An sophisticated Cardassian missile reprogrammed by B'Elanna is now loose in the Delta Quadrant.
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By BrianB on Friday, July 09, 1999 - 8:13 am:
I'm surprised the Dreadnought couldn't neutralize B'Elanna's phaser.
Part two of Paris' rotten egg behavior; showing up late for meetings. Who cares?
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By Mark Swinton on Saturday, October 23, 1999 - 2:54 pm:
Great episode this. Did anyone else spot the parallels between Dreadnought and HAL from "2001"? A computer that is not merely interactive but well spoken...?
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By cableface on Saturday, October 23, 1999 - 3:00 pm:
Yeah, but HAL was way cooler.
"I'm sorry Dave.I can't do that." was a hell of a lot better than,
"Probability assesment indicates you are participating in the Delta quadrant conspiracy."
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By Mark Swinton on Tuesday, October 26, 1999 - 11:02 am:
I agree with you on that one, Mr. Cableface.
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By cableface on Wednesday, October 27, 1999 - 1:53 pm:
Why thank you Mr.Swinton.
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By Chris Booton (Cbooton) on Wednesday, October 27, 1999 - 7:48 pm:
Isn't it "I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. Would you like to play a game of chess?"
If they really want to stop this thing then how about beaming a torpedo onto it and detonating it?
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By Mark Swinton on Thursday, October 28, 1999 - 4:53 pm:
As I recall, it would only let B'Elanna on board the first time because of her codes.
Thereafter, she had an almighty fight to bypass the lockouts and get on board.
Once she was gone, Janeway etc. would have had no means of establishing any further transporter links to the missile.
(Or even if they could beam a torpedo on to Dreadnought, that would not be wise. This missile that responds "with all necessary force" to attempts to disrupt its mission would undoubtedly beam the torpedo back, bringing Voyager to an ignominious and sticky end!)
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By Aaron Dotter on Monday, November 22, 1999 - 5:54 pm:
Why did B'Elanna have to keep adjusting the power on her phaser? I didn't get why she was doing that.
Why didn't Janeway beam a tank of air over to the missile? Then B'Elanna could have lasted a little longer.
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By Mark Swinton on Friday, November 26, 1999 - 2:48 pm:
Maybe you weren't looking at it, Aaron, but I should point you in the direction of the board above yours.
(Then again, since you raised the point about air, one wonders why B'Elanna, who "knows this missile" like the back of her hand and who knows what it might just do to her if it treats her as an intruder, didn't equip herself with a space suit... The answer is ludicrously simple- the creators only began showing space suits after they had shown them in the movie First Contact!)
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By Adam Bomb on Saturday, September 02, 2000 - 5:31 pm:
Space suits were in use since "Star Trek The Motion Picture". Heck, if you watch the video, Kirk has two.
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By ScottN on Saturday, September 02, 2000 - 5:45 pm:
No, they were in use since "The Tholian Web".
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By Josh G. on Friday, October 20, 2000 - 7:49 pm:
One thing struck me as strange at the very end of this episode. Just as the executive producer credits come on, I heard a very familiar phrase in the music - the DS9 theme. I'm 100% sure, but why would the creators decide to stick at the end of a Voyager episode? Because the Dreadnought was built by Cardassians??
So, has anyone else noticed?
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By ScottN on Friday, October 20, 2000 - 11:19 pm:
I noticed something similar in DS9 Badda-Bing-Badda-Bang. When the crew is walking through the halls in their 20th century finery, the music sounds like a jazzed up version of the TMP/TNG theme...
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By Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 3:11 am:
Just how long was the Caretaker snatching ships from the Badlands, anyway?
Listening to B'Elanna talk about all the little tricks this weapon could do makes me wonder why the Maquis complain about the quality of their ships?
The inside of that weapon is certainly spacious. Looks more like a cathedral. Did B'Elanna's access codes also turn on life support and gravity?
Personally I didn't care for the throwaway line of 'Leave it to the Cardassians to build an incredibly sophisticated weapon, but arm it with an old kinetic detonator.' Translation: This is a plot hole, but the writer decided to blame it on a just made up character flaw of the Cardassian people. It would have been much better to have written it off to either a simple mechanical error or a space phenomena.
Early in the show B'Elanna said that she made the ship forget it is Cardassian, but when it hails Voyager it admits it is Cardassian in design. True it might think that was to fool the Cardasians, but it seemed to have some thinking skills of its own and it does have some Cardassian files in its programming. (And how do you make a computer 'forget' anyway? Wouldn't it just be easier to erase its memory?)
Janeway alone ordered Voyager to blow up, by voice command, then deactivated self-destruct, alone, by voice command. Well, it's nice to see that Starfleet has decided to get rid of those pesky little safeguards that would keep some terrorist with a voice duplicator from destroying Starfleet vessels.
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By LUIGI NOVI on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 9:35 pm:
KAM: Just how long was the Caretaker snatching ships from the Badlands, anyway?
Luigi Novi: Neelix told Seven that he arrived in the area of the Caretaker's array a year before Voyager did in The Voyager Conspiracy, and he told Janeway when first speaking with her in Caretaker that the Caretaker had been snatching ships from other parts of the galaxy for "months".
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By KAM on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 - 4:35 am:
But the galaxy is a big place. Why was the Caretaker wasting so much time on a region that very few ships go too?
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By LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 - 1:03 pm:
Well, the Maquis used the Badlands regularly for cover, and depending on how many ships they have going in and out of there, maybe it's not "few" after all.
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By Jwb52z on Thursday, July 12, 2001 - 3:48 pm:
KAM, have you ever thought that the Caretaker was wanting ships that wouldn't be missed or ships that would be given up as lost if they disappeared?
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By KAM on Friday, July 13, 2001 - 3:06 am:
Why would he? He's too far away for any reprisals.
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By Mikey on Friday, July 13, 2001 - 1:17 pm:
The Badlands may not be the only place the Caretaker kidnapped ships from.
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By Jwb52z on Friday, July 13, 2001 - 1:28 pm:
KAM, it is conceivable that a race as advanced as his could come looking for him because they would have a reason to if they could figure out what happened. If they are not a genetic match for the Caretaker, even at a similar technological level, they would go looking for their people.
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By John A. Lang on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 9:07 pm:
Since when has auto-destruct required only one command code?
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By John A. Lang on Sunday, May 23, 2004 - 4:35 pm:
NANJAO: This episode reminded me of "The Doomsday Machine" (TOS)
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By Nove Rockhoomer on Sunday, May 23, 2004 - 10:33 pm:
It reminded me of the Space:1999 episode "Voyager's Return."
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By Thande on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 12:10 pm:
Why oh why oh why does Dreadnought have this fantabidosie Borg-like adaption-to-weapons technology when every other Cardassian ship seems, at best, comparable to Federation tech? Maybe Madred managed to get something out of Picard after all?
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By Brian FitzGerald on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 7:54 pm:
I always wanted to know why someone would use a ship as advanced as that for an unmanned suicide mission, espically with how advanced it was and how much stuff it could do automatically. Why not put a few people on it and make it into your flag ship? Or even a new fast attack ship.
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By Feek The Freek on Friday, March 04, 2005 - 10:11 am:
True, but does the TOS episode "The Ultimate Computer" ring any bells...?.
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By Brian FitzGerald on Saturday, March 05, 2005 - 2:58 am:
As I said, "put a few people on it" - to control it.
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By ScottN on Saturday, March 05, 2005 - 12:47 pm:
Yeah, that worked real well with the M-5!
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By Thande on Saturday, March 05, 2005 - 2:40 pm:
Specifically, put Kirk on to talk it to death if it gets dangerous.
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By Mr Crusher on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 2:40 pm:
This episode was directed by the Geordi LaForge actor
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By A Snide Commenter on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 3:56 pm:
It was also directed by the host of "Reading Rainbow".
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By Josh M on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - 4:19 pm:
But, seriously, Luigi was right. We could stand to have a few posts here dumped. Any Rovers around?
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By ScottNely Whiplash on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - 5:17 pm:
ARRRGGHHH!!! I'll get you for that pun, Polls Voice! Nyah-ha-ha!
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By ScottN on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - 5:19 pm:
And Mr. Crusher, Josh was right, if we didn't care, we wouldn't poke fun.
I was intending it in a joke-y manner. I'm sorry you felt 'harrassed', and reacted as such. However, since this is a nitpicking site, expect to be nitpicked. And my post was just as valid a comment as yours was.
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By Butch the Roving Mod on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - 5:22 pm:
The offending posts and those directly relating to it have been moved to The Garbage Dump pending Richie's review of them.
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By the 74s tm on Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 3:37 pm:
Can't we point outs nits in Dreadnought??
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Mr. Crusher what was your first Trek you ever saw and how old?Just askn
.
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By Butch the Roving Mod on Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 4:27 pm:
The other off topic posts have been moved to The Kitchen Sink/Nitcentralia/Miscellaneous Emergencies 10.
Please take any further discussion of the issue there.
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By Mr Crusher on Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 4:37 pm:
the 74s tm>> The first I saw was Star Trek 4 The Voyage Home and I was 15, you?
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By the 74s tm on Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 7:04 pm:
Brain and Brain.What is Brain. I was 7., channel surfing at 1030pm. I thought a Vulcan telling a doc how to operate was so silly. My first complete one was Lincoln in Space.I got hooked when Charlie bleeped his enemies into oblivion!
I remember most episodes dialogue and actions since 1969.
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By Mr Crusher on Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 9:01 pm:
I wasn't alive back then to remember that! lol
I got into Next Generation when it was in summer reruns in its 4th season, about the time of the 25th anniversay celebration.
My god, that was 15 years ago!
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By the 74s tm on Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 10:42 pm:
I'm where they keep the whales., in Star Trek4. Where are you Mr. C?
ps. I'm 47.
I must've missed it but how did the Dreadnought defend itself, more specifically, what was that energy field it used at the end?
B'Elanna reprogrammed this thing a little too well. If she wanted to prevent anybody, including herself, for aborting it's mission why not just do it, instead of making it do probability assesments that could easily backfire?
Because if you want to make a machine posses intelligence, it has to do some probability assessments whenever unusual situations arise.
I think Torrez met Data, in an episode.She said something like there is an robot just like you?
Dreadnought sounds like the Hal 9000.
She mentioned Data to 3947 in Prototype when he asked if there were sentient machines like him, but she never indicated that she met him.
DescentJS: Because if you want to make a machine posses intelligence, it has to do some probability assessments whenever unusual situations arise.
An intelligence so advanced that it doesn't believe its own star charts, which would undeniably indicate that it is nowhere near its target area? Seems a bit contrived to me that one would work and the other not.
This was touched on a little but if the Cardies have this advanced of weapons technology how could they have possibly lost the war? The anti-nit is of course that dreadnoughts are too expensive to build en masse, but you wouldn't need many to ensure victory in major campaigns.
When the Klingons invaded, the Cardies could have aimed one of these babies at the Klingon Homeworld.