DS9 - Dax's best acting moment & how did they launch the solar ship?!!

[DocCrusher]

A few questions..

in this video:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

-Do u think this is Dax's best acting moment? lol

in this video:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

- How did sisko get the solar ship moving before opening the sales?
- How did the ancient bajorans launch it into space in the first place?

 

[Tenacity]

- How did the ancient bajorans launch it into space in the first place?

They launched them into low Bajor orbit using multi-stage chemical rockets. The sails were folded for launch, once in orbit the sails were unfolded and expose to the solar wind.

Would it be "solar" wind?

 

[MAGolding]

A few questions..

in this video:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

-Do u think this is Dax's best acting moment? lol

in this video:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

- How did sisko get the solar ship moving before opening the sales?
- How did the ancient bajorans launch it into space in the first place?

Solar sails are a plausible concept for space ship propulsion. But the solar sails on the Bajoran light ship are built all wrong and are many, many, many times too small to work.

And the big problem is how was the Bajoran light ship propelled faster than light to Cardassia Prime without a warp drive installed on the light ship? I heard that they were caught in a burst of tachyon particles and swept to Cardassia. Tachyon particles are hypothetical particles that would only travel faster than light. But ordinary matter, like the Bajoran light ship and Ben and Jake, is made out of tardyon particles, that can never travel as fast as light without a warp drive, no matter how much they are pushed by tachyons.


You ask how the ancient Bajorans could have launched light ships into space. Remember the ancient Bajorans were a lot more advanced than ancient Earthmen at the same time.

Bajorans were first mentioned in the fifth season of TNG episode "Ensign Ro".

Captain's log, supplemental. I read about the achievements of the ancient Bajoran civilisation in my fifth grade reader. They were architects and artists, builders and philosophers when humans were not yet standing erect. Now I see how history has rewarded them.

Depending on how you interpret "humans" and "standing erect" Bajorans must have been civilized hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago. But apparently that ancient Bajoran civilization fell and Bajorans built a new civilization countless thousands of years later.

How old is the present Bajoran civilization? I don't know exactly. But the episode "Accession" says that Bajoran year 9174 was centuries ago.

DAX: From these readings I'd say that ship's about three hundred years old.

SISKO: When exactly did you leave Bajor?
AKOREM: Oh, it couldn't have been more than a few days ago.
SISKO: What was the year?
AKOREM: Ninety one seventy four.
KIRA: That was over two hundred years ago.

The first Bajoran cities (in the present Bajoran civilization) were built many thousands of years before the first cities on Earth. In "Rapture":

[Wardroom]
(A painting of an obelisk stands in an ornamental water feature in a town. We pull back to see our Starfleet people in the new uniforms as seen the movie 'First Contact'.)
DAX: That's it?
SISKO: That's it. The City of B'hala, painted nearly twenty thousand years ago.
DAX: Hmm.
KIRA: Jadzia, you're looking at the most important Bajoran icon ever painted. The only known proof that B'hala actually existed, and all you have to say is hmm.

So the legendary lost city of B'hala, discovered during the episode, existed "nearly twenty thousand years ago.", meaning that the present Bajoran civilization is probably at least twice as old as Earth civilization.

In "Explorers":

JAKE: What is this, some kind of ship?
SISKO: According to legend, the ancient Bajorans used ships like these to explore their star system eight hundred years ago
JAKE: You mean that when humans were first sailing across the oceans, Bajorans were already going to other planets?
SISKO: Some scholars say they made it all the way to Cardassia.

So apparently Bajoran space eploration might be 400 or 500 years more advanced than human space exploration, exploring other planets in about the 16th century AD. Actually Bajoran space travel progress is rather unimpressive considering that their present civilization is probably at least 10,000 year older than Earth civilization, and that their first civilization was hundreds of thousands or millions of years earlier. So the Bajorans could have had methods to launch their light ships into orbit or maybe build them in orbit 800 years before DS9.

 

[Timo]

Of course, there's nothing to indicate that the particular lightsail model reproduced by Sisko, from 800 years back, would have been an innovation or a breakthrough. Rather, 800 years b.p. sounds like the last hurrah of the technology. which for all we know might be tens of thousands of years old.

There are "legends" about what Vikings did with their ships about 800 years ago ITRW. This does not mean sailing would have been invented 800 years ago, nor does it mean sailing would have been mere legend until 800 years ago. The legend relating to Sisko's replica may be a very specific one, this very story prompting Sisko to recreate this famous vessel type rather tha something more obscure from thousands of years back.

As regards the viability of the Bajoran lightsail seen, it would depend on the inertial mass of the vessel - there's no minimum size for lightsail that this ship would fail to meet as such, and indeed the tiny solar panels of Earth's space probes have been used as lightsails on occasion. To get the sort of acceleration that propels the Siskos from DS9 to across the Denorios belt, the ship would simply have to have its mass reduced (from apparent hundreds of kilograms to mere grams) by one or more of the classic Trek tricks. And if Bajorans knew those tricks, they would probably have used those for lifting the ships off their planet to begin with.

What does it take to negate the mass of things in Trek? Supposedly, such tech was packed into Spock's flying boots in ST5:TFF, as mere super-compact, super-powerful rockets could hardly account for the observed feats of bringing Kirk to a halt upside down or lifting Kirk and McCoy. So hiding it inside the observed lightsail cabin should be a breeze. Too bad the tech was never mentioned in the dialogue... Ben does comment on the silence, but it is the silence of the artificial gravity machine that keeps the Siskos glued to the floor.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DocCrusher]

They launched them into low Bajor orbit using multi-stage chemical rockets. The sails were folded for launch, once in orbit the sails were unfolded and expose to the solar wind.

but how did they plan to land them / get the pilots back home to bajor?

and if the bajorans were so advanced before us , how come they're then less advanced than humans by the 24th century?

 

[at Quark's]

A few questions..
- How did the ancient bajorans launch it into space in the first place?

Eurmm.... huge catapults ?

and if the bajorans were so advanced before us , how come they're then less advanced than humans by the 24th century?

Civilization could have collapsed and not be rebuild for hundreds of thousands of years. And not even that is necessary. They could have stagnated for a very long time-- not collapsing but not progressing either.

Besides, I'm not certain they were really less advanced, the Cardassians could simply have suprised them during an inward-looking era during which they were not prepared for armed conflict at all. And supposing the Cardassians thoroughly robbed them, then after shaking the Cardassians off, even with replicator technology it probably would have taken a while to rebuild their society.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Speaking realistically, the solar sails are not as big a problem as the lack of shielding from radiation.

I assume they were able to be dragged faster than light because the tachyon eddy dragged them through subspace.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

but how did they plan to land them / get the pilots back home to bajor?

and if the bajorans were so advanced before us , how come they're then less advanced than humans by the 24th century?

They never focused on defense technology because they had no expansion ambition, then the Cardassians came and stole everything.

Or there could have just been some kind of major social collapse on Bajor, like how when Rome was destroyed humanity was set back centuries technologically.

 

[Timo]

Bajorans didn't focuse on defense technology? They have their very own line of infantry weapons, which is more than we can say of the Romulans! That line probably didn't spring into existence either during or immediately after the Occupation.

Also, the triangular warpships flown by Cardassians are also flown by Bajorans all. The warpship with a prominent dorsal ring ties to the Cardassian patrol ships with a prominent dorsal ring, too. Is this because Bajor has a stockpile of abandoned Cardassian vessels after the occupation - or because Cardassia got its ships by pillaging from Bajoran stock, and by appropriating Bajoran shipbuilding industries?

Bajoran history includes its share of lost cities, making the setback model plausible. Bajor also has unsurveyed mountain ranges after hundreds of thousands of years of urban civilization - an utter impossibility if Bajorans were humans - and uninhabited paradise moons nobody but a sole lunatic wants to live on even at the height of the oppression down on Bajor. Certainly "going places" is an urge the Bajorans as a species are free of.

800 years before the events of the show, all sorts of people traveled across the stars. Many could have given the Bajorans a ride. What is "legend" is that a flimsy Bajoran sailship made such a journey, too. Heck, we still don't know whether Bajorans frequented Cardassian malls and art exhibits thousands of years ago, as all the hassle is specifically about their lightsails rather than about the Bajorans themselves.

Timo Saloniemi