Europa.
A question about the Botany Bay.
- Thread starter Tenacity
- Start date
Good question since both the moon's departure AND the discovery of the monolith took place in 1999!
Apparently though (http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/epguide/t01b.html) the moon departed in September so unless the space-dragon snuck in during the next couple of months (for some reason my memory of those years is a little foggy) I suspect the monolith was on the first moon.
That and the fact that the monolith had been there for 3 million years
IOW...They took our monolith!
The warp engine imbalance wormhole in TMP pulled in an asteriod and presumably moved it at superluminal velocities. Seems like similar wormholes could have been responsible for various things being hundreds of light years further away than they should be.
Also, in one of the old fanon tech manuals I recall there was a theory (perhaps inspired by the TMP wormhole) that small objects could be accidentally snagged by a ship's warp field and carried great distances.
One Small Step featured a "graviton ellipse" that swallowed a Mars orbiter and eventually brought it all the way to the Delta Quadrant. Perhaps they're more rampant just outside the solar system and swallowed up some of these old probes and sleeper ships, depositing them several hundred or thousand light years away.
Or, we could use the old Chris Bennett excuse (based on Tomorrow is Yesterday) that there's a black star (black hole) out in the Oort Cloud somewhere swallowing up all of our probes and spitting them out elsewhere, in time and space.
Or, we could use the old Chris Bennett excuse (based on Tomorrow is Yesterday) that there's a black star (black hole) out in the Oort Cloud somewhere swallowing up all of our probes and spitting them out elsewhere, in time and space.
Theoretically, a black star is not quite a black hole:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_star_(semiclassical_gravity)
I find it interesting that inside it has a "strange state of spacetime", perhaps causing the time travel for the Enterprise when they tripped over it.
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I'm not convinced that that distinction between black star and black hole existed when "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" was written.
Well, regardless of whatever happens in the real world, in TMP Kirk et al. explicitly said otherwise. So, Star Trek black holes don't necessary behave like real ones [http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie1.html]:
DECKER: Voyager VI ...disappeared into what they used to call a black hole.
KIRK: It must have emerged sometime on the far side of the Galaxy and fell into the machine's planet's gravitational field.
KIRK: It must have emerged sometime on the far side of the Galaxy and fell into the machine's planet's gravitational field.
And, anyway, in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday," the Enterprise didn't fall all the way into the "black star." They were being drawn in, but they pulled out by going to maximum warp [http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/21.htm]:
"Captain 's log Stardate 3113.2. We were en-route to Starbase 9 for resupply when a black star of high gravitational attraction began to drag us toward it. It required all warp power in reverse to pull us away from the star. But, like snapping a rubber band, the breakaway sent us plunging through space, out of control, to stop here, wherever we are."
Unless Voyager VI used an advanced drive, even after 300 years of travel before it fell into the mythical near-Earth black hole, it would only be ~1200 AU (0.019 lys) from Earth. That's mighty close for a black hole not to be detected by its gravity effects on our solar system. It would be gobbling up our Oort Cloud. Maybe the Voyager VI used a near-light speed booster similar to the Botany Bay's ion particle drive. Then the black hole could be many, many lightyears from Earth.
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Good point, and the idea that maybe Voyager 6 had a near-light-speed booster is interesting. Indeed, why wouldn't that type of tech be considered, if Earth was launching DY-100 class ships around the same time with similar tech?
Plus, there would be detectable radiation when the black hole eats planetesimals, comets. etc. Also, either there should be an accretion disk that would itself emit detectable radiation, or there would have to be a peculiar explanation for why there was none.
As for gravitational effects, perhaps the black hole is unusually small, having a mass that is some fraction of a solar mass, and perhaps it was artificially created. Perhaps this leads to the explanation for all of the observational issues. Maybe the black hole had been recently left in place by some alien civilization (whether purposefully or accidentally), there had been no time for an accretion disk to build up, and perhaps collisions with objects are sufficiently rare to make observation of their effects unlikely, at least unless you're tracking it continuously.
Or then he is, and he knows Starfleet won't take the bait, because the Organian Treaty, or whatever. And having Kirk travel to Nimbus III is an extremely rare opportunity to utilize a treaty loophole, specific to that planet, for gloriously killing him.
Well, a madman said this would be done. Kirk insisted it couldn't. Who's Kirk to contradict a madman who's in total control of not just his ship but his crew, too?
Oh, but as said, Kirk is a veteran of glossing over crew losses, with ambiguous or downright disingenuous logs.
And the episode early on establishes a schism over what to think of Khan. The attitude held by the by-the-book Spock would be unconductive of merely marooning him on a planet of his own with a Starfleet trophy wife, all charges of anti-Starfleet activities dropped (and, apparently, previous charges on war crimes forgotten). Time for Kirk to get creative with his logs. Again.
But in Star Trek, things are drastically different. Constitution or Galaxy class ships can go AWOL for half a year, and planets for a full year, without anybody at HQ paying any attention. These ships aren't missing, they are merely minding their own business - say, being stranded in orbit of a planet that killed the whole crew, or committing acts of war against the Romulan Star Empire.
Not only are such things possible in Starfleet, but they appear to be an expected part of the autonomy of the skipper. Just like here down on Earth a couple of hundred years ago, with Captains having or taking the authority to declare and conclude wars when convenient. Which may be surprising, considering the autonomy can't be (exclusively) due to failure to maintain communications, as in the past - but cannot be ignored, either.
As for black holes, DS9 "Past Tense" suggests their passage through Sol space is a mundane event. They just happen to come in a great variety of sizes and resulting effects, apparently ranging from time travel to space displacement at the very least. And they are not trivially detected - the one in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" was an obvious traffic hazard at SB 9, but only logged as such after Kirk's encounter with it. This would go well with the concept of them coming and going... Either by blinking into and out of existence, or then traveling through space at high, no doubt FTL speeds.
With black holes / singularities displaying diversity like that, it's no wonder the terminology is diverse as well, with "they used to call 'em" or "Class 6½ purple" being attached to the currently popular name as needed!
Timo Saloniemi
All Sybok said was that the Enterprise would be able to pass through the Great Barrier. He never said that the Enterprise would be able to travel thousands of light years in a couple of minutes. To my knowledge, Sybok can't change the laws of physics, nor did he produce some new technology to allow the ship to travel any faster than it was able to. Not to mention that Sybok had no control over the BoP, which also traveled thousands of light years in a few minutes.
Or Japetus / Iapetus.Europa.
Apparently, Phobos has an interesting one, too... For real. Also see Reynolds.
Well, not quite. Sybok brought up the idea of going to the center of the Milky Way. Kirk shot that down by saying "Hey, you can't even attempt to try - the Great Barrier is in the way!". And then Sybok said "Do not worry, faith will provide in that respect." Just about the right time for Kirk to shut up and stop contradicting the madman.
So quite possibly nobody traveled thousands of lightyears. Instead, the two ships reached the Great Barrier, a few hours' sailing from Nimbus; didn't stop there, unlike most of their predecessors who had been deterred by this whole nobody-comes-back thing; and ended up meeting God. Who, for all we know, was sleeping just beyond the outer surface of the Barrier, not particularly far away from Sol, despite Sybok's delusions to the contrary.
(Alternately, meeting God involved a Cytheran superdrive, which would take over from the ships' own warp drives at Great Barrier entry, and indeed whisk the ships to the center of the galaxy. But that's hardly a requirement.)
Timo Saloniemi
Well, not quite. Sybok brought up the idea of going to the center of the Milky Way. Kirk shot that down by saying "Hey, you can't even attempt to try - the Great Barrier is in the way!". And then Sybok said "Do not worry, faith will provide in that respect." Just about the right time for Kirk to shut up and stop contradicting the madman.
So quite possibly nobody traveled thousands of lightyears. Instead, the two ships reached the Great Barrier, a few hours' sailing from Nimbus; didn't stop there, unlike most of their predecessors who had been deterred by this whole nobody-comes-back thing; and ended up meeting God. Who, for all we know, was sleeping just beyond the outer surface of the Barrier, not particularly far away from Sol, despite Sybok's delusions to the contrary.
(Alternately, meeting God involved a Cytheran superdrive, which would take over from the ships' own warp drives at Great Barrier entry, and indeed whisk the ships to the center of the galaxy. But that's hardly a requirement.)
Timo Saloniemi
From the get-go I have always wondered if “The Great Barrier” in TFF got confused/misremembered with the barrier at the edge of the galaxy from TOS. They git away with the concept in WNMHGB and “By Any Other Name,” but going back to the idea always struck me as silly. If the had stuck with the idea of trying to get beyond the barrier at the galaxy’s at least it would have been something they had already established. But giving us another “great barrier” struck me as dumb.
Except Sha Ka Ree is established as being located at the center of the galaxy. So the ‘Great Barrier’ is just a plot device to threaten the ship’s destruction, and not really germane to the discussion. The location of Sha Ka Ree is. The dialogue states that the journey from Nimbus to Sha Ka Ree is 6.7 hours at regular warp. So either Sha Ka Ree is not actually located at the center of the galaxy, or both the Enterprise and the BoP have warp drives that can miraculously traverse great galactic distances in minuscule amounts of time. Too bad the USS Voyager was not equipped with that, huh?
The inherent problem, of course, is that no one actually points out that the center of the galaxy is very, very, VERY far away. They only complain about getting through the barrier. Most likely because whoever wrote the script was a blathering moron. Now if said barrier was quoted as having some sort of wormhole effect that throws ships right into the galaxy’s center, then that would be different. But it didn’t.
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Another issue I have with ST 5 is, why would Sybok think that God resides in one particular spot, as opposed to being everywhere and woven into the fabric of everything? And if the fixed-residence, single Zip code God theory somehow held water, why would God then be at the center of our particular galaxy? Aren't there trillions of galaxies?
Just as Lost in Space said galaxies when they meant solar systems, I think ST 5 mistook our galaxy for the whole universe (reflecting pre-1920s astronomy). And then figured that the Enterprise could scoot over to the center in 20 minutes. And after decades of published blueprints, the ship is suddenly over 700 feet tall, to judge from that elevator shaft. They blew past even the Irwin Allen standard for attention to scientific facts and the scale of things. The makers just did as they pleased in these areas, disrespecting the material and the fans.
About the Botany Bay, the thought has just occurred to me that Khan might have wanted to exile "supermen" who opposed him instead of executing them in order to seem reasonably but not excessively merciful to his fellow supermen. So Khan might have acquired a DY-100 class ship and improved it somehow so that it would have a many times better, though still very small, chance of reaching another star.
And Khan might have been preparing to launch the Botany Bay with his exiles when he was overthrown and had to go on the run from angry lynch mobs of ordinary people. And Khan and his followers might have decided to chance taking the Botany Bay.
And Khan might have been preparing to launch the Botany Bay with his exiles when he was overthrown and had to go on the run from angry lynch mobs of ordinary people. And Khan and his followers might have decided to chance taking the Botany Bay.
The energy barrier in WNMHGB and BAON also appears in "Is There in Truth No Beauty?". It is mentioned in dialog [http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/62.htm]:
SPOCK: Unfortunately, we lack reference points on which to plot a return course. We experienced extreme sensory distortion, and we shall do so again if we attempt to use warp speed. And we cannot re-cross the barrier using sub light speed.
And there are barrier VFX in both TOS and TOS-R, e.g. http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/thumbnails.php?album=71&page=36.
I don't have a problem with the Great Barrier in STV, for at least two reasons.
First, I can imagine that there might be some connection between the energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy and the magnetic space storm that (I believe) swept the SS Valiant to FTL and ultimately to that location. If there is such a connection, it would make the existence of a similar barrier type-phenomenon inside the galaxy and near the center less than surprising: perhaps the type of magnetic space storm that swept the Valiant away occurs as exotic energy flows between the barrier at the edge of the galaxy and the Great Barrier near the center.
(Again, on topic, perhaps a similar storm repositioned the Botany Bay.)
The second reason pertains in part to the energy barrier at the edge being known to have a psychic impact.
The Enterprise visited the center of the galaxy in "The Magicks of Megas-Tu." There, the Enterprise encounters a "matter-energy whirlwind" that leads them to the other universe that Lucien lives in. There, whatever people imagine becomes reality. If we squint, we might imagine that this is the Great Barrier in STV. Or, maybe it is just connected to it somehow.
Further, we might even imagine that the exotic energy involved is the common thread responsible for both the psychic phenomena and the access to trans-dimensional spaces in these episodes (where applicable):
TOS "Where No Man Has Gone Before"
TOS "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"
TAS "The Magicks of Megas-Tu"
TNG "Where No One Has Gone Before"
The ability of the Medusans to navigate the "spacetime continuum" that the Enterprise is sent to might be a result of their in fact being either partially or wholly composed of the same kind of exotic energy as is in the barrier at the edge/rim, and since that energy interacts with the human psyche that might be the basis for why looking at them directly causes insanity in humans.
In TNG WNOHGB, when it left the galaxy the Ent-D went to a place where thoughts became reality, much like "Magicks," except that the Ent-D got there by going away from the galaxy instead of towards its center. The Ent-D got home in part because they applied that paranormal ability. As Picard said in WNOHGB [http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/106.htm]:
A principal part of this warp formula will be the thoughts of everyone aboard the Enterprise. We have no idea exactly how this works. We understand only that the Traveller makes use of this somehow. It will be most important that those aboard avoid random thoughts that might change the reality of what we're attempting to do.
In a similar vein, perhaps Sybok's mind-meld treatment helped the Great Barrier get penetrated by giving everyone more or less singularity of purpose, a "psychic assist" to the exotic energy, if you will.
YMMV.
