The Earth Space Dock that was built on that style was destroyed (canonically) by the Breen during their attack on the Federation about 30 years before 2409, if my information is correct. The ESD design that was in place at game launch was the replacement. Having Q arbitrarily change it is sort of....god from the machine, honestly. I know Q meddles, but that's sort of implausible, IMHO...anyway, what's done is done, and I'll just go to Deep Space 9 for the most part.

I don't remember seeing this from a movie or show. I know the breen bombarded starfleet HQ, but I don't remember hearing anything about ESD

Where did you get your information from? I'M asking because I've never heard that the old ESD was destroyed by the Breen.

I think its more of an assumption, lets face it ESD would be part of the command and control and the defence of Earth so it would be expected to be hit during an attack.

Lets ask the writers of DS9 for that episode what happened to ESD

even if the ESD was destroyed, with the level of technology and amount of resources the UFP has, It wouldn't take that long to rebuild another one from scratch. I've always kind of thought of the ESD being almost a standard kind of a spacedock for a lot of major federation worlds. That kind of thinking for me kinda came from playing that old ST Bridge Commander game way back in the day since it expressed that kind of thinking ingame.

Ah but the Q that changed ESD just now isn't the Q you came to know in the TV series Maybe Q's son meddles more (and got away with it this time).

Yep, you gotta love Q. I bet the writers for TNG, Voyager, DS9, etc loved that character too. That way if something happens in the script that doesn't fit the cannon, you can always blame it on Q.

Me, I'll just act like it's always been this way. I read through the entire Path to 2409 and STO's companion novel, and I can't recall (though it's always possible I surpressed it) reading about Spacedock being destroyed at any point.

* Anxiously awaits the first Spacedock sliding door blooper reel *

Not to be a complete pedant (he says before doing just that...), but the Anniversary Update version of ESD would just about have to be a "new" one instead of the one seen in ST II through VI. That spacedock had doors that were only just a little wider than Constitution and Excelsior class ships. This new ESD is much larger - it has room to hold a Galaxy class starship in one bay and has doors large enough for such a ship to enter and exit. In the TNG episode "11001001" Enterprise-D enters just such a spacedock (Starbase 74). It looked identical to the "movies" spacedock for real-world budget reasons. It was just 'scaled-up' so the show's brand new Enterprise-D could fit

As for the changes having been caused by Q... meh. I can take or leave the in-game reason for the change. I'd much rather believe that Earth, circa 2409, is orbited by several such facilities; ranging from the classic 'movies' Spacedock (which could still be there) to this new one to the game's original design version. There's room in Earth orbit for several docks and bases to be there without any crowding.

I've purposely avoided any mention of how many meters or kilometers one facility is over another. I used to get very anal retentive (or as I prefer to call it, detail-oriented) about such things, but I'm older, wiser, and now just sit back and enjoy the ride.

And what a ride! I think the Anniversary Update version of ESD is striking. The exterior evokes all those images from the movies and TNG. The changes to the existing interiors were nice, but the biggest improvement to the spacedock interior is Starship Requisitions. I was a very pleased player when I saw that Galaxy class ship outside those windows. I have no idea how the STO artists managed such a feat of forced perspective to make it look like full scale Galaxy and Excelsior class ships were parked just outside those windows. Frankly, I don't want to know so I don't spoil the illusion. However, if it isn't a trick of forced perspective I want a mission where the player character has to fly through the dockyard interior in either a thruster suit or workbee!

If this game runs for years and years (and I hope it does) I can certainly see a future update where docking will include choices on how you dock your ship and enter a starbase (beam in, shuttle, or airlock) depending on how fast you want to jump to the interior (beam in for fast game play, the others for a more dramatic RPG experience). The player could exit through an airlock, walk down a boarding ramp and look out to see his/er ship. Like this. http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/...atte-painting/

I'd also like to see more revamps to the interior, breaking up the different base functions to specialized environments (instead of one relatively small ring), and making the interiors look even more like a Star Trek spacedock, just like they did with Starship Requisitions. But I'm realistic; those ideas can be for the 10th Anniversary update!