A question about the Botany Bay.

[J.T.B.]

This is a weird thread.

Also - is it really all that controversial to say that Nazi Germany was one step away from global domination? I've seen many historians theorize that if Germany had forced Great Britain/the UK into surrender (presumably the one step Spock was talking about), that it was entirely plausible that the isolationist factions in the United States would have triumphed and stayed away until Germany - now able to concentrate all its firepower on the Eastern Front - was too powerful to resist, leading to the eventual defeat of the U.S. as well. (This scenario also necessarily posits that Japan would not attack and provoke the U.S. at Pearl Harbor - which could also be the one step Spock was mentioning.)

Yeah, I always figured the "one step" was forcing the UK out of the war. Without the ability to use the Britain as a marshaling point and for air bases, the war in Europe would be so vastly more difficult and expensive and lengthy it's questionable whether it could have been pursued by the US. Also you don't have to control the whole world to be dominant. The US was spoken of as a dominant superpower for many decades.

 

[Phaser Two]

Yeah, I always figured the "one step" was forcing the UK out of the war. Without the ability to use the Britain as a marshaling point and for air bases, the war in Europe would be so vastly more difficult and expensive and lengthy it's questionable whether it could have been pursued by the US. Also you don't have to control the whole world to be dominant. The US was spoken of as a dominant superpower for many decades.

Exactly. I was going to add a similar observation but my post was too long as it was. I also recall more than one historian positing that if Britain had been defeated, the Nazis would have defeated Russia to the maximum extent possible, then settled into a Cold War with the U.S. for decades. I'm not sure where Japan fit into those suppositions.

 

[Timo]

Well, the main US interest would have been to prevent dominance, regardless of whether it was the Nazis, the French or the British. Maintaining a split Europe would require supporting some Nazi opponent or another, and Britain would be a fairly obvious choice for reconquest, geographically and politically. (Supporting what remained of Russia would probably be more practicable than trying to re-establish something already totally lost, though.)

But Trek having its own flavor of world history is not an objectionable idea, either. As argued, things could have gone very differently in many respects in the past few centuries, with global players engaged in games of chance. People would still be people and Earth would be Earth, though. Nothing wrong with efficient Nazis, just as there's nothing wrong with an Eugenics War or three in the 1990s. Indeed, it's better to have a bit of variety there, so that predictions made in the 1960s or the 1980s can hold true for the Trek universe even when they don't hold true for our own. Elon Musk never created the Falcon or the Dragon there - that would be like Edison introducing the steam engine - but he apparently did something anyway, a few minor things such as DY-100 spacecraft not rocking the boat all that much.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tenacity]

You are indeed making an argument that Spock is constantly wrong about things

In one specific area, yes.

 

[M'Sharak]

This is a weird thread.

Yes, but it does have the virtue of not being Iteration #1,771,561 of "Why does Gary Mitchell put wrong middle initial on Kirk's tombstone?" or "LOL, look at what I just found!!!! ('Turkish Star Trek')".

 

[Dukhat]

In one specific area, yes.

And that one specific area has not been proven to be faulty.

 

[Tribble Threat]

How can you "retcon" a historical fact?

World War III is fictional. Writers can retcon any fictional detail they want, especially ones that don't affect the story in any way.

You can rationalize these inconsistencies as Spock screwing up. I can see the entertainment value of that, and I also like to think Spock was mixed up about which war Khan Noonien Singh was involved with. But I don't understand the claim that he was wrong about this DC-100 spaceship.

 

[MAGolding]

How about discussing the technical details of the voyage of the SS Botany Bay?

Hunters, target shooters, soldiers, and automatic weapons systems "lead the target". They don't aim at where the target is now, they aim at where the target will be when the projectile arrives there. As different stars orbit around the center of the galaxy, the directions between them change slowly. So if a spaceship is relatively slow compared to the speed of the stars, it has to aim where the destination star will be when the spaceship gets there.

So the SS Botany Bay would have been aimed at where the destination star would be centuries in the future. But after warp drive was invented, the new warp ships didn't have to lead the target as much for their much faster voyages. So they would not aim as far ahead of the present position of the destination star as the SS Botany Bay had to, and so they didn't pass close enough to the SS Botany Bay to detect it.

But as decades and centuries passed, the direction to the destination star slowly inched closer and closer to where the SS Botany Bay had aimed, and ships headed for that destination star passed closer and closer to the SS Botany Bay. And their sensors constantly improved and could scan larger and larger volumes of space. And finally the USS Enterprise traveled toward the destination star with more advanced sensors, and closer to the path of the SS Botany Bay than ever before, and detected the SS Botany Bay..

This implies that the USS Enterprise was traveling from our Solar System, after some rare visit to Earth, toward the destination star of the SS Botany Bay, when it detected the SS Botany Bay.

In "Space Seed" Khan Noonian Singh is described as:

KIRK: Name, Khan, as we know him today. (Spock changes the picture) Name, Khan Noonien Singh.
SPOCK: From 1992 through 1996, absolute ruler of more than a quarter of your world. From Asia through the Middle East.
MCCOY: The last of the tyrants to be overthrown.

So Khan was overthrown sometime in 1996 SS (in the calendar used in "Space Seed"), and left Earth some time in 1996 SS or later.

In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Khan says:

KHAN: Captain! Captain! Save your strength. These people have sworn to live and die at my command two hundred years before you were born. Do you mean he never told you the tale? To amuse your Captain? No? Never told you how the Enterprise picked up the Botany Bay, lost in space in the year nineteen hundred and ninety-six, myself and the ship's company in cryogenic freeze?

So Khan and his "supermen" left Earth in the year 1996 WOK (in the calendar used in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). If they are the same calendar, Khan left Earth in the same year that he was deposed.

SPOCK: A strange, violent period in your history. I find no record what so ever of an SS Botany Bay. Captain, the DY-100 class vessel was designed for interplanetary travel only. With simple nuclear-powered engines, star travel was considered impractical at that time. It was ten thousand to one against their making it to another star system. And why no record of the trip?

SCOTT: Definitely Earth-type mechanism, sir. Twentieth century vessel. Old type atomic power. Bulky, solid. I think they used to call them transistor units. I'd love to tear this baby apart.
MARLA: Captain, it's a sleeper ship.
KIRK: Suspended animation.
MARLA: I've seen old photographs of this. Necessary because of the time involved in space travel until about the year 2018. It took years just to travel from one planet to another.

As a historian, McGivers would remember the exact date, or remember an event as being about a numerically significant date. If much faster space travel began in 2015 she would say it was introduced in 2015 or about 2015. If much faster space ships were introduced in 2020 she would say they were introduced in 2020 or about 2020. So I guess that space travel became much faster sometime in the period of about 2016 to 2019 SS (in the calendar used in "Space Seed")

And before about the year 2018 SS, suspended animation was necessary in space travel because it used to take years just to travel from one planet to another.

So perhaps I should refresh some people's memories about distances in space.

A light second is the distance light travels in one second of time, and is 299,792.458 kilometers or 186,282 miles..

There are 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in an hour (3,600 seconds), and 24 hours in a day (86,400 seconds), and in a average Julian calendar year 365.25 days long there are 31,557,600 seconds.

A light minute is about 17,987,5477 kilometers or 11,180,000 miles. Earth is about 8.3 light minutes from the Sun.

A light hour is about 1,079,000,000 kilometers or 670,600,000 miles. The semi-major axis of Pluto's orbit is about 5.4 light hours.

A light day is about 2,590,000,000 kilometers or 1.609,000,000 miles. The dwarf planet Sedna is currently about 0.52 light days from the Sun.

A light year is 9,461,000,000,000 kilometers or 5,879,000,000,000 miles. Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun is about 4.24 light years from the Sun.

A basic unit in astronomy is the Astronomical Unit or AU, the semi-major axis of the orbit of Earth around the Sun, though it is now defined as precisely 149,597,870.7 kilometers. A light year is 63,241 AU, and a parsec is 206,284.8 AU.

Since Pluto is not officially a planet now, the longest possible d distance of an interplanetary voyage would be between Uranus and Neptune when they were on opposite sides of the Sun, a total distance of about 49.2 AU. And if you count Pluto as a planet, in the 1990s AD it was actually only about as far from the Sun as Neptune, anyway.

Assume that a spaceship accelerated halfway, or about 25 AU, and then began decelerating in the second half of the journey. If a journey of about 50 AU took exactly one year, the average speed during the voyage would be about 50 AU per year, or 0.13 AU per day. The spaceship would have the average speed at two points during the journey, when halfway through accelerating and when halfway through decelerating. Its top speed would be reached just when it switched from accelerating to decelerating,and would be twice the average speed, or about 100 AU per year.

So the spaceship would change its velocity by 100 AU per year while accelerating, and again by 100 AU when decelerating, for a total capacity of velocity change of 200 AU per year. And if the spaceship didn't acquire any fuel or propellant for the return trip at the destination planet, it would have to bring that along. Thus the spaceship would have a total ability to change its velocity of 400 AU per year.

So if Khan's people hijacked a spaceship with a total velocity change capacity of 400 AU per year or 1.09 AU per day, or 0.04 AU per hour, they could use half of that to accelerate to a velocity of 200 AU per year, coast for many years, and then decelerate as they arrived at their destination. So for most of the trip they would be coasting at 200 AU per year. If they were headed for the closest star Proxima Centauri, at a distance of 4.24 light years or 268,142 AU, it would take them about 1,340.71 years plus years of acceleration and deceleration..

If Khan's people brought along a solar sail or magnetic anchor to decelerate at the end of their journey, they could use all 400 AU per year velocity change to accelerate at the beginning of the voyage. At an average speed of 400 AU per year, a voyage to Proxima Centauri would take about 670.35 years.

I note that the map of our solar system in "The Changeling" shows nine planets in our solar system..The hypothetical Planet Nine recently suggested would be about 400 to 800 AU from the Sun. if an interplanetary voyage from Earth to the as yet purely hypothetical Planet Nine took as little as one Earth year, that would involve speeds eight to 16 times as great as in a one year voyage from Uranus to Neptune when they were on opposite sides of the Sun. A ship built for a hypothetical one year voyage to the hypothetical Planet Nine would require velocity change capabilities of 3,200 to 6,400 AU per year.

Depending on whether Khan's people brought along a solar sail or a magnetic anchor to decelerate, they could have made the voyage at an average speed between 1,600 to 6,400 AU per year. Assuming that the 200 years that they spent in suspended animation was actually between 100 and 300 years, they would have traveled 160,000 to 640,000 AU (2.53 to 10.12 light years in 100 years, 320,000 to 1,280,000 AU (5.06 to 20.24 light years) in 200 years, and 480,000 to 1,920,000 Au (7.59 to 30.36 light years) in 300 years.

I see no reason why interplanetary ships that took years to journey between planets would have much more velocity change ability than required to travel to the most distant planet, the hypothetical Planet Nine, in one year's time and return in another year's time. Any greater ability to change their velocity would be inconsistent with the words of Marla McGivers.

Since a light year is 63,241 AU, light travels 63241 AU per year. Thus speeds of 1,600 to 6,400 AU per year would be about 0.0253 to 0.1012 of the speed of light, two and a half to ten percent of the speed of light. At such speeds time dilation would not significantly change the amount of time elapsed on the SS Botany Bay during the voyage, as some people have suggested from time to time..

 

[johnnybear]

I'm so glad that Space Seed was one episode in which they did show us the other ship in the space scenes rather than a pulsating point of light or a translucent dot on the main screen!
JB

 

[Tenacity]

How can you "retcon" a historical fact?

World War III is fictional.

I was ferring to the 1st and 2nd world wars there, real life historical events.

Turkish Star Trek

Still better than season one of Discovery.

 

[M'Sharak]

'Turkish Star Trek'

Still better than season one of Discovery.

From this, I can only surmise that you:

A. - have never, in fact, watched Turist Ömer Uzay Yolunda
B. - have never, in fact, watched Season 1 of Discovery
or
C. - have never, in fact, watched either.

Since we've clearly arrived at the "OP abandons any remaining pretense of having had a valid argument to instead take gratuitous potshots at ST series which hadn't (heretofore) even been under discussion" portion of this thread, I think I'll bow out now.

Toodles!

 

[JonnyQuest037]

However, it is a little fun to think that Spock, who's usually precisely right about everything, was way off the mark. That, and it's fun to think Spock confused two completely different wars when he said "Your so-called last world war".

I fail to see how making Spock, one of the most intelligent and well-informed characters in ST, incompetent and confused about basic facts is "fun", but you do you, I guess.

Because if the intent of the TOS writers was that Spock was constantly saying incorrect things about Earth's fictional history, those writers would make it clear to the audience that Spock was wrong by having another character correct him.

Getting things wrong about Earth history (both intentionally and ironically) was Chekov's character bit, not Spock's.

From "The Trouble with Tribbles":

CHEKOV: The area was first mapped by the famous Russian astronomer, Ivan Borkoff, almost two hundred
KIRK: John Burke.
CHEKOV: Burke, sir? I don't think so. I'm sure it was--
SPOCK: John Burke was the Chief Astronomer at the Royal Academy in old Britain at the time.
CHEKOV: Oh, Royal Academy. Well.
KIRK: Is the rest of your history that faulty, Ensign?

CHEKOV: Oh, quadrotriticale. I've read about this, but I've never seen any before.
KIRK: Does everybody know about this wheat but me?
CHEKOV: Not everyone, Captain. It's a Russian invention.

SCOTT: When are you going to get off that milk diet, lad?
CHEKOV: This is vodka.
SCOTT: Where I come from, that's soda pop. This is a drink for a man.
CHEKOV: Scotch?
SCOTT: Aye.
CHEKOV: It was invented by a little old lady from Leningrad.

From "Friday's Child":

SCOTT: There's an old, old saying on Earth, Mister Sulu. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
CHEKOV: I know this saying. It was invented in Russia. (he smirks to himself)

From "The Apple":

SPOCK: Readings indicate the entire planet is covered with growth like this. Curious, even at the poles there's very little variation in temperature, which maintains a planet-wide average of seventy six degrees.
KIRK: I know. Almost impossible.
CHEKOV: It makes me homesick. Just like Russia.
MCCOY: More like the Garden of Eden, Ensign.
CHEKOV: Of course, Doctor. The Garden of Eden was just outside Moscow. A very nice place. It must have made Adam and Eve very sad to leave.

And from "Who Mourns For Adonais?":

KIRK: Where's Apollo?
CHEKOV: He disappeared again like the cat in that Russian story.
KIRK: Don't you mean the English story, the Cheshire Cat?
CHEKOV: Cheshire? No, sir. Minsk perhaps, but--

 

[Dukhat]

I was ferring to the 1st and 2nd world wars there, real life historical events.

So, what, now you’ve changed your argument to infer that Spock’s estimates for the dead of WWI and WWII were wrong as well? Well, guess what? I can’t even give a valid count of how many people died in those wars without Googling it, and even if I did, so what? Star Trek doesn’t have the same history as in real life, so any numbers he mentions about dead people in wars doesn’t matter.

Really, what’s your beef here? Is there a reason why you feel the need to make Spock out to be some sort of idiot, other than arguing just for the sake of arguing?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Honestly, if a scene says that something is X, and the scene is played as if something is X, it's really okay to interpret the scene as if the thing is X. Not everything has to be interpreted as the exact opposite of what we're shown on screen.

This quote should be pinned to the top of the TrekBBS, especially for serial contrarians to read.

Very kind of you, @Dukhat. Thanks.

I personally got very tired of a few of those serial contrarians (great term) recently, and since putting them on "Ignore" I've had a much more pleasant experience here.

 

[Tim Thomason]

The episode features adult products of eugenics with superstrength and intelligence far surpassing the brightest minds of the Federation, by appearances, born in the 1950s or '60s. A program that successful would have to be decades old, and if they used genetic engineering (as ST2 tells us), then scientific advancement by the 1960s is Gattaca-level. We already know the space race by the 1990s is sending out interstellar generation ships.

So yeah, World War II almost certainly was a different beast with different events and a different ending. And World War I probably little recognizable as well. I trust Spock's casualty figures more than Wikipedia's, as it pertains to the Star Trek Universe.

 

[Tribble Threat]

I fail to see how making Spock, one of the most intelligent and well-informed characters in ST, incompetent and confused about basic facts is "fun", but you do you, I guess.

Oh, no, I don't like to think of Spock as incompetent. I need to clarify. On rare occasions when Spock says something that doesn't match other canon or actual facts, sometimes I like to think "Maybe I witnessed Commander Genius make a rare mistake." Then I smile a bit and move on. I'm unclear on how Tenacity's thoughts about Spock. I guess Tenacity likes to think of Spock as consistently wrong about human history and right about everything else.

 

[publiusr]

I had no problem seeing DY as the “Woden,” so I would say that old Earth ships were kept in service—very like the sailing ships are. Woden had a load of marble, granite, etc. Nothing you need right away,

Woden is a DY-500 conversion (impulse only) where Khan’s ship is dash-100 original.

Kirk saw the outline and assumed it a reconditioned cargo ship— where Spock’s scan saw the original parts/IFF signal.

 

[Warped9]

An sublight impulse driven ship is useless for star travel in an age of FTL travel. An impulse ship requires years to get from one star to another. A slow sublight ship will take decades to centuries to make the trip. A fast sublight ship will still take years.

 

[Tenacity]

An sublight impulse driven ship is useless for star travel in an age of FTL travel

The Woden might have been operating solely within a star system between two planets, or between a asteroid belt and a non-planetary facility.

arguing just for the sake of arguing?

Again Dukhat, someone simply not agreeing with you isn't arguing.

you’ve changed your argument

Part of my discussion points going back to the OP, expanded upon in post #6 after a question from uniderth, post #4.

you feel the need to make Spock out to be some sort of idiot

Not at all,again Dukhat I'm saying that Spock's knowledge in lacking in the specific area of Earth history.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Spock can't know everything. Making him out to be a Cliff Clavin-type just BS-ing his way through most things can mitigate that fact. It would explain his precise probabilities a bit better.