You mean different ships being made with different technology having different speeds to each other?
Astronomical correctness and plot
- Thread starter Ryan8bit
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You mean different ships being made with different technology having different speeds to each other?
Alas, no. The small Goa'uld Hatak transport is notorious for starting out as really slow and short-ranged yet gaining new abilities by the episode (but we might blame this on Teal'c being ignorant or misinformed about the capabilities of the ship at first). The Prometheus also essentially gains or loses propulsive capabilities when hopping between SG-1 and SGA. And the speed of the assorted pyramid ships varies atrociously within each type, rather than between types (but we might blame this on varying states of disrepair in the ancient fleets).
I guess I could live with basically everything else here except the discrepancy of the Prometheus as originally conceived and portrayed in SG-1 and as operated for SGA...
Timo Saloniemi
I guess I could live with basically everything else here except the discrepancy of the Prometheus as originally conceived and portrayed in SG-1 and as operated for SGA...
Timo Saloniemi
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Indeed. The Klingons should never have been seen in Enterprise, AT ALL. It would be much more dramatic with later times too, if the species that landed on Earth with that information were the Tellarites, or the Andorians, or the Nausicans (who always seem to me, to live within the Federation territory/sphere of influence, if they're not actually part of it) or some other species they could play with as part of Federation's birth.
The Klingons... tseh.
Uhm, the Prometheus never went to SGA, it was destroyed before they found it. The ship that regularly goes to SGA is the Deadalus.
And yes, SG is one of the weakest, and scientifically inaccurate SF series ever.
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Mucho agreed on the second point. Not on the first, as the backstory of the TNG episode "First Contact" would require some sort of contact with Klingons during the 22nd century if not earlier.
Sorry, my bad! Goes to show my degree of involvement with SGA...
...After Star Trek?
Timo Saloniemi
3D Master
Rear Admiral
No, "First Contact" demands that the contact with the Klingons happens AFTER the Federation is formed. So late 22nd, early 23rd century. Given the amount of time given that the Federation and the Klingons were in conflict in Star Trek VI, that would make it somewhere around 2220. The two, thus line up perfectly.
It is after Star Trek, but way, way, way, way after Star Trek. Star Trek is one of the more scientifically accurate SF series.
There's nothing there in the episode to require the Federation to have been formed. Picard only says that "we" made contact - leaving open every possibility from pre-UFP humans or pre-UFP Vulcans (or other future UFP members) to various post-2161 species that eventually ended up in the UFP.
You serious?
Mucho disagreed, of course.
Timo Saloniemi
3D Master
Rear Admiral
No, he says that the contact they made let to hostilities between the Federation and Klingons, and that this disastrous contact is one of those that lead directly or lightly indirectly to the formation of the Prime Directive and Starfleet's protocols for First Contact. Hence, he's talking ALL about the Federation, and talking about the mistakes THE FEDERATION made, which produced the Prime Directive and those protocols. Hence, the FEDERATION made contact with the Klingons, nothing before its formation.
Obviously two people who do not understand the cutting edge of established science. If you really understand this, you find that Star Trek's physics, apart from Voyager's particles of the week, are very much the way the universe actually is.
Yeah, and sparrows from Andromeda use magic wands to cast spells.
Well, I'm not going to get into an argument with you, since it'll never end, but I'll post this so others can at least judge. Here's the exact quote:
Centuries ago, a disastrous first contact with the Klingon Empire led to decades of war. It was decided then that we must do surveillance before making contact. It was a controversial decision. But I believe it prevents more problems than it creates.
If you go by the Okuda school of chronology, centuries means it had to have happened in the 22nd Century or earlier.
Now, as far as who made the decision. If he had said "The Federation made the decision" it would be a clear cut case. But he just said the decision was made. It's possible the Federation inherited that decision. That's up for debate, imo.
There are always pitfalls in taking the sayings of TV characters literally. Especially so if they are in a position where they try to convince another TV character, and thus in the real life would take certain liberties with truth. And if that weren't bad enough, the character we're interested in is part of a series of shows where new writers are in the habit of throwing curve balls that almost but not quite contradict what was established earlier.
So the Klingon Empire has no Emperor. Wouldn't have guessed from pre-"Rightful Heir" evidence... But this evidence did allow for the development where there is no Emperor. Similarly, Picard's words allow for a wide range of interpretations. As always.
Narrowmindedness just doesn't pay off as regards this sort of TV entertainment.
Timo Saloniemi
So the Klingon Empire has no Emperor. Wouldn't have guessed from pre-"Rightful Heir" evidence... But this evidence did allow for the development where there is no Emperor. Similarly, Picard's words allow for a wide range of interpretations. As always.
Narrowmindedness just doesn't pay off as regards this sort of TV entertainment.
Timo Saloniemi
It's best to think of Star Trek as fantasy, not sci-fi. By the end there it was just as far-fetched as Star Wars, only with an exponential increase in babble. Never once, not once did it take the opportunity to show the universe in some sort of scale, the sense of wonder, the sheer breathtaking immenseness of it all. Instead travel was like zipping around the block, exploration was like a day trip to Bognor.
Think how big a planet is, just consider that you had to explore the Earth, the variety of people, the cultures, the histories... Daunting isn't it? Now multiply that by a few hundred, which is about how many worlds Trek took us to. It's easier when aliens are identikit. The best chance that Trek had to impress us with astronomy, with genuine sci-fi was Relics, the episode with the Dyson Sphere. I tried to get my head around the concept once, the sheer vastness of it gave me a nosebleed. But the episode. It spent more time getting Scotty drunk. In the end the Dyson Sphere was a maguffin. It could have been a planet, a space station, a Ford Fucking Focus, it would have made no difference.
I started a thread a few days ago that is rapidly dying a death, but I'll say it again here. There's this anime series called Starship Operators that's well worth watching to compare it to Trek. It isn't flawless certainly, but if they can do in 30 minute serial animation what Star Trek could never do... Seriously, I saw more realism and believability in the first episode alone than I saw in 40 years of Trek.
Think how big a planet is, just consider that you had to explore the Earth, the variety of people, the cultures, the histories... Daunting isn't it? Now multiply that by a few hundred, which is about how many worlds Trek took us to. It's easier when aliens are identikit. The best chance that Trek had to impress us with astronomy, with genuine sci-fi was Relics, the episode with the Dyson Sphere. I tried to get my head around the concept once, the sheer vastness of it gave me a nosebleed. But the episode. It spent more time getting Scotty drunk. In the end the Dyson Sphere was a maguffin. It could have been a planet, a space station, a Ford Fucking Focus, it would have made no difference.
I started a thread a few days ago that is rapidly dying a death, but I'll say it again here. There's this anime series called Starship Operators that's well worth watching to compare it to Trek. It isn't flawless certainly, but if they can do in 30 minute serial animation what Star Trek could never do... Seriously, I saw more realism and believability in the first episode alone than I saw in 40 years of Trek.
As in Wesley Crusher saying that the Klingons were part of the Federation in that S2 TNG ep.
Yeah, I don't really have too much of a problem seeing Klingons in an early time frame, but it was still a mistake to include them in the pilot and keep them so close to home. Centuries certainly implies more than one century, even if exaggeration. But the implication by Picard is that the option for surveillance was there. This can't really happen in the situation of a Klingon landing on Earth and Vulcans holding our hands. Otherwise the Klingons were a bad example for the point Picard was trying to make.
Also, does decades of war include skirmishes and cold war? It seems as though there was never quite a full scale war with the Klingons. If so, and if centuries implies at least two centuries had passed, there was probably more than simply decades of war.
It may not be hard sci-fi, but it's a lot harder than Star Wars. Star Wars gave no thought at all to the workings of its technology. It was essentially magic, though based on real sci-fi. Plus, there's the force. There isn't really anything that fantastic in Star Trek that would pull it more towards a fantasy label.
Star Trek definitely tried to at least give some credibility to its technology. While there was a fair amount of babble, there was a lot that was based on real science. Yeah, the Dyson Sphere was pretty disappointing, but that doesn't negate everything else, and certainly isn't equal to Star Wars' complete ignorance of science.
Given the ideas of inclusion of real stars and real scientific theories, I don't think it was too hard to expect them to stick within some of that instead of crazy warp 10 lizards or other far-fetched stuff. I think some writers just didn't care as much as others.
I'm sorry, the particles of the week and the swiss army deflector dish did for me. There's a difference between realism and just making shit up that sounds realistic. Ask a scientologist.
Voyager and Enterprise both made plenty of screwups regarding real stars, particles and stuff, but they tried - for the most part. I've never liked the way speed was dealt with because it was always speed of plot, which is fine for most things, but Enterprise took the cake. I just ignore it and watch for the story in those cases.
Someone in this thread compared warp travel to sea travel in a storm.
I thought about that for a moment and it works well enough.
When you are within a solar system your warp drive might have a harder time to compensate for the gravitational waves the stars and all those planets and moons cause. Sol for example has 8 Planets, I don't really know how many moons, and I can't even guess how many asteroids and comets.
So it might be a pretty rough ride to navigate through it.
Your engine will certainly lose efficiency compared to open space.
They also made a big deal out of those Vulcan star charts the humans got for letting T'Pol on board.
I believe they do not only consist of coordinates of explored stars, they also show you the freeways to get to them.
I thought about that for a moment and it works well enough.
When you are within a solar system your warp drive might have a harder time to compensate for the gravitational waves the stars and all those planets and moons cause. Sol for example has 8 Planets, I don't really know how many moons, and I can't even guess how many asteroids and comets.
So it might be a pretty rough ride to navigate through it.
Your engine will certainly lose efficiency compared to open space.
They also made a big deal out of those Vulcan star charts the humans got for letting T'Pol on board.
I believe they do not only consist of coordinates of explored stars, they also show you the freeways to get to them.
Actually, Atlantis was found long before the Prometheus was destroyed. SGA S1 takes place during SG-1 S8. The Prometheus was still around then, indeed the S8 episode Prometheus Unbound is about the Prometheus setting forth on a mission to Atlantis, but getting sidetracked along the way.
The destrouction of the Prometheus was in the SG-1 S9 episode Ethon, at this point SGA was in its second season.
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