Secret Wormhole Near Earth?

[Albertese]

I suppose there must have been an unstable wormhole with an anchorpoint near Star Trek's Earth in, at least, the early 2000s. Evidence:

1) "Space Seed" [TOS] Where a sub-light sleeper ship leaves Earth in (what we would later learn was) 1996, and arrives at Ceti Alpha a mere few centuries later. If Ceti Alpha is equal to real life star Alpha Ceti (and why not?) then that's a stunning 250-ish lightyears. The ship looks battered and burnt but is mostly intact and operational when discovered.

2) "The Changling" [TOS] The Nomad space probe, launched from Earth in the early 21st Century, is later encountered in an altered form a very far (though unspecified) distance from Earth after just about two and half centuries. (Though I will admit, this one is not super solid evidence for a wormhole, as perhaps the Tan Ru probe happened to be passing near Earth when they collided. Who's to say?) While the probe in its final form looks clean as a whistle, it has clearly been highly remodeled from what came from Earth, so any evidence of the violence of its passage through the Secret Wormhole had been repaired and cleaned away. (Presuming it ever did pass though it.)

3) Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Where we learn that NASA launched a sixth Voyager probe in the late 20th Century (1999 conjecturally assigned in the Okudachon). It travels from Earth to a "Machine Planet" presumably beyond the scope of 23rd Century exploration. Interestingly, Decker claims that the probe was lost to "what they used to call a black hole" which suggests that the probe's fate was known, or at least had a good theory that was supported by consensus. One wonders what a black hole was doing in the vicinity of the Solar System. (I will get back to this...) When we see the probe itself at the brain complex of V'Ger, the old Earth probe is burnt and battered but mostly intact and operational.

4) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Pioneer 10 is shot down as "space garbage" by a bored Klingon ship captain pining for chance to test his mettle. When we first see it on screen it is accompanied by "radio noise" one might expect from movie logic to suggest that it is still transmitting, and, once more, it is burnt and battered. We don't know for sure where in all of space Klaa's ship is just then, but at the real life Pioneer 10's pace, we would expect to find it mere hundreds of AU from Earth by the 2280s. We can be pretty sure Klaa is not right in Earth's own backyard when he starts to get news of the goings-on on Nimbus III.

5) "The Neutral Zone" [TNG]. A cryosatellite (labeled the S.S. Birdseye according to backstage info in the Okudachron) from the 1990's is discovered near the border with Romulan space in 2364. Again, a very far distance for an errant satellite to drift in just a few centuries. This too shows signs of scorching, but at least some of the on board systems have been in continuous operation.

6?) I'm sure I have overlooked some other possible support for this idea, especially from the other three series which I am less familiar with than TOS and TNG. Please point out any examples I may have overlooked.

So, my Secret Wornhole theory:

I posit that an unstable wormhole had one of its ends in the vicinity of Earth at least in the 2000s or so. I don't know for how long, perhaps other inexplicably far out Earth debris with earlier or later departure times would suggest a wider period. But during this time, the S.S. Botany Bay, its contemporary cryosatellite, the S.S. Birdseye, Pioneer 10, Voyager VI, and whatever other flotsam I forgot about, were caught in the Secret Wormhole and ejected to various points at the other end, who's position likely was jumping around the galaxy, willy-nilly. Passage through this wormhole is particularly violent, causing burn damage and scorching all over the object's surface, but causes mostly superficial damage, often leaving on-board equipment mostly operational.

Now there could be other explanations for these object's positions. Perhaps alien teenagers, having stolen their father's spaceship, found Pioneer 10 drifting in the Kuiper Belt, nabbed it, lit firecrackers on it while hauling ass towards Klingon space and then dumped it out the airlock before they got caught with it. Who knows?

However, Decker does tell us that Voyager Vi was mysteriously lost in [what was presumed to be] some sort of transient black hole. Perhaps to the astronomers of early 21st Century Earth, the properties of the Secret Wormhole looked like what they thought maybe a black hole might be like, if it were small enough and mobile and moving through the Solar System. Perhaps this phenomenon was sighted briefly and studied for a short time before it ended up vanishing as mysteriously as it had appeared. (really, more mysteriously as the scientists would have assumed they simply hadn't noticed it before but it had always been around, and then wonder how it could just vanish.) Perhaps by the 23rd Century, this Secret Wormhole is not so secret anymore and the old readings made by the astronomers of the 21st Century, who thought they were observing a weird moving micro-black-hole have been reinterpreted as actually a wormhole and not a black hole at all; this being why Decker qualifies it by saying they "used to call" it a black hole. After all, the term "black hole" in its conventional sense is still in use in Star Trek's future, so what he was describing could be someting once grouped in with that term, but no longer was by his time.

Thoughts?

--Alex

 

[Avro Arrow]

This could also explain how the Valiant got to the "edge" of the galaxy so quickly with first-generation warp drive. (Friendship-1 also seemed to travel farther than one would expect, but Starfleet apparently tracked that probe until the mid-23rd century, so ??)

Contact with the sub-light Charybdis was lost when its telemetry failed. Maybe this is why it failed? We don't really know if the telemetry failure was due to the alien infection, or if that happened much later.

Hmm... Scotty said the warp engine imbalance caused the wormhole in TMP. But is he correct? Maybe the imbalance just knocked them into an existing wormhole? And then the torpedo explosion knocked them back out?

Although note that the orbit of the Nexus takes it really close to Earth, and there's also the graviton ellipse that absconded with Ares IV. It seems the Sol system is no stranger to space weirdness.

(And I suspect the "real" reason for some of your examples is just that some of the writers don't have a good grasp on the enormity of space...)

 

[Timo]

Most of the instances where Earth spacecraft are found far away from Earth are not treated as evidence of mysterious intervention by our expert heroes. So the likelier explanation by far ought to be that those spacecraft had the necessary propulsive capabilities built in.

1) Nothing about a DY-500 or even a DY-100 being that far out really surprises our heroes. The surprise comes from the ship still being there, despite the type(s) having been retired and this area of space having been abandoned. Apparently, there would have been no surprise at all if such an encounter happened a century or two earlier!

2) NOMAD was to use its advanced AI to do SET/CETI. It must have possessed considerable speed in order to reach any regions of interest before its launching organization gets disbanded and forgotten! Or indeed before its launching intelligence goes extinct.

(An obvious corollary of both 1 and 2 is that good propulsion was already available in the 1990s at the very latest, meaning the Trek versions of Voyager or Pioneer probes might have benefited from it, or earlier and almost as good versions of it, already.)

6) There are plenty of spacecraft portrayed that could have the ability to get across hundreds of lightyears in hundreds of years. If you get from Earth to Mars in a week, and can implicitly get back, too, you're already pretty well equipped to keep going and reach distant stars. And we do know that in only fifty years more, Earth ships will get warp engines and galactic reach; gradual improvement rather than a single leap would allow for plenty of Earth hardware far away from Earth earlier on.

However, Decker does tell us that Voyager Vi was mysteriously lost in [what was presumed to be] some sort of transient black hole.

...When he blames "what they used to call a black hole", he may mean either "what we now call a wormhole" "what they mistook for a black hole, while it actually was a wormhole". There's a not-so-subtle distinction there, and both interpretations are semantically possible.

Sol is teeming with alien visitors and strange phenomena in the 20th century, so blaming a known quantity for an abduction or a disappearance is statistically likely to be a miss. OTOH, visiting black holes are considered a matter of routine in DS9 "Past Tense", and they do have exotic properties in Trek. Visiting wormholes, not so much.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Most of the instances where Earth spacecraft are found far away from Earth are not treated as evidence of mysterious intervention by our expert heroes...

Probably because they don't need any evidence. I'd bet that the unstable wormhole that swallowed up all of these things was eventually identified by scientists. Charybdis, Valiant, Voyager and others may already be known in historical records as having been swallowed up by "what they used to call a black hole" but nobody having any idea where they ended up or even if they ended up anywhere at all.

A good example of this is the dialog around the discovery of Amelia Earheart:

PARIS: Why didn't they think she'd just crashed?
JANEWAY: That was the most commonly held theory. However, numerous searches of the area failed to produce the wreckage of an aircraft, so people began to speculate. Some thought she'd been shot down and captured by the Japanese Navy. Others thought that she and Noonan had flown off together on some sort of romantic adventure. Of course, the most ridiculed notion was that she had been abducted by aliens.

Earheart's disappearances is described as a "mystery" and so the speculation about her disappearance makes interesting historical footnotes. There apparently wasn't much mystery surrounding the disappearance of those other objects; Decker knew EXACTLY what had happened to Voyager VI and Kirk had reason to believe it "emerged" somewhere so they probably knew something about the black hole that swallowed it too (namely, that 23rd century science would properly describe it as something else... a wormhole, for example). They also didn't seem totally surprised to discover that the identity of the ship that "Beat" them to the edge of the galaxy was the Valiant; hearing the name, Kirk's internal thought was probably "So THAT'S where Valiant ended up..."

Finding these old relics floating in space would be like finding the Titanic or the Bismark. Or for that matter, even USS Pegasus. That is to say that people know, more or less, how they got lost but nobody really knows what happened to them AFTER that. The actual loss event -- a "black hole" at the edge of the solar system that comes and goes apparently at random -- isn't all that interesting, in fact by the 23rd century they've probably charted it and added its fluctuations to the local space weather reports.

Sol is teeming with alien visitors and strange phenomena in the 20th century, so blaming a known quantity for an abduction or a disappearance is statistically likely to be a miss. OTOH, visiting black holes are considered a matter of routine in DS9 "Past Tense", and they do have exotic properties in Trek. Visiting wormholes, not so much.

That's why I don't think it's a "visiting" thing. More likely it's a navigational hazard pretty well charted in the 23rd century, but generally avoided because two thirds of the crap that goes in there gets crushed out of existence and the rest gets scattered randomly all over the universe. Those same characteristics made the Barzan Wormhole completely useless; if anything, the wormhole near Sol is even MORE erratic.

And don't even try to play the "if there was a wormhole near Sol, somebody would have mentioned it" card. Remember that there was a wormhole near BAJOR for tens of thousands of years and nobody knew about it until Sisko and Dax blundered into it (and then only because they knew exactly where to look). The Cardassians, who occupied Bajor for 50 years, never detected it, and Starfleet never noticed it either when they moved into the system. It's likely that a quasi-stable wormhole-like object exists near the edge of Sol, but is only accessible at certain (hard to predict) times, at which point it may suddenly appear -- and MASSIVELY so, swallowing up every object within a few hundred light seconds before contracting again.

The Trans Neptunium Vortex Anomaly probably hasn't gotten much overt mention in Star Trek, but considering how little time Our Heroes spend in Sol, AND considering nobody in Star Trek seems to be aware of the existence of weather, traffic or fecal matter, such trivialities never have a chance to get into dialog.

 

[Timo]

Probably because they don't need any evidence. I'd bet that the unstable wormhole that swallowed up all of these things was eventually identified by scientists.

Or then it was acknowledged that any one of a dozen known and no doubt five dozen unknown phenomena could have dunnit, and that's that, no specific identification required.

However, if this really were the accepted explanation for some of the cases of Earth junk being found far away, it would be irrational for any such occurrence to cause any sort of wonder at any time. And we know it doesn't work that way: the Valiant ending up at the edge of the galaxy is still a miracle, something Kirk deems "impossible" as a thing. The Charybdis is found where she shouldn't have been, and Picard is adamant that no Earth ship from the era could be that far out. Both men should be confined to Elba II if a wormhole at Sol really were known to exist in the manner you suggest.

Finding these old relics floating in space would be like finding the Titanic or the Bismark.

Except the locations of those wrecks were known pretty much exactly. What our heroes experience is more like finding the SS Cotopaxi, if not quite in the middle of the Gobi desert, then at some ocean where she had no business being.

And don't even try to play the "if there was a wormhole near Sol, somebody would have mentioned it" card.

Why not? The Klingon Empire, the UFP arch-nemesis, was never mentioned before it was, but that was excusable because there were no plots involving arch-nemeses before the mention. Every "mystery" described here is a plot requiring the mentioning of the putative wormhole. If your argument is that the Earth wormhole is known, then it also must be acknowledged as known by the heroes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

It could also explain how the NX-01 got from Earth to Qo'noS so quickly as well, given they never reached warp five in "Broken Bow".

 

[Ronald Held]

Special unworn warp corridor between Earth and Qo'nos?

 

[Kor]

Nobody ever mentioned the possibility that Starfleet is secretly controlled by cuddly, fifty-foot-tall, invisible unicorns with a Utopian agenda, either.

So it must be true.

Kor

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Or then it was acknowledged that any one of a dozen known and no doubt five dozen unknown phenomena could have dunnit, and that's that, no specific identification required.

However, if this really were the accepted explanation for some of the cases of Earth junk being found far away, it would be irrational for any such occurrence to cause any sort of wonder at any time. And we know it doesn't work that way: the Valiant ending up at the edge of the galaxy is still a miracle, something Kirk deems "impossible" as a thing. The Charybdis is found where she shouldn't have been, and Picard is adamant that no Earth ship from the era could be that far out. Both men should be confined to Elba II if a wormhole at Sol really were known to exist in the manner you suggest.

EVERYTHING is considered to be impossible until you discover the mitigating circumstances that make it possible. Picard, for example, doesn't have encyclopedic memory of every Earth ship that disappeared or what their speculated fates might have been. The caveat "Unless it fell into the Trans Neptunian Vortex and somehow managed to not get vaporized..." is one of those one in a million scenarios that turned out to be exactly the case.

Kirk, meanwhile, ceases to question the Valiant's presence as soon as he discovers the origin of the recorder marker. "Did another ship venture out of the galaxy as we are about to do?" Turns out the answer is no: Valiant GOT LOST and wound up there by accident. Not so impossible after all.

The pickup truck at the beginning of the 37s begs the question "How did it get all the way out here?" Tuvok's immediate reply: "There are no signs of any wormholes or temporal anomalies in this region of space." That tells us something very important: he doesn't know how it got HERE, but there are lots of ways it could have left Earth.

If your argument is that the Earth wormhole is known, then it also must be acknowledged as known by the heroes.

It was. See "Voyager VI." Decker is effectively saying that something that "they used to call a black hole" exists within easy sublight travel of Earth. At this point, that unstable wormhole aperture that comes and goes in hard-to-predict seasonal cycles is just one of a thousand celestial bodies in the solar system that nobody ever mentions because it's boring.

And never mentioned again after that because -- like Praxis, Transwarp drive, the Genesis Device, anything having to do with the Andorians and whatever happened to Saavik after Voyage Home -- the rest of the story is boring.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Nobody ever mentioned the possibility that Starfleet is secretly controlled by cuddly, fifty-foot-tall, invisible unicorns with a Utopian agenda, either.

Gene Roddenberry did, but nobody listened to him.

 

[Timo]

EVERYTHING is considered to be impossible until you discover the mitigating circumstances that make it possible.

Explanations can come in two categories only. If there is no limitation on how far this putative wormhole at Sol can propel primitive Earth vessels, then every example of amazement at distant Earth vessels is idiotic. If there exist known limitations, then these should be brought up whenever the wormhole is dismissed as a possible explanation.

"The 37s" is a wonderful example of the latter model, which really ought to apply to Trek - the heroes from ENT on know the universe is full of wonders, and they should have a pretty good (even if completely false) idea of what miracles these wonders make possible and what remain impossible. "Where No Man" would be a horrid example if theories fostered at that time already covered long distance wormholing. We can argue they do not do that in the 2260s quite yet, but then how come Kirk and Decker in ST:TMP already unhesitatingly accept the idea of black hole jaunting that takes Voyager probes to the edge of the universe?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Explanations can come in two categories only. If there is no limitation on how far this putative wormhole at Sol can propel primitive Earth vessels, then every example of amazement at distant Earth vessels is idiotic.

Yes, it really is. Over one hundred years after finding the Valiant at the edge of the galaxy, after Nomad's evil cousin came gunning for the Federation, after Voyager VI came home with terrible daddy issues, Jean Luc Picard still finds it hard to believe that an American spacecraft could have ended up so far out of Sol on its own. It's one thing to assume that maybe he's only heard about such things in history books he barely remembers... but Picard has been in Starfleet for over 30 years, much of which was spent in command of Stargazer before he was ever considered for command of the Enterprise. How is it even POSSIBLE for him to have never seen something like this before?

And it gets worse. In "The Dauphin" when Anya transforms into a monster and tries to kill one of his sick crew-members, their best guess at her true origin is something called an "allasomorph," and the only one who remembers that is Doctor Pulaski (and also Wesley for some reason). This, one hundred years after Garth of Izar, after the Kelvans, after Martia and Odo and god knows what else, we are expected to believe that Worf AND Picard are unaware of the existence of "shapeshifter" as a category of life form. A similar thing happens in "Imaginary friend" where Troi apparently senses that Clara is utterly terrified of her creepy "imaginary" friend but doesn't suspect she isn't really imaginary until the little bitch zaps her with a lightning bolt.

There are a number of instances of simple genre-blindness on the part of the TNG crew, things thy SHOULD have heard of before -- or even encountered on previous assignments -- but are somehow hearing about it for the very first time. When the crew get attacked by flesh-eating shapeshifters, incorporeal energy beings, homicidal frycooks from the 5th dimension and intergalactic sperm whales, every member of the crew seems to be seeing it for the first time; their incredulity is quite difficult to explain under the circumstances.

"The 37s" is a wonderful example of the latter model, which really ought to apply to Trek - the heroes from ENT on know the universe is full of wonders, and they should have a pretty good (even if completely false) idea of what miracles these wonders make possible and what remain impossible. "Where No Man" would be a horrid example if theories fostered at that time already covered long distance wormholing. We can argue they do not do that in the 2260s quite yet, but then how come Kirk and Decker in ST:TMP already unhesitatingly accept the idea of black hole jaunting that takes Voyager probes to the edge of the universe?

Better question: Why does ANYTHING that happened in "Time's Square" seem even slightly unusual to anyone? Starfleet has known about time travel for two hundred years now; Picard's very first thought should have been "I'll bet that's me from a couple of days in the future."

 

[Timo]

Riker and Picard do discuss time travel as if it were a pretty routine occurrence. The only one confused by how this could be possible is, you guessed it, Worf - Starfleet does need its cabbageheads, but there seems to be a quota at least, and Worf is it for the E-D.

What throws off our heroes is that immediately after recovering the shuttle, they learn that the second Picard is not just unconscious but out of phase. Now those are atypical occurrences, not something the heroes should immediately recognize.

I'm not so sure about the allasomorph thing, either. Again, Worf is ignorant, but Picard just says he hasn't seen a creature like that personally. Most people in Starfleet probably haven't. That Pulaski chooses one particular type of shapeshifter over others just goes to show she knows her stuff - it's no different from her saying "he's got Vegan itchytomitis, and at a remarkably early age for the disease at that" rather than "umm, he's sick".

But "Where Silence Has Lease" is inexcusable - a repeat of "Immunity Syndrome" not only doesn't ring any bells, but is declared unique by the ship's trivia master Data. And then there are all those cases where "natural phenomenon at warp" is unheard of, really narrowing down Starfleet's definition of "natural phenomenon"!

Timo Saloniemi