Ships Should Be Indestructable
- Thread starter All Seeing Eye
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It's called 'internal consistancy', Cary. Given what's already established in Star Trek, your argument is not supported. You therefore are taking the approach to make new shit up in order to 'win' this argument, which isn't even the original points made in the first place.
But way to jump to the personal attack there.
But way to jump to the personal attack there.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Cary, I'll repeat myself - read it this time:
If you want so much to stick with your convoluted explanation, do so - but don't throw vaguely insulting/sarcastic coments, such as:
"You really don't get it, do you?" and "Okay. I'll admit defeat. You clearly know the "real science" behind the Bajoran Wormhole"
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
You win too. Go celebrate.
Sometimes, what we're given in Star Trek really is stupid (such as self-replicating mines). It's a lot easier, and more sensible, to just outright say that it's stupid and move on (treating the stupid as outliers) rather than invent whole new tiers of stupid just to explain it away.
Gentlemen...
I posed a possible solution to this, and have been repeated attacked by both of you.
You didn't say "well, I don't like your solution," or "I prefer this solution." You told me that I'm WRONG.
ON A FUCKING POINT OF FICTIONAL, FANTASY SCIENCE.
If I'm "wrong," I've got to be wrong either on a strict, logical basis, or because I'm suggesting something that violates clearly established "trek logic," or that violates REAL SCIENCE.
You said that "if it was there, they would have discovered it." Which is a weak, simplistic point of view. The world is a lot more complicated. I tried to explain that, and YOU, VANCE, got "personal" as a result.
As usual, Vance, you insulted, and when I didn't "take it," you took offense.
I'm done talking to you guys. Have fun.
I posed a possible solution to this, and have been repeated attacked by both of you.
You didn't say "well, I don't like your solution," or "I prefer this solution." You told me that I'm WRONG.
ON A FUCKING POINT OF FICTIONAL, FANTASY SCIENCE.
If I'm "wrong," I've got to be wrong either on a strict, logical basis, or because I'm suggesting something that violates clearly established "trek logic," or that violates REAL SCIENCE.
You said that "if it was there, they would have discovered it." Which is a weak, simplistic point of view. The world is a lot more complicated. I tried to explain that, and YOU, VANCE, got "personal" as a result.
As usual, Vance, you insulted, and when I didn't "take it," you took offense.
I'm done talking to you guys. Have fun.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Cary, you did the insulting - not me. Read the previous posts.
And, given what's established about star trek sensors and wormholes, your solution doesn't make sense in the trekverse - on a stricty logical basis.
And I proposed a solution that actually works in the trekverse - again, read above.
And, given what's established about star trek sensors and wormholes, your solution doesn't make sense in the trekverse - on a stricty logical basis.
And I proposed a solution that actually works in the trekverse - again, read above.
Cary, every single post from #76 on that you made was a personal attack in order to justify something - as we said - was not supported by anything in either Star Trek or real-world physics. And, in fact, was counter-argued in that Star Trek, at least, worked in a different way than your exposition.
You want to justify a 'moment of stupid' in Star Trek, by inventing a whole new layer of physics, a new type of energy, etc. This is the approach that the worst of VOY's writers made, which I consider a mistake. That's why I said, at this point, the episode itself was the error, due to being a Hollywood production.
Why you chose to take that personally, frankly, is beyond me. But you do seem to take it as extremely personal when someone - anyone - disagrees with you on any single aspect of anything Trek related.
You want to justify a 'moment of stupid' in Star Trek, by inventing a whole new layer of physics, a new type of energy, etc. This is the approach that the worst of VOY's writers made, which I consider a mistake. That's why I said, at this point, the episode itself was the error, due to being a Hollywood production.
Why you chose to take that personally, frankly, is beyond me. But you do seem to take it as extremely personal when someone - anyone - disagrees with you on any single aspect of anything Trek related.
I "reak" your post just fine. But celestial objects don't get discovered because of their energy emissions; Jupiter, for example, is sitting in the middle of a HUGE radiation field, but it was discovered by observing its gravitational effect on other planets, not its energy emissions.
Remember that the wormhole is located in the middle of the Denorious Belt, which Sisko describes as "your basic charged plasma field." Without identifying the wormhole, they never would have known what was GENERATING that plasma field; now they know, so the mines might have used it as a power source (considering trek tech uses charged plasma for everything else these days).
The Bajorans DID discover the wormhole, remember? Several of their ships actually encountered it during their early space exploration; Kai Teluno almost flew into it and returned to Bajor with some crazy story about "the heavens opened up and almost swallowed my ship."
Hell, if it really was a wormhole they should have been able to identify it by its gravitational effect on other planets. The Cardassians probably noticed an anomaly, and the Federation probably would have if they'd been in the system long enough. But since the wormhole isn't visible unless you're very close to it (in fact, since you can't even see ships going into it from a distance; it only shows up as a burst of neutrino emissions) they probably explored the belt with a few probes, found nothing, and filed it away under "weird."
Only when plot requires them to. Captain Kirk, for example, was unaware of the existence of Val until he had been on the planet for several hours and nearly been killed by it a number of times. Actually, IIRC they didn't completely know what was going on until Val reached up and snatched the Enterprise in a tractor beam...
Again, only when plot requires them to. Why was Enterprise unaware the Elaas was covered with dilithium crystals until Elaan wandered up to the bridge in her wedding dress? For that matter, why was her dilithium necklace undetected for the three days she'd been throwing tantrums on the ship?
Just saying: energy sources don't usually show up unless you know what you're looking for, or at least know where to look. And Sisko and Dax DID begin to detect some energy anomalies once they were close enough to the wormhole to accidentally fly into it.
Were the Cardassians looking for a wormhole in the Bajor System? Hell, was Sisko even looking for a WORMHOLE when he went into the Denorious Belt with a runabout?
Scanning for wormholes is not a routine operation even in Starfleet, unless you believe a "wormhole detector" is standard equipment for all Federation starships.
Anyway, we already know for a fact this wormhole emitted alot of things that had been known about for years but never traced back to it. The large plasma field around it, for example, plus elevated neutrino levels, verteron particles and all kinds of other funkiness. It's not as if nobody had any idea it was there--hell, even the Bajorans knew there was SOMETHING there--they just didn't know it was a wormhole until Ben Sisko dragged Gul Dukat's cruiser out of it with a tractor beam.
And consider this: if Sisko had NOT managed to smooth things over with the Prophets in that first encounter (and therefore not been returned in time to save DS9) the Wormhole would still be unknown.
Kirk's ship did it... Picard's ship did it on accident... etc.
Anyway, the unique qualifier for Bajor's wormhole was that it appeared stable, which is explicitly stated in the first episode of DS9. All powers that be knew of the wormhole's existance well before the events of DS9 started. :S
Anyway, the unique qualifier for Bajor's wormhole was that it appeared stable, which is explicitly stated in the first episode of DS9. All powers that be knew of the wormhole's existance well before the events of DS9 started. :S
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
newtype alpha
"But celestial objects don't get discovered because of their energy emissions; Jupiter, for example, is sitting in the middle of a HUGE radiation field, but it was discovered by observing its gravitational effect on other planets, not its energy emissions."
We don't have star trek sensors today.
"Captain Kirk, for example, was unaware of the existence of Val until he had been on the planet for several hours and nearly been killed by it a number of times."
Do I really need to list a dozen episodes in which star trek ships (especially from TNG era) found without problem known and UNKNOWN energy sources? And bajorans/cardassians/everyone knew what energy a wormhole generated - exotic or not.
The bajorans found the wormhole by accident - by stumbling onto him, not by scanning for him. Why - there was no significant energy signature. The cardassians found an anomaly? - that's nowhere established and improbable: they would have investigated an anomaly.
If Sisko would have disappeared in DS9:Emissary, the wormhole would have been discovered shortly after - a runabout/commander/science officer's disappearance doessn't go uninvestigated. The same goes for the cardassians.
As for the wormhole being hidden by the Denorius belt - I've already explained why that's convoluted.
The best explanation for the mines' power source - zero point energy.
"But celestial objects don't get discovered because of their energy emissions; Jupiter, for example, is sitting in the middle of a HUGE radiation field, but it was discovered by observing its gravitational effect on other planets, not its energy emissions."
We don't have star trek sensors today.
"Captain Kirk, for example, was unaware of the existence of Val until he had been on the planet for several hours and nearly been killed by it a number of times."
Do I really need to list a dozen episodes in which star trek ships (especially from TNG era) found without problem known and UNKNOWN energy sources? And bajorans/cardassians/everyone knew what energy a wormhole generated - exotic or not.
The bajorans found the wormhole by accident - by stumbling onto him, not by scanning for him. Why - there was no significant energy signature. The cardassians found an anomaly? - that's nowhere established and improbable: they would have investigated an anomaly.
If Sisko would have disappeared in DS9:Emissary, the wormhole would have been discovered shortly after - a runabout/commander/science officer's disappearance doessn't go uninvestigated. The same goes for the cardassians.
As for the wormhole being hidden by the Denorius belt - I've already explained why that's convoluted.
The best explanation for the mines' power source - zero point energy.
I would point out that comparing the Bajoran wormhole to other wormholes as seen in Star Trek is a bit pointless since it's artificially created by alien beings that dwell within it. Wasn't it stated that it's the only artificial, stable wormhole in existence? It might have unique energy properties.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Sure you could; but this explanation is a lot more convoluted (a completely new type of energy without any correspondence to anything in the trekverse or the real world and that cannot be found by star trek scanners) - and, therefore, unconvincing - than the zero point energy one.
The ZPE explanation has some significant advantages:
Zeo point energy corresponds to a real physical fact;
ZPE is mentioned in DS9 TM as the energy source of the quantum torpedos;
ZPE could make sense of several technologies that had no convincing previous explanation in star trek:
"Quantum torpedos were quite widespread in later star trek. In a DS9 episode, Quark mentioned that they were availabe on the market if the price was right. And these torpedos were said to use zero point energy in DS9 TM.
About ZPE generators - several times during star trek, we had no ideea what technology an alien power source used - just that it was better than M/AM. The borg would be the first example that comes to mind.
My personal speculation would be that the borg showed tha Alpha quadrant that ZPE actually works. Afterwards, the feds (and not only) tried to recreate the technoloy. Quantum torpedos were the first result. Generators that could extraxt energy from the void - ineffectively, but still well enough to power the mines - followed.
The cardassians had their own "little" science project. They built a "subspace generator" aka "ZPE generator" that powered their defenses around Chin'toka. This generator compensated for the ineffectiveness of the process with its size. The results were spectacular. Those impenetrable shields around the weapon platforms and their overpowered weapons - we've only seen that in one main star trek species before: the borg (if you discount several ascended beings)."
The ZPE explanation has some significant advantages:
Zeo point energy corresponds to a real physical fact;
ZPE is mentioned in DS9 TM as the energy source of the quantum torpedos;
ZPE could make sense of several technologies that had no convincing previous explanation in star trek:
"Quantum torpedos were quite widespread in later star trek. In a DS9 episode, Quark mentioned that they were availabe on the market if the price was right. And these torpedos were said to use zero point energy in DS9 TM.
About ZPE generators - several times during star trek, we had no ideea what technology an alien power source used - just that it was better than M/AM. The borg would be the first example that comes to mind.
My personal speculation would be that the borg showed tha Alpha quadrant that ZPE actually works. Afterwards, the feds (and not only) tried to recreate the technoloy. Quantum torpedos were the first result. Generators that could extraxt energy from the void - ineffectively, but still well enough to power the mines - followed.
The cardassians had their own "little" science project. They built a "subspace generator" aka "ZPE generator" that powered their defenses around Chin'toka. This generator compensated for the ineffectiveness of the process with its size. The results were spectacular. Those impenetrable shields around the weapon platforms and their overpowered weapons - we've only seen that in one main star trek species before: the borg (if you discount several ascended beings)."
When?
When? The only time I remember the Enterprise-D encountering a wormhole of any kind was the Barzan wormhole, which they already knew was there. And also that energy vortex life form thing which they just about crashed into before they even saw it...
I don't think they did. Sisko certainly didn't know there was a wormhole in the Denorious belt, and the Cardassians were openly incredulous that such a thing even existed (so much so that they were more willing to believe DS9 had destroyed Dukat's ship than Kira's theory that Dukat had flown into a wormhole that "just collapsed" as unstable wormholes are known to do).
Neither did the Bajorans.
Of course, since we don't really know what sensors they have in the Trekiverse that we don't, that's not set in stone; for all we know, we DO have Star Trek sensors sitting in a dome at NASA somewhere.
Of course not. Nor do I have to go through the list of dozen episodes where they failed to detect obvious energy sources until the last minute.
Just saying: "energy source detectors" are fickle things. They seem to function rather like metal detectors: they don't tip you off to said energy source until you're practically right on top of it.
They sure did. What they didn't know was that there was a WORMHOLE generating it.
Do Bajoran solar sailing vessels have the capacity to scan for energy signatures? Because, IIRC, one Sisko built using period-correct designs didn't even have a radio.
And without having access to Bajoran records and help from Kai Opaka, they would have found nothing. Just the same charged plasma field that initially intrigued Dax.
Incorrect: the Prophets collapsed the entrance after Dukat flew into it. What WOULD have happened was the Cardassians would have destroyed Deep Space Nine, Bajor would be re-occupied, and the Prophets would have re-opened the wormhole some time later once they felt the coast was clear and no other corporeal beings would come messing with them.
"Zero point energy" is just another term for "perpetual motion device." It's a valid theory, but a silly one.
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