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Marcus The Impudite's List Of Preposterously Dangerous Design Flaws Starfleet Vessels Should Never Have Been Allowed To Leave Spacedock With


Marcus Impudite

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Another list I'm compiling, figured it would be right at home here on the Star HERO forums:

 

Marcus The Impudite's List Of Preposterously Dangerous Design Flaws Starfleet Vessels Should Never Have Been Allowed To Leave Spacedock With:

 

1) Lack Of Seatbelts: Yes, Starfleet ships come equipped with Inertia Dampeners; but if I has a nickel for every damned time they've been knocked offline and the crew has been jostled around like the balls in a Bingo hopper, I'd be independently wealthy. Cars have seatbelts. Airplanes and helicopters have seatbelts. The frickin' space shuttle had seatbelts. It's a tried and true safety technology, so it's highly illogical for starships to not have them.

 

2) Holodecks And Holodeck Characters That Can Go Lethally Haywire: As cool as the concept of a Holodeck is, who in their right mind would put such technology on the market knowing it was possible for it to kill someone? In real life, it would be a class action lawsuit waiting to happen, and the manufacturer's CEO would be doing the perp walk shortly after the first time a child gets eaten by Barney The Dinosaur. Honestly, you'd be better off just buying every member of the crew their own Play Station.

 

3) An Astonishing Lack Of Surge Protection: Some remote part of the ship takes a hit during combat and immediately a console on the bridge erupts into a fountain of sparks and the person manning said console is blown backwards about 2 meters. That makes about as much sense as your laptop violently exploding whenever someone hits your WiFi hotspot with a tack hammer.

 

4) Holding Cells In The Brig Only Have Force Fields To Keep Prisoners Contained: Brilliant idea, now every power outage we might have in that part of the ship is a potential jailbreak (the Thin Lizzy song of the same name, entirely optional).

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5) All weapons systems control runs are bundled and vulnerable to point failure: HOW many times were the Galaxy-class Enterprise's weapons systems knocked out by the first volley of an engagement? Where was the secondary control system? Why couldn't they be operated by weapons techs in on-mount controls?

 

6) Where are the Transporter-delivered nukes? Why does ANY ship survive more than one second after it's shields go down?

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7) Lack Of Ladders From The Bridge: How many times have we seen the bridge crew trapped because the turbolifts lose power or are overridden?

 

I have to disagree about the holodecks, though. Children are allowed to ride roller coasters, go white-water rafting, and engage in other entertainment activities with dangerous or even lethal potential, on the assumption that the equipment and the training of its crews have made them as safe as possible. Many people continue to do these things despite the occasional serious accidents that have occurred.

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8) Wear a G%^!@#$ environment suit when you beam down to a completely unexplored planet: Sure, its bulkier and more uncomfortable than going in your pajamas, but how many times have away teams been jeopardized  by exposure to previously undetected alien spores, viruses, gasses, and what have you?

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8) Wear a G%^!@#$ environment suit when you beam down to a completely unexplored planet: Sure, its bulkier and more uncomfortable than going in your pajamas, but how many times have away teams been jeopardized  by exposure to previously undetected alien spores, viruses, gasses, and what have you?

 

IIRC the Classic Trek episode, "The Tholian Web," gave them some pretty cool-looking full-body protective suits. And the animated ST series instituted "life-support belts" which generated a sealed force-field around the wearer.

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7) Lack Of Ladders From The Bridge: How many times have we seen the bridge crew trapped because the turbolifts lose power or are overridden?

There is more than one episode where there is a reason to use the lift's emergency ladders. Just because they are not the primary way that one travels on the ship does not mean that they do not exist. Think about this - how many times will you use an elevator to get to the next floor up or down even though stairs are clearly marked right next to it?

 

My complaint: Lack of backup anything

 

There are many times that (especially during combat or stressful situations) some system will fail. Most vehicles today will possess multiple redundancy systems that kick in when the primary system fails for any reason. The more important the system, the greater the possibility that it should have multiple backups.

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"Manual" override that consists of pushing a DIFFERENT BUTTON on the non-functional console.

 

"Switch to manual!"

<Pressing button repeatedly> "Manual Override is non-functional, sir!"

 

Gah! One of many things Stargate: SG-1 got right. On more than one occasion, when they needed to cut power to the gate and the controls weren't working, they resorted to throwing the big, manually-operated Frankenstein-style switches down in the power room. (Of course, plot needs being what they were, that usually didn't solve the problem--but they TRIED. And they tried an actual, manually-operated switch.)

 

And it's worse than having kids on an exploration vessel. They have kids (and entire families) on a WARSHIP. And don't give me any Federation-style propaganda about the Enterprise not being a warship. It's THE primary ship in the Federation fleet when they have to respond to hostile invasions of the Romulan, Klingon, Borg or other persuasion.

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I have commented before that "The Enterprise-D is a ship designed to fulfill all of the functions of a warship, a scout ship, a research laboratory and a cruise liner.  Unsurprisingly, it fulfills none of these functions well."  As for a specific design flaw outside of trying to excel at everything, obviously they should have done something about the starboard power coupling that failed every time the shields went down, instantly disabling the whole thing.  

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The ship hull contains neither the command/bridge section, nor the engines. The whole layout screams inefficiency. It maximizes travel time around the ship, renders the drive section unnecessarily vulnerable, and creates weird blind spots in fields of fire. Not to mention the extra surface area created by the design would tend to spread out the shields and make them relatively weaker. If you look at the designs for other species, Federation engineers look especially off their game.

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Buses, both public transportation and school transportation, do NOT have seat belts.  Cruise ships do NOT have seat belts.  Basically, the larger the vehicle capacity, the less seat belts are required.  Thus, it makes perfect sense. :P

neither are capable of going high-impulse, much less warp speeds

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What happened when they got the design right? The Defiant.

With the result that the Defiant is a shockingly ugly ship.

 

I've always wondered what the technobabble explanation for Federation ship layouts is supposed to be. I can buy that the nacelles have to be hung out on struts because warp field, but why the saucer section? Why are the secondary hull and main deflector slung under the ship? And why are the ships of other races shaped the way they are?

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With the result that the Defiant is a shockingly ugly ship.

 

I've always wondered what the technobabble explanation for Federation ship layouts is supposed to be. I can buy that the nacelles have to be hung out on struts because warp field, but why the saucer section? Why are the secondary hull and main deflector slung under the ship? And why are the ships of other races shaped the way they are?

 

Being a pre-Paramont-Trek scifi geek from the old days I actually bought some of the old Start Trek manuals and deck-plans from the time when it was an odd cancelled kids show.  When they resurrected the show they re-designed the ships. 

 

In the original design the two Nacelles were the actual anti-matter reactors and the warp drive was in the engineering hull.   The Reactors were on extended pylons for two reasons.   One, reduce threat of radiation exposure to the main ship.  Two, in the event of an emergency a reactor could be more easily jettisoned while preserving the main ship. 

 

As to the shape of the saucer section and the impulse drive being located there.   In the event on a catastrophic failure the saucer section could be explosively separated from the rest of the ship and make a one time landing on a planet where it could serve as an emergency shelter until rescued or as a starting point in case they had become an unwilling colony. 

 

My first tech manual even had a neat diagram showing each stage of the "Emergency Descent", explosive separation and all.

 

When they brought the series back to the small screen there were legal battles, some of which the studio lost.  Another reason there were so many changes such as the Romulan Warbird with cloak suddenly becoming the Klingon Bird of Prey and the Klingons magically gaining the cloak. 

 

Not that the follow on Treks were not good, but they radically changed a lot of the technology.  

 

Watch the original series again, especially paying attention to Scotty and engineering when they show it.  The Anti-Matter Reactors generated power that was sent to Engineering and focused by the dilithium crystals in the warp engine to generate the warp field.   Somehow.   It was highlighted in the episode here the Enterprises dilithium crystals get stolen.  They still had full power, but could not go to warp. 

 

All in all, when you think about the original design with 1960's glasses it all makes sense.    But porting it to more modern times needed a bit of tweaking.

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Buses, both public transportation and school transportation, do NOT have seat belts.  Cruise ships do NOT have seat belts.  Basically, the larger the vehicle capacity, the less seat belts are required.  Thus, it makes perfect sense. :P

 

neither are capable of going high-impulse, much less warp speeds

 

Not a speed issue per se, Buses and cruise ships are not frontline combat vessels.

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What happened when they got the design right? The Defiant.

 

Nah. The Defiant was "overpowered and overgunned."

 

Which was, by far, the WTF-iest statement ever uttered on Star Trek--and that takes some doing. In a universe where the primary weapons of war are ENERGY weapons, it is by definition impossible for a ship to be overpowered AND overgunned.

 

Engineer: "And now, Admirals, we'd like to put the Defiant through its paces. I'm sure you'll agree that it's just what the Federation needs."

(Demonstration follows)

Admirals: Stunned silence.

Admiral 1: "My god, man, that's...that's..."

Admiral 2: "A...warship. A ship of war!"

Admiral 3 (to engineers): "What were you THINKING?"

Engineer: "That...you asked for a warship?"

Admiral 1: "A warship yes, but not that--that blasphemy! This won't do. This won't do at all!"

Other Admirals: "hrmph hrmph hrmph. Quite so, quite so."

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Nah. The Defiant was "overpowered and overgunned."

 

Which was, by far, the WTF-iest statement ever uttered on Star Trek--and that takes some doing. In a universe where the primary weapons of war are ENERGY weapons, it is by definition impossible for a ship to be overpowered AND overgunned.

 

Engineer: "And now, Admirals, we'd like to put the Defiant through its paces. I'm sure you'll agree that it's just what the Federation needs."

(Demonstration follows)

Admirals: Stunned silence.

Admiral 1: "My god, man, that's...that's..."

Admiral 2: "A...warship. A ship of war!"

Admiral 3 (to engineers): "What were you THINKING?"

Engineer: "That...you asked for a warship?"

Admiral 1: "A warship yes, but not that--that blasphemy! This won't do. This won't do at all!"

Other Admirals: "hrmph hrmph hrmph. Quite so, quite so."

 

Ahem.  What they meant by "overpowered and overgunned" was that if you turned the engines on full power, they would proceed to repel each other and end up tearing the ship in half.  Until of course Miles O'Brien managed to do one of those impossible fixes that Star Trek engineers do.  

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