the One thing that totally disgusted me...(spoilers)

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Absolutly HATED it with a vengeance!


Guess there's no in-between views here!


Cari
<A HREF="http://www.coribright.com
" TARGET=_blank>www.coribright.com
</A>

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Firstly, I have not seen the movie.

I believe that this was an experimental solution, installed on a small number of shipd to test whether it works.

Most of the Minbari fleet has no need for ships like Liandra. They have large warcruisers with big crews and extremely powerful computers. And they have fighters where the pilot is the weapons officer. There is no ship class which would need such a fire control system.

As for White Stars -- they are partly Vorlon technology. They are not sentient, but they can learn new commands. They are not alive, but their outer skin adapts and repairs itself.

An average White Star has at least two people involved with weapons control, and this can be increased to four. The two weapons officers at the front of the command bridge do their job with eye and finger movements, which is less exhausting than kicking and punching. Both positions at the captain's side also allow weapons control, but in a slower manner, with more reliance on the ship's own intelligance.

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"We are the universe, trying to figure itself out.
Unfortunately we as software lack any coherent documentation."
-- Delenn

 

[integra2112]

The gunnery pod is just really silly. Its extremely limited. You cant tell me that even a very basic computer targetting system would not be much much more efficient, accurate, and comprehensive. She has to throw her arm forward to shoot? Please. The VR system has a limited viewpoint, and requires bodily movements which are tiring, slow, and limited to 4 appendages. if you want to see a similar idea employed in a much more intelligent and interesting manner, see the japanese anime "macross plus" where a jet fighter is controlled completely through a neural interface to the pilot. The pilot actually controls the the ships as if it were part of his body. This really made the show seem much more childish.

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[**DONOTDELETE**]

Ok, first off, I found the weapons system to be terrible. Not because of any fake science I've taken hours to cook up for the B5 universe. No. Just because, well, it was just lame. I was actually embarrassed to watch it. Thoughts though, I was thinking about what was mentioned earlier. Why haven't we seen this before in other ships? Two possiblities that I can think of, either this is one of those flash in the pan kind of ideas that pop up in engineering sometimes (When was the last time you saw a car with pushbutton shifting like some automobiles had in the 50s?). The other, which I hope is not true, is that this was a retrofit of an old ship with new tech.... please say it ain't so.....

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[**DONOTDELETE**]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>that this was a retrofit of an old ship with new tech<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It can't be a new system on an old ship. The White Stars are about 15 years newer -- and there is no sign of such a system, although they belong into roughly the same size class (larger than a fighter, smaller than a cruiser). Also, the Blue Star used by Sheridan in 2278 had no such systems.

I would say that it was a quirk of engineering. Sometime during the Earth-Minbari war, the boneheads found that a warcruiser was "slightly too large" for covert operations. Fighters had a limited range.

Therefore they quickly slapped together a medium-to-small ship, armed it well but were at loss about the weapons control system. It was too small to use the ones on cruisers, too complicated to use the ones on fighters. So they installed the Minbari equivalent of a game console, with VR and artificial gravity.

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited January 20, 2002).]

 

[KoshNaranek]

::Shrugs:: My opinion... not bad. Certainly not "disgusting." :\

What I really liked was how the command center was set up. Instead of a center seat with stations spread around it, you have a round table... JUST LIKE KING ARTHUR!

It doubles as a conference table and each Ranger's station. Like, like, like.

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"We are all Kosh"

 

[Sherool]

Well I haven't seen the movie, but I've read some about it, and seen the trailer about a hundred times, so here's my take on this gunnery pod situation.

Now this system is CLEARLY not the most efficient thing you can come up with given the Minbari's advanced technology, but look at it from a "cultural" perspective. The Minbari are big on martial arts, it might simply be a system dreamed up by the warrior cast to allow them to do the next best thing to fight face to face even in a space battle. Minbari warriors do seem more interested in the fighting itself than to win (well up to a scertain point anyway), so it's quite plausable that they would prefeer such a system where they could make use of theyr fighting skills rather than to just sit behinf a console and press the big red "fire" button every time the computer had aquired a target... Just like some fighter pilots prefeer a good "dogfight" over a beyond-visible-range-missile kill...

Simply put it's there, not because it's the most efficient, but because it allow warriors to practice theyr art. Fits in pretty well with the martial art oriented culture of the Minbari warrior caste, I mean they are more adcanced than almost anybody, but they much prefeer a good melee with knives or fighting sticks (man, I used to remember what those where called) over a shoot out with energy weapons.

Makes perfect sense to me, they like to fight up close and personal, and you can't get much closer than that in a space battle.

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[**DONOTDELETE**]

The weapons system imho was cool, only her huge physical exertion was corny. As far as her being suprisied, the system seems semi-intelligent. It probably has proximity detectors etc, tracking to make up for user error etc.

I didn't care for it all that much, but who am I to judge? It was a cool, unique idea.

My girlfriend absolutely loved it.



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No choice, no choice at all.

 

[OlgerthHeidern]

A few reasons why I

hated

the weapons system:

1) While it's nice to have an unobstructed view, you need eyes on the back of your head to track ALL targets. There is no 360 degrees radar, so you have no clue what's happening behind you until you flip over, and that may be much too late.

2) Punching and kicking the thin air is hugely imprecise. Yes, it may be intuitive, but flailing your limbs in zero gravity in that fashion wouldn't get you any targeted shots.

3) It must be plain EXHAUSTING to do that. The weapons officer must be falling over after a ten-minute battle...

Otherwise, a great feature, loved it.

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Beyond Human

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

didnt they say that the ship was of an older design? that it had been mothballed for 30 years, not that it was 30 years old? if the minbari still use one thousand year old ships why would a thirty year old ship be so antiqued and out of date? i think if (when) it goes to series we'll get a better explaination...

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Who do you Serve and Who do you Trust?

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>...punching and kicking is hugely imprecise...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That point would be invalid. All targeting would be computer-assisted anyway. This isn't really a targeting system, more like a target selection system. It should simplify tactical decisions which a computer can't make.

That said, such systems need not involve floating, kicking or punching. You can just as easily stand, a hologram of the battlefield floating around you, just like it's done in the command centres of Minbari cruisers.

In a warcruiser's command centre, more than one person can simultaneously observe the battle and issue commands. Now that is an efficient system.

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"We are the universe, trying to figure itself out.
Unfortunately we as software lack any coherent documentation."
-- Delenn

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited January 20, 2002).]

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I found the movie overall fairly good. I definately agree though. Ugh.. It lacks everything! Scientific credit, believeability, class, and overall efficiency. This is based on B5 not a cheesy kung fu - karate movie/series. You'd think that the boneheads weapon system would be like wave their hands over a crystal console thingy and it fires from automatic targeting sensors. I really don't care how "fun" it would be. i'd be much more conscerned about killing the enemies than anything. The yelling was a bit much and i don't think of using a weapons system as doing kicks flips and such.

I just say change the whole virtual reality weapons system and it would make a perfect series.

<Edit> Oh and about the complaint of no targetting this and lock on.. Those aren't exactly powerful blasts you know. it would take one heck of alot of punching to take down a ship. Lord, by the time you were done in a huge battle with dozens of ships your arm would fall off. LoL

[This message has been edited by Drakith (edited January 20, 2002).]

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

ok, 1st off, I'm in the "hate it" category.

Its too exhausting, and too slow. You could press a button much faster than throw a punch, and retract your arm.

I wont bother repeating what everyone else has, but an idea for an improvement, of sorts.

One of the drawbacks to this system is limited field of view, and only having 4 appendages (ok, well, thats 2 of the drawbacks). In a bigger firefight, I wonder if multiple people can jump down there. With 2 people, you've got 8 appendages and full vision.

One more complaint...she has to jump down this shaft into the VR area. How does she get out? we never actually saw that, so I'm guessing there's an alternate way out. seems like that might be simpler for getting in, as well.

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[Fineous]

I have just one comment to make here that ties in with a few other comments about the fact that Minbari are aliens, and do things in an alien way.

Is everyone forgetting that compared to the rest of the galaxy (Excepting the old ones, who before the war even the Minbari didn't really know anything about) there is no one even vagely close to the Minbari in technological level? In "In the Beginning" Londo tells Humanity that even at the height of the republic the Centauri were afraid to sneeze in the general direction of the Minbari, in case it was taken wrong. They are just that much better than EVERYONE else that they have ever met.

So, this means that they have no enemies. This has gone on for 1000 years. No one messes with the Minbari. This would tend to lend a certain air of complacency, don't you think?

As a comparison, if you are in central Africa, in a tank, do you really care if you have to jump up and down three times, whistle the star spangled banner backwards and smack the tank driver in the head with a fish each time before you can fire the guns, as long as all you have to face are a few lions and some natives armed with spears?

In fact, don't you think it is altogether conceivable that such rituals might spring up so that the warrior caste, which is very proud, will not have too easy a time of it annihilating anyone else around, whilst simultaineously being able to show off their martial skills to allies. And eventually it probably came to the point where the only challenge to come around was other Minbari vessels during war games.

Once the shadow war came around, though, the Minbari were shaken out of their sense of complacency, however, and such frivolous methods would have been scrapped. The Ship is, after all, 20 years old and out of date. Anything newer is undoubtedly designed along much more militarily organized lines.

Anyway, just a thought. . .

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"In the Beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."
-Douglas Adams 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'

 

[Tennyson]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> there is no one even vagely close to the Minbari in technological level? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Well, obviously Drakh medical science is better than the Minbari's. It seems clear that they are a match for the Minbari, they just weren't part of the local politics before because of their service to the Shadows.

I also hate the weapons interface, for many of the reasons stated above (pilot fatigue, field of view, accuracy). Even if you can't achieve a Macross-Plus interface nirvana, there are better solutions than what they showed here. Hopefully, like Trek's saucer seperation, it will get played down in the series.

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[newscaper]

What can I add? What dead horse can I beat?
Tiring motions -- why not just *point* rapidly?

Just imagine how utterly friggin' TEDIOUS this will be when every ep has the obligatory sequence of Sara at work.

Ultimately lousy situational awareness -- the can't see behind her back nonsense. A miniature 3D display showing the entire volume of the battlefield at a glance in *front* of her would be a million times better if used in *conjunction* with this. SHould be easy enough to embed a 3D tactical display that is always toward the bottom of the field of view. At the very least she should have had HUD-type indicators LIKE WE HAVE IN FLIGHT SIMS ON MY PC NOW that have pointers at the edge of your forward view indicating something is beside/behind you.
They *did* show some graphics apparently projected on her eyeballs but we didn't see what they were. Of course, if they'd shown them all the time then it would have an even MORE terribly cheesy video game/anime feel to it.

The corrollary to the major blindspot problem is it seriously degrades the 2-way ink between her and the captain in battle: she's on her own too much, and compared to her he's almost half-blind at the "conference table".

I still say JMS has produced his own War Zone (actually lamer) and he can't blame anyone else -- TNT is off the hook this time.

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newscaper,
from the SciFi Channel Farscape BB

 

[newscaper]

About the origins/place of the weapons control system...

Forget about trying to shoehorn it into something that makes sense.
It is NOT a retrofit of new technology -- that clashes with the future we have seen.
No sign of it, or a precursor in the past either, at least not other than the Grey Council's shipboard 3D view of the battle (NOT a control system BTW).

The only thing needed to semi-decently explain away the inconsistencies was to say that the Liandra is a one-of-a-kind ship that was supposed to be first of a new class that was canceled when she turned out to have so many problems, though not enough to have her scrapped. It would have cost just ONE stinkin' sentence of dialog, and there was plenty inane stuff that oculd have been replaced. Of course this still wouldn't explain how Sara was already fully up to speed on how to use it.

Face it, it was just eye candy tacked on to the story. Quit trying to explain it when JMS didn't feel obliged to.

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newscaper,
from the SciFi Channel Farscape BB

 

[Fineous]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tennyson:

Well, obviously Drakh medical science is better than the Minbari's. It seems clear that they are a match for the Minbari, they just weren't part of the local politics before because of their service to the Shadows.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Obviously that is the point I am trying to make. It doesn't matter if around the corner there was an alien race that makes the Vorlons look like cavemen, as long as the Minbari knew nothing about them, and they never messed with the Minbari.

It is the sense of complacency that is the important thing. The Minbari never knew anything about the Drakh, never even knew they existed, until after the shadow war. Saying that there WERE alien races out there with comprable technology does not change the fact that the Minbari were complacent, since the Minbari never knew they existed.

So again I have to say that there is, in my mind, still a valid and from within the series, SOUND, reason for the weapons pod.

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"In the Beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."
-Douglas Adams 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'

[This message has been edited by Fineous (edited January 21, 2002).]

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Hate it!

My suggestion: Give the gunner a mouse and keyboard!

Sheridan used that Minbari holo-command room on the white star to direct the fleet in battle, and that was cool. Incorporating that holo environment in a gunnery pod could have been really cool, but that needed to be fleshed out a lot differently.


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-----Khurzhor-----

"Farewell friend. I was a thousand times as evil as thou."
-Stormbringer

 

[Akai]

I thought the virtual weapons pod was a good idea to an extent but firing the guns by kicking and punching was very corny. I do recall that the Whitestars use telepathic interfaces for their pilots...would it be such a stretch to have a VR weapons system in which the gunner sits in a chair and has information fed directly into her mind, allowing her to select targets and fire weapons mentally? In her perspective she could still be floating in space and see targets positioned around her so the visual FX could still be similar to what they were on the show.
If a telepathic interface sounds too exotic then they could have at least used a chair that can rotate 360 degrees along X and Y axes, with weapons controls built into the chair...like in the Last Starfighter. I guess the movie's creators should be given points for trying something different but it was nonetheless a mistake.

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Spoo: it's what's for dinner.