TMP wormhole scene--how it should've ended.

By the way, Captrek, I neglected to mention that your avatar is mesmerizing!

 

Thanks!

 

I remember reading some fanfic back in the 1980s that tortuously interpreted the scene as "two objects traveling at exactly the same speed with exactly opposite (i.e. converging) trajectories will create a sympathetic resonance in subspace which causes a wormhole to open between them ... you can only close the wormhole by destroying one or both of the objects".

I think it made more sense back in the day. Ah, the '80s ....

 

I didn't know there was Voyager fanfic back in the 80's.

 

That's what I was thinking, but that's not what was said. We've never seen them drive out to the orbit of the furthest planet at impulse and then start the warp drive, why should this matter here. Now if he said, we have to use the warp drive before it's tuned, or some other word, but not the location, I wouldn't even mention this. It makes me wonder how fast Enterprise was going, though in that "wormhole". They seemed to be well out of the Solar System when the asteroid was destroyed. But I might be remembering that last part wrong. I have to watch it again.

 

That's how I remember it too but I don't remember the exact wording during the scene

 

I'm not so sure. The novelization (I know, not official) says that a piece of the asteroid hit the Enterprise and knocked it out of warp. Had there been no asteroid then the Enterprise would have dropped out of warp on its own.
Decker: "Negative control from inertial lag will continue 22.5 seconds before forward velocity slows to sublight speed."

 

Just checked the DE and the destruction of the asteroid and the fallout of warp are still pretty closely tied together.

 

But not instantaneous. In the original, the wormhole effect is gone when the asteroid explodes (apparently because they didn't complete an effect for the asteroid exploding inside the wormhole). In the DE, the wormhole effect continues for a couple of seconds or so.

 

I misheard deckers line as:

Belay that phaser HORS D'OEUVRE

Ok, seriously , rewatch and listen.....

 

This is followed almost immediately by the report of an object in Enterprise's path. They attempt a few things very quickly. No ability to change course, and the navigation deflector failed. Impact was at 20 seconds when Kirk orders them to fire phasers. They fire torpedo with four seconds left to impact.

 

With the audio disruptions, I can totally get that.



Arm the photon torpedo main course!

 

The novel doesn't explicitly state that the piece knocked it out of the wormhole, just that chunks of it were hitting the Enterprise as they dropped out, which fits the timing ot the "inertial lag" bit you mentioned.

 

I must have read more into it. Here is the passage that lead me to believe that:
"...Then a final huge asteroid fragment hit very hard, jarring the entire starship, as if in one last try at its destruction.

"We're out of it!" It was a relieved shout from Checkov, his words undistorted now...."

 

I always just figured the explosion from the asteroid destabilized the warp field, and the "wormhole" was a weird fluke created by untested engines.

 

Yep, thanks for pointing that out. I don't think I'd ever noticed that particular DE tweak.