So, what are all these dots we see the Enterprise passing?

Not wanting to download any dodgy 3rd party software, I spent a few minutes tweaking the star Windows screensaver on my office PC to resemble what the crew saw through the viewscreen.

 

Far as I'm concerned, they are stars--big, blobby red, yellow and blue stars. Trek was many things but it was never remotely hard SF. Its take on biology (a human/Vulcan hybrid? with the radically different internal layouts, biochemistry and, presuambly, genetics? better a human/begonia hybrid, they'd be more closely related...) is as naive as its take on physics and that, imao, is part of its appeal.

 

You know, this topic reminds me a bit of the exchange in Bread & Circuses, when Flavius notices Spock's ears. He asks, "What do you call those?" Spock replies, "I call them ears." Flavuis retorts, "Are you trying to be funny?" Spock says, "Never." That pretty much sums up this thread! LOL! -- RR

 

The forward view is roughly the same in special and general relativity. Unfortunately, I do not have any screen images handy to show of either.

 

Magic.

 

Don't let some of these knuckle head responders get you down. It was a good question. But looking at some of the responces, you can see why some TREK FANS are probably still living at home with mom/dad, unemployed..and still virgins at the age of 50.

Rob

 

Did you steal that from Carl Sagan? I'm pretty sure it was him who said Spock's mother would have had a better chance reproducing with a rutabaga.

As for later Trek's contributions, tho', with the TNG episode that established all life on worlds populated by humanoids was seeded long ago by the same ancient race, then there could be some connection between all humanoid forms. Could be that on those seeded worlds, all the humanoids are similar enough where with little or no intervention, they can reproduce. We've heard the non-canon things about Amanda's pregnancy being carefully monitored and procedures done during it. We also see on DS9 Bashir saying something about needing to do one little thing so that Jadzia and Worf would be sure to conceive a viable child.

 

But there's really no good reason that a starship would be gathering hydrogen atoms from space around them: there's almost no hydrogen out there, the rate of collection would be useless for the sorts of accelerations starships insist upon, and in areas of space like that around the Sun, they'd serve as much better brakes than anything else.

 

The hydrogen molecules could have many uses, not the least of which is raw matter for ships stores. The replicators need basic matter to transform into those colorful yet tasty dishes and Earl Grey teas.

 

Not enough gas/volume to be useful, and it would limit the maximum STL speed to ~.1 c.

 

Yeah, you got me vis-a-vis Sagan.

Seriously, though, I don't really want Star Trek to be all that accurate--a long time ago, I tried to interest people in a thread that re-imagined Trek as hard SF and , though I got few takers, the conclusion I came to was that Trek--like Pkilip K. Dick--would lose a lot of its charm if it were to rigorous. I like hard SF--Lem and Robinson rock--but Trek is Trek, only slightly less silly than Star Wars. That's how I like it.

 

If you wanted hydrogen molecules you would be vastly better off stopping by a planet and beaming some up. One liter of water, for example, which you can get in easy abundance from any pond, lake, ocean, glacier, or that matter comet or half of a soda bottle, has about as many hydrogen atoms as you would get by clearing out every single atom in a cube of interplanetary space twice as tall, wide, and broad as the planet Earth. If you're in interstellar space you'd have to cast a much wider net. That's not even getting into the braking effect.

 

...OTOH, it seems that Starfleet considers it absolutely vital to have these ramscoops, and moreover to have them at the forward ends of the warp nacelles. Perhaps scooping of interstellar gases is somehow necessary for smooth warp drive, rather than for the gathering of resources? Perhaps the ramscoop is in fact part of the navigational deflector?

Timo Saloniemi

 

I thought that they were used only for emergencies.