Spatial anomaly

posted on May 8th, 2009, 1:38 am

Well, somehow the Rommies do it through extremely powerful and advanced EM bottles that cause energy (likely electrical or plasmatic discharge) when interacting with the gravity well from the little singularity, as well as keeping it from affecting the ship.

How they hell they would pull this off is beyond me, but it's also not the 24th century.

posted on May 8th, 2009, 8:28 am

Wants to say: Star Trek is about the balance between believable science and story telling. But story telling goes first. If something seems to be in the way of story telling, means of getting around this are legitimate.

Indeed story telling has to come first in general, by not at any cost. For example warp is necessary for the whole series and films, thus giving up relativity on global scale is a fair price. In contranst, inventing something completly unrealistic for just a handful of episodes has a much weaker cost-benefit ratio. IMO its catastrophic, but as it is just for once, I can laugh about it, and forget it then. Putting such features into the game means that they are little mire than for once, thus my somach turns upside down and inside out.

Still, aerodynamic flight is dependent on the presence of a gaseous medium... so the question if you're in an air filled environment or in the near-vacuum of space does matter in some way if you're talking about creating lift to fly. You can't fly in candyfloss, can you? Of course, except if you heat until it is gaseous...

We are talking about continuity of physical laws over distances, not wether planes can fly in sugar spun. 

posted on May 8th, 2009, 8:49 am

Well, how complete our knowledge about physical laws in our plane of existence is is still to be determined.

I'm still curious what new theories and findings the future has.

And that's why Star Trek always tries to be one step ahead by putting things into the equation that seem impossible from today's point of view.

This character of Star Trek is what made many people become scientists which they possibly wouldn't have become without Star Trek or other "positive" Sci-Fi.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of too many of the ideas being found in Star Trek stories... even if they're explained in a scientificly crude way.

It has been quoted so many times: People thought going 40 km/h would cause deseases, people thought man could never fly, people thought it to be impossible to break the sound barrier.

We just shouldn't be too sure of todays theories and be open for imagination in Sci-Fi to a not too small extent.

At the moment, I'm looking forward to what people at CERN find out... or for example how research on nuclear fusion goes along. I recently heard some scientist talking about how within 2 years it might be possible to create a means of fusing atoms that's much more controllable and doable than recent methods have been.

Let's just look forward to the future.

posted on May 8th, 2009, 10:05 am

It is rather determined that complete knowledge is only achievable in asymptotic approximation.

I don't know, what this has to to with a plane of existence. Physics just concern reality, and reality is bound to our plane of existence exclusivly (if there are any), as this is the only obersvable (and predictable) one at the moment.

Noone rules out suggestions by scifi stories, because they are explained in a scientificly crude way, or even in no way. I do not rule out anything at all, I just say it's unrealistic, which means, that the estimated probability for it's existance is far far beyond the probaility of it's non existance.

In particular this could mean that an assumption is incompatible to theorie of relativity or quantum mechanics. If one proposes that assumption to be real, it means that the theory of relativity or quantummechanics represent a model that is worse than the one that supports the given assumption. Unfortunatly in most cases there is no one and the assumption is not even an obervation. Now, is the assumption more likly than the common models?

If not that is what we call an unrealistic assumption.

Further, an assumtion, like "there are spatial anomalies of certain funktion" are not even of use for encouraging technological developement.

These quotes: People thought going 40 km/h would cause deseases, people thought man could never fly, people thought it to be impossible to break the sound barrier... were never supported by scientific theories. My grand grandmother believed electric trains are dangerous ... should I take that into account, though she has not proposed any well-fitting description of the nature of electricity?

But as I stated before: She may have stated a model, which describes nature of our reality in an at least as good approximation as maxwells theory, and predicts her believ. Then her belief is realistic.

Im looking forward to a future of unecpected predictions and interesting observations. But I hope that future doesn't contain a pollution of FleetOps with unnecessary 'unrealism'.

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on May 8th, 2009, 10:31 am

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on May 8th, 2009, 10:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

That plane of existence was merely a metaphor to describe the fact that we're limited by what we are. Being able to manipulate 3 dimensions and being defined by a 4th is limited given the fact that theoretically (or at least to accomodate the string theory), there are many more.

And yes, once you understand something, you'll start to see there is more you don't understand.

Not only a concept of natural science, but part of many philosophical concepts of "Erkenntnis". You just push the line of your horizon further and knowing everything is probably impossible.

Concerning the quotes: The problem is not how empiric the facts are that those assumptions were based on, it's merely the fact that people in the past who used to call themselves scientists or "Ärzte" (doctor is too blurry for my taste) came up with those assumptions and led to people believing them.

Of what use is it that the Greeks (or at least some) knew that Earth was an (roughly) spherical object, if that knowledge is practically lost a few centuries later?

But putting that aside, even from a scientific point of view there were assumptions made that lead to those theories of impossibility, not just public belief.



Conclusion:

As long as it's roughly in line with Star Trek canon or seems at least to directly descend from it, then it's ok in Fleet Ops. If that means to contradict current theories of science, this is ok to the extent Star Trek has done it before. We still want our transporter systems and other cool stuff to work as supposed... that's it.

[mimesot]

posted on May 8th, 2009, 12:06 pm

Last edited by mimesot on May 8th, 2009, 12:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There's a significant difference between making assumptions (something that is stated without being a logical extension to observed behaviour) in order to cause behaviour of a model (which is gonna form a closer approximation to reality than everything before; reality itself limited as our ability to experience and think, as you said), and to propose an assumtopion to create effects never observed or even predicted before. It may be nice to do the later for obtaining nice phenomena, that make people marvel, but this is only responsible if there's a high probability, that this assumption doesn't get in conflict any (even yet nonexistent, which incorporates existing ones in a special case) proper descriptions of the observable nature.

String theorie's dimensions are proposed for description of observed nature. Spatial anomalies are propoesd just for an unobserved effect and is not related to any description of observed nature.

Something that is not accessible for intuitive or discursive Erkenntnis cannot be imported to science, so we may change our definition of Erkenntnis, and the terms science and reality will become more open too.

Concerning the quotes: That's why I say: Don't believe the teacher, recalculate it yourself!

Indeed the problem was, that assumptions were made, even by scientists, but they were not made for describing an observed phenomenum. "men can't fly (even with tricks)" is one example. Not all tricks were tested, and there was no proof (concerning believed models) either. In contrast, even those times theories could have predicted the opposite, declaring the assumption wrong (e.g. escape velocities were already known).

starTrek is most inconsistent itelf. Take the shields in starTrek Nemesis vs Shields in e.g. TNG episodes. Work somehow different in their effect upon ramming. What we can "directly descent" from that, is, that shields always behave exactly behave the way you want them to. So for any fleet ops game, we might allow any user to change the shield parameters, e.g. make them invulnderable? Absolute unconditional derivation of features from a inconsistent source leads to complete chaos and is thus not a really sensible choice.

Transporters, max impulse speeds, warp, current shields, have a very good (means low) unrealism/benefits ratio, and we all got used to them, so they shall stay. But I believe there's no need to incorporate any unrealistic feature, as long, as there is a more realistic one, suffucient for providing the same effects.

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on May 8th, 2009, 12:27 pm

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on May 8th, 2009, 1:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The last part about sensibility is a very good point.

The fact that writers have to remain somewhat objective (or be controlled by those who are not directly involved in the writing process) is important.

The thin line between credibility in a fictious universe and over-the-top imagination has to be respected.

That's why discussing those ideas is best, as concerns like "isn't it a bit too far fetched this time?" can be brought into the equation.

However, sometimes this mechanism fails. Nemesis is one case of this. Starting at the sudden appearance of a cloned Data (which perhaps can be explained), over the sudden use of wheeled vehicles as not unusual equipment on a Starfleet ship (reason: the writers/director wanted a car chase... ugh) to your example of shield behaviour.

Nemesis can't really be taken into account because most of it is an abomination. Nemesis sacrificed character development, starship design (how many torpedo launchers does a Sovereign class starship have?) and many other things for a "cool action story". And that's mostly because the director was an asshole being proud of never having watched Star Trek and doing his own thing, thus destroying canonicity and integrity of everything Star Trek.

Contradictions between TOS and TNG, ok, 20 years are 20 years and things do change.

But from Voyager and Insurrection to Nemesis? Not so much... that movie should be completely recut and polished over. Until then it's much worse than Star Trek V ever was. Because Star Trek V had decent character development and a heart while Nemesis is just not Star Trek.

posted on May 8th, 2009, 7:17 pm

Hmmm....
So, any doable (and ST believable) ideas to enhance FO map terrain?

A cosmic string?

posted on May 8th, 2009, 7:22 pm

The Nexus.

posted on May 8th, 2009, 7:55 pm

As the mention of the aftermath of a great spacebattle occured... why not generating fields of debris on those places? Some large junk parts of ships floating around as being a large Graveyard and actually damaging any Ship that wants to pass through, slowly dissipating through the momentum given to them by the initial explosions

posted on May 8th, 2009, 9:02 pm

Lt.Cdr.White, disputes with you are tough, sober and very interesting. I greatly appreciate that. I fully agree it is best to discuss whether something is too far fetched, and 2 (or more) polarizing opinions are also there to make our m8s join and form a community's opinion, which finally influences our beloved mods.

I believe there are some crossings of our "line" in every series (and some films), but the physics oriented viewers just twinkle twice and it's over. Only in VOY i really got a pinkeye. Nemesis is something that will not enter the annals of StarTrek, but I'm really excited what the new one brings.

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on May 8th, 2009, 9:35 pm

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on May 8th, 2009, 9:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thank you. My pleasure.

About Voyager:

For me, Voyager was when it somehow got strange...

So many problems, especially in the first seasons, left Janeway kind of helpless and I thought: Well, Picard and Co. wouldn't even had a problem in that situation.

Also, the technobabble seemed to make no sense to me anymore. More than once I had the impression that many things they did wouldn't have worked at all in TNG because they were indeed canonically impossible.

And I never really got attached to the characters. Janeway wrinkling her brow in a mix of hangdog look and feeling pity was not how I imagined a Captain of a Starfleet vessel, be it a male or female one.

The Doctor was great though.


PS: This forum is really strange in a way... German speaking people discussing everything exclusively in English.

posted on May 8th, 2009, 9:48 pm

Strange? I'm english speaking and I love reading your discussions. Besides, the most common language to all on the internet is English, I presume and many people who play fleet ops are English-speaking.

I understand both your arguments and appreciate all the points made. Please feel free to continue.

P.S. Thankyou for not deciding that because you disagree it is a reason to start insulting each other. You don't need me to tell you how common that is! I love the community we have here. I mean at first I thought there were people I didn't like, but I've seen them change over the short period of a few months into more respectable people.

Ah! I love this site! And the mod of course 

posted on May 8th, 2009, 10:18 pm

Those of us who don't speak fluent German appreciate it.

posted on May 9th, 2009, 5:37 am

or any German at all. Wait I know some German from playing call of duty