Did JJs writers know anything about Star Trek?

[Captain Seafort]

Also, I think this a more appropriate place for the newly split topic.

[Griffin]

Logically, if the timeline were to stay as the new JJ-Timline indefinitely wouldn't the pre-Nero timeline be different to what we previously known due to all the time travel yet to come. Surely the events of Assignment: Earth, The City on the Edge of Forever, Voyage Home, First Contact, Times Arrow, Little green men.. And well, you get the picture. Isn't it likely that those events would occur differently, if they occurred at all?

I've forgotten what my point was, so I'll just throw it out there unattached.

As for the video itself, two points;
1. It irritates me no end (perhaps irrationally) that the guy apparently has no idea what the word Reboot means.
2. While valid points are raised, the actual point of contention people seem to have is never addressed. The argument that the Abrams Verse has so far been flashy action pieces bereft of the intelligence and the Idealism that make Trek, Trek.

[Graham Kennedy]

I guess I just always assumed that the Narada traveled back in time...but not back in time in their "own" universe but back in time into the "abramsverse".

What would make you assume that?

[Graham Kennedy]

There is, however, solid evidence that the Excelsior was something unusual for her time - McCoy's somewhat awed comment that she was a big ship. Yes, he's a doctor, not an engineer, and yes, it's not a detailed analysis of the precise dimensions of the Ex compared to her contemporaries, but it is coming from a Starfleet officer of many decades experience, who's seen pretty much everything the galaxy had to offer.

"That's a big ship" is not "that's the biggest ship around". The one does not even imply the other. I've had that exact reaction to ships before now - saw a picture of a Type 45 once and said it almost word for word. That in no way implies that the Type 45 is the biggest ship in the world, or remotely close to being so.

I just don't get why people seem so determined over this. A ship is bigger than they'd personally prefer... and so the entire universe must be re-written? Bizarre.

[Jim]

There is, however, solid evidence that the Excelsior was something unusual for her time - McCoy's somewhat awed comment that she was a big ship. Yes, he's a doctor, not an engineer, and yes, it's not a detailed analysis of the precise dimensions of the Ex compared to her contemporaries, but it is coming from a Starfleet officer of many decades experience, who's seen pretty much everything the galaxy had to offer.

"That's a big ship" is not "that's the biggest ship around". The one does not even imply the other. I've had that exact reaction to ships before now - saw a picture of a Type 45 once and said it almost word for word. That in no way implies that the Type 45 is the biggest ship in the world, or remotely close to being so.

I just don't get why people seem so determined over this. A ship is bigger than they'd personally prefer... and so the entire universe must be re-written? Bizarre.

Personally prefer?

As I pointed out, even according to this site, of KNOWN Federation ships of the time... it took nearly 90 years after the Kelvin for a ship to come along with anything close to similar size. Then another 40 years on top of that for something of no question larger size. To go off on a limb and take the position that maybe there were Federation ships that we have never seen/herd of that were considerable larger than than anything that we do know about is the bizarre point of view.

[Graham Kennedy]

Personally prefer?

Yes. That's literally all it is.

As I pointed out, even according to this site, of KNOWN Federation ships of the time... it took nearly 90 years after the Kelvin for a ship to come along with anything close to similar size. Then another 40 years on top of that for something of no question larger size. To go off on a limb and take the position that maybe there were Federation ships that we have never seen/herd of that were considerable larger than than anything that we do know about is the bizarre point of view.

Why is it? Until Star Trek II we'd never even seen a contemporary of the Constitutions, not once. And not until Enterprise did we ever see an actual example of a real life pre-TOS Starship - until then you had to rely on concept art and speculative models seen in the background to even know that the Constitution wasn't Starfleet's very first ship.

But you think it's a bizarre point of view to assume that there had to be Starship designs that we'd never seen? Of course there have to be ships we've never seen.

I call it a personal preference because some people have seized on the fact that the "hero ships" have gotten bigger in each iteration from NX to E-D, and seem to have decided that it is Holy Writ handed down from on high that it must always have been so and must always be so. And people have become so completely invested in this opinion, which is entirely unsupported by anything whatsoever in canon - and now outright contradicted by it - that they are quite literally willing to dismiss what is put up there on the screen and simply pretend that it isn't so.

[McAvoy]

Is there a reason why the ship could be bigger other than 'who knows?'

Maybe in 2230 ships were regularly 2000 meters long? Why not?

But then we got by the 24th century where we ships over a hundred years old serving in the fleet who are smaller than the modern ships of the 24th centurycentury.

So why are these pre TOS ships so large then? What is missing between Enterprise and TOS?

[Mikey]

And not until Enterprise did we ever see an actual example of a real life pre-TOS Starship

Well, there was the Botany Bay but I think your point still stands.

But then we got by the 24th century where we ships over a hundred years old serving in the fleet who are smaller than the modern ships of the 24th centurycentury.

So why are these pre TOS ships so large then? What is missing between Enterprise and TOS?

In most, if not all, other fields of technology we consider miniaturization to be a symbol - if not either the means or the end - of advancement in technology rather than than regression. Why not in this case? It's definitely as easy to posit that miniaturization and automation were the hallmarks of advancement until a certain point - say, the development of the Connie refit or Ex or so - when that avenue was exhausted and advancement produced size increases again; as it is to say, "This lineage can't be, it hurts my brain!"

[Graham Kennedy]

Well, there was the Botany Bay but I think your point still stands.

Botany Bay wasn't a Starship.

In most, if not all, other fields of technology we consider miniaturization to be a symbol - if not either the means or the end - of advancement in technology rather than than regression. Why not in this case? It's definitely as easy to posit that miniaturization and automation were the hallmarks of advancement until a certain point - say, the development of the Connie refit or Ex or so - when that avenue was exhausted and advancement produced size increases again; as it is to say, "This lineage can't be, it hurts my brain!"

I think it's most likely just that different sizes result from different design goals. This is pretty much what happens today; nobody builds ships that are as big as we are able to build them, and ship sizes do not increase because we have gained the ability to build larger ships. We build ships that are as big as they need to be to accomplish the job they are built for, for the price the builders can afford.

[Jim]

Personally prefer?

Yes. That's literally all it is.

As I pointed out, even according to this site, of KNOWN Federation ships of the time... it took nearly 90 years after the Kelvin for a ship to come along with anything close to similar size. Then another 40 years on top of that for something of no question larger size. To go off on a limb and take the position that maybe there were Federation ships that we have never seen/herd of that were considerable larger than than anything that we do know about is the bizarre point of view.

Why is it? Until Star Trek II we'd never even seen a contemporary of the Constitutions, not once. And not until Enterprise did we ever see an actual example of a real life pre-TOS Starship - until then you had to rely on concept art and speculative models seen in the background to even know that the Constitution wasn't Starfleet's very first ship.

But you think it's a bizarre point of view to assume that there had to be Starship designs that we'd never seen? Of course there have to be ships we've never seen.

I call it a personal preference because some people have seized on the fact that the "hero ships" have gotten bigger in each iteration from NX to E-D, and seem to have decided that it is Holy Writ handed down from on high that it must always have been so and must always be so. And people have become so completely invested in this opinion, which is entirely unsupported by anything whatsoever in canon - and now outright contradicted by it - that they are quite literally willing to dismiss what is put up there on the screen and simply pretend that it isn't so.

Oh okay, so what you are saying is that you own site is useless garbage. Not your actual words, but the meaning behind what you are saying. Got it.

[Graham Kennedy]

Pretty sure that if that's what I was saying, I would have said that.

[Captain Seafort]

"That's a big ship" is not "that's the biggest ship around". The one does not even imply the other. I've had that exact reaction to ships before now - saw a picture of a Type 45 once and said it almost word for word.

Joe Bloggs off the street thinking something is big and an experienced naval officer thinking something is big are two entirely different things. Moreover, it wasn't just an off the cuff comment - McCoy's tone clearly indicated that he considered the Ex something exceptional.

I just don't get why people seem so determined over this. A ship is bigger than they'd personally prefer... and so the entire universe must be re-written? Bizarre.

It's not a matter of personal preference, it's a matter of previously established canon of what is considered "big". McCoy considered the Ex to be very big over half a century after the Kelvin, and Picard was "in awe" of the size E-D over a century after the neo-E, yet the Abramsverse ships were as big or bigger than the much later Primeverse ones. The two options available are to go Bernd's route, and assert that the extensive evidence of the ships' sizes should be ignored, or to conclude that something had already changed the Abramsverse before Nero and Spock's arrival.

[Graham Kennedy]

Joe Bloggs off the street thinking something is big and an experienced naval officer thinking something is big are two entirely different things. Moreover, it wasn't just an off the cuff comment - McCoy's tone clearly indicated that he considered the Ex something exceptional.

And compared to the Enterprise, it is. Is there any reason to think that's not what McCoy meant?

I hang out on a few military forums. I've seen a lot of professional Navy types looking at the Type 45 destroyer and commenting that it's absolutely fricken huge. I've literally heard some of them use lines virtually identical to McCoy's - "Jesus, that thing is gigantic!" And it is - about twice the volume of the ships it is replacing. But there are bigger ships in the Navy, and there were plenty of bigger ships twenty years ago, even fifty years ago.

A person on the Enterprise could easily look at the Exelsior and say it was a big ship. It is. That doesnt even remotely imply that he thinks it's the biggest ship around, or that it's bigger than any ship has been in the past.

It's not a matter of personal preference, it's a matter of previously established canon of what is considered "big".

"Big" is a very flexible word. It literally tells you nothing at all about how big the thing is compared to anything else.

McCoy considered the Ex to be very big over half a century after the Kelvin, and Picard was "in awe" of the size E-D over a century after the neo-E, yet the Abramsverse ships were as big or bigger than the much later Primeverse ones. The two options available are to go Bernd's route, and assert that the extensive evidence of the ships' sizes should be ignored, or to conclude that something had already changed the Abramsverse before Nero and Spock's arrival.

No, the third option is to look at what the characters have said, and not make unjustified assumpions about what they meant. Then the "problem" completely goes away.

[Atekimogus]

I guess I just always assumed that the Narada traveled back in time...but not back in time in their "own" universe but back in time into the "abramsverse".

What would make you assume that?

Because it looks and feels similar...but is still completely different. That along with the known fact of near endless parallel universes in the star trek universe......well...it just made so much more sense to assume they travel back into a similar parallel universe instead of the prime-verse. Or that the changes to the timeline also extended into the past......


It instantly solves all inconsistencies we might see, be it larger shipsizes, seemingly more advanced technologies, differences in how starfleet is structured and supposed to work etc. etc.


Having them emerge into the primeverse you have to explain so many improbable situations.....sure..theoretically it is possible.....I just find it way more plausible to NOT assume that.


It also preserves the prime-timeline virtually undamaged for use in the upcoming new Star Trek series

Heck..you probably could even explain romulus destruction away somehow....just saying spocks plan worked after all...he was just mistaken or something along the line.

[Graham Kennedy]

Because it looks and feels similar...but is still completely different.

What does, the Narada?

Thinking about it, the appearance of the Narada is way more of an oddity than the Kelvin is. We've never seen anything Romulan that is remotely similar to the Narada. Course we've never seen a Romulan civilian ship that I know of. I guess the design makes some degree of sense, if you imagine all those spikes opening up to wrap around an asteroid and tear it apart for processing.

If you're talking about the look inside the ships, uniforms, etc - well, it was 20 years or so before TOS, after all, and a different kind of ship. And that's the minimum for how old the Kelvin is - for all we know the thing was already thirty years old at that point, so it's a design that dates back fifty years before TOS. Or more.

Look at how radical a style jump happened in the TMP refit of the Enterprise; in 18 months they redesigned and rebuilt the ship so radically that it looks... well, similar but still completely different, to borrow your words. The difference beween the Kelvin and the TOS E-nil isn't much larger than the difference between the E-nil and E-refit. Nor is the jump in uniform styles that big - they completely and totally redesigned those from TOS to TMP, and then did it again just a few years later for Wrath of Khan, too. Starfleet seems to rather like radical uniform design changes every now and then.

We know the Connies are classed by Starfleet as Heavy Cruisers (and by the Klingons as Battlecruisers). Personally, I took the Kelvin to be more like an Amphibious transport equivalent. That's speculation of course, but consider the basics of a present day Amphib :

Amphibs are big ships; typically anything up to 2-4 times the volume of a Cruiser.

They will have a large hangar and/or docking well; some way to launch troops. The Kelvin has an entire Engineering hull that seems to be at least largely a great big shuttle bay with lots of shuttles in it. (I count 19 on screen at once in the evacution; one of them is referred to as "Shuttle 37").

Amphibs often carry large numbers of people as compared to cruisers, since they carry troops. The Kelvin had eight hundred people on board, almost double the crew of a TOS Connie.

An Amphib has a lot of space for troops. In Starfleet ships the accomodations are in the saucer, and a lot of the Kelvin's large size comes from a very large diameter saucer.

Amphibs typically lack large/powerful weapons, instead having a significant number of small less powerful self defence weapons. This might (I stress, might) fit the Kelvin, which seems to have a lot of those little pulse cannon, some of the red phaser cannon, but no apparent torpedoes.

Amphibs are often slow. A one nacelle ship like the Kelvin might well be slower than the other ships we see with two or three nacelles.

Now an amphibious assault ship might be a little "military" for Starfleet. But remember this is pre-TOS, and the TOS starfleet itself was rather more military than the TNG iteration, so that isn't necessarily a problem. Plus, if you read up on Naval matters a little you find that amphibious ships are often considered desirable because they have a good deal of civilian uses; they're great platforms for disaster relief since they can carry relief workers, carry and distribute cargo to isolated communities, even produce large amounts of food. They're also great for rescuing a bunch of your civilians who get caught up in some bananna republic when an unfriendly bunch take power; lots of capability to transport civilians to the ship in large numbers and feed and house them for the trip home. They would also be the perfect ships to found a new colony world for the same reasons. We know Trek ships help found colonies sometimes, or perform routine "mainanence" on colonies.

Doesn't it sound just like the kind of thing that a "peacekeeping" force (which Pike described Starfleet as) might want to have?

It just makes absolutely perfect sense to me. And the complaints about how it's bigger than a Connie suddenly look like somebody complaining that there's something deeply wrong with the fact that the Ticonderoga class is smaller than the Anchorage class. How can this possibly be?!?! The Anchorage must come from a parallel universe where up is down and cats live with dogs!

It also preserves the prime-timeline virtually undamaged for use in the upcoming new Star Trek series

Meh, I don't think it will make any real difference. From the POV of the future of the prime timeline, the only change is that Spock is gone, and Romulus is gone. Spock... well, it's not like he's gonna be making any more guest appearances. Romulus? Just have a line about how the Romulans spent the last decade struggling to recover from the loss of Romulus and their capital world is now a different world. The sum total of that change is that you use a different word for the planet instead of "Romulus". Big whoop.

Or hell, USE the change. Are the Romulans weaker now? Will the Klingons or Cardassians try to take advantage? Will the Federation step in and actually try to help the Romulans? If they do, could it lead to a Romulan/Federation alliance? Would that alienate the Klingons? Would the Romulans betray the Federation? There's a dozen ways you could take that story!