ST TMP questions

[kmart]

I recall that you actually see the warp engines turn off on the klingon ships toward the end of the opening shot, so they seem to drop out of warp without any change in perspective or velocity.

The enterprise was able to drop it's warp drive once within Vejur's influence, the Klingons would have done the same.

Doesn't make any sense if the thing is going warp 7 for the klingons to drop out of warp to approach it, but that is just like the cloud situation later on, which also doesn't makes sense, (as Dykstra pointed out) that the cloud hits epsilon 9 at warp 7 and yet still manages to take awhile to eat it.

It makes less sense for the thing to be travelling STL and be able to outrun all of starfleet and cross from Klingon to Federation space in a matter of days at most.

They're pretty specific about the '3 days from earth' thing and the warp 7 speed, so it is definitely not STL travel.

As for Enterprise dropping out of warp ... there's no indication to me the ship drops warp until it gets seized in the tractor beam ... in fact the warp engine inboard fx are visible in a few cuts during the passage over it, as well as the shots when it approaches the cloud. The whole idea of flying a few hundred meters over an object wouldn't seem so daunting unless it was being done while trying to match warp speeds, so I have always figured they were at warp 7 or thereabouts right up till when they get dragged in, which is when they disengage warp engines (presumably once inside, you don't need engines to stationkeep.) The early draft script (the Roddenberry one) makes specific reference to the warp maneuver necessary to intercept and pace the thing, and I think that stuff is in the novelization as well.

[NecronLord]

The enterprises' relative motion to the cloud is zero. Connie's can't match Vejur's speed, thus Vejur was pulling it with them even before the tractor beam (which I don't remember) was attached.

PS. I just watched the klingon confrontation, at what part of the scene do the Klingon engines stop? They seem to be travelling at warp the whole time. What the Klingon said was "evasive" That doesn't mean that they must be at STL.

[kmart]

Why can't the refit (let's just call the E that, I don't want to get into a constitution[II]-class/Enterprise-class argument this month) match v'ger's speed? If it couldn't match velocities, there wouldn't be much point in trying to intercept, unless the point of the mission was to ram the intruder.

Decker's pre-warp computations suggests that the E can do warp 7, and that is what all the pre-release press and the novel said that the intruder is doing (though, like the 70 kilometer length, I don't think that factoid about vger's velocity is mentioned aloud in the film.)

In the novelization, I think they get picky, saying the E has to do warp 7-point-whatsis while turning in order to execute that 'conic interception' maneuver (which unfortunately is not depicted on screen, just mentioned.)

As for the warp engines NOT going off ... looks like you're right and I'm utterly full of it. I just took a look at the dvd and there is a bright white exterior light above what I guess is the reddish impulse vent, and that becomes obscured on the center cruiser just before the shot ends ... I must have thought the light going out was the engine cutting off. My bad. It's been awhile since anybody caught me out on a trek detail, thanks for making me look again.

EDIT ADD-ON: the tractor beam happens after Ilia gets zapped, so the point when Enterprise turns it engines off is just before they get dragged inside the other ship.

[NecronLord]

The book explicitly states that the reason the enterprise is sent is because the intruder is on a direct course for earth, at a velocity faster than every other ship that the federation has, thus no other ships are positioned to intercept it, and they have to send the Enterprise out from earth's solar system to rendevous.

The novel says it is 'over warp 7' with the fastest ship in the fleet being able to do warp 7. Thus Vejur is faster than the enterprise.

[kmart]

The book explicitly states that the reason the enterprise is sent is because the intruder is on a direct course for earth, at a velocity faster than every other ship that the federation has, thus no other ships are positioned to intercept it, and they have to send the Enterprise out from earth's solar system to rendevous.

The novel says it is 'over warp 7' with the fastest ship in the fleet being able to do warp 7. Thus Vejur is faster than the enterprise.

Then how do you explain Enterprise being able to do a rendezvous that is anything other than a millisecond flyby? One detail I do recall is the novel specifically mentions the nature of the conic interception flight path, which has the ship MATCHING the intruder's velocity while maintaining relative distance, then slowly OVERTAKING it from astern after it passes E. Hold on ...

Yeah, I've got a copy of the novel. Sez Enterprise is doing warp 7.61 after Spock checks under the hood, page 132. Conic interception stuff is on page 141, confirming E overtaking from astern, therefore FASTER than intruder.

Earlier on page 33-34, it sez vejur is moving at better than warp 7, but does not specify beyond that ... if Ent can't outperform vejur, then it cannot make the rendezvous, only a flyby. Also indicates nothing is in interception range, but not that 'fleet lacks ships that go better than warp 7 (we've seen the pre-refit E do better than that many times, even when not under alien control.)

BTW, when Abel & Taylor were going to be doing the fx, they were going to show the Ent POV of that circling round/conic maneuver, so that you'd get a sweeparound of vger ... with the way Trumbull wound up doing the cloud to obscure vger, you don't really get any sense of changing perspective on the thing in the final film.

[NecronLord]

Then how do you explain Enterprise being able to do a rendezvous that is anything other than a millisecond flyby?

Warp Field

Yeah, I've got a copy of the novel. Sez Enterprise is doing warp 7.61 after Spock checks under the hood, page 132. Conic interception stuff is on page 141, confirming E overtaking from astern, therefore FASTER than intruder.

Once within it's warp field the enterprise is able to manuver at impulse. Your page numbers are wrong.

Earlier on page 33-34, it sez vejur is moving at better than warp 7, but does not specify beyond that ... if Ent can't outperform vejur, then it cannot make the rendezvous, only a flyby.

Imagine Vejur's warp field as a Flatbed truck. A man running after the truck has no chance of catching it. A man running on the flatbed will move normally.

Also indicates nothing is in interception range, but not that 'fleet lacks ships that go better than warp 7 (we've seen the pre-refit E do better than that many times, even when not under alien control.)

See Kirk's note about the series being 'larger than life.'

[kmart]

You've got to be kidding, you apply this 'warp field' stuff -- which ain't mentioned anywhere in the film -- like it is a bandaid. Wholly invalid, unless you look at it from ModernTrek POV of having all this fancy doubletalk (a little bit is okay, but not the levels they go to) to explain their 'science.' But if that is your justification for the speeds, you're welcome to it, it just doesn't hold any water at all IMO.

Page numbers as listed are right in the paperback, that's what I took 'em from. Maybe you have a book club edition?

[BenRG]

You've got to be kidding, you apply this 'warp field' stuff -- which ain't mentioned anywhere in the film -- like it is a bandaid. Wholly invalid

This is TOS Trek, kmart. They hardly ever bother to grace us with an explanation. You are expected to watch and enjoy without worrying your brainsludge about the subspace physics of the manoeuvre.

What Necronlord and I are trying to do is retrospectively apply the rules of the expanded (TNG/DS9/VOY era) ST universe to the first movie. These party tricks with matched warp fields are used more than once in the newer series, IIRC. Using them here is therefore valid. The absence of these terms and methods from the film and the novelisation is only relevant if they clearly and explicity state that another method is used. If not, we are free to use our imaginations.

[Publius]

The novelisation's description of the interception is fairly clear. Lieutenant (jg) Ilia laid in a "conic interception and pursuit course", at Captain Kirk's orders (p. 141), and the novelisation is clear that "they would see [...] the huge cloud moving toward them at warp seven and themselves moving toward the cloud even faster" (id.), and that the interception and pursuit was "complicated by the unusual mechanics of hyperspace, and an eyeblink of navigational error could see them flashing past the Intruder-cloud and a million stars past it" (id.).

The maneouvre is fairly succinctly described in Chapter Sixteen (pp. 141 - 142):

The conic interception to be used would see them passing to one side, but always with the "nose" of the Enterprise headed at the center of the strange cloud. Thus, as Enterprise passed the cloud, the starship would be traveling sideways but still heading directly toward it until the starship's path took it in directly behind the cloud, almost as if attached to it by a rubber string. Once behind the cloud, Enterprise could overtake it from the rear, permitting Kirk to approach the cloud as slowly or as rapidly as he chose. To anyone looking out the nose of the starship, the conic interception would make it appear that they had always been approaching the cloud head-on but more and more slowly as they got close to it.

The Klingons had not intercepted the cloud this way. Kirk hoped that any star-traveling intelligence would immediately understand the Enterprise would immediately understand the Enterprise maneuver for the peaceful interception that it was.

When Vice-Admiral Ciani first advised Admiral Kirk of the situation, she told him that Vejur was approaching Earth at "over warp seven", and that there were no starships within interception range at that velocity (p. 33); Captain Kirk noted in his log (Stardate 7413.9) that the Enterprise had detected "no change in Intruder velocity or heading" (p. 140) prior to the interception manoeuvre.

It is important to note that while there were no starships, including light cruisers, within interception range of Vejur, the Enterprise herself is capable of making Warp Nine (p. 148), although this may well be atypical, as Lieutenant-Commander Scott specifically considers the new warp engines to be "six times as powerful as anything ever carried into space before" (p. 60).

Publius

[Kurgan]

I would assume that the Special Edition of TMP DVD (which says 2 AU, not 82) would take canonical precedence over the older versions, just as it does in the Star Wars universe, but I don't have official confirmation on that.

Unless of course you buy the argument that only the TMP novelisation is canon. ; )

[Uraniun235]

Personally, I always thought that the Klingons had such a hard time escaping because they were trying to outrace V'ger, and couldn't do much better than warp 7.

The novel says it is 'over warp 7' with the fastest ship in the fleet being able to do warp 7. Thus Vejur is faster than the enterprise.

Post a page number or quote, because I don't see in the book "fastest ship in the fleet is only able to do warp 7"... hell, that doesn't even make any sense at all, because the Enterprise did Warp 8 on multiple occasions in TOS!

at a velocity faster than every other ship that the federation has,

No, it doesn't, it says that there aren't any other ships in interception range, meaning that while there are other ships that could match or exceed the Intruder's speed, they aren't in a position to intercept before it reaches Earth.

[kmart]

Also indicates nothing is in interception range, but not that 'fleet lacks ships that go better than warp 7 (we've seen the pre-refit E do better than that many times, even when not under alien control.)

See Kirk's note about the series being 'larger than life.'

I didn't catch this reply before. Look at page 149 of TMP, the novel that is described by Kirk in the prologue as accurate, rather than larger than life.

"At the most advanageous vector-instant, her mighty engines surged into warp nine emergency power."

The passage is describing the Enterprise trying to duck vger's attack. Are you assuming that since the word velocity isn't mentioned, that the ship is NOT travelling at warp 9 at this point?

[BenRG]

"At the most advanageous vector-instant, her mighty engines surged into warp nine emergency power."

The passage is describing the Enterprise trying to duck vger's attack. Are you assuming that since the word velocity isn't mentioned, that the ship is NOT travelling at warp 9 at this point?

This is probably most nit-picking, but taken literally the only thing we know for certain is that the Enterprise's main engines were providing the same propulsive energy output that it would require to attain Warp Factor Nine. We know nothing else about its' velocity relative to the V'ger cloud and other objects in nearby space.

It makes sense in close combat to use full propulsive output. Contemporary fighter aircraft use their full throttle + reheat in dogfights, but this is simply to get better acceleration and manoeuvrability. They rarely go over Mach 1 in battle, and never use their Mach 2+ top speed.