USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?

[Belz...]

Sorry to bring this up again since it seems the discussion has moved on but, one important fact missing from the 'transwarp didn't work' argument is that it did work.

Captain Stile's said, paraphrased, If they try to get away with warp drive they're really in for a shock. We see the transwarp systems come online and the computer even audible confirms it is ready to go.*

The only reason it didn't work in ST3 is because Scotty sabotaged that circuit by simply removing some chips. (*which if we really want to pick at something - what about the Excelsior computer not discovering the missing chips during start up???)

So what about after that, was TWD completely scrapped simply because someone removing some chips renders it useless? I doubt it. Future ships clearly somehow managed to achieve greater warp factors and TWD is probably the reason why.

Oh, and what about the Vengeance... in my head canon Khan gave that ship TWD.

Agreed about the Vengeance. That sure sounds like some sort of Transwarp tech. But I have no idea why that technology wouldn't have been used later after III. I'm just going with A) the lack of canon evidence that it was B) the fact that VOY brought the tech back and C) the fact that supplementary (non-canon) materials by people involved with the show confirms this.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Sorry to bring this up again since it seems the discussion has moved on but, one important fact missing from the 'transwarp didn't work' argument is that it did work.

Captain Stile's said, paraphrased, If they try to get away with warp drive they're really in for a shock. We see the transwarp systems come online and the computer even audible confirms it is ready to go.*

The only reason it didn't work in ST3 is because Scotty sabotaged that circuit by simply removing some chips. (*which if we really want to pick at something - what about the Excelsior computer not discovering the missing chips during start up???)

So what about after that, was TWD completely scrapped simply because someone removing some chips renders it useless? I doubt it. Future ships clearly somehow managed to achieve greater warp factors and TWD is probably the reason why.

That's not what happened. Transwarp was never established as working in TSFS the way that Starfleet engineers expected and hoped it would, based on the results of whatever earlier test flights and simulations they had performed.

Styles was clearly confident that it would work, but the trials of the technology in Excelsior hadn't begun by that point, they were to start the next day. When Styles gives his order to "Execute," you can see an unmistakable hint that he's still not completely certain it's all going to work. You don't have trials for something that you know already works 100%. Plus, Kirk called it "the great experiment," and Scotty didn't seem sold on the idea that it was going to pan out as Starfleet engineers expected.

KIRK: My friends, the great experiment. The Excelsior, ready for trial runs.
SULU: She's supposed to have transwarp drive.
SCOTT: Aye. And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon.

http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie3.html​

So, your statement here is factually incorrect:

it did work.

Whether it worked eventually after they repaired Scotty's sabotage is other question, one that hasn't been answered canonically AFAIK. My head-canon based on what I know currently is that it didn't pan out as expected (IOW, Scotty was right) and correction of warp theory to accommodate for the failure led to the recalibration of the warp scale that occurred between TOS and TNG.

 

[Kemaiku]

Recalibration of the warp scale that occurred between TOS and TNG.

Which Enterprise and Discovery ignore ever happened. And also never mentioned in canon.

 

[Tuskin38]

is that it did work.

There is no canon evidence of that.

 

[Lord Garth]

Going back to what I used to think before any prequels, I thought it was odd that things went from how they looked in TOS to how they looked in TMP in just a few years. I rationalized it at the time as the TMP look of things was around during the TOS Era, we just didn't see it.

In the DVD for Back to the Future, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale talk about how when they re-created 1955, they couldn't just recreate 1955 because not everything would be from that year. They had to recreate older stuff as well. They had to recreate stuff from the '30s, '40s, and earlier '50s that would still be around in 1955.

The Enterprise, being launched in the 2240s, and being an older ship, feeds into this idea. What we see in TOS, even at the time of TOS, was "older".

 

[Groppler Zorn]

I can see how the cloaks are an issue, but why the Romulans themselves?

Sorry I wasn’t clear - I meant cloaks generally (I.e. suliban) then romulans having cloaks as well. I actually thought the romulans themselves were dealt with quite well on Enterprise.

Also it wasn’t a D7, it was a K’tinga, there are some differences. They used the same model in voyager in place of an actual D7 as well.

Man alive that’s even worse then.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Which Enterprise and Discovery ignore ever happened. And also never mentioned in canon.

Sorry, I meant some time in the 78 years in-universe between the events of TOS and TNG. There's no reason why ENT and DSC would use the TNG warp scale where warp ten is unreachable.

On the other hand, it is canonical that the TOS NCC-1701 could go faster than warp ten. It did on several different occasions. That's an obvious continuity issue that can be explained only by the premise that the warp scales are different between TOS and TNG (DS9 and VOY), regardless of whether they said canonically that it got recalibrated at some point in those 78 years.

 

[Kemaiku]

Sorry, I meant some time in the 78 years in-universe between the events of TOS and TNG. There's no reason why ENT and DSC would use the TNG warp scale where warp ten is unreachable.

On the other hand, it is canonical that the TOS NCC-1701 could go faster than warp ten. It did on several different occasions. That's an obvious continuity issue that can be explained only by the premise that the warp scales are different between TOS and TNG (DS9 and VOY), regardless of whether they said canonically that it got recalibrated at some point in those 78 years.

TOS went first, everything else has been sorting out it's messes. The NX-01's speed was always more consistent with the TNG scale from it's opening episode, with some of the quoted speed/arrival times lining up with it too well. From what I read on this forum back when the show aired

Discovery has them belting around at those speeds as well, getting from Earth to the Klingon border as fast or faster than the NX-01.

Nobody on the production teams cares about a "scale difference", from TNG onwards a new standard from 1-10 and how fast they could get there has been the norm.

 

[Longinus]

On the other hand, it is canonical that the TOS NCC-1701 could go faster than warp ten. It did on several different occasions. That's an obvious continuity issue that can be explained only by the premise that the warp scales are different between TOS and TNG (DS9 and VOY), regardless of whether they said canonically that it got recalibrated at some point in those 78 years.

Indeed. And this is basically the evidence for the scale being changed somehow.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

TOS went first, everything else has been sorting out it's messes. The NX-01's speed was always more consistent with the TNG scale from it's opening episode, with some of the quoted speed/arrival times lining up with it too well. From what I read on this forum back when the show aired

Discovery has them belting around at those speeds as well, getting from Earth to the Klingon border as fast or faster than the NX-01.

Nobody on the production teams cares about a "scale difference", from TNG onwards a new standard from 1-10 and how fast they could get there has been the norm.

Yeah, OK, I see what you mean, but I actually think we're discussing two different things.

Every ship always moved at the speed of plot in all series. The warp scales were never (or at most rarely) adhered to literally as they were formulated behind-the-scenes. These behind-the-scenes formulas exist primarily as a sort of prop to make the shows seem scientific, but these props are composed of pure fiction.

What you're saying, as I read it, is that the shows produced after TNG, ENT and DSC included, inherit the expectations of how fast one can get around the quadrant from TNG rather than from TOS. I agree completely.

The recalibration of the warp scale thing isn't directly related to that, but rather it's from the introduction of asymptotic behavior approaching warp ten, making warp ten literally infinite speed. At lower warp factors the two scales are approximately equal, at least behind the scenes [ed - and at least in term of order of magnitude].

 

[shapeshifter]

I agree, no one ever actually said, "it works", but the onscreen evidence clearly leads us to think we're supposed to believe it does.

If it failed during trials then why would they even be bothering to initiate it and why Stile's statements and why Scotty actions to take it out of operation.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

why Stile's statements and why Scotty actions to take it out of operation.

(Styles.)

Scotty stopped Excelsior from even jumping to warp, or otherwise she would have followed anyway. Even without transwarp drive, Excelsior outclassed the Enterprise in every conceivable way, and she had to be disabled, period, for their mission to succeed. That's what Scotty did.

 

[David cgc]

TOS went first, everything else has been sorting out it's messes. The NX-01's speed was always more consistent with the TNG scale from it's opening episode, with some of the quoted speed/arrival times lining up with it too well. From what I read on this forum back when the show aired

No, the quoted time ("Neptune and back in six minutes," warp 4.4 is 30 million kilometers per second.) matched the TOS warp scale, not the TNG one. Warp 4.4^3, the TOS formula, is about 85c, or 25,482,359 kps (close enough, rounding to the nearest ten million). Neptune is about 4.4 billion kilometers from Earth, so that's 2.8 minutes one-way, or 5 3/4 minutes round-trip. Again, close enough for a show trying to be a little less Star-Trek-formal with facts and figures.

On the TNG scale, warp 4.5 is 150 times the speed of light, or 45 million kps. No easy way to get that down to thirty in conversation. Likewise, it cuts the round-trip time to 3 1/4 minutes.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

No, the quoted time ("Neptune and back in six minutes," warp 4.4 is 30 million kilometers per second.) matched the TOS warp scale, not the TNG one. Warp 4.4^3, the TOS formula, is about 85c, or 25,482,359 kps (close enough, rounding to the nearest ten million). Neptune is about 4.4 billion kilometers from Earth, so that's 2.8 minutes one-way, or 5 3/4 minutes round-trip. Again, close enough for a show trying to be a little less Star-Trek-formal with facts and figures.

On the TNG scale, warp 4.5 is 150 times the speed of light, or 45 million kps. No easy way to get that down to thirty in conversation. Likewise, it cuts the round-trip time to 3 1/4 minutes.

Yeah, I said approximately equal at low warp factors upthread, but that's clearly true only at the level of order of magnitude.

 

[Belz...]

Going back to what I used to think before any prequels, I thought it was odd that things went from how they looked in TOS to how they looked in TMP in just a few years. I rationalized it at the time as the TMP look of things was around during the TOS Era, we just didn't see it.

In the DVD for Back to the Future, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale talk about how when they re-created 1955, they couldn't just recreate 1955 because not everything would be from that year. They had to recreate older stuff as well. They had to recreate stuff from the '30s, '40s, and earlier '50s that would still be around in 1955.

The Enterprise, being launched in the 2240s, and being an older ship, feeds into this idea. What we see in TOS, even at the time of TOS, was "older".

Good points. The TOS style may as well date from the late 30s.

 

[TrickyDickie]

"Canon" is, in many ways, just a slippery slope to nowhere. Especially where continuity is concerned.

Case in point:

2001: A Space Odyssey

It began with Arthur C. Clarke writing his short story 'The Sentinel'.

Next was Stanley Kubrick making the film, with input from Clarke.

Then, soon after the film was out, Clarke expanded his story into a novel.

It was not a novelization of the film. There are significant differences between the two.

The result is endless arguing about what is canon.

Some say 'The Sentinel'.

Some say the film.

Some say the novel.

Some say that it's all three and that the only issue is discontinuity among them.

The interesting thing which relates to Star Trek is that the novel was produced by Clarke, who was the same one that created the original story, 'The Sentinel'. Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek, but his novel of TMP is not considered canon because it differs significantly from the film. If Clarke's novel is canon for 2001, but Roddenberry's novel is not canon for Star Trek, then there is an odd double-standard at work and "canon" is quite meaningless.

It's one thing to say that novels by writers who 'came after' are not canon. But to say that Roddenberry's novel, and Dorothy Fontana's novel....work by two who contributed heavily to the start of the whole thing....are not canon is more problematic, especially in light of Clarke's 2001 novel.

Clarke's novel being considered canon demonstrates that "canon" is NOT limited to "only what is shown onscreen".

Marvel Comics, in 1976, decided that canon for 2001 was the film, plus some dialogue from Clarke's novel, plus some elements taken from a first draft script of the film.

"Canon" should not be taken too seriously, in my opinion, because it is not applied consistently across the spectrum of fictional works in all media.

 

[Tuskin38]

Man alive that’s even worse then.

This was the ship that was designed and built for the episode, but was never actually used because reasons.
https://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/D4_class_(concept)

 

[lawman]

FWIW, that D4 is a John Eaves design that I actually kinda like. (Maybe because it's not a Starfleet ship?...)

 

[Gonzo]

This was the ship that was designed and built for the episode, but was never actually used because reasons.
https://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/D4_class_(concept)

It looks good and is easily identified as a D type ship, I would have been fine with even older D5 ships but we didn't even get that.

 

[UssGlenn]

Neptune is about 4.4 billion kilometers from Earth, so that's 2.8 minutes one-way, or 5 3/4 minutes round-trip.

Shouldn't this vary wildly depending on where the 2 planets are in their orbits? Or is Earth's orbit so small compared to Neptune that it doesn't matter for our purposes?