El Kabong

Where's the Colonel Kira option (to represent the DS9 Relaunch in the books)?

I'm just curious...Chataeya mentioned voting for Janeway because "It was nice to see a female in that role, for a change". Do women tend to vote for Janeway because she is a woman?

When I have the time to devote to it I will have to look into these books.

Same here. I'm already seven or eight books behind on my Trek reading, and I look at the Millennium omnibus and think, "Damn...that's a long 1000 pages...maybe I'll get around to it in 2004..."

Since my explanations reveal plot points of my episode selections, I'll enclose it all in spoiler space.

Click for Spoiler:

1: "Conspiracy". I was tempted to say "The Naked Now", because that episode makes me laugh to this day, but "Conspiracy" was truly an epic for its time. This episode, plus "Coming of Age" which is its precursor, has it all--plot, intrigue, action, good fight scenes, and the goriest ending to a Trek episode that I've ever seen.

2: "The Measure of a Man". Real courtroom drama. This, along with "The Offspring", really takes the whole Data/humanity story arc to another level, albeit indirectly. Riker did a great job as a prosecuting lawyer, even though he hated it.

3: "The Defector". I found it difficult to choose this season's best, as a number of episodes really stood out: "The Hunted", "Deja Q", "Yesterday's Enterprise", "The Offspring", "The Most Toys", "Menage a Trois", and of course, "The Best of Both Worlds". However, "The Defector" took the cake for a few reasons. This is really the episode that, in my mind, transformed TNG from a good show into a GREAT show. You really didn't know how things were going to turn out until the end, which is hard to do in 'modern' television. Would the Enterprise prevent a war, or inadvertently start one? This episode was thick with mystery and intrigue, and the ending blew me away the first time I watched it.

4: "The Drumhead". Season four is my personal favorite, and it would be easier for me to cite the bad episodes rather than the good ones. "The Drumhead" stood out in season four due to its witchhunt story that culminated in Picard himself being put on trial in a manner of speaking. Worf even sides with the antagonists for the majority of the episode. This episode was also indirectly a part of the ongoing Klingon/Romulan story arc going through this season, and the DS9 fan in me loves story arcs, of course.

5: "I, Borg". In this post-Voyager climate of Borg overexposure, it's easy to dismiss this episode as just Star Trek milking one of its most popular adversaries for ratings. But this episode goes so much deeper than that. Picard and Guinan each have their perceptions of the Borg challenged here, and the idea of genocide is considered as an option, even if some would consider it not to be genocide. In the midst of it all, Geordi forms a bond with the Borg of the hour, Hugh, and as a result, the Borg would never be the same.

6: "Chain of Command, Part II". "Tapestry" really gave this episode a run for its money, but I think the ending of this episode really stood out. I singled out Part II because this episode really focused on the breaking of Picard, and contrary to what people probably thought going into this episode, Picard comes to the brink of breaking, if not for the timing of the Enterprise and Captain Jellico. In a moment of honest vulnerability, Picard admits to Troi that he would have told Gul Madred anything he wanted, and would have believed that there were five lights.

7: "Lower Decks". A real character piece, where we get to meet and get to know some mostly unknown characters on the Enterprise, the "little people" if you will. This episode highlights the realities of life in Starfleet when you're not one of the seven highest people on the ship, when you're given orders and you usually don't know the whole story. Or, sometimes, you do know, and you're not allowed to discuss it with anyone. It's almost a stark mirror of real life, in that nobody really knows what's going on in the larger scheme of things, they just know what they know and do what they do.

I think that's enough rambling for one night.

I am quite surprised many votes are for the one season many trek fans think was the most inconsistant of the 7, which was Season 7.

Indeed. I don't mean to bash people here, but this really shocks me. In my opinion, season seven was loaded with a number of horrible episodes, most of which were probably made because of the creative division in the Trek camp between TNG episodes, DS9 episodes, Generations, and developing Voyager. Season seven's redeeming episodes, IMHO, were "All Good Things..." (of course, a great finale), "Lower Decks" (we finally get to know the little people), "Preemptive Strike" (the first Trek episode in a long time to have a not-happy ending...it was almost DS9like!), and maybe "The Pegasus" and "Parallels", only because they were fun episodes. ("The Pegasus" also had that priceless Captain Picard Day scene.) But season seven had some really bad episodes as well, such as "Phantasms", "Force of Nature", "Homeward", "Masks", "Eye of the Beholder", "Genesis", and probably the two worst episodes of TNG ever made, "Sub Rosa" and "Emergence". And don't even get me started on that whole Troi-Worf relationship--what the heck were the writers thinking?!

Okay, I'm sorry, I hope I didn't offend anyone, but in my mind, all of the bad of season seven far outweighs the few bits of good, thus making it probably the worst or second worst season in my mind (Roddenberry-led season one still had pretty bad ones to compete).

The Enterprise-E is probably (pardon the pun) the best of both worlds, in terms of providing most of the luxuries of modern 24th century life while not looking like a frickin' hospital. I always thought the Enterprise-D looked too bright and cheery, much like a hospital, and I guess somewhat like a hotel. Besides, the Enterprise-D looked horrible on the big screen, while the Enterprise-E looked spectacular in the movies. Obviously, a set made for television doesn't always translate well onto a movie screen, and the Enterprise-E set was designed specifically for movie screens, but still, the Enterprise-E just looked better, hands down.

I think Data see Picard as his role model to be more human (I remember him said it.. Just remember in which episode or movie)

 

And I think Picard sees in Data the best facets of humanity we took for granted.

 

I consider their relationship to be one of exchange of vision, of situation. A Mentor and a pupil, Picard trying to make understand to Data was humanity is.

 

 

The friendship between Geordi and Data is more ... well.. buddies

Damn, you beat me to it. Yeah, I'd definitely say Picard was Data's mentor in his quest for humanity and whatnot. Obviously, in a mentor-protoge relationship, a close bond develops, which is what we see between Picard and Data.

Click for Spoiler:

Oh, one more addition to my dinner choices:

If I'm low on cash, I'd take Odo, since, y'know, he doesn't eat.

Maybe you could splice together Nog scenes from the first two seasons to make your own pre-Heart of Stone Nog episode?

The wormhole is actually in the Denorios belt, a charged plasma field in or near the Bajor system. There's no guarantee that the belt is in the plane of the rest of the planets in the system, so it's possible the wormhole is outside of that plane, as LadyNarana first postulated.

The only other possibility I can think of is that the wormhole isn't actually fixed totally in space, but actually moves around the Bajoran sun as the planets do, and maintains a constant distance to Bajor. How does this work? Um...uh...the Prophets did it. Yeah, that's it, the Prophets did it...

I think my favorite scene from "The Magnificent Ferengi" is the ending:

Click for Spoiler:

After taking Yelgrun prisoner, the Ferengi leave the reanimated Keevan corpse walking into the wall on Empok Nor. One wonders if Dukat and his followers just left Keevan there when they moved into the station.

For a date, I'd choose Kira Nerys, assuming she doesn't toss my butt out of an airlock first, of course.

For a get-to-know-you friendly dinner, I'd choose Julian Bashir. He's probably a great conversationalist.

For a drinking buddy, there's no better choice than Miles Edward O'Brien. If I were to start drunkenly singing with him, at least I'd know the language of the drinking songs, unlike with Worf.

something about "nog-a-thon" just cracks me up hehe. But seriously, I think it was with those episodes that I started to take a strong interest in his character, because here was somebody that is doing something completely unexpected, something that most of us thought Jake Sisko would do for sure.

Not only doing it but doing it well, and we all thought he was the little criminal lol

Well, when we first saw Nog in "Emissary", he really was a criminal, stealing stuff from an abandoned store, but getting caught by Odo.

 

In order to do the character justice, I think a Nog-a-thon needs one or two more episodes from before "Heart of Stone", from when Nog was going to school and Jake was teaching him to read. If one were to see Nog for the first time in "Heart of Stone", we'd think it was odd to see a Ferengi trying to get into Starfleet, but we wouldn't truly understand what a journey this character was really taking. That's just my opinion, though. Nevertheless, the six you picked already are great choices.

Yeah, you could put one or two of the earlier Nog episodes in there, but I don't believe any episodes really focused in on Nog until Heart Of Stone. Other episodes have him in them but the stories weren't really about him. If someone were new to DS9 and didn't know the background of the character then they really should watch some of the earlier episodes like Emissary.

Well, "Heart of Stone"'s B-plot was about Nog, but the A-plot was about Odo and "Kira". But I'm sure one of the earlier episodes has a B-plot about Nog (like whatever episode where Jake teaches Nog how to read). Think about it...in two years Nog went from illiterate criminal miscreant to aspiring soon-to-be Starfleet cadet. I think such a change deserves some coverage in a Nog-a-thon. I just wish I could tell you which episode(s) in particular to add off the top of my head.

First, the title "Roswell High" was only used in the UK and while the series was in development in the US. When Roswell debuted in the US, it was simply known as "Roswell". I assume the "High" was (re-)added to the UK title if only to get UK viewers to know it was a show about high school kids, since I imagine not many Brits are familiar with Roswell and the alleged alien crash there. It could also be that "Roswell High" was the original title of the series of books upon which the TV series is based, IIRC. In any case, the TV show was always simply "Roswell".

Second, I personally don't care if "Star Trek" is present in the title of future movies or not. I just want it to remain consistent with the show upon which it is based. For instance, if it is an Enterprise movie, I want the title to be "Enterprise: xxx" where xxx is obviously the subtitle. If it's another TNG movie (or even, god forbid, a DS9 or Voyager movie [i say 'god forbid' for different reasons regarding DS9 and Voyager, but I digress]), it should be "Star Trek: xxx". Of course, should Enterprise change its title to Star Trek: Enterprise, I guess go with a "Star Trek: xxx" title for an Enterprise movie. Then again, if I had my druthers, Nemesis would be the final Trek movie for a loooooooooong time, until Paramount comes up with another good TV show to carry on making movies with after the TV show ends.

Kirk's death scene should never have been written, period. It should have been one of those concepts left up to the fans to determine for themselves, if Kirk was dead yet or not and if so, how he died. The legend that Kirk was deserved better than what Generations gave him and what the Shatnerverse seems to have dished out.

Stardate:213507.9

 

 

 

How about when the Niners are facing the Vulcans and every body is saying "hey batter batter!" and Worf says"Kill the opposistion!!!!!!!"

I think it's actually "Death to the opposition!" Later, when Nog is trying to tag the Vulcan who never touched home plate and asks what he should do, Worf responds, "Find him and kill him!" Now THAT'S classic.

Did anyone notice that he had an ensign rank pip durring the first season or 2 of DS9?

Actually, that's not exactly true. He had a single hollow pip (like the third pip in the lieutenant commander pip designation), which is somewhat correct if it's meant to say that an ensign outranks him. I'm guessing that, at the time, before they came up with real enlisted insignia, this was the best way they could express an enlisted rank.

something about "nog-a-thon" just cracks me up hehe. But seriously, I think it was with those episodes that I started to take a strong interest in his character, because here was somebody that is doing something completely unexpected, something that most of us thought Jake Sisko would do for sure.

Not only doing it but doing it well, and we all thought he was the little criminal lol

Well, when we first saw Nog in "Emissary", he really was a criminal, stealing stuff from an abandoned store, but getting caught by Odo.

In order to do the character justice, I think a Nog-a-thon needs one or two more episodes from before "Heart of Stone", from when Nog was going to school and Jake was teaching him to read. If one were to see Nog for the first time in "Heart of Stone", we'd think it was odd to see a Ferengi trying to get into Starfleet, but we wouldn't truly understand what a journey this character was really taking. That's just my opinion, though. Nevertheless, the six you picked already are great choices.

No Quark-a-thon is complete without "The Magnificent Ferengi", IMHO, the best Ferengi episode ever. This episode had well-executed comedy and really got to the core of how Ferengi differed from other species (as if we didn't already know)--they're not soldiers, they're negotiators, and darn good ones at that.

"Real Life" is, I believe, my absolute favorite Voyager episode, and I'll admit, I have a rather low opinion of Voyager on the whole, but this one really got to me.

Click for Spoiler:

I think they promoted Janeway to admiral as a way of thanking her for leaving Neelix in the Delta Quadrant and sparing the Federation that particular experience. :biggrin:

So I gotta actually go into the Voyager forum to chat about these books? Uh oh...I have to be careful...if I stick around in that forum for too long, I'll start Voyager bashing en masse, so watch out! :biggrin:

I hope this answers your question, I have often wished that TPTB had paid closer attention to the rank structure and insignia that they used. We really should have seen more enlisted ranks, not everyone is an officer and anyone that's been in the military knows that the bulk of any real work is done by the enlisted ranks (Usually by the E-5s and below).

We have seen a few other enlisted crew. The engineers serving under O'Brien like Muniz and those other guys in the episode "Starship Down" were enlisted crew, I believe, and not officers. I seem to recall O'Brien telling Worf as such in order to get him to be easier on the grunts in the middle of a crisis. However, we don't know what their exact ranks were.

The official Star Trek site lists O'Brien's rank as "Chief petty officer, senior chief specialist". I'm not sure what the second part of that rank means, though.

The Enterprise-E crew was involved in at least the retaking of Betazed from the Dominion, according to this novel. But it is a novel so everyone may not consider it a part of canon.

What made the development of Nog's character from Ferengi boyish misfit to eager, aspiring Starfleet cadet to a fine, upstanding Starfleet officer was that the writers decided not to take Jake down the same road, in what would have essentially made him Wesley 2.0. The juxtaposition of the first Ferengi in Starfleet and the first human Trek castmember to not join Starfleet in some capacity was just one of the many great character dynamics portrayed on DS9...just another reason why it was the best Trek show ever.

Who says Klingons don't have a sense of humor  :lol: 

Sense of humor? What are you talking about? Worf was being completely serious!