Janeway and Paris evolving into salamanders (to me) makes more sense than Picard's future humans will change into "more evolved" beings who are superior to all other life and cultures.
When you all watched 'Threshold'
- Thread starter Dale Sams
- Start date
You mean the energy beings as being the end point of human evolution?
In a world that poses human society as a continuous upward climb, it's the logical terminus. Which is the premise of the television show you are choosing to watch.
I consider myself a connoisseur of trash Trek. I love "Sub Rosa", I love "Genesis", I love "Justice", I love "Night Terrors", I love "Basics", I love "The Royale", I love "Turnabout Intruder" for gods sakes. If it's so-bad-it's-good, I am THERE.
But for whatever reason, I have always been immune to whatever fun-trash charms "Threshold" possesses. Aside from the salamanders, which is memorably bonkers but only occupies like the last 3 minutes, this episode bores me to tears. Whenever I try to revisit it, it literally puts me to sleep. I just find it soooooooo dull, an absolute flatline of an hour. I don't know why, but I can never access the fun-crazy that others find in this episode.
But for whatever reason, I have always been immune to whatever fun-trash charms "Threshold" possesses. Aside from the salamanders, which is memorably bonkers but only occupies like the last 3 minutes, this episode bores me to tears. Whenever I try to revisit it, it literally puts me to sleep. I just find it soooooooo dull, an absolute flatline of an hour. I don't know why, but I can never access the fun-crazy that others find in this episode.
Nahhh. Meant Picard's "I better than others" philosophy.
Who's talking trash about that episode?! Point me at 'em—I'll learn 'em.
Seriously, one of my favorite TNG eps, such that I even used to own the official VHS release of it. *nostalgia*
"Warp Drive" was theorized by a Mexican physicist 26 years ago: "Warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre; however, subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy."
According to the theory, "movement" through space is achieved by "bending" space-time. The more powerful the bending, the "faster" the movement of the ship.
So, imagine in the episode "Warp 10" limit is a the limit of how much space-time can be bent. The shuttle somehow exceeds "warp 10" and bends space-time to saturation... and we find out that because of this, it existed everywhere in the universe at the same time. But I think the part that's overlooked is that the shuttle would have to exist not only everywhere, but everyWHEN, since space IS time. This is what I think causes Tom's accelerated evolution. He turns into a "salmander" because millions of years of evolution happens in the absence of millions of years of environmental stimulus.
The things that happen in this episode aren't arbitrary... it may be one of the most advanced episodes ever. Years ago, I read a TOS novel where some of the crew were went back to Earth during the time of dinosaurs. I really enjoyed the book, especially how scientifically accurate the descriptions of the dinosaurs were. Turns out it was co-written by a paleontologist. "Threshold" seems to me to be written by a theoretical physicist, or at least someone who does a lot of reading on the subject.
Then evolution would simply stop and not turn backwards
Mutations would still occur I think. In the absence of those 'external stimuli' though, why would any particular mutations be favoured? More explicitly, why would Janeway evolve the same way as Paris?
Random mutations would occur as they always have. Radiation is not the only (or even the predominant) reason for genetic mutations. There would be no external stimulus, so no epigenetic changes, and therefore no permanent genetic changes based on "environment". Janeway would presumably evolve (or de-evolve) the same way because her circumstances would be the same as Tom's. It's really an interesting way to go with it.
I think it was called First Frontier.
Yeah.. that's the one. Did you read it?
That's not the way evolution works. The way it works is, "use it or lose it".
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/use-it-or-lose-it/
Conversely it also works like "use it and and it becomes more specialized".
The way I interpret the episode based on what I know, because the shuttle existed everywhere in time, Paris and Janeway rapidly evolved, but in the absence of any environmental stimulus they evolved into simpler life forms. This is still forward movement.
Mole rats began living underground, they didn't stop evolving, the lack of light stimulus has rendered them blind, or nearly blind. They can only detect light or dark now. The point is, if you could accelerate human evolution over the next million years into a day or a week without a million years of stimulus, whatever came out of that would probably be worm like.
That's why I think the episode is so much more... if you dig into it.
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Yes, I liked it very much.
Back in those days, new Trek was hard to come by so I devoured the books. I remember I'd like one out of five, and love one out of twenty. Uninteresting plots or bad characterizations bothered me most of the time and a lot of the time the technobabble wasn't convincing... which I need. I remember this book as one that got the characterizations correct, and had an interesting plot. Another one, "Yesterday's Son" was quite good...
From Wikipedia: "While studying the archaeological records of the now-destroyed planet Sarpeidon, a scholar aboard the USS Enterprise finds pictures of an ice-age cave painting that depicts a Vulcan face. Spock realizes that his involvement with Zarabeth in the episode "All Our Yesterdays" resulted in the birth of a child. Along with Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy, he uses the Guardian of Forever to journey back into Sarpeidon's past and rescue his son." They miscalculate and meet Spock's son at 28 years old. This is a book that could have been considered canon, and it would have made a great movie or episode. I especially liked the fact that someone aboard the ship was a research scientist... I often wonder what the rest of the crew did all day.
I've indulged in a couple of Voyager novels, the ones I could find that took place during the show. Most of them take place after they returned and seem a little too out there for me.
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But once an organ has evolved, you can't simply get rid of it. Amphibians only make sense if they had to adapt to a swamp environment, which I guess didn't exist in the shuttle. Also why would these changes begin after their flight, and without any new generation? It just doesn't make much sense in terms of evolution.
Meh, Wesley was first:
"We're passing Warp 10"
"We're passing Warp 10"
