The biggest flaw

[XKin]

Have you ever noticed that when two ships meet in space they are never upside down to each other or that when they meet each other they are face to face.

I mean, space is 3d. What's the chance they would meet each other on the same x-axis and not upside down to each other.

 

[Forbin]

Easy - everybody orients their ships to the galactic ecliptic. Since the galaxy itself only has one "up," then "up" is therefore the same for everybody.

 

[trash80]

Maybe it's considered bad form to not be the "same way up" as the ship you are in front of, a kind of intergalactic spaceship etiquette.

 

[T'Cal]

Reasonable. However, there is an up and a down in our galaxy due to its disc shape. If the Milkyway was a sphere instead, orientation might be more of a problem. That, along with the other reasons, make this hardly an issue at all.

 

[JustAFriend]

I don't have much problem with the orientation - a show should be based on the STORY first.

....but I do have a problem with all of the battle from TNG on being waged at distances that a 1600's pirate ship could manage with gunpowder cannons.

Giving a starship weapons that can vaporized entire planets and then having everyone slug it out at 200meters is just STUPID....

 

[Dayton3]

I don't have much problem with the orientation - a show should be based on the STORY first.

....but I do have a problem with all of the battle from TNG on being waged at distances that a 1600's pirate ship could manage with gunpowder cannons.

Giving a starship weapons that can vaporized entire planets and then having everyone slug it out at 200meters is just STUPID....

I don't like that either. Lack of imagination if you ask me.

But there are a couple of theories:

1) 24th century shields are so strong that only point blank shots have a chance of penetrating them.

2) Ships manuevering at sublight speeds can obtain speeds several thousand miles per second. So only weapons fire from close in has a chance of being accurate.

 

[Frodo Lives]

All this talk about the galaxy having an 'up' and 'down' is a little strange, and seems to be based on the classic Earth-centric North and South directions, which would have no bearing on alien species.

What we consider up could just as easily be considered down to them.

How do we tell the difference between the 'top' of the galaxy and the 'bottom'? Is the 'bottom' the crummy part?

Still, I wouldn't say it's the biggest flaw in Star Trek, just a dramatic conceit like sound in space.

 

[C.E. Evans]

All this talk about the galaxy having an 'up' and 'down' is a little strange, and seems to be based on the classic Earth-centric North and South directions, which would have no bearing on alien species.

What we consider up could just as easily be considered down to them.

How do we tell the difference between the 'top' of the galaxy and the 'bottom'? Is the 'bottom' the crummy part?

That's actually quite easy. All star charts are arbitrarily determined by whoever makes them, so they can divide up the Galaxy in whatever manner they wish. That's true for the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans, etc. They probably all have their different star charts which places their individual homeworlds at almost the center of everything with totally different names and galactic coordinates. The Federation system of dividing up the Galaxy into quadrants and sectors is just an agreed upon system by its founders, but they basically just made it up because, well, who else was going to?

 

[Nebusj]

All this talk about the galaxy having an 'up' and 'down' is a little strange, and seems to be based on the classic Earth-centric North and South directions, which would have no bearing on alien species.

Well, on that, and on this little trait where the galaxy is about 100,000 light-years in two of its dimensions, and about 10,000 in the third dimension -- and, not coincidentally, it's that dimension which forms the axis around which the whole galaxy rotates. Any species which has the ability to recognize that there is a galaxy is going to be able to spot this preferred direction.

What we consider up could just as easily be considered down to them.

How do we tell the difference between the 'top' of the galaxy and the 'bottom'? Is the 'bottom' the crummy part?

Still, I wouldn't say it's the biggest flaw in Star Trek, just a dramatic conceit like sound in space.

Well, the galaxy's dimensions and rotation select the axis (for that matter, in most star systems the planets or sun would select a local axis for rotation, and I'd bet that those local considerations would prevail over the galaxy's structure); the right-hand rule selects a direction. That's a convention, yes, but it amounts to little more than common traffic rules, and is a lot less challenging than supposing that everyone has compatible video systems.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Occasionally, such as "Timescape' and many episodes of ENT, they see a ship that is located on a different plane. In these situations, there is some dialog about orienting the ship correctly to be in correct orientation that we know.

 

[FalTorPan]

Have you ever noticed that when two ships meet in space they are never upside down to each other or that when they meet each other they are face to face.

I mean, space is 3d. What's the chance they would meet each other on the same x-axis and not upside down to each other.

An excellent question for which there's really no satisfying answer.

Reasonable. However, there is an up and a down in our galaxy due to its disc shape. If the Milkyway was a sphere instead, orientation might be more of a problem. That, along with the other reasons, make this hardly an issue at all.

Although the galaxy's shape and rotational axis might very well suggest a natural orientation for a rectangular, cylindrical or spherical coordinate system for the purpose of interstellar navigation, the galaxy's shape does not necessarily suggest a natural "upness" or "downness" for a spacecraft traveling within it.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Occasionally, such as "Timescape' and many episodes of ENT, they see a ship that is located on a different plane. In these situations, there is some dialog about orienting the ship correctly to be in correct orientation that we know.

Perhaps "plot an intercept course" is shorthand for that.

 

[Rico]

I wish they would mix it up a bit sometime. New Voyages has done that a bit.

 

[Forbin]

All this talk about the galaxy having an 'up' and 'down' is a little strange, and seems to be based on the classic Earth-centric North and South directions, which would have no bearing on alien species.

What we consider up could just as easily be considered down to them.

How do we tell the difference between the 'top' of the galaxy and the 'bottom'? Is the 'bottom' the crummy part?

Although the galaxy's shape and rotational axis might very well suggest a natural orientation for a rectangular, cylindrical or spherical coordinate system for the purpose of interstellar navigation, the galaxy's shape does not necessarily suggest a natural "upness" or "downness" for a spacecraft traveling within it.

But if you have an established navigational system based on the galaxy's obvious disk shape, which one might assume most starfaring peoples would, the ship will always be oriented to that system. It could be like an inertial nav system in a plane, set at takeoff with the starting coordinates and attitude, which the ship will remember and maintain orientation to. Or, like in the established case of starfleet, there could be a subspace nav buoy system continually feeding coordinates to the ship, by which it maintains its reference to galactic "up."

Only if some other folks' star system was 180° inverted from ours would they view our galactic "up" as their "down." And I suppose that's certainly possible.

 

[Ghel]

Well, maybe we've always been looking at the Enterprise upside down!!! Instead of the bridge and saucer section on TOP of the ship, they are really on the BOTTOM. WOAH!!!!

. . .No I'm not serious.

 

[Shieldsdown]

The views of ships firing at sailing-ship ranges is just dramatic license for the television viewer. Note how tactical or whoever calls out ranges like 400,000 kilometers and closing, or 4000 kilometers, or whatever, never 3 kilometers!!
The makers quite rightly beleive the viewers would have a less interesting televisual experience of a battle if all shots were beyond visual range. Just think of it as the viewer magnifying the image, and exterior views showing a foreshortened view of what is actually happening at long range

Regards

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Klingon Weapons Officer:
"Commander, the Enterprise is attacking us from below. What do we do? What do we do?!"

Klingon Commander:
"There's nothing we can do. We can't keep up with these dishonorable maneuvers."

 

[Hofner]

Considering the Solar system is tilted about 60 degrees off of the galactic plane, I'm seeing every ship shifting orientation 60 degrees whenever entering or exiting the Solar system.

Robert

 

[FalTorPan]

All this talk about the galaxy having an 'up' and 'down' is a little strange, and seems to be based on the classic Earth-centric North and South directions, which would have no bearing on alien species.

What we consider up could just as easily be considered down to them.

How do we tell the difference between the 'top' of the galaxy and the 'bottom'? Is the 'bottom' the crummy part?

Although the galaxy's shape and rotational axis might very well suggest a natural orientation for a rectangular, cylindrical or spherical coordinate system for the purpose of interstellar navigation, the galaxy's shape does not necessarily suggest a natural "upness" or "downness" for a spacecraft traveling within it.

But if you have an established navigational system based on the galaxy's obvious disk shape, which one might assume most starfaring peoples would, the ship will always be oriented to that system. It could be like an inertial nav system in a plane, set at takeoff with the starting coordinates and attitude, which the ship will remember and maintain orientation to. Or, like in the established case of starfleet, there could be a subspace nav buoy system continually feeding coordinates to the ship, by which it maintains its reference to galactic "up."

Only if some other folks' star system was 180° inverted from ours would they view our galactic "up" as their "down." And I suppose that's certainly possible.

There's a difference between knowing the orientation of a spacecraft with respect to the galaxy's "disk" and maintaining the spacecraft's orientation such that it matches that of the galactic disk. Why bother keeping the ship oriented based on that useless standard? The orientation of your ship relative to that of the galactic disk means nothing when you're traveling from star to star, or within a star system.

 

[S'kai]

Obviously, there are no British races in the galaxy. They would insist that everyone else is driving upside down.