Transwarp Drive really a failure?

[think]

By current typo-warp-field creations we are on over 11 dimensional probability vector fields structured in non-groupings or possible neo-matrix non-groupings ..

___________still

Of course we are allowing for the null current and other non-typo field inconsistencies like the three-way and four way paradox of time shifts and trans-time shifts in being here there and everywhere.

___________still yet,

As with any given probable shifts in time that are in the inventions of itself can happen as often as this likes (add more details here) ,,, that is a given assertion right?

___________yet still,

But future details and past details have no more or less meaning than the flip of any given coin inside the new probability field definitions... and or so.

___________probability

As a nuance = new once into new twice. There are realities but neither are real enough for time travel when arguing that and agreeing and disagreeing are both irrelevant for the idea of duality is lost (totally lost) when every moving object is at a stand still.

___________actuals

post - pre post - post post = are also the same invents there of.

in time this has meaning as possible ideas for development and neither, as it is now.

going on...? further thru?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

By current typo-warp-field creations we are on over 11 dimensional probability vector fields structured in non-groupings or possible neo-matrix non-groupings ..

___________still

Of course we are allowing for the null current and other non-typo field inconsistencies like the three-way and four way paradox of time shifts and trans-time shifts in being here there and everywhere.

___________still yet,

As with any given probable shifts in time that are in the inventions of itself can happen as often as this likes (add more details here) ,,, that is a given assertion right?

___________yet still,

But future details and past details have no more or less meaning than the flip of any given coin inside the new probability field definitions... and or so.

___________probability

As a nuance = new once into new twice. There are realities but neither are real enough for time travel when arguing that and agreeing and disagreeing are both irrelevant for the idea of duality is lost (totally lost) when every moving object is at a stand still.

___________actuals

post - pre post - post post = are also the same invents there of.

in time this has meaning as possible ideas for development and neither, as it is now.

going on...? further thru?

 

[think]

That is a typical comment I have and keep to my self more so then is had by my discourse due to the translation factor in future studied pasts and future studied futures

ram bot-L Niven

transwarp conduits - voyager trek

time probability vector scopes are fundamentally based on future tools for learning about the future as applied to the past.

 

[Timo]

Yes, warp drive is really really fast. Subspace radio, not so much. And bureaucracy is slower still, especially in Starfleet.

This doesn't sound plausible in the slightest. Kirk is always contacting his bosses via subspace, and typically getting through - never sending couriers by warp. Indeed, a courier service is not indicated to exist. This alone should be proof enough that the delays in subspace comms are nothing compared to delays in warp travel - but also that they are insignificant and not worth circumventing via Pony Express type effort.

News travel effectively instantaneously, even if ships don't. And the distant settlements I spoke of cannot count on Starfleet being slow to react, because there's nothing absolute about that. The top speed of Starfleet ships they can count on, because there's nothing Starfleet can do about that even if they wanted to. (Sure, Kirk can defeat that by applying Inadvisable Speed, but that really doesn't seem to be the way he responds to crises usually.)

Warp clearly isn't fast enough for the UFP to go galactic. It does appear to be fast enough for the UFP to control its little niche between other local star empires, though. But only in the sense of the British Empire controlling its overseas colonies in the age of sail, although now with the twist that the Canucks can say "nyah, nyah" over wireless when seceding, or the tiny island of New New Newhampshire can report on local political upheavals in realtime but deliberately opts not to.

The major upside here is that this tells us nothing absolute about warp speeds, as we know nothing absolute about UFP dimensions. "We are on a thousand planets" may mean a tight cluster or something spanning five galactic groups, depending on how picky the humans/Feds are. Conversely, since we know little or nothing absolute about warp speeds, we can scale the UFP as we please.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tarek71]

Well I don't think all installments of Trek are necessarily in the same continuity/timeline/quantum reality so I am not overly concerned about making all 700 onscreen installments fit, exactly as scripted and depicted.

To the extent that I try to make any of them cohere, I retcon. In the case of Warp, I pick a scale that fits/is consistent with, at least some of the examples and that otherwise seems serviceable and then retcon all contrary examples.

For instance, if we say Kronos is 90 light years from Earth, and the NX-01 can indeed get there in 96 hours at something like Warp 4.5, then we consult possible scales to get as close a match as we can.

On a W^6 scale, traveling at Warp 4.5 for 96 hours would mean traveling about 90 light years! Boom! We got lucky! That's a near perfect fit.

Then comes the retconning. If we accept that W^6 is the scale, to travel 990.7 light years in under 12 hours would be Warp 9.56. Retconned! It wasn't 8.4, it was 9.56! Or we can keep 8.4 and retcon the distance. Easy breezy.

Or we can pick a different a different scale and retcon the 96 hour thing. In any case I like that better.

 

[Tim Walker]

With transwarp or slipstream, we should consider a new scale.

For example, imagine a ship that can attain Ludicrous Speed.....

 

[Tarek71]

Ha! Timo and I were just discussing Ludicrous Speed on another thread. Maybe that can be installed! As long as it doesn't make people into giant Salamanders, like "Threshold".

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Miscellanea:

The bonus bestowed on Enterprise were the new engines, which if I recall correctly, are the only things said to be "untested" in TMP.

Well, "The new shields held!" suggests another improvement not thoroughly tested yet, but otherwise, yes.

Two thoughts:

1. The "new shields" were powered through the new warp engines, just like the phasers. So, in that sense they were part of the package.

2. The "new" shields could just have been an upgrade over the old shields, with standard install on all Federation ships. It's akin to saying "The new windshield wipers worked!" New = 'new to you', not 'untested technology'. After all, no other Federation ship had been attacked by the cloud (except Epsilon IX, which likely doesn't have the armament/defenses of a starship).

 

[Tim Walker]

Ha! Timo and I were just discussing Ludicrous Speed on another thread. Maybe that can be installed! As long as it doesn't make people into giant Salamanders, like "Threshold".

That's not a problem, but you have to be careful if you put on the brakes.

Now the new scale:

1. Light Speed

2. Ridiculous Speed

3. Ludicrous Speed

4. Gone to Plaid

 

[Mytran]

Well I don't think all installments of Trek are necessarily in the same continuity/timeline/quantum reality so I am not overly concerned about making all 700 onscreen installments fit, exactly as scripted and depicted.

Thing is, if we dismiss some episodes or series as happening in other quantum realities, there's nothing to stop us doing that with ALL 700 episodes - why not? It's a neat and effective way to deal with any inconsistencies between any episodes.

It's also deeply narratively unsatisfying, IMO.

 

[Tarek71]

I appreciate that view. But for me it makes it is more satisfying to reclassify and retcon. We never have to wonder about female Captains in the 2260s Starfleet, for instance. Not that there aren't ways to rationalize these things. I just don't bother. There were loads of female captains in Starfleet in the 2260s. A ton of them.

All suggestions to the contrary are wrong. I don't have to spin the wording of this or that character in this or that episode. It's wrong and that's that. I just mentally erase those lines, and replace them with different ones.

 

[Mytran]

Well I don't think all installments of Trek are necessarily in the same continuity/timeline/quantum reality so I am not overly concerned about making all 700 onscreen installments fit, exactly as scripted and depicted.

I appreciate that view. But for me it makes it is more satisfying to reclassify and retcon.

Now I'm confused! Do you favour using multiple parallel timelines or prefer to reinterpret and retcon what happened instead? From your first post (and from your many other posts on the subject) I thought it was the latter.

For me, I would rather not resort to the "last week's episode/series happened in a slightly different timeline" approach unless it is explicitly stated as such onscreen.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yes, warp drive is really really fast. Subspace radio, not so much. And bureaucracy is slower still, especially in Starfleet.

This doesn't sound plausible in the slightest. Kirk is always contacting his bosses via subspace, and typically getting through - never sending couriers by warp.

Kirk works for Starfleet, he gets to use the direct line (It's GOOD to be the Captain!). The efficacy of civilian channels is almost certainly far more limited.

Really, the EXISTENCE of small civilian vessels (and even the "old support couriers" the Maquis use) is an indicator that in some situations it is actually easier to physically pack up a ship and fly from one place to another than it is to power up a transmitter and try to broadcast it, especially in areas very far from the normal subspace relay network or in areas where local signal traffic is being monopolized by Starfleet/official communications.

And this before you consider that TOS makes no mention of subspace relays at all, and such a thing may not have been widespread practice in the 23rd century for technical/logistical reasons.

Indeed, a courier service is not indicated to exist.

It wouldn't need to be. If Jake Sisko wants to send a letter to his girlfriend on Setlik-III and doesn't want to pay the extra 60 credits to use the subspace transmitter, he'll buy Kassidy Yates some cupcakes and have her deliver the message when she gets there. There's your courier service.

Of course, Ben Sisko doesn't have that problem since command staff get top priority on all station connection requests. Rank has its privileges!

Warp clearly isn't fast enough for the UFP to go galactic.

It is in TOS. And more importantly, subspace radio is still limited (especially so in "Balance of Terror") and the effective range of sensors is also relatively short.

So a thinly-spread Federation could very well be the case in a non-retconned TOS. It's only TNG+ that makes it definitively otherwise.

Well I don't think all installments of Trek are necessarily in the same continuity/timeline/quantum reality so I am not overly concerned about making all 700 onscreen installments fit, exactly as scripted and depicted.

Thing is, if we dismiss some episodes or series as happening in other quantum realities, there's nothing to stop us doing that with ALL 700 episodes - why not? It's a neat and effective way to deal with any inconsistencies between any episodes.

It's also deeply narratively unsatisfying, IMO.

Narrative satisfaction only really applies within a TV series or a collection of closely related ones. TNG/VOY/DS9 can be said to be closely related because they overlap to a large degree, feature many of the same characters and the same events, so for narrative consistency you could take them to be part of a single quantum reality.

Enterprise doesn't have this problem; its only direct callbacks to other series is the Defiant's appearance in the Mirrorverse and some other bullshit nobody wants to talk about.

So Enterprise can be neatly split from the TNG+ continuity without any real problems (in fact, doing so would SOLVE a lot more problems than it would cause).

Splitting TOS and the first six movies from the rest of the continuity would be the easiest by far; aside from a few interesting "Crossover" moments (e.g. Scotty on the Jenolan, Guinan on the Enterprise-B) they're at least as divergent as the DC and Marvel universes.

 

[Timo]

Kirk works for Starfleet, he gets to use the direct line (It's GOOD to be the Captain!). The efficacy of civilian channels is almost certainly far more limited.

Possibly so. But that wouldn't stop the Mister Lurries of the universe from abusing emergency channels - and response time to emergencies is the pressing issue here.

And this before you consider that TOS makes no mention of subspace relays at all, and such a thing may not have been widespread practice in the 23rd century for technical/logistical reasons.

Limiting this to TOS doesn't seem attractive as we discuss longterm effects (originally of transwarp) within the wider Trek universe. And ENT shows the tech exists, while also suggesting that older and wiser cultures have spread theirs across the playing field - and later will become part of the UFP.

A fairly dense network that extends to the limits of civilized space would be a nice fit for "A Piece of the Action" where we hear that "Your system is on the outer reaches of the galaxy; they didn't have subspace communication in those days". Major worlds would get insta-comms; outlying colonies might get worse service, but only "the outer reaches" really suffer from practical commlags.

There's your courier service.

And that is the service that is not indicated to exist: the arrival of traders is not treated as the arrival of news.

Would be fun if it were; we get too few glimpses to the civilian world in any case. But DS9 gave us enough insight, showing that messages arrive via subspace and goods travel by ship.

It is in TOS. And more importantly, subspace radio is still limited (especially so in "Balance of Terror")

I don't see evidence of galactic reach in Kirk's assorted "we're from the other side of the universe" claims to primitives yet. Kirk mills around the bright local stars whose names are household, never "really" doing more than about a thousand lightyears between eps, either stardate- or airdate-wise.

And his exploration into the unknown includes finding mysteries at Pollux, so "there are uncharted worlds remaining because the galaxy has zillions of them, not because Kirk's ship is too slow to have reached all of them yet" doesn't carry the weight you might expect. If Kirk could go to the Lesser Magellanics and back in a weekend, then even a Starfleet with just twelve FTL vessels would already have visited Pollux and had the obligatory handshake.

And this "Balance of Terror" thing? The hours-long lag is still there in the TNG era Romulan episode "The Defector". It doesn't appear to be something related to technology advances, and might well be related to the inability of Starfleet to sow a dense network of relays near or through enemy territory. Kirk gets to speak with home base from across supposedly greater distances in eps like "Alternative Factor" (where said discussion also indicates rapid overall communications across the entire UFP and beyond). Yes, yes, top government channels and all - but it doesn't affect the issue of emergency calls, real or misused.

So a thinly-spread Federation could very well be the case in a non-retconned TOS.

Oh, I wholly agree with the idea of a thinly-spread outer colonization zone of the Federation, even in the later eras. These separatists would want to put good distance between themselves and everybody who doesn't share their views, and they can use lowish warp for getting good separation if they still use cryosleep for it as per the story about Kim's ancestor in 2210. It's the Denevas of the UFP that most affect the concept of communications. Including Deneva itself, and the ham radio of Sam Kirk there.

Narrative satisfaction only really applies within a TV series or a collection of closely related ones.

Hmm. If we don't treat all of Trek as closely related, IMHO we lose a great deal. It's the very separation between the various shows and movies, conceptually, airdate-wise, creator- and performer-wise, that enriches the "Trek universe" where mere human imagination would fall flat.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Kirk works for Starfleet, he gets to use the direct line (It's GOOD to be the Captain!). The efficacy of civilian channels is almost certainly far more limited.

Possibly so. But that wouldn't stop the Mister Lurries of the universe from abusing emergency channels

It's not the abuse of their channels that's the issue, it's their availability in the first place. Not every colony in the Federation is going to have a transmitter capable of hooking up realtime communications at that distance, and even the ones that do can only transmit so much data in a given period of time.

Hell, you can't even get cell phone service in parts of Montana. A sixty-year-old developing colony with a population of a few hundred rugged libertarians isn't going to have "build a giant long-range radiotelescope" at the top of their priorities list.

Limiting this to TOS doesn't seem attractive as we discuss longterm effects (originally of transwarp) within the wider Trek universe.

The "wider trek universe" doesn't preserve the long-term effects of ANYTHING that happened in TOS, so this is no loss.

Narrative satisfaction only really applies within a TV series or a collection of closely related ones.

Hmm. If we don't treat all of Trek as closely related, IMHO we lose a great deal.

I can think of no other scifi franchise in movies or television where this is actually the case. And even in Star Trek, the advent of the reboot films means it no longer is.

So we're past that point.

 

[Tarek71]

Well I don't think all installments of Trek are necessarily in the same continuity/timeline/quantum reality so I am not overly concerned about making all 700 onscreen installments fit, exactly as scripted and depicted.

I appreciate that view. But for me it makes it is more satisfying to reclassify and retcon.

Now I'm confused! Do you favour using multiple parallel timelines or prefer to reinterpret and retcon what happened instead? From your first post (and from your many other posts on the subject) I thought it was the latter.

For me, I would rather not resort to the "last week's episode/series happened in a slightly different timeline" approach unless it is explicitly stated as such onscreen.

It's a bit of both. We can retcon things in alternate realities too. It might be just different kinds of retcons.

In the previous example, I think the overwhelming maleness of leadership in TOS reflects a 1960s TV show. There was IIRC just one female Lt Cmdr and ever other female officer was Lt or below. We can retcon that. It's not a matter of saying that there is an alternate quantum reality where women aren't captains. Maybe there is. But I prefer to just say that there were, and all suggestions to the contrary are wrong.

 

[Mytran]

Well, there was certainly a preponderance of male characters in the TV series, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the tiny slice of the Trek universe that we saw on board the Enterprise each week was representative of their society as a whole. We never saw toilets either, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist! Something like this (assuming that there were numerous female command level officers, just not onscreen) is hardly the biggest retcon out there.

And no, I don't consider Crazy Janet Lester's words authoritative

 

[Go-Captain]

Really, the EXISTENCE of small civilian vessels (and even the "old support couriers" the Maquis use) is an indicator that in some situations it is actually easier to physically pack up a ship and fly from one place to another than it is to power up a transmitter and try to broadcast it, especially in areas very far from the normal subspace relay network or in areas where local signal traffic is being monopolized by Starfleet/official communications.

It has to be noted, even today physical media is faster than wired and wireless transmission. An old experiment shows, for that time, a snail pulling a DVD being faster than downloading things. The density of physical media is just so high that even if it moves at a far slower speed relative to transmission based communication, it still moves more data in less time. Today that disc might be a blueray disk, or flash drive, or tape. So having couriers is not a point against Federation subspace communications, physical transmission is just faster.

Physical transmission is also more secure in its own ways. The physical transmission can only be intercepted by physical means, so it can be a more difficult endeavor. Unless someone puts the data on a network connected machine, or leaves their door unlocked.

 

[Timo]

Not every colony in the Federation is going to have a transmitter capable of hooking up realtime communications at that distance, and even the ones that do can only transmit so much data in a given period of time.

The case of Deneva is especially interesting here. Did the official colony have poor communications when Sam Kirk had a private subspace set? How privileged is a subspace ham enthusiast? Why would subspace transceivers be difficult to come by, and why would this matter in colonies that no doubt would be part of a network of relays in any case?

If we can explain Deneva, then the "comms are slow" explanation becomes redundant, as it can't explain Deneva.

The "wider trek universe" doesn't preserve the long-term effects of ANYTHING that happened in TOS, so this is no loss.

Well, it invalidates this whole thread, so I'm reluctant to lose it here. Whether TOS is worth anything without its context in general is something for everybody to choose for themselves, but "transwarp drive really a failure?" can't be discussed without the context.

It has to be noted, even today physical media is faster than wired and wireless transmission.

That's no physical constant, though. At times, it has certainly been faster to send messages of meaningful length via semaphore, telegraph or radio than via physical messenger. Today, "meaningful messages" just tend to be fairly big packages - but that's more a matter of poor packaging. A good, steady and fast if narrow stream of data can quite plausibly outdo teradumps of data traveling between continents in somebody's aircar or supercavitating sub; it depends wholly on how that data is made use of.

The physical transmission can only be intercepted by physical means, so it can be a more difficult endeavor.

But physical means are available to all sorts of lowlife, and easily tracked by same, whereas a datastream is a fleeting, temporary phenomenon that may well escape the attention of said lowlife (compare to couriers on motorbikes vs. radio messages on secret frequencies - as applies to field conditions, not cities, of course!). And hacking into the data takes skill no matter what the form of conveyance.

Would it be easier to notice that a physical data package has been intercepted and compromised than to notice that a datastream has? This might be the factor favoring physical dispatches. This, and the fact that a physical dispatch is a point target while a datastream is a line target, therefore theoretically easier to hit, at least in normal space (subspace messages may obey different rules of geometry, though).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Not every colony in the Federation is going to have a transmitter capable of hooking up realtime communications at that distance, and even the ones that do can only transmit so much data in a given period of time.

The case of Deneva is especially interesting here. Did the official colony have poor communications when Sam Kirk had a private subspace set?

Did Sam Kirk have a set capable of setting up a realtime voice communication link with Earth?

Why would subspace transceivers be difficult to come by

They're not. Just really really BIG ones that channel enough power to make direct real time communications with planets tens of light years away.

Kind of like how you can buy a walkie talkie from radio shack, but a deep space radio telescope capable of sending signals to Voyager-II would be harder to come by.

Well, it invalidates this whole thread

No, it provides a possible explanation for the "transwarp problem" between TOS and TNG: there is no problem, because they're separate universes.

Transwarp succeeded in the TOS/movieverse, was never even tried in the Spinoff verse. That's a possible explanation, and all things being equal, is actually the least problematic one.