First look inside the new Stellar Cartography

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by 8of5, Sep 28, 2013.

  1. Kertrats47

    Kertrats47 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Wasn't the Orion ship in "Journey to Babel" making attack runs on the Enterprise at warp speed as well?

    For the movie era, the only example I can think of is the Excelsior being struck by Klingon torpedoes during "Flashback" (VGR).
     
  2. Avro Arrow

    Avro Arrow Vice Admiral Moderator

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    Yes. There was a fair bit of warp speed combat in TOS... in The Ultimate Computer, M-5 always accelerated to warp 4 before beginning its attack runs, IIRC. But Christopher mentioned he was specifically referencing a dearth of warp combat in the movies.

    It's not combat, per se, but the Enterprise did fire torpedoes at warp against the asteroid in TMP. (And Kirk originally ordered phasers, so presumably he didn't see an issue with firing them at warp either.) Obviously an asteroid wouldn't have warp drive itself, but I'm not clear on whether it was travelling at superluminal velocity due to being stuck in the wormhole or something. But at any rate, if they can attack an asteroid at warp, presumably they can also attack a ship at warp using TMP-era tech. I just don't know if there's any limiting conditions, eg- target must be FTL, target must be sublight, etc...
     
  3. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    That doesn't follow. A wormhole is basically a tunnel in spacetime; both the ship and the asteroid were travelling through the same tunnel, the same distortion. But two different ships at warp are in two separate distortions, warp bubbles separated by an expanse of normal, flat space where the speed of light applies. By all rights, it should always be impossible for two ships to fight at warp. Or rather, the leading ship should always have an insurmountable advantage, because it could fire a weapon backward through normal space and have it basically function as a mine which the trailing ship would run into, while the trailing ship would be unable to do anything at all to the lead ship.

    I seem to remember some old books saying that only torpedoes could be used in warp combat because they had mini-warp engines. But too many shows by this point have shown ships fighting at warp with phasers, which makes no damn sense. I've thrown in some handwaves in my novels about ships needing to "synchronize warp fields" to fight with phasers, and I implicitly assume they're coming close enough to each other to merge their fields, but it's essentially nonsense.
     
  4. TJ Sinclair

    TJ Sinclair Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    My biggest question and concern about Stellar Cartography is this: will it present any new information aside from (I assume) a few star names from the last couple of seasons of Enterprise? Or is it essentially just Star Charts repackaged in a different format?

    That's going to be the biggest determining factor in whether or not I buy it.
     
  5. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Based on the interview on Literary Treks there seems to be new information.
     
  6. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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  7. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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  8. DEWLine

    DEWLine Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Fun interview, that was. Learned a lot. Want to make time to give it another listen-to.
     
  9. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Ooop. My mistake. But yeah the first interview gives an idea of what we will expect in the book with regards to the maps.
     
  10. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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  11. DEWLine

    DEWLine Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    "Permission to gap-fill..."
     
  12. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Sounds intriguing. I'm a little worried about whether it will overturn some of our assumptions in the novels, but I look forward to the new stuff it will establish that we can use in future novels. I'm certainly curious about where he put the Delphic Expanse.
     
  13. DEWLine

    DEWLine Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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  14. Hando

    Hando Commander Red Shirt

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    Nice looking, the stellar phenomena look great. It seams to me that there were some shifts of locations.

    To tell the truth in today's day and age I would LOVE to get my hands on that 3.2G file.
     
  15. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    My copy has just arrived! I pick it up tomorrow!
     
  16. rfmcdpei

    rfmcdpei Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Going by the map of Cardassia included in the link above, it looks like it follows the cartography of Star Charts.
     
  17. DEWLine

    DEWLine Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    That was quick!!!

    :cool:
     
  18. DEWLine

    DEWLine Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yep. Judging by the lettering, it's letter-by-letter transliteration using Latinized Cardassian. Right?
     
  19. DEWLine

    DEWLine Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Status update: Chapters/Indigo stores in Ottawa-Gatineau now have this in stock.
     
  20. Avro Arrow

    Avro Arrow Vice Admiral Moderator

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    ^ Oh? I had (obviously mistakenly) thought that this would initially be an Amazon exclusive. Wasn't this the case with Federation: The First 150 Years when it first came out?

    Just checked the Chapters website... none of the locations near me have it yet, and it looks like it's actually slightly cheaper at Amazon, so I guess there's no reason to cancel my pre-order. Thanks for the heads-up, though!