Star Trek

Actually... if you want to gt technical...

Since the speed of light is decaying and was itself some 10 million times faster 7,000 years ago... it's not a matter of just having enough energy... but in becoming light itself (something akin to the transporter beam) then having the power to exceed current speed of light velocity (which is not a barrier at all).

I'm not a big fan of the pizazz flash bang that passes for warpdrive or faster than light travel in the other scifi (deliberately spelled scifi too) epics. I mean the first time, yeah, it grabs ya... but it gets old quick and eventually cumbersome every time the ship goes super-hyper.

Why not just something simple like in TOS (not the gear whines obviously) but just the passing stars with a closer one streaking by every now and then instead of every star turning into a silk thread...

The BOOM s-t-r-e-t-c-h BOOM flash of TNG yuck! At least the Enterprise E was more smooth sliding into warp.

NX01 IMHO had the best warp jump and drop but the silk thread stars between were like the rest.

Faster than light travel should appear like the documentary flights through space (like the first few minutes of this site):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEQouX5U0fc

Going super-hyper should be far less dramatic as Hollywood makes it. The distortions would be like that of traveling in a car... the further away the less distorted. A car that whizzes immediately by is a blinding blur while one a mile away is ?less distorted. And from the car distant views are normal even steady looking while things that pass by closely whiz by and the ground immediately beside a car is a trailing blur.

Why can't a decent special effects crew get this right?

Enterprise at warp



New Warp effect

On a lighter note...

This is the inner workings of a futuristic commode:

Hyper-flush

Here's the video I wanted to show about simply traveling through space without the hokey lighting effects....

Size of the Universe

Quote (johnd777 @ Jan. 01 2010, 12:21 pm)

I'd be happy to submit this to him or even work for him... Here's an idea I just had for part of a story line: The altered time line established by the fact that Spock and the crew of the ill fated Narada were empirical evidence to the possibility of time travel, alternative realities and universes. The only surviving evidence being Spock Prime himself, now nearly two hundred years old. He was quite surprised by the desire of Starfleet and the Federation to take him in custody. Further, the Vulcan colony also wanted no part of him or his alter wisdom since most blamed him for the destruction of their home world. Some of that resentment flowed over onto the contemporary Spock as well. Once again offered his resignation to Star fleet to help rebuild Vulcan culture once he learned Spock Prime was taken into custody and subjected to the worst exams science could manufacture. But the colonists, all but his father rejected his offer and again he withdrew his resignation. Sullen, Spock sat in his quarters. Uhura spoke to Kirk that she could not reach him as the Enterprise broke orbit over the Vulcan colony. He put Sulu in charge and went to the Vulcan's stateroom. The door whooshed open. Spock was unresponsive. "I did not expect such respirosity from my people." The Vulcan said over clasped hands [Nimoy-ish meditative pose] Leaning back against the door way Kirk finished his thought, "...since they need all the help they can get." "Yes." Raising his gaze to meet Kirk's. Not the typical "Affirmative" of Vulcan Spartan vocabulary. "The council and I have had our differences in the past, but this response is utterly illogical. I am the same Spock as Prime, but I am not he. I expected the council to realize this." "One thing I learned from your alter ego, Spock, " Jim said lightly scratching the back of his (own) neck, "is that your people have emotions. And what the universe mistakes in Vulcans as not having them is rather your people's desperate efforts to control them." "I had not contemplated that before." Spock said lowering his clasped hands. "Fascinating. The centralized Kolinahr philosophy to purge all emotion is itself a desperate attempt and therefore an emotion." "Come on, Spock," the young Captain said with his hand extended. "Figuring out that life itself is hypocritical is a tail chase for those egg heads the think tank your alter ego is imprisoned in. So Vulcan colony rejects you. Bruised egos over your rejection to the science comittee no doubt... another emotion another hypocrisy... you have a home here." Spock stood and accepted the handshake of his Captain. "Sir, I wish to withdraw my resignation." "Ok," Kirk said spinning on his heel. "Never really accepted it in the first place." He stepped through the door out into the the busy corridor. "C'mon, we have work to do." Stepping up to his flank, "what is the current mission?" "Rescuing your alter ego."

One of the postponed books based on the alternate movie timeline covers what they will do with Prime Spock. I wonder if this is the reason they postponed the new movie novels. Maybe they are going to use prime Spock again?

Possibly.

I hope they use another actor to play Prime as Nimoy (God bless him) is old. And you can't tell me there isn't enough talent in all showbiz to play that role... Take Zack for example...

I think the new time line can be like Smallville in the way it updated the old circus cloak and dagger Superman sideshow. The capes and the banter and the dialoging that turned all but the most devoted fans ill...

Of late I believe the CW kid has lost its way... because it keeps looking back at the old Superman canon as if to make Tom Welling lose enough weight to fit in the circus tights...

It needs to keep on with its own format and it can keep going as long as the actors can mask their boredom with the roles (a disease most actors get very early on with what most of us would call "steady work."

When they can no longer mask it, it means the series is soon to be over. NCIS comes to mind. It's in it's prime popularity wise, but the story lines and the actors are tired and having difficulty masking it.

This is usually when the background characters (who are great... only in... the background) get more air time and a "poor me" episode or arc.

If Star Trek is really going to be rebooted, then it can do so if it develops it's own style (as JJ Abrams has shown in the movie).

Then maybe a movie followed by a series approach (rather than the historic reverse series followed by movies approach).

If Chris and Zack and Zoe et al are not keen on the flat screen then there are other actors in the wings waiting their refusal or demise (where "break a leg" came from the understudy's prayer).

I believe Star Trek will have a fresh (re)start.

This is why I altered some of the storylines of TOS Menagerie and Doomsday Machine. In the latter Brand Decker was the book's version of Matt Decker on TOS Doomsday Machine. Steven Decker was the starship captain without a starship from ST TMP.

I made Matt the old Admiral Halsey curmudgeon war hero of Starfleet. Brand was the son lost in space mission revamp of Talos butthead people in the Menagerie... the Cage...

Steven the heir apparent ships captain of the old battle wagon USS Constellation (of similar configuration to the Kelvin)...

And while Kirk and Spock are rescuing Prime from the confines of being the "guest" of starfleet science / medical research (which is what really would have happened to Seven of Nine upon the Voyager's return to Earth, btw)... the Constellation encounters a much more formidable planet crunching doomsday machine which eats several populated star systems...

¿Planet Killer

Less dramatic but just as deadly

This is what the planet killer in TOS was capable of. Smashing habitable planets and, when needed, refueling from them. Moving on to the next system and destroying habitable planets there.

In a matter of days if not hours a star system could be eradicated of habitable planets. Remember, this was a doomsday weapon not a planet buster. Uninhabited planets need not be trifled with...

And what's up with the tired old starscape backgrounds and milky nebulae??? It's like the old Buck Rogers technology where smoke and sparks shoot out of rocket exhausts all over again!

Look how gorgeous the cosmos is!

I also like the cougar angle of Janice Rand. Maybe not Jeri Ryan, but one as foxy and risque as Jeri the swapee. Setting her sites on an unusually (for Kirk) timid skipper. This would set up scenes like the "look at my legs" etc. lines and satisfy audiences with that angle missing from most Star Trek versions (including TOS after Grace Lee Whitney was fired from the show).

I lost track of which chapter this entry would be in...

Rigel was an extraordinary star system 800 light years from Earth with a blue giant star greater in size to the earth's sun than the earth's sun is to earth. Around this medium sized star orbit several asteroid belts and as many as two hundred planets. Twelve of them class M or compatible. Eight of them with indigenous species.

Rigel was among the earliest systems charted in the Federation and was classified "backwards." Such a "busy" star system was thought not to have as many habitable worlds as it turned out to have. And those habitable planets were numbered as they were discovered from the outside in. Rigel 1, an Earth colony was the farthest world while Rigel 12 a primitive world hidden in the inner asteroid belts was the nearest to the star where Captain Brand Decker nearly lost his life when the landing party was engaged by a band of locals who towered ten feet tall.

Kirk thought it was a good place several years later to lay over with the newly rescued Spock Prime aboard. Starfleet Command would no doubt see it differently. And in the meantime Kirk thought it best to remain there until things cooled off a bit and he could figure out what to do. Turning Prime back over to the scientists was out of the question.

"Well, this is a fine mess you got yourself in, Jim," McCoy said making gestures with his hands over both of his ears. "Pointy eared bastards are nothing but trouble."

"Spare me, Bones." Kirk said. In another circumstance he might have laughed. But this was a serious situation. His bridge crew understood him. He had won their loyalty. But the Enterprise was a big ship and manned by over 1000 people from a variety of species. Most of whom may not have been too willing to throw away their careers in Starfleet for a rogue Captain.

"I must agree with the Doctor," Prime said entering the lounge before McCoy noticed. "Oh," he said stammering, "uh, I didn't see you..."

"It is quite understandable, Doctor. Captain, you must return me to the science research station on Ursa Minor. Keeping me here will only put your career in further jeopardy."

"Career? It's already over... fast as it began."

"You are an extraordinary individual in both universes, Captain."

"Universes? I thought you were from this universe just from another time."

"No. What made time travel so restrictive in the future when it would have been worth the risk to save a world or a key person in history was the fact that it was discovered we do not go back in time to our own universe nor can we return to it.

"It was thought that minute changes when we did return to what we thought was our own universe in our own time was due to the minute interferences we experienced by being there breathing air that otherwise would not have been breathed over turning blades of grass and the cascading effects.

"When takion pulse technology was improved upon it was discovered we who had thought to have merely gone back and forth through time had in fact crossed over to two different universes. One to a foreign universe which we believed the past and the other in which we believed was the future we returned to."

McCoy blinked. "Huh?"

"Never mind. I understand."

"Well I don't," McCoy insisted.

"Also the same man in both universes, Doctor."

"Was that a jab?" McCoy asked Kirk. Spock, the contemporary, made it clear he did not see eye to eye with the good doctor but he had not yet reached the place where he jabbed back at him.

The Constellation dove deeper into space than ordinarily was the case. Steven Decker took the opportunity afforded him to order the old girl out to sea from the shallows she generally skirted when he had a crew of dependents aboard. It was typically their first deep space journey in at least quite some time, if ever.

Piloting a floating museum was about as adventuresome as running a garbage scow. It had been many bottled of Jack in the black the bourbon superb and he didn't hear the first time his helmsman tried to alert him to the anomaly ahead.

"Sir!" he nearly shouted.

"What? What is it, Johnson?"

"Incredible! The system ahead, L, uh, 374, sir, it's reading no planetary bodies on my sensor sweeps."

"Run a diagnostic, helm... #### things on this ship don't work most of the..."

"Sir, I did. The readings are accurate."

"What?" Decker said sobering up. "Is the star still intact?"

"Yes, sir. A binary system. Both stars reading chart normal."

"That's impossible... lay in a course to intercept."

Janice Rand found herself assigned to the USS Enterprise as a Yeoman to the ships Captain at the behest Felicia Forrest wife of Admiral Marshall Forrest, grandson of Maxwell Forrest, for having been found sleeping with her husband.

Since officers in Starfleet were not reduced in rank, Lieutenant Rand was given the special assignment of an enlisted crew member as a publicly humiliating demotion. And onboard the laughingstock of the fleet. The appreciation for saving the world and the Federation from Nero soon passed to subspace gossip over the frocked Captain side stepped the majority of a career to get to the captaincy. Pike was still in his corner. But the mantle of flagship of the fleet was passed on to the newly Christened USS Constitution despite Pike's every effort to prevent it.

She spent hours in her stateroom primping and painting and threatening the mirror with phaser setting eight to get that "just so" look she'd sported all over Starfleet headquarters for years... lots and lots of years... over a poised brush the thought occurred to her... maybe too many years?

"Nah!" she said aloud. And set the brush down and slimmed her uniform skirt over her hips and proceeded out to the corridor as if the wooshing pocket doors were stage curtains and it was once again, "ShowTime, folks"


Haven't decided if the cougar angle with someone like Naomi Watts (+ a bit more weight) or a Hilary Duff youngster working her way up through the ranks horizontally...

Kirk did not know what to make of Yeoman Rand or the unusual circumstances which landed her a senior Lieutenant the job of a medium ranked enlisted clerk. She had a few years on him, but carried herself well.

It didn't really dawn on him that it was curious she was not a Commander at her age. He did not know what to think about her. She seemed too over the top in trying to please him. And he was just not the high maintenance type... he'd rather do his own log entries and paper work and mind his own agenda and calendar of events.

More often than not he apologized to the Yeoman saying, "I'm sorry, Yeoman, I just don't have anything for you to do." But he stopped saying that because it usually ended up with her doing something ridiculous like cleaning his stateroom or serving him his lunch and practically grabbing the flatware from his hands to spoon feed him.

He'd balk and she'd sulk and he feltbad and she'd get over it and it was just a mess as far as he was concerned.

A time or two she seemed a little too... well... in that zone where you don't want to go if you can't risk it or if you have a lot to lose. Jim, while no mistaking he was a ladies' man, was not interested in Janice. She was... beautiful... and had obviously gone to a lot of trouble... but she just didn't do it for him and he knew she was in some kind of trouble with the officer's wives club in San Francisco... news travels, even out in deep space...

And it had only been a year since he warped from Cadet to Captain of the former flagship of the fleet... and he felt like he should act a certain way... or be responsible or at least behave...