"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.
2014-04-08
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.
2014-03-17
The Borg Have Been Busy II: Assimilation Boogaloo
We know about the Battle of Wolf 359 in early 2367.
We know about what's commonly called the Battle of Sector 001 from First Contact in 2373.
But as hinted at in First Contact, there were things going on we didn't know.
Picard's Ahab moment suggests as much:
This concept is backed up by Sisko in "In Purgatory's Shadow"[DSN5], noting that "we need all the help we can get. The Dominion picked a perfect time to invade. The Cardassian fleet is in shambles, the Romulans are not much better off, and between the Klingon War and the recent Borg attack, Starfleet's spread pretty thin."
Most people of course assume that the recent Borg attack refers to Star Trek: First Contact. However, I don't think that's true. For one thing, the stardates don't work. The follow-on episode to "In Purgatory's Shadow" was "By Inferno's Light", and the stardate in that episode was 50564.2.
That's the date given after the Dominion fleet goes into Cardassian space with Dukat at the start of the episode, an event which occurred a day or two at least after Sisko's "recent Borg attack" comment. This is also after he Klingons who had invaded Cardassia (including Gowron himself) get smacked around sufficiently by the Dominion to show up at DS9 en masse with tail tucked between their legs, despite it being an enemy outpost at the time. Gowron indicates he still has forces in Cardassian territory, but he has taken a sufficient whipping to sign back on to the Khitomer Accords then and there, which I daresay was somewhat un-Klingon of him.
But in any case, it is obvious that a little time should have passed between the arrival of the Klingon fleet and Sisko's original statement, but even if we ignore that extra time, we still have a date of 50564.
First Contact, however, is noted as having a stardate of 50893.5 . . . this date doesn't refer to the battle, either. This refers to the report from DS5 about Ivor Prime being destroyed by the Borg, and is the date given as Picard is about to brief his officers that a Borg cube is about to cross the Federation border on a direct course for Earth. The Federation fleet is being massed by Admiral Hayes in the Typhon Sector, wherever the hell that is, and based on the fact that the cube made it to within sight of Earth, it was apparently a running firefight.
So in 2373, sometime maybe in the 50550-50564 range, give or take, we hear a Starfleet captain talk about a recent Borg attack. And then in around 50893, about a third of a year (four months) later assuming 1000 stardate integers per year, another Starfleet captain notes that his dread fear of six years is coming true at the moment, as the Borg have begun an invasion of the Federation (which seems rather overstating the matter given the single cube, but whatever).
(It occurs to me here that some might wish to think that the running firefight lasted four months, which would be an interesting concept but for the fact that it doesn't work. Picard's log entry noting the beginning of an invasion would be at the end of that four months, and not the beginning.)
In any case, Picard's log entry may seem to suggest that nothing much had happened in the intervening six years, but then this was the very same captain who found Hugh in late 2368.
So, let's ponder his awesome speech a bit further for a moment.
"They invade our space, and we fall back" . . . sure, that could be a reference to the fact that Starfleet always pulls back to a defensive position such as Wolf 359 or the Typhon Sector to amass a fleet, but that interpretation leaves the line kinda lame. Of course you're gonna gather a fleet a little ways back when a fast juggernaut is coming. On the other hand, the Federation did send the Enterprise-D to check out the six uninhabited star systems of the Argolis Cluster as a prelude to colonization in "I, Borg", and it is entirely possible that when they became aware of Borg scout ships skulking about they thought better of the idea. But that's hardly a thought as awesome as the line itself. I mean, for that line to really work, you'd have to have the equivalent of seeing Borg on the Florida Keys and having the US pull back to a Tampa-Orlando defense perimeter.
"They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back" . . . well, what worlds have they assimilated? Jouret IV at the start of "The Best of Both Worlds"[TNG3]? That was the Federation's most distant colony . . . it doesn't seem like that would've involved a lot of retreating. The Federation and Romulan outposts from "The Neutral Zone"[TNG1]? I don't see that being a situation where either side would really fall back.
No, it seems to me that there must have been other things going on.
Obviously, small Borg scouts skulking about in 2368 near Federation space would have implied a Borg presence in the area.
As for what area that might be, we have several clues.
For one, Admiral Hayes amassed a Federation fleet in late 2373 at the Typhon Sector. We've never heard of that again, but we have heard of the Typhon Expanse. There's even a map of the Typhon Expanse in "Cause and Effect"[TNG5], but until I see higher definition screencaps I can't say anything more about it.
So where is the Typhon Expanse? Well, a couple of episodes earlier the Enterprise-D was near the Cardassian border, as deduced by the fact that she responded to the distress calls of the USS Denver in the Beloti sector when the Denver had struck a mine left over from the Cardassian conflict. While they could've gone a good distance in the intervening 70 stardate units (after all, it took just 50 stardate units to get to Earth for "The First Duty" which follows "Cause and Effect"), this does at least hint at the notion that they were somewhere close to the Cardassian sphere of influence.
This is also hinted at by "I, Borg"[TNG5] . . . the Borg scout crash site is near or within the Argolis Cluster, which was used in 2374 as a blind by the Dominion to hide a sensor array on the other side of it ("Behind the Lines"[DSN6]. While I suppose the Dominion could have hidden a sensor array clear on the other side of nowhere, it seems that they would hide one reasonably close to their Cardassian territory so as to keep an eye on the conflict zone and nearby regions. As noted, the sensor array let them monitor ships across five sectors, and it could even detect cloaked ships at a range of a couple of light-years. The plot of "Behind the Lines" strongly suggests it was only a day or two from Starbase 375. This is useful because 375 was the staging point for the retaking of DS9, which was roughly three days away per the next episode, "Favor the Bold" (not accounting for fleet departure prep and ginormous battle time).
Indeed, this map of the Cardassian War as seen in "When it Rains"[DSN7] (and often shown virtually identically in shape but as a Dominion map) suggests that Starbase 375 is around 29 light-years from Bajor.
(Just a note, but that would be around 3500c for the Federation fleet's speed, assuming 29 light-years in 72 hours, which is a bit conservative. And, as long as we're here, this larger view suggests that late in the war, Cardassia occupied a space around 250 to 275 light-years wide at maximum extent, give or take . . .
. . . at least insofar as the slice of it shown.)
The Argolis Cluster does not show up in the map, however, and neither does the Typhon Expanse. Based on our speculation thus far it would seem like they both should, and that perhaps the Typhon Sector is perhaps several days away from Bajor and DS9.
So what have we learned here? Well, it seems reasonably solid that "I, Borg" happened relatively near Cardassian space. As for whether the Borg cube from First Contact came from the same direction, I'd say the evidence is thin on the ground . . . the Typhon Sector and Typhon Expanse may be completely unrelated, in which case First Contact might have absolutely nothing to do with that side of the Federation at all. However, if it did, then the Borg may have been flitting about doing who knows what in the direction of Cardassia and Ferenginar. Recall that in 2364, the Enterprise-D was headed out to explore the "great unexplored mass of the galaxy" past Deneb. If the galactic center is "north", then that's "west". The Federation was also interested in the as-yet-unknown Ferengi possibly being involved at Deneb, and they later met the Ferengi. Ferenginar shows up on that map above . . . it's hardly beyond the pale to ponder that the Enterprise-D might've been exploring "the great northwest" in early 2364, with Cardassia as a sort of Baja California area toward the southwest.
And it wouldn't be a shock for the Borg to be roaming around that same area, or perhaps even a bit more northward, in 2368.
So, rolling with our "Borg in the Northwest" hypothesis, what might've been going on?
I wouldn't surmise anything extreme like a thriving Borg planet or unimatrix or any other such thing, nor would I even argue that cubes were present at all, but it is pretty definite that there was Borg traffic in the Alpha Quadrant. I would hypothesize this continued into the 2370s, and that the Federation must have withdrawn from certain areas that suffered minor Borg incursions a la the 2368 Argolis incident or from the areas of distant extra-Federation worlds or colonies that were annihilated.
But let's remember, too, that Sisko suggests losses from the recent Borg attack four months before First Contact. This strongly suggests that there was one occasion where multiple ships were lost.
Or does it? Sisko notes the recent Borg attack as being a reason Starfleet is spread pretty thin, but that in and of itself does not necessarily prove losses. Picard notes that they invade Federation space and the Federation falls back, so they may very well have prudently avoided confrontation as much as possible, but still repositioned part of the fleet in a defensive posture a set distance from that area.
Either way, you end up with a Federation whose western resources were probably stretched to the limit, with ships needing to be at the Cardassian border, and also some point toward the northwest, and of course the Romulan Neutral Zone patrols back east, and so on. Sisko's speech really nails that point home . . . it was indeed the perfect time for a Dominion invasion.
I would surmise that the Borg must have been sighted or heard of, presumably outside Federation space for the most part. It's possible, perhaps even plausible, that the Federation learned of some colony world (of theirs or someone else's) being assimilated in early 2373 while they were engrossed in hostilities with the Klingons. The world was probably off in the boonies somewhere not immediately relevant to the Klingon War, the Dominion's presence, et cetera.
If the Borg were't on a direct course for Earth, then the Federation might very well have decided to evacuate that area and dig in a bit further back. A significantly sized task force patrols the area or is proving relief to the ally or somesuch, and maybe that taskforce gets wiped out by the Borg, or maybe not. Maybe the area is evacuated, maybe folks are left to fend for themselves . . . either way, the Federation withdraws rather than contest the space with the Borg.
If there was a battle, you could end up with something smaller than or perhaps equal to Wolf 359 but which, in the larger context of the times what with the Klingon War going on, is just par for the course in their version of newspapers.
A tale like that, or similar, would certainly serve to explain why Picard was acting like a lot more had gone on than merely a really scary Borg incursion one time, but that instead he had been living in fear and rage. It would also serve to explain why Sisko suggested a recent Borg attack four months before First Contact.
In any case, this notion that the Borg were still lurking about fits a few details. For one, the Borg Queen still had quite an interest in assimilating Species 5618 (Earthlings), even creating a new assimilation technique with them in mind a year or two later ("Dark Frontier"[VOY5]. Two, assimilating nearby or outlying worlds would fit the Borg pattern which saw them cruise down the Neutral Zone picking up bits as they passed. Three, the Borg had assimilated distant but not shockingly distant worlds as soon as the 2290s or thereabouts, given the El-Aurian refugees in Generations.
This is all to say, the Borg were still lurking about, but First Contact was the first major attempt to take Earth since "The Best of Both Worlds".
In other words, the Borg had been watching, biding their time. It is not known what made them decide to come in 2373, but perhaps they had come to realize that the Federation was distracted by the Klingon war and perhaps that the Dominion was coming.
There are a few details left to ponder, such as figuring the timing of First Contact and checking on the status of the Defiant in DS9 episodes around that stardate . . . if she's missing, it makes perfect sense, and even moreso if the rest of the crew is off doing something else. On the other hand, if they were on her at the same time, it wouldn't.fit.
Another detail to consider is that if the Borg were around the Alpha Quadrant circa 2373 as the buildup to the Dominion War began, one wonders if there wasn't an encounter between a small Borg ship and a Dominion vessel.
That would be interesting, to say the least.
*******************
Update: A potential flaw in the Typhon Sector = Typhon Expanse argument is that the Enterprise-E was initially 3.5 hours or so from the Typhon Sector rendezvous at maximum warp, assuming that's what Data was talking about when he was cut off by Picard saying they weren't going. The flaw is that it doesn't make a great deal of sense for the E-E to have had to cross virtually the entire Federation to go play with Romulan space dust . . . but on the other hand, if the E-E was anywhere near the Typhon Sector, and given that they wanted Picard away from it, that might actually work like gangbusters.
In any case, it took long enough for the E-E to get to the Neutral Zone that they had just completed their first sensor sweep right around the time the battle started. At that point the Borg were traveling at warp 9.6, though, per the comm chatter, so it may not have involved terribly much time passing . . . after all, "The Best of Both Worlds" features the Borg and the E-D getting to Earth in mere days from the Federation's (former) most distant colony world.
It's a potential flaw, but not a fatal one.
We know about what's commonly called the Battle of Sector 001 from First Contact in 2373.
But as hinted at in First Contact, there were things going on we didn't know.
Picard's Ahab moment suggests as much:
We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They invade our space, and we fall back . . . they assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again! The line must be drawn here! This far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!This speech always intrigued me, not just because it is frakking awesome, but because it suggests a lot more interplay with the Borg than just Wolf 359, more even than what we could deduce from "I, Borg"[TNG5] set in late 2368.
This concept is backed up by Sisko in "In Purgatory's Shadow"[DSN5], noting that "we need all the help we can get. The Dominion picked a perfect time to invade. The Cardassian fleet is in shambles, the Romulans are not much better off, and between the Klingon War and the recent Borg attack, Starfleet's spread pretty thin."
Most people of course assume that the recent Borg attack refers to Star Trek: First Contact. However, I don't think that's true. For one thing, the stardates don't work. The follow-on episode to "In Purgatory's Shadow" was "By Inferno's Light", and the stardate in that episode was 50564.2.
That's the date given after the Dominion fleet goes into Cardassian space with Dukat at the start of the episode, an event which occurred a day or two at least after Sisko's "recent Borg attack" comment. This is also after he Klingons who had invaded Cardassia (including Gowron himself) get smacked around sufficiently by the Dominion to show up at DS9 en masse with tail tucked between their legs, despite it being an enemy outpost at the time. Gowron indicates he still has forces in Cardassian territory, but he has taken a sufficient whipping to sign back on to the Khitomer Accords then and there, which I daresay was somewhat un-Klingon of him.
But in any case, it is obvious that a little time should have passed between the arrival of the Klingon fleet and Sisko's original statement, but even if we ignore that extra time, we still have a date of 50564.
First Contact, however, is noted as having a stardate of 50893.5 . . . this date doesn't refer to the battle, either. This refers to the report from DS5 about Ivor Prime being destroyed by the Borg, and is the date given as Picard is about to brief his officers that a Borg cube is about to cross the Federation border on a direct course for Earth. The Federation fleet is being massed by Admiral Hayes in the Typhon Sector, wherever the hell that is, and based on the fact that the cube made it to within sight of Earth, it was apparently a running firefight.
So in 2373, sometime maybe in the 50550-50564 range, give or take, we hear a Starfleet captain talk about a recent Borg attack. And then in around 50893, about a third of a year (four months) later assuming 1000 stardate integers per year, another Starfleet captain notes that his dread fear of six years is coming true at the moment, as the Borg have begun an invasion of the Federation (which seems rather overstating the matter given the single cube, but whatever).
(It occurs to me here that some might wish to think that the running firefight lasted four months, which would be an interesting concept but for the fact that it doesn't work. Picard's log entry noting the beginning of an invasion would be at the end of that four months, and not the beginning.)
In any case, Picard's log entry may seem to suggest that nothing much had happened in the intervening six years, but then this was the very same captain who found Hugh in late 2368.
So, let's ponder his awesome speech a bit further for a moment.
"They invade our space, and we fall back" . . . sure, that could be a reference to the fact that Starfleet always pulls back to a defensive position such as Wolf 359 or the Typhon Sector to amass a fleet, but that interpretation leaves the line kinda lame. Of course you're gonna gather a fleet a little ways back when a fast juggernaut is coming. On the other hand, the Federation did send the Enterprise-D to check out the six uninhabited star systems of the Argolis Cluster as a prelude to colonization in "I, Borg", and it is entirely possible that when they became aware of Borg scout ships skulking about they thought better of the idea. But that's hardly a thought as awesome as the line itself. I mean, for that line to really work, you'd have to have the equivalent of seeing Borg on the Florida Keys and having the US pull back to a Tampa-Orlando defense perimeter.
"They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back" . . . well, what worlds have they assimilated? Jouret IV at the start of "The Best of Both Worlds"[TNG3]? That was the Federation's most distant colony . . . it doesn't seem like that would've involved a lot of retreating. The Federation and Romulan outposts from "The Neutral Zone"[TNG1]? I don't see that being a situation where either side would really fall back.
No, it seems to me that there must have been other things going on.
Obviously, small Borg scouts skulking about in 2368 near Federation space would have implied a Borg presence in the area.
As for what area that might be, we have several clues.
For one, Admiral Hayes amassed a Federation fleet in late 2373 at the Typhon Sector. We've never heard of that again, but we have heard of the Typhon Expanse. There's even a map of the Typhon Expanse in "Cause and Effect"[TNG5], but until I see higher definition screencaps I can't say anything more about it.
So where is the Typhon Expanse? Well, a couple of episodes earlier the Enterprise-D was near the Cardassian border, as deduced by the fact that she responded to the distress calls of the USS Denver in the Beloti sector when the Denver had struck a mine left over from the Cardassian conflict. While they could've gone a good distance in the intervening 70 stardate units (after all, it took just 50 stardate units to get to Earth for "The First Duty" which follows "Cause and Effect"), this does at least hint at the notion that they were somewhere close to the Cardassian sphere of influence.
This is also hinted at by "I, Borg"[TNG5] . . . the Borg scout crash site is near or within the Argolis Cluster, which was used in 2374 as a blind by the Dominion to hide a sensor array on the other side of it ("Behind the Lines"[DSN6]. While I suppose the Dominion could have hidden a sensor array clear on the other side of nowhere, it seems that they would hide one reasonably close to their Cardassian territory so as to keep an eye on the conflict zone and nearby regions. As noted, the sensor array let them monitor ships across five sectors, and it could even detect cloaked ships at a range of a couple of light-years. The plot of "Behind the Lines" strongly suggests it was only a day or two from Starbase 375. This is useful because 375 was the staging point for the retaking of DS9, which was roughly three days away per the next episode, "Favor the Bold" (not accounting for fleet departure prep and ginormous battle time).
Indeed, this map of the Cardassian War as seen in "When it Rains"[DSN7] (and often shown virtually identically in shape but as a Dominion map) suggests that Starbase 375 is around 29 light-years from Bajor.
(Just a note, but that would be around 3500c for the Federation fleet's speed, assuming 29 light-years in 72 hours, which is a bit conservative. And, as long as we're here, this larger view suggests that late in the war, Cardassia occupied a space around 250 to 275 light-years wide at maximum extent, give or take . . .
. . . at least insofar as the slice of it shown.)
The Argolis Cluster does not show up in the map, however, and neither does the Typhon Expanse. Based on our speculation thus far it would seem like they both should, and that perhaps the Typhon Sector is perhaps several days away from Bajor and DS9.
So what have we learned here? Well, it seems reasonably solid that "I, Borg" happened relatively near Cardassian space. As for whether the Borg cube from First Contact came from the same direction, I'd say the evidence is thin on the ground . . . the Typhon Sector and Typhon Expanse may be completely unrelated, in which case First Contact might have absolutely nothing to do with that side of the Federation at all. However, if it did, then the Borg may have been flitting about doing who knows what in the direction of Cardassia and Ferenginar. Recall that in 2364, the Enterprise-D was headed out to explore the "great unexplored mass of the galaxy" past Deneb. If the galactic center is "north", then that's "west". The Federation was also interested in the as-yet-unknown Ferengi possibly being involved at Deneb, and they later met the Ferengi. Ferenginar shows up on that map above . . . it's hardly beyond the pale to ponder that the Enterprise-D might've been exploring "the great northwest" in early 2364, with Cardassia as a sort of Baja California area toward the southwest.
And it wouldn't be a shock for the Borg to be roaming around that same area, or perhaps even a bit more northward, in 2368.
So, rolling with our "Borg in the Northwest" hypothesis, what might've been going on?
I wouldn't surmise anything extreme like a thriving Borg planet or unimatrix or any other such thing, nor would I even argue that cubes were present at all, but it is pretty definite that there was Borg traffic in the Alpha Quadrant. I would hypothesize this continued into the 2370s, and that the Federation must have withdrawn from certain areas that suffered minor Borg incursions a la the 2368 Argolis incident or from the areas of distant extra-Federation worlds or colonies that were annihilated.
But let's remember, too, that Sisko suggests losses from the recent Borg attack four months before First Contact. This strongly suggests that there was one occasion where multiple ships were lost.
Or does it? Sisko notes the recent Borg attack as being a reason Starfleet is spread pretty thin, but that in and of itself does not necessarily prove losses. Picard notes that they invade Federation space and the Federation falls back, so they may very well have prudently avoided confrontation as much as possible, but still repositioned part of the fleet in a defensive posture a set distance from that area.
Either way, you end up with a Federation whose western resources were probably stretched to the limit, with ships needing to be at the Cardassian border, and also some point toward the northwest, and of course the Romulan Neutral Zone patrols back east, and so on. Sisko's speech really nails that point home . . . it was indeed the perfect time for a Dominion invasion.
I would surmise that the Borg must have been sighted or heard of, presumably outside Federation space for the most part. It's possible, perhaps even plausible, that the Federation learned of some colony world (of theirs or someone else's) being assimilated in early 2373 while they were engrossed in hostilities with the Klingons. The world was probably off in the boonies somewhere not immediately relevant to the Klingon War, the Dominion's presence, et cetera.
If the Borg were't on a direct course for Earth, then the Federation might very well have decided to evacuate that area and dig in a bit further back. A significantly sized task force patrols the area or is proving relief to the ally or somesuch, and maybe that taskforce gets wiped out by the Borg, or maybe not. Maybe the area is evacuated, maybe folks are left to fend for themselves . . . either way, the Federation withdraws rather than contest the space with the Borg.
If there was a battle, you could end up with something smaller than or perhaps equal to Wolf 359 but which, in the larger context of the times what with the Klingon War going on, is just par for the course in their version of newspapers.
A tale like that, or similar, would certainly serve to explain why Picard was acting like a lot more had gone on than merely a really scary Borg incursion one time, but that instead he had been living in fear and rage. It would also serve to explain why Sisko suggested a recent Borg attack four months before First Contact.
In any case, this notion that the Borg were still lurking about fits a few details. For one, the Borg Queen still had quite an interest in assimilating Species 5618 (Earthlings), even creating a new assimilation technique with them in mind a year or two later ("Dark Frontier"[VOY5]. Two, assimilating nearby or outlying worlds would fit the Borg pattern which saw them cruise down the Neutral Zone picking up bits as they passed. Three, the Borg had assimilated distant but not shockingly distant worlds as soon as the 2290s or thereabouts, given the El-Aurian refugees in Generations.
This is all to say, the Borg were still lurking about, but First Contact was the first major attempt to take Earth since "The Best of Both Worlds".
In other words, the Borg had been watching, biding their time. It is not known what made them decide to come in 2373, but perhaps they had come to realize that the Federation was distracted by the Klingon war and perhaps that the Dominion was coming.
There are a few details left to ponder, such as figuring the timing of First Contact and checking on the status of the Defiant in DS9 episodes around that stardate . . . if she's missing, it makes perfect sense, and even moreso if the rest of the crew is off doing something else. On the other hand, if they were on her at the same time, it wouldn't.fit.
Another detail to consider is that if the Borg were around the Alpha Quadrant circa 2373 as the buildup to the Dominion War began, one wonders if there wasn't an encounter between a small Borg ship and a Dominion vessel.
That would be interesting, to say the least.
*******************
Update: A potential flaw in the Typhon Sector = Typhon Expanse argument is that the Enterprise-E was initially 3.5 hours or so from the Typhon Sector rendezvous at maximum warp, assuming that's what Data was talking about when he was cut off by Picard saying they weren't going. The flaw is that it doesn't make a great deal of sense for the E-E to have had to cross virtually the entire Federation to go play with Romulan space dust . . . but on the other hand, if the E-E was anywhere near the Typhon Sector, and given that they wanted Picard away from it, that might actually work like gangbusters.
In any case, it took long enough for the E-E to get to the Neutral Zone that they had just completed their first sensor sweep right around the time the battle started. At that point the Borg were traveling at warp 9.6, though, per the comm chatter, so it may not have involved terribly much time passing . . . after all, "The Best of Both Worlds" features the Borg and the E-D getting to Earth in mere days from the Federation's (former) most distant colony world.
It's a potential flaw, but not a fatal one.
2014-03-02
http://www.facebook.com/STvSW
I've long considered having a Facebook presence, though I never could figure out what it might be useful for. Now, I have done it, and I still don't know.
Suggestions welcome.
I've long considered having a Facebook presence, though I never could figure out what it might be useful for. Now, I have done it, and I still don't know.
Suggestions welcome.
2014-02-19
Steelcrete Trade Federation Bridge Doors
Qui-Gon's lightsaber has always puzzled me, and it seems I'm not the only one.
Estimates of the power of the lightsaber against the Trade Federation bridge doors and additional blast doors in The Phantom Menace range from around 30 kilowatts to over one gigawatt . . . a mere difference of 34,000 times or so.
I've never really messed with that example because, well, it confused the hell out of me. The problem was that Qui-Gon has his hand all up in that door's personal space like it was a hot date, and indeed, it was hot . . . glowing hot, in fact. And until droidekas show up and ruin the quality time, Qui-Gon is doing his best smooth, chill, Barry White play, totally unaffected.
See, that's just how pimp Qui-Gon is, because most people with their hands a couple of inches or less from a big giant thing of molten metal would be snatching their hand back like they'd been bit. Or, more accurately, burned. Because they would have. A lot.
However, methinks now the whole problem is that everyone has just sort of rolled with the idea that what they're seeing is some dense metal because, well, okay, it sorta looks that way, and the idea of a "blast door" implies a big honking heavy solid metal immovable object, to our modern thinking.
But, short of imagining lightsaber hilt shields or some sort of mysterious Force SPF 5000 Suntan Lotion, there just hasn't been any way to really reconcile the non-smoldering, non-blistering, non-why-can-I-see-my-bones-now hand problem.
Except, maybe there is. The assumption of metal might be wrong. The material might be something more like the tiles of a space shuttle, which can be glowing red hot but still be held in the hand.
And the fun part is that you can actually have it both ways, here. See, the door that was glowing right next to Qui-Gon was the normal bridge door. There's no great reason I can think of why this door need be metallic, at least (or especially) on its outer layers. If anything, a mere security door need only be blaster-proof . . . which would, presumably, mostly involve being heat-shielded.
So let's check our reasoning against the script and novel . . .
Now let's check the novelization:
The steelcrete could still have the properties we were hoping for, especially if it is akin to the "hydrofoamed permacrete" inasmuch as solidity is concerned. But as a precaution, I've searched for steelcrete elsewhere in the scripts and novels and it is nowhere to be found . . . Wookieepedia seems to agree that it doesn't appear in any other canon source. So, not only have we solved the Qui-Gon mystery, but in the process we have learned something about steelcrete which was otherwise just a big giant question mark.
And really, this is the perfect end to the story, because we get to have our kilo/mega/gigawatt lightsaber without the mess and fuss of trying to rationalize how Qui-Gon could still be a magic-fingered pimp when by all previously-held rights the notion of him still having fingers ought to have been doubtful.
Estimates of the power of the lightsaber against the Trade Federation bridge doors and additional blast doors in The Phantom Menace range from around 30 kilowatts to over one gigawatt . . . a mere difference of 34,000 times or so.
I've never really messed with that example because, well, it confused the hell out of me. The problem was that Qui-Gon has his hand all up in that door's personal space like it was a hot date, and indeed, it was hot . . . glowing hot, in fact. And until droidekas show up and ruin the quality time, Qui-Gon is doing his best smooth, chill, Barry White play, totally unaffected.
See, that's just how pimp Qui-Gon is, because most people with their hands a couple of inches or less from a big giant thing of molten metal would be snatching their hand back like they'd been bit. Or, more accurately, burned. Because they would have. A lot.
However, methinks now the whole problem is that everyone has just sort of rolled with the idea that what they're seeing is some dense metal because, well, okay, it sorta looks that way, and the idea of a "blast door" implies a big honking heavy solid metal immovable object, to our modern thinking.
But, short of imagining lightsaber hilt shields or some sort of mysterious Force SPF 5000 Suntan Lotion, there just hasn't been any way to really reconcile the non-smoldering, non-blistering, non-why-can-I-see-my-bones-now hand problem.
Except, maybe there is. The assumption of metal might be wrong. The material might be something more like the tiles of a space shuttle, which can be glowing red hot but still be held in the hand.
And the fun part is that you can actually have it both ways, here. See, the door that was glowing right next to Qui-Gon was the normal bridge door. There's no great reason I can think of why this door need be metallic, at least (or especially) on its outer layers. If anything, a mere security door need only be blaster-proof . . . which would, presumably, mostly involve being heat-shielded.
So let's check our reasoning against the script and novel . . .
QUI-GON makes his way to the bridge door and begins to cut through it.So far, so good. We have definite confirmation of the blast doors (which are on the bridge side of the normal bridge door) being metal.
INT. FEDERATION BATTLESHIP - BRIDGE
The CREW is very nervous as sparks start flying around the bridge door.
QUI-GON and OBI-WAN are on the view screen.
NUTE : Close the blast doors!!!
The huge, very thick blast door slams shut, followed by a second door, then
a third. There is a hissing sound as the huge doors seal shut. QUI-GON tabs
the door with his sword. The screen goes black as a red spot appears in the
center of the blast door.
RUNE : ...They're still coming through!
On the door, chunks of molten metal begin to drop away.
NUTE : Impossible!! This is impossible!!
Now let's check the novelization:
"I want destroyer droids up here at once!" Nute Gunray screamed, watching as one of the Jedi began cutting through the bridge door with his lightsaber. He felt his throat tighten and his skin begin to crawl. "Close the blast doors! Now!" One after another, the blast doors began to shut and seal with hissing sounds. The crew stood transfixed as on the viewscreen the Jedi continued their attack, lightsabers cutting at the massive doors, melting away the steelcrete like soft butter. Mutters of disbelief were heard, and Nute screamed at them to be silent. Sparks showered off the blast door under attack by the Jedi, and a red spot appeared at its center where the larger man plunged his lightsaber into the metal almost up to its hilt. The viewscreen suddenly went blank. At the center of the door, the metal began to turn molten and drop away. "They're still coming," Rune Haako whispered, gathering his robes as he backed away further.Aha! Steelcrete. It's not the air-filled ceramic we were looking for, necessarily, but at least we weren't told the bridge door was metal. The doors being observed on the viewscreen as being under attack were steelcrete . . . the metal doors were the blast doors which they didn't need the viewscreen to observe dropping molten chunks.
Viceroy Nute Gunray said nothing in response. Impossible! he was thinking. Impossible!
The steelcrete could still have the properties we were hoping for, especially if it is akin to the "hydrofoamed permacrete" inasmuch as solidity is concerned. But as a precaution, I've searched for steelcrete elsewhere in the scripts and novels and it is nowhere to be found . . . Wookieepedia seems to agree that it doesn't appear in any other canon source. So, not only have we solved the Qui-Gon mystery, but in the process we have learned something about steelcrete which was otherwise just a big giant question mark.
And really, this is the perfect end to the story, because we get to have our kilo/mega/gigawatt lightsaber without the mess and fuss of trying to rationalize how Qui-Gon could still be a magic-fingered pimp when by all previously-held rights the notion of him still having fingers ought to have been doubtful.
My TV Interview Invite
I'd mentioned a couple of times lately that I was once invited onto a national TV show but declined on the grounds that I didn't want my foes to know my face.
After all, they were then at the heights of their psychotic behavior where they were threatening my life over a frickin' internet debate about science fiction technology, so that last vestige of anonymity -- given that they'd already been calling my home, distributing my address, workplace, and discussing 'home visits' -- was my remaining tactical advantage in the event they ever made good on their plans. Well, that and the crappy .380 I used to have. (Fear not, I now have a much finer selection.)
In any case, I'd been trying to recall details about it and searching my e-mails to try to find it, but for some reason I kept having trouble locating anything even close to it. Of course, the fact that my e-mails are absolutely swarming with references to "tv", "show", "producer", and whatnot wasn't helpful.
But finally, I found it. Turns out it was for a show on TechTV (which later became G4techTV, then just G4).
Unscrewed With Martin Sargent reveals the pop culture side of technology: what's new, what's hip, what's hot. The ultimate showcase for the darker, funnier, sexier world of the modern technophile, Unscrewed With Martin Sargent pushes the boundaries of late night television. Hosted by the funny and forthright Martin Sargent from The Screen Savers, with his sidekick, the lovely Laura Swisher, this outrageous 30 minutes promises to go where no other show on television has gone. Sargent mingles with tantalizing guests in studio and remotely.The show apparently once featured an interview with Maddox of "The Best Page in the Universe" fame, so I would've been amongst august company (at least to hear Maddox tell it).
Anyway, here's the e-mail . . . and yeah, it says posting permission was "no", but (a) it's been over a decade, (b) the show and network are gone, and (c) it was business and not a personal message from a reader, so I don't think it's important anymore. Nevertheless, as is my custom, I will redact all personally identifiable whatzits:
From: Sean [redacted]
To: g2k @ st-v-sw.net
Date: Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 6:34 PM
Subject: ST-v-SW.Net Feedback
redirect: http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWhi.html
source: Went to it.
posting+permission: No.
comment: Hi
My name is Sean [redacted], I am a television producer working with the booking manager for TechTVs newest show 'Unscrewed with Martin Sargent'. It is our goal to 'unscrew' the top off the internet and show our viewers the people and places that make the internet so interesting. I came across your website and thought you would make a perfect guest. We w like to conduct this interview via netcam (If you do not have one I am more than happy to send you one for free).
We would like to talk to you about how you got started, what the response has been to your website and what plans you might have for the website in the future. The interview itself will only take a few minutes so hopefully this will be as painless as possible.
We shoot all of our shows on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:00pm-10:00 PDT.
Thanks very much for your consideration and pleasel free to call or email me with any questions or concerns you might have, or contact Unscrewed's booking manager, Adam [redacted].
Adam [redacted]
Booking Manager/Guest Producer
'Unscrewed'
techtv.com/unscrewedtechtv.com
I look forward to speaking with you. Please email me back with a phone number and the best time to call.
Sean [redacted]
About TechTV
TechTV is the cable network that showcases the smart, edgy and unexpected side of technology. By telling stories through the prism of technologechTV intrigues viewers with everything from help and information to cutting-edge documentaries to outrageous late-night fun. TechTV viewers are highly interactive and passionate about engaging in the television experience and log a monthly average of 1.5 million unique visitors to techtv.com. Owned by Vulcan Inc., TechTV is currently available in nearly 40 million homes in the US and distributes content to more than 70 countries.
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