"Q" 3 for trekies

posted on March 4th, 2008, 6:05 pm

Whay has the federation not devaliped transwarp drive?

They have saved a good number of former drowns and reanimated them. You would think with the dubree left behind the and the information available from debored people they would have the tech buy now... along with outher things like regunrations and adaption.

posted on March 4th, 2008, 7:29 pm

Yeah they tried to develop transwarp technology but Scotty removed a few bits from the engine, thus sabotaging Starfleet's efforts. This brazen act set back Federation transwarp research by decades, maybe even centuries, because the scotsman with the whisky problem is the only dude in the quadrant who understands how a transwarp engine works.

Actually, if I may be serious for a moment, bringing an alien technology back to Admiral Admirable does not mean the technology can just be connected to the Enterprise's USB port and work. Advanced technology has to be reverse engineered and understood. Imagine if the Roman Empire discovered a bunch of Intel Core 2 Duo processors. They'd probably bash them to bits to try to test their potential as armour.

posted on March 4th, 2008, 9:32 pm

not really.
you'll find that the Romans were ingenious. Maybe they would not have been able to decipher it, but they would not bash it to look for "armour".
Ironically, if you look at history a little more closely, the anglo-saxon and celtic "civilizations" are simply copies of Rome. Even the science we now have is merely an extension on Roman-Greek science. There has been no invention in the true sense when dealing with scientific knowledge (relativity is the only exception). Even Newton simply expanded on older Greek concepts related to gravity.

In essence, one would expect the "smash it up for armor" approach from today's people more than from Rome or ancient civilizations.
Who knows, if Roswell ever were real, one could pretty well imagine the Us military using "alien" tech more for weaponry than for anything else - spiritual or developmental.
Seems the more things change the more they stay the same.

posted on March 4th, 2008, 10:22 pm

I think there are also a couple pacts that the Federation has signed to not use this technology... also I believe Voyager developed something similar, but much more dangerous. Perhaps transwarp also requires the collective to function (immense computing power...)? There are a myriad of possiblities however...

To Serpicus:
Yes Romans were ingenious, but no they would not know what to do with the processors, probably similar to Feds and transwarp. Probably they would have been stored somewhere until...
According to your idea of what makes an invention, then nothing is actually an invention. I'm not going to even touch that argument aside from that comment that EVERY idea builds on another.
Likewise, hopefully you realize that much of the civilian technology we use, or will use, was the result of military pioneering. This is by no means a reparation for war, but that comment about the US military is just blatantly insulting.

Although I run the risk of starting a heated debate, I would more expect the "smash it up for armor" approach among people who have no wish to scientifically understand things... accordingly, I think there was a larger percentage "back then" who would not have been able to understand such things. I guess that's saying a lot about Rome then    Il mio paese!

Likewise, if the more things change, the more they stay the same... then wouldn't you expect more ancient civilizations to also destroy tech just "like we do"? Your statement is contradictory in this regard.

posted on March 5th, 2008, 2:52 am

I seem tom misunderstand your reference to Serpicus' post.  I don't see anything that ventures as far as to define the concept of invention.

posted on March 5th, 2008, 3:12 am

"Ironically, if you look at history a little more closely, the anglo-saxon and celtic "civilizations" are simply copies of Rome. Even the science we now have is merely an extension on Roman-Greek science. There has been no invention in the true sense when dealing with scientific knowledge (relativity is the only exception). Even Newton simply expanded on older Greek concepts related to gravity."

That paragraph is all about invention... I know it doesn't directly define what invention is, but Serpicus clearly states that "there has been no invention in the true sense"... which means that there are no entirely new things (referring specifically to scientific knowledge in this case). According to this, nothing has ever been invented then.

posted on March 5th, 2008, 4:27 am

Bah.

Keep in mind that I got 4 1/2 hours of sleep last night and spent 9 hours at college today. 

posted on March 5th, 2008, 5:06 am

I understand completely  . I is in colaage t0o 

[Anonymous]

posted on March 5th, 2008, 2:52 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on March 5th, 2008, 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Of course, there are no "entirely new" things. We agree. Without wanting to push ourselves into an unnecessary discussion that takes us off -topic I would just like to clarify what I was saying.

1. to claim that invention is based on gradual building on old ideas is a testament to lack of originality. It's nice that people develop themselves by building on old ideas. But event here we see a selective expansion on coarse chemistry and basic european physics. Everything is built on what is left of Greek ideas. But if one were to ask why we do not focus on things like for example - harnessing botanical resources to develop medicines like an expansion on Ayurveda for example (only an example) - we see a complete dearth of ability and will to pursue areas which are outside ancient Greco-Roman science and technology. The fact that we do not broach on such fields, given an absence of pre-inculcated information, shows how one sided and imitative our science and invention truly is.

So, when we say that Rome would not know what to do with something like a positronic brain, we shouldn't be so flattering to ourselves to assume that we wouldn't look for a spy satellite guidance system in something as remarkable as a positronic brain.

2. So yes, the more things change the more they stay the same.
To clarify, the only difference that I cited, was that ancient civilizations, even Rome, were less constrained by their own sanctimonious beliefs of being all-knowing, and allowed possibilities for improvement and understanding, by virtue of their not having to analyze an object based on "main-stream" ideas for fear of being ostracized by their scientific community or a pre-imbibed desire to continue an unnecessary tussle between science and so called religion.

btw. As regards the US military, instead of getting insulted, it would do more good to actually analyze the implications of a society where technological progress is determined and driven by military research.

posted on March 9th, 2008, 8:02 am

Quick response from official sources "...transwarp coil was recovered, but it had self-destructed beyond repair by fusing its field regulator (per Borg protocol when a vessel is critically damaged)
From voyager 

posted on March 9th, 2008, 8:36 am

Hmm, well...

[Note: The following is according to the various tech manuals I have. It's not canon, but it makes sense]

The first "transwarp" drive wasn't the same thing as the transwarp drive we see on Borg ships.
The transwarp used on the USS Excelsior was more a rethink of warp drive. As seen in The Motion Picture, an imbalance in the warp drive caused the warp field to alter into a tunnel shape (wormhole), which, though unstable and dangerous, was in fact faster than conventional warp design. The Federation then tried to develop a stable version of this, calling is "transwarp". It failed.

Also note that Transwarp in that context does not mean the same "Warp 10+". In TOS/TMP era, it's a linear scale. So while a specific amount of energy could get a conventional warp drive to Warp 3 (3^3 x Speed of Light), using a transwarp drive, that amount of energy would move the ship at Transwarp 3 (3^5 x Speed of Light). It's merely a more energy-efficient configuration of standard warp theory.

Next, onto the Borg stuff.

I think some of you are underestimating how difficult it is to reverse-engineer and re-invent technologies. Sure, it's possible to do that here on Earth, as the tech levels aren't THAT different (which is why the USA and USSR were able to start their space programs so easily using the technology they took from the Nazis in 1945; the first rockets were actual V2s). But the Borg are thousands of years more advanced, taking the variety and advancements of thousands of civilisations.

As some of you have already said, it is comparable to if you went back in time to the Medieval Ages, and gave them a PlayStation 3. Would they be able to look at it, then make one of their own? No.

posted on March 9th, 2008, 11:55 am

Some of us are probably confused because they pussied up the Borg in Voyager - in the next gen they were pretty much invincible as they were supposed to be, a truly fearsome enemy. Remember when the Enterprise D (the federation flagship at the time and a vessel of awesome sized and power) fired a massive deflector weapon at a Borg cube, and nothing happened. The suggestion is that the Borg have indecipherable technology.

posted on March 9th, 2008, 6:01 pm

Well, in the first encounter between the Enterprise and the Borg, the Enterprise did 20% damage to the cube with one phaser blast, so the Borg have been anything but consistent with regards to strength.

posted on March 9th, 2008, 6:25 pm

True enough, consistency is not a strength of our dear Star Trek writers.

posted on March 9th, 2008, 6:37 pm

...which usually makes it pointless to argue canon, unless the developers created the series with such an idea in mind