posted
A fairly engaging epsiode on the dramatic front, though most of the tech is on the alien's side - and not likely to be touched on again. Ah well... It's enough that we get a Trip Screws Up episode.
-We open with Enterprise studying a "hypergiant", which I presume to be a really really big star. T'pol notes that the star is losing mass at a really fast rate, and will go boom in 100-200 years. For some reason, I'm made to think of the TNG episode with Lwaxana and that guy from M*A*S*H.
-T'pol also says that she may very wll be around when the hypergiant pops.
-"Astrometrics" is mentioned. Has it been before?
-When G'Kar/Tomalak's ship shows up and asks where Enterprise is from, Archer pulls a first and says they're from the Sol system. Unto the present, they've always said they're from Earth, no?
-The aliens this week, Vissians, have a lot of neat tech allowing them to study stars a helluva lot closer than our heroes. They've been a warp-capable species for about a thousand years, but don't seem to have much desire to stray too far from home (25ly away) despite being explorers. Their ship is larger than Enterprise and bullet-shaped, not unlike the Cardassian dreadnought.
-Fun with multigender species: Rigellians may have four or five sexes. Phlox speculates that the cogenitor gender in this case provides a facilitating enzyme-- and is interrupted by an uncomfy Trip, who's just happy to recieve an innoculation against omicron radiation, which will last him 12 years. T'pol says that tri-gender species are not uncommon.
-The alien ship doesn't need magnetic confinement for their mostly-CGI engine room.
-G'karmalok and Archer take a trip into the star's chronosphere in a nifty little "stratopod". Note that no metaphasics are involved; it's all because of their trinesium hull material. The pod set is that of the Enterprise inspection pod, flipped around and with the usual coverup greeblies applied.
-Archer and G'karmalok take off on a three-day study of the star, which is the B-plot of the episode. The star's photosphere is conveniently blue to reinforce the whole Jaques Cousteau feeling of the plot. Doesn't make much sense, but it looks a lot like various false-colour images we've seen from NASA.
-In an attempt to get laid, Reed puts together a selection of cheese and fruit to impress their female tactical officer who told him that human food smells pretty bland. They've been in space for two years now... How likely is it that they'll still have fresh fruit in storage? They have a "protein sequencer", but how far is it from the familiar replicator? Can they replicate fruit in its entirety?
-To provide the principal plot, Trip decides to teach the cogenitor how to read. To do so, he uses a PADD (or whatever it is) that's like a Speak'n'Spell. Oddly, it's ready to teach the cogenitor its own language...
-The aliens are surprised that Enterprise doesn't use "photonic" technology in their torpedoes - and Reed forgets again that he's run into that before. He manages to tell us that the phase pistols are charged by sarium microcells, but not much else as he finally gets his wish with the tactical babe - in the phase cannon storage well, no less!
-Trip's education of the cogenitor includes a tour of Enterprise, including the transporter bay (which we've not seen for a while) and the engine room, where Trip drops their maximum achieved speed of warp 5.1 from last year.
-Movie of the week: "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Klaatu barada nikto!
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: The star's photosphere is conveniently blue to reinforce the whole Jaques Cousteau feeling of the plot. Doesn't make much sense, but it looks a lot like various false-colour images we've seen from NASA.
Why is a blue photosphere unusual on a massive star?
quote: Movie of the week: "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Klaatu barada nikto!
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." --Phillip K. Dick
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
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quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: -Fun with multigender species: Rigellians may have four or five sexes. Phlox speculates that the cogenitor gender in this case provides a facilitating enzyme-- and is interrupted by an uncomfy Trip, who's just happy to recieve an innoculation against omicron radiation, which will last him 12 years. T'pol says that tri-gender species are not uncommon.
This + pregnant Trip from S1 = "Alien Nation" seroes viewing marathons in the writer's ghetto.
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quote:-In an attempt to get laid, Reed puts together a selection of cheese and fruit to impress their female tactical officer who told him that human food smells pretty bland. They've been in space for two years now... How likely is it that they'll still have fresh fruit in storage? They have a "protein sequencer", but how far is it from the familiar replicator? Can they replicate fruit in its entirety?
Why just not grow it in a greenhouse?
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I'm sure that technology exists to keep the fruit in some sort of stasis. "Now, Carl, when you mop the walk-in, don't forget to plug the Officers' Fruit Stasis machine back in."
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because astrometrics is _so very_ different from stellar cartography
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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"Why is a blue photosphere unusual on a massive star?"
Because giant stars are normally red?
"-The aliens are surprised that Enterprise doesn't use "photonic" technology in their torpedoes - and Reed forgets again that he's run into that before."
Refresh my memory... how exactly do photons tie into a M/AM warhead?
Registered: Nov 1999
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Noone has ever bothered to explain that. And that's because when they were invented for TOS, it wasn't a M/AM warhead, but ehm.. a photon torpedo. Hence the VFX of brightly colored bolts.
quote:Originally posted by Harry: Noone has ever bothered to explain that. And that's because when they were invented for TOS, it wasn't a M/AM warhead, but ehm.. a photon torpedo. Hence the VFX of brightly colored bolts.
Perhaps.
Erm, which member of the production staff thought that hitting an enemy ship with a not-so-blinding flash of light would be a viable tactical option?
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If I recall my astronomy class correctly, a star's color and its size are not on a one-to-one basis. I think large, blue stars tend to be short-lived. Isn't Altair one?
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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Yeah, hotter stars are bluer, while cooler stars tend to be redder... Altair is a white-blueish A7 IIRC, bright & massive.
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Correct on all counts. However, this "hypergiant" was red on the outside, but descending to the lower layers made it turn a cool blue. All of which is moot anyway, as ALL stars are REALLY REALLY BRIGHT when you get close to 'em! I suppose the stratopod could have been using filters or whatever on its CANOPY, but it all had this "let's go explore the coral reefs" feeling to it that was pretty silly, riding "waves" and "currents" of solar ejecta and such.
For reference: our sun's "surface" temperature is about 6000 degrees celsius. The Vissians can take 18,000, and more in the pod. Blue giants and supergiants can be much, much hotter...
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: However, this "hypergiant" was red on the outside, but descending to the lower layers made it turn a cool blue.
Then, yes, that is silly. Not to mention that in this context, the photosphere is the outside. Incidentally, the corona is far hotter than the photosphere...
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