posted
Compared to a starship, even Earth orbital space is frickin' HUGE. So unless the Enterprise or whoever was purposefully rendevousing with something else in orbit, it makes perfect sense that they'd appear alone in orbit. Even when relatively close to each other, in practical sense there'd be little viewing any other craft unless they were REALLY CLOSE, or were actaully being looked AT by someone (like the audience).
Case in point - today, I was watching NASA TV as the space shuttle rendevoused and docked with the ISS. Now granted, both spacecraft were way smaller than most starships, but even at eight miles away and at maximum magnification on the station's cameras, the shuttle was a very small white dot, only really visible during an OMS burn. Barely anything on the shuttle could be made out until it got within a mile or two!
In other words, for all intents and purposes practically every advanced planet Trek has run into could be swarming with ships and satellites... They're just never close enough to see.
posted
And on the issue of seeing or not seeing the Vulcan moon/T'Khut, it could be that this second body is orbiting neither Vulcan nor its sun. There are plenty of other geometries for this fancy four-body problem to follow.
One of the fancier orbital geometries was on the local science pages last weekend: a tiny rock that corkscrews around Earth's orbit around the Sun. Every 95 years, the corkscrew brings the rock from a position just "ahead" of Earth to a position just "behind" it, via the long route. And then back. And every 1200 years or so, the thing jumps the end bumpers of its track and gets stuck orbiting Earth on a polar orbit, as a moon of our planet. And then it breaks loose again, and starts seesawing between the "leading" and "trailing" positions again. Look for Earth gaining another moon again in 2600 AD or so.
T'Khut (and its smaller companion from ST:TMP:CE) might visit Vulcan every X years, and ST4 and "Unification" didn't quite mark the time of nearest approach.
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: Compared to a starship, even Earth orbital space is frickin' HUGE. So unless the Enterprise or whoever was purposefully rendevousing with something else in orbit, it makes perfect sense that they'd appear alone in orbit.....They're just never close enough to see.
Mark
Agreed.
In addition one might imagine "military space" or Fleet-only orbits where only Star Fleet ships/craft are allowed to be.
Wouldn't do to have some tourist run their rental runabout into the UFP's shiny new flagship.
-------------------- Twee bieren tevreden, zullen mijn vriend betalen.
Registered: Oct 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
Another case in point, altered for your viewing pleasure, are asteroid belt sequences: if our asteroid belt is typical, the rocks are so far from each other you could be standing on one and not know you're 'in the belt' because you couldn't see another asteroid. It's dramatic license that has asteroids so close together (like in Empire Strikes Back) that ships need to weave in and out to avoid collisions. Interplanetary space is big! If the asteroids were as close as ESB depicts, we wouldn't have an asteroid belt beacuse the rocks would've pulverized one another eons ago.
posted
So how long does that mini-moon orbit the earth - like only once (in it's close pass)? Is this Cruinthe? So in 1400 it was orbiting earth? For how long?
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
Heh, it'd be interesting if they went to Vulcan and saw that 'moon' and Trip says "I thought Vulcan had no moon" and T'Pol says "We don't like to talk about it". a la Worf in Trials and Tribble-ations.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
The moonlet is just a tiny rock about a hundred meters across - one wouldn't even see it when it's playing "moon" with Earth. Supposedly, it would spend about fifty years pretending to orbit Earth, then jump off again. This based purely on modeling of its trajectory in the past few years - I don't really know how they can be sure the system isn't chaotic.
Well, perhaps if something this weird is witnessed once, then one can assume there must be unknown factors that make it likely to happen another time - otherwise, even the first time would have been an incredible fluke. I'll dig up the article when I have the time and the inspiration...
- As I'm sure you've all discovered, the Vulcan shot WAS based on TAS. Daren Dochterman (of ST:TMP DE DVD fame) was responsible for that. I'm sure he'll be pleased to know it's appreciated.
- People seem to be underwhelmed by the shots from First Contact and Generations. I wonder if this feeling is limited to the hardcore fans, who are aware of the behind-the-scenes production of the calendar. Since you guys know that many of these images are being made from scratch, perhaps it disappoints you to see images that aren't totally new. Hopefully, the 'average' fan will pick it up and just be happy to see a dozen ship shots! Also, come on guys, be fair - for decades the calendars have been nothing but recycled cast shots ad infenitum - we can live with TWO in the SOTL calendar, can't we? At least I had to go and GET hi-res files of these images, which have never been seen in print before!
- As far as what my role was exactly, here's how it all worked: First, I asked Pocket Books to choose between two themes - space battles or atmospherics. They chose the latter. Then, I spent a few weeks developing concepts for all the images, for which I created low-res, rough drafts of all the shots to simply get the idea across visually. After they were approved by Paramount, work begun on the final, hi-res shots.
A lot of my pals were keen to work on the calendar, so a few scenes were handed out to them for final rendering. All the rest (and the cover) were finalized by me.
So, despite the lack of a "Mojo" credit within it's pages, rest assured it is a product of yours truly. In several of the images (like the BOP and Voyager) credit was given to the photographer who provided the background image.
As far as next year's calendar goes, I have yet to be commissioned by Pocket Books to proceed. There's lots of time until 2004, however...
Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone! In the states, anyway :-0
posted
That is true about having nice high-res shots from the movies. It did reinforce one of my opinions - that the Hull of the E-D is some much more beautiful than that of the E-E. What is with those little try-hard 'divots'/'sunken panels' on the E-E hull. I really hate those - it makes the ship really fake. Why couldn't it have the beautiful and distinct panelling of the TMP E(R) and the Generations E-D!?! Even Voyager has a better surface.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
I liked all of the photos in this calendar. I've seen the others, but this is the only one that's made it to store shelves out here in Eastern Canada.
I was impressed with the crashed saucer pic: I didn't realize before the shuttles had the Farragut number on them, I didn't know a lot of the red striping wasn't applied to the 12' saucer model, like around the phasers, etc.
I did see last years calendar from a friend though. One thing that popped out at me immediately was the Galaxy Class labelled USS Challenger on the saucer but Enterprise on the stardrive.
quote:I did see last years calendar from a friend though. One thing that popped out at me immediately was the Galaxy Class labelled USS Challenger on the saucer but Enterprise on the stardrive.
That was going back two years ago from the cover of the first calendar. I made mention to that as soon as the first one came out. I was one of the very first to get a copy back in July of 2000. I bet it probably goes back all the way to the Voyager episode which had the Challenger.
I had also mede mention of the Nebula class captioned as Farragut, saucer labeled as Honshu, and weapons pod and pylons labeled as Bonchune.
And we already knew the executive shuttles had the Farragut's number on them.
-------------------- Is it Friday yet?
Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
Mojo, I love what you're doing with the calendar(s). I think what people are griping about is something you're actively working on, and what UF was/is all about. We love seeing the familiar from a new point of view. And using existing frames provided nothing we hadn't seen before. F'r instance, the E-D crash site? I think we'd love to see a shot from just outside the main shuttlebay (or just under its overhang) looking back up the slideout trench, with all the shuttles and people and general evac procedures going on all around.
I admit that's way into UF territory, but there's not really much we can get from the crash site shot that we can manipulate, as it was a model shot and not CGI. We can't even rotate it to get a different angle.
And sometimes a different angle is all it takes. I love the U.S.S. Akira card for Decipher's 2nd Ed. Star Trek CCG. Is it okay to post a link?
And don't worry about a little grumbling, Mojo. One can't hit a home run every time. It's part of being human. But you succeed brilliantly far more than you miss, which is impressive and (in my distinctly unhumble opinion) far too much of a rarity in Trek these days...
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
Not two years...not the Galaxy Class in the drydock...unless it happened to that one too. I meant a nearly top view, with some other starship in the frame as well. 'Challenger' was on the top of the saucer and 'Enterprise' was on the upper pylon area.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
