EAS Today

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A few more thoughts on Storm Front. In alternate history SF, two of the most common themes are alternative WWIIs and alternate US Civil Wars. There have been some really crappy stuff, some OK stuff, and some great stuff. But I agree, why here? (They did get into the Civil War, sort of. Remember The Q and the Grey? If felt a bit better of him seeing him wear the blue uniform. ) It's not logical. It makes more sense for an alien race to come in force not taking sides, but taking advantage of the divided world by going after both sides. (This was actually done quite well by Harry Turtledove in a series of books that involves a lizard race invading Earth. Sounds terrible, but it's actually quite engaging.) But even there, it makes far more sense, as you pointed out, for the aliens to invade earth at an earlier time. I suggested in another comment, crashing an asteroid into the earth? Do it a couple of thousand years earlier, and none of us are going to be here. The scene with Archer and Alicia walking side by side in mid 40s US and the only one who reacted was of course, a German Nazi. In the America of the time, they realistically could not walk down a street in a white neighborhood without causing a backlash, perhaps a violent backlash. And Sal - I don't know if he was Alicia's friend, or lover, but I do know that gangster types tend to be quite racist, so this makes no sense. I could have dealt better with these two episodes if they had a least depicted the collaboration with the Nazis that surely would have taken place as it did everywhere else they overran. I can even imagine some of the people who might have well collaborated. Hint, one of those people flew one of the aircraft that you see in the opening credits of Enterprise.

Oh yes, about Lenin getting assassinated. I do suspect that the October coup might not have happened in this scenario, since Lenin is seen by many historians as the glue that held the Bolshevik Party together. I wonder if without Lenin, Hitler is nothing more than a paranoid artist. Without the coup, Russia stays in the war, at least for a while more. If the US offers substantial aid, that might stay on a while. The longer Russia stays in, the longer it is until Germany starts to redeploy those troops westward, and Germany collapses sooner. Also, without the coup (I refuse to call it a revolution.), the socialist movement does not split, the radical stay in the party without the October coup to get them excited. Post war, there is probably no Spartacist revolt. Germans in the embryonic republic that is emerging are not worried about Russia spreading revolution nor are they worried about their own Communists, since there are none. Will the Nazis be a major force in this alternate Germany?. Will they even exist? There will be that Versailles treaty and that will bleed Germany as it does in our own timeline. But without Communists to worry about (and of course, the Jews got blamed for Communism) what direction does Germany go" They could end up with a more conventional right wing authoritarian regime rather than the Nazis. Germany could even move to the left, but at least the Communist model would not be around to emulate. Perhaps a Social Democratic government might be able to navigate the shccks and preserve democracy. Sounds like an interesting novel.

I'm a tea guy, so I'm not the one to judge. I suppose in the event of hardships that denied me real tea, herbal tea would my be my equivalent of ersatz tea, and I can tell you now, that wouldn't' do it for me. Perhaps mate might do it. One of the herbal tea companies has something called Morning Thunder which is mix of British black tea and Mate. Not bad, and it gives a good jolt.

And yes, it is for me, tea, Earl Grey, hot which I was into long before I got into TNG

See, one thing is the Guardian of Forever. It is hinted it has some massive power source and caused time distortions around its planet. Krenin time ship was huge and dedicated solely to time incursions. The slingshot approach (TOS and STIII) also requires a lot of energy and the spatial displacement was the trajectory of the Sun around the galaxy’s core during the travelled time interval. Compare this to a bug attached to some Discovery system sending people across the Galaxy. It broke the deal for me…

The Guardian of Forever isn't linked to a singular piece/path of space-time (which the bug is) but it also way smaller than the Krenin time ship but considerably more capable and much more sophisticated (yet looking very simple). The bug is a device considerably less capable than either of those two, and is tied to a point in space time up and down its timeline so in theory, less capable. The bug tied itself into Discovery's power systems, plus presumably had resources tucked away "somewhere" like the Guardian must have had.

The slingshot manoeuvre has it's spacetime path built into the methodology (that being dragged around by the sun...) so is the easiest to access naively.

But we've seen many time-travel devices that don't seemingly require ginormous power sources.

If you've seen the Netflix services "3 Body Problem" you might appreciate how something so small could actually have insane capabilities with sufficiently advanced science.

Yes, the reboot’s teletransports too

The transwarp beaming stuff is just wrong on so many levels, so absolutely no disagreement from me there...

Sure, assembling components in orbit makes sense and all orbital drydocks scenes can be seen as such. But what we are seeing since the 2009 reboot are starships being completely built on the ground.

I seem to recall one of the old (Keystone?) Star Trek comics showing the launch of the Enterprise from the ground after construction, so the idea has been there a while. The orbital ship construction facilities we've seen so far in Trek don't seem be capable of the whole job, we could just be seeing the final finishing steps for some of the ships emerging from space dock.

Though ironically enough, the only definitive evidence for a built in space vessel was "Star Trek : Beyond" and Scotty's statement about the USS Franklin being "built in space for space" (plus of course the assembly of the NX-02).

I suspect the point at which ships could be as easily built on the ground would be when they had better control over low level warp fields to reduce the inertial mass of the ship to the extent that the RCS could handle the lift off.

NX-01 was primarily relying on aerodynamic lift and brute force. Don't get me started on the physics of getting the (ALT)Enterprise out of an ocean (a very dense medium) the way they did... "Cool" trumped "stay in orbit where this pre-warp civilisation can't see it anyway and use transporters to come and go" on all levels of sanity.

See, one thing is the Guardian of Forever. It is hinted it has some massive power source and caused time distortions around its planet. Krenin time ship was huge and dedicated solely to time incursions. The slingshot approach (TOS and STIII) also requires a lot of energy and the spatial displacement was the trajectory of the Sun around the galaxy’s core during the travelled time interval. Compare this to a bug attached to some Discovery system sending people across the Galaxy. It broke the deal for me… Yes, the reboot’s teletransports too.

Sure, assembling components in orbit makes sense and all orbital drydocks scenes can be seen as such. But what we are seeing since the 2009 reboot are starships being completely built on the ground. “Rule of cool”, maybe. I am old-fashioned here. Star Trek starships are built (assembled, if you prefer) in orbit and (most of them) are not supposed to perform atmospheric flights. Please be kind and do not remind me the pain it was seeing NX against the space nazis…

(a) Spatial displacement associated with time travel. Yes it’s mentioned somehow in the episode, but hey, now you are somewhere in the galaxy and then *puff!* you are in San Francisco. How much energy you need for this? And the computing power required to avoid your foot materializing a few milimetres inside the floor? Yes, a bit of technobabble could explain away this, but it broke my suspension of disbelief.

That's because they are travelling up and down the timeline of the Discovery. You need no more energy than the implausible amounts time travel requires...

(b) Building starships on the ground.

It's a hell of a lot easier to build things on the ground than in orbit. You might complete assembly up in orbit though.

Labeled screen caps are HD now.

Added DS-1025 Terrazza and Swan Chair.

Why is modern Trek obsessed with showing starships being built or landed on the ground?

I have no idea. This annoyed me in Star Trek '09 as well.
In classic Trek, starships were built in space and for space. It was very unusual for any starship to land on a planet, or even enter its atmosphere.

Respectfully, I was disappointed with “Face the Stranger” despite being a Bowie fan.
I am not so fond of time travel episodes (of course there are exceptions) and this may have been a factor. Also, it was a filler - the second in a row. If a season follows a
key story arc, fillers are OK if they somehow contribute to character development and world building. Now, if the season is composed by eight or ten episodes the impression is “hey, our main plot is shallow and we’ll need fillers”.

I managed to swallow the time bug despite its seemingly magic tech. The deal breaking stuff for me were:
(a) Spatial displacement associated with time travel. Yes it’s mentioned somehow in the episode, but hey, now you are somewhere in the galaxy and then *puff!* you are in San Francisco. How much energy you need for this? And the computing power required to avoid your foot materializing a few milimetres inside the floor? Yes, a bit of technobabble could explain away this, but it broke my suspension of disbelief.
(b) Building starships on the ground.
(c) So, construction worker from the 23nd century looks behind and see two persons from the 32nd century. Starfleet uniforms remained the same for more than 900 years?

I am happy they are trying harder to link Discovery with Star Trek universe, I liked the first two episodes from this season. I can not say I am happy with the last two episodes’ writing… I do know many people liked and I do respect their opinions. I acknowledge I may represent a minority when it comes down to this, but truth is these two episodes failed to grab my attention.

#startrekpicard
#startrekfanart

Model by me

Background info:
"The USS ENDURANCE (NCC-1914-A) was constructed following the conclusion of the Dominion War as Starfleet attempted to step down from its war footing and return to its primary mission of peaceful exploration. As one of the final Galaxy-Class starships built, Endurance is a test platform for new technologies intended for future classes. She was specifically designed for long range, deep space exploration, the original mission intended for the Galaxy-Class but one that was seldomly realized. Her new matter / anti-matter reactor incorporates advancements from the Sovereign and Intrepid designs and provides almost 30% more power output with nearly double the efficiency of the original USS GALAXY. Second-generation Bio-Neural computer cores with a dedicated Engineering core further increases the efficiency and automation of ENDURANCE’s engineering systems. Additionally, Engineering Design Labs and industrial replicators located in Main Engineering and several cargo bays increase the ship’s ability to repair itself, provide large-scale assistance to starships and outposts."

You can see the bridge of the Endurance-A here, created by Rekkert : USS Endurance-A Bridge Cutaway

All Endurance-A interior images

The Star Trek franchise is owned by Paramount and CBS.

Here's another comparison that shows how the USS Enterprise-D season 4 bridge ("The Best of Both Worlds II"⬇️) was modified to turn it into its (fake) future version for #StarTrekTNG's "Future Imperfect"⬆️.

Burnham and Rayner having a "Temporal Prime Directive" talk in the turbolift in #StarTrekDiscovery's "Face the Strange"↖️↗️ reminded me so very of much of two similar conversations between Janeway and Chakotay, also both in the turbolift in #StarTrekVOY's "Shattered"⬅️➡️↙️↘️. 😊

Here's a comparison of the identical bridge side LCARS displays in #StarTrekTNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise" (first 2 rows) and "Future Imperfect" (last 2 rows). The design of the displays is the same only the colors are vastly different.

Here's a look at Detmer in #StarTrekDiscovery's season 1 episode "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry"↖️↗️, in the season 1 flashback in "Face the Strange"⬅️➡️ and in the 32nd century in season 5 in "Face the Strange"↙️↘️.

#StarTrekDiscovery "Face the Strange" spoilers

#StarTrekDiscovery's "Face the Strange" features the first look at the pre-refit USS Discovery since season 3's "Die Trying". The shuttlebay doors are closed as well! :-)

We get a good look at the pyramidal object in Burnham's ready room in #StarTrekDiscovery's "Face the Strange"↖️. At first, I thought it was a kir'shara replica, but its prominent side with the IDIC doesn't match any of the sides of the proper kir'shara from "Kir'shara" ↗️↙️↘️.

The side panels, seen on the future Enterprise-D bridge in #StarTrekTNG's "Future Imperfect"⬆️, were originally created for the alternate timeline USS Enterprise-D in "Yesterday's Enterprise"⬇️.

Tilly reacts the same way when she first sees Michael Burnham's season 3-5 hairstyle in #StarTrekDiscovery's "People of Earth"⬇️ and (as season 1 Tilly) in "Face the Strange"⬆️. 👌👌

My comment about Terry Farrell's height concerns the camera perspective in these shots. Notice how the camera is much heigher in her shot, changing the perspective from which the shuttlepod (with open doors) is seen in the background.

We get a good look at the aft bridge engineering station in #StarTrekTNG's "Future Imperfect". It's the only station with a back and side LCARS display. Notice the screws and the piece of black tape where the side and back displays meet. 😅