Scotty on DS9

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I don't think Scotty would like DS9 - the station, not necessarily the show - too much. He'd find it too dark and depressing.

Although he would enjoy having a pint with O'Brien now and again.

I admit I'm curious as to what Scotty would think of the Defiant though!

 

[DirectorSloan]

We may get one version of what Scotty would think. If you haven’t looked at the current run of IDW’s Star Trek comic it’s definitely worth a look IMHO. It takes place a few years after What You Leave Behind and starts on DS9 with Sisko’s return. From there is springboards into a story that unites characters from across the Trek franchise, including the 24th century Scotty and sends them on a starship based adventure. We see what he’s been up to in issue 1 and it’s pretty impressive. This past week I was looking at upcoming issues and it looks like Sisko goes back to DS9 in an upcoming issue so if his current crew joins him, Scotty would get to visit DS9.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Do you know if IDW had a variant cover of Avery Brooks on the cover? I would really want that one.

 

[kkt]

McCoy dated a patient once, unless Yeoman Barrows only ever saw Dr. M'Benga for her on-board health care. That was in "Shore Leave".

Sort of a stretch. We didn't see Barrows acting as a patient on "Shore Leave" and of course we didn't see her come back after the episode.

 

[Timewalker]

Sort of a stretch. We didn't see Barrows acting as a patient on "Shore Leave" and of course we didn't see her come back after the episode.

Irrelevant. She was clearly a crewmember and would have seen McCoy for a checkup at some point, as crew physicals are a regular part of McCoy's job.

 

[at Quark's]

It was weird that the sphere was built around a yellow star to begin with, with no previous efforts. For a first time at building such a thing, a red dwarf in the 0.08 solar mass range would be better, for two reasons:
1. The tighter habitable zone would allow for a much smaller sphere, but still the same amount of energy hitting each square meter of it.
2. Yellow main sequence stars last about ten billion years. Red dwarfs will last for about five trillion. Why use a much short-lived energy source?

While I understand the 'smaller sphere for a first try' argument, 10 billion years is still a humungous time span. Even in star trek, very few species seem to live even 1% of that time without altering significantly or dying out, and those that do, wouldn't need a dyson sphere (if the Q really are that old in the first place). So any species that chooses a red dwarf for that reason, does so in the knowledge that it's almost certainly doing that not for its own advantage, but for the advantage of completely unknown species that will come long, long after they're gone.

 

[Timewalker]

While I understand the 'smaller sphere for a first try' argument, 10 billion years is still a humungous time span. Even in star trek, very few species seem to live even 1% of that time without altering significantly or dying out, and those that do, wouldn't need a dyson sphere (if the Q really are that old in the first place). So any species that chooses a red dwarf for that reason, does so in the knowledge that it's almost certainly doing that not for its own advantage, but for the advantage of completely unknown species that will come long, long after they're gone.

Not all of those 10 billion years coincide with habitable planets, though. First the star has to finish its own birth, then it takes time for planets, moons, asteroids, and comets to form and settle into their orbits. Then comes the question of whether or not planets get to keep an atmosphere, solid core, magnetic field, etc.

There are so many geophysical things that need to happen before even basic organic materials can form. And from there, we know from our own planet's past that all it takes is one super-volcano or comet/asteroid collision to screw everything up so a mass extinction happens and life has to go back to the drawing board.

At the other end of the star's life, there's the expansion phase when it becomes a red giant. Any life-bearing planets that are close to it will be uninhabitable long before the star dies. Current theory says Earth has less than a billion years left for life to exist. In cosmic terms, that's not really that long, and it's not too early to figure out how to pack up and leave.

So there's no guarantee of a G-class star having life-bearing planets at all, let alone ones with life that eventually becomes capable of constructing a Dyson sphere.

 

[at Quark's]

At the other end of the star's life, there's the expansion phase when it becomes a red giant. Any life-bearing planets that are close to it will be uninhabitable long before the star dies. Current theory says Earth has less than a billion years left for life to exist. In cosmic terms, that's not really that long, and it's not too early to figure out how to pack up and leave.

It's good to be aware of it, and perhaps to invest some thoughts in it, but frankly, as a member of a species that only has existed for significantly less than 0.1% of that amount of time (a million years), and that went from primitive villages to primitive space flight in about 0.001% of that time (ten thousand years), I wouldn't give it too high of a priority for now. I'd be far more concerned about those more immediate disasters that could hit us, or global warming or some such thing. Similarly, I don't think the thought of whether the Dyson sphere they were building would last them for one billion, or ten billion, or five trillion years would be the first thing on the builder's minds, when their projected species' existence would be much shorter than that.

 

[Timewalker]

My point wasn't about how long it would last. It was about whether a species could live long enough to build it at all, assuming their world was even capable of supporting life in the first place.

 

[at Quark's]

Ah, right.

Well, that's an interesting question, yes. The amount of resources needed would be staggering, even for the UFP. And I also wonder about the time it would cost to build it.

But, given that the sphere is there, we'll have to assume that some species (in the Trek universe) manage to do it.

 

[Oddish]

Similarly, I don't think the thought of whether the Dyson sphere they were building would last them for one billion, or ten billion, or five trillion years would be the first thing on the builder's minds, when their projected species' existence would be much shorter than that.

Well, stellar lifespan is a very distant second priority on the list of consideration factors, with resources required to build the thing being numero uno. A small red dwarf might have a habitable zone of, say, 25 million km from the star, requiring the sphere to be only 50 million km in diameter. Easier to build a 50 million km sphere than a 200 million.

Also, why haven't we seen examples of this species' handiwork elsewhere, with ringworlds? That would be the logical precursor to a sphere, I would think. It's like finding a species that has working automobiles, but never used muscle-powered wagons.

 

[at Quark's]

^ A species capable of building a dyson sphere probably is thousands of years ahead of the Federation, technology wise. That means that their travel capabilities probably also far outstrip the Federation's. They may have come from the other side of the galaxy, or another galaxy, with none of the other constructions they built being within the Federation's reach.

Though that wouldn't explain why they chose this particular star in the Federation to build a world around, and only that world.

 

[jackoverfull]

Also, why haven't we seen examples of this species' handiwork elsewhere, with ringworlds? That would be the logical precursor to a sphere, I would think. It's like finding a species that has working automobiles, but never used muscle-powered wagons

there was a ringworld in the last season of Discovery. And no one even commented on it!

 

[Oddish]

They may have come from the other side of the galaxy, or another galaxy, with none of the other constructions they built being within the Federation's reach.

My guess would be another galaxy... they used a transgalactic vortex drive to get to our galaxy, then built the Dyson Sphere as a base to expand into it. But, something went wrong...

 

[DirectorSloan]

Do you know if IDW had a variant cover of Avery Brooks on the cover? I would really want that one.

There are issues with variant covers featuring Sisko. They aren’t photo, just limited covers. I try to get each of them. Here’s one example
https://www.midtowncomics.com/product/2153656

 

[kkt]

Irrelevant. She was clearly a crewmember and would have seen McCoy for a checkup at some point, as crew physicals are a regular part of McCoy's job.

Except that McCoy isn't the only doctor aboard, especially for routine things like physicals.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

That was Ronald D. Moore's Scotty from "Relics"; I understand where you're coming from relating to THAT character but that was not the Scotty I remembered in TOS. When there was a situation, Scotty didn't inflate expectations, he told the truth and I find that fascinating and showed how good he was at his job. Even in those movies I thought he was truthful.

Would it be fairer to say that he didn't so much lie as throw out a wild guess based on what he knew at the time, only to finish faster as things came together quickly due to factors he couldn't know at first glance?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Except that McCoy isn't the only doctor aboard, especially for routine things like physicals.

Assuming he was, at one point or another, the attending physician for every single pretty female crew member aboard, who else could he date but (potential) patients?

 

[kkt]

It is possible to go without dating for several years if necessary.

And in any case it was established that there was at least one other doctor aboard the Enterprise.

 

[Oddish]

It is possible to go without dating for several years if necessary.

Especially in the future. They probably have No Horny pills.