Topic: Enterprise cartography issues - should we cut the writers some slack or not?
Chris
Ex-Member
posted
I don't know how much this is starship & tech related but I think the tech crowd can appreciate it more
I've considered some feedback I got on the Enterprise cartography article I've written on some of the more serious "maps & distances" issues of the new series, and I'm wondering if we really should be that forgiving in this field just because it has always been the most neglected, most inconsistent, most scientifically implausible aspect of Trek. I'm particularly talking about the two major screw ups in the pilot. Okay, the mentioning of "Rigel" in the dialogue, in a way that it surely can't be "our" real star solves all the problems we always had with this major Federation system in the later Trek series, but in the end it was rather accidental given that the writers didn't even know that it is more than a nice TOS reference to fit in the pilot script (quite embarassing I think). But what about the 4 days to Qo'noS? We can explain it away easily and conveniently with Cochrane factors and subspace lanes, but in the end this basically looks like giving in to the writer's indifference towards astronomy in particular and scientific credibility in general, because these rationalizations virtually is a technobabble implementation of the plot drive they like so much, and "legalizes" their messing with this rather important topic (especially in a series where, according to on screen dialogue, "space is vast" so to speak). Ultimately I have accepted the above mentioned explanations as the only "minimalistically scientific" ways to rationalize the cartography-related problems of the new series, but I just wonder where we should draw the line in the end.
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That, or we can accept that, when it comes to technical data - the writers couldn't empty piss out of a spaceboot unless the the directions were affixed to the heel.
-------------------- 'One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.' - Lazarus Long
Registered: Feb 2001
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Does this show even have a technical advisor? I remember all the hoopla about TNG actually having NASA scientists on hand with tecnical, stellar, etc. information.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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The time-distance problems of Enterprise pale in comparison to those in any of the other Star Trek series*, so I'm not really sure why we'd only now be concerned with the writers' apathy. I think it is futile to ever use warp factors to get distances, because there are many equally canon definitions of what a given factor is. I'd be content to use the original high-speed figure from "That Which Survives" all the time if they hadn't quoted the TNG scale so often later. That's why now I just say "fuck it" and only accept the positions of real stars and explicitly given distances.
At least Enterprise has thus far only travelled about 100 light years from Earth rather than thousands... even if 100 light years is father than they should be at this point.
* I submit "That Which Survives," The Final Frontier, "The Chase," "The House of Quark," and four out of any five Voyager episodes.
posted
Indeed, even the best of Trek have had grimace-worthy distance-time shenanigans. In BoBW1 we meet the Borg, get shot at, Wesley is told to "get us out of here", and within sixty seconds arrive at the oh-so-convenient Paulson Nebula (which technically-speaking we're supposed to assume just happened to be four AUs or so from the random-spot-in-interstellar space that the cube was intercepted at.)
The cold hard fact is that if the writers slavishly adhered to some kind of distance/time conversion, dozens of wonderful episodes wouldn't have been made, or would have had their plots contorted in such a way that they'd be pretty abysmal.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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We can bitch and moan as much as we'd like, but I doubt that the writers would sacrifice an entertaining story for the sake of scientific accuracy. However, we should still bitch and moan about it because that is what we enjoy doing! Sure, TOS, TNG, DS9, and that other series were equally lax with time-distance relationships. But the fact that Enterprise is on the air now, and the mistakes are being made even as we speak makes our bitching and moaning more timely, if not more effective. Enterprise was stupid enough to actually state precisely how fast they were going, allowing us to accurately calculate the ridiculous distance to Qonos in the pilot ep. I'm going to give them an early-in-the-series pass on this and try to ignore the 1-ly distance.
Registered: Oct 1999
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Without reading any of the responses, my response to the title is....
HELL NO!!!
The writers deliberately chose to place "Enterprise" in an early era of space travel. Without question, travel time was supposed to be much slower, and therefore the options as far as destinations go are much more limited. In order to portray a believable (and, as they themselves claimed, "limited") scenario, they need to show more stars that are closer to Earth. Sending the ship off to Rigel (which is 900+ LY away) is a grievous error.
Science fiction has always had its basis in science fact. True, drama must take precedence, and there can be fictional devices which create excuses for avoiding certain issues. In the 24th century, warp drive was fast enough to make travel to different parts of the galaxy believable (within the Trek universe). However, the writers deliberately chose to abandon that option.
The big shots proudly proclaim that Trek is going back to its roots, that we get to "see how it all began." But that's turning into bullshit, IMO. If they want a credible prequel, they've got to plan things out more thoroughly.
I seem to recall that a couple of months before ENT premiered, some staff member commented about charting out the stars nearest to Earth, and which planets the ship might visit. Unfortunately, they toss all of that out the window within the first hour of the series...
And if the series does in fact have a science advisor -- IIRC they have the "wonderful" Andre Bormanis (of "Demon" fame) on the writing staff -- then they've got serious delusions going on.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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"Broken Bow's" Rigel != Beta Orionis. The dialogue made that abundantly obvious.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Chris
Ex-Member
posted
quote:Originally posted by TSN: "Broken Bow's" Rigel != Beta Orionis. The dialogue made that abundantly obvious.
Indeed. Or how would a Klingon know about our Arabic designation for a star, and why would Archer not know what and where it is but need T'Pol for pointing it out, and, finally, why would Beta Orionis be 15 light years away from Earth? It's true that it wasn't the intention in the first place - one of the writers (I won't call names here ) didn't know that it's a real star and included it as a mere TOS reference; that's why the closed captioning indeed says "Rigel" - but as this issue is presented in the pilot it can be only a fictitious, much closer planetary system with a homophone name.
Btw, for those who haven't read it, the whole article I mentioned above can be read here.
[ January 18, 2002: Message edited by: Chris ]
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) didn't know that it's a real star and included it as a mere TOS reference; that's why the closed captioning indeed says "Rigel" - but as this issue is presented in the pilot it can be only a fictitious, much closer planetary system with a homophone name.
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