TNG Rewatch: 7x09 - "Force of Nature"

[Trekker4747]

The Enterprise is investigating the disappearance of another Federation starship through an area of space that can only be traveled through via a "corridor" between large concentrations of radiation.

They come across a disabled Ferengi ship that soon attacks the Enterprisem believing them to be the cause of their disablement. Picard's able to convince them they're not and able to get some more information on the possible whereabouts of the lost starship in exchange for helping the Ferengi ship to get underway again.

They investigate the new set of coordinates and only find debris but are unable to determine if it belongs to the missing ship before they're attacked by a nearby probe they communicate with (believing it to be a "flight recorder" from the lost ship.) The probe's attack disables the Enterprise the same way the Ferengi ship was disabled. The Enterprise is then boarded by two alien scientists.

The scientists are residents of a nearby planet and the believe the heavy concentration of warp-fields using that specific region of space is having an "environmental" impact on the area. In essence, it's wearing out the barrier between normal space and subspace (the "dimension" in which ships travel to achieve super-luminary speeds) and it's having an impact on the habitability of their homeworld. They feel that if nothing is done soon the "corridor" will rupture spilling subspace into normal space which would not only make the area impassable but would have larger environmental impacts on their home planet.

A few years prior they had petitioned Starfleet to investigate this but Starfleet didn't find there to be enough evidence from the early research and the aliens have been unable to get Starfleet to listen to or accept their new findings.

Picard promises they'll look at their research now, providing they help the Enterprise get underway again in order to find the missing ship. The aliens agree to the terms and also promise to disable the other "mines" they have in the corridor.

Looking over the research Geordi and Data find there's some merit to the research but still not really enough to go on but they and Picard promise to send it to Starfleet and with Picard's suggestion Starfleet will send out ships to conduct more extensive research. More immediately they're concerned about the missing ship.

The alien female sees this as just further delay tactics from Starfleet/The Federation and takes her ship into the corridor and causes a warp-core breach on her ship, the breach is enough to cause a small subspace tear in the area, proving the aliens' theory.

The tear is impassable and stands between the Enterprise and the missing ship, while the Enterprise is far enough outside of the tear to not be impacted by the shockwaves it's causing the missing ship is inside the tear and cannot last much longer. The Enterprise cannot use warp-drive to get through the tear and impulse is too slow to be of use. Luckily, Geordi and Data find a way for the ship to "warp coast" through the tear without their warp-drive being a problem. While coasting through the tear the other ship attempts to leave using its warp-drive which causes the tear to grow and damages the ship more. Data is able to work out a way for them to scoop up the ship's crew and for them to extend their "warp coast" enough to get out of the tear.

Now with solid, un-ignorable, evidence Starfleet's forced to investigate the impact warp-drive has on subspace as well has cease use of this corridor in space. They also impose a "warp-speed limit" on starships outside of emergencies.

A year or so later they find that if they make the nacelles move slightly before entering warp they can avoid this damage to subspace or, I dunno, it's generally fixed and never worried about again.

-----

Sigh. The Enterprise deals with ecoterrorists.

Honestly, I don't find this episode to be too bad but the "message" in it is sort of weak and, honestly, kind of confusing. I guess I understand and can even accept how this "tear" occurs in this area of space (since it's heavily used over a very specific area) but not sure how this expands to systems-wide "speed limits" through areas of space that aren't being abused by subspace overuse.

Eh, it doesn't matter, I guess, since a solution was worked out and was never a problem again.

We could question the female terrorist's motivations and her end-goal since creating the tear would have a dramatic impact on her planet but terrorists are rarely rational and sometimes see taking extreme measures as being the only way to force change.

It seemed like here the episode *wanted* to say something and be something but it really didn't have enough to build an entire episode around it so we're given something of a "B-Story" AND a "C-Story."

The B-Story being about Geordi thinking of getting a cat as a pet and tries it out with Data's Spot (who's a female now when it was a male a couple episodes ago) and confronts Data on Spot's lack of training and discipline.

The C-Story being about Geordi having a friendly competition with a colleague on another starship over engine status.

Oh! And there's a D-Story about some sensors or something acting up giving us a thrilling several minutes of Data and Geordi crawling through jefferies tubes trying to fix them.

There's a lot of padding in the episode is what I am saying. Hell, even the bullshit with the Ferengi is sort of thrown in there and only scantly connected to the main plot.

The episode also gives us probably one of the "worst" "cold opens" for TNG, a trend that'd become more commonplace on VOY and would be horribly bad during ENT. This being a different from most opening-teasers where the story is established in some manner, and we just get a nonsense scene just to sort of having something happen before the opening credits sequence. In this case, Geordi looking for Spot around his quarters before they called to the bridge for their mission.

Padded, padded episode. It's not terrible, not good either.

 

[Paradise City]

It depicts bureaucratic inertia and the need to take decisive action to wake people up. I liked that part of it. Of course the counter to that is that it gets very preachy and lackadaisical at the end. It's difficult to see even the Fed's allies obeying this "speed limit" and naturally after a couple of fleeting mentions in subsequent episodes, this tedious concept is quietly dropped.

 

[Ghrakh]

...this tedious concept is quietly dropped.

The natural pitfalls of episodic storytelling...I have to say though I really appreciated they addressed the concept of "unlimited power has side effects". It's a thorn in the side of the ST universe that I'm glad to see it was brought to light...

 

[Mojochi]

The whole thing kind of fell in on itself. It boils down to "Warp is bad for the environment" but it's not like we're ever going to stop using warp, on this show, so why write that? & speed limits isn't even brought up as a potential corrective measure in this situation until we need a quick ending, nor does it make much sense, & then after a couple off hand remarks later on, it's just forgotten

 

[Timo]

It depicts bureaucratic inertia and the need to take decisive action to wake people up.

And conversely, it depicts a panicky and populist reaction to a serious problem, one that does nothing to solve the actual problem even if it has the external appearance of "decisive action". Very realistic and appropriate!

There would have been some upsides to the supposed original plan of using LaForge's sister as the adversary, but the family is cursed already as is... This episode supposedly made an attempt to be about LaForge, but somehow it failed to make even that impression.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Trekker4747]

LaForge's sister being our lead "eco-terrorist" would have added a much more interesting dynamic to the episode. But I don't think it would have salvaged it entirely, the episode is weakened by the effects not being entirely clear on why/how they're happening and it's hard to get emotionally invested in the changes that has to happen when when warp speeds, to us, mean nothing.

Warp moves at the speed of the plot, Warp 5 is just as fast as Warp 9 as far as we our concerned unless it's brought out to be an issue in dialogue. "We can get there in 10 hours at Warp 5.". "Take us to Warp 9!" "ETA: 2 hours."

And then they just sort of gloss it over before longer anyway with them apparently fixing the "issue." Which I still don't get.

I mean, I *think* I do... you keep bending space it wears out and breaks light straightening a paper-clip; but it only seemed to a problem in the specific area since it's a highly trafficked one through that one narrow, specific, corridor of space. Most other regions aren't is "overly bent" so is there issues there? Maybe, but not as abused so it heals with time or will last longer as the stress over specific, narrow, areas isn't great?

Maybe nix the paperclip analogy, I guess.... Think of a piece of paper, you take it and draw a line with a pen and keep redrawing and redrawing that line in the same space over and over again the paper quickly weakens and rip forms over that area. But if you just draw lines over the paper randomly, not going over the precise, same, spot over and over then the areas aren't weakened. And when we speak of the vastness of space (in all 3-dimensions) how often are they really eroding the barrier between space and sub-space.

Again, this "corridor" seemed to be a really, specific, area that was repeatedly, heavily, used due to surrounding conditions being un-passable. So, yeah, it's abused.

But everywhere else? Is there that much of a problem? Especially when there's so many other species out there who've had warp-drive longer than humans and they've never encountered this problem?

Ugh, this episode makes no sense.

 

[MikeS]

Maybe nix the paperclip analogy, I guess.... Think of a piece of paper, you take it and draw a line with a pen and keep redrawing and redrawing that line in the same space over and over again the paper quickly weakens and rip forms over that area. But if you just draw lines over the paper randomly, not going over the precise, same, spot over and over then the areas aren't weakened. And when we speak of the vastness of space (in all 3-dimensions) how often are they really eroding the barrier between space and sub-space.

I guess there's only one quick way from Earth to Vulcan - a straight line. I assume that straight line is travelled along hundreds of times a day. So yes, they are constantly eroding the barrier along established routes.

The whole thing kind of fell in on itself. It boils down to "Warp is bad for the environment" but it's not like we're ever going to stop using warp, on this show, so why write that?

Replace "warp" in your sentence with "oil" and you will get an idea of why the Earth is in so much trouble now. The writers used warp to hit us over the head with the environmental message.

I like the episode. At least they tried to broach the subject of environmentalism. Alhough I don't know if they're saying that we should all aspire to eco-terrorism - that the ends justify the means?

 

[Timo]

I guess there's only one quick way from Earth to Vulcan - a straight line. I assume that straight line is travelled along hundreds of times a day. So yes, they are constantly eroding the barrier along established routes.

The thing is, though, how wide is the path of destruction? The star systems of both Earth and Vulcan move, in relation to pretty much everything including each other: tomorrow, the direct line between them will be tens of thousands of kilometers to the side of today's line at the very least.

Does subspace move along with some realspace fixtures? Do stars drag the underlying texture of subspace (and its possible faults) with them, perhaps?

OTOH, warp is such a potent means of interstellar travel that straight lines aren't a must. There could be advantages to avoiding other traffic, or to hiding your ultimate destination from your competitors, by going off the beaten path.

OTTH, perhaps the very "pollution" described in this episode makes well-traveled space lanes faster than "raw" space, as the warp engines have filed the subspace smooth?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Trekker4747]

I guess there's only one quick way from Earth to Vulcan - a straight line. I assume that straight line is travelled along hundreds of times a day. So yes, they are constantly eroding the barrier along established routes.

I think of it like this, under the same logic there's only one quick way between New York City and some coastal location in Europe via the sea, yet even during the height of the maritime era it was hardly packed with ships. There's just enough variation and wiggle room between the two points. There is, after all, an entire ocean out there. And, like the sea, traveling via warp could be dependent on any number of factors that precludes always traveling in a straight line. There were a few times in "Voyager" (and I know, I know, just read me out) where their trip was shortened just by optimizing their route. Which, again, the fastest way would be a straight line but obviously some aspect of space-travel, warp-travel and/or subspace precludes a straight line always being an option.

But this "corridor" is analogous to the Panama Canal, there's only *one* very specific, very narrow, way to get from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean without traveling all the way around South America. And this area is heavily trafficked area that sees 40 ships per day.

That's this corridor, it's the only way between two locations without taking a circumventing course around the area of space that cannot be traveled through, which may not always be an option depending on the destination or how the neighboring areas of space are controlled by their respective governing bodies.

It's a very. very specific, highly used, location between two points and it's the only way between those two points that's convenient.

Travel between Vulcan and Earth? Probably plenty of ways to do it, not to mention (as noted above) that the planets and systems are always in motion meaning the route is going to be different -if only slightly- from day-to-day, even if subspace "travels with" normal space this could be enough to prevent the erosion of the barrier between space and subspace. But this corridor? There's only one way, regardless of what's going on on either side of it there's only one way between the two points.

 

[Timo]

There were a few times in "Voyager" where their trip was shortened just by optimizing their route.

But that was long-distance stuff, thus quite probably a case of choosing which ports to visit, which national borders to violate. The trip from Earth to Vulcan would not be affected by such concerns.

Then again, warp is fast, and while a lot of people might travel between Earth and Vulcan (although we could argue all of the Vulcan stuff in Trek actually contradicts that idea!), people traveling from Earth to Beta Kappa Lambda would see no need to go to Vulcan first, but would take the direct route. Or choose out of several different port-by-port routes between Earth and the distant BKL.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MikeS]

The star systems of both Earth and Vulcan move, in relation to pretty much everything including each other: tomorrow, the direct line between them will be tens of thousands of kilometers to the side of today's line at the very least.

Travel between Vulcan and Earth? Probably plenty of ways to do it, not to mention (as noted above) that the planets and systems are always in motion meaning the route is going to be different -if only slightly- from day-to-day, even if subspace "travels with" normal space this could be enough to prevent the erosion of the barrier between space and subspace. But this corridor? There's only one way, regardless of what's going on on either side of it there's only one way between the two points.

Good points. I'd forgotten to factor gravity into the equation.

There were a few times in "Voyager" where their trip was shortened just by optimizing their route.

But that was long-distance stuff, thus quite probably a case of choosing which ports to visit, which national borders to violate. The trip from Earth to Vulcan would not be affected by such concern

I wonder if navigators in the 24th century still use planets, stars and blackholes to get a bit of a speed boost the way NASA and ESA do today with their probes.

 

[Timo]

I'd rule out the first two, as the impulse engines of the ship supposedly deal with accelerations in the range of hundreds or thousands of gees, and classic slingshotting will never give you as much speed change as half a minute at one quarter impulse...

However, dancing with black holes got Kirk from the vicinity of Starbase 9 to the atmosphere of Earth in no time flat in "Tomorrow is Yesterday". Might be tricky if it gets you two-three centuries in the past, but a daring skipper might use it in an emergency for a warp speed boost.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Seven of Five]

A very mediocre episode. I welcomed the attempt at doing a environmental story, but the whole thing was poorly conceived from the get go.

 

[JesterFace]

Weak episode playing with warp drive, a theory that affected every episode and series after it... and before too.

 

[suarezguy]

I thought the allegory itself was pretty interesting, it was well-done (even if somewhat obvious but not necessarily so) how both Picard and especially La Forge were really committed to space travel and crushed that they had been hurting space and would have to cut back, that story and the reactions were appropriate symbolism for what "getting off" carbon fuels would mean for a lot of advanced countries; the episode pretty effectively used Geordi overall ... and yet was still overall awful, with really painful technobabble and lack of urgency and agreed that there was not enough meaningful story and also too much padding.
The lack of later following-up/referencing was of course likely unintentional but it can be seen as indicating that even in the future environmental protection is a much lower priority than many other goals.

 

[RAMA]

I found the episode to be better than avg though not great. I felt the death of alien female scientist was unexpected and did lead to some real change.

Later, we did hear mention of the warp speed limit several times and led to USS voyager's variable warp geometry engines. Eventually we must assume they "fixed" the problem with the equivalent of a catalytic converter or the like.

 

[Timo]

The funny thing is, the Intrepid class of which Voyager is part already makes an appearance in this very episode - LaForge competes with the chief engineer of USS Intrepid in one of the many side plots...

Since the flapping nacelles are such a major feature of the Voyager design, it's a bit doubtful that the class leader Intrepid would have been built without that feature. It would then follow that the feature has nothing to do with warp pollution!

(Sure, there might exist another, older Intrepid at this time. But the timeline rather favors this being the lead ship of the new class. And would LaForge see fit to compete with the CEO of some obsolete old crate?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JesterFace]

When it comes to Voyager... how does the positioning of the nacelles help prevent spatial damage, and why do they have to fold at all... couldn't the nacelles just be in the same position the whole time... in a position where it's safe, why put them "down" at all?

 

[Timo]

We never heard that the flapping thing would have anything to do with warp pollution. And indeed every other starship design apparently avoids the pollution (or ignores it) without having the variable geometry.

But the odd thing is, the movement of the nacelles on the Voyager doesn't seem to do anything at all. As you say, the nacelles are always up when warping, and what else would warp engines be doing besides warping? So there seems to be no point in moving them down between warps.

But we might say that the whole point of the movement is the movement itself. Perhaps the ship goes to warp better when the warp nacelles squeeze together at the moment of start?

Or then we could say that the engines were designed to do something that required multiple different positions, and never got around to doing that, but by the time the idea was abandoned, the ship was already built the way it is. Perhaps there were supposed to be all sorts of in-between positions other than fully up and fully down? That was found not to work, but the design is hobbled by the need to have the nacelles up for high warp and down for low warp, and the only way to high warp is through low warp...

The third possibility is that the ship is working as planned - but has been built to be incapable of balanced impulse flight when the heavy warp coils are in the optimal position for warping. I mean, something gives this ship an edge over all others in terms of warp agility (mentioned in "Caretaker") and apparently also sustainable speed (often bragged about, even though the ship fails to perform when actually tasked). This might have been achieved through compromises that no other ship would stoop to.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Trekker4747]

FYI

I'll try and to do the next episode tomorrow or Sunday. Been a long last couple of weeks with things in the personal life, work life and, naturally, the holidays.