OMG, I have not… Thanks for the recommendation.
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I believe those are space-age monk’s spades.
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The Expense hints at it. Projectile weapons are a bad idea for both sides in a space ship. Energy weapons can be contained.
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I didn’t see that episode. Does that work outside the Holodeck?
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so that’s why it was canceled twice
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But they do use projectile weapons in The Expanse because those kinds of weapons remain one of the best ways to fuck up enemy personnel and spaceships.
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It was in one of the movies. I don’t see any reason why a real Tommy Gun wouldn’t kill a Borg (or any other enemy, for that matter) if a holographic one would.
IIRC there was also a TNG episode in which Worf had an Old West shootout with a holographic version of Data facing similar stakes (gunfire with the safety protocols turned off).
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And everyone who might be in a firefight wears a space suit because any second, hull integrity may be breached.
Yeah, energy weapons are much better.
I think of battle in The Expanse as what battle was like 500 years before STNG.
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Right, because projectile weapons are so effective.
Don’t get me wrong, if I was in a life-or-death battle with another spaceship I would definitely hope that the other side didn’t have projectile weapons… but I’d sure as heck want my spaceship to be equipped with them.
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Same reason the phasers against the borg eventually were ineffective. Adaptive shielding would quickly learn how to stop a projectile.
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But they also use phasers against non-Borg/non-forcefield-equipped enemies even in situations where a traditional projectile weapon would be far more effective. Not to mention that most of the time the Federation strike forces go into battle wearing brightly-colored onesies instead of camouflage or body armor.
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I think the distinction needs to be made between ship-to-ship battles and person-to-person battles.
In ship-to-ship, anything but extremely fast (cough railgun cough) projectiles may often be useless. If the ship you’re firing on is moving faster than your projectile, it’s just silly. Hypothetically, in FTL travel, you could say the same thing about particle beam weapons.
In person-to-person battle, penetrating weapons inside a ship in space are as dangerous to the person using them as the person they’re firing at.
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Phasers are usually quite effective at everything they are good at. There is a reason a starfleet issue Mark II Phaser has so many options. Would a projectile gun work? Sure, but it cant stun someone or heat up a rock to stay warm or disintegrate an object in your way.
As for the uniforms, they are the model of comfort and functionality in a wide varieties of environments. If Starfleets primary mission was to be a destructive military force they would be armed up the wazzoo. But they are an exploratory and diplomatic force first and foremost. Defense is really their third job.
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I think Star Trek was at its best when it was tackling other subjects than full-scale warfare because at a certain point you have to wonder why the heck everyone would be holding back so much instead of employing whatever military advantages they had available. Sure, comfort is important—but if the Federation was sending me into a life-or-death infantry battle against Dominion forces I’d still want a helmet or something… even the security officers back in Kirk’s day had that much.
Possibly the best example of believable military tactics in a Star Trek episode was the Original Series episode “Balance of Terror,” because that was basically the space-age version of a WWII-era submarine battle.
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Discovery did a bit with their tactical vest so I guess that is also “Kirk’s time”
Im sure there is some canon reason why these items fell out of use in the 24th century. We did see some stsrfleet marines in DS9 who had black uniforms that seemed more substantial than the standard issue RGB ones.
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Thomas joined the Maquis and ended up in Cardassian custody (s3e9 ‘Defiant’)
I believe some beta canon established he was killed during the dominion war.
Id say "our man bashir’ was good when the command staff got transporter dumped into quarks holodecks while Bashir was playing James Bond.
Or the Barclay TNG one where he kept seeing worms in the transport stream.
I even enjoyed the Hoshi transporter episode of Enterprise (even with its weak ending)
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I figured he got killed along the way, but I never remember it being brought up in TNG, DS9, or any of the movies. More than one Riker in a universe might be more than the fabric of spacetime can handle.
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When you’ve finished and are sad, find and watch Lower Decks.
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