Amph [NERRRD] Observations, rhetorical questions, comments & 58 Years of Star Trek (General Thread)

Sixteen lightyears isn't that far, like @blackmyron says below. Also in Into Darkness there's a mention of a "transwarp network" on a powerwall in Admiral Marcus's network.

(Perhaps the "great experiment" was conducted earlier in the Kelvin Universe - maybe in place of the spore drive tests? - and succeeded rather then failed?)

My assumption is that their are parts of the zone that are closer to Earth then others (similar to how part of the DMZ is just 74 km from Seoul, but not the whole thing) and the Enterprise-E was just patrolling along that close point when the battle started.

It makes a certain degree of sense, IMO, since the RNZ was established at the end of the Earth-Romulan War when Earth's territory was evidently fairly small and the powers that would need separating from the Romulan Empire were the Federation's founders, all of whom seem to have had their territories relatively close to one another (Vulcan is sixteen light years from Earth and is in a "neighboring system" to Andoria, and the Andorians and Tellarites are close enough to each other to have a history of territorial conflict)

Just curious, but how do you reconcile the on-screen position of Cardassian Space and it's obvious lack of a border with the Romulan Empire in the chart from Clancy's office?

My own reasoning, using dialogue from Birthright that places Carraya near the Bajor system* and the repeatedly inferences/statements that Bajor/DS9 is near Cardassian Space (and relatively near Cardassia itself) led me to assume Cardassian Space was "northward" from the space depicted on this map (as Romulan Space is clearly "eastward" and the Federation, based on the maps from Disco, clearly "westward"/"southward")

*
SHREK: Not all of the Klingons at Khitomer were killed during the massacre. Many were captured by the Romulans and placed in a prison camp on a remote planet. Your father was among them.
WORF: Where is this planet?
SHREK: Not far from here. I could give you the location, for a price.

Personally I just disregard Clancy's map A) it conflicts with a number of canon statements and B) it was obviously pretty lazily copied from a non-canon source with the intention of just being background filler (the only way I can think to make it work is to assume the pre-Dominion War/pre-supernova Cardassian/Romulan Empires basically wrapped "over/under" Federation Space, which works save for the fact that I never got the sense from the shows that either power control quite so much space as to make that work).

I've always loved how Riker's unabashed enjoyment of how Data's acting and slight encouragements counteracts how unimpressed and irritated Yar is.

"More like a puddle of ****!"

 

Ahh Into Darkness... the Vengeance catching up to the Enterprise while at warp and then shooting it out of warp?

 

Right now, though, Star Charts has effectively become de facto canon - I've recalled sources mentioning those working on the current shows certainly treat it effectively as such (although, oddly enough, they don't seem to be paying attention to the two updates by Nemachek with his Stellar Cartography).
There's certainly an ebb and flow of nations. Ultimately, part of making things work is that you can't take everything. (Making a closer Rigel and Deneb for the majority of the references to those systems was, I think, an elegant solution to making references to real stars that are quite an actual distance away.)
With the Cardassians, we have to balance that they interacted with the Romulans and Klingons, yet the Federation managed to expand in their direction before eventually coming in conflict with them. As virtually every version of a galactic map for Star Trek has the Romulans, Klingons, and Federation all meeting together, having the Cardassians on the other side of the Federation from them, yet relatively close, was probably the best solution for the circumstances. Ideally, a 3D map would be more effective, but I think Star Trek Maps shows it's difficult to visualize in print. People like their 2D maps of space, however unrealistic it is.

 

The Cardies were implied to be fairly peaceful up until relatively recently and are depicted as less advanced then the 24th Century Federation, so it could easily be that during the TOS era they were up "northward" of Carraya as some minor power with ENT-level tech or something that the Federation just plain didn't care about.

But yes, your right, you have to ignore some things when they just plain don't work. It just bugs me a bit when the dialogue is so clear on the general location of these things and Picard has to go an use an image from a non-canon source that puts something in a place that doesn't match with where it "should" be.

I put the Badlands/Cardassia/Bajor/DS9/the DMZ as being more eastward (in the area south of the red dot towards the top of the first map that I *think* is Ferenginar, with Cardassia/Bajor/DS9 on the right of the Badlands rather then the left. I think it ties everything in the best;

• The Cardassian Union has a border with the Romulan Empire and the Federation.
• Carraya is close enough to Bajor/DS9 to work with Shrek claiming it's "not far."
• The Klingons would have to take a long journey to Cardassian Space and would need to use Federation/Bajoran Space as a "staging area."

At most Sybok is ignored. But I don't think that's a reason to assume he doesn't exist; Peter Kirk is never mentioned again after Operation - Annihilate! but that doesn't mean he's been retconned out of existence.

As for Discovery I just assumed Sybok's a fair bit older then Spock and has already left on his spiritual journey; thus Michael either never met him or only knew him fleetingly in passing and Sybok doesn't bring him up because he considers him a disappointment.

 

I mentioned that, and it works, but my issue with using that logic with the Star Charts maps is it requires one to assume the Cardassian and Romulan Empires (the Cardassians specifically) are a *lot* bigger then I always assumed because the gulf of space the Federation is dipicted as filling between them is so large.

 

Holy hell, Sybock is going to show up on Strange New World and blow out the canon isn't it hahah I would have no problem with that. Although I'm pretty sure he just spent decades looking for ShaKaRee

I think Journey to Babel sort of explicitly states that Spock hasn't seen his parents, but didn't that already get overriden by Discovery Season 2?

I'm looking forward to Strange New Worlds but I fully expect the canon headaches / mad retcon headcanon from Discovery Season 1-2 will return.

 

Spock, Sybok, and Michael. Plus Sarek & Amanda.

Coolest. Family. EVAR!

 

Family picnic flashback

 

The figure given was only 4 years:

AMANDA: After all these years among humans, you still haven't learned to smile.
SPOCK: Humans smile with so little provocation.
AMANDA: And you haven't come to see us in four years, either.
SPOCK: The situation between my father and myself has not changed.

 

Damnit @Iron_lord I had the quote all set to go!

Don't forget I-Chaya!

 

Yep, those maps are essentially based on Star Charts.

It's interesting to note that the FASA RPG created their own map out of whole cloth. The wildly veering off to its own universe Star Fleet Battles is based upon the Starfleet Technical Manual, which nothing else does. Last Unicorn Games generally avoided maps, but had two general ones (from the Romulan Empire boxed set and the Original Series core book). Unsurprisingly, the Mophidius RPG - the current one - uses Star Charts literally, with a section of the galactic map inside the front and back covers of the main rulebook.
The one thing they all have in common? The meeting ground of the Klingon/Romulan/Federation spaces.

 

I like this map (which seems to be vaguely reminiscent of the one from ST online)

The only thing I'd do is switch the places of Cardassians and Ferengi territory, put the Breen down near the Gorn, move LIssepia from Ferengi space to down in the area of Cestus or Janus VI, make the Federation's "western" territory larger and make the Klingon Empire a little bigger so that at least some of their space is in the Alpha Quadrant. I think with those tweaks such a map aligns the best with statements/inferences from the shows.

 

There are still so many others like the Gorn, the sheliak, talarians, Son'a, Xindi, and Tamarians just to name a few that are not on that map.
just noticeed you said the gorn are there,Where?
edit: finally found them near the Klingons.

 

I forgot about Star Trek Online. As they heavily base their maps on Star Charts, I've been looking into them as well.
Where did your map originate? The relation of Bajor, Cardassia and Ferenginar are fixed, more or less, by various LCARS maps from Deep Space 9.

 

When the Dominion talked about the Klingons Romulans, the Federation, they always referred to them as Alpha quadrant threats, that map shows the Klingons and Romulans as beta?

 

Again, you don't understand IN-universe. IN-universe of ST V, the TV series Voyager does not exist, nor does DS9, nor does TNG. Those are all out of universe reasons that you are applying.

What is IN-universe of Star Trek V is what happens in that film. And IN that film, they are able to go to the center of the galaxy in 6.7 hours. That is canon FACT.
So with that canon FACT established, Star Fleet could have sent any ship in the entire galaxy to Nimbus III and it would not have taken much longer than the broken Ent-A and would have the obvious advantage of not being broken.
They did not so they are stupid.
They also could have have one of the ships with inexperienced crews fly by and pick up Kirk and co and they could use that ship to go to Nimbus III. But they don't do that either, because they are stupid.
Basically, they are stupid.

The argument is if the characters in ST V are stupid IN-universe.
We have Spock with a weapon that does not have a stun function and he says he could not kill his own half-brother. He however could have shot Sybok in the leg. That would put Sybok out of action but would not kill him.
But Spock apparently did not think of that.

Sybok himself is also rather stupid IN-universe. His "take away your pain" power works on almost everyone and very quickly. So why bother with raising an army of outcasts and all that. He could just go to the Federation envoy, use his power and get a ship from him or have him arrange a ship to come and get him. Then he could to a star fleet base, use his power on someone with low rank, who gets him to meet someone higher up, who gets him to meet an admiral who then gives Sybok a ship.

Except that does not work either. We have the barrier and just beyond it, we have Sha-Ka-Ree. The barrier was put there to keep "The One" locked in. If there are 20 000 lightyears worth of systems beyond Sha-Ka-Ree with no barrier, the barrier is stupid. And if the barrier is just around Sha-Ka-Ree, then it is a bubble in the direction of the galactic core, not in the center of the galaxy.

Again does not work,

No ship has ever gone into the barrier means that ships must have been nearby.
And they are going there and Kirk is not saying something like "How can we be going to the center of the galaxy, that will take decades."
And;

The bolded means other ships must have been nearby or had the power to go there.

So again, these speeds are an established part of the canon of Star Trek V.

Again, a character can be stupid In-universe even if it was not intended.
Bad writing is usually the culprit there.

Fascinating, you are arguing that Star Trek V is canon but everything that happens in the third act did not actually happen. This is about as non-sensical as to argue that ST III is canon except the Enterprise was not destroyed.
Like it or not, they DO go to the center of the galaxy in 6.7 hours so these speeds are part of Star Trek V.
You can not remove them anymore than you can remove Luke blowing up the DS in ANH. It happened.
If you argue that these speeds are inconsistent with the rest of Trek, and they are, then you need to make all of Star Trek V not canon. Not just parts of it.

Bye.
Old Stoneface

 

No idea. I found it on google while trying to locate a map the best conveyed how I was trying to explain to you guys that I pictured the stellarcartography. I'm assuming it's fan-made.

I know. I'm just talking about personal preference based on dialogue - at the bare minimum we know the Cardassians and the Romulans *have* to share a border.

A lot of those could easily be "above" or "below" the territories depicted on the map, since we're only being shown a flat depiction of 3D space, and for all we know the Xindi specifically aren't even an independent power anymore but are instead part of the Federation or something.

The Son'a would presumably be near the Romulans/Klingon border, assuming they stayed near the Briar Patch after leaving their Ba'ku.

It's generally accepted that the Klingons and Romulan Empires are at least partially based in the Beta Quadrant (in the Klingon's case this comes from TUC, where Sulu says Khitomer is located in the Beta Quadrant), but based on the dialogue from DS9 they must have had at least *some* territory in the Alpha Quadrant as well.

It's also canon fact that warp drive is not that fast, as established by *multiple* canon sources that ST V is in conflict with.

Strange that there's no dialogue in the film to support this claim

Yes, the writing makes them do things that look stupid to the audience. But that doesn't meant their actually intended to be interpreted as idiots. A lot of Trek characters are written in a way that makes them *look* stupid at one point or another, but if we assumed that "looking stupid to the audience" makes you an idiot in-universe that would make basically everyone an idiot when we *know* their not.

Look, in order to make it work with the rest of the canon you either need to assume;

• Warp Drive became slower, not faster, as tech advanced.
• The Enterprise and Klaa's BOP got their (and back) via some sort of off-screen mumbo-jumbo.
• When they say "center of the galaxy" their not being literal.

Or maybe it just means no ship has ever entered it before, and people say that no ship can survive it based on what the probes have told them?

SISKO: The other side of the galaxy, to be precise. The Gamma quadrant is seventy thousand light years from Bajor. It would take our fastest starship over sixty seven years to get here.

KIM: Captain, if these sensors are working, we're over seventy thousand light years from where we were. We're on the other side of the galaxy.

JANEWAY: Even at maximum speeds, it would take seventy five years to reach the Federation, but I'm not willing to settle for that. There's another entity like the Caretaker out there somewhere who has the ability to get us there a lot faster. We'll be looking for her, and we'll be looking for wormholes, spatial rifts, or new technologies to help us. Somewhere along this journey, we'll find a way back. Mister Paris, set a course for home.

The center of the galaxy is 25,800 ly from Earth. The Enterprise-A is a century less advanced and slower then the TNG era ships. It simply cannot travel that far in the span of one movie that seems to take place over a few days (just 7000 ly would take the E-D two years)

DATA: According to these coordinates, we have travelled seven thousand light years. And are located near the system J two five.
RIKER: Travel time to the nearest starbase?
DATA: At maximum warp, in two years, seven months, three days, eighteen hours we would reach Starbase one eight five.
RIKER: Why?

No, a character can look stupid to the audience, who exist out-of-universe, even if it was not intended. But in universe a smart character isn't a dumb character because of bad writing.

That is...not a thing that I said. But okay.

Okay. So then why did Voyager need to take seventy-plus years to travel across the galaxy? Are you asserting warp speeds magically became slower and nobody ever mentions this?

That's not how inconsistencies in canon are treated. You don't disregard all of Where No Man has Gone Before becuase Kirk's middle name is listed as "R", or all of The Menagerie because Pike says the Enterprise has a hyperdive and is visiting a different galaxy, or all of The 37's because of the absurdly fast speeds Paris tells Amelia that Voyager is capable of reaching that is inconsistent with the rest of the show. You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, you just ignore the specific parts that are retconned out of existence by later sources.

To use your Luke-at-Yavin analogy, it would be like discarding the entirety of the ANH novelization just because it says he flew with Blue Squadron instead of Red Squadron.

 

How about a bit of all three?

The TOS-to-movies era warp drives being faster but more dangerous, and them switching to a slower, safer warp drive around TNG-era,

and

there's some kind of warp conduit between the Federation and the area near the Great Barrier - which was also used the previous time Kirk visited the Galactic Center, in the animated series (The Magicks of Megas-Tuu)

and

Sha Ka Ree is much closer than the Central Black Hole is - with the Great Barrier being a huge artificial contract made to keep "God" in - but those imprisoning "God" used the central black hole to power the Barrier, which is why it's not centred on Sha Ka Ree, but on the black hole, encompassing the entire galactic core.

Result - the journey is as short as possible, and a reason exists why Voyager cannot use the same methods (both slower, safer engines, and no conduit).

 

Hahha oh man, if they want to just make me sob there would be Spock going off on how he lost his best friend I-Chaya that one weekend when his mysterious relative showed up and then disappeared.

I've always wondered, did Voyager just kick it at Warp 9 cruising speeds their entire ride home based upon Janeway's statement of 75 years at maximum speeds. And since they have to get home, why didn't they just stay in Warp for as long as possible until they had to absolutely drop out to resupply. Would have made their excursions a lot less hectic, heck every episode starts with them cruising at sublight.