or holographic technology to confuse enemy sensors, I guess.Must be that programable matter.
If voyager could do it in the 24th century, even if barely, it should be normal now.
But I suspect it’s just a writers’ slip-up.
Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x03 - "People of Earth"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
If voyager could do it in the 24th century, even if barely, it should be normal now.
But I suspect it’s just a writers’ slip-up.
I mean, I know its not canon but it feels the same as TLJ.
So a different question. When Discovery leaves earth - it uses the spore drive? They’ve disclosed this highly valuable tech that could remake the entire galactic situation (perhaps) to the xenophobic planet?
I for one would warp out of scanning range (clearly not that hard - go on the far side of the sun??) and then jump.
I for one would warp out of scanning range (clearly not that hard - go on the far side of the sun??) and then jump.
Seems their gambit worked just fine: Earth scans never revealed how the heroes arrived.
And EDIT: "LEAVES Earth." Perhaps I ought to caffeinate?
(Did we see them jump out? I don't quite remember - I thought the San Francisco pan was the closing scene. But if they could mask their arrival simply by arriving near Saturn, they need not go particularly far to also leave in secrecy.)
We don't know why the heroes thought this would be so. But stealthy-arrival-by-spore has always worked for them before: it didn't trigger any Klingon sensors at Qo'noS, say. Quite possibly it simply creates no telltale signal whatsoever, and the ship simply is there, or suddenly is not. Heck, even the light show might only exist in spore space and not be visible to the outside universe (but the audience gets premium insight).
A ship being there now but not before would in turn generally not raise flags in systems that must accept that objects appear. Generally not out of nothingness, but the system should recognize its own fallibility and react to this arrival as it would to a ship entering sensor range via conventional non-signaling means, such as the claimed impulse. It would also self-chastise, telling the operator "I failed to see this before", but the operator might see nothing amiss there, since all precedent is for it being difficult to spot inert objects in space, and only those radiating warp energies are spotted for certain (across multiple sectors, even!).
It's more difficult to ignore a sudden disappearance, even if there is no associated signal. No doubt Earth would keep tracking the heroes now.
Probably the heroes did arrive using a masking trick. I mean, why else arrive at the back porch of Saturn, when odds are astronomically against all such back porches? We know the vicinity of Titan is great for hiding for some so far unknown reason: the Nova Squadron used it, Chekov in the 2009 movie suggested it, and it worked like a charm both times. Might be there's an Anomaly there... Also good for masking the departure. Although they can go to warp now, and then jump. Although going to warp makes them easier to track!
Timo Saloniemi
And EDIT: "LEAVES Earth." Perhaps I ought to caffeinate?
(Did we see them jump out? I don't quite remember - I thought the San Francisco pan was the closing scene. But if they could mask their arrival simply by arriving near Saturn, they need not go particularly far to also leave in secrecy.)
We don't know why the heroes thought this would be so. But stealthy-arrival-by-spore has always worked for them before: it didn't trigger any Klingon sensors at Qo'noS, say. Quite possibly it simply creates no telltale signal whatsoever, and the ship simply is there, or suddenly is not. Heck, even the light show might only exist in spore space and not be visible to the outside universe (but the audience gets premium insight).
A ship being there now but not before would in turn generally not raise flags in systems that must accept that objects appear. Generally not out of nothingness, but the system should recognize its own fallibility and react to this arrival as it would to a ship entering sensor range via conventional non-signaling means, such as the claimed impulse. It would also self-chastise, telling the operator "I failed to see this before", but the operator might see nothing amiss there, since all precedent is for it being difficult to spot inert objects in space, and only those radiating warp energies are spotted for certain (across multiple sectors, even!).
It's more difficult to ignore a sudden disappearance, even if there is no associated signal. No doubt Earth would keep tracking the heroes now.
Probably the heroes did arrive using a masking trick. I mean, why else arrive at the back porch of Saturn, when odds are astronomically against all such back porches? We know the vicinity of Titan is great for hiding for some so far unknown reason: the Nova Squadron used it, Chekov in the 2009 movie suggested it, and it worked like a charm both times. Might be there's an Anomaly there... Also good for masking the departure. Although they can go to warp now, and then jump. Although going to warp makes them easier to track!
Timo Saloniemi
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Remember, this is the 32nd century (not the 24th)... sensors on Earth apparently no longer have dozens (or in the case of Astrometric sensors - thousands) of Ly's range nor the versatility we came to enjoy/expect of them.
I still maintain the premise that SOL itself should have cut itself off from the Federation (not Earth), and have them raise a massive solar system wide shield upon detecting Discovery jumping into it because of say having a Dyson Swarm around the sun (or a full blown Sphere)... and upon detecting Disco in SOL, they would frantically just transport the whole ship outside of SOL and raise the massive shield around the whole system (to be fair, this kind of technical ability the Federation would already have by the late 25th and/or 26th century... nevermind the 32nd).
But alas, we got what we got.
The federation, by far, didn’t have the technology to build a Dyson sphere in the late 24th century. But by the 31th everything is possible (and surely something like that would have been much more impressive).
They are not xenophobic, just protectionist and isolationist.
And mutual cooperation starts with demonstration of trust.
Actually, they did.
We already had the ability in real life to build a Dyson Swarm since 1990-ies using automated bots and harvesting the SOL system asteroid field and Mercury for raw Materials.
Humanity in Trek could have built its own swarm by the time the NX-01 was launched... and a sphere sometime after (but you don't need a full fledged sphere to reap most of the benefits).
In the 24th century it was said that the Federation don't have the technology to build a full blown Sphere (which is technically accurate if you want to build it out of solid Neutronium)... but I don't think Geordi was being accurate because, technically, for their technology (and materials they developed to date) it would not have been a huge leap.
Between having access to several hull materials such as Duranium, Duritanium, Tritanium and Tetraburnium and highly advanced fabrication technology (replicators that convert pure energy into matter), I don't think creating a synthetic composite of those 4 materials with superior properties of all 4 would have been an issue (you don't need Neutronium to build the Swarm - or a Sphere)... also, the Federation encountered a Planet Killer in the 23rd century made entirely out of Neutronium... but STILL hadn't had the ability of making its own or modifying its conventional weapons to be effective against it (which I find dubious at best because they were probably STUDYING the thing for 100 years in the first place).
The Dyson Swarm is effectively comprised of millions of large space based solar collectors... each about 10km large and very thin. Starfleet could easily make one side of it lined with solar collection technology (of their make) using their fabrication technology with far superior efficiency compared to us, with the other side (that's not facing the sun) having a collection of technologies such as sensors, fabrication facilities and simple thrusters with deflector systems... just spread out the tech throughout 10km surface area and compound it... instead of having 1 sensor module, have 10 or 20 - similar to the Argus Array).
A full swarm would take us about 10-20 (maybe 30) years to complete using automated bots... because construction would be fully automated and proceed exponentially.
Also, as time goes on, materials would advance and newer sections of the swarm would be using materials that require less and less resources (adaptive algorithms would learn from what they made and find better solutions)... the bots would continually adapt new information to fabricate better materials faster with less resources - same would apply to Trek.
With Trek technology, constructing a full blown sphere after the swarm isn't that complicated using those technologies... just need to interconnect the thing and use thrusters and/or anti-grav technology (not to mention subpsace technology) to keep the sphere in place (and those systems existed on shuttle pods in the 22nd century which has a proverbially tiny footprint).
Plus, we saw the Yorktown Starbase... its practically like a small Dyson Sphere in its own right.
Federation automation construction technology is bound to be far more advanced than ours.
Also, in the 24th century, it would be dead easy to just have each massive solar collector have a networked collection of transporter buffers and industrial grade replicators that would use solar power for infinite energy to keep fabricating whatever they require and build themselves (materialize new sections using replication).
Once you have a completed solar power station with these technologies in place, that thing could go on making new ones... even if can create say 1 half or 1 quarter of a new solar collector with every materialization cycle, it would just need to recharge energy buffers from solar and make more... once two are complete, they can create 1 new one in just 1 cycle... and so on and so on... continually building itself with ever increasing speed and efficiency.
Keeping asteroids or space debris in check is easy with navigational deflectors or even tractor beams... heck, use basic shields if needed.. and while you're in a stage of making a swarm... just move the collectors out of the way.
Frankly, I'm disappointed we hadn't seen this AT LEAST by 32nd century... such a waste of potential (but as you said, by that time, even a Dyson Sphere would be fairly unimpressive 0 still, such a superstructure would likely be left in SOL indefinitely, because the more of them you construct [say in each Federation member species home solar systems] and connect them via subspace, you have a massive network with incredible energy - more to the point, the energy output of over 150 stars in the late 24th century alone - the possibilities from just 1 Dyson Swarm or a sphere are endless... never-mind over 150 of them).
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The story isn't about the technology.
At the same time, there are no doubt things that hundreds of years ago probably would have been common knowledge or at least that past experts would have known to do that present ones might not.
I don't think the exact methodology behind the Great Pyramid of Giza's construction is fully known, for example.
To coin a phrase, a lack of necessity is the mother of stagnation.
Not entirely, but a good portion of it is... because the point of Trek was to illustrate a better tomorrow (among other things, how application of science and technology when used for betterment of everyone can benefit everyone and show us a 'brighter future').
Also, Trek was largely using real science initially...
Besides, its not a huge deal asking for creation of a Dyson Swarm and later on a Sphere... it would simply showcase 'some' kind of sensible technological progression (based on real life) in the time they said has passed as opposed to the handwaving we got.
It's not a huge deal either way, to my mind.
Mileage will vary. Unfortunately, Trek has largely left behind the "technology makes our lives better" style with TOS.
Small problem with that.
In real life, we didn't have massive data redundancy or advanced methods of information storage thousands of years ago (in short, we were not technologically advanced enough to ensure preservation of large amounts of data).
With how diligent SF and the Federation are with record-keeping and having numerous sites (on just 1 planet) where information can be stored, losing information through the centuries on any era since the invention of FTL would be mostly inconceivable/highly improbable).
Granted, the data they do have would be dependent on the logs kept by people, officers and whatnot... but that alone gives them incredible accuracy for extrapolating what happened with very little margin of error (as we saw the 24th century for example being able to do).
Obviously with WWIII happening on Earth, some data might have been lost, but not a huge enough amount to prevent people from extrapolating what happened based on the data that did survive - and also, planetary conflicts would arguably result in more damage to information storage rather than say insterstellar wars that failed to exterminate an organisation).
Data redundancy would also improve over time.
We already developed years ago storage that would keep information for a million years reliably.
And holographic storage was already developed in the 90-ies by IBM... so its not like imagining storage technology which would keep records safe for incredibly long periods of time was impossible even for the writers in the 80-ies/90-ies and using that on Trek (nevermind for modern day writers... but hey, that would require of them to KNOW something of modern science and technology... which in fairness they might, but their ability to EXTRAPOLATE seems rather poor at best - as is their ability to think within the technologically advanced setting as Trek).
You don't need to know the exact methodology behind the Great Pyramid of Giza to construct your own with modern technology and science in a fraction of the time or resources it took our ancestors.
Besides, record keeping from that era was not exactly best... and people are trying to extrapolate events based on a very small frame of reference from a culture they had little understanding of.
In Trek, you have a universal translators, computers and algorithms capable of taking small information and extrapolating a huge chunk of it with incredible precision, historical databases from hundreds/thousands of alien species which may have experienced similar progression as humanity in history... not to mention a sort of 'standardization' (a common language) which makes things even easier in regards to mutual interaction, cooperation, etc. (and incredible data redundancy on individual planets, starbases, ships, etc. - too many to count - not all of which would be lost to the Burn).
Mind you, even today we are using computer algorithms to gain a better idea of what happened thousands of years ago based on fossils, bone remains... what kind of diet the people had, etc... it gives us a better insight into their culture and how their lives unfolded.
Moving forward, it will be increasingly easy to store existing data and knowledge with massive redundancy for the future - because we have far superior methods of doing so than the past did and this ability will only improve as time goes on.
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More like it abandoned it after a few seasons of TNG... right around the time Roddenberry died.
I wouldn't call myself a Roddenberry fan... but I liked his idea for Trek and it made more sense (mind you I also liked Voyager, but I thought that by that time and the speed it was supposed to have, the ship should have been thrown about 200 million Ly's away to get back in 75 years).
But, you're correct that a large portion of technological progression was left behind with TOS... even TNG didn't seem like actual 100 years have passed... maybe a few decades yes... that's why I liked the notion of having UFP exploring other galaxies in the 24th/25th century as it illustrated that progression... but as I mentioned before, we never got to see that.
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Exactly, we've never gotten to see it. I would love to see it and yes, from a real world perspective, it would make logical sense for such a technical progression.
But, that isn't Star Trek and expecting it to do so at this point is a recipe for frustration.
I would argue that it WOULD have been more accurate to the spirit of Star Trek and what it represented back then.
As you say, expecting it at this point is a recipe for frustration... I'm just disappointed that this is the direction the writers decided to go with.
It seems so ... anti Star Trek (right next when you consider the fact they decided to give us holo-communications and the spore drive in the 23rd century and then decided that for the 32nd... we'll revert to practically pre-warp in some areas while being marginally more advanced than the 24th century).
I guess I don't have that expectation of the writers. After the pushback for the spore drive why would that risk be taken?
I think Trek has shifted with a different view on technology. I don't see them going TOS style because that's not Trek has done for a while.
The possibility exists that they might.
They have gone 930 years into the future and we saw a small bit of that future still.
Perhaps we'll be surprised yet.. or perhaps not.
I'm ok either way.
