Riker - what would you have done differently

[2046]

I'am talking about this, and this
-Mike

I think the "Q Who?" one is a deinterlacing artifact, which is the same reason we see double of the Enterprise-D in this shot:

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... who089.jpg

(which, since you mention not being able to reach hotlinks to TrekCore, is the sixth image that appears on this page:

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... =41&page=5
)

I've always had to be careful about screenshots of weapons fire and other fast-moving objects for just that reason.

[Mike DiCenso]

I don't think so. The double torps (two groups of two) matches the fact that in both the "Q Who?" and "Nth Degree" shots depicting 4 torpedoes hitting their respective targets.
-Mike

[Ted C]

Again and again I see, that some wanna-be tactician blame Riker for loosing the Enterprise to a couple dozen Ferengi in "Rascals" and ended up destroying the Enterprise when faced against a 20 year old BoP in "ST: Generations".

But what has he done wrong?

What could he have done differently in these situations, looked at it ex ante?

Is he really incompetent?

Lessee, for Generations...

CHANGE THE DAMNED SHIELD FREQUENCY!

It's not like they shouldn't know what the problem is. I suppose you could probably blame everyone on the ship for this oversight, but as the man in the captain's chair at the time, the blame ultimately falls on Riker.

Beyond getting the shields to work properly, how about "Fire phasers with a simultaneous spread of photon torpedoes." We saw in "Survivors" that the Enterprise can do a hell of a lot better than one phaser burst.

And if you are going to turn tail and run, you could at least dump photon torpedoes out the aft tube all the while.

For "Rascals"...

1) Order all Ferengi beamed off the ship. Down to the planet would be fine, if you don't want to kill them outright.

2) Go to freakin warp... BOPs can't keep up with a Galaxy-class starship.

3) Why shut down all command functions anyway? Shouldn't there be authentication and authorization protocols to keep intruders from using command functions? Well, maybe not, based on their computer security track record. Still, by locking all command functions, Riker ham-strung any security personnel attempting to deal with the boarders.

[Roondar]

Again and again I see, that some wanna-be tactician blame Riker for loosing the Enterprise to a couple dozen Ferengi in "Rascals" and ended up destroying the Enterprise when faced against a 20 year old BoP in "ST: Generations".

But what has he done wrong?

What could he have done differently in these situations, looked at it ex ante?

Is he really incompetent?

Lessee, for Generations...

CHANGE THE DAMNED SHIELD FREQUENCY!

It's not like they shouldn't know what the problem is. I suppose you could probably blame everyone on the ship for this oversight, but as the man in the captain's chair at the time, the blame ultimately falls on Riker.

This would obviously not work. La Forge is the most likely person to do these alterations, and the Klingon sisters obviously can see whatever he does. Including the new shield frequency. By the time they could have realistically (without audience knowledge) have figured out that La Forge was the one who caused their problems, it would have been too late anyway - the battle was over very quickly.

Beyond getting the shields to work properly, how about "Fire phasers with a simultaneous spread of photon torpedoes." We saw in "Survivors" that the Enterprise can do a hell of a lot better than one phaser burst.

And if you are going to turn tail and run, you could at least dump photon torpedoes out the aft tube all the while.

This has indeed bothered me for a long time, but I think there may be a reasonable explanation: the Enterprise was hit in it's engineering sections almost immediately. It's quite conceivable the damage done during the initial attacks reduced the Enterprise's capacity to react severely.

This would not be out of line with other situations in which a damaged ship equals one that can't fight as well.

For "Rascals"...

1) Order all Ferengi beamed off the ship. Down to the planet would be fine, if you don't want to kill them outright.

Wasn't beaming people off ships/stations something that was pretty much impossible without a com badge during most of TNG?
(not totally so, but clearly not trivial either)

2) Go to freakin warp... BOPs can't keep up with a Galaxy-class starship.

I alway love it when characters in Sci-Fi act dumber than they should. Ahem. Ok, you got me, this one is pretty much unforgivable. Only thing that keeps it somewhat ok is that almost all fiction contains blunders like this one. And lots of them.

3) Why shut down all command functions anyway? Shouldn't there be authentication and authorization protocols to keep intruders from using command functions? Well, maybe not, based on their computer security track record. Still, by locking all command functions, Riker ham-strung any security personnel attempting to deal with the boarders.

Actually, there are authorization protocols aplenty. It's just that they're (sadly) usually hackable as well. Some of the computer security in the various shows and movies is actually quite decent.

Most of it is not that great when people put effort into hacking it, but then if you have physical access getting something hacked is merely a matter of time. After all, a lot of these 'security hacks' turn out to be hardware modifications. It's hard to program against that ;)

(tbh I think the problem here is, and this is seen in almost all Sci-Fi, that the writers of Star Trek have no idea how computers and securing them works. Same with StarWars and the Ubah-Leet-Hacka R2D2 - who was not a security bypass tool, he merely had the proper network cable. His actual job was helping control/maintain specific starfighters)

[Ted C]

This would obviously not work. La Forge is the most likely person to do these alterations, and the Klingon sisters obviously can see whatever he does. Including the new shield frequency. By the time they could have realistically (without audience knowledge) have figured out that La Forge was the one who caused their problems, it would have been too late anyway - the battle was over very quickly.

First: Changing the shield frequency is the obvious thing to do in their situation, and they didn't even try. That's stupid.

Second: Geordi is no doubt moving around engineering doing a variety of things in a combat situation. To think he would have his eyes constantly on the readout of shield frequency is unreasonable. The Klingons might be able to catch it occasionally, but to think they would instantly know about any frequency change is unreasonable.

Third: If all else fails, they can go to "anti-Borg" tactics and activate the routine that constantly makes random changes to shield frequency.

Finally: The whole stupidity issue could have been avoided completely if they'd just said that the first hit seriously compromised the shields instead of using the same "shield tricked" visual effect throughout the battle, making it obvious that no one was doing anything about the shield problem.

This has indeed bothered me for a long time, but I think there may be a reasonable explanation: the Enterprise was hit in it's engineering sections almost immediately. It's quite conceivable the damage done during the initial attacks reduced the Enterprise's capacity to react severely.

This would not be out of line with other situations in which a damaged ship equals one that can't fight as well.

While we wouldn't expect the ship to perform as well when damaged, we saw in "Yesterday's Enterprise" that the ship can still throw out a lot of firepower even after being damaged. Furthermore, the Enterprise took a hit from a Cardassian cruiser in "The Wounded" while the shields were down, and she was still very combat-capable afterward.

On the other hand, we've also seen that one hit can sometimes bring down all weapons on the ship, which means the whole weapon system has a single point of failure -- a design flaw if I ever heard of one.

From what we saw of the battle, though, Riker ordered one phaser shot and one photon torpedo. That pathetic level of response to an attack is really hard to excuse.

Wasn't beaming people off ships/stations something that was pretty much impossible without a com badge during most of TNG?
(not totally so, but clearly not trivial either)

Comm badges certainly help, and they're probably necessary if you want to locate a particular human among many humans to transport, but we know that their sensors can distinguish humans from other humanoids, so locking on to the Ferengi shouldn't be that big a deal. Given how worried the ghost possessing O'Brien was about the transporters in "Power Play", it seems like getting rid of boarders with the transporter should be easy.

Actually, there are authorization protocols aplenty. It's just that they're (sadly) usually hackable as well. Some of the computer security in the various shows and movies is actually quite decent.

The Federation's authorization protocols seem to work pretty well, but their authentication protocols seem to suck. If the computer knows who you are, it generally limits your access appropriately, but it misidentifies people with shocking frequency. Case in point, Roga Danar in "The Hunted": he was able to shut down a security force field just by speaking into a security guard's comm badge. Furthermore, he was able to do use the control panels in Engineering to the point that he was literally fighting with Data for control of transporter functions.

In this case, though, you'd think they wouldn't need to worry. The command functions they're worried about generally use voice recognition to authenticate, and the Ferengi didn't seem to have any means to imitate the voices of the Enterprise's command staff.

(tbh I think the problem here is, and this is seen in almost all Sci-Fi, that the writers of Star Trek have no idea how computers and securing them works. Same with StarWars and the Ubah-Leet-Hacka R2D2 - who was not a security bypass tool, he merely had the proper network cable. His actual job was helping control/maintain specific starfighters)

I won't dispute the total lack of InfoSec knowledge by the Trek writing staff; they have a track record technical and scientific ignorance that marrs many a script.

R2-D2's hacking is an interesting side issue, though. Imperial computer networks apparently have "guest accounts" for visiting droids to use, and they can obviously be exploited. Further, if Cloud City's computer is any indication, the network itself is an AI; the city's computer volunteered information to R2 about the condition of the Millenium Falcon. I suspect that getting information from an Imperial computer may be more akin to social engineering than straight hacking.

[Praeothmin]

Changing the shield frequency is the obvious thing to do in their situation,

Why?
We know that the Dominion weapons when first encountered had no problem penetrating the shields of the Federation, and it had nothing to do with the shield frequency.
So why would it be the "obvious" response here?
They have no reason to suspect what is happening, especially not in as tense a situation as combat is.

From what we saw of the battle, though, Riker ordered one phaser shot and one photon torpedo. That pathetic level of response to an attack is really hard to excuse.

Agreed, I've always wondered that myself, considering we know from "Encounter at FarpointW that the E-D could fire 10 torpedoes at a time.

R2-D2's hacking is an interesting side issue, though. Imperial computer networks apparently have "guest accounts" for visiting droids to use, and they can obviously be exploited. Further, if Cloud City's computer is any indication, the network itself is an AI; the city's computer volunteered information to R2 about the condition of the Millenium Falcon. I suspect that getting information from an Imperial computer may be more akin to social engineering than straight hacking.

It also shows that ST isn't the only "futuristic" society suffering from computer inefficiency... :)

[Roondar]

Changing the shield frequency is the obvious thing to do in their situation,

Why?
We know that the Dominion weapons when first encountered had no problem penetrating the shields of the Federation, and it had nothing to do with the shield frequency.
So why would it be the "obvious" response here?
They have no reason to suspect what is happening, especially not in as tense a situation as combat is.

It would be the obvious thing to do because they know Klingon weapons don't bypass their shields like that. It'd have been on my shortlist for sure.

From what we saw of the battle, though, Riker ordered one phaser shot and one photon torpedo. That pathetic level of response to an attack is really hard to excuse.

Agreed, I've always wondered that myself, considering we know from "Encounter at FarpointW that the E-D could fire 10 torpedoes at a time.

Perhaps Riker just is not that great under pressure as we'd have hoped for - he nearly wrecked the E-E in Insurrection as well. Without any clear reason.

R2-D2's hacking is an interesting side issue, though. Imperial computer networks apparently have "guest accounts" for visiting droids to use, and they can obviously be exploited. Further, if Cloud City's computer is any indication, the network itself is an AI; the city's computer volunteered information to R2 about the condition of the Millenium Falcon. I suspect that getting information from an Imperial computer may be more akin to social engineering than straight hacking.

It also shows that ST isn't the only "futuristic" society suffering from computer inefficiency... :)

Exactly, Sci-Fi is riddled with computer security even a below-average computer user would know how to improve.

Then again, I've always had a problem with computers in fiction. Mostly because they're my area of expertise and I therefore know nonsense when I see it ;)

[Ted C]

We know that the Dominion weapons when first encountered had no problem penetrating the shields of the Federation, and it had nothing to do with the shield frequency.
So why would it be the "obvious" response here?
They have no reason to suspect what is happening, especially not in as tense a situation as combat is.

This is not an exotic weapon from another quadrant of the galaxy! It's a disruptor from a 20-year-old Klingon Bird of Prey! The obvious first conclusion is that they've somehow matched your shield frequency.

It also shows that ST isn't the only "futuristic" society suffering from computer inefficiency... :)

Never said it was. Of course, R2's hacking had stricter limits. He could apparently get directions around the station (not too surprising for "guest" access), and he got control of the garbage compactors, but he couldn't get detailed schematics of the detention level or direct control of the tractor beams. What he could accomplish via "hacking" was a lot more limited than what Roga Danar got away with.

[Praeothmin]

It would be the obvious thing to do because they know Klingon weapons don't bypass their shields like that. It'd have been on my shortlist for sure.

This is not an exotic weapon from another quadrant of the galaxy! It's a disruptor from a 20-year-old Klingon Bird of Prey! The obvious first conclusion is that they've somehow matched your shield frequency.

When the only race ever (to my knowledge) to have show this capability was the Borg, then why would it be an "obvious" conclusion?

Perhaps Riker just is not that great under pressure as we'd have hoped for - he nearly wrecked the E-E in Insurrection as well. Without any clear reason.

I do agree that Riker isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, although in ST he does appear competent when compared to others... :)

He could apparently get directions around the station (not too surprising for "guest" access), and he got control of the garbage compactors, but he couldn't get detailed schematics of the detention level or direct control of the tractor beams. What he could accomplish via "hacking" was a lot more limited than what Roga Danar got away with.

Agreed.
although it may be that all those systems are too decentralized to do so ('cause he certainly had no problems accessing anything in AotC or RotS), or perhaps Roga Danar simply is a better hacker... :)

[Ted C]

When the only race ever (to my knowledge) to have show this capability was the Borg, then why would it be an "obvious" conclusion?

They know they can achieve the same effect with their own weaponry! The only mystery to them would be how the Klingons figured it out, not what had happened.

Agreed.
although it may be that all those systems are too decentralized to do so ('cause he certainly had no problems accessing anything in AotC or RotS), or perhaps Roga Danar simply is a better hacker... :)

In AotC, the only thing he did that I remember was shut down the battle droid assembly line. There's probably an emergency shut off built into the thing for use in case of an emergency (like a worker trapped in the machinery or something). I a factory setting like that, tripping an emergency stop is probably pretty easy -- OSHA would certainly want it to be in a modern factory.

What he did in RotS is more impressive, since he probably would need to overcome security measures on the Separatist flagship. I'd be inclined to argue that he actually is a pretty good hacker because 1) he's never had a memory erasure, and 2) *ALL* of his known owners would be interested in that skillset.

Also, by RotJ, Leia expected R2 to be able to crack the security on the Imperial base to open the blast door to the bunker. That should require some pretty serious hacking ability, since it's a direct attack on the base's security.

[Praeothmin]

They know they can achieve the same effect with their own weaponry!

Really?
Since when???

What he did in RotS is more impressive, since he probably would need to overcome security measures on the Separatist flagship. I'd be inclined to argue that he actually is a pretty good hacker because 1) he's never had a memory erasure, and 2) *ALL* of his known owners would be interested in that skillset.
Also, by RotJ, Leia expected R2 to be able to crack the security on the Imperial base to open the blast door to the bunker. That should require some pretty serious hacking ability, since it's a direct attack on the base's security.

So I guess, since Dana Rogar was specifically trained to be able to escape from anywhere (which will always have computers blocking the way, electronic security, etc...), we can also consider him an expert hacker, thus meaning that we cannot infer from his achievements that the computers on the Enterprise-D are poorly protected...

:-)

[Ted C]

So I guess, since Dana Rogar was specifically trained to be able to escape from anywhere (which will always have computers blocking the way, electronic security, etc...), we can also consider him an expert hacker, thus meaning that we cannot infer from his achievements that the computers on the Enterprise-D are poorly protected...

:-)

Except that we literally saw how he dropped a security forcefield in "The Hunted", and all he did was activate and speak into a security guard's commbadge, meaning that merely having access to the commbadge was sufficient to give him authentication and authorization: the system didn't even check for voice recognition (like it does for many other systems).

[Ted C]

They know they can achieve the same effect with their own weaponry!

Really?
Since when???

Well for starters, it's difficult to imagine the Duras sisters knowing that you could penetrate a shield by matching its frequency but Federation engineers not knowing that could happen.

But for a specific example, how about "Gambit Part 1"?

I'm configuring the disruptors to fire a phase resonant pulse ... if I can hit their shield generator at precisely the right frequency, I should be able to knock it off-line with a single shot ... firing ... their shields are down ...

This was to disable the shields of a Federation outpost, so Picard knows about the vulnerability of Federation shields to resonant frequencies.

And then you have VOY "Maneuvers", in which Seska is coaching a bunch of Kazons on how to beat Voyager, including matching their shield frequencies. How does Seska know about these vulnerabilities and the Federation doesn't?

[Roondar]

What he did in RotS is more impressive, since he probably would need to overcome security measures on the Separatist flagship. I'd be inclined to argue that he actually is a pretty good hacker because 1) he's never had a memory erasure, and 2) *ALL* of his known owners would be interested in that skillset.

Also, by RotJ, Leia expected R2 to be able to crack the security on the Imperial base to open the blast door to the bunker. That should require some pretty serious hacking ability, since it's a direct attack on the base's security.

Or the base's security is not so great.

This being a base made by the same empire, where a topsecret battlestation allows 'guest' robots without any clearance whatsoever see who their prisoners are and where they are kept, plus still access security sensitive information even after the station is on alert suggests to me this is not quite so unlikely.

[Praeothmin]

Well for starters, it's difficult to imagine the Duras sisters knowing that you could penetrate a shield by matching its frequency but Federation engineers not knowing that could happen.
But for a specific example, how about "Gambit Part 1"?

Good point... :-)

Haven't seen "Gambit" though (probably seen it, but a long time ago).

And then you have VOY "Maneuvers", in which Seska is coaching a bunch of Kazons on how to beat Voyager, including matching their shield frequencies. How does Seska know about these vulnerabilities and the Federation doesn't?

Agreed!
It should then have been pretty much the first thing on their minds then...