cabinet containing models, whilst you not realise that they are representation of form ships to bear the name Enterprise. It's isn't a great leap to consider them model ships.

Hence, the line "You broke your little <model> ships"

 

[Disruptor]

It makes more sense when you consider that they cut a scene where Picard says to her "Say 'hello' to my little ships!"

 

[Admiral2]

From memory, I don't believe the gold models were labeled. .

If you look at this image http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Sovereign_observation_lounge_(2373).jpg you can just about make out some gold rectangles in the cabinet that could easily be labels.

Even if all they said was "USS Enterprise NCC-1701" "USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A" etc it wouldn't be hard to work out what they were. (Particularly as by this point Picard had referred to his ship as The Enterprise.

Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRmmHPE8EvA

For a moment, you can see the plaques are clearly labeled.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Being on a spaceship, I don't think it's that implausible for anyone newly arrived to think those models were other spaceships of some kind, IMO...

 

[plynch]

"You broke your small spacecraft" doesn't have the implications of Picard acting childish that "little ships" has. I hope Lucas doesn't change this line in the next edition!

 

[Ssosmcin]

It makes more sense when you consider that they cut a scene where Picard says to her "Say 'hello' to my little ships!"

I just pictured him saying this. Not like Al Pacino, but like a ridiculously upbeat Picard. It gave me a really good laugh.