Was that ever established in the show?
Thoughts on "deep canon"
- Thread starter trekkist
- Start date
Was that ever established in the show?
The best fix for these errors in time/distance/speed that I’ve seen was put forth in 1980 or so in the first Star Trek Maps publication put out, I believe, by Bantam. There is a separate booklet in the pack titled “Guide to Navigation” that is premised on the idea that varying matter density in space has a huge impact on realized warp speeds. What are created in effect are like currents or streams in an ocean or atmosphere. It added just the touch of unknown and variability to make Star Trek more akin to the Hornblower and Aubrey “Age of Sail” tech that had inspired some of its conceptualization. I loved it and embraced it wholeheartedly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Maps
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Maps
Perhaps Scotty's Book could be scanned and uploaded as a PDF, as a great many classic fanzines have been?
Thanks for the correction, I had Vulcan on my mind. At the same time, that the Klingon homeworld is actually 100 light years away is much worse.
There is nothing in canon that supports subspace shortcuts in 2151. The Enterprise doesn’t even hit on the notion until the events of “The Tholian Web”. So the NX-01 is way faster than Voyager, and the Enterprise trumps them all covering 996 light years in 12 hours in “That Which Survives”.
I’m really not seeing a problem here (or the necessity to “fix” it with “Chi Factors” and related cruft). After all, who is to say that a clock reading aboard a starship at warp has to correspond with a clock reading on a planetary surface or space station/platform or even another FTL space vehicle? Indeed, the very existence of the “stardate” timekeeping system renders these issues essentially moot.
@Rick Sternbach actually addressed the impulse engine thing in a Facebook discussion - the impulse engines are NOT Netwonian thrusters, rather just smaller scale space/time warping devices. the "exhaust" ports we see are just for dumping heat.
On ST: VOY it was established that subspace corridors exist in the Delta Quadrant and the Vaudwaar have been using them (though it stands to reason they could exist throughout the Milky Way)... but nothing of the kind was ever established in canon of UFP being aware of or using them.
Exactly.
Impulse engines are (like Warp nacelles) field generators.
But lets' face it. It stands to reason that Discovery (for example) will do away with that concept and just make up something more primitive.
Even in the 24th century, ships have been projecting a low level subspace field around them to lower their inertial mass so they can achieve extremely high sublight speeds (in the range of half a light speed, or faster even) and its one of the reasons why large and usually 'heavy' ships are able to maneuver like extremely small and agile craft.
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aridas said:
>There is a separate booklet in the pack titled “Guide to Navigation” that is premised on the idea that varying matter density in space has a huge impact on realized warp speeds.
I'm well aware. In correspondence with Mandel, whom I'd met at a convention, I passed on an estimate of (what was later called) the Chi factor using 990.7 lightyears in 11.337 hours at Warp 8.4 ("That Which Survives") -- but citing the numbers from memory (and therefore incorrectly). This showed up uncredited in a Mandel article in the "Star Trek Poster Book," about which I complained to him, by mail. Mandel apologized, saying however that datum was only a "small part" of the article (which otherwise stated nothing new). Some time later, "Chi" appeared in the "Star Trek Maps" (this time accurately calculated), again without attribution.
Don't get me wrong...the numbers were there for the "finding" since January 24, 1969, and no doubt got cited in one or more fanzine articles by members of First Fandom. And of course, far from being accepted as canon, the Factor cubed times "X" calculation has never carried over into sequel series or films, with TNG's "newer and faster" (sic) warp scale flying in the face of the TOS E's oft-demonstrated performance.
Deks said:
>On ST: VOY it was established that subspace corridors exist in the Delta Quadrant and the Vaudwaar have been using them (though it stands to reason they could exist throughout the Milky Way)
I don't recall noticing that! Per Memory Alpha, the NX used a corridor also (which I likewise don't recall -- just goes to show how little attention / commitment to memory I've given sequel series episodes...despite having watched several more than once).
Forbin said:
>@Rick Sternbach actually addressed the impulse engine thing in a Facebook discussion - the impulse engines are NOT Netwonian thrusters, rather just smaller scale space/time warping devices. the "exhaust" ports we see are just for dumping heat.
Fascinating! I'd love to read that. Can you provide a link? Just goes to show that the "tech guys" knew far more about Trek than "canon" permitted them to publicize (or insert into sequel episodes).
"Exhaust ports" reminds me of bits of "Obsession"
CHEKOV: Open hatch on impulse engine number two. Mister Scott was doing an AID clean-up on it.
KIRK: We won't be using the impulse engines. Turn the alarm off.
CHEKOV: Five seconds to contact. All hatches and vents secure. All lights on the board show green. Sir! The number two impulse vent! we have a red light!
KIRK: (over Chekov's speech) Lieutenant Uhura, all decks (rest of speech lost under Chekov's increasing volume)
SCOTT: Captain, something's entered through the number two impulse vent.
SCOTT: When it entered impulse engine number two's vent, it attacked two crewmen. It then got into the ventilating system, and now we have air for only two hours.
(which begs the question of why and where the impulse engines' innards were open to the ship's interior--or did the vampire cloud force open an inspection hatch?)
>There is a separate booklet in the pack titled “Guide to Navigation” that is premised on the idea that varying matter density in space has a huge impact on realized warp speeds.
I'm well aware. In correspondence with Mandel, whom I'd met at a convention, I passed on an estimate of (what was later called) the Chi factor using 990.7 lightyears in 11.337 hours at Warp 8.4 ("That Which Survives") -- but citing the numbers from memory (and therefore incorrectly). This showed up uncredited in a Mandel article in the "Star Trek Poster Book," about which I complained to him, by mail. Mandel apologized, saying however that datum was only a "small part" of the article (which otherwise stated nothing new). Some time later, "Chi" appeared in the "Star Trek Maps" (this time accurately calculated), again without attribution.
Don't get me wrong...the numbers were there for the "finding" since January 24, 1969, and no doubt got cited in one or more fanzine articles by members of First Fandom. And of course, far from being accepted as canon, the Factor cubed times "X" calculation has never carried over into sequel series or films, with TNG's "newer and faster" (sic) warp scale flying in the face of the TOS E's oft-demonstrated performance.
Deks said:
>On ST: VOY it was established that subspace corridors exist in the Delta Quadrant and the Vaudwaar have been using them (though it stands to reason they could exist throughout the Milky Way)
I don't recall noticing that! Per Memory Alpha, the NX used a corridor also (which I likewise don't recall -- just goes to show how little attention / commitment to memory I've given sequel series episodes...despite having watched several more than once).
Forbin said:
>@Rick Sternbach actually addressed the impulse engine thing in a Facebook discussion - the impulse engines are NOT Netwonian thrusters, rather just smaller scale space/time warping devices. the "exhaust" ports we see are just for dumping heat.
Fascinating! I'd love to read that. Can you provide a link? Just goes to show that the "tech guys" knew far more about Trek than "canon" permitted them to publicize (or insert into sequel episodes).
"Exhaust ports" reminds me of bits of "Obsession"
CHEKOV: Open hatch on impulse engine number two. Mister Scott was doing an AID clean-up on it.
KIRK: We won't be using the impulse engines. Turn the alarm off.
CHEKOV: Five seconds to contact. All hatches and vents secure. All lights on the board show green. Sir! The number two impulse vent! we have a red light!
KIRK: (over Chekov's speech) Lieutenant Uhura, all decks (rest of speech lost under Chekov's increasing volume)
SCOTT: Captain, something's entered through the number two impulse vent.
SCOTT: When it entered impulse engine number two's vent, it attacked two crewmen. It then got into the ventilating system, and now we have air for only two hours.
(which begs the question of why and where the impulse engines' innards were open to the ship's interior--or did the vampire cloud force open an inspection hatch?)
I think there's enough hard evidence for warp factors being variable on-screen to consider the Chi factor (or whatever you want to call it) as just-waiting-to-be-canon. Not just the normal speed-of-plot issues with ships going too quickly, but there's the way that, during the slingshot maneuver, ships seem to slow down as they approach a star even as they increase to top warp speed, and the presence of full-time navigators on TOS-era ships, and the way Voyager's astrometrics lab, simply by taking more detailed readings and analysis of the galactic "terrain," could cut their travel time to Earth by something like 10%.
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The "impulse drive coils" were first described in the Star Trek: The Next Generation - Technical Manual by Rick Sternbach & Michael Okuda (Pocket, 1991), but only in reference to the NCC-1701-D and -C.
In TOS the impulse and warp engines do appear to have some Newtonian behavior though. Thrusters (or rockets) are used for accelerating and decelerating and we do get all the fun shots of the Enterprise flying in space not pointing in her flight vector. I agree that impulse/warp engines are doing some space/time warping but IMHO they magnify the effects of thrusters all while not disturbing the immediate environment (reference BOP in "The Voyage Home" under impulse and warp in Earth's atmosphere.)
F. King Daniel said
>Perhaps Scotty's Book could be scanned and uploaded as a PDF, as a great many classic fanzines have been?
That would be a long process. The manuscript -- prepared per Pocket Books' submission guidelines -- is 12 pt. type, double spaced, and about 250 pages plus 50 or so pages of footnotes. This was (and I hope always remains) the longest work ever produced on a typewriter -- a hellish instrument to compose and edit on, to the say the least (not to mention the ribbon ("ink") and "white-out" cartridges).
In addition, the style is one of which I said to a number of subsequent girlfriends, "If you suffer from insomnia, try Scotty's Book."
Hopefully, I've got better...
>Perhaps Scotty's Book could be scanned and uploaded as a PDF, as a great many classic fanzines have been?
That would be a long process. The manuscript -- prepared per Pocket Books' submission guidelines -- is 12 pt. type, double spaced, and about 250 pages plus 50 or so pages of footnotes. This was (and I hope always remains) the longest work ever produced on a typewriter -- a hellish instrument to compose and edit on, to the say the least (not to mention the ribbon ("ink") and "white-out" cartridges).
In addition, the style is one of which I said to a number of subsequent girlfriends, "If you suffer from insomnia, try Scotty's Book."
Hopefully, I've got better...
Oh lord, it would be impossible to find a Facebook post from a week ago, among the dozen Trek groups I belong to. And come to think of it, it may have been Drexler who said it (who is no less an expert on the subject, of course).
Apparently, closing the open hatch is not a simple job, hence, the hatch will be open for the encounter. There could be either another hatch to keep protect the ship's environment from space vacuum, or a deflector type force field. The later makes more sense since the cloud creature was able to bypass force fields:
Why do they need their star charts? Navigation apparently is more than "see star, fly at star". Their must be some sort of short cut or subspace corridors to drastically speed up the trip to only four days of travel.
Problem is that nothing of the kind (aka shortcut) is actually mentioned.
It was implied that the NX-01 would be able to make it to Quonos under its own power in just 4 days.
Also, they needed the vulcan star charts because they didn't know where the Klingon homeworld was (plus up until that incident they didn't even know of the Klingons)... this was Humanity's first forray into deep space and the Vulcans wanted to handle this matter but Earth didn't let them... so they made a compromise to put T'Pol on the NX-01 if they'll be having the Vulcan star charts (knowing where you're going, as opposed to flying blindly would be good).
And even if Earth may have noted the Klingon homeworld via their own technology, they wouldn't have known it was Quonos... to Earth's astronomers, it would seem like yet another planet... and at this point, their sensors weren't sophisticated enoguh to scan through dozens or hundreds of LY's.
4 days there and 4 days back was more of a mistake than a serious attempt at story telling. The NX-01 should have taken at least a year to reach Quonos at their speed.
Vulcans would have taken much less time (a few months perhaps) because they had Warp 7 ships... and could sustain Warp 6 or 6.5 indefinitely (maybe a bit more).
