First Look At J.J. Abrams’ New USS Enterprise

My biggest problem with the new ship is the nacelles, they look like they came from a cartoon. Matter of fact, the with the bobbed secondary hull and the cartoon nacelles, I just can't take this thing seriously.

I like that they paid homage to the old film Enterprise on the saucer section not much has changed, they kept the light arrangemets around the saucer, the phaser banks in sets of three groups of two on top and bottom plus the kept the self lighting of the saucer..... great!!!!!
The engines look like they have been intergrated into the "borg collective" horrible.
and the main hull, well with the way it has thinned out whats the point of having one
but it does make it look sleek.
As one person on this thread said, its like the new and old enterprise had sex and came out with a ugly baby.. well its not that ugly.
just different....?
Some idiot said the new ship was 725.35mtrs long almost three times the size of the old one and the film one as bigger that Battlestar Galactica.. ha.ha.ha..
what an idiot.
When you see the film and compare the size and equate the scale of people to windows and the shuttle bay and the life pod that Kirk is fired out off, you can see
it is not that big, it's the same size as the old film, this is justified in the pull out cut away zoom shots as the camera pulls out of the bridge to the out side hull.
So there you go a mish mash of crap from others, who get it wrong.
Mind you I love Andy Proberts / Matt Jefferies original designs, and I am happy with it to some extent.
but the brigde interior is a serious health hazzard, very Apple store.
the engine room, is a Joke.... err does the ship run on water....??

Some person stated that the new Enterprise in the film was 725.35 meters long
twice the size of the old one...Idiot... who ever said that, plus made it comparable in size to Battlestar Galactica if not bigger....what a plonka...!

If you look at the size of the bridge in the new film and the old films of the late 70's mid 80's they are almost the same size in the top dome..
Plus the port hole windows around the saucer section are exactly the same as the
old film ones, I like that, as is the phaser banks on the top and bottom section.
Plus they kept the self lighting of the hull from the base of the dome section.

Now if the new ship was twice to three times as big all the details would be smaller and spaced out. In the film when they do cut away shots zooming out of the bridge to the hull you can see yourself it is not to such great scale. even when the shuttles enter the cargo bay and when Kirk is ejected out of the escape pod.

@ All:

Come to think of it, I believe the person responsible for the above clever fabrications about Cochrane & Sloane is someone from on here, whom I would like to credit for his cleverness: Brighteyes.

I'll see if I can find that post, I found it very enlightening.

~Johnny

@ Joe:

That IS cool, thanx for sharing that with us.

Kinda like the transitional design between the TOS ship & the Refit/Ent-A, sorta like what they were gonna do with the series that never happened, 'Phase II' - have you ever seen that design? It is almost the Refit, but not quite - with just enough of the TOS original to, you know, connect.

I did like these pics by this Dennis Bailey guy, very professional. I copied them both for my Pictures file.

You guys, uh...DO understand that all we saw in TOS is safe in its own timeline, that this new Abrams movie is a BRAND NEW timeline and that there is therefore no connection between the world of TOS ever sice Nero sailed out of that wormhole, right?

Probably, it was changed back in Bozeman, Montana, as soon as the Ent/E had to follow the Borg Sphere to 2163 and ensure Cochrane's first contact, if you ask me; that is the origins if the whole ST/Enterprise series with Archer & the NX-01. Love it or hate it, that wouldn't have happened without First Contact, they had repercussions. That's how T'Pol, not Spock, became the first Vulcan Executive Officer in Starfleet, get it?

When Zef Cochrane & Lily Sloane started comparing notes, combined with the earthshaking common knowledge of these aliens called 'Vulcans', it changed EVERYTHING!

On a related Screen Rant thread, there is a guy who wrote a fanciful synopsis of what happened after the Vulcans came & went, having listened to 'Scooby Doo' on ol' Zef's juke box -

Apparently, both Cochrane & his assistant Lily became writers (eventually); his was entitled 'Saucers & Nacelles: The Way to the Future', by Zefram Cochrane, and Lily's was called 'They're Out There, and They're NOT Swedish: An Interstellar Call To Arms', by Lily Sloane.

Very amusing, I thought!

~Johnny-O

I like Gabe's design. Let's hope for the best. Oh, but I'd prefer the design by Dennis Bailey....much more attractive:

http://img.trekmovie.com/images/drbenterprise_1...

http://img.trekmovie.com/images/drbenterprise_3...

Joe

I can think of a hundred things that is WRONG with this design, both in and out. The worst of which is the bow legged effect of the nacelle pylons, that are attached to the Hangar Deck, instead of Engineering... who ever came up with this design, did not think of the internal layout and mechanics.

The technology, through out the ship is inconsistent, from the ultra high-tech Bridge to the "Grain Combine Cylinders" with a Radio-active sign posted on it, in Engineering. Then comes the plexi-glass 19th century water reclamation room. ugh...

Not to worry, with enough people ranting, they'll blow it up by the end of the next movie, and replace it with Gabe Koerner's design, the way it SHOULD have been.

@ Steve, Katherine, Fury2701, and my buds Purist & K Bone:

The 'Screen Rant Spoiler' afficitonadoes can now gather at the thread called, simply, 'Star Trek Review'; Ken & I found our ways there okay, and so can you. Just follow the links to 'Star Trek Review', and you'll land there just fine - if I can find it, anybody can, lol!

JOHN

@ All:

Whoops! I meant Matt Jefferies, dunno who the hell Walt Jeffries is, sorry!

Not to sound like Time Magazine, but as they would say, I regret the error...

JOHN

What I really found amazing about the film was the weird new take on the viewscreen sound effects ... it has kept me up at night...I want to hear it again! Sounded so alien and yet brought me back to the old series ...

@ All:

Btw, did any of you ever hear the story of the original struggle Gene Roddenberry had to put up to get the original Jeffries starship design?

He got a visit from the head of the studio there at Desilu, a bit piqued that Roddenberry was still waiting for Walt Jeffries to finalize the design. He just couldn't understand what the holdup was.

"It's a show about people on a spaceship, right?" he says to Roddenberry. "Well, just take a cigar shape, put some windows on it, and there's your spaceship! Simple, right?"

Wrong. Roddenberry had to fight to get Walt Jeffries' design to be accepted, and that's why it took so long (1964-'67, also two pilot episodes).

It could be that we are all being too hard on JJ Abrams - it is possible that his efforts to save the original Enterprise design, to any extent, are nothing less than heroic.

After all, stupidity, just like anything else, skips a generation, right???

JOHN

@ Bob D:

You got that right! We're lucky the Enterprise doesn't look like the Protector from 'Galaxy Quest'...

Thanx for reminding us to look on the bright side, Bob.

JOHN

Just curious ... I didn't read all the comments, but given that this movie is based on an alternative timeline, how could we expect the ship to look the same at all?

@ atseyes:

Glad I could brighten your cloudy day, 'Eyes; yes, I have been called something very close to that - usually it's just two words - 'cynical bastard', lol!

I admit, I have a hard time buying into human motives when it concernes making money, but not in humans' ability to survive & make the most out of life through problem solving.

For all my cynicism, I can honestly tell you that it would've deteriorated into full-blown depression if not for that Franchise.

Seriously, for all the inspiring words that have come down thru' history from real, live people - Edmund Burke on the triumph of evil over the complacency of good men, Bertram Russell on the ultimate prevalence of mankind as a function of survival, even Lincoln on the better angels of our nature - the words that have given me the most comfort & hope for the future, even after we here now are long gone, came from James Tiberius Kirk, spoken to an alien on the meaning of our people:

"We are of a race born to strive. We cannot grow, or even survive, without the challenge of adversity..."

I am glad I could make you smile, but this movie DOES have meaning...

But then. yo already knew that, didn't you?

JOHN

One word, Johhny-O, - 'Cynic', lol!!!

Well, okay, I know, one person's cynic is another person's realist; and the truly worrying thing is, you may well be right!!

And it raised a smile on an otherwise grey and gloomy day!!

@ Vic, et al:

Vic, forgive me, but in view of all this discussion about a comic book necessary for proper understanding of the new JJ Abrams movie, I just had to share the text of that cartoon I sent you.

The following is a supposed compilation of a series of meetings between the Paramount Motion Pictures Chairman of Scripts & Development and staff which must've taken place back in, I figure, early 2007 at the latest, regarding the original enterprise (pun intended), TO WIT:

CHAIRMAN: Gentlemen...We're making a new Star Trek movie.

GIRL WRITER (throwing hands in the air): All right! "Star Trek XI: The Search For Data", here we come!

CHAIRMAN (ruminating): Hmmmm...

CHAIRMAN: You're all fired.

THREE WEEKS LATER...

CHAIRMAN: Gentlemen...We're making a new Star Trek movie. And this time...it's gonna have Kirk & Spock.

JJ ABRAMS (one of a whole new batch of writers): Sir, they, uh, kinda killed off Kirk in 'Generations'...

CHAIRMAN: It HAS to be about Kirk & Spock. No one will go see it othewise.

ABRAMS: But LOTS of people went to see 'First Contact' -

CHAIRMAN: KIRK AND SPOCK!

ABRAMS: Well, I guess we can remake Star Trek, like they did with 'Battlestar Galactica'...

CHAIRMAN: NO, NO, NO, if we do THAT, we'll lose the hardcore Trek nerd crowd. They'll get all upset about their 'canon'...and then come the death threats...

ABRAMS: We...we, uh...could cast younger actors, and call it a 'prequel'.

CHAIRMAN (brightening): Gettin' warmer...but if we do that, then it will limit the potential for making ENDLESS SEQUELS. We're trying to create a new CASH COW here.

(Abrams & other writers look at each other)

ONE MONTH LATER...

CHAIRMAN (looking over proposal, with JJ Abrams standing at attention at the table): "Alternate timeline"? "Quantum theory of parallel universes"? Hmmmm...This reads like bad fan fiction...

CHAIRMAN:(reading quietly)

CHAIRMAN: I LOVE bad fan fiction! Here's a blank check!

I hope that's clear...

JOHN

Honestly, I have only read the plot summary on the comic's Wiki page, so I am probably missing some key details. Wiki said that the Narada was a,rather large, mining vessle. After the destruction of Romulus, Nero took the Narada to a secret Talshiar base, and had the vessel outfitted with recovered Borg technology. Nero's crew then began to assimilate Vulcan, Starfleet, Klingon, and Cardassian vessels.

A fleet of Starfleet vessels then engaged the Narada. Most of the starfleet ships were destroyed, and the Enterprise-E was badly damaged. This is when Ambassador Spock comes flying in with his "jellyfish ship", and manages to pull the Narada, as well as himself, into a black hole.

OK, this makes sense....but what about that ship they use. It seems to be far beyond every technology we know from TNG, using strange weapons and more looking like a B5 shadow ship than a romulan mining vessel....

1704, The Romulans shaved their heads and tattooed their bodies in order to mourn the loss of Romulus. This was mentioned in the "Countdown" comic book series which connects TNG with this new movie.

@ dr Phlox

Ive seen the movie now too, and I dont think the redesign has something to do with the current state of science....more with current state of fashion.
The Film is quite cool except or the already known design crimes on the Enterprise and its bridge (I liked the engineering, and if you remember, the engineering room in ST2 also looked very "industrial")
and on the Romulans.

What I dont understand is, after watching the film, it became clear to me that that this mistakes wouldnt have been nessecary for it to be good. A more matching Version of the old enterprise like the one in the render I posted earlier WOULD STILL ROCK the same way in those really nice exterior scenes.
The Bridge is just a bit too "white" for my taste, fitting, like I said, current fashion for electronics (I-pod). I liked the touch screens and displays, but the whole environment was too bright to be a believable ships bridge. If you ever have seen the bridge of a navy vessel, you have a rather "grey" environment or the nice "red-lights" what makes the orange or green displays perfectly readable.


Anyways I really liked the interior design of the USS Kelvin, the atmosphere in the beginning of the Film felt right from the old films St 2 - 6.

But....btw.....what kind of romulans are those....!!!????

ok- as a fan of Star Trek from TOS to Enterprise - each incarnation has had redeeming characteristics- ST-redo - has some too - at first glance the new ship looks clunky- but in reality it is better designed based on current space science than the original- the interiors - what few we saw well were a bit "cheap" looking - other the overly engineered bridge- the lack of finish in the engineering section was "disturbing"- the new characters were like-able - and the new Kirk - does look much better in briefs than the original- I have watched all the fan web series, and everyone changes the timeline a little bit so that didn't bother me- will I see the movie a second or third time yes- will I see a sequel? yes... was it entertaining and worth $7.50 cents? hell yes. Any Star trek is better than no Star Trek--

Just saw the flick. Despite the alternate timeline motif, I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it. By the way, in my opinion, Karl Urban nailed McCoy down to a T.

@ 'n':

I take your point, so far as it goes; there are a lot of otherwise, well-balanced, peace-loving people here who would take your characterization of 'trivial' as fighting words!

Hahaha, feelings run strong about the Starship Enterprise, and a lot of people are saying "Who's the is sumbitch JJ Abrams think he IS, anyway?"

The Big E is a form of art, that is true, in it's most classic sense, as a focal point of our shared dreams & inspired ideas, and as a specific platform of (in our minds, anyway) a particular set of shapes, sizes and dimensions, the question is: Has Abrams gone too far? His Enterprise is a lot closer to the original than, say, Ron Moore's reimagined Galactica, for example. I just saw the film and I think it rocks, and while certain things (like the internal engineering spaces, for example) kinda bugged me, I must confess, overall it was a singular cinematic experience (not to mention outstanding box office receipts) on the order of the original Star Wars. That's not bad for a film submitted as a prequel to an original TV series of which the creator/producer, his wife, and two of the series' main stars are all dead from old age.

Having said that, it should be remembered, in the words of the old Texas truism:

"You can put your boots in the oven, but THAT don't make 'em BISCUITS!"

JOHN

It's just a ship and tv changes to suit its time. If you're going to complain that it's not the original, you're right. Did you expect it to be? If you did, you're way too nostalgic about something so trivial. If you look at it as a form of art, it simply reflects the need to round edges and dispell lines of sight so as to not draw attention to flaws.

@ Troy:

Yeah, I'd like to see that, too.

Can't help ya, but I can describe it for ya:

For one thing, if you remember, it was a lot more intense, a lot more electrical, like the loud, overwhelming power of a giganic electrical generator - the feeling was that you were witnessing matter being defly ripped apart, converted into pure energy, and made ready for transmission to somewhere else. It looked amazing, too - a bright 'node' spreading out from the middle (on departure), up & down, and then, at the destination, this bright node, starting from the bottom & the top, pulsing together again in the middle, then again spreading out vertically to form the final form upon completion.

And if you were lying there in the same room on the couch fast asleep, it would wake you up, no question about it. It was that powerful.

Not a very clandestine way to board a ship..

The closest thing I can think of as a parallel to it was when, in the original TOS episode "Errand of Mercy', about the Organians, a primitive, peaceful people the Enterprise was trying to protect from the Klingons, when the Organians revealed who they really were - pure energy beings who could take care of themselves just fine, thank you very much, and their transformation before Kirk, Spock & Commander Kor was so bright they had to close their eyes and look away. It was not quite as bright as that.

For another, unlike in ANY of the series, you could hear & see people talking WHILE THEY WERE FORMING, like Kirstie Alley & Willinam Shatner, discussing Kirk's ruse to Spock within communicator range/earshot of Khan - "hours would seem like days: By the book, Lieutenant..."

It was just very believable, is all. But YEAH, I would love to see that, too.

Anybody out there know where to find such an audio-visual sequence on line? I'd kinda like to see it to.

JOHN

PS: seems like they used that same sequence in STIV, with the whales & all.

L8r...

Okay, seriously. Can someone post a [comparison] video of the STII transporter, because I don't remember the difference off the top of my head.

@ Rumbeard:

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation", heh? Thank you, 'Beard! I will check this out.

Like you, I loved the whole ST/II transporter sequence, visual and sound, especially the sound effect! It was cool, so overpowering, so - tecky! It reminded me of a FASA fan mag (ship recognition manual) article I read later, where the authors mentioned how the Klingon transporters had something like, a ten percent mortality rate because, among other things, their transporters were designed to operate silently, and therefore didn't have things like eight pattern buffers(!) & other safety devices, so they could use them for boarding; I remembered how loud & bright (but how cool!) the Starfleet transporters were in that movie, and I remember thinking, "YE-AH! Ours were a loud light show, but BOY, were they impressive!"

I also liked the photon torpedo sound effects, they just scream-asmed outta there.

Not so sure I feel the same as you about the warp effect, I guess I can take it or leave it - as long as it looks believable. For all that, the dead-COOLEST effect of that type, if you ask me, was the original Borg/Rogue Borg Transwarp Conduit effect, if you remember: A sort of tear in space, as if the vessel was swallowed up by a dimension filled with light - you could see the light leak out, remember? Well, I though it was cool.

Oh, concerning your statement about dilitium, I agree, but I remember a conversation from the TNG episode of when they found & de-rezzed Scotty: Scotty was, just like you said, adamant about the impossibility of recrystallizing dilithium (still), reiterated when Geordi gave him a tour of the Enterprise D's engineering room, focusing on the warp core.

Geordi assured him that in the, what, 80-some-odd years since the elder had been out of the picture, they had found a way to 'recomposite' the dilitium (probably an extension based on the same process Scotty had himself been forced to pull out of his arse, back on Earth in 1987), thereby making replacement unnecessary until convenience dictated.

I'm gonna check out the 'Ships of Starfleet' by Calon Riel, thanx for that, too, I appreciate it.

I liked all the ships of STG, as you did, including the great Galaxy class, don't know why folks are so hard on it; I know it wasn't exactly bristling with weapons but as far as I was concerned, she was the true Queen of Starfleet - but maybe not all that good in a firefight, admittedly.

I liken the Enterprise D to what Henry Hill said about Paul Sorvino's character in the movie 'Goodfellas' -

"For a man as important as he was, Pauly didn't move very fast, but then, he didn't have to..."

That's the way I felt about the Galaxy class. She was the 500,000 gross metric ton gorilla in the galaxy. She could do any damn thing she wanted to.

Even so, she was dwarfed by a Romulan D'diderex class Type II Warbird, so it's really a matter of perspective, I guess.

Thanx for those links, I will study them both.

JOHN

"What the hell is ‘Cerenkhov radiation’, anyway? It rings a bell, U are obviously very smart, and I won’t fence with you, but really, enlighten me? I know I have heard that term somewhere. I think I heard it somewhere - is it pronounced “Cher-EN-kov”?"

It's the bright rainbow effect they had when 1701 refit went to warp in ST I... the long tunnel of stripey lights, the streamer trail and the flash clap. It's also the rainbow trail in subsequent films through Star Trek VI... and if you ask me what was the best effect they should have kept from the Motion picture from then forward I'd say it was the ST TMP warp effect followed closely by the Star Trek II transporter sound and effect. (And maybe a bit of the ST II phaser, megaphaser, and torpedo sounds and effects). It's also real:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

So yes... you are mistaken minorly... rainbow tunnel... flash clap... Warp I sir....Kirk looks smug... turns around... viewscreen shows wormhole. Red alert klaxon fires.

And the TMP special edition f*'s up the alert klaxon too because it's supposed to sound like Star Trek II but the guy went and f'ed with the soundtrack in the Director's cut. Anyone have a Laser disc copy they want to transfer to DVD pretty please?

-- According to the tech manuals I have read, dilithium is not produced in the reactor... in fact Scotty admits that not even in the 23rd century can they re-crystallize dilithium (Star Trek IV). It is a trans-stator similar to quartz crystals that takes one type of energy and converts and focuses it into another... In this case the anti-matter/matter heat/light/energy into electricity. The electricity is used to power the warp nacelles which are large graviton field generators... they pull a field of tachyons around the ship... which makes a bubble of realspace inside realspace... the tachyon bubble slips along like a wet bar of soap squeezed between your hands. If you elongate the field, the faster you go.

As pretty as it looks, however, the impulse engine is just a 23rd century Tokamak. It is a toroidal fusion reactor with the crystal dome in the center. The engines simply vent that plasma out the shutters right behind it.

Speaking of non-canon books that were actually worth the pages they were printed on, check out Ships of the Starfleet by Calon Riel.

and a final note on a later post... it's all about special effects budget... that's why there were no refit-A's on TNG (except for a brief moment at Wolf 359). The refit-A was every bit as modern as the Avenger class... and more modern than the design of the Pasteur... yet... we don't see any in TNG... shame really ... but the easiest models to use for ships were the Excelsior and the Reliant. I personally like the Excelsior. The only cool TNG ships we saw otherwise were the Stargazer (a later Constellation class), the Phoenix (Nebula class), and the Enterprise C (Ambassador class).

@ Jake:

I think you're probably right, based on two details on the picture of the new ship above - there are two docking ports, one about halfway up the side of the dorsal pylon, the other one down on the side of the of the engineering hull, just below the beltline - do you see them?

If the Big E (a REALLY Big E!) is actually 914.4 meters long (3000 ft, kudos to you for using your metric/imperial slide rule, hahaha, I have one too!), these portals would be more than six meters high, which would be almost forty feet, a little HIGH for a starship deck!

Plus, the windows (what few there are, on the edge of the saucer section - THAT they duplicated perfectly, just like the impulse pod!) would be each the height of a man, not impossible, I suppose, but they are LONGER than they are wide, just ridiculous in scale.

No, I think the folks at Wikipedia screwed that up; my guess is, somebody wrote it down wrong and flipped meters for feet - 300 meters long, approximately - and that was mistyped & translated to 3000 feet.

Hey, if it happened to NASA with that Mars probe, ANYBODY can do it, right? Lol!

@ Brighteyes:

As I indicated earlier, I really love your idea of a 're-rezzed' Scotty rejoining the Starfleet ASDB, but I would like to share a couple of my notions, if I may:

I always assumed, since, as you say here, that the Galaxy class was designed for missions of twenty years, and a lifetime of at least 50 years (I think I read somewhere, officially, it was more like 100 years before replacement), that when the Enterprise D was destroyed/crashed (depending on which hull, you remember) on Veridian III, that the replacement for the Enterprise would be, simply, just the most advanced, and at the same time the latest, fastest capital ship to come out of the Bureau; this is only speculation on my part, but the excellent opinions of Cmdr Scott notwithstanding (I'm sure yoiu're right about that), Starfleet would hardly end the whole Galaxy/Nebula line of superstarships simply because of the loss of the Flagsip Enterprise, right? They would continue apace, for perhaps the next 93 years (43 years, whatever), wouldn't they? After all, they must represent quite an investment, don't you think? I mean, the whole Federation doesn't revolve around the Enterprise, does it?

Anyway, as I say, this is just me: I believe (based as much on the degree to which it reminds me of the earlier, vintage vessel, from certain angles, as much as anything else), that the state-of-the-art Sovereign class design became the new Enterprise because, quite simply, it was the first ship out of the box, it was faster, more maneuverable, leaner & meaner, than the admittedly bloated but ideal (for twenty-year missions) Galaxy class. What ship class was it intended to replace? To me, this answer was obvious -

The redoubtable Excelsior/Excelsior II class, the B-52 of Starfleet. Think about it - along with the amazingly adapable Miranda class (the DC-3 of Starfleet, later reclassed, virtually unchanged in its design, as the Avenger class), the Excelsior was a remarkably usefull ship - modular in design, logical in layout, and very, very long in the tooth. It needed to be retired & replaced, a process that no doubt thakes years, if not decades. As I say, the Sovereign even LOOKS like the old Excelsior from some views, but it is not nearly as, well, frumpy.

I always just assumed that rather than replace the D with another Galaxy (they did that with the Ent-A, right?), they subtly redefined the Enterprise crew's mission - fewer if any families on board, maybe shorter missions like the old days, and much, much better handling, especially in a firefight.

What do you think, Brighteyes? You know how jazzed I am with your 'thawed out Scotty' idea, I think you ought to be writing for Paramount, and if they ever heard your idea, I'm sure they'd go ahead & use it (and probably rip you off for the credit, too, but then I am by nature cynical). I think that one idea alone is the mark of a genius (like I told Vic, I am not above ass-kissing, lol!), and if you ask me, this is the great thing about fanfiction, it's like the Borg Hive Mind (credit to you, I believe).

Anyway, just wanted to add my light to the sum of it all, the brightest - in accordance with your handle - being yours, so far (although there are some SHARP folks on here!); which brings me to the next subject -

@ 'Kahless':

Just wanna thank you, for what you just said there, buddy. That's what Treknology is all about. You might wanna check out www.shipschematic.net, www.captainmike.org/Galactopedia/a1.html, and www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles.htm, they are FAN-TASTIC, and there are no doubt more, many many more. Star Trek is alive & well on the net, believe that like Jesus!

Yes, I remember the very pretty Sonia Gomez - sharp l'il gal, wasn't she? LaForge believed in her, though; stick with it, eat this stuff like a kid locked up overnight in a candy store, and you'll blow all the rest of us away!

JOHN

You know, you guys are making me look real bad. In my neck of the woods, I'm the Trek authority but you guys have been talking about stuff that makes me feel like Ensign Gomez listening to Geordi. :-)