Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 10:11 pm
herzeleid
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Joined: 08 Sep 2005
Posts: 29
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:04 am Post subject:
GStone wrote:
I would think that with any kind of nonaggression pact/peace treaty situation, some amount of information is exchanged,
even if it isn't the whole truth. There can also be interactions the Federation has with others of the Culture'verse side of
things. So, the general idea that the Federation would know that the Culture is more advanced than them seems okay.
And it's equally likely that the Federation will be led to believe the Culture has parity with them, or is even somewhat inferior.
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Well, in the worse case scenario, there is a chance some people would want to change Culture society instead of just
leaving to start a new one.
I don't see how this worst case scenario is realistic. Even if some of them did want to change it, they would be virtually powerless to do so.
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This is why I mentioned the relatively fast pace of technological development of the Federation. We do know the "modern"
(late 24 century) Federation knows that in a few hundred years they will have reliable time travel tech. If this was
discovered by the higher ups in the Culture, either through interaction with the populace of the Federation or if it was
mentioned off the cuff during the initial exchange of information or it slipped out or whatever, since Starfleet people are very
relaxed and not so secretive about Temporal Investigations existing and interacting with their modern world without trying
to keep it a secret, it could be something that makes them wonder.
So, what? The humans somehow manage to use time travel technology to enslave the Minds without any resistance from pro-Mind humans
or machines?
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There is much that is objective that's doing what's right. It's the subjective part that's a real bitch.
And what will they see subjectively in the Federation that would trigger such radical changes?
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Using Culture technology gives them a better chance of succeeding. Using the tech of their neighbors would stretch out the
investigation because it would be easier for them to detect the less advanced tech, which would send them on fact finding
missions and covert ops into other territories. The tests done on those that would be coming back from meeting the Cuture
could be done on them, too.
How are they going to distinguish espionage by the Culture via local proxies from genuine operations by those other powers?
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1. Motivation: If changelings are found to have replaced certain individuals in key positions, top secret intelligence has been
accessed, effectorizing the negotiations/ambassadoralial team/ship crew. All of this paints the picture of attempting to take
over the Federation and cover their tracks.
This still doesn't explain why they would adopt a single nonstandard armament to defeat capabilities they are ignorant of.
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2. The operation of the phase drive I've proposed alters the resonance phase frequency of matter/energy. This allows
transitions between parallel realities. This also means that you don't have to be totally "integrated" into the reality to interact
with it. This was also seen done by those that were doing experiments on Voyager's crew. The less you are integrated into
a particular universe, the less you are bound by its particular laws and restrictions of time and space.
There will be some interaction necessary, you can't get around that, but keeping it to a minimum will increase things, such as
engine speed, sensor range, etc. Continuum distortions are used for engines, shields and presumably for
sensors/communications, but, as shown in Equinox, they can make distortions that are phased, which they used for their
shields to keep out the spirits of good fortune that were attacking.
It will take "time" from their perspective, but being able to phase with space-time means you can move through time and
that can increase the ranges of Federation technology.
To what degree will these things be increased?
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3. If the Culture used other species from the Trek galaxy, how they discover that it was the Culture can easily be done
through the investigation. There can be psychic scans of witnesses the Culture overlooked, sensors readings from their own
outposts and ships and those of other species. There's a lot of ways to potentially find out. Which ones could be used
would be determined by just how some of the Culture's tech worked, but there is limited info on some of it.
The Federation would be far less likely to discover any overlooked witnesses than Minds would be to leave witnesses overlooked in the
first place. Even if they did find some, they wouldn't automatically know what the Culture is or of their involvement.
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If it was something, like brainwashing with romulan or klingon equipment, if the people involved did it without being
manipulated, there would be evidence in their memories. If those involved are of a species that was resistant to
telepathic/empathic scans, then their memores can still be read the same way doctors on ships remove memories of people
from pre-warp civilizations. And, as shown in later years of the TNG era, telepathy/empathy can be used on areas where
strong emotions have occurred.
Examining the people involved won't do them any good if they believe - without being tampered with - that they received orders to do
what they did from their superiors.
And none of this explains how they'll find all of the Culture's assets spread throughout the Local Group, how they'll get their weapons to
stick with mobile assets under way, how they're going manage to produce and emplace enough of their weapons (which you still haven't
shown to be powerful enough to do any good) to accomplish their goal, how they'll keep up with new construction...
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I agree, not just spies. It would come from the type of information the spies were gathering (either finding what is on their
bugging devices, where they were planeted and/or from telepathic/empathic scans), finding changelings have replaced key
individuals.
How will they determine what is on any bugging devices they find?
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They aren't above genocide. That Admiral was upset with Picard because he prevented them from getting rid of the borg.
The top brass of Starfleet were willing to not do a thing when they knew Section 31 had created a virus to kill the
Founders.
The Borg and Founders also represented very real, very direct, immediate threats to the Federation; in the case of the Culture, they'd have
only speculation based on circumstantial evidence, assuming they can link any of it to the Culture in the first place.
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But, are they gonna "use a miniscule portion of its forces...to utterly obliterate the Federation at once", while still gathering
intelligence and before the actual war fighting starts? This seems the opposite of what you said before, that the Culture will
try to avoid going to war at all, if they can. Infiltrating and subverting have been what seems to be the way they'd go first,
even if they would be stockpiling weapons and ships, while they're gathering intelligence.
I'm not saying it's likely to happen, just that they have the numbers for it.
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GStone
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Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 679
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 2:32 pm Post subject:
Captain Hat wrote:
Holy leap in logic Batman!
You assume too much, for starters. Just becasue you can tell something's from another time or scan something down to the
quantum level when it's inside your ship, stationary or whatever does not mean you can do it across space against a hostile
craft that is moving far faster than it has any right to and using ECM fields that are so strong it can melt steel with them (ref:
Zakalwe's plasma gun).
Then, you are not understanding what being phased means. Take the mirror'verse and the main universe of Trek. Why do they not interact
unless a deliberate process is involved? Because the matter and energy of the 2 universes is phased to each other. Only by adjusting the
phase of the energy from one universe will it only then interact with the other universe.
Take the interphasic organisms that were feeding off the E-D crew and only Data was picking them up at first. Crusher used an interphasic
scanner, showing they were on the crew and they didn't even know they were there.
The extent of interphasic scanning I'm aware of that the Culture uses is used in grid/trapdoor systems, displacers and hyperdrive units.
That's a very limited set of phase frequencies to be scanned out of all the possible ones with some interaction of any universe.
You keep leaving out the temporally phased part. There has been no evidence of being able to skip around time with Culture tech. It won't
matter how fast they can go in their ships when your opponent is able to move back and forth through time because they (the Culture) will
just continue into the future.
Any use of ECM would have a not as strong interaction with something that's partially phased and an increasingly weaker interaction the
more it is phased. The level of interaction would be determined by how much in phase the Fed ship was and them being in the area of
effect the ECM, but Culture ECM is not always on.
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In fact, I would consider such a scenario extremely unlikely, especially given that according to you transphasing works
through rather than across the skein in five-dimensional space, so that the majority of the culture's four-dimensional
hypervoilume is not accessed by it directly unless you can move in that direction anyway, which the Federation has shown
no capability of.
The phasing done by the Culture is one type, an in universe phase. What I am talking about for the drive is that they can use in universe
phasing, but also extrauniverse phasing, where you can switch between parallel realities. I am defining parallel realities, as, to use an
example, the mirror'verse and the main Trek universe. The phasing used by the Culture can be described, as phasing between different
areas of a single universe.
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Add to that the fact that Culture ships actually spend very little time in the skein itself and that the Federation hasn't yet even
shown the ability to scan upwards and downwards in four dimensions, and you have a problem of epic proportions.
Back in Equinox, Voyager showed the ability to adjust their shields to keep out the interphasic openings caused by the spirits of good
fortune that were attacking by having the shield emitter project multi-phasic frequencies. Where the spirits came from exactly, I don't
know, but there is a good chance that they can do something. They were also able to detect that Riker and them were being transported to
another universe back in Schisms. This was a universe connected to their own, so they can scan universes/areas of space that are
related/connected to their own. They are also able to scan areas where subspace starts to enter real space, such as the incident just before
they got the orders to restrict warp travel to warp 5 unless it is an emergency. Subspace, whatever it is, is another part of the universe
connected to real space.
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You need to transphase to exactly the right state and position yourself at exactly the right point in five-dimensional space to
catch a single point in four-dimensional space and you need to do it inside what, a ffraction of a microsecond? Even if you
are phasing across time, you still need to get so lucky that "astronomical" doesn't even begin to desribe the odds against
you.
It shouldn't be as difficult, as you are making it out to be. I don't see why you're objecting to the idea. Each point in space-time is an
energy value. You just keep scanning the energy values of space-time till you get it right. Then, you move in. This requires, presumably,
quantum level scanning.
herzeleid wrote:
I don't see how this worst case scenario is realistic. Even if some of them did want to change it, they would be virtually
powerless to do so.
Which is where an increasingly powerful Federation in a relatively short time is a factor in the scenario. Because of the nonaggression
pact/peace treaty situation, being on even semi-good terms with them and the tendency of the Federation to help those in need, even
enemies, like the romulans during the TNG era and the klingons in the TOS era, could potentially lead to it.
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So, what? The humans somehow manage to use time travel technology to enslave the Minds without any resistance from
pro-Mind humans or machines?
I wouldn't say enslave and there would be resistance, of course, but, in the future, with an increasingly powerful Federation in a relatively
short time, the disparity between their technological deveopments wouldn't be, as large as it is. It's also hard to figure how some people
get, what'll set things off, even when they normally try to avoid fighting, as much as possible.
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And what will they see subjectively in the Federation that would trigger such radical changes?
I'm not saying it has to be something they see in the Federation necesarily. It could be something they see in their own society or some
combination of both. With the subjective view of 'doing what's right', you have to get into individual experiences that are both good and
bad, which happen in both the Culture and the Federation.
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How are they going to distinguish espionage by the Culture via local proxies from genuine operations by those other
powers?
If local proxies are used that have been brainwashed, a change in tactics when looking for certain pieces of info can be a red flag. They
have had years of experience with the proxy powers and their infiltration methods (a particular device, a way a device is used, etc.).
Certain orders can lead to a variation of what is used and how it's used. If there is no brainwashing involved, it can lead back to those that
have been in contact with the Culture, if the actual spy that's caught had no contact. This individual(s) will have this information about
contact with the Culture for this purpose in their memory, which can be read by a telepath/empath and/or read with medical technology.
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This still doesn't explain why they would adopt a single nonstandard armament to defeat capabilities they are ignorant of.
Are they ignorant of it? They don't have to be. Information exchange on history and technology in a nonaggression pact/peace treaty
situation can provide some info.
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To what degree will these things be increased?
The potential is quite high, like crossing crossing the distance between the Milky Way and a galaxy 150 thousands galaxies away and more
in half a second (from the perspective of someone not phasing at all). Many of the advancements are limited to what you can come up
with. As was shown by the krenum, rewriting history, even short term histories, to give you an advantage in a fight, weapons that shift
through time to get around defenses. The krenum may or may not be using the same kind of phasing tech, but the underlying ideas of the
potential are the same.
This kind of technology has both incredible pluses and devastating minuses. The Temporal Cold War from ENT is just one example how it
can be.
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The Federation would be far less likely to discover any overlooked witnesses than Minds would be to leave witnesses
overlooked in the first place. Even if they did find some, they wouldn't automatically know what the Culture is or of their
involvement.
Nope, not necessarily immediately know, but, like I said above, it can lead to them discovering it.
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Examining the people involved won't do them any good if they believe - without being tampered with - that they received
orders to do what they did from their superiors.
See above where I talk about people being brainwashed versus people not being brainwashed.
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And none of this explains how they'll find all of the Culture's assets spread throughout the Local Group, how they'll get their
weapons to stick with mobile assets under way, how they're going manage to produce and emplace enough of their
weapons (which you still haven't shown to be powerful enough to do any good) to accomplish their goal, how they'll keep
up with new construction...
1. See above where I talk about equipment ranges increasing. With faster FTL equipment, they can search a larger area in a shorter time
than normal.
2. Being not restricted to time and space, as they were, torps can be moved around quickly and "dropped off" are certain points in sace
and time to interact with them at the time and place of the phased ship's choosing.
3. Again, when you can travel through time and space and to parallel universes, while your opponent isn't gonna be doing that, you can
make all the equipment you need (replicators are fast, industrial replicators can make a lot), they will continue forward in time, while you
are going back in time.
You have the advantage and control of when and where engagements take place. But, that doesn't mean anything, if you don't have the
armament to cause their destruction and the knowledge of where and when to put the armaments, which they get from scanning through
space and through time and the gravimetric warheads in torps that can phase.
But, let's say there is an initial miscalculation of how many torps would be needed for total success. They find this out by scanning through
space and through time to see, if the plan was successful, while they stay phased. Seeing it didn't go, as planned, the ship stays phased, so
the Culture can't touch them and adjust their plan. If they found that it wasn't the level of destruction they wanted, they can do it again and
keep doing it till they get it right.
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How will they determine what is on any bugging devices they find?
They've had past interactions with bugging devices before. If we are talking about using spies from the proxy powers, such as romulan,
klingon, etc. it isn't gonna be that hard, if they are using their indigenous technology that the Federation is already familiar with. The Culture
would have a better chance, if they gave them Culture tech, but we've long since dropped that idea.
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The Borg and Founders also represented very real, very direct, immediate threats to the Federation; in the case of the
Culture, they'd have only speculation based on circumstantial evidence, assuming they can link any of it to the Culture in the
first place.
See everything I've said in this post, the one right before it and the one where I gave the latest scenario. It's all in there for this point.
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I'm not saying it's likely to happen, just that they have the numbers for it.
Ah.
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GStone
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Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 679
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 3:41 pm Post subject:
dakarne wrote:
Excuse me...
But do you have any evidence that phased ships in Trek are "Temporally" phased, or just "Materially" Phased?
Simply put: You didn't provide any evidence of that.
Everything naturally has a specific resonance phase frequency for all the energy that makes it up, wheher it is matter or energy. When we
say something is phased, we are talking about the resonance phase frequencies are different from something else, where we need a second
point of reference for the comparisson. In this case, the mirror'verse is phased to the main Trek universe and the main Trek universe is
phased to the mirror'verse.
They are already phased both temporally and materially at a specific point in time and space, as long as they don't have the nature of their
resonance phase frequency changing on its own, either randomly or not. The phasing I'm talking about here is a deliberate alteration of the
resonance phase frequencies for both time and space.
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And also: it takes time for a ship to be able to perform a "Timewarp" (as seen in ST:IV)
The phasing I'm proposing in this scenario doesn't use the same method, as what is used in that particular example.
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GStone
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Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 679
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 6:36 pm Post subject:
Captain Hat wrote:
Two things: One, you still haven't provided any evidence, you're basically just making shit up with that temporal thing.
Then, it should be very easy for you to go through my posts and explain why I haven't provided evidence. Making generalized statements,
like that does nothing.
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Two, Trek "phasing" is blatantly a movement across a completely different set of four-dimensional parameters to Culture
Hyperspace.
It's "blatantly" not the same because each side is not supposed to use the other side's stuff, like Fed ships using Wars' hyperdrives. Plus,
I've never said they would use the Culture's hyperspace.
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Look at it this way. The standard Culture model of "2D-world moving into 3D" can be applied to their 4D space, where
hyper- and infraspace are above and below the "sheet of paper" that represents the skein of reality.
Right? So that' simple enough. There are universes above and below the Energy Grids that are in turn above and below the
skein in hyperdirections as far as the Culture understands them.
However, in Trek alternate realities work in a completely different way. You just sort of "phase" there through some
treknobabble crap involving frequencies, which seems to be pretty much standard for treknobabble crap.
Trek parallel realities work off of variances of resonance phase frequencies. The Culture'verse has a series of older/younger universes,
which would all correspond to 1, or at least 1 small grouping of resonance phase frequencies. This view helps us to understand the
relationship of what is going on with what we, especially me, are talking about.
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Now, there are two ways we can reconcile this. One os to say that they're just different, hold our fingers in our ears and
pretend we know what we're talking about. The other is to apply common sense.
For example, what if you introduced another physical dimension, a fifth dimension. Reality as we know it could then be
represented as a single line on a sheet of paper. Above and below that line you have Hyper- and Infraspace, followed by
other universes, to either side you have alternate versions of the same universe as in Trek and the length of the line itself
represents time. Altering your "phase" would in this case move you sideways along the plane, but not upwards or
downwards away from the skein, which is perfectly consistent with everything we've seen Trek phasing do: It would also
move you diagonally to conventional time, in theory at least, which might have some effect on your "temporal phase"
assuming time is only an area and not, as I personally suspect, a volume in this model. I'll get back to that later, though. The
problem with this from your end is, of course, that you still can't go back in time simply by "phasing" and the Trek side still
can't "phase" into Hyper or Infraspace because phasing doesn't work like that. You still have to interact with the exact spot
on that area of time that the Culture ship is passing through.
There are two "directions" you can go in phase. Going up and down in the intensity phase frequency and the second is altering the
resonance phase frequency. Going up and down moves you through different areas of the same universe. Changing the resonance phase
frequency will take you out of the group you were going up and down through and into another set you can go up and down through. The
nature of what it means to phase means there are varying degrees of "being out of phase/being in phase" with something else.
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That's just the start of this post, though, that whole thing was a big preamble leeading up to the hammer blow.
Because if anything in Star Trek can phase itself across the plane, or travel in time, or dance a bizarre and arcane jig that
destroys spaceships by simple act of happening, the Culture will know about it in such intimate detail that they could build
one for you from raw Grid energy in less time than it takes a Trek captain to give the order to use it.
Provide the relevent passage(s) that show that the Culture already has knowledge of this kind of phasing, transphic torps and gravimetric
warheads that are the same, as the Federation's prior to meeting/interacting with the Federation at all. In a versus debate, each side is not
allowed to use the tech of the other side. Using their tech differently to counter the other side might be used, but not the actual device.
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The reason for this is simple, and has been touched on already in the thread: Effectors.
A Culture ship has to come within maybe a lightyear of a planet to be able to effectorise and thus read every possible scrap
of data from all of the computers on it. It only has to find one ship that has the relevant data and BANG, you have Culture
ships with time travel devices.
So either way, even if you COULD do this, by the time you get around to thinking of it the Culture will have already
perfected a set of countermeasures bigger than you can shake a Sovereign at and/or done it to you.
This goes against the rules of a versus debate, see above.
Okay, Hat. I'm giving you an ultimatum. Either provide reasonable questions/counterarguments in your next post or I am going to ignore
your posts until/unless you do. The point of the debate is to see which said could beat the other using their own tech. This means that no
Culture ship is gonna go around, searching for a phase drive to put on their ships.
Coming into Federation space, effectorizing a whole planet to search for intelligence would be an act of war. This is the opposite of the
Culture avoiding war at all costs, if it can. So, either stop your fanism or I am ignoring you on this topic.
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GStone
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Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 6:41 pm Post subject:
Doesn't matter. Otherwise, it wouldn't be Culture v Trek. It'd be Trek v Trek. Makes the debate pointless.
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GStone
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Posts: 679
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:03 pm Post subject:
It still does not matter.
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GStone
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Posts: 679
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:52 pm Post subject:
Since you are unable to conduct yourself properly in a debate, I will ignore your posts on this topic unless you start to do so. This will be
my final response to you on this.
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Dakarne is absolutely right.
See, the thing is that Trek doesn't have the CAPABILITY to copy any Culture tech, whereas the Culture certainly DOES
have the capability to replicate anything it finds in Trek.
Copying is irrelevent. The Federation can scan a piece of Culture equipment, replicate it from the pattern and use it. Some of it just needs a
button pushed to work. But, that doesn't mean the Federation is allowed to do it. It makes no difference, if the Culture can do it quickly.
This rule is not open for any negotiations what so ever. It is total fanism.
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The difference here is mostly due to effectors.
In addition, it is SOP for the Culture to scan everything, even from their allies. In fact, in Use of Weapons, the Culture does
a bit of "creative accounting", plays with all kinds of personal info and all sorts, in an interstellar nation it is ostensibly allied
with. In fact, the Culture effectorise everything as SOP on first contact, let alone negotiation.
This is seen in The State Of The Art, where a Culture ship visits 1990s Earth and basically scoops every single mite of data
from its entire surface prior to a judgement from the crew of the ship (all Special Circumstances operatives) on whether to
a) make first contact
b) not make first contact, leave the society until it matures a bit or
c) Blow up the planet.
So all I'm using in my argument is the Culture's standard operating procedure.
Dakarne has set up a versus debate that uses the standard rules. Any tactics/operating procedures that a side is capabale of, when in direct
violation of the rules of a scenario (determined by the proposer at the beginning of the thread) are ruled, as 'not gonna happen'. Bitch to
Dakarne, he set it up this way unintentionally. If you want to start another thread with varied rules, that's up to you. I'm sticking with this
one.
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Besides which, Culture ships very rarely enter the skein of real space at all: If you already concede that the trek forces have
neither knowledge of nor ability to access or scan in the Culture's four spatial dimensions, then you concede the debate by
default, because the most a Trek ship is ever going to see of the ROU that destroys it are flashes a couple of Planck
moments in length every now and then as it traverses reality.
In addition, your assertion that the hyperdimensions can be explained in terms of phase frequency are absolutely wrong,
sionce phassed objects still occupy the same space in the skein, but in a different way. A Culture ship moving in four
dimesnions isn't even on the skein any more.
This shows you have not read all my posts and have an incomplete understanding of my stance.
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GStone
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Joined: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 679
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 9:45 pm Post subject:
dakarne wrote:
Actually...
My Opening Post wrote:
You see the title... only one rule: No Godlike Beings Allowed... that is the one and only rule
Everything that they can do, no godlike beings allowed is the ONLY debating rule.
So essentially Mr. GStone... the Reverse Engineering IS allowed.
Yes, you made one specific rule = no god-like beings allowed. You've had ample time to bring this up, yet you're doing it now?
Considering that you've said that the only info that you have had about the Culture is not from reading the stories, but from other sources,
it's doubtful you actually had this in mind. Otherwise, you could have brought up the reverse engineering thing much earlier before we
decided to agree to disagree.
Besides, you've even told me that all you wanted to do with this thread is see, if you could find anyone that would wank Fed tech, so it is
even more likely that you had no serious intention about reverse engineering being allowed. It's much more likely you felt any opposition
would have been shouted down by now and this thread would be dead and not have reached almost 12 full pages.
To mess with the rules and take a new stance on what you want for the opening post to mean after saying all this is very unsportsman like.
We may have agreed to disagree, but taking a new stance for an interpretation and intention of your opening post to try to wipe out my
argument in one giant swing without actually providing a decent counterargument to the scenario I've provided in the structure that we have
been in agreement on until Hat's desire to use a copying schtick is an underhanded tactic.
Have a serious intention about the next thread you make.
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Joined: 08 Sep 2005
Posts: 29
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:04 am Post subject:
GStone wrote:
I would think that with any kind of nonaggression pact/peace treaty situation, some amount of information is exchanged,
even if it isn't the whole truth. There can also be interactions the Federation has with others of the Culture'verse side of
things. So, the general idea that the Federation would know that the Culture is more advanced than them seems okay.
And it's equally likely that the Federation will be led to believe the Culture has parity with them, or is even somewhat inferior.
Quote:
Well, in the worse case scenario, there is a chance some people would want to change Culture society instead of just
leaving to start a new one.
I don't see how this worst case scenario is realistic. Even if some of them did want to change it, they would be virtually powerless to do so.
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This is why I mentioned the relatively fast pace of technological development of the Federation. We do know the "modern"
(late 24 century) Federation knows that in a few hundred years they will have reliable time travel tech. If this was
discovered by the higher ups in the Culture, either through interaction with the populace of the Federation or if it was
mentioned off the cuff during the initial exchange of information or it slipped out or whatever, since Starfleet people are very
relaxed and not so secretive about Temporal Investigations existing and interacting with their modern world without trying
to keep it a secret, it could be something that makes them wonder.
So, what? The humans somehow manage to use time travel technology to enslave the Minds without any resistance from pro-Mind humans
or machines?
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There is much that is objective that's doing what's right. It's the subjective part that's a real bitch.
And what will they see subjectively in the Federation that would trigger such radical changes?
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Using Culture technology gives them a better chance of succeeding. Using the tech of their neighbors would stretch out the
investigation because it would be easier for them to detect the less advanced tech, which would send them on fact finding
missions and covert ops into other territories. The tests done on those that would be coming back from meeting the Cuture
could be done on them, too.
How are they going to distinguish espionage by the Culture via local proxies from genuine operations by those other powers?
Quote:
1. Motivation: If changelings are found to have replaced certain individuals in key positions, top secret intelligence has been
accessed, effectorizing the negotiations/ambassadoralial team/ship crew. All of this paints the picture of attempting to take
over the Federation and cover their tracks.
This still doesn't explain why they would adopt a single nonstandard armament to defeat capabilities they are ignorant of.
Quote:
2. The operation of the phase drive I've proposed alters the resonance phase frequency of matter/energy. This allows
transitions between parallel realities. This also means that you don't have to be totally "integrated" into the reality to interact
with it. This was also seen done by those that were doing experiments on Voyager's crew. The less you are integrated into
a particular universe, the less you are bound by its particular laws and restrictions of time and space.
There will be some interaction necessary, you can't get around that, but keeping it to a minimum will increase things, such as
engine speed, sensor range, etc. Continuum distortions are used for engines, shields and presumably for
sensors/communications, but, as shown in Equinox, they can make distortions that are phased, which they used for their
shields to keep out the spirits of good fortune that were attacking.
It will take "time" from their perspective, but being able to phase with space-time means you can move through time and
that can increase the ranges of Federation technology.
To what degree will these things be increased?
Quote:
3. If the Culture used other species from the Trek galaxy, how they discover that it was the Culture can easily be done
through the investigation. There can be psychic scans of witnesses the Culture overlooked, sensors readings from their own
outposts and ships and those of other species. There's a lot of ways to potentially find out. Which ones could be used
would be determined by just how some of the Culture's tech worked, but there is limited info on some of it.
The Federation would be far less likely to discover any overlooked witnesses than Minds would be to leave witnesses overlooked in the
first place. Even if they did find some, they wouldn't automatically know what the Culture is or of their involvement.
Quote:
If it was something, like brainwashing with romulan or klingon equipment, if the people involved did it without being
manipulated, there would be evidence in their memories. If those involved are of a species that was resistant to
telepathic/empathic scans, then their memores can still be read the same way doctors on ships remove memories of people
from pre-warp civilizations. And, as shown in later years of the TNG era, telepathy/empathy can be used on areas where
strong emotions have occurred.
Examining the people involved won't do them any good if they believe - without being tampered with - that they received orders to do
what they did from their superiors.
And none of this explains how they'll find all of the Culture's assets spread throughout the Local Group, how they'll get their weapons to
stick with mobile assets under way, how they're going manage to produce and emplace enough of their weapons (which you still haven't
shown to be powerful enough to do any good) to accomplish their goal, how they'll keep up with new construction...
Quote:
I agree, not just spies. It would come from the type of information the spies were gathering (either finding what is on their
bugging devices, where they were planeted and/or from telepathic/empathic scans), finding changelings have replaced key
individuals.
How will they determine what is on any bugging devices they find?
Quote:
They aren't above genocide. That Admiral was upset with Picard because he prevented them from getting rid of the borg.
The top brass of Starfleet were willing to not do a thing when they knew Section 31 had created a virus to kill the
Founders.
The Borg and Founders also represented very real, very direct, immediate threats to the Federation; in the case of the Culture, they'd have
only speculation based on circumstantial evidence, assuming they can link any of it to the Culture in the first place.
Quote:
But, are they gonna "use a miniscule portion of its forces...to utterly obliterate the Federation at once", while still gathering
intelligence and before the actual war fighting starts? This seems the opposite of what you said before, that the Culture will
try to avoid going to war at all, if they can. Infiltrating and subverting have been what seems to be the way they'd go first,
even if they would be stockpiling weapons and ships, while they're gathering intelligence.
I'm not saying it's likely to happen, just that they have the numbers for it.
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GStone
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Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 2:32 pm Post subject:
Captain Hat wrote:
Holy leap in logic Batman!
You assume too much, for starters. Just becasue you can tell something's from another time or scan something down to the
quantum level when it's inside your ship, stationary or whatever does not mean you can do it across space against a hostile
craft that is moving far faster than it has any right to and using ECM fields that are so strong it can melt steel with them (ref:
Zakalwe's plasma gun).
Then, you are not understanding what being phased means. Take the mirror'verse and the main universe of Trek. Why do they not interact
unless a deliberate process is involved? Because the matter and energy of the 2 universes is phased to each other. Only by adjusting the
phase of the energy from one universe will it only then interact with the other universe.
Take the interphasic organisms that were feeding off the E-D crew and only Data was picking them up at first. Crusher used an interphasic
scanner, showing they were on the crew and they didn't even know they were there.
The extent of interphasic scanning I'm aware of that the Culture uses is used in grid/trapdoor systems, displacers and hyperdrive units.
That's a very limited set of phase frequencies to be scanned out of all the possible ones with some interaction of any universe.
You keep leaving out the temporally phased part. There has been no evidence of being able to skip around time with Culture tech. It won't
matter how fast they can go in their ships when your opponent is able to move back and forth through time because they (the Culture) will
just continue into the future.
Any use of ECM would have a not as strong interaction with something that's partially phased and an increasingly weaker interaction the
more it is phased. The level of interaction would be determined by how much in phase the Fed ship was and them being in the area of
effect the ECM, but Culture ECM is not always on.
Quote:
In fact, I would consider such a scenario extremely unlikely, especially given that according to you transphasing works
through rather than across the skein in five-dimensional space, so that the majority of the culture's four-dimensional
hypervoilume is not accessed by it directly unless you can move in that direction anyway, which the Federation has shown
no capability of.
The phasing done by the Culture is one type, an in universe phase. What I am talking about for the drive is that they can use in universe
phasing, but also extrauniverse phasing, where you can switch between parallel realities. I am defining parallel realities, as, to use an
example, the mirror'verse and the main Trek universe. The phasing used by the Culture can be described, as phasing between different
areas of a single universe.
Quote:
Add to that the fact that Culture ships actually spend very little time in the skein itself and that the Federation hasn't yet even
shown the ability to scan upwards and downwards in four dimensions, and you have a problem of epic proportions.
Back in Equinox, Voyager showed the ability to adjust their shields to keep out the interphasic openings caused by the spirits of good
fortune that were attacking by having the shield emitter project multi-phasic frequencies. Where the spirits came from exactly, I don't
know, but there is a good chance that they can do something. They were also able to detect that Riker and them were being transported to
another universe back in Schisms. This was a universe connected to their own, so they can scan universes/areas of space that are
related/connected to their own. They are also able to scan areas where subspace starts to enter real space, such as the incident just before
they got the orders to restrict warp travel to warp 5 unless it is an emergency. Subspace, whatever it is, is another part of the universe
connected to real space.
Quote:
You need to transphase to exactly the right state and position yourself at exactly the right point in five-dimensional space to
catch a single point in four-dimensional space and you need to do it inside what, a ffraction of a microsecond? Even if you
are phasing across time, you still need to get so lucky that "astronomical" doesn't even begin to desribe the odds against
you.
It shouldn't be as difficult, as you are making it out to be. I don't see why you're objecting to the idea. Each point in space-time is an
energy value. You just keep scanning the energy values of space-time till you get it right. Then, you move in. This requires, presumably,
quantum level scanning.
herzeleid wrote:
I don't see how this worst case scenario is realistic. Even if some of them did want to change it, they would be virtually
powerless to do so.
Which is where an increasingly powerful Federation in a relatively short time is a factor in the scenario. Because of the nonaggression
pact/peace treaty situation, being on even semi-good terms with them and the tendency of the Federation to help those in need, even
enemies, like the romulans during the TNG era and the klingons in the TOS era, could potentially lead to it.
Quote:
So, what? The humans somehow manage to use time travel technology to enslave the Minds without any resistance from
pro-Mind humans or machines?
I wouldn't say enslave and there would be resistance, of course, but, in the future, with an increasingly powerful Federation in a relatively
short time, the disparity between their technological deveopments wouldn't be, as large as it is. It's also hard to figure how some people
get, what'll set things off, even when they normally try to avoid fighting, as much as possible.
Quote:
And what will they see subjectively in the Federation that would trigger such radical changes?
I'm not saying it has to be something they see in the Federation necesarily. It could be something they see in their own society or some
combination of both. With the subjective view of 'doing what's right', you have to get into individual experiences that are both good and
bad, which happen in both the Culture and the Federation.
Quote:
How are they going to distinguish espionage by the Culture via local proxies from genuine operations by those other
powers?
If local proxies are used that have been brainwashed, a change in tactics when looking for certain pieces of info can be a red flag. They
have had years of experience with the proxy powers and their infiltration methods (a particular device, a way a device is used, etc.).
Certain orders can lead to a variation of what is used and how it's used. If there is no brainwashing involved, it can lead back to those that
have been in contact with the Culture, if the actual spy that's caught had no contact. This individual(s) will have this information about
contact with the Culture for this purpose in their memory, which can be read by a telepath/empath and/or read with medical technology.
Quote:
This still doesn't explain why they would adopt a single nonstandard armament to defeat capabilities they are ignorant of.
Are they ignorant of it? They don't have to be. Information exchange on history and technology in a nonaggression pact/peace treaty
situation can provide some info.
Quote:
To what degree will these things be increased?
The potential is quite high, like crossing crossing the distance between the Milky Way and a galaxy 150 thousands galaxies away and more
in half a second (from the perspective of someone not phasing at all). Many of the advancements are limited to what you can come up
with. As was shown by the krenum, rewriting history, even short term histories, to give you an advantage in a fight, weapons that shift
through time to get around defenses. The krenum may or may not be using the same kind of phasing tech, but the underlying ideas of the
potential are the same.
This kind of technology has both incredible pluses and devastating minuses. The Temporal Cold War from ENT is just one example how it
can be.
Quote:
The Federation would be far less likely to discover any overlooked witnesses than Minds would be to leave witnesses
overlooked in the first place. Even if they did find some, they wouldn't automatically know what the Culture is or of their
involvement.
Nope, not necessarily immediately know, but, like I said above, it can lead to them discovering it.
Quote:
Examining the people involved won't do them any good if they believe - without being tampered with - that they received
orders to do what they did from their superiors.
See above where I talk about people being brainwashed versus people not being brainwashed.
Quote:
And none of this explains how they'll find all of the Culture's assets spread throughout the Local Group, how they'll get their
weapons to stick with mobile assets under way, how they're going manage to produce and emplace enough of their
weapons (which you still haven't shown to be powerful enough to do any good) to accomplish their goal, how they'll keep
up with new construction...
1. See above where I talk about equipment ranges increasing. With faster FTL equipment, they can search a larger area in a shorter time
than normal.
2. Being not restricted to time and space, as they were, torps can be moved around quickly and "dropped off" are certain points in sace
and time to interact with them at the time and place of the phased ship's choosing.
3. Again, when you can travel through time and space and to parallel universes, while your opponent isn't gonna be doing that, you can
make all the equipment you need (replicators are fast, industrial replicators can make a lot), they will continue forward in time, while you
are going back in time.
You have the advantage and control of when and where engagements take place. But, that doesn't mean anything, if you don't have the
armament to cause their destruction and the knowledge of where and when to put the armaments, which they get from scanning through
space and through time and the gravimetric warheads in torps that can phase.
But, let's say there is an initial miscalculation of how many torps would be needed for total success. They find this out by scanning through
space and through time to see, if the plan was successful, while they stay phased. Seeing it didn't go, as planned, the ship stays phased, so
the Culture can't touch them and adjust their plan. If they found that it wasn't the level of destruction they wanted, they can do it again and
keep doing it till they get it right.
Quote:
How will they determine what is on any bugging devices they find?
They've had past interactions with bugging devices before. If we are talking about using spies from the proxy powers, such as romulan,
klingon, etc. it isn't gonna be that hard, if they are using their indigenous technology that the Federation is already familiar with. The Culture
would have a better chance, if they gave them Culture tech, but we've long since dropped that idea.
Quote:
The Borg and Founders also represented very real, very direct, immediate threats to the Federation; in the case of the
Culture, they'd have only speculation based on circumstantial evidence, assuming they can link any of it to the Culture in the
first place.
See everything I've said in this post, the one right before it and the one where I gave the latest scenario. It's all in there for this point.
Quote:
I'm not saying it's likely to happen, just that they have the numbers for it.
Ah.
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GStone
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Posts: 679
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 3:41 pm Post subject:
dakarne wrote:
Excuse me...
But do you have any evidence that phased ships in Trek are "Temporally" phased, or just "Materially" Phased?
Simply put: You didn't provide any evidence of that.
Everything naturally has a specific resonance phase frequency for all the energy that makes it up, wheher it is matter or energy. When we
say something is phased, we are talking about the resonance phase frequencies are different from something else, where we need a second
point of reference for the comparisson. In this case, the mirror'verse is phased to the main Trek universe and the main Trek universe is
phased to the mirror'verse.
They are already phased both temporally and materially at a specific point in time and space, as long as they don't have the nature of their
resonance phase frequency changing on its own, either randomly or not. The phasing I'm talking about here is a deliberate alteration of the
resonance phase frequencies for both time and space.
Quote:
And also: it takes time for a ship to be able to perform a "Timewarp" (as seen in ST:IV)
The phasing I'm proposing in this scenario doesn't use the same method, as what is used in that particular example.
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GStone
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Posts: 679
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 6:36 pm Post subject:
Captain Hat wrote:
Two things: One, you still haven't provided any evidence, you're basically just making shit up with that temporal thing.
Then, it should be very easy for you to go through my posts and explain why I haven't provided evidence. Making generalized statements,
like that does nothing.
Quote:
Two, Trek "phasing" is blatantly a movement across a completely different set of four-dimensional parameters to Culture
Hyperspace.
It's "blatantly" not the same because each side is not supposed to use the other side's stuff, like Fed ships using Wars' hyperdrives. Plus,
I've never said they would use the Culture's hyperspace.
Quote:
Look at it this way. The standard Culture model of "2D-world moving into 3D" can be applied to their 4D space, where
hyper- and infraspace are above and below the "sheet of paper" that represents the skein of reality.
Right? So that' simple enough. There are universes above and below the Energy Grids that are in turn above and below the
skein in hyperdirections as far as the Culture understands them.
However, in Trek alternate realities work in a completely different way. You just sort of "phase" there through some
treknobabble crap involving frequencies, which seems to be pretty much standard for treknobabble crap.
Trek parallel realities work off of variances of resonance phase frequencies. The Culture'verse has a series of older/younger universes,
which would all correspond to 1, or at least 1 small grouping of resonance phase frequencies. This view helps us to understand the
relationship of what is going on with what we, especially me, are talking about.
Quote:
Now, there are two ways we can reconcile this. One os to say that they're just different, hold our fingers in our ears and
pretend we know what we're talking about. The other is to apply common sense.
For example, what if you introduced another physical dimension, a fifth dimension. Reality as we know it could then be
represented as a single line on a sheet of paper. Above and below that line you have Hyper- and Infraspace, followed by
other universes, to either side you have alternate versions of the same universe as in Trek and the length of the line itself
represents time. Altering your "phase" would in this case move you sideways along the plane, but not upwards or
downwards away from the skein, which is perfectly consistent with everything we've seen Trek phasing do: It would also
move you diagonally to conventional time, in theory at least, which might have some effect on your "temporal phase"
assuming time is only an area and not, as I personally suspect, a volume in this model. I'll get back to that later, though. The
problem with this from your end is, of course, that you still can't go back in time simply by "phasing" and the Trek side still
can't "phase" into Hyper or Infraspace because phasing doesn't work like that. You still have to interact with the exact spot
on that area of time that the Culture ship is passing through.
There are two "directions" you can go in phase. Going up and down in the intensity phase frequency and the second is altering the
resonance phase frequency. Going up and down moves you through different areas of the same universe. Changing the resonance phase
frequency will take you out of the group you were going up and down through and into another set you can go up and down through. The
nature of what it means to phase means there are varying degrees of "being out of phase/being in phase" with something else.
Quote:
That's just the start of this post, though, that whole thing was a big preamble leeading up to the hammer blow.
Because if anything in Star Trek can phase itself across the plane, or travel in time, or dance a bizarre and arcane jig that
destroys spaceships by simple act of happening, the Culture will know about it in such intimate detail that they could build
one for you from raw Grid energy in less time than it takes a Trek captain to give the order to use it.
Provide the relevent passage(s) that show that the Culture already has knowledge of this kind of phasing, transphic torps and gravimetric
warheads that are the same, as the Federation's prior to meeting/interacting with the Federation at all. In a versus debate, each side is not
allowed to use the tech of the other side. Using their tech differently to counter the other side might be used, but not the actual device.
Quote:
The reason for this is simple, and has been touched on already in the thread: Effectors.
A Culture ship has to come within maybe a lightyear of a planet to be able to effectorise and thus read every possible scrap
of data from all of the computers on it. It only has to find one ship that has the relevant data and BANG, you have Culture
ships with time travel devices.
So either way, even if you COULD do this, by the time you get around to thinking of it the Culture will have already
perfected a set of countermeasures bigger than you can shake a Sovereign at and/or done it to you.
This goes against the rules of a versus debate, see above.
Okay, Hat. I'm giving you an ultimatum. Either provide reasonable questions/counterarguments in your next post or I am going to ignore
your posts until/unless you do. The point of the debate is to see which said could beat the other using their own tech. This means that no
Culture ship is gonna go around, searching for a phase drive to put on their ships.
Coming into Federation space, effectorizing a whole planet to search for intelligence would be an act of war. This is the opposite of the
Culture avoiding war at all costs, if it can. So, either stop your fanism or I am ignoring you on this topic.
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GStone
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Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 6:41 pm Post subject:
Doesn't matter. Otherwise, it wouldn't be Culture v Trek. It'd be Trek v Trek. Makes the debate pointless.
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GStone
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Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:03 pm Post subject:
It still does not matter.
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GStone
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Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:52 pm Post subject:
Since you are unable to conduct yourself properly in a debate, I will ignore your posts on this topic unless you start to do so. This will be
my final response to you on this.
Quote:
Dakarne is absolutely right.
See, the thing is that Trek doesn't have the CAPABILITY to copy any Culture tech, whereas the Culture certainly DOES
have the capability to replicate anything it finds in Trek.
Copying is irrelevent. The Federation can scan a piece of Culture equipment, replicate it from the pattern and use it. Some of it just needs a
button pushed to work. But, that doesn't mean the Federation is allowed to do it. It makes no difference, if the Culture can do it quickly.
This rule is not open for any negotiations what so ever. It is total fanism.
Quote:
The difference here is mostly due to effectors.
In addition, it is SOP for the Culture to scan everything, even from their allies. In fact, in Use of Weapons, the Culture does
a bit of "creative accounting", plays with all kinds of personal info and all sorts, in an interstellar nation it is ostensibly allied
with. In fact, the Culture effectorise everything as SOP on first contact, let alone negotiation.
This is seen in The State Of The Art, where a Culture ship visits 1990s Earth and basically scoops every single mite of data
from its entire surface prior to a judgement from the crew of the ship (all Special Circumstances operatives) on whether to
a) make first contact
b) not make first contact, leave the society until it matures a bit or
c) Blow up the planet.
So all I'm using in my argument is the Culture's standard operating procedure.
Dakarne has set up a versus debate that uses the standard rules. Any tactics/operating procedures that a side is capabale of, when in direct
violation of the rules of a scenario (determined by the proposer at the beginning of the thread) are ruled, as 'not gonna happen'. Bitch to
Dakarne, he set it up this way unintentionally. If you want to start another thread with varied rules, that's up to you. I'm sticking with this
one.
Quote:
Besides which, Culture ships very rarely enter the skein of real space at all: If you already concede that the trek forces have
neither knowledge of nor ability to access or scan in the Culture's four spatial dimensions, then you concede the debate by
default, because the most a Trek ship is ever going to see of the ROU that destroys it are flashes a couple of Planck
moments in length every now and then as it traverses reality.
In addition, your assertion that the hyperdimensions can be explained in terms of phase frequency are absolutely wrong,
sionce phassed objects still occupy the same space in the skein, but in a different way. A Culture ship moving in four
dimesnions isn't even on the skein any more.
This shows you have not read all my posts and have an incomplete understanding of my stance.
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GStone
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Posts: 679
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 9:45 pm Post subject:
dakarne wrote:
Actually...
My Opening Post wrote:
You see the title... only one rule: No Godlike Beings Allowed... that is the one and only rule
Everything that they can do, no godlike beings allowed is the ONLY debating rule.
So essentially Mr. GStone... the Reverse Engineering IS allowed.
Yes, you made one specific rule = no god-like beings allowed. You've had ample time to bring this up, yet you're doing it now?
Considering that you've said that the only info that you have had about the Culture is not from reading the stories, but from other sources,
it's doubtful you actually had this in mind. Otherwise, you could have brought up the reverse engineering thing much earlier before we
decided to agree to disagree.
Besides, you've even told me that all you wanted to do with this thread is see, if you could find anyone that would wank Fed tech, so it is
even more likely that you had no serious intention about reverse engineering being allowed. It's much more likely you felt any opposition
would have been shouted down by now and this thread would be dead and not have reached almost 12 full pages.
To mess with the rules and take a new stance on what you want for the opening post to mean after saying all this is very unsportsman like.
We may have agreed to disagree, but taking a new stance for an interpretation and intention of your opening post to try to wipe out my
argument in one giant swing without actually providing a decent counterargument to the scenario I've provided in the structure that we have
been in agreement on until Hat's desire to use a copying schtick is an underhanded tactic.
Have a serious intention about the next thread you make.