Cause and Effect (??)

[Turd Ferguson]

I watched this recently and wondered what any monitoring Starfleet outposts must have thought about the situation. How far out did the causality loop expand? Did it end around the vicinity of the Enterprise after it was thrown back? We know that time continued on outside of the loop, hence the sixteen/seventeen days that were lost.

Shouldn't Admiral Necheyev have sent Picard a jingle to tell him to quit stalling and get to his next assignment?

Edit: Surely the combined matter/antimatter explosions of the Enterprise and Bozeman colliding should have alerted Starfleet sensors that something was amiss. Especially FOUR matter/antimatter explosions in the same area of space in under three weeks.

 

[USS Triumphant]

"Well, I'M just glad we've decided that my progenitor wasn't an idiot for 90 years!" - my profile pic, holographic ship computer avatar and second officer of U.S.S. Triumphant, Lt. Cmdr Richard Bateson

 

[T'Girl]

The air in the shuttlebay is going to be expelled pretty much instantly

We've never seen the entire main shuttle bay of course, but if we were to go by some of the blueprints released through the years and the known size of the door, it would take several seconds to vent the atmosphere.

The mass of the air in the shuttlebay may be 6,000 tonnes but the mass of the Enterprise is around 4.5 million tonnes.

Yet the Enterprise does move sufficiently far to avoid the collision, with the shuttle bay's atmosphere as the only propulsion.

So consider, part of the impulse drive includes "space-time driver coils" that reduces the Enteprise's mass, thus making it possible for the impulse engine's thrust to move the ship. Now from dialog the impulse engine were not producing thrust (neither were the maneuvering thrusters) , but if the driver coils themselves were still in operation, this would enable the thrust from the shuttle deck's open doors to move the Enterprise.

Again, the Enterprise does move.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If tyhe Enterprise had changed course, the Boseman would have emerge, hit nothing, and found themselves in the future.

The Boseman "looped" exactly as many times as the Enterprise did. When the Enterprise exploded and reset (how many hours?) the Boseman still being in the area of the explosion also reset the same time period.

This is pretty much exactly what I got out of this episode. The Bozeman was flying around in 2278 then flew into a temporal anomaly leading them 90 years into the future. They collided with the Enterprise and the resulting warp core explosion interacted with the temporal distortion in some way as to create a temporal loop of some arbitrary length, resetting both ships back a few hours in their respective timeframes. Bozeman wasn't trapped in the loop for 90 years, they were trapped for the same amount of subjective time as the Enterprise. They just happened to travel 90 years into the future during the loop.

That is what I always thought as well.

Also, remember that the Bozeman crew (what little we saw of them) didn't show any signs of deja vu or uneasiness like the Ent-D crew did. Captain Bateson had absolutely no idea that there had ever been a time warp.

 

[Trekker4747]

The mass of the air in the shuttlebay may be 6,000 tonnes but the mass of the Enterprise is around 4.5 million tonnes.

Yet the Enterprise does move sufficiently far to avoid the collision, with the shuttle bay's atmosphere as the only propulsion.

So consider, part of the impulse drive includes "space-time driver coils" that reduces the Enteprise's mass, thus making it possible for the impulse engine's thrust to move the ship. Now from dialog the impulse engine were not producing thrust (neither were the maneuvering thrusters) , but if the driver coils themselves were still in operation, this would enable the thrust from the shuttle deck's open doors to move the Enterprise.

Again, the Enterprise does move.

But, that's giving them the credit of the mass-reducing coils operating. If they're not there's not enough mass being expelled from the shuttlebay to move the mass of the ship. Equal and opposite reaction. 6,000 tonnes is not equal to 4.5 million tonnes.

The air in the shuttlebay can only move 6,000 tonnes, its own mass. It might slightly ever nudge the ship a teeny, tiny, iota of a bit. But certainly not to move as much, or as quickly, as we see it move in the episode.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Welcome to the comic book world of Star Trek physics.

 

[Robert Comsol]

The Enterprise seems to be a lightning rod for Starfleet ships falling out of temporal anomalies from the past.

Probably some cosmic side effect each time Q thinks of the Enterprise-D and Captain Picard.

Bob

 

[Cyke101]

I just thought it was only the E-D that was caught in the loop, and that the Bozemen essentially entered a portal or wormhole that was a single straight-shot to the 24th century. After all, the normal humans of the E-D figured out that they were in the loop, but were slowly suspecting that they might be going a bit crazy in the process (deja vu and the confusion that comes with it), and that was only 16 days. If the Bozeman was in a loop for 100 years, they would've been extremely frustrated to the point of insanity by the time they escaped, assuming they could detect residual memories the way our heroes did, which could culminate into what Bill Murray experienced in the middle of Groundhog Day before accepting his fate.

However, judging by how calm and collected everyone on the Bozeman was, I doubt that they went through hell.

(On the plus side for the E-D crew, if they die of old age, it'll probably be 16 days later than they were supposed to. Barring further time travel incidents, of course.)

 

[T'Girl]

The air in the shuttlebay can only move 6,000 tonnes, its own mass. It might slightly ever nudge the ship a teeny, tiny, iota of a bit. But certainly not to move as much, or as quickly, as we see it move in the episode.

You are aware that the maneuvering thrusters can also move the ship, or are you of the position that they generate four and a half million tons of thrust?

The facts of the episode is that solely through venting the main shuttle bay the Enterprise moved far enough in the given time availible to avoid the collision.

And in a zero gee environmet you actually don't need one to one thrust to move something.

 

[Trekker4747]

You are aware that the maneuvering thrusters can also move the ship, or are you of the position that they generate four and a half million tons of thrust?

We don't know enough about how the thrusters or really how anything on the ship works. Presumably the thrusters are powered by the same fusion reactors the impulse engines are and aren't chemical rockets. It's also likely the thrusters are also aided by any mass-reducing technomagic on the ship.

The facts of the episode is that solely through venting the main shuttle bay the Enterprise moved far enough in the given time availible to avoid the collision.

And the facts of the entire series is that the ship can at it's best can move 2000 times the speed of light and converting matter to pure energy is done without much thought. What's your point?

In the episode the ship had a major ship-wide power failure and the engines and thrusters were not available to them. Apparently they had only, at the minimum, two options available to them. Decompress the shuttlebay or use the tractor beam.

And in a zero gee environmet you actually don't need one to one thrust to move something.

Mass and Zero-G have nothing to do with one another. Objects in space still have mass and it still takes mass/energy to move that mass and to do it you need an equal or greater force. Saying "you don't need one-to-one" thrust to move something is like saying that if the ISS stops moving an astronaut can just get out and push. And not really "push" but just get out and give the ISS a single, quick, instant tap with the slightest of effort and the ISS will go flying away from him.

And even if you don't need a 1-1 ratio I'm pretty sure a 1-750 ratio is giving them too much.

 

[T'Girl]

We don't know enough about how the thrusters or really how anything on the ship works.

According to the ST: TNG Technical Manual, each of the Enterprise D's malnuvering thrusters generates about 510 metric tonnes of thrust.

Presumably the thrusters are powered by the same fusion reactors the impulse engines are and aren't chemical rockets.

They employ a fusion reaction and emit plasma gas. In other words they eject material to generate thrust, just like a chemical rocket.

And the facts of the entire series is that the ship can at it's best can move 2000 times the speed of light and converting matter to pure energy is done without much thought.

And by venting the main shuttle bay the Enterprise moved.

Objects in space still have mass and it still takes mass/energy to move that mass and to do it you need an equal or greater force.

Incidentally the maneuvering thrusters on the old space shuttle produced 870 pounds of thrust, that about a 1 to 260 thrust to weight/mass ratio.

And even if you don't need a 1-1 ratio I'm pretty sure a 1-750 ratio is giving them too much.

It's also likely the thrusters are also aided by any mass-reducing technomagic on the ship.

So the thrust from the depressurizing shuttle bay could have been pushing against a much lower mass ... right?

Saying "you don't need one-to-one" thrust to move something is like saying that if the ISS stops moving an astronaut can just get out and push. And not really "push" but just get out and give the ISS a single, quick, instant tap with the slightest of effort and the ISS will go flying away from him.

Let's try this, let's say that you want to push a stalled car. All by yourself. And the car weighs 4,000 pound. You're on a level road. Do you honestly think that you would have to push that car with 4,000 pounds of force in order to get it to move?

Really?

Realistically (unless you a strapping fellow) you going to be pushing with less than hundred pound of force, but you're still going to get the car moving in a short period of time.

 

[Trekker4747]

I get what you're saying, I just stiil find it very, very hard to believe that single, instant, burst of air from the shuttlebay was enough to make the Enterprise fly out of the way so quickly and effectively.

 

[Gary7]

Yeah, this is one of my favorite episodes despite all of the glaring problems.

In order for the Bozeman to be caught in this loop, it needed to collide with the Enterprise D. So... it was in this just as long as the Enterprise. The initial impact is what caused the loop to happen. The distortion caused the Bozeman to jump forward in time, so they weren't stuck in a loop for decades.

No way to leave a pod behind. As soon as the loop restarts, the pod is back in the bay.

I think you're absolutely right Trekker4747, that the air from the shuttle bay wouldn't have been enough to push the Enterprise out of the way.

The thing that always bugged me about this episode is that once the Bozeman is spotted, there is quite a bit of time wasted debating about what to do. In my version, Data would have sent a message to himself, some number or symbol that would have an association with the tractor beam [at least in Data's neural net]. The idea being that he use the tractor beam ASAP. Data would have known it to be right move and not wasted time considering Riker's suggestion. Get that tractor beam in action about 15 seconds or more ahead of when they actually used it in the failed loops and it would have been enough for the Enterprise to clear out of the way of the Bozeman.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

If you're going to question the ending you might as well also question why nobody got the idea to randomize their flight path using cosmic radiation that would be different on every loop, guaranteeing that in the next few loops they wouldn't encounter the problem.

 

[T'Girl]

The idea being that he use the tractor beam ASAP.

Or vent the flight deck sooner to give them room to spare.

It occurred to me that solely using the tractor beam wouldn't have solved all of the Enterprise's problems, in addition to the collision (the bigger problem), the Enterprise was suffering power problems too, but soon after they moved that problem went away. I think it was simply moving from that one spot in space (directly inline with the throat of the space whatsit) that solve the power problem, they didn't have to change position by very much, but they did need to move.

The tractor beam wouldn't have accomplished that.