"Yeah, I've taken a lashing from the fans. But just for the record, here's how that started. I think there was a period about eight years ago when I made some stupid comments, in one or two interviews, about never having seen an episode of the original series -- which was true. And in face, when I first started here, when Gene Roddenberry was still alive, he said to me, 'Don't watch the original series/ If you haven't seen it, don't watch.' And I said why? And he said, 'Because you will bring something fresh to the table' -- because he was very adamant that TNG not be the original series, and not re-do anything. So I was, like, 'Fine.'"And then it became a novelty: I was a Star Trek writer not familar with the original series - which I thought was a novelty, but the fans too offense at that. Well, of course, now -- eight years later -- I have seen most of them, and I've always had a great affection for it, and I know it very, very well. And I know what people like about it. So when it came to certain details of this show... there were lots of original series details [the flip communicators and Hoshi's earpiece] that came from me."
And the moment we've all been waiting for:
"Well, we very much want to do Romulans, but the problem with Romulans is in the original series it's established that no humans or even Vulcans had seen Romulans. So for Archer to see Romulans would be... a breach of continuity so we're gonna have to figure that one out."
[ October 04, 2001: Message edited by: Ryan McReynolds ]
I suppose all communications we've seen so far have been RF.
Since the relevant parts of TOS were written in the mid-1960s, when every scifi writer would automatically (and correctly) have assumed that videoconferencing was possible in the near as well as far future, we have no real reason to assume that the writer of "Balance of Terror" intended Spock to claim that subspace video communications did not exist a hundred years before TOS. No matter how the monologue may come out, the intention behind it cannot have been one of denying vidiphone technology from the ships of the 2150s.
Other popular misconceptions about TOS include the claims
1) that the Romulans in the Romulan war did not have warp drive (no such statement was ever made in dialogue, so we cannot know if such a thing was intended by the writers),
2) that there were no female starship captains prior to or during TOS (this time, the intention probably was there, but the monologue of the crazy chick who says something to this effect is too ambiguous to convince), and
3) that Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet (no such reference has been found in actual dialogue, despite exhaustive videomaraton searches, although the unaired reference material does support this claim).
Timo Saloniemi
quote:
Originally posted by Obi Juan:
I suppose all communications we've seen so far have been RF.
At the end of "Broken Bow," Archer mentions having received a reply from Starfleet, so that couldn't have been a lightspeed radio message. Preproduction material suggests that they can only use FTL communication while at warp, perhaps "borrowing" the ship's warp field like photon torpedoes do. Hoshi did mention that EM frequencies were jammed, limiting their communications in the Suliban gas giant. So it looks like they use regular radio for most communications, and warp-radio for contact with home... but that contact is not real time.
Timo: What's wrong with there not being subspace video communications? Subspace communications may have been very difficult in the early days limiting them to audio transmissions anyway.
I don't precisely remember the line from BoT, but you are probably right. I think it was only said that the treaty was negotiated over subspace radio (leaving many to assume that this was because subspace video transmissions weren't possible), but Spock may have actually said that it wasn't possible. I'll have to check out that episode the next time it's aired.
This leaves us with several possibilities:
1) Subspace voice traffic is possible, but visual traffic is not.
2) Subspace visual traffic is possible, but, for whatever reason, individual ships are incapable of it.
3) Subspace visual traffic is possible, but not between human and Romulan vessels.
Of the three, I think I prefer the first. Perhaps subspace communication is a relatively new technology, and they haven't got all the kinks worked out yet. Besides, with ships limited to a relative crawl (until the big E, that is), you might not have enough of an incentive to develop it. After all, we've had the telephone since 1876, and how long did it take us to make video communication practical?
Choice number two might also be a factor in this; an individual ship might lack the power to send an image long range on its own at this point. It might need a large base station to be able to make the connection.
Also in Balance of Terror weren't the on screen images of the BoP bridge due to Spock hacking internal sensors on the Romulan ship? So in this instance they again did not volunteer visual communication. Anyway, at least all this is a possibility in regards to the 22nd century Romulan wars. I have to say that my estimation of Braga has gone up considerably, and my overall optimism for the show.
I still want to see Romulans on this show, of course without breaking continuity. Perhaps we could have a show that portrays the action candidly from the Romulan's point of view and the Enterprise's. There needn't be visual communication, Archer and co will not know who the hell these aliens are, but of course we will.