How much does the Enterprise weigh?

[Warped9]

My suggestion would be to work from scratch and mostly forget about onscreen references and published material. When I was working out my TOS shuttlecraft plans I pretty much ignored the "twenty-four foot shuttlecraft" reference as spoken by Kirk in "The Galileo Seven." It was purely coincidental that my final result ended up with a main hull length (sans nacelles and aft landing strut) of near spot on 24 feet with the craft's overall length at over 26 feet.

Start by mostly jettisoning preconceived notions.

 

[Vance]

The appropriate definition is here, since we're talking about design:

naval architecture (in ship construction: The naval architect)
Deadweight is defined as weight of cargo plus fuel and consumable stores, and lightweight as the weight of the hull, including machinery and equipment. The designer must choose dimensions such that the displacement of the vessel is equal to the sum of the deadweight and the lightweight tonnages. The fineness of the hull must be appropriate to the speed.

The citation you're using for 'deadweight' is for the cargo itself, which is also valid but talks about cargo alone. ( http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked...on/66752/The-naval-architect?anchor=ref539689 ) Keep in mind, these are seperate masses, and 'deadweight' is valid to refer to any of them. But, saying that, if you're referring to the ship itself - DW is just the ship itself.

Everything put together is 'gross weight'.

Ship's mass (DW Deadweight) + Ship's mass (DW machinery) + Sundry mass (DW Sundry) = GW.

The big problem in this citation is that various treaties and agreements have literally changed the meaning of 'deadweight' to whatever's convienient for the time ( http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/563020/standard-tonnage ). A DW reference made in 1920 literally has a different meaning than one in 1915, 1940, or 1960.

So, the question is, what did "Deadweight" mean in 1965. Ironically, this is another year where the definition changed due to union shipping rules (http://www.clt.astate.edu/crbrown/deadweight.htm). So, g'dammit! Here, Deadweight is adopted to have several meanings, but the nautical design, stated above, is the standard we're looking at.

The International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships (http://www.imo.org/Conventions/contents.asp?topic_id=259&doc_id=685) formally defined terms used here such as 'net tonnage', 'gross tonnage', 'displacement tonnage', and so on. Sadly, these don't quite work for our purposes, since we're discussing mass. So we're back to a colloqualism (pre-1969).

The big problem for us, really, is that blue-water ships really use displacement for measuring mass. This doesn't quite work for our needs, naturally. Our equivalent here for 'DW' would be 'DWDT' ('deadweight displacement tonnage')... only we don't really displace anything. Indeed, in 1965, this is how ships were entered in the register (http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy_hr.asp?id=71).

So, let's look at the "190,000MT DW" entry again. First, the 'metric ton' is listed as a mass, and not ship's volume. We're also looking at the deadweight from a design standpoint, not a shipping one. That means we use the 'nautical engineer's' definition. So when all the research is done, we've got the mass of the raw vessel, sans Sundry, crew, etc, at 190,000 Metric Tonnes.

Now, the term 'gross tonnage' is a measure of volume with a pretty specific meaning, even in 1965. (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/246678/gross-tonnage ). So if we were indeed to take Scotty's line literally, then than '1,000,000 gross tonnes of vessel' would mean that the Enterprise has enough cargo space for 100 million cubic feet of cargo. (Note, this is not metric yet, obviously). To do this, the cargo area alone of the ship would have to be a solid cube of 464' on each side. This is substanially larger than any reasonable volumetric estimate of the old girl (Bad science, worse art), so it's pretty safe to toss the line out as 'Scotty being Scotty'.

 

[SpyOne]

Re: Warp nacelles

You are right that we have the problem of not really having any clue what they are made of. The kind of field we are most familiar with is electromagnetic, and the magnets used in something that generates one are fairly heavy, so we tend to assume that anything that works like that will be pretty heavy. But there's no reason it can't be light.
Even if you assume that the warp nacelles are somehow producing thrust (perhaps moving themselves forward by making the field, and the rest of the ship comes along because it is attached to the nacelles), that means that the strength of the nacelle supports will have a lot more to do with the mass of the ship than of the nacelles.
If we expand our sources a bit, the TNG Technical Manual says that the Enterprise-D's nacelles are made of "tritanium and duranium framing members" under a 2.5 meter thick tritanium hull, lined with 3 layers of "directionally strengthened cobalt cortenide". Which might be helpful if those weren't all made-up. (Okay: cobalt is real.)
The warp coils themselves are a bit more help "a core of desified tungsten-cobalt-magnesium ... imbedded within a casting of electrically densified verterium cortenide."
Okay, how about this bit: again, for the Ent-D, the mass of the coils in one nacelle is 6.15x10^5 metric tons, and just the coils in both nacelles are "close to 25% of the total starship mass".
Again, mostly fictional materials, but apparently pretty dense ones.
I get about 280,000 cubic meters for a nacelle on the Ent-D, so that's about 2 tons per cubic meter, not counting the hull.

IF The original Enterprise had nacelles made of the same stuff, and the same density (and there is good reason to doubt that), that would make her nacelles about 120,000 tons by my count (2 nacelles at 27,000 cubic meters each).

Hmm.

The nacelles together are about 10% the volume of the Enterprise-D (and about 25% of her mass). The nacelles together are about 20% of the volume of the TOS Enterprise. Could they really account for half her mass?

 

[Warped9]

^^ It's interesting food for thought, but again I'd dismiss the TNG stuff as well. My approach would be to try speculate on this from a more real world perspective with a dose of decent science fiction thrown in. By that I mean extrapolate from the real world with some somewhat plausible theory to push the envelope. It's a fun mental exercise and it makes the fictional Star Trek science and tech a tad more credible.

That said I do recall seeing some diagrams of what purported warp fields might look like. The idea I got from them was that the ship is surrounded by a field that puts it outside of normal space/time and the warp bubble is somehow squeezed or pushed in the desired direction of travel. Or another way to see it is the more familiar expansion of space/time behind the ship and contraction in front of it. It could be the idea is that the warp field or warp bubble is something nature doesn't like and thus tries to squeeze out of existence--something like you squeezing a partially inflated balloon with your hand resulting in the balloon deforming as the air inside is displaced and it moves away from the pressure of your hand. Perhaps this is a bad analogy, but it's the only one that comes immediately to mind.

Now the stress a starship undergoes while in warpflight might derive from the conflict between maintaining a warp field and nature trying to eliminate it. Manipulating the warp field can result in higher speeds while also consequently increasing the pressure that's trying to collapse it. Eventually you get your Warp 8 or 9, but you can't maintain the field very long because of the elevated pressure and either the ship is destroyed or you slow down to live another day.

Electromagnets as a starting point for warp coils (a term never used in TOS) mightn't be a bad starting point to extrapolate from.

 

[blssdwlf]

naval architecture (in ship construction: The naval architect)
Deadweight is defined as weight of cargo plus fuel and consumable stores, and lightweight as the weight of the hull, including machinery and equipment.

I bolded the lightweight definition.

The designer must choose dimensions such that the displacement of the vessel is equal to the sum of the deadweight and the lightweight tonnages. The fineness of the hull must be appropriate to the speed.

Everything put together is 'gross weight'.

Now, the term 'gross tonnage' is a measure of volume with a pretty specific meaning, even in 1965.

As far as I can tell, in 1966, "gross tons" did not mean "gross register tons".

http://www.imo.org/Conventions/contents.asp?topic_id=259&doc_id=685

"International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships, 1969
Adoption: 23 June 1969
Entry into force: 18 July 1982

...
The Convention meant a transition from the traditionally used terms gross register tons (grt) and net register tons (nrt) to gross tons (GT) and net tons (NT).
"

Your example below, while interesting, assumes that the writer has adapted to a system that had not yet existed in 1966. But, it could be argued that might have been what Scotty meant as well if you're willing to assume that the size of the Enterprise is much larger (and AFAIK, they never really say how long the ship is but there are some schematics put up in other episodes.)

(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/246678/gross-tonnage ). So if we were indeed to take Scotty's line literally, then than '1,000,000 gross tonnes of vessel' would mean that the Enterprise has enough cargo space for 100 million cubic feet of cargo. (Note, this is not metric yet, obviously). To do this, the cargo area alone of the ship would have to be a solid cube of 464' on each side. This is substanially larger than any reasonable volumetric estimate of the old girl (Bad science, worse art), so it's pretty safe to toss the line out as 'Scotty being Scotty'.

I thought this would be an interesting exercise in the use of "Deadweight" and "Deadweight Tonnage":

Captain: O'Riley, we need to finish loading up the cargo as soon as possible. Our troops are waiting on us.

O'Riley: Almost done sir. We've just about maxed out our deadweight tonnage.

Captain: How about that last battle tank that is over there on the space dock?

O'Riley: Hmm, the deadweight on that tank is 5 tons. We can take it and it'll max us out.

Captain: Do it. Let me know when it is secure and we'll depart.​

 

[Warped9]

As others have addressed we need to decide on whether we're looking for how heavy the ship itself is, excluding personnel and cargo and consumables, or how much weight the ship can carry or everything when fully loaded.

 

[Ronald Held]

They should be using inertial mass measured in a flat space.
Why should the nacelles be heavy? they contain hollow coils which the electroplasma energizes to generate the warp field? How much of the ship is "empty"(air filled)?

 

[Vance]

I bolded the lightweight definition.

Right, but my point was that there was more than one definition, so you have to use the context. In a schematic of design, it's the same as 'lightweight'... but it's all a bit colliquial.

As far as I can tell, in 1966, "gross tons" did not mean "gross register tons".

It did.. and didn't, depending on the shipyard, cargo hauling, etc.. IE, whoever you were talking to. Come 1969 they adopted a more formal definition, but since we're sticking to Jefferies work as a source, we got to figure out exactly what he meant.

It does seem to me that his use of 'weight' was 'lightweight dead tonnage'. Unfortunately he's no longer with us to outright ask, but most of the sources from that period (including the US Naval registrar) go this direction. I think, at this point, it's pretty safe to say, with as much certainty as we're really going to get, that the 190,000 MT was DWL.

Your example below, while interesting, assumes that the writer has adapted to a system that had not yet existed in 1966.

That's why I checked the naval registrar. Gross tons was used by the US Navy as GRT as early as the 'dreadnought treaties' prior to WWI. It was, however, a shipping term.

But, it could be argued that might have been what Scotty meant as well if you're willing to assume that the size of the Enterprise is much larger (and AFAIK, they never really say how long the ship is but there are some schematics put up in other episodes.)

Yep, very clearly the 947' figure. The artwork used for the schematics was made in pre-production of the show as well. So, it's pretty clear that the 947'/190,000MT size and mass was established early and kept throughout all the show.

This only begs the question.. how much does she weigh loaded? I did see a rough US Navy formula for determining this from the dimensions of the ship, but that gets tricky for the shape of the Enterprise. Worse, we know that the Enterprise uses far less material than a Naval ship, while using far more energy. That balance is going to heavily screw with your numbers.

 

[Warped9]

190,000 tons might not be a bad figure if we're talking about an empty ship without cargo, consumables and personnel. Loaded, though, she's going to be definately heavier. The crew complement alone is going to be about 75,000 lbs. (37.5 tons) if you consider 430 at an average weight of 175lbs each...or maybe a bit less given a third of the complement are purportedly women and thus weigh less than their male counterparts on average. And so if we're talking fully loaded then we're already at about 228,000 tons (including the personnel) and we haven't yet added cargo and such.

Note, too, that 190,000 metric tons is equal to 209,439.15 U.S. short tons (2000 lbs). From that perspective we're already nearly 20 tons heavier.

Even so I think Scotty's million tons reference is waay off and one hell of an exaggeration.

Although it really has no bearing here I do recall an offhand onscreen reference to the Voyager supposedly being something like 700,000 tons, but I can't recall the exact reference or its context. And I'd be inclined to dismiss it anyway.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Here's a thought that occurs to me: I suspect many people assume that the warp nacelles are (comparatively) heavy components, but is that actually the case? Granted we should be more concerned with mass rather than weight because we're dealing with a structure that operates in a primarily zero to relatively low gravity environment. As such the support pylons are more for holding the nacelles securely to the secondary hull rather than actually supporting their weight as they would in a heavy gravity environment (and something they can actually do as evidenced in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" when the ship finds inside deep within Earth's atmosphere). The pylons need to be designed more for stress and torque rather than simply supporting weight, right? I'm not an engineer by any stretch.

But what if the warp nacelles really aren't that (comparatively) heavy or massive? These are very advanced and exotic devices that don't operate at all on the principle of reaction thrust. They're simply generating a space warp field. Would heavy materials really be required for that considering we're speculating about very advanced science and technology?

Using a rough analogy a phaser pistol is arguably a lot lighter than an automatic handgun largely because of how the device operates. A handgun is dealing with explosive properties and using reaction force to eject a solid object at high speed--the thing has to be really solid to keep from blowing apart after repeated use. A phaser shouldn't be that much more elaborate than a flashlight since your projecting/emitting pure energy.

Hmm... I suppose what I'm really thinking about is the density of materials used?

Higher density doesn't always (or even usually) prove desirable in such considerations. A material with very high density may still have very low tensile and sheering strengths compared to another less dense material.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

They should be using inertial mass measured in a flat space.
Why should the nacelles be heavy? they contain hollow coils which the electroplasma energizes to generate the warp field? How much of the ship is "empty"(air filled)?

That's assuming the TOS nacelles work anything like their TNG counterparts. Chances are good that they do not.

 

[blssdwlf]

As far as I can tell, in 1966, "gross tons" did not mean "gross register tons".

It did.. and didn't, depending on the shipyard, cargo hauling, etc.. IE, whoever you were talking to.

Right - that's true and why I'm not dismissing that as a possibility (newtype_alpha had mentioned this in another post earlier which was intriguing.)

Come 1969 they adopted a more formal definition, but since we're sticking to Jefferies work as a source, we got to figure out exactly what he meant.

This is where my skepticism comes in - we can link Jefferies to the length/width/height/design of the Enterprise for the scaling up but the "190,000 tons" figure seems to predate him. Jefferies could be one of the sources for "190,000 tons" but also Roddenberry as well.

This only begs the question.. how much does she weigh loaded? I did see a rough US Navy formula for determining this from the dimensions of the ship, but that gets tricky for the shape of the Enterprise. Worse, we know that the Enterprise uses far less material than a Naval ship, while using far more energy. That balance is going to heavily screw with your numbers.

I don't know and I think it is anyone's guess, IMHO. If we had access to consultant memos, scripts and edits for that episode it might shed some clues to what the production folks back then thought it should be.

As far as naval ships, since the Nimitz class has been brought up before, here is a neat link regarding the building of one (the George HW Bush CVN-77) which might help anyone trying to use the Nimitz as a starting point:

http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-cvn77-01,0,5744629.htmlstory

There are some photos there that I think illustrate how big that is but also how thin the walls, hull and supports seem to be (look at the neat cross-section photos of each part).

The island:

Section 3 is interesting as well:

"Steel accounts for more than 47,000 tons on a fully loaded, 102,000-ton Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, said Todd Curts, a senior sourcing representative at the yard. Trucks drop off the steel, typically in pieces 10 feet wide and 30 feet long.
When it’s time to turn a sheet into a part of the carrier, a magnet crane picks up the piece and takes it into the steel cutting shop.
About 25,000 full-size steel plates go into building a carrier, said Jim Cash, head of the yard steel fabrication shop.
The shop takes plates, which Cash said range from 3/16 of an inch to 6 inches thick, and cuts them into smaller pieces of various shapes and sizes.
More than 700,000 individual parts make up the main steel structure of the carrier, Cash said. That includes hundreds of thousands of pieces cut from the plates. It also includes hundreds of thousands of shapes such as angles, T-bars and I-beams. “That’s a lot of part numbers,” Cash quipped."

And another interesting quote (for me anyway)
"
As one of five buyers in the shipyard’s steel purchasing division, Curts bought much of the steel for the George H.W. Bush carrier. He is a liaison between yard engineers who create the ship specifications and steel mills.
“They refer to it in 100-weights, tons, metric tons, short tons, pounds,” he said. “You really have to hang on when you’re talking to engineers and metallurgists because they will change units on you in a minute.”"


Anyway, its a fascinating read with great reference photos.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I think the next thing we need to dispense with is "metric tons". That's an FJ addition to the situation.

As for why would Roddenberry bother to include the weight, crew complement, and other sundry details in a format pitch, it was to make it clear that this wasn't going to be Rocky Jones and his five friends tooling around the galaxy in a V-2 rocket. A big ship with a big crew means "this is a serious show!" As well as to convey the impression that this was a fairly thought-out concept, and not Crazy Gene jotting down some notes and saying, "Hey, I've got an idea for a show!"

Now, regarding this notion that there was some bizarre campaign of meaningless revisionism going on with the format pitch, do you really want me to take this to Bjo Trimble (who ran Lincoln Enterprises in the early days) or Dorothy Fontana (GR's secretary in '64 and the first one to see the format pitch) and ask them about this conspiracy theory?

 

[Shaw]

Now, regarding this notion that there was some bizarre campaign of meaningless revisionism going on with the format pitch, do you really want me to take this to Bjo Trimble (who ran Lincoln Enterprises in the early days) or Dorothy Fontana (GR's secretary in '64 and the first one to see the format pitch) and ask them about this conspiracy theory?

You?

Absolutely not. I've seen you ask questions of sources before in attempts to win arguments... you don't care about the truth, you want everyone to see things your way. All that would result in you asking them anything is contaminating/spoiling them as a any possibility of being a source for good data. I don't think you take data collection seriously.

First thing one needs to do is separate people with opinions (specially strong, bias opinions) from the people who might be able to shed light on any area in question. Your questions of people are always loaded and would be the equivalent of asking someone when did they stop beating their wife.

To be fair, I don't think I could ask the questions all that much better. And it has been a dilemma for me in my research.

For example, I have a number of questions about the construction of the original models... and I have Richard Datin's phone number, e-mail and home addresses. And yet I haven't contacted him. Why? Because I know that it would be better to have someone who is trained at giving historical interviews rework any questions I have into questions that will yield the best answers.

So again, should you ask this question? No.

You would most likely include something like this...

"... notion that there was some bizarre campaign of meaningless revisionism... conspiracy theory"​

Which is a deliberate mischaracterization design to illicit a negative response. After all, it is only bizarre as a matter of (your) opinion, it doesn't qualify as a campaign by any reasonable definition of that word, it wasn't meaningless revisionism if it helped people identify with what followed (such as changing the name from Yorktown to Enterprise) and it may not have been done with any ill or nefarious intent as is implied by the use of the term conspiracy theory.

Would either Bjo Trimble or Dorothy Fontana recall if those figures were part of a document submitted 45 years ago? I know I have had a hard time recalling more prominent details of documents I produced from 20 years ago... and neither of these women are the originator of the document.

Would your loaded questions get you the answer you want? Most likely. But what would be the cost?

________________________​

It seems that you guys need to do more of this on your own, so I'll be sharing less of what I've found. After all, my research was intended for only one person... me.

My last hint, TMoST is a poor reference if you care to know what actually happened.

That's a rather poor attitude.

Not really... I started noticing more than a year ago that sharing my works in progress has more negatives than positives. There are people (like CRA) who act as if they are entitled to my work... and pressure me for it.

But I've noticed that I don't need to share these things to get the same enjoyment from them... in fact, they have been more enjoyable since I stopped sharing.

Heck, I tried to help blssdwlf by pointing out that some of Vance's points should be listened to... and that set him off into attack mode.

So, do I need that type of stress? Absolutely not. Can I afford the extra work I put into answering people's questions (at least as things are in my life currently)? No.

I don't have any good reason to share any more. And considering the fact that what I've shared so far is a drain on my bandwidth, I've been considering pulling down the images that get the most traffic. As it currently stands, there is no benefit for me in any of this. Though I'll most likely look at my hosting cost over the next few months before deciding.

Nothing personal... but I think most of you guys are tiresome. Or at least I'm just tired of this stuff.

Either way... that is the root of my poor attitude.

 

[Captain Robert April]

First things first, wasn't it you that groused long and hard about certain persons who claim to have slam-bang evidence of something astounding and refuse to share what they have? Do you really want to become the enemy at this point in the game? As far as any sense of entitlement, consider that I've put my deck plan project on hold, waiting for you to get to the finish line, so yeah, I've got a vested interest in seeing how it all comes out. I suspect I'm not alone in that category. Besides, all I need at this point is the nacelle placement and I'm off and running.

Getting back to the main point of contention, I have yet to hear anything resembling evidence, or even a halfway sensible reason, for why that initial format pitch would've been altered in any way, especially when, at the same time, copies of the third season edition of the Writers Guide were sold with all of the typos intact. It's an artifact from the series earliest days, was marketed as such, and other than Spock's name, doesn't include a thing that made it through the pilot stage. So why would a piddling little detail like the deadweight tonnage of a not-yet-designed ship be altered and the rest retained?

If you have evidence of the document having been altered in this manner, by all means, let's see it. Don't turn into one of the data hoarders you despised so much not too long ago.

 

[Warped9]

Bantering back-and-forth about who did and knew what and when did they do or know it is beside the main issue of this subject. Does someone just what an answer dug up out of dusty history or should there a be an effort to try working out a credible figure for how much the ship weighs?

 

[Captain Robert April]

Yes.

 

[Gagarin]

It seems that you guys need to do more of this on your own, so I'll be sharing less of what I've found. After all, my research was intended for only one person... me.

My last hint, TMoST is a poor reference if you care to know what actually happened.

That's a rather poor attitude.

Not really... I started noticing more than a year ago that sharing my works in progress has more negatives than positives. There are people (like CRA) who act as if they are entitled to my work... and pressure me for it.

But I've noticed that I don't need to share these things to get the same enjoyment from them... in fact, they have been more enjoyable since I stopped sharing.

Heck, I tried to help blssdwlf by pointing out that some of Vance's points should be listened to... and that set him off into attack mode.

So, do I need that type of stress? Absolutely not. Can I afford the extra work I put into answering people's questions (at least as things are in my life currently)? No.

I don't have any good reason to share any more. And considering the fact that what I've shared so far is a drain on my bandwidth, I've been considering pulling down the images that get the most traffic. As it currently stands, there is no benefit for me in any of this. Though I'll most likely look at my hosting cost over the next few months before deciding.

Nothing personal... but I think most of you guys are tiresome. Or at least I'm just tired of this stuff.

Either way... that is the root of my poor attitude.

It just sounds like sour grapes, for whatever reason you have to be sour. What's tiresome is all the hyperbole around here. "Conspiracy" this, "tiresome" this, "entitled" that, "pressured" this, "attack mode", "the extra work", "that kind of stress" and it wasn't long ago I'm sure someone was on about "censorship".

Come on. It's a vBulletin Trek forum.

What you're experiencing isn't that unlike anyone who creates something. Of course it's easier not to share, especially if you have thin skin. It's a hobby. Enjoy it? Do it. Don't enjoy it? Then don't.

I'm sure all the agonizing and hand wringing about what's true or not and what's trusted or not would be aided by putting up what you've uncovered in a non-interactive way. People can take it or leave it. Or you can be cryptic and give things piece meal from what you've learned, whenever you feel like you can come down off the mountain. Make a simple webpage and people can take it for what it's worth.

Or not. I'm sure it's less "productive" for you to be talking about things you've learned and uncovered but not actually sharing them. That doesn't help. See this thread for example.

There's a choice - share, or keep it to yourself in your own little world of imagination, building models no one will see, drawing things no one will see. Most people, I suspect, enjoy creating more when there's sharing.

But whatever you do, drop the "it's a burden" act. I have really enjoyed your work. People who post "can't wait to see more!" aren't hounding you, they're trying to encourage and be supportive. It should PLEASE you that people are digging what you're doing. It should PLEASE you that people respond to it, even disagree perhaps, because you engaged them enough to respond. That's what good art does.

And to be honest, Shaw, I need to call out that "fact" about taking your work down, as having a grounding in a bandwidth issue. There's absolutely no way that this forum and its visitors would have any sort of impact on a modern hosting plan. There's no way you're doing multiple gigabytes of transfer a month or using hardly ANY CPU time transferring static files. If serving JPEGs to a few hundred people a month causes that much of a billable drain, then you seriously have a hosting plan from 2002 and need to reconsider that. But I suspect all you did was make a veiled "I'm going to take my toys and go home" argument while saying "my mom is calling me". It just sounds like sour grapes.

You can't hold it against people from being excited about what you do, you can't hold it against people from not knowing what you know when you share mystic cryptic parts because 'it's better when you don't share and do things just for myself'. Or that they have wrong opinions because you know more. If we're in ignorance it's because we're in ignorance. And there's no way to change that unless there's good resources out there - and then people can discount said resources, but that's up to them.

But honestly, I'm not that much into fandom. I could never dig up what you did. I'm in the wrong generation for that. I like looking at the pretty pictures and doodling my own, but hell, do I want to do the research, no. I'm not as talented as you. I'm definitely not as passionate about it as you are. It wouldn't be worth my time because I can't do with it what you can do with it. Share, or don't share.

 

[Vance]

Thing is, Garagin, Shaw has put up that material. There are a number of threads in this form and the Art forum about Shaw's work and research. He's cited it repeatedly, and it's repeatedly ignored in favor of someone else's 'flavor of Trek' - which, of course, must be religiously adhered to as 'official' even when in ain't.

 

[Warped9]

You can't be responsible for what other people think and do. If you worry about it then all you get out of it is an ulcer. Best just to do the stuff you like and post your own honest opinions, stick by them, and to hell with whatever anyone else thinks or says or does. If someone doesn't agree with you or like what you're doing then who cares? To hell with them. What possible bearing can a different opinion have on what you like doing?

I hold all manner of different views that don't gel with what the majority seems to think around here...and I couldn't care less.

Weighing and considering another viewpoint doesn't mean you have to automatically accept it. It's just another viewpoint that may or may not be of some worth to you.