Federation Military Topics (Reboot, Spoilers)

[Baffalo]

Mentioning transporters again for a second...

Memory Alpha lists the range of the prime universe transporters as being about 40,000 km, according to ENT: "Rajiin"; TNG: "A Matter Of Honor", "Bloodlines".

Dialog from nuTrek, however, gives us a range of approximately a few hundred kilometers (could someone find the exact quote for me? My copy is suspiciously missing grrr). So we're looking at a massive disconnect between what is possible and what is not. I believe that it had to have been transwarp transporters getting Kirk and Spock from Titan to the Nerada because of the distances.

Based on the footage I've seen, the Enterprise arrives at Titan and then rises up out of the atmosphere into daylight, but you can still see half of Saturn in darkness. This means that the Enterprise came in at an angle, possibly tangential to Saturn's orbit. Considering that they would probably have been on a direct path to Earth to catch Nero, that means Earth could be as close as 1.28 x 109 km, or up to 1.579 x 109 km away. Either way, you're talking about vast distances that would just about require transwarp beaming just to happen.

Given that transwarp beaming seems to be fairly accurate even over extremely long ranges (Earth to Kronos, for example), I wonder if there's an actual limit on what can be done, or if there's a set of relays that let Khan beam in a series of jumps, just bouncing from relay to relay. These relays wouldn't extend into the Klingon Empire, for obvious reasons, so assuming there was a relay on the satellite on the very edge of Federation space, it would then have to go all the way to Kronos from there. And that's just the lower limit, no telling if it can go further.

[WATCH-MAN]

Given that transwarp beaming seems to be fairly accurate even over extremely long ranges (Earth to Kronos, for example), I wonder if there's an actual limit on what can be done, or if there's a set of relays that let Khan beam in a series of jumps, just bouncing from relay to relay. These relays wouldn't extend into the Klingon Empire, for obvious reasons, so assuming there was a relay on the satellite on the very edge of Federation space, it would then have to go all the way to Kronos from there. And that's just the lower limit, no telling if it can go further.

look here:

• • • • We have 3 confirmed instances of transwarp in use. First from a Federation outpost to a Federation ship in warp. Second, from that same Fed ship over a much smaller distance to a Romulan ship with its own transporter. Neither ship in warp (not really sure why that one qualifies as transwarp, but whatever)
        
        The third is a little more complicated. Kahn didn't beam straight to Qo'noS from his jumpship. He beamed to a freighter in orbit outside of Earth. From there, he beamed to another ship near the Moon. This is where he actually used a transwarp device, which was hooked up directly to the ship's warp core.

        This seems to come from the novelization - which is not canon.
        
        Furthermore it seems to be overriden by the movie itself. The portable transwarp beaming device stayed behind in the atmospheric shuttlecraft with which Khan attacked Starfleet Headquarters. Scotty discovered that Khan beamed to Qo'noS while analyzing this device and reported to Kirk, showing him the coordinates on the display of the device, that Khan is at a place where they can't follow him. But if Khan had only beamed to "a freighter in orbit outside of Earth" with this device, at least they could have followed him to the freighter and had only learned there that Khan beamed to Qo'noS where they can not follow him.

This applies to relays too.

The implication of the mentioned scene is clear: Scotty and Kirk could read from the display of the portable transwarp beaming device that Khan beamed to Qo'noS and that they can not follow him to it (for political reasons). If there were any relays, they could have only known that Khan beamed to Qo'noS after they had gone through all relays to the last relay to see where Khan beamed from there. But then the mentioned scene wouldn't make any sense.

[Batman]

Horseradish. The device could easily have held a list of all the relays Khan went through. As I've admitted before, there's no indication in the movie there were relays, but the scene would have made perfect sense even if they were there.

[Lord Revan]

btw is there any indication of relays that could extend the range of a transporter?

[Lord Revan]

that said only reason for the transporter unit to display any relays would if said relays would considered a valid final destination.

[Batman]

Another transporter?

that said only reason for the transporter unit to display any relays would if said relays would considered a valid final destination

Um-no. The possible reasons include, but are not limited to, it by default scrolling through all interim way stations between 'here' and the final destination, Scotty having nudged it out of the device's memory banks because he's that damned good, or same said memory banks giving that information freely because Scotty knew how to properly use the interface. Heck given the lack of experience with the technology it might be hardwired to record-and offer up on demand, or even whenever one queries a transport sequence-every step of the way as a safety feature. Kind of hard to say where something went wrong in a relayed transport sequence if all the data you have is 'he started out here' and 'he was supposed to end up in the lobby of the St Ugulant Hotel on Gamma Spaghetti 7'. Now, if you have a log of the entire transport chain, you can say 'okay, he made it all the way to Sniffletoes Alpha just dandy but never arrived at Beta Dachshound. Let's check those two out.'
And why wouldn't every relay be considered a valid final destination? A long as you're actually materialized and not just kept in the pattern buffer and mailed off to the next destination on autopilot, you can terminate the voyage at any transfer point you want.

[WATCH-MAN]

Horseradish. The device could easily have held a list of all the relays Khan went through. As I've admitted before, there's no indication in the movie there were relays, but the scene would have made perfect sense even if they were there.

Perfect sense?

It does make perfect sense if you have to invent a whole rat-tail to explain what could have happened?

• • Because your woolgathering premises that Khan built several relays and equipped them with a transporter, entered the transwarp beaming equation in these transporters, configured them to automatical relay his matter stream to the next relay and then distributed all the relays along his way to Qo'noS.
    
    • • But this premisses too that he did not enter into each relay the next destination in advance - although he knew in advance where each relay is supossed to sent him - but let the portable transwarp beaming device sent along with the matter stream a data stream that contained the instructions for each relay.
        
        • • For example:
            • • relay 1: relay received matter stream to coordinates of relay 2 - relay 2: relay received matter stream to coordinates of relay 3 - relay 3: relay received matter stream to coordinates of relay 4 ...
        Otherwise I do not see how it could have been possible to extract the final destination from the portable transwarp beaming device that stayed behind and had nothing to do with the beaming from relay to relay to relay [...] to Qo'noS. If the portable transwarp beaming device had Khan beamed only to the first relay, it wouldn't know to which (intermediate or final) destination this relay has sent Khan if it hadn't submitted the instructions for the relays.
    And either he built the relays, equipped them with transporters, entered the transwarp beaming equation in them and distributed them along his way to Qo'noS before he obtained the portable transwarp beaming device.
    
    • • But this premises that he already knew the transwarp beaming equation. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to enter the transwarp beaming equation in the transporters of his relays before he obtained the portable transwarp beaming device.
        
        • • But in this case he wasn't dependent on the portable transwarp beaming device at all.
            
            Then it's one thing to destroy the Kelvin Memorial Archive in London to provoke a senior staff meeting at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco. But it is another thing for him to appear at the site of his crime to obtain the portable transwarp beaming device and risk to get arrested or to alert Starfleet of his intentions (as happened - Kirk was able to deduce his plan - but a little to late) if he didn't need the portable transwarp beaming device at all.
    Or he really did need the portable transwarp beaming device and was only able to programm the relays and distribute them along his way to Qo'noS after he obtained the portable transwarp beaming device in London. But then he had only a few hours to do it - if at all - because he still had to attack Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco.
    
    Alternatively he could have distributed his relays before he destroyed the Kelvin Memorial Archive in London and transmitted to them with the pickaback data strem not only the destionations where they are supposed to sent him but the transwarp beaming equation too - hoping that the transporters will be able to reconfigure themself after receiving the equation.

Of course: This elaborated conception makes perfect sense and the assumption that the transwarp beaming device was able to beam Khan directly to Qo'noS does not make perfect sense why such an elaborated conception is necessary.

[WATCH-MAN]

Horseradish. The device could easily have held a list of all the relays Khan went through. As I've admitted before, there's no indication in the movie there were relays, but the scene would have made perfect sense even if they were there.

There is a difference between
• something has to be regarded as possible and can not be excluded because it can not be disproved,
• something makes sense and
• something makes perfect sense.

It is not seldom that something that can't be excluded only because it can not be disproved does not makes sense let alone perfect sense.

[Baffalo]

Does the movie give any indication as to how far Earth is from Kronos? Reason I ask is, from what I remember there were only two known planets mentioned directly as being in Klingon possession, one being Kronos and one being an invaded planet. I'm not saying that these are the only two planets, just that the distance is important here.

Every moment Kirk spent dicking around on Delta Vega, the Enterprise was either moving away at impulse or actually at warp. Every moment made the gap bigger and bigger, making it harder to hit their destination. The fact that warp is probably shuffling space around, that will twist the equations around. I'm not saying Spock isn't smart or anything, but those are a lot of equations to be crunching all at once, even for an iShip.



... something I just realized, why did the Enterprise have to travel to Kronos directly? I know Marcus wanted to sacrifice the Enterprise for his plan to ignite a war, but wouldn't it make more sense to transwarp beam a team of commandos directly from Earth? I mean, if Khan can do it, even if he burned the information somehow, they still had Scotty and could easily get ahold of Spock Prime. I don't think they modified the original transporter in that shuttle used to get Kirk and Scotty to the Enterprise.

[DaveJB]

... something I just realized, why did the Enterprise have to travel to Kronos directly? I know Marcus wanted to sacrifice the Enterprise for his plan to ignite a war, but wouldn't it make more sense to transwarp beam a team of commandos directly from Earth? I mean, if Khan can do it, even if he burned the information somehow, they still had Scotty and could easily get ahold of Spock Prime. I don't think they modified the original transporter in that shuttle used to get Kirk and Scotty to the Enterprise.

Khan's transwarp beaming device was left behind on Earth, so by using the same method to send people after him they'd have to do one of the following:

A) Send a ship to Kronos anyway to retrieve the commando team, which would render the transwarp beaming completely pointless.
B) Have them carry more transwarp beaming devices to Kronos, which even if you designed them to self-destruct after use would carry the risk of them falling into Klingon hands.
C) Make it a suicide mission.

[WATCH-MAN]

... something I just realized, why did the Enterprise have to travel to Kronos directly? I know Marcus wanted to sacrifice the Enterprise for his plan to ignite a war, but wouldn't it make more sense to transwarp beam a team of commandos directly from Earth? I mean, if Khan can do it, even if he burned the information somehow, they still had Scotty and could easily get ahold of Spock Prime. I don't think they modified the original transporter in that shuttle used to get Kirk and Scotty to the Enterprise.

As you said it yourself: A team beamed to Qo'noS and back with the mission to capture or kill Khan wouldn't have been noticed by the Klingons. But Admiral Marus wanted a war with the Klingons. His plan was that the Enterprises stayed in Federation space but fired these special torpedos on Qo'noS to kill Khan. By sabotaging the Enterprise he wanted to ensure that the Klingons would find her as the culprit for the attack on their home world and declare war on the Federation.

As the transwarp equation was confiscated and as there could have been problems finding Khan with only a few men beamed to Qo'noS, it couldn't have been difficult for him to "convince" Kirk that he had to fly to the Federation-Klingon-border with the Enterprise to destroy a whole but abandoned sector of the planet with the special torpedos thus ensuring Khan's dead.

... something I just realized, why did the Enterprise have to travel to Kronos directly? I know Marcus wanted to sacrifice the Enterprise for his plan to ignite a war, but wouldn't it make more sense to transwarp beam a team of commandos directly from Earth? I mean, if Khan can do it, even if he burned the information somehow, they still had Scotty and could easily get ahold of Spock Prime. I don't think they modified the original transporter in that shuttle used to get Kirk and Scotty to the Enterprise.

Khan's transwarp beaming device was left behind on Earth, so by using the same method to send people after him they'd have to do one of the following:

A) Send a ship to Kronos anyway to retrieve the commando team, which would render the transwarp beaming completely pointless.
B) Have them carry more transwarp beaming devices to Kronos, which even if you designed them to self-destruct after use would carry the risk of them falling into Klingon hands.
C) Make it a suicide mission.

If transwarp beaming is like classical beaming - only over greater distances - why don't you consider it possible that they could have beamed them back?

In Star Trek (2009) Kirk planed to contact the Enterprise when Spock and he would have been ready to beam back from the Romulan ship after stealing the black hole device and - if possible - freeing Captain Pike. As I understood it, they wanted the Enterprise to stay in orbit of Titan and attack only if they thought to have the tactical advantage. This means that they would have been beamed back with transwarp beaming to cover the distance from the Romulan ship in orbit of Earth to the Enterprise in orbit of Titan.