Maximum speed of the NuEnterprise

[Crazy Eddie]

If it doesn't add anything, then why include it?

It's more of a reinforcement or rather not subtracting from the plot. The way I see it is they have a few options:

1. Use good science with the plot
2. Use bad science with the plot
3. Use a completely fictional concept with the plot

Option 1 doesn't pull people out of the story while option 2 does. Option 3 is the kind of thing that already exists in practically every Trek story, yet most people can suspend their disbelief on.

If you can suspend your disbelief in some fictional concept, why can you not do the same with bad science? Especially since said fictional concept is itself identical to bad science?

Believe me, when things like that happen and I am aware of it, I am pulled out of the story.

In that case, your only recourse is to stop watching movies.

Star Trek lives or dies first and foremost on the strength of its characters, so anything that draws attention AWAY from those characters tends to reduce the effect of the story.

I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I don't like stories that have boring characters of any kind, and I think a lot of people identify with that. Some people might only care about plot, some might only care about science/details, and some might only care about seeing pretty pictures on the screen. For me it's the whole package, but characters are first and foremost with plot in a close second place, and that's for every form of entertainment, CSI included.

Indeed, but PRODUCER emphasis has a lot to do with how a show is structured and how it deals with change. That's part of the reason TSFS had to bring Spock back, him being one of the pivotal characters of the series. It's also the reason TNG writers kept having to come up with ever more mysterious reasons for Worf to be back on the Enterprise (and at tactical no less) during the TNG films.

This contrasts strongly with, say, Voyager, which probably would have survived perfectly well even if half its major cast members had been killed off and replaced during the series.

Absolutely. Especially event horizons that do not form around black holes.

Well, I meant in the context of a black hole. The event horizon described as the boundary of what we can see in the universe is pretty irrelevant to this discussion.

Is it? You seem to be a big fan of the "no amount of detail is too much" school of explanation, yet you gloss over the fact that "event horizon" covers a broad range of phenomena beyond what we're obviously referring to (it also includes relativistic event horizons theorized by the point of view of an object moving close to the speed of light).

You say "Event horizon" you say this with the understanding that I'll know you're talking about black holes; I could insist you provide the full precise definition every time you mention "event horizons," but in reality I fully understand what you're talking about anyway.

And we're just having a conversation where we can afford to be pedantic. Writers, especially in film, don't have that luxury.

What I'd like to know is how a wormhole as depicted in Trek really has an event horizon? I don't care what Geordi said in "The Price" because they didn't use the term correctly.

If Geordi can't see behind the wormhole terminus, they're using the term correctly. I mentioned it earlier, but scientifically speaking we don't actually know what the event horizon of a black hole would really look like; it might not be black at all, in fact it might be shrouded in a thick halo of light from its photon sphere interacting with other in-falling particles. The only meaningful definition is YOU CANNOT SEE WHAT'S INSIDE IT.

 

[Pauln6]

What, in 40 years of established history, ever implied that Delta Vega has a long range transmitter?

I believe that's covered under Scotty's "Shield emitters are [tap tap] totally banjacks, as well as a few other things..." that obviously covers sensors and long range transmitters, without which Scotty is evidently marooned on this planet for six months with only emergency rations and a tribble for company.

As I said, I don't dispute most aspects of your interpretation of Scotty's situation as seen on screen - only the stupidity of it. Lets compare Delta Vega to a modern day oil rig then - a remote manned station - is it conceivable that rigs have no radio? I rather approve of outposts being set up with limited resources to counter the irritating wasteful comfort of TNG's unlimited resources fantasy but to suggest that any 23rd century outpost could function without sensors and communications is daft. If he's been there for 6 months, why hasn't Scotty requisitioned equipment and food by flying his shuttle to the planet next door? He could be there and back in half an hour. Scotty is meant to be resourceful. Daft.

I accept that Scotty has committed a criminal offence and may deserve incarceration for a short time but if that was Archer's intent he inflicted conditions that would be considered inhumane by civilised standards today, let alone in the 23rd century (I assume that Keenser is either a serial killer or a figment of Scotty's now deranged imagination like in Sixth Sense - I'm hoping for both). Archer would be guilty of manslaughter if Scotty was marooned with no communications and no equipment to ask for help if something went wrong such as he or Keenser suffered an injury. Even though Archer was often unprofessional, I still think it's a stupid scenario.

Strictly speaking, it's a beam of phased matter following a subspace carrier wave (established in "Best of Both Worlds" among other things). Tuning a transporter beam to home in on a particular subspace field is something that SEEMS incredibly complicated, unless you've worked out mathematically exactly how to do it. That's why Spock is able to do it with an equation and NOT with a specific set of coordinates and velocity vectors (which Scotty assumes would be needed, and ordinarily he would be correct).

If you assume that space is the thing that is moving, you don't need to know where the Enterprise is, you only need to know its warp signature. This, BTW, is again implied in the deleted scene where Archer's missing beagle materializes in the Enterprise' engine room. Something very similar occurs in ENT "Daedalus" where Emory explains: "This region, the Barrens, is actually a subspace node, a bubble of curved space-time. It's why there are no stars. Quinn's transporter signal is trapped here. At certain intervals, there are fluctuations in the node that cause the signal to reappear. If we can lock onto it at one of those intervals we can save him."

Emphasis mine. Transporter beams go through subspace carrier waves, so materializing again isn't a simple matter of point and shoot. Sometimes, it's a matter of point and hope.

Ooooh I like your explanation up to a point. Presumably you don't tune in the beam, they would have to 'tune in' the carrier wave to synchronise with a particular subspace field. But how could they do that using an equation without using sensors to determine the subspace 'frequency' and approximate location that they were 'aiming' for? A supspace 'wave' would be indiscriminate, travelling in multiple directions (like a sound wave) but a matter stream has to travel along a single vector while riding that wave (the transporter signal can't be a wave or the matter would become too diffuse to reassemble). I'm not sure how you can marry them up. Plus, this theory implies that each warp field has an identifiably different signature. I'm not sure how Spock could guess the NuEnterprise's exact frequency since it is clearly a different ship (that he's never even seen) with vastly more powerful engines than his Enterprise (given the time it takes to travel at the speed of the plot) when both the Narada and escaping Vulcan ships are also fleeing the area. They might be able to determine the aproximate direction but they don't know how fast the ship is travelling and space is huge - one tiney deviation over the course of a light year and you've missed by a massive distance. The information on Federation ships might be available in the outpost's memory banks but if this is an outpost with no equipment and no communcations (on your theory) and the Enterprise has only just been commissioned it seems silly to suggest that this kind of technical information would be readily available (unless you suspend disbelief and have Scotty know it by heart - which I'd have been fine with actually but they didn't show that). I still think they need sensors and co-ordinates to target the transporter signal.

And thank f**k they left out the beagle. Bad enough that they extended the transporter distance by a few billion km but the suggestion that the beagle's signal didn't degrade over 6 months and materialised 16 light years from where it started would have been twisting the knife for the sake of a naff joke. If TNG didn't make use of transporters in this way (except where a bizarre exception was the focus of the whole plot), I don't think NuTrek should. Leave Scotty as an unrepentent animal killer.

Except if you're not going to give her anything interesting to do other than hand Spock a PADD and guard Kirk, why introduce the character in the first place? They already screwed the pooch adding Keenser for no obvious reason...

That same argument applies to both Scotty (Spock does all the hard work while Scotty just prats around) and Chekov, whose age was changed just to include him. They and Keenser were there as (sometimes painful) comedy relief more than anything else. Chekov's hitherto unknown expertise with transporters was shoehorned in just to give him something significant to do. Personally I'd have been happier with Janice instead of Chekov but in her case, decent interaction with Kirk would have been reason enough to include her - she was intended to be Kirk's right hand woman when she was introduced originally and if we update her to make her a bit smarter and more competent, she could add a bit of sparkle. That and the fact that Starfleet is meant to practice equality and yet we have no significant women except Spock's girlfriend, Uhura, who at least partially, slept her way to the top.

Current position of what? THe Vulcans that sent the distress signal did so reporting seismic disturbances, probably caused by the formation of Spock's black hole. THEY were all killed when the planet imploded, so the ones that were left would report the destruction of their planet to Starfleet and a few of them might catch a glimpse of a large unidentified space vessel leaving the area soon after.

I repeat: why would they be trying to track Nero when not a one of them has any idea who Nero is?

I always got the impression that Vulcans are supposed to be intelligent and logical. As such, they would have smelled a rat when Narada came into orbit having destroyed all their star system's defences (mentioned in Enterprise). They could have monitored the ship's actions to determine what was happening using their sensors and passed this information on to the populace in the same way that e.g. Sky News would today.

They would not have known that the ship was doing much more than drilling into the planet but that alone is an illegal, hostile act. If the Narada was jamming communications, it makes sense to launch some ships or missiles (which would have been destroyed) to try and disable the platform while launching some ships to get out of jamming range in order to keep Starfleet apprised. They may not have known exactly what was going on or what Nero's ultimate plan was but it's silly to suggest that the Vulcans would have just sat on the planet doing nothing, waiting for Starfleet to show up.

Ships from the fleet travelling at warp 9+ could probably have overtaken Nero

From where? We don't know where the Laurentine system is or how long it would take for Starfleet to travel back to Earth from there, even at maximum warp.

This is true, but if they are that far away, it also means that NuSpock's plan to rendezvous with them at warp 4 is utterly stupid. Pesky internal logic of the plot again.

I think your disdain for science giving the plot more internal logic is starting to show!

"Science" doesn't provide internal logic to a story. Good editing does that, science or not.

In a sci fi franchise, they both do.

 

[Pauln6]

Memory Alpha says:

"Transporters were not allowed to be used while a ship was at warp speed because of the severe spatial distortions caused by its warp field. (TNG: "The Schizoid Man")

If the ship was traveling at warp speed and the object to be beamed was stationary, transport was possible by synchronizing the ACB with the warp core frequency. This would cause difficulties in obtaining a good pattern lock. The Maquis were known to have used this method. (VOY: "Maneuvers") "

So asuming that Spock Prime comes from OUR Prime Universe and not some other, the Annular Confinement Beam has to be synchronised with the warp core frequency. They still talk about a 'pattern lock' (for which you need targetting sensors). I don't think your theory stands up to the existing Trek tech. They must have long range sensors to target the beam and lock on to the destination because the subspace wave travels in all directions. Scotty's formula is to help with determining the destination co-ordinates in the time it takes the beam to get there. This also explains why the slight error left Scotty in a sanitation pipe.

 

[henderson791]

yup..its very interesting...i am new in this field but enjoying..
_________________________________
[Solicitation links removed. - M']

 

[Set Harth]

THe Vulcans that sent the distress signal did so reporting seismic disturbances, probably caused by the formation of Spock's black hole.

They were caused by the drill.

 

[Pauln6]

THe Vulcans that sent the distress signal did so reporting seismic disturbances, probably caused by the formation of Spock's black hole.

They were caused by the drill.

That's what I assumed but I wondered how the Nerada got past all the system's defence systems and started drilling before anybody thought it was a good idea to tell Starfleet about it. An odd plot point.

 

[Set Harth]

That's what I assumed but I wondered how the Nerada got past all the systems defence systems and started drilling before anybody thought it was a good idea to tell Starfleet about it.

Traditional Romulan cloaking technology?

 

[Pauln6]

That's what I assumed but I wondered how the Nerada got past all the systems defence systems and started drilling before anybody thought it was a good idea to tell Starfleet about it.

Traditional Romulan cloaking technology?

I thought about that too but then why would they need to know about Earth's defences and why approach Earth uncloaked and unshielded so that Kirk and Spock could beam on board? You can have one or the other but the inconsistency is odd.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

What, in 40 years of established history, ever implied that Delta Vega has a long range transmitter?

I believe that's covered under Scotty's "Shield emitters are [tap tap] totally banjacks, as well as a few other things..." that obviously covers sensors and long range transmitters, without which Scotty is evidently marooned on this planet for six months with only emergency rations and a tribble for company.

As I said, I don't dispute most aspects of your interpretation of Scotty's situation as seen on screen - only the stupidity of it. Lets compare Delta Vega to a modern day oil rig then - a remote manned station - is it conceivable that rigs have no radio?

Absolutely. Especially a decrepit, abandoned, barely-functional rig that a pair of guys in a leaky boat have been assigned to babysit for some asinine reason.

It's not as if we found Scotty with a group of hearty but enthusiastic rag tagged engineers doing the best they could with what they have. The TWO of them were stuck there alone, for six months, with a barely-working shuttlecraft and a pallet of field rations for sustenance. This isn't "Starfleet outpost Delta Vega" so much as it is "wooden shack on an island somewhere."

why hasn't Scotty requisitioned equipment and food by flying his shuttle to the planet next door?

Assuming his shuttle is even capable of flight, there is still some question as to whether Delta Vega actually IS anywhere near Vulcan.

Archer would be guilty of manslaughter if Scotty was marooned with no communications and no equipment to ask for help if something went wrong such as he or Keenser suffered an injury.

Interestingly, the same is probably true of Spock if Kirk hadn't been a little bit faster on the ice fields.

Ooooh I like your explanation up to a point. Presumably you don't tune in the beam, they would have to 'tune in' the carrier wave to synchronise with a particular subspace field. But how could they do that using an equation without using sensors to determine the subspace 'frequency' and approximate location that they were 'aiming' for?

They don't need to know anything about the location, that's my point. And Spock could probably plug in the warp signature from memory.

A supspace 'wave' would be indiscriminate, travelling in multiple directions (like a sound wave) but a matter stream has to travel along a single vector while riding that wave (the transporter signal can't be a wave or the matter would become too diffuse to reassemble). I'm not sure how you can marry them up.

Probably the equation deals with that, but if I had to guess I'd say "constructive interference." If the transporter carrier wave is in resonance with the warp signature, the two waves amplify between each other and cancel out elsewhere.

Plus, this theory implies that each warp field has an identifiably different signature. I'm not sure how Spock could guess the NuEnterprise's exact frequency since it is clearly a different ship (that he's never even seen)

It's subtly implied in the film that the NuEnterprise is the same ship as the original, in which case, yes, Spock programmed it from memory.

That same argument applies to both Scotty (Spock does all the hard work while Scotty just prats around) and Chekov, whose age was changed just to include him. They and Keenser were there as (sometimes painful) comedy relief more than anything else.

The difference being these are all major characters in Trek lore that need to be established for future reference. Janice Rand was a throwaway character who didn't make it through Season 2. We can still introduce her in the sequel if there's something interesting for her to do, but adding the character at this point doesn't accomplish any of the film's goals.

By the same token, Keenser's addition is just plain baffling. I get the sense it was an idea the writers had that they never fully developed but forgot to omit from the final draft (sorta like Boxy in NuBSG).

I always got the impression that Vulcans are supposed to be intelligent and logical. As such, they would have smelled a rat when Narada came into orbit having destroyed all their star system's defences (mentioned in Enterprise).

Logical and intelligent, sure. But not omniscient. The only Vulcans who would be in a position to KNOW that obviously didn't, or else they would have informed Starfleet of this in the first place. Anyone who might have known this was killed when Vulcan imploded; those who were left were mainly a mix of civilians or damned lucky starship captains who happened to be in the right place to beam up a few civilians and escape during the five and a half minutes it took for the planet to implode.

What it boils down to is this: Vulcans are intelligent, not magical; their telepathy only goes so far.

They would not have known that the ship was doing much more than drilling into the planet but that alone is an illegal, hostile act.

And yet even Enterprise didn't know it was a DRILL until Kirk and Sulu landed on it with a parachute. This, again, boils down to your assumption of the Vulcan people's (ubiquitous) magical powers of supreme deduction to figure out things even the Enterprise had to find out first hand.

This is true, but if they are that far away, it also means that NuSpock's plan to rendezvous with them at warp 4 is utterly stupid. Pesky internal logic of the plot again.

No, it's the internal illogic of an emotionally crippled Spock. Old Spock evidently recognized this, and I have a feeling Kirk had his suspicions too. Probably overcompensating with the "extremely safe play" when what he most strongly wants to do is chase Nero down and skull-fuck him.

In a sci fi franchise, they both do.

No, because in science fiction, the science used in the story is determined by the needs of the plot, not the other way around. If the plot requires black holes to be house-sized oil drops that open a porthole to a universe inhabited only by Freddy Kruger (see the movie "Event Horizon") then that's how black holes are depicted.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Memory Alpha says:

"Transporters were not allowed to be used while a ship was at warp speed because of the severe spatial distortions caused by its warp field. (TNG: "The Schizoid Man")

Until they did it in Best of Both Worlds, The Emissary, Scorpion Part 1 and 2 (and countless other episodes of Voyager).

So asuming that Spock Prime comes from OUR Prime Universe and not some other, the Annular Confinement Beam has to be synchronised with the warp core frequency.

Sure, that's one totally-made-up-for-plot-convenience-method. Spock, however, used a DIFFERENT totally-made-up-for-plot-convenience-method in this situation.

THe Vulcans that sent the distress signal did so reporting seismic disturbances, probably caused by the formation of Spock's black hole.

They were caused by the drill.

That, actually, is impossible; the drill would have interfered with communications, blocking the distress signal.

Besides, I got the impression that the drill had been active for barely a couple of minutes when Enterprise arrived; I don't think the Narada actually entered orbit until some time AFTER the distress signal had been sent.

 

[Set Harth]

That, actually, is impossible; the drill would have interfered with communications, blocking the distress signal.

Why are we to assume that Spock's black hole in the Neutral Zone caused seismic disturbances on Vulcan for some reason, but created this effect on no other planet?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

That, actually, is impossible; the drill would have interfered with communications, blocking the distress signal.

Why are we to assume that Spock's black hole in the Neutral Zone caused seismic disturbances on Vulcan for some reason, but created this effect on no other planet?

Who's to say it didn't? Chekov mentioned the lightning storm for a reason, and I figure Starfleet assumed it had something to do with what was happening; they might have made this assumption because it coincided with seismic disturbances from other outposts/planets along the neutral zone and worried that that spatial phenomenon might be affecting Vulcan in ways that were hard to predict.

Besides which, for a variety of reasons I've always assumed the neutral zone is uncomfortably close to Vulcan. This is hinted at in "Unification" where a group of stolen Vulcan ships is apparently able to feasibly fly to Vulcan at warp 2; the timing of the whole romulan plot (incomprehensible as it is) sort of hinges on the fact that those ships would have reached Vulcan only a short time after HoloSpock's announcement, which at Warp 2 means the nearest edge of the neutral zone could be within a light year of Vulcan.

 

[pookha]

What, in 40 years of established history, ever implied that Delta Vega has a long range transmitter?

I believe that's covered under Scotty's "Shield emitters are [tap tap] totally banjacks, as well as a few other things..." that obviously covers sensors and long range transmitters, without which Scotty is evidently marooned on this planet for six months with only emergency rations and a tribble for company.

As I said, I don't dispute most aspects of your interpretation of Scotty's situation as seen on screen - only the stupidity of it. Lets compare Delta Vega to a modern day oil rig then - a remote manned station - is it conceivable that rigs have no radio? I rather approve of outposts being set up with limited resources to counter the irritating wasteful comfort of TNG's unlimited resources fantasy but to suggest that any 23rd century outpost could function without sensors and communications is daft. If he's been there for 6 months, why hasn't Scotty requisitioned equipment and food by flying his shuttle to the planet next door? He could be there and back in half an hour. Scotty is meant to be resourceful. Daft.

uh evidently he had asked for food and was expecting it but it was late.

look even in tos the level and ease of communication depended on the need of plot/
some times communications seemed to instant with kirk having real time talk with the starfleet brass.

at other times there were really big delays from hours to days.

fans finally came up with stuff like issues with the sub space relay system and that perhaps there were just odd places in space affected by who knows what.

 

[Ryan8bit]

If you can suspend your disbelief in some fictional concept, why can you not do the same with bad science? Especially since said fictional concept is itself identical to bad science?

Read this post where I talk about the difference between fiction and inconsistency: http://trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=4020523&postcount=179

Watching science fiction at all you have to start with the suspension of disbelief for fantastical concepts otherwise you could never watch it. You don't go into it thinking that things are generally going to contradict basic logic and reason.

In that case, your only recourse is to stop watching movies.

There are some movies that don't do this, some that do a very good job of hiding it, or some that don't do it egregiously. This movie was none of the above, yet besides all that I still found elements of it that I could enjoy. Just because I'm pulled out briefly doesn't make the movie an absolute failure, it just makes it not all that it could be.

You seem to be a big fan of the "no amount of detail is too much" school of explanation

Wrong, and I'm not sure how you got that idea since I've explicitly said that you don't need to overwhelm with science. You don't need to be slapped in the face with a long-winded explanation for something to scientifically make sense. You just don't use existing terms that have quantifiable properties and make them not add up. It's really that simple.

If Geordi can't see behind the wormhole terminus, they're using the term correctly.

No they're not using it correctly. If they can pass through the wormhole with a shuttle then light can pass through too. Not being able to see beyond it is not what an event horizon is.

we don't actually know what the event horizon of a black hole would really look like; it might not be black at all, in fact it might be shrouded in a thick halo of light from its photon sphere interacting with other in-falling particles. The only meaningful definition is YOU CANNOT SEE WHAT'S INSIDE IT.

Or beyond it. But if it did have any kind of halo of light, we would've probably already seen the one at the center of our galaxy by now. The theories for how they operate directly relate to the theories on how they should appear.

 

[Pauln6]

Lets compare Delta Vega to a modern day oil rig then - a remote manned station - is it conceivable that rigs have no radio?

Absolutely. Especially a decrepit, abandoned, barely-functional rig that a pair of guys in a leaky boat have been assigned to babysit for some asinine reason.

They’d take the radio with them – which is exactly what Scotty did – in the shuttle if nowhere else. Although I don’t recall the exact dialogue but Pookha pointed out that Scotty was expecting a food shipment that he had requested. And your approach is doing nothing to counter the suggestion that objectively, the position into which Scotty has been placed for the purposes of the plot is ludicrous.

They’ve only been there for 6 months so to suggest that the shuttle was ‘decrepit’ is also ludicrous. It has to be spaceworthy AND flightworthy (to re-enter an atmosphere). Modern aeroplanes have masses of levels of redundancy that must be in place before they can fly. Spaceships require even more than that as even a cracked tile can be lethal.

They don't need to know anything about the location, that's my point. And Spock could probably plug in the warp signature from memory.

Lol – I can’t play Devil’s advocate properly if you ignore my pre-emptive arguments. To paraphrase: It’s not his father’s Enterprise:

I'm not sure how Spock could guess the NuEnterprise's exact frequency since it is clearly a different ship (that he's never even seen) with vastly more powerful engines than his Enterprise (given the time it takes to travel at the speed of the plot) when both the Narada and escaping Vulcan ships are also fleeing the area.

Memory Alpha says:

"Transporters were not allowed to be used while a ship was at warp speed because of the severe spatial distortions caused by its warp field. (TNG: "The Schizoid Man")

Until they did it in Best of Both Worlds, The Emissary, Scorpion Part 1 and 2 (and countless other episodes of Voyager).

Yeah sorry, I left out the bits about transporting while both ships are at warp as it didn’t apply to the scenario seen in the film. I have no issue with transporting while at warp being possible but dangerous. I just can’t see that it is possible without sensors and a transmitter (or possible over such a huge distance with with the parameters previously established for standard 23rd century transporter equipment without radically changing the impact transporters have on the plot). The upshot of all this toing and froing is that I think they should have tempered this aspect by using changes similar to the ones I've suggested (which would include Spock NOT chasing a manslaughter charge although tecnically it was Kirk's choice to leave the life pod that would have led to his death).

So assuming that Spock Prime comes from OUR Prime Universe and not some other, the Annular Confinement Beam has to be synchronised with the warp core frequency.

Sure, that's one totally-made-up-for-plot-convenience-method. Spock, however, used a DIFFERENT totally-made-up-for-plot-convenience-method in this situation.

Mine is a ‘totally-made-up-for-plot-convenience-method’ that was explained fully in canon, unlike the method in NuTrek so, rather than hypothesise that a second totally-made-up-for-plot-convenience-method that isn’t expressly supported was used, you should stick with the one that does have evidence that fits with what we see on screen even though some aspects also contradict existing (Prime Universe) Trek Tech (i.e. range - although Scotty sugar coats this by telling us that range isn't the issue early on).

There is also no evidence to suggest that there are two different equations to allow transporting at warp – Spock mentions only Scotty’s method, which must be the same method that was mentioned in Voyager IF Spock comes from the same universe.

Just because I'm pulled out briefly doesn't make the movie an absolute failure, it just makes it not all that it could be.

You don't need to be slapped in the face with a long-winded explanation for something to scientifically make sense. You just don't use existing terms that have quantifiable properties and make them not add up. It's really that simple.

This is 100% my position too. It applies equally to Trek tech as to the real science. I couldn’t have phrased it any better!

Hey and no disrespect for Janice, people! There were several (some unsavoury) reasons why her character was written out but while she was in the show she was the female lead. She appeared more often than Ro Laren, Lwaxana Troi, and other well known characters. Chief O’Brien was initially a ‘throwaway character’ who developed into one of Trek’s most popular characters. Granted, Janice was such a girl, but then it was the sixties. A modern upgrade could make her a very cool, useful, and memorable character. Well, at least as memorable as the other third tier characters.

 

[Set Harth]

Who's to say it didn't? Chekov mentioned the lightning storm for a reason, and I figure Starfleet assumed it had something to do with what was happening

Vulcan seemed to be singled out. They may have attributed both events to a possible wider phenomenon rather than assuming one necessarily caused the other. However, it is also possible that the Vulcan Science Academy, presumably nerds of the highest caliber, had some kind of experimental communication tech in operation that was slightly better than that used by Starfleet proper, in the sense that even after the drill started it was able to put out a distress signal for a short interval before cutting out entirely. Or they simply could have launched a vessel or probe which transmitted the call once out of the range of the communication interference.

 

[I-Am-Zim]

You are seriously reaching now.

 

[Pauln6]

You are seriously reaching now.

Yeah we need to scrap the, 'A wizard did it' excuse and replace it with, 'An idiot wrote it.'

 

[Devon]

You are seriously reaching now.

Yeah we need to scrap the, 'A wizard did it' excuse and replace it with, 'An idiot wrote it.'

No.

 

[Set Harth]

You are seriously reaching now.

How is the idea of sending a transmitter beyond the range of the interference "reaching"?

Are Vulcans suddenly not nerds anymore?