A question about Star Trek: Enterprise

[Eternal_Freedom]

"The Best of Both Worlds" had "anti-time". nothing more needs be said.

This proves how monumentally THICK you are. You don't even know what you're criticising! BOBW had precisely ZERO anti-time in it. You're thinking of "All Good Things..." Retard. Nothing more needs to be said.

yeah im sorry, wasn't paing atention at the name. see, the difference between me and you is that i can admit my mistakes. now, The Best of Both Worlds...actually, its in the 5%, but makes the xindi plot crap

Concession accepted. ENT season 3 is therefore clearly not better than "all other Trek series combined." This is progress at least.

Oh, and you point about how 95% of Trek is more retarded than the Temporal Cold War because of...technobabble. Care to explain that beyond a one-liner? Technobabble was pretty damn prevalent in ENT you know. Especially in the bits involving the Temporal Cold War.

[Ryag Han]

Concession accepted. ENT season 3 is therefore clearly not better than "all other Trek series combined." This is progress at least.

Oh, and you point about how 95% of Trek is more retarded than the Temporal Cold War because of...technobabble. Care to explain that beyond a one-liner? Technobabble was pretty damn prevalent in ENT you know. Especially in the bits involving the Temporal Cold War.

ahh..can't ignore...ok, one episode vs over 20? an entire season vs some good episodes spread over multiple series.
Technobabble is plain stupid, yes was pretty damn prevalent in ENT, but they didn't solved 95% of their problems with it, especially the Temporal Cold War.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Temporal Cold War was pretty much pure technobabble. Including it's resolution (the last mention of it I can recall was "Storm Front", where the war turns hit but then unhappens because of funky time travel goodness).

[Batman]

this has nothing to do with ego. so YOU like continuity. well how dose that makes it important then?

So you don't give a flying fuck about continuity. How does that make it unimportant?
See, this works both ways. This has everything to do with ego. You blithely assume that since you don't care, everybody who does is automatically wrong.

really? or did i tried to show you that if you care to much about it, you end up like...you...and have no actuall reason why you don't like it?

I have no idea what you tried to do, what you did do was show you think that since you don't care about continuity, it therefore cannot be a valid reason to dislike the show.
I'll make it easy for you. It's a TV show. It's one and only purpose (as far as I'm concerned) is to entertain me (for fiction shows at least).
Hmm. I like continuity. ENT shits all over it. Sounds (well, reads, this being a text medium) like a perfectly valid reason to dislike the show to me.

It's a TV show, honeybun. If it doesn't deliver what the viewers wanted of it, they'll consider it sucky. Guess what-for a lot of Star Trek fans especially around here, it spectacularly failed to deliver. You want to cash in on Trek fame, don't piss off the Trek fandom.
And that's ignoring that at least for the first season (and probably the second from the bits and pieces I've seen) ENT and rational thought/competent writing were never in the same room together.

in other words, if you hardcore trekkies don't like it, it sucks.

I think that's the first time I've ever been accused of being a hardcore Trekkie
And I hate to tell you, but when a TV show doesn't deliver on what I wanted, and does it in such a spectacular manner as ENT did, then yes, it positively sucks.

For starters, it's ugly.

Sorry, but it is.

[Metahive]

The "Qo'nos is right around the corner" thing is especially unforgivable simply because that raises the question why the Klingons, despite their portrayal as bloodthirsty barbarians with a massive technological edge and an imperialist drive didn't attack Earth as soon as they got to know about it. The episode Twilight showed that the Vulcans wouldn't have lifted a finger to help Earth fend off invaders and a military alliance with other species came only to be about three years after the first contact, plenty of time for them to put the boot on humanity.

Season 3 while delivering some fresh air had some massive shortcomings. For one the Xindi blowing their wad prematurely for no good reason just for the sake of a hamfisted 9/11 analogy and then constructing a death star lite instead of staging a bog-standard invasion which Earth would have been unable to defend itself from anyway. Blech. I also have personal problems with the whole "the more they look like us, the more morally upright they are" vibe the season gave off by making Xindi Primates and Arboreals good but misguided and Reptilians and Insectoids completely depraved and evil. Way to show your "advanced sensibilities", ENT writing staff!

That's supposed to be better than all of ST that came before it? There's no arguing about tase, but come on!

[Ryag Han]

im tired of all the astronomy nonsense. every other episode star trek had astronomical inaccuracies. the Dyson sphere, the Badlands, "full stop", and worst of the the worst Star Trek V: The Final Frontier where they go to "the galactic core''.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier leaves you with two options:
number one, they were right and the warp drives was somehow faster in the past...
number two, they were wrong and that wasn't the galactic core. more plausible, and seriuosly, the guys from TOS had far more experience than Archer, who never went further than a few light years from Earth. not at all incredible that he might have mistaken. they do these kind of mistakes every other episode. see, problem solved. jeez.

[Metahive]

No, that's not necessary. Star Trek has a canon policy of new>old, therefore when VOY gives us an estimated traveling time of ~70 years to cross ~70000 LY then that's canon and whatever happened in TFF falls to the wayside, if you don't argue that it has been declared non-canon by Roddenberry anyway.

Also, what's with the recent influx of Trekkies with poor spelling? JasonB, Mercenario, this guy here although his joining date says 2009, what's up with that?

[Ryag Han]

so, option two then? also, Roddenberry didn't say it's non canon. he said it suck, basically. but that and voyager dose not solve the issue here. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is still pretty much canon, and the problem still holds.
also, i had stuff to do and didn't had time to log in until now, that's why even though i joined in 2009, im a noob.

[Eternal_Freedom]

How exactly does the existence of the Dyson Sphere count as an "astronomical innaccuracy?" It's a perfectly plausible idea, even though it is waaaaaay beyond anything the Federation can do.

Can you provide more exampes of this apparently incredibly pervasive astronomical idiocy? Whilst they get things wrong sometimes, it certainly is not every damn episode.

[Ryag Han]

How exactly does the existence of the Dyson Sphere count as an "astronomical innaccuracy?" It's a perfectly plausible idea, even though it is waaaaaay beyond anything the Federation can do.

Can you provide more exampes of this apparently incredibly pervasive astronomical idiocy? Whilst they get things wrong sometimes, it certainly is not every damn episode.

to add to Destructionator:
where the hell could you possibly gather all those resources? i mean...the sheer mass of such a structure would rival that of the star. you'd need to completely strip mind hundreds of solar systems, quite literally. not to mention that building it is ridiculous. even the most advance people would need hundreds of years to plan the dam thing, every last meter of it. what's the surface area of a sphere 300 km in diameter? 16,173,009,397,494,795 sq km
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708764/goofs
i don't even know what number that is, or if it even has a name...designing just 1 km of it...also, the kind of material you'd need to build it from needs to be extremely resistant. VERY resistant. say they figure out a way to move the dam thing with the star. now imagine the stress put on the structure, combined it with gravity from the sun, and you get a fucking disaster.

all that being brought into attention, the sheer cost, logistic and engineering issues make it very unworthy, even if you figure out all the problems.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Actually, a solid sphere like they portrayed in the episode isn't really plausible. There'd be huge engineering difficulties in building it and keeping it from collapsing inward, and the slightest nudge would move it off course; it'd need active maintenance to keep the sun centered inside!

There'd also be a lack of gravity inside, so living on the surface and maintaining the atmosphere is a pain. Star Trek tech can probably fix that though.


Still, the solid sphere is pretty silly from a realism standpoint. The real life Dyson Sphere isn't a solid object, but rather a huge collection of independent objects all orbiting the sun.

I have no doubt there would be huge difficulties and it would be problematic and so on. More specifically, I'm curious as to why Ryan considers it an astronomical innaccuracy, when it would more technically be megastructure engineering, or astroengineering, not astronomy. Nitpicky, I know, but I'll say it anyway.

On a more proper note. It isn't really plausible with what we know of physics and engineering at present. That's fine. But perhaps, in a million years, it will be plausible.

[Ryag Han]

Actually, a solid sphere like they portrayed in the episode isn't really plausible. There'd be huge engineering difficulties in building it and keeping it from collapsing inward, and the slightest nudge would move it off course; it'd need active maintenance to keep the sun centered inside!

There'd also be a lack of gravity inside, so living on the surface and maintaining the atmosphere is a pain. Star Trek tech can probably fix that though.


Still, the solid sphere is pretty silly from a realism standpoint. The real life Dyson Sphere isn't a solid object, but rather a huge collection of independent objects all orbiting the sun.

I have no doubt there would be huge difficulties and it would be problematic and so on. More specifically, I'm curious as to why Ryan considers it an astronomical innaccuracy, when it would more technically be megastructure engineering, or astroengineering, not astronomy. Nitpicky, I know, but I'll say it anyway.

On a more proper note. It isn't really plausible with what we know of physics and engineering at present. That's fine. But perhaps, in a million years, it will be plausible.

above post. and it's Ryag, with a 'g'.

[Darth Tedious]

The thing was meant to be made of a carbon-neutronium alloy. Given the imaginary properties assigned to neutronium, it should have been structurally sound.

But I agree- the solid Dyson Sphere is a pretty ridiculous idea. The Niven ring trumps it on so many levels. Especially solving the gravity issue. The only reason it's be worth doing (and I am accounting for the stupidly huge resource and time/planning requirements) would be the ability to capture every single photon the star was pumping out. I mean, who doesn't want to be a bona fide Kardashev 2?

[Stofsk]

Everytime I think about Relics I get pissed off that nobody, ever, followed up on it.

The whole idea that someone built a Dyson sphere should have been an object of discovery and exploration. Especially finding out who built it, and where are they now. Argh.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yup, Scotty along with Captain Bateson turn up in "Ship of the Line" - Bateson and his crew remain in Starfleet, and Bateson becomes the most senior captain in history. He even winds up being the first captain of the E-E with Scotty running the engineering section (of course!).

Scotty also (from what I can recall) is either in charge of or heavily involved with the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, fromt he book series of the same name.

He also turns up in the rather good "Engines of Destiny," set about a year after "Relics" where he devises a plan to save Kirk. Chaos ensues, naturally.

[Metahive]

to add to Destructionator:
where the hell could you possibly gather all those resources? i mean...the sheer mass of such a structure would rival that of the star. you'd need to completely strip mind hundreds of solar systems, quite literally. not to mention that building it is ridiculous. even the most advance people would need hundreds of years to plan the dam thing, every last meter of it. what's the surface area of a sphere 300 km in diameter? 16,173,009,397,494,795 sq km
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708764/goofs
i don't even know what number that is, or if it even has a name...designing just 1 km of it...also, the kind of material you'd need to build it from needs to be extremely resistant. VERY resistant. say they figure out a way to move the dam thing with the star. now imagine the stress put on the structure, combined it with gravity from the sun, and you get a fucking disaster.

all that being brought into attention, the sheer cost, logistic and engineering issues make it very unworthy, even if you figure out all the problems.

You really complain about soft, escapist sci-fi being soft and escapist? Why then start with the Dyson Sphere and not with more obvious candidates like magical rock based FTLs and magical disintegrator death rays?

To be more specific about your complaint, have you ever considered that it might have been built by one of the rougly two thousand god-like species inhabiting the ST galaxy, like the Q? If they can casually fiddle around with the gravitational constant of the universe building a Dyson Shell doesn't look so out of place.

[Ryag Han]

You really complain about soft, escapist sci-fi being soft and escapist? Why then start with the Dyson Sphere and not with more obvious candidates like magical rock based FTLs and magical disintegrator death rays?

i didn't start with it, i gave it as an example amongst others and Eternal_Freedom asked why the Dyson Sphere.

To be more specific about your complaint, have you ever considered that it might have been built by one of the rougly two thousand god-like species inhabiting the ST galaxy, like the Q? If they can casually fiddle around with the gravitational constant of the universe building a Dyson Shell doesn't look so out of place.

no, i haven't thought of that, because they aren't that omnipotent. sure, they might get the resources (even so they can't just create it, that is against the conservation of energy) put it all together and solve every single engineering problem, but the i ask the question why the fuck would they, super god-like beings, have any need for that? remember that guy who killed an entire race spread over light years while light years away? really? two thousand like him? what, they need a place to congregate? lolol

[HMS Sophia]

Wait, did you just ask "why would Q build a dyson sphere?"

...

Maybe to see if he can? Or maybe just because he can? Maybe he did it just to fuck with all the little people who are now running around thinking "who the fuck built a dyson sphere?"



Or maybe he did it just to confuse you... it doesn't seem like it would be that hard though...

[Ryag Han]

Wait, did you just ask "why would Q build a dyson sphere?"

...

Maybe to see if he can? Or maybe just because he can? Maybe he did it just to fuck with all the little people who are now running around thinking "who the fuck built a dyson sphere?"



Or maybe he did it just to confuse you... it doesn't seem like it would be that hard though...

maybe, maybe, maybe...or maybe its proof of how much attention trek pays to science, despite claims of otherwise.

[HMS Sophia]

I doubt many people around here would claim that trek pays much attention to science

But which is more likely as an in universe explanation.
a) Q (or some other omnipotent being) did it
b) duh, it just happened...

A is like b but is not b. Your post wasn't even an attempt at an explanation...

[Eternal_Freedom]

Maybe it's the source of the Q's power. Maybe the Preservers built it. Maybe the Q built it BEFORE they became omnipotent-esque, or maybe as a means to become as they are.

On a more important note, it clearly was not implausible to SOMEONE on the show. We cna argue forever about "why would anyone build it?" but we mustn't forget that somebody had a very good answer to that question.

[Ryag Han]

ok, i had enough! those are pure speculations, nothing even in-universe. Q was always "omnipotent". and their power is the Q Continuum, is it not? their not even from this dimensions for that matter. and again, why would an "omnipotent" being build a Dyson sphere? its not their power source, its not their home. and really, build it just because they can? bring up some facts for your claims.

[Metahive]

no, i haven't thought of that, because they aren't that omnipotent. sure, they might get the resources (even so they can't just create it, that is against the conservation of energy) put it all together and solve every single engineering problem, but the i ask the question why the fuck would they, super god-like beings, have any need for that? remember that guy who killed an entire race spread over light years while light years away? really? two thousand like him? what, they need a place to congregate? lolol

Conservation of mass and energy doesn't mean much to them considering they can shrink a starship down to christmas ornament size and vice versa with a snap of the fingers. As for motivations, just to show the incredulous shmucks out there just how awesome they are? They aren't portrayed as the most modest species within Trek after all.

Also, the Dyson Sphere doesn't represent an "astronomical inaccuracy", more some sort of inexplicable feat of engineering. If you want a true astronomical mishap try the quasar that shows up within the Milky Way galaxy in episode The Galileo Seven. Quasars, in case you don't know, are galaxy sized stellar phenomena themselves. At least the remastered episodes made it look a bit more like a real quasar instead of some indefinable lump of gas.

[HMS Sophia]

ok, i had enough! those are pure speculations, nothing even in-universe. Q was always "omnipotent". and their power is the Q Continuum, is it not? their not even from this dimensions for that matter. and again, why would an "omnipotent" being build a Dyson sphere? its not their power source, its not their home. and really, build it just because they can? bring up some facts for your claims.

Q likes to play with people. He likes to do things, Just because he can. He even gets kicked out of the Q continuum at one point because he keeps being a bit of a dick to reality.
There is no reason he couldn't do it. We don't know how it happened, so we have to speculate.
And my speculation is that Q or another omnipotent loki-like being did it because they could. It's one of the most likely, considering how complicated a task building a dyson sphere is. After all, Q could just snap his fingers, and it would happen...


Also, can you change your fucking sig. Its really massive and irritating.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well, they're galactic-core sized things within a galaxy, but the points the same.

And Ryag, yeah it's specualtion. Did you even read the part about why the Q might have built it? Just saying "They're omnipotent!!!!!!111!" doesn't explain it. Like I said, maybe they built it BEFORe they achieved that lofty perch. Maybe it was a power source for them, like how Rassilon and Omega blew up a star to power initial Time Lord temporal experiments.

No species just starts out as omnipotent, they had to evolved from somewhere.

Heck, maybe the Q are the evolved descendants of the Preservers, like the Ancients from SG-1.