Interesting Web Site for TOS History

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by Henoch, Mar 15, 2023.

  1. Henoch

    Henoch Rear Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2018
    Location:
    Back On The Shelf
    Just discovered this Youtube channel by Peter Frederick who uses just TOS history ( with very little post-TOS and fandom data) to paint his vision of TOS history, The Federation Map and its size, Warp and Impulse speeds, Ships, etc. I think the poster has many good points (though I think he misses quite a few details, too.) What do you think?
    (https://www.youtube.com/@peterfrederickmodel5947/videos)
     
    somebuddyX and Phaser Two like this.
  2. publiusr

    publiusr Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2010
    Location:
    publiusr
  3. somebuddyX

    somebuddyX Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Nov 14, 2014
    Well not with that attitude.
    I will have to have a look at this dude's video. I love different looks at in-universe history.
     
    Henoch likes this.
  4. Henoch

    Henoch Rear Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2018
    Location:
    Back On The Shelf
    I think he was a fresh look at TOS. He's actively putting out new content which is also nice.
    Peter puts Vulcan rim ward (opposite direction than usual) about 250 lightyears away.
     
    Phaser Two and publiusr like this.
  5. blssdwlf

    blssdwlf Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 26, 2010
    Any chance you can summarize some of his points? I tried to watch a couple of his videos and it was kind of hard to stay on them.
     
    ZapBrannigan likes this.
  6. Forbin

    Forbin Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Location:
    I said out, dammit!
    I see he pluralizes his titles using a apostrophe ("Starbase's"), so I can't possibly take anything he says seriously.
    ;)
     
  7. Henoch

    Henoch Rear Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2018
    Location:
    Back On The Shelf
    He's German, so, everything he says is serious. :rolleyes:
    Yikes, I don't have the time sitting in my globe to do actual work at this time. :cool:
     
  8. blssdwlf

    blssdwlf Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 26, 2010
    No worries. I don't have the time and mindset to sit through those videos. Just curious if you had some of those points you wanted to discuss on hand.
     
  9. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2014
    Location:
    Journeying onwards
    Never seen it. May watch later. What do you think he is missing?
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2023
  10. Henoch

    Henoch Rear Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2018
    Location:
    Back On The Shelf
    I started with Part 1 and watched thru Part 13 and intermittently bounce around the Season One, Two and Three Episode Histories and Season One and Two History Conclusions. Maybe I was too strong saying he missed details, rather I would make other assumptions than he does. Sorry about that.

    A key topic to me are the impulse and warp speed discussions in the Part 11 video: and are summarized at ~12 minutes mark. <I'm not computer savvy to grasp screen shots, etc., nor am I good reviewer in general.>

    I find his discussions on impulse speed and warp speed interesting. Like many on our site, he concludes that impulse power must give FTL speeds which I agree. He has impulse at a minimum 50c for the Enterprise and up to 200c for the Romulans. His earliest impulse drives gave about 20c which he thinks started ~2018 (DY sleeper ship series were only hi-relativist drives) and these drives were standard by the mid-2000 for the SS Valiant. He has Nomad using an early/prototype impulse drive. The FLT impulse drives allowed the exploration and colonization of closest star systems like Alpha Centauri A/B claiming territory out to about 50 light years and deep exploration out to 400 light years by 2060 (Part 3: at ~7:05 mark.) Warp drive is discovered around 2060 by Cochrane on Alpha Centauri. Humans bump into the Romulans and have a war from 2150-2160 ( ~14:06 mark in Part 3).

    He theorizes (in some of the other Part videos) that human habitable planets only exist around larger stars like our own, and red dwarf stars are not viable for habitable planets which essentially increases the average distance between habitable star systems. I like this premise. At the time of TOS, he figures that Federation territorial space is about 400 light years radius around Earth bumping up to the 1st Federation, the Romulan Empire and Klingon Empire space, with many episodes having the Enterprise exploring outside the borders. Again, I like this premise.

    Back to Part 13, his warp scale has warp speed at 400c at warp 1 and goes up linearly (+100c per warp number) to 1000c at warp 7. He thinks that faster speeds cause problems (i.e. makes the galaxy to small) and says examples of faster speeds in episodes are mistakes by the writers or that he assumes the travel times are much longer than implied on screen.) I don't buy this premise; higher speeds more than 1000c are needed to transverse between the star systems or it will take weeks-to-months just to get to the next habitable system at slower cruising speeds and you can forget about going to Earth or Vulcan in any shorter than six months or so. These distances need to be done in days or weeks at most, so, top speeds of 6000+c are needed as minimum. Also, examples of super speeds of 500,000c can be reasoned in universe with technobabble instead of calling them writer errors. YMMV :).

    Just as I was typing this, Peter just dropped Part 14: The Size of the Federation ( ). I'm going to watch it, now.
     
    Phaser Two, fireproof78 and blssdwlf like this.
  11. blssdwlf

    blssdwlf Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 26, 2010
    Phaser Two and fireproof78 like this.
  12. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2014
    Location:
    Journeying onwards
    That's a load of bunk. You did great on this review. Much appreciated. :beer:
     
    Henoch likes this.
  13. drt

    drt Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2013
    It sounds like some of his thinking aligns with mine. I feel that TOS implies the galaxy is more sparsely populated with habitable worlds much further apart, with the Federation being somewhere around 8,000-10,000 light years in diameter. Therefore, I’m ok with Enterprise having crusing warp speeds in the 100,000c range, which makes travel times for transiting the Federation on the order of a month. I think this aligns better with what we see in various episodes, where long trips were on the order of days or occasionally weeks, but never months or years.
     
    Henoch likes this.
  14. blssdwlf

    blssdwlf Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 26, 2010
    @Henoch - I just watched "Part 11". Yeah I see where he is going but I also have different conclusions based on different details. I'm in the same boat that Impulse is capable of FTL but would put higher range of speeds for impulse and warp depending on space terrain.
     
    Henoch likes this.
  15. Phaser Two

    Phaser Two Commodore Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jun 21, 2016
    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Impulse as FTL certainly patches up one of the (few) holes in Balance of Terror.
     
    ZapBrannigan, drt and Henoch like this.
  16. Henoch

    Henoch Rear Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2018
    Location:
    Back On The Shelf
    My treknobabble for FTL using impulse:

    I always thought impulse engines are large gravity emitters internally powered by highly energetic reactions (possibly hybrid fission/fusion reactions) that burns fuel reserves. By themselves, the impulse engines are capable to drive a space ship to high sublight speeds. The power generated by the impulse engines (referred to as impulse power) can also used to power the ship's electro-plasma system (EPS) grid that powers most ship systems and equipment. One key system is the ship's inertial dampening system that generates a hull/skin tight anti-gravity field around the ship. This field results in three main effects: 1. a mass elimination effect; 2. external inertia and acceleration inside the field is mostly eliminated; and 3. a one g environment is maintained inside the ship. With mass elimination, the effects of mass gain, size reduction and time dilation are circumvented, so, the speed of light is no longer a speed limit and faster than light (FTL) speeds can be attained. Together, mass elimination and directional gravity thrust, you have the impulse drive. The maximum speed of the impulse drive is directly related to the peak energy levels supplied by the engines. Your fuel reserves are used up exponentially the faster you go.

    The Enterprise has two impulse engines mounted on the rear of its saucer hull. Its engines are sized to provide maneuvering thrust around planets (orbit/deorbit, etc.) and emergency power and emergency propulsion in case of lost of its warp engines and their M/AM reactor systems. The speed and range for impulse power is limited by its fuel reserves and how hard you use the impulse drive. Since the Enterprise uses its warp drive and M/AM power systems as its primary source of power and propulsion, its impulse drive is of modest power and fuel reserves since it is only for planetary orbit operations and emergency uses. Totally guessing, I would put the maximum speed of the Enterprise on full impulse power at ~20c. As for fuel reserves, the upper speeds can only be maintain for a few hours (TOS: The Doomsday Machine). At slower speeds like 1c or 2c, she can maintain it for a few days (TOS: WNMHGB). Sitting still or drifting at a constant sublight speed with minor maneuvering adjustments, she might have power for a few months (TOS: The Paradise Syndrome). I'm on the fence for the the SS Valiant in WNMHGB, maybe she was a purpose built long range impulse ship, but she could be an early warp vessel, too, with a weaker impulse drive backup after all, it was 200 years ago. Her unexpected location on the edge of the Galaxy can be explained by the magnetic space storm. From The Galileo Seven, we learn that magnetic potentials in space storms exponentially propel spaceships, just how much faster we don't know.

    Ships build around impulse as their main power would have much bigger impulse engines/reactors (probably on pylons for safety) plus larger fuel reserves (flying gas cans) attaining higher speeds with longer ranges. The Romulan ship and perhaps the Eymorg ship, Balok's buoy/ship and the Doomsday Machine may be good examples of this design with the later ones using alternate power systems like ion power instead of fission and/or fusion reactors. Smaller cargo/transport/survey ships like the science probe vessel Antares, Mudd's class J cargo ship, the space hippie cruiser Aurora and standard Shuttlecraft (using an ion reactor ;)) may be other examples of FTL impulse drives. YMMV :).
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2023
    Warped9, Phaser Two and ZapBrannigan like this.
  17. blssdwlf

    blssdwlf Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 26, 2010
    @Henoch - mostly agree but some additional comments...

    The Enterprise has more than two impulse engines ("Port impulse engines" - Spock from "Court Martial"). Assuming symmetry there would be four or more impulse engines. They're all still for emergency use so they would have limited fuel as suggested. I don't think they would be gravity-based as "Obsession"'s space creature had gravity propulsion which gave it phasing abilities not present with in impulse driven ships like the Romulans or the Enterprise...

    Impulse speeds, like warp, would depend on the local space conditions (space terrain) :) In system, full impulse is limited to sublight while outside of a system it would be able to obtain FTL speeds equivalent to Warp 5 or 6 speeds (based on how the Romulans were able to intercept the Enterprise in "The Deadly Years").

    All IMHO :)
     
    Henoch likes this.
  18. Phaser Two

    Phaser Two Commodore Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jun 21, 2016
    Location:
    Los Angeles
    A thousand likes for this post! I also realized that some elements of "The Doomsday Machine" makes a lot more sense (even more sense? It's not like the ep has a lot of flaws) if impulse is FTL, because it makes more sense for the E to be able to avoid the planet-killer, even after losing warp drive, if it's going faster than sublight.
     
    Henoch, drt and blssdwlf like this.
  19. Noname Given

    Noname Given Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 22, 2001
    Location:
    Noname Given
    Not to mention thr Romulans in TOS S1 Balance of Terror able to cross interstellar distances in a reasonable time frame.
     
    Henoch and fireproof78 like this.