The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch tng

[The Trekster]

So I was watching The Next Phase (TNG) last night and it reminded me of one of the huge problems I have with that episode.

How do Geordi and Ro stay on the ship?!

They can walk through walls so how come they don't fall through the floor. Surely once the ship moved they would stay right where they were while the ship flies away?

Anyone else bothered by this?

 

[Dukhat]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

Considering that what happened to them was scientifically implausible to begin with (with no air to breathe, they'd both be dead in minutes), does it really matter that they didn't fall through the floor?

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

So true

 

[sojourner]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

Assuming the gravity plates still affected them and assuming gravity plates are embedded in the floor of each deck, why would they fall?

But putting that aside, yeah, this episode fails in so many ways.

 

[The Trekster]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

Oooo I hadn't thought about air. Yeah they were soooo dead. Still one of the only episodes where I could stand Ro in though...

But are you seriously pulling the 'scientifically impossible' line here? I thought this part of the forum was to discuss this stuff as if it were real or possible. I dig that some technology in trek is theoretically possible, but still... that's no reason it's not fun talking about the totally impossible stuff....

 

[Dukhat]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

You asked if anyone was bothered by it. I answered your question. I'm sorry it wasn't a "fun" answer.

 

[The Trekster]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

It's ok, I forgive you.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

Here's a scientific answer for you: they were splashed with the same crap the Suliban use in their cloaking devices, the same stuff that turned Trip's arm invisible for a couple of days. The particles are "contagious" in such a way that anything they touch becomes coated with these particles and is therefore permeable to them. The floor doesn't count, because the grav plating attracts those particles faster than they can interact and it therefore remains solid; air doesn't count either, because it becomes "phased" as soon as it enters your mouth. Certain other things probably wouldn't count either; the walls of a shuttlecraft probably have STI fields and whatnot that block those kinds of particles.

...


Hey, I'm tryin!

 

[The Trekster]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

Nice one, you should be a lawyer... no offense.

 

[Finn]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

No... It's silly to be concerned about these things.

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

The floor doesn't count, because the grav plating attracts those particles faster than they can interact and it therefore remains solid; air doesn't count either, because it becomes "phased" as soon as it enters your mouth.

So there was a sexy solution to their problems.

 

[ngc7293]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

The "characters become intangible, how do they overcome it" is one of the oldest plots in the book. I never saw the show but logic never holds up for this kind of story line, IN ANY SHOW.

If you can live with a ship that defies all known laws of physics, one more shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Tiberius]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

My answer....

The gravity net interacted witrh the way the cloak phased them, so they were unable to move through anything with a gravity plating inside it. That's why they went through walls but not doors.

As for the air, they were phased enough to be able to pass through solids, because the atoms of solids can't move out of their way. But because atoms of gases can move, the phasing effect wasn't strong enough to influence them, so they were still able to breathe.

 

[Start Wreck]

Re: The Next Phase, or how I learned to stop worrying and just watch t

The air was phased with them, or the phased realm contains air already. *shrug*

And they weren't completely phased. Gravity, heat, light, etc. still affected them. Although you'd think that would make them detectable to the ship's sensors in some way...