Dyson Sphere

So where did all those people go to? I mean it could hold a ton of people so surely someone knew about this thing. Also what do you think will become of it? Oh and I did read the sequel book and that explanation and what happened was stupid so I don't go with that answer.

PS: This is also the episode where I wanted to punch Geordi in the face for being an a** to Scotty.

[Finn]

^first of all, Scotty was being an ass. Scotty would have done the same to Trip if he showed up on the original E in the same manner during a similar crisis.

As for the questions, who knows. They said something about the radiation from the sun. The people who built it may have left a long time ago...eons ago

How was Scotty being an a** he was just a bit out of his time and behind on current engineering techniques and Geordi just had zero patience with him at all. I am a bit biased since Scotty is so awesome and yet Geordi is such a terrible engineer the Enterprise has a warp core problem everytime the wind blows.

And I get that everyone left, I was watching this earlier. I was just wondering if anyone wanted to speculate who they were and where they went? Was it from some ancient civilization, like the ones who seeded the galaxy, or something else? I just find it amazing that this giant structure goes unnoticed for such a long time and it is clearly within Federation borders for at least 80 years.

[R. Star]

Well, I could see it being undetected rather easily. There's no star for them to navigate to, so it would show up on long range sensors as just a random area between systems. So unless they're close enough to notice the gravity change, it's conceivable it would go unnoticed if it wasn't near any traditional routes.

[Finn]

SimpleLogic wrote:

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How was Scotty being an a** he was just a bit out of his time and behind on current engineering techniques and Geordi just had zero patience with him at all. I am a bit biased since Scotty is so awesome and yet Geordi is such a terrible engineer the Enterprise has a warp core problem everytime the wind blows.

Geordi was very patient at first.

Scotty got into things (he took apart panels and took out equipment parts), kept people from doing their jobs, snapped at people, got himself drunk and sat in a holographic simulator of the TOS Enterprise bridge. Being out of time and unfamiliar with 24th Century technology wouldn't excuse all that.

As a Starfleet Captain 80 years out of his time, he should have known better than fiddling with equipment in main engineering. He wouldn't have tolerated Trip fiddling around if he suddenly appeared during TOS' run either.

[Timo]

It takes quite a bit of ingenuity and resources to construct a Dyson sphere. One might argue that a civilization (or individual?) capable of pulling that off would be close to divinity already, and would be likely to undergo one of those Star Trek things, "ascend to a higher level" and become noncorporeal, soon after completing the feat.

That is, possibly the sphere wasn't abandoned because it had to, but because it no longer was interesting enough. And possibly the inhabitants never actually went anywhere, but rather decided to become something else and more interesting.

This might even have happened fairly recently, because otherwise somebody like the Feds would have stumbled on the monstrosity and colonized parts of it. Perhaps the instability of the star was not the cause of an exodus, but rather its consequence? Perhaps the star was damaged in the process where the inhabitants "ascended" - or perhaps after the ascension, squatters set in and had a few wars, in which the star was a casualty?

One possibility to consider is that the inner surface of the sphere is actually teeming with life, including intelligent species and cultures. Our heroes had little time to study it, after all, and their ship was supposedly damaged by the forced entry. In other episodes, it has been difficult to properly identify life on even a single planetary surface; here our heroes would be tasked with studying two hundred and fifty million!

It might take thousands of years to discover even an industrialized culture with the resources of just one starship. And some cultures might decide they don't want to be found too easily; even primitive measures such as placing key industries underground would make the job hellishly difficult for our heroes.

The episode doesn't do a very good job at driving home the implications. Essentially, here in a single structure there exists a universe significantly larger than the entire Federation, or all the known Star Trek empires put together for that matter. There may be untold secrets there, enough work for a fleet of starships for centuries, and quite possibly the potential for dramatic developments that alter the history of the galaxy, or indeed its very physical structure. So agreed that the novel on the subject is best forgotten, and a dozen spinoff shows would be a better follow-on...

Timo Saloniemi

[MacLeod]

Finn wrote:

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Geordi was very patient at first.

Scotty got into things (he took apart panels and took out equipment parts), kept people from doing their jobs, snapped at people, got himself drunk and sat in a holographic simulator of the TOS Enterprise bridge. Being out of time and unfamiliar with 24th Century technology wouldn't excuse all that.

As a Starfleet Captain 80 years out of his time, he should have known better than fiddling with equipment in main engineering. He wouldn't have tolerated Trip fiddling around if he suddenly appeared during TOS' run either.

Scotty = Captain, LaForge = Lt. Cmdr. So at the very least LaForge should have treated Scotty with the respect his rank deserved.

"Captain Scott, I personally would love to be able to bring you upto speed on the latest technological advances. However I have an important assignment to complete so I'll assign one of my assitants Chief's to show you around."

Would have solved the problem, or he could have delegated the assignment to one of his assistants.

[horatio83]

SimpleLogic wrote:

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So where did all those people go to? I mean it could hold a ton of people so surely someone knew about this thing. Also what do you think will become of it? Oh and I did read the sequel book and that explanation and what happened was stupid so I don't go with that answer.

PS: This is also the episode where I wanted to punch Geordi in the face for being an a** to Scotty.

Where is the mystery? They went away because the machine lost its usefulness.

DATA: The sphere appears to be abandoned. Sensors show that the star is extremely unstable. It is experiencing severe bursts of radiation and matter expulsions.

[Trekker4747]

SimpleLogic wrote:

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How was Scotty being an a** he was just a bit out of his time and behind on current engineering techniques and Geordi just had zero patience with him at all. I am a bit biased since Scotty is so awesome and yet Geordi is such a terrible engineer the Enterprise has a warp core problem everytime the wind blows.

Imagine you're sitting at your job and one day in walks a guy who has been in a coma for 70 years, this guy happened to have the same job then that you do now.

He's interested in learning all of the changes that have been made in the intervening time but right now you're neck-deep in important work, but more than willing to talk with this guy once it's all done.

So you're sitting in your office, directing your staff and doing your job when in marches this old guy proclaiming that he's here to help! Now, earlier, this guy had pulled a panel of a piece of machinery and almost killed himself by touching an unfamiliar piece of technology, after-all, when this guy went under computers ran on vacuum tubes and thick wires. We have micro circuitry and transistors now.

So you graciously offer, again, to show him around when things have calmed down but this older man insists he can help. You figure, fine, he can watch over my shoulder as we do things.

You go back to trying to do your job and this guy goes to a computer and starts dicking around with settings and setting off an alarm. He begins to question your competency by saying that the settings in the computer aren't where they should be. They are. They're EXACTLY where they're supposed to be. He comes from a time when they'd be wrong, sure, but now. They're fine. He tries to change them and sets off an alarm. You walk over, stopping your work, and fix the problem and correct this older man and go back to your project.

You and your crew are buzzing around trying to do their work and finish a due project and this older man is talking, loudly, about past stories and experiences. He goes over to another piece of machinery, opens a panel, and again questions your skills and competency at doing your job.

You storm over, close the machinery, and re-assure this man that things are different now. The machine now pretty much corrects the problem all on its own without your intervention.

You go back to your work.

Out of the side of your eye you see this man coming over to you with a bit of a smug grim on him, he stoops down a bit and then begins to offer advice on how to do your job better. He makes humorous points, but you're busy. He asks how long you have to finish the project, you tell him how long you told your boss to do the job. The older man asks how long it'd really take. You tell him that you did not lie to your superior.

He again questions your competency and suggests you should lie to your superior in order to be regarded as a "miracle worker." This is the breaking point for you.

That Engineering scene was all about how much of pest Scotty was being. We're supposed to sympathize with him but everything he does causes a problem for Geordi is evidence of just how useless Scotty is in this new environment.

When first meeting Scotty Geordi lauds the older man for his experiences and ingenuity to survive on the Jenolan. In sickbay, Geordi expresses genuine desire to show Scotty around the ship and explain new things to him. Right now, he's just busy! And Scotty was literally in the way of things in Engineering as everything has changed about the operations of a ship in the intervening time. He's of very little use to you right now.

In that scene who really comes across as the ass? Geordi tries to be polite and diplomatic towards Scotty but he reaches his breaking point and finally tells Scotty the truth. He's in the way. He's not wrong. Geordi doesn't have the time to finish his report, direct his staff, do the normal operations of the department AND to explain to Scotty why there's no longer wires and printed circuit boards behind every panel now.

[Finn]

MacLeod wrote:

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Scotty = Captain, LaForge = Lt. Cmdr. So at the very least LaForge should have treated Scotty with the respect his rank deserved.

"Captain Scott, I personally would love to be able to bring you upto speed on the latest technological advances. However I have an important assignment to complete so I'll assign one of my assitants Chief's to show you around."

Would have solved the problem, or he could have delegated the assignment to one of his assistants.

No. Scotty was technically not his superior and not on active duty. Besides, Scotty started going through things and doing changes BEFORE talking to Geordi.

[Forbin]

Didn't someone once say that by the time a civilization develops the ability to build a Dyson sphere, they'll be so advanced that they won't need to?

[Ghrakh]

Sorry, but I'm sick of the Geordi bashing/Scotty adulation that always comes up when this episode is mentioned.

MacLeod wrote:

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Scotty = Captain, LaForge = Lt. Cmdr.

Well:

memory-alpha wrote:

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Captain Picard greets Scott in sickbay and is surprised that he was on board the Jenolan, as the engineer wasn't listed in the crew manifest. However, Scott explains that he was traveling aboard the Jenolan as a passenger to the Norpin colony on Norpin V to enjoy his retirement.

MacLeod wrote:

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So at the very least LaForge should have treated Scotty with the respect his rank deserved.

Even though he was busy, Geordi let Scotty stay in engineering which is a restricted area, after one of his staff was about to show him the exit. That's not respectful?

____

As far as how 250 million planets worth of people just up and moved, that's a mystery indeed. That's like billions of really large transports, but if that port the Enterprise went through is typical, the transports couldn't have been that big.

[R. Star]

Just because the sphere had the CAPACITY to hold that many doesn't mean there were that many.

[Trekker4747]

You know, being such an advanced enough civilization as to be able to build the Dyson Sphere, an enormous structure. Enough to the point there were very noticeable continents, lakes, oceans, rivers and such on the inside if it. Yet, they failed to put into the project a means to protect inhabitants from solar radiation?

[T'Girl]

The species that build the sphere needed the extra radiation to survive.

And doesn't the Enteprise usually scan for lifeforms (lovely little lifeforms) from orbit, a distance to the ground of only a few thousand kilometres? Some areas of the Dyson sphere's interior surface would have been some three hundred million kilometres away, and blocked by the star.

Ghrakh wrote:

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... but if that port the Enterprise went through is typical, the transports couldn't have been that big.

The transports (if any) could have docked on the outside of the sphere, the crash site of the Jenolan on the outer surface did show nearby structures.

So there were "buildings" on the outside.