PIC S3 Ships & Tech
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One thing I noticed in the finale... The warp effect for the Enterprise-D.
They used the original/TNG-era warp effect of streaking stars to indicate the ship was at warp, where the Titan and other Paramount+ era ships (including Discovery and SNW Enterprise) have more of a hyperspace look while at warp.
Depending on how deep we wanna go down this rabbit hole of either saying an easter egg is an easter egg or it's something different, it might mean that instead of just being a stylistic choice of the visual effects artists, that different warp drives produce different warp effects.
They used the original/TNG-era warp effect of streaking stars to indicate the ship was at warp, where the Titan and other Paramount+ era ships (including Discovery and SNW Enterprise) have more of a hyperspace look while at warp.
Depending on how deep we wanna go down this rabbit hole of either saying an easter egg is an easter egg or it's something different, it might mean that instead of just being a stylistic choice of the visual effects artists, that different warp drives produce different warp effects.
Too bad they didn’t use the original warp jump “stretch” effect.
I remember there being a novel once where it described how modifying the warp fields could change what you saw from the inside of a ship at warp looking out at the rest of the universe. Poor or primitive warp field control would lead to not being able to see anything as the warp fields would deflect or absorb all incoming photons and leave you blind, which is why very early warp ships had to make repeated short warp jumps rather than being able to cruise indefinitely.
My headcanon for the now-traditional Berman-era rainbow star streaks when travelling at warp, since the ships cannot be going anywhere near fast enough for them to be actual stars, are that they are incident photons and particles reacting with the ship's outer warp fields and being distorted and deflected as they pass. In VOY: "Night" we see Voyager travelling in perfect darkness, because there's literally nothing there for the warp fields to interact with.
My headcanon for the now-traditional Berman-era rainbow star streaks when travelling at warp, since the ships cannot be going anywhere near fast enough for them to be actual stars, are that they are incident photons and particles reacting with the ship's outer warp fields and being distorted and deflected as they pass. In VOY: "Night" we see Voyager travelling in perfect darkness, because there's literally nothing there for the warp fields to interact with.
My Head Cannon says those aren't stars, but the Warp Fields reacting with random gas/space particles out in normal space and streaking by due to light bouncing into the Warp Bubble so we can see them streaking by.
We all know space isn't completely empty, for every large volume of space, there must be some micro or macro sized gas/dust/particles out there. Ergo the Bussard Collectors have something to collect.
While traveling at FTL, those Micro to Macro sized particles are getting pushed aside by the Navigational Deflectors, so we see them all around the vessel.
There is a very overused stock footage sequence of an exterior view of the Enterprise as it drops out of warp throughout TNG. Watch the streaks, they morph into distant points of star light.
I always interpreted this scene to indicate the warp bubble is magnifying and distorting the stars to appear closer and as the stars spectrums.
I always interpreted this scene to indicate the warp bubble is magnifying and distorting the stars to appear closer and as the stars spectrums.
It was more of a DS9/VOY/ENT effect, cause TNG had these rainbow streaks with separate colors (hard borders, no gradients) that made no sense
a visual distortion is a good one
This guy has a real nice VFX for the Visual Distortion of what Actual Warp Drive would look like based on more recent papers.
It's pretty nice, he even uses the Enterprise-D and E as his model.
Now i really wonder about what exactly causes the differences between how the warp fields distort the light seen on the ships.
A little late, so forgive the stuff that's been gone over already:
- The awesome rainbow acrobatics of the E-D in the opening eyecatch show that her saucer engines are lit. For that kind of maneuvering, I’d expect it, and yet when the Enterprise does her Death Star run at the climax of the episode only her main drive is powered.
- The "beefy Akira" I mentioned being seen last week seems to be the Alita-Class starship from Star Trek Online. You can see one flying in formation with the E-F in the recap at the beginning of 310 at around 0:53, next to an Echelon and above what looks to be a Nova.
- Yay for the old TNG-style warp star effects! But notably this is the first time we've seen this with a nebulae in the distant background, both behind the ship and to the side. Does that mean that if we were to see the same perspective as the ship goes into warp, we'd see the planet and then local star(s) recede into the distance?
- President Chekov’s message is received with a “code one” alert, referenced thrice before in TOS when used to denote imminent invasion or galactic catastrophe. It also calls for General Order 12, which Saavik (mostly) references in TWOK regarding going to alert status when approached by another starship without establishing proper communication. Good calls, both.
- Where is the President during this sequence? Someone with him pulls him off to an escape capsule, suggesting he’s on a spacecraft of some kind. Probably as a VIP on one of the fleet ships, but also maybe in Spacedock, though it vaguely implies that people were fighting in the background.
- As such, are we saying that Spacedock managed to win over the whippersnapper assault? Is it just too full of seasoned personnel that they were able to resist?
- Raffi's thing of rigging the phasers to channel a transporter beam is next-level awesome. Good thing Section 31 may already have thought of it to "kill" Sloane, or a bunch of pirates used it to "Kill" Picard, both years ago. On that though, why didn't they just keep the zapped Borg in the transporter buffer? Limited stasis is nothing new, and I'm not talking about putting them in there for decades. Of course, not doing this lets them escape in time for the climax of the episode, but that's neither here nor there.
- They escape by not phasering their way through the door, despite having ample access to firearms and having anything potentially explosive being behind them (vs. Riker standing IN the transporter chamber before being warned off by O'Brien in TNG "Brothers").
- Yay, we officially add a fourth division color to Starfleet, the culinary division! Still, the cook IS an officer, junior though he may be. Or does he have a single black pip a la O'Brien? It's just to dang dark. Or did he pass the culinary exam just to become an officer and show up that Third Technician that was bugging him about that very thing?
- Still though, the cook must be a whiz at picking things up. Compared to pretty much everyone else, he actually demonstrates some trigger discipline when holding a phaser.
- And speaking of command experience, Dr. Ohk had a full commander rank, implying that she (like Crusher and Troi) also took the bridge officer's exam. And she goes to the phone-answering station, letting the cook fly the ship?
- It's great that in this era, phasers move so much phaster then they used to, but photons move so much slower. Also, the Spacedock weapons must be really jazzed up as they're distinctly brighter than the fleet's, and might do correspondindly more damage, like they seemed to with DS9. We see evidence that a single shot can disable a Sovereign..!
- Not a single quantum torpedo in sight all season long, even from the Sovereign-class ships. I'm starting to think that as a technology they were surpassed by upgrades to photons, or just weren't worth the hassle or resources to equip the whole fleet, and as such were quietly abandoned. At least Earth will get them back by 3189 with a sizeable power upgrade.
- It seems that when spacedock fell, the planetary shields immediately collapsed too. How is one tied to the other? And clearly the planetary shields must be enough to resist the fleet’s firepower, or else it’d be a simple matter of moving out of range of spacedock (which is at a relatively low orbit, all things considered) to the other side of the planet, roasting everyone there, and then staying there while Earth continued rotating beneath them.
- Picard notes that the cube is broadcasting "across the system". No further? Are we concluding that everyone else beyond the orbit of Neptune gets a pass? All the people on other starbases and ships, and literally everyone else who's ever used a Starfleet transporter in the past few years is okay?
- Jack seems to be broadcasting to the Federation later on though - is that an order to the new Borg, or just Radio Free Collective?
- This is the only iteration of the Borg Queen to seemingly have proper arms and a ribcage. Maybe this is all part of whatever she's doing to stay alive, but she's never needed them before. OTOH, for all we know her assorted bodies below the neckline always contained some organic flesh, and this version of her just didn't bother covering up.
- The Titan disrupts Fleet Formation by cloaking, and then scrambles much of the fleet's shields by broadcasting the prefix codes a la TWOK, subsequently blasting away to disable what they can, then recloaking and repeating.
- We finally see the Titan fire phasers, and the same beam type is issued from the old ball turrets AND her phaser strips.
- TSFS-era tricorder sound effects are used liberally in this episode. Cute callback, and arguably better-used than the "whatever sounds right this week" strategy on Discovery, but not really as accurate as using TNG-era tricorder effects to do the same thing.
- We've seen Borg "zombies" reanimated before on Voyager, but not necessarily as active as these guys. These drones are also more muscular than average, and return energy weapons to use for the first time since "Descent".
- Jack's hair is not irrelevant. All other assimilees, including Janeway, Torres and Tuvok subsequently launch a collective (sic) class actin lawsuit.
- Riker calls Worf's concealed weapon a phaser. Still, it's another example in the history of Klingon weapons housing extra weapons.
- Did Geordi upgrade the warp drive on the Enterprise-D? They do seem to whip back to Sol as quickly as they abandoned it. In any case he did upgrade the transporter arrays to match the effects used in the rest of the season.
- Riker explains that Crusher develops new tech that "privately scans" for other anomalies. That's great, but it's not so private if it's displayed right in front of the guy when he beams back in. OTOH the guy seems oblivious of the blinking red lights on the transporter console when the two security guys grab him.
- The pastiche of ending scenes seem to be out of order somewhat. Some of the gang start wearing the newer gold-backed combadges at different points. But I guess Starfleet, always in favor of uniform changes / merchandising opportunities, thought it great to subtly change up the combadge color after a huge disaster?
(Aside - I think a lot of these ending bits were shot on the fly without particular regard to continuity anyway. Where are Troi and Data doing their sessions? Why are Riker, Geordi and Picard bidding farewell to the E-D while wearing the uniforms they used while on the Titan at the end of 308, and not their regular duty outfits? Are Picard and Crusher wearing Admiral's uniform variants when shuttling Jack to the new Enterprise?)
- So Geordi has finished up his restoration of the Enterprise-D within a year, even cleaning up the burn marks on the saucer. What has the Titan been doing all this time? The scene with Tuvok is suggested to have happened pretty quickly after Frontier Day, but the launch of the Enterprise-G seems to happen in the "year later" time frame. It doesn't take that long to repaint the name.
- Ever the Constitution-class man, Jack pops a model of one onto his shelf next to a model of the fat one. He's also kept his old phaser.
- If we do get a continuation aboard this latest Enterprise, what do we think - should they "fix" the saucer to be more contemporary? Or has the wholesale rip of the TMP saucer design grown on us, warts and all?
Mark
- The awesome rainbow acrobatics of the E-D in the opening eyecatch show that her saucer engines are lit. For that kind of maneuvering, I’d expect it, and yet when the Enterprise does her Death Star run at the climax of the episode only her main drive is powered.
- The "beefy Akira" I mentioned being seen last week seems to be the Alita-Class starship from Star Trek Online. You can see one flying in formation with the E-F in the recap at the beginning of 310 at around 0:53, next to an Echelon and above what looks to be a Nova.
- Yay for the old TNG-style warp star effects! But notably this is the first time we've seen this with a nebulae in the distant background, both behind the ship and to the side. Does that mean that if we were to see the same perspective as the ship goes into warp, we'd see the planet and then local star(s) recede into the distance?
- President Chekov’s message is received with a “code one” alert, referenced thrice before in TOS when used to denote imminent invasion or galactic catastrophe. It also calls for General Order 12, which Saavik (mostly) references in TWOK regarding going to alert status when approached by another starship without establishing proper communication. Good calls, both.
- Where is the President during this sequence? Someone with him pulls him off to an escape capsule, suggesting he’s on a spacecraft of some kind. Probably as a VIP on one of the fleet ships, but also maybe in Spacedock, though it vaguely implies that people were fighting in the background.
- As such, are we saying that Spacedock managed to win over the whippersnapper assault? Is it just too full of seasoned personnel that they were able to resist?
- Raffi's thing of rigging the phasers to channel a transporter beam is next-level awesome. Good thing Section 31 may already have thought of it to "kill" Sloane, or a bunch of pirates used it to "Kill" Picard, both years ago. On that though, why didn't they just keep the zapped Borg in the transporter buffer? Limited stasis is nothing new, and I'm not talking about putting them in there for decades. Of course, not doing this lets them escape in time for the climax of the episode, but that's neither here nor there.
- They escape by not phasering their way through the door, despite having ample access to firearms and having anything potentially explosive being behind them (vs. Riker standing IN the transporter chamber before being warned off by O'Brien in TNG "Brothers").
- Yay, we officially add a fourth division color to Starfleet, the culinary division! Still, the cook IS an officer, junior though he may be. Or does he have a single black pip a la O'Brien? It's just to dang dark. Or did he pass the culinary exam just to become an officer and show up that Third Technician that was bugging him about that very thing?
- Still though, the cook must be a whiz at picking things up. Compared to pretty much everyone else, he actually demonstrates some trigger discipline when holding a phaser.
- And speaking of command experience, Dr. Ohk had a full commander rank, implying that she (like Crusher and Troi) also took the bridge officer's exam. And she goes to the phone-answering station, letting the cook fly the ship?
- It's great that in this era, phasers move so much phaster then they used to, but photons move so much slower. Also, the Spacedock weapons must be really jazzed up as they're distinctly brighter than the fleet's, and might do correspondindly more damage, like they seemed to with DS9. We see evidence that a single shot can disable a Sovereign..!
- Not a single quantum torpedo in sight all season long, even from the Sovereign-class ships. I'm starting to think that as a technology they were surpassed by upgrades to photons, or just weren't worth the hassle or resources to equip the whole fleet, and as such were quietly abandoned. At least Earth will get them back by 3189 with a sizeable power upgrade.
- It seems that when spacedock fell, the planetary shields immediately collapsed too. How is one tied to the other? And clearly the planetary shields must be enough to resist the fleet’s firepower, or else it’d be a simple matter of moving out of range of spacedock (which is at a relatively low orbit, all things considered) to the other side of the planet, roasting everyone there, and then staying there while Earth continued rotating beneath them.
- Picard notes that the cube is broadcasting "across the system". No further? Are we concluding that everyone else beyond the orbit of Neptune gets a pass? All the people on other starbases and ships, and literally everyone else who's ever used a Starfleet transporter in the past few years is okay?
- Jack seems to be broadcasting to the Federation later on though - is that an order to the new Borg, or just Radio Free Collective?
- This is the only iteration of the Borg Queen to seemingly have proper arms and a ribcage. Maybe this is all part of whatever she's doing to stay alive, but she's never needed them before. OTOH, for all we know her assorted bodies below the neckline always contained some organic flesh, and this version of her just didn't bother covering up.
- The Titan disrupts Fleet Formation by cloaking, and then scrambles much of the fleet's shields by broadcasting the prefix codes a la TWOK, subsequently blasting away to disable what they can, then recloaking and repeating.
- We finally see the Titan fire phasers, and the same beam type is issued from the old ball turrets AND her phaser strips.
- TSFS-era tricorder sound effects are used liberally in this episode. Cute callback, and arguably better-used than the "whatever sounds right this week" strategy on Discovery, but not really as accurate as using TNG-era tricorder effects to do the same thing.
- We've seen Borg "zombies" reanimated before on Voyager, but not necessarily as active as these guys. These drones are also more muscular than average, and return energy weapons to use for the first time since "Descent".
- Jack's hair is not irrelevant. All other assimilees, including Janeway, Torres and Tuvok subsequently launch a collective (sic) class actin lawsuit.
- Riker calls Worf's concealed weapon a phaser. Still, it's another example in the history of Klingon weapons housing extra weapons.
- Did Geordi upgrade the warp drive on the Enterprise-D? They do seem to whip back to Sol as quickly as they abandoned it. In any case he did upgrade the transporter arrays to match the effects used in the rest of the season.
- Riker explains that Crusher develops new tech that "privately scans" for other anomalies. That's great, but it's not so private if it's displayed right in front of the guy when he beams back in. OTOH the guy seems oblivious of the blinking red lights on the transporter console when the two security guys grab him.
- The pastiche of ending scenes seem to be out of order somewhat. Some of the gang start wearing the newer gold-backed combadges at different points. But I guess Starfleet, always in favor of uniform changes / merchandising opportunities, thought it great to subtly change up the combadge color after a huge disaster?
(Aside - I think a lot of these ending bits were shot on the fly without particular regard to continuity anyway. Where are Troi and Data doing their sessions? Why are Riker, Geordi and Picard bidding farewell to the E-D while wearing the uniforms they used while on the Titan at the end of 308, and not their regular duty outfits? Are Picard and Crusher wearing Admiral's uniform variants when shuttling Jack to the new Enterprise?)
- So Geordi has finished up his restoration of the Enterprise-D within a year, even cleaning up the burn marks on the saucer. What has the Titan been doing all this time? The scene with Tuvok is suggested to have happened pretty quickly after Frontier Day, but the launch of the Enterprise-G seems to happen in the "year later" time frame. It doesn't take that long to repaint the name.
- Ever the Constitution-class man, Jack pops a model of one onto his shelf next to a model of the fat one. He's also kept his old phaser.
- If we do get a continuation aboard this latest Enterprise, what do we think - should they "fix" the saucer to be more contemporary? Or has the wholesale rip of the TMP saucer design grown on us, warts and all?
Mark
Do you have a screencap? The Alita-class isn't included in the behind-the-scenes breakdown of ships, but the shapes and colors look like you it could be a Pathfinder, which is part of the breakdown, and from certain angles and distances could look Akira-ish, especially with the downward-curving warp pylons.
One of clearer shots of it here in the upper left:
And on the right, just below the Odyssey-class starship, and another on the lower left also below another Odyssey-class:
Jörg Hillebrand also had a tweet about the other STO ships: https://twitter.com/gaghyogi49/status/1647279868638314497
And Pundus did one about the Edison-class: https://twitter.com/_Pundus_/status/1649307651338272768
I thought the registry was very low for a newer ship, but then remembered they gave the Galaxy-class USS Syracuse an even lower one: NCC-17744.
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Looks like an Akira with a partial saucer. Much of it is in shadow and difficult to make out the lines.
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