DSC 1x01: Starships and Technology

[Mark_Nguyen]

[EXPECT SPOILERS FOR THE PREMIERE EPISODE]

Back on the r.a.s.tech newsgroup and then the Flare forums I had a whale of a time posting thoughts and observations of the (mostly Starfleet)ships and tech for every episode. Planning on doing so here for Discovery. All are welcome to post their own as well!

On the lookout for:

-The state of the Starfleet: how common are ships in his part of space? How will this fit in with what (little) we know of Starfleet from this era, from "The Cage" et.al.? UESPA?

- How fast are the ships in this period? And will it even be reflected in any plot points? A recent graphic we've seen suggests that Discovery hits warp six at 100%, will this be a thing? The NX-01's warp five engine was part of the backstory, but was rarely ever a factor (sic) in a story.

- Hand weapons: phasers? Lasers? Pulses? Beams?

- Are the robot and android Shenzhou crew members just that, or are they just weird aliens that need help to serve in an M-class environment?

- Combat tactics: classic Trek? Star Warsey? JJ-verse? There was an interview where a producer acknowledged that classic Trek had lots of ships simply parking and exchanging fire, and not wanting to do that.

- The role of LCARS in operations. When someone calls on-screen, will we have whatever they're looking at, or will we be all Iron Man with additional graphics and stuff pointing out what we should we looking at?

-Crew counts of Shenzhou, Discovery and other ships. The Enterprise had 203 people aboard a few years prior; what can that mean for these guys?

- Uniform variations: we saw a short-sleeve version in one of the early trailers but little hint of them more recently, and hardly seen on the bridge; what's up with that?

- Shipboard life: we've always known that there SHOULD be enough habitable space aboard any given starship to allow everyone some pretty spacious quarters. We've heard of bunk mates and couples quarters for DSC so far; how will this be presented?

All this and more, soon to be fodder for YEARS of fan speculation and theorizing? What are you guys looking for? We've mostly been worried about how the tech will fit imto the larger canon, but I'm also going to focus on this show's internal continuity as we progress,

Mark

 

[Timo]

Looking forward to head exploding. Further intrigue:

- We know these guys will not shy away from showing that most readily identifiable piece of Star Trek technology, the transporter. How will it behave in this show? Do we find out about all-new limitations and shortcomings that cater for drama? Are the operating procedures and doctrines the same as in "The Cage" and/or TOS? The same aboard both the focus ships, or dissimilar?

- Despite transporters, DSC can afford to show auxiliary craft, and will. What sort? All-new abilities and limitations? A range of designs, perhaps including something analogous to the TOS craft whose idiosyncratic abilities and limitations we already know?

- Will we see invisibility? Will we learn why Kirk was so amazed at the inability to see his adversary, when his predecessors weren't? If not that, what sort of camouflage, visual obfuscation and general cloak-and-dagger stuff will feature in the show?

- Should we also do "biotech" in this thread? Interesting revelations about what it means to be Vulcan or Klingon? Perhaps this warrants a separate thread altogether, save for when it tangents on life support machinery, space suits and the like.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[cultcross]

Perhaps this warrants a separate thread altogether,

No it doesn't

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Come to think of it, this thread may be more suited to the Tech forum. Moderators decide?

-Medical stuff: we may have seen a sickbay, or it may be a science lab of some kind that Captain Lorca was trapped (?) in. Either way the Sickbay is a quintessential Star Trek set and I'm not sure we've seen one just yet.

-Ditto with the engineering set. We know there IS one, but we've barely glimpsed one wall. If there is a "new way to fly", I'll assume there is something impressive or people are just tripping on shrooms. Or maybe both.

Mark

 

[doublegoodprole]

I'm calling it now. The first scene will be someone coming out of the bathroom.

A technologically advanced bathroom. With mints.

 

[Rahul]

Will there be a wheeled ground vehicle?

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Spoilers from David Macks Novel Desperate Hours:

Spoiler

Pike, Spock and the Enterprise have important roles in the novel.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Back on the r.a.s.tech newsgroup...

I don't have anything to contribute at the moment, I'm just delighted by your mention of rec.arts.startrek! Brings me way, way back on a day that is full of reminiscence for a variety of reasons...

 

[publiusr]

Will there be a wheeled ground vehicle?

I hope not...

 

[AaronMorse]

My God! The good old days on the news groups.. I saw this post and it took me way back! Seeing this post by you Mark made me actually excited to see Discovery! LOL

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Here's Ship stuff from the Second episode

USS Shenzhou is an old ship. The USS Europa's registry number is NCC-1648 and has a Miranda look to it. The starship names of Clarke, Dana, Earhart, Edison, Ride, Sue, T'Plana-Hath, and the Yeager are used for the Federation Fleet. We got to see Klingon fighters, a Klingon ship that looks like a pill with Scimitar-like wings, and Starfleet shuttles. Workbees are mentioned as being on the Shenzhou.

 

[David cgc]

^I think the shuttle we saw at the beginning investigating the destroyed comm relay was a Shenzhou workbee. That robot arm seemed very construction-y.

-The state of the Starfleet: how common are ships in his part of space? How will this fit in with what (little) we know of Starfleet from this era, from "The Cage" et.al.? UESPA?

Aside from the fact that the fleet was able to scare up a dozen or so ships within a couple hours seems to point to a pretty substantial fleet. Granted, it was on the Klingon frontier, but on the other hand, they said the Klingons had hardly been heard from in a century, yet on the Edoan third hand, they mentioned at least two Klingon attacks/battles within living memory.

- How fast are the ships in this period? And will it even be reflected in any plot points? A recent graphic we've seen suggests that Discovery hits warp six at 100%, will this be a thing? The NX-01's warp five engine was part of the backstory, but was rarely ever a factor (sic) in a story.

There's one hard distance mentioned, where the Europa is still 800 AUs out when the rest of the fleet arrives. It was still approaching at something more than warp 1, since it couldn't have been... times 8 is 6,400, divided by 60 is 100 and change... over four days between the beginning of the battle and the Admiral's arrival.

- Hand weapons: phasers? Lasers? Pulses? Beams?

Pulses, very Kelvin-verse sounding. Also, the phasers have the same blue/red stun/kill color-coding as the KT versions (though on the dial on the back rather than the barrel).

- Combat tactics: classic Trek? Star Warsey? JJ-verse? There was an interview where a producer acknowledged that classic Trek had lots of ships simply parking and exchanging fire, and not wanting to do that.

Not a lot of tactics in shown beyond the generic pew-pew and old-style base trickery. The closest thing we got was the Klingon fighter breaking off when it saw Shenzhou was going to be smashed to bits in the accretion disk rather than making the kill directly. I'd be tempted to consider it an insult, perhaps "a Strategy of Least Respect," as was mentioned but undefined in Prelude to Axanar.

One other note I wanted to make was the grab-bag of sound design. There was a fair amount of TOS noises (including the standard bridge ambience, the communicator chirp, and the transporter-activation noise), but there were a lot of TNG-era sounds, like various klaxons, warnings, and the hailing-frequencies double-ping. It was weird.

Also, it's not just the text on the ship's hulls that's TMP rather than TOS-style. We got a good look at a TMP-style pennant on the Europa, complete with red ring behind the delta shield and the standard text.

 

[The Super Brando]

Pulses, very Kelvin-verse sounding.

Between the window viewscreens, phaser pulses, and Klingon designs, this looks like it's part of the Kelvin universe. I know they said it's in the Prime universe, but I wonder if they're just saying that for current legal reasons.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Between the window viewscreens, phaser pulses, and Klingon designs, this looks like it's part of the Kelvin universe. I know they said it's in the Prime universe, but I wonder if they're just saying that for current legal reasons.

Technically, the Kelvin universe -- at the time of the Kelvin -- is the Prime universe. So these ships looking and acting like the Kelvin isn't an issue. Even the TOS Enterprise fired pulse phasers on numerous occasions. The beam weapons followed later or were introduced concurrently. This isn't a reason to believe this isn't 10 years pre-TOS.

I'm quite happy to go with the idea that this precedes TOS. But maybe that's my age showing.

 

[David cgc]

Between the window viewscreens, phaser pulses, and Klingon designs, this looks like it's part of the Kelvin universe. I know they said it's in the Prime universe, but I wonder if they're just saying that for current legal reasons.

That reminds me, they used TOS-format stardates. 1207.3 rather than 2256.whatever.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

That reminds me, they used TOS-format stardates. 1207.3 rather than 2256.whatever.

Yes. But they made sure to translate, so that you know it's pre-TOS. It would have been more fun for her to say it was September 24th, though, instead of May 11th.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

I like how Burnham said was it was May 11, 2256 on Earth.

 

[DaveyNY]

I was disappointed with them giving the Klingons the Cloaking Device at this point.
Though ENTERPRISE probably made it a moot point.
I guess T'kuvma's dad could have secretly gotten one from the Romulans and installed it on the ship.
It was the only one with it.

 

[trek604]

NX01 had phase cannons as beam weapons. Wonder why this new ship only has pulses

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Things change in a hundred years