Pointless Epiphany

[digitaldiscipline]

Star Trek I & IV were both predicated on the discovery/intercept of the Voyager spacecraft a couple of hundred years in the future. The problem, of course, is that even that far in the future, Voyager I won't have traveled very fucking far, relatively (ha!) speaking. Its current velocity is something on the order of 5.7x10^-5c.

At .0057% of the speed of light, it'll take a long fucking time to go one light year (napkin math says ~1.75 million years).


Uh, whoops.


I am occasionally smart at 6:32am. I blame my intention to submit work to this collection for this particular thought bubble/experiment.

Comments

Don't make me whip out my Trek-Fu

[theonebob.livejournal.com]

Voyager was not in ST IV. That was a alien probe that liked whales better than people.

ST:V had the Klingons playing target practice with a US space probe (looked like a Pioneer class) somewhere in their nuetral zone.

ST:I that was a mythical Voyager probe. According to canon, it was lost, probably encountering a worm-hole or some other anomaly, after it left the solar system and was deposited by a machine planet that fixed it up and sent it to look for "the creator."

Re: Don't make me whip out my Trek-Fu

[etcet.livejournal.com]

IV: The whale songs are on the record that was attached to Pioneer & Voyager, yes? I don't recall if they were broadcast via radio. Thus, how else would they have gotten out there (other than television broadcasts, which, iirc, weren't the explanation in the movie)?

V: You're right. Pioneer isn't going a hell of a lot faster than Voyager, so this is also in violation.

I: Ah, the wormhole, crutch of so many handwavium exercises.

Re: Don't make me whip out my Trek-Fu

[theonebob.livejournal.com]

It was never really explained how the probe picked up the whale song. In the novelization they said that the probe was ancient and visited Earth before. It got all pissed because it couldn't hear the whales anymore.

But again, they never really explained this in the movie so a lot can be left open to interpretation about how the probe found out about the whales.

Re: Don't make me whip out my Trek-Fu

[mitejen.livejournal.com]

IAWTC. I remembered something about a wormhole or a black hole or some kind of hole-related plot device but wasn't positive.

Nice Trek moves!

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Not to be overly pedantic, but Star Trek V predicated that Klingons could have used Pioneer 10 as a target. Considering that Voyagers 1 and 2 passed Pioneer 10 about a decade ago, that little probe definitely got a fire in its ass after it left our solar system.

[smaugchow.livejournal.com]

This post is full of nerds.

Plus, they covered all the ground I would have covered had I gotten here first.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

[the-tangent419.livejournal.com]

Ummm...a couple of problems.

ST:1 Voyager (renamed Vger, IIRC) was lost in blackhole/wormhole. If you follow Shatner's book series Voyager was actually pulled into the wake of an earlier borg collective that assimilated through energy as opposed to nano-probes. *getting back from tangent* That would explain the whole being able to travel far thing and it's resounding technological advances when returning.


ST:4 This was not a probe that had anything to do with human design. It was actually a probe from an alien race that had previously visited earth long before man had evolved. It was looking for whales because (I am guessing) they were the most highly evolved and/or most intelligent animal at the time.

ST:5 This is the error you were looking for. A probe was destroyed by a Kilingon Bird of Prey near Klingon space. I have no explanation on how the probe could have gotten that far.

Now...where did I put that pocket protector?

[firefly-pilot.livejournal.com]

The probe in ST: I was Voyager 6, to be specific. They specifically said so in the movie.

I haven't watched that film in over a decade. I am pissed off that that particle of trivia is taking up any of the increasingly precious space in my brain at all.