Dark Reality

So, following this logic (which I cannot dispute), Voyager willingly entered the Sphere, intending to blow it up, regardless of whether the sphere continued on to the Alpha Quadrant (to Sector 001, they were right by Earth) or back to the Delta Quadrant?

 

It seems to me, the Borg, in control, would go back to the Delta Quadrant where they had reinforcements. Surely they could see or scan that there were 100 some odd Federation ships in Sector 001 waiting.

 

It would have been really, really cool if they had done a Season 8 of Voyager, if only to do a 2-part episode about their homecoming. I still feel that, despite all its qualities, Voyager lacked closure. The beginning of Endgame Part 1 was kind of a closure, with the reunion party. But that's not the same.

 

I will look for the Voyager Homecoming novels. Most likely I will get them used from Amazon. I couldn't find them at the used bookstore in Santa Rosa, CA, and I highly doubt I'll find them used in Beaufort County, North Carolina. :lol: (And I'm too cheap to pay full price.) Novels aren't canon, according to Paramount, according to another STFN member in another post, but dammit, I need some kind of closure on Voyager. :lol:

I don't know, I've given up trying to figure out their logic, or lack thereof. I just moved, just started working after getting myself "legal" here, and probably sometime next month, I'm changing our ISP... AOL is really bad and that is basically what this is. Run by the next most-evil corporation after Microsoft, no less. We're practically in bed with the Devil using this ISP, but in any case, your ImageEvent hosted pictures came through just fine.

 

I kinda like the Titan! From the top and bottom, it looks like the Ent-E, which I love. I really don't get that tower thing... Is that the Bridge, or is that the equivalent of Voyager's Astrometrics? Also on that note, what's to stop me (say I'm an enemy ship) from blowing out the supports for that little thing once I knock out the shields? It's a very strange design... all of the ships save for the Defiant, and maybe Voayger, have these flimsy little arms holding the warp nacelles... similarly the Klingon Bird of Prey has that long neck that just makes a target of itself. I think warships or any ships introduced into a hostile or potentially hostile environment should be solid-state. Space stations can have interconnected parts (like DS9) but it just looks wrong on ships. Also what's with the oversized nacelles? More so on the Centaur... but Voyager had tiny nacelles and it could do Warp 9.75 I think... Surely the new huge-nacelled ships can't do much better, can they?

 

And didn't Voyager bring back enough transwarp information/research for that to replace warp drive? (No, I'm not taking Trek too seriously... though sometimes it's hard.)

First of all, Star Trek went off TV in what, 1968 or 1969? Then 10 years later in 1979 the first movie came out. Then after the movies, it wasn't until 1987 that the next series came out, almost 20 years after the original series ended. Since then we've had FOUR series. So what if Star Trek takes a 20 year nap and comes back? It's done it before, it can do it again.

 

Second, before she met me, my girlfriend hadn't seen any Star Wars movies, she hadn't seen anything Star Trek, and she hadn't seen Stargate. We met online, and I've visited twice, now moved out here to be with her. The last time I visited I took her to Star Wars III in the theater - she saw I and II on her own. When I moved out here we watched the original trilogy together. I've since bought Stargate and showed her that. And we're committed to watching Star Treks TNG, DS9, and Voyager straight through and chronologically, and then the latter nine movies (I hated the original, and it contributed nothing to the Trek universe, far as I'm concerned). Now she loves Star Wars, liked Stargate, and she's really digging TNG. And in a few years, I'm sure she'll be a Niner when we get through DS9.

 

And one of my favorite cousins, she's 13 now... just getting into Star Wars with the new trilogy, so I sent her the original trilogy on DVD. I doubt she'll get into Star Trek anytime soon, especially since she's on the other side of the country, but I do know MY kids will be raised on Trek. They'll both/all see all of TNG, DS9, and Voyager. Far as I'm concerned, Trek is pretty timeless. The first season of TNG is kinda hokey, but it's watchable, and those three series are classics, from where I sit. The movies aren't bad either. I don't even read the books (though I've read a couple)... I don't need them, or the games. The series and latter 9 movies are plenty for me.

Can someone re-host the images on Imageshack or something? I'm using the Walmart branded AOL, and they 'blacklist' pages their conservative 'judging panel' doesn't find 'morally sound' (for example I can't get the latest nVidia drivers)... oddly enough I can get on forums, but it seems like a lot of web pages trip the censorship protocols, which means I get kicked off the Net and have to reconnect. It'll do that to me every time I try to access blacklisted pages, so... :lol:

I'd say neither as well, though to Riker's credit, before my girlfriend and I started watching TNG together, I told her come Season 2 she'd be falling for Riker. It's hard to imagine ladies liking Picard, because of his age... I think Jean-Luc Picard is a better character, more distinguished, than William T. Riker, but in the attractiveness department I always thought Riker had it, no contest. (I'm not gay, but nor am I blind.)

 

What the heck, I'll vote Riker. I think he deserves it, though I'm attracted to neither.

No clue, sorry... and I could be mistaking something said on that set for what Ezri said in the jail cell. It would be easier if we had scripts for all the episodes, but if you're planning on re-watching the arc, by all means go for it. It's a good one.

 

On the topic of arcs, since DS9 is so interconnected with these arcs, when we start watching it, I'm going to start an Excel spreadsheet... listing episodes down the left side, and across the top, different categories. Like names of characters named in the title credits, X marks episodes "highlighting" specific ones... marking appearances by various extras (Weyoun, Winn, Nagus, Lwaxana, etc.), and also columns for the various arcs, including the relationships. When complete, it will be easy for, say, O'Brien fans to get a list of all the O'Brien episodes... all the episodes in the Sisko's Faith arc will be obvious... everything involving Kira's and Odo's relationships... Has anything like this been done?

The Enterprise-D used to be the C, B, A, and NX? Sorry, not possible. Maybe you meant to word that a little differently, but the Enterprise-1701 (which, I concede, you did not name) was destroyed in Star Trek III, and hence, they created the A... But I do not believe that they took a significant amount of parts from the A to make the B, the B to make the C... maybe the C to the D as those are similar, but A to B and B to C are very different. And I can't speak of the NX-01 because I never watched ENT (only seen parts of the first episode). You also didn't name E, which is good because the saucer section crashed in Star Trek VII (Generations) and the bottom half was destroyed in a battle with [rogue] Klingons. But I highly, highly doubt the Ent-D has parts from the Ent-A and NX-01.

 

I couldn't see the Jem'hadar rebelling either, at least until VBG reminded us of the Alphas. The Alphas could well rebel, but the problem with that is their numbers are very limited. As it stood at the end of DS9, the Prophets weren't allowing Dominion ships into the Alpha Quadrant... all the Alphas were made in the Alpha Quadrant. Though I suppose the hypothetical film could show the complete eradication of the Alphas.

 

Would Odo be a part of a hypothetical film? No... I really got the impression from his character arc that his place was ultimately with his people. He tried to fight it for years, but once he got a taste, he couldn't resist.

 

How about this? The idea just came to me, so it's obviously not airtight: Voyager returns home. The Federation perfects the transwarp technology we saw in that one Voyager episode... the ship supposedly sent from the Federation with the new drive... A Shapeshifter spy in Starfleet steals a prototype ship, and takes the long way to the Gamma Quadrant. Fearing an all-out war, the Federation fits all its ships with this new drive and sends them to the Founders homeworld... again, the long way (let's just say the Prophets won't let any warships from either side through). An all out war finishes the Dominion once and for all. Release it as a trilogy, one a year for three years, like how Lord of the Rings was released. Feature a lot of starship battles, a lot of action, a good amount of romance (reunite Kira with Odo?), make Odo choose between his people and the Federation... and maybe end it by showing the Founders that the Federation isn't about conquest, that they all can live in peace (remember the Founders were hunted, have that chip on their shoulder), or... end it with the destruction of their world and the decimation of the Dominion.

 

I really can't see Sisko returning as a man. Maybe appearing, but I think he's where he needs to be.

 

Colm Meaney hasn't been in any of the movies (AFAIK). It would be a shame if his first one didn't do so well... Though he deserves it.

It's those with shaken faith who are afraid science will discover contradictions.

Truer words have never been spoken. Is that an original statement or are you quoting something? I only ask because it is a fairly eloquent way of saying what I've been trying to put into words for quite some time!

It's not intended to be a quote, but it may have been said before. But no, that came from me.

 

I guess if a person ever actually met a god face-to-face like Sisko did, they'd become a believer pretty quick.

Q or several other alien species we've seen on Trek could have done the same thing as these "prophets" did. I still feel that the "Prophets" were incredibly powerful alien beings who cared for the Bajorans as we do our pets. If they were "God", Sisko would not have had to explain so much to them in the pilot episode.

 

Also, please don't misinterpret my comments as a slam on any religion or on religion in general. I myself am a practicing Christian and I have no desire to put down anyone's religion. This is just my belief as to who the "Prophets" really are. I respect the other views stated here.

I sort of agree with your take on the wormhole aliens. Dean Koontz said in his book The Taking (though I believe he was quoting another author) that if aliens visited us which were 1,000 years more advanced than we were, their technology would appear to us, to be magic. So maybe the wormhole aliens are just that much more advanced than everyone else (besides Q) and appeared godlike. But the same could be said for any religion. With all due respect to Christians, the Christian God could well be an alien, much more advanced than us... I mean, the Bible never says he's a Man... Christ was a man, essentially made by God (much more directly than the rest of us), but as we're practically able to clone, "making a man" is not far from our own abilities... So the Christian "God" could just as easily be an alien which has taken an interest in us. But it changes nothing... whether the Christian God is an omnipotent force, or a really powerful alien, he's still more powerful than we are, and it wouldn't change much scripture (which is itself written by man, passed down through generations from those who originally experienced it but couldn't write it down). I think the point may be that it doesn't matter if God is real or not, if you believe, that's all that counts. I believe it's Kira that actually states that directly in one episode.

 

yeah the Prophets never seemed as powerful as Q to me, so I'm gonna agree with KOR

Maybe, maybe not. Q was just a showoff. The Prophets were much more reserved. The most they did, really, was wipe the Dominion fleet in the wormhole out, and only after Sisko practically begged them to intervene. Practically everything else they did could be rationally explained through other means. But that goes back to my previous point, that the Bajorans believed they were Gods and that is good enough for them.

 

I myself am an atheist, but I'm willing to "consider" any religion at face value; though not accepting it as truth for myself (I consider myself on my own path, out to discover my own truths on my own terms) I do know a fair bit about Christianity (having it forced on me for a while when I was growing up) and its teachings... I don't believe it as fact, but I can debate it (on both sides) based on my knowledge of it. I also would never tell anyone their religion is wrong, only that it is not for me personally.

I wasn't sure if the novels were canon or not. I read a few of the TNG books a long time ago... I can't name any names due to lack of memory, but I know I read at least three. I always thought they were canon, though they seemed to be more 'side stories' that never contradicted, added to, or took away from, the Trek universe as we knew it, so whether they were canon or not didn't much matter. But like I said, I only read a few TNG books.

 

I was not aware we met the Trill before DS9. I would bet the appearance would be different; I recall from the DS9 extras that Michael Westmore (makeup) originally wanted to give Terry Farrel (Jadzia Dax) a pronounced forehead, like a Klingon's but not nearly as many ridges... then went with the dots. I'd imagine the Trill as seen in TNG would look nothing like on DS9, which makes no sense, but whatever.

Weird... Is Michael Dorn in Speed or isn't he?

 

I didn't notice the first time I watched it. Then I heard he was the bus driver, so I watched it again and decided it was him.

 

Now I look on IMDb.com, he's not listed as being on Speed's cast, and it's not listed on his discography page. But IMDb doesn't credit anyone for playing the bus driver, so IMDb could well be incomplete.

 

I do not have the DVD... can anyone confirm or deny? Sorry for the misinformation if I am wrong.

Well, this generation is more disillusioned with things like high prices than the previous generation; whereas our parents could go on a trip and just accept high prices as the cost of having a good time, we (most of us) complain about the prices and try to find a better value somewhere else... this isn't a good thing for theme parks and other such attractions that are more accustomed to price gouging than more honest practices. Like the price of the DVD boxes for example... there is no reason they need to be doubling the price, when the price is outrageous to begin with, when you could get it at Best Buy for half that or for free off BitTorrent.

Ooh! I tried Earl Grey because of Picard. Though, I didn't like it...

The aliens in "The Conspiracy" were pretty ugly. I was surprised when I saw them.

I did not know about the Borg ride. I think I was there in 2002, so it must be pretty new.

Michael Dorn is the bus driver on Speed. If you remember, he's taken off the bus, so his part is pretty short.

 

I saw a The Core knockoff in the video store a couple weeks ago called Descent. Dorn is in that as well. (The film apparently bears no relation to the game it shares a name with.)

 

VaBeachGuy pointed out to me in another thread that Rene Auberjonois (Odo) has a role in The Patriot. I have the DVD; he's listed on the credits on the back.

 

I saw Kate Mulgrew (Janeway) on an episode of Murder: She Wrote. I hate that show, but my mother was watching it and I sat down right quick when I noticed Mulgrew.

 

My mother also reported that Kate Mulgrew had a regular role on a soap opera she watched in the 1980s called Ryan's Hope. IMDb confirmed this.

Oh, I've been doing the Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" hand sign since before I knew who Spock was. I probably got it from my father, a huge Trekkie before me. I do the eye thing as well, though for the same reason as I talk like Yoda... Intentionally, to make my girlfriend laugh. Before she met me, she hadn't seen any Trek or Star Wars... She watched the first two SW films, I took her to III and we watched the original trilogy together... now we're watching TNG straight through together.

 

And I've done Picard's shirt tug... though I think that's been more intentional than anything.

I thought the Borg were introduced in TNG when Q flung the Ent-D into Borg space, alerting the Borg to intelligent life in [what was referred to in Voyager as] Sector 001, sending the Borg "our" way... That's just what I remember from seeing it on TV... I could be wrong. If this is true, and I don't doubt you guys at all... then I was wrong about how the Borg "discover" the Federation.

 

Interesting.

 

And about the Trill... couldn't happen. Must have been a Fanfic or something... The Trill symbionts aren't anything like what we saw in that episode, and they don't control one's mind, they only add memories. No, those aliens were nothing like the Trill, at least not as we know them from DS9.

SPOILERS WITHIN!

 

At the end of "The Conspiracy",

Does anything ever come of that?

 

Next episode.... "The Neutral Zone"...

Do we ever find out?

Sorry about the confusing topic title/description, I really didn't know how to word it. I've been thinking about doing this topic for a while, though I never did settle on a name.

 

My answer is, I've gotten Jadzia's walking with the hands behind the back.... I didn't start it until after I started watchind DS9 all the way through, but I didn't do it expressly to copy her, either. I just picked up the habit, I guess.

 

Has anything similar happened with any of you? Picking up mannerisms from Star Trek characters, or any other TV show? Sounds silly, I know, but if someone were to tell me to stop it (walking with my hands behind my back like Jadzia does) it would be hard to break the habit... I always catch myself doing it without thinking.

OK, I stand corrected... partially. I seem to remember a comment about their appearance made in the Dominion 'control room' on Cardassia Prime, though I could be wrong about that as well.

I'm hearing it as "berries" now only after hearing it a thousand times, and, of course, knowing what he's saying.

No, I think DS9 wrapped itself up nicely. They could have taken it longer, but that ending pretty much seals it.

 

What might be cool, along the same lines, would be a show involving the remaining characters and some of the TNG crew on new adventures. Voyager's return would happen a few seasons in, and some of that crew would come in... perhaps there would be a huge war, and the show would lose 2-3 main characters in different episodes... then Voyager would return, Janeway made an Admiral, the Maquis crew members tried and pardoned, and some of the Voyager crew join this new crew.

 

They didn't do 3 series of the Enterprise, they did one for the NX-01, one for the NCC-1701, and one for the NCC-1701-D featuring a cameo by the NCC-1701-C in one episode. Those are all as different ships as the Enterprise-E and Voyager... they're all different classes, it just happened that three were named Enterprise. It's kind of silly that three Trek ships were named Enterprise (more, if you count the minor ones), but that's a Navy tradition, and Starfleet is based on the Navy. The US Navy has an Enterprise now, she's an aircraft carrier if I remember correctly. Tom Clancy's "Jack Ryan" series mentions it a couple times. (And I laughed each time.)

I believe that science and spirituality are not mutually exclusive ... in fact, the more science reveals the more spiritual I feel. For me, they are but two halves of the same whole. Hopefully, that is what Sisko comes to realize ... there is nothing wrong with recognizing a greater power even within the context of science.

I see what you're saying... It reminds me of something Dan Brown said in either "Angels & Demons" or "The DaVinci Code". That science and religion are both searching for the truth. From my perspective, science starts out assuming nothing and searching for truths, while religion starts with assumptions and tries to prove those... but I see the best scientific mind and the best religious people as doing the same thing, searching for the truth, for their place in the universe. The religious have nothing to fear from science if their religion is true, as science will eventually lead to what they've been saying all along. It's those with shaken faith who are afraid science will discover contradictions.

 

I was somewhat disappointed that Sisko ended up embracing the Bajoran religion. I liked it when he was uncomfortable in his role as the Emmissary. I guess if people constantly tell you that you are a religious figure, you end up believing your own press.

Did you see all the season 7 episodes? Or did you miss a few? I only ask because Sisko learns something that pretty much cinches the deal for him. I'll post it, but only as a spoiler.

 

^I guess if a person ever actually met a god face-to-face like Sisko did, they'd become a believer pretty quick.

 

I felt differently in that I was glad when Sisko finally stopped being so skeptical and reluctant and began to embrace the Bajoran faith. Since Star Trek cannot promote Christianity, Judaeism, Hinduism, or any other ism, at the risk of offending its diverse fan base, I found the Bajoran religion a fine addition to the franchise, a little leavening for all the techno-babble if you will.

 

Just me.

Same here, if I were Sisko, I'd be a believer. And I'm an atheist... that's what I love about DS9, that like Sisko, I was able to go from being skeptical about the wormhole aliens as he was, to believing in them, at least through him and his crew.

Damn... it was in one of the later ones. I am 99% sure Ezri didn't say it. I'm not so sure Weyoun did either, but more him than her. If not Weyoun, then the female changeling... I am pretty sure the comment was made in the Cardassian command center the female changeling and Weyoun were always seen in.

Well look at the music industry, it is no different. First you have these manufactured pop acts who really only dance and sing songs provided for them. Then over in the rock scene, you have these washed-up, otherwise dead groups, and the labels just mix and match, e.g. Rage Against the Machine (3 members, minus vocalist) + Soundgarden (vocalist) = Audioslave and Guns n' Roses (all but the vocalist) + Stone Temple Pilots (vocalist) = Velvet Revolver. I know some people may like these bands, but I don't... in any case, they're just recycling bands, not daring to do anything new and original. I discovered, via the Internet, an original enough band (Nightwish), and they have a pretty good fan following, but aren't supported by the major labels... the major record labels don't want to take a chance on a new sound, they only want to recycle the same old stuff. So those of us who are tired of it turn to the Net, away from the radio and TV, to discover good music. It's a shame there's such a gap between Hollywood and independent film.

 

Computers are making it easy for bands to get heard without label support (Evanescence did all their stuff on an iMac before getting signed), soon it will be easier for filmmakers, and computers will be more up to the task of helping with special effects and computer animation that I figure in 10 years or so, we'll have a lot more good independent films coming out, and attention will shift away from Hollywood... they'll have to do something original.

 

If Predator is not a classic, then what do you call Terminator 2: Judgement Day? Anyone who says T2 isn't a classic, line up to get slapped. All jokes aside, despite being 4 years newer than Predator (it came out in 1991, I was 11 when I saw it in the theater, and my mom took me, heh heh) it's a classic. Ask just about anyone my age (26) or within a few years, they'll usually smile and nod. It's a great action film, so well done, so groundbreaking, as far as movies which will be remembered in 100 years, it's up there for sure.