Technology level on the Kelvin timeline

[WebLurker]

Not helpful. On the TNG scale, one thousand light years in eleven hours corresponds to a velocity 700 times faster than Voyager's maximum cruising velocity. This while apparently traveling at Warp 8.

Was the exacts of the scale from the TV show or reference material?

Again "That Which Survives."

I don't remember that one very well.

And of course there's the dreaded "Final Frontier" where they specifically refer to "the Center of the Galaxy" as their destination. And they give galactic coordinates "Zero zero zero mark two", which even the Klingons seem to know takes them directly into the great barrier.

VOY computer screens have shown that the galactic core does extend pretty far into the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.

Always a classic:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

The problem is, Voyager is quoted in "Caretaker" as having a "maximum sustainable cruising velocity" of warp 9.975. At that velocity, it would take Voyager just a little over five years to cover that distance.

Where are you getting the figures that that would translate into five years? Also, the ship did have to make detours along the way.

But suppose their engines were damaged somehow and they were only able to maintain Warp 9.8. At that velocity, it's a 15 year trip back to Earth. Still nowhere near the "seventy years" quoted in Voyager.

So how fast would Voyager have to be moving to pad out that trip? Well, when you actually calculate it on the TNG scale, a 70 year trip implies Voyager's maximum cruising velocity is actually a hair slower than Warp 8. "Maximum sustainable cruise velocity" indeed!

See above.

Well no, they did it because they couldn't get Leonard Nimoy to play Spock so they got James Doohan instead.

Actually, they wanted the entire TOS cast to come back, but only Shatner, Koenig, and Doohan were interested.

... as a post-hoc justification for something they decided to change for no reason other than the new version looked better. It remains, in any case, an inconsistency.

... is another post-hoc explanation.

Do you know the difference between "world building" and "fan theory?"

Yeah, and the franchise is filled with both.

Yes. Which is why it has been so wildly inconsistent over the years. It's not really reasonable to EXPECT it to be all that consistent, to be sure.

Except that they've done surprisingly well as that, pre-reboot. For every mistake one can pick out, there are numerous references to tie-everything together and build on it.

So you really shouldn't be trying to claim that "Part of the reason that the prime timeline works is that the world building is generally consistent." Because it isn't generally consistent, nor is that a "reason" why the prime timeline works.

See above.

The timeline works because it's a work of fiction and therefore it "works" exactly as well as the writers say it does.

If the franchise's internal world was completely mutable, it'd be more like Pinky and the Brain than anything else.

You can't "establish" source material on-screen without breaking the fourth wall. That's just not how any of that works.

I don't get it.

 

[wayoung]

Pinky and The Brain is awesome. Makes me laugh more now that I'm in my thirties than it did when I was ten.

 

[WebLurker]

Pinky and The Brain is awesome. Makes me laugh more now that I'm in my thirties than it did when I was ten.

Love the show, too, but I'm missing the connection here?

 

[wayoung]

Love the show, too, but I'm missing the connection here?

Thought you were using it as an example of a bad show. My misunderstanding.

"If the franchise's internal world was completely mutable, it'd be more like Pinky and the Brain than anything else."

 

[WebLurker]

Thought you were using it as an example of a bad show. My misunderstanding.

"If the franchise's internal world was completely mutable, it'd be more like Pinky and the Brain than anything else."

No, I love the show, the only point I was making is that the episodes don't build on each other. The characters are shown living in the modern day or in different historical periods, depending on the story. Frequently, the episodes end with stuff like Brain being dumbed down forever, or the world destroyed, and then the next episode resets everything back to normal. The only continuity is the characters, personalities, and goal.

Star Trek, while it does have the occasional continuity hiccup or retcon, was made with the intent that everything took place in the same world and timeline.

 

[wayoung]

While I agree that Trek morphed into a franchise with intent of continuity I'd dispute that it was originally made with that purpose. While I'm not sure of the source now I do recall reading that one reason behind the continuity errors in TOS was that Roddenberry viewed the series as an anthology show with the same cast. I wish I could link to it but I don't remember where I first read it, although it's mentioned fairly often online.

An idea reinforced when TMP rebooted the franchise, and then again when TWOK essentially rebooted the reboot. It was the fans that seemingly turned Trek into a continuity focused creature with their insatiable desire to study the minutiae of the franchise. Then DS9 embraced serialized arcs.

So yes, I believe later Trek was made with the intention of constant world building, subject to the requirements of the story being told.

No, I don't believe earlier Trek was made with the intention of constant world building.

 

[WebLurker]

While I agree that Trek morphed into a franchise with intent of continuity I'd dispute that it was originally made with that purpose. While I'm not sure of the source now I do recall reading that one reason behind the continuity errors in TOS was that Roddenberry viewed the series as an anthology show with the same cast. I wish I could link to it but I don't remember where I first read it, although it's mentioned fairly often online.

Interesting. I have heard that Roddenberry tended to suggest de-canonizing stuff after the fact, like TAS (I've gathered from some sources that in the end, the only stuff Roddenberry considered canon were essentially the seasons of TNG that were produced in his lifetime!). However, I recall from the Star Trek Chronology the claim that even during TOS they were keeping track of stuff and trying to be consistent.

(Also, I don't recall that many continuity errors with TOS, baring the pilots, "Early Installment Weirdness," and the occasional things with years and other numbers.)

An idea reinforced when TMP rebooted the franchise, and then again when TWOK essentially rebooted the reboot. It was the fans that seemingly turned Trek into a continuity focused creature with their insatiable desire to study the minutiae of the franchise. Then DS9 embraced serialized arcs.

I never saw the movies as rebooting the franchise, since they did present themselves as sequels to the TV shows.

So yes, I believe later Trek was made with the intention of constant world building, subject to the requirements of the story being told.

No, I don't believe earlier Trek was made with the intention of constant world building.

Well, there was that comment from the Chronology, but even if that's wrong, I think's its really amazing that the pre-Kelvin timeline franchise hangs together so well, considering how long it ran and how many different TV shows, movies, and creative teams it spanned.

 

[wayoung]

They had four different names for the organization the Enterprise crew worked for in TOS. The TOS forums are full of threads trying to reconcile stuff like that. Doesn't seem too standardized to me.

As for the movies, you can call them whatever you want (maybe soft reboot is a more accurate term) but they take place in a different time period with completely different aesthetics with the people making TWOK stating that they deliberately ignored TMP and treated it as non existent. They were soft reboots before they had the term

And after TWOK we have serialized Trek with TSFS and TVH.

 

[gerbil]

Buildinging a consistent, internalized world wasn't a goal in itself for TOS. It wasn't until the original movies and TNG that world-building really began to compound.

I take issue with some of the world-building because so much of it (like the Star Trek Chronology) is based on quick, imprecise, or throwaway lines that have been strictly interpreted.

For instance, Picard briefly mentioned first contact with the Klingons as disastrous and it was largely assumed that he was referring to a single event or initial contact. So, when Enterprise fleshed out first contact with the Klingons a lot of people cried foul. However, the ongoing series of encounters with the Klingons in ENT would generally support a badly-executed situation.

Picard's comment would be absolutely in line with what someone today might say about European contact with Native Americans without separating Columbus's encounters into four separate voyages or including the exploits of Cortez and the Jamestown colony.

World building is hard if fans are going to be too pedantic about it. But what's a Star Trek fan if not pedantic? (I say as a joking compliment after writing this long, pedantic rant.)

 

[fireproof78]

They had four different names for the organization the Enterprise crew worked for in TOS. The TOS forums are full of threads trying to reconcile stuff like that. Doesn't seem too standardized to me.

As for the movies, you can call them whatever you want (maybe soft reboot is a more accurate term) but they take place in a different time period with completely different aesthetics with the people making TWOK stating that they deliberately ignored TMP and treated it as non existent. They were soft reboots before they had the term

And after TWOK we have serialized Trek with TSFS and TVH.

TWOK especially so. Kirk goes almost a similar arc to TMP, albeit a more thematic one with a more iconic villain. Obviously, not every person will agree with the changes, and development of the world, including Gene Roddenberry himself. Similarly, with TNG, not every person who liked TOS or even the films was on board with the show.

Soft reboots offer the opportunity to garner new audiences but don't always focus on the continuity.

 

[WebLurker]

They had four different names for the organization the Enterprise crew worked for in TOS. The TOS forums are full of threads trying to reconcile stuff like that. Doesn't seem too standardized to me.

True (although UESPA was incorporated into other shows as Easter eggs, so we do know that it existed). I will concede that there are some changed premises, eps. since this was the very first show and they were still figuring out what Star Trek was. I've got copies of the Nitpicker's Guide series by Phil Farrand that point out various mistakes in the episodes, so I am well aware that the series are not without flaws. Even so, I do think that TOS did hang together pretty well.

As for the movies, you can call them whatever you want (maybe soft reboot is a more accurate term) but they take place in a different time period with completely different aesthetics with the people making TWOK stating that they deliberately ignored TMP and treated it as non existent. They were soft reboots before they had the term

And after TWOK we have serialized Trek with TSFS and TVH.

Interesting, esp. since TWOK seems to builds on Kirk becoming a admiral, as established in TMP. I guess since a soft reboot is still in canon with its predecessors, I don't exactly see why that separates the movies from the shows?

 

[fireproof78]

True (although UESPA was incorporated into other shows as Easter eggs, so we do know that it existed). I will concede that there are some changed premises, eps. since this was the very first show and they were still figuring out what Star Trek was. I've got copies of the Nitpicker's Guide series by Phil Farrand that point out various mistakes in the episodes, so I am well aware that the series are not without flaws. Even so, I do think that TOS did hang together pretty well.




Interesting, esp. since TWOK seems to builds on Kirk becoming a admiral, as established in TMP. I guess since a soft reboot is still in canon with its predecessors, I don't exactly see why that separates the movies from the shows?

Kirk's arc in TMP and TWOK are almost identical, without any indication that he had grown between the films. He's still an admiral, Bones is still chewing on him to get back his command. The only difference is Kirk isn't borderlining on being a complete and utter jerk to the actual captain.

Honestly, I think TMP tries too hard to paint Kirk as out of touch, which is one of the places that the films and TOS diverge. Kirk is always on the edge, wanting to learn, wanting to explore, etc.

 

[WebLurker]

Kirk's arc in TMP and TWOK are almost identical, without any indication that he had grown between the films. He's still an admiral, Bones is still chewing on him to get back his command. The only difference is Kirk isn't borderlining on being a complete and utter jerk to the actual captain.

Kirk had a story arc in the first one? I though Spock was the only one with an arc.

(Also, Kirk seems a lot more tired in TWOK. In the first movie, he seems to be jumping at the chance to command a ship and a mission again and liking that very much. In the second one, he seems to think that those days are behind him returns to the center chair reluctantly, at least initially.)

Honestly, I think TMP tries too hard to paint Kirk as out of touch, which is one of the places that the films and TOS diverge. Kirk is always on the edge, wanting to learn, wanting to explore, etc.

Hmm, could be.

 

[drt]

I think TWOK would have looked a lot "rebootier" if Meyer had carte blanche and wasn't forced to use bunch of stock footage, old models and sets due to budgetary reasons. As a thought exercise I sometimes wonder how Royal Navy in Space he would have gone with a blank check.

 

[fireproof78]

Kirk had a story arc in the first one? I though Spock was the only one with an arc.

(Also, Kirk seems a lot more tired in TWOK. In the first movie, he seems to be jumping at the chance to command a ship and a mission again and liking that very much. In the second one, he seems to think that those days are behind him returns to the center chair reluctantly, at least initially.)

Kirk is reluctant in TWOK because he doesn't want to step on Spock's toes. In TMP, he is more than happy to shove his weight around and be BMOC with Decker and eager to "get back his command." Over time, he gets some measure of humility and respects Decker's opinion.

It might be a bit simple and understated, but it is there.

 

[WebLurker]

Kirk is reluctant in TWOK because he doesn't want to step on Spock's toes.

I was thinking of the apartment scene and his comments about going around the galaxy being for the young.

In TMP, he is more than happy to shove his weight around and be BMOC with Decker and eager to "get back his command." Over time, he gets some measure of humility and respects Decker's opinion.

It might be a bit simple and understated, but it is there.

Maybe?

 

[fireproof78]

I haven't watched the film in years so I might be misremembering, though I'm pretty sure I'm right. Might be better for this to go in the sub-forum just upstairs of this one

 

[WebLurker]

I haven't watched the film in years so I might be misremembering, though I'm pretty sure I'm right. Might be better for this to go in the sub-forum just upstairs of this one

Okay.

I could be wrong, too, since I only saw the movie once.

 

[Deks]

The technology level of the Kelvin timeline?
I'd say its pretty much comparable to the main timeline.

Just because we were shown more things in a visual manner, doesn't mean that the original timeline had less advanced capabilities.

In reality, what we were shown was just a tip of the iceberg for 23rd century Federation.
The 24th century should have been far more hyper advanced in comparison (original timeline).

Warp drive however may be a lot faster (though to be honest, I never bought into the slow Warp drive in the first place, as it doesn't track for a collection of civilizations as big as the Federation and highly advanced technology), along with a different ship/station design.
Some differences are bound to happen due to that temporal incursion that destroyed the Kelvin.
However, we have seen that the Kelvin timeline IS following the original timeline in a different fashion.
So, regardless if there was an incursion, events will probably unfold with a bit of a similarity, and some other things could happen faster than in the original timeline.

Though to be honest, I find the distinct lack of shield effects to be utterly dumb. Sure, the swarm in the latest movie was impervious to the E shields because Krall got into Yorktown databse and subsequently into Enterprise systems too... but to NOT see shield effects as at least resonating and allowing the swarm to get through was a letdown.
You'd think that with all the budget they poured into SFX, they'd show the shields.

Did anyone else think that Yorktown internal design (structures, etc.) resembled a lot Tomorrowland movie?

At any rate... the Kelvin Timeline does have access to TW beaming among other things, and Starfleet might have poured more resources into improving their overall technology after the Kelvin incident and being exposed to what its weapons did.

There's no reason to think the 23rd century prime timeline never had a Yorktown starbase like the one in the Kelvin timeline for instance.
It would simply be behind the scenes.
We have seen the mushroom starbase after all in orbit of Earth in the 23rd century... and it was rather huge back then.

The Yorktown would not be beyond their capabilities at all.
Who the heck needs replicators anyway?
Just use massive automated 3d printing technologies and create 1/8th of the station and then just reproduce it... can easily be done within a month like that (depending on how much automation you throw at the task).
Heck, with tractor beams and transporters, the computer could easily beam massive chunks of the thing into specific location and moved all of it autonomously without any human/humanoid interaction (which is slow and inefficient).

Seriously, I don't think the shows (and most movies) really touched upon on just how far advanced the Federation is in the 23rd century... and the 24th (as shown in the shows looked like the 23rd with better designs and minor improvements, whereas they should have been A LOT more advanced).

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Was the exacts of the scale from the TV show or reference material?

That's the exact velocity the TOS Enterprise would have had to be traveling to get the arrival time Spock calculated in "That Which Survives" compared to the velocity Voyager should have been able to reach -- based on the TNG warp scale quoted in the writer's guide -- as quoted in "Caretaker."

Basically: Warp speeds in the Kelvin universe are COMPLETELY consistent with their depiction in TOS. That they are inconsistent with TNG+ should bother exactly no one since TOS made no effort to be consistent with them either.

I don't remember that one very well.

Which is why I have REPEATEDLY quoted the relevant dialog in my responses.

VOY computer screens have shown that the galactic core does extend pretty far into the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.

Which changes very little; Sagitarius-A, sight of a supermassive black hole that is arguably at the "center of the galaxy" is 28,000 light years from Earth. The core region is about 15000 light years across, so you could "enter" the core after about 20,000 light years. At the the Warp 8 displayed in "That Which Survives" the Enterprise would have been able to make that trip in about 10 days. If you went by the TNG scale, on the other hand, the same journey at warp 8 would have taken about 19 years. This just to get to the EDGE of the galactic core; it's still another 8,000ly to the center of it.

Where are you getting the figures that that would translate into five years?

The TNG+ warp scale from the writer's guide.

Not that they ever followed it consistently. See comparisons:

The most glaring example is in "the 37s" where the ship's speed at warp 9.9 is quoted in dialog as "four billion miles per second." Even at THAT velocity, the trip back to Earth would only take three and a half years.

Also, the ship did have to make detours along the way.

Which, if getting home wasn't that big a priority for them, would make plenty of sense. "Well, we could get home in about three years, but nobody's ever been this far, and it's not like we've got families at home that miss us, so let's go ahead and take the scenic route!"

Yeah, and the franchise is filled with both.

No. The franchise is filled with world building, most of which is inconsistent.

Fan theories are part of fandom. They are no more "part of the franchise" than the ideas on this discussion board. We fill in the blanks when the writers leave things open because that's just how we are, we like neat and tidy and consistent explanations that the show does not really provide. But do not pretend the show is of superior quality because WE care enough to gives those explanations, and CERTAINLY do not pretend that later productions are inferior because YOU don't care to do it anymore.

Better to just admit you don't like change and avoid trying to justify something that was never justifiable in the 50 previous years of the show's existence. That solves that problem nicely.

If the franchise's internal world was completely mutable, it'd be more like Pinky and the Brain than anything else.

It IS completely mutable, being a TV show and all. The writers can choose to completely ignore whole swaths of established canon and create totally new concepts and tell the entire fanbase where they can shove it if they disagree. They COULD have done that with the Kelvin universe films, but they decided to be nice and throw us all the "parallel universe" bone so we could go on pretending they were all tied together somehow because that's really important to a lot of people for some reason.

The Star Wars production team, as an example, went the other way; after 30 years of considering the Expanded Universe novels and materials canon, they did a 180 and basically decided none of the novels counted anymore, retconned them all out of existence and created totally new stories and totally new characters from the production team, many of them based on the prequels that most people hated. It was a giant "fuck you" to the fans of the EU in favor of attracting fresh new audiences from the literally MILLIONS of kids who had grown up watching the prequels, the Clone Wars and Rebels TV series and who were as familiar with Mace Windu and Ahsoka Tahno as they were with Luke and Leia. IOW they made a decision to kick their existing fan base in the balls as a concession to a new generation that would find the EU series exceedingly difficult to penetrate. And it worked, because for all their butthurt the existing fan base went just as crazy for the new stuff as their kids did, and were perfectly happy to see some of the EU characters brought into the new canon in various forms.

I don't get it.

"Source material" is what a story concept is based on. That never gets "established" anywhere, it's implied in the title and the set/character design. The only way to "establish" that on screen would be to have one of the characters actually address the fact that he IS a character in a TV show and mention of what TV show he is specifically in.