For all I love Star Trek, it bugs me sometimes.
Take warfare in Star Trek, the ground warfare they do… in all honesty, is horrid.
First off, NO ONE WEARS ARMOR! Hello? The American Army/Marines/Navy/Airforce uses armor. Kevlar is useful, as is ceramic plates. All other Sci-fi settings (starwars, 40k, etc) I know of use armor. No armor makes no sense. Seriously, get some sort of suit that absorbs the engery of a phaser/disruptor blast!
Every single army has exactly two weapons: a pistol and a rifle. Okay, that’s great for most small scale boarding parties and the like, but in a few episodes (the Siege of AR-558 from the 7th Season of DS9) we have large scale engagements… proper battles not small engagements. Where are the grenades? The Heavy Machine Gun type weapons? The hi-tech targeting gear? The tanks?!!! Sense making = no.
Then… we have more of a minor quibble: close combat weapons. Two armies equip their soldiers with close combat weapons: the klingon empire and the Dominion. The dominon have knives and polearm/axe things and the Klingons have tones of close combat swords, axes, knives, and the like. Starfleet… has fists -_-. Give the fact that Klingons and the Jem’Hadar pretty much rock and pwn humans in terms of strength… I don’t see how or why this has happened. Bayonets are issued to the USMC today, and the Marines have used them in Iraq, not often, but it does happen. In Star Trek, interestingly, close combat happens a lot, and we are often left with Captain Sisko punching a Jem’Hadar while said Jem’hadar pwns him with his strength… hello?
Another thing… the borg… have shields. But, in Star Trek First Combat Capt. Picard killed two with a Thompson SMG, proving that you don’t need a phaser to kill one. My question is this: if a weapon invented in the 1910’s and used in WWII killed two borg, why did Starfleet not invent a solid slug based weapon specifically meant to combat the Borg? Instead Star Fleet is often panicking when facing Borg Boarding parties because they only get 3-5 shots with their phasers… and then it delovles into a melee where only Vulcans, Klingons and Mr. Data stand a chance. Once again this goes back to the close combat weapons…borg pwns humans, so why don’t the humans get a friggin knife?
Oh well… besides all that, Star Trek is an amazing show. :D
2 comments:
Hm. I agree with you. Ground warfare in Star Trek is more or less pathetic.
I do have one comment to make, the Federation didn't know that you could kill a Borg with a Thompson SMG until First Contact, right? And that was the last of the Next Gen movies/shows with Borg, so they had no chance to make weapons like that (primitive weaponry...) to kill off Borg, right?
Now, a good Klingon battle with batliffes... *grin*
One thing I've always wondered, why doesn't Data fight in hand to hand combat more often? He's stronger than pretty much everything...
Data doesn't fight hand to hand because, in most instances, a phaser blast would be just as dangerous to him as anyone else.
The federation didn't know that shields (energy that cancels out energy) won't work against knives, bullets and the like? If that is true Starfleet is the most idiotic military organization to ever be created. I'm a 17 year old kid in the 20th century and I know that a mass driver is the way to go against shields...
Startrek had to have noticed that when Worf and Data started hitting borg with swords, fists, and knives that they fell over dead. The same thing would happen if they shot them full of lead.
Of course, I do suppose when you live in the 24th century and have never used a slug based weapon the idea of reverting to one might seem strange, but like I said, if Starfleet hadn't eve considered the idea then they are truly the most idiotic military organization I have ever encountered.
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