Daystrom Institute

A who's who of Cardassian officers and Bajoran collaborators (Darhe'el, for example) were persona non grata at best, and arrested to face charges of war crimes at worst. I can imagine that, if there were no specific incidents which could be linked to Gul Dukat, perhaps he and other Cardassian officials would be tolerated... But as he was the head of the occupation, I'm not sure this makes sense.

Is the best explanation that this is merely a matter of convenience to normalize relations between Bajor and Cardassia, or is there a plausible justification for his semi-frequent visits to DS9 and/or Bajor in the early seasons? What real historical examples are analogous to his relationship with the Bajoran (provisional) government?

Edit: 'Bajor' for the planet, not 'Bajoran'

In this post I’ll be proposing a model to understanding how Star Trek warp drive works. In doing so, I’ll be attempting to reconcile the way the TNG Technical Manual describes warp drive with the idea that warp drive somehow takes advantages of shortcuts through real space by warping space around the craft, yet still experiences inertial effects.

I want to point out at the outset that I am not proposing anything analogous to the Alcubierre drive that many fans seem keen on equating with Star Trek warp drive. My objections to conflating the two are laid out here. Ultimately, this model involves the ship actually moving at FTL speeds although spacetime distortion is involved.

I also fully admit I’m not a physicist, so I may - probably - have gotten many things wrong, even with the made-up science I’m going to talk about. I’d appreciate any discussions and suggestions to refine this model, even ones that outright say it’s rubbish and implausible (as long as you be constructive and explain why, so I can learn).

So let’s begin.

How Warp Drive deals with Relativity

To recap: the basic obstacle to superluminal or faster-than-light travel is Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. Special Relativity says that as the velocity of an object with mass accelerates towards the speed of light (c), the mass of that object increases, requiring more and more energy to accelerate it, until at c, that object has infinite mass, requiring infinite energy to push it past c. In fact, Special Relativity says that nothing with mass can reach c - photons are massless and can only travel at c.

The first publicly available description of how Star Trek warp drive gets around this came from the licensed Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (1991). At page 65:

WARP PROPULSION

The propulsive effect is achieved by a number of factors working in concert. First, the field formation is controllable in a fore-to-aft direction. As the plasma injectors fire sequentially, the warp field layers build according to the pulse frequency in the plasma, and press upon each other as previously discussed. The cumulative field layer forces reduce the apparent mass of the vehicle and impart the required velocities. The critical transition point occurs when the spacecraft appears to an outside observer to be travelling faster than c. As the warp field energy reaches 1000 millicochranes, the ship appears driven across the c boundary in less than Planck time, 1.3 x 10^-43 sec, warp physics insuring that the ship will never be precisely at c. The three forward coils of each nacelle operate with a slight frequency offset to reinforce the field ahead of the Bussard ramscoop and envelop the Saucer Module. This helps create the field asymmetry required to drive the ship forward.

As we read here, Star Trek gets around Special Relativity by using a warp field to distort spacetime around the ship and lower its inertial mass so that the shaping of the warp fields and layers around the ship can push and accelerate the ship itself towards c with reasonable energy requirements. We see warp fields lower mass in TNG: “Deja Q” and DS9: “Emissary”.

Note that while ships are equipped with impulse drives, impulse operations are purely sublight in nature. In fact, the Tech Manual says that impulse doesn’t even enter into it at all when a ship goes to warp. It is the increasing strength of the warp field, shaped by the asymmetrical firing of the warp nacelles that produce it, that ultimately propels the ship without the need for impulse or reaction engines being involved. However, the ship still experiences inertial forces through this propulsion, necessitating inertial dampening fields (VOY: “Tattoo”, ST 2009).

As field strength (measured in units of millicochranes) increases, the lower the inertial mass gets and it becomes easier to accelerate towards warp (TMP). When the field hits a strength of 1000 millicochranes, the ship hits c, or Warp 1. Or rather, it straddles the boundary between 0.999c and 1.001c, spending no more than 1.3 * 10^-43 seconds at either velocity, so that it can apparently maintain velocity at c without the infinite energy requirements otherwise needed.

This is in contrast to sublight impulse engines which work in tandem with a warp field to take advantage of its mass-lowering effect. In the 23rd Century, it is implied the nacelles assist with impulse operations (SNW: “Memento Mori”), and in the 24th Century, impulse engines have driver coils built in which create a sub-1000 millicochrane warp field (TNG Tech Manual). In the 22nd Century, the NX-01’s impulse engines also had driver coils installed, but for the opposite reason - to increase the apparent mass of the ejected propellant as it exited the engines so it could provide greater thrust (USS Enterprise Haynes Manual).

What about subspace?

Now, to be fair, the idea of using a warp field to distort spacetime around the ship to propel the ship does sound an awfully lot like Alcubierre. But where warp drive differs is that unlike Alcubierre, the ship still feels inertial effects and is able to interact with objects outside of the warp field. In other words, the ship is still firmly moving through real space, not completely insulated and stationary within the warp bubble while space moves around it. Alcubierre’s bubble also doesn’t have a mass-lowering effect.

We know from the show that subspace is its own realm, with its own layers and domains (TNG: “Remember Me”) where even life can exist (TNG: “Schisms”). That has led to a suggestion that when a ship enters warp, it enters subspace which serves like a sort of hyperspace shortcut or wormhole. However, this has its difficulties in that it doesn’t explain why a ship in warp can still interact with objects outside of subspace as if it were in real space.

It is clear, though, that subspace has its own physical laws and its own special frame of reference, one of which is that you can exceed the speed of light in it: for example, the use of subspace radio which transmits at, in TNG times, Warp 9.997 (approximately 79,000c). In Star Trek, they generate subspace fields like we generate electromagnetic fields - in fact, the warp field is a subspace field.

But how does this relate to warp drive? Allow me a little sidestep into another franchise to draw a rough analogy.

Domain amplification and subspace

In the manga/anime series Jujutsu Kaisen, one of the magical techniques that the most powerful sorcerers use to battle each other is called “domain expansion”. This creates a closed area centered on the sorcerer enclosing their target, an area in which the sorcerer sets the rules, akin to a zone in which they receive a power buff. Inside it, if the domain is not countered, the sorcerer’s strikes will always hit the target. The sorcerer’s abilities are enhanced and various other things can happen depending on the rules that the sorcerer has preset into the domain.

Another use of domains is called “domain amplification”. This is not a full domain expansion, but surrounds the attacking sorcerer with a skin or bubble that has domain effects. It doesn’t use as much power as a full expansion, but is used to nullify any defensive techniques the target sorcerer might have, by imposing the attacking domain’s own rules against the technique. This still allows the attacking sorcerer to interact with things outside this domain bubble while taking advantage of some of its effects.

(All this will make sense, I promise)

Let’s imagine that real space is a domain that follows the rules that we associate with an Einstein/Newtonian universe, where relativity holds sway. Then we have another domain - subspace - where relativity can be ignored or at least circumvented.

So what if generating a warp field is like domain amplification, creating a bubble of a subspace domain that encloses the ship? This subspace or warp bubble is then shaped by the nacelles, which distorts space locally, allowing the bubble and the ship to be propelled along at FTL speed. This is because while inside the bubble, the rules of subspace apply, not the relativistic rules of real space. It therefore becomes possible to exceed c in that special frame of reference. And yet, the bubble is still strongly connected to real space, so the ship can interact with objects outside the bubble. This explains the existence of Newtonian forces like inertia, acceleration and momentum still acting on the ship, and the continuing need for inertial dampers at warp.

This tight coupling to real space is also why we can see “stars” streaking by while in warp (more likely dust particles in real space being accelerated as they are caught in the ship’s warp bubble). The visual change in post-DIS Trek where the outside of the ship looks more like a Stargate-ish tunnel can be explained away as what the interior of the warp bubble looks like stretched out, as the ship speeds along within it like a canoe on a river, being propelled by layers of warp energy within the bubble and also carried along by the current within the bubble itself as it cruises along.

Subspace and spacetime shortcuts

The existence of subspace as a separate dimensional realm also provides us with a possible solution for the disparity between what the TNG Tech Manual gives us as absolute c values for various warp factors and the speed of plot that we see on screen. Often, the time taken between star systems and sectors is much shorter than what we would expect given the warp factors quoted, if the ship did indeed travel at the c values given by the Tech Manual.

My suggestion is that subspace is not a one-to-one correspondence with real space, but exists in a “higher” dimensional plane where distances in subspace are much shorter compared to their real space counterparts. For example, what would take 200 light years to traverse in real space would be, say only be equivalent to 20 light years travel distance in subspace.

(I’m just tossing out figures here - I don’t obviously mean this as an exact ratio, and for all we know depending on the architecture of subspace the exact correspondence can vary widely, which again helps fit the speed of plot.)

So this further suggests that the TNG Tech Manual c values are meant to reflect speeds in subspace, or rather the ship’s velocity within the warp bubble, which translates to faster velocities and thus further distances travelled in real space. In effect the ship, by surrounding itself with a subspace domain, creates its own shortcut/wormhole through real space.

Conclusion

So, TL;dr: Star Trek warp drive works by surrounding the ship with a warp field, a bubble of subspace which both lowers the inertial mass of the ship and removes it from the relativistic requirements of real space. Propulsion is achieved by shaping the field, but within the subspace bubble the ship still moves and can act on real space as well as experience inertial forces. Additionally, the warped relationship of subspace to real space means that distances travelled in subspace move the ship much further in real space, and that warp factor velocities reflect the speed at which the ship moves in subspace rather than real space.

Thank you for your attention.

Excuse me if this post isn't up to the usual standards of Daystrom Institute, but as I'm looking for an in-universe discussion of this topic, this community felt the most appropriate.

Does anyone else feel like the Temporal Prime Directive is a potential security risk? You're a security officer, and you find an intruder on board. Before you can call it in, they implore you "Stop! Temporal Prime Directive! This is important!"

Now you've paused, thinking any action could cause a temporal paradox, or damage to the future timeline.

Hell, just that pause alone might be enough for them to draw a weapon on you and neutralize you, if they are hostile.

But, assuming they don't attack, suppose the intruder says "I can't tell you what I'm doing or why, but just know it's imperative, and I have to remain hidden. Please go about your business and ignore me."

You're in a catch 22. If you leave them be, it could turn out they are an enemy spy or saboteur. If you report them, it could turn out they are telling the truth, and you cause a big temporal problem.

This question is inspired by VOY S05E24, "Relativity", where Seven of Nine is sent back in time to Voyager (before she had joined the crew), and she gets caught and confronted by Janeway. Ultimately, Janeway doesn't just take Seven at her word, and makes her explain what's going on, but I'm not sure we should be taking cues on the proper application of the Temporal Prime Directive from Captain Kathryn Janeway.

What are your thoughts?

Garak asserts to Bashir that the Repetitive Epic is the finest form of Cardassian literature. I was wondering, is there any real-life literature that could be considered a "repetitive epic" in the same vein as "The Neverending Sacrifice?"

It has occurred to me that Vulcan must have some form of sex industry to handle those going through Pon Farr who aren't currently married or otherwise involved. Otherwise, they'd have constant issues with violence from those suffering the "blood fever" whose spouse was far away, or had died, or for some other reason had no one to mate with.

Given Vulcan attitudes towards sex, it's probably kept out of sight, and is only "officially" available to those experiencing their "Seven Year Itch," but it has to exist, right?

So, I just got my copy of the Lower Deck's Handbook (it's AMAZING) but one of the sections of the handbook goes into the legacy of the ships to carry the name Cerritos. (Think along the terms of the ships to carry the name Stargazer) and one in particular caught my eye...

A Leif Ericson class USS Cerritos was answering a distress call from Earth (in a manner not dissimilar to the Enterprise-E in First Contact), but before the Cerritos could reach Earth a Klingon Bird of Prey manned by Captain Kirk beat them to it.

But an unforeseen consequence of Kirk's time hopping erased the Leif Ericson class from reality.

It was a short blurb, but I actually felt chills. I'm reminded of the scene where Spock expresses uncertainty on how to accurately bring them back to the present, and Bones tells Spock to just go with his gut or something along those terms.

With the implied context that a miscalculation on Spock's part led to the erasure of the Leif Ericson class and presumably all hands, do you think Spock made the right call, given what he knew at the time?

I like coffee. I like Star Trek.

I've had a mild interest in the raktajino, a Klingon coffee drink commonly consumed in DS9. I've looked up a few fan theories and fan recipes. I haven't seen any references to a canonical recipe, so I get that there's a bit of fun and personal preference involved.

The only thing I don't understand is why raktajino is commonly claimed to be made with liquor. On the one hand, I understand why Klingons might want a stiff additive to their caffeine. However, the context in which characters on DS9 drink it does not suggest the presence of intoxicants. I recall at least a few occasions in which bridge officers, while on duty, drink a raktajino. Surely even synthol is not OK when you're on shift for Starfleet.

So in this episode they go into a cave, and can read some sort of energy field, as well as Troi having a sense that there are lifeforms present. Geordie explains that the people must be displaced in time, but only by a few milliseconds. If that's true, how is there not overlap? Say the people are a few milliseconds ahead of the enterprise when they arrive, shouldn't they appear a few milliseconds later, as they still would have had to be 'present' during that time? I don't understand how they would be consistently invisible if time is a dimension like space that can be traveled through. Some past (or future) version of them would be present regardless of the desynchronization would they not?

Please if anyone could help me understand or shed some light on this I'd appreciate it.

I have an issue in general with scifi totally ignoring the existence of bicycles, but star trek is particularly fun to think about since in so many situations beaming down in an away team with electric mountain bicycles would be incredibly useful in a basic utilitarian sense. Like shuttles, bicycles could be treated as disposable if needed, you can always replicate more right?

You also don't need to build up any infrastructure on a planet for bicycles to function as transit system for huge amounts of people. A starship could arrive into a humanitarian aid situation, quickly adjust a bicycle blueprint for whatever bipedal humanoid lived on the planet, replicate a metric sh*&ton of alien bicycles and beam them down to the planet on mass. It wouldn't require longterm maintenance, lengthy training of local aliens on how to use, or return visits to resupply complex parts. A starship could drop bicycles, spare parts and maintenance gear and then leave and the citizens of that planet would be able to benefit from that for... decades? Even more? I am sure the instruction manuals would get super long with all the alien languages though....

Even if bicycles weren't being used as tools or transportation in a far future like star trek, there is no reason humans would stop wanting to bicycle recreationally or for exercise. Also you could go on crazy mountain biking rides on the holodeck right? I can't see how people wouldn't be doing that all the time along with skiing, surfing and other sports that are scary but exhilarating. Further, I think it is likely most bipedal aliens would have discovered bicycles at some point along the development into advanced technological civilizations. It would be really weird if only humans discovered them.

TNG in particular is egregious for not having bicycles since the NCC-1701 is so cavernous that unless you always used the turbolifts you probably are going to need a bicycle to get anywhere quickly...

What do yall think? Should star trek have more bicycles?

Hello, I put forward a bunch of theories of "in the pale moonlight" within this part 1. Mostly what I think are easter eggs. I have more written down to do a second video to tackle controversial topics as:

1. What Sisko did was morally incorrect
2. The Dominion was actually a force for the greater good
3. Sisko was hypocritical based on his previous actions in the series I am a Captain Sisko fan, but I thought it would be interesting to debate the other side, as the default stance would probably be he is on the "good" side.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x10 Old Friends, New Planets.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

I don't mean on the holodeck, shore leave, or when transported to the past and needing to fit in.

Seems like if you're on an away mission to, say, a desert planet, sunglasses might be useful. I don't recall anything wearing them.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x07 A Few Badgeys More.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

The title is a pun on the 2004 British horror parody television series Garth Merenghi’s Darkplace.

The Ferengi starship appears to be a variant of that owned by the Ferengi merchant Ulis in 2151 (ENT: “Acquisition”).

Rom became the Grand Nagus in DS9: “The Dogs of War”, Zek appointing Rom as his successor to carry on his reforms to create a kinder, gentler Ferenginar.

The Genesis Device is of course the central McGuffin of ST II. The one that blew up and created the Genesis Planet was thought to be the only one, but we’ve seen another model stored in Daystrom Station (PIC: “The Bounty”).

“He thinks Rom is the next Lonz.” A deep cut, Lonz was the most famous nose flute player in Ferengi history, also known as “Old Golden Nostril” (DS9 book: Legends of the Ferengi).

Rule of Acquisition No. 62: “The riskier the road, the greater the profit”, was first mentioned in DS9: “Rules of Acquisition”, among other episodes.

The Stardate is 58901.5. The Ferengi Alliance wanting to join the Federation is a huge deal. Although Nog was the first Ferengi in Starfleet (DS9: “Heart of Stone”), by 2400, there will be more Ferengi cadets in Starfleet Academy (PIC: “The Star Gazer”, a Ferengi flag is being flown during commencement among other flags showing the composition of the graduating class), and by the 32nd Century, Ferengi officers are seen frequently, even a Captain (DIS: “Anomaly”).

The foods being served on board the Parliament-class (LD: “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”) USS Toronto (NCC-70494) include a bowl of Ferengi tube grubs (DS9: “Homefront”), cheese cut out in Starfleet delta shapes and a wooden serving board in the shape of a Galaxy-class cruiser.

The bald Admiral is Vassery, who commanded Douglas Station and was the one Mariner mocked for his pronunciation of “sen-soar” (LD: “Moist Vessel”). He also appeared in Mariner’s holoprogram (LD: “Crisis Point”).

Moab IV is the location of the Genome Colony, a self-contained domed enclosing a genetically and socially-engineered society (TNG: “The Masterpiece Society”). The environment outside the dome was uninhabitable at the time the Enterprise-D visited, so Vassery’s joke might mean that has changed. Or is just a bad joke.

The 10th Rule of Acquisition is “Greed is eternal” (DS9: “Prophet Motive”); Freeman trying to quote this expresses her skepticism about Ferenginar’s application.

Leeta’s title as “First Clerk” is the title of the Nagus’ personal financial assistant (DS9: “Ferengi Love Songs”). Rom and her are accompanied by what seems to be a female Hupyrian. The species is known to be favorites of the Grand Naguses as servants, bodyguards and food tasters due to their devotion to their masters and their vows of silence to anyone other than their master. Zek’s male servant was Maihar’du (DS9: “The Nagus”).

I got to admit, the Ceremonial Invoice and the “Friends and Family Discount” made me spit out my soda. God, I’ve missed the Ferengi - the DS9 development of them, specifically. Yes, Quark made an appearance in DS9: “Hear All, Trust Nothing”, but still.

Self-sealing stem bolts are a component that nobody is quite sure what they do or what they’re for, except that they’re self-sealing. And are stem bolts (DS9: “Progress”).

For the record, “Lieutenants junior grade” is the grammatically correct usage. Much like it’s “Attorneys-General” and not “Attorney-Generals”.

There have been two travel guides published in the real world for Star Trek under the Hidden Universe Travel Guides banner: one for the Klingon Empire and the other for Vulcan. I also love the fact that the Cerritos is statistically the horniest and least committed crew in Starfleet because that tracks so much.

Finishing each other’s diophantine equations (polynomial equations where only integer solutions are allowed) could be a reference to a classic gag from Arrested Development where Michael says about Nellie, that they finish each other’s… and Lindsay chimes in with “Sandwiches?” to Michael’s bewilderment. The same joke coincidentally shows up in That 70s Show and as part of the song “Love is an Open Door” in Frozen.

Honus is the ship’s bartender (LD: “Mugato, Gumato”) and Nurse Westlake (LD: “Second Contact”) is named for Chris Westlake, the composer for LD.

We see a Ferengi shuttle (DS9: “Little Green Men”) flying by as we approach Ferenginar, on which it is always raining (DS9: “Family Business”). The Ferengi language has 178 words for rain (and none for “crisp”), rather like the hundreds of words Inuits use to describe various types of snow (DS9: “Let He Who is Without Sin”). The tall building dominating the skyline is the Ferengi Tower of Commerce, the capital building of the government (“Prophet Motive”).

Signs advertise All You Can @#S%!, Slug-O-Cola (DS9: “Profit and Lace”), Uncle Quark’s Youth Casino, Maxium Oo-Mox Rub Dungeon, Acquire Pour Homme, Lobe’s Lodge, Slug-Nasium. A marquee says “Now Playing: Latinum Lost!!!” which may be a reference to the Litverse novella Lust’s Latinum Lost (and Found), which centers around the erotic holonovel of the same title.

The things on Boimler’s to-do list are:

• Drop off capital buildingm Inspection: Mini Bar, Toilet, Pay Wall
• View Screen Inspected
• Museum of Bribery
• Ferengi Center for Forged Arts
• Ferengi Hall of Fame Gift Shop (Hall of Fame Coming Soon)

The size of Ferengi lobes isLatinum Lost (and Found)*, which centers around the erotic holonovelCola commercial plays on.

Quimp appeared in LD: “Envoys”, meeting Mariner on Tulgana IV, staging a fake attack to boost Boimler’s confidence.

Oberth-classes (like the USS Grissom from ST III) take a lot of flak. T’Ana once screamed that she didn’t spend 7 years on one just to get reassigned to a station (LD: “The Stars at Night”).

The “dagger of the mind” drink probably refers to TOS: “Dagger of the Mind” where a neural neutralizer empties a mind and makes it susceptible to suggestion.

Rom was on Sisko’s baseball team, the Niners, in DS9: “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” and scored the only run for the team in that game.

The unicorn dog in the Ferengi landlord cop show is of the species from Alfa 177 (TOS: “The Enemy Within”). We last saw one of them in the menagerie in LD: “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”.

As Boimler laughs about product placement he is sitting in front of the Paramount logo. The screen also resembles the CBS eye logo.

Parth is using a holographic imager, but oddly enough closer to the Starfleet design (last seen in SNW: “Those Old Scientists”) rather than a Ferengi one (DS9: “Meridian”).

Mariner and Quimp play dabo (DS9: “Babel”) at the Ferenginar Historical Library.

Quark’s Federation Experience Bar & Grill (referring to the late lamented Las Vegas Star Trek: The Experience), has models of the Voyager and Enterprise-D hanging from the ceiling as the TNG theme tune plays. Among the decor are signs that say Engineering, Ten Forward, Where No Gift Has Gone Before, Jeffries Tube Entrance, Red Shirts and Holodeck Arcade.

Patrons enter the place between two TOS-style nacelles and are greeted by a Ferengi with a Vulcan hairstyle and eyebrows in a blue science division uniform. In a blink and you’ll miss it moment, there is a naked female Ferengi (head and shoulders visible) at one of the tables as we initially pan towards Tendi and Rutherford. Ferengi females were traditionally not allowed to wear clothes, but this began to change with Zak’s reforms, helped along by Quark and Rom’s mother Ishka.

On display are a Mugato (TOS: “A Private Little War”), the Guardian of Forever (TOS: “The City on the Edge of Forever”), a Vulcan gong in the arena from TOS: “Amok Time” and a Taurean ape-man with a spear from TOS: “The Galileo Seven”.

Tendi and Rutherford are seated at a table whose wall panels have a TOS-style red trim and chairs from that era. The Red Alert sound has of course been standard since TOS. The Ferengi bouncers are dressed in TNG-era security uniforms.

Tendi’s comment about the velour uniforms catching fire is similar to Boimler talking about exploding tricorders in LD: “Those Old Scientists”.

Sitting weird in chairs is a stereotype for bisexuals, of which Mariner is one. Naturally, the Ferengi Dominion War Memorial remembers the profits lost during that conflict.

The blind box is modeled on a TOS-era shuttle. We see a rocky backdrop for one of the tables that might be Sarpeidon from TOS: “All Our Yesterdays”.

The 8th Rule of Acquisition, “Small print leads to large risk” is from the beta canon book The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.

The Ferengi dragging Boimler out of his room is using a Ferengi energy whip (TNG: “The Last Outpost).

This ScienceOf.org interview with Professor of Genetics/Evolution (& Star Trek biological science advisor) Mohammed Noor on the biology, especially the r-selection reproduction, of the Gorn in SNW is marvellous.

Just the kind of uncomfortable but great biological thinking I was hoping we’d get into here at Daystrom Institute.

e.g. Can we think of the Gorn in viral terms?

Treating Gorn like this, each infected person could infect four more people, so the R0 for Gorn would be 4. Not wildly big, but large enough to do the job. Of course, the hatchlings would also be going after one another, so the analogy’s not perfect.

But if you want to think of the Gorn as intelligent, viral space dinosaurs, that does get the idea across.

How exactly do the Klingons justify using cloaking ships, a strategy which necessarily involves sneaking up on an enemy and catching them unaware? Wouldn't sneak attacks conflict with their notion of honour?

Time travel in Star Trek is a tricky business. As much as we try to make sense of it, and to be fair the way it works and the way historical changes affect the timeline is for the most part consistent, it still is “only for the most part”. For every instantaneous change to history shown in TOS: “The City on the Edge of Forever”, there’s a kind of delayed effect as exhibited in DS9: “Past Tense”. For every reset of the timeline in VOY: “Year of Hell”, there’s the lasting effects implied in SNW: “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”.

One conundrum is TAS: “Yesteryear”, probably the most memorable episode of TAS. The set up is that Kirk and Spock are returning from a trip to Orion’s past via the Guardian of Forever. When they emerge from the temporal donut, they are startled to discover that the McCoy and the party of welcoming scientists do not recognize Spock.

(As a side note, why don’t they remember Spock? As we saw in “The City on the Edge of Forever”, being in close proximity to the Guardian protects you from the changes in time - when McCoy goes through and changes history, the Enterprise vanishes from orbit but Kirk and the landing party still retain their existence and memories. One possibility is that McCoy took the scientists up to the Enterprise briefly while Kirk and Spock were in the past, whereupon they were subsumed into the changed timeline, but then we also know from “City” that the trip into the past and back takes only an instant, no matter how long you stay in the past. It’s a problem, and I’m not sure I’ve got a good solution for it. But see below.)

Returning to the Enterprise, Spock discovers that he has never been First Officer (replaced by an Andorian) and in fact died as a child on Vulcan during the kahs-wan ritual. But yet, Spock recalls that during the ritual he was saved by a distant cousin named Selek. Realizing that Selek was Spock himself, Kirk surmises that history was changed because Spock followed Kirk to Orion and so didn’t go back in time to Vulcan. Spock realizes that he must go back in time and save his past self.

But this raises a slight problem - what was the original timeline to start with? If Spock originally died, then how did he grow up to go back to save himself? Is this a bootstrap paradox at work? But then it’s not a perfect loop because the events of “Yesteryear” only occur because the loop breaks, creating a new timeline in the middle of it.

(Also, given the very nature of time travel, Kirk’s theory that history changed because Spock went back to Orion’s past and he couldn’t be in two places at once makes no sense because it’s time travel. Spock’s journey into the past doesn’t have to occur at a specific time for it to work.)

So what gives here? The only way this makes sense is if, in the original timeline, the change in history and the paradox were meant to happen.

In the original timeline, Young Spock nearly dies in the Vulcan desert, but is saved by Future Spock. But this leaves the question unanswered as to why Future Spock is there to begin with - the impetus for him to go back in the first place. The only reason Spock goes back is because he discovers that if he doesn’t, Young Spock dies. And the only way he discovers this is because of the existence of the paradox of the new timeline.

So it wasn’t because Spock went back to Orion that caused the paradox, as if it was a choice that started the dominoes falling. Spock had to go back to Orion so that he would find out that history had changed when he returned, which would then lead him to go back in time to change history “back”. The alteration in the timeline and the subsequent repair job was always part of the original history.

And perhaps that provides a solution to why McCoy and the scientists were affected by the timeline changes. Perhaps to impress upon Spock the necessity for him to go back in time, it had to be clear from the get-go that history had changed rather than for him to find out when he returned to the Enterprise.

And the entity that would be aware of this, and presumably have the capability to withdraw its protection from others, would be the Guardian itself. Well aware of how events are supposed to unfold and to protect the integrity of the timeline and Spock’s place in it, the Guardian allows the timeline to be changed. It then makes sure that Spock figures out what he must do to revert the changes, the Guardian’s own temporal directives preventing him from telling Spock outright. The best the Guardian could do was protect Kirk and Spock’s memories, so that Spock would recall what was supposed to happen and Kirk to give him the support he needed to go back in time.

But then the question becomes why the timeline had this snarl in it to begin with? Was there a previous timeline before that where Young Spock did survive without intervention but temporal shenanigans took place to alter that original, leaving this as a patch job? Therein lies another discussion, perhaps, or a fanfic.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x01 Twovix and 4x02 I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

If when someone is Tuvixed they keep their memories, then Captain Doctor Frigleeman would've kept the memory that Captain Freeman wanted to keep everyone alive. If Frigleeman knew that, then why did she help T'Illups if she knew he was misguided?

It appears that this is a promotional feature in Smithsonian Magazine for a a new book Reality Ahead of Schedule: how science fiction inspires science fact.

This seems a good fit for Daystrom Institute, but happy to relocate if it’s a better fit for another community.

Like basically every current Star Trek fan, I love the character of Captain Pike as Anson Mount portrays him. I wonder, though, to what extent he is actually the same guy from "The Cage." If we had only that episode to work from (which the Discovery and SNW writers initially did), we would know that he is broody, that he struggles with the responsibility he bears for the lives of others, and that he is remarkably able to conjure up emotions like anger and hate on command. Does any of that fit with Pike as we know him now?

One way to answer this question would be to imagine a very literal remake of the original pilot recast with the current actors. Everyone else would basically make sense, but I think seeing the current Pike act out his scenes would be jarring and even a little upsetting.

I'm sure we can come up with in-universe explanations -- he was having a particularly bad day, he's grown as a person, etc., etc. -- but it does seem like the current-day writers are departing pretty abruptly from the ostensible basis for the character. What do you think?

小嘛小兒郎, 背著那書包上學堂 (Little, Little boy, carrying that bag to school)
不怕太陽曬, 也不怕那風雨狂 (fear not of burning sun, nor fear that crazy storm)
只怕先生罵我懶嗎, (but fear the teacher scold me lazy)
沒有學問 – 無臉見爹娘 (Being unlearned – no “lian”/face to face parents)
小嘛小兒郎, 背著那書包上學堂, (Little, Little boy, carrying that bag to school)
不是為做官, 也不是為面子光, (Not to be an official, or for one’s own “mianzi”/face)
只為做人要爭氣呀, (Just that a person must be determined not to fall short)
不受人欺負，也不做牛和羊 (Not to be bullied, nor to work like a draft animal)
(Classical children song “Du Shu Lang”/”Little School Boy”, Paula Tsui version)

富貴不歸故鄉，如衣繡夜行，誰知之者! When one who made his wealth doesn’t return home, he may as well wear glamorous clothing in the middle of the night, who would notice that!
人言楚人沐猴而冠耳，果然 I heard the Lord of Chu is like an anxious monkey wearing a crown, and I was right.
– <Shi’ji, Record of Xiang’yu>

Introduction

One of the common argument and complaint regarding Klingon honor is that, from the perspective of Human concept of honor, they are NOT honorable. Instead, they use cloaking, ambushes, to achieve victory above all. Instead of escape, they will rather suicide; they will do honor killings. They will attack and even murder the defenseless. In politics, Klingon’s politics is dirty to a fault.

Now, many already realized that perhaps we are too human centric. Some believe that Klingon are focus on duty, and that they refuse to accept failures. Another, which I think is approaching my proposal ( https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/gswny9/klingon_honor_is_nothing_of_the_sort_it_is/) , is that it’s likely related to reputation. Others attempt to square the stated that for them, To fail is to forfeit duty, thus dishonor.

However, what if I tell you that some group of humans may still utilize “Honor” that is extremely similar to that of Klingon? On a meta level, most know that Klingon was made into "Samurai in Space", thus also borrow some aspect from the alleged Samurai culture, include the honor suppose to be practice by Samurais. However, if you actually know about it, it is not honor. In fact, it is far closer to the concept known as “faces” in Chinese.

In short, the meta mistranslation of "faces" into "honor" yields the seemingly contradictory nature of Klingon honor

What is Face

「面子」，是我們在談話裡常常聽到的，因為好像一聽就懂，所以細想的人大約不很多。-- 魯迅, 說「面子」, 1934 (“Faces” is something we often hear in conversation; since it seems like something we instantly got when we heard the word, only small amount of people actually think about it in detail – Lu’Xun, About “Faces”, 1934)

Now I am not saying I know Faces – I am a not born in Mainland, and thus is already influenced by some western concept; and some authors seperate lian(臉) and mianzi 面子, which we don’t in where I lived (for both faces and “Faces”); but even at that place, “face” still affect whether a woman in 1970s will cancel a marriage, despite knowing her future spouse is bad. Nor do I say honor/glory doesn’t exist in Chinese – it does, as 榮譽, for example. However, to my understanding, it is always in terms of the Face. And even if I try to translate Face to dignity or reputation, I fear I will fall into pitfall that gave us “face as honor”.

So let’s look at a Chinese dictionary: Specifically, that of Taiwan Ministry of Education (dict.revised.moe.edu.tw), which also shows they treat “Lian” and “Mianzi” the same. Thus, for our discussion, we will only talk about 面子/Faces.

• 面子. Intepretation: 體面 (身分、體統、格局、規模 - )、名譽 (the name, reputation)、情面（情分與面子。多指私人關係) (feelings and relationships in private matters) Antonym: 實質 (substance of a person)

Okay, that seems simple. But the Revised dictionary also threw in various terms by adding suffix characters and prefix characters. Maybe that tell us more?

• 賣面子 (sell Faces): 故意予人好處，使人感激自己 (Purposely give others benefit, so others will feel grateful of the giver of benefit)
• 留面子 (leave faces, but can also mean “protect faces): 顧及情面，不使人難堪 (care about the situation/feelings, not to embarrass others)
• 夠面子 (have enough face): 夠威風體面。指影響力大，所說的話別人願意聽從 (have a strong face; or more precisely speaking, have huge influence, whatever they say can cause others to follow)
• 顧面子 (care face): 愛護自己的聲名或榮譽 (Love and care their own reputation). The example usage is “為了顧面子，他不惜犧牲一切。” (In order to “care faces”, he will sacrifice everything). If you read it in Chinese, it has negative connotation.

While some words can be translate as honor and glory, it works just as well as prestige, dignity, reputation. Regardless, it’s based on appearance. Or simply put: Face is related to but is not honor, glory, dignity; to translate it as simply is wrong. Based on my observation, in western concept, there is an implication of those words being related to the substance/character of the person. In Chinese at least, the implication of substance is not as strong, and for the most part can be seen just focus on the appearance; something that can be quantify by points, by money, by profit, by amount of supporters, etc. Prestige and reputation seems better suited, at least with 2020s vocab.

I started this article with a song that is taught to children. Written in 1945, when I first heard it as a kid, the message I got is why it’s important to study. But when I was thinking of how maybe Klingon’s Honor is actually “Faces”, I can’t help but to recall the song – and realize that the parallel message of the song is about the importance of faces – as the fourth line indicate, one who is unlearned has no “face” to face their parents. Then at the second half, while they claim it’s not actually about faces (sixth line), the seventh line explain why one must be learned: there’s the version as stated above, which stated one must be 爭氣. I translate it as “falling short”, but it can just be valid as “ambitious”, “fighting for prestige”, or even “showing weakness”. An earlier record even use “A poor person must turn [their life] around“（只爲窮人要翻身), which has similar meaning in that context. Factor in the last line of not being bullied, I can’t help but to recall another Chinese idiom: 成者為首，不成者為尾， “Those that succeed are those at the top; those that are not successful are at the bottom.” That evolve to 成者為王，敗者為寇 (Those who succeed are kings, those who failed are criminals)

Therefore, it can be seen that being “on top” is synonym to victory, and that’s when one will have “faces”. Or reword it: “Nothing is more than being face-full than being on top and having victory”. And this is my personal understanding of “Face”: “be the winner”.

Perhaps, then Klingon Honor is indeed as Worf stated “Nothing is more honorable than victory” – it only sound contradictory is one translate the Klingon’s concept to “honor”, instead of eastern concept of “faces”

A True Worthy Face

The only problem is that there are ways to think of “Victory” – and thus “Faces” even within Chinese history, and is in fact best examplified by Chu-Han Contention. Now do keep in mind that many of the description of that era is written by official of Han dynasty, so as historical documents they are questionable; but as morality stories they may not be entirely wrong. Xiang’Yu of Chu exemplify the appearance victory, and thus he focused upon an on-the-surface Face. Liu’Bang of Han, meanwhile examplify the true victory and thus Faces. This can be seen during the Feast of Hongmen, which shows Xiang’Yu do a lot of posturing, while Liu’Bang just take it humbly and not part take the various rituals. Yet in the end Liu’Bang became the Han Emperor.

And notice the Taiwanese MoE Dictionary actually treat the “substance of a person” as antonym to Face. In short, the Ministry of Education implies there are no merit to Face. It doesn’t sounds something honorable, because a proper honor helps build up society.

Klingon Honor is very, very close to Faces if not exactly the same.

Knowing what “face” is to the best of our ability, if we look at things that Klingon see as honorable (but dishonorable to us) from the lens of “faces”, then it will make perfect sense.

In Memory Alpha, a sentence used to talk about the ambiguity of Klingon’s Honor has some examples: “Worf indicated that it was necessary to challenge Gowron's leadership (because he was presumably acting in a dishonorable way), while General Martok was convinced that it was dishonorable to challenge the leader of the Klingon Empire in the middle of a war.”

But what if I change it from the PoV of Face when applicable?
“...General Martok was convinced it was face-losing to challenge the leader of the Klingon Empire in the middle of a war.” The “face losing” is not just for Martok; but also for Gowron, and even the entire empire. And it was the fact that there is a fight, and expose the issue of Gowron from implicit to explicit.

The above will make sense even in modern Chinese (and possibly Taiwanese) offices; even if you recognize your superior is making some stupid decision, even if everyone knows, you just don’t bring it up in the open if at all. My understanding is that it is even worse in Korea, which leads to some fatal issues such as Korean Air Flight 801. While officially it was “poor communication”, it is likely that the NTSB knows that the Korean culture (even more Face-concerning) affect why the crew didn’t challenge the captain, but choose not to wade into offending someone’s else culture. Ironically, this is an act that factor into face.

Another example:
When Doctor Antaak worked with Phlox to cure the Augment DNA, Antaak decided to deceive his superior and claim they actually stabilized Augment DNA and create Klingon Augments. He then claim that it will give him an honorable death for the mere fact of saving millions.

And translate it through face… well, Antaak is protecting his own face. In terms of “Face” based culture, he is someone that got a miracle. Only if discovered and failure to twist the words properly would he loses any face.

Lu’Xun, in his “About Faces”, talk of a story/myth of how, During Qing Dynasty, the westerners occasionally goes to the Mandarin’s office to ask for benefits with some threats, and the Mandarins just affirm it – but the Mandarins always sent them away through the side door instead of the main gate, as this will indicate the western does not have face, thus the Mandarin/China have face and thus have is in a superior benefit.

Who actually sees the westerner goes in and threaten the Qing Officials? Maybe they are just come in half-bowed and begged for benefit! It’s all about appearance and twisting of words – hence, even Lu’Xun say it may not be entirely true, and it’s precisely such unknown truth that provided him a good example of illustrating face.

Western Honor Fights Corruption; Faces don’t care or even help Corruption

Eastern Relationships, for the most part, is more toward internal. Between superior and underlings; between husband and wife; between the parents and children (三綱、五倫). Nowhere does it talk about outside of your state, except as the last step – to illuminate (ie: Conquer) everything “tian’xia” – the entire world. “Faces” is developed based on this. So just in that light alone, “Faces” doesn’t matter if you are facing a foreigner, even if they are not outright enemy.

So in that light, if one consider cloaking as an example of Kilingon false honor, It definitely does not make them lose face – it’s against an enemy. Heck, it is definitely face worthy, because they managed to trick the enemy.

Now being a someone not from Mainland that now lives in an English-speaking nation, it’s very difficult for me to even tie cheating to “Faces” in a positive way. The only way I can even square both together is that cheating, tricky, and scheming is only face-losing if caught. If not caught, it showed someone has intelligence, and thus actually increase faces. In Chinese mythology, humanity gets to build houses on Earth instead of living in caves because someone managed to trick a Tai’Shui deity. During the Three Kingdoms era, many generals and leaders, from Cao Cao and Kongming, is known to use schemes and tricks and smoke and mirrors, not just toward their enemy, but toward subjects that think of themselves too much.

A classic Chinese example of how failure to understand Face is the story of Kong Rong - a descendent of Confucius and example of “good kid” in Three Character Classic. He was known as someone who serve justice, and thus always fought against Cao Cao when he is an adult. In the end, Cao Cao place him under various false charges and executed his immediate family. The story was taught to show the importance of ensuring your superior’s faces.

In fact, if you think about it, Protecting “Faces” can even require “dishonorable” actions, and thus, acts that is “face worthy” helps corruption. Cao Cao’s face-loving act likely only left people who schemes just as well, and his descendant ended up losing the Wei throne to Sima Zhao. Sounds like a certain empire, doesn’t it?

And in case people were wondering about the numerous game cheaters from Mainland (for our purpose of discussing face, Klingon Honor, and cloaking): I shrugged.

Eastern Faces/Honor vs Western Honor

I consider the issue regarding the so-called contradictory nature of “Klingon Honor” comes from anchoring it around western concept of “honor”.

In my point of view, western concept of honor ties to not just the substance/character of the person, but also “Justice” (whether that is properly executed is a different manner). However, I dare say that eastern concept of Faces is based upon appearance for the most part. It may related to justice depend on situation, but can be easily seperated from Justice, unless Justice determine whether they are viewed as “correct”… which for the most part, comes from Strength.

Book of Rites, one of the Confucian canons, actually recorded “Pitch Pot”, a game. Analysis indicated that it was more about the ritual of gifter-gifting-gifts while receiver-refuse-gift, doing it back and forth three times, to show that neither the gifter nor the receiver are stingy. That being said, from my own point of view, just feel like falsehood for the sake of performance – yet it is consider good back then.

So if we take the assumption that Klingon’s Honor share way more similarity to Faces than Western Honor, Klingon “Honorable” action – or properly saying, “face saving” “face loving” “face earning” make sense and has no contradictory.

Now recall I mentioned earlier that “Face” is commonly tied with “successful”. Now recall that while Qapla is used as a greeting, its literal meaning is “success” – another aspect tied to the Traditional Chinese Face-focused culture.

In fact, I recall in Star Trek Klingon, when Gowron need to pay for a song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2F1X3Guiv8), the proper action is throw a chair, which allows Gowron pay for the damaged chair (and the song). If we think of it in terms of “faces”, it will actually make sense (the general concept, I mean - I will acertain no Chinese will throw a chair just to pay for something)

The only difference is that Klingon is said to be Samurai in space, but I wonder: while we Chinese definitely focus on “face” more than modern Japanese, I will say, with no evidence, that Traditional Japanese (especially pre Meiji) are just as focused on “faces”. Japanese have the term “Read the Atmosphere” (ie: Kuukiyomi; available as a game!). It’s about how everyone should do properly, in silence, without explicit wording. I can’t help but notice that it is not similar to the aspect of dealing with “Face” in Chinese.

TL;DR:

If you understand Faces/Mianzi, you understand Klingon Honor. In that regard, you will find Klingon’s mindset on “Face” has no ambiguity, no contradiction. But even Lu Xun, a famous early 20th century author, stated simply: “但「面子」究竟是怎麼一回事呢？不想還好，一想可就覺得糊塗。” (But what is “Faces”? It’s best not to think about it; once you think about it, it gets more confusing)

Further reading on faces:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)
• Lu Xun 說「面子」: https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/說「面子」
• https://www.china-mike.com/chinese-culture/cult-of-face/
• https://www.teachingnomad.com/blog/china/what-does-saving-face-mean/
• https://china-journal.org/2017/02/25/the-concept-of-face-in-chinese-culture-and-the-difference-between-mianzi-and-lian/ Especially interesting in that many examples are from Taiwanese.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Strange New Worlds 2x05 Charades.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

The title refers both to the deceptions that Spock and the crew engage in to cover what happens to him, as well as Pike’s desperate attempt to play the game “charades” as a delaying tactic.

The episode was written by supervising producer Kathryn Lyn and showrunner Henry Alonzo Myers. Lyn wrote what is the best LD episode to date, the amazing “wej Duj”. This explains the LD-esque type of observational humor in the dialogue.

Chapel’s personal log is stardated 1789.3. She and Spock are in the Vulcan system, to survey the moon Kherkov on the far side of the sector. It is unclear if this means that Kherkov is in the Vulcan system itself, or when she means sector she means the system. Star Trek has always been vague about how large a sector is, and in TOS days even how large a quadrant is. In Geoffrey Mandel’s Star Charts, a sector is defined as a cube of 20 ly. Kherkov was inhabited by a long vanished civilization and rumored to have had advanced medical knowledge.

What the script means by “sub-impulse” speeds is also unclear, as impulse operations are already sublight in nature. Perhaps this merely means at low impulse speeds.

M’Benga mentioned Korby’s principles of archeological medicine. Roger Korby, known as the Pasteur of Archeological Medicine, would eventually become affianced to Chapel, vanish on the frozen planet of Exo III and turn up five years later as an android (TOS: “What are Little Girls Made Of?”).

Spock is headed for Deck 12, which, according to Franz Joseph’s Enterprise deck plans, is in the interconnecting dorsal section, and contains an observation lounge.

M’Benga has been helping Spock with controlling his emotions (SNW: “The Broken Circle”) after he let them loose in SNW: “All Those Who Wander”.

Pike claims that you can tell the difference between fresh and synthesized herbs. At this point in history, starships use food synthesizers, not replicators, although the difference between the two processes is not entirely clear. The herb Pike pushes on Spock is basil.

Spock says he uses nasal suppressants to block out the smell of humans, which Vulcans take getting used to. In ENT: “The Andorian Incident”, T’Pol uses a regularly injected nasal numbing agent to help with the same issue, although she also partially acclimatizes.

Lieutenant Sam Kirk makes his first in-universe appearance since SNW: “All Those Who Wander”. An alternate timeline version did appear in SNW: “A Quality of Mercy”.

Sam mentions increased sunspot activity in Eridani B. 40 Eridani is a star system comprised of three suns - Eridani A, B and C. It was established in Franz Joseph’s Star Fleet Technical Manual as Vulcan’s system. It is 16 ly away, consistent with ENT’s mention of Vulcan’s distance from Earth. In 2018, an exoplanet was apparently discovered orbiting Eridani A which some fans wanted named Vulcan, but recently the discovery of 40 Eri b turned out to be a mistake.

A Vulcan ceremonial engagement dinner is known as a V’Shal dinner. Spock mentions that he is “still” not speaking with his father. In TOS: “Journey to Babel” it is revealed that the two fell out after Spock elected to join Starfleet rather than the Vulcan Science Academy, and had not spoken since 2249. Amanda assumed that it was because Sarek disapproved of Starfleet as an organization, but the reasons are a bit more complicated, as we find out in DIS: “Lethe”.

T’Pring’s parents here are T’Pril and Sevet. In the novel Vulcan’s Glory, T’Pring’s father was named Solen.

Spock’s (almost) use of the “f” word is of course for comic effect: the first time the expletive was used in Trek was in DIS: “Choose Your Pain”, used by Tilly and Stamets.

The alien entity identifies themselves as Yellow, of Kherkov. The rupture was a transport tunnel, which explains its visual similarity with the Bajoran wormhole (DS9). Yellow is pretty much a Customer Service operator who just wants to get you off the line.

Aliens not knowing how humans are put together is an old trope - we first see it in Trek in TOS: “The Cage”, when Vina’s disfigured form is explained as the Talosians not knowing what a human looked like before they healed her. A modern example can be seen in Doctor Who’s “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances”.

Chapel is working to reverse Spock’s genetic alteration. As we saw in SNW: “Strange New Worlds”, she has an expertise in modifying genomes, although that was temporary and for the purpose of disguising away teams.

The enticing aroma of bacon - at least to humans - is due to the Maillard Reaction, which triggers our body’s natural cravings for salt and fat. Spock’s fascination and inexperience with bacon is also because post-Surakian Vulcans are vegetarian. As a human, Spock appears to have forgotten that. Spock would eat meat in TOS: “All Our Yesterdays” when transported thousands of years into the past and reverting to the Vulcans of those days.

M’Benga describes the Kherkovians as inscrutable, interdimensional beings that don’t experience space and time the way we do. They sound more and more like they could be related to the Prophets.

Pike tells Amanda that Pelia sends her regards but she’s off dealing with their “dilithium shortage”. It was established in SNW: “The Broken Circle” that Amanda was the first person to whom Pelia revealed her status as a Lanthanite. Dilithium was always a scarce resource in Trek, and its shortage would eventually lead to more dire consequences in the 31st Century. Pelia’s penchant for “acquiring” antiques was established in SNW: “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”.

Spock wears a beanie to conceal his (in this case) lack of ears. Spock first used such a hat to conceal his ears in TOS: “The City on the Edge of Forever”. Amanda says that Spock isn’t a practiced liar… yet. As we know, Spock will become a lot better at lying in future (TOS: “The Enterprise Incident”, ST II and ST VI being the most obvious examples aside from covert away missions).

The fake ears are probably the same kinds of ears Ethan Peck wears when made up as Spock. When teaching Spock how to act and sound Vulcan, Ortegas’ line about “Notice how I move my eyebrow but no other muscles in my face,” is very Beckett Mariner-like.

The V’Shal ritual starts with Spock making the bride’s family’s recipe for tea and serving it. Tuvok once served Vulcan tea to Captain Sulu (VOY: “Flashback”). Next is the Ritual of Awareness, when a young couple is made aware of all their faults and flaws. While a timer counts down, T’Pring’s parents will tell Spock all the things they think he is doing wrong. Last is the Mind Meld, where Amanda and Spock will share a memory of his childhood.

Spock’s open use of the mind meld and Pike and Una’s knowledge of it contradicts the first time it was used in TOS: “Dagger of the Mind” when he tells McCoy that it was a deeply private thing for Vulcans. He also said then that he had never used on a human before but here he says he’s used to seeing Amanda’s memories.

M’Benga says he has some gene therapy techniques he pulled from the Trinar. It’s not clear if he’s referring to a race or a ship, although closed captioning italicizes Trinar regression.

Pike has cooked traditional tevmel, but T’Pril criticizes the halak as not being fresh and being salted. Pike explains he uses salt to slow fermentation as starships run hotter than your typical Vulcan kitchen.

Ortegas says that she hates analogies because they’re never really like they say it is. Using analogies to make technobabble clearer (“It’s just like skipping a stone across a pond!”) is a time honored tradition in Star Trek.

T’Pring warns Spock not to rush the pouring of the tea or else the pomkot leaves will fail to bloom.

The interdimensional space the trio find themselves in reminds me, tonally, of when Dax and Sisko first entered the wormhole in DS9: “Emissary”. The Kerkhov they speak to this time is Blue, who notes that the complaint is lodged out of the response period. Chapel asks to speak with Yellow and is basically put on hold. Customer Service from hell, indeed.

The soundtrack during the Ritual of Awareness is underlaid with a slower version of the Vulcan fighting theme from TOS: “Amok Time”. During the meld, Amanda’s memory is of an ordinary day when she took Spock to school - the first time Vulcan children asked Spock to play with them.

Spock makes the excuse that he did not tell T’Pring because of the difficulty Vulcans have lying, but that can’t be true. A better explanation would have been that it was because she would be melding with T’Pril later and it might have been picked up. T'Pring also reminds Spock that they have shared katras (SNW: "Spock Amok").

Spock and Chapel’s confession and clinch, of course, is in opposition to what happened in TOS: “The Naked Time”, but at this point, with the popularity of Jess Bush’s portrayal of the character and time travel shenanigans as an excuse, it’s a minor point that only the truly pedantic would even point out as part of their annotations.

(originally posted here)

Very often I see people confidently think or claim that the Star Trek warp drive works like the warp "drive" first proposed by physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994. Unfortunately, this is in error (I put "drive" in quotes because Alcubierre apparently dislikes calling it a drive, preferring to call it a "warp bubble"). As Alcubierre himself says, it was Star Trek that gave him the inspiration for his metric, not the other away around.

Why there is this conflation may be because people desperately want to think that Star Trek is based on hard scientific principles, or that the same principles in Star Trek are actively being worked on in real life. I don't propose to speculate further. There are also several fan ideas and beta canon ideas in licensed fiction about warp drive (notably in the excellent novel Federation by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens) but for the sake of brevity, I'm limiting my discussion to what we see on-screen and related behind-the-scenes documents.

Background

The basic obstacle to superluminal or faster-than-light travel is Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. Special Relativity says that as the velocity of an object with mass accelerates towards the speed of light (c), the mass of that object increases, requiring more and more energy to accelerate it, until at c, that object has infinite mass, requiring infinite energy to push it past c. In fact, Special Relativity says that nothing with mass can reach c - photons are massless and can only travel at c. From there, it follows that theoretical objects with negative mass can only travel above c, hence given the name tachyons, from the Greek tachys, or “fast”.

Alcubierre wondered: if you can't move the object/ship without running into relativistic issues, why not move space instead? Alcubierre's idea was to warp space in two ways - contract space in front of the ship and expand space behind it, an effect he compares to a person on a travelator. So while the ship itself remains stationary in a flat area of spacetime between the two areas of warped space (the whole thing being the "warp bubble"), that flat area gets moved along like a surfboard on the wave of warped space. Of course, warping spacetime in this manner involves incredible amounts of negative energy, but that's another discussion.

So this is how the Alcubierre metric circumvents relativistic issues. Because the ship itself remains essentially motionless, there is no acceleration or velocity and thus no increase in inertial mass.

But that's not how Star Trek’s warp drive works, and has never been.

Warp Drive pre-TNG

There is no description on how Star Trek warp drive works on screen in TOS except perhaps for a vague pronouncement that the "time barrier's been broken" in TOS: "The Cage" (in the episode Spock also calls it a "hyperdrive" and refers to "time warp factors").

During the production of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), science consultant Jesco von Puttkamer, at the time an aerospace engineer working at a senior position in NASA, wrote in a memo to Gene Roddenberry dated 10 April 1978 (The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Susan Sackett and Gene Roddenberry, 1980, pp153-154) his proposal for how warp drive was supposed to work, in a way eeriely similar to Alcubierre's metric:

When going “into Warp Drive,” the warp engines in the two propulsion pods create an intense field which surrounds the entire vessel, forming a “subspace”, i.e. a space curvature closed upon itself through a Warp, a new but small universe within the normal Universe (or “outside” it). The field is nonsymmetrical with respect to fore-and-aft, in accordance with the outside geometry of the Enterprise, but it can be strengthened and weakened at localized areas to control the ship’s direction and apparent speed.

Because of the its non-symmetry about the lateral axis, the subspace becomes directional. The curvature of its hypersurface varies at different points about the starship. This causes a “sliding” effect, almost as a surf-board or a porpoise riding before the crest of a wave. The subspace “belly-surfs” in front of a directionally propagating “fold” in the spacetime structure, the Warp - a progressive, partial collapse of spacetime caused by the creation of the subspace volume (similar to but not the same as a Black Hole).

But there's no evidence that Roddenberry actually used this concept. In fact, Puttkamer said further in the memo that at warp, Enterprise would have "little or no momentum", which we will see is not how it's portrayed. Puttkamer was even against the now famous rainbow effect of going into warp:

The effect should not be firework-type lights but a more dimensional, geometric warping and twisting, an almost stomach-turning wrenching of the entire camera field-of-view.

So while an interesting document, there's no evidence that Puttkamer's ideas made it into any on screen incarnation of Star Trek.

Warp Drive in TNG and beyond

In TNG, the first publicly available description of how warp drive is supposed to work came from the licensed Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (1991). At page 65:

WARP PROPULSION

The propulsive effect is achieved by a number of factors working in concert. First, the field formation is controllable in a fore-to-aft direction. As the plasma injectors fire sequentially, the warp field layers build according to the pulse frequency in the plasma, and press upon each other as previously discussed. The cumulative field layer forces reduce the apparent mass of the vehicle and impart the required velocities. The critical transition point occurs when the spacecraft appears to an outside observer to be travelling faster than c. As the warp field energy reaches 1000 millicochranes, the ship appears driven across the c boundary in less than Planck time, 1.3 x 10^-43 sec, warp physics insuring that the ship will never be precisely at c. The three forward coils of each nacelle operate with a slight frequency offset to reinforce the field ahead of the Bussard ramscoop and envelop the Saucer Module. This helps create the field asymmetry required to drive the ship forward.

As described here, Star Trek warp drive gets around Special Relativity by using the warp field to distort space around and lower the inertial mass of the ship so that the shaping of the warp fields and layers around the ship can push and accelerate the ship itself towards c with reasonable energy requirements. The stronger the field (measured in units of millicochranes), the lower the inertial mass gets and it becomes easier to accelerate. When the field hits a strength of 1000 millicochranes, the ship pushes past the c barrier. Presumably at this stage it's in subspace, where Relativity no longer applies, and can accelerate even faster to each level of warp until the next limit at Warp 10 (TNG scale), or infinite speed. I'm not getting into how warp factors are defined (but see here for a discussion on the change between TOS and TNG warp scales, which also goes into the definition of warp factors, if interested).

The Technical Manual was written by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda, who were both technical consultants behind the scenes, and evolved from a document prepared by them in 1989 (3rd Season) to aid writers on the show in writing the technobabble in their script. (See also the history here.)

Here’s what the first, 3rd Season edition says about the way warp works, which is simply that the drive “warps space, enabling the ship to travel faster than light,” and that the ship is “‘suspended in a bubble’ of ‘subspace’, which allows the ship to travel faster than light”. This description also shows up in the 4th Season edition, and the Star Trek: Voyager Technical Guide (1st Season edition) in identical form.

While the actual text of the manual never made it on screen, there are several pieces of on-screen evidence that tell us Sternbach and Okuda's description of warp drive is followed: warp fields lower inertial mass, and the ship experiences acceleration and inertial forces during warp.

Evidence of warp fields lowering inertial mass

In TNG: "Deja Q" (1990), Enterprise-D uses a warp field to change the inertial mass of a moon:

LAFORGE: You know, this might work. We can't change the gravitational constant of the universe, but if we wrap a low level warp field around that moon, we could reduce its gravitational constant. Make it lighter so we can push it.

Later in that episode, we see the effect the warp field has on the moon:

DATA: Inertial mass of the moon is decreasing to approximately 2.5 million metric tonnes.

At the time "Deja Q" was broadcast, all that was said about warp drive in the technical guide was that warp drive "warps space" and the ship is in a subspace bubble with no mention of lowering inertial mass. Yet "Deja Q" shows warp fields doing exactly that, which tells us that either the writer gave Sternbach and Okuda that idea or they already had their ideas in place behind the scenes. The latter is more likely, given that the Technical Manual was published the following year.

In DS9: "Emissary" (1993), O'Brien and Dax use a warp field to lower the mass of the station so they can use thrusters to "fly" the station to where the wormhole is.

DAX: Couldn't you modify the subspace field output of the deflector generators just enough to create a low-level field around the station?

O'BRIEN: So we could lower the inertial mass?

DAX: If you can make the station lighter, those six thrusters will be all the power we'd need.

Evidence of inertia during warp

We've known from TOS on that during warp speed, inertia still exists. If it didn't, then there wouldn't be the bridge crew being subjected to inertial forces when maneuvering at warp speeds and being tossed around the bridge (TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday", when Enterprise slingshots around the sun at warp - with the last reported speed being Warp 8 on the TOS scale).

In TMP (1979), we see Enterprise accelerating to warp speed before the engine imbalance creates a wormhole.

KIRK: Warp drive, Mr Scott. Ahead, Warp 1, Mr Sulu.

SULU: Accelerating to Warp 1, sir. Warp point 7… point 8… Warp 1, sir.

As noted, a ship using the Alcubierre metric doesn't need to accelerate, because it's space that's moving, not the ship. Additionally there'd be no need for an inertial dampening field (as we see in TNG and beyond) that is supposed to protect the crew when accelerating to superluminal speeds. From VOY: "Tattoo" (1995):

KIM: Could we go to warp under these conditions?

PARIS: The ship might make it without inertial dampers, but we'd all just be stains on the back wall.

In the 2009 Star Trek movie, Enterprise was unable to go to warp unless the external inertial dampeners were disengaged.

SULU: Uh, very much so, sir. I'm, uh, not sure what's wrong.

PIKE: Is the parking brake on?

SULU: Uh, no. I'll figure it out, I'm just, uh...

SPOCK: Have you disengaged the external inertial dampener?

(Sulu presses a couple buttons)

SULU: Ready for warp, sir.

PIKE: Let's punch it.

If there's no acceleration or inertia, there's no reason why them being on would impede warp drive operation.

Closing Remarks

Taking all these pieces into account, I hope I've shown convincingly that the way the show treats Star Trek warp drive is consistent with a drive system that involves acceleration and inertial forces, and with warp fields that lower inertial mass - just like Sternbach and Okuda describe in the Technical Manual, and definitely not consistent with way the Alcubierre metric is supposed to work.

For those who want a deep dive into Star Trek warp physics, some canon and some speculative, I heartily recommend Ex Astris Scientia's series of articles on warp propulsion. I also recommend Jason W. Hinson's series on "Relativity and FTL Travel". Hinson was a regular participant in rec.arts.startrek.tech in the 90s and educated us on how Relativity worked and how it applied to Star Trek.