Just to extend my earlier remarks, let me make the following point.
It doesn't require nefarious plotting to wind up with resurgent inflationism.
True, inflationists have long been known to massage Star Wars material to fit their vision, but there can easily be events that don't require that in the new canon. Authors and literary types are seldom ones to perform calculations of some idea or other.
Consider the fate of EU world Gholondreine-β, a waterworld which the Emperor punished by having all of its water transported off the surface and shipped to Coruscant. The duration is not known precisely, but presumably took much less than the 20 or so years which bracket "Emperor" and "shortly before the Battle of Endor" in the article.
That sounds like a good, awesome sci-fi punishment in one's head. But if you actually consider the logistics of it, it is completely absurd.
The volume of Earth's oceans is about 1.4 billion cubic kilometers . . . sure, Gholondreine could've been a much smaller planet with very little water (comparatively) actually making it a waterworld, but that's not the impression.
That's 1.4E18 cubic meters, or 1,400,000,000,000,000,000 (1.4 quintillion) cubic meters. The Death Star is about 120km in diameter, giving it a volume of about 9E14 cubic meters, or 900,000,000,000,000 cubic meters.
Do the math. That's the volumetric equivalent of about 1550 Death Stars.
By weight, you're looking at having to transport 1,400,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1.4 sextillion, or 1.4E21) kilograms to orbit, assuming 1000 kg/m^3 for water. .Even just getting it up to 200 kilometers . . . much less transporting it via hyperspace to Coruscant . . . is going to result in planet-killing levels of energy being expended.
That is to say, they wouldn't have to worry about transporting the water after awhile . . . any inefficiencies in their process of boosting the water to orbit would start to render the planet's water gaseous partway through the procedure. Hell, there'd be plenty of opportunity for inefficiencies before you're even to the boost stage to start screwing things up.
And that's the sort of thing I fear we can expect in the coming years . . . it doesn't have to be by hook or by crook.
Recall the flagrant errors of science in movies in recent years (e.g. GI Joe and the Sinking Ice Attack, as one of many examples), generally silly ideas (red matter in JJ-Trek), and so on, and I daresay that people are generally getting dumber, which is ironic in many ways. Authors are not immune to this epidemic.
Thus, I fear that it is entirely likely we'll see some utterly absurd plot point or extraneous details that the inflationists will be able to latch onto for dear life. Indeed, I'd wager JJ will give us a couple of them at least, unless JJ-Trek's absurdities were all Orci's fault.
Yes, as many argue, Star Wars is fantasy, and not "hard" science fiction. But the Lucas canon remained pretty delightfully consistent for a long while, and thus hard enough for most needs. Now that the rank of canon is truly being opened up, I think the recent news is not a cause for celebration among the anti-inflationists, whoever they may be, but may instead be a tolling of the bell.
Sorry to be a party-pooper.
2014-04-28
2014-04-26
Film Novelization Status
As it stands right now, the novelizations, which were line-edited by Lucas (and in one case, even labeled with him as author) are officially not included in the list of Disney-era canon works, though unlike the EU they aren't specifically excised, either. I have put out a feeler to a source to try to find out more certainly about their status, but suffice it to say that I'm not prepared to discard them.
My basic question is something tweetable like: "do you guys consider the film novelizations line-edited by (or attributed to) Lucas as EU material?"
I think the answer to that should be "no" . . . at the very least, they ought, to my mind, to be quasi-canon, at least.
It also helps make Star Wars a better comparison to Star Trek in a lot of ways (in a realistic sense, mind you, not a "let's wank Star Wars beyond the region of fit!" sense). Other than a few unnecessarily Trek-like bits of tech in the final season or two of The Clone Wars, filmed Star Wars doesn't seem overly attached to gee-whiz tech, generally aiming for a more grounded reality which I prefer.
For one thing, the Episode III novelization is our only explicit source for megaton yields of capital ship weapons in Star Wars . . . otherwise, it trends lower. There are also numerous other details that would suddenly go missing, including direct technology references, galaxy size indicators (map zoom-ins in the films all seem to suggest a tiny galaxy), et cetera.
Indeed, for inflationists, the only good news is that all the many references to fusion powerplants in the assorted novelizations might be left behind, but even then all you end up with is starships and vessels powered by liquid fuel that can sometimes appear to be little more explosive than gasoline. That's not exactly an improvement.
That said, the radio plays are basically right out. Nevertheless, I still think they are the best "flavor" material around, and were I to write a fanfic I would use some of the concepts within them before anything else in the non-canon. I may yet analyze them for NoLettersHome just for the hell of it.
But for now, gotta go . . . it's time to "raise ship"!
My basic question is something tweetable like: "do you guys consider the film novelizations line-edited by (or attributed to) Lucas as EU material?"
I think the answer to that should be "no" . . . at the very least, they ought, to my mind, to be quasi-canon, at least.
It also helps make Star Wars a better comparison to Star Trek in a lot of ways (in a realistic sense, mind you, not a "let's wank Star Wars beyond the region of fit!" sense). Other than a few unnecessarily Trek-like bits of tech in the final season or two of The Clone Wars, filmed Star Wars doesn't seem overly attached to gee-whiz tech, generally aiming for a more grounded reality which I prefer.
For one thing, the Episode III novelization is our only explicit source for megaton yields of capital ship weapons in Star Wars . . . otherwise, it trends lower. There are also numerous other details that would suddenly go missing, including direct technology references, galaxy size indicators (map zoom-ins in the films all seem to suggest a tiny galaxy), et cetera.
Indeed, for inflationists, the only good news is that all the many references to fusion powerplants in the assorted novelizations might be left behind, but even then all you end up with is starships and vessels powered by liquid fuel that can sometimes appear to be little more explosive than gasoline. That's not exactly an improvement.
That said, the radio plays are basically right out. Nevertheless, I still think they are the best "flavor" material around, and were I to write a fanfic I would use some of the concepts within them before anything else in the non-canon. I may yet analyze them for NoLettersHome just for the hell of it.
But for now, gotta go . . . it's time to "raise ship"!
The Cost of the New Disney Canon is Vigilance
As discussed here, it is now official that the old EU is being . . . well, they try to avoid the term "discarded", but suffice it to say that the old EU continuity has been excised. So, instead of a Lucas canon and then a Licensing canon, henceforth a new united continuity will exist wherein the Lucas canon and all new works including the JJ episodes, Star Wars: Rebels, and other non-screen works will all live in un-retconned bliss.
Some have offered congratulations, which are appreciated but not needed. I knew I had the right take on things and yet another confirmation doesn't change that. It may make a good "Welcome Back!" for Bob Brown, though.
However, some have also suggested that I should actually gloat. While there is a touch of temptation there, I think it would be best not to push the point too hard. Or, to borrow a phrase:
"It is unwise to lower your defenses!"
Over a decade ago, Curtis Saxton and his associates finally had an unprecedented opportunity to inject their beliefs in a children's book and thus explicitly make Star Wars out to be more powerful than Star Trek in what they thought to be an official, canon work. The fact that they made Star Wars utterly ridiculous and totally inconsistent as a result didn't even faze them . . . it still doesn't, in fact.
They thought they had executed a perfect coup, winning both the Wars vs. Trek debates and winning the Star Wars tech fandom civil war against West End Games and Bob Brown types, all at the same time . . . after all, people could only complain about unsportsmanlike conduct, right? But they were wrong, because that work wasn't part of the 'real' Lucas Star Wars canon, as was deduced around the same time both by yours truly and by hardcore Star Wars chronologists. In the years since, additional quotes from Lucas and others irrevocably solidified this view.
So, they failed. And it was undoubtedly quite maddening given how it came on what, to their mind, was the cusp of victory, or even after the initial appearance of victory. Even their EU itself soon came to mock them, what with millions of clones and a chain reaction Death Star, not to mention further unanticipated Lucas work on The Clone Wars later on.
The poor behavior of the core group and other inflationists in the following years put the nails in the coffin of their view in the popular arena, what with harassment of "minimalist" Star Wars authors and luminaries such as Karen Traviss, Pablo Hidalgo, and others.
Other details contribute to this rebranding, such as the disappearance of Mike Wong from the field and the general quiet from the prime members of his inflationist haven, the StarDestroyer.Net forums.
This seeming attempt to remake and rebrand Star Wars inflationism could very well result in another moment wherein, by hook or by crook, one of them manages to get a word or few in on some ancillary material, or maybe even author it. Recall that for the Episode III ICS they evidently couldn't put gigaton figures everywhere, and so tried to cleverly hide them in among dull boring bits that probably struck most readers as rather senseless and tedious, but were veritable dog-whistles to number-crunchy people.
Now that everything going forward is at least ostensibly all canon, and considering that there is generally not very much interest in technological consistency amongst story-focused people as one might commonly expect to find in a "Story Group", it is entirely possible that the day may come when we find ourselves confronted with another ICS moment.
And this time, the bomb won't be so easy to defuse.
Hopefully I'm wrong, and the inflationist efforts to screw up Star Wars by forcing themselves and their own inflationist imaginations onto it won't be seen again. Star Wars doesn't deserve to have inflationist predators leering at it, hoping to satisfy their desires with its carcass as soon as it turns its back. The Star Wars of Lucas is alive and well, and hopefully will stay that way.
Stay vigilant, fellow Star Wars fans!.
Some have offered congratulations, which are appreciated but not needed. I knew I had the right take on things and yet another confirmation doesn't change that. It may make a good "Welcome Back!" for Bob Brown, though.
However, some have also suggested that I should actually gloat. While there is a touch of temptation there, I think it would be best not to push the point too hard. Or, to borrow a phrase:
"It is unwise to lower your defenses!"
Over a decade ago, Curtis Saxton and his associates finally had an unprecedented opportunity to inject their beliefs in a children's book and thus explicitly make Star Wars out to be more powerful than Star Trek in what they thought to be an official, canon work. The fact that they made Star Wars utterly ridiculous and totally inconsistent as a result didn't even faze them . . . it still doesn't, in fact.
They thought they had executed a perfect coup, winning both the Wars vs. Trek debates and winning the Star Wars tech fandom civil war against West End Games and Bob Brown types, all at the same time . . . after all, people could only complain about unsportsmanlike conduct, right? But they were wrong, because that work wasn't part of the 'real' Lucas Star Wars canon, as was deduced around the same time both by yours truly and by hardcore Star Wars chronologists. In the years since, additional quotes from Lucas and others irrevocably solidified this view.
So, they failed. And it was undoubtedly quite maddening given how it came on what, to their mind, was the cusp of victory, or even after the initial appearance of victory. Even their EU itself soon came to mock them, what with millions of clones and a chain reaction Death Star, not to mention further unanticipated Lucas work on The Clone Wars later on.
The poor behavior of the core group and other inflationists in the following years put the nails in the coffin of their view in the popular arena, what with harassment of "minimalist" Star Wars authors and luminaries such as Karen Traviss, Pablo Hidalgo, and others.
(Indeed, I'm pretty well convinced that the hardcore inflationists hate Star Wars, because you literally cannot watch what's on screen while simultaneously believing what they try to get people to believe. You have to shut off the visual and auditory centers of your brain and imagine totally different scenes unfolding, at which point having it playing in the background is quite academic. Maybe now that the old EU is effectively quashed, their hatred will simply lead them to drift away from Star Wars completely and leave it to people who will actually watch and enjoy it for what it shows of itself, not for what odd claims can be forced onto it.
But since even the myriad Lucas quotes about parallel universes never stopped them before, I doubt this news will, either.)However, in recent years, they've seemingly been working to create a kinder, gentler inflationism, giving the appearance of trying to clean up their act. Leading this has been Brian Young, who was once as full of furious bluster but now, rather boldly and ironically, portrays himself a fragile gentleman fighting for truth against implacable venom-filled "fanatics" who he insults and misrepresents en masse instead of individually. (Well, usually, anyway.)
Other details contribute to this rebranding, such as the disappearance of Mike Wong from the field and the general quiet from the prime members of his inflationist haven, the StarDestroyer.Net forums.
This seeming attempt to remake and rebrand Star Wars inflationism could very well result in another moment wherein, by hook or by crook, one of them manages to get a word or few in on some ancillary material, or maybe even author it. Recall that for the Episode III ICS they evidently couldn't put gigaton figures everywhere, and so tried to cleverly hide them in among dull boring bits that probably struck most readers as rather senseless and tedious, but were veritable dog-whistles to number-crunchy people.
Now that everything going forward is at least ostensibly all canon, and considering that there is generally not very much interest in technological consistency amongst story-focused people as one might commonly expect to find in a "Story Group", it is entirely possible that the day may come when we find ourselves confronted with another ICS moment.
And this time, the bomb won't be so easy to defuse.
Hopefully I'm wrong, and the inflationist efforts to screw up Star Wars by forcing themselves and their own inflationist imaginations onto it won't be seen again. Star Wars doesn't deserve to have inflationist predators leering at it, hoping to satisfy their desires with its carcass as soon as it turns its back. The Star Wars of Lucas is alive and well, and hopefully will stay that way.
Stay vigilant, fellow Star Wars fans!.
2014-04-19
Two Kilometer Skyscrapers
Depending on the opinion you go with below, we may or may not be capable of building a 2km skyscraper today. The materials science is there or roughly so, but there's a problem with elevators . . . as noted in the article, part of which is quoted below, a 1.4km building on the drawing board is considered iffy simply because of the enormous wasted volume of its numerous elevators.
In any case, the other elevator problem is speed. Better elevator cables could be a nice offshoot of orbital tether technology and other nanotech material designs. Even if superfast elevators were feasible, though . . . say, via pressurized tubes that moved the cars or just nanotech cables or any other idea . . . there would still be a limit to the acceleration. In an elevator in which you stand, which is generally the most efficient design volumetrically, you can hardly have a 90lb weakling expected to withstand 3g, not to mention the weightlessness or negative-g of a rapid descent.
I suppose we could consider reclining or even prone elevators where you sit in a G-seat or just lie down, but that comes with its own problems, like loading speed. It's one thing to just walk in to an elevator and pack in like sardines, but quite another have a proverbial first-class section . . . the speed versus the added area (and with it, shaft volume) would require significant consideration. And all of these things contribute to safety concerns in the event a rapid building evacuation is required.
I would say, then, that gravity control . . . altering the perceived g-forces within the elevator . . . is a likely prerequisite for good skyscraper design on Coruscant, so you can have comparatively few but ridiculously quick elevators that don't leave the building occupants as chunky salsa on the elevator floor. Otherwise, the dozens upon dozens of elevators shafts as required by current skyscraper techniques would render Coruscant skyscrapers completely wasteful, not to mention the "last mile" problem of reaching a building quickly only to have to spend an age to get to the top.
Perhaps also, like Coruscant, the next true enabler for supertall structures is the flying car, so that when you arrive at the building's address, you're already on the 100th floor.
Kim believes that, technically speaking, a 2km might be possible at the current time. He continues: “At this point in time we can build a tower that is 1km, maybe 2km. Any higher than that and we will have to do a lot of homework.”
Yet Kim states that it is highly impractical to build a 2km-high tower. He adds: “In terms of practicalities, we don’t need to built at 2km, but someone with a lot of money might still want to do it.”
He points out that building at such height will incur many structural challenges.
“There might be constraints for the structural engineering – we don’t know many things. When you go up to one or two kilometres, we don’t have much information surrounding the conditions.” Kim also notes that there may be issues with floor lean due to the shortening of columns over time.
For WSP’s Leclercq, the technical limit at the current time is 1 mile. “I truly believe that 1 mile – 1.6 kilometres – is within range. Over that, it may be possible if there are improvements in concrete quality. But 2km is too big a figure – it’s just a step too far at the moment,” says Leclercq.
DSA’s Kelshaw is similarly cynical on the feasibility of a 2km tower. “I don’t know why people would want to build something 2km tall. From a developer’s perspective that can’t be feasible. Just to think about that is mind blowing and I can’t see it happening in my lifetime.”Compare this to Coruscant, where multikilometer skyscrapers have clearly been honed to a fine art. I can't immediately think of any that are just so tall as to be off-the-chart orbital-tether tall, and I would presume five kilometers to be the rough limit just based on eyeballing the assorted scenes. That, of course, doesn't account for the subsurface constructions, either, though it is not clear if there's much subsurface stuff underneath the skyscrapers themselves.
In any case, the other elevator problem is speed. Better elevator cables could be a nice offshoot of orbital tether technology and other nanotech material designs. Even if superfast elevators were feasible, though . . . say, via pressurized tubes that moved the cars or just nanotech cables or any other idea . . . there would still be a limit to the acceleration. In an elevator in which you stand, which is generally the most efficient design volumetrically, you can hardly have a 90lb weakling expected to withstand 3g, not to mention the weightlessness or negative-g of a rapid descent.
I suppose we could consider reclining or even prone elevators where you sit in a G-seat or just lie down, but that comes with its own problems, like loading speed. It's one thing to just walk in to an elevator and pack in like sardines, but quite another have a proverbial first-class section . . . the speed versus the added area (and with it, shaft volume) would require significant consideration. And all of these things contribute to safety concerns in the event a rapid building evacuation is required.
I would say, then, that gravity control . . . altering the perceived g-forces within the elevator . . . is a likely prerequisite for good skyscraper design on Coruscant, so you can have comparatively few but ridiculously quick elevators that don't leave the building occupants as chunky salsa on the elevator floor. Otherwise, the dozens upon dozens of elevators shafts as required by current skyscraper techniques would render Coruscant skyscrapers completely wasteful, not to mention the "last mile" problem of reaching a building quickly only to have to spend an age to get to the top.
Perhaps also, like Coruscant, the next true enabler for supertall structures is the flying car, so that when you arrive at the building's address, you're already on the 100th floor.
2014-04-13
Plot Ideas
With the current news of the Heartbleed bug in OpenSSL security, I was reminded of my old ideas for plot points from back when the Trek producers accepted ideas from fans, though as I recall I didn't really come up with them until after that door was closed.
One was the discovery of a security backdoor in the computer systems of another power. For some reason I associate this with the Klingons, but I'm not sure why. The Federation learning of a Klingon security hole would be a non-story for most of TNG unless you had an NSA-esque Section 31 thing going on. It would make the most sense as a story about the Romulans or Cardassians, and for a modern spin on it with ripped-from-the-headlines effect I could have it as something they knew about and were using against their own people or something.
The trick with any such story is to make computer stuff dramatic, and other than having Picard mulling over what to do with the backdoor there wasn't much drama to it without more work.
The other idea was best set in the Enterprise era and involved a jungle sniper whose beam weapon was tuned to make the beam invisible, and either the planet dampened sensors or the sniper did. The reason it would have been good for Enterprise is that it could've been a Romulan, who naturally would've vaporized himself or been vaporized when capture was imminent.
The thing there is that while a sniper is scary, a sniper who is anywhere in line of sight (or maybe even not, through jungle) and who can vaporize your people is extra-scary. I still like that idea, but it really fits best as a part of the Romulan War.
But, other than being neat hooks, I never really developed the ideas any further. So, author-reading-this, you're welcome. ;-)
One was the discovery of a security backdoor in the computer systems of another power. For some reason I associate this with the Klingons, but I'm not sure why. The Federation learning of a Klingon security hole would be a non-story for most of TNG unless you had an NSA-esque Section 31 thing going on. It would make the most sense as a story about the Romulans or Cardassians, and for a modern spin on it with ripped-from-the-headlines effect I could have it as something they knew about and were using against their own people or something.
The trick with any such story is to make computer stuff dramatic, and other than having Picard mulling over what to do with the backdoor there wasn't much drama to it without more work.
The other idea was best set in the Enterprise era and involved a jungle sniper whose beam weapon was tuned to make the beam invisible, and either the planet dampened sensors or the sniper did. The reason it would have been good for Enterprise is that it could've been a Romulan, who naturally would've vaporized himself or been vaporized when capture was imminent.
The thing there is that while a sniper is scary, a sniper who is anywhere in line of sight (or maybe even not, through jungle) and who can vaporize your people is extra-scary. I still like that idea, but it really fits best as a part of the Romulan War.
But, other than being neat hooks, I never really developed the ideas any further. So, author-reading-this, you're welcome. ;-)
Borg Nanoprobes: Brains of the Outfit?
In "Drone"[VOY5], a super-drone is created when a transporter mishap mixes the Doctor's 29th Century future-tech portable holo-emitter and some of Seven of Nine's Borg nanoprobes. The be-nanoprobed holo-emitter is thought to merely be damaged and is left alone in a lab for later repair.
Instead, the emitter is assimilated, and the new Borgified hardware assimilates other nearby equipment and, later, takes a sample of DNA for a biological template. After a day of super-speed maturation, the super-drone emerges.
What's amazing here is that the entire plot of the episode is based around the idea that stray nanoprobes from Seven of Nine which merged with the portable holo-emitter assimilated it, extrapolated its technologies and developed new capabilities therefrom, developed a plan to extract a tissue sample so that the DNA (and presumably the cellular material) could be used as a biological template from which to begin crafting a full-size lifeform, designed and built a unique Borg maturation chamber out of assorted nearby Federation components, and so on.
Let's look at a few choice bits, with thanks as always to Chakoteya.net:
SEVEN: This technology resembles a Borg maturation chamber, but many of the components are unfamiliar.
CREWMAN: Commander.
SEVEN: He was punctured by an extraction tubule. It removed a tissue sample. There are residual nanoprobes surrounding the wound. Their encoding sequences are identical to my own.
TUVOK: Your nanoprobes? How?
SEVEN: I don't know.
TUVOK: Take him to Sickbay. What are you doing?
SEVEN: I will be recognised as Borg. A drone, but unlike any I've ever seen.
TUVOK: It appears to be in the foetal stage.
SEVEN: I don't understand. The Borg assimilate. They do not reproduce in this fashion.
JANEWAY: Where did he come from?
SEVEN: I believe it was created here in the science lab. When the away team beamed back to Voyager there was a transporter malfunction. Our patterns merged briefly. It is possible that some of my nanoprobes infected the Doctor's mobile emitter.
TUVOK: They began to assimilate.
SEVEN: Yes. Nanoprobes are encoded to utilize any technology they encounter. Once it assimilated the emitter, it began to transform this diagnostic station. When Ensign Mulchaey entered the room, they sampled his DNA.
JANEWAY: Using his genetic code as a template to create a lifeform.
EMH: Well, he appears to be human for the most part. Borg implants comprise approximately
[Astrometrics lab]
EMH [OC]: Twenty seven percent of his body.
TUVOK: Curious. His body plating is composed of polydutonic alloy
EMH [on monitor]: Just like my mobile emitter.
SEVEN: The nanoprobes must have extrapolated that technology. It could explain his unique design.
TORRES: Wait a minute. The Doctor's emitter came from the twenty ninth century. It's five hundred years more advanced that anything we've got.
TUVOK: It is logical to assume this drone will be equally advanced.
TORRES: A twenty ninth century Borg.
TUVOK: In essence.
EMH [on monitor]: I've located my mobile emitter. It's embedded in his cerebral cortex.
SEVEN: The emitter has been adapted to serve as part of his central nervous system. It controls all autonomic functions.
EMH: That means we can't remove it. Not without killing the drone.
TUVOK: Has it contacted the Borg collective?
SEVEN: No. I have dampened it's proximity transceiver.
TORRES: For now. What about when it grows up?
[Ready room]Y'know, I really don't know why the drone would await instructions from the Collective. The nanoprobes themselves seem to be quite capable of independent thought and creativity, if not individually than at least in aggregate. As of "Inside Man"[VOY7], Seven is said to have 3.6 million nanoprobes within her. Assuming they are evenly distributed, then only some thousands could've infected the mobile emitter just based on a quickie volumetric guesstimate.
JANEWAY: Reactive body armour? Multidimensional adaptability? Internal transporter nodes?
SEVEN: The drone possesses superior technology. It will fully mature in less than two hours. However, its Borg shielding is not yet active. We can still terminate it, but we must act quickly.
JANEWAY: Hold on a minute, Seven. I want some answers first. What normally happens when a drone disengages from the maturation chamber?
SEVEN: It awaits instructions from the Collective.
And yet, these thousands, perhaps with computing support from the mobile emitter itself, were sufficient to do a great many things. Extrapolating technology and designing new things from it is not exactly child's play.
All this having been said and pondered for awhile, it wasn't until I was writing the paragraph above that I realized that the mobile emitter's computing power could have been tapped for these tasks, and after the relevant technologies aboard it were extrapolated and duplicated, the emitter itself was 'discarded' as a mere nervous system controller.
Still, however, Seven's statements are clear that the nanoprobes themselves are designed to do precisely what they did, which in this case was to assimilate . . . to take control of . . . and make good use of a 29th Century device which, it goes without saying, they had never encountered before. Even if they adapted its processing power for their own tasks to aid in later design efforts, they remain amazing for being able to do that.
Certainly we've seen near-magical transformations of NX Class engineering components with nothing more than the injection of Borg nanoprobes, as seen in "Regeneration" when a drone simply injects a plain-ish area and Borgifies it, so this seems to follow.
Put simply, the nanoprobes are extraordinary tools, and given their capabilities it is interesting to ponder something like the Borg having their own SG-1 Replicator moment . . . after all, if they're so capable, why do they need the fleshy bits at all? Why do they need the Queen? Certainly the Queen's resurrection could be nicely explained if she were merely a manifestation of the nanoprobes. But, then, why just one? Why not have queens everywhere?
And while we're pondering, it's easy to ponder that the Borg may have been conquered by their own technology . . . turning the Borg into victims of a Terminator or Galactica-esque failure to contain their own creation.
We can even imagine it starting again. Can you imagine a Borg Civil War fought between drones and their nanoprobes? SG-1 Replicators, eat your heart out.
2014-04-12
March 2013 Moonstrike
A nice real-world example of a strike against the lunar surface . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCwzWTea4yE
The notable details are provided in a quick graphic . . . they list the rock as 40 kilograms, 0.3 to 0.4 meters wide, traveling at 56,000 miles per hour (because it was totally helpful to suddenly convert to the imperial system after talking in SI kilograms and meters), and the explosion is said to be worth about 5 tons of energy.
The approximate volume of the impactor given the size provided (and assuming an average of 0.35 meters and a sphere) would be about 0.18 cubic meters.
V= 4/3 π r^3
V= 4/3 π (0.35^3)
V= 4/3 π (0.042875)
V= 1.33333333333333333333*pi*0.042875
V= 0.17959438003021651346
The approximate density of the impactor given the mass would thus be 220 kg./m^3.
That's really quite surprisingly low. That's about a fifth the density of water . . . the impactor would've floated!
56,000mph is about 25000 meters per second. The kinetic energy of the impactor would have been:
E = 0.5 m v^2
E = 0.5 (40) (25000^2)
E = 12500000000 J
E = 12.5 GJ
E = 2.98 tons TNT
This is somewhat different from their figure of 5 tons but within the ballpark.
The crater is believed to be about 20 meters in size.
I'm still weirded out by their density figure, though.
In any case, as seen in the video, the flash lasts about a second, and was sufficiently bright to have been visible from Earth. I wouldn't trust the apparent size of the flash given the camera's intent of detecting dim flashes, but I could be wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCwzWTea4yE
The notable details are provided in a quick graphic . . . they list the rock as 40 kilograms, 0.3 to 0.4 meters wide, traveling at 56,000 miles per hour (because it was totally helpful to suddenly convert to the imperial system after talking in SI kilograms and meters), and the explosion is said to be worth about 5 tons of energy.
The approximate volume of the impactor given the size provided (and assuming an average of 0.35 meters and a sphere) would be about 0.18 cubic meters.
V= 4/3 π r^3
V= 4/3 π (0.35^3)
V= 4/3 π (0.042875)
V= 1.33333333333333333333*pi*0.042875
V= 0.17959438003021651346
The approximate density of the impactor given the mass would thus be 220 kg./m^3.
That's really quite surprisingly low. That's about a fifth the density of water . . . the impactor would've floated!
56,000mph is about 25000 meters per second. The kinetic energy of the impactor would have been:
E = 0.5 m v^2
E = 0.5 (40) (25000^2)
E = 12500000000 J
E = 12.5 GJ
E = 2.98 tons TNT
This is somewhat different from their figure of 5 tons but within the ballpark.
The crater is believed to be about 20 meters in size.
I'm still weirded out by their density figure, though.
In any case, as seen in the video, the flash lasts about a second, and was sufficiently bright to have been visible from Earth. I wouldn't trust the apparent size of the flash given the camera's intent of detecting dim flashes, but I could be wrong.
2014-04-08
Leaky Wounded Megawatts
"The Wounded" HD coverage at Ex Astris Scientia is here: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/observations/thewounded.htm
The high-def version of "The Wounded" now features weapons energy readings and shield effectiveness percentages, as well as a frequency attached to the rapid nadion effect.
Specifically, it seems the Cardassian warship that was destroyed fired a 700 MW coherent disruptor beam with a rapid nadion effect of 340 kHz. Another image shows that the Phoenix is then seen to be hit with an estimated impact of 120 MW and a secondary impact (huh?) of 82 or 92 MW.
Another hit against shields shows a shield effectiveness percentage of 62% with a separate weapon penetration figure of 37% shown.
The megawattage numbers are consistent with the TNG Tech Manual and suggest that the beam weapons of a Cardassian ship are on the order of 75% as powerful as a shot from one of the larger arrays on the Galaxy Class, at least in the TNG-TM-iverse.
However, almost everyone agrees that you can't take the TNG TM values at face value, because they just don't fit. For instance, the TNG TM suggests hand phasers are limited to ten kilowatts, and yet we see them perform tasks requiring dozens of megajoules of effective yield. Moreover, in "The Mind's Eye"[TNG5], a phaser rifle is tested and, per Data, "energy cell usage remains constant at 1.05 megajoules per second."
Either phasers operate in the megajoule range at least, or else phaser rifles are suddenly 100 times more powerful than hand phasers . . . a rather unique concept which has never been indicated before. And, of course, at TNG TM levels, this would put phaser rifles at 20% the power of a phaser emitter segment. Even at 200 segments, at that point, you might as well just strap 1000 phaser rifles to the hull. It'd probably take less room.
Similarly, if photon torpedoes were as powerful as the midrange claim of 64 megatons in the TNG TM and if shipboard phasers were, too, then even assuming it took a full second for a photon torpedo to release its energy, they would still be hundreds of millions of times more powerful than phasers . . . or, in other words, assuming a gigawatt discharge from the large saucer phaser array, it would take a sustained shot lasting about 8.5 years for the phasers to match the energy of the photon torpedo.
Obviously, this is not what we saw in the show.
Of course, as noted by Mike DiCenso, the TNG TM gives figures ranging from 4.8 kilotons to 2.39 gigatons for photon torpedoes, depending on where you look. Assuming a one-second detonation and energy release (which is, again, awfully slow), that puts torpedoes between 20,000 gigawatts and 9,999,760,000 gigawatts. Using the "sustained phaser shot to match" standard, that's somewhere between 5.5 hours and 317 years . . . neither one of those figures matches the canon, either.
The point here is that I view the megawattage numbers as pretty useless. As noted by Mike Okuda, though, we need not feel beholden to the new material, which is a blessing in this case. Otherwise we'd be in Contradiction City, and I hate that place.
As for the other details, I'm not sure what to do with them. The notion of shields allowing 1/3rd bleedthrough damage is certainly disconcerting . . . this would imply that a Tech Manual torpedo (where one figure gives 64 megatons) would involve over 21 megatons of energy striking the ship . . . 33 megatons using "Rise" figures, or up to 800 megatons using the highest TNG TM torpedo value. That seems awfully messy, too.
I'm thinking at the moment that it's best to just pass on the new version of the scene altogether.
The high-def version of "The Wounded" now features weapons energy readings and shield effectiveness percentages, as well as a frequency attached to the rapid nadion effect.
Specifically, it seems the Cardassian warship that was destroyed fired a 700 MW coherent disruptor beam with a rapid nadion effect of 340 kHz. Another image shows that the Phoenix is then seen to be hit with an estimated impact of 120 MW and a secondary impact (huh?) of 82 or 92 MW.
Another hit against shields shows a shield effectiveness percentage of 62% with a separate weapon penetration figure of 37% shown.
The megawattage numbers are consistent with the TNG Tech Manual and suggest that the beam weapons of a Cardassian ship are on the order of 75% as powerful as a shot from one of the larger arrays on the Galaxy Class, at least in the TNG-TM-iverse.
However, almost everyone agrees that you can't take the TNG TM values at face value, because they just don't fit. For instance, the TNG TM suggests hand phasers are limited to ten kilowatts, and yet we see them perform tasks requiring dozens of megajoules of effective yield. Moreover, in "The Mind's Eye"[TNG5], a phaser rifle is tested and, per Data, "energy cell usage remains constant at 1.05 megajoules per second."
Either phasers operate in the megajoule range at least, or else phaser rifles are suddenly 100 times more powerful than hand phasers . . . a rather unique concept which has never been indicated before. And, of course, at TNG TM levels, this would put phaser rifles at 20% the power of a phaser emitter segment. Even at 200 segments, at that point, you might as well just strap 1000 phaser rifles to the hull. It'd probably take less room.
Similarly, if photon torpedoes were as powerful as the midrange claim of 64 megatons in the TNG TM and if shipboard phasers were, too, then even assuming it took a full second for a photon torpedo to release its energy, they would still be hundreds of millions of times more powerful than phasers . . . or, in other words, assuming a gigawatt discharge from the large saucer phaser array, it would take a sustained shot lasting about 8.5 years for the phasers to match the energy of the photon torpedo.
Obviously, this is not what we saw in the show.
Of course, as noted by Mike DiCenso, the TNG TM gives figures ranging from 4.8 kilotons to 2.39 gigatons for photon torpedoes, depending on where you look. Assuming a one-second detonation and energy release (which is, again, awfully slow), that puts torpedoes between 20,000 gigawatts and 9,999,760,000 gigawatts. Using the "sustained phaser shot to match" standard, that's somewhere between 5.5 hours and 317 years . . . neither one of those figures matches the canon, either.
The point here is that I view the megawattage numbers as pretty useless. As noted by Mike Okuda, though, we need not feel beholden to the new material, which is a blessing in this case. Otherwise we'd be in Contradiction City, and I hate that place.
As for the other details, I'm not sure what to do with them. The notion of shields allowing 1/3rd bleedthrough damage is certainly disconcerting . . . this would imply that a Tech Manual torpedo (where one figure gives 64 megatons) would involve over 21 megatons of energy striking the ship . . . 33 megatons using "Rise" figures, or up to 800 megatons using the highest TNG TM torpedo value. That seems awfully messy, too.
I'm thinking at the moment that it's best to just pass on the new version of the scene altogether.
2014-04-06
What a Beautiful Noise
Well, I'm officially impressed. I'm not sure exactly in what sense I mean the term, but there it is.
A month or two ago I was in that interview with NerdCulturePodcast and, within a few days, someone posted the link of it to our old friends at StarDestroyer.Net.
Back in the day, this would have resulted in no end of wailing, gnashing of teeth, and assorted fabrications and insults over the course of, oh, say, maybe somewhere around five forum thread pages. I was, after all, the Official Boogeyman there for many years after my departure, with assorted threads about my activities and with the site's Hate page about me being continually updated with new bogus claims about my goings and doings for a few years after the last contact I had with the site author. Per a count I made in December 2002 referenced on one of my pages, I was directly mentioned by name 1100 times in a three month period there. It was so bad that even the curators there decided in 2007 . . . five years later! . . . to put in a ban of further discussion of me.
In any case, once I put a voice to the words, I actually expected some low-brow effort at audio editing, or at least the usual round of insulting flamey-ness, claims of bias, psychosis, and puppy-eating, and the usual old hat stuff, and said so around the time at StarfleetJedi.Net's forum. After all, though some people fail to realize it, when you put yourself out there in any medium, you invite criticism of your presentation, good-natured or otherwise. By "otherwise" I refer to the point a wise man once made, in that the internet means idiots are no longer secured within their own village. (More to the point, one can hardly criticize the looks of an actress in one breath then take offense at discussion of one's own accent in another, unless one is to be inconsistent.)
But, to the credit of SDN (assuming the thread is not locked in some non-obvious fashion), there's been nary a peep. Of course, the only identifier attached is insofar as what my initials are, rather than my old SDN nom de plume, but I am giving the benefit of the doubt that even the old-timers could figure out who was being referred to, and while it's possible the years-old rule about not discussing me directly resulted in self-enforcement, I somehow doubt it . . . the original post got through, after all.
So, let me take the opportunity here to thank the folks at StarDestroyer.Net for the blessed silence.
However, I must also apologize to those old-timers who have exercised self-control. As part of another project I'm currently working on, I will be trying to condense some of the data from assorted current pages, along with other historical highlights, into a single section. By both necessity and, in some cases, prior omission (e.g. the term "Talifan" only appeared once, undefined, on the main site prior to a recent update of the Intro page), there are certain things I haven't mentioned from years ago which I soon will be, as briefly as I am able (which as we know isn't very, but still). In other words, many of the old pages were written in a certain historical context which is no longer valid, so it would be best to tidy up the old interpersonal nonsense and put it over in a separate place.
This is not meant to goad or rekindle the old obsessive flamey-stalky stuff . . . the history is what it is, and given the blessed silence I am hoping it is just history to you guys, as well. My telling of it will, by necessity, be told from a certain point of view . . . my own. But for the most part it is just history, and if you guys can show the same self-control you've shown earlier this year, then maybe we can keep the bad behavior there, where it belongs, briefly referenced but otherwise best forgotten.
And fear not . . . this is no olive branch. This is merely a compliment, a declaration of neutral zone, and a note about its proper borders and the way in which I intend to respect them. No response is required, and indeed, further blessed silence is encouraged.
Thanks again,
G2k, ST-v-SW.Net
A month or two ago I was in that interview with NerdCulturePodcast and, within a few days, someone posted the link of it to our old friends at StarDestroyer.Net.
Back in the day, this would have resulted in no end of wailing, gnashing of teeth, and assorted fabrications and insults over the course of, oh, say, maybe somewhere around five forum thread pages. I was, after all, the Official Boogeyman there for many years after my departure, with assorted threads about my activities and with the site's Hate page about me being continually updated with new bogus claims about my goings and doings for a few years after the last contact I had with the site author. Per a count I made in December 2002 referenced on one of my pages, I was directly mentioned by name 1100 times in a three month period there. It was so bad that even the curators there decided in 2007 . . . five years later! . . . to put in a ban of further discussion of me.
In any case, once I put a voice to the words, I actually expected some low-brow effort at audio editing, or at least the usual round of insulting flamey-ness, claims of bias, psychosis, and puppy-eating, and the usual old hat stuff, and said so around the time at StarfleetJedi.Net's forum. After all, though some people fail to realize it, when you put yourself out there in any medium, you invite criticism of your presentation, good-natured or otherwise. By "otherwise" I refer to the point a wise man once made, in that the internet means idiots are no longer secured within their own village. (More to the point, one can hardly criticize the looks of an actress in one breath then take offense at discussion of one's own accent in another, unless one is to be inconsistent.)
But, to the credit of SDN (assuming the thread is not locked in some non-obvious fashion), there's been nary a peep. Of course, the only identifier attached is insofar as what my initials are, rather than my old SDN nom de plume, but I am giving the benefit of the doubt that even the old-timers could figure out who was being referred to, and while it's possible the years-old rule about not discussing me directly resulted in self-enforcement, I somehow doubt it . . . the original post got through, after all.
So, let me take the opportunity here to thank the folks at StarDestroyer.Net for the blessed silence.
However, I must also apologize to those old-timers who have exercised self-control. As part of another project I'm currently working on, I will be trying to condense some of the data from assorted current pages, along with other historical highlights, into a single section. By both necessity and, in some cases, prior omission (e.g. the term "Talifan" only appeared once, undefined, on the main site prior to a recent update of the Intro page), there are certain things I haven't mentioned from years ago which I soon will be, as briefly as I am able (which as we know isn't very, but still). In other words, many of the old pages were written in a certain historical context which is no longer valid, so it would be best to tidy up the old interpersonal nonsense and put it over in a separate place.
This is not meant to goad or rekindle the old obsessive flamey-stalky stuff . . . the history is what it is, and given the blessed silence I am hoping it is just history to you guys, as well. My telling of it will, by necessity, be told from a certain point of view . . . my own. But for the most part it is just history, and if you guys can show the same self-control you've shown earlier this year, then maybe we can keep the bad behavior there, where it belongs, briefly referenced but otherwise best forgotten.
And fear not . . . this is no olive branch. This is merely a compliment, a declaration of neutral zone, and a note about its proper borders and the way in which I intend to respect them. No response is required, and indeed, further blessed silence is encouraged.
Thanks again,
G2k, ST-v-SW.Net
2014-04-04
Worf's Notches
Face it, Worf gets all the chicks.
Yeah, Captain Kirk blah blah and Will Riker blah blah blah. Those guys may have had good hair (or hairpieces), and they may be good at the quick seduction and one-nighters, but if you look longer term, Worf is the true mack-daddy.
Not only was Tasha virtually licking her lips at him shortly before her ill-fated trip to face the "Skin of Evil", but he later bagged Troi, Jadzia Dax, and Ezri Dax. The ones he did not marry (in this quantum universe or some other), he politely allowed others (including Riker the player) to have as his cast-aside offal. Worf's game is so good, he basically had Jadzia smacking him around to pay her his attention.
Indeed, I'm pretty sure the only reason he didn't avail himself of the pleasures of Dr. Crusher was his respect for Picard (which is probably also why he never docked his battlecruiser at Guinan Station), but otherwise he would've totally gotten on that. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that after their dispute on the bridge of the Enterprise-E in First Contact, Crusher's haste to start getting things done was because she hoped that Worf was sufficiently ticked at Picard to maybe allow them some alone time later.
Pulaski? I got the sense she was game, what with the tea ceremony and whatnot. There was more than a whiff of cougar about that woman in her dealings with Worf, but I doubt he did.
Ro Laren? Oh yeah. We didn't see it, but I'd bet she wanted to try it. But don't forget that Worf plays a long game, and she was in and out.
Dr. Selar? Naturally . . . he'd love the familiar face.
Nurse Ogawa? I don't know if he got around to it.
Keiko? He probably could've stolen her away, but I rather doubt he wanted to after he saw her give birth. At least when Troi gave birth he was out of line-of-sight of the stretchy parts.
Kira? Well, she has her moments, but he was aiming for higher quality most of the time.
Cassidy? He probably would. Sisko certainly seemed to be concerned about it if you think of "Far Beyond the Stars" in a certain way.
And let's remember, as of the end of DS9, Kira and Cassidy are single. Sure, Worf was headed off to the Klingon homeworld to be an ambassador, but he probably considered it, even despite Kira's Ayn Rand hair and Cassidy's pregnant belly. He probably could've made it happen simultaneously.
But then again, he was going to the Klingon homeworld, a planet by definition that is literally full of Klingon women, and where he would be a person of some prestige, making his game even easier.
I would wager he would just conserve his strength. He was gonna need it.
Indeed, the only problem with Worf going to the Klingon homeworld is that with all the women trying to get a piece of the Federation Ambassador, all the Klingon males could become so frustrated and agitated that they would go all warlike and start invading random planets and neighboring nations just to blow off steam.
Hopefully he took a bunch of Quark's holosuite programs with him to distribute to the masses.
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