Delta Vega

[F. King Daniel]

Re: So what are you reading now? (Part 3)

From the movie:

KELVIN OFFICER: Could this be Klingon?
STARBASE: Negative, lieutenant. You're 75000 kilometers from the Klingon border.

In the early version of the script the stated distance is from the border of the KNZ, not the border of Klingon territory. In other words they're in Federation space.

Where's this info about "the early version of the script" from? Is it available somewhere?

 

[Set Harth]

Even if Spock came out a short distance away (in stellar terms), they'd be able to detect the chronitons and get there in time to meet him.

But that's not how it happens in the film. They reach the coordinates and then Spock's "lightning storm" is almost immediately right there in front of them. This shows that the coordinates are spatial as well as temporal.

Early versions of the script have absolutely zero relevance to what actually happened on screen.

Really? Because...

Of course they're in Federation space. Why wouldn't they be?

As far as the film is concerned:

KELVIN OFFICER: Could this be Klingon?
STARBASE: Negative, lieutenant. You're 75000 kilometers from the Klingon border.

I don't hear the latter part of that line, as written above, in the film. The line is drowned out by others at that point. So it appears that they are, in fact, still in Federation space in the film. Why wouldn't they be?

Where's this info about "the early version of the script" from? Is it available somewhere?

IMSDB.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I don't think there was such a thing as the Klingon Neutral Zone in TOS - there was the Organian Peace Treaty (which isn't in place yet) but there was never any mention of a formal neutral zone until it was brought up in TWoK (i.e. after the Treaty). Plus 75,000km is a stone's spit in stellar terms (our own solar system is well over 5 million km). Even at impulse you'd be back on home turf in a heartbeat. It's odd that they discount the possibility of a Klingon ship when they are literally on the Klingon doorstep. I suppose 75,000km sounded a lot to the writer.

Well, "... klingon border" is not intelligible in that line, so without a direct source from the SCRIPT, I think the line works just as easily as "You're seventy five thousand kilometers from our security perimeter, no Klingon ship could have gotten this close."

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I think we might be talking at cross purposes. Temporal co-ordinates are a moment in time not a different location in space. They'd be in the same location that the Narada came out roughly.

That, in space, is gibberish; same coordinates with respect to what? The center of the galaxy? The nearest solar system? Nero's mother? Even if this is trivially the same position, EVERYTHING ELSE is still in motion with respect to that same spot, so Nero would still have to figure out where the wormhole would reappear 25 years later.

The suspicious lack of a giant star in the background suggests something of this nature. Even if it's the same coordinates, it's not the same neighborhood.

 

[Pauln6]

Even if Spock came out a short distance away (in stellar terms), they'd be able to detect the chronitons and get there in time to meet him.

But that's not how it happens in the film. They reach the coordinates and then Spock's "lightning storm" is almost immediately right there in front of them. This shows that the coordinates are spatial as well as temporal.

Newtype_alpha has a good point too, I was forgetting that space is moving - although in 25 years I don't expect that anything moved that much in stellar terms. I wasn't suggesting that Spock would come out in the exact same co-ordinates, simply that he'd be pretty close in stellar terms. It's true that Nero might need to work out where stellar drift might move the exit co-ordinates but that would simply require a mathematical equation.

I'm not sure how Nero could determine where Spock would exit otherwise. An analysis of chronitons could tell them when (one assumes) becase they were travelling within a wormhole that was travelling through time but how could they tell where? While we know that it is possible to predict the exit of a moving wormhole if you study it for patterns, Nero has no such pattern to work from.

The most sensible explanation is that it was roughly the same co-ordinates subject to stellar drift and they could work out when from studying the chroniton readings while it the wormhole.

 

[Set Harth]

Nero has no such pattern to work from.

Other than his own trajectory.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'm not sure how Nero could determine where Spock would exit otherwise.

I'm sure Nero said the same thing when he first pondered this question, especially since at the time he didn't even know when or where Spock would/had/might exit from anything at all. It probably took him some time to figure out exactly what had happened to begin with, and to go over his sensor logs to try and understand HOW it happened.

But think of this: Nero had 25 years to wander the galaxy looking for answers. Chronologically speaking, that's the equivalent of every episode of Star Trek from TOS through Voyager, COMBINED. Despite these separate series being separated by time and space, they add up to ALOT of established precedent, alot of stumbling onto spatial distortions, alot of random encounters with godlike semi-omnipotent beings, alot of sporadic participation in wars/conflicts/diasporas and encounters with colorful individuals who know a thing or two about this or that.

Also think back and remember that Jonathan Archer managed to hunt down and unravel the Xindi/Sphere Builder conspiracy in less than a year, and he was only up against the combined might have an entire civilization AND a region dominated by bizzare unpredictable spatial distortions caused by a race of time-traveling lizards. Nero didn't even have it that bad (in fact, even if you include the deleted scenes, they can be fudged enough to imply that Nero had--relatively recently--intentionally gotten himself arrested so he could get information from a prisoner at Rura Penthe who had the information he needed).

 

[Pauln6]

I'm not sure how Nero could determine where Spock would exit otherwise.

I'm sure Nero said the same thing when he first pondered this question, especially since at the time he didn't even know when or where Spock would/had/might exit from anything at all. It probably took him some time to figure out exactly what had happened to begin with, and to go over his sensor logs to try and understand HOW it happened.

But think of this: Nero had 25 years to wander the galaxy looking for answers. Chronologically speaking, that's the equivalent of every episode of Star Trek from TOS through Voyager, COMBINED. Despite these separate series being separated by time and space, they add up to ALOT of established precedent, alot of stumbling onto spatial distortions, alot of random encounters with godlike semi-omnipotent beings, alot of sporadic participation in wars/conflicts/diasporas and encounters with colorful individuals who know a thing or two about this or that.

Also think back and remember that Jonathan Archer managed to hunt down and unravel the Xindi/Sphere Builder conspiracy in less than a year, and he was only up against the combined might have an entire civilization AND a region dominated by bizzare unpredictable spatial distortions caused by a race of time-traveling lizards. Nero didn't even have it that bad (in fact, even if you include the deleted scenes, they can be fudged enough to imply that Nero had--relatively recently--intentionally gotten himself arrested so he could get information from a prisoner at Rura Penthe who had the information he needed).

Wow - I can see a spin off series to fill in the blanks: Star Trek: Narada.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Where's this info about "the early version of the script" from? Is it available somewhere?

IMSDB.

Wow, thanks .

Wow - I can see a spin off series to fill in the blanks: Star Trek: Narada.

They did a comic series called Star Trek Nero. It totally lost the plot about the time Nero merged with V'Ger...

 

[Timo]

Delta Vega is obviously supposed to be a completely different location

A minor nuance here, but perhaps relevant to the thread's premise...

"Delta Vega" is rather unlikely to be the name of a location.

After all, there's no constellation Vega in existence in the real world, and we have no direct evidence that there would be "additional", fictional constellations in existence in the Trek universe, either. So Delta Vega cannot be the fourth-brightest star in the nonexistent Vega constellation, nor the only planet circling that nonexistent star in that nonexistent constellation. And elsewhere in Trek it is unheard of that "Delta" would denote something like the fourth planet of the star "Vega" (which does exist) - planets get Roman numbers, not Greek letters. Add to this that the Delta Vega in TOS was supposed to be at the fringes of the galaxy, while the real Vega sits right next to Earth...

Now, the TOS episode says this about Delta Vega:

Spock: "There's a planet a few light days away from here. Delta Vega. It has a lithium cracking station."

So the name of the planet is Delta Vega, rather unambiguously. But given the above argument, it's likely to be a proper name, not a systematic one - that is, unrelated to the star Vega, beyond the way USS Vega or Chevrolet Vega relates to the star, and unrelated to the location of the planet.

The planet in TOS has only a single attribute attractive to the UFP or mankind: it's rich in minerals. There are no inhabitants, but there's a UFP mining presence there. We know of another place exactly like that: Dytallix B of TNG "Conspiracy" fame. And we also happen to know that this place got its name from the Dytallix company that owned/operated the apparently automated mine. It's not a giant leap from there to saying that Delta Vega follows the same pattern of naming: it's the fourth planet belonging to a commercial or government interest named Vega.

From there it would seem to more or less logically follow that the TOS universe contains places called Alpha Vega, Beta Vega and Gamma Vega, too, and perhaps more. Perhaps in STXIverse, Beta and Delta simply swapped names? The place Scotty and his little helper supervised did appear quite automated yet also extensive and vaguely industrial, in TOS Delta Vega style, even if it was only generically referred to as a "Starfleet outpost" by the lifepod's computer.

As said, just a nuance. But it stands to reason that a place named "Delta Vega" would be differently positioned in slightly different timelines, as the name would be randomly rather than systematically assigned.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

But it stands to reason that a place named "Delta Vega" would be differently positioned in slightly different timelines, as the name would be randomly rather than systematically assigned.

Good point. It may be that the original Delta Vega wasn't discovered or was discovered later in this timeline because of changes in exploration patterns caused by the destruction of the Kelvin.

It is odd though. The planet (or more likely moon orbiting T'Khut) is right next door to Vulcan but has no Vulcan personnel and no decent equipment. Why is the outpost even there?

 

[3D Master]

But it stands to reason that a place named "Delta Vega" would be differently positioned in slightly different timelines, as the name would be randomly rather than systematically assigned.

Good point. It may be that the original Delta Vega wasn't discovered or was discovered later in this timeline because of changes in exploration patterns caused by the destruction of the Kelvin.

Except for that annoying problem that JJ's Delta Vega is right next to Vulcan in the Vulcan system so Spock could see Vulcan go suck; thus, Delta Vega must have been known for two millennia by the Vulcans, and for two centuries before the Kelvin was even built by the humans. In an altered timeline by the destruction of the Kelvin, JJ's Delta Vega would still be Delta Vega and the original Delta Vega would not have been.

It's just bad writing.

It is odd though. The planet (or more likely moon orbiting T'Khut) is right next door to Vulcan but has no Vulcan personnel and no decent equipment. Why is the outpost even there?

Except for the FTL sensors; it's the only FTL sensors in existence in this timeline it seems. Even the super mining ship from a century into a future has no such sensors. A future I might add, that if it were truly the timeline we've been following for the past 40 years, where FTL sensors are everywhere, even on civilian ships.

 

[Pauln6]

But it stands to reason that a place named "Delta Vega" would be differently positioned in slightly different timelines, as the name would be randomly rather than systematically assigned.

Good point. It may be that the original Delta Vega wasn't discovered or was discovered later in this timeline because of changes in exploration patterns caused by the destruction of the Kelvin.

Except for that annoying problem that JJ's Delta Vega is right next to Vulcan in the Vulcan system so Spock could see Vulcan go suck; thus, Delta Vega must have been known for two millennia by the Vulcans, and for two centuries before the Kelvin was even built by the humans. In an altered timeline by the destruction of the Kelvin, JJ's Delta Vega would still be Delta Vega and the original Delta Vega would not have been.

It's just bad writing.

It is odd though. The planet (or more likely moon orbiting T'Khut) is right next door to Vulcan but has no Vulcan personnel and no decent equipment. Why is the outpost even there?

Except for the FTL sensors; it's the only FTL sensors in existence in this timeline it seems. Even the super mining ship from a century into a future has no such sensors. A future I might add, that if it were truly the timeline we've been following for the past 40 years, where FTL sensors are everywhere, even on civilian ships.

I've been banging on about the illogic of the situation in the more recent posts of the maxumim speed of the NuEntererptise thread i.e. if Scotty had sensors and a long range transmitter (which in my view he must have in order to transmit a matter stream across billions of km) why was he oblivious to the action taking place around Vulcan AND Kirk's life pod beacon, and why didn't he send a report to Starfleet as soon as Nero left orbit? Or more to the point, why Kirk, who has more knowledge of what is going on, didn't send messages to both Earth AND the fleet.

 

[Timo]

The point in my interpretation, though, would be that the name "Delta Vega" would have been assigned to this outpost world relatively recently from Kirk's point of view - both in STXI and in "Where No Man". At the same time, the names Alpha Vega, Beta Vega and so forth would also have been assigned to other such automated-supervised mining outposts. And in one universe, the assignment went one way, while in another it went the other way. Might have hinged on what the bureaucrat ate for breakfast, for all we know. So, no problems with the "planet must have been known for ages" aspect.

I'm not personally fond of the idea that STXI's Delta Vega was anywhere near Vulcan. Spock's "witnessing" of the planet's destruction would probably have been telepathic and across great ranges, as obviously nobody else on that planet (read: Scotty and his pal, supposed nontelepaths both) witnessed it. Spock spoke of ongoing repairs on the ship's warp drive before ejecting Kirk to Delta Vega, but the ship could still very well have done some interstellar warping before the ejection.

I'm very fond of the idea that T'Khut would be to Vulcan what Remus is to Romulus, though: an occasional consort, causing a degree of tidal havoc whenever the orbits of the two planets brush on each other. In a setup like that, connections-cutting "strange seismic activity" on Vulcan would obviously not be interpreted as an attack at first...

Lack of FTL sensors? Where'dya get that? Nero had no trouble tracking Spock through his warp "escape" at the end of the movie, nor did our heroes appear to have trouble tracking the Narada during her attack run on Earth and subsequent chase of Spock. So ship-tracking FTL sensorage was there all right.

Sensors telling exactly what happens in the next star system over? Trek never really had that. Nobody could tell at an (admittedly supposedly considerable) distance whether L-374 or Ceti Alpha were missing planets or not. In shorter-range cases, starships had to take a look to verify the loss of life in Gamma VII or the like. If something was jamming subspace communications, Earth probably wouldn't get realtime data on Vulcan - and probably wouldn't use "offensive-malevolent jamming" as the first theory on the loss of signal, either. But sending armed starships across for the assessment would still probably be a prudent measure.

If Delta Vega is the given name of an otherwise insignificant planet at random location X outside the Vulcan system (and perhaps on the way to the Laurentian system), it probably follows Delta Vega isn't tasked with keeping close tabs on what happens on or to Vulcan. Nor would it probably be tasked with playing a role in Earth's response to trouble at Vulcan. Scotty might get the relevant messages, but wouldn't be expected to react much. He might be considered slightly amiss in his duties when he didn't spot Nero inserting Spock on the planet - but then again, every Romulan and his idiot cousin has a cloaked shuttle in the 24th century. (For all we know, the Narada also had a cloak, but never bothered to use it; no other Romulan vessel would have cloaked in a comparable situation, by ample TNG and DS9 precedent. But then again, the mining rig might have been too big a job for a cloaking device, or Nero might not have had access to big enough a device.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

Sensors telling exactly what happens in the next star system over? Trek never really had that. Nobody could tell at an (admittedly supposedly considerable) distance whether L-374 or Ceti Alpha were missing planets or not. In shorter-range cases, starships had to take a look to verify the loss of life in Gamma VII or the like. If something was jamming subspace communications, Earth probably wouldn't get realtime data on Vulcan - and probably wouldn't use "offensive-malevolent jamming" as the first theory on the loss of signal, either. But sending armed starships across for the assessment would still probably be a prudent measure.

If Delta Vega is the given name of an otherwise insignificant planet at random location X outside the Vulcan system (and perhaps on the way to the Laurentian system), it probably follows Delta Vega isn't tasked with keeping close tabs on what happens on or to Vulcan. Nor would it probably be tasked with playing a role in Earth's response to trouble at Vulcan. Scotty might get the relevant messages, but wouldn't be expected to react much. He might be considered slightly amiss in his duties when he didn't spot Nero inserting Spock on the planet - but then again, every Romulan and his idiot cousin has a cloaked shuttle in the 24th century. (For all we know, the Narada also had a cloak, but never bothered to use it; no other Romulan vessel would have cloaked in a comparable situation, by ample TNG and DS9 precedent. But then again, the mining rig might have been too big a job for a cloaking device, or Nero might not have had access to big enough a device.)

Timo Saloniemi

I agree absolutely that it would make more sense if Delta Vega were in the next system over from the Vulcan system apart from the illogic of depositing Spock Prime so far away from Vulcan so that he couldn't see Nero's handiwork with his own eyes (which in all honesty was pretty stupid to start with - just keep him on board ship as a prisoner). Nero may well have been aware that Vulcan telepathy can sense the death of large numbers of fellow Vulcans across a number of light years., in which case this makes sense apart from Nero's actual reference to seeing rather than feeling the death of his people (which in my view would have had as much dramatic merit if not more). Scotty's isolation makes more sense in this scenario.

However, the problem comes back to warp speeds again. At warp 4 for 4 hours the Enterprise would only be about 50 billion km from Vulcan and there is no indication that the ship has been travelling for any real time at all. I'm not sure that there are any systems that close by in real astronomical charts. The writers seem either to have no concept of how fast warps speeds are supposed to be (even when comparing the timing of Nero's trip to Earth compared to the Enterprise) and whatever warp scale they are using is seems to be waaay faster than the ones used in TNG.

This scenario still doesn't excuse Scotty ignoring the life pod's descent and distress beacon just a few km away. All he had to do was beam Kirk to the outpost. Having said that, Kirk was just as stupid for not trying to signal the outpsot. I suppose we ahve to assume that lifepods are very basic and have no internal communications apart from the distress signal and Spock didn't give Kirk a communicator for his trip.

I still maintain that beaming Kirk to the outpost under guard, finding Spock and Scotty working on modyfying the transporter, and sending Kirk into the snow to effect some kind of repairs e.g. to the long range transmitter where he could meet CGI monsters would have maintained more internal logic.

 

[3D Master]

Sensors telling exactly what happens in the next star system over? Trek never really had that. Nobody could tell at an (admittedly supposedly considerable) distance whether L-374 or Ceti Alpha were missing planets or not. In shorter-range cases, starships had to take a look to verify the loss of life in Gamma VII or the like. If something was jamming subspace communications, Earth probably wouldn't get realtime data on Vulcan - and probably wouldn't use "offensive-malevolent jamming" as the first theory on the loss of signal, either. But sending armed starships across for the assessment would still probably be a prudent measure.

Except of course, that if there were not FTL sensors that give you a reasonably idea what's happening in the next system over, you would be smashing into planets and other ships traveling at warp to the same planet again and again. So they either should have been able to see a massive 9 km ship firing a massively powerful beam down to the planet. But even if the sensors are jammed by that ship, there would still have a giant light gone off, when the fleet in front of them seem to disappear into nothingness as they enter the jamming effect.

Hell, every single communications officer in the fleet should have noticed that not a single communications signal is coming from Vulcan at all - and reported it to their captain. But it seems every single communications officer in Starfleet are a bunch of incompetent idiots with the exception of Uhura who is merely competent and thus lightyears ahead of the rest of them.

All of which, ultimately doesn't matter. If you are right and FTL sensors idiotically can't see the system over and have a good idea what's going on there; there's still the question of why Scotty's magical FTL sensors CAN, allowing them to perfectly pinpoint the Enterprise and beam over there.

I suppose we ahve to assume that lifepods are very basic and have no internal communications apart from the distress signal and Spock didn't give Kirk a communicator for his trip.

Of course, Kirk DID have a communicator, it also doubles as a log recorder, "Earthdate 2257.4..."

 

[Set Harth]

Lack of FTL sensors? Where'dya get that? Nero had no trouble tracking Spock through his warp "escape" at the end of the movie, nor did our heroes appear to have trouble tracking the Narada during her attack run on Earth and subsequent chase of Spock. So ship-tracking FTL sensorage was there all right.

Nor did the Narada have any trouble sensing the Enterprise in turn.

I'm not personally fond of the idea that STXI's Delta Vega was anywhere near Vulcan.

According to the evidence of non-mind-meld scenes, it wasn't.

 

[Pauln6]

Of course, Kirk DID have a communicator, it also doubles as a log recorder, "Earthdate 2257.4..."

Kirk had a communicator and didn't think it would be a good idea to hail the nearby Starfleet outpost? If this is a genius level Starfleet officer I'd hate to see an average one... oh wait... Olsen... and whoever gave ALL the explosives to one man.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Of course, Kirk DID have a communicator, it also doubles as a log recorder, "Earthdate 2257.4..."

Kirk had a communicator and didn't think it would be a good idea to hail the nearby Starfleet outpost? If this is a genius level Starfleet officer I'd hate to see an average one... oh wait... Olsen... and whoever gave ALL the explosives to one man.

I believe its a tricorder. http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/xihd/trekxihd1836.jpg

It doesn't look like a communicator and the script calls it a tricorder.

 

[I-Am-Zim]

So NuSpock marooned NuKirk without a communicator? Or a phaser it seems. Or he would have used it against the Cloverfield monster on NuDelta Hoth.