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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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Some things, I have faith in. I mean, we could argue that the butterfly effect would mean Picard was never born, but that happened. Rachel Garrett has canonically joined the Academy and graduated. And so forth.

If we go by "non-Vulcan characters are as old as the actors who play them in their first appearance," which I usually use as a guideline when no other information is available...

Andrew Robinson was fifty years old in 1992 when Deep Space Nine first aired. This suggests that Garak was born around 2320.
 
random_npc said:
I wonder if she's going to end up getting a job on that world. It's starting to sound like they could really use someone who can shoot a dangerous predator and not lose any sleep over it. especially since the way things are going it would be very unsurprising if there are more murder beasts out there.
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The way things are looking, that planet may just not be worth it. The psi-starfish was able to threaten a goddamned Excelsior. We've already abandoned one prospective colony world because of a much less dangerous creature (the magnetyrant), and that's the FEDERATION.

Best case scenario, the psi-starfish and other horrible death monsters are limited to a specific part of the planet. One possibility I came up with is that EDIT: NEVERMIND I CAN'T INTO ASTROPHYSICS.

As for Miran...I think she's got more adventures in her future.

Simon_Jester said:
Some things, I have faith in. I mean, we could argue that the butterfly effect would mean Picard was never born, but that happened. Rachel Garrett has canonically joined the Academy and graduated. And so forth.

If we go by "non-Vulcan characters are as old as the actors who play them in their first appearance," which I usually use as a guideline when no other information is available...

Andrew Robinson was fifty years old in 1992 when Deep Space Nine first aired. This suggests that Garak was born around 2320.
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Okay, sure. But in a timeline where the Cardassian Union becomes friends with the Federation in 2320 in order to deal with Biophage 2: Biomechanoid Bugaloo, or where the Union government is overthrown and Cardassia liberalizes in 2325, or where the entire Obsidian Order decides to quit their jobs and go get Andorian waifus in 2330, or any number of other possibilities, Garak is going to become a very different person.
 
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I do not recall the captins log they showed up for, but if it wasn't encountered in that system it's possible the things are capable of moving between worlds and this one just decided to nip in for a snack. Or they could cut a deal where they stick to specific generators not powering anything important, it seemed sapient if not very smart.
 
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random_npc said:
I do not recall the captins log they showed up for, but if it wasn't encountered in that system it's possible the things are capable of moving between worlds and this one just decided to nip in for a snack. Or they could cut a deal, it seemed sapient if not very smart.
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Here. It stowed away on an Andorian freighter that had been to Second Risa.

They're not sapient, or even sentient. In the omake, it gave Miran the very animalistic command of "protect me." I included some hints that it had to give up partial control of her so that she could use more of her own intelligence to deal with the Risans.
 
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[EDITED SIGNIFICANTLY, I REALIZED I HAD MADE A MISTAKE]

May I nitpick your technobabble and explore it a bit?

The problem is that a planet's Lagrange points move across the sky- Earth has five Lagrange points with the moon, and they're all at fixed points in the sky relative to the Moon, which is itself moving.

Unless... Ah-HA!

If the Lagrange points hover over fixed points on the planet's surface... then the moon is in a synchronous orbit around the planet, constantly hovering over one spot!

But that would be a rare and temporary thing; the moon would tend to migrate outwards over time. In the recent past, this radiation would have been uniformly generated from sources that would move around the planet on a regular basis every day!

Which is odd. Creatures metabolizing that kind of radiation, which would have been uniformly available all over the tropic regions until recently, and is now only available (at greater intensity) in specific regions near the equator... Hm.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
[EDITED SIGNIFICANTLY, I REALIZED I HAD MADE A MISTAKE]

May I nitpick your technobabble and explore it a bit?

The problem is that a planet's Lagrange points move across the sky- Earth has five Lagrange points with the moon, and they're all at fixed points in the sky relative to the Moon, which is itself moving.

Unless... Ah-HA!

If the Lagrange points hover over fixed points on the planet's surface... then the moon is in a synchronous orbit around the planet, constantly hovering over one spot!

But that would be a rare and temporary thing; the moon would tend to migrate outwards over time. In the recent past, this radiation would have been uniformly generated from sources that would move around the planet on a regular basis every day!

Which is odd. Creatures metabolizing that kind of radiation, which would have been uniformly available all over the tropic regions until recently, and is now only available (at greater intensity) in specific regions near the equator... Hm.
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Didn't realize there was no way to have static lagrange points. Astrophysics is not a subject I know much about.
 
I have to admit, looking at the thread I think it's very easy for most of us to forget that the character we're playing is Admiral Vitalia Kahurangi.

If Sulu does succeed her, it'll be interesting to see how that changes things.
 
Leila Hann said:
Didn't realize there was no way to have static lagrange points. Astrophysics is not a subject I know much about.
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There is, but you need the celestial body you have Lagrange points WITH to be static too.

Basically, a two-body system is drawn like this:

O-------------o

There are three points on the line between the two bodies. One would be left of the big O, one would be right of the little o, and one would be in between the O's.

Then there are two more (which are better places to park stuff anyway). They're located at the 'tips' of, um... draw equilateral triangles pointing up and down from the baseline. So it'd look like:

------------- X

-----x--O--x-----o----------x

------------- X

Little x's mark unstable points, big X's mark stable points. Big O is the planet, little o is the moon. Or you can do this with big O being the star and little o being the planet, whatever.

The trick is, the moon circles around the planet and the Lagrange points move with it, to stay in the same relative positions. However, if the moon is locked in a synchronous orbit, the moon stays over a single spot, and so do the Lagrange points.

In that case, you have one spot directly opposite the moon, one spot right where the moon is hovering over... and two spots, one 60 degrees longitude east and west of the moon-spot. Done!
 
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MS-21H 'Hawke' said:
After Mrr'Shan, it's going to be people we eather don't know, or people that were in the quest earlier...but aren't connected to the Enterprise.
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I think there is a better than 50% chance that the next captain will be one of Leaniss, Chekov, Demora Sulu, or a demoted Nash.

All of them seem rather connected to me.

Now the captain after that might be less connected, but that is partly because they are probably a Lieutenant-Commander right now. This also means that it's a lot easier for someone to start writing an officer with the goal of them being available as an option by then. That person can be connected as the writer wants.

On the other hand, that's also about the same time wishing for them to fail stops being terrible. We should have the Ambassador class by then, and their failure might let us build Enterprise-C.

Simon_Jester said:
The biggest obvious flaw in metafictional TBG is the ensemble cast. WAY too many characters for good TV. I'm not really sure it would actually work in real life. But if I assume it doesn't work, I have no story, the series gets canceled after a season or two, and there's no point in my even writing the metafictional review because it'd just be sad and depressing.
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I figure there are a few episodes where most fans spend the first half time wondering 'wait, who are these people again, and why do I care?' The most notable is probably the season five episode where the B plot is basically six year old Picard being adorable.
UbeOne said:
What if you have multiple moons?
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The points are stable only with respect to the two objects. The more massive the two objects are in comparison to other objects around, the more easy you can ignore those other object's effect. For instance, the Jupiter-Sun Lagrange points are stable enough to have their own name.
 
sebsmith said:
On the other hand, that's also about the same time wishing for them to fail stops being terrible. We should have the Ambassador class by then, and their failure might let us build Enterprise-C.
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Oneiros has said nothing about having the B still around prevents us from building the Enterprise-C.
 
The only mechanical benefit to an Enterprise is the +1 Presence that comes from the Name.

If we build two such ships, I suspect the Name loses its value, and we lose the Presence bonus. Maybe forever. :(
 
I still want to refer to every ship on the Cardassians border as Enterprise to alarm and confuse the spoonies.
 
Simon_Jester said:
The only mechanical benefit to an Enterprise is the +1 Presence that comes from the Name.

If we build two such ships, I suspect the Name loses its value, and we lose the Presence bonus. Maybe forever. :(
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There is no such bonus. Enterprise has +1 P from Leaniss, and otherwise has precisely the normal stats expected of an Explorer Corps ship.
 
The problem isn't that an Ambassador-class Enterprise-C will disgrace or devalue the Name in and of itself. it's that at a given time, there is one and only one Enterprise, and that ship is special. She doesn't have to be modern- she just has to be Enterprise, and that is enough.

Remember that for about a decade between 2285 and 2294, and not very long ago compared to the game timeframe, Enterprise was a Constitution-A in a period when our fleet's pride and joy was Excelsior. Until we decommissioned the Connie in favor of a new Excelsior.

It's okay for the Enterprise to not be the most advanced ship we have. It's not okay for us to try to claim that two ships are Enterprise at the same time.

Because that's the job of the USS Spartacus.
 
Derek58 said:
Oneiros has said nothing about having the B still around prevents us from building the Enterprise-C.
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Just because we can do something doesn't mean it's a good idea.

I'd like to avoid having two ships with identical (or nearly identical) names at the same time, and I think most of the rest of the quest is with me on that. While there may be occasional cases where having two ships pretend to be one ship is useful, we shouldn't make a habit of it.
 
pheonix89 said:
There is no such bonus. Enterprise has +1 P from Leaniss, and otherwise has precisely the normal stats expected of an Explorer Corps ship.
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Somewhere in the past 760 pages I remember reading about that +1P for being the fleet flagship. I do not know where. I do not know if Oneiros changed his mind at some later date. But I remember it.

Even if I'm wrong, though, it's still not right to abuse the name.
 
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