"Hailing" "no responce"

[Hermiod]

The person on the receiving end hears the call at almost the same instant the sender spoke.

I never had a problem with this in TNG. After all, if person A wants to call person B over a comm channel, those two people obviously aren't standing in the same room. Therefore, by default, we cannot tell whether Riker hears the "Picard to Riker" bit instantaneously (which would be impossible, because the computer doesn't yet know the call has to be routed to Riker when Picard says "Picard to") or after a slight delay. We will just have to accept that there indeed is a slight delay there that is cut out for dramatical reasons when the camera cuts from Picard to Riker.

Yes, this isn't 24. We don't see both sides of the conversation in split screen. I imagine Picard taps their badge, says who he wants to talk to, then the computer establishes the communication and replays the "Picard to Riker" bit.

As for the "no response" thing, it's apparently not as if Worf waits for an actual person at the other end to say "Hello" or anything. After all, Worf doesn't hail anybody verbally himself, either - he merely pushes a button that sends out the automated hail.

So obviously it's more like Worf hits the "hail" button, and at once gets the rude automated "incoming messages blocked, especially yours" signal from the other end. No need to wait for two people to actually exchange superfluous words there.

I figured it was like establishing a connection with a server. The Enterprise tries to establish a connection on a well known frequency on the other ship. If that ship is listening for communications, then the Enterprise will get a near instant response. If they aren't interested then it will be immediately apparent.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Don't ask me which episode/s, but I'm very sure I remember a scene with Picard hailing Riker without cutting away to Riker. Riker indeed answered instantly.

 

[Jono]

They don't give someone much time to answer, but it would be boring to watch a minute of the crew standing around waiting for the other guy to pick up. They just must be impatient in the 24th century. It is like in a battle if their first shot doesn't immediately make the enemy blow up they just about give up.

 

[AdmiralGarak]

I've always liked that the crew never has to wait for a turbolift. It's always conveniently at their deck.

 

[jgdst]

I've always liked that the crew never has to wait for a turbolift. It's always conveniently at their deck.

Kirk had to wait for one in The Naked Time for about 3 seconds. His reaction was to start punching the lift like it was Nancy Crater.

Then again, in 3 seconds, someone can pull a Picard Maneuver on you and you all end up very much dead. 3...2...1... MARK!

 

[K'Ehleyr]

I always liked the "fire on my mark" command, because the "mark" is usually less than 3 seconds after he says to wait for the mark. Just fire the damn weapons!

It always annoyed me that every time Picard gave the order to "fire at will," RIKER NEVER DIED!

lol! Actually did! Embarrassing as only had my cat for company who didn't get the joke, although I did explain it to him. Do you think I may need medical help?! Everytime it's said we cry 'Oh poor Will! He's a doughnut but never done any real harm!'

 

[Forbin]

I found it odd when the captain (any series) would tell the comm officer to send such and such a message to Starfleet (often a couple of explanatory sentences on their situation), and the comm officer taps three buttons and reports "message sent, sir."

 

[Timo]

I've always liked that the crew never has to wait for a turbolift. It's always conveniently at their deck.

Why wouldn't it be? I mean, it would be a really crappy system if it didn't always keep at least one lift available at every deck. Or at least at Deck 1, for bridge officer convenience.

I found it odd when the captain (any series) would tell the comm officer to send such and such a message to Starfleet (often a couple of explanatory sentences on their situation), and the comm officer taps three buttons and reports "message sent, sir."

To be sure, forwarding a situation report should be simple enough, as somebody should be constantly keeping an up-to-date log anyway. Uhura or Worf could simply move the relevant file from "Logs" to "Outbox" with those three keypresses.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sector 7]

This is just like how the communicators seem to be psychic (like when say Picard hails Riker and Riker hears it as Picard is saying it). It's just a reality of doing a TV show...

Oh dear...

A "fringe fan" is speaking!

For those not aware, ...

As I don't have enough hours in my earthly day to learn all the technobabble of Star Trek in depth...
just call me a proud "fringe fan" of 35 years!
Besides why should I bother to learn all 10,000 different arguments on each subject when there is always a Trek geek handy to point it out to us poor lil "fringe fans"?

 

[D Man]

I always liked the "fire on my mark" command, because the "mark" is usually less than 3 seconds after he says to wait for the mark. Just fire the damn weapons!

It always annoyed me that every time Picard gave the order to "fire at will," RIKER NEVER DIED!

I always smile whenever they use that line, for that very reason.

Another thing about communications---Picard was always really obvious about making the "cut-off" gesture to Worf. Whoever was on the other side of the hail would have to be blind to miss the dramatic turn-around and hand movement.

 

[PhoenixIreland]

Hm, maybe that's because it's ... uhm ... a television show.

Yes...I know that...on an unrelated matter there is on some forums I think a way to put posters on a list so their posts dont appear to you, do we have that?

As for the "boring gap" that would take out time from the show, they can easily get around that, have worf start hailing them then talk to each other as hes trying, I'm not suggesting stoney silence, I just thought it ruined the realism a bit.

 

[asdf1]

I always liked the "fire on my mark" command, because the "mark" is usually less than 3 seconds after he says to wait for the mark. Just fire the damn weapons!

It always annoyed me that every time Picard gave the order to "fire at will," RIKER NEVER DIED!

I always smile whenever they use that line, for that very reason.

Another thing about communications---Picard was always really obvious about making the "cut-off" gesture to Worf. Whoever was on the other side of the hail would have to be blind to miss the dramatic turn-around and hand movement.

Say Worf was away and a new officer was posted on board, say this person didn't fully understand the cut-off gesture, and took it as a subtle command for destroying the other ship.

After all, it could be quite easy to mix them up.

 

[CommodoreKong]

This is just like how the communicators seem to be psychic (like when say Picard hails Riker and Riker hears it as Picard is saying it). It's just a reality of doing a TV show...

Oh dear...

A "fringe fan" is speaking!

For those not aware, the tech specs written up for the 24th century combadges established that they work by way of subspace, and the computer monitors the channels. It hears who the person is calling, and immediately, faster than you can blink, sends the signal thru to the person the message is meant for.

I was just in our local wholesale club store this afternoon, and heard a very primitive example of the same sort of thing. (Something I've seen in other stores in the past.)

One of the workers picks up a microphone and pages someone. They put the mic. down. A moment later their voice goes out over the store's intercom, and you hear a repeat of what you just heard close up.

Why the delay? I dunno. Odd. Like the PA system recorded it and replayed it or something.

Well, in 24th century Trek, it works that exact same way, only it's channeled thru the computer and its subspace processors. It's virtually instantaneous. The person on the receiving end hears the call at almost the same instant the sender spoke. Then, once the receiver replies, the communication IS live.

Of course once the person responds the communications is live, but we've seen plenty of scenes where we only see the sender of the message and the receiver responds basically instantaneously, far to quickly to hear a recording of "Picard to Riker".

Of course like I said before it doesn't really bother me, it's just the practical reality of doing a TV show.

Well, I always assumed the weapons were more effective at closer range, so it kinda made sense.

How much closer are they going to get to the enemy in 2 or 3 seconds?

Considering how fast impulse is, you'd be surprised.

Unless you're at the edge of the weapon's firing range I doubt it will make too much of a difference, after all ship based phasers are designed to fire over vast distances. I could see them holding off torpedoes though, depending on how accurate the guidance system is.

hey guys
new to the forums
glad to be here
just finished watching all of voyager in like 2 weeks....got a broken elbow and muscle damage here so i cant do much but sit and watch movies and stuff.....i digress

something i always noticed is that the tractor beam seems to be the most useless thing ever
its like
get a tractor beam on them, 1.2.3 they've destroyed it with a feedback pulse, or they're out of range. I dont remember to many instances where the tractor worked liked they wanted it too so ya
anyway glad to be on the board

D A N N Y

Interesting. That could very well be the in universe reason we see "Fire on my mark" on Trek.

 

[Timo]

Of course once the person responds the communications is live, but we've seen plenty of scenes where we only see the sender of the message and the receiver responds basically instantaneously, far to quickly to hear a recording of "Picard to Riker".

Of course, in those occasions, we could argue that the unseen other player never heard the "Picard to" part. Or, if we don't want to have the comm system behaving in two different ways, we could say that the people who answered those calls did not wait to hear the whole "Picard to X" part, but eagerly said "X here!" right after hearing the comm system beep. That is, what we hear while standing next to Picard is

"Picard to Riker." "Riker here!"

but what Riker hears is

"<beep> Pic-" "Riker here!"

Unless you're at the edge of the weapon's firing range I doubt it will make too much of a difference, after all ship based phasers are designed to fire over vast distances.

Are they? We never see them used over such vast distances, except perhaps in "Balance of Terror" where the characters argue that the chances of success are slim. There must be some tactical-technological reason to the fact that the phasers are always employed at ranges that are stated to be at most a few thousand kilometers in dialogue and shown to be a few hundred meters in visuals.

In the real world, an "energy beam" would lose energy over distance even when traveling through vacuum, so the most deadly punches would be the ones fired at point-blank range. Tactical considerations would of course favor firing farther away, but the end result would be some optimum range, possibly fairly close to the target.

In contrast, missile weapons would remain just as deadly across long ranges as across short ones. But we could argue that a photon torpedo eats its own antimatter warhead for propulsive fuel, meaning that a shot that has traveled a long distance or moved at a high speed is weaker than a shot that has only recently left the launcher at a modest pace. Again, a balance would be found, and again it might favor close ranges.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Triskelion]

What gets me is the obvious timing differentials between how maneuvers are commanded on the bridge, and how the ship actually moves:

Captain, ship bearing 123 mark 4. They are firing.
Come about bearing 234 mark 5. Attack pattern delta.
Coming about.

Cut to: ships flying swirlies around each other and changing headings several times in the same amount of time. And don't tell me it's part of "attack pattern alpha" because it's not. For example, watch the Defiant in one of the mega battle scenes.

Either let the helmsman have control or spit it out already!

Oh and as for the communicator lack of lagtime:
I would say the computer chip accesses the system immediately upon touch, processes the voice both prior and after tapping, parses the first utterance so that by the end of the statement, the target communicator is signaled, message relayed with possibly a one-second lag, and then realtime communication.
IE:

"Picard to"
(tap)
"Ri"
<Rialto, Riannon, Ribaldi, Rickets, Ricky, Riker, Rama>
"-ker"
Rialto, Riannon, Ribaldi, Rickets, Ricky, Riker, Rama
send/receive: "Picard to Riker"
tap
"Riker here."
"Send in the masseuse please."

 

[Rÿcher]

anyone notice when Crusher called for transport from the Enterprise-C, the transporter tech. said "standby for transport" and barely a split second later, she was beaming?

Give the guy time to slide the energizers at least! Or is there a button that reads "transport the last person I talked to on the 2-way?"

 

[AdmiralGarak]

We've seen Picard instruct the transporter operator to keep a lock on the away to beam them out immediately in an emergency. Returning the CMO to sickbay ASAP during a rescue mission seems to be such a case. We could assume that the transporter chief was locked on to her, and had his finger hovering over the 'energize' button.

 

[AdmiralGarak]

Another thing about communications---Picard was always really obvious about making the "cut-off" gesture to Worf. Whoever was on the other side of the hail would have to be blind to miss the dramatic turn-around and hand movement.

Maybe it was intentional. You'd think that Picard's arm rest controls would have a mute button on it. It's Picard's way of telling the bitching alien who's really in charge here.

 

[SeerSGB]

I've always liked that the crew never has to wait for a turbolift. It's always conveniently at their deck.

Why wouldn't it be? I mean, it would be a really crappy system if it didn't always keep at least one lift available at every deck. Or at least at Deck 1, for bridge officer convenience.

I found it odd when the captain (any series) would tell the comm officer to send such and such a message to Starfleet (often a couple of explanatory sentences on their situation), and the comm officer taps three buttons and reports "message sent, sir."

To be sure, forwarding a situation report should be simple enough, as somebody should be constantly keeping an up-to-date log anyway. Uhura or Worf could simply move the relevant file from "Logs" to "Outbox" with those three keypresses.

Timo Saloniemi

One, old, theory I once heard was the lift-system basically followed Kirk and Spock around the ship; constantly making sure there was at least one free lift car nearby their location. That way if the shit hit the fan the XO and CO would have to wait for a lift back to the bridge or wherever they needed to be.

 

[AdmiralGarak]

Every diagram of the tube-systems & the interior shots from episodes such as Disaster make it clear that there are a limited number of cars and paths available.