Tholian Web/USS Defiant questions

[Ubiquitousclate]

Here are several minutiae that I've puzzled over ever since I first saw this episode many years ago:

1. We hear that Defiant is drifting, and when we see the Defiant's engine room, the engines (those are what are behind the grates in the Engine Room, correct?) are blue in color. Thus, were the engines shut off? If so, would this happen automatically if they are not engaged/used, or would they have to be shut off manually?
Would starting the engines have resulted in Defiant not disappearing, or would that have taken such a long time (re-starting them) that it would have been too late, anyway?

2. In regard to the dead crew-members, we see about twenty bodies in various locations, and I realize that it is to represent the entire crew killing each other. Now, this is a stretch, but was that what all of them did, that is to say, kill each other? No one locked himself/herself in a cabin to avoid it all? I'm not quite sure of the nature of this space madness. Perhaps it might have caused some to commit suicide instead? I guess "no survivors" just seems drastic (and convenient for the plot).

That last is not meant to be a dark question, and I realize that the episode can only give a quick nod to what happened on Defiant and not spend the entire time investigating. I will say that, unlike the other "dead" Federation ships that are encountered, at least we do see quite a few crew-members, even if we don't directly hear a log entry, which latter might have been rather chilling given what was going on.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

There's more than one way to kill a crew member when in the throes of madness. One needn't use phaser power or one's bare hands when shutting off the environmental controls will do.

 

[Kraig]

Here are several minutiae that I've puzzled over ever since I first saw this episode many years ago:

1. We hear that Defiant is drifting, and when we see the Defiant's engine room, the engines (those are what are behind the grates in the Engine Room, correct?) are blue in color. Thus, were the engines shut off? If so, would this happen automatically if they are not engaged/used, or would they have to be shut off manually?
Would starting the engines have resulted in Defiant not disappearing, or would that have taken such a long time (re-starting them) that it would have been too late, anyway?

2. In regard to the dead crew-members, we see about twenty bodies in various locations, and I realize that it is to represent the entire crew killing each other. Now, this is a stretch, but was that what all of them did, that is to say, kill each other? No one locked himself/herself in a cabin to avoid it all? I'm not quite sure of the nature of this space madness. Perhaps it might have caused some to commit suicide instead? I guess "no survivors" just seems drastic (and convenient for the plot).

That last is not meant to be a dark question, and I realize that the episode can only give a quick nod to what happened on Defiant and not spend the entire time investigating. I will say that, unlike the other "dead" Federation ships that are encountered, at least we do see quite a few crew-members, even if we don't directly hear a log entry, which latter might have been rather chilling given what was going on.

I don't think that Captain Kirk alone in an EV suit could restart the engines even if he wanted to. Also the Defiant was in an area where space time was unstable. An energy spike from starting a matter-antimatter reaction where the Defiant was located might not yield a desirable outcome.

 

[Shawnster]

From "The Naked Time" after Riley turned off the engines.


SCOTT: Captain.
KIRK: What is it?
SCOTT: He's turned the engines off. Completely cold. It will take thirty minutes to regenerate them.
UHURA [OC]: Ship's outer skin is beginning to heat, Captain. Orbit plot shows we have about eight minutes left.
KIRK: Scotty!
SCOTT: I can't change the laws of physics. I've got to have thirty minutes.

So, the Defiant, like her sister ship Enterprise, would take 30 minutes to restart the engines. Now, Scotty did do it in less time but what are the odds of pulling that off again with the Defiant? As @Kraig pointed out, the region of space was volatile.

 

[blssdwlf]

Here are several minutiae that I've puzzled over ever since I first saw this episode many years ago:

1. We hear that Defiant is drifting, and when we see the Defiant's engine room, the engines (those are what are behind the grates in the Engine Room, correct?) are blue in color. Thus, were the engines shut off? If so, would this happen automatically if they are not engaged/used, or would they have to be shut off manually?

It does not appear that the Defiant's engines were shutoff. All we hear is:

SPOCK: The ship is still functioning, Captain.​

And the blue color behind the grates doesn't correspond to the orange color of the shutoff engines as seen in "The Naked Time". More than likely it might have something to do with unchecked "power loss to the warp engines" being caused by the space. The ship is likely producing less power than what is needed to overcome the power loss, IMHO.

 

[feek61]

Here are several minutiae that I've puzzled over ever since I first saw this episode many years ago:

1. We hear that Defiant is drifting, and when we see the Defiant's engine room, the engines (those are what are behind the grates in the Engine Room, correct?) are blue in color. Thus, were the engines shut off? If so, would this happen automatically if they are not engaged/used, or would they have to be shut off manually?
Would starting the engines have resulted in Defiant not disappearing, or would that have taken such a long time (re-starting them) that it would have been too late, anyway?

2. In regard to the dead crew-members, we see about twenty bodies in various locations, and I realize that it is to represent the entire crew killing each other. Now, this is a stretch, but was that what all of them did, that is to say, kill each other? No one locked himself/herself in a cabin to avoid it all? I'm not quite sure of the nature of this space madness. Perhaps it might have caused some to commit suicide instead? I guess "no survivors" just seems drastic (and convenient for the plot).

That last is not meant to be a dark question, and I realize that the episode can only give a quick nod to what happened on Defiant and not spend the entire time investigating. I will say that, unlike the other "dead" Federation ships that are encountered, at least we do see quite a few crew-members, even if we don't directly hear a log entry, which latter might have been rather chilling given what was going on.

The engines could have had some sort of automatic shut off or idle setting based on no input from the crew or maybe because of a designed safety feature based on the sensor readings of the unstable region they were in. If engaging the engines would have thrown them into a different dimension, I can see the computer overriding the settings and putting them into safe mode. FWIW, I thought the blue engine were a nice touch, like the engines were in hibernation mode.

Regarding the crew members, the effects of the space made them aggressive, so hiding out in your cabin was unlikely based on how individuals were effected based on what we saw in the episode.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The engines could have had some sort of automatic shut off or idle setting based on no input from the crew or maybe because of a designed safety feature based on the sensor readings of the unstable region they were in. If engaging the engines would have thrown them into a different dimension, I can see the computer overriding the settings and putting them into safe mode. FWIW, I thought the blue engine were a nice touch, like the engines were in hibernation mode.

I've never thought about the engine color, beyond seeing it as a staging decision to differentiate the Defiant from the familiar appearance of the Enterprise. But I like and adopt the idea that the pipes are blue in hibernation mode.

And it's not just the lack of operator inputs. The ship's vital control rooms might have motion sensors. When I leave the room for long enough, my TV goes into a screen saver mode, and it takes action on the remote to wake it up. My work laptop does the same thing, goes to a lock screen, on a much shorter timer.

In order to wake up the Engine Room controls of an abandoned starship, an authorized operator has to enter his logon ID and password. Otherwise, some alien boarder could walk in and start pushing buttons. The ship has to say "Nope. You're not the boss of me!"

 

[fireproof78]

In order to wake up the Engine Room controls of an abandoned starship, an authorized operator has to enter his logon ID and password. Otherwise, some alien boarder could walk in and start pushing buttons. The ship has to say "Nope. You're not the boss of me!"

 

[Poltargyst]

I've never thought about the engine color, beyond seeing it as a staging decision to differentiate the Defiant from the familiar appearance of the Enterprise. But I like and adopt the idea that the pipes are blue in hibernation mode.

And it's not just the lack of operator inputs. The ship's vital control rooms might have motion sensors. When I leave the room for long enough, my TV goes into a screen saver mode, and it takes action on the remote to wake it up. My work laptop does the same thing, goes to a lock screen, on a much shorter timer.

In order to wake up the Engine Room controls of an abandoned starship, an authorized operator has to enter his logon ID and password. Otherwise, some alien boarder could walk in and start pushing buttons. The ship has to say "Nope. You're not the boss of me!"

But we've seen that intruders can just walk on the Enterprise and start pushing buttons.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

But we've seen that intruders can just walk on the Enterprise and start pushing buttons.

Not when the Enterprise has been sitting empty for a while. If you capture Engineering and get on the controls soon enough, you're using the authorized crewman's logon, which never timed out. And yes, there would be other things you can control without logging on, so there's that.