V'ger/Q/Universe

[RobertScorpio]

V'ger, as I see it now, could not have come back to Earth from anywhere in our galaxy, and certainly not the Borg. Spock states, I believe, that 'whole galaxies' had been stored. It is because V'ger had traversed most of the universe that it had reached the limits of knowledge, and it had to evolve...

But into what? Into a higher being than Q or the Organians?

What do you most of you think was V'gers next step in evolution. And when compared to Q, the Organians, where does this new evolved Q rank with the rest of Trek's God like beings???

Rob

 

[GodThingFormerly]

V'ger, as I see it now, could not have come back to Earth from anywhere in our galaxy, and certainly not the Borg. Spock states, I believe, that 'whole galaxies' had been stored. It is because V'ger had traversed most of the universe that it had reached the limits of knowledge, and it had to evolve...

...and Kirk noted that Voyager 6 "must have emerged on the far side of the galaxy", which - if he knew V'ger's velocity (warp seven in the shooting script) and elapsed travel time ("over three hundred years") - would have been a rather easy determination to make even for a kindergarten student. As for the galaxies Spock saw during his EVA, they could have been remotely imaged by V'ger's sensors in much the same way human astronomers study extragalactic objects, albeit at vastly higher levels of resolution. Finally, the entity would not have needed to physically explore the totality of spacetime in that a sufficiently complete knowledge of physics, chemistry, information theory, etc. along with assumptions of homogeneity and isotropy would, one may speculate, have been enough for it to generate a relatively isomorphic internal symbolic model of the universe.

TGT

 

[Deks]

valid points ... but is it possible that V'Ger featured a drive capable of transcending Warp speeds as well ?
It had about 300 years to pull it off, and if it accumulated such knowledge in just a century, perhaps even two ... it's possible V'Ger could have used the remaining century for extra galactic travel and using it's highly advanced technology to just scan/store/whatever while on the go and not stopping (besides, even at that time, V'Ger would encounter races that had faster than Warp travel).
It would be able to accumulate detailed information about everything even at those speeds as it's tech was probably more than adequate, then it would also sort out some of the info later, and when it reached Earth, information would be transfered to it's creator.

I wonder just how advanced the Federation would become by the time TNG started had V'Ger successfully transfered it's knowledge.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

valid points ... but is it possible that V'Ger featured a drive capable of transcending Warp speeds as well ?

Aside from his speculations on the The Planet of Living Machines that were reprinted in The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and his ST:TMP novelization, Gene Roddenberry strongly objected to the introduction of "transwarp drive" in ST:TSFS ("warp drive is fast enough!") according to Susan Sackett's Inside Trek, so in matters concerning TOS, TAS and TMP I happily defer to The Great Bird's infinitely superior wisdom.

It had about 300 years to pull it off, and if it accumulated such knowledge in just a century, perhaps even two ... it's possible V'Ger could have used the remaining century for extra galactic travel and using it's highly advanced technology to just scan/store/whatever while on the go and not stopping (besides, even at that time, V'Ger would encounter races that had faster than Warp travel).

Sure, but what aspects of physical cosmology - or any other scientific discipline - could V'ger have derived exploring other galaxies in the Local Group and beyond that it couldn't traversing the Milky Way? Stars, planets, nebulae, carbon units... If you've patterned a hundred billion samples you've essentially patterned 'em all. In any event, the spacecraft would have presumably been heir to the undoubtedly staggering knowledge collected by TPoLM over how many millennia of existence which would have given it quite a head start.

TGT

 

[RobertScorpio]

V'ger, as I see it now, could not have come back to Earth from anywhere in our galaxy, and certainly not the Borg. Spock states, I believe, that 'whole galaxies' had been stored. It is because V'ger had traversed most of the universe that it had reached the limits of knowledge, and it had to evolve...

...and Kirk noted that Voyager 6 "must have emerged on the far side of the galaxy", which - if he knew V'ger's velocity (warp seven in the shooting script) and elapsed travel time ("over three hundred years") - would have been a rather easy determination to make even for a kindergarten student. As for the galaxies Spock saw during his EVA, they could have been remotely imaged by V'ger's sensors in much the same way human astronomers study extragalactic objects, albeit at vastly higher levels of resolution. Finally, the entity would not have needed to physically explore the totality of spacetime in that a sufficiently complete knowledge of physics, chemistry, information theory, etc. along with assumptions of homogeneity and isotropy would, one may speculate, have been enough for it to generate a relatively isomorphic internal symbolic model of the universe.

TGT

mmmm, maybe. But I think the message of the movie was that V'ger had 'amassed all the knowledge" of this universe and it had to evolve. I take that to mean exactly what it does. True, how does a ship that only left earth 300 years ago amass so much knowledge in such a short amount of time? I don't know.

Then again, most of what we learn isn't really concrete. Kirk is just thinking of possibilities. Its hard to say what V'ger really was. I would like to know what V'ger became though. Maybe it evolved into the highest form of life in the Trek universe..a Tribble named Zubby

Rob

 

[Sector 7]

This is an example of Star Trek at its best (and worst). When Trek is at its best... we enjoy the wonder and awe of a genuine mystery, the possible evolution of an amazing character/machine. Yet, at our worst... we become like vultures picking at the flesh of that mystery to explain every little detail to death.
In my humble opinion, extrapolating the possibilities is much more fun and rewarding than arguing minutae.
I would tend to believe that when it evolved, V'ger became something more and totally different than any other characters with which we are familiar so far.
I look forward to reading what others may believe V'ger evolved into...