Exactly how far away from Earth was Pioneer 10 when the BoP destroyed it?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What year was the probe destroyed in?

2287

 

[Timo]

...Only if this is also the year in which ST2 through 4 took place, though.

Barring the idea that ST4 spanned several years, that is, these going between Kirk's arrival at Earth and his getting the E-A. Apart from that variable, we know the timespans involved: minimal time during 2 or between 2 and 3, minimal time during 3 and three months on Vulcan between 3 and 4, and then a shakedown cruise between 4 and 5. Stretching that to more than a year takes a lot of doing.

Of course, if we start dealing with variables like that, we might take into account that Pioneer 10 in Trek might have been launched atop an Atlas 4B or whatever, reaching fifty times the initial velocity of its real-world counterpart.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ronald Held]

The Okudachron is any better? I would assume the same launch conditions, but could be convinced otherwise.

 

[drt]

Back in the day there used to be a fanon explanation that sometimes small objects could be swept up in a ship’s warp field and carried to a distant location, which is how Pioneer 10 ended up light years from Earth.

 

[David cgc]

We pretty much saw that on DS9 with the Bajoran sail-ships, though IIRC that had to do with all the wackiness in the Bajor system from the wormhole and all the sci-fi radiation it leaked, and wasn't necessarily something that could happen anywhere. Though there was Voyager 6, and the spaceship from "The Royale," and the Mars mission from that one Voyager episode...

 

[Timo]

Might be it's standard for the early (and thus sublight) spacecraft of every culture to fall victim to abductions, practical jokes and vandalism, until said culture makes contact with the interstellar community. At that point, the vandals and jokesters move away in search of a new victim. Pioneer 10 may have been unlucky enough to be vandalized just before the Vulcans came.

Or then Klaa was doing his bit for the Chancellor and the Country by harassing the coastline of the Sol system, during this supposed time of declared war. He'd have the exact submarine-analogue to do that with impunity, after all.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

I like the theory that Pioneer 10 was swept further out into space by artificial means, since the film seems to imply that the probe was near or inside Klingon space. It also gives me entitlement that I’m smarter than a Star Trek film scriptwriter.

 

[Timo]

There are advantages to thinking Klaa was nowhere near Klingon space, though. After all, he was a first responder, not beaten to Nimbus by anybody but a Federation ship launched from Earth. He deserves a head start over other Klingon hotheads, plus a clear path to Nimbus if his government does not approve.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

The film seems to give every indication that nobody cares about Nimbus III or the ambassadors being held hostage there. At all. So much so that the Romulans don't even bother to send a rescue ship, the Klingons only send a subspace message to any ships about the situation but not any direct orders to go there (and Klaa only goes because he wants to fight Kirk, not because he wants to rescue Koord), and to add insult to injury, Starfleet sends a broken-down ship crewed by a bunch of geriatrics.

 

[Timo]

Indeed. But Klaa is unlikely to be the only Klingon who

1) doesn't give a rat's ass about Nimbus
2) does care a great deal about a chance to blow Kirk to smithereens in neutral space
3) doesn't give a rat's ass about his government's views on 2, and will make haste to Nimbus.

Giving him a head start by placing him randomly closer to Nimbus than most Klingons sounds like a good idea, then. Would placing him at Sol achieve that? Nimbus might be equidistant from all the three players, but then again, perhaps not. One working model would be to put it closer to Romulus than to the other two, for whatever reason (perhaps because Romulans have some neutral space conveniently available next door!), and thus closer to the galactic core than the other two, meaning Sybok has a clear route to his destination later on... At least per those onscreen repetitions of the old Star Charts setup. And anybody starting out at Klingon space would in that setup be at a disadvantage in the race to Nimbus.

Timo Saloniemi