> I think that starship combat must be more
similar to naval than arial warfare, but the Star
Trek directors seem to continually disagree
with me on that one. Oh well.

I think it would be sort of a melding of the two,
but with more similarities to air combat. I play
(well, used to play; I hardly ever have the time
anymore) a Trek-based game called Star
Fleet Battles. If you've ever heard of the PC
game Starfleet Command, that game was
based on SFB. Anyway, the ships in SFB are
designed a lot like fighter planes in that most
of their weaponry is forward-facing and they're
designed to fight that way. Quite unlike naval
combat with the weapons facing out the sides.

The designers of the game once decided they
wanted to experiment with a traditional naval
design for a starship, and came up with a
boat-shaped ship that had the majority of it's
weaponry facing out either side. It wasn't very
popular.

In naval warfare, combat is basicly restricted
to a 2-dimensional plane, the surface of the
ocean. Submarines being an exception of
course. Combat in outer space seems like it'd
be more like aerial combat, with 3 dimensions
to move around in. However, because of the
size of the ships and the great distances
involved, a space battle would in that way
resemble naval combat. It wouldn't be quite so
fast paced.

> Oh, and were Kahn Noonien Sing and
Noonien Sung related? I think we ought to be
told.

I think the ST:TNG writers who came up with a
name for Data's creator had a brain freeze that
day. They couldn't think of any other good
Indian names, so they swiped Khan's name
and changed it a wee little bit.

Gri"it's been a long time since I've talked this
much about Star Trek"shny