TOS set during the 22nd Century!?

[Christopher]

^Yes, but my point is, if it's that easy to get to the edge, why hadn't others done it in the interim? Politics can't explain it, because it's not just one planet. Why hadn't the Vulcans or Andorians gone there?

It's just kind of a shoddy concept. I mean, why did they want to go past the edge of the galaxy anyway? What's out there aside from some globular clusters that would take a long time to reach? Not to mention that the galactic disk doesn't really have a definable edge anyway.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Well:

SPOCK: Decoding memory banks. I'll try to interpolate. The Valiant had encountered a magnetic space storm and was being swept in this direction.
KIRK: The old impulse engines weren't strong enough.
SPOCK: Swept past this point, about a half light year out of the galaxy, they were thrown clear, turned, and headed back into the galaxy here.

Looks like they had no intention of leaving the Galaxy or even exploring the region at the Galaxy edge. They just got swept in that direction by a "storm".

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

Kind of the way a sailing vessel could be driven hundreds of miles off course by a typhoon or hurricane. They never actually meant to come this way.

 

[Christopher]

Oh, but come on, we're talking hundreds of light-years. The ship would've had to be near the edge to begin with in order to get blown across it. Again, you're missing the point, which is that if it were that easy for a more primitive ship 200 years earlier to get to the edge, then it doesn't make sense that nobody else got there before the Enterprise. The question is not just how the Valiant got there; the question is, if they got there so long before, why did nobody else?

 

[blssdwlf]

Then again, it could be that the Valiant and the Enterprise were the only two ships that survived returning from the barrier intact. Just beyond and in the barrier there could be a whole ship's graveyard collecting thousands of years of destroyed ships...

 

[Christopher]

But the lines in the episode gave the impression that the E crew considered themselves the first to make it that far. Remember Kirk's first line in the log entry: "The impossible has happened." They didn't think any ship had ever been there before them. If they'd known about two centuries' worth of ships that had probed the barrier and been lost, they wouldn't have thought it "impossible" to encounter a ship's disaster beacon there.

 

[Noname Given]

BUT - The episode "The Squire of Gothos" places TOS in the the 28th century (around 2715); as Trilaine spoke of Napoleon and Spock correctly suryears in Earth's pastmised Trilaine was looking at events 900 years in Earth's past as Gothos was 900 light years from Earth.

So, honestly, prior to ST:TMP, the 'timeframe' for TOS was all over the place.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Oh, but come on, we're talking hundreds of light-years. The ship would've had to be near the edge to begin with in order to get blown across it. Again, you're missing the point, which is that if it were that easy for a more primitive ship 200 years earlier to get to the edge, then it doesn't make sense that nobody else got there before the Enterprise. The question is not just how the Valiant got there; the question is, if they got there so long before, why did nobody else?

I figure the "storm" was one of those anomalies made famous by later Treks and it took the Valiant sectors way from its original position.

As to why other species' ships haven't ventured out of the Galaxy...( waves hand) these aren't the droids you're looking for...

 

[blssdwlf]

The weird thing about "The Squire of Gothos" is that there are some very modern items there, such as the Salt Creature from "The Man Trap". If Jaeger was referring to the gothic architecture rather than the more specific items then the 12th-16th century time frame of gothic architecture (more like the 12th/13th to stay within the 22nd/23rd TOS century) would be reasonable.

As to the edge of the galaxy, "Miri" seems to suggest that Earth colonies and vessels didn't venture out more than "hundreds of light years from Earth". If that were the case, there might only have been a handful of unofficial attempts and no official attempts at leaving the galaxy by an Earth ship in the last two centuries for either technical, political or financial reasons. Other alien races might have tried (and failed) but they might not have shared those failures publicly.

 

[Christopher]

I figure the "storm" was one of those anomalies made famous by later Treks and it took the Valiant sectors way from its original position.

Which doesn't exactly help make it any more plausible.

The weird thing about "The Squire of Gothos" is that there are some very modern items there, such as the Salt Creature from "The Man Trap".

Why assume that's modern? The M-113 creatures were extinct by the time "The Squire of Gothos" took place, their planet a decaying ruin. Yet in previous centuries their species thrived. Trelane probably observed their planet with lightspeed time delay the same way he observed Earth, seeing it as it was centuries before when it was abundantly populated with the creatures, and used that as the basis for his illusory "trophy."

If Jaeger was referring to the gothic architecture rather than the more specific items then the 12th-16th century time frame of gothic architecture (more like the 12th/13th to stay within the 22nd/23rd TOS century) would be reasonable.

That doesn't resolve it. If Trelane had been looking at the 12th/13th century, he wouldn't have known about Napoleon or Alexander Hamilton, been able to quote a Christopher Marlowe play ("Is this the face that launched a thousand ships..."), or been able to play harpsichord sonatas by 18th-century composer Domenico Scarlatti and a Johann Strauss waltz composed in 1880. It was stated outright that he was seeing Earth as it was 900 years before because he was observing from 900 light-years away, which would suggest that the episode was meant to take place sometime after 2780 CE (unless you treat the Strauss waltz as a production error).

 

[BillJ]

Which doesn't exactly help make it any more plausible.

First you bring up that it makes no sense within the context of other Trek then dismiss when someone brings up a reason it could work within that context. Make up your mind.

I don't think anything in Where No Man... indicates that the Valiant was where they expected it to be. Kirk's log indicates that it was a missing ship.

 

[blssdwlf]

I think if in "The Squire of Gothos" Trelaine was not limited to looking at only Earth, it could account for the other "out of time" items like Napoleon and certainly the Salt Creature (even if it had been "extinct" for an unknown number of years). Jaeger wasn't too specific other than "notice the period" and if he was just looking at the architecture it'd start at the 12th century.

All the other more recent stuff, like Napoleon, Salt Creature, etc could be from viewing closer colonies and alien planets or he was just playing with Kirk about the extent of his actual power to observe great distances. Trelaine could've even pulled that information directly from the Enterprise's computers.

Just a thought anyway.

 

[RPJOB]

And consider they are making their first encounter with Khan aboard a drifting sleeper ship with suitably warm breathable atmosphere, lighting and artificial gravity, (!!!) all of which works after (at least) 200 years.

I choose to believe that the cylindrical portion of the ship contained a 2001-style centrifuge which produced the gravity.


Another thing to consider: Kirk said at the end that their heading took them near Ceti Alpha, so presumably they were somewhere in that general vicinity already. Now, Alpha Ceti (as it's more properly called) is about 250 light-years away, give or take -- and the Botany Bay was a sublight ship. So assuming they were within, say, 20 ly of Alpha Ceti, then "Space Seed" couldn't have taken place any earlier than 2226 or so.

I assume you're talking about the main hull rather than the strap on pods. In that case the ship is nowhere big enough to produce a 1 g field. If you're talking about the pods then the whole ship would have to rotate since the pods don't form a complete circle.

Also, Ceti Alpha =/= Alpha Ceti. Trek star names don't necessarily match up with ours. I would assume that they have their own star catalog, perhaps UFC (United Federation Catalog). How many different names is Alpha Centauri known by even now?

 

[Timo]

If Trelane had been looking at the 12th/13th century, he wouldn't have known about Napoleon or Alexander Hamilton, been able to quote a Christopher Marlowe play ("Is this the face that launched a thousand ships..."), or been able to play harpsichord sonatas by 18th-century composer Domenico Scarlatti and a Johann Strauss waltz composed in 1880.

All this happened after Jaeger had speculated that Trelane was viewing the universe through a lightspeed lens.

So Jaeger could have been wholly incorrect in his speculation all along - or then the new evidence fits the speculation perfectly but also helps establish where Trelane's mobile planet has recently been (that is, much closer than 900 ly from Earth).

If you're talking about the pods then the whole ship would have to rotate since the pods don't form a complete circle.

The pods could rotate while the ship was static - the whole point is that there is room there for a full circle (in fact, two full circles), and beyond that, it's just a matter of balancing. But the thing is, we know the pods did not rotate, yet there was gravity there. And yes, it was there even before our heroes arrived, as Khan wasn't secured in any belts yet hadn't floated away from his mattress, either.

Also, Ceti Alpha =/= Alpha Ceti.

Star Trek is infamous for its use of "cropped" stellar names, such as "Omega" or "Beta". It would make sense that our heroes already know which constellation or corner thereof they are dealing with, and for that reason use shorthand expressions.

Thus, "Ceti Alpha" is in fact something like "Omega Ceti Alpha", in which the final "Alpha" in fact is the phonetic alphabet letter A and indicates the primary component in a wide binary.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RPJOB]

If Trelane had been looking at the 12th/13th century, he wouldn't have known about Napoleon or Alexander Hamilton, been able to quote a Christopher Marlowe play ("Is this the face that launched a thousand ships..."), or been able to play harpsichord sonatas by 18th-century composer Domenico Scarlatti and a Johann Strauss waltz composed in 1880.

All this happened after Jaeger had speculated that Trelane was viewing the universe through a lightspeed lens.

So Jaeger could have been wholly incorrect in his speculation all along - or then the new evidence fits the speculation perfectly but also helps establish where Trelane's mobile planet has recently been (that is, much closer than 900 ly from Earth).

If you're talking about the pods then the whole ship would have to rotate since the pods don't form a complete circle.

The pods could rotate while the ship was static - the whole point is that there is room there for a full circle (in fact, two full circles), and beyond that, it's just a matter of balancing. But the thing is, we know the pods did not rotate, yet there was gravity there. And yes, it was there even before our heroes arrived, as Khan wasn't secured in any belts yet hadn't floated away from his mattress, either.

Also, Ceti Alpha =/= Alpha Ceti.

Star Trek is infamous for its use of "cropped" stellar names, such as "Omega" or "Beta". It would make sense that our heroes already know which constellation or corner thereof they are dealing with, and for that reason use shorthand expressions.

Thus, "Ceti Alpha" is in fact something like "Omega Ceti Alpha", in which the final "Alpha" in fact is the phonetic alphabet letter A and indicates the primary component in a wide binary.

Timo Saloniemi

Trelane's planet could move and outpace a ship at warp. It's not too much to believe that he saw different time periods simply because he was different distances from Earth. He just didn't take that into account and he ended up with a mish-mash of time periods.

Regarding the Botany Bay, I could accept that the whole pod assembly rotated if the main hull were cylindrical but it's not. Besides we saw the outside of the ship at times we knew people were on board and it never moved. I just go with the explanation from The Slaver Weapon, a flying belt was found in a status box and provided the basis for artificial gravity. Let's just say it was found on the moon and we had artificial gravity well before impulse or warp drive was a gleam in anyones eye.

It makes a lot more sense for Ceti ALpha to be a short form for a longer name as you suggest as opposed to it being the same as Alpha Ceti just reversed. Kirk referred to Cochrane being from Alpha Centauri after all, not Centauri Alpha.

 

[Timo]

...Although it would diverge from the pattern somewhat. I mean, stars like Omega or Beta must have had their constellation name cropped from them, but Ceti A would have its "ordinal name" cropped. But any cropping would result in loss of information, and the heroes would accept this because they already possessed the information, so the exact form of cropping would not concern them much. (Similarly, we don't care if we crop "Leonardo" or "da Vinci" off the well-known name, even though either half carries vital information regarding the other and is theoretically useless alone.)

I could accept that the whole pod assembly rotated if the main hull were cylindrical but it's not.

Well, there are seams of sorts between the bow, the stern and the container core, so possibly only that central core would rotate... But as we see, it does not. Perhaps in some applications, it would, though? If not for any other reason then for reasons of loading and offloading?

from The Slaver Weapon, a flying belt was found in a status box and provided the basis for artificial gravity.

...Or perhaps USAF got the secret off the Ferengi in a sweet little side deal in 1947, and the Slaver box story was invented as a cover afterwards.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Longinus]

Khan used the Saka calendar common in India. It is 78 years behind the Gregorian. When He said 1996 he meant 2070 Gregorian. The second.time around in saka.calendar y2k really made.a mess of records and the Internet. Thus when spock looked.il the eugenics wars he didn't realize the sourse used the Sakai.calendar not.the Gregorian......

... This is ingenious! This so goes into my personal canon!

 

[T'Girl]

... there are some very modern items there, such as the Salt Creature ...

Why assume that's modern? The M-113 creatures were extinct by the time "The Squire of Gothos" took place, their planet a decaying ruin.

Extinct? Maybe not, Sulu and other guy were suspended in time apparently, so too could have the Salt Vampire. It was the actually "last one."

Now did Trelane go to M113 to collect the one we saw? Or were the Salt Vampire's at one point a star fairing species who ran across Trelane planet in the past? The one we saw being the last survivor of that crew.

 

[Timo]

...Indeed, were the Salt Vampires ever native to M113?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Noname Given]

...Indeed, were the Salt Vampires ever native to M113?

Timo Saloniemi

Yes they were. Professor Robert Crater was studying the ruins of M113 when he encounter the one seen in The Man Trap and he said it was the last of its kind.