Flare Sci-Fi Forums: My Own Personal "Star Trek VI" Mystery Solved

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Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :

During one of my early viewings of "Star Trek VI," I was bothered by the time it took "Enterprise" to rendezvous with the Klingon ship. If I recall correctly, they leave Spacedock, "Enterprise" is shown cruising through space, Captain Kirk makes his infamous log entry (a voiceover begins during the "Enterprise" cruising shot), Valeris sucks up to both Kirk and Spock (with "Enterprise" cruising in between meetings), and they arrive at the rendezvous. That whole sequence did not seem to involve enough travel time, to me. Finally, "Enterprise" explains it all: their destination was less than four days away at warp 5.

Seriously, though, I think a plausible explanation is that we did not see the entire trip from Spacedock to "Kronos One." So why do many persons assume that the four day travel time, spoken aboard "Enterprise," was the length of the entire travel time? Why not assume that they had been out there for weeks before that number was given? Or am I missing a journey time given on earth?

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

"Four days there, four days back." Not much room for negotiation.

Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :

I stand corrected, then, if that line was spoken on Earth. If not, there would be room for negotiation, albeit contrived.

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Unfortunately, it was indeed spoken before the launch of the ship.

ST VI seems to show that the Klingons were encountered in the depths of "wilderness", since Kirk makes the point that one can enjoy illegal pleasures like Romulan ale there. But one could say that wilderness does not require distance. The Klingon border, no matter how proximate to Earth, would be wild enough...

Kirk also makes a reference to the ship being a thousand lightyears into space. This doesn't seem to be a four-day trip by any of the scales of measurement used in other Trek. However, one could say that Kirk in fact refers to the distance between the meeting place and Romulus, the source of the illegal drink, not to the distance between the meeting place and Earth, the source of the rules that declare the drink illegal.

Perhaps Romulus indeed is a thousand lightyears away from Earth? That part hasn't been contradicted yet - in fact, up until "First Contact", all TOS and TNG references to the zone stressed the fact that starships there were pretty far removed from their commanding organizations. TNG episodes *constantly* referred to SUBSPACE COMM DELAYS there, something we almost never heard of in any other context!

So Romulus might in fact be very, very distant from Earth. The short trip from the Neutral Zone to Earth in "First Contact" would be a single anomaly to be explained away. Perhaps that trip in fact took several weeks? Perhaps the ship was originally patrolling a corner of the RNZ that was far closer to Earth than most of the Romulan Star Empire? Perhaps the Enterprise-E is far faster than her predecessors?

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Michael_T (Member # 144) on :

Maybe the Enterprise-E had a different warp engine that makes it the fastest ship at the time.

Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :

quote:
I was bothered by the time it took "Enterprise" to rendezvous with the Klingon ship. If I recall correctly, they leave Spacedock, "Enterprise" is shown cruising through space, Captain Kirk makes his infamous log entry (a voiceover begins during the "Enterprise" cruising shot), Valeris sucks up to both Kirk and Spock (with "Enterprise" cruising in between meetings), and they arrive at the rendezvous. That whole sequence did not seem to involve enough travel time, to me.

This is a joke, right? You are aware that movies don't necessarily show every single second of elapsed time (notable exceptions being Mike Fiffis' Timecode and Nick of Time starring Johnny Depp)? And that the journey to said rendezvous did not actually take just the 5-odd minutes which it did on screen? And this has bothered you for 10 years until some crummy TV show written by a guy who's probably never even SEEN Star Trek VI says "oh, it's OK, the Klingon homeworld is 4 days away at Warp 5?"

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

If we want to argue the timing cues of ST6 in detail, we don't have to have direct evidence on Kirk's outward journey from Earth to the rendezvous point. We might instead consider the fact that Kirk was delivered from there to Klingon courts (supposedly on the homeworld, although only a closer look at Operation Retrieve charts would ascertain that) within a period of time shorter than it took Starfleet to order Spock to return to Earth. Kirk was further delivered to Rura Penthe before Starfleet began to doubt Spock's report that the Enterprise was undergoing some sort of engine repairs. Finally, he ended up at *Khitomer* before Starfleet became overtly worried about what the Enterprise was doing. This would seem to be a relatively short period of time, apparently less than a week.

Within the same timespan, the Klingon, Romulan and Vulcan ambassadors, the UFP President and the Starfleet top brass all drifted from Earth to Khitomer. Azetbuhr in turn made a trip to Khitomer from the rendezvous spot in the same time, presumably (but not necessarily) via the homeworld. Chang did, too, and had a side tour to Rura Penthe to boot. So those distances in turn cannot be too long, either.

Putting 10 and 10 together the way Bynars do it, it does seem as if the travel time from Earth to the rendezvous spot and onwards to Qo'noS cannot be significantly over a week, even at non-emergency speeds. So the travel time estimate of "Broken Bow" should roughly hold, assuming Archer floored it and Kirk (on his initial outward leg) did not. Naturally, it doesn't fare well with the "cubic warp scale" if we want to calculate distances, but then again, that scale never made any real sense anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :

Now lets figure out why Spock said that Praxis exploded 'two months ago' and the retards on Voyager producing Flashback said it was two days before the assassinations!

Oh wait, i just explained... Voyager was produced by retards..

Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :

I see that Vogon Poet is the official welcome wagon here at Flare; he has rudely patronized me at two posts, now. Since I am new here may I ask if Vogon Poet is the resident village idiot? He seems to have a limited sense of humor, since my post was somewhat of a joke (the title, alone, should indicate its lack of seriousness). Secondly, he asks a question that I, indeed answer within the original post; did I not say that I thought some travel time took place offscreen? Finally, his lack of objectivity is self apparent. So, correct me if I am wrong, but the evidence seemed to fit: Vogon Poet is the Flare idiot.

Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :

Regarding Kirk's "thousand light-years" line: I always took that as a somewhat sarcastic remark, though, since Timo has demonstrated that Klingon space was not really that far in "Star Trek VI," and "Enterprise" confirms this, it is, in hindsight, very exagerrated sarcasm.

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

The rude patronization doesn't end when your status line changes

We all get our fair share of ribbing. My advice is to roll with it.

Or you could go Darkstar on us...

Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Timo:
Kirk also makes a reference to the ship being a thousand lightyears into space. This doesn't seem to be a four-day trip by any of the scales of measurement used in other Trek.

It's actually rather slow by the only canon original series speed reference, in "That Which Survives" (TOS). That episode established that Kirk's ship could travel a thousand light years in under a day. I won't even mention Star Trek V.

(Needless to say, I'm being sarcastic. My point was just that having four days at warp five for a thousand light years isn't particularly improbable given certain other references.)

Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :

Ooh, two posts and he forms an opinion. Wouldn't I then be justified in deciding that you're another of those twats who turns up every so often but soon leaves once everyone realises what a cunting moron you are? 8)

I'm nasty to everyone. Keeps the riff-raff away, stops us turning into one of those adolescent idiot fanboy-ridden BBs like TrekWeb. It's a dirty job but someone has to do it!

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Being engaged is obviously having a positive effect on Lee.

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

To other Flare-members: "Did he just spoke to himself?"

!! WARNING - CROBATO / DARKSTAR SITUATION DETECTED !!

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

If you think Vogon is being less than nice, you should go and see a charming fellow named Goa'uld over at the dominant Stargate SG-1 forum at www.gaters.net. This guy's attitude sets standards no mere human could meet... I swear there's a worm in his guts or something. You sorta learn to ignore his words and listen to his facts, though, since he certainly knows his stuff.

I can only surmise that direct prolonged exposure to scifi TV corrupts your brain's higher niceness centers. Recommended protective measures: always learn about the episodes through internet first, and then see them two or three years late, by paying outrageous prices to your local sales video vendor. Teaches you humility.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :

I'm currently in a niceness rehab program.. I've actually managed to confine most of my assholic comments to the board lately, with a couple of real-life exceptions.

I'm also having more luck with the ladies. Before i cut down on my time spent watching sci-fi on TV, my most serious relationship took up a .ZIP file of about 118 KB of saved IMs and emails.. now, I go out for dinner with real girls.

But dont worry about losing yourself.. I still manage to be a pretty officious spaced out geek here, too!
-- yes, you too can get a life too! just dial 1-555-1701...! or visit our website at.. oh never mind

[ October 25, 2001: Message edited by: CaptainMike ]

Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :

If Vogon Poet was trying to be an asshole he cannot compare to some posters at my favorite (non science fiction) forum, the OregonLive Townsquare Forum. Any post by a "Don Abernathey" or a "Greg Laux" is bound to offend almost anyone.

If anyone wishes to see for his-/herself:

www.oregonlive.com/forums/townsquare

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

"Vogon Saint" is a direct heir to the apostolic order and a twisted saint of the rarest variety, and we love him with a few or our internal organs. For instance, I have given him my spiritual appendix.

Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :

Guess I am behind on my Catholic temporal and spiritual heirarchies.

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Yes you are. Go sort that out.

To be fair to Lee, he does have a point. If there is one thing our forum has in it's favour (apart from me, obviously), it's that the average poster intelligence is fairly high. We don't have a huge number of posters, but at least 99% of the people who post here know how to use paragraphs, and can write stuff more entertaining that "teh DEIFANT Rulz! H@x0rz arsebisUiTS!"

Even when we argue, it sounds fairly intelligent (like your posts on the ST II thread. While anyone with a brain thinks you're wrong, Red Cadet, you are arguing back intelligently, rather than saying "You all sux aND fInGerz each OthR!" Hell, our most argumentative threads are about countries political agendas, and not whether the Defiant does indeed rule, or if the Sovereign-class would beat it in a fight with it's Type-11 million phaser banks).

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Having said that:

"To other Flare-members: 'Did he just spoke to himself?'
!! WARNING - CROBATO / DARKSTAR SITUATION DETECTED !!"

What the fuck are you talking about Brother Harry?