Deneb IV in TNG and TOS

[JonnyQuest037]

I watched the TNG pilot "Encounter at Farpoint" for the first time in ages last night, and I was surprised to see that Farpoint Station was based on Deneb IV. A planet by the same name is also referenced in the TOS pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before," when Jim Kirk tells his friend Gary Mitchell, "I've been worried about you ever since that night on Deneb IV." If you look at the psych file for Gary Mitchell that's briefly glimpsed in the episode, you can see that Gary's ESP abilities were referenced and that he carried on a telepathic conversation with the natives.

According to this thread on reddit, there are seven stars with "Deneb" in their name ("Deneb" means "tail" in Arabic). So it's possible that TNG's Deneb IV is not the same one mentioned in TOS (Although I personally think it would be neat if they were, as it ties the two pilots together).

Has this connection been mentioned in any other Trek media? And do you think that the TNG locale was an intentional shout-out by D.C. Fontana or Gene Roddenberry, or just an interesting coincidence?

 

[benjaminh]

I always thought it was, as you say, a tip of the hat to Where No Man Has Gone Before.

 

[Timo]

Hmm. I can buy the tip of the hat, but does this work in-universe? Supposedly, the natives of that one Deneb IV were telepaths, one of whom left "aftereffects" on Mitchell (possibly upping his ESP rating?). Now, would or could the Bandi fit that description?

Troi gets nothing unusual from the Bandi, but she's no telepath as such. (Except with Will Riker - is he an esper? Has he also had his rating upped due to Troi's influence?). She would seem to be at least equally likely to be sensitive to the Bandi as Mitchell was, though, if the two planets and the two peoples are indeed the same.

Then again, Troi does decide it's worth pointing out that she's getting nothing from Zorn or his people when the first bout of intense loneliness strikes her. Perhaps the Bandi are known projectors of abnormally intense emotion-thoughts, and thus likely suspects here, ones Troi needs to rule out right away so as not to have Picard jump to the obvious but false conclusion?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MrEscape]

I always thought it was, as you say, a tip of the hat to Where No Man Has Gone Before.

I had always wondered about that, as to be honest, there are plenty of other planet names they could have had than that, so the choice to me felt deliberate. So I agree with this too.

The way I have seen it is, that the old falling apart cities around the Farpoint Station would have been a busy popular tourist attraction or something back in Kirk's days, thinking on when they were reminiscing on a night they were both there. But now a century or whatever time period later, stuff declined and the city must have lost it's popularity and fell to the state it was in. It might just be a shout out to the name, but it would've been cool if that were the intent though.

 

[Paradise City]

Deneb is a real life star - I assumed it was a coincidence. But maybe it isn't.

 

[Timo]

As noted upthread, there are plenty of real Denebs on the sky. But the Deneb that generally is called nothing but Deneb, aka Alpha Cygni, is a relatively distant star in Trek terms (current guesstimate 1,600-2,600 ly) and as such a good candidate for the edge of known space in the TNG pilot. The very same thing might make it a poor candidate for Mitchell's adventure, though.

All scifi shows using the names of real stars suffer from the unfortunate fact that a star that has earned a widely recognizable name ITRW tends to be a bright one, typically meaning it's unlikely to have planets, let alone habitable ones. But Deneb is certainly a recognizable name, often used in scifi lit and TV.

As for Trek uses, there's an inhabited and well-known Deneb V, within easy reach by the cheap scoundrel Harry Mudd, and the Bandi homeworld doesn't appear as if it could have such neighbors and still retain the "Farpoint" status. So we might have to accept that at least two stars in Trek get called Deneb for short.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

I'm pretty sure the Deneb IV that Mitchell visited and the Deneb IV of EaF are not the same places. I just don't see Kirk's TOS Enterprise having traveled that far if it's supposed to be Alpha Cygni. Plus nobody in EaF mentioned that a previous Enterprise had ever visited the planet.

Interestingly, promotional materials that came out before TNG premiered mentioned the planet's name as "Daneb IV," probably because Picard's accent makes the name sound like this.

 

[Timo]

That Picard's Deneb would be Alpha Cygni is somewhat debatable, as such a connection is not directly mentioned.

But the only thing going against the idea is the existence of an "Alpha Cygnus IX", a planet that probably shouldn't be in the Bandi system. FWIW, Sarek negotiated a treaty there before Riker went to high school, meaning the area was of political interest relatively early on, and thus might have been the target of frontier surveys back in Kirk's early days. Then again, perhaps Sarek negotiated the right for Starfleet to use the Bandi planet?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

The thing about Farpoint wasn't that it had never been visited before, but that Starfleet had never explored beyond it.

O'Brien apparently thought it was reasonable to inquire if Picard had ever been there before.



+

 

[Timo]

Indeed, even this is something of an exaggeration of what was stated. The unknown lies somewhere beyond this Deneb, but perhaps the actual frontier is still some distance away from this ideal location of a forward supply base?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tracy Trek]

In the original series they mentioned a creature called a Denebian slime devil in the tribble episode. Perhaps it came from the Deneb IV of the original series.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

As noted upthread, there are plenty of real Denebs on the sky. But the Deneb that generally is called nothing but Deneb, aka Alpha Cygni, is a relatively distant star in Trek terms (current guesstimate 1,600-2,600 ly) and as such a good candidate for the edge of known space in the TNG pilot. The very same thing might make it a poor candidate for Mitchell's adventure, though.

TOS, particularly early TOS, tended to use star names willy-nilly, without much thought as to whether or not they were particularly close to Earth. And heck, the Enterprise went to the edge of the known galaxy in their pilot episode! Who knows? Maybe Picard's Enterprise went through the galactic barrier shortly after EAF, but it wasn't a big deal by the 24th Century.

Deneb II was also noted as one of the planets that had Jack the Ripper-like killings in "Wolf in the Fold."

 

[drt]

TOS, particularly early TOS, tended to use star names willy-nilly, without much thought as to whether or not they were particularly close to Earth.

With a few exceptions, they tended to refer to bright ones that are pretty far away, so at least somewhat internally consistent. The issue then being if those particular stars could have habitable planets. Definitely nothing could have evolved there, but I suppose an argument could be made for colonization, terraforming or Preserver activity.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I just always assumed that they used Deneb in EaF because it was a fairly well-known real-life star, but it is also fairly distant, so that it would work well as a waypoint into the unexplored areas of the galaxy.

I'm guessing when TOS referenced Deneb, they *intended* actual Deneb (Alpha Cygni), but TOS speeds and distances don't mesh well with those in the 24th Century shows. IIRC, Star Charts puts the TOS references to Deneb at Deneb Kaitos (Beta Ceti), which is about 96 ly from Earth. (Although you'd think abbreviating one location so that it is indistinguishable from another actual location would cause at least some confusion somewhere...)

 

[JonnyQuest037]

IIRC, Star Charts puts the TOS references to Deneb at Deneb Kaitos (Beta Ceti), which is about 96 ly from Earth. (Although you'd think abbreviating one location so that it is indistinguishable from another actual location would cause at least some confusion somewhere...)

Well, Kirk was speaking casually with an old friend who'd also been on the same trip. Maybe Kirk would have used the official designation if it was log entry. Maybe it was the 23rd Century equivalent of saying, "Hey, remember our trip to 'Frisco last year?"

 

[Timo]

Maybe Picard's Enterprise went through the galactic barrier shortly after EAF, but it wasn't a big deal by the 24th Century.

Picard wasn't actually tasked with sailing beyond Deneb IV. His mission was just to check out Farpoint. After that was sorted out, he apparently turned back home and dealt with domestic matters from there on...

A bit like Kirk was tasked with seeing whether the Barrier could be penetrated, but perhaps not with exploring beyond it even if the answer proved to be "okey dokey"...

(Although you'd think abbreviating one location so that it is indistinguishable from another actual location would cause at least some confusion somewhere...)

I trust all those references to mere "Alpha" or "Beta" or "Gamma" or "Omega" are also abbreviations: the heroes tend to be right next to the star (planet) in question, and only talking between themselves, so they can drop any part of its name they wish without causing undue confusion.

Ceti Alpha could be another example: it's a star in Cetus, but the heroes are right next to it and all other stars in Cetus are actually far away from them, farther away than stars from a number of other constellations in fact (Cetus is not an asterism), so the heroes drop the Epsilon from Epsilon Ceti A. But they retain the A, or alpha, for the lead star in the binary... This works for the TOS, ST2 and ENT references to the star alike, as it's always by a set of heroes who already closely deal with this specific star.

References to Deneb don't work that way, though: heroes and sidekicks name-drop the place without being astrographically or thematically proximal to it, so there's no independent telling whether it's Deneb Kaitos or Deneb Algedi or whatnot.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shawnster]

As noted upthread, there are plenty of real Denebs on the sky. But the Deneb that generally is called nothing but Deneb, aka Alpha Cygni, is a relatively distant star in Trek terms (current guesstimate 1,600-2,600 ly) and as such a good candidate for the edge of known space in the TNG pilot. The very same thing might make it a poor candidate for Mitchell's adventure, though.

The thing about Farpoint wasn't that it had never been visited before, but that Starfleet had never explored beyond it.

O'Brien apparently thought it was reasonable to inquire if Picard had ever been there before.

+

Just for comparison - Deep Space 9 is supposed to be on the frontier, out in the sticks. Later Jake Sisko states that a trip from Earth to DS9 takes 3 weeks. So, in this case, the frontier, the sticks, is 3 weeks from Earth.

And this kinda reflects reality, depending on where you live. 45 minutes to an hour north of me is Cleveland, OH. It's nothing but urban development from my house north to Lake Erie. Now, if I go 20 minutes south, I'm in the heart of the largest Amish community in the US. It's very rural and under developed by city standards.

In real life it's quite possible to have the frontier or undeveloped rural areas within close reach to highly developed industrialized and urban community centers. Perhaps the Trek galaxy is the same way. Perhaps the maps are wrong and the UFP is not one solid geopolitical sphere of influence but more like a spider web of star systems sitting right next to unexplored regions.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Picard wasn't actually tasked with sailing beyond Deneb IV. His mission was just to check out Farpoint. After that was sorted out, he apparently turned back home and dealt with domestic matters from there on...

Certainly possible, as the TNG Enterprise did go back to Earth a few times during its mission. The mention of "the great unexplored mass of the galaxy" in the opening log and Picard's "Let's see what's out there" at the end leave a clear impression that they're definitely going where no one has gone before, though.

 

[Timo]

The latter, at least, yeah.

And in theory, out of the next few episodes in airdate or stardate order, "Naked Now" might involve our heroes with the unknown (even if others had preceded them there); "Code of Honor" might also be beyond Deneb (even if the UFP already had knowledge of the Ligonians and their vaccine); and "Lonely Among Us" might actually directly describe political expansion of the UFP beyond Deneb. Even "The Last Outpost" might work, even though the chase takes place in a direction where there are no real Denebs; we could say it does start nicely outside UFP proper, at an "automated outpost".

It's only with "Haven" that our heroes definitely return to locations part of or frequented by the UFP, and indeed only with "Conspiracy" that there is a definite return to the UFP core and ultimately Earth. That the heroes interact with "outer" UFP assets across the first season need not contradict the "Farpoint" exploration credo. That they deal with UFP borders in "Angel One", "Heart of Glory" and "The Neutral Zone", and from the inside, is probably more damning.

Timo Saloniemi