Technology level on the Kelvin timeline

[WebLurker]

That's the exact velocity the TOS Enterprise would have had to be traveling to get the arrival time Spock calculated in "That Which Survives" compared to the velocity Voyager should have been able to reach -- based on the TNG warp scale quoted in the writer's guide -- as quoted in "Caretaker."

A.) writers guides are not canon, and B.) accidents do happen.

Basically: Warp speeds in the Kelvin universe are COMPLETELY consistent with their depiction in TOS. That they are inconsistent with TNG+ should bother exactly no one since TOS made no effort to be consistent with them either.

But the Kelvin timeline series is being made at a time when most of that stuff has been nailed down

Which changes very little; Sagitarius-A, sight of a supermassive black hole that is arguably at the "center of the galaxy" is 28,000 light years from Earth. The core region is about 15000 light years across, so you could "enter" the core after about 20,000 light years.

Is this how the Star Trek universe's Galaxy is set up, though? The Great Barrier doesn't exist in real life. As I understand it, "The Nth Degree" [TNG] shows a different center of the Galaxy than a black hole. Also, are the core's dimensions the same here as they are in the shows?

At the the Warp 8 displayed in "That Which Survives" the Enterprise would have been able to make that trip in about 10 days. If you went by the TNG scale, on the other hand, the same journey at warp 8 would have taken about 19 years. This just to get to the EDGE of the galactic core; it's still another 8,000ly to the center of it.

Travel time has always been fudged a bit.

The TNG+ warp scale from the writer's guide.

Not that they ever followed it consistently. See comparisons:[/quote]

The most glaring example is in "the 37s" where the ship's speed at warp 9.9 is quoted in dialog as "four billion miles per second." Even at THAT velocity, the trip back to Earth would only take three and a half years.

That's kind of anal nitpicking. I think the more broad information would be more accurate than the isolated comment (since the idea that the ship had a 70-some years journey has always been a consistent point of the show.

Which, if getting home wasn't that big a priority for them, would make plenty of sense. "Well, we could get home in about three years, but nobody's ever been this far, and it's not like we've got families at home that miss us, so let's go ahead and take the scenic route!"

Some of the detours were made to avoid trespassing into other nations space or other problems, not exploration.

No. The franchise is filled with world building, most of which is inconsistent.

The majority of the problems are minor ones at best and to be expected from a long-living franchise. The core stuff hangs together.

Fan theories are part of fandom. They are no more "part of the franchise" than the ideas on this discussion board. We fill in the blanks when the writers leave things open because that's just how we are, we like neat and tidy and consistent explanations that the show does not really provide.

Okay, fair enough.

But do not pretend the show is of superior quality because WE care enough to gives those explanations, and CERTAINLY do not pretend that later productions are inferior because YOU don't care to do it anymore.

Based on the information from the first reboot movie, the laws of physics, cosmology, and settings of the prime universe still apply to the Kelvin timeline, so why can't I point out when the movies ignore their own rules and foundation? Also, I was talking about the comics, which are not canon and so have no weight.

Better to just admit you don't like change and avoid trying to justify something that was never justifiable in the 50 previous years of the show's existence. That solves that problem nicely.

The speeds mistakes in the prime universe are small enough I think they can be glossed over, since it's basically only noticeable when calculating the MPHs given, so to speak. The comics are making claims about the ships range make no sense, given the overall intent of the franchise's TOS era at the time the comic was written.

It IS completely mutable, being a TV show and all. The writers can choose to completely ignore whole swaths of established canon and create totally new concepts and tell the entire fanbase where they can shove it if they disagree. They COULD have done that with the Kelvin universe films, but they decided to be nice and throw us all the "parallel universe" bone so we could go on pretending they were all tied together somehow because that's really important to a lot of people for some reason.

Not to me. I think a hard reboot would've been better, although Beyond did use the parallel universe idea in a way that made the movie really great and meaningful to us old schoolers.

The Star Wars production team, as an example, went the other way; after 30 years of considering the Expanded Universe novels and materials canon, they did a 180 and basically decided none of the novels counted anymore, retconned them all out of existence and created totally new stories and totally new characters from the production team, many of them based on the prequels that most people hated.

Generally true. However, even if technically canon, the pre-Disney EU materials (now called "Legends") being canon was a rule that was mostly honored in the breach; the Special Editions of the movies, the prequels, and the Clone Wars show almost always did their own thing regardless of how that would impact the tie-ins. By the people making the core materials, Legends was treated just like how other franchises handle the non-canon tie-ins.

The prequels also include the generally liked Clone Wars TV shows. In fact, most of the prequel-based tie-ins made since the reboot have been based on Clone Wars, not the prequels proper.

It was a giant "fuck you" to the fans of the EU in favor of attracting fresh new audiences from the literally MILLIONS of kids who had grown up watching the prequels, the Clone Wars and Rebels TV series and who were as familiar with Mace Windu and Ahsoka Tahno as they were with Luke and Leia.

Considering how Legends has been treated (still being kept in print, the YouTube movie with the reboot announcement had people involved recalling their favorite Legends stuff, it influencing the new canon), the Disney reboot has been one of the most respectful ones I've seen.

In fact, I'm kind of surprised that the old Legends are taking so much exception. If Legends hasn't been rebooted, the results still would've been pretty much the same. Movies and TV shows have always overwritten the books, so pretty much all of the New Republic era onwards would've been erased by Force Awakens. Rebels would've altered the original era as well. This was the way things worked pre-Disney. The only difference is that with post-Disney being a hard reboot, we have a cleaner timeline, since we don't have to retcon and patch to tie stories together that don't really fit. (To be honest, a clean, hard reboot was probably the only logical outcome.)

IOW they made a decision to kick their existing fan base in the balls as a concession to a new generation that would find the EU series exceedingly difficult to penetrate.

As an older fan who was reading Legends back when it was the only EU around and canon, I can vouch that Legends would be very hard to follow for a newbie, especially by the Legacy era. It was also going downhill, IMHO, so I've found that the reboot has made Star Wars more enjoyable again, IMHO.

And it worked, because for all their butthurt the existing fan base went just as crazy for the new stuff as their kids did, and were perfectly happy to see some of the EU characters brought into the new canon in various forms.[/quote]

I'm sure the excellent material made under Disney's watch has factored in as well. There are also die-hards who refuse to accept anything other than a Legends continuation. And there are those who like both.

"Source material" is what a story concept is based on. That never gets "established" anywhere, it's implied in the title and the set/character design. The only way to "establish" that on screen would be to have one of the characters actually address the fact that he IS a character in a TV show and mention of what TV show he is specifically in.

Semantics.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

But the Kelvin timeline series is being made at a time when most of that stuff has been nailed down

I thought you said writers guides weren't canon? Are you backing off that position now? Because outside of the backstage material, NONE of that stuff has been "nailed down". Far less so for TOS and ENT, which is the source material for the Kelvinverse movies while the later-century spinoffs largely are not.

Is this how the Star Trek universe's Galaxy is set up, though?

Star Trek presents itself as happening in the real world at a future time, so yes. It's not even an issue; there are between 50 and 100 stars within a few parsecs of Sagitarius-A and any one or a cluster of them could encompass the Great Barrier.

Travel time has always been fudged a bit.

"A bit?" Ten days vs. nineteen years? That's like tossing a stick of dynamite and having the resulting explosion level an entire city and saying "Explosive yield seems to have been fudged a bit..."

Not that they ever followed it consistently.

I thought you said they "nailed it down?"

That's kind of anal nitpicking.

No, it's actually a pretty massive plot hole for a show that supposedly "nailed down" that sort of thing.

The majority of the problems are minor ones at best and to be expected from a long-living franchise. The core stuff hangs together.

Cool. So what's the problem again? The "core stuff" from the Kelvinverse ALL comes from TOS, and all the stuff you're annoyed at them for ignoring are the minor peripheral issues that were never depicted consistently and aren't even entirely canon. So is it sufficient that the "core stuff" is all there in the movies, or is the Kelvinverse supposed to respect Voyager's supposed top speed of 1000ly per year? You can't really have that both ways.

Based on the information from the first reboot movie, the laws of physics, cosmology, and settings of the prime universe still apply to the Kelvin timeline, so why can't I point out when the movies ignore their own rules and foundation?

You certainly can. Just so long as you also understand that they're under no obligation to obey the rules and foundation of the spinoff series. Strictly speaking, they're not really even obligated to follow the established conventions (such as they are) of TOS. It's the stories own internal logic by which it is judged, and Star Trek Voyager, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and in a way even Enterprise aren't actually part of that.

Also, I was talking about the comics, which are not canon and so have no weight.

And yet are consistent with the technological and scientific conventions established in the films, if nothing else. Your complaint was that they are inconsistent with the SPINOFF series, which is just plain silly. In the first place because they are not considered to be canon, in the second place because they're not based on the spinoffs, they're based on the Kelvinverse films.

The speeds mistakes in the prime universe are small enough I think they can be glossed over, since it's basically only noticeable when calculating the MPHs given, so to speak. The comics are making claims about the ships range make no sense given the overall intent of the franchise's TOS era at the time the comic was written.

I ONCE AGAIN remind you that the speeds depicted in the comics are entirely consistent with the kinds of speeds they were getting in TOS. That they are inconsistent with the speeds Voyager was supposedly getting in a totally unrelated production is neither relevant nor interesting.

Considering how Legends has been treated (still being kept in print, the YouTube movie with the reboot announcement had people involved recalling their favorite Legends stuff, it influencing the new canon), the Disney reboot has been one of the most respectful ones I've seen.

Respectful only in that Disney refrained from pulling the old materials from production. Consider, however, that the same thing would have happened for Star Trek in the case of a hard reboot, just because studios like to make money.

More to the point: Star Wars was never actually rebooted. They just restarted production on a franchise that had otherwise given up on producing new material. The tie-in material that contradicted the new material was unceremoniously dropped from canon. No reboot there, just a lot of stuff chucked in the bin.

The point is that Abrams did an actual reboot while trying NOT to alienate fans of the original continuity and give them an "out" so that they could still pretend that the new stuff was related to the old. Disney wasn't so generous; the new stuff ISN'T related to the old, it's a whole new continuity, end of line. And "You can still (pay us for the pleasure of getting to) enjoy the old tie-in materials under the 'legends' title, but we're not going to deal with it anymore."

Semantics.

As in "knowing what words actually mean and using them correctly"? I agree.

 

[WebLurker]

I thought you said writers guides weren't canon? Are you backing off that position now? Because outside of the backstage material, NONE of that stuff has been "nailed down".

No, I'm referring to the information in the TV show itself. The majority of the information about the Star Trek world has been established on one way or another from the TV shows and movies alone.

Far less so for TOS and ENT, which is the source material for the Kelvinverse movies while the later-century spinoffs largely are not.

The backstory for the reboot movie was in the post TNG/DS9/VOY timeframe. Spock Prime's backstory builds off of stuff from TNG. The (non-canon) prequel comic used TNG as the story setting. Star Trek is far more than just TOS and ENT and so is the Kelvin timeline from literally the first scene.

Star Trek presents itself as happening in the real world at a future time, so yes. It's not even an issue; there are between 50 and 100 stars within a few parsecs of Sagitarius-A and any one or a cluster of them could encompass the Great Barrier.

Considering that the Star Trek universe is also stuffed with worlds that don't really exist and has fictional pieces of history that clash with our own, I'm not sure why we need to assume that it needs conform to real life in every instance.

"A bit?" Ten days vs. nineteen years? That's like tossing a stick of dynamite and having the resulting explosion level an entire city and saying "Explosive yield seems to have been fudged a bit..."

When it comes to travel time, the broader information (warp factor numbers, years distance, etc.) has usually been the more important information than the little details that you need a calculator to work out. Also, it's a pretty gross exaggeration, given that you're picking on the few notable instances where things don't line up and ignoring the larger number on instances where things fit together.

I thought you said they "nailed it down?"

The writers guide is not canon. They nailed down the rules in the TV show proper. (There are a few mistakes, but the general rules do work. Even the allegedly vastly different post-TOS warp drive speeds still use the basic ideas from TOS.)

No, it's actually a pretty massive plot hole for a show that supposedly "nailed down" that sort of thing.

it can be glossed over if it stays in the "if they said that the ship movies 'X MPH at warp five' doesn't work out when the math is done." Saying the ship can traverse the whole galaxy, when the intent is that that can't be done at this point in time, is a bigger problem. The former kind of fades into the background. Does that make any sense?

Cool. So what's the problem again? The "core stuff" from the Kelvinverse ALL comes from TOS, and all the stuff you're annoyed at them for ignoring are the minor peripheral issues that were never depicted consistently and aren't even entirely canon. So is it sufficient that the "core stuff" is all there in the movies, or is the Kelvinverse supposed to respect Voyager's supposed top speed of 1000ly per year? You can't really have that both ways.

I'm annoyed that they're ignoring the world building of the franchise as a whole, since the rules they set up in the very beginning state that they would have to follow them for their backstory to make any sense. If they had established the opposite from the beginning, I'd have no real complaints.

You certainly can. Just so long as you also understand that they're under no obligation to obey the rules and foundation of the spinoff series.

They waved that right with the first movie's backstory.

Strictly speaking, they're not really even obligated to follow the established conventions (such as they are) of TOS. It's the stories own internal logic by which it is judged, and Star Trek Voyager, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and in a way even Enterprise aren't actually part of that.

It's obligated to follow the conventions of the movie series its based on, which is arguably obligated to follow the conventions of TNG, DS9, and VOY.

And yet are consistent with the technological and scientific conventions established in the films, if nothing else.

There's nothing in the movies that gives the Enterprise's maximum range as being different from in TOS, and all the logical reason to assume otherwise.

Your complaint was that they are inconsistent with the SPINOFF series, which is just plain silly. In the first place because they are not considered to be canon...

I have admitted that.

...in the second place because they're not based on the spinoffs, they're based on the Kelvinverse films.

Which are built on the original iteration of the franchise and have no provisions for altering certain things, like the laws of physics and geography.

I ONCE AGAIN remind you that the speeds depicted in the comics are entirely consistent with the kinds of speeds they were getting in TOS. That they are inconsistent with the speeds Voyager was supposedly getting in a totally unrelated production is neither relevant nor interesting.

If you want to take that route, TOS was retconned by the later productions in this instance. And, as I've submitted before, they are obligated to be consistent with VOY (factoring in period-era accuracy).

Respectful only in that Disney refrained from pulling the old materials from production. Consider, however, that the same thing would have happened for Star Trek in the case of a hard reboot, just because studios like to make money.

Tie-ins are only a small part of the franchise. Star Trek lets its go out of print by default. Besides, many of the Star Wars ones are getting new editions as well.

More to the point: Star Wars was never actually rebooted. They just restarted production on a franchise that had otherwise given up on producing new material. The tie-in material that contradicted the new material was unceremoniously dropped from canon. No reboot there, just a lot of stuff chucked in the bin.

Kinda. As I understand it, the official position is that they're adding to the highest level of canon and downgrading the older stuff to non-canon. With that in mind, even if it's not a full-on reboot, you could say that the Expanded Universe (tie-ins only) was rebooted.

The point is that Abrams did an actual reboot while trying NOT to alienate fans of the original continuity and give them an "out" so that they could still pretend that the new stuff was related to the old. Disney wasn't so generous; the new stuff ISN'T related to the old, it's a whole new continuity, end of line. And "You can still (pay us for the pleasure of getting to) enjoy the old tie-in materials under the 'legends' title, but we're not going to deal with it anymore."

I will say this for the Star Wars "reboot," it at least decided what it was going to be, how it would do it, and . The Kelvin timeline wants to both be some kind of legitimate continuation of the original iteration but also doesn't want to be beholden to it. It's trying to be a non-reboot and a reboot at the same time and does neither well in the case of the first two movies. And on top of that, we now have behind-the-scenes people trying to change the the time-travel model (despite this version doesn't fit the rules that the franchise has built up and the movies themselves prove is still in effect).

It's a mess. The Star Trek reboot is a half-baked method of making generic sci-fi action movies that the brand name can be slapped on, with no though to the long-term future of the franchise. The Star Wars reboot was planned out specifically with the long game in mind of how to keep the franchise sustainable, and even managed to pull itself off with critical success without trying to change what it fundamentally is. While Beyond showed that the Kelvin timeline can work well with the right people in charge, I think the Star Wars reboot has proven to be the superior effort, even if they managed nothing else than making their franchise better in terms of quality, scope, and content, than before it was decided to start over.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

No, I'm referring to the information in the TV show itself.

The information you earlier dismissed as "anal nitpicking"? The information I've just pointed out to you is HILARIOUSLY inconsistent from one episode to the next? I find it hard to believe that is the information you are referring to.

The backstory for the reboot movie was in the post TNG/DS9/VOY timeframe.

So what? The reboot movies do not THEMSELVES establish any connection to the spinoff series at all; said connection is meant to be inferred, but is not actually canon.

When it comes to travel time, the broader information (warp factor numbers, years distance, etc.) has usually been the more important information than the little details that you need a calculator to work out.

Indeed. So when Spock quoted the EXACT amount of time it would take the Enterprise to travel 1000 light years (a little over 11 hours), he was giving us some pretty important information. Same again in "By any other name" when a ship traveling at warp 11 can reach the andromeda galaxy (2.5 million light years away) in 300 years; very important information there.

Important enough, in fact, that both the writers of the IDW comic series and the reboot films evidently took that information as an indicator of the Enterprise' top speed. They chose to ignore the implied but never actually stated "one thousand light years per year" estimates for Voyager and Deep Space Nine since those figures are both self-contradictory and also irrelevant to TOS, where starships routinely move MUCH faster than that.

Also, it's a pretty gross exaggeration, given that you're picking on the few notable instances where things don't line up and ignoring the larger number on instances where things fit together.

Perhaps you should give concrete examples of "where things fit together" if you think those cases are the majority?

The writers guide is not canon. They nailed down the rules in the TV show proper.

So in which episode did they "nail down the rules" that the fastest starship in the Federation had a maximum velocity of exactly one thousand light years per year? And in which episode did they "nail down the rule" that starships of the 23rd century were not capable of exceeding those velocities?

the general rules do work

I'm not even sure you at this point you have a solid idea of what the general rules ARE, let alone the extent to which they "work."

Saying the ship can traverse the whole galaxy, when the intent is that that can't be done at this point in time, is a bigger problem. The former kind of fades into the background. Does that make any sense?

I thought you were talking about "general rules" for the show? That sounds more like "vague implication of situational limitations."

In which case it is relevant to point out:

Can you hear me? My name is Christopher Pike, commander of the space vehicle Enterprise from a stellar group at the other end of this galaxy. Our intentions are peaceful. Can you understand me?

Also:

BARSTOW [on viewscreen]: You're aware of the effect an hour ago?
KIRK: Yes, sir.
BARSTOW [on viewscreen]: You may not be aware of its scope. It occurred in every quadrant of the galaxy and far beyond. Complete disruption of normal magnetic and gravimetric fields, timewarp distortion, possible radiation variations. And all of them centring on the general area which you are now patrolling.

And also:

KIRK: And what if it is the same creature that attacked eleven years ago from a planet over a thousand light years from here?
[Later]
KIRK: No, I'm playing intuition. Mister Chekov, compute a course for Tychos star system.
CHEKOV: Computed and on the board.
KIRK: Ahead full.
CHEKOV: Ahead full, sir.
KIRK: Lieutenant Uhura, contact Starfleet and the USS Yorktown.
UHURA: Frequency open and clear, sir.
KIRK: Inform them that we are pursuing the creature to planet four of that system. That's the location of its attack on the USS Farragut eleven years ago.
SPOCK: I do not understand, Captain.
KIRK: In Garrovick's quarters, I said the scent of the creature was somehow different. Something in my mind said home.
SPOCK: And you know where home is, Captain?
KIRK: Yes, I think I do. I don't know how I know, but home is where it fought a starship once before. Ito Uhura) Inform them of our tactical situation and inform them I'm committing this vessel to the destruction of the creature. We will rendezvous. Round-trip time, Mister Chekov.
CHEKOV: One point seven days, sir.
KIRK: We will rendezvous with the USS Yorktown in forty eight hours.

^ Catch THAT shit: well over a 1000 light years in under 48 hours.

So as a general rule -- at least in TOS -- a starship can travel a distance of at least one thousand light years in under a day. By that same rule, that same kind of ship would be able to travel the width of the galaxy -- about 150,000 light years -- in 4 to 6 months.

Guess how long it took the Enterprise to travel back from the Delta Quadrant?

I'm annoyed that they're ignoring the world building of the franchise as a whole

Well, they're ignoring one really bizarre and pointless piece of world-building that the REST of the franchise also ignored, so I don't really see the problem here.

It's obligated to follow the conventions of the movie series its based on, which is arguably obligated to follow the conventions of TNG, DS9, and VOY.

Nope. Those latter series were DERIVED from TOS and the TOS films, just like these movies are. Ironically, the Kelvinverse movies are actually being truer to the original source material than the spinoffs.

There's nothing in the movies that gives the Enterprise's maximum range as being different from in TOS

Exactly my point: TOS implies in almost EVERY case that the Enterprise would be capable of circumnavigating the entire Milky Way in just a couple of months. So the few-minutes-to-an-hour travel time from Earth to Vulcan, as well as the relatively short flight from Eath to Kronos are consistent with this as well. Omega Leonis (Kronos' indicated location on screen graphics) is a real star about 110 light years from Earth, so a travel time of, say, three or four hours is entirely consistent with TOS-style speeds, where journeys of several thousands or even tens of thousand light years can be accomplished in days or weeks.

The ONLY thing it's inconsistent with is repeated dialog in Voyager that claims it would take "70 years to travel 70,000 light years." THAT reference can actually be safely ignored since Voyager itself contradicts this on multiple occasions.

Which are built on the original iteration of the franchise

Exactly. The original iteration. That excludes the spinoffs.

If you want to take that route, TOS was retconned by the later productions in this instance.

No, it's actually not. No DIRECT comparison is ever made between the warp capabilities of the Enterprise-D and/or USS Voyager and the TOS Enterprise. For all we know, even IN UNIVERSE, a Constitution-class starship is a thousand times faster than anything Starfleet was using in the 24th century. There are lots of ways you could explain WHY that is, but there's nothing in universe that contradicts it. So it's merely a curiosity that ships like Voyager and the E-D appear to be so hilariously slow compared to starships of a century earlier... or maybe some of the implied speed figures are just garbage, (or somebody forgetting to carry a zero; "Uh, Ma'am, I think you mean SEVEN years, not seventy. Learn to math, Captain!)

And, as I've submitted before, they are obligated to be consistent with VOY (factoring in period-era accuracy)

And as I've submitted before, they are under NO obligation to be consistent with ANYTHING AT ALL, least of all Voyager, which is not even consistent with itself. They're drawing on TOS as their source material and to the very limited extent they are "obligated" to do even that much, they do it excellently.

Reboots are funny like that. It's alot like how the "Dark Knight Trilogy" was under no obligation whatsoever to be consistent with "Batman Forever," or how the new Battlestar Galactica had no obligation (THANK GOD!) to include the events of "Galactica: 1980" It may be a "soft" reboot, but it's still a reboot.

The Kelvin timeline wants to both be some kind of legitimate continuation of the original iteration but also doesn't want to be beholden to it.

Uh... no, the Kelvin timeline is an update and re-imagining of TOS. That's all it is, that's all it "wants" to be, that's all it sets out to accomplish. They make no pretense of being prequels or sequels to anything whatsoever; NOTHING in the prime continuity can ever happen in the Kelvinverse, so whatever holds true of the original timeline no longer holds true in this one.

IOW the Prime Universe is to the Kelvinverse what "Legends" is to Star Wars canon. They don't have to be consistent with it anymore, and they won't.

 

[Jerikka Dawn]

For all we know, even IN UNIVERSE, a Constitution-class starship is a thousand times faster than anything Starfleet was using in the 24th century. There are lots of ways you could explain WHY that is, but there's nothing in universe that contradicts it.

Ever since they started channeling warp power through the exploding bridge consoles, compromises had to be made.

 

[Kemaiku]

In Q Who, Data explains that it will take a ship at warp 9 2.8 years to travel 1000 lightyears, Voyager can do it in 1 at warp 9.975 for only a fraction of that time spent at warp. The 1701 however in Gamesters of Triskelion can do 1100 lightyears in hours through nothing but Scotty coaxing her to do it.

And the Enterprise A can travel ~25,000 lightyears to the edge of the radiation cloud surronding Sagittarius A in hours with literally no modification of the drive assembly, even if the Cytherian was sending information to Sybok to augment it, I doubt he'd know where to start.

Warp drive, fucking magic and stuff.