I think the Prime Directive is more about stopping the exploitation of a planet/species then any thing else. Our History is full of such things.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, September 06, 2018 - 04:44 pm: Edit

Garth L. Getgen:

Very hard to answer. My "cop out" answer would be to simply say that those among my crew of explorers tasked with cultural analysis would advise and make recommendations and as "the man in charge" I would then make a decision. But in trying to give you an answer that is (as noted) a "cop out."

I can say that if I was looking at Earth from its signals right now, I (that is myself) would elect not to make contact. The planet is too divided against itself and way too many of those in positions of power are too corrupt. Too many of those without power would expect the civilization I represent to fix their problems, i.e., fix Venezuela. Fix Zimbabwe. Somehow end the corruption in the United Nations and convert it into a functioning and fair world government.

Were I standing on the outside looking down on this planet, I would (if I represented the United Federation of Planets) leave it to its own devices to evolve and fix its problems, or exterminate itself, whichever comes first.

To be fair, were I representing the Klingon Empire (or the Lyran Empire, or the Kzinti Hegemony, or the Lyran Democratic Republic, or the WYN Star Cluster, or the Romulan Star Empire), I would deem the planet ripe for conquest. The Hydran Star Kingdom, I would make contact and start trade, but let the inhabitants know that if they try to leave the planet, "bad things (tm)" would happen. Orion Cartel, investigate to see if there is anything worth our bother, if not, ignore it. Jindarians, ignore it. Tholians, see Klingon Empire. Inter-Stellar Concordium, probably see United Federation of Planets. Paravians and Carnivons, raid frequently. And so on.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, September 06, 2018 - 05:35 pm: Edit

Garth L. Getgen:

Trying here.

I would guess that I would look for a unified government (and one that had been unified for at least a few generations, not a recent evolution that might look good on the surface but actually be sitting on a hotbed of resentment, anger, and separatist angst). That there might be problems with poverty and pollution, but an honest media reporting on efforts to try to solve those problems that, on their face, appear to be real and not statements designed to placate the rabble. That religious and ethnic strife at the least appear to be minimal. That there might be signs of corruption, but that it appears relatively low key (e.g., as in Switzerland rather than as it appears in say Venezuela). That the major religions (if any) seem pre-disposed to an acceptance that the universe is perhaps more diverse than their one planet.

At that juncture, even if they had not launched into orbit, I might be predisposed (if my cultural anthropologists proposed it) to making contact.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, September 06, 2018 - 06:00 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock, the story you are thinking of is "Noninterference" by Harry Turtledove. (It was a series of short-stories converted into a novel, so you may have just read one of the shorts, but the novel was IIRC much better known.)

It's notable that most reviews and almost everyone in the story treats the interference as a horrific mistake, despite the fact that it's produced a peaceful, prosperous for the tech level, and very rapidly advancing culture with an efficient and benevolent world government.

The non-interference doctrine isn't intended to be in ANY WAY good for the natives, if that were the goal, then the events of the story would have lead to a serious reconsideration of the entire doctrine in story, rather than a frantic attempt to cover up that there had been interference and that it had had massively beneficial effects.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, September 06, 2018 - 06:39 pm: Edit

Steve, okay, cool. The funny thing is, what I had in mind is probably already 80% "there" as far as a unified government and such, based on where the population was derived from on Earth originally and other factors.

The story is still early stage / rough draft and all in my head, nothing on paper yet. But given your initial reaction, I thought I might be going the wrong way with the plot. That's why I asked the question above, so that I might avoid stupidity once I do start writing it. I figure if the story makes sense to you, it'll make sense to most anyone. If SPP says the plot is flawed (regardless of what others may say), then I need to fix the story.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, September 06, 2018 - 06:46 pm: Edit

Opps ... I misspoke above:

people whose ancestors were transplanted from Earth some 1700 years ago (very much like those in "This Side OF Paradise")

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, September 06, 2018 - 06:57 pm: Edit

Garth L. Getgen:

As always, the person you need to get acquiescence from is SVC, not me. I am, honestly, a lot more rigid, and just because I do not see something working out, it does not mean I am right. I am at this juncture only trying to give an answer as I would see myself looking at it were I in the purported command position. Honestly, yes, I would want to save the astronauts, but as noted I would weigh that against the possible larger consequences of whether or not the planet would be able to accept the situation. We have, for example, religious fanatics on this planet (and, yes, there are fanatics of virtually all faiths), and I could picture a violent reaction from some of them.

I have tried to give my thoughts, but it does not mean I am right, and it is one of the reasons I have (several times) gone to the "I will have to see what those trained to make these evaluations say."

I tend towards direct action in consequence of what history says. To cite an example, the FIRST TIME the Somali pirates took a freighter, my flat statement was that the only possible response was to recover the freighter by force and insure those who took it derived no benefit from doing so. Otherwise it would just be repeated if you paid ransom this time. Ship after ship was taken subsequently and it was years (and quite a few deaths, both directly and indirectly) before we reached the current situation. A hard reaction to the first taking (because the consequences otherwise were so historically plain to see) would have avoided the long term costs of the "international anti-piracy squadron," and other costs.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Thursday, September 06, 2018 - 06:59 pm: Edit

Garth, part of this may be how much time does your crew have to debate on the decision … after all, they could fix the craft with what's on hand (continuing the Apollo 13 line) …

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, September 06, 2018 - 08:24 pm: Edit

Well, yeah, if I intend to write a SFB story for ADB to publish, of course it needs to get by SVC. But as that is not my plan for this story, SVC's approval is not a requirement. Obviously, I would value his inputs, as I did with "So Clever". But as I recall, I re-wrote the entire last segment of "Timelines" based on your comments that the captain's actions were, originally, out of character for him. I -had to- fix that. You were right then, and I believe you are right again with where I should take this one.

Stewart, I probably won't get around to writing this story for a long while. One of the main characters will be on several other stories first (assuming I ever write those ones!) that will be set starting about two years prior. But what's in my head: yes, the hero saves the astronauts after blocking radio comms to the planet, letting them figure out how to explain their survival. The astronauts will know but won't have proof. And the hero has to face the music back at Star Base, albeit receiving only a strong slap on the wrist.


Garth L. Getgen

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, September 07, 2018 - 05:07 am: Edit

SVC is a tough sell.

He looks at everything to find the problems (and SPP too). And his observations can be brutal (but fair).

Not to say that his criticisms aren't 100% on target. I have to admit that, despite my snowflake feelings getting hurt, his observations have made my writing so much better that once the sting wears off, and I apply what he said into my work, I am much happier with the results.

But he doesn't do "warm and fuzzy." He is an engineer born and is very direct.

BTW, thanks SVC and SPP for taking the time to review my stories. Even if they don't work.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, September 07, 2018 - 04:48 pm: Edit

Garth L. Getgen:

The problem is the "proof."

If whatever you do is not something that can be replicated, then the inability to replicate what you did is "proof" that "someone intervened."

You do not have to have "accidentally left a communicator that they will find" (shades of "A Piece of the Action"). If somehow extra oxygen shows up, if somehow an extra air scrubber shows up, that is "proof" because everything that went into the launch was known because the weight had to be nailed down. (I am not saying that the air supply situation was what you were planning on for your intervention, I am just noting that avoiding leaving proof in a case like Apollo XIII is going to be very difficult. It boggles my mind to try to think of something, from what little I know of the near disaster, just what you could do that would not leave, or be, proof of some kind of intervention.)

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Friday, September 07, 2018 - 05:36 pm: Edit

On the Apollo system, the Service and Lunar modules are not recovered, they burn up in the atmosphere, you might be able to refill the air tanks, and let the natives assume they had bad gauges.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, September 07, 2018 - 05:58 pm: Edit

A. David Merritt:

Not really. Again, the weight and volume was known, and the instruments were reporting the build up of bad air consistent with the known values. You have a few too many instruments making the reports and correlating their readings to suddenly say a gauge or three was reporting erroneous information and there was actually more than they thought.

When you are making your decision to intervene, how far into the situation have they gone? How much data on the situation has been gathered by ground control when you suddenly begin messing with the data streams?

We all know that it would be simple to just lock on to the astronauts and beam them down to the planet someplace, but that is a pretty big "hello." You can tractor the ship and cause it to "move faster" so that they get to re-entry sooner, but that is again a massive mystery, they know the physics of the available acceleration and the effects of gravity or they would not have the ship up there to start with. And, at least in our case (Apollo XIII) we had the history of the previous Apollo missions to compare to the record of this one, not to mention Gemini, Mercury, and all the unmanned missions, so something about this one not matching is going to stand out.

They weighed and calculated the amount of fuel for the trip before they launched (and included some reserve, but not a lot since it takes fuel to lift fuel up out of the gravity well for the trip), so anything you suddenly add to help them becomes a "hunh" moment. They know every detail of the design (that was, after all, how they were able to tell the Apollo XIII guys how to fabricate a scrubber by knowing all the things they had to work with and piecing one together on the ground without suddenly discovering that something they used was not in the capsule).

Garth L. Getgen may have an angle that allows him to "help" and not basically signal the planet that "someone intervened because it is just not possible for this to have happened otherwise," but it is beyond my ability to fathom such a thing. Apollo XIII, like all the other Apollo missions, was the singular focus of NASA (not that other agencies of NASA were not doing other things, but this was "the big thing"), and even more so after the disaster (the world was mostly ignoring it until then). When the disaster happened, NASA's scrutiny became even more focused and intense. And while the instrumentation compared to a star spanning empire's would be primitive (and that in and of itself creating problems with trying to do something without being noticed), it is there and collecting data from start to finish.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, September 07, 2018 - 06:21 pm: Edit

Another comment: If you used a tractor to move the ship faster to atmospheric re-entry, that mystery could negatively impact their entire space program as they tried to figure out "what happened?" I mean, whatever moved the ship home might in other circumstances cause a ship to be forever lost in the depths of the system, meaning until we understand it we cannot chance any more manned missions.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Friday, September 07, 2018 - 07:40 pm: Edit

Hmmm, comm black-out (when behind the moon?)

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, September 07, 2018 - 08:35 pm: Edit

I cannot see SPP's comment regarding the Somali pirates without thinking of Kipling:

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, September 07, 2018 - 08:38 pm: Edit

[duplicate]

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, September 07, 2018 - 09:47 pm: Edit

Well, I honestly don't know how I was going to work it out. At this point, it's nothing more than a few rough ideas bouncing around inside my head. But just before I sat down to type this reply, I had a sudden thought. Perhaps their ship was spotted, seen by ground-based telescopes, and they pick up news feeds with the talking-head blaming them for the disaster. They rescue the astronauts to prove their innocence.

Let me back on a moment ... this isn't going to be a Starfleet ship, but rather a civilian transport (kind of like an APT) that has a few Starfleet personnel onboard (going home on leave or back to base for training). One of the main characters ... well, I don't want to be accused of creating a Mary Sue, but she has had an event-filled service record.

As I create characters to fill out a crew roster, I think of story lines centered around him/her. This is one of my earliest characters, so I have too many ideas for her and probably should switch things up to replace her with another crewmember.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, September 07, 2018 - 10:14 pm: Edit

Stewart Frazier:

That is a timing question. If things become critical before they pass into shadow then they would know something happened even if the actual action takes place out of sight.

Garth L. Getgen:

Well, the character might be there and learn a lesson about leadership and doing the right thing.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Saturday, September 08, 2018 - 02:23 am: Edit

You could just have them discover/find a wrench or tool they so desperately needed to make a repair, explainable (later on) as a maintenance/technician person on the ground accidentally left it on board prior to launch.

By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Sunday, September 09, 2018 - 01:25 am: Edit

Trekyards did an episode on the B10 today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qhVDcesgAQ

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, September 09, 2018 - 01:04 pm: Edit

I had a oddball idea and played around with some numbers to see if it would work. What if the Warp Speed calculation are misunderstood? What if instead of W being linear, it actually follows a spiral as described by the Fibonacci Sequence?

Under the current method Warp Speed cubed equals Light Speed:

1 = 1 = one LY takes a year
2 = 8 = one LY takes 45 days
3 = 27 = one LY takes 13 days
4 = 64 = one LY takes 6 days
5 = 125 = one LY takes 3 days
6 = 216 = one LY takes 40 hours
7 = 343 = one LY takes 25 hours
8 = 512 = one LY takes 17 hours
9 = 729 = one LY takes 12 hours
10 = 1000 = one LY takes 9 hours


However, if we go by the Fibonacci Sequence, the first two numbers, 0 & 1, are sub-light. The third number, also 1, would be Warp 1. Same as above. Warp 2 = 1+1, and Warp 3 = 1+2. So far so good. But the next Fibonacci number means Warp 4 becomes 2+3 = 5, and then Warp 5 becomes 3+5=8. The chart then becomes:


1 (0+1) = 1^3= 1 = one LY takes a year
2 (1+1) = 2^3 = 8 = one LY takes 45 days
3 (1+2) = 3^3 = 27 = one LY takes 13 days
4 (2+3) = 5^3 = 125 = one LY takes 3 days
5 (3+5) = 8^3 = 512 = one LY takes 17 hours
6 (5+8) = 13^3 = 2,197 = one LY takes 4 hours
7 (8+13) = 21^3 = 9,261 = one LY takes 56 minutes
8 (13+21) = 34^3 = 39,304 = one LY takes 13 minutes
9 (21+34) = 55^3 = 166,375 = one LY takes 3 minutes
10 (34+55) = 89^3 = 704,969 = one LY takes 45 seconds

[All times are rounded off.]

Under this chart, you can actually get someplace in a reasonable amount of time.

Thought???


Garth L. Getgen

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Sunday, September 09, 2018 - 07:13 pm: Edit

You just made my head hurt

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Sunday, September 09, 2018 - 07:55 pm: Edit

Conveniently, that would change nothing in SFB.

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Sunday, September 09, 2018 - 10:17 pm: Edit

10 34+55
11 55+89
12 89+144
13 144+233
14 233+377
15 377+600

977 cubed.

We're pushing towards a billion times the speed of light for Andromedans following the RTN. With their network, they could all too easily bring reinforcements from anywhere in the Octant TO anywhere in the Octant.

While I respect and admire your enthusiasm, Sgt. G, I gotta scream "NO!NO!NO!NO!NOO!!!" to this idea. Sorry.


(Not that it's significant, but the rule for Warp factors being the cubes has worked out as a really fun thing for me, when I needed one helluvan escape...)

(What is perhaps the DUMBEST campaign idea in the history of the Star Fleet Universe is something I've long called the "Weird Realm Investigators." In it, someone, perhaps "The Masters," have made portals in the Time/Space continuum that have transported entire starships and crews into an alternate dimension that resembles a supersized class-M planet. The "Natural Impediments" of this universe have severely curtailed the speed and weapons ranges of the ships as their crews try to gain an understanding of this weird realm and find a way back to their homes.)

(The overall upshot is that it enables folks so inclined to play SFB or FC with the world around them as their game map. Now, for my "Mental Movies Escape," I have things imagined at one turn being roughly twenty seconds of real time and each hex being about a yard. To this scale, combat speeds are one hex per turn becoming one tenth of a mile per hour, so maximum combat speed of 31 becomes 3.1 miles per hour; a quick walking speed.)

(Strategically, using the cube of the warp factor as a multiple of the speed of light, normal freighter cruising speed of Warp 4 becomes 6.4 miles per hour, or about 153 miles per day, enabling a freighter at Warp 4 to cross the United States in about twenty days. Normal warship cruising speed of Warp 5 becomes 12.5 MPH, or cross country in ten days.)

(Some things have made this whole tedium a bit funny for me; Klingons near armories, ISC on superhighways, and Hydran Stingers hiding in tall grass are just three screwball ideas that ALWAYS run through my completely screwball brain.)

Anyway, we all have our own kinds of fun with this marvellous universe, so if you're enjoying that Fibonacci Sequence speed, keep having fun with it!