It's irritates me when people say the Enterprise D was taken out buy a 70 yr old Bird Of Prey

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Galaxy class starships were made of toilet tissue, much as I love them.

The fact that it wasn't one-shotted with torpedoes says otherwise.

They took 2x Torpedo Shots to the Main Deflector Dish area and a round of Main Disrupotor Bolts and survived.

The moment you bypass shields like the Klingons did with their VISOR malware so they can see the Shield Frequency, just about any Photon Torpedo's can do massive damage to the hull.

And their computer security wasn't much better.

The fact that they don't validate the memory / firmware of all devices brought in from the field was a HUGE Cyber Security mistake.

One that cost them the Enterprise.

At minimum, Geordi should've had a secondary VISOR ready to go while he handed his existing VISOR to a separate tech to validate the contents of it's Memory / Firmware / Hardware for any form of malware.

 

[BillJ]

At minimum, Geordi should've had a secondary VISOR ready to go while he handed his existing VISOR to a separate tech to validate the contents of it's Memory / Firmware / Hardware for any form of malware.

It wasn’t completely the VISOR itself, Soran also messed with the input feeds, IIRC.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

It wasn’t completely the VISOR itself, Soran also messed with the input feeds, IIRC.

And it ended up leaking real time video stream of what Geordi was seeing to the Dura's sisters.

That little trick is what brought down the Enterprise.

After fighting the Borg, I'm surprised they don't have Shield Frequencies on automatic random modulation.

 

[somebuddyX]

I keep thinking of the battle at the end of Yesterday's Enterprise, where the D is up against 3 bigger BOPs than Lursa and B'Etor's single one, and just lets loose with a continuous phaser blast and blows one to bits. They even reuse Geordi's dialogue from that scene when the warp core starts blowing up. And reuse the BOP blowing up explosion, and Scotty's line about geordi's great-grandfather being in diapers from "relics" is given to kirk about picard's grandfather in "generations". Star Trek: Reusification.
Reading the behind the scenes of this film a lot of stuff like the D getting blowed up just feels like them checking off boxes on a list . They have time limits for using Shatner, they have no McCoy or Spock so give the dialogue to Chekov and Scotty, no time travel so we need a plot to span a hundred years, a comedy subplot for Brent to do some "acting", Shatner wants to ride his horse in a scene, lets save money and reuse special effects, the sets and model don't look good on cinema screens so lets blow up the ship. Oh and we're writing this at the same time as we're writing All Good Things, do you think our attention is going to be split? Do we have enough time to make this the best it could possibly be? So I'm not annoyed or anything with this film but I think of this more as the product Star Trek that needs to be on shelves by a deadline so people can buy it, rather than the creatives really being let loose and coming up with something good.

 

[DonIago]

After fighting the Borg, I'm surprised they don't have Shield Frequencies on automatic random modulation.

That was going to be installed on Tues...
...
...
...wait, wrong movie!
...
...
...wait, right movie!

 

[F. King Daniel]

They were taken out by Birds of Prey in "Yesterday's Enterprise" too. It was destiny.

 

[somebuddyX]

And in "Rascals" (kinda) and with Ferengi at the wheel!

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Picard is on the surface trying to talk down a madman from destroying a star and killing millions. The E-D has recovered Geordi who has a thorough medical exam and has his injuries healed, though he will have no idea if anything had been done to his VISOR. The E-D has its shields up and are facing off against an enemy they've gone up against before, though they've fallen from grace and are only in a crappy old BoP, so the crew are probably feeling all quite smug and superior in their state-of-the-art starship. Suddenly, the BoP opens fire which passes through their shields and tears into the hull, not just once but multiple times. Riker is caught with his pants down, much like Kirk in TWOK. They return fire and attempt to get clear from the planet in order to better manoeuvre, but the onslaught continues. Though we never see/hear anything about remodulating shields the VISOR is still transmitting so the Duras sisters will be able to match it (either that or because Worf is sitting now he can't reach the shield remodulating button). Riker has over 1000 people aboard, but his Captain is on the surface and millions of lives are at stake further in the system, fleeing is not really an option, but the Klingons are using some method to get through their shields and overloading countless systems onboard and since Starfleet won't invest in any sort of surge protection Troi takes the conn. We don't know how extensive the damage is, but seeing how the BoP torpedoes and disruptors bore into the hull it would be fair to surmise that multiple power conduits and bypass circuits are destroyed, so they could well have lost primary weapons control. Even breaking orbit and trying to give themselves some distance to cobble together repairs, they are still facing off against a more agile ship which has a tactical edge they can't counteract.

The only part of the sequence I really have issue with is the solitary torpedo that takes the BoP out, they should've done a full volley, or one of those rounds that seems to break apart into multiple warheads.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

If the enterprise shields could be bypassed, the D should have just been destroyed with one good shot but yea it wouldn't make sense as an enjoyable film. One could argue that the Klingon's wanted a more worthy fight and prolong the destruction. Overall I think it wasn't a good idea to end the D the way it did. I just believe since it was the first big film of TNG, probably one of the main points on the top of the writers list was how to destroy the enterprise for shock value within the context of the story. Could have been written better imho.

I don’t think you appreciate the sheer size and massiveness of the Enterprise, if you think a single shot of anything conventional (in the Trek sense) in general and an old BoP specifically could destroy it.
Remember how the Odyssey was holding off a bunch of Jem Hadar attack ships successfully? Up until one of them suicided into her warp core, at least.

 

[KennyB]

What was wrong was the lack of "Cyber Security".

Nobody bothered to inspect Geordi's Visor, to make sure it wasn't infected with Malware.

If they did that, the Enterprise-D wouldn't have been destroyed.

It's a very expensive / hard lesson that the Federation has to learn when recovering equipment / people from the field.

 

[DonIago]

Though we never see/hear anything about remodulating shields the VISOR is still transmitting so the Duras sisters will be able to match it (either that or because Worf is sitting now he can't reach the shield remodulating button).

This part doesn't work for me. I would imagine the computer can remodulate shield frequencies without manual intervention, and quickly enough that even if the VISOR is transmitting the frequencies will be changing quickly enough to render its data useless. Heck, in BOBW Shelby had Data remodulate the shields, which he probably could do fast enough to ensure anyone seeing the frequencies wouldn't have enough time to adjust, and that's assuming he didn't just direct the computer to start rotating the frequencies.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

^ He still needed to be ordered to instruct the computer to do this. Whose to said the main controls for the shields weren't damaged in the attack, meaning they couldn't be remodulated.

There are a few elements from the film that could've been smoothed over with just an extra line of dialogue.

 

[DonIago]

If we want to go by speculation rather than what's shown, then of course the E-D is a lost cause. We can speculate they lost engines, weapons, shields. At that point they're toast.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

They even reuse Geordi's dialogue from that scene when the warp core starts blowing up.

Which is why one of my favourite moments in Insurrection is this exchange:

[Enterprise-E engineering]

LAFORGE: Our warp core is acting like a magnet to the tear. We're pulling it like a zipper across space.
RIKER (on intercom): Options?
LAFORGE: We could eject the core.

[Enterprise-E bridge]

RIKER: Will that stop the tear?

[Enterprise-E engineering]

LAFORGE: You got me, Commander.

[Enterprise-E bridge]

RIKER: Is that your expert opinion?

[Enterprise-E engineering]

LAFORGE: Detonating the warp core might neutralise the cascade, but then again it might not. Subspace weapons are unpredictable. That's why they were banned.

[Enterprise-E bridge]

DANIELS (OC): The tear is closing on us. ...Impact in fifteen seconds.
RIKER: Eject the core.

[Enterprise-E engineering]

LAFORGE: I just did.

That ladies, gentleman et al, is how engineering -- and teamwork -- is supposed to work!

 

[DonIago]

I liked "Day of Honor" for not only showing the core being ejected from beneath the ship but then showing Engineering with it missing (I'm still a little curious as to what was involved in making that happen). The only thing missing was a shot of Engineering with the core falling through it.

OTOH, the idea that the core could simply be plugged back in afterward seemed a bit of a stretch.

 

[ED-209]

It makes me want to pick up really heavy Anvils and throw them around in poorly constructed, social housing tower blocks.

 

[Tenacity]

and quickly enough

And this might be impossible, rapid shield freq changes that is.

If they don't do what it is that you're suggesting, maybe there's a reason for it.

Transitioning from one freq to another might take the better part of a minute, with the shields falling below full power during the transistion.

 

[DonIago]

Given the shields were proving ineffective anyhow, I don't see why they'd be concerned about them falling below full power during the transition.

And as I said, BOBW explicitly showed the shield frequencies being changed and the evidence suggests all it took was Data tapping away at his console.

 

[Takeru]

I guess what people have a problem with is, Riker just shooting back once instead of unleashing everything.

That was the most offensive part, they fired a single phaser once a d when the Bird of Prey didn't immediately explode they just stopped fighting ... Worf could have fired 50 photon torpedoes and had all phasers blast the klingons constantly, instead they just took a beating and talked about options. They could have thrown in a line how the klingons took out the targeting sensors or whatever.

I liked "Day of Honor" for not only showing the core being ejected from beneath the ship but then showing Engineering with it missing (I'm still a little curious as to what was involved in making that happen). The only thing missing was a shot of Engineering with the core falling through it.

OTOH, the idea that the core could simply be plugged back in afterward seemed a bit of a stretch.

Why? If it can be pushed out it can be plugged back in. They probably had to do some work to reconnect it but we know the core can be replaced relatively easily, when the Enterprise D got a new one it wasn't portrayed as an exceptional event or a major refit for example, it just happened between episodes.

 

[JesterFace]

What do you think, was the Enterprise-D taken out because the people making that weak movie wanted a new "main ship" for the upcoming movies? In any case, a big mistake, Enterprise-D wasn't a character bit still a huge part of what the show was. Why was is so necessary to make the movies so different?

I wonder, is it difficult and time consuming to change shield frequency? Technical mastermind like Geordi might have siggested that if the writers didn't feel it was necessary to destroy the ship. Well, doesn't actually matter to me, I stay away from 'Generations'.

 

[somebuddyX]

To be fair, I think it would be hard to come up with something really satisfying for fans and writers to both like. I feel like they want to walk that line with saying not everyone gets to go out with a blaze of glory and also giving the heroic or meaningful death and not retread the loss of other ships named Enterprise. I think the Odyssey kind of got a better version of what they were trying to do.