posted
Hmm. I'm not sure I buy the multiple transporter room thing. They never mentioned there being more than one, and they constantly said "THE transporter room.". And they never tried using another one when it broke down either.
------------------ You know, when Comedy Central asked us to do a Thanksgiving episode, the first thought that went through my mind was, "Boy, I'd like to have sex with Jennifer Aniston." -Trey Parker, co-creator of South Park
------------------ "Although, from what I understand, having travelled around the Mid-west quite a bit, apparently Jesus is coming, so I guess the choice now is we should decide whether we should spit or swallow." -Maynard James Keenan
posted
Well, anyway - still on the gravity thing. How could Kirk and Co. not to mention the just awakened Genetic Supermen, stand on the Botany Bay? Did that 'pod' region in the middle rotate perhaps!?! Still also doesn't explain the Birdseye's non gravity... or gravity.
Also, I was thinking the other day - after we've been discussing a lot of early Trek/TOS stuff... actually WHEN our timeline and the Trek time line (for all we know ;o) ) divided. I'm thinking, maybe the Moon program didn't stop at Apollo 17, but kept going. Then we'd get Nomad, Voyagers up to 6... moon and mars settlement, etc. etc. Its seems as if it is around this time (well TOS of course) that the events change. Rember Colonel Richie and Spock's comment about his Son playing an important role in the first human travel to Saturn... That would have to have been, if his son was say about 5 during "Tomorrow is Yesterday" about 1986-90.
------------------ Homer: I'm gonna miss Springfield. This town's been awfully good to us. Bart: No, it hasn't, Dad. That's why we're leaving. Homer: Oh, yeah. [pokes his head out the window] So long, Stinktown!
posted
How does "So, in Trek, they could very well have had artificial gravity at that point." not mean they could have had artificial gravity. The Trek universe in the '90s has technologies we don't have in reality. Artificial gravity could very well be one of them.
------------------ "Although, from what I understand, having travelled around the Mid-west quite a bit, apparently Jesus is coming, so I guess the choice now is we should decide whether we should spit or swallow." -Maynard James Keenan
posted
Ooops! Sorry, I didn't read that post properly. But I would have assumed that Gravity Plates would be a big scientific leap for just 20 years (i.e. the time from 1970 - 1990. (In the trek Universe) Although true, it may have been a top priority to investigate for long travel in space - which people seemed to be doing more of in the 'trek' time line
The Saturn Mission The Mars Missions (presumably Jupiter missions) The sleeper ships
then all those ships that seemed to have left Earth into the great unknown - as seen a few times in TNG...
The Charybdis, the Mariposa etc.
------------------ Homer: I'm gonna miss Springfield. This town's been awfully good to us. Bart: No, it hasn't, Dad. That's why we're leaving. Homer: Oh, yeah. [pokes his head out the window] So long, Stinktown!
posted
If we did invent gravity manipulation in the 1970s, that would definitely make the conquest of space so much easier. We wouldn't waste it on deck plating - we would apply it to the propulsion systems! Apparently, one can't simply float a rocket off Earth on antigravs even in the Trek universe, but gravity manipulation would at least make the rockets much more efficient.
Once we had that kind of super-propulsion, it might not be necessary to develop "gravitic deck-plating" very rapidly. After all, space travel would be so fast that people wouldn't *mind* being weightless for those short hours or days. Some freighters like the BB could perhaps have optional gravity for ease of cargo handling... Or then Khan installed this rare luxury item aboard his ship because he knew he was going to stay in space longer than most people.
posted
The point of divergence is much farther back. I originally placed it as being the child who would be Gene Roddenberry not being born, or being born a girl, or dying in WWII, or some such, because we have to explain Edith Keeler (Trek) vs. no Edith Keeler (Reality-Land)...
But then I remembered a bunch of other stuff, and basically I'd say the point of divergence is early in the life of the universe. Maybe the origin of the Q Continuum in the Trekniverse, versus no such critter in our universe. But that in the infinity of diverging timestreams, there's a large wing of parallel dimensions that have a lot of similar or even identical surface features, even if the details are different.
On a quantum level, I'd say every decision gate (to steal a computer term) results in diverging timelines. Every either-or case, no matter how trivial or minute generates one universe for each alternate outcome.
In the case of Trek, much of their 20th century resembled ours, but their American space program wasn't hobbled after the early success of the Apollo missions -- maybe because Kennedy wasn't assassinated, maybe because of something else. Who knows. But they had their promised space stations in the 70s, lunar outposts in the 80s, and manned interstellar probes in the 90s. I just wish the lowest common denominator of Star Trek's viewership didn't have to be spoon-fed their sci-fi. The "dumbing-down" of recent Trek is largely due to that portion of the audience that doesn't GET that Star Trek is not a direct extension of our reality. Not to say that what we have is better or worse -- just playing out differently. There will be no Vulcans in our universe, but there may end up being some other race even more spectacular than we can imagine...
--Jonah
------------------ "It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."
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