posted
Target: What do you mean by "13,000 kph per second"? Even if you meant 13,000 km per second, that's still much less than light speed, which is 300,000 km per second.
Anyways, if they're going at a maximum speed of 83.33 c for "Neptune and back in 6 minutes," that means they can cover a light year in 4.38 days (365 days per year/83.3 light years per year). Therefore, if it takes 4 days to get to the Klingon homeworld, it's only about a light year away.
quote:Quick note: the TOS scale was not invented by Franz Joseph for his Star Fleet Technical Manual. It is found in The Making of Star Trek, circa 1968. I can't remember if it is in a Rodenberry-quoted section or in the text proper.
The scale is in the main body of the text (page 191 in my copy). It gives the speeds for warp 1,3,6, and 8, and it follows the wf^3 formula, although it gets the speed wrong for warp 3 (should be 27c, not 24).
-------------------- The difference between genius and idiocy? Genius has its limits.
posted
Yes, this is horrific. It's almost as bad for me as the Akiraprise. Obviously in this 'Enterprise' universe, there's a star just beyond the edge of the solar sytem around which a planet called Qo'Nos revolves.
How fantastically hideous an error is this?? And is there any way I can observe this in Enterprise without having a major panic attack??!!
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
posted
I'd assume that you'd observe this the same that you've observed the other four series and nine movies when the crews manage to break the speed limits of warp drive to arrive at their destination in a time period that requires superwarp drive speeds.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by The Red Admiral: Yes, this is horrific. It's almost as bad for me as the Akiraprise.
For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume that you're being serious... even though this seems like a joke.
quote: Obviously in this 'Enterprise' universe, there's a star just beyond the edge of the solar sytem around which a planet called Qo'Nos revolves.
Obviously in the traditional Star Trek universe, there's a galactic core just beyond the edge of the solar system within which a planet called Sha-Ka-Ree revolves. And there are stars called Rigel and Deneb that're only a few light years away. And the galactic rim is just a few light years beyond that. And the Constitution-class Enterprise was dramatically faster than the Galaxy-class Enterprise-D; remember "That Which Survives" and the Enterprise travelling 990 light years in a day?
If you honestly think that contradicting the warp scale causes a problem with "Broken Bow," then you must hate half of the existing Star Trek episodes! The number of times that the warp scale is gotten right is miniscule compared to the number of times it's wrong. Enterprise is just more of the same there... and I'm sure you'd prefer "Broken Bow" to start with the crew entering stasis for the months of travel to Kronos, right? Screw a good, exciting story, I want to see realistic warp travel-times!
quote: How fantastically hideous an error is this??
Not very fantastically at all, given that all other Star Trek's do it, too... and many do it much worse.
quote: And is there any way I can observe this in Enterprise without having a major panic attack??!!
posted
Actually, placing the Klingon homeworld just on the outskirts of our solar system would fit right in with Star Trek V, in which some Klingons were shooting at one of the Pioneers, which would, in three hundred years, not have made it all that far out.
I suppose I should add one of those greenish toothy grins right here.
posted
The thing that bothers me is this: In one single episode, they're going to say that warp 4.5 takes them to Neptune and back in six minutes, and that warp 4.4 is 30 000 000km/s, and then they're going to travel 15ly in a day or so, when it should take over fifty. Twice they take the time to establish how fast the ship goes, and then, within the same two hours, they totally ignore it. It would be like saying twice that a character is thirty years old, and then, in the same episode, having him refer to something that happened to him fifty years ago. It just shows they don't even care.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Well, there is no practical way they could establish the ship as being slower than the E-D or the Voyager (as defined in the TNG scale), AND have an episode. The TNG scale warp 6 is the minimum speed at which a weekly plot can work, and typical plots with multiple interstellar journeys require sustained TNG warp 9 or more.
The writers *could* have ignored the TNG scale and gone for a "realistic" warp scale in ENT, one that is much faster than the TNG scale. In turn, the TNG ships would then be claimed to be using a scale about ten times faster than the currently established TNG scale.
But would the fans have been any happier? TNG scale is canonically confirmed in much the same manner as the ENT scale now is - travel time and distance are given for some short trip in exact unambiguous terms, and a speed figure in rough agreement with the TNG scale is arrived at.
I think there's an easy cop-out in the ENT case. Let's simply say that while one travels at warp speeds using primitive engines, time runs more slowly for the traveler than for the stationary observer, just like in Einsteinian space. The trip to Rigel X did take eighty days, but only from the viewpoint of SF HQ. Archer experienced only a couple of days.
This means the ship will be massively out of synch with SF HQ whenever she returns from a long high-warp journey. But hopefully, the ship is not returning any time soon, so we don't have to care about SF HQ. Heck, this would more or less mean that 2161 will roll by the end of the first season, and we do get to see the founding of the Federation!
posted
I agree with TSN about this. TOS and TNG at least were USUALLY smart enough to not pin down speeds and distances (I make no apologies for STV et al). This makes our jobs as cartographers more difficult, but does avoid the sort or time/distance traps that Enterprise is now falling into.
In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A and the IKC Qo'Nos rendezvous 1000 light years away from Earth. If we say that both ships traveled equal distance from their respective home worlds, then Qo'Nos is 2000 light years from Earth.
To answer an earlier question, 13,000 km/sec is from the script. Star Trek is not a science accurate show. They never have been.
[ August 17, 2001: Message edited by: targetemployee ]
posted
Ehh, targetemployee, have you ever heard of a mathematical form called the Triangle?
It's very unlikely that the rendez-point lies exactly on a straight line between Kronos and Earth. And given that the shortest distance between two point is always a straight line, any 'triangular' route is longer. So, it is very likely that the distance is (much) less than 2000 ly. (though I have to admit that a 1000 ly travel for a rendez-vous is kinda long)
posted
Why take a long route, though? The rendezvous was in deep interstellar space, so the odds of an enemy dropping in would be the same be this interstellar spot 50 ly off the most direct route, or 50,000 ly. The enemy would not be able to predict the spot, and no sensors should reach across 50 ly to pinpoint the VIP transport.
I think Kirk was just being poetic about that 1000 ly thing. Or perhaps that was the distance to the Romulan origin of the illegal ale or something?
posted
Oops on the script angle. Maybe I am wrong on the distance from Earth to the rendezvous. Can someone please check? Thank you.
Registered: Sep 1999
| IP: Logged
Printer-friendly view of this topic
