• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

You are the Captain 04

Use calculations of timewarp around the gas giant to go back five minutes several times over until there are a fleet of my ship to ward off the Orions.
That's an amusing image, but it wouldn't work, since the original ship would have to keep going back in time to ensure the current ship's existence.

Although, if you had the ability to tell multiple versions of your ship from alternate timelines to converge in a singular timeline...
 
That's an amusing image, but it wouldn't work, since the original ship would have to keep going back in time to ensure the current ship's existence.

Although, if you had the ability to tell multiple versions of your ship from alternate timelines to converge in a singular timeline...
Yeah, probably. I wrote a fanfic along this backward multiplying once ("Enmity") and I have no idea if it makes sense. :lol:
 
Yeah, probably. I wrote a fanfic along this backward multiplying once ("Enmity") and I have no idea if it makes sense. :lol:
So you can't have the same iteration of the ship keep traveling back into the past to create more ships, because the original ship has to be the one that first travels into the past. However, the second ship could then go back in time to create another in the same timespan, ad infinitum, and for a certain amount of time I suppose they could all coexist, but in the end there's still just the one ship, the 'most recent' and oldest one.

Present: Ship X exists by itself.
Present + One Year: Ship X travels back to...
Present: Ship X1 (still the original ship) joins ship X.
Present + One Year (redux): Ship X travels back as per the original loop. Ship X1 travels back to...
Present: Now you have Ship X, Ship X1, and Ship X2. The second two are created by Ship X's loops.
Present + One Year (redux): Ship X and Ship X1 have to travel back in time to become ships X1 and X2.
 
I would leave. I'm not going to risk causing an interstellar incident or even outright war with the Orions nor any lives of my crew. The Orions are not attacking me, after all, and we don't have any kind of treaty with the aliens to protect them, so...
 
the second ship could then go back in time to create another in the same timespan, ad infinitum, and for a certain amount of time I suppose they could all coexist,
Yeah, this! This is my solution. Then we all get shawarma.
 
So you can't have the same iteration of the ship keep traveling back into the past to create more ships, because the original ship has to be the one that first travels into the past. However, the second ship could then go back in time to create another in the same timespan, ad infinitum, and for a certain amount of time I suppose they could all coexist, but in the end there's still just the one ship, the 'most recent' and oldest one.

Present: Ship X exists by itself.
Present + One Year: Ship X travels back to...
Present: Ship X1 (still the original ship) joins ship X.
Present + One Year (redux): Ship X travels back as per the original loop. Ship X1 travels back to...
Present: Now you have Ship X, Ship X1, and Ship X2. The second two are created by Ship X's loops.
Present + One Year (redux): Ship X and Ship X1 have to travel back in time to become ships X1 and X2.
Yeah, but then if the Orions open fire and happen to destroy the “earliest” iteration of the ship first, don’t the rest all disappear? 🫠
 
I'd just leave the situation alone. I didn't create it. Who sets up a sleeper ship to orbit for tens of thousands of years with no means of defense or even automatically waking the crew if there's a problem? Maybe they have such a mechanism and I just haven't seen it work yet. Going to the defense of someone else is not self-defense, especially if there's no alliance with them.
 
I'd be interested to know why the alien civilization chose to do it this way. I mean, exposing your settlers apparently without means of defenses to potentially aggressive species for untold millennia. I might try to wake a few of them up, just to find out.
 
Final thing I'd try is sitting in a folding chair backwards with a baseball cap, also backwards, hailing them with a, "Hey, man. Hey. Not cool."
 
I'd open hailing frequencies to try one more time and say:

Attention Orion Privateer. This is the captain of <starship name> .

We assume you are here with malicious intent, to either strip this vessel of its advanced cryogenic technology and other technologies, and sell the crew into slavery for profit.

We cannot allow this to happen. We of the planet Earth believe in freedom, democracy, the right to self-determination of species and noninterference and we'll die to defend those principles if need be.

<short pause>

Also, you should know I have a personal stake in this which will make me fight all the harder. Bringing that many slaves on the market would depreciate their value which wouldn't be good for my massive stocks in that market. And I also wouldn't like my privately owned cryogenic company to founder because of the sudden introduction of a more advanced alien technology.
 
Yeah, but then if the Orions open fire and happen to destroy the “earliest” iteration of the ship first, don’t the rest all disappear? 🫠
Logically, yes. But if they were going to do that then the 'other' ships would never exist in the first place. :p

Or, if there's a multiverse, the earliest iteration could travel into a timeline where the ship was destroyed. :p
 
Not an option you gave but I would try and wait it out to force the Orions to act first and use the time to study the ship more to see if it had its own defenses or a way to beam them onboard.

But, if I had to pick one of the options now, then I would have to leave them. I'm assuming there is a bigger reason why I was told not to engage and I doubt the ship would have lasted this long without any defenses.
 
I doubt the ship would have lasted this long without any defenses.
The moment you fire on the Orions, you'd probably wind up activating a proximity sensor that auto-defends the sleeper ship from both of you. You might find yourselves on the same side, even as you try to stop the Orions from simply destroying the sleepers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kkt
The moment you fire on the Orions, you'd probably wind up activating a proximity sensor that auto-defends the sleeper ship from both of you. You might find yourselves on the same side, even as you try to stop the Orions from simply destroying the sleepers.
Good point but I meant if it could defend itself if left alone. Surely other ships must have been interested before yet the sleeper ship remains.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top