Just watched "The Omega Glory"

[johnnybear]

Blake's 7 never gave a date in any of it's episodes. In Killer the missing wanderer class spaceship had been lost for over seven centuries so that would put it further on into the future than Trek. But there was never a real date to the series either only that early episodes hint at two hundred years and later ones more like three but one other vaguely suggested nine!!!
TNG dated Trek much later and I believe they are still together even now.
JB

 

[Vger23]

I love this one. I think Ron Tracy is a great, menacing antagonist.

 

[Maurice]

Blake's 7 never gave a date in any of it's episodes. In Killer the missing wanderer class spaceship had been lost for over seven centuries so that would put it further on into the future than Trek. But there was never a real date to the series either only that early episodes hint at two hundred years and later ones more like three but one other vaguely suggested nine!!!

Yep. Two data points:

From "Terminal"
ZEN The object on scan was constructed by a consortium of United Planets scientists four hundred and eleven years ago. It was code-named "Terminal".

From "Killer"
JENNA Well, what is it?
BLAKE Probably the oldest ship you'll ever see, Wanderer class, the first Earth ships to reach deep space.
JENNA So how old?
BLAKE Six, seven hundred years.

And as you indicated, the latter would suggest Blake and the gang are set at least 600 years from now, probably farther out.

 

[johnnybear]

Yep. Two data points:

From "Terminal"
ZEN The object on scan was constructed by a consortium of United Planets scientists four hundred and eleven years ago. It was code-named "Terminal".

From "Killer"
JENNA Well, what is it?
BLAKE Probably the oldest ship you'll ever see, Wanderer class, the first Earth ships to reach deep space.
JENNA So how old?
BLAKE Six, seven hundred years.

And as you indicated, the latter would suggest Blake and the gang are set at least 600 years from now, probably farther out.

Well I'd go for around the thirtieth century to be honest and as we know now we ain't gonna get to the stars for a long time. Possibly around the twenty third century and it's going to take six or seven centuries to make space flight an on going thing. Of course it's going to be delayed even further by the rich getting first dabs and putting their mark on proceedings.
JB

 

[Ssosmcin]

Whenever the "third century of the second calendar" is, that's when B7 takes place.

 

[Tallguy]

Of course it's going to be delayed even further by the rich getting first dabs and putting their mark on proceedings.

It took ~50 years for the rich to even get into orbit. Before that it was just well financed schmoes.

None of the "rich" will be the first to actually live any of these places. For one thing none of them will want to.

The problem with the 23rd century is not how long it will take spaceflight to develop. How much does 2025 look like 1925? The problem is that Star Trek also wants to nuke Earth AND run into spaceships in the far reaches of space from Earth from a hundred years ago.

TOS made space feel like a place we barely had a toehold on. Subsequent Star Trek makes it feel like running around the tri-state area, maybe the back roads where there aren't as many rest stops. Later stage Star Trek also makes it feel like we're also the last ones to get there.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Whenever the "third century of the second calendar" is, that's when B7 takes place.

So as soon as we get to the end of the Gregorian calendar, we'll know.

 

[drt]

The problem with the 23rd century is not how long it will take spaceflight to develop. How much does 2025 look like 1925? The problem is that Star Trek also wants to nuke Earth AND run into spaceships in the far reaches of space from Earth from a hundred years ago.

TOS made space feel like a place we barely had a toehold on.

"Space Seed" places that nuclear war at the end of the 20th century and implies FTL travel was invented in 2018, which provides almost 100 more years of deep space exploration than TNG - of course, that episode unfortunately states those developments took place two hundred years ago and not three hundred, so everything still gets jammed into two centuries.

 

[M'Sharak]

... but It just toys too much with my suspension of disbelief

Any thoughts?

The term is "willing suspension of disbelief".

The storyteller has said "I'm going to tell you this story here." The storyteller has assumed no responsibility for helping you accept that story.

If you are willing, then you will listen to the story being told, as it is, and for what it is. If you are not, then you won't.

That decision -- whether or not -- is yours to make, not the storyteller's.

Liking or not liking the story (once you've heard it) is also your choice, but the notion that 'It must be someone else's job to convince you of the story's worthiness' always leaves me a bit skeptical.

 

[Maurice]

"Space Seed" places that nuclear war at the end of the 20th century and implies FTL travel was invented in 2018

Not explicitly, "Space Seed" refers to the Eugenics Wars as the Third World War and refers to "Whole populations were being bombed out of existence" doesn't necessarily mean nuclear.

You're correct about the implication that 2018 as the breaking of the FTL barrier. McGivers says suspended animation was "Necessary because of the time involved in space travel until about the year 2018. It took years just to travel from one planet to another." And while she doesn't explicitly say planets in different solar systems, it's implied because the Napoleons were looking for a new world and they sure weren't gonna find a suitable one in our solar system.

 

[Poltargyst]

The term is "willing suspension of disbelief".

The storyteller has said "I'm going to tell you this story here." The storyteller has assumed no responsibility for helping you accept that story.

If you are willing, then you will listen to the story being told, as it is, and for what it is. If you are not, then you won't.

That decision -- whether or not -- is yours to make, not the storyteller's.

Liking or not liking the story (once you've heard it) is also your choice, but the notion that 'It must be someone else's job to convince you of the story's worthiness' always leaves me a bit skeptical

I disagree with this. Surely the storyteller has some responsibility here too.

The storyteller can start with whatever premise they want with whatever rules they want, but once established, they are bound by those rules. If I am watching NCIS, I do not expect to see UFO's attacking the Earth. If I do see UFO's attacking Earth on NCIS, my "willing suspension of disbelief" will be shot, and I won't consider that my own fault. It is still on the storyteller to make the story believable based on the rules they established at the start.

 

[M'Sharak]

I disagree with this. Surely the storyteller has some responsibility here too.

The storyteller can start with whatever premise they want with whatever rules they want, but once established, they are bound by those rules. If I am watching NCIS, I do not expect to see UFO's attacking the Earth. If I do see UFO's attacking Earth on NCIS, my "willing suspension of disbelief" will be shot, and I won't consider that my own fault. It is still on the storyteller to make the story believable based on the rules they established at the start.

I guess that's a fair point.

I'll acknowledge that it is possible for a poor storyteller to, whether accidentally or intentionally, abuse their arrangement with their audience.

A good storyteller will endeavor to be consistent, because:
1) that increases the likelihood that they may be asked at some point to tell another story
2) it generally makes a better storytelling experience for all concerned.

Too many times though, I've seen the "I couldn't continue to suspend my disbelief" card too readily played -- laying all the blame upon the storyteller -- when "The story just didn't go the way I wanted it to go / the way I thought it should" might have been a more accurate criticism. If it's an audience issue, better to acknowledge it as such.

 

[fireproof78]

Too many times though, I've seen the "I couldn't continue to suspend my disbelief" card too readily played -- laying all the blame upon the storyteller -- when "The story just didn't go the way I wanted it to go / the way I thought it should" might have been a more accurate criticism. If it's an audience issue, better to acknowledge it as such.

Same. Too much blame laid on one side or the other without recognizing what stories actually can do in terms of the suspension of disbelief. It takes a measure of willingness to engage with the story and take the premise at face value at least initially. How it pays off is another story.

 

[Henoch]

"Space Seed" places that nuclear war at the end of the 20th century and implies FTL travel was invented in 2018, which provides almost 100 more years of deep space exploration than TNG - of course, that episode unfortunately states those developments took place two hundred years ago and not three hundred, so everything still gets jammed into two centuries.

You're correct about the implication that 2018 as the breaking of the FTL barrier. McGivers says suspended animation was "Necessary because of the time involved in space travel until about the year 2018. It took years just to travel from one planet to another." And while she doesn't explicitly say planets in different solar systems, it's implied because the Napoleons were looking for a new world and they sure weren't gonna find a suitable one in our solar system.

I humbly disagree. I head con the advancement of space propulsion something like: chemical combustion engines, atomic engines (1990's), impulse engines (2018), and lastly, warp engines (~2063) with each of these technologies having improvements along the way. The 2018 breakthrough is the invention/use of impulse engine technology which allows ships to reach significant percentages of the speed of light. I think the planets referenced in Space Seed are within our own solar system. Khan's escape plan to leave the solar system (25 years before the invention of impulse drive) using atomic engines plus suspended animation to make it to another solar system was a hail Mary (which technically failed without the intervention of Kirk). YMMV

 

[johnnybear]

Thinking desperately Khan and his followers just didn't want to be caught and tried for their crimes so just launched out into space. Whether or not they ever found anything was not an option it was just better than imprisonment or death.
JB

 

[Qonundrum]

I love this one. I think Ron Tracy is a great, menacing antagonist.

Morgan Woodward's acting sealing the deal. Phenomenal actor who sells it palpably in this episode. Plus, that fight scene where he and Shatner are not using stunt doubles really looks great. The ending teeters toward "risible", but I've kept suspension of disbelief for other things. Plus, being a pilot written years before it was produced for late season-2, it fits in perfectly for the time. If anything, the trope of "Earth-like planet" was more egregious IMHO as it'd already been overused. I'd even call it "underrated". It's the sci-fi concept (dehydration into crystals, eww!) combined with first rate acting from all that really carries this episode as they're playing it sincerely, creating the credibility that makes it easier for the audience regardless - something most episodes had to do, but even the silly season 2 episodes ("A Piece of the Action") have actors taking it all just as seriously when it counts the most.

 

[Qonundrum]

I disagree with this. Surely the storyteller has some responsibility here too.

The storyteller can start with whatever premise they want with whatever rules they want, but once established, they are bound by those rules. If I am watching NCIS, I do not expect to see UFO's attacking the Earth. If I do see UFO's attacking Earth on NCIS, my "willing suspension of disbelief" will be shot, and I won't consider that my own fault. It is still on the storyteller to make the story believable based on the rules they established at the start.

Or, if they attempt it, the storytelling really has to be tight, taut, and craftily giving it a good reason to be there and feel germane to the show. Heck, you just reminded me of the late-day "Brady Bunch" episode where Bobby and Peter are seeing a UFO, a trick set up by their brother Greg. Behind the scenes, Robert Reed would likely have gone through the ceiling over how dumb the stories were becoming, and yet brothers play tricks on each other all the time. Greg's paper route must have been primo... The question still is, did the methods that Greg used to create the illusion and how it was portrayed throughout the episode stand up to even basic logic and not come across as ludicrous as other episodes that really had Robert going in a tirade over as her really wanted the show to be more serious since day 1, cringing over how outlandish it increasingly got - even before Cousin Oliver?

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IMHO, Greg's explanation isn't as hokey as his pants (welcome to the late-early-mid-70s as this was about 1974)... that, and Mrs Brady borrowed one of the 6th Doctor's other potential outfits and had it tailored... sorry for the digression as well.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Shatner's passionate reading of the US Constitution, along with his "they must apply to everyone! Or they mean nothing!" is a timeless message that should speak to every human on this planet, no matter where you hail from.

Damn straight. If the episode had no other redeeming virtues, it would still be worth it for that less-than-two-minute fragment.