Star TreK Enterprise

[Saint Marcus]

Thanks for your response

I understand why none of the main powers was directly attacked, and why a lot of the minor ones were saved. My point is, if Sheridan didn't pull his stunt (and for the sake of convincing plot developments, he shouldn't have), then the war would have gone on and many more would have died and the galaxy would have been devestated, just like a 1000 years ago. However, the war ended prematurely, sadly. After the war 1000 years ago, the Minbary empire was in ruins. Other powers too, presumably. However, after this war, only a handful of small powers felt the direct effects of the war, while none of the bigger powers were directly effected (except for a handful of incidents). Because of the early ending of the war, this made sense. As you wrote in your post. My problem is that the whole leaving the galaxy thing sucked. It robbed B5 of the mystery of the first ones. It robbed B5 of a clear "big bad" (none of the future enemies came close to the shadows). It robbed the B5 of a satisfying and hard fought victory in the Shadow War. And it robbed us viewers of many many great war episodes. We had a great build up of the war. We had a promissing beginning of the war...and then it stopped. The war had no middle, and no real ending.

After the first big counter attack in the final ep of season 3, things ended really quickly. 6 eps later, and the war was over. Just like that. DS9 handed the war better. After the first big counter attack by the Federation and Klingons, the war went on for another 40 eps! And although not all those eps were equally good, most were excellent and gave us many great war episodes. By the end of the arc, we had a real sense of closure and accomplishment and loss. The Shadow War arc provided none of that. And that, for me, felt like a huge disappointment.

[OzzyKP]

Is B5 out on DVD? DS9 too? I need to pick me up some. Its been quite a while since I've seen either series. And usually I'd just pick them up randomly, so I'd watch them out of order and wouldn't get a good sense of continuim.

Both were good though. Better than any other sci-fi series.

Though Star Wars kicks everyone's ass.

[GePap]

There was a significant difference between B5 and DS9- B5 lacked sure support from its producers-To me, JSM's orirignal plan would have had the Shadow war end much later if not by the end of season 4-when season 4 begun he had no guarantee he would make it to 5, so he had to rush most of the story - then season 5 came and they main story as done with, so one was left with nothing to do.

As for other points:

Staff turnover-so what? People die, specially in wars. MIlitary people are at the mercy of the higher ups- the fact is that the stability of ST crews is the anomily, not the fact an Ambassador might change attaches.

You ignore that nature of the Shadow war and why it could end as it did. The fact is Sheridan had no hope of beating the Vorlons or Shadows militarily. The dominion and the Federation were almost equivalent technologically. The first ones were vastly ahead in technology and could have swept aside all the younger races without serious threat-even after Sheridan assembles his great fleet, without the last other first ones the Vorlons could have blown the planet up, no problem. Second, the Shadow cloud could have destroyed his entire fleet without impunity. You also ignore the reasons for the war-the Vorlons and Shadows were using the other races as puppets, pawns in their own game-their internal debate. Neither side is good-they are both simply carrying out an old grudge against each other through proxy, being unwilling to risk fighting each other openly. So the only solution open to the younger races is to convince the two sides this game won't go on any further. Talking his way out was THE ONLY way Sheridan could win-the force of arms was not possible.

As for levels of destruction- The levels of destruction for the Shadow war are much heavier-whole planets and many colonies gone. In DS9 the powers were exhausted- in B5 there was the chance of them being wiped out utterly Maybe it escapes my mind, but how many homeworlds suffered planetary bombardment? I would add the fact that technology levels in B5 are much lower in general than those in Trek.

[Q Classic]

in DS9, few of the homeworlds were bombarded because none of them were reached until the final episode, when Cardassia Prime was captured. However, there were reports of many traditionally Federation planets and so on falling to the Dominion fleet: Betazed, for instance.

[Lonestar]

Bolarus (the Bolien Homeworld) was "Liberated" by the RSE late in the war.

[Q Classic]

there are weapons, however, by ds9's period, that can destroy whole worlds. one was used by the klingons, iirc, in "the race"; in voy on the other side of the galaxy (the delta quadrant seems to be a bit more primitive) as the metrion cascade, of which neelix is one survivor; there's the tox uthat (sp?); trilithium missiles as seen in generations... and so on.

most of them were not used because apparently, there's a gentleman's agreement for that sort of thing. nobody wants to use the nukes.

[Q Classic]

perhaps i should clarify, by "homeworlds" i mean the seat of government. Q'ono'S for the klingons, Romulus/Remus for the romulans, Earth for the federation, Cardassia Prime for the cardassians, and so on.

[Q Classic]

ah, i do remember an attack on earth by the breen. they mentioned that the golden gate bridge was destroyed, but i think the planet wasn't too badly hurt.

[FlameFlash]

How about the fact that there are even Klingons in Enterprise! If I recall correctly war started between the Federation and Klingons due to somebody screwing up First Contact with them just a few years before, not Archer pissing them off in the first season.

And where are all these races and huge objects that Archer found (the Dyson-sphere like things) in the later shows. To make a prequel you have to properly make sure to respect all the history you're supposedly going to be working within.

On the whole DS9 vs. TNG and Wolf 359... how long did they stay there? Just a minute or two... you can easily just reason away that minor inconsistency with two things:

1) the writers didn't want to rescue anybody due to time constraints
2) Even Data can be wrong.

Though there is a bigger hole.

Who is the actor that plays Tom Paris? Because he shows up as one of Wesley's classmates in TNG as somebody else who gets kicked out of the academy for being a daredevil or something. Now that's a blantant inconsistency.

Same with Tuvok being on Enterprise-B (or at least looking like it... except for it looks like the same guy except for being human...)

You could kind of ignore some of the problems with Star Trek when it was all in one time period... but the whole Enterprise thing almost looks like it's happening in the Mirror Universe anyway, which really throws it off for me.

[Q Classic]

flameflash:

[GePap]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
there are weapons, however, by ds9's period, that can destroy whole worlds. one was used by the klingons, iirc, in "the race"; in voy on the other side of the galaxy (the delta quadrant seems to be a bit more primitive) as the metrion cascade, of which neelix is one survivor; there's the tox uthat (sp?); trilithium missiles as seen in generations... and so on.

most of them were not used because apparently, there's a gentleman's agreement for that sort of thing. nobody wants to use the nukes.

Well, see, that is the difference-tech in ST is such that those types of weapons are reality vanity weapons- you have transposters, photon torpedos and so firth that allow you to pinpoint targets on the ground. Of course you also have anti-matter which can be used all sort of nasty ways.

But no one in Trek really does it. IN B5 the Centauri openly just used brute planetary bombardment.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
in DS9, few of the homeworlds were bombarded because none of them were reached until the final episode, when Cardassia Prime was captured. However, there were reports of many traditionally Federation planets and so on falling to the Dominion fleet: Betazed, for instance.

Yes, but the question is what does falling mean? Dominion forces transporting in? I don;t see any real need of substantial plantery assault.

The only time in DS9 I saw a planet attacked was when the Obsidian order and Tal Shiar sent a fleet to destory what they thought was the founder's homeworld.

[Q Classic]

we never saw the fall of betazed, it was just mentioned in the episodes right before sisko's little romulan espionage.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by FlameFlash

Same with Tuvok being on Enterprise-B (or at least looking like it... except for it looks like the same guy except for being human...)

.

IIRC, he was on the Excelsior, when Sulu was the CO.

[Q Classic]

yes, but the actor tim russ played a crew member of the enterprise b.

just like two different romulan warbirds had the same actress playing the different captain of each.