I hate DS9: The Defiant

The Defiant is the single worst part of DS9. DS9 is awful, and a big part of it is the Defiant.

Here we've got a ship that's a brick. Seriously, that's basically what it is, a brick in space. You ask me to describe the Defiant to you, that's all I can come up with. It's a turd. It's a little turd brick and that's about all I can do. The thing looks godawful. What is one of the reasons that people like Star Trek? Well, because Star Trek has beautiful ships. There's an aesthetic appeal that drew me in when I was a boy growing up. The Enterprise is probably the most iconic spaceship in pop culture, god bless Matt Jefferies for his innovation and vision. You look at the Enterprise, and while it might seem a bit impractical, the design itself is unlike anything that we had traditionally thought of as a spaceship. It is not a rocket with fins. It is not a lazy ass giant triangle. It is a saucer connected to a cylinder with a neck and long graceful warp nacelles at the back. That's ingenuity. That is something that we don't see everyday and it looked great and endured through the decades. Starfleet ships have proudly carried on that Jefferies visual aesthetic until the Defiant.

The Defiant just looks terrible. It's got this retarded looking snout up front, with the deflector dish. Only it's not even a dish, it's this weird triangular blue thingy that we've never ever seen before. But they say it's a deflector dish, so whatever. Then you've got the inconsequential warp nacelles on the sides. Except they don't look like nacelles, they're stuck on and basically part of the hull. And uh... there's not much else. You've got the weaponry, but they aren't really displayed either. I've never really seen the phaser cannon ports.

So it looks ugly. Visually, it's a disaster. There's nothing redeeming about the design. But now let's discuss the actual ship.

The actual ship itself, as written, is a fucking joke. It is a joke that is not funny. It strikes me as something that a fanfiction writer on usenet would be embarrassed to show people. This ship is tiny, about the size of four or five runabouts, but apparently is the most powerful goddamn ship in the universe. This ship possesses phase cannons that seem to rip apart battleships in one or two volleys. This tiny ship is portrayed as being as powerful as 2 or 3 Galaxy class starships, apparently. This is a fucking retarded idea. This is idiocy. There is nothing as stupid as this in television history. This is a fanfiction ship. This is something that someone would write as being the hero ship in fanfiction. There is no goddamn way that I am gonna sit and watch a show that employs an ubership that is small, fast, and more powerful then much larger battleships. I don't watch anime. I don't like to watch complete garbage. This ship is an insult to Star Trek.

Why even bother making any regular ships at all? Why do anything but make these ultra powerful pocket battleships that have phase cannons that rip through shields and oh yea... it's got ablative armor, so even if you somehow knock the shields down, there's still not much you can do? This is just retarded. The ship is insanely overpowered and completely ridiculous. Whatever happened to the beautiful Trek ships of yore? Can't we just be happy with nice curved saucers and regular phasers? Do we need phase cannons that are tiny but severely overpowered? What is this? I know it's designed to defeat the Borg, but that's no excuse for something this monstrous, this over the top, and this ugly. Plus, the Borg's greatest advantage was their ability to adapt. So even if you have phase cannons and quantum torpedoes, the Borg will just adapt to them and you're still screwed.

The Defiant is everything wrong with DS9. It is a blight on Trekdom, and I am so glad that at least JJ Abrams's reboot will wipe that eyesore from existence.

DS9 and shields.

Well, the thing is... DS9's big space battles never had any ships with shields. Seriously, you watch them. No shield bubbles on any of em. It's ridiculous.

I didn't see shield bubbles on any ships, at all. No shields in Star Trek? Thank you DS9, you lousy piece of shit. Ugh.

Me, I've always been a stickler for the bubble shields. Conformal shields just look boring by comparison. Mind you, I grew up watching the TNG series, so I'm very very used to the bubble shield look. It's kinda ingrained in my consciousness. When I think of shields, I think of blue bubbles. There's a majesty and a pageantry to them. You get the feeling that the bubble is protecting you from harm. They're more visually impressive. The only time we got to see shields in the original series films, Star Trek The Motion Picture, they also used bubble shields. You could just sense the power of the Enterprise's bubble shields as they held against the destructive green power of V'Ger. It was awesome. The bubble shield, not the movie. God, that movie was boring.

And ya know, while Generations was also a terrible film, I really liked the visual look of the shields. Even when they got penetrated by that Bird of Prey. You could see the blue little shield light up as the disruptor bolts pierced them. You couldn't get that with conformal shields, no siree bob. And remember when the Enterprise actually fired back at them and the phaser fire was sorta streaming in every which direction, as it dissipated against the green bubble shield of the BoP?

I really like bubble shields. Conformal shields just don't do it for me. They don't say Star Trek. There's no visual splendor there. But uh, getting back on topic there... see, the thing is... the DS9 battles don't even show conformal shields. They don't. They just don't show shields period. No shields at all.

The evidence shows that yes, Deep Space 9 itself has shields. Apparently space stations are allowed to have shields, but not the ships. If there are shields, they're invisible. Since I believe shields flare up and are not invisible, well... there aren't any shields. This sort of thing ruins my immersion. When I watch Star Trek, I have certain expectations. I expect ships with saucers and two nacelles, and shields, and some spiffy colored uniforms. I demand them, in fact. DS9 broke two of those cardinal rules.

DS9 did have spiffy colored uniforms, but uh... I thought those jumpsuits looked a bit worse then TNG's Season 3 outfits, honestly. TNG's Season 3 overhaul was one of the best in living memory, though. They kept Riker's awesome beard, gave Worf a better looking metal sash, got rid of Sonja Gomez, painted that technical looking design on the pillar behind Picard's chair, changed his armrests so you didn't have to flip them up, and gave us the second best looking uniforms in the history of Trek. The collar, a stroke of genius. No more need to see all of their exposed necks like that. And the belt added stature and poise. Might also have been responsible for the Picard Maneuver, not sure about that. But god bless Robert Blackman for crafting those new uniforms.

This is a good example of what we should've always seen in DS9:the Defiant vs Lakota battle.

Nice, visible bubble shields in that scene. This is good. This is what we deserve. This is a pretty well done scene. I approve of this.

Also, Susan Gibney is awesome and I wish we'd seen her more often.

In conclusion, I had major issues with DS9. Lack of shields being one of the more obvious ones.