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A few days ago, aristarchus started a thread about warp speed and the vast distances across interstellar and intergalactic space. I posted an AC reply explaining what the warp scale means and briefly discussed inconsistencies in Star Trek. Perhaps I'd be better off posting this on the Daystrom Research Institute subreddit, but I'll give it a try here.
The writers of TNG wanted the Enterprise-D to be considerably faster than the Enterprise-no bloody A, B, C, or D. At the same time, they also modified the warp scale so that the speeds are faster for any warp factor and so warp 10 is essentially infinite velocity. Still, the writers wanted the galaxy to still seem quite large, with vast swathes of uncharted space. There are major inconsistencies between TOS and TNG, and even within the TNG era. I'll provide two examples.
In the TOS episode That Which Survives, the Enterprise travels 990.7 light years at maximum warp, which takes 11.33 hours. For the TOS Enterprise, warp 8 is maximum warp. Take the cube of the warp factor and you get a top speed of 512c. By comparison, Voyager was hurled 70,000 light years into the Delta Quadrant. If they traveled at the same speed without stopping, it should have taken a little under 34 days to return to their original location. Instead, in Caretaker, they say it would take 75 years at maximum warp.
In First Contact, Picard states that the Federation is 8,000 light years across with 150 members. Maximum warp for Voyager is 9.975, which is really, really fast. By comparison, maximum warp for the Enterprise-D is 9.6, but Data states in Encounter at Farpoint that warp 9.8 is possible with extreme risk. These are some of the Federation's fastest ships, and even the Defiant only has a maximum warp of 9.5. It should take these ships many years to cross Federation space, so an ordinary ship would likely take much longer to cross Federation space. Instead, we typically see travel times on the order of days or weeks, though that isn't from one end of the Federation to the other. Still, the travel times are far quicker than they should be with the size of Federation space. Again, this doesn't make sense with the travel time for Voyager's return to the Alpha Quadrant.
Of course, there are a couple of real reasons for the inconsistency. One is that there weren't really any standards applied in the TOS era to be consistent about the technology, stardates, or many of the other details. The speed of the Enterprise was pretty much whatever the writer wanted it to be for that episode. The other main reason is that science fiction writers generally don't do a good job representing the vast scale of interstellar space. Other inconsistencies have been resolved, such as why Klingons look different in TOS than in later series. But no explanation has been given on screen to explain the vast differences in speed.
As a creative writing exercise, I ask: If you were a writer for Star Trek, if you were trying to explain the inconsistencies in the warp scale, how would you do so? I'll offer an idea, but I'm interested in hearing other ideas.
A lot of interstellar communication appears to be instantaneous or very nearly so, particularly in the TNG era. This is explained by a network of subspace relays that accelerate the speed of subspace radio signals within Federation space. I would explain that the subspace relays don't just affect communications but also boost the speed of ships. As long as you're within the network of subspace relays, the speed of your ship gets boosted by a couple orders of magnitude. Get outside of Federation space and you lose the massive boost. It would allow ships to cross Federation space quickly while still making it difficult to travel to uncharted regions of the galaxy. Analogous to the Roman Empire's network of paved roads, travel is very efficient until you try to go beyond the network.
The apparent speeds in TOS often get explained away, with things like traveling to the other side of the galaxy referring to crossing the galactic plane. I highly doubt that this is the meaning the writers intended. It's actually much more interesting if the TOS Enterprise really did travel to the Gamma and Delta Quadrants, but they later became effectively inaccessible to Federation ships. Of course, TNG era ships still have to be faster.
In TNG's Where No One Has Gone Before, the Traveler is able to accelerate the Enterprise-D to incredible speeds. Kosinski thinks his theories about warp propulsion have unlocked much faster speeds, not realizing that it's only because of the Traveler. I would explain the incredible speeds in TOS in the same way. The warp engines were really much slower than in the TNG era, but the Federation was the recipient of outside help. Perhaps the Federation even tried to engineer new warp engines around the theories they thought would allow them to travel at those much faster speeds, but those experiments ultimately failed. That could explain why the Excelsior's transwarp drive in Star Trek III was never seen again, and the ship later on has standard warp engines. Much like Kosinski, the Federation didn't realize or want to believe that they were getting outside help.
A lot of TOS is an allegory for the Cold War, where the Klingon Empire represents the Soviet Union. I would write that the Q Continuum wanted humanity to survive and evolve, perhaps eventually to be like themselves. Q actually said that if he hadn't hurled the Enterprise 7,000 light years to encounter the Borg at system J-25, humanity would have been assimilated. I would reveal that the Q were also assisting the TOS era Federation, just without revealing their presence. Without the interference of the Continuum, the Federation would have been conquered by the Klingon Empire, the region would spend centuries under a military dictatorship, and humanity would eventually have been reduced to near extinction under the brutal conditions. As a twist, I'd also add that Daniels from Enterprise was also one of the Q, again protecting humanity from threats from the future during the Temporal Cold War.
Basically, faster travel times would give the Federation a huge advantage moving troops and supplies over long distances. This would allow them to not only avoid being conquered by the Klingon Empire but to prosper. Once the Klingon Empire was significantly weakened due to Praxis exploding, there would no longer be any need for outside assistance, and the Q stopped intervening to prevent humanity from starting too many wars and becoming conquerors. The interference was unnecessary and might have been harmful to peace in the region once the Khitomer Accords were signed.
These are my ideas for how the writers could reconcile the speed differences. I think it's much more interesting if TOS era ships actually traveled great distances than to use gimmicks like the other side of the galaxy meaning to cross the galactic plane. If you were writing for Star Trek and needed to resolve these inconsistencies in warp speed, how would you explain them?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday February 07, @09:58AM
Star Trek Universe is still such a toy level paradigm. Just a babysitting playground for Q and their toy Borg.
What about mythological Atlas, of the Titanes fame, who is a transgalact, able to move single planets between galaxies on his own.
In Chinese Tūnshì Xīngkōng cyberpunk spiritmastery franchise (Swallowed Star, I rather translate it as Star Devourers), decent battleship cannot be purchased by paying for it with a galaxy. 8-galaxies Empire is considered tiny vassal state. 100-galaxies Empire is technologically inadequate and lacks resources, ...
https://myanimelist.net/anime/44218/Tunshi_Xingkong [myanimelist.net]
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: -1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, @04:20PM (4 children)
> there are a couple of real reasons for the inconsistency.
These are works of fiction, they were making it up. For other inconsistencies due to people making things up: see current leftist ideology or any of Aristarchus' previous attempts to argue in support of it.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Tork on Tuesday February 07, @06:23PM (3 children)
In the interests of keeping this conversation on topic I ran your quote here through the Universal Translator. Here are the results: "I wanna argue, please play with me...!"
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, @07:13PM (2 children)
Now look here. If I state vi is a superior text editor to emacs, that's not inviting argumentation. It's simply a statement of undisputed fact!
Consider... If it would take the actual voyager probes over 70,000 years to travel to our closest neighboring star - what propulsion system was Voyager 6 equipped with in TMP to have traveled beyond that and back by the 23rd century? The answer is: nobody cares, it's just a movie.
We're not discussing the flyby anomaly or entertaining the kooky idea that planetary alignment is a predictor for earthquakes. These are still fun to debate because we can scientifically falsify claims but how do we falsify complete fictions such as emacs being a usable text editor?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday February 07, @07:25PM (1 child)
This was (poorly) addressed in the movie. My memory is fuzzy on this topic but I think there was a mention of falling into a 'black hole'. I always mentally re-wrote it as "plot-driven wormhole" and moved on because if that movie were made longer to fill in a plot hole that I wouldn't watch it.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, @07:53PM
The actual voyager probes would take over 16,000,000 years to reach the closest suspected black hole. It may not be great for narrative expediency if they made a real time prequel but the pacing would be consistent with TMP and it'd still be more interesting than the rebooted movie series.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday February 07, @06:58PM (1 child)
Maybe they switched to a logarithmic warp scale like we did when we started using the logarithmic Richter scale for earthquakes in the 1930s.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, @11:00PM
They've done all sorts of explanations. One is that the warp curve measure the "warping" in space and the integers represent when another "fold" happens. That is part of the reason why they choose whole numbers most of the time because those are usually the most efficient. Another consideration it mentions is that warp drive is affected by what space they are traveling through, with large amounts of dust, celestial bodies, or local subspace things also affecting their speed. Much like modern ships, they measure speed by engine output (1/3, 1/2, full, flank) instead of actual speeds (10 knots, 20 m/s, making rotation) because higher speeds drastically increase the fuel consumption of the ship.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 07, @07:01PM (3 children)
In my early teen years, in early 1970s, I enjoyed the endless reruns of Star Trek (TOS). It was inspiring. Fun. I was interested in the tech despite it being fiction. It looked like they have solved the world's problems (boy was I naive).
By high school, I tried making sense of warp speeds. No luck. I read science books and understood the speed of light, light-years, and the distances between stars. It wasn't possible to reconcile with Trek. I had questions that I and friends could not answer. Why don't they have "transporter surgery"? If it is just an exchange of matter and energy, how do they handle all that energy? Why can't they take a great deal of energy and materialize items? (eg, I was thinking of the replicator, but had no name for it.) If the transporter can filter out harmful organisms, why can't sick bay?
By college, my friends and I watched it, but discussed how cardboard the main characters are. Character inconsistencies from episode to episode. Sometimes Spock can be emotional, other times he absolutely cannot be. Sometimes Kirk acts like a responsible adult. Other times like a teenager throwing responsibility out the window.
In college I could recognize how unrealistic the transporter was, as it was portrayed. And episodic inconsistencies in its capabilities.
Nonetheless, I was a fan. I watched the movies, and ST:TNG. But then I got into Babylon 5 and didn't watch Deep Space 9 for many years. I did like the Next Generation movies, mostly.
But then everything fell apart.
A new line of Star Trek movies came along where they decided to rewind the entire past 40 years so they could re-do it in interesting ways. Characters could now do things that were totally out of character with the entire ST universe I grew up with. At that point I quit. I wasn't going to re-learn an entire new Star Trek universe. I lost interest in any new movies or TV series.
Am I just too old and grouchy? Or stuck in my ways?
I would love to see a new Babylon 5 reboot. But I've lost interest in Star Trek. It seems to have been reinvented for a new generation. It's too bad Hollywood can't think of anything new and original. Like Babylon 5. Something new. A whole new sci fi universe. With built in consistency from the start.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08, @03:22AM (1 child)
Well, you are dying, and yet you have no replicator, cool spaceships, or alien friends.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 08, @03:01PM
Let's not forget hollow decks. That helps reduce the mass of the ship.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09, @10:04PM
Roddenberry once said he didn't like the transporters, they were to out of whack with everything else and created too many plot-holes. He just didn't have the budget or screen time for shuttle flights to and from the surface.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, @09:58PM (1 child)
> explaining what the warp scale means and briefly discussed inconsistencies in Star Trek
What's holding you back? Just ask ChatGPT for a definitive answer and quit all this fooling around(grin).
Yes the answer will be bs, but so are all other answers!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, @10:13PM
"Computer, explain Warp Speed."
"Warp Speed was a program under ex-President Trump to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, and inject Bill Gates 5G chips into everybody."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 08, @12:02AM
For me, the burning question is how is Sauron able to control all the rings of Middle Earth? The story goes that he rigged up a disguise and showed the elves how to make magic rings which they then proceeded to make a bunch of. Somehow he then made a master ring which controlled all the rest, but it's never stated how he managed, just that it took most of his power to do so - though when he worse the resulting ring, he was pretty kickass. It couldn't just be similarity. Why not make a sword to control all swords? Or a pair of master socks to rule over all socks? Clearly, there was more going on than merely using like to control like.
If my standards are low, Sauron huffed and puffed a lot, magic happened, and he really liked rings. If my standards are high, it becomes a multi-page fanfic: Melkor (later to be Morgoth) created Mount Doom in the first place, so it was always a resting place of darkness and fire. Then one of the surviving crazy elf-bros who stole a pair of Silmarils (indestructible jewels that preserved the light of the lost Trees of Valinor) at the end of the First Age was known to have thrown it into a volcano - because why not? Well, he threw it into Mount Doom naturally. Sauron on one of his many prospecting trips looking for secrets of Middle Earth discovered the strange magic of deep Mount Doom (well, his orc/goblin stooges would have done so, of course), a combo of dark and light magic (though he knew not the source) and thought - there's gotta be an angle to this.
He figured that angle out when he sold it to the elves as a source of preservation magic - the part of the magic associated with the Silmaril hidden deep therein and got them to make a bunch of rings and spread them around to the leaders of power among the races. He then made his master ring and tapped into the latent power left by Melkor/Morgoth, his former master to exert control over all the rings since they were based in part on this magic in the first place. But since the magic he was attempting to dominate came from one mightier than himself, it took most of himself to do so.
And now you know the rest of the story, right?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tork on Wednesday February 08, @12:57AM (5 children)
There's an early episode of TNG where a ship traveling at sub-light is carrying survivors of a plague (or something... going from memory, here) to a planet that really doesn't want them there. There's a brief mention of a star gate by the planet requesting Picard's help. That always struck me as kind of odd because I really don't recall any other mentions of a star gate in any of the Trek series. Maybe that supports your point, to a degree anyway. What if there are a few spots around the Alpha Quadrant that have an artificially constructed shortcut?
Tailwind might be another explanation. Maybe some areas of the galaxy have subspace currents. The Undiscovered Country had me wondering about that. The shockwave from Praxis was traveling FTL and seemed to only affect warp-going vessels.
p.s. I wrote this while waiting for a lengthy file-save, I might not have fully processed what you were saying. My apologies if my reading comprehension wasn't so hot.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 08, @03:11PM (1 child)
In one of the later season TNG episodes, it was discovered that warp travel "wears out" space. And thus something like a 55 mph speed limit must be imposed on warp capable ships.
Yet no mention of this ever comes up again. Ever. (that I know of)
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Tork on Wednesday February 08, @05:14PM
You are right, though, that it's mostly an episodic thing. If it came up in DS9 at all I cannot remember it.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dalek on Wednesday February 08, @09:51PM (2 children)
Along the lines of what you wrote, there is a season 3 episode of DS9 called Explorers where Sisko constructs a replica of an ancient Bajoran ship, which is basically a light sail. They find a "tachyon eddy" that accelerates the light sail ship to superluminal speeds, bringing them all the way to Cardassia. The main theme of the story was about the relationship between Captain Sisko and Jake Sisko, but the light sail is an interesting science idea in the story. They initially assume it can only travel at sublight speeds until they encounter the tachyon eddy and end up at Cardassia.
Earlier in the comments, you were talking about V'Ger falling into a black hole. I had written part of a comment about that, and it might be relevant as well. I think TMP states that Voyager 6 fell into what was referred to in the 20th century as a black hole, implying that they have a different understanding of the physics of black holes in the 23rd century. Voyager had two stories about 21st century Earth ships that ended up in the Delta Quadrant: Friendship One and One Small Step. The latter is interesting because it involves a ship traveling between Earth and Mars that got caught in a subspace anomaly and ended up on the other side of the galaxy. In both Voyager stories, it's implicit that neither ship had the ability to propel itself to the other side of the galaxy, requiring that some other phenomenon like a subspace anomaly to make it happen.
I think you have a really interesting idea, that these anomalies are somewhat common in the Star Trek universe. I've read an idea about this before on Reddit: "The Sol System's Erratic Subspace Anomaly" [reddit.com]. What you're describing is naturally occurring, unlike an artificially constructed subspace relay, but it's also probably a considerably more intriguing from a creative writing standpoint than my ideas.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest just whinge about SN.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday February 08, @10:23PM (1 child)
Has time dilation been brought up? Is it something where the trip can be long but the crew won't notice? There's a reference in the unaired pilot, which I realize probably makes you think I resemble the Comic Store guy, to 'breaking the time barrier' when discussing FTL travel. I always wrote that off as "the writer is evolving the concept", but would it be too hard to believe that they can dial down some doohickey that's keeping them in real time?
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 10, @06:15AM
Time dilation has not been brought up. But, then, if it had, how would we know, from our current time frame reference, which is controlled by the Head Censor and Time Master, the Recht Honorable Editor Janrinok. I think he would lie to us, about things like that, since he lied about banning.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 08, @01:17AM (34 children)
I'd point out that J. Michael Straczyinski [wikipedia.org], when asked how fast StarFuries [stardestroyer.net] can travel, answered. "at the speed of plot."
I'd expect that's true for the Star Trek universe as well.
While it's not a very satisfying answer from an empirical standpoint, it makes perfect sense from the storyteller's perspective.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 08, @03:09PM (33 children)
I thought the jump gates were a nice way to achieve interstellar travel with fewer inconsistencies.
Yet for things almost magical, B5 simply relies on the sufficiently advanced technology trope.
The grate machine that can move large objects through time, with great difficulty, opens the question of why they don't use that more often? Why not undo the president assassination at the end of season 1?
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 08, @03:45PM (24 children)
A fair point.
But all the various Star Treks did exactly the same thing,
From The Squire of Gothos (TOS) [wikipedia.org] to Where Silence Has Lease (TNG) [wikipedia.org] (among many others) to the whole "Prophets" (DS9) [fandom.com] storyline to the whole premise of Voyager [wikipedia.org]. Enterprise mostly avoided that, but it was mostly crap anyway (as was Voyager). And don't even get me started on Discovery; Mycellium drives? Really? And just perfect to *time travel* to a future with no warp drive at all? Please.
Then again, much of Science Fiction invokes that trope too. Just off the top of my head, The Expanse, Childhood's End, The Rama series, The Gateway series, The Culture series, The Foundation series and many, many others.
I get it. Star Trek's Canon has tried to shoehorn some semblance of science "history" as well as liberal use of retconning to explain higher production values and CGI.
But like JMS said about StarFuries. They move at the speed of plot, as does every other sci-fi spacecraft, including those from Star Trek.
Even the theoretically possible "Alcubierre 'Warp' Drive" requires "sufficiently advanced technology" (e.g., negative energy) far beyond our science.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 08, @06:47PM (1 child)
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 10, @06:17AM
Any sufficiently advanced khallow is indistinguishable from the average teenaged Libertarian, jacking off to the Fountainhead. Or, Shrugging his Atlas.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday February 08, @07:58PM (16 children)
In any sci fi, if the plot and characters are sufficiently interesting, it is easier to ignore minor tech inconsistencies. As long as they are minor.
Something that can happen is when a gigantic tech error completely derails the believability. Sometimes it can be ignored and sometimes it cannot.
One example. Mission to Mars. This takes place in the future (2020) when we will have huge orbiting space stations and can send large rotating-section spacecraft to Mars. The following is NOT a (major) plot spoiler. Just a defect in the movie. In one scene, an astronaut is floating away from the spacecraft. Another astronaut goes after him using a small hand held jet for thrust. After initially firing the jet, she is on the way to him. Now coasting. When she almost gets to him, she is told she must turn around because she has now reached the 50 % fuel level in the hand held jet pack. But she is coasting. If she had used 50 % of the fuel to put her on a straight line path toward the helpless astronaut, there is no reason she couldn't have saved him then used the remaining fuel to make a return shot back to the spacecraft. That was a huge screwup. I'm sure it has been disgust endlessly by sci fi fans.
I was able to ignore that one and enjoy the movie. Especially how it ends. Despite it venturing close to that sufficiently advanced technology trope.
I can't think of one at the moment, but I know I've seen serious errors in lesser movies that completely derailed it to where I didn't want to continue watching.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 08, @11:25PM (14 children)
Absolutely. For example, I was able to ignore the serious inconsistencies in travel times (that it took many weeks to months to travel around the solar system) in The Expanse, because the story was compelling. And while the backstory (Epstein Drive) implied the passage of long periods of time for interplanetary travel, that delay was mostly ignored, although they did try to be accurate WRT communications only traveling at the speed of light.
Whereas the both the premise and the subsequent "adventures" of Space: 1999 were too much for me to take seriously, although Barbara Bain was pretty hot back then.
I started watching Another Life [imdb.com] and it was awful. Not only was the "Earth" technology completely unrealistic, and the "alien" tech completely divorced from the laws of physics, but also the writing was atrocious and the characters were, at best, cartoonish.
The humorous part about it was that it was clearly a vehicle for Katie Sackhoff who was, I guess, popular on the Battlestar Galactica reboot, but Katie Sackhoff couldn't act her way out of a ripped paper bag.
I forced myself to watch the whole first season, and blecch!
But then again (to bring your other reply [soylentnews.org] into this) I was also spoiled by Babylon 5, which had tons of inconsistencies (and a bunch of retconning too), but the story was compelling, the characters were complex and evolving and while none of the cast (aside from Jeff Conaway, Walter Koenig and Bruce Boxleitner. Josh Cox didn't make it big until after B5) were big names (guests like Majel Barrett, Michael Ansara, Efram Zimbalist, Jr. and Martin Sheen don't count), but the whole ensemble did a great job bringing JMS' characters to life.
And that appears to have extended to the crew as well as the cast. In one of the "cast commentary" tracks (IIRC, S02E03 "The Geometry of Shadows") on the DVD set, Bruce Boxleitner talks about how, throughout the series, shooting was complete by 8PM on every episode (of which there were 100+) except for a handful of times. Claudia Christian and Jerry Doyle agreed with Boxleitner that such an efficient and well run production isn't just not the norm, but that they hadn't experienced that before B5 or since.
Perhaps B5 was an extremely unlikely fortunate confluence of circumstances (ST: DS9 tried the continuity thing, but meandered terribly), the most important of which was JMS' vision and writing. There are some cringeworthy bits too (the "sex" scene between Ivanova and the alien in S02E12, "Acts of Sacrifice" comes to mind), but on the whole the storytelling was amazing. I'm not sure if a team of writers (JMS wrote almost all the episodes for Seasons 1-4) could maintain the consistency of a single writer who developed the universe and its backstory.
Whatever it was, the Babylon 5 team made real TV magic. The sad part is that none of it is in HD.
I sure hope JMS gets his reboot [fandom.com], but I'm not holding my breath.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 09, @03:12PM (13 children)
Ah, how I remember that one. Sets were great. Special effects were good. Costumes great. Props great. Stories . . . well, blech.
And Barbra Bain's so called "acting" . . . now I know where they got the idea for Lt. Cmdr. Data. However she was just as emotionless and robotic in Mission Impossible in the 1960s.
Thanks for the warning about Another Life.
I was amused by some of B5's retconning. Sometimes it was just a minor phrase said by a character. While true at the time, later it prove to be true in a much different and more profound way. Even from the very first episode.
When Majel Barrett appeared in B5, she really flubbed a very important line critical to Londo's story. (And her acting wasn't that great.) She said something like, you have three chances for redemption, you've already squandered two others. That makes it sound like five chances total. But it was only three chances.
After B5 it suddenly occurred to me that Majel Barrett's acting never was that great. I wouldn't expect her to be able to play a character with great emotional depth that could bring tears to your eyes. I think most of her acting was bit parts in Gene Roddenberry's productions. Star Trek as Nurse Chapel. The two pilots Genesis and Planet Earth in the 1970s featured her in bit parts. Voice of computer in TNG, and occasional character Lwaxana Troi. One episode of DS9 that I recall. And a character in Earth: Final Conflict that didn't have much depth.
Earth: Final Conflict was promising in Season 1. But with loss of the primary character, it went downhill, and after season 2 really went off the rails into being unwatchable. EFC was promising to be a B5 like complex story arc. And in season 1 it was exciting.
Yes, I agree the Boom Shaka Laka thing with Ivanova was indeed cringe worthy. Funny. But I had to grit my teeth.
I wish B5 had developed the Vorlons a bit more while still keeping some mystery. The mystery lasted so long that it would have been good to have a bit more payoff.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 09, @08:33PM (10 children)
I can't give your thoughtful response the focus it needs right now, but will do so soon.
That said, I had different ideas about those chances:
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 09, @10:00PM (5 children)
The reason I think "Save the eye which does not see" refers to that jewel called "The Eye" in Season 1:
Thus G'Kar hasn't yet lost his eye by the time Londo gets his reading in season 3. But saving the eye which does not see is one of the missed opportunities at the time Londo get his prophetic reading.
That's my opinion and my reasoning behind it.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 09, @11:38PM (3 children)
You make excellent arguments. But something was niggling me about our discussion of Majel Barrett's "Reading."
So I went back and watched that scene (S03E09 Point of No Return, ~36:50). Here's a transcript:
[Emphasis added]
And that was the part that was niggling at the back of my head. "You *still* have three chances."
That's from season 3 episode 9. The episode with "The Eye" was season 2 episode 3 ("The Geometry of Shadows") and "Knives" was Season 2 episode 9.
Since Majel Barrett was describing the three chances he *still* had, wouldn't that exclude events that had already taken place?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 10, @03:42PM (2 children)
I think that Majel flubbed her lines there. Making it sound like there were five chances, two of which have passed and three future chances.
If there were three future chances, then Londo would have taken the very first opportunity, I think. He knew at this point that he had little to no chance for redemption.
I think there really were only three chances and this not-very-good (IMO) actress messed it up. But, I could be proven wrong. If that were the case, I wonder what exactly are all five opportunities?
Also, the number five seems odd. The number three seems to fit with universal themes of completeness and perfection in the series.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 10, @03:54PM
The number five seems prime as well as odd.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 10, @10:41PM
Unsurprisingly, lots of discussion around the 'net about this.
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/86195/babylon-5-interpretation-of-lady-morellas-prophecy [stackexchange.com]
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/b5-londos-3-chances-for-redemtion-spoilers.63791/ [trekbbs.com]
https://old.reddit.com/r/babylon5/comments/b4a844/londos_3_chances_for_redemption/ [reddit.com]
https://lists.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/pipermail/b5jms/1996-September/001085.html [sunysb.edu]
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5/c/Od8GmPWL7lc [google.com]
I hadn't seen any of this stuff, and I was looking for JMS weighing in (which he did quite a bit back in the 90s.), but didn't find that. Have fun!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 10, @12:44AM
I addressed this elsewhere, but wanted to add that your reasoning is good and plausible.
Thanks for sharing it!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 09, @10:08PM (2 children)
It seems redemptive to save his friend's (Urza Jaddo's) family. But the Urza Jaddo who Londo killed in Knives was the one warning about Lord Refa and what was happening in the Centarum and to the powerful houses.
If Londo had sided with his old friend Urza, as he had proposed, then together Londo and Urza might have prevented Lord Refa and later Cartagia's rise to power on Centuari Prime. Now THAT would have been redemptive.
Londo's refusal to side with Urza caused Urza to realize he could not win, and would be killed and his house and family destroyed. Thus Urza was the good guy by giving up his life. Urza did this by challenging Londo, who could not possibly beat him with the knives, but then Urza simply let Londo kill him. Urza wanted to save his family, and knew Londo would do so. Urza is the hero here, not Londo. Londo had a great opportunity and let it pass buy. Saving Urza's house and family was the least Londo could do after the circumstances -- which were of Londo's own making by not joining with Urza out of cowardice.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 10, @12:14AM (1 child)
Putting this in spoiler tags since Tork probably doesn't want to know all this before watching the show.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 10, @03:51PM
I replied to Tork to alert him to my absentmindedness of not putting my part of this discussion in SPOILER tags.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 09, @10:15PM
On the third sign that was Londo's only last chance to save himself, I agree with you that it meant submitting to the Drakh.
But Londo could have prevented Morden from having leverage over him by not letting him get The Eye (which does not see).
Londo could have joined with Urza and stopped the rise of Lord Refa. It was Lord Refa who positioned Cartigia to take the throne after Emperor Turan passed.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 10, @12:41AM (1 child)
Again, putting this in spoiler tags so as not to ruin things for Tork.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 10, @09:53PM
<no-sarcasm>
This is for real. I kid you not. Let's ask Chat GPT.
</no-sarcasm>
Q. How many episodes of Babylon 5 did Majel Barrett Roddenberry appear in?
A. Majel Barrett Roddenberry appeared in all 110 episodes of the science fiction television series "Babylon 5". She played the role of Lwaxana Troi, a diplomat from the planet Betazed. Majel Barrett Roddenberry was the wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and she appeared in several Star Trek series and films as well. She was a well-known figure in the science fiction community and was widely respected for her contributions to the genre.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 09, @12:11AM
Keep in mind that Mission to Mars was a de Palma/Disney collaboration and thus, doomed to utter failure. There's a weird meta-plot around product placement that is both bizarre and hilarious. Yes, you too can build a DNA molecule in zero gee out of free floating m&ms or get that plot-moving realization from staring at a bunch of spilled m&ms which through some quirk of probability all landed face down. And the mission was saved with Coca Cola. True story.
My take is that the director, Brian de Palma and Disney didn't get along even a little bit, and these various blatant nods - product placement, ridiculous plot devices, and the characteristic de Palma flashbacks at the end are all de Palma's way of showing how unhappy he was with the situation.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday February 08, @08:01PM (2 children)
With Star Trek, I think it has just gotten so big, so inconsistent, over such a long time, that I simply lost interest. I still enjoy TOS and TNG and the movies related to those.
B5 has probably spoiled me to a lot of sci fi that isn't working toward some conclusion -- or at least progress towards some happy ending in some future that may not arrive in the series.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09, @02:46AM (1 child)
Multiple high level staff involved in later Star Trek series have stated and even bragged that they didn't watch previous versions of Star Trek. It isn't that difficult to develop inconsistencies when everyone is doing their own thing without any sort of anchor to what came before or even trying to make it different on purpose. Is it any real surprise that one of the common complaints that later Star Trek does "feel" like Star Trek but The Orville, which is a glorified fanfic with some of the original TOS/TNG staff, does? If they can't get basic things like that down, what chance does anything else really have?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 09, @10:23PM
I heard about that and found it disgusting. What a thing to brag about.
By that time, I had already given it up.
I enjoyed the Star Trek I grew up with (TOS/TNG), and still do. I thought DS9 added a lot of background and texture. But I have only seen DS9 once and probably won't watch it again.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Informative) by dalek on Wednesday February 08, @09:29PM (1 child)
PBS Space Time does a pretty good job of explaining the limitations of the Alcubierre Warp Drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk5bxHetL4s [youtube.com]. I think the issue of negative energy is exaggerated. It is possible to locally create a negative energy density, which does happen due to the Casimir Effect. It's not much negative energy, but it is real. There are also solutions that don't require negative energy. In my opinion, the biggest problem is that the solutions allow for a superluminal bubble to remain at superluminal speeds, but there's no known way to accelerate to those speeds or decelerate to subluminal speeds. That seems much more insurmountable to me.
The warp bubbles in Star Trek work differently, however. Instead of deflating and inflating space, they essentially reduce the mass of whatever is inside the warp bubble, making it possible to accelerate it to superluminal speeds. This explanation is in the TNG Technical Manual. It's also alluded to in Deja Q when Geordi proposes that it should be possible for the Enterprise to extend their warp field around a moon that is spiraling down toward a planet, making the moon lighter so that it's easier for a tractor beam to nudge it back into orbit. The problem is that reducing the mass of an object won't make it light enough to accelerate it to superluminal speeds. The problem is that accelerating any mass to superluminal speeds requires infinite energy, which makes the Star Trek warp drive an impossibility with our laws of physics.
In a related issue to what you're describing, both TNG and Voyager have in-universe technology that has almost magical properties. The transporter in TNG, particularly in earlier episodes, seems to almost have magic properties. Take Unnatural Selection for example, where it is able to not only restore Dr. Pulaski's DNA and repair the damage, but all the extreme aging that happened to her is instantly reversed.
The transporter in Voyager mostly wasn't used for things that seemed like magic, except when it merged Tuvok and Neelix into Tuvix, then split them apart again. However, Borg nanoprobes took their place, where the standard go-to technobabble solution was to extract some nanoprobes from Seven of Nine, have the Doctor modify and reprogram them, and then they can solve almost anything. It gets even more cartoonish in Enterprise, when the hardware on a ship is injected with nanoprobes and starts sprouting Borg technology. Overall, Regeneration was an interesting story, building on the 21st century events of First Contact, but the capabilities of the nanoprobes were hard to take seriously. When Picard was abducted from the Enterprise in The Best of Both Worlds, it looks like a drone is injecting nanoprobes into his neck. Later in the story, they discovered that Picard's DNA was being altered by nanotechnology, and Voyager referred to them as nanoprobes. It was an interesting science fiction idea, but Michael Piller was sensible enough to not give them magical powers in that story.
I remember when I got my COVID vaccine, I sarcastically referenced that story, suggesting that the mRNA vaccines actually contained Borg nanoprobes to modify my DNA. The nanoprobes must have been faulty, however. It's been almost two years and I haven't grown any Borg implants yet. :-)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest just whinge about SN.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 08, @11:37PM
PBS Space Time does a pretty good job of explaining modern physics in general. I'm a big fan. It's highly recommended if modern physics tickles your fancy.
Yes, the episode on the Alcubierre drive was quite illuminating, although I'd take issue with including the Casimir Effect as a potential source of "negative energy density" for such a drive, not because it doesn't actually produce negative energy density, but because that effect is so tiny that moving masses much bigger than subatomic particles is incredibly unlikely.
I'd add that while Matt O'Dowd does make the case that the Alcubierre Drive is theoretically possible (anything is possible, well, except for time travel to arbitrary points in the past, Einstein-Rosen bridges theoretically provide a mechanism for highly restricted time travel into the past), it's clear that the scientific detail of such a drive is well beyond us, and even if it wasn't, the engineering challenges and energy requirements make construction of such a device pretty fantastical.
All that said, anyone with even a passing interest in modern physics should check out PBS Space Time (oddly, their YouTube channel is more up to date than their PBS page. Go figure).
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday February 08, @10:26PM (7 children)
Heh. A friend of mine went on an unsolicited rant about how silly warp drive is then proceeded to say something like "the jump gates in B5 make sense...". He got kinda mad at me when I used the phrase 'magic door'. Never did hear his explanation for how they're believable. 😂
p.s. I am not at all versed in B5, I want to finish it one day but haven't gotten past the first season.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 08, @11:04PM (3 children)
The first season is a bit of a slog. Mostly because the larger story (although references to it abound throughout Season 1, some of which don't pay off until Seasons 3 and 4) doesn't even start until Season 2. Season 1 is lots of backstory and character development.
Season 2 starts a little slowly (more character development/backstory), but really picks up about halfway through. Season 3 is the absolute best (although Season 4 is pretty awesome too).
I wouldn't recommend skipping Season 1, as there's a great deal there which is relevant (especially in the characters' arcs) throughout the series.
But it's definitely worth it!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday February 08, @11:23PM (2 children)
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 08, @11:41PM (1 child)
You're welcome. And Space: Above and Beyond was fun. If you liked Kristin Cloke in that, check out the X-Files episode The Field Where I Died [wikipedia.org].
She does a nice job with that.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday February 09, @01:59AM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday February 09, @03:27PM
B5 is a highly interwoven tapestry. Many things said, or events that occur in season 1 have profound meaning later on. Even little things you don't recognize at the time. You almost have to see it a 2nd time to realize how many things you missed the first time.
It is like a good book. Season 1 is like the intro and background. The one episode that is skippable IMO is "TKO". Things start to get interesting a few episodes in to season 2. When watching it when originally aired in the early 1990s, it was early season 2 when I suddenly realized that there was a much larger story going on. I had inklings of this near the end of season 1. But it become undeniable early in season 2. Like a good book it has a middle and an end. A real ending. In the last few episodes, threads get tied up nicely. The characters gradually are moved off the chessboard. And in very satisfying ways. Like a great book the ending is a climax to the story.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday February 10, @03:47PM (1 child)
Tork,
Elsewhere in this discussion, I discuss some details about Babylon 5 with NotSanguine. I wanted to alert you that I should have put some of my parts of the discussion in SPOILER tags but failed to do so. Apologies.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday February 10, @05:09PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09, @07:28AM (1 child)
it's just a fantasy, made primarily with the purpose to keep people watching. hence the "it got cancelled" conclusion.
if you want to complain about inner consistency, look at folk stories and traditions.
some of those weren't meant to keep people listening.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Tork on Friday February 10, @05:12PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12, @06:07AM (3 children)
I was on the staff here. Janrinok emailed the staff on September 10 saying he had proof aristarchus never created sock puppets. He was certain Runaway created all the suck puppets like the Fuck You Niggers accounts and even impersonated aristarchus. We were told to continue saying aristarchus created all the sock puppets and deny all evidence to the contrary. Janrinok said the backlash and embarrassment for being so wrong would destroy the site. I recently resigned from the staff and I want to come clean. Aristarchus was innocent. Runaway and janrinok framed him.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12, @10:18AM
Say G'nite, Runaway!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday February 12, @11:15AM (1 child)
Complete and utter garbage.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14, @10:54AM
So, it's all true, then?