How many times did the Enterprise go past the Galatic Barrier

[UnknownSample]

Thing is, you can't cross the barrier at sub-light speeds! It's got to be warp speed breaking through all that negative energy! Maybe that's why certain people were altered, because they were harbouring negativity within themselves and the happy go lucky crewmembers were unaffected? Well it's worth a pop right?
JB

What is "negativity"?

 

[Timo]

A writer screw-up. The first time into the Barrier, Spock said "Energy: negative", as in, "no energy around here, nope, just us chickens". The second time into it, his claim is "The Barrier we must traverse is negative energy"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnnybear]

It probably was an edict of Gene Roddenberry. Remember, he SOLD the rights to TOS as soon as the third season wrapped. He didn't do that with TNG - so for him TNG was the 'new and improved' Star Trek. I mean hell he specifically told any writers who hadn't seen much of the original series to AVOID watching it.

I didn't know that which is strange as wasn't one of the scripts from the first season supposed to feature Kirk going back to planet 892 IV?
JB

 

[johnnybear]

What is "negativity"?

Negativity is something that is opposed to positivity!
JB

 

[johnnybear]

A writer screw-up. The first time into the Barrier, Spock said "Energy: negative", as in, "no energy around here, nope, just us chickens". The second time into it, his claim is "The Barrier we must traverse is negative energy"...

Timo Saloniemi

Never thought of it like that! I didn't record the soundtrack for WNMHGB at the time but had plenty of listens to BAON so when I first recorded the Where No Man episode I picked up on the energy, negative and density, negative, as the original lines that Nimoy repeated in the second season and not that he was saying there wasn't any known energy to analyse!
JB

 

[Timo]

Both interpretations are of course possible, and for the sake of continuity the "energy is negative in nature" one should be preferred.

But Spock's line in the pilot starts with him saying that the sensors indicate there's nothing there. He then rattles off a list of negatives: density, radiation, energy. So if we go for the continuity-preserving interpretation, we now have to figure out what "negative density" and "negative radiation" are, too!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kemaiku]

Wouldn't anti-energy and energy simply cancel out, and unlike all other reactions that reduce anything with quantum numbers to pure energy monentarily until they all reduce out to the smallest amount of highest mass light matter particles, not do anything at all but reduce the overall negative and positive energy systems they inhabit by the sum of their respective energy amounts?

As in, simply cease to exist entirely instead of "explode"? since it's the energy itself that is being cancelled?

 

[Noname Given]

I didn't know that which is strange as wasn't one of the scripts from the first season supposed to feature Kirk going back to planet 892 IV?
JB

Well, again, the first season of TNG did have writers who actually worked on the original show or HAD seen it/been fans. Still, I think that's the script that became "Too Short A Season" - and honestly the character of 'Mark Jameson" hardly came off like James T. Kirk in any way (IMO).

 

[UnknownSample]

Wouldn't anti-energy and energy simply cancel out, and unlike all other reactions that reduce anything with quantum numbers to pure energy monentarily until they all reduce out to the smallest amount of highest mass light matter particles, not do anything at all but reduce the overall negative and positive energy systems they inhabit by the sum of their respective energy amounts?

As in, simply cease to exist entirely instead of "explode"? since it's the energy itself that is being cancelled?

You sound as if you know what you're talking about. I know I wouldn't be able to throw around the word "quantum", not really knowing yet what it means. I wonder, though, whether we can analyze a vague, unexplained remark like Spock's here. What IS "negative energy"? "Negative" how? What more vague a word is there than "negative"?
-------------------
You throw in "anti-energy". There was no bigger groan coming from me over technobabble than when the Next Gen finale had Data discussing "Anti-Time" with a straight face. Since we know there's "anti-matter", just make up and throw in another "anti" thing... that's how it seemed to me.
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If there is "anti-energy", we can talk about that, but maybe Spock means negative in an unexplained sense, something not analogous to reverse polarity in particles.
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Or to speak more simply, which I should have done in the first place, we can't really analyze the rules of something that hasn't been made clear yet.

 

[Kemaiku]

I really need to have a big sparkly gif saying "sarcasm" after posts like that, I didn't think it would have been necessary, but apparently it is.

 

[Timo]

The fun thing is, concepts like "negative density", "negative radiation" and "negative energy" do exist in today's scientific jargon. But they arise from different etymological-experimental root causes and have nothing in common conceptually. Spock would be doing a great disservice in describing three intriguing phenomena inside the Barrier with terminology that suggests false connections.

Of course, future scientific jargon could be different... I mean, it's bound to be. There's no point in insisting that "ion drive" in the future need be what we mean by the pair of words today.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Spot261]

I really need to have a big sparkly gif saying "sarcasm" after posts like that, I didn't think it would have been necessary, but apparently it is.

Yeah I find that a lot. Unfortunately using the gif would render the point moot.

Just a curious little drawback of communicating online with virtual strangers.

 

[Kemaiku]

Yeah I find that a lot. Unfortunately using the gif would render the point moot.

Just a curious little drawback of communicating online with virtual strangers.

I thought the fact negative energy being a totally silly and random throwaway line in a 60's scifi show would have made the technobabble that followed easily enough understood as a fun exercise. Oh well, maybe next time I'll stick to using "jellybean energy" to make it easier for some people.

 

[Spot261]

Nooooo!

I've a two year old, jellybean energy scares me!

 

[Noname Given]

I alway's thought Spock's dialogue:
"Energy...Negative... Density...Negative...et all" meant:

Sensors don't show the Barrier as composed of or having any type of Energy; reads as having no Density, etc. basically, the writer's way of conveying "Hey the sensors don't know what it is - but as we see it, something is there that just can't be analyzed."

 

[Timo]

The strange thing is that "deflectors say there's something there". How come they can do that but none of the sensors can? Is there really no sensor that works on the same principle as the deflectors and therefore is capable of detecting the phenomenon?

I guess it's possible. But a bit surprising. And, in a sense, reassuring. "Our shields are so good that they protect us from stuff we can't even comprehend yet!"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Old Mixer]

Clearly it's meant to be a confusing situation, because SPOCK IS SHOUTING!!!!!