Talk:Delta Rana warship

Recreation not original
The title of this article may be considered provisional. It was the best of the names I came up with ("Douwd warship", "Kevin Uxbridge's warship", and "Unknown warship" just didn't sound right). Since the ship appeared in the Delta Rana system, in proximity of Delta Rana IV, and was created by a Douwd living on Delta Rana IV, Delta Rana warship seemed best.

The information on this page was written by Alan del Beccio, with grammatical changes by Furrykef and a very minor modification by myself. --From Andoria with Love 17:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
 * So where again is the discussion for moving this page? In favor of keeping it the way it was I present the following from the dialog and script:


 * KEVIN: They came in a spaceship so big you could see it up in orbit. They took our world apart piece by piece.
 * RIKER: Who?
 * KEVIN: We don't know. We never saw their faces.


 * Later:
 * We see the gleaming hull of an immense and deadly-looking spaceship approaching Rana IV. We don't need to be told it's the ship that attacked the planet only weeks ago.


 * DATA: Our vehicle classification index can put no identity to it. Its design is completely foreign.
 * RIKER: But it's our boy -- roughly five times our mass and carrying enough armament to pulverize a planet.


 * With that said, I'm still not sure I see any justification for the separation of this from the original Husnock warship page. --Alan del Beccio 02:07, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Of course Riker et al. would say that at that point in the episode. They are specifically written as having no clue about the "true" nature of that ship - just as the audience, they are "supposed" to believe it is the Husnock ship that returns to attack. However, both the audience and the Enterprise crew find out later that this isn't the case, and Kevin even states:
 * KEVIN: I tried to fool the Husnock as I tried to fool you, but it only made them angrier and more cruel.
 * This could mean that Kevin actually created a starship (the one we were seeing?) to fight against the Husnock. A hint for that migth be the fact that the ship changes configuration between appearances. We don't know either way, so we probably shouldn't make the connection and call this one a recreation of the Husnock ship. -- Cid Highwind 09:46, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm rather late in the game on this one, but the warship seen is referenced in countless places as a recreation of a Husnock warship. It should simply be called as such. -FleetCaptain 21:04, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I might suggest reading talk:Husnock warship, before reading the above. It is more conclusive in terms of analysis, than the supposition made by "countless places". --Alan 21:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I read the entire thing. My main source for calling it a Husnock warship is the Star Trek Encyclopedia, but yes there are some who state this is a dubious source.  By the letter of the law, this could stand as is, but I think that is really picking apart bones to get more meat.  Its just my opinion that this article should never have been split from the main one, but as I said it is rather late in the game as this happened months ago with no pressing need to change back right now. -FleetCaptain 21:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not pressing anything, I'm just trying to follow you and pin this conversation down on a single page. Also, as you can tell, I also attempted to keep the ship's together on a single page, judging from the above discussion, but spreading this article out over two pages and milking it for all it is work seems to be the prerogative of the majority. --Alan 21:19, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * This DOES need to be on a single page: "Husnock warship". We have Picard's "recreation" dialoge (CANON), as well as authoritative script instruction of intent that the ship predicted IS (at least visually) the Husnock warship.Capt Christopher Donovan 22:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you are only 'seeing' canon in the dialog that supports your side, as I made the same argument 6 months ago. Perhaps you should double check the evidence presented at talk:Husnock warship? Simply put, we don't know what a Husnock ship looks like, Picard doesn't know what a Husnock ship looks like, nor likely did anyone else in the Federation-- based on dialog, we just assume it is a Husnock ship because Kevin indicated something of the nature that fits the general description of the ship shown later in the episode-- but that description could just as easily describe a Borg cube, or judging by the scaling of the models, even a Warbird. The script simply describes the vessel as the one Kevin described, but Kevin was also being deceptive in his attempts to be left alone. Bottom line, sources like CCG and the Encyclopedia planted it in our heads that 'yes this is a Husnock warship', the evidence supports both sides. Do I think it is stupid that we have two articles on essentially the same topic? Yes. But really, there needs to be harder evidence than what I've presented above, and what you've since hastily reiterated. --Alan 10:35, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it is without a doubt the ship that the Enterprise saw was a recreation of a Husnock warship. The production and script notes are pretty clear about this and the art department of Paramount Pictures labeled the miniture as "Husnock ship". The only real question is whether or not the recreation made by Kevin was as powerful or perhaps even more powerful than the original. The abilities between the recreation and the original might be in question but the fact that what the Enterprise saw was a recreation of the same Husnock warship that attacked the colony is not, in my opinion. -FleetCaptain 06:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * (response to Alan above) You keep telling me to "look at the evidence" presented on the talk pages and I keep replying that there IS no evidence presented on those pages whatsoever.  It's all a bunch of speculation about what Kevin may or may not have done.


 * Nevertheless, I am refraining from attempting any sort of merge to head off an edit war. I rewrote the "background" section of both articles to reflect what the canon/primary source evidence tells us, and that there is a controversy and speculation about what else may be in fact the case.  We've done that on other articles with this type of controversy, so I'm content to let the matter rest at that.Capt Christopher Donovan 08:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * This brings to mind a conversation I had with someone once where they were telling me that the four pips on Captain Picard's collar didnt mean he was a Captain but rather that he had 40 years of servive in Starfleet. The logic there was that no one has actually ever said in a Star Trek production "Captan Picard, I see that the four silver circular insignia on your uniform collar indicate that you are a Captain in the Starfleet".  My response was that we don't need a character to say that since we have script notes, art department notes, and just plain common sense.  Much the same here.  Like Freud said: "Sometimes a cake is just a cake"  -FleetCaptain 08:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The miniature was labeled as a "Husnock warship"? Hmm... that's news to me. That coupled with the reference in the Star Trek Encyclopedia seem to suggest it was the producers'/writers' intent for the ship to be a recreation of the Husnock warship. Maybe this does belong as part of the Husnock warship page. It would be better than keeping the potentially same ship on separate pages, especially one with a non-canon, "made-up" name. I'm not sure if the evidence is strong enough, but I would be okay with the two pages being merged back together. --From Andoria with Love 15:00, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Merge
This got lost in the shuffle two years ago, but we need to merge this page with Husnock warship. I voiced this as well as the Ten forward form on merging. -FC 09:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * There's still the huge discussion, directly above, that states a merge isn't really uncontroversial. Has anything changed since then? -- Cid Highwind 12:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Did anyone see the model turn up? This might give us a deciding citation. -- Captain MKB 13:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * A label on the model might still be script (mis-)interpretation by the model makers, not evidence of producers intent - but it would at least be something, I agree. -- Cid Highwind 14:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Two years ago I had a copy of the original script and references to this ship were simply as "Husnock Warship". In the end, I think its pretty well established that Kevin made a recreation of the same warship that attacked the colony but just changed its abilities, both more powerful (in the beginning) and more weaker (in the end) to fool the Enterprise. In my opinion, there should one article on the Husnock warship with a section devoted to Kevin's recreation efforts. -FC 17:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * But that is exactly the discussion we had two years ago - the script might have called it one thing, but at the same time, we have on-screen dialogue hinting at the fact that Kevin created some warship to keep the Husnock away. Why can't that be this one? -- Cid Highwind 19:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I didnt realize we still had people from before thinking they were two different warships. I suggest the best way is to have a formal merge vote. One has already been started on the Merge Forum Page at Ten Forward; perhaps we should move it here. -FC 22:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I disagree with the notion that a majority vote can override actual evidence (or lack thereof) from the episode. To be specific and reiterate somewhat, status quo is the following set of information:
 * 1. A Husnock warship exists.
 * 2. An imaginary warship, created by Uxbridge, exists.
 * With a merge, we'd basically add the information that
 * 3. These ships look the same, with (2) being a recreation of (1).
 * To do that, we'd need some evidence for it - while, actually, we already have some evidence against it, seeing that ship (2) existed in various different configurations during the episode, and apparently might have coexisted with (1) when trying to divert it from the planet in the first place. -- Cid Highwind 10:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, for all we know, Uxbridge might've created an illusory Federation ship to fool the Husnock -- assuming he would create the same warhip to fool two sides of the conflict might be problematic -- after all, he only said he "tried the same thing" against the Husnock -- never said "used the same ship".. We don't know whether Kevin explicitly knew that no Husnock anywhere had never seen a Fed ship, nor do we know whether he knew that no Federationer anywhere might've never seen a Husnock. He might've created the appropriate adversaries just to keep things plausible from the POV of those he was trying to fool. So our uncertainty goes both ways. -- Captain MKB 19:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

We probabaly wont get a consensus the way it looks now. If you vote down below it will be a dead tie with four editors contributing. The good thing is that now there will be a very clear record that there was no consensus to merge; this was the problem with the discussion from two years ago that it was confusing where exactly we stood when it was all over. -FC 18:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Re Mike ("uncertainty goes both ways"): Perhaps, yeah - but I think my point is still valid under those circumstances. If we are uncertain about some detail, we should prefer the version that better manages to not make an assumption about the correctness of that detail. The current version does this: even if the Uxbridge ship was a perfect recreation of the Husnock ship, we'd still end up with all valid information available somewhere, just spread across two articles where one would have sufficed. The other way around, if the ship was not Husnock-redux, we'd end up with a misidentification of that ship. That's by far a bigger error to make than to place information in a slightly inconvenient way, I think.


 * Re FC: As I said, I don't believe in a vote taking precedence over existing rules&guidelines or at least discussion consensus. So I'm not going to vote and instead will have faith in the resolving admin to not simply count Yay/Nay comments, but also take into account what has been discussed in other parts of the page. :) -- Cid Highwind 20:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge Vote
This got lost in the shuffle over a year ago, but this needs to be merged with Husnock warship. The recreation aspects of Kevin Uxbridge's version could be a separate section, but that vessel was very clearly a Husnock recreation of the same ship that attacked the colony. Reading the talk page of D-Rana warship, we actaully had three people asking for a merge but it just never happened. -FC 09:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Not lost in the shuffle. No merge with template on the article. -- sulfur 10:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree: I put the template up, and agree with the merge. - Archduk3:talk 10:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Not lost, but discussed controversially back then, on one of the talk pages, and with the outcome that this isn't a clear merge candidate. Let's continue the discussion there, if you'd like... -- Cid Highwind 13:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Rename: Just watched this episode again, and wish to change my vote to No Merge. It still seems pretty clear, to me at least, that the original configuration was meant to be a Husnock warship, but the upgrade isn't. The USS Yamato is pretty similar, though I do see the point Morder made. - Archduk3:talk 22:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Renaming the article based on the page mentioned below is a very good idea, and seems to be the best choice now. - Archduk3:talk 02:12, 21 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree: I couldnt figure how to get the template to work, I see now there is a space in it. Thanks for putting it up, and I agree as well with the merge . -FC 17:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Rename: After finding the existence of this article*, it seems there is a procedure for keeping such articles separate. Indeed, even the discussion about the Yamato could now lead to the creation of a separate article about the version encountered in WSHL.  In this case, though, we are left with the unusual situation that both parties here are right and both are wrong.  We SHOULD keep the articles separate about recreations of ships and so-forth but then we ALSO SHOULD merge sections about duplicates into master articles to prevent dozens of unneeded articles from popping up.  Just as we have a USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) article, we don't want branch articles on USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) When Picard is off the ship, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) When Data takes over, and USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) When Wesley has to go the bathroom.  Sorry, little joke, but thats the danger here.  So, my final suggestion...RENAME article as Husnock warship (recreation).  Can we agree on that?  This ship was very clearly intended by everyone, i.e. the writers, producers, etc to be a recreation of the original warship.  We can change the name and keep it separate. -FC 01:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)


 * No Merge: The episode make it clear that the Enterprise assumed it was the husnock ship. As it the ship didn't exist in the federation database and it was uxbridge's design and that the design changed during the course of the episode there is no proof that it's the husnock ship at all. Script notes do not override what's seen on screen. That's what background information is for. &mdash; Morder (talk) 23:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge: USS Yamato is a good precedence, even though it was also recreated by a superbeing, with wierd alterations, the recreation doesn't have a page of it's own. --Pseudohuman 19:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That's an outstanding point and I never thought of that. The situation with  is almost identical to this one; even the nature of the two beings to some extent.  Thanks for pointing that out. -FC 21:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Not quite. The recreation was the USS Yamato and the federation knew it. Here we have a case of people who can't know and don't know whether or not it's a husnock ship. It's simply assumed. &mdash; Morder (talk) 21:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment: We also have a precedence in Daedalus-class, which was previously Horizon-type and Daedalus-class but they were merged due to bginfo alone. --Pseudohuman 19:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I still have yet to see any proof that this was a husnock ship. Until then there should be no merge. &mdash; Morder (talk) 20:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * First, we don't have nearly as absolute a bginfo regarding "producers intent" in this case as we have in the case of whether the balls-and-sticks design really was supposed to be the Daedalus - so the cases aren't fully comparable. Second, I will still maintain that the Daedalus merge has been done against existing policy, and by introducing unlabeled non-canon information to the database. Just because this has been done once doesn't mean the error has to be reproduced - rather, the decision to merge the Daedalus page might need to be revisited eventually. -- Cid Highwind 21:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

With regards to the above vote, it is now well established that there is no consensus to merge and that the two articles should be kept separate. Another issue was raised during the vote, which is renaming the article. Since is a separate matter, this has been moved to a new topic, listed below. -FC 20:52, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Renaming article
Re: Suggestion to rename to Husnock warship (recreation) - this title would still be somewhat misleading, because the whole point of this discussion is that we don't know whether the "real" Husnock warship really looks like the ship created by Uxbridge. Calling it a "recreation" would imply that similarity, though (and would probably lead to someone bringing up the merge topic again in some months, based on the observation that "we think they look the same, anyway"). -- Cid Highwind 09:08, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The source for the ship we see in the episode being a Husnock warship recreation is the script notes and original script which all refer to that vessel as a "recreation of a Husnock warship". I also recall a script line, which didn't make it into the episode, where Kevin states "So, I recreated the Husnock vessel to fool you" or something like that.  The same vessel has also appeared in countless non-canon novels, comics, posters, games, and other media as a Husnock vessel.  While non-canon can't be cited, the script certianly can.  I don't personally have a copy handy at the moment, but have read the script and seen it on the internet a couple of times over the years.  At some point, we just have to assume the obvious here.  The ship we see in the episode IS a recreation of a Husnock vessel, although far more powerful becuase of the Dowd.  I think changing the name of the article would settle the matter and would not led to any further debates expecially with this vote now recorded here. -FC 12:28, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Here is a schematic of the ship on the net, labeled simply as "Husnock warship" . Although not canon, it makes it clear that fans assume the ship was saw was a Husnock vessel. I also found this line in a book I have called "Star Trek: The Next Generation Writer/Director's Guide" from 1992:
 * When the Enterprise arrives in response to the Delta Rana colony's initial distress signal, Uxbridge tries to force them away by producing an image of a Husnock warship which fires on the Enterprise.
 * I think that is without a doubt a canon source and could justify a name change. -FC 12:34, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * One option is to merge the article instead with Kevin Uxbridge. As the "warship" was only a use of his personal douwd powers. Not a real ship to begin with. I don't think we have an article for every illusionary item Q has created? --Pseudohuman 16:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

But we still don't accept any of these sources "as canon". The only expection to that "ban" is to get an undisputed name from them for an otherwise unnamed article - and "Husnock warship" is neither undisputed, nor is it really a name (it's just another descriptive title). Regarding the suggestion to merge with Kevin Uxbridge instead: has this now become a discussion to do anything but keep the article where it is? What is so bad about this title that even merging with a person would be better? For the record, we don't have articles about all Q creations, but we have articles about some of them, like Force field grid. -- Cid Highwind 00:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think "Star Trek: The Next Generation Writer/Director's Guide" is a valid source for a name change. It was written by several of the Star Trek producers, including Rick Berman and even Gene Roddenberry.  In that book, this vessel is described as "an image of a Husnock warship".  Indeed "Delta Rana warship" is the title which in fact doesnt have a good source as it seems to be a name we came up with on MA.  For that reason, I highly suggest we change the name to "Husnock warship (recreation)" or "Husnock warship (Douwd image)". -FC 11:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Without wanting to sound insulting, what you "think" about some source is not really that relevant as long as it is in direct contradiction of our self-imposed rules. It is stated very clearly,, that "Production and reference materials [...] should be formatted as background information" and be excluded from "the main body of an article". As a consequence, any title claiming that this ship does, in fact and without a doubt, looks like the Husnock ship we never saw in the episode, would add speculation. -- Cid Highwind 12:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * By your own definition, the title "Delta Rana Warship" is even less canon than the ones I have suggested. This title was never mentioned anywhere in the episode, has never been mentioned in production materal, and was in fact invented by a Memory Alpha user when this article was split off from the main Husnock warship article.  The title "Delta Rana warship" is in fact totally non-canon and therefore must be changed, otherwise we are "ignoring our own rules when they become inconvenient", to quote "Measure of a Man".  My suggestions are:
 * Husnock warship (recreation)
 * Husnock warship (image)
 * Husnock warship (Douwd creation)
 * We should get other editors opinion and see what people think. So far, there have only been three of us talking about this and one was only a minor comment about merging the article which was closed in the discussion up above. -FC 20:52, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Well... as a non-native speaker, I have been told time and again that there is a meaningful difference between "Delta Rana Warship" and "Delta Rana warship" - the first is a proper noun (which would be incorrect to attribute to a ship we don't know the name of), while the second is "just" a descriptive title (which is quite correct - it's a warship, and has been observed near Delta Rana). To repeat, because repeating seems to be the way to go here: Any title containing "Husnock warship" would basically be a claim that this ship is of Husnock design, even if it has been recreated by Uxbridge. We don't know that. You're right, it would be great to see some more people involved in this discussion - at the moment, there doesn't seem to be any overwhelming need for a move. However, a simply majority opinion should not sway this discussion, either - it wouldn't make the claim described above any "more canon". -- Cid Highwind 22:58, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * If we're just going to make up names (ie "Delta Rana warship"), then it would probably be best just to merge it to something more appropriate, like Unnamed Alpha and Beta Quadrant starships (24th century) and finally end this bloody discussion once and for all. --Alan 16:46, February 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * Having read all of the above, I'm not sure this can be settled "once and for all", but I welcome the attempt. :)
 * If we want to rename it, why not rename it to Uxbridge's warship? He created it, after all.  That seems to be the only fact about it that is not in dispute.  I could live with a merge to the Unnamed starships page Alan suggests, but let's be sure we can't agree on a better name.--31dot 19:43, February 11, 2010 (UTC)