Why uber ships fail

[Sionnach Glic]

Ah, yes. The HIMS Compensator. I'd forgotten about that particular wankage.

[Mikey]

spit coffee alert. Please convey our invitation to the DITL forum to "E1701."

[Duskofdead]

Say, what about this ship I was developing for mass production:

Seriously, though, these ships not only violate common sense, but they puncture a huge hole in the drama of any media.

"Sir, five hundred Borg cubes are attacking Planet X!" "Send the shuttlecraft Curie to destroy them, Mr. Worf."

This made me spit my drink out.

I wanted to say this in fairness--- don't get me wrong, I roll my eyes at fans making up impossible god ships too. I hate that when you go to try to find a mod for a Star Trek game (Armada, Bridge Commander, etc.) you're always wading through tons and tons of player-made godships with really bad paintjobs.

But it's a little out there to pretend like the show doesn't indulge and encourage this fantasizing. The Defiant? Nuff said. A ship which, even BEYOND its technical nitpicks (i.e. size to power ratio etc.) is impossibly invincible 92% of the time except for the other 8% of the time when the drama of the show requires it to be powerless or vulnerable. The Scimitar? Okay let's not go there. Maybe next some other impoverished, oppressed group will suddenly make one of the most overpoweringly imbalanced superiority ships and threaten the quadrant with it. (Ferengi females, perhaps?) Voyager of course had its share of indulging in fanwank too but in fairness some of this was in the form of elaborate deceptions by aliens and I get my back up a bit when people always roll their eyes and cite Voyager.... as if all of DS9 after the introduction of the Defiant and most of TNG after the Sovereign class was unveiled haven't been guilty of exactly the same ship fanwanking.

Although whenever thinking up my own "original designs" I try to keep things in the realm of balanced and realistic (within Trek), and roll my eyes and people who just give in to throwing 925 torpedo tubes onto a design, I think we can't honestly say the show hasn't acted like, whenever needed, the Federation can just materialize a super war design perfectly up to the level of challenge at a moment's notice. (Or more likely, the turn of a series season, cliffhanger episode or the beginning of a movie...)

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Remember folks, don't drink and DITL. 8)

[Duskofdead]

Remember folks, don't drink and DITL. 8)

Something about ANY vessel named "Curie" fighting Borg cubes just made me laugh.

[katefan]

Those are some excellent points, but my only objection is some new tech. could be applied if responsibly handled and employed in a logical manner. Throughout the history of Trek we have seen new technologies employed that are obviously useful; refractive shielding, for example. The cloak detector in that Voyager ep. where Tuvok gets his mind fried. The isokinetic cannon is a neat siege weapon. There is an inherent lack of logic in Starfleet getting ahold of this neat technology and it just disappearing, often never being seen again. Imagine how useful refractive shielding would have been to Voyager in avoiding the Borg or other potential alien threats?

But Star Trek is guilty of it's own wankery as well. Look at Voyager, able to construct an unlimited number of shuttles and photon torpedoes. No worries about getting home, any and all spare parts can be replaced. Or DS9 where you have cloaked, self replicating mines. Or a ship as small as Defiant being some sort of high warp death machine. The Akira is a thru-deck carrier and still has room for 15(!) photon torpedo tubes. Just where are all those torpedoes stored? Or are the torpedoes self replicating?

[Teaos]

I agree Starfleet having info on all this new tech and not using it is not totally logical, but using it creates to many issues for it to be easily tollerated.

With the amount of one off uber-tech-weapons we've seen any new starship could be insanely powerful and still keep to canon, and even logic.

Doesnt stop them from being fan-wanked and shit.

[Lazar]

With the amount of one off uber-tech-weapons we've seen any new starship could be insanely powerful and still keep to canon, and even logic.

As soon as I saw those transphasic torpedoes and ablative armor generators in Endgame, I was like, "You bastards just ruined space combat!" I mean, you can destroy an entire Borg cube with 1 or 2 shots, and you can render anything, right down to the size of a shuttlecraft, immune to all weapons with a simple retrofit - talk about wankery. But apparently they were confiscated by the Temporal Police, never to be seen again - or at least not for 20 years.

[Teaos]

Exactly. It either makes one side so powerful no one could ever hope to beat them.

Or you give everyone a similar type of uber tech which voids the whole point in the first place.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I... always thought that was simple perspective, and not intended for the ships to be the same size as the E-D?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

I... always thought that was simple perspective, and not intended for the ships to be the same size as the E-D?

You can rationalize it that way for the one BoP in the foreground behind the E-D but when you look at the other two in the back behind those Romulan warbirds that idea falls apart (not only are those supposed to be the smallest ships, but the furthest from the "camera.")

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Then I shall rationalize it. And I dunno. Those two in the back don't look uber-huge to me, either.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Then I shall rationalize it. And I dunno. Those two in the back don't look uber-huge to me, either.

They are holding station next to Romulan Warbirds, though. A properly sized Klingon BoP would have been a speck of dust next to one of those behemoths!

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Okay, but they don't look as huge as they're made out to be. And there's wriggle room, to boot.

[Sionnach Glic]

With the amount of one off uber-tech-weapons we've seen any new starship could be insanely powerful and still keep to canon, and even logic.

Quite true. When we were designing the Paladin, wasn't there some concern that it'd turn out as what we'd descrive as a wankship, even though we were going about its construction in a way that was far more logical than most other fan ships?