The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part VI

There would be four Star Trek Movies with the original cast before the arrival in 1987 of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). These had very little to say about how the Enterprise operated. While they produced some fun moments, I remember them mostly for their deconstruction of Kirk's character, the elevation of Spock's, and the practical if not real absence of the others including McCoy.

Things would change greatly in 1987 however.

Where the original show was a style combining Old West and Age of Sail, TNG and the following series (DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise) were idealized socialism and political correctness. Kirk would tell the Organians that he was a solider and not a diplomat. TNG would deny that Star Fleet was even a military organization and the first officer of the Enterprise-D would call wargames a waste of time for explorers.

Kirk would push his crew to reach 100% in drills, I don't think Picard ever held a drill. The Enterpise-D didn't seem to know such things existed when Jellico took over command for a bit.

Kirk would claim that 'one God is enough', TNG would claim that any religion held a culture back. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" would replace the Capitalism on display in the original.

Rather than adventures being decided by fists, phasers or wits- talking and technobabble resolved the storylines. Real villians nearly disappeared, replaced by various degrees of misunderstandings.

In short, Roddenberry (and those who took over from him) brought their own press of Star Trek as a perfect future and attempted to make TNG (and on) match. Whatever the merits of that vision (I consider it to be foolish wishful thinking), it makes for boring TV. How that mindset keep things going for four series over 18 years is beyond me. Except perhaps for the fact that geeks will accept just about anything that is sc-fi no matter how bad it is.

I attempted watching each series and give up each time. So maybe they had better moments, however I must judge each of them on the whole of their first year or two.

From the techology point of view, the changes were just as drastic.

Gone was the Warp Speed warship. According to the new series bible, phasers were now light speed weapons unusable under warp. The photon torpedos would work- sort of. They moved at the speed of the ship + .98c as I recall. Think about that for a moment and try to map it out- basically such a weapon could only be used in a chase, mostly against the one doing the chasing. I think that says a lot about how TNG viewed the Enterprise's combat capability.

The ship now carried the families of its crew, which has to be the dumbest idea ever. It was made even dumber as communication was now instant and the ship commonly ran back to the home worlds without worrying travel time.

The multiple facing shields were replaced with one uni-shield. The cubic warp scale was replaced by a new more complex method that labeled Warp 10 as the max (it was infinite speed) for who knows what reason.

The impact on the Enterpise was noted. Perhaps the best example was in the very opening pilot of TNG when Picard decides to show Q what a Galaxy class starshp could do- by running away.

Winning battles was a rarity. I started thinking that Worf and the Enterpise would get their backsides kicked by K-Mart Shoppers running to a blue light special.

Sigh, how the mighty had fallen.

Later, DS9 would show runabouts fighting alongside a Galaxy class ship (and unlike the Galaxy, living). Actual Fighters would be introduced. I imagine the only reason we didn't see Carriers was because they knew that people would finally notice that they were copying other movies at that point.

And even more sadly, these changes weren't bad game design. They were real decisions by the people in charge. All we can do is note them, while remembering better days.

So to grade these changes:

1. Revoked: It was a Warp Speed warship best used in combat at FTL speeds.
2. Unknown: Non-ablative Deflector shields, able to withstand (for a time) planet wrecking attacks and completely ignore attacks below certain power levels
3. Revoked: Shields were divided into at least four 'arcs' that were damaged and reinforced independently
4. Revoked: Phasers and photon Torpedos were FTL weapons. There were a number of weapon mounts pointing in different directions.
5. Revoked: The phasers were fired 'one bank' at a time in a twin beam using all the ship's offensive power in a single attack. Torpedos were launched in spreads (typically in sets of double launches) and never fired at the same time as the phasers
6. Limited: Ship's Power was critical in how the ship operated. Often balanced between needs it could divert for increased offense or defense.
7. Revoked: Warp Factors were a cubic conversion times light speed (maybe with a constant added)
8. Revoked: It was the fastest ship in Starfleet as warp drive was power intensive. Shuttles were sublight only.
9. Limited: The Enterprise was the most powerful, and most versatile ship in Starfleet

I note #2 as unknown because I don't know. My impression is that they operated very like they were ablative. I should count it as a failure, but if I don't know- it wasn't important.

I note #6 as 'limited' because it never seemed to matter. But I guess they did at least attempt it. Half point.

I note #9 as 'limited' because I think while the Enterprise-D (and later E) was the best the Federation had (depressing as the thought is) it had dropped markly compared to the best of the other powers. It never seemed a match for much of anything it encountered. Half point.

Simulation Quality: 1 of 9

Which is much lower than any of the simulation games before it. And this would become the new benchmark for Star Trek ship simulation in gaming.

Part: I, II, III, IV, V, VII, Conclusion