The NEXUS: naturally occurring or sentient-made? Or possibly both?

[Aquehonga]

I was thinking about this cyclical {comes every 40 years} ST object over the last few days.

a) Is The Nexus {1 of ST's many bizarre mysteries} simply a naturally occurring phenomenon like Halley's Comet?

b)Was The Nexus constructed by some very powerful, intelligent, intellectually talented species in the Trekverse?

If so, maybe by one {or more} of ST's hypercivilizations &/or hyperbeings {or more likely, by their species}. If so, it's makers intended for the Nexus to be a cyclical Milky Way travelling object, ricocheting around the Galaxy every 40 years.

Possible Nexus builders (if its artificial):
General Trelane, Q, The Douwd, The Caretaker, the civilization(s?) that built the Dyson Sphere, the Doomsday Machine's builder(s?), the Ancient Talosians, the T'Kon, the Iconians, the Sphere Builders, Bajor's Wormhole Aliens, ..........?, ................?, ...........??

Could the Nexus be some sort of an unintentional by-product of one of the sentients mentioned above

c) Is The Nexus a naturally occurring phenomenon that was then interfered with & improved upon {or attempted improvement} by some sentient(s?) ?


Personally I prefer the Nexus is an entirely naturally occurring phenomenon UFP science has barely scratched the surface of understanding.

Safety issue/question:
Whose to say the Nexus is eternally stable? Suppose it evaporates suddenly or at some future point? Are it's inhabitants necessarily, automatically doomed?


Regardless of it's origin(s), I think the Nexus is an awesome place & would enter it lickety-split

Doc Soran had the right idea & his heart in the right place, but his methods were criminally reprehensible

Allying with baddy s, making trilithium {Ultimate WMD}, willing to commit xenogenocide & kill Picard (& later Kirk, well. Soran essentially killed Kirk), to re-enter his eternal heaven.


YOUR thoughts on the Nexus & it's origin(s) & nature>

 

[Timo]

My bet is on the Nexus being some sort of an interstellar spacecraft that has malfunctioned aeons ago, and is currently stuck on a loop. And not only in the sense of flying along a looped path, but also in the sense of being locked on a mode where her transporter-equivalents search for potential passengers and then whisk them to her holodeck-equivalent for maximum comfort.

As for her origins, I'd greatly prefer her to be the product of some folks we haven't heard of yet.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ronald Held]

I would speculate that it is a a natural phenomenon of unknown origin.
In the Trek universe Somethings must not have been engineered by highly advanced races.

 

[kent]

a VERY rare byproduct of the big bang.

 

[Ronald Held]

Diifficult to argue either way.

 

[blaXXer]

Aquehonga, over-formatting a text kills it.

 

[Jbarney]

I always thought the Nexus was both cool and weak at the same time.

It was a writing tool that was used to bring the Trek generations together and that is fine, but the implications of such a thing existing are just so grand scheme its almost crazy to think about.

Also, the simple path of the Nexus and its speeds, directions, and location are a very hard thing to think about in reality. I think they said it passes through "our" section of the galaxy every 40 years. Wow? How nice. Every 40 years with as massive as the galaxy is, with all of its star clusters, open space, and many light years the nexus is in the region every 40 years? Like, what causes this to happen?

Don't get me wrong, I liked Generations. And I like some of the properties of the Nexus...but it really raises some questions.

Jason

 

[Aquehonga]

Aquehonga over-formatting a text kills it.

Heck y'mean

 

[JNG]

Every 40 years with as massive as the galaxy is, with all of its star clusters, open space, and many light years the nexus is in the region every 40 years? Like, what causes this to happen?

I neither like the Nexus nor assign it much credibility, and its creators have freely admitted that they both assigned it properties at will without further consideration and failed to communicate the details of those properties in any remotely understandable way within the text itself.

However, I'm stuck trying to rationalize it like the rest of us, so in answer to your specific question: it appears that it can be affected by gravity or subspace shock waves or something, because of the very nature of Soran's plan to divert its course. I won't presume to speculate about how it got there in the first place, but maybe it could be in a very rapid orbit around the center of our galaxy, whipping through certain areas of it every 40 years. Since it came nearly to Earth's doorstep, I'm sure we'd have noticed it before if it were following a very similar path each time, so either it is of very recent vintage or something had happened to divert its course toward Earth in the previous 40 years. It is still hard to believe that anyone wouldn't have noticed and studied it if it came anywhere within dozens of light years of the densely inhabited systems at the core of the Federation, though...

 

[Delta1]

Nitpick, and correct me if I am mis-remembering:

The Nexus is the ineffable realm of joy. The doorway to the Nexus is an energy ribbon, which tools around the galaxy on a 78-year circuit. This ribbon is not the Nexus itself. Going beyond Guinan's explanation, we could say it's just an entrance, since people in the Nexus can leave and go anywhere.

My guess, the ribbon is the side effect of some kind of Traveleresque experiment combining propulsion or transportation with thought.

Propulsion: An attempt at a controlled warp soliton wave, designed to fly around a circuit and pose no danger to any inhabited systems. Being a gateway to a realm of ineffable joy was just a side effect.

Transportation: The energy ribbon was created as a doorway to a dimension which connected all of space time, making one-way travel instantaneous. (This accords well with the name "Nexus.") But the creators liked the realm they had tapped into or created, and decided to stay in the Nexus instead of using it to move from place to place. With no one left to monitor the doorway, it snapped free of whatever was holding it in place like a rubber band and began its flight around the Milky Way.

 

[Myasishchev]

I think it was a probe, sent to collect copies of beings in our galaxy for study. We haven't seen it since Generations, because, with Kirk and Picard, they've filled their quota of awesome dudes and gone home. If only they'd known about The Sisko. But then, he has his own analogue of the Nexus, even if to his misfortune it's filled with a bunch of cryptic jerks instead.

Alternatively, they wanted to bug out before Janeway got back.

 

[Jimmy_C]

Nitpick, and correct me if I am mis-remembering:

The Nexus is the ineffable realm of joy. The doorway to the Nexus is an energy ribbon, which tools around the galaxy on a 78-year circuit. This ribbon is not the Nexus itself. Going beyond Guinan's explanation, we could say it's just an entrance, since people in the Nexus can leave and go anywhere.

My guess, the ribbon is the side effect of some kind of Traveleresque experiment combining propulsion or transportation with thought.

Propulsion: An attempt at a controlled warp soliton wave, designed to fly around a circuit and pose no danger to any inhabited systems. Being a gateway to a realm of ineffable joy was just a side effect.

Transportation: The energy ribbon was created as a doorway to a dimension which connected all of space time, making one-way travel instantaneous. (This accords well with the name "Nexus.") But the creators liked the realm they had tapped into or created, and decided to stay in the Nexus instead of using it to move from place to place. With no one left to monitor the doorway, it snapped free of whatever was holding it in place like a rubber band and began its flight around the Milky Way.

Sometimes I wonder if all of Star Trek after Generations was simply a figment of Picard's imagination being realized by the Nexus.

 

[Mike Farley]

The Nexus was created by a race of beings called the Plotdevice-ians.

 

[blaXXer]

Aquehonga over-formatting a text kills it.

Heck y'mean

I mean, please use more plain text instead of, for example:

These,

[...] Bajor's Wormhole Aliens, ..........?, ................?, ...........??

random emphasis,

c) Is The Nexus a naturally occurring phenomenon that was then interfered with & improved upon {or attempted improvement} by some sentient(s?) ?

or even completely unfitting smileys and brackets, see below

Allying with baddy s, making trilithium {Ultimate WMD}, willing to commit xenogenocide & kill Picard (& later Kirk, well. Soran essentially killed Kirk), to re-enter his eternal heaven.

Not only is it very, very bad design, it also distracts from the information presented in the text, not to mention it makes ones head hurt.

 

[Aquehonga]

Aquehonga over-formatting a text kills it.

Heck y'mean

I mean, please use more plain text instead of, for example:

These,


random emphasis,

c) Is The Nexus a naturally occurring phenomenon that was then interfered with & improved upon {or attempted improvement} by some sentient(s?) ?

or even completely unfitting smileys and brackets, see below

Allying with baddy s, making trilithium {Ultimate WMD}, willing to commit xenogenocide & kill Picard (& later Kirk, well. Soran essentially killed Kirk), to re-enter his eternal heaven.

Not only is it very, very bad design, it also distracts from the information presented in the text, not to mention it makes ones head hurt.

ThanXX for the constructive criticism.



I didn't realize my text came across as “unreadable” as that.



Re: emoticons & smileys, TrekBBS has so many I figure I may as well put them to good use. No sense in most of them laying in that shed on the right side of the screen rotting away.

But, thanXX again for the advice. I intend to pay more attention to the text in my topics & replies henceforth.

PS: Sorry but I couldn't resist the splurge to pun-spell thanks thanXX as an allusion to your username.

My bad

 

[JNG]

Sometimes I wonder if all of Star Trek after Generations was simply a figment of Picard's imagination being realized by the Nexus.

That would certainly explain the short shrift given to the other characters. I'll take it!

 

[Praetor]

I could buy it being a sleeper colony-platform transport construct of some kind gone rogue.

 

[Myasishchev]

It's God from Star Trek V. He got out of prison and changed his ways.

 

[Delta1]

Re: emoticons & smileys, TrekBBS has so many I figure I may as well put them to good use. No sense in most of them laying in that shed on the right side of the screen rotting away.

Let us redefine progress. Just because we have smileys, does not mean we must use smileys.

 

[bryce]

Also, the simple path of the Nexus and its speeds, directions, and location are a very hard thing to think about in reality. I think they said it passes through "our" section of the galaxy every 40 years. Wow? How nice. Every 40 years with as massive as the galaxy is, with all of its star clusters, open space, and many light years the nexus is in the region every 40 years? Like, what causes this to happen?

Maybe the Nexus is a like a multi-armed pinwheel-shaped thingy with it's axis (axel?) at the center of the galaxy, so that one *arm* of it passes by us ~ every 40 (80?) years...?