The greatest leader of our time (No, not split from the Trump thread - Picard)

[pjknibbs]

* Saucer separation was a serious design flaw. If you can't kick butt in your proper configuration then stay in Spacedock.

Saucer separation was never supposed to be a method of increasing the ship's firepower, it was supposed to be a method of keeping the families aboard safe while the drive section went into battle without them. Kind of spoiled by the fact the saucer section had no warp drive and was thus a sitting duck without the drive section, of course!

The only Starfleet ship that actually used splitting into segments to increase its firepower was the Prometheus class prototype.

[Usenko]

They DID use the saucer separation manoeuvre to give the Enterprise extra firepower *once* - against the Borg. But there were two caveats here:

1) There was no point in sending the families to safety. If the Borg had actually defeated the StarDrive section, there was nowhere safe for the Saucer to go. It was in for a penny, in for a pound.

2) It was a move borne of absolute desperation. The Borg had captured Picard and mind-ripped him, so they knew all the plans (and even the ideas of plans!) that had been hatched against them. Riker had to improvise and use tactics that the Borg weren't expecting. They expected him not to play dice with the lives of the families aboard the Enterprise, so[1] . . .

Those complaining about Spock's human foster sister: What? It's canon that he said nothing about his embarrassing VULCAN brother, and a human foster sibling would be humiliating to a Vulcan by definition. So firstly, that's the sort of information he wouldn't necessarily volunteer. Secondly, TOS didn't show us absolutely every moment of the lives of the original crew; who's to say that he DIDN'T tell his closest friends about his sister, only it was never relevant to the plot before now?

[1] Locutus: "A futile manuever. Incorrect strategy, Number One, to risk your crew and ship to retrieve only one man. Picard would never have approved."

[Morkonan]

Something prompted by the above posts involving characters and their backgrounds and something I read about storycrafting:

How much "character" is too much "character?"

Compared to TOS, TNG took "character" to a whole new level. Character background, backstories written from whole cloth pushed to the forefront, only important because they require viewer investment in the character, character relationships forming the basis for a story, character "development" spanning episodes, but then conspicuously absent when it would seem to matter most, etc...

IMO, TNG had some good episodes and storylines, but it was missing something when compared to TOS. So, what was it? I've sort of wrestled with that for awhile, given a new generation's enthusiasm for the series. Well, I think I found it - "Too much character stuffs." At least, in comparison.

Sure, TOS had many episodes dealing with characters, but not to the extent that TNG and, perhaps, DS9 (which I also didn't like much). TNG also had a penchant for running character development/exploration subplots, too, which watered down the story for me.

Anyway, obviously something for it's own thread if anyone really wanted to go in-depth. Besides the studio's penchant for trying to draw on nostalgia to increase interest, which all the IP-owners have done, I think this sort of thing is a major theme for series in the TNG/DS9 era and, perhaps, other series to come. Maybe?

Will we see Picard dealing with geriatric care and an argument with his physician over a new love interest and his heart condition? Maybe he can't take "Virile Pills" and is having problems defining himself as a man? (Sounds like a typical TNG subplot to me...)

Where's the... "adventure" in that?

[pjknibbs]

I think it would perhaps be truer to say "too many characters" rather than "too much character stuff"? TNG didn't really have a strong central set of characters equivalent to Spock, McCoy and Kirk--Picard barely interacted with his crew outside of strict Starfleet protocols until the final episode of the final series (when he joined the senior officer's poker game), and we had Worf, Riker, Data, LaForge, Troi, and Beverley Crusher who were all given more-or-less equal importance.