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Quote:

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

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By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Monday, September 10, 2018 - 12:57 am: Edit

Garth: That seems very good too me if the goal is making a trip across the galaxy akin to an ocean voyage on a sail ship. The galaxy is about 100,000 light years across. At 1 LYR per minute you could fly from one end of the galaxy too the other in about 4 years. This makes this very similar to circumnavigating the globe in the age of sail.

The size of the galaxy is a big issue to deal with in telling a sci-fi story, or in sci-fi lore of a story... that a lot of people vastly underestimate and then have stories about space travel that don't make much sense.

If the goal is to make space travel times "seem natural" to us humans because it is similar to our own oceans, then your 1 LYR per minute speed makes it work out that way. And all the issues of how huge the galaxy actually is disappear into an analogy too our own oceans.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Monday, September 10, 2018 - 11:18 am: Edit

Doc EE Smith's Lensmen books include a scene where the hero is explaining interstellar distances and uses a car as his analogy, with parsecs per hour in place of miles per hour.

His ships are a bit too fast for an "age of sail" analogy, but if you cut back to LY from parsecs and max speed to 60 or so, then you have Marc's speed and can explain that by analogy the nearest stars are a few miles away, while the far side of the galaxy is closer to 70,000.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, September 12, 2018 - 03:14 am: Edit

I loved EE (doc) Smith. And H. Beam Piper.

By Mark Steven Hoyle (Markshoyle) on Monday, December 31, 2018 - 07:06 pm: Edit

Though I don't do smart phones, caught a trailer/ad for "Star Trek: Fleet Command".
Looked interesting, pretty good video.
Don't know how it would look on a small screen.

By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Monday, December 31, 2018 - 10:09 pm: Edit

Fleet Command isn't very good, it's a phone app game. If you are wanting an SFB-like space game I think SFB players would really like "Faster Than Light" (you can look it up on Steam). It's basically an SSD and Energy Allocation form flying through a randomized corridor of space to an ultimate fight with a big "battleship" like ship.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, January 04, 2019 - 04:02 pm: Edit

Last night's Discovery: Short Trek segment was a fun one. Sixteen minutes of Mudd at his Muddest.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Thursday, January 17, 2019 - 10:18 pm: Edit

Discovery S2:E1 dropped tonight. It was a fun watch, with a good mission feel to it.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, January 21, 2019 - 04:28 pm: Edit

We stopped watching about episode 8 of the first season. When S2E1 dropped, we decided to give the last few episodes of the first season another try, and found them much better, a rip-roaring trip to the Terran Empire Universe with one heck of a plot twist.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - 02:05 am: Edit

Star Trek - Project: Potemkin "Delivery" P05 (Feb 2012): Runtime = 5:18 w/credits

You don't need a translator to figure out the last line of dialog.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, February 01, 2019 - 09:04 pm: Edit

Discovery S2:E3 shows the introduction of the D7 design, pre-production. That's only seven years off from the D7 introduction in SFB (which, all considered, isn't bad).

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, February 08, 2019 - 11:44 am: Edit

Discovery really seems to have come into its own in Season Two. Last night's episode was top-notch Trek.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, February 09, 2019 - 10:12 am: Edit

Second season is good.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Monday, February 25, 2019 - 08:29 am: Edit

Last week's Discovery saw the crew bending the Prime Directive into a crazy straw. (Then again, so did Kirk et al; I'm looking at you, TOS S2:E5 "The Apple".)

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, February 27, 2019 - 12:40 pm: Edit

As a note: Discovery has been renewed for a third season.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, March 01, 2019 - 11:06 am: Edit

...and there's something I didn't see coming. Talos IV. Given that the show is currently set three years after Pike's 2254 first encounter with the Talosians (and ten years prior to Spock hijacking Enterprise to take the crippled Pike back), this should be -- as Spock would say -- fascinating.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, March 15, 2019 - 04:49 am: Edit

And a mash up of Trek & Suess wins!

https://boingboing.net/2019/03/14/fair-use-vs-seuss.html

By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Friday, March 15, 2019 - 04:43 pm: Edit

OK, so who plays Captain Matt Decker in ST: Discovery Season 3?

By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Thursday, April 04, 2019 - 04:42 pm: Edit

On this date in 1968, a malfunctioning United States orbital nuclear weapons platform, the first fruit of the secret Apollo Military Applications Program, was detonated 104 miles above central Asia. This was covered up as the unmanned Apollo 6.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Thursday, April 04, 2019 - 06:31 pm: Edit

Cat hair was found.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, April 04, 2019 - 08:52 pm: Edit

Mike: That sucks. It's such a bad ruling. There's no way in Hades that should be covered under Fair Use. Why have copyright laws if you can't protect your work?

John: Re - Apollo ... seriously? April Fools was three days ago.

Will: Huh???


Garth L. Getgen

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, April 04, 2019 - 09:10 pm: Edit

Apparently Garth does not remember his Star Trek episodes.

By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Thursday, April 04, 2019 - 09:10 pm: Edit

Garth. Think back to TOS.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, April 19, 2019 - 10:38 am: Edit

Or as Garak from DS9 said:

"I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen every day. But I don't trust coincidences."

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 05:50 pm: Edit

One of the darkest episodes of DS9, but one that did make me respect the show.

Sisko embarked on a plan to trick the Romulans into joining the war against the Dominion and its allies, which the Federation and its allies were then in the process of losing.

Sisko, together with Garak (if I recall correctly) and other members of his staff, concocted a fake file to convince the Romulans that the Dominion was going to attack them. (Strategically, that made no sense. The Dominion would not add to the enemies it was already fighting, but might attack the Romulans once the Federation and its allies were defeated and the Dominion had had time to absorb its gains.)

The Romulan ambassador saw through the ploy, and pretty much told the Federation (through Sisko) in unpleasant terms that the Romulans would not help.

The Ambassador's ship blew up before he could make his report, and data was discovered that said the Dominion did it. The enraged Romulans joined the Alliance.

Sisko, who was willing to try to trick the Romulans into joining the war, was aghast at the murder of the Ambassador, and confronted Garak. Garak admitted that he knew the false data ploy would not work, but had determined in his own mind that if the Dominion could be blamed for the assassination, the Romulans would join, and on his own sabotaged the Romulan ambassador's ship, killing him and his crew.

Sisko is at first angered by what Garak has done, at least partly because Garak did it on his own and kept from Sisko the fact that this was always his intention.

In the end, Sisko makes a personal log entry, acknowledging that he can "live with what Garak has done." Even if the Romulans are allies under a false pretense and tricked into the war, because Romulan deaths mean the deaths of fewer members of the Federation.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 11:01 pm: Edit

It was Sisko and Garak who did this. His staff saw enough to know something was happening, but only he and Garak knew what was done. At the end, Sisko acknowledges that he knew that Garak would do what needed to be done to sell the lie, and that was why he used Garak, instead of his staff.

This was, in my opinion the best episode of Trek to date*, it showed the cost of "The ends justify the means." on something where that saying was likely true.

*I have not seen season two of Discovery yet.

By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Friday, April 26, 2019 - 09:34 am: Edit

That's why you came to me, isn't it, Captain? Because you knew I could do those things that you weren't capable of doing? Well, it worked. And you'll get what you want: a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant. And all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal, and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a bargain.---Garak

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Friday, April 26, 2019 - 11:52 am: Edit

I loved Garak. Fantastic character.