Mith wrote:Roondar wrote:Sorry, but the Doctor is regularly seen in scenarios where all of humanity or the population of entire worlds is put at risk all at once, sometimes with pretty nasty results - usually with multiple deaths. In fact, the typical scenario involving the Doctor ends up with everyone but the doctor and his companion dead. This handily beats anything Q has ever accomplished against the Federation.
Sorry, that's what we call
incompetence, not a force of chaos and destruction. The fact that Q could solve all of the Doctor's problems, or make them a thousand times worse with the snap of his fingers is testement to how powerful and dangerous a Q can really get.
Oh, but the Doctor can open his TARDIS by snapping his fingers... I guess he might be able to babysite Neelix for a couple of hours.
Or alternatively save the multiverse's doom from the Daleks. Again.
The point I made is missed by you however - I do not mean to say Q is
less powerful than the Doctor. I mean to say that Q had
less of an effect on people he deals with.
We, despite your feeble protests that go into fanwank territory, have actually seen what happens around the Doctor and around Q.
Best what Q has been involved with on the 'this is bad' category was (take your pick) altering the human/borg timeline (endangering at the most one galaxy) or having a civil war which resulted in a few supernova's.
Contract that with the stuff the doctor deals with: the end of the universe itself (twice), the end of time itself (at least once), the end of the multiverse (all universes that is) at least once, etc.
Q might have the power, but he/they sure don't have the same effect. And lucky for the ST universe they don't want too either.
Oh and by the way, Q is not a 'force of chaos and destruction' - the Q are the self proclaimed guardians of the universe. Merely tampering a bit with the human/borg timeline got Q in a world of hurt (he got punished).
And about the incompetence bit, you do realize that the Doctor is exactly one person don't you? I'd like you to point out one non-god-like-entity (like say Q) that would do better ;)
Especially since the Borg where already a threat to the Federation before Q showed them in Q Who - they where the mysterious force scooping up colonies at the Federation border at the end of season one of TNG.
Arguably, Q showing the Federation the Borg was in fact doing them a favour - if he hadn't done so the whole Borg war might have gone quite different.
Sorry, but that has no bearing on what Q did. Q put the crew in the path of an enemy that was capable of taking out 39 starships without even breaking a sweat, just to teach Picard a lesson. The Doctor only causes pain and suffering as a side of effect of him trying to fix things, he doesn't intentionally cause them. Q did. Because he wanted to win the argument.
Which, luckilly, has no relevance to my point.
See, if my point had been 'the doctor himself causes more suffering than Q ever did' you'd be right. However, it has always been 'being around the doctor is more dangerous than being around Q'.
Seeing that almost everyone who has met Q survived and only a percentage of those that met the doctor did, my point still stands.
Those same enemies where also about to blow up Earth after they had narrowly failed to kill some five-six billion people using other means. They also where amused by the thought of the entire nuclear arsenal* of the world being used against their ship. Both the doctor and the Sontarens where quite conviced they'd live through it anyway.
*) Which is to say, some 10GT worth of nukes.
Do try not missing the point. The point is that the Sontarans were horribly slaughtered due to the fact that they were incompetent in the one thing that the Doctor claimed they excelled at.
Not too mention the Federation where stumped against an enemy that decided that a straight-line charge against a wall of defenders was a good idea. They even almost got away with it for frick's sake.
As oppossed to the idiots that were walking hand in hand shooting at defenseless UNIT officers, screaming how awesome they were, and then having their asses handed to them when their cheap trick didn't work anymore?
Hey, at least the Jem'Hadar manage to hit
someone.
They where not 'getting their asses handed to them'. They where
amused at the resistance the earth put up (since they'd still win even if Unit would manage to kill all of their landed forces). And when they where amused no longer (because the Doctor stopped their gas from doing it's job) they decided "oh well, we'll just blow up earth instead".
Yeah, really sounds like the earth military had things under control.
And let's not forget how the Federation was repeatedly humiliated during ground combat against forces which dared use knives and swords (of all things!) as their prefered combat weapons and which showed all the tactical know-how and aiming capacity of a bunch of untrained toddlers with guns.
The Federation is not a military orginization, they are an exploration program that doubles as the UFP's military in times of war. Klingons themselves use a bit of strange mix of disruptors and knives, and they do so out of tradition, which is just part of who they are. And those toddlers with guns managed to hit someone using cover (albiet, not very well), from a floor below them, and are capable of targeting fleeing targets that they hate.
Furthermore, most of the characters are trained to use starships as weapons, not fight on the ground. That's what the MACROs and Starfleet Marines are for.
Right, so the fall of Betazed was just because Cpt. Sisko and his team of MACO's and Marines where not there in time?
The Federation's ground troops could be excellent with the technology they have.
But instead of sensible things (like the early 20th century innovation of using vehicles in combat for attack and defense and little things like modern tactics) they seem to feel that a good idea of ground combat is to just open a can of unprotected infantry with hand guns and see how things go.
It's downright insulting that they don't even try to protect their men from the knives used by the Klingons. We have that technology
today (heck, we had it during the frikking
dark ages) yet the oh so wise Federation can't be bothered to use armor of any kind. Or any kind of weapon other than 'small pistol' and 'medium range rifle'.
Just look at what today's military can achieve and compare it to the Federation ground forces.
I mean, I love ST. I like the idea of phasers. But they are just so darned incompetent on the ground. Everything we've learned seems to have been lost on them. From tactics to equipment.
They really do act like the space war is all that counts and if they lose that one, well... Tough to be on the planet.
Actually, thats nonsense. They repeatedly don't try to beam away threats, even if those threats are simple humanoids without protection. Such as say, just about every enemy we get to see during Voyager's first few seasons.
Do list them. Now compare that to the about a hundred episodes were that would apply.
Just about every episode ever involving boarding parties - too many to list by far. With one or two exceptions.
They repeatedly 'forget' they even have certain abilities that could be useful in critical situations. Like say using all your weapons when you are getting creamed in a fight instead of firing one photon torpedo. Or using your handphaser above the 'sparks fly of the brick wall' setting when the enemy takes cover behind stuff they can vaporise easily enough.
It's called act of plot. Related to plot hole. Most often seen in the 2007 season of Doctor Who.
Oh I see, if it happens in Doctor Who it's called 'incompetence' or a 'plot hole'. But if it happens in Startrek it's 'an act of plot'.
Way to have a double standard there.
I say both of those scenarios are the same thing - incompetence. Moreso in the Startrek example of the failed handphaser because there really is zero excuses for it. Heck, a modern rifle would shoot straight through half of the things people take cover behind in Startrek.
It's an insult to our intelligence to have phasers be capable of blowing up 'half a building' yet being unable to penetrate five inches of rock in another episode.
At least in Doctor Who weapons don't suddenly become less lethal just because it's handy for the plot.
I was not arguing about the Daleks. I was showing you that there are plenty of idiots in Starfleet, even at the very 'top' of the foodchain.
Sorry, that isn't what I was talking about. I was talking about how most of the Doctor's enemies are incompetent idiots who aren't capable of shooting straight. Hell, Archer and Janeway, the two biggest Starfleet idiots could do that.
Hell, NEELIX COULD HAVE DONE IT!
Funny, the Daleks almost never miss - they managed to hit and 'kill' the Doctor last time on attempt
one. The Cybermen, when last seen, seemed quite accurate as well. In fact, I don't recall many of his enemies missing much.
Most Doctor Who episodes with gunfights ends up with lots of dead humans and little dead 'enemies'. Until the Doctor defeats them, of course.
Besides, if we're going to be talking incompetent enemies we've got a share of those in ST as well. Quite a lot even. Let's see:
Just about all of the Kazon "let's let a single starship which we can nearly defeat using three of ours run amok - even tough we can kill em dead in the water when we want to".
Most of the Klingons "let's give the heroes a chance to escape even though we've sworn to kill them" and as a bonus "let's build a prison on a remote ice moon and not include any orbital defenses so any old ship can just beam of people smart enough to run away. And then we'll let the old ship fly right out of Klingon territory even though we now
know they're the enemy and are enroute to foil our dastardly plans".
The Jem Haddar "let's keep the ship our heroes used before we put them in prison in orbit of said prison. And with the power on. Let's
not shoot them down when they beam out and escape" and "let's not tow away our prize captured ship. Let's fix it in place instead, using people we already know will try to betray us" or "let's charge a defended choke position using zero plans or tactics - just run in, weapons blazing and die instead".
Romulans and Cardassians are usually smarter, but they too make silly mistakes from time to time (like letting their council get blown up by a clone who leads a bunch of slaves - i.e. not securing the council room).
Janeway should have nuked the bastards when they stole that transporter module. She didn't even try and is an idiot for it. People died because of her stupidity there.
Now, if that kind of thing happened just once I'd not see it as a big problem. But it happens all the time - Federation captains seem very good at losing control of their ships without good reason or getting all sorts of trouble that could have been prevented by a more agressive stance towards people that try to kill you. Federation officers on away missions get in tons of trouble becuase they act stupid when something threatening shows up. Mysterious tricorder readings/jammed sensors + spread out away team for no good reason = you deserve to die for being stupid.
Oh? Shall we talk about the Doctor? The same guy who offers a second change to Daleks, voice/soul stealing entities, wax-based invaders, fat stealers (who've caused the deaths of others, and tried to kill him), the Master (actually no, I'm sorry, he
begged him), and several others? It seems your argument is hypocritical, the Doctor has next to nothing to protect himself and those he cares about, while the Federation often have their own personal weapons (with a stun setting), and starships.
Again, the Doctor's own stupidity of believing that the bad guy will go peacefully.
Pity then that his ploy with the Daleks worked in the end, eh?
Actually, it worked two out of the three times I've seen him do that with Daleks. But who is counting, right?
In fact, it works quite often in the series. Naturally not all the time and it is rather silly from time to time, but at least it has some measure of success. As opposed to say Janeway's 'stroke of genius' when dealing with that stolen part.
BTW, your point is flawed in at least one way: Starfleet is the Federations military. It should act like it but does not. The Doctor is a self proclaimed pacifist. And acts like it.
As to the time tech - the Federation regularly ends up nearly blowing itself up through the use of it's 'superior' tech. The Doctors position on paradoxes and not altering the past are the correct ones because you just can't know what you'll change when you go back in time and start mucking with the timeline. As an example: for all we know the entire horror of the Dominion war was caused by Sisko's insistance to greet James Kirk.
That's a load of bullcrap. The few exceptions to temporal issues that blow them up are ones they stumble upon, not ones involving their technology or its use, assuming its being used by those who have a fucking clue as to what's going on.
1. TOS, we have the Enterprise 1701 going back in time and managing to preserve the time line.
2. TOS we have itentional time travel, and they manage to preserve the time line.
Yup.
3. TOS, they travel back in time through the Guardian of Forever, and manage to fix the time line that Bones accidently altered due to him saving someone's life, and having very little details as to what was going on.
They fixed their own mistake then. Wow. That hardly counts as a success.
4. TOS (ST3), they go back in time to retrieve a whale and again manage to preserve the time line
It's ST 4 and no, they didn't preserve it, they manage to change it. Quite radically even.
In the 'real' timeline humanity should've been dead.
They altered it quite badly then - they changed all of the future for their own sake. For all we know Kirk's 'heroic action saving the world' cost billions of others their lives because their future was now erased.
Exactly the kind of example I meant.
5. TNG crew goes back in time to stop temporal aliens from harming humanity in the past and manage to preserve the time line
6. Picard is shifted through time by Q, and manages to figure out the paradox to saving humanity, not to mention in all likelyhood, the Romulans, Klingons, and most of the Alpha quadrant species.
Yeah. He also
caused the very paradox he fixed though. And he had help from Q. Lot's of it.
7. Borg use time travel to assimilate humanity in the past. The Enterprise crew manages to stop the Borg from assimilating the ship, and get repair a prototype warp ship for launch to start off First Contact, all while not altering the timeline.
8. Defiant travels back into the 23rd century and manage to not only prevent being detected by the 1701, save Kirk's life, stop a time traveler, but also uphold the Temporal Prime Directive.
Not quite, they changed the timeline and got of because the temporal dudes where incompetent enough to not realize that even Sisko greeting Kirk could have triggered all sorts of bad stuff.
For all we know the Dominion war was a result of that.
Exactly like I meant then, changing time for 'fun' and no regards for the consequences.
9. Voyager travels back in time to Earth's past and manages to stop a greedy man who stole a future time shuttle that accidently crashed there and stop him from drastically altering the past, all while managing to maintaint the time line. We are also told that the future UFP repaired the damage.
Now, it was stated that Voyager had done far too many bad things in the temporal department, but the problem was limited mostly to that crew, and all the temporal infractions were repaired by the future UFP. Then in Enterprise, we have the several temporal attacks against the UFP's past, and the future UFP managing to stop them. Hell, at least their bad guys could look at different time lines, and then alter it to suit their needs.
The only time temporal technology has gone against the UFP, is when a 20th century dillweed tried to fly an advance piece of 29th century technology. Yeah, great example there.
And hey, we even have the fact that the UFP can try over again, since Ensign Kim did it to save Voyager. The Doctor? Not so much.
It seems to me you missed the point - yes, the Federation still exists. But they did (and do) change time to suit their needs. And in more than a few of the examples you listed they managed to get out of trouble through sheer luck - not competence.
Like the Voyager villain in Timeship. And yes, they're just as bad. Every time they 'fix time' in their favour they are in fact altering the timeline and as Spock said way back (echoed many times in Doctor Who) - they can't know the repercussions of that.
At least the Doctor knows these things and acts like them (this is not supposed to be, so even if
I like what I see, I'll still stop it or change it back to how it was). Contrast that to the UFP time police who are interested only in keeping the UFP in power. Despite some lip-service to the idea you should not do that, you never once see them stopping stuff that makes their power greater.
Just because they manage to (usually anyway) preserve the timeline through sheer luck does not mean they know what they are doing. And sadly, apart from that one episode of ST:TOS in which Spock said all those wise things on how to act I don't see them learning any time soon.
Besides, the best example of the UFP messing up the timeline is in fact one where they 'save everyone'. ST:4 rapes the timeline to force the UFP back in power even though they should all be dead in the real timeline.
