How Do You Determine Age?
- Thread starter hux
- Start date
Speaking of circadian rhythms...
Why do aliens even sleep? Not all creatures on earth sleep. Whales and dolphins do "conscious breathing" - only one-half the brain sleeps at a time. Sharks probably don't sleep, unless sleeping in a cave with moving current. Sponges and jellyfish don't really sleep. It's hard to catch a bullfrog napping.
Data didn't sleep.
On the other hand, why not have more aliens that hibernate and estivate?
BTW here's one suggestion that I know is going to get shot down from the Starfleet R&D department: a spare backup oxygen tank for EVA suits. Or two! That you can even swap with your friends.
When you anesthetize a dolphin, it stops breathing.
http://www.trekbbs.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/
Why do aliens even sleep? Not all creatures on earth sleep. Whales and dolphins do "conscious breathing" - only one-half the brain sleeps at a time. Sharks probably don't sleep, unless sleeping in a cave with moving current. Sponges and jellyfish don't really sleep. It's hard to catch a bullfrog napping.
Data didn't sleep.
On the other hand, why not have more aliens that hibernate and estivate?
BTW here's one suggestion that I know is going to get shot down from the Starfleet R&D department: a spare backup oxygen tank for EVA suits. Or two! That you can even swap with your friends.
When you anesthetize a dolphin, it stops breathing.
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I know it doesn't bear answering, but perhaps you might humor me by revealing the identity of the remainder of the audience that Trek was made for?
There's also the question of gravity which is also presumably very earth-centric. While most other Federation species would conveniently have similar levels to Earth, they did at least address the issue with Melora who needed a wheelchair to cope with the station's (Earth-level) gravity.
Well I'm glad we cleared that up.
Well I'm glad we cleared that up.
I know it doesn't bear answering, but perhaps you might humor me by revealing the identity of the remainder of the audience that Trek was made for?
We don't know that aliens somewhere aren't listening into our broadcasts. I imagine they would be huge Niners.
@Merry Christmas
Whenever the year is referenced in the show it's consistent with one calendar year being 1000 stardates. But we don't know it isn't some other value that's just very close to a year.
Is there any onscreen reason to think that the time references we get would not be translated to Earth ones by the UT?
The Torres thing was mentioned - but we know that semi-Klingons age fast in absolute terms (Alexander Rodzhenko). Is there anything more concrete?
We never saw a Bajoran clock, so we don't know if Bajorans really divide their day into 26 units. The more likely scenario is them doing their own thing, and the UT rounding the 26.278123 Earth hours to 26 sharp because at the level of hours, accuracy greater than that is irrelevant (it doesn't accumulate because people don't refer to weeks in terms of hours, and it doesn't affect the shorter timespans because crucial countdowns will still be given in Earth minutes or Earth seconds).
Except with Bajoran years, in the sense of their "annual" celebrations being all over the place. But that's not particularly relevant except when our DS9 heroes potentially err to referring to the passage of time in terms of the Bajoran year turning - say, when counting the birthdays of their kids (who no doubt love having 1.32 birthdays per year!).
Now, when does a stardate year begin? Evidence for "January 1st" is lacking, while "Around when the Paramount/CBS fall season starts" gets something like three supporting datapoints...
We might consider that humanoid sentience in the Milky Way is at least four billion years old, and ubiquitous. For all we know, there are few or no inhabited planets that would differ from Earth in any of the orbital specs, because all have been carefully terraformed long ago, and the orbital adjustments are still mostly holding even if some fallow worlds may have had minor details such as their climate go haywire.
Timo Saloniemi
The Torres thing was mentioned - but we know that semi-Klingons age fast in absolute terms (Alexander Rodzhenko). Is there anything more concrete?
We never saw a Bajoran clock, so we don't know if Bajorans really divide their day into 26 units. The more likely scenario is them doing their own thing, and the UT rounding the 26.278123 Earth hours to 26 sharp because at the level of hours, accuracy greater than that is irrelevant (it doesn't accumulate because people don't refer to weeks in terms of hours, and it doesn't affect the shorter timespans because crucial countdowns will still be given in Earth minutes or Earth seconds).
Except with Bajoran years, in the sense of their "annual" celebrations being all over the place. But that's not particularly relevant except when our DS9 heroes potentially err to referring to the passage of time in terms of the Bajoran year turning - say, when counting the birthdays of their kids (who no doubt love having 1.32 birthdays per year!).
Now, when does a stardate year begin? Evidence for "January 1st" is lacking, while "Around when the Paramount/CBS fall season starts" gets something like three supporting datapoints...
We might consider that humanoid sentience in the Milky Way is at least four billion years old, and ubiquitous. For all we know, there are few or no inhabited planets that would differ from Earth in any of the orbital specs, because all have been carefully terraformed long ago, and the orbital adjustments are still mostly holding even if some fallow worlds may have had minor details such as their climate go haywire.
Timo Saloniemi
Good point, but one wonders. Romulus and Remus appear to be on orbits with almost identical radii, thus apparently having a really close encounter a bit more often than once per the year of the inner world... The skies of Vulcan seem to tell a similar story! Is that common for these two-planet setups?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
I know it doesn't bear answering, but perhaps you might humor me by revealing the identity of the remainder of the audience that Trek was made for?
Oh, I don't know. I've seen plenty of posters who have to be some kind of alien, possibly from a space-time continuum beyond the ability of humans to rationalize.
This discussion is really fascinating because I'm working on building the worlds of Star Trek in the program SpaceEngine. I've been getting into the formulas for orbital mechanics and that sort of thing.
For Romulus and Remus to work they will have to be outside of each other's Hill Spheres. So we must take their depiction in Nemesis with a grain of salt. They couldn't be that close unless they really were orbiting each other. Otherwise their orbits would become destabilized very quickly.
I'm working on the calculations for Vulcanis right now and I'm setting it up based on TMP configuration. It seems there are five objects visible in TMP shot: a large yellow body, a smaller red body, Vulcanis, and then two other bodies I can't remember the colors right now.
We know Vulcanis has no moons so I'm making the large yellow object a central gas giant which Vulcanis and the other objects orbit. So Vuclanis may not have a moon but it is one. Even then, the Shot could only be accurate if it was done with a lens to make the backgrounds larger. They would appear much smaller in "real life."
For Romulus and Remus to work they will have to be outside of each other's Hill Spheres. So we must take their depiction in Nemesis with a grain of salt. They couldn't be that close unless they really were orbiting each other. Otherwise their orbits would become destabilized very quickly.
I'm working on the calculations for Vulcanis right now and I'm setting it up based on TMP configuration. It seems there are five objects visible in TMP shot: a large yellow body, a smaller red body, Vulcanis, and then two other bodies I can't remember the colors right now.
We know Vulcanis has no moons so I'm making the large yellow object a central gas giant which Vulcanis and the other objects orbit. So Vuclanis may not have a moon but it is one. Even then, the Shot could only be accurate if it was done with a lens to make the backgrounds larger. They would appear much smaller in "real life."
We should probably just assume that these things are just translated to units we understand but people are really speaking in their own units.
Just like in A Man Alone, the Bajorans graffiti Odo's office in English. They really did it in Bajoran, but the camera translates it to a context the audience can understand.
Just like in A Man Alone, the Bajorans graffiti Odo's office in English. They really did it in Bajoran, but the camera translates it to a context the audience can understand.
But how did B'Elanna read the note from the playwright in Muse? Or Tom understand the clock in Time and Again?
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Wait, so even the camera that films Star Trek has a universal translator? That UT really is some special kit.
The UT still doesn't explain how a mixed race alien measures their age. Actually, doesn't Spock also live 200 earth years despite being mixed race. If I was a future human, I'd probably have kids with a Vulcan and give my kids double the life-span (you're welcome, son).
So if I am to understand, you happily accept that humans can travel faster than light, most alien races look like humans, you can transport from place to place by deconstructing and then perfectly reconstructing your body, and that completely syntactically different languages can sound completely fluid to each other in their own language, and that Hoshi can figure out an entire language immediately by hearing it spoken for thirty seconds.
But you have trouble with the mental leap that what we see on screen is translated for the audience from what characters are really saying and writing.
Regardless of technology, universal translators really should have a lag. In English the subject comes first, and in some languages it comes last. So the universal translator should have to wait for the subject to be spoken before beginning the sentence. And people who speak languages where the object comes first should be seen waiting for the object to come up in a sentence spoken in English before they start hearing the sentence.
I would guess that most people measure their age in the units of their home planet, regardless of their genetic origin.
But you have trouble with the mental leap that what we see on screen is translated for the audience from what characters are really saying and writing.
Regardless of technology, universal translators really should have a lag. In English the subject comes first, and in some languages it comes last. So the universal translator should have to wait for the subject to be spoken before beginning the sentence. And people who speak languages where the object comes first should be seen waiting for the object to come up in a sentence spoken in English before they start hearing the sentence.
I would guess that most people measure their age in the units of their home planet, regardless of their genetic origin.
And what's will Humans occasionally being referred to as "Terrans?"
And while we're at it, who the hell are these "Who-mons?"
DEidn't they go back and forth with that a couple of times in the beginning? Also using "Vulcanians" before "Vulcans"? I figure it's just different terms going in and out of vogue.
America, United States, US of A, etc...
IIRC, the shopkeeper where the clock was displayed, broke down the various series of units for Tom, enabling him to understand the reference. As for B'Elanna, aside from her being simpatico with Kelis, that might have allowed her to more easily intuit its meaning, I've got nothing.
The facet about its operation that sticks in my mind is the age old issue of lip synchronisation, which I guess will never be addressed. An eternal hand wave, one supposes.
Very early, and quickly dropped and forgotten.
In Court Martial, Kirk makes a reference to a "Vulcanian Expedition."
As for lip movements. It's common in shows and movies to have people who are "actually" speaking a foreign language to be speaking on screen in English, this is for benefit the audience. So the Starfleet characters could be speaking a non-English language and we're hearing English.
I could easily see whole blocks of dialog in Amok Time being spoken in a Vulcan language, with Spock and T'Pau shifting back and forth, and T'Pring never spoke English.
Now Deanna in Face of the Enemy had too of been personally speaking a Romulan language with correct lip movements, there's no way around it. If the 24th century UT was a implant, you mentally compose you sentence in your head, the UT speaks it back to you (again in your head) and you annunciate or parrot the words. With some practice it comes out smooth, and you have the correct lip movements.
There's a scene in DS9 where Sisko is speaking Bajorian without the UT, and Kira compliments him on it. But when Sisko is walking around on Bajor I assume he is using the UT to speak to the natives.
Why would any of them know English?
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As for lip movements. It's common in shows and movies to have people who are "actually" speaking a foreign language to be speaking on screen in English, this is for benefit the audience. So the Starfleet characters could be speaking a non-English language and we're hearing English.
I could easily see whole blocks of dialog in Amok Time being spoken in a Vulcan language, with Spock and T'Pau shifting back and forth, and T'Pring never spoke English.
Now Deanna in Face of the Enemy had too of been personally speaking a Romulan language with correct lip movements, there's no way around it. If the 24th century UT was a implant, you mentally compose you sentence in your head, the UT speaks it back to you (again in your head) and you annunciate or parrot the words. With some practice it comes out smooth, and you have the correct lip movements.
There's a scene in DS9 where Sisko is speaking Bajorian without the UT, and Kira compliments him on it. But when Sisko is walking around on Bajor I assume he is using the UT to speak to the natives.
Why would any of them know English?
.
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