...this makes me remember the time, when i read on a german forum a post claiming that B5 is not Sci-Fi at all, because there is no technobabble...
Yes, this is OT here, but this thread seriously need a mood lightening.
Andrew Probert and Rick Sternbach: The New Enterprise
- Thread starter Lowdarzz
- Start date
- Status
...this makes me remember the time, when i read on a german forum a post claiming that B5 is not Sci-Fi at all, because there is no technobabble...
Yes, this is OT here, but this thread seriously need a mood lightening.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Didn't we cover this before? The only reason there are searchlight beams and visible 'atmospheric haze' is because the dock interior looked like a model without those depth cues.
When you see the VOYAGER opening credits (if you must) you'll see in the last shot that the ship occludes a star and there are shards of atmosphere as a result. So they are flying through the vaccum of space, but a visible vaccuum, right? Just another visual 'for effect,' has nothing to do with the actual environment (which certainly doesn't look like it is built for working in for the spacedock.)
We covered the reason that the choice was made. But that doesn't change the fact that it's IMPOSSIBLE to have those beams without an atmosphere in there... so while the intent was to indicate scale, the unambiguous (and undeniable) conclusion is that there had to be an atmosphere in there.
Well, I don't own Voyager and have no plans to, so I'll recuse myself from commenting on that...
By jove, I think you've got it.Ok, here are my completed speculative views with shape comparisons to the original ship:
...that was time well spent.
I think the top view looks weirdest, followed by the front. The side view isn't too bad.
Its also impossible for a laser beam to be visible in space, for an explosion to make a sound in a vacuum, for there to be a shockwave, to convert a person to energy with a transporter or disintegrate them with a phaser without a catastrophic release of energy, for a starship to do a banking turn, and a thousand and one other things Trek has done. It isn't hard sci-fi. Its space opera.
Well, any laser beam at energy levels we're accustomed to.
It's known that photons have mass. In theory, a "dense enough" beam of light might actually self-diffract. You'd be talking about a tremendously intense beam, of course... and the number of photons which would be diffracted out of the beam (making it visible) would be quite low compared to the beam intensity itself... but if you were able to pump enough power into a laser beam, even in a pure vacuum, it could very well be visible due to this effect.
Of course, I don't recall ever seening a "laser" visible in space in Trek anyway. We've seen "phasers" in space... but that's something different, isn't it?
Not entirely true. An explosion is what, exactly? Typically, it's conversion from a high-density material into a much lower density material... typically but not necessarily involving the addition of heat as well.
So, if you're in a sudden cloud of expanding gas, you might well hear sound. In fact, the shockwave from an explosion, if it impacted on your ship's hull, would inevitably create an audible effect.
So the explosion will make a sound, for as long as the reaction-product gas is interacting with the object you're inside (shuttle, ship, whatever), if you're close enough to it and if enough gas is released. It'll dissipate very quickly, though, of course.
Absolutely untrue. It requires a medium, of course, but the medium can easily be part of the shockwave (in the case of a conventional explosion). Again, it'll dissipate more rapidly in space, though... as the medium dissipates along with the shockwave.
Supernovae will destroy their associated solar systems through a shockwave... that's pretty much commonly accepted.
On the other hand, if a "shockwave" is actually being carried in some "ether" -like medium (say, a "subspace shockwave?") then (given that conceit that "subspace" exists and can be used as an ether-like medium... sort of implied with "subspace radio") it's not unreasonable, though it's entirely speculative.
Well, the "transporter" might work quite well if it were done as shown in TOS, or as "redefined" for TNG for that matter. The issue is that you're not converting the matter into energy and then storing it. In TOS, I got the impression that the matter was converted and instantaneously "transposed"... never "stored." In TNG, they didn't convert it to energy at all, they just broke it down into a "matter stream."
And "disintegrate" doesn't mean "convert from matter into energy" at all. Disintegrate means "take apart," essentially. So a phaser which disintegrates a target may only cause it to be reduced to powder, not converted to energy.
While (with an anti-acceleration field) there's no reason to bank, there's plenty of reason to bank a ship with no such field. It has to do with the blood in the human body... red-outs and black-outs... I'll assume you know this but feel free to check it out if you don't.
There's also the idea that, perhaps, the ship may turn better at impulse along the pitch and roll axes, and (due to the impulse engine being between the nacelles) would be more limited in terms of yaw manueverability. So maybe this is just the most effective means of turning to the side without burning the paint off the nacelles?
Trek COULD be hard sci-fi. It has, at times, tried to be. It's not "space opera" in the same sense that Star Wars is.
I know that most of my points, above, certainly qualify as "stretching." But the point is, while you're right that most of the things you mention may not seem 100% "technically reasonable," they're not inherently UNREASONABLE.
Spotlights being visible without an atmosphere, on the other hand, is inherently unreasonable, and cannot be explained away even with the most convoluted mental gymnastics.
After the technicalities and hypothetical nonsense you just used to refute my points, I think all I can say to your remark about "convoluted mental gymnastics" is:
As to laser beams in space, I believe we did see them several times in TNG, both when the Enterprise went against the Borg on the first occasion and when it faced lesser-advanced ships on a couple different occasions. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.
Correct. The Borg used a green laser beam to take a core sample from the Ent-D's hull on two occasions.
Folks, enough already with the "atmosphere haze" in Trek III. I've been debating this misconception since the movie came out! There was no spotlight haze in the movie itself. The haze was added to promotional materials tied to the film.
ST-One
Vice Admiral
"Enough" if someone doesn't agree with what you think?
Sorry, doesn't work that way.
The model (which was the "Death Star Core" miniature with a redressing) was shot with smoke, and had internal lights which were visible. The smoke was added to give a sense of depth and scale, not SPECIFICALLY INTENDED to imply atmosphere. But it was still there.
Why have this be an interior space with hard-sealing "spacedock doors?" Why have open landing platforms throughout (not behind sealing internal doors?) There are lots of reasons to conclude that there was an atmosphere in there, from the design of the setting to the way it was filmed, to the rational for even having such a space.
It makes sense if it's pressurized. If it's not... why not just have the Enterprise pull up to the OUTSIDE of the structure? Why bring it inside?
Seems to me that they brought it inside to finish the hull repairs they'd done patchwork repair on after the Mutara battle. And that sort of repair would likely be easier to do if you didn't have a pressure differential between the inside and the outside. Among many other advantages you'd have to working in a pressurized environment.
It's not "settled" because it's not REAL. You have your opinion. I have mine. I think mine makes a hell of a lot more sense than yours does. In my case, there's a REASON for this big enclosed space, besides "because it's cool-looking."
ST-One
Vice Admiral
GodThingFormerly
A Different Kind of Asshole
^ The American Cinematographer issue that covered the production of ST:TSFS quoted ILM modelers discussing their reuse of the RotJ miniature's radial piping, lighting rig and support scaffolding.
TGT
TGT
trevanian
Rear Admiral
It very much looks like mostly the same pieces, just with different detailing. for SFS they basically used paper xeroxed with patterns on the back wall, not model detail, but I've always thought it was the same structure, esp based on the actual size of the models in BTS stuff.
Of course I suppose it could just be due to ILM's tendency to design everything to look largely the same in trek and sw universes, but that's just as bad (or worse, imo.)
Of course I suppose it could just be due to ILM's tendency to design everything to look largely the same in trek and sw universes, but that's just as bad (or worse, imo.)
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I don't think I ever got that one, good info!
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I understand where you're coming from, but it makes more sense to justify reasoning behind something that has reasoning behind its design, rather than try to justify reasoning for something that had no thought behind it besides 'make it look big.' It might even be admirable that you make the try, but face it, only TIMO can come up with any decent reasons for there to be doors on this dumb thing, and that still isn't good enough, because the doors are there just so there is an obstacle to escape. If the ship parked on the outside, you wouldn't have the 'warningspacedoorsareclosed' bit ...
Exactly right. Thanks, TGT.
ST-One
Vice Admiral
Which - to me - doesn't amount to it being the same miniature only redressed.
GodThingFormerly
A Different Kind of Asshole
- Status
