capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
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Archer: 'Check the Vulcan star charts for a system called Rigel'
Um.. how bout just set a course for that big star in Orion.. i hope the navigator has some knowledge of constellations? Or did we forget where it was after WWIII? And Klang went to Tholia too? Hope it wasnt too hot for him..
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posted
I thought it was "Bolia" not Tholia. I'll have to watch it again with the closed captioning on.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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And, if they were talking about the star whose English name is "Rigel", why would the Klingon have called it that? He doesn't speak English. Since he called it that, and the Vulcans apparently call it that, too, it would seem that we're talking about a star whose native name is "Rigel" (or something similar which lends itself to that spelling).
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
Same reason that Vulcans are called Vulcans, the Borg call themselves a shortened human term cyborg, and nobody on Voyager suspected a guy named Jonas as the traitor. Dramatic license.
At least the Rigelians speak Rigellian. Kang and Kodos established that, by a fantastic coincidence, Rigellian and English are the same language.
BTW, Rigel X now joins the illustirious ranks of Rigelian planets.. Rigel II from 'Shore Leave', Rigel IV from 'Wolf in the Fold', Rigel V from 'Journey to Babel', Rigel VII from 'The Cage' and Rigel XII from 'Mudd's Women'.. crowded
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Member # 256
posted
An even more interesting factoid: Rigel (the real star) is located in the constellation of Orion, which is +/- 950!! lightyears away. Yet the Enterprise reached the system in roughly 4 days... so she had to be travelling at about 84000c. That's one muttah of a (trans-?)warpdrive.
posted
I think the ship used something called a trans-dimentional plot hole...allows the ship to travel anywhere in a short distance and time frame. It also does wonders to the space-time continum.
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Registered: May 1999
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Vulcans are called "Vulcans" because that's the English word. We've never heard the Vulcan word for "Vulcan". But, in this case, "Rigel" is obviously, at the very least, the Klingon name for the place. And, if a Vulcan recognized it, too, it's almost certainly the universal name for the place, not an English translation.
Registered: Mar 1999
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So, if the Klingons and the Vulcans call it Rigel, why don't *we* call it Rigel?
On a more serious note, the Star Trek Rigel has always been a weird place, with a lot of aliens, criminals and wacky humans. The only possible explanation is that the Trek Rigel is not our Rigel, or that after the Third World War they named another planet Rigel.
quote:Originally posted by Harry: So, if the Klingons and the Vulcans call it Rigel, why don't *we* call it Rigel?
Um, because we've never been there before, so how would we know what it's called?
The most likely scenario is that, now that humans know of a star universally called "Rigel" by every race but humans, we start calling our Rigel by its other name, Alpha Orionis, so as not to get confused. After 2151, all references to Rigel refer to the "Broken Bow" Rigel, which might actually be Raijel or Rye'gil or any other weird alien spelling transliteration.
posted
According to the script (I haven't seen the episode yet), Rigel is 15 ly from Enterprise's present position, somewhere on the way to Q'u'o'n'o's. Rigel was one of four words spoken by Klaang that Sato couldn't translate (+ Jelik, Sarin, Tholia); T'pol, and only T'pol, recognized Rigel as the name of a star. This suggests that Sato has no knowledge of our Rigel and that the Rigel in Enterprise is a different star. If this new Rigel is so close, we might already have a name or number for it.
I had thought that TOS's Rigel might have been the real Rigel. But it might have been another star, since Rigel is derived from the Arabic word for foot and might have referred to the foot of another constellation. But I guess these ideas are no longer tenable in light of the new "canon" info from Enterprise.
[ September 28, 2001: Message edited by: Masao ]
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Registered: Oct 1999
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1) Why didn't the Admirals or the Vulcans clarify where Kronos is by stating the human name of its star? As in: "Kronos?" "Actually Alpha Centauri, the Klingon's homeworld." I believe every star in our neighborhood has been mapped already.
2) Similarily, why didn't T'Pol clarify the location of Rigel by saying something like: "You know it as Epsilon Eridani." Why didn't a human crewmember respond with "you mean, Epsilon Eridani?" "Yes, in your primitive human terminology."
In the first case, it could be that the Admiral wasn't yet told which star Kronos orbited, but it's strange that Archer shouldn't be interested enough in stars to ask "which star?"
In the second case, we can argue that T'Pol was either unhelpful or unfamiliar with human terminology (unhelpful is more likely), while nobody around her could figure out the star system offhand. But then they adopt the new name immediately, without mentioning the old one even once?
It might be that seventy or so years before, the old star names became irrelevant in a new wave of scientific "enlightenment". The stars were given catalogue designations instead, which no human could memorize, and which hence became meaningless in dialogue. Still, Archer, being so Earth-centric, should've known the old names better.
Alternatively, if we were looking at a warp drive enhanced by warp highways, the problem would be solved, as the stars 'out there' might really have no memorable names. I suppose that despite what the pilot says about the speeds, the warp drive will turn out to be faster for practical reasons.
However, why give low kps speeds in dialogue if the ship is really faster? Maybe it's considered a bad habit by physicists to convert warp-highway speeds to kps, because these really aren't considered speeds in the physical sense, as they are achieved by a weird warping of space. So they stick to W^3 numbers when using the word 'speed', and understand that the distance traveled can be greater at times.
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