New Testingstan

Spock was in favour of chasing the romulan Bird-of-prey that had attacked Starfleet monitoring outposts along the neutral zone in 'Balance of Terror' and destroying them. He justified it under the premise that if the romulans escaped unscathed they'd invite future attacks. On the other hand, he's also taken many personal risks to initiate dialogue with other government's heads of states or political figures in the interests of peace (Gorkon, Senator Pardek).

Sarek always struck me as a measured and moderate diplomat. The kind of person who'd advocate neutrality and mediation first and involvement only as a last resort. Spock always seemed more proactive, probably influenced by his human half and his friendship with Kirk.

Crazedwraith wrote:oh i just read that today. the 'remember the new guy' article I linked to on SDN?

Maybe...

RE: Everyone Else

Thanks for clearing that up. It sounds pretty cool, actually. And thank you also for restoring my faith in TNG & DS9's writers.

Now if only you could do the same for Enterprise pre-S4.

Stofsk wrote:Spock was in favour of chasing the romulan Bird-of-prey that had attacked Starfleet monitoring outposts along the neutral zone in 'Balance of Terror' and destroying them. He justified it under the premise that if the romulans escaped unscathed they'd invite future attacks. On the other hand, he's also taken many personal risks to initiate dialogue with other government's heads of states or political figures in the interests of peace (Gorkon, Senator Pardek).

Sarek always struck me as a measured and moderate diplomat. The kind of person who'd advocate neutrality and mediation first and involvement only as a last resort. Spock always seemed more proactive, probably influenced by his human half and his friendship with Kirk.

He was also educated and trained by Starfleet.

On the STO forums I read an interesting theory. In case anyone here isn't aware, the devs of STO have a love/hate relationship with the community and the canon, and in particular one of the things they have said to justify the rampantly OP nature of the romulan sub-faction is how they're supposed to be masters of cloaking technology. (as opposed to klingons who are just... apprentices I guess)

Anyway someone speculated that this has some canon support, while another person disagreed by pointing out how klinks had developed a cloak that allowed you to fire torpedoes a century before the remans did with the Scimitar in Nemesis. Someone else replied with a speculative theory that that cloak might have been romulan, on the premise that the bird-of-prey was originally supposed to be a romulan ship that was commandeered by Kruge in ST3's early drafts and that this somehow was relevant to Chang's bird-of-prey some years later.

But having thought about this some more... I actually find it an interesting theory. Not that I buy it 100% or anything, but remember Valeris knew that there was only one bird-of-prey prototype that had the enhanced cloaking device. How would she know this if it was entirely a klingon project? Especially given the Cold War-esque undertones of the story. If the klingons had developed the enhanced cloak independently then many of the plot developments of that film wouldn't make sense - like why would they get involved in a conspiracy to kill their own Chancellor when they had a massive tactical advantage a fleet of B'rels that could fire while cloaked would entail. But if they only got the enhanced cloak from the romulans, then it makes somewhat more sense given the themes of the story and why they got involved in the conspiracy at all. Furthermore, we know that romulan ambassador Nanclus was a major architect of the conspiracy, Valeris names him alongside Cartwright and Chang when Spock mind-rapes her on the bridge. But Nanclus was a super minor role in the film, having only one line I can remember. We don't really know what his role was, why he was involved, and in what capacity that involvement had.

So what do you guys think? It's telling that the enhanced cloak was never seen again until the Scimitar in Nemesis. It's also telling that the klingons seemingly abandoned the technology with the loss of the prototype rather than refining it and working out the bugs. Its Achilles' heel was also a pretty major design oversight that surprised Chang in the seconds before he died. What's more likely, that a major design flaw like that which could be figured out by Spock in five minutes passed the design and develop stage of manufacture in a klingon weapons lab somewhere, or that the romulans knew about it but didn't care because it was the klingons who would hold all the risk? (Which is totally what a romulan would think and fits their MO to a tee)

Like I said, I'm not 100% on the theory but nevertheless I find it interesting.

I do find that very interesting... not much comment right now tho except I just kinda figured the Romulans were in on the plot because it suits them to have the other two major threats occupied with each other.

Which is also a good reason for them to kinda arm both sides... or just arm Chang's ship to surprise even the chancellor with that weapons system... fascinating, it all really does come together fairly well.

It certainly seems to tie up a lot of loose ends

And it so fits the classic Romulan MO. Why get directly involved when you can have an someone else hold the iron in the fire for you?

lol Enterprise is such shit

T'POL: Captain, I suggest we send down a probe to check that the air on this newly-discovered planet isn't made of acid.

ARCHER: Ugh that would take, like, a whole week.

T'POL: Captain, the grass could be made of razor-sharp glass for all you know; surely logic or even basic self-preservation should have us-

ARCHER: Ah ha ha ha, silly Vulcan! I wanna take my dog for a walk.

Is that the one where the mutt pisses on a sacred tree or the one where the extras get stuck in a cave?

the cave one

That said, this show is much better if you pretend that t'pol is the protagonist
like
I'm always expecting her to look at the camera, like in a sitcom

one day i'm gonna watch Enterprise because i don't think i gave it a fair viewing years ago

evilsoup wrote:I'm always expecting her to look at the camera, like in a sitcom

Oh my gawd this

yo Stofsk did you see this thingy:

http://io9.com/the-truth-about-what-wen ... 1684057419

interesting read

I thought the worst experience of my life was when I was shot down over Nazi Germany. A Jewish boy from the Bronx parachuted in to the middle of 80 million Nazis. Then I joined Star Trek.

made my day lol

Thanks for that Jester, I've been meaning to pick up these books for awhile now. I've heard fantastic things about them.

I feel like eventually we're going to get a TV movie on the real behind-the-scenes making of Trek, focused on Roddenberry. It won't happen until after Shatner passes on.

Leonard Nimoy's dead.

RIP Leonard Nimoy

He had a decent enough innings, but a poignant sign that we're not getting younger and TOS in its original run is rapidly dropping out of living memory now (William Shatner, although remarkably fit for his age, must be shitting himself now).

Stofsk wrote:

tbh it's kind of interesting/telling that my first reaction to the news was to youtube the clips from that episode rather than anything from TOS. I know you guys love ST but I wonder how many people are in the same boat as me - Nimoy, Shatner etc occupy a place in my consciousness because of the echoes of ST in popular culture rather than firsthand experience with the show itself.

anyway gg Nimoy loved the way you went about it

That's a very interesting perspective jester. Says something about the power of popculture.

Star Trek was a huge influence on me growing up. Particularly Spock. His stoicism and calm rationality conflicting with powerful emotions really resonated with me, and I doubt I'm the only introverted geek to have experienced this.

TOS is like Animal House; if you sat down to watch an episode for the first time you'd more than likely realise you knew the story treatment before the first act was over.

Heh. Beta XII-A, planet of the Las Vegas showgirl headpieces.