Federation Law of restricting cloaking device

[Timo]

Random point:

Although looking a second time, it seems that this "9.975" speed is quoted from an alien species (2371) and Neelix but haven't found one from an actual crew member...

The two quotes for warp 9.975 are from "Caretaker" and "Relativity" - both by Starfleet personnel (helm officer Stadi and CO Janeway, respectively), and both before the ship set sail for her very first operational mission.

In the first episode, the expression used is "stable" or "sustainable" (the delivery is a bit unclear, even if the script intent is for the second expression) "cruise velocity"; in the second, "top cruising speed".

I can't recall where the Species 8472 or Neelix would have referred to the warp 9.975 capability.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

Thanks Timo. So basically the dialogue from Starfleet crewmembers for Warp 9.975 is before Voayager was knocked into the Delta quadrant and started taking damage. I mixed up the "Relativity" episode

From "Barge of the Dead":
NEELIX: Fifteen decks. Computers augmented with bio-neural circuitry. Top cruising speed, warp nine point nine seven five, not that you'll be going anywhere.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Voyager is actually inline with TNG speeds. At Warp 9 traveling 70,000 LY it would take 84 years to get home assuming a non-stop flight.

That's the TOS scale. By the putative TNG scale, Warp 9 would be a bit over 1500 times the speed of light (46 year transit time).

No, that is by the TNG scale. TNG Warp 9 = 833c.

Not by the scale quoted in backstage sources. I'm aware that "Bloodlines" is inconsistent with it, though.

Although looking a second time, it seems that this "9.975" speed is quoted from an alien species (2371) and Neelix but haven't found one from an actual crew member...

Stadi in the pilot episode and Janeway in one of the timetravel episodes.

 

[Timo]

Not by the scale quoted in backstage sources. I'm aware that "Bloodlines" is inconsistent with it, though.

"Bloodlines" is our only real datapoint on warp 9. The problem with it is not that it would be inconsistent with some backstage musings that never were in any way involved in the defining of warp speeds (all references to warp factors are inconsistent with all backstage scales, save for two datapoints glimpsed on an Okudagram in ENT "First Flight" that happen to match the supposed TOS cubic scale), but that it suggests such a low speed compared to the known ability of TNG era starships to go from star system to star system within hours but without "risking" high warp factors.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

We have different interpretations. Riker asked for a "defense" and Data gave him what appeared to Riker as a "lethal" counter-attack.

And if they had been on any ship other than a Galaxy class, it WOULD have been a lethal counter-attack.

Even using normal tracking techniques that could still be explained by saying the Stargazer's sudden jump to Warp 9 temporarily confusing the FTL sensors.

In which case even the FTL sensors would not be able to follow Stargazer's movements. Thus, there is no longer any reason to assume they ARE scanning at FTL, since they would work just as well if they weren't.

Also, "literally", the Ferengi "fired" on the Stargazer.

Yes, we know that. We can infer that from Picard's description of the battle. Just like we can infer that Stargazer went from a standing start to warp nine and then stopped again, catching the Ferengi off guard.

You wrote that the maneuver implicitly rules out firing at the closer image which means you did not think there was a choice for the Ferengi in selecting targets.

Right. And remember that the REASON the Ferengi didn't have a choice is because Stargazer fired first. IOW, the Ferengi could not have fired their weapons at EITHER target before the Stargazer dealt them a lethal blow. That they ultimately selected the more distant one in the confusion of their unfolding ass-kicking is probably the only reason Picard is still alive.

It does matter. If it took Data a few seconds to come up with a defense then it's pretty obvious that the maneuver hadn't been used alot or they'd have a counter on the books.

Significantly, the maneuver had never been used against Data before, thus nobody had managed to think up a countermeasure.

OTOH, it's possible a defense DID exist, but wasn't in Starfleet's tactical database and therefore wasn't accessible to Data -- at least, not off the top of his positronic head. If he'd had half an hour to query Starfleet command and log into the database at the nearest Starbase, he might have found a few wargame scenarios or tactical studies with some possibilities.

Again, IF Riker asked for a "counter" then Data would have offered this up as an option. However, Riker asked for a "defense".

That's a distinction without a difference, especially since "target the closer image" would have been just as valid for aiming a tractor beam as it would for a phaser beam. There isn't much to dispute the obvious implication that "target the closer image" is NOT possible, not even in a purely defensive move.

As to why BOTH targets? Why not, "just to be sure". We saw how easy it is to confuse the sensors in "Peak Performance".

Because the closer target would be the more immediate threat, and immobilizing it first gives you time to deal with the second one.

Besides, that assumes starships are capable of shooting at two different targets separated by hundreds of thousands of kilometers. THAT prospect is definitely without precedent in Trek canon.

First, the question really is, can standard sensors
1. Track the Stargazer after a sudden jump to Warp 9
2. Track the Stargazer after a sudden jump to Warp 1

Since the Picard Maneuver's components include a Warp 9 jump to work then we cannot rule out FTL sensors since Warp 2 would work equally well against LS/STL sensors.

Not at the distances involved; at low warp it would take too long to complete the maneuver and your opponent would engage his engines in his return arc, only to arrive there and discover you've moved. You wind up in a tail chase, and in Picard's case the Ferengi had him at a distadvantage.

At high warp you complete the maneuver in about four seconds and catch him before he can engage you.

If the two ships were separated by a smaller distance, lower warp factors would be adequate... but at those same short distances, a jump to warp nine would mean overshooting your target fifty times over in the time it takes to say "reverse power!"

We can stipulate that the standard FTL sensors do have a problem with high warp targets.

And thus we have no reason to assume they are FTL at all, since their performance is no better.

BTW, in Picard's story, the Ferengi attacked the Stargazer while she was flying through the star system at Warp 2. That would mean that the STL Ferengi, tracked Stargazer and either fired at her while she was passing by at FTL or the Ferengi jumped out of hiding and went FTL to attack the Stargazer. FTL sensors.

Covered this already. Assuming Stargazer WAS at warp two when the Ferengi fired -- which is still not definite -- the Ferengi need only have intercepted and matched speeds with Stargazer to engage it.

And I've explained three times now that you can easily track a ship moving faster than light using STL sensors IF you let it pass you first, which the Ferengi evidently did.

As to the non-standard detection of compressed gases, it was animated in real-time on the main viewer so if they could not track the gas disturbance in real-time certainly the Stargazer would disappear, NO warp streaks animated, then appear in a different spot on the viewer.

The warp streaks are only visible on the viewer for about three quarters of a second. Stargazer's warp jump takes three to four seconds. Thus what the sensors are "animating in real time" is the deceleration phase -- stargazer slowing to impulse -- not the warp jump.

Which is more or less the same thing WE usually see in Trek, when we see that flash of light and the streaky image of a starship dropping out of warp (or, alternately, the warp flash and a starship jumping TO warp). The acceleration/deceleration phase is visible to STL sensors, but the actual FTL movement is not: Stargazer will arrive at Enterprise before the telltales do.

The second question is, does Stargazer really have the initiative to shoot first?

Yes. Picard's "reverse and stop" is followed immediately by the order to fire with everything he had. He had already taken a sensor bearing on the Ferengi ship and fed a targeting solution ahead of time.

Simply because the Ferengi chose the wrong target to fire at and did fire its weapons.

But did the Ferengi fire BEFORE Stargazer did? If you believe they did, what evidence do you have for that?

That doesn't make sense. A ship at FTL heading towards a STL ship with LS sensors would be invisible to the STL ship the entire time it is in FTL. Heading away at FTL, OTOH, isn't part of the maneuver and doesn't come into play.

You asked how the Ferengi could have tracked and intercepted the Stargazer if they had gone to warp and passed it during the hypothetical (very low warp) version of the Picard Maneuver. You said that tracking the warp-driven stargazer implies FTL sensors.

I said it does not, essentially because having PASSED Stargazer they would have flown through its light cone and gotten a fix on its new location and adjusted course to intercept it. Checkmate for Stargazer.

The Picard maneuver requires a high warp jump because of the need to close quickly before your enemy has a chance to do anything else. In doing so, you seize the initiative.

Did you forget that it was the first voyage as a captain for the only son of Daimon Bok?

Didn't forget. It's just not relevant, unless Bok Junior was at the weapons console, which I kind of doubt.

According to the dialogue, the target would see both ships and they'd have a choice to fire on either one or both.

Again: is that before or AFTER Stargazer had pounded them with the Picard Maneuver? Because this part of the description takes place immediately after "I stopped right off the enemy's bow and fired with everything I had."

If the Ferengi had time to fire after they were hit, they would have targeted the ship that was actually shooting at them.

How about I set your weapons console on fire and punch a ten-foot hole in the bridge and see whether or not YOU select the right target?

Seriously?

Well I don't imagine the Romulans kept playing with it after "The Next Phase." Seems pretty clear THEY couldn't get it to work either.

The "you will injure yourself" happens in the middle of the episode, just as Bok is ramping up his device. His parting words, are to "Die Well."

What did you expect him to say"Live unwell" doesn't have the same menace to it.

His second diabolical revenge plan is to make Picard weep for the death of his fake son.

His plan from the beginning was to make Picard weep for the death of SOMEONE. He's a Ferengi, not a Klingon: he demands equal payment, not merely vengeance.

As to the first plan, what would happen if Picard successfully destroyed the E-D? What was Bok's endgame there? The Ferengi mind control devices were still there. Picard would be proven innocent.

But still would have to live with having murdered his entire crew along with their families.

Besides, it's unlikely Bok would have left the device sitting on the bridge for Starfleet to discover (it cost him a fortune, after all). Probably would have waited for the fireworks to stop, beamed aboard and taken it back and left Picard to wail in anguish on the ghost of his former command.

 

[blssdwlf]

We have different interpretations. Riker asked for a "defense" and Data gave him what appeared to Riker as a "lethal" counter-attack.

And if they had been on any ship other than a Galaxy class, it WOULD have been a lethal counter-attack.

But it was not any other ship... although a Nebula class and/or Defiant class might be able to do it. Or even the Excelsior and Ambassadors...

Even using normal tracking techniques that could still be explained by saying the Stargazer's sudden jump to Warp 9 temporarily confusing the FTL sensors.

In which case even the FTL sensors would not be able to follow Stargazer's movements. Thus, there is no longer any reason to assume they ARE scanning at FTL, since they would work just as well if they weren't.

From "Peak Performance" we know the E-D continued to scan for incoming FTL ships (picked up the Ferengi) so there is no reason to assume that FTL scanners would be off or not in use. Since the Ferengi ship was detectable as it approached it would stand to reason that the sudden Warp 9 speed is part of what makes the maneuver unique and confuses the FTL sensors.

From "Peak Performance"
BURKE: Captain, sensors picking up a Ferengi warship closing at warp five.

Yes, we know that. We can infer that from Picard's description of the battle. Just like we can infer that Stargazer went from a standing start to warp nine and then stopped again, catching the Ferengi off guard.

You're inferring when you don't need to. Picard actually says that they were "fired on".

What we do not know is what speed the Stargazer was when she initiated her Warp 9 jump. Did you hear any acceleration sound from Picard's flashback? I heard a deceleration but not the acceleration. You can make a guess about his starting speed but there is nothing to draw an inference from. For all we know, the Stargazer stayed at Warp 2 up till she jumped to Warp 9...

Right. And remember that the REASON the Ferengi didn't have a choice is because Stargazer fired first. IOW, the Ferengi could not have fired their weapons at EITHER target before the Stargazer dealt them a lethal blow. That they ultimately selected the more distant one in the confusion of their unfolding ass-kicking is probably the only reason Picard is still alive.

The simplest answers are that they fired approximately at the same time or the Ferengi fired first.

1. If Stargazer fired first, there would be no response since the Ferengi would've been destroyed.
2. If the Ferengi fired first it was after seeing both targets and selecting the ghost image.
3. If both fired at the same time, the Ferengi still selected the wrong target and the Stargazer's weapons destroyed the Ferengi.
4. If the Ferengi fired last, after being fired at by the Stargazer it would've selected and fired at the point-blank range target resulting in the Stargazer's destruction.

Significantly, the maneuver had never been used against Data before, thus nobody had managed to think up a countermeasure.

Or not against that many enemies at all.

That's a distinction without a difference, especially since "target the closer image" would have been just as valid for aiming a tractor beam as it would for a phaser beam. There isn't much to dispute the obvious implication that "target the closer image" is NOT possible, not even in a purely defensive move.

Would it have been? The tractor beams may need some additional sensor information to be used where phasers can be fired at point-blank without such requirements. Data's plan focused on the use of the tractor beam, not phasers, of the E-D.

Because the closer target would be the more immediate threat, and immobilizing it first gives you time to deal with the second one.

Unless you're unsure which one is the true target, then firing on both works just as well.

Besides, that assumes starships are capable of shooting at two different targets separated by hundreds of thousands of kilometers. THAT prospect is definitely without precedent in Trek canon.

Fired at the same time or just moments apart?

The Enterprise in "Balance of Terror" had no problem switching from long-range fire to point-blank to detonate a space mine.

The non-starship Deep Space Nine fired simultaneously at both distant and point-blank Klingon targets in "The Way of the Warrior".

Not at the distances involved; at low warp it would take too long to complete the maneuver and your opponent would engage his engines in his return arc, only to arrive there and discover you've moved. You wind up in a tail chase, and in Picard's case the Ferengi had him at a distadvantage.

The question is at what distances and what starting speeds?
5 seconds at TNG Warp 9 is about 8 AU traveled. However, if both ships were at low warp already like Warp 2 then the extra seconds might just be to close a few thousand kilometers distance to point-blank range. It could go either way.

Picard describes the Ferengi coming back for the kill so it was not stationary. It would have been moving at a fairly decent Warp speed as well to close the distance for the final attack.

PICARD: I improvised. With the enemy vessel coming in for the kill, I ordered a sensor bearing, and when it went into the return arc
​

At high warp you complete the maneuver in about four seconds and catch him before he can engage you.

If the two ships were separated by a smaller distance, lower warp factors would be adequate... but at those same short distances, a jump to warp nine would mean overshooting your target fifty times over in the time it takes to say "reverse power!"

Or if both ships were moving relative to each other they could still be at short distances and still require high Warp speeds to rapidly close the distance.

Even thinking from the Ferengi ship, how fast were they going in order to make the attack passes on the Stargazer? Long enough for Picard to order the fusion generator back up and running...

And thus we have no reason to assume they are FTL at all, since their performance is no better.

Or more accurately, the FTL sensors don't perform as well against a Warp 9 target.

Covered this already. Assuming Stargazer WAS at warp two when the Ferengi fired -- which is still not definite -- the Ferengi need only have intercepted and matched speeds with Stargazer to engage it.

And I've explained three times now that you can easily track a ship moving faster than light using STL sensors IF you let it pass you first, which the Ferengi evidently did.

There are alot of things that must be FTL for Picard's story to work. FTL Sensors to track and target the Stargazer. FTL weapons to fire at the Stargazer. Having STL sensors doesn't give you any real-time ranging information for a firing solution. Nope, FTL sensors.

The warp streaks are only visible on the viewer for about three quarters of a second. Stargazer's warp jump takes three to four seconds. Thus what the sensors are "animating in real time" is the deceleration phase -- stargazer slowing to impulse -- not the warp jump.

Let's not confuse Picard's memories of a 5 second hop to the later battle between the Stargazer and the E-D. In the latter battle, from the moment the Stargazer's warp engines flashed, warp streaked and appeared as a 2nd target was a TOTAL of 1.25 seconds. As the 2nd image, she was now at impulse when she was caught. This was all in real-time, not some delay or Riker's orders would've been totally off.

Which is more or less the same thing WE usually see in Trek, when we see that flash of light and the streaky image of a starship dropping out of warp (or, alternately, the warp flash and a starship jumping TO warp). The acceleration/deceleration phase is visible to STL sensors, but the actual FTL movement is not: Stargazer will arrive at Enterprise before the telltales do.

What episodes do we see the streaky image of a starship as she drops out of warp? I'm familiar with it when she is at warp speed.

Yes. Picard's "reverse and stop" is followed immediately by the order to fire with everything he had. He had already taken a sensor bearing on the Ferengi ship and fed a targeting solution ahead of time.

I doubt it. In his playback:

1. he gets a sensor bearing.
2. Orders a phaser lock.
3, Then sets a heading before engaging warp engines.

There was no way they could have had a firing solution ahead of time since the weapons crew didn't know where Picard would stop the ship. This means that the Stargazer kept her phaser lock in real-time all the way to the delivery point at Warp 9 or re-acquired the target as she slowed down from Warp 9.

PICARD: Sensor beam bearing on hostile ship!
VOICE [OC] Seven mark nineteen, sir!
VOICE [OC]: Phasers, sir? Sir?
PICARD: Ready phasers, and lock! Stand by on warp nine. Heading seven, seven mark twenty. Engage.
PICARD: Steady. Now, reverse and stop! Phasers fire, torpedoes away! Fire. Fire.
​

But did the Ferengi fire BEFORE Stargazer did? If you believe they did, what evidence do you have for that?

I believe that the Stargazer did not fire first. It does not preclude a simultaneous exchange or the Ferengi fired first and picked the wrong target.

1. The Stargazer "could not take another hit". If the Ferengi was hit first and was able to return fire, they would've shot at the ship that just fired at it.
2. If the Stargazer fired first, the Ferengi ship would've been destroyed, leaving no ship to fire at the ghost image of the Stargazer.
3. That leaves either a simultaneous exchange or the Ferengi firing first with the Stargazer second.

You asked how the Ferengi could have tracked and intercepted the Stargazer if they had gone to warp and passed it during the hypothetical (very low warp) version of the Picard Maneuver. You said that tracking the warp-driven stargazer implies FTL sensors.

I said it does not, essentially because having PASSED Stargazer they would have flown through its light cone and gotten a fix on its new location and adjusted course to intercept it. Checkmate for Stargazer.

If all you're doing is following a trail of light with only LS sensors you still don't have any true idea of range to target or how far ahead they are before you overrun them. The Ferengi would be "overdriving their sensors" so to speak. No, it'd still have to be an FTL sensor in play for the attack to work.

The Picard maneuver requires a high warp jump because of the need to close quickly before your enemy has a chance to do anything else. In doing so, you seize the initiative.

As the dialogue points out, you're really presenting two targets to the enemy ship. The enemy still has a chance to open fire. You just want them to pick the wrong target.

Didn't forget. It's just not relevant, unless Bok Junior was at the weapons console, which I kind of doubt.

Captain of the ship tells the weapons folks who to target and use what weapons. Very relevant.

Again: is that before or AFTER Stargazer had pounded them with the Picard Maneuver? Because this part of the description takes place immediately after "I stopped right off the enemy's bow and fired with everything I had."

Picard described his actions. Riker described the Ferengi's perspective and Picard closed it with how the Ferengi reacted when confronted with two Stargazers.

PICARD: Well, I did what any good helmsman would have done. I dropped into high warp, stopped right off the enemy vessel's bow and fired with everything I had.
RIKER: And blowing into maximum warp speed, you appeared for an instant to be in two places at once.
PICARD: And our attacker fired on the wrong one.
​

As I've pointed out, if the Ferengi responded after they were hit, then it would've targeted the actual Stargazer and the results would've been fatal. It only leaves either a simultaneous exchange or the Ferengi firing first.

How about I set your weapons console on fire and punch a ten-foot hole in the bridge and see whether or not YOU select the right target?

If there was a ten-foot hole in the bridge there would be NO RESPONSE from the ship. You pretty much explained why the Ferengi would not have fired second.

Well I don't imagine the Romulans kept playing with it after "The Next Phase." Seems pretty clear THEY couldn't get it to work either.

But they were interested enough to attempt to recover the Pegasus in "The Pegasus". They might've been stalled by technical issues but they still appeared to be interested in the technology to go send a Warbird to recover a "destroyed" Federation ship.

What did you expect him to say"Live unwell" doesn't have the same menace to it.

Or "Suffer my pain"

His second diabolical revenge plan is to make Picard weep for the death of his fake son.

His plan from the beginning was to make Picard weep for the death of SOMEONE. He's a Ferengi, not a Klingon: he demands equal payment, not merely vengeance.

The first time, it would've been a reverse-Picard Maneuver. The target blows the Stargazer up.

The second time was more obvious that he spelled out that he wanted Picard to suffer, but not die well :P

As to the first plan, what would happen if Picard successfully destroyed the E-D? What was Bok's endgame there? The Ferengi mind control devices were still there. Picard would be proven innocent.

But still would have to live with having murdered his entire crew along with their families.

Picard already suffers that from his stint with the Borg. He still serves as Captain of the Enterprise. He seems to have recovered by "First Contact"

Back to the Picard Maneuver. Picard's version of the story works in the televised TNG framework with little need for additional "inferences" from a technical standpoint. All it does is establish that the FTL sensors have difficulty with a sudden Warp 9 burst. You add far more complication and additional assumptions if you force a LS sensor vs FTL ship scenario, IMHO.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

From "Peak Performance" we know the E-D continued to scan for incoming FTL ships (picked up the Ferengi)...

Six seconds before they fired on them. It's considerably more likely that the Ferengi ship was detected as it began to drop out of warp, locked its weapons and fired.

You're inferring when you don't need to. Picard actually says that they were "fired on".

Not the second time, he doesn't.

What we do not know is what speed the Stargazer was when she initiated her Warp 9 jump. Did you hear any acceleration sound from Picard's flashback?

Yep. There's the distinct "warp pulse" FX the moment Picard orders "engage!"

If the Ferengi fired last, after being fired at by the Stargazer it would've selected and fired at the point-blank range target resulting in the Stargazer's destruction.

Assuming it had any way of acquiring the new target with its sensors knocked out pandemonium unfolding on its rapidly decompressing bridge.

If there's one constant in the entire Trek universe it's that an exploding starship doesn't die instantly, or for that matter even quickly. If you cause enough damage to trigger a warp core breach, you can almost gaurantee there will be just enough time for the crew and/or chief engineer to make some sort of dramatic announcement to the effect before the thing finally goes boom.

Would it have been? The tractor beams may need some additional sensor information

And they may need less. A comparison scenario using phasers was never presented.

Unless you're unsure which one is the true target, then firing on both works just as well.

What is there to be unsure about? Unless you're fighting someone with a history of deploying highly advanced long-range holographic decoys, the closer image is obviously a hostile ship; you may not be sure if it's the same ship you've been fighting for the last twenty minutes, but it's still the more immediate threat.

Fired at the same time or just moments apart?

Simultaneously. Which is to say, a phaser lock on two targets at once, one very close and one very far. We got to see DS9 do this, but being a space station with a VASTLY different weapon system configuration, this doesn't tell us much.

The question is at what distances and what starting speeds?
5 seconds at TNG Warp 9 is about 8 AU traveled. However, if both ships were at low warp already like Warp 2 then the extra seconds might just be to close a few thousand kilometers distance to point-blank range. It could go either way.

That's another distinction without a difference; even at warp 2, the difference in speed between warp 2 and warp 9 is so huge that the starting distances would be exactly the same.

More importantly, Picard's final line is "reverse and stop!" and earlier he describes it to Data and Riker that he STOPPED right off the enemy's bow. Both of which imply he's performing the maneuver against a slow-moving or stationary target.

Picard describes the Ferengi coming back for the kill so it was not stationary.

But not neccesarily moving at warp speed either. Turning back around at impulse power would suffice for that.

Even thinking from the Ferengi ship, how fast were they going in order to make the attack passes on the Stargazer? Long enough for Picard to order the fusion generator back up and running...

Which means the Ferengi repeatedly warped in and attacked ferociously, then quickly moved off before Stargazer could return fire, then warped in and attacked again, then moved off again and reset a second time (I actually used to use this trick in "Star Trek: Legacy." It's a sneaky way for smaller ships to pick on more powerful ones without getting carved up by their heavier phaser armament).

Picard's sensors would have told him the Ferengi were coming around again, getting ready to setup another dive-in-and-attack move. He used their own trick against them, and the timing worked out just perfectly.

Or more accurately, the FTL sensors don't perform as well against a Warp 9 target.

Accurate enough the first time, thank you.

There are alot of things that must be FTL for Picard's story to work. FTL Sensors to track and target the Stargazer....

Covered already. STL sensors are sufficient for this.

FTL weapons to fire at the Stargazer.

Also covered. STL weapons also suffice for this, even if you assume both ships are at warp, since exchanging fire at all would require precisely matching their relative velocities.

Having STL sensors doesn't give you any real-time ranging information for a firing solution.

Which is exactly why the Ferengi missed.

Let's not confuse Picard's memories of a 5 second hop to the later battle between the Stargazer and the E-D.

There's no confusion. At the distances in which the maneuver would be performed it took several seconds to cover that distance. Bok had Stargazer move into that same position in order to replicate the circumstances of the original maneuver. Again, the entire thing is being carefully staged to create a specific sort of illusion not just for Picard, but for Starfleet as well (Bok may have screwed up the forged log entry, but the intent there is obvious).

So what Enterprise saw would have been exactly what the Ferengi saw. More to the point: do you really believe the Ferengi would have been confused by a maneuver during which the other ship dissolves into a set of approaching warp streaks for almost five seconds?

In the latter battle, from the moment the Stargazer's warp engines flashed, warp streaked and appeared as a 2nd target was a TOTAL of 1.25 seconds. As the 2nd image, she was now at impulse when she was caught. This was all in real-time, not some delay or Riker's orders would've been totally off.

That's the thing about the time delay: what you see and what actually happens are not the same thing. By the time Enterprise SEES the warp streaks appear, Stargazer has already been at warp for three seconds.

What episodes do we see the streaky image of a starship as she drops out of warp?

Seriously?

Voyager drops out of warp.

Voyager goes to warp.

Bird of prey.... goes to warp

Another bird of prey... goes to warp

A space station goes to warp... don't have a cap for it, but the dropout looks about the same.

The Coalition fleet drops out of warp.... And the Romulan fleeship goes TO warp

The effect changes a bit from era to era (or season to season) but it's the same basic effect that was first exemplified in TMP.

I doubt it. In his playback:

1. he gets a sensor bearing.
2. Orders a phaser lock.
3, Then sets a heading before engaging warp engines.

There was no way they could have had a firing solution...

That's what exactly a "phaser lock" is.

I believe that the Stargazer did not fire first. It does not preclude a simultaneous exchange or the Ferengi fired first and picked the wrong target.

Again, I doubt it. If simultaneous exchange, it means the Ferengi didn't notice Stargazer's new position at all -- maybe their weapons officer sneezed -- and Picard simply dodged their fire. I think it more likely that Stargazer riddled the Ferengi with phasers and torpedoes and the doomed vessel fired a parting shot as a dying gasp; since they didn't manage to get a phaser lock on Stargazer's new position, they wound up firing on the wrong target.

Actually, take the second video I linked to as precedent. You've just been hit by six photon torpdoes and a dozen isotons of phaser blasts. The bridge is on fire, half your crew is sprawled out on the deck and your warp core is making all kinds of scary noises. In the midst of all this, your weapons officer crawls back to his console bleeding from his ears, reaches up and taps the "fire" button.

What target did he just fire on?

1. The Stargazer "could not take another hit". If the Ferengi was hit first and was able to return fire, they would've shot at the ship that just fired at it.

See above.

If all you're doing is following a trail of light with only LS sensors you still don't have any true idea of range to target or how far ahead they are before you overrun them.

That is, until you match velocities, at which time you're reduced to standard lightspeed delay. Close the distance a little more and even that becomes immaterial.

As the dialogue points out, you're really presenting two targets to the enemy ship. The enemy still has a chance to open fire. You just want them to pick the wrong target.

You don't WANT them to pick either target. You WANT them to explode before they have a chance to do even that much. If you can get them to pick the wrong target, that's a bit of good luck... but it's a silly thing to depend on in a universe populated by people OTHER than incompetent Ferengi.

If there was a ten-foot hole in the bridge there would be NO RESPONSE from the ship.

Are you sure?

Or "Suffer my pain"

Eh... not dramatic enough.

Picard already suffers that from his stint with the Borg. He still serves as Captain of the Enterprise. He seems to have recovered by "First Contact"

Were you watching the same "First Contact" that I was? He didn't seem recovered at all.

But recovery or not, KILLING Picard wasn't Bok's plan.

Back to the Picard Maneuver. Picard's version of the story works in the televised TNG framework with little need for additional "inferences" from a technical standpoint. All it does is establish that the FTL sensors have difficulty with a sudden Warp 9 burst...

Or that starships cannot use them to track their opponents in real time. You keep ruling out that possibility without supporting its elimination.

 

[blssdwlf]

From "Peak Performance" we know the E-D continued to scan for incoming FTL ships (picked up the Ferengi)...

Six seconds before they fired on them. It's considerably more likely that the Ferengi ship was detected as it began to drop out of warp, locked its weapons and fired.

The dialogue clearly points out in "Peak Performance" that the E-D's sensors are tracking an incoming Ferengi warship at Warp 5 and not that it had just dropped out of warp.

From "Peak Performance"
BURKE: Captain, sensors picking up a Ferengi warship closing at warp five.

From the time the warning chirps announced the approaching Warp 5 Ferengi till the first hit landed is 13 seconds.

If the Ferengi were coming in at Warp 9 which is quite a bit faster then the warning time would be even less, down to a few seconds. Now imagine if the Ferengi wasn't approaching from a distance but started much closer at Warp 9. The sensors probably wouldn't be able to warn them in time before the Ferengi opened fire.

You're inferring when you don't need to. Picard actually says that they were "fired on".

Not the second time, he doesn't.

Just checking then as you didn't specify.

So, the first attack we know he was fired upon. No inference necessary.

The second attack, it isn't specific enough so you'd have to infer that they were fired upon again.

Yep. There's the distinct "warp pulse" FX the moment Picard orders "engage!"

There are random explosions and noises occurring on the bridge. I couldn't say that I heard a "warp pulse" when he orders "Engage". I don't even think in TNG there is a warp pulse/boom audible on the bridge. The distinct warp powering down could be heard when he says "Reverse and stop".

Assuming it had any way of acquiring the new target with its sensors knocked out pandemonium unfolding on its rapidly decompressing bridge.

Since you point to the "Nemesis" example then we can tell a bridge can recover and still fight effectively even with a hole in the bridge. You've weakened your argument here.

If there's one constant in the entire Trek universe it's that an exploding starship doesn't die instantly, or for that matter even quickly. If you cause enough damage to trigger a warp core breach, you can almost gaurantee there will be just enough time for the crew and/or chief engineer to make some sort of dramatic announcement to the effect before the thing finally goes boom.

Yes, on dramatic announcement before immediately exploding.

No, dying last weapons fire on the wrong target after it is considered destroyed. Unless you have an example of this?

And they may need less. A comparison scenario using phasers was never presented.

Or they may need more since we were only dealing with their tractor beam.

What is there to be unsure about? Unless you're fighting someone with a history of deploying highly advanced long-range holographic decoys, the closer image is obviously a hostile ship; you may not be sure if it's the same ship you've been fighting for the last twenty minutes, but it's still the more immediate threat.

You asked about why fire at both targets (as a counter). If for example in "Peak Performance" the E-D fired at both the Stargazer and the trick Warbird the ruse would've been over.

Simultaneously. Which is to say, a phaser lock on two targets at once, one very close and one very far. We got to see DS9 do this, but being a space station with a VASTLY different weapon system configuration, this doesn't tell us much.

It tells us that fire control systems can fire at near and far targets.

As to starships, simultaneously locking onto multiple ships and firing on them at the same time, I'm not aware of any instances where they had done this except for in "Conundrum" at close-range.

That's another distinction without a difference; even at warp 2, the difference in speed between warp 2 and warp 9 is so huge that the starting distances would be exactly the same.

That's assuming they both were going the same direction. With both ships closing on each other, the distance could be greater. If the Ferengi ship was heading out at Warp 5 as it was turning around to attack the distance would be closer. Again, we don't know enough about their position and speeds to be sure. (Other than Warp 2 was the starting speed of the battle and Warp 9 was involved at the end.)

More importantly, Picard's final line is "reverse and stop!" and earlier he describes it to Data and Riker that he STOPPED right off the enemy's bow. Both of which imply he's performing the maneuver against a slow-moving or stationary target.

Fair enough. Then it looks like Ferengi moved away after the 2nd attack and although appearing that they were coming back for the kill according to dialogue the Ferengi at that moment was only facing them but not moving much.

Which means the Ferengi repeatedly warped in and attacked ferociously, then quickly moved off before Stargazer could return fire, then warped in and attacked again, then moved off again and reset a second time

Picard's sensors would have told him the Ferengi were coming around again, getting ready to setup another dive-in-and-attack move. He used their own trick against them, and the timing worked out just perfectly.

Wow, that is inline with the description of the battle. Although given how much time it took between requesting a sensor bearing and receiving the pulse factored in with traveling at Warp 9 for 5-6 seconds the sensors must've been FTL. If they were LS-only the sensor pulse would've taken what, an hour to come back?

Accurate enough the first time, thank you.

Hardly. Warp 9 is the key. Not just simple FTL.

Covered already. STL sensors are sufficient for this.

Covered this also. I guess we'll just have to disagree. STL sensors wouldn't work when the Ferengi attacked the Stargazer at Warp 2.

Also covered. STL weapons also suffice for this, even if you assume both ships are at warp, since exchanging fire at all would require precisely matching their relative velocities.

Let's see. Both ships are FTL. Stargazer is ahead at Warp 2. Ferengi is following Stargazer's light trail but only has LS sensors. It has no idea what is in front of that light trail. It can't tell that it has overrun Stargazer until it either crashed into it or overshot it. How does it obtain a firing solution? It can't. How does it get its STL weapons on target to Stargazer? Not from a chasing position. What if they moved in front of the Stargazer and let it run into it's weapons. Sure, but they only have LS sensors so they're back to square one about not knowing exactly where Stargazer was since in front, no light trail to follow.

Which is exactly why the Ferengi missed.

And why the Ferengi missed when they attacked the Stargazer in the first attack. Oh wait, that's not true because they did hit the Stargazer. FTL Sensors

There's no confusion. At the distances in which the maneuver would be performed it took several seconds to cover that distance. Bok had Stargazer move into that same position in order to replicate the circumstances of the original maneuver. Again, the entire thing is being carefully staged to create a specific sort of illusion not just for Picard, but for Starfleet as well (Bok may have screwed up the forged log entry, but the intent there is obvious).

If it were the same position the flight time of the Stargazer would've been 5 seconds instead of 1.5 seconds. If he was trying to replicate the circumstances, Picard's orders at the time Riker interrupts him would've been "Phasers fire!" not "Ready phasers" which occurs before Picard calls "Engage".

So what Enterprise saw would have been exactly what the Ferengi saw. More to the point: do you really believe the Ferengi would have been confused by a maneuver during which the other ship dissolves into a set of approaching warp streaks for almost five seconds?

What the Ferengi would've seen was another ship magically appearing out of no where without any of the warp light streaks. As to being confused, again, inexperienced Captain. How many times have we seen Captains freeze up during a surprise attack and watch their ship get blown out from underneath them? Alot more than we should.

That's the thing about the time delay: what you see and what actually happens are not the same thing. By the time Enterprise SEES the warp streaks appear, Stargazer has already been at warp for three seconds.

Again, that doesn't make sense. If it were truly an issue of FTL ship vs LS sensors:

1. Stargazer would immediately appear,
2. followed by the warp streaks catching up
3. and then the warp engine flash kicking into Warp 9 and the old image disappearing.

Instead, we see the reverse or "correct" order of:
1. Warp engine flash
2. streaks
3. Appearance of 2nd Stargazer
4. Both images visible simultaneously

Being in order does not suggest LS or STL sensors but real-time FTL sensors with a weakness against sudden Warp 9 hops.

Seriously?

Voyager drops out of warp.

That looks and sounds like the ship "streak" was still at warp and the sudden "appearance" is when it hit STL. Do ships "streak" at STL since you're suggesting that "The acceleration/deceleration phase is visible to STL sensors" while they are still STL. (italics mine).

Voyager goes to warp.

Bird of prey.... goes to warp

Another bird of prey... goes to warp

A space station goes to warp... don't have a cap for it, but the dropout looks about the same.

The Coalition fleet drops out of warp.... And the Romulan fleeship goes TO warp

The effect changes a bit from era to era (or season to season) but it's the same basic effect that was first exemplified in TMP.

As to jumping to warp, those warp streaks/light trails (when visible) indicate the ship is at warp.

http://youtu.be/G-1kkB_qF28

There would be no way in your premise for the STL sensors to see a ship while she's at warp so in order for the main viewer to animate the warp trails before showing Stargazer in it's new position it would've been with FTL sensors.

That's what exactly a "phaser lock" is.

You said, "Fed a targeting solution ahead of time." That isn't possible in the sequence given. My description of a phaser lock is for real-time targeting.

And here's a look at how the E-D has the option to either let the targeting re-acquire or float on it's own as conditions change or the weapons officer simply re-acquiring a lock after the change.

From "Lower Decks"

RIKER: Lock phasers on target.
SITO: Phasers locked.
DATA: The enemy is firing.
RIKER: Helm, hard to starboard.
LAVELLE: Hard to starboard.
RIKER: Fire phasers.
(a pause as she finds the right buttons)
SITO: Firing.
DATA: Target is destroyed.
RIKER: End simulation sequence. Secure from drill. Alpha shift, your response time was seven percent slower than the gamma shift.
All departments, submit drill evaluation reports
...
RIKER: What happened back there, Ensign?
SITO: I'm sorry, sir. When we changed course I had to re-lock phasers before I could fire.
RIKER: Next time, try letting the locking relay float until the actual order to fire is given. They may not teach that trick at the Academy, but it works.
​

Again, I doubt it. If simultaneous exchange, it means the Ferengi didn't notice Stargazer's new position at all -- maybe their weapons officer sneezed -- and Picard simply dodged their fire. I think it more likely that Stargazer riddled the Ferengi with phasers and torpedoes and the doomed vessel fired a parting shot as a dying gasp; since they didn't manage to get a phaser lock on Stargazer's new position, they wound up firing on the wrong target.

That's a possibility but unlikely. I just prefer Riker's dialogue that they simply fired on the wrong target.

Actually, take the second video I linked to as precedent. You've just been hit by six photon torpdoes and a dozen isotons of phaser blasts. The bridge is on fire, half your crew is sprawled out on the deck and your warp core is making all kinds of scary noises. In the midst of all this, your weapons officer crawls back to his console bleeding from his ears, reaches up and taps the "fire" button.

Why would he do that without the Captain telling him to? And if he was told to fire he'd lock onto the ship that actually fired at him instead of the more distant ship which by now would've likely disappeared

What target did he just fire on?

None as the Ferengi ship would've exploded by now. If he did get a shot off miraculously surviving the salvo from Stargazer he would've locked onto the one that fired at them.

See above.

See above.

That is, until you match velocities, at which time you're reduced to standard lightspeed delay. Close the distance a little more and even that becomes immaterial.

How do you match velocities? You're following a light trail and you have no idea what is in front of you or the light trail. How do you even navigate at FTL with only LS sensors?

You don't WANT them to pick either target. You WANT them to explode before they have a chance to do even that much. If you can get them to pick the wrong target, that's a bit of good luck... but it's a silly thing to depend on in a universe populated by people OTHER than incompetent Ferengi.

It was a desperate move on Picard's part. Since this maneuver doesn't seem to be used a whole lot, there might be a reason for that

Are you sure?

Are you sure you want to use that example? Unless you want to use your example to prove that the Ferengi would have no problem targeting the correct opponent since in "Nemesis" the E-E with the big hole continued to target and fight.

Eh... not dramatic enough.

Picard already suffers that from his stint with the Borg. He still serves as Captain of the Enterprise. He seems to have recovered by "First Contact"

Were you watching the same "First Contact" that I was? He didn't seem recovered at all.

Yeah, he had a HUGE grudge against the Borg. I'd imagine he wouldn't like the Ferengi either. But, he managed to stay an effective Captain from "BOBW" to "First Contact".

But recovery or not, KILLING Picard wasn't Bok's plan.

Killing him easily, apparently not. But getting Starfleet to do it...

Back to the Picard Maneuver. Picard's version of the story works in the televised TNG framework with little need for additional "inferences" from a technical standpoint. All it does is establish that the FTL sensors have difficulty with a sudden Warp 9 burst...

Or that starships cannot use them to track their opponents in real time. You keep ruling out that possibility without supporting its elimination.

I rule out that possibility because there are enough episodes in TNG that have a sublight E-D detecting an incoming Warp speed ship which indicate FTL sensors. Heck there are also episodes where a ship (or ships) being chased KNOW that they are being chased by other ships at Warp and if they were limited to LS/STL sensors that would be impossible.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The dialogue clearly points out in "Peak Performance" that the E-D's sensors are tracking an incoming Ferengi warship at Warp 5 and not that it had just dropped out of warp.

Then when, exactly, did the Ferengi ship drop out of warp?

There are random explosions and noises occurring on the bridge. I couldn't say that I heard a "warp pulse" when he orders "Engage".

I hear it pretty clearly. And I've always found it funny, ever since I was a little kid, because it always inevitably leads me to wonder about the whole "no sound in space" thing and to realize that the sound effects we hear in the external shots can't possibly really exist, but then again neither does the background music either, so it's all just stage decoration anyway and therefore what Picard is "hearing" is his own visualization of what's happening outside the ship.

Since you point to the "Nemesis" example then we can tell a bridge can recover and still fight effectively even with a hole in the bridge.

Yes, assuming the ship the bridge is attached to is still in something resembling fighting shape by the time those officers have had time to recover. In this case, they did not: a handful of seconds after Stargazer opened fire, the Ferengi ship was an expanding debris cloud.

Yes, on dramatic announcement before immediately exploding.

"Immediately" is relatively rare. It took the Saratoga a full two minutes to blow its warp core, and the first Defiant took slightly longer after the Breen zapped it with the energy dampener. The Valiant was shot to pieces by a Jem'hadar battleship, but still managed to avoid exploding until Jake and Nog could escape.

And even the relatively quick destruction of the Odyssey shows a distinct time delay between the collision and the actual explosion of the ship... time enough for one final poorly-aimed phaser blast.

No, dying last weapons fire on the wrong target after it is considered destroyed. Unless you have an example of this?

Not the WRONG target, but Lursa and Be'tor managed to trigger a warp core breach before the Enterprise destroyed them with a photon torpedo. If they had done slightly more damage to the engineering section, Enterprise might have exploded only a few seconds after launching that torpedo.

Or they may need more since we were only dealing with their tractor beam.

Or they may need less. Again, we don't know one way or the other; it's a moot point.

You asked about why fire at both targets (as a counter). If for example in "Peak Performance" the E-D fired at both the Stargazer and the trick Warbird the ruse would've been over.

The ruse was over instantly: Burke immediately realized the warbird was a fake, and Picard figured it out seconds later when Hathaway ignored the warbird and opened fire on them.

It tells us that fire control systems can fire at near and far targets.

It tells us that DS9's fire control system can do this. That doesn't help us much, since DS9 can do MANY things a normal starship cannot do (like simultaneously manage twelve different torpedo launchers and rotary phaser launchers, simultaneously targeting entire formations of ships). And DS9 is a large stationary platform with ALOT of sensor coverage and a potentially huge number of independent sensor/tracking/targeting stations. Each individual weapons emplacement could easily be managed by a single starship class fire control center.

Fair enough. Then it looks like Ferengi moved away after the 2nd attack and although appearing that they were coming back for the kill according to dialogue the Ferengi at that moment was only facing them but not moving much.

Yeah. Probably getting another sensor bearing to line up their next run.

Wow, that is inline with the description of the battle. Although given how much time it took between requesting a sensor bearing and receiving the pulse factored in with traveling at Warp 9 for 5-6 seconds the sensors must've been FTL. If they were LS-only the sensor pulse would've taken what, an hour to come back?

Unless they were using passive sensors: either reading the emissions from the Ferengi ship itself, or reading the emissions from the Ferengi's sensor beam. There's still the fact that we're not entirely sure how fast warp 9 actually is inside of a solar system; if it's the TVH warp 9 or the "Bloodlines" warp 9 or something in between (or worse, the Elaan of Troyus warp 9 which may or may not even be an FTL velocity).

Covered this also. I guess we'll just have to disagree. STL sensors wouldn't work when the Ferengi attacked the Stargazer at Warp 2.

Yes they would if both ships were traveling at the same speed.

Let's see. Both ships are FTL. Stargazer is ahead at Warp 2. Ferengi is following Stargazer's light trail but only has LS sensors. It has no idea what is in front of that light trail. It can't tell that it has overrun Stargazer until it either crashed into it or overshot it.

Incorrect. You can clearly see the END of the trail ahead of you, though you cannot as clearly see the actual object leaving that trail (as the distance and relative velocity decrease, that quickly changes, though). Working out the other ship's course and speed is simple arithmetic; working out its exact location with enough accuracy to get a firing solution is potentially more complicated, but aided by the fact that once you get a rough estimate of where he is and how fast he's going, you can place yourself in new relative position, match his velocity, and then get his EXACT position using standard sensors.

It wouldn't be a totally simple maneuver, in fact it's probably a basic combat maneuver that any good helmsman probably spends a lot of time practicing. Covered in the academy under "basic pursuit tactics."

How does it get its STL weapons on target to Stargazer? Not from a chasing position.

Actually, ONLY from a chasing position. Once you're behind them you can match their warp factor and then you're both stationary in the same co-moving reference frame

If it were the same position the flight time of the Stargazer would've been 5 seconds instead of 1.5 seconds.

It likely WAS 5 seconds. I repeat: what WE saw on the viewer is obviously different from what actually occurred (given the distant image of Stargazer can't really be there). The one and a half seconds of deceleration we see would only be the ending portion of the Stargazer's flight, not the entire maneuver.

What the Ferengi would've seen was another ship magically appearing out of no where without any of the warp light streaks.

But there WOULD be the warp streaks, as there ALWAYS are whenever a starship drops out of warp. They may not have understood what they were seeing and been momentarily confused, or -- far more likely -- they didn't have more than half a second to react before Stargazer's fussilade smashed through their shields.

Again, that doesn't make sense. If it were truly an issue of FTL ship vs LS sensors:

1. Stargazer would immediately appear,
2. followed by the warp streaks catching up
3. and then the warp engine flash kicking into Warp 9 and the old image disappearing.

In almost ANY case, the warp flash at the old image doesn't make logical sense. If the putative FTL sensors detected the warp flash, they would have known instantly that Stargazer was coming at them; more importantly, they would have been able to work out Stargazer's final position without having to scan for a sudden compression of interstellar gas (you ca scan for barely-detectable trace gases but you can't scan for a 200,000 ton slab of metal speeding towards you?).

Being in order does not suggest LS or STL sensors but real-time FTL sensors with a weakness against sudden Warp 9 hops.

Actually it suggests NEITHER of those things, given the still-present need to scan for a sudden gas compression.

That looks and sounds like the ship "streak" was still at warp...

It wasn't. Simple math fails that test: it takes Voyager a non-zero number of frames to cover that distance even as a streak, which means it's considerably below FTL velocity in that scene (unless, of course, ILM's cinematography is working at FTL too).

Do ships "streak" at STL since you're suggesting that "The acceleration/deceleration phase is visible to STL sensors" while they are still STL. (italics mine).

Yes. That's the sudden acceleration of the warp engines that pushes them through STL velocity through the warp barrier. In almost all cases, the "jump to warp" effect occurs BEFORE the flash in the distance as the ship breaks the light barrier (FX artists have used this since TMP; it's meant to be analogous to a sonic boom).

As to jumping to warp, those warp streaks/light trails (when visible) indicate the ship is at warp.

See above. The flash means lightspeed; the streaks occur first, with the onset of "warp 1" and above occurring at the flash.

There would be no way in your premise for the STL sensors to see a ship while she's at warp...

Then what are WE seeing? ILM's cameras are FTL too?

You said, "Fed a targeting solution ahead of time." That isn't possible in the sequence given. My description of a phaser lock is for real-time targeting.

Then your description is wrong, since Picard acquired the phaser lock BEFORE he went to warp. Something like this is implied in what Riker tells Sito Jaxa during a "The Lower Decks": "Let the locking relay float until the actual order to fire is given." That way she won't have to reestablish a phaser lock when the ship changes course (and, presumably, position). Vigo probably did the same thing on Stargazer and was therefore able to get a realtime fix the instant they were back at sublight velocity.

That's a possibility but unlikely. I just prefer Riker's dialogue that they simply fired on the wrong target.

There's nothing to indicate it's unlikely, especially since that's Picard's dialog, not Riker's.

Why would he do that without the Captain telling him to?

Why did Tom put Voyager to warp when the alien bioship had knocked them into a spin?

And if he was told to fire he'd lock onto the ship that actually fired at him instead of the more distant ship which by now would've likely disappeared

And I'm sure Tom would have programmed an actual escape course into his helm console instead of just crawling up to it and pressing the "engage" button.

None as the Ferengi ship would've exploded by now.

It will, in about three seconds. The question stands: there's a flash of light and suddenly your ship is hit by a massive barrage of phaser fire. Your stunned weapons officer stabs a button. What target did he just fire at?

How do you match velocities? You're following a light trail and you have no idea what is in front of you or the light trail.

You can see the light trail and you can see where it ends. You just close on that position and dial down your velocity until the light trail stops being a trail and resolves itself into a ship (because that's all the light trail actually is: the elongated distorted image of the ship you're following).

Are you sure you want to use that example? Unless you want to use your example to prove that the Ferengi would have no problem targeting the correct opponent since in "Nemesis"...

... IF Picard gave them half a minute to catch their breath and recover from the shock of having their bridge decompressed (as Shinzon did). It's pretty clear he did NOT do this, and so the example works just fine.

Yeah, he had a HUGE grudge against the Borg. I'd imagine he wouldn't like the Ferengi either. But, he managed to stay an effective Captain from "BOBW" to "First Contact".

Arguably, Bok managed to stay pretty effective in the nine years since the death of his son. That's the equivalency you're missing: Bok isn't trying to murder Picard, just hurt him in the same way HE was hurt.

I rule out that possibility because there are enough episodes in TNG that have a sublight E-D detecting an incoming Warp speed ship which indicate FTL sensors. Heck there are also episodes where a ship (or ships) being chased KNOW that they are being chased by other ships at Warp and if they were limited to LS/STL sensors that would be impossible.

Here's a math problem for you: if you're moving through space at warp nine, and you're being chased by another ship at warp nine, what is the relative velocity between your two ships?

 

[blssdwlf]

The dialogue clearly points out in "Peak Performance" that the E-D's sensors are tracking an incoming Ferengi warship at Warp 5 and not that it had just dropped out of warp.

Then when, exactly, did the Ferengi ship drop out of warp?

As you'd say, it doesn't matter since he was warning Picard of the approaching Warp 5 ship and not that it had dropped out of Warp and is about to fire on them.

There are random explosions and noises occurring on the bridge. I couldn't say that I heard a "warp pulse" when he orders "Engage".

I hear it pretty clearly. And I've always found it funny, ever since I was a little kid, because it always inevitably leads me to wonder about the whole "no sound in space" thing and to realize that the sound effects we hear in the external shots can't possibly really exist, but then again neither does the background music either, so it's all just stage decoration anyway and therefore what Picard is "hearing" is his own visualization of what's happening outside the ship.

The background noise matched the random fire, pops and explosions occurring on the bridge. None of if matched a warp acceleration, IMO.

Yes, assuming the ship the bridge is attached to is still in something resembling fighting shape by the time those officers have had time to recover. In this case, they did not: a handful of seconds after Stargazer opened fire, the Ferengi ship was an expanding debris cloud.

If they had enough time to open fire they would've picked the target that just fired on them.

"Immediately" is relatively rare. It took the Saratoga a full two minutes to blow its warp core, and the first Defiant took slightly longer after the Breen zapped it with the energy dampener. The Valiant was shot to pieces by a Jem'hadar battleship, but still managed to avoid exploding until Jake and Nog could escape.

And even the relatively quick destruction of the Odyssey shows a distinct time delay between the collision and the actual explosion of the ship... time enough for one final poorly-aimed phaser blast.

Or more likely enough time for one final aimed phaser blast at point-blank range. If people have time to run to an escape pod, they can push an extra button to aim their phasers.

Not the WRONG target, but Lursa and Be'tor managed to trigger a warp core breach before the Enterprise destroyed them with a photon torpedo. If they had done slightly more damage to the engineering section, Enterprise might have exploded only a few seconds after launching that torpedo.

But still, not at the WRONG target

Or they may need less. Again, we don't know one way or the other; it's a moot point.

It's part of Data's plan to use the tractor beam (not phasers) against the Stargazer. Important for the plan then not moot at all.

The ruse was over instantly: Burke immediately realized the warbird was a fake, and Picard figured it out seconds later when Hathaway ignored the warbird and opened fire on them.

The ruse was effective enough to allow the Hathaway to score hits on the Enterprise-D. If the E-D fired at both targets, the Hathaway wouldn't had opportunity for the free hits it landed.

It tells us that DS9's fire control system can do this. That doesn't help us much, since DS9 can do MANY things a normal starship cannot do (like simultaneously manage twelve different torpedo launchers and rotary phaser launchers, simultaneously targeting entire formations of ships). And DS9 is a large stationary platform with ALOT of sensor coverage and a potentially huge number of independent sensor/tracking/targeting stations. Each individual weapons emplacement could easily be managed by a single starship class fire control center.

If the E-D can target multiple drones at the same time in "Conundrum" and Voyager can fire at 3 targets simultaneously then it is entirely possible to fire at both targets, near and far.

Unless they were using passive sensors: either reading the emissions from the Ferengi ship itself, or reading the emissions from the Ferengi's sensor beam. There's still the fact that we're not entirely sure how fast warp 9 actually is inside of a solar system; if it's the TVH warp 9 or the "Bloodlines" warp 9 or something in between (or worse, the Elaan of Troyus warp 9 which may or may not even be an FTL velocity).

As far as TNG goes, they've been pretty consistent on data points to have warp the same speed regardless where they were unless there was something grabbing them. If it was TOS Warp 9 near a star, it could be as slow as 5c which is about 33s for light to travel one way from Ferengi to Stargazer so 1 minute for a active pulse and 30 seconds for only passive data. Still way too long for Picard's sensor bearing request as he got it almost instantly.

Yes they would if both ships were traveling at the same speed.

And I covered how that wouldn't be possible with LS sensors. No way for a ship with LS sensors to match speeds.

Incorrect. You can clearly see the END of the trail ahead of you, though you cannot as clearly see the actual object leaving that trail (as the distance and relative velocity decrease, that quickly changes, though).

Whoa there. Yes you can see the end but at FTL you won't have a clue as to where it goes until you actually run into it. With LS sensors and traveling at FTL you already are overdriving your sensors.

For an experiment, in an open area with very loud music or noise, put a blindfold on and wear sound-blocking earplugs and have a friend stand in front of you with a small battery powered fan. Have friend move around the room while aiming the fan at you while you try and catch them. Even though you can feel the air from the fan, you can't tell how far away it is. And if they stay perfectly still as you walk up to it, you won't know how far until you accidentally run into your friend (or touch it with your hand if you're feeling around.)

Actually, ONLY from a chasing position. Once you're behind them you can match their warp factor and then you're both stationary in the same co-moving reference frame

You mean once you collide with them with your LS sensors.

It likely WAS 5 seconds. I repeat: what WE saw on the viewer is obviously different from what actually occurred (given the distant image of Stargazer can't really be there). The one and a half seconds of deceleration we see would only be the ending portion of the Stargazer's flight, not the entire maneuver.

But as shown, it was not and we're not given any evidence otherwise. If it was delayed by 4 seconds, Riker's orders would've been too late and the Stargazer would've fired by then.

But there WOULD be the warp streaks, as there ALWAYS are whenever a starship drops out of warp. They may not have understood what they were seeing and been momentarily confused, or -- far more likely -- they didn't have more than half a second to react before Stargazer's fussilade smashed through their shields.

Which points to not LS sensors in order to see those warp streaks.

In almost ANY case, the warp flash at the old image doesn't make logical sense. If the putative FTL sensors detected the warp flash, they would have known instantly that Stargazer was coming at them; more importantly, they would have been able to work out Stargazer's final position without having to scan for a sudden compression of interstellar gas (you ca scan for barely-detectable trace gases but you can't scan for a 200,000 ton slab of metal speeding towards you?).

When you get down to it, the detected warp flash doesn't make sense with LS or FTL sensors. However, it is there so we have to work with it. LS sensors is not the answer because of the timing issues. There isn't any reason to not have FTL sensors either since it is vital to the responsive sensor bearing Picard orders and we know they're always scanning for incoming Warp speed ships.

The remaining possibility is that a sudden Warp 9 jump at the target ship confuses the sensors into thinking there are two for just a brief moment.

As to scanning with trace gases to lock on tractor beams, so be it.

Actually it suggests NEITHER of those things, given the still-present need to scan for a sudden gas compression.

For locking on tractor beams. Data's plan did not include phasers or other weapons.

It wasn't. Simple math fails that test: it takes Voyager a non-zero number of frames to cover that distance even as a streak, which means it's considerably below FTL velocity in that scene (unless, of course, ILM's cinematography is working at FTL too).

We're frequently shown ships warping by at FTL so yes, the cinematography is working at FTL and occasionally, so is the camera It'd be boring or useless if the camera were LS-only

Yes. That's the sudden acceleration of the warp engines that pushes them through STL velocity through the warp barrier. In almost all cases, the "jump to warp" effect occurs BEFORE the flash in the distance as the ship breaks the light barrier (FX artists have used this since TMP; it's meant to be analogous to a sonic boom).

Warp streaks exist to indicate they are at warp, even while still at warp. Just because they have a warp streak doesn't mean they are accelerating in or out of warp. In the screenshot you can see as the Enterprise-A approaches the camera at warp speed (the stars are zipping by) she also is leaving a light trail.

See above. The flash means lightspeed; the streaks occur first, with the onset of "warp 1" and above occurring at the flash.

Then what are WE seeing? ILM's cameras are FTL too?

See above for both. A ship at warp can have a light streak and ILM's camera are FTL

Then your description is wrong, since Picard acquired the phaser lock BEFORE he went to warp.

Quoting myself: "This means that the Stargazer kept her phaser lock in real-time all the way to the delivery point at Warp 9 or re-acquired the target as she slowed down from Warp 9."

This is inline with "The Lower Decks".

The way you described it: "He had already taken a sensor bearing on the Ferengi ship and fed a targeting solution ahead of time."

That lock-on prior to the sudden Warp 9 move would've broken the lock. You don't mention a need to re-acquire the target as "Lower Decks" indicates.

Something like this is implied in what Riker tells Sito Jaxa during a "The Lower Decks": "Let the locking relay float until the actual order to fire is given." That way she won't have to reestablish a phaser lock when the ship changes course (and, presumably, position). Vigo probably did the same thing on Stargazer and was therefore able to get a realtime fix the instant they were back at sublight velocity.

That isn't present in your first description that I responded to.

There's nothing to indicate it's unlikely, especially since that's Picard's dialog, not Riker's.

Which neither one disputes their interpretations. The only likely things that happened as supported by the dialogue is that the Ferengi saw both ships and fired at the wrong target.

Why did Tom put Voyager to warp when the alien bioship had knocked them into a spin?

Why didn't Tuvok fire phasers? We've seen many times the brave helmsman or some other guy run up to the helm to get the ship "out of there". But when have we seen someone firing weapons without authorization to save the ship?

It will, in about three seconds. The question stands: there's a flash of light and suddenly your ship is hit by a massive barrage of phaser fire. Your stunned weapons officer stabs a button. What target did he just fire at?

If they were trained like "The Lower Decks", they would've waited for the Captain to select the target and give the fire order. The Captain, if he had any experience, would've chosen the ship that just fired on it, as in "return fire!".

You can see the light trail and you can see where it ends.

That's just being silly. You have LS sensors and you're traveling FTL chasing an FTL ship. You cannot see "where it ends".

You just close on that position and dial down your velocity until the light trail stops being a trail and resolves itself into a ship (because that's all the light trail actually is: the elongated distorted image of the ship you're following).

More like collide with the ship you're chasing. Again, you're flying so fast that you can't see what is in front of your nose, only the the light hitting your bow.

... IF Picard gave them half a minute to catch their breath and recover from the shock of having their bridge decompressed (as Shinzon did). It's pretty clear he did NOT do this, and so the example works just fine.

If Picard gave them no breathing room, they would've been dead and unable to respond. Having a 10 foot hole in the bridge as you're getting destroyed is as you'd say, "a distinction without a difference".

As pointed out earlier, if they have enough time to respond, they'd target the correct ship and the Stargazer would've been destroyed.

Yeah, he had a HUGE grudge against the Borg. I'd imagine he wouldn't like the Ferengi either. But, he managed to stay an effective Captain from "BOBW" to "First Contact".

Arguably, Bok managed to stay pretty effective in the nine years since the death of his son. That's the equivalency you're missing: Bok isn't trying to murder Picard, just hurt him in the same way HE was hurt.

Bok isn't trying to kill him outright, no. However getting the E-D to do it is rather fitting as it would've represented his son firing on the right target. In anycase, the first time around there was no way Bok could hurt Picard the same way he was hurt. Picard had no son to be killed. Controlling Picard to kill other Starfleet officers isn't equivalent to the same hurt.

I rule out that possibility because there are enough episodes in TNG that have a sublight E-D detecting an incoming Warp speed ship which indicate FTL sensors. Heck there are also episodes where a ship (or ships) being chased KNOW that they are being chased by other ships at Warp and if they were limited to LS/STL sensors that would be impossible.

Here's a math problem for you: if you're moving through space at warp nine, and you're being chased by another ship at warp nine, what is the relative velocity between your two ships?

Oh that's simple. The LS sensors on the ship being chased wouldn't be able to get a passive reflection from the chasing ships and any active pulse it sends out backwards would never return.

I think you see how untenable having LS sensors in Trek is.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It's part of Data's plan to use the tractor beam (not phasers) against the Stargazer. Important for the plan then not moot at all.

As far as we know, the use of the tractor beam is only important to Picard's not-being-killed in the process. The extent to which the interception ITSELF depends on the tractor beam is unknown.

As far as TNG goes, they've been pretty consistent on data points to have warp the same speed regardless where they were unless there was something grabbing them.

Only because there are so few actual datapoints. Plus, I'm not totally prepared to separate TNG from the rest of Trek canon for this specific purpose since even the "recalibrated" warp scale isn't necessarily canon; for all we know, Federation races have been using the same scale since humans were still dabbling in chemical rocketry.

If it was TOS Warp 9 near a star, it could be as slow as 5c which is about 33s for light to travel one way from Ferengi to Stargazer so 1 minute for a active pulse and 30 seconds for only passive data. Still way too long for Picard's sensor bearing request as he got it almost instantly.

And yet if Stargazer were passively reading the Ferengi's sensor beam, jumping into warp nine would have meant arriving at the Ferengi's position before the scanner beam would have returned tot hem.

Whoa there. Yes you can see the end but at FTL you won't have a clue as to where it goes until you actually run into it.

Yes you do. In this case the trail is like a giant cosmic arrow pointing the direction that the other ship went, trailing behind it by a short distance (a distance you can calculate if you know what his warp factor is, and you probably can). All that means is you cannot SEE the target ahead of you, but with the telltales in his warp trail you can calculate his position and zero in on that until he becomes visible.

For an experiment, in an open area with very loud music or noise, put a blindfold on and wear sound-blocking earplugs and have a friend stand in front of you with a small battery powered fan. Have friend move around the room while aiming the fan at you while you try and catch them. Even though you can feel the air from the fan, you can't tell how far away it is.

False analogy. It's really like trying to find a ship at sea by following its wake. You don't have to physically encounter the wake in order to follow it (although that would work too) you can whip out a pair of binoculars and look ahead to a point where you can no longer see the wake; even if you can't see the ship itself, you can figure out where it is based on that.

If it was delayed by 4 seconds, Riker's orders would've been too late...

I didn't say it was "delayed" by 4 seconds. I've said that that the maneuver took about 4 seconds but that Enterprise's viewscreen only animated the last three-quarters of a second as the Stargazer dropped out of warp. That means that Enterprise saw the warp streaks as Stargazer decelerated, by which time the ship had already been at warp for several seconds; Riker's orders would be just in time to coincide with Stargazer's actual stoppage.

Which points to not LS sensors in order to see those warp streaks.

The warp streaks that indicate a starship that is dropping OUT of warp. Those are seen using conventional sensors (e.g. cameras).

For locking on tractor beams. Data's plan did not include phasers or other weapons.

Irrelevant; he doesn't actively rule them out either.

We're frequently shown ships warping by at FTL...

Irrelevant; the camera's position is usually moving with respect to the ship in question (star streaks in the background). The few times it isn't, it can be INFERRED to be since the moving starship isn't moving anywhere NEAR lightspeed relative to the camera.

We're talking about scenes where a relatively stationary target witnesses a starship make the sudden transition from FTL to sublight speed and vice-versa. In every single case, we see the distinct warp flash -- indicative of a ship crossing the light barrier -- following by the streaky image of a hugely accelerated but still sublight vessel.

Warp streaks exist to indicate they are at warp, even while still at warp.

Perfect image to illustrate my point. Whatever the perspective of the camera in this shot, it is NOT being overflown at FTL speeds; the Enterprise AND the camera are both at FTL; the camera is simply moving towards Khitomer slightly slower than Enterprise is.

Just because they have a warp streak doesn't mean they are accelerating in or out of warp.

99% of the time, it DOES. What's more interesting is that the very few times that it doesn't involves a starship that is positively HAULING ASS to get some place before a plot-driven deadline.

The way you described it: "He had already taken a sensor bearing on the Ferengi ship and fed a targeting solution ahead of time."

That lock-on prior to the sudden Warp 9 move would've broken the lock.

Not if Vigo let the locking mechanism float, the way Riker advised Sito, in which case Stargazer's sensors would have simply remained fixed on the acceleration-distorted image of the Ferengi vessel until it again resolved itself into a clear target at the stopping point.

You don't mention a need to re-acquire the target as "Lower Decks" indicates.

That's because such a need does not exist. Stargazer had already worked out the Ferengi ship's exact position before going to warp, and I imagine was pleasantly surprised to find it still IN that position when it stopped.

Which neither one disputes their interpretations. The only likely things that happened as supported by the dialogue is that the Ferengi saw both ships and fired at the wrong target.

But WHEN and WHY is never specified. The variables here:
1 - Did they fire before or AFTER Stargazer did?
2 - Was it confusion of the second target reappearing, or the confusion caused by the dozens of consoles exploding all over their bridge?

Why didn't Tuvok fire phasers? We've seen many times the brave helmsman or some other guy run up to the helm to get the ship "out of there". But when have we seen someone firing weapons without authorization to save the ship?

You're suggesting that the weapons officer of a Ferengi pirate vessel would not have had authorization to fire on the Stargazer? In the middle of a firefight? After they had ALREADY fired on them three different times?

If they were trained like "The Lower Decks"...

Do you honestly think the weapons officers on Ferengi pirate vessels are trained to the same standards and rules of engagement as Starfleet junior officers?

That's just being silly. You have LS sensors and you're traveling FTL chasing an FTL ship. You cannot see "where it ends".

Special relativity, dude: a photon always travels at light speed in all reference frames. No matter how fast you're moving relative to the other ship, if you're a light second away, his image ALWAYS reaches you after one second.

The light trail exists as a form of extreme motion blur; the ship appears to be "stretched" along its direction of travel because it travels a much greater distance between the emission of any two photons; if it travels at the speed of light, it appears to occupy those two positions simultaneously, and if it's much faster than light it appears to occupy MANY positions at once (those positions are so close together that they appear to be a single elongated image, hence it is a "trail" and not a Picard-maneuver double image).

Warp drive allows the SHIP to travel faster than light, but it doesn't affect the speed of light itself. So in this case it's not a question of whether or not the lightspeed delay still applies over relative distances or relative speeds, it's literally a question of which thing -- the photon or the ship that emitted it -- will arrive at its destination first.

More like collide with the ship you're chasing. Again, you're flying so fast that you can't see what is in front of your nose

Yes you can. Photons from those objects in front of you are still reaching you at the speed of light. It's simply a question of whether or not the object that emitted them will hit you before the photons do. If you're chasing a ship moving at FTL speed, the answer is a categorical no.

If Picard gave them no breathing room, they would've been dead and unable to respond.

Yes. Just not INSTANTLY, as in Star Trek it always takes a few seconds for the doomed ship to roll over and ripple out its big dramatic "Death rattle" of explosions.

Having a 10 foot hole in the bridge as you're getting destroyed is as you'd say, "a distinction without a difference".

I'd say it makes a pretty huge difference to the weapons officer who is trying to accurately direct a volley of photon torpedoes with all this shit going on around him.

As pointed out earlier, if they have enough time to respond, they'd target the correct ship and the Stargazer would've been destroyed.

Which is hugely begging the question. It takes half a second to press a button on a console to fire a spread of torpedoes; it takes quite a bit longer to switch your scanner beam onto a second target, lock your weapons onto it and THEN fire a spread of torpedoes.

Just because you have enough time to press a button does NOT mean you have enough time to run to your tactical officer and have a serious discussion about which of those two targets you should fire your torpedoes at.

Controlling Picard to kill other Starfleet officers isn't equivalent to the same hurt.

It is if you count Wesley and Beverly aboard the crew, but I doubt Bok would have been aware of this. I think he merely assumed Picard would be as attached to his crew as Bok was to his son and acted accordingly. He would have been wrong, but it wouldn't be the first time (or the last).

Oh that's simple. The LS sensors on the ship being chased wouldn't be able to get a passive reflection from the chasing ships

Incorrect.

The answer is: their relative velocity is ZERO, thus the time delay is the same in both directions and both ships have clear images of one another, despite the fact that both of them are going at warp speed.

This is because in SR there's no such thing as a "universal reference frame" and the speed of light is always the same from all possible perspectives (that's what causes time dilation: the moving observer has his clock accelerated with respect to the stationary one so that his measurement of C remains unchanged).

As I said above, the only weird part is that a ship can arrive at a destination before the photons it emitted arrives there (which is what happens in the Picard Maneuver). That same trick doesn't really work in reverse; if you go to warp AWAY from someone, they'll see you leaving, they'll see where you're going, and they'll see your streaky image flying off all the way to your destination. They will, of course, not see you arrive until a long time after you get there, which leaves open the possibility that you can warp over to a distant location and them warp back without them realizing you went anywhere at all. (This is basically what Hathaway did in "Peak Performance"; I'm beginning to think that maybe those Constellation-types are abnormally fast for starships).

 

[blssdwlf]

As far as TNG goes, they've been pretty consistent on data points to have warp the same speed regardless where they were unless there was something grabbing them.

Only because there are so few actual datapoints. Plus, I'm not totally prepared to separate TNG from the rest of Trek canon for this specific purpose since even the "recalibrated" warp scale isn't necessarily canon; for all we know, Federation races have been using the same scale since humans were still dabbling in chemical rocketry.

I tend to lump TNG and Voyager data points together. DS9 didn't really give any that I recall. I don't even consider it as a "recalibrated scale" just merely different continuities with different internal physics.

And yet if Stargazer were passively reading the Ferengi's sensor beam, jumping into warp nine would have meant arriving at the Ferengi's position before the scanner beam would have returned tot hem.

If the Ferengi's sensor beam was operating at LS, a simple Warp 1.1 jump would suffice. For the speeds and distances involved, even the Ferengi's sensor beam would need to be FTL. Otherwise, the Stargazer and the Ferengi could be dealing with several minutes to an hour old data...

Yes you do. In this case the trail is like a giant cosmic arrow pointing the direction that the other ship went, trailing behind it by a short distance (a distance you can calculate if you know what his warp factor is, and you probably can). All that means is you cannot SEE the target ahead of you, but with the telltales in his warp trail you can calculate his position and zero in on that until he becomes visible.

If you're going FTL with LS sensors you're picking up the trail of light as it hits your sensors. You will not be able to determine which way that trail is going by simply looking ahead (LS Sensors) although you could make a guess at the direction if the "collected" trail stays very straight for a duration of time. You'd still wouldn't know the range because of the LS sensors.

False analogy. It's really like trying to find a ship at sea by following its wake. You don't have to physically encounter the wake in order to follow it (although that would work too) you can whip out a pair of binoculars and look ahead to a point where you can no longer see the wake; even if you can't see the ship itself, you can figure out where it is based on that.

Are you still on about using LS sensors in an FTL ship to follow another FTL ship? Because if you are, your analogy is way off. You are going FTL, faster than your LS sensors can look forward. Whipping out a pair of binoculars to look ahead is the equivalent of using FTL optics to look at the wake ahead.

LS Sensors on an FTL ship chasing another FTL ship is analogous to following a trail by scent while running blindfolded.

I didn't say it was "delayed" by 4 seconds. I've said that that the maneuver took about 4 seconds but that Enterprise's viewscreen only animated the last three-quarters of a second as the Stargazer dropped out of warp. That means that Enterprise saw the warp streaks as Stargazer decelerated, by which time the ship had already been at warp for several seconds; Riker's orders would be just in time to coincide with Stargazer's actual stoppage.

Yet that could not explain for the Stargazer's warp engine flash that preceded the warp streaks. What the viewer animated was the entire flight and duration of the Stargazer's jump.

The warp streaks that indicate a starship that is dropping OUT of warp. Those are seen using conventional sensors (e.g. cameras).

As seen in the "The Undiscovered Country" screencap, warp streaks are also visible while a ship is still AT warp. The moment 2nd Stargazer appeared is likely the moment it was no longer FTL.

Irrelevant; he doesn't actively rule them out either.

Relevant; Data's plan focused on using the tractor beam to seize the Stargazer and restrict it's weapons fire which did not include use of weapons.

Irrelevant; the camera's position is usually moving with respect to the ship in question (star streaks in the background). The few times it isn't, it can be INFERRED to be since the moving starship isn't moving anywhere NEAR lightspeed relative to the camera.

The camera wouldn't be able to see the ship if it couldn't capture it with FTL capabilities.

We're talking about scenes where a relatively stationary target witnesses a starship make the sudden transition from FTL to sublight speed and vice-versa. In every single case, we see the distinct warp flash -- indicative of a ship crossing the light barrier -- following by the streaky image of a hugely accelerated but still sublight vessel.

And yet we have the screencap from "The Undiscovered Country" showing us a ship with warp streaks traveling at warp speed. Also, arguably, the extended warp streak of the Enterprise in "The Wrath of Khan" as it warps away from the explosion of the Genesis device. Or the warp streak of the Enterprise at warp in "The Search for Spock".

The existence of the warp streak tells us it is at warp. It doesn't tell us it is about to accelerate or decelerate from/to sublight.

Perfect image to illustrate my point. Whatever the perspective of the camera in this shot, it is NOT being overflown at FTL speeds; the Enterprise AND the camera are both at FTL; the camera is simply moving towards Khitomer slightly slower than Enterprise is.

And the Enterprise is at Warp speed. Not slowing to sublight.

Not if Vigo let the locking mechanism float, the way Riker advised Sito, in which case Stargazer's sensors would have simply remained fixed on the acceleration-distorted image of the Ferengi vessel until it again resolved itself into a clear target at the stopping point.

If the lock is floating, then it is tracking the target. The way you originally described it sounded like the firing solution was already set where it would have been impossible since Picard hadn't ordered the ship to move. Only after he called stop did he give the order to fire, requiring a new solution aka letting the lock float to reacquire the target.

That's because such a need does not exist. Stargazer had already worked out the Ferengi ship's exact position before going to warp, and I imagine was pleasantly surprised to find it still IN that position when it stopped.

And the "Lower Decks" example showed that they also "worked out the target ship's exact position" but after the E-D turned the firing solution was no longer valid. In the Stargazer's case the solution would've been even more invalid given the 6 second, Warp 9 flight time.

But WHEN and WHY is never specified. The variables here:
1 - Did they fire before or AFTER Stargazer did?
2 - Was it confusion of the second target reappearing, or the confusion caused by the dozens of consoles exploding all over their bridge?

PICARD: Well, I did what any good helmsman would have done. I dropped into high warp, stopped right off the enemy vessel's bow and fired with everything I had.
RIKER: And blowing into maximum warp speed, you appeared for an instant to be in two places at once.
PICARD: And our attacker fired on the wrong one.
​

From the sequence in the dialogue, the attacker fired on the wrong one after the Stargazer appeared to be in two places at once. Picard doesn't say it was his weapons fire that caused the attacker to fire on the wrong target. Picard added to Riker's "two places at once" as the cause of firing at the "wrong one."

3. You left out did they fire at each other at the same time and the Ferengi just chose the wrong target?

You're suggesting that the weapons officer of a Ferengi pirate vessel would not have had authorization to fire on the Stargazer? In the middle of a firefight? After they had ALREADY fired on them three different times?

As far as the Ferengi were concerned, it was not the middle of a firefight and they were making specific, planned attack passes. There would have been little reason to believe that the Ferengi Captain would've told his weapons officer to "fire at will" when they've made two very specific attack runs and getting ready for the third, final attack.

Do you honestly think the weapons officers on Ferengi pirate vessels are trained to the same standards and rules of engagement as Starfleet junior officers?

The rules of engagement is irrelevant. However, chain of command seems to be still there in the Ferengi navy.

Special relativity, dude: a photon always travels at light speed in all reference frames. No matter how fast you're moving relative to the other ship, if you're a light second away, his image ALWAYS reaches you after one second.

Special relativity talks about light is always light speed in the case of two objects that are traveling near the speed of light. It doesn't really talk about FTL issues, AFAIK.

In any case, I don't think you really believe Special Relativity and FTL. The last paragraph you write: "As I said above, the only weird part is that a ship can arrive at a destination before the photons it emitted arrives there"

You are already in agreement that a ship at FTL will outrun it's own emitted photons. There would be no way for an FTL ship with LS sensors to be able to see what is in front of it as it is blind. And it will not be able to see what it is behind it as no photon would hope to catch up to it until the ship goes STL again.

Yes. Just not INSTANTLY, as in Star Trek it always takes a few seconds for the doomed ship to roll over and ripple out its big dramatic "Death rattle" of explosions.

Not "always". In Star Trek, ships can blow up instantly just as well - see "Way of the Warrior"'s DS9 battle or the time Defiant vs BOP combat.

I'd say it makes a pretty huge difference to the weapons officer who is trying to accurately direct a volley of photon torpedoes with all this shit going on around him.

That's assuming they had time to do so. From Picard's flashback, it didn't sound like he gave them time at all. And we've seen ships in Star Trek go kaboom immediately.

Which is hugely begging the question. It takes half a second to press a button on a console to fire a spread of torpedoes; it takes quite a bit longer to switch your scanner beam onto a second target, lock your weapons onto it and THEN fire a spread of torpedoes.

Just because you have enough time to press a button does NOT mean you have enough time to run to your tactical officer and have a serious discussion about which of those two targets you should fire your torpedoes at.

Which begs another question, why would you run to the tactical officer to have a discussion in the middle of combat? Perhaps a bit inexperienced? Or did the young, inexperienced Ferengi Captain just say, "Fire at the Stargazer, ignore the new ship!"

Now from the Ferengi's POV, it might have made sense to fire at the Old Stargazer and ignore the New Stargazer. They knew that they only had to hit the Old Stargazer once to kill it so as a Captain when faced with two targets, he might have thought to even the odds first by killing the weaker opponent first.

Controlling Picard to kill other Starfleet officers isn't equivalent to the same hurt.

It is if you count Wesley and Beverly aboard the crew, but I doubt Bok would have been aware of this. I think he merely assumed Picard would be as attached to his crew as Bok was to his son and acted accordingly. He would have been wrong, but it wouldn't be the first time (or the last).

Since he didn't know if Picard had any attachments to his crew like a son, it doesn't follow that he wanted Picard to suffer the same way. However, if he got Picard killed by Starfleet, then he would avoid having Starfleet come after him.

Oh that's simple. The LS sensors on the ship being chased wouldn't be able to get a passive reflection from the chasing ships

Incorrect.

The answer is: their relative velocity is ZERO, thus the time delay is the same in both directions and both ships have clear images of one another, despite the fact that both of them are going at warp speed.

This is because in SR there's no such thing as a "universal reference frame" and the speed of light is always the same from all possible perspectives (that's what causes time dilation: the moving observer has his clock accelerated with respect to the stationary one so that his measurement of C remains unchanged).

As I said above, the only weird part is that a ship can arrive at a destination before the photons it emitted arrives there (which is what happens in the Picard Maneuver).

It doesn't quite work for FTL situations. As you've pointed out, a FTL ship can outrun its own emitted photons so LS Sensors are useless for looking around when going FTL. The ship being chased at FTL with LS sensors will outrun it's own emitted photons and not be able to see the FTL ships chasing it.

Since we observe in the episode the E-D's main viewer showing the warp engine flash, warp streak and then appearance of the 2nd image of the Stargazer "blowing into Warp 9" and that we know the E-D can detect incoming warp speed ships in other episodes we are left with a sudden Warp 9 jump at a target ship with FTL sensors can temporarily confuse it into seeing two images, IMO.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

If the Ferengi's sensor beam was operating at LS, a simple Warp 1.1 jump would suffice.

Too slow. The Ferengi would re-engage and they'd end up in a tail chase again.

If you're going FTL with LS sensors you're picking up the trail of light as it hits your sensors.

To be sure, you're picking up the light FROM the trail as it hits your sensors. That light is being emitted from the entire trail at once, and you can plainly see a point in space (moving with the trail) where no light is being emitted.

It is not necessary to fly THROUGH the trail in order to detect it; you can see the trail from a distance, as long as you're behind it.

Are you still on about using LS sensors in an FTL ship to follow another FTL ship? Because if you are, your analogy is way off. You are going FTL, faster than your LS sensors can look forward.

Special relativity again: even at FTL speed, a beam of light still moves away from you at the speed of light. The other FTL starship one light second ahead of you is perfectly visible, especially if he's moving at the same speed you are (for a relative velocity of exactly zero no matter what's happening outside of your respective warp bubbles).

Yet that could not explain for the Stargazer's warp engine flash that preceded the warp streaks.

It would if the FLASH propagated faster than light, which is a very real possibility considering what it represents.

As seen in the "The Undiscovered Country" screencap, warp streaks are also visible while a ship is still AT warp.

And yet in the TUC screencap, the Enterprise is not moving at FTL speed relative to the camera.

You're also conflating the engine glow from the TMP era with the elongated blur we see from TNG onwards; those are very different phenomena, considering TNG vessels don't have a noticeable glowing trail.

Relevant; Data's plan focused on using the tractor beam to seize the Stargazer and restrict it's weapons fire which did not include use of weapons.

The reason it's not relevant is because we do not know whether or not the use of weapons would have been easier or harder than the use of a tractor beam. Data implies that it is HARDER, because only a very powerful ship like Enterprise could do so, however we do not know for sure, and therefore we cannot definitively say that a tractor beam requires a less precise targeting solution than a phaser beam (although, based on "Conundrum," probably more).

The camera wouldn't be able to see the ship if it couldn't capture it with FTL capabilities.

Special relativity: light always travels at the speed of light in all reference frames. The point I was making is that the perception would have to be FASTER than light for the streaky "drop out of warp" images to be representative of "FTL until we stop." In those cases, you wouldn't be able to visibly trace the movement of the ship; there'd be a flash of light and it suddenly appears out of nowhere.

The existence of the warp streak tells us it is at warp.

At most, it tells us the warp engines are active. As it stands, we have at least one solid datapoint from TVH that suggests "traveling at warp" and "traveling at FTL" are not necessarily the same thing.

And the "Lower Decks" example showed that they also "worked out the target ship's exact position" but after the E-D turned the firing solution was no longer valid.

I can see where you're confused.

A "firing solution" is a term derived from the mathematical equations used to direct artillery batteries; literally, a solution to an equation that involves the speed and direction and distance of the target, the speed and direction of the shooter, the arc and velocity of the shell, wind direction and coriolis effect, all to work out a determination of which way the gun must be pointed to score a hit. It is used by analogy to refer to weapons guidance in, for example, sonar-guided torpedoes and guided missiles involving the calculations needed for a guided weapon to properly intercept its target given its own constraints. The commonality here is that a firing solution is a calculation based on the spotter's best estimate of those values; in artillery, the solution becomes more accurate after the first couple of shots as you can see where your shells actually landed and compare that with your calculations to adjust accordingly. Guided missiles, on the other hand, do this in real time, by constantly adjusting their course based on the radar signal they're getting back from their target and recomputing the optimal trajectory they need to take thousands of times a second. IOW, for a guided missile or a torpedo, a "firing solution" consists of a computer asking itself "Am I going to hit it? Am I going to hit it? Am I going to hit it?" over and over again.

A "phaser lock" apparently works the same way, considering it is possible to maintain a phaser lock against a maneuvering target. The "float" means the FCS is constantly re-runnning this calculation all the time so that the solution remains current and you're not firing on where the target was expected to be a couple of seconds ago.

From the sequence in the dialogue, the attacker fired on the wrong one after the Stargazer appeared to be in two places at once.

Which, again, does not specify whether that is before or after Stargazer fired its weapons. Recall again that Picard immediately opened fire after reversing his engines; Stargazer being in two places at once is apparently concurrent with its opening fire.

And Picard doesn't speculate on WHY the Ferengi fired on the wrong target. He merely states that they did, because that's literally all the information he had available.

As far as the Ferengi were concerned, it was not the middle of a firefight

In the scenario where the Stargazer suddenly appeared and opened fire, IT WAS.

Special relativity talks about light is always light speed in the case of two objects that are traveling near the speed of light. It doesn't really talk about FTL issues, AFAIK.

Mathematically, it doesn't make any difference: even if you're going FTL relative to some other observer (which we ARE over cosmic distances), you're still stationary in your OWN reference frame, and that is the context to which special relativity actually applies.

Warp drive makes it weird because you no longer have to be in another galaxy on the other side of the universe to be moving away from someone at FTL speeds. But SR still applies in exactly the same way.

You are already in agreement that a ship at FTL will outrun it's own emitted photons.

From the perspective of the OBSERVER, yes. From your OWN perspective, your photons are still ahead of you, moving away at the speed of light (which is, as I said, the point where the scenario gets weird).

Classically, this would be explained by relativistic time dilation. Warp drive is described as precluding time dilation of any kind, but I'm reminded that in special relativity, time dilation is an observation difference and doesn't actually occur (it literally does in general relativity, usually due to gravitationally distorted spacetime). That is, if you're moving at relativistic speeds, an observer looks at you and sees that time appears to have slowed down tremendously for you, and that distorted time explains why you don't realize the photons' relative velocity is reduced (you think it's C, he thinks it's <C). You look at the observer and record the same thing: HIS time is slowed down, which is why he doesn't realize that his photons are moving towards you slower than they should be (he thinks it's C, you think it's <C). At FTL velocity, the distortion effect is so great that the FTL starship appears to be moving BACKWARDS in time; you appear to arrive in a place before you actually left, you appear to finish sentences you haven't started yet, etc. This is because the observer may track a photon leaving your ship and calculate a NEGATIVE velocity while you still calculate the normal lightspeed; that is only possible if your clock is running backwards, skewing your measurements. And again, the same observation works in reverse: from the starship's perspective, EVERYONE ELSE is moving backwards in time, which explains why their photons appear to be moving TOWARDS THEM (that is, your forward speed minus the normal lightspeed at which you receive them).

Simultaneity is preserved, but cannot be observed. Though the speed of light remains constant in all reference frames, it means that observers moving at high speed relative to each other cannot make truthful observations about what's happening to one another; their observations are valid in their own reference frames, and ONLY their own reference frames.

That's assuming they had time to do so. From Picard's flashback, it didn't sound like he gave them time at all. And we've seen ships in Star Trek go kaboom immediately.

Well, there is The Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu to consider. Remember, in television any particular party to a conflict has a fixed amount of badass; a single protagonist against fifty ninjas therefore turns out to be a pretty even fight, since the amount of badass on the opposing side is distributed among those fifty ninjas. If, however, you have a protagonist fighting a SINGLE ninja, it is still an even fight, as that one ninja just happens to be a 50x badass relative to all of his dead peers.

This seems to be the case in "Way of the Warrior." The Klingons hit DS9 with about thirty ships, which is unfortunate because it apparently means every single one of them has about 1/30th their normal hull and shield strength (and we got to see a couple of Vorchas blown to bits where earlier in the same episode they seemed to take a pretty heavy pummeling). I suspect the same is likely to be true of the Ferengi; if Bok Junior had been part of a fleet of twenty ships, then the Picard Maneuver would have been used to destroy every single one of them in a massive guns-blazing turkeyshoot (and a couple of those twenty ships would have gotten confused and fired on the wrong target). One on one, though, concentrates the Ferengi's supply of badass on a single ship and makes it harder to kill; instead of simply blowing apart, the Ferengi ship would have listed sickeningly for a few moments with fire and secondary explosions billowing out, etc etc.

Which begs another question, why would you run to the tactical officer to have a discussion in the middle of combat?

Good question is good.

Riker: "Worf..." <BOOM!> what can you tell me about that bird of prey? Any weaknesses?" <BOOM!>
Worf: "They're using an old D12 bird of prey... <BOOM!> They were retired from service because of defective plasma coils!"
Riker: "Any way we can use that to our advantage?" <BOOM!>
Worf: "Are you shitting me? We're in the middle of a battle! Shut up and give some damn orders!"

Perhaps a bit inexperienced? Or did the young, inexperienced Ferengi Captain just say, "Fire at the Stargazer, ignore the new ship!"

Or suppose he said "Fire at that ship!" and the weapons officer -- who wasn't watching the viewscreen -- fired at the distant image he was already locked onto?

Regardless, though, the fact is Stargazer is depicted as being very quick on the draw after deceleration. I could buy that Bok fired at the same time, but firing FIRST doesn't fit the narrative.

It doesn't quite work for FTL situations. As you've pointed out, a FTL ship can outrun its own emitted photons so LS Sensors are useless for looking around when going FTL.

But that's only true from the OBSERVER's point of view. From YOUR point of view, your photons are still moving ahead of you at the speed of light.

More importantly, most of the things in the universe were already there long before you engaged your engines, so you won't have to worry about them appearing to be in multiple places. It gets more complicated with another FTL ship, but it's worth keeping in mind that since light takes a certain amount of time to travel, you can see where he was thirty seconds ago, then where he was twenty seconds ago, then where he was ten seconds ago, etc etc until you get close enough to match velocities. Matching velocities restores simultaneity; all those weird time-dilation effects disappear and you are free to lock your weapons onto the target as you normally would.

 

[blssdwlf]

If the Ferengi's sensor beam was operating at LS, a simple Warp 1.1 jump would suffice.

Too slow. The Ferengi would re-engage and they'd end up in a tail chase again.

It isn't too slow since the Ferengi would be sitting tight waiting for their LS Return Pulse. At just above LS, the Stargazer would still beat the return pulse back.

If you're going FTL with LS sensors you're picking up the trail of light as it hits your sensors.

To be sure, you're picking up the light FROM the trail as it hits your sensors. That light is being emitted from the entire trail at once, and you can plainly see a point in space (moving with the trail) where no light is being emitted.

It is not necessary to fly THROUGH the trail in order to detect it; you can see the trail from a distance, as long as you're behind it.

Nah, you're flying FTL with LS sensors. You won't be able to see anything in front of you except for the radiation you actually run into. You would need to fly through the trail in order to follow it.

Special relativity again: even at FTL speed, a beam of light still moves away from you at the speed of light. The other FTL starship one light second ahead of you is perfectly visible, especially if he's moving at the same speed you are (for a relative velocity of exactly zero no matter what's happening outside of your respective warp bubbles).

You've got that mixed up. Special Relativity applies when you have objects observing each other but still below the speed of light. That's why people are still trying to come up with ways to make it work for FTL observers.

The other problem you have is that the speed of light is still slower than the observers AKA ships traveling Faster Than Light. That's why, by definition, FTL ships can outrun their emitted photons and thus with LS sensors are completely blind and are literally feeling their way through space as radiation runs into them.

It would if the FLASH propagated faster than light, which is a very real possibility considering what it represents.

If the FLASH propagated faster than light, how would the target see it? With FTL Sensors, of course

And yet in the TUC screencap, the Enterprise is not moving at FTL speed relative to the camera.

It doesn't need to be. We just need to know that the warp streaks can be present when a ship is AT warp.

The reason it's not relevant is because we do not know whether or not the use of weapons would have been easier or harder than the use of a tractor beam.

Since we know that starships can track incoming ships traveling at Warp speed we are left with this special case for using tractor beams to seize the Stargazer.

Special relativity: light always travels at the speed of light in all reference frames. The point I was making is that the perception would have to be FASTER than light for the streaky "drop out of warp" images to be representative of "FTL until we stop." In those cases, you wouldn't be able to visibly trace the movement of the ship; there'd be a flash of light and it suddenly appears out of nowhere.

As noted above, Special Relativity is for slower than light situations. A LS Camera wouldn't see an FTL ship in the order we are shown.

At most, it tells us the warp engines are active. As it stands, we have at least one solid datapoint from TVH that suggests "traveling at warp" and "traveling at FTL" are not necessarily the same thing.

Well, unless there was a planet just below them or if they're whipping around a star they were FTL - as the datapoint from TVH suggests.

A "firing solution" is a term derived from the mathematical equations used to direct artillery batteries; literally, a solution to an equation that involves the speed and direction and distance of the target, the speed and direction of the shooter, the arc and velocity of the shell, wind direction and coriolis effect, all to work out a determination of which way the gun must be pointed to score a hit.

And the "firing solution" works as long as the variables stay the same. Since the solution, aka phaser lock, was supposedly set prior to the warp jump according to you, then after the Stargazer dropped out of warp the solution aka lock would've been invalid as the weapons officer did not know in advance that they would maneuver.

A "phaser lock" apparently works the same way, considering it is possible to maintain a phaser lock against a maneuvering target. The "float" means the FCS is constantly re-runnning this calculation all the time so that the solution remains current and you're not firing on where the target was expected to be a couple of seconds ago.

The funny thing is that time-wise, letting the "lock relay float until the actual fire order is given" sounds alot like waiting for the lock to re-acquire ON ITS OWN before pushing the fire button. That doesn't sound like it'd save time over just pushing the "Re-Acquire Lock" button

Which, again, does not specify whether that is before or after Stargazer fired its weapons. Recall again that Picard immediately opened fire after reversing his engines; Stargazer being in two places at once is apparently concurrent with its opening fire.

And recall Riker pointing out that to the Ferengi the Stargazer appeared in two places at once and Picard said they fired on the wrong one. The only viable options are either the Ferengi fired first at the wrong target or they both fired simultaneously.

And Picard doesn't speculate on WHY the Ferengi fired on the wrong target. He merely states that they did, because that's literally all the information he had available.

He doesn't need to since he destroyed their ship without getting destroyed in the process, eliminating the chance for them to fire at the Stargazer after they were hit.

In the scenario where the Stargazer suddenly appeared and opened fire, IT WAS.

"Suddenly Appeared" Not Equal to "In the Middle Of..."

Mathematically, it doesn't make any difference: even if you're going FTL relative to some other observer (which we ARE over cosmic distances), you're still stationary in your OWN reference frame, and that is the context to which special relativity actually applies.

See above regarding SR and observers at STL vs FTL.

Warp drive makes it weird because you no longer have to be in another galaxy on the other side of the universe to be moving away from someone at FTL speeds. But SR still applies in exactly the same way.

It applies in that LS is still slower than the ship at FTL will outrun it's own emitted photons. The very definition of FTL (even in SR)

Well, there is The Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu to One on one, though, concentrates the Ferengi's supply of badass on a single ship and makes it harder to kill; instead of simply blowing apart, the Ferengi ship would have listed sickeningly for a few moments with fire and secondary explosions billowing out, etc etc.

The Ferengi ship would've been destroyed instantly, simply because Picard is one of the Good Guys

Good question is good.

Riker: "Worf..." <BOOM!> what can you tell me about that bird of prey? Any weaknesses?" <BOOM!>
Worf: "They're using an old D12 bird of prey... <BOOM!> They were retired from service because of defective plasma coils!"
Riker: "Any way we can use that to our advantage?" <BOOM!>
Worf: "Are you shitting me? We're in the middle of a battle! Shut up and give some damn orders!"

I'm going to amend my comment:

Which begs another question, why would you run to the tactical officer to have a discussion in the middle of combat? Perhaps a bit inexperienced OR THEY AREN'T THAT GOOD? Or did the young, inexperienced Ferengi Captain just say, "Fire at the Stargazer, ignore the new ship!"

And to point out that you wrote about TIME, whereas I wrote about WHY: "Just because you have enough time to press a button does NOT mean you have enough time to run to your tactical officer and have a serious discussion about which of those two targets you should fire your torpedoes at."

In anycase your "Generations" example points out that:
1. Worf still waited for authorization to fire the torpedoes to finish off the BOP
2. and the E-D succumbed to all the hits inflicted upon it
3. but they still had time to target the right ship

Perhaps a bit inexperienced? Or did the young, inexperienced Ferengi Captain just say, "Fire at the Stargazer, ignore the new ship!"

Or suppose he said "Fire at that ship!" and the weapons officer -- who wasn't watching the viewscreen -- fired at the distant image he was already locked onto?

And the weapons officer would look at his targeting screen and ask "Which one?!" :P

Regardless, though, the fact is Stargazer is depicted as being very quick on the draw after deceleration. I could buy that Bok fired at the same time, but firing FIRST doesn't fit the narrative.

Simultaneous exchange was one of the options presented

It doesn't quite work for FTL situations. As you've pointed out, a FTL ship can outrun its own emitted photons so LS Sensors are useless for looking around when going FTL.

But that's only true from the OBSERVER's point of view. From YOUR point of view, your photons are still moving ahead of you at the speed of light.

Only if you're moving at STL speeds. At FTL speeds, you're moving Faster Than Light and you will outrun those photons. And because of that, with LS sensors, a ship going FTL is limited to feeling its way around.

An FTL ship with LS Sensors chasing another FTL ship by following it's light trail simply cannot know how far ahead or even how long the trail is because it can only receive the radiation. Matching velocities could only mean the chasing ship accidentally colliding with the other ship.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

If the Ferengi's sensor beam was operating at LS, a simple Warp 1.1 jump would suffice.

Too slow. The Ferengi would re-engage and they'd end up in a tail chase again.

It isn't too slow since the Ferengi would be sitting tight waiting for their LS Return Pulse.

Which they would receive five to ten seconds before Stargazer dropped out of warp (since it took five to ten seconds for Picard to ORDER them to jump to warp).

Nah, you're flying FTL with LS sensors. You won't be able to see anything in front of you except for the radiation you actually run into.

The trail isn't made of radiation, it's the mirage-like effect of a ship's movement through space. The radiation FROM the trail still propagates at the speed of light and you can still see it from a considerable difference, even if you're not at FTL yourself.

You've got that mixed up. Special Relativity applies when you have objects observing each other but still below the speed of light.

Strictly speaking, it applies in any inertial reference frame, FTL or otherwise. It gets complicated at FTL, but that doesn't make it inapplicable.

The other problem you have is that the speed of light is still slower than the observers AKA ships traveling Faster Than Light.

Yes, but only from the perspective of the observer in a stationary reference frame. That means that if you go to high warp, you cannot look over your shoulder and see an afterimage of yourself; you are still stationary in your own reference frame and photons will continue to propagate away from you at the speed of light.

If the FLASH propagated faster than light, how would the target see it? With FTL Sensors, of course

You don't need FTL sensors to detect something tat HITS you at FTL. Just ask Sulu.

Since we know that starships can track incoming ships traveling at Warp speed we are left with this special case for using tractor beams to seize the Stargazer.

But Enterprise CAN'T track the Stargazer without scanning for the sudden gas compression. Tractor beam OR a phaser strike would have been a viable option otherwise.

As noted above, Special Relativity is for slower than light situations.

Strictly speaking, it's for any situation involving an observer in an inertial reference frame (VERY strictly speaking, only a single reference frame). FTL or sublight is irrelevant.

And the "firing solution" works as long as the variables stay the same.

No. By definition, the firing solution works as long as the variables are ACCURATE. This is why guided missiles and torpedoes use dynamic solutions that constantly update fifty times a second as they home in on a target (since missiles, unlike some torpedoes, cannot turn around and re-engage if they miss).

And recall Riker pointing out that to the Ferengi the Stargazer appeared in two places at once and Picard said they fired on the wrong one. The only viable options are either the Ferengi fired first at the wrong target or they both fired simultaneously.

The Ferengi firing second IS still a viable option if Stargazer's distant image was still present while their ship was beginning to break up.

And for all three possibilities, we're talking about timing differences of three or four seconds, if that. If the Ferengi were that quick on the draw, I doubt they would have been stupid enough to ignore the target that had suddenly appeared right in front of them.

"Suddenly Appeared" Not Equal to "In the Middle Of..."

When the guy you've been chasing down the street suddenly whirls around and punches you in the face, you're in a fist fight. When the guy you just shot in the leg suddenly jumps out of cover and fires at you with an AK-47, you're in a firefight.

When the starship you've been trying to destroy for the last few minutes suddenly jumps into firing position and hammers you with phasers and photon torpedoes at point blank range... well, you get the idea.

It applies in that LS is still slower than the ship at FTL will outrun it's own emitted photons. The very definition of FTL (even in SR)

But a starship at warp isn't moving at FTL in its own reference frame (that's impossible by definition). It's moving at FTL in EVERYONE ELSE'S reference frame. Therefore, the fundamental assumption of Special Relativity still holds true that you appear to outrun your own photons only in an outside observer's reference frame and this does not hold true in YOUR reference frame at all.

The Ferengi ship would've been destroyed instantly, simply because Picard is one of the Good Guys

Yeah, but good guys get to savor their victory by watching the dramatic fiery explosion of their enemies. If that enemy is annoying enough, he might even get to watch it in slow motion.

And to point out that you wrote about TIME, whereas I wrote about WHY: "Just because you have enough time to press a button does NOT mean you have enough time to run to your tactical officer and have a serious discussion about which of those two targets you should fire your torpedoes at.

But that was my point in the end. Even under ideal circumstances, the weapons officer may have simply made a mistake or misinterpreted the Captains orders; shuddering/exploding from a rain of weapons fire is FAR from ideal circumstances, and it fits the timeline better since Picard gives no indication -- either in dialog or the flashbacks -- that he gave the Ferengi anything like the kind of time they would have needed to intentionally/mistakenly select and fire on the wrong target. Therefore, it makes more sense that it was an unintentional mistake, probably a consequence of their not really being able to think with the bridge exploding all around them (Ferengi ARE rather sensitive to loud noises, after all).

1. Worf still waited for authorization to fire the torpedoes to finish off the BOP

Worf is not a Ferengi pirate.

Simultaneous exchange was one of the options presented

Sure, but still hardly the ONLY option.

Only if you're moving at STL speeds. At FTL speeds, you're moving Faster Than Light and you will outrun those photons.

No you won't. Even if you're FTL in someone else's reference frame, you're still stationary in your OWN. You don't outrun your own photons because from YOUR point of view, you're not actually going anywhere (and this is especially true of warp drive, which effectively CREATES a moving reference frame within which a starship appears to be stationary in a rapidly moving universe).

 

[blssdwlf]

Too slow. The Ferengi would re-engage and they'd end up in a tail chase again.

It isn't too slow since the Ferengi would be sitting tight waiting for their LS Return Pulse.

Which they would receive five to ten seconds before Stargazer dropped out of warp (since it took five to ten seconds for Picard to ORDER them to jump to warp).

That does not negate the fact the Stargazer at FTL would still outrun the return pulse the Ferengi are waiting for.

The trail isn't made of radiation, it's the mirage-like effect of a ship's movement through space. The radiation FROM the trail still propagates at the speed of light and you can still see it from a considerable difference, even if you're not at FTL yourself.

You can see the light trail, aka reflected photons, as it reaches you if you're not FTL. When you are FTL with only LS sensors you are running into the light trail without the ability to see forward due to your LS sensors.

Strictly speaking, it applies in any inertial reference frame, FTL or otherwise. It gets complicated at FTL, but that doesn't make it inapplicable.

If that were the case, we wouldn't have people trying to come up with ways for SR to work in an FTL frame of reference. It's not complicated - it just doesn't apply.

Yes, but only from the perspective of the observer in a stationary reference frame. That means that if you go to high warp, you cannot look over your shoulder and see an afterimage of yourself; you are still stationary in your own reference frame and photons will continue to propagate away from you at the speed of light.

Where are you getting this from? Are you trying to redefine FTL as STL? A ship going FTL is outrunning light. That is the definition of Faster-Than-Light. Look that up. That's why FTL in GR and SR can cause all sort of causality problems.

You don't need FTL sensors to detect something tat HITS you at FTL. Just ask Sulu.

They were already feeling the FTL effects way before the visible shockwave reached them. It's a good thing the ILM cameras are FTL as well

But Enterprise CAN'T track the Stargazer without scanning for the sudden gas compression. Tractor beam OR a phaser strike would have been a viable option otherwise.

They never said the phasers were not able to track them. Data's plan was very specific to using tractor beams.

Strictly speaking, it's for any situation involving an observer in an inertial reference frame (VERY strictly speaking, only a single reference frame). FTL or sublight is irrelevant.

And again, SR still treats FTL as FTL and things at LS will still be slower than things at FTL.

No. By definition, the firing solution works as long as the variables are ACCURATE.

Yes, I was just pointing out that your original reply didn't leave room for constant adjustment.

The Ferengi firing second IS still a viable option if Stargazer's distant image was still present while their ship was beginning to break up.

Still unlikely since they would've correctly targeted the ship that actually fired at them, if they fired second.

And for all three possibilities, we're talking about timing differences of three or four seconds, if that. If the Ferengi were that quick on the draw, I doubt they would have been stupid enough to ignore the target that had suddenly appeared right in front of them.

If they seriously thought the far away target was one hit from blowing up it could've been on the Ferengi captain's mind to even the odds to one ship not knowing how much more effective the Stargazer's weapons were close up.

When the guy you've been chasing down the street suddenly whirls around and punches you in the face, you're in a fist fight.

No, that's called being in the middle of a chase and getting sucker punched. When you respond, assuming you can respond, then it becomes a fist fight.

When the guy you just shot in the leg suddenly jumps out of cover and fires at you with an AK-47, you're in a firefight.

Yes that would be correct.

And when a ship that was considered damaged and about to die in the distance suddenly is joined by a new ship that appeared out of no where it's called a surprise attack which will lead to further combat.

When the starship you've been trying to destroy for the last few minutes suddenly jumps into firing position and hammers you with phasers and photon torpedoes at point blank range... well, you get the idea.

Which from the Ferengi's POV would be the start of a new battle with a new foe. You get the idea...

But a starship at warp isn't moving at FTL in its own reference frame (that's impossible by definition).

And from where do you get this? By definition, a ship moving Faster-Than-Light is well, you know, Faster-Than-Light speed.

It's moving at FTL in EVERYONE ELSE'S reference frame. Therefore, the fundamental assumption of Special Relativity still holds true that you appear to outrun your own photons only in an outside observer's reference frame and this does not hold true in YOUR reference frame at all.

That's not correct. You're thinking of reference frames where the observers and objects are moving STL. SR makes LS constant across all reference frames but it also does not like FTL because it can cause a Causality violation. True FTL in SR is still moving faster than light speed, thus light speed radiation and sensor pulses can be outrun.

Yeah, but good guys get to savor their victory by watching the dramatic fiery explosion of their enemies. If that enemy is annoying enough, he might even get to watch it in slow motion.

Was that exploding BOP firing any weapons as it exploded? No

But that was my point in the end. Even under ideal circumstances, the weapons officer may have simply made a mistake or misinterpreted the Captains orders; shuddering/exploding from a rain of weapons fire is FAR from ideal circumstances, and it fits the timeline better since Picard gives no indication -- either in dialog or the flashbacks -- that he gave the Ferengi anything like the kind of time they would have needed to intentionally/mistakenly select and fire on the wrong target. Therefore, it makes more sense that it was an unintentional mistake, probably a consequence of their not really being able to think with the bridge exploding all around them (Ferengi ARE rather sensitive to loud noises, after all).

Ok, I can buy the possibility that it was a complete accident that the weapons officer fired at the wrong target.

So, the possibilities we have are:

1. Stargazer and Ferengi ship exchanged fire simultaneously. Ferengi chose the wrong target.
2. Ferengi fire first, but chose the wrong target.
3. Ferengi fired second but due to damage or confusion prior to its immediate destruction, fired at the wrong target.

Worf is not a Ferengi pirate.

You used the "Generations" example, so I'm just playing off it In anycase, the Ferengi weapons officer didn't have any reason to go rogue and start shooting on his/her own, or at least we're not presented with information to suggest that.

Only if you're moving at STL speeds. At FTL speeds, you're moving Faster Than Light and you will outrun those photons.

No you won't. Even if you're FTL in someone else's reference frame, you're still stationary in your OWN. You don't outrun your own photons because from YOUR point of view, you're not actually going anywhere (and this is especially true of warp drive, which effectively CREATES a moving reference frame within which a starship appears to be stationary in a rapidly moving universe).

See above regarding FTL. The ship that is moving at FTL is moving at FTL speeds. If it is moving at STL speeds, LS will outrun it. It maybe moving or not moving at all inside the bubble, but if the bubble it is using to move around in went from A to B faster than the speed of light then in any reference frame it will be also FTL.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You can see the light trail, aka reflected photons, as it reaches you if you're not FTL. When you are FTL with only LS sensors you are running into the light trail without the ability to see forward due to your LS sensors.

But you CAN see forward at FTL, precisely because you are still stationary in your own reference frame. This isn't even a trekism or a theoretical prediction; in the real world WE are already moving at FTL velocity with respect to distant galaxies 47 billion LY away (and they, in turn, are moving away from us faster than light). Not only do we have no trouble at all seeing what's "ahead" of us, but we can see the heavily distorted/redshifted images of those galaxies near the edge of our visual horizon.

If that were the case, we wouldn't have people trying to come up with ways for SR to work in an FTL frame of reference. It's not complicated - it just doesn't apply.

You have it backwards: If it didn't apply, they wouldn't be trying to make it work. The reason they're still TRYING to make it work is because it is very complicated, and because we have very little data to work with on FTL reference frames (as I said above, the only ones we know of are about 47 billion light years away).

Where are you getting this from? Are you trying to redefine FTL as STL? A ship going FTL is outrunning light.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding about how relativity works.

In relativity -- ANY flavor of it -- a reference frame is considered to be a mathematical coordinate system with the firsthand observer (Let's call him "Steve") at the center. Steve has an omniscient instant-information tool that can make measurements of velocity, distance and direction for other objects that exist within his reference frame with him. Since Steve is measuring from his own fixed position, there is no measurable quantity for "Steve's velocity." You can measure the relative velocity between Steve and an outside observer (let's call this observer "Joe"), but in Steve's reference frame, JOE is the one who is moving.

So Steve is happily humming along in his reference frame until he sees a flash of light, looks over with his omniscient godlike tool and sees Joe speeding towards him. Steve's tool will measure Joe's velocity by measuring the distance between them and recording how much the distance changes over a given time interval (Delta-D and Delta-T gives you V). He sees that in the space of one second, Joe has moved one million kilometers closer to him, ergo Joe is moving towards him faster than light. But Steve can also use his tool to measure the speed of the photons being emitted from Joe as he moves through space; again, measuring the distance changes in the rate of time, Steve's tool sees that those photons moved just under 300,000km closer to him in the same second. So in Steve's reference frame, Joe has outrun his own reflection and is moving towards him faster than his photons are.

So what if Steve uses his magical tool to measure his OWN photons? He will, of course, see them moving away from him at the speed of light. This is because Steve is in a stationary frame of reference measuring velocities and distances to other objects that happen to pass through that frame. The thing about special relativity is, Joe's magical tool would be able to make the exact same calculations at the exact same time and come to the exact same conclusions with regard to his own frame: from his point of view, STEVE is moving towards him at superluminal velocity and his own photons are uniformly moving outward at C. Both frames are equally valid, even when they contradict.

That's why FTL in GR and SR can cause all sort of causality problems.

It can cause APPARENT causality problems, yes. What trips up alot of people is that relativistic time dilation doesn't ACTUALLY occur, it's an observational difference resulting from the extreme difference in those reference frames. Practically speaking, it's a bit like Schroedinger's cat: the magic tool I mentioned above is a mathematical abstraction, whereas in reality you cannot transmit or receive information faster than light and therefore cause and effect cannot exceed that velocity either.

They were already feeling the FTL effects way before the visible shockwave reached them.

Indeed, they were feeling the effects BEFORE THEIR SENSORS DETECTED THE SHOCKWAVE. That, too, should tell you something.

And again, SR still treats FTL as FTL and things at LS will still be slower than things at FTL.

You're still forgetting about the issue with their respective reference frames: in SR, you are always stationary within your own reference frame, no matter what speed SOMEONE ELSE measures between the two of you.

And from where do you get this?

Special relativity. You're always stationary in your own reference frame.

That's not correct. You're thinking of reference frames where the observers and objects are moving STL. SR makes LS constant across all reference frames but it also does not like FTL because it can cause a Causality violation.

And the REASON it causes causality violations is because of that very discrepancy: I see my photons moving ahead of me, and YOU see my photons falling BEHIND me.

So Steve moves towards Joe at FTL velocity for one second and then stops at a point 2 light seconds away and waits for Joe to see him. In Steve's reference frame, it takes that photon 3 seconds to reach Joe: the photon traveled 1 light second while he was moving at 2 light seconds after he stopped. Vice versa for Joe, whose photons cover the exact same distance in the exact same time interval. But if Joe measures STEVE'S photons (IOW, Steve's image) then he sees that Steve's photons take much longer than 3 seconds to reach him. That means that Steve and Joe will have two totally contradictory observations of reality: Steve will record that his photons reached Joe at the same moment that Joe's photons reached Steve, but Joe records that his photons arrived at Steve two seconds before Steve arrived at Joe. That cannot usually be reconciled because SR treats both reference frames as being mathematically valid (in reality, it is invalid to treat only ONE of them as the moving observer and therefore both of them would reach identical but contradictory conclusions). The only way to reconcile the contradiction mathematically is if Joe comes to the conclusion that one of the parameters of Steve's measurement device was skewed during travel: Steve thinks his photons were moving away from him because time was moving backwards for him while he was FTL (and vice versa for Steve, who will make the same contradictory observation of Joe's photons).

Hence the causality violation: in some interpretations of SR, Steve actually arrives at his destination before he actually left: Stargazer wouldn't merely APPEAR to be in two places at once, it LITERALLY WOULD be. The alternate interpretation is that the violation is only apparent and a consequence of the fact that information cannot travel faster than light; since you really cannot obtain information at a distance that quickly, there's no opportunity for a causality violation, only the kind of illusory afterimages like we see in the Picard Maneuver.

Ok, I can buy the possibility that it was a complete accident that the weapons officer fired at the wrong target.

So, the possibilities we have are:

1. Stargazer and Ferengi ship exchanged fire simultaneously. Ferengi chose the wrong target.
2. Ferengi fire first, but chose the wrong target.
3. Ferengi fired second but due to damage or confusion prior to its immediate destruction, fired at the wrong target.

In a nutshell, yes. And like I said, these are three possibilities separated in timing by three or four seconds at most. It really could go either way, but from the available information the second two seem the most likely.

See above regarding FTL. The ship that is moving at FTL is moving at FTL speeds.

Simple question for you: you're in space, nothing around you, nothing no sensors, the most distant stars are too far away to accurately measure; IOW, you're in a reference frame that lacks any other objects other than yourself.

What is your velocity in this frame?
Now you fire your engines and accelerate forward at 3Gs for 30 seconds and then stop your engines. Still no other object in your reference frame and you are totally alone.
What is your velocity in this frame?
Then you go to warp 9. Still no other object in your reference frame and you are still totally alone.
What is your velocity in this frame?

 

[blssdwlf]

You can see the light trail, aka reflected photons, as it reaches you if you're not FTL. When you are FTL with only LS sensors you are running into the light trail without the ability to see forward due to your LS sensors.

But you CAN see forward at FTL, precisely because you are still stationary in your own reference frame. This isn't even a trekism or a theoretical prediction; in the real world WE are already moving at FTL velocity with respect to distant galaxies 47 billion LY away (and they, in turn, are moving away from us faster than light). Not only do we have no trouble at all seeing what's "ahead" of us, but we can see the heavily distorted/redshifted images of those galaxies near the edge of our visual horizon.

Those examples are still of objects moving Slower Than Light. An object ACTUALLY moving at Faster-Than-Light speed will outrun light. Faster-Than-Light .

If that were the case, we wouldn't have people trying to come up with ways for SR to work in an FTL frame of reference. It's not complicated - it just doesn't apply.

You have it backwards: If it didn't apply, they wouldn't be trying to make it work. The reason they're still TRYING to make it work is because it is very complicated, and because we have very little data to work with on FTL reference frames (as I said above, the only ones we know of are about 47 billion light years away).

It's got nothing to do with complicated. SR simply doesn't have equations for ACTUAL FTL situations.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding about how relativity works.

No, you have the misunderstanding. Where in relativity does it say an Object ACTUALLY traveling Faster Than Light will be slower than Light?

Indeed, they were feeling the effects BEFORE THEIR SENSORS DETECTED THE SHOCKWAVE. That, too, should tell you something.

Yes, it tells me that one component is not visible, the shaking, while another is visible. That is consistent with how subspace is portrayed in Trek.

You're still forgetting about the issue with their respective reference frames: in SR, you are always stationary within your own reference frame, no matter what speed SOMEONE ELSE measures between the two of you.

And that light is a constant in your reference frame and that you're actually moving faster than light.

Special relativity. You're always stationary in your own reference frame.

Special Relativity doesn't talk about Warp drive or Actual Faster-Than-Light travel. You're just making it up now.

And the REASON it causes causality violations is because of that very discrepancy: I see my photons moving ahead of me, and YOU see my photons falling BEHIND me.

No. It can causality violations because an object or ship at FTL could observe an event with Object B outside of it's light cone and then potentially break causality by traveling to a point in Object B's past to change it causing a paradox.

Why? Because they are actually traveling Faster Than Light.

See above regarding FTL. The ship that is moving at FTL is moving at FTL speeds.

Simple question for you: you're in space, nothing around you, nothing no sensors, the most distant stars are too far away to accurately measure; IOW, you're in a reference frame that lacks any other objects other than yourself.

What is your velocity in this frame?

Slower Than Light, since no object can naturally travel FTL.

Now you fire your engines and accelerate forward at 3Gs for 30 seconds and then stop your engines. Still no other object in your reference frame and you are totally alone.
What is your velocity in this frame?

Still Slower Than Light.

Then you go to warp 9. Still no other object in your reference frame and you are still totally alone.
What is your velocity in this frame?

I'm outrunning Light. I stop my ship and wait for my light trail to catch up. I went Faster Than Light.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You can see the light trail, aka reflected photons, as it reaches you if you're not FTL. When you are FTL with only LS sensors you are running into the light trail without the ability to see forward due to your LS sensors.

But you CAN see forward at FTL, precisely because you are still stationary in your own reference frame. This isn't even a trekism or a theoretical prediction; in the real world WE are already moving at FTL velocity with respect to distant galaxies 47 billion LY away (and they, in turn, are moving away from us faster than light). Not only do we have no trouble at all seeing what's "ahead" of us, but we can see the heavily distorted/redshifted images of those galaxies near the edge of our visual horizon.

Those examples are still of objects moving Slower Than Light. An object ACTUALLY moving at Faster-Than-Light speed will outrun light. Faster-Than-Light .

Exactly what part of "Only in an outside observer's reference frame" are you not understanding?

It's got nothing to do with complicated. SR simply doesn't have equations for ACTUAL FTL situations.

The equations apply to FTL just fine. It's just that their larger real-world applications are difficult to parse, but this is equally true of very high sublight velocities anyway.

No, you have the misunderstanding. Where in relativity does it say an Object ACTUALLY traveling Faster Than Light will be slower than Light?

What does "actually" mean in relativity? There's no such thing as a universal reference frame, ergo the only way you could be moving at FTL velocity is with respect to an outside observer. In that observer's frame, you're moving FTL. In your OWN frame, you're stationary. What's more, in the frame of a third observer equidistant between you, both you and the second observer may be seen converging on his position and NEITHER of you are FTL.

It depends on the reference frame you're using. There's no "absolute" frame to determine who is really moving at what speed.

Special Relativity doesn't talk about Warp drive or Actual Faster-Than-Light travel.

Special relativity doesn't "talk" about any travel at all. It's a mathematical abstraction to explain why the speed of light is a constant in all inertial reference frames. The IMPLICATIONS of the theory is what is commonly discussed in thought experiments and paradox studies.

Significantly, plugging in a number greater than C in the bottom part of the equation would yield an imaginary number, and operating the equation with the imaginary number yields either near-infinite time-dilation (time stops) or inverse dilation (Delta-T is a negative value).

No. It can causality violations because an object or ship at FTL could observe an event with Object B outside of it's light cone and then potentially break causality by traveling to a point in Object B's past to change it causing a paradox.

Which is a consequence of the negative values you would get for Delta-T (e.g. time travel appears to be happening). The reason time travel appears to be happening is that relativity treats the speed of light as a constant and time as a variable: light always moves at C in all reference frames, but time may speed up or slow down (or in this case, reverse) to keep those frames consistent.

Velocity is a function of distance over time. If time is a negative value, what happens to velocity?

Slower Than Light, since no object can naturally travel FTL.

Half the universe is currently traveling FTL with respect to the other half. Warp drive simply makes it possible for this to happen over smaller (non-cosmic) scales.

Now you fire your engines and accelerate forward at 3Gs for 30 seconds and then stop your engines. Still no other object in your reference frame and you are totally alone.
What is your velocity in this frame?

Still Slower Than Light.

The answer is ZERO.

Then you go to warp 9. Still no other object in your reference frame and you are still totally alone.
What is your velocity in this frame?

I'm outrunning Light.

Wrong. The answer is still ZERO.

That's the fundamental thing you're not understanding about relativity: all velocities are RELATIVE.

 

[blssdwlf]

But you CAN see forward at FTL, precisely because you are still stationary in your own reference frame. This isn't even a trekism or a theoretical prediction; in the real world WE are already moving at FTL velocity with respect to distant galaxies 47 billion LY away (and they, in turn, are moving away from us faster than light). Not only do we have no trouble at all seeing what's "ahead" of us, but we can see the heavily distorted/redshifted images of those galaxies near the edge of our visual horizon.

Those examples are still of objects moving Slower Than Light. An object ACTUALLY moving at Faster-Than-Light speed will outrun light. Faster-Than-Light .

Exactly what part of "Only in an outside observer's reference frame" are you not understanding?

Exactly what part of being faster-than-light are you not understanding? Anything traveling faster than the speed of light (in vacuum) will outrun anything traveling at light speed.

If we can still see the galaxy receding from us, even heavily redshifted, it is still only traveling Slower Than Light.

The equations apply to FTL just fine. It's just that their larger real-world applications are difficult to parse, but this is equally true of very high sublight velocities anyway.

You know that is silly. Your first interpretation, a FTL ship will arrive before it's emitted photons is correct. Your regression into this silly idea that somehow photons traveling at light speed will outrun a ship traveling faster-than-light is just bizarre.

What does "actually" mean in relativity? There's no such thing as a universal reference frame, ergo the only way you could be moving at FTL velocity is with respect to an outside observer.

Wrong. FTL means traveling faster than light (in a vacuum). Special Relativity postulates an invariant light speed (in a vacuum). If you are FTL, you will always be moving faster than the speed of light which is the same across all reference frames. I used "actually" as a simple way to differentiate your examples of objects that appear to, but are not actually, going faster-than-light.

In that observer's frame, you're moving FTL. In your OWN frame, you're stationary. What's more, in the frame of a third observer equidistant between you, both you and the second observer may be seen converging on his position and NEITHER of you are FTL.

You forget, in the ship that is traveling Faster-Than-Light's frame, the speed of light will still be SLOWER than the ship.

It depends on the reference frame you're using. There's no "absolute" frame to determine who is really moving at what speed.

Special relativity doesn't "talk" about any travel at all. It's a mathematical abstraction to explain why the speed of light is a constant in all inertial reference frames. The IMPLICATIONS of the theory is what is commonly discussed in thought experiments and paradox studies.

Yes, and with the speed of light constant in all reference frames, a FTL object will then be moving faster than the speed of light. That is the implication.

Significantly, plugging in a number greater than C in the bottom part of the equation would yield an imaginary number, and operating the equation with the imaginary number yields either near-infinite time-dilation (time stops) or inverse dilation (Delta-T is a negative value).

And that is why SR has lots of STL examples but rarely do you read about FTL examples. I recommend you look up SR and Tachyons or FTL particles.

Then you go to warp 9. Still no other object in your reference frame and you are still totally alone.
What is your velocity in this frame?

I'm outrunning Light.

Wrong. The answer is still ZERO.

That's the fundamental thing you're not understanding about relativity: all velocities are RELATIVE.

LOL. No. The speed of light (in a vacuum) and my emitted photons are my reference. I traveled Faster Than Light therefore I will arrive before my light trail does. The speed of light is constant in all frames, even for ships going FTL.