karn (01/26/83)
Last night, I was watching "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield". I was greatly amused by the scene in which the Enterprise recovers the stolen shuttlecraft with Loki aboard. We hear Sulu's voice reverberating around the hanger deck as we see the shuttlecraft entering through doors open to the vacuum of space... Didn't anybody associated with that show take freshman physics? Phil
wookie (01/27/83)
ah yes! But, Phil, you are forgetting that we have our nose right against the window and Sulu's voice is really reverberating around inside the ships Corridors! (Or was it his head? oh well! Keith Bauer Bell Labs Murray Hill White Tiger Racing
karn (01/27/83)
Ah, but in addition to Sulu's voice, we also hear the motors opening and closing the hangar deck doors! Seems to me that somebody once argued their way out of a similar problem in Star Wars by saying that they had perfected an "ears up" (as opposed to "heads up") display which generated sounds inside a ship which appeared to come from the windows beyond which the fighters were attacking. Sounds like a pretty strained explanation to me. Another thing I've always wondered about is communications and transporting - does it have to be line-of-sight? We know from several episodes that there is a distance limitation on both, but I wonder if the Enterprise has to be line-of-sight to someone on the planet surface even if it is in a near orbit. Since the planets always appear to be turning on the viewscreen, we can assume that the orbits are not usually geostationary, although I did hear Sulu remark once that they had achieved one. However, they more often refer to "standard orbit"; what is this supposed to be? Phil
sjb (01/27/83)
Let us not forget those battle scenes. Now, most of the torpedoes and phasers never hit the ships, but the ships are always shaking from the 'turbulences of the explosions' -- the explanation given was that it would be boring to just have the ships sitting still until they were hit (which is what they SHOULD be doing) Actually, I think it's riotous to see bodies flying around the bridge and good ol' JTK just sitting nice and comfy, turning around a bit in his chair!
karn (01/27/83)
On weapons, I could accept this one. A weapon wouldn't have to explode in contact with an object to shake it up, just be near enough so that the expanding gas cloud hits it with sufficient force. Phil
jak (01/27/83)
Transporting may or may not be line-of-sight but it has, on many occasions, been through objects: alien spacecrafts, inside buildings or jail cells, and even underground if I remember correctly. Jim
bam (01/28/83)
You've all been watching far too many reruns. You missed the point entirely, the show(s) are for fun. In any given episode there are innumerable errors and inconsistencies that affect the plot hardly at all and only tend to add to its enjoyment. The intro has always had the Enterprise whoooshing by in a vacuum. Mere details. All the serials that were technically accurate have been filed away in some tape archive somewhere. Anyway, with phasers that have only Two positions (stun and kill) why are some people burned, some killed without external damage and others vaporized?? Bret Marquis U.C. San Diego
sjb (01/31/83)
The technical manaul says that the phasers have the following potentials: overload blast radius de-materialize disrupt heat stun I have also heard such things as: heavy stun kill base cycle I
karn (02/01/83)
Aw, come on, don't take me so seriously! After having seen each one of the 79 episodes more times than I can count, I still watch them, errors and all. Finding "physics gaffes" is to me a form of idle amusement that gives me something new to do with an old episode. Another is timing how long it takes me to recognize an episode from the "teaser" (opening), as I in the past I often came in on episodes after the show had started. Usual tipoffs include seeing an actor who was specific to an episode, or hearing mention of a planet, location or civilization that was also unique to an episode. Phil
wookie (02/01/83)
Ah but the Enterprise didn't always woosh by in a vaccuum. I am not sure if it didn't woosh for more than one episode so if someone knows how many shows the Enterprise didn't woooosh by in the beginning please let us know...... we're all dying for such trivia! Keith Bauer White Tiger Racing Bell Labs Murray Hill
laurir (02/01/83)
During the first season, not only did the Enterprise whoosh in a vacuum during the opening credits, but the sound of its engines could plainly be heard! During the second and third seasons, a simple whoosh was present in the title sequence for *every* show. -- Andrew Klossner (decvax!tektronix!tekmdp!laurir)
jmc (02/02/83)
About the phasers, as far as I know, there were quite a few more settings. For example, in addition to stun and kill, there were also disintegrate, a tight beam welding setting, and a less intense wide angle stun setting. The main ships phasers were usually set to kill, though they were occasionaly used on a stun setting on surface targets. Jeremy Cohen Brown U.
marc (02/03/83)
I always liked the scenes where the phasors were diverging when they leave the Enterprise, but converge when they hit the enemy vessel. Talk about sneak attacks!
jj (02/04/83)
Of course the phasers were diverging when they left the Enterprise and coming back together when they hit the bad guys. After all, the energy density of the phaser beams was soooooo high... Mass-energy equivilence and all that, you know??
eric (02/07/83)
#R:hou5f:-19700:whuxlb:7100003:000:708 whuxlb!eric Feb 6 15:45:00 1983 ***** whuxlb:net.startrek / hou5f!jak / 10:45 am Jan 27, 1983 Transporting may or may not be line-of-sight but it has, on many occasions, been through objects: alien spacecrafts, inside buildings or jail cells, and even underground if I remember correctly. Jim ---------- So what?? Transporting, as described in one of the books i read, as being a separation, then beaming, of the individual atoms. Now, given that most substances have a good deal of space between the atoms, couldn't a VERY high velocity stream make it to its destination?? Transporting takes ALOT of energy. Besides, they go throught the wall of the transporter chamber every time, don't they?? Eric Holtman harpo!whuxlb!eric
dag (02/08/83)
According to the Star Fleet Tech. Manual, the phaser is set via a continually adjustable wheel from off through overload (the number before OL is 9). Daniel Glasser ...!decvax!sultan!dag
wapd (02/08/83)
Two other inconsistencies : When the Enterprise is hit by a shot, everyone lurches in one direction and then recovers as if the Enterprise had been pushed and then came to a stop again. I'm not saying this clearly, but what I mean is that if the Enterprise was hit it should slide (nearly frictionlessly) away from the shot. It seems to slide non-frictionlessly. My favorite is the engines. They go to warp 6 or 8, and all of a sudden the engines are very loud ON THE BRIDGE. If that was so, people elsewhere in the ship should be deafened. Bill Dietrich houxj!wapd
bernie (02/15/83)
On the subject of phaser settings, the following would seem to be consistent :
There are really just two settings, "stun" and "heat"; however, there
are varying *intensities* of each. The "stun" setting can either give someone
a brief jolt but leave them conscious (see one of the earliest episodes,
"Man Trap" for an example of a low-power stun setting) or render them
unconscious altogether when used at higher power. A still higher level of
"stun" can kill without external damage.
The "heat" setting can be used in a narrow beam for welding, or with a
wider beam to heat rocks and things (there are two or three episodes in which
hand phasers are used to heat rocks to provide radiant heat on cold planets).
It can also (on a very high setting) be used to completely and instantaneously
vaporize objects (and, of course, people).
The main ship's phasers are no different; you may recall an episode in
which Kirk had everyone in a radius of one city block knocked out by the
ship's phasers.
Interesting uses of hand phasers include the high-power stun (a.k.a. "kill"
) setting used to kill Anton Karidian but leave him intact for his daughter
to weep over him, and the "disintegrate" setting used to dig graves in two
or three episodes.
not afraid to admit that I watched
Star Trek a *lot*,
--Bernie Roehl
...decvax!utzoo!watmath!watarts!bernie