Facts known about the SS Mariposa [Obtained from okudagrams in "Up the Long Ladder"] *Left Earth on November 27, 2123 *Given new United Nations registry NAR-7678 [this implies the ship was built before 2079 when the new United Nations folded] *Carried colonists and colony supplies *Powered by a fusion pulse reactor *Arrived in the Ficus Sector between the years 2160 and 2170
Facts known about sectors [Obtained from encyclopedia] *Sectors are 20 lightyears across *For the Sol Sector, the Earth is near the center of the sector. "The Neutral Zone"
One last bit of fact [Obtained from "When Warp Drive"] *In a project named Daedalus from the 1970's, a nuclear probe would visit Barnard's Star after traveling 50 years. Barnard's Star is 6 lightyears away.
My question, how did the SS Mariposa complete the journey to the Ficus Sector and to the planets mentioned in "Up the Long Ladder", with no warp drive, in forty or fifty years?
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takeoffs are optional; landings are mandatory
Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :
I'm not sure, but what is "When Warp Drive"? A book?
------------------ Elim Garak: "Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak. Now, good day to you, Doctor. I'm so glad to have made such an... interesting new friend today." (DS9: "Past Prologue")
Posted by colin (Member # 217) on :
"When Warp Drive" can be found at Nasa.Gov or at the links page of Bernd's web site. The intent of the web site is to anwer the question, "When are humans going to have warp drive?"
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takeoffs are optional; landings are mandatory
Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :
Well, realistically, humans will never have "warp drive," since it relies on non-physics.
------------------ Frank's Home Page "Yes, I routinely run any car with Canadian plates off the road. It makes it easier to yank them out, blind them, and put them to work in my underground salt mine." - Simon Sizer
Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :
Well, they could always call it "warp drive" as homage to the all-mighty Star Trek.
------------------ Elim Garak: "Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak. Now, good day to you, Doctor. I'm so glad to have made such an... interesting new friend today." (DS9: "Past Prologue")
Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :
Good Lord, the Daedalus probe to Barnard's Star. . . that takes me back. . .
------------------ "The next time the workplace seems especially hectic, remind yourself it could be worse: you could have two-dozen sharp-toothed creatures chewing on your nipples." - James Lileks
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Eh? I've got your warp right here!
*waves arms around*
Look at me! Look at me!
No, really look at me. With nifty gravitational detectors. Watch me warp spacetime. Ooh...ahh. Impressive, no? All I need for a warp drive is to put on a...few pounds. Or solve those darned string theory equations to figure out how the universe really works, and then plumb post-Einsteinian physics for ways to tell lightspeed where to stick itself.
I'm leaning towards the first one, though. Less math that way. And more pie!
------------------ "And much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot." -- The Conqueror Worm, by Edgar Allan Poe
Posted by Davok (Member # 143) on :
So NAR is a UN registry?? Seems odd to me, since the Vico or the Raven certainly were not built under the United Nations.
------------------ "Take it from me: it's a lot more fun asking questions than answering them." (Garak)
USS Allegiance NCC-74813 http://davok.cjb.net
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
The Mariposa used the infamous "Plot Device Drive to complete it's trip in the time given.
------------------ Outside of a dog, a book is a mans best friend. Inside of a dog, it's to dark to read. Groucho Marx
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, assuming that NAR applies to Earth ships of civilian ownership, it seems possible that such a designation was carried over to apply to civilian ships of Earth's post WWIII world government.
Or, it is possible that the ship was intended to be launched after Cochrane's trip, and the date given is simply an error.
------------------ "And much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot." -- The Conqueror Worm, by Edgar Allan Poe
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
In fact...now that I've looked at the encyclopedia, I'd say an error is indeed the answer. I'd chalk it up to "Encounter At Farpoint" which implies that the postatomic horror was still going strong after 2079. But according to just about everyone, even Kirk back in TOS, Cochrane's flight represented the turning point for humanity. It seems pretty odd that such depravity existed for 16 years after that. Not impossible, I know. I'm sure there were pockets of resistance to Vulcan intervention. (Which might make a pretty good novel. Hmm...) But the *impression* given in the episode was that the court represented all of humanity at the time, and that simply isn't true. Makes much more sense to say that the court existed in a time between 2053, the supposed date of World War III, and shortly after Cochrane's flight in 2063.
And we know that the turn-around was quick, because just two years after warp drive was tested, the SS Valiant was sent out to breach the edge of the galaxy. (Of course, it seems entirely possible, if not likely, that the Valiant wasn't a new vessel, but an older pre-war ship that was quickly made warp capable. Perhaps a joint Human-Vulcan project? A sign from the Vulcans that they didn't intend to keep humans locked up on Earth, which might have been something people were afraid of.)
I suppose, though, that you could just as easily argue that the date given for the launch of the Valiant was wrong, but who are you going to trust? Spock or that mischevious Q fellow?
------------------ "And much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot." -- The Conqueror Worm, by Edgar Allan Poe
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Well, remember, the crew's ideas about history in FC were supposed to be rather subjective. They all thought Cochrane was this great guy w/ a vision of humanity's future, when his real vision was "dollar signs; money". It's quite possible that, when they said that people did a one-eighty from war and hate to peace and love immediately following the Phoenix' flight, they may have been basing it upon their optimistic interpretation of the past. Either that, or they could have been exaggerating things to convince Cochrane to fly as planned. Either way, it's still conceivable that the Post-Atomic Horror lasted through the 2070s.
------------------ "Maybe they're trying to breed them..." -guy in my math class, suggesting a reason for there being two overhead projectors in the classroom
[This message has been edited by TSN (edited September 22, 1999).]
Posted by JEM on :
Getting back to the original question, just where is the problem? Where does it state that the Mariposa didn't have some kind of warp drive?
Or am I just missing something?
[This message has been edited by JEM (edited September 22, 1999).]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Wait just a darn minute...you're right! I misread the date given for launch. What exactly are we all arguing about? This ship was launched sixty years after Cochrane invented warp drive.
------------------ "And much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot." -- The Conqueror Worm, by Edgar Allan Poe
Posted by colin (Member # 217) on :
The ship's engines are described as Fusion Pulse Reactors. This is found in an Okudagram of the episode "Up the Long Ladder". IIRC, this is the impulse engines of the Starfleet starships. The SS Mariposa didn't have warp drive, she had impulse drive to power her to the Ficus Sector. Since the information is canonical, this suggests that a dichotomy existed in the 22nd century-there were ships like the SS Mariposa which didn't have warp drive and there were ships like the USS Archon which did have warp drive. One of the reasons may be that the warp drive had not been perfected and was limited to certain kinds of ships. For example, in the episode "The Cage", there is a reference to the issue of time being corrected. I believe this refers to the Einsteinian theory where an individual going past the "light barrier" ages differently than an individual on a planet or other non-moving body. The debate exists-how did a ship on impulse drive get to another system from Earth in forty to fifty years?
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takeoffs are optional; landings are mandatory
Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :
In forty or fifty years' travel time? Simple. Use impulse to accelerate to near-c, then coast at relativistic speeds. In 40-50 years you could get at least 35 LY away. . . and at a travel time of no more than a year, I'd guess. But it begs the question of how a human colony remained undiscovered so close to Earth. If the colony WAS close to Earth, and given these travel conmditions it'd have to be.
------------------ "The next time the workplace seems especially hectic, remind yourself it could be worse: you could have two-dozen sharp-toothed creatures chewing on your nipples." - James Lileks
Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :
IIRC, at near-c speeds, those onboard the ship would experience a slower passage of time than everywhere else. So, if they travelled for 100 years, they would only age something like a decade or two.
------------------ Frank's Home Page "Yes, I routinely run any car with Canadian plates off the road. It makes it easier to yank them out, blind them, and put them to work in my underground salt mine." - Simon Sizer
Posted by JEM on :
Quite true. At near light speed time dilation would make centuries-long journey appear to take only a few years. But that isn't the point here. The Mariposa left in 2123 and arrived before 2170. They must somehow have made the trip in fifty-odd years Earth time. Unless you want to assume that the colony was only about 30 light-years away and somehow it had been overlooked by Starfleet in all that time then the ship must have had some form of FTL drive.
I havn't seen 'Up The Long Ladder' for some time and can't remember what the Okudagram actually said but going by the information given it didn't say the ship had pulse fusion engines but that it was powered by a pulse fusion reactor. There's a very importent difference. Why can't a fusion reactor power a warp engine? Does anyone really believe that the 'Phoenix' had a matter-anti matter reactor, that Cochrane almost single-handedly managed to not only build a working warp drive but also manufacture significant quantities of antimatter and solve the problems of storing it?
I think its more likely that he used a fission reactor made from the warheads of the missile (not the easiest thing to do I'll grant but a bit more believable) to power the drive. Listen to the dialog in 'First Contact'. Cochran refers to "the nacelles are fully charged" (or saturated, I havn't seen it for a little while either). What I think happens is that his reactor did not provide enough power to sustain the warp bubble so he had a system where the nacelles 'charge up' slowly, then provide a burst of warp speed until they run down then they need charging up again.
Suppose the Mariposa had a similar system. Except its power source was a more efficient pulse fusion reactor. You could imagine that they might sustain an 'average' speed of warp 2 or 3 over the course of 40 years or so, enough to get them a reasonable distance away.
It was only later when reliable matter/antimatter reactors became available that enough power was available for ships to sustain their warp bubble indefinately.
[This message has been edited by JEM (edited September 23, 1999).]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Exactly. I don't see anything here to suggest the ship didn't have a warp drive.
------------------ "And much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot." -- The Conqueror Worm, by Edgar Allan Poe
