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From the New York State Education Department: As a star increases in both temperature, size, and luminosity( the brightnes of stars compared to the brightness of our sun) the general trend is from the small and cooler red dwarfs to the large and hot blue supergiants. The two exceptions being red giants, which are cooler and smaller than blue supergiants and white dwarfs which are larger and a higher temperature than red dwarfs. Hope that helps
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I'd like to point out that this episode should probably mark the final disspelling of the fandom (as well as authorized non-canon, I think) conceit that Andorians have more than two sexes. If they did, I'm sure either Phlox or T'Pol would have mentioned it.
-MMoM
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quote:Originally posted by Topher: Well it was mentioned in "Data's Day" that the Andorians marry in groups of four... Why would they do that if they didn't have four sexes?
Why not? With all the diverse cultures in the galaxy, why would you assume that the all share the same marriage customs as Earth? Why shouldn't there be races who marry in fours rather than in twos?
The Denobulans marry in groups, but so far as we know they only have two sexes...
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well its equally possible that Andorians have two sexes, but each of their children requires four parents genetically..
i believe the DS9 relaunch novels took a four sex tack when they introduced Shar ch'Thane, having him be one component of a four-sex four-person marriage group (which, as the novels reveal, is absolutely necessary to create an offspring) but later toned it down to the existence of four mates, two who were predominantly male and two who were predominantly female (although they still keep their exact sexual identity vague.. to preserve the illusion of an alien reproduction).. the later version is less confusing to readers who would have a hard time accepting the existence of a sex that was neither male nor female.. i'm eager to see how ENT deals with the shock factor, although their take on sex has already been established on thriving on shock value and not focusing on story content
BTW, how does an episode that doesnt feature andorians in any way shape or form prove anything about them.. if t'pol says multigender species are kinda common then there isnt much reason to wonder why she didnt bring up the specific case of the andorians..
Registered: Sep 2001
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(I didn't see this episode yet, ironically because I was at the Mount Cuba Observatory for my Astronomy class on Wednesday night...)
(Also, I apologize in advance for this long rambling post on the minutiae of contemporary astronomical theories. My excuse is that I'm currently taking a university course, Intro to Astronomy, and so I've got a bit more of the technical knowledge that I -- perhaps stupidly -- expect people writing science fiction stories would know something about.)
I'll have to reserve final judgement for after I actually see the episode, but it sounds like the astronomy in this episode is a big load of bullshit. Why is it that Braga and his writers must fulfill their urge to have mega-everything?
In astronomy, there's already the stellar classification of "supergiant," which applies to stars which are calculated to have a radius of up to 100 times that of Sol. They're not always that size -- they expand to that towards the ends of their lives, as well.
Then there's the overlooked fact that the solar corona itself is actually about 1 million degrees Kelvin (or at least for our sun). According to my textbook, a hypothetical spaceship entering the corona wouldn't actually feel that much heat because of the extremely low density of this part of a star's atmosphere. Nevertheless, if these aliens (and the later Humans in TNG) are measuring solely based on temperature, then they're in big trouble.
Of course, this temperature problem is compounded by the fact that the extremely large stars -- type O, generally, which are considered blue in color and are also usually the largest (excepting red giants) have a surface temperature in excess of 30,000 degrees Kelvin.
If anyone's interested, I've got a copy of the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram that's used in my textbook. According to this, even the supergiants can grow to 103 times the radius of the Sun... although these would also have drastically cooled down due to the laws of physics. A supergiant that would still be considered "blue" according to this diagram would have a radius of about 100 times that of the Sun.
And these stars are those that have between 10 and 100 times the MASS of the Sun, too... frankly, I'm not too sure that a "hypergiant" category of stars is even literally possible!
The only (well-known) star that I could think of is Betelgeuse (in Orion), which is a variable red giant and is calculated to have a diameter that goes between 550 and 920 times Sol's radius. However, this star is "only" a red giant, because according to the laws of physics, any star that inflates its radius to such an incredible size will also cool down because of its lower density.
I'd probably ramble on some more, but I have to leave to go to class in a few minutes. Suffice to say, I don't buy this "hypergiant" concept for a single second. I think it's just a symptom of Mr. Braga looking for some kind of "bigger and better" concept of astronomy that'll be "kewl" for the show.
*sigh* I know that science is unfortunately not the highest priority in any television show... but you'd think that with a NASA-credited science advisor on their staff, they'd have the good sense to listen to him from time to time.
Oh, well.
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quote: Originally posted by CaptainMike: BTW, how does an episode that doesnt feature andorians in any way shape or form prove anything about them.. if t'pol says multigender species are kinda common then there isnt much reason to wonder why she didnt bring up the specific case of the andorians..
I think MMoM pretty much explained it when he first brought it up.
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I forget where I read it, but I seem to recall that three-sex biology (flowers, in the real world, I think) have the the female and male contribute their bit to the catalyst, which produces the seed.
I can see three ways that what we say in the show, would work. 1) The male and progenetor both contribute something to the female, to make her pregnant
2) The male fertalizes the progenetor, which then implants the egg into the female (Plox has pictures!)
3) The male copulates with the progenetor, which THEN makes him fertal, so he can copulate with the female and impregnate her. This would also explain the culture's blaze' attitude to sex in general.
#3 would also help explain 4+ sex species. A Male might need to get-it-on with multiple partners before he is fertal.
On the other tentical, even Humans sometimes need the male to be turned-on be a pretty girl, before he can 'perform' for his boring wife.
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If memory serves, Phlox's species has only two sexes - yet his 'family unit' is comprised of more than a couple.
Thus, the Andorian's twin-couple family unit may have nothing to do with the number of genders, but be purely socialogical.
BTW: I can think of an excellent (from their point of view) reason why progenitor's have been denied their 'rights'. Were they ever to achieve social equality (full sentient rights and education) - the species would end up with a 3% minority utterly controlling the procreation of their species - they would become the ultimate ruling class.
Much like women today...
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Registered: Feb 2001
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The cogenitor may prepare the egg for fertilization by it's enzyme disolving some kind of protective sheath around the egg and preping it for fertilization.
In the New Frontier books the first officer is hermafrodotic and is able to gve birth and use it's winky!
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(Just finished watching the second-run of this ep...)
Mark, I can't believe you forgot the tidbit about their transporter range! Trip said that they only could beam someone up to 2,000 kilometers away from the ship.
Other notes...
-- The Vissians have discovered over 200 naturally occurring elements. Good continuity with Voyager, I admit, but I'm wondering if that's physically possible.
-- The NX-01's phase cannons each have an output of 80 gigajoules.
And now for the big part: it appears that my long rant on false astronomy was completely unjustified. Hypergiants are real!
I'm still reading some other links I found via Google to figure out some of the real-life properties that scientists have observed and calculated, but I'll be damned... from what I've read so far, it seems like they actually got the science RIGHT! A hypergiant is basically a star that periodically ejects incredible amounts of gas into space, forming a circumstellar gas cloud -- basically a big dusty sheath around the star, exactly like we saw in this episode! The hypergiant referenced in the linked article was said to originally be a type-F star, and became a type-M. So it seems that my comments on the mass of a star and its color may not apply, either.
Yeesh, how embarrassing...
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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Okay, more interesting stuff... it seems that in a way, I wasn't wrong in my original argument -- hypergiants are NOT supposed to be plain, simple, larger versions of supergiant stars. Instead, they're a subset of supergiants, more specifically VARIABLE supergiants.
Here's a couple of quotes from the introduction of an astrophysics paper I found via Google:
quote:"Cool hypergiants (Ia+ or Ia0) are a class of supergiant stars with Teff below ~10,000 K. They are physically different from supergiants of luminosity class Ia. The usual Ia+ designation does not mean that they are always more luminous than the former, but they differ in their spectral properties.
[...]
rho Cassiopeiae and HR 8752 are the prototype objects of the yellow hypergiants (F-G Ia+) They are among the most massive (20-40 MSol) cool stars presently known.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horation, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." How appropriate that they used that quote here, even if Star Trek quoting Shakespeare is such an old cliche?
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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Perhaps he is also talking about subspace elements like dilithium and the components of verterium cornide.
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