quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim: Guardian: 2. Wouldn't know about those calculations, but just because the engines were fired for a five-second burst doesn't mean that it only took them five seconds to get there. You can't warp right into the atmosphere.
And they didn't warp right into the atmosphere . . . they warped to Mars, dropping out of warp and flying past the camera to show an almost screen-filling planet.
This they did from very near the moon. They were hailed shortly prior to going to warp, and the time between Archer being informed that the facility-ship was taking off to the time when the vessel went to warp was a sufficiently short amount of time that Archer had just made it to the bridge.
The total amount of screen time between warp entry and warp exit was less than 20 seconds, which still gives them an average speed of 25c if one wishes to ignore the dialog. However, a five-second burst of warp drive plus coasting would require a greater initial speed than that anyway.
quote:3. Since Mosaic isn't canonical, it really doesn't matter.
Here is a link to the StarTrek.com FAQ. While you are of course perfectly at liberty to refuse to consider it a canon work for your own purposes, it is a part of the official canon.
25c would be just under Warp 3, so there wouldn't be any problem there.
Every time someone tries to use that FAQ as proof that Pathways and Mosaic are canonical, they are failing to take into account that startrek.com is only an "official" site in the sense that it is licensed by Paramount Pictures to use Star Trek trademarks. It is no different from Star Trek Communicator or any other licensed Trek product. It is maintained by Paramount Digital Entertainment, a completely separate branch of Viacom from Pramount Pictures, and aside from occasional (and generally after-the-fact) interviews with some of them, it is not affiliated in any way with those responsible for making the shows. It is most certainly not the ultimate authority on what is canonical.
quote:2. The information and features included in this Web Site have been compiled from a variety of sources, are for informational and entertainment purposes only, and are subject to change at any time without notice. This Web Site and all information it contains are provided "AS IS." By accessing or linking to this Web Site, you assume the risk that the information on this Web Site may be incomplete, inaccurate, out of date, or may not meet your needs and requirements.
That FAQ exists as it does because the editors of startrek.com are perpetuating common dogma based on faulty information. The whole "Jeri Taylor's novels are canon" thing got started because she wrote them while still acting as an executive producer-writer on VGR, and they represented her view of Janeway's (and others') backgrounds, which she was in a position to have the show adhere to. Once she left VGR, she was no longer in that position and the backstories were NOT adhered to. Another mportant (oft-frogotten) point is that it was never intended for the events of the novels to be canonical, merely the backstory datapoints on the main characters.
Furthermore, as clarified in sources such as Star Trek: The Magazine and by John Ordover on the TrekBBS, no one ever *really* said the Taylor novels were canonical, it was simply *assumed* that the stuff in them was accurate because Taylor had written them. Once she was gone, and other writers contradicted facts from the books, this issue was rendered moot. Jeri Taylor's novels cannot be canonical because they have been contradicted by onscreen productions. It's as simple as that.
Trying to argue this point is like trying to argue that Star Trek V and Star Trek VI are non-canonical because Gene Roddenberry said so. Once Roddenberry no longer had direct control over ST, his opinion ceased to mean much of anything. And trying to say that something on ENT is wrong because it doesn't fit with Mosaic is totally ludicrous considering that Jeri Taylor had NOTHING to do with ENT.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
Michael Ivins from the Flaming Lips is in this episode!
It's like if you took a thing I enjoy and crashed an asteroid composed entirely of solid awesome into it. And no one provided me with a prior heads-up? For shame. Now if they could get, say, Patrick Stewart into Christmas on Mars somehow.
posted
Somebody on Usenet mentioned noticing a "The Cage"-type laser cannon inside the mine (probably used as a drill or something). Can anybody confirm that?
Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
posted
Well.. it was a giant laser cutting thing. In that sense, it was similar to the "The Cage" weapon. But it did not have any particularly astounding similarities, IIRC.
And you know.. the miners were all dirty and grim looking, but all they seemed to do was wave blue lights over the walls. And they failed to explain why they needed humans for this shitty work. And apparently, the mines have normal gravity, and a breathable atmosphere. It must be pretty valuable stuff they're mining. Perhaps it's one Trek's fantasy materials like something needed for verterium cortenide?
posted
I can buy that. The only real excavation on the moon we've made are a few inches down, and cratering has only gone a few hundred feet. I'm willing to accept that the Moon in Trek could house all sorts of goodies we haven't been able to dig or remotely sense. For all we know, the core of the moon is made of sweet, crunchy Toblerone.
posted
Or then there are alien spacecraft buried under the surface. Finders keepers.
I've lost track of something now: was the five-second warping specified in dialogue, or timed from the episode visuals, or just assumed for assumption's sake? Was there something specific to make, say, a five-minute warp jump unlikely?
posted
Dialogue. "Prepare for a five second jump" or something very similar. Cut to complex flying away all ring-ship like, and cut to ship arriving in Mars orbit and preparing to land.
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
quote:Originally posted by Harry:
And you know.. the miners were all dirty and grim looking, but all they seemed to do was wave blue lights over the walls. And they failed to explain why they needed humans for this shitty work. And apparently, the mines have normal gravity, and a breathable atmosphere. It must be pretty valuable stuff they're mining. Perhaps it's one Trek's fantasy materials like something needed for verterium cortenide?
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: I can buy that. The only real excavation on the moon we've made are a few inches down, and cratering has only gone a few hundred feet. I'm willing to accept that the Moon in Trek could house all sorts of goodies we haven't been able to dig or remotely sense. For all we know, the core of the moon is made of sweet, crunchy Toblerone.
Except that the lunar astronauts took core samples, and while it's true that the deepest they dug was a few feet, from the samples they took, we still have a pretty good idea of what the moon in its entirey, is composed of, not to mention that the other ways we have of determing what the moon is composed of. And the idea that there is a technobabbly substance down there that we currently have no idea exists is very, very unlikely. Not impossible, I admit, but still unlikely.
I'm not saying that there isn't a concievable reason why people would be conducting that type of excavation on the moon, just that without a bit of elaboration, it's rather awkward writing.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
That's what I'm saying. It's not impossible, so I can accept it as an SF fact.
And dialogue specified a five-second burst for the station's warp drive. I can accept a sustained coasting after that, with a any missing time simply lost in between shots.
posted
The idea that the moon contains verterium cortenide is no more implausible than the idea that verterium cortenide exists in the first place.
"And apparently, the mines have normal gravity, and a breathable atmosphere."
That was the biggest plot hole I saw. They figured out that the lady with the phaser phase pistol hole in her midsection had chemicals in her that suggested she had been spending time in low-G. So, one, why would they check at a facility with perfectly normal gravity, and, two, since they ended up being correct, why did her body indicate extended low-grav living?
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Except that the lunar astronauts took core samples, and while it's true that the deepest they dug was a few feet, from the samples they took, we still have a pretty good idea of what the moon in its entirey, is composed of, not to mention that the other ways we have of determing what the moon is composed of.
Although we have a general idea of what the moon is primarily composed of, that doesn't mean that there don't exist any veins of other types of materials on the moon. A few-foot deep sample taken of the earth's soil would probably tell you that the earth is made mostly of silicon and iron, but it wouldn't tell you about veins of gold or deposits of uranium. Besides, the physical samples we have to go on come from the regions where six pairs of astronauts--only three pairs of which were able to travel by anything other than foot--were able to cover in a short time (no more than three days and then only in the last couple of missions). That's not a very large sampling from a statistical standpoint.
-------------------- "Having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."
Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged
2. Star Trek.com is the last place I'd go for info on Star Trek.
3. I'm a little confused about the laser that was fired from Mars. It was able to hit the Moon so quickly I wonder if the laser was bounced of satellites.
4. Mars has to be colonised since it would obviously take more than a day to construct the array the mining station landed on and in that time some of the workers who built it may have settled nearby.
posted
While I'm sure there's more going on than meets the eye, based on things like Paxton injecting himself with something or other, and the fact we still don't know what the purpose of the half-breed child is, there's a lot that doesn't make sense about this episode. . .
1. So his great plan is, he's going to hold the System to ransom by controlling their anti-comet defense? And then what? Go online with the UN Security Council and demand ONE MILLION FRICKIN' DOLLARS?! Terrific idea! I'm sure that such a defense system, while good on range and firepower, wouldn't be much cop against multiple incoming targets, especially when it probably depends on a network of relay satelites to feed it easily-manipulated targeting data. And who puts a cometary defense system on a planet anyway?
2. What is it about American traitors and full names? Lee Oswald NEVER used his middle name. Or are we supposed to infer something about Paxton's megalomania by him using his full name? Either that, or he didn't want to get confused in the history books with John Murgatroyd Paxton, first winner of Solar Idol.
3. I suppose it's possible that news might get out of the Trip-T'Pol liaison. Perhaps Hell Hath No Fury Like A Corporal Cole Scorned. Or some other member of the crew on the Xindi mission, despite all they went through, retained some anti-alien prejudice.
4. And how dumb is the baby plan anyway? I can just image the press conference. . .
Paxman (a reporter): "So Commander Tucker and Commander T'Pol had an affair whilst on the Xindi mission?" Paxton: "Yes. Revolting, isn't it?" Paxman: "Yeah, but have you seen her? She's hot! Nothing wrong with that really, given the cirumstances. But you say they had a child?" Paxton: "Ahh. . . No. What actually happened was we got hold of their DNA and created a clone of whatever child they might have. But it is an Abomination and must be destroyed!" Paxman: "So this Abomination wouldn't actually exist if you hadn't created it?" Paxton: "Ah. But, er, you're missing the point! The mere fact they DIDN'T have a child themselves means they must have practised birth control! This goes against all the teachings of the Blessed Bush, who taught abstinence as the only viable method of preventing pregnancy or STDs!" Paxman: "Burn them! Burn them!"
5. The mere fact that the Minister talked up his own investigation team's ability means he's in on it.
6. That phase pistol wound didn't look like anything we've ever seen done by a phase pistol. And the TPs have EM-33s anyway, which can now apparently stun. Not, of course, that we ever saw for certain that EM-33's can't stun; or, that it wasn't actually a MACO EM-33 which can. .. But the FX was of an original EM-33 pulse, yellow not blue.
"3. I'm a little confused about the laser that was fired from Mars. It was able to hit the Moon so quickly I wonder if the laser was bounced of satellites."
Er, bouncing it off of satellites would imply it wasn't a stright-line path. Making it longer.
I guess we have to assume that verterons travel faster than light. That, or the people on the moon had between eight and nine minutes to get out of the way of the beam.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim: [QB] Every time someone tries to use that FAQ as proof that Pathways and Mosaic are canonical, they are failing to take into account that startrek.com is only an "official" site in the sense that it is licensed by Paramount Pictures to use Star Trek trademarks. It is no different from Star Trek Communicator or any other licensed Trek product.
1. And either would be a logical place to go to find out about Star Trek, no?
2. "This site and its contents TM & � 2005 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved."
quote:It is maintained by Paramount Digital Entertainment, a completely separate branch of Viacom from Pramount Pictures,
Paramount Digital Entertainment is a unit of the Paramount Television Group . . . i.e. the people who make Trek, primarily. Paramount Television and Paramount Pictures are both subsidiaries of Paramount Communications.
quote:It is most certainly not the ultimate authority on what is canonical.
It's a damn sight better than a Viacom Consumer Products-licensed magazine, and in the absence of a direct statement from Berman or the head of Paramount Comm. it suffices quite nicely.
quote:That FAQ exists as it does because the editors of startrek.com are perpetuating common dogma based on faulty information.
I await the proof of this.
quote:The whole "Jeri Taylor's novels are canon" thing got started because she wrote them while still acting as an executive producer-writer on VGR, and they represented her view of Janeway's (and others') backgrounds, which she was in a position to have the show adhere to. Once she left VGR, she was no longer in that position and the backstories were NOT adhered to.
So why was Roddenberry's novel never touted as canon? Why not Jeri Taylor's novel version of "Unification"? Why not Ira Behr and Robert H. Wolfe's "Legends of the Ferengi"?
Further, even as late as January 2005 a guy named Harry Lang from Viacom Consumer Products was still touting the Taylor novels as canon on StarTrek.com message boards.
quote:Another mportant (oft-frogotten) point is that it was never intended for the events of the novels to be canonical, merely the backstory datapoints on the main characters.
Source?
quote:Furthermore, as clarified in sources such as Star Trek: The Magazine and by John Ordover on the TrekBBS, no one ever *really* said the Taylor novels were canonical, it was simply *assumed* that the stuff in them was accurate because Taylor had written them.
Got quotes? I've never seen or heard of any evidence that Tim Gaskill of StarTrek.com or the Viacom guy just made up the Taylor canonicity.
quote:Once she was gone, and other writers contradicted facts from the books, this issue was rendered moot. Jeri Taylor's novels cannot be canonical because they have been contradicted by onscreen productions. It's as simple as that.
You can't throw out a designated-canon source in toto because of later contradiction. Whole episodes of Trek would have to be cast aside, not to mention entire seasons of Voyager. Or, more accurately given your stance, Voyager would be the source which cast aside whole prior series.
quote:And trying to say that something on ENT is wrong because it doesn't fit with Mosaic is totally ludicrous considering that Jeri Taylor had NOTHING to do with ENT.
Since, however, that is not at all what I did, there's no point in saying that it is ludicrous to do so.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
