Deflector beam in The Paradise Syndrome

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Moff Tarquin
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Re: Deflector beam in The Paradise Syndrome

Post by Moff Tarquin » Sun Feb 07, 2016 3:42 am

Mike DiCenso wrote:
Moff Tarquin wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XP0ijkha4s When you first look at it at 0:23 as the Enterprise approaches, it looks like it's pointing towards eleven-o-clock. Later, when they bring it up on the viewscreen at 0:27, it looks like it's somewhere between eleven-o-clock and noon (to me, as they approach the asteroid, it looks like it rotates visibly from that position to noon, period, but that might just be an effect of the quality). Later still, when they're firing the deflector beam at 0:37, it looks like it's pointing nearly to one o clock. By the time they fire the phasers, it looks to be pointing at two-o-clock. Long story short, it's pointing at a different angle in every shot, and in several shots, appears to be visibly rotating.
I'm not seeing all that much rotation, just a lot of different angles due to the fact that the camera is shifting locations, and doing funky things, like zooming past the Enterprise and towards the big rock. For the most part, there is not near enough evidence to indicate a rotation that would make the asteroid oblate in shape, as your earlier example of Haumea does. But it doesn't help your case much, even if that is so, since while you might have a linearly Moon-sized object, the high spin rate causing oblate shape would point towards a relatively low-density body.
I would be perfectly happy with a density of 2.5 g/cubic centimeter and a length between 1700 km and 3500 km. That would be a density comparable to Haumea and linear dimensions consistent with the description of being "almost as large as Earth's moon," assuming "almost as large as x" means "smaller than, but more than half the size of, x."
Moff Tarquin wrote:What's nonsensical about it, other than its "contradiction" with the visuals?

And why should contradiction with the visuals matter when, from a meta perspective, they aren't a direct vehicle of the storyteller's vision (as the dialogue IS), but are rather a vehicle of the storyteller's vision filtered through "what Bob the special effects tech could afford," "what Bob the special effects tech thought an asteroid the size of earth's moon would look like," and "what Bob the special effects tech thought would look cool" ?

It is the latter point that most needs to be addressed. If we're going to take the meta perspective, then we should only rely on visuals to augment what is established in dialogue, or to come to conclusions when no relevant pieces of dialogue are available, for the simple reason that the visuals are constrained by budget and motivated by "what looks cool" rather than "what it would really look like.
Good question, and that little matter hasn't been settled. Some people do not rely on special effects and others do for a variety of reasons (see my bit earlier about the Warsies and Saxtonites usage). But in those camps that look at both as methods of story narrative (otherwise this would be a radio show, not live action TV!), one or the other is wrong.
Both are indeed means of delivery, but one comes direct from the author, and the other comes through the filter of budget and "coolness." So in an apparent contradiction between what is delivered by the one and what is delivered by the other, shouldn't our harmonization err on the side of the former?
A Moon-sized asteroid? Is it Moon-sized? Can it still be called an asteroid? Why doesn't Spock properly calling it a "rogue planet"?
What was the nomenclature for astronomical bodies in the sixties? Would Spock's terminology have been correct at the time? Could we, under the principle of charity, consider his terminology to be "good enough"?
Is Spock, for the sake of saving time using hyperbole to get his point across to the overly emotional, and space sciences illiterate McCoy? If you place more stock in the author, then the FX are wrong and they should have shown a big spherical planet-like thing. But the author uses incorrect terminology for such a large body, and so isn't she wrong, and therefore the FX wins out?
Was the terminology incorrect for the era? Should FX ever win out?

The only way I can see a piece of visual evidence overriding a piece of dialogue is if - from the meta perspective - the purpose of the visual evidence is to demonstrate to the audience that said piece of dialogue was wrong.
And how do you reconcile this with the more powerful E-D being unable to push an asteroidal moon in "Deja Q"? Same universe and timeline and all.
I would say that the analogous situation would be the one in "The Masterpiece Society," not "Deja Q."

In both cases, the ship is pushed to its absolute limit. In both cases, the ship practically falls apart in the process. In The Masterpiece Society, we almost certainly have a power output in the thousands of yottawatts. In The Paradise Syndrome, we probably have a power output in the high zettawatts or low yottawatts. Interestingly, in both cases, the ship is a fairly safe distance from the risk planet.

In Deja Q, we almost certainly have a power output well into the zettawatts, which is at least worth comparing to TPS. But, again, interestingly, it is necessarily in orbit of the planet at the time of the operation. Perhaps they don't want to risk pushing the warp core to its absolute limit while within spitting distance of an inhabitable world? After all, a warp core breach on the much smaller Delta Flyer had a minimum safe distance of some million kilometers, one can only presume that a warp core breach on the Enterprise D would be far more dangerous, and certainly worth comparing to the impact of the moon. "Brute Forcing" the moon into a new orbit would, on any view, be very dangerous to the ship and, by extension, very dangerous to anybody within a million kilometers.
Moff Tarquin wrote:And yet, a mere century later, temperatures ten thousand degrees higher won't even cause a starship hull to glow.
We never saw the outside hull of the Enterprise in "The Naked Time", but we do see that red-hot plasma does form around the leading edges of starships at a few thousand degrees C in "The Arsenal of Freedom", "Deja Q", and "ST: Generations". But getting back to the point, the Enterprise at the end of TNN is just fine, as if nothing had ever happened.
Moff Tarquin wrote:Why would we expect one when we know that starship hull materials are capable of withstanding many thousands of degrees without even glowing? This isn't steel, carbon, or anything like that. This is duranium, tritanium, or something comparably durable - in short, something far beyond current materials science.
Exactly my point. Why would the ship ever be in danger of burning up? Wouldn't it just crash into the planet, like in Generations, or STID? The characters were wrong. Kirk in TNN and Sulu in STID. There's just nothing to say or do about it. And that gets to the next point...
Well, for STID, we can always say that Sulu meant "the crew" by "we." Without power, the ship may survive those temperatures fine, but there's nothing to stop the crew from getting cooked. As for TNT, I stick by my previous statement: while the Enterprise wasn't far into the "burning up" thing when Uhura delivered her temperature line, if the Enterprise had gotten much farther into the stratosphere, it would indeed have burnt up. If you insist that there should have been some sort of marking on the Enterprise prior to it entering the mid/deep stratosphere, then I'd probably chalk it up to another VFX error. Those happen a lot: just look at the Defiant or the Klingon BOP!

Moff Tarquin wrote:I'd have to see that movie again, and hear Sulu's lines again, to be able to come up with any kind of explanation.
No need. By the power of YouTube I give you this. He says it around 1:37.
We actually see bits of the hull smoking, glowing, and flaking off. When the Enterprise comes up through the clouds, you can still see the holes smoking. How exactly is this inconsistent with the "we'll burn up" view?

I'll be the first to admit that the Enterprise made it deeper into the atmosphere than I would have expected, but we can easily chalk this up to the "seeing the Enterprise come up through the clouds on thruster power would be KEWL!!!" factor.
Moff Tarquin wrote:It's at a different position every shot, we never see it for more than five seconds before cutting to the next shot, and in at least one shot, it looks to me like we can see it changing orientation.
We see it that way largely because of changing camera angles, and what little, if any rotation there is is over many hours.
-Mike
I don't think that we can infer that the asteroid is rotating from the visuals, but they are consistent with the hypothesis, so if rotation is necessary to explain how an asteroid can both be oblate and almost the size of of Earth's moon, then we have that option.

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Re: Deflector beam in The Paradise Syndrome

Post by Darth Spock » Tue Feb 09, 2016 3:30 am

Having reviewed the transcript, there were a few points regarding the circumstances of this episode I think are worth considering.

Okay, moving in order, as 2046 noted, the starting distance of the asteroid is highly questionable. A deflection of 0.0013 degrees would change the asteroid's position by nearly 3,000,000 km by the time it traveled over 120,000,000,000 km at 48,000,000 m/s in 29 days.... That ain't enough?! Hoooboy. As for using the Enterprise's impulse speed as a guide, there is a very blurry line between "warp " and high impulse speeds. Even when ships are moving at sub-light speeds they are still usually operating under M/AM reactor power. While many vessels in other eras seem to have sufficiently powerful "impulse" fusion reactors capable of operating the ship quite effectively, short of attaining FTL speeds, the TOS era Constitution class seems to have relied heavily on the warp core as it's primary power source, including daily operation and sub-light propulsion. In fact, it would seem the impulse reactor was largely there as a backup to the M/AM reactor. In TMP they were traveling at "warp point five" under "impulse" power, upon first leaving Earth, apparently using energy from the M/AM reactor, judging by its glowing and thrumming long before attempting "warp" speed. In TOS "Elaan of Troyius," they were making an interplanetary voyage within a single star system, but when the M/AM reactor was sabotaged, Scott's description of their maneuvering capabilities was: "We can wallow like a garbage scow" at 93% impulse power. Earlier, a crewman in that same episode stated that they were "only running on impulse engines now. Ordinarily, we use the warp engines exclusively." Also in TOS "The Doomsday Machine" after losing warp power, the Enterprise cannot easily outrun the "doomsday machine," and would exhaust its fuel in 7 hours at the speed it was fleeing. Later, the Constellation is flown straight at the vessel, with a capacity of 1/3 impulse stated earlier, and it takes about 30 seconds to close the last 500 miles in this game of chicken. That's a bit less than 27 km/s. Long story short, a TOS ship with no M/AM drive can't necessarily achieve such high speeds. I wouldn't go so far as to say they absolutely top out at a few dozen km/s, but without warp reactor "power" they ain't that fast.

But getting back to the TPS asteroid, the above is only looking at the initial premise. Another issue that bothered me was the emphasis on timing for the deflection event. It wasn't just a matter of getting there as soon as possible, nor was it a matter of applying sufficient force over time. The entire plan hinged on deflecting the asteroid at a specific time and place. The only thing I can think of that fits with that is exploitation of the Oberth effect. In other words, their effort was dependent on multiplying the gravitational effect of another celestial body on the asteroids path. If this weren't the case, and it was simply a matter of using the Enterprise's raw power, the sooner they started pushing the thing the better, and cooling their heels on the planet with 30 minutes leeway would have been inexcusable, it was a bit careless as it was. On top of that, if the 0.0013 degrees of deflection were exclusively the result of the Enterprise's input over the course of a few seconds, (or perhaps minutes, giving some wiggle room for abbreviated visuals) then why stop? Rather than burn up the warp drive pushing for all they're worth within a specific time frame, they could have applied a fraction of the power on the asteroid continuously over the next 29 days, and imparted a much greater degree of deflection without even burning up their drives. Instead, after their initial attempt at the designated deflection point failed, they didn't even bother to try. Instead, Spock opts for a more aggressive approach, trying to split the asteroid along a fissure. That lends to impressive sounding weaponry for them to even try such a thing on something so massive, but burning up the drives pouring full power into the phasers in another failure doesn't provide the best example for high end firepower. An added caveat would be the assumed value of "splitting" the thing. At the sizes implied, the gravitational forces acting on the asteroid are not going to cooperatively "split" in two, whether you target a weak fissure or not.


Another detail in the episode I thought was worth noting were the events occurring in the native camp, and the existence of the obelisk in the first place. Why exactly would the preservers install a massive deflector and instructions on how to use it? I can't see they did it "just in case," it seems they had reason to expect a need to deflect massive asteroids. On top of that, the locals said that the "skies have darkened three times since the harvest. The last time worst of all." Later, Miramanee said "The wind is only the beginning. Soon the sky will darken, the lake will go wild, and the earth will tremble." Presumably this is what happened the last time. It could be the planet is under near constant bombardment from rogue asteroids, but the descriptions above sound too consistent, as though a single orbital body is getting progressively closer with each pass, causing solar eclipses and ultimately atmospheric and seismic disturbances.

Initially, I considered an asteroid from an inner orbit expanding outward. But, for the same body to pass an Earth-like planet three or four times in a year, (judging by having three occurrences since the harvest, when Kirk arrives in what looks like spring or early summer, with the asteroid arriving two months later and fall does not appear to be in full swing) it would have to be booking, averaging around 100 km/s, even if it were orbiting in the opposite direction. The problem is, at that speed there's no way it would be hanging around in an Earth-like orbit, all that time. On the other hand, if the asteroid is a planetary fragment from an inner orbit planet that had been thrown into a highly eccentric orbit, it might be possible. I would need to do a lot more reading and/or find a very in-depth orbital simulator to be sure, but I imagine with a little wiggle room regarding solar mass, the planet's precise orbit, and some planetary billiards affecting the asteroid's path, it could be made to work.

I believe this scenario could account for most of the oddities in this episode. As an added bonus, if the asteroid is in fact the fragment of a destroyed inner planet, it could provide a potential explanation to the anomalous shape and size. Depending on the kind of beating the thing has taken, and how long its been out there in that condition, a planetary fragment like that could still have an irregular shape in spite of a disproportionately large size. Going strictly by visuals though, good luck convincing anyone who doesn't want to be convinced that it's more than a few kilometers across, judging by the beam interactions. Trying to find the best fit between dialog and visuals, as is my usual preference, is not really doable here, it really is something of an either/or proposition. The biggest I can get myself to seeing it and still look sort of right is about 30 km, I can't even get close to 100 km if I squint. I have admittedly mixed feelings on this one, but the asteroid can't go too small or it couldn't provide much of an eclipse. There would be one specific narrative point that could be used to reinforce a larger size, beyond a hyperbole prone statement comparing it to Luna, though its altitude would make a difference as well.

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Re: Deflector beam in The Paradise Syndrome

Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Feb 26, 2016 9:37 pm

Moff Tarquin wrote:I would be perfectly happy with a density of 2.5 g/cubic centimeter and a length between 1700 km and 3500 km. That would be a density comparable to Haumea and linear dimensions consistent with the description of being "almost as large as Earth's moon," assuming "almost as large as x" means "smaller than, but more than half the size of, x."
Yes, it might. But it would also change the context of Spock's statement to McCoy as well, since Spock is now speaking in terms only of the linear dimensions, not of mass and dimensions. But I'll cover that more a later on.
Moff Tarquin wrote:Both are indeed means of delivery, but one comes direct from the author, and the other comes through the filter of budget and "coolness." So in an apparent contradiction between what is delivered by the one and what is delivered by the other, shouldn't our harmonization err on the side of the former?
There are those variables. But the author doesn't seem to know exactly what she was saying since an object that huge is not an asteroid by any known definition, it's a rogue planet. The visual representation appears more in line with what science knew then and knows now of what would be considered an asteroid.
Moff Tarquin wrote:What was the nomenclature for astronomical bodies in the sixties? Would Spock's terminology have been correct at the time? Could we, under the principle of charity, consider his terminology to be "good enough"?
Based on what I know about planetary sciences, the definition of what Spock describes to McCoy would more properly fit the concept of a rogue planet and not an asteroid as even 1960's definition would give it. So I suspect that the FX people were probably looking at the word "asteroid" and set aside the dimensions since that would not fit, and there was probably not enough time to change the script at that point one to match the other.

Moff Tarquin wrote:Was the terminology incorrect for the era? Should FX ever win out?

The only way I can see a piece of visual evidence overriding a piece of dialogue is if - from the meta perspective - the purpose of the visual evidence is to demonstrate to the audience that said piece of dialogue was wrong.
As above, no the terminology was not correct, even by the standards of the time, and given that at the time Pluto was considered a planet, there is no reason why anyone would not call this a planet. Also the concept of a rogue planet is nothing new in science or in sci-fi, it goes back at least to the 1930s and is the basis for "When Worlds Collide".
Moff Tarquin wrote:I would say that the analogous situation would be the one in "The Masterpiece Society," not "Deja Q."

In both cases, the ship is pushed to its absolute limit. In both cases, the ship practically falls apart in the process. In The Masterpiece Society, we almost certainly have a power output in the thousands of yottawatts. In The Paradise Syndrome, we probably have a power output in the high zettawatts or low yottawatts. Interestingly, in both cases, the ship is a fairly safe distance from the risk planet.

In Deja Q, we almost certainly have a power output well into the zettawatts, which is at least worth comparing to TPS. But, again, interestingly, it is necessarily in orbit of the planet at the time of the operation. Perhaps they don't want to risk pushing the warp core to its absolute limit while within spitting distance of an inhabitable world? After all, a warp core breach on the much smaller Delta Flyer had a minimum safe distance of some million kilometers, one can only presume that a warp core breach on the Enterprise D would be far more dangerous, and certainly worth comparing to the impact of the moon. "Brute Forcing" the moon into a new orbit would, on any view, be very dangerous to the ship and, by extension, very dangerous to anybody within a million kilometers.
Well, in the case of "Deja Q", they used the impulse engines, not the warp drive, to do the pushing. But in the discussion between the E-D crew and the scientists on the planet, that is never even brought up in the variables and options:

[Bridge]

DATA: The satellite's trajectory is continuing to deteriorate, Captain. This orbit will put it within five hundred kilometres of the planet surface.
GARIN [on viewscreen]: We're predicting the atmospheric drag will bring it down on the next orbit.
SCIENTIST [on viewscreen]: Have you been able to find any explanation for this?
DATA: No, Doctor. It is a most unusual phenomenon.
PICARD: Won't the moon disintegrate prior to impact?
SCIENTIST [on viewscreen]: No, it has a ferrous crystalline structure and it will be able to withstand tidal forces, Captain
RIKER: Could we blow it into pieces?
DATA: The total mass of the moon would remain the same, Commander, and the impact of thousands of fragments would spread destruction over an even wider area.
PICARD: How long before impact?
DATA: Twenty nine hours, sir. Projecting it somewhere on the western continent. That would destroy an area eight hundred kilometres in radius.
SCIENTIST [on viewscreen]: That damage would be insignificant, Captain, compared to the seismic repercussions massive landquakes, and tsunami.
GARIN [on viewscreen]: The force would raise a cloud of dust around the planet, leading to a significant temperature reduction. We could be looking at our own ice age.
PICARD: Mister La Forge, is there any way that the Enterprise could coax that satellite

[Engineering]
PICARD [OC]: Back where it belongs?
LAFORGE: We'd need to apply a delta vee of about four kilometres per second. Even with warp power to the tractor beam, it would mean exceeding recommended impulse engine output by at least forty-seven percent. It'd be like

[Bridge]

LAFORGE [OC]: An ant pushing a tricycle. A slim chance at best.
RIKER: Given a choice between slim and none, I'll take slim any day.
PICARD: Make it so.
RIKER: Lieutenant Worf, contact all ships in this sector to rendezvous and join us in relief efforts.
PICARD: We'll keep you informed of our progress. Picard out.
(The tiny tractor beam is sent out against the huge moon)
RIKER: Can you give us any more, Geordi?
LAFORGE [OC]: Not without burning out the tractor beam emitter. The circuits are already beyond the thermal limit.
DATA: Delta vee is ninety two metres per second. The mass is too great. We are having an effect but it is negligible.
(A high-pitched noise penetrates the Bridge)
RIKER: What is that?
DATA: Unable to identify source.

[Engineering]

LAFORGE: Impulse engines passing safety limits. We're seconds

[Bridge]

LAFORGE [OC]: From automatic shutdown.
PICARD: Reduce engine power. Tractor beam off.


So while that's an interesting idea, it's not something really well supported by the episode.
Moff Tarquin wrote:Well, for STID, we can always say that Sulu meant "the crew" by "we." Without power, the ship may survive those temperatures fine, but there's nothing to stop the crew from getting cooked. As for TNT, I stick by my previous statement: while the Enterprise wasn't far into the "burning up" thing when Uhura delivered her temperature line, if the Enterprise had gotten much farther into the stratosphere, it would indeed have burnt up. If you insist that there should have been some sort of marking on the Enterprise prior to it entering the mid/deep stratosphere, then I'd probably chalk it up to another VFX error. Those happen a lot: just look at the Defiant or the Klingon BOP!
This is not a size-changing ship due to FX error, however, and there is nothing to indicate that Sulu meant by "we" he was referring to the crew only getting cooked while the ship remained okay. If that had been the case, we would have seen the effects long before the ship reached so far into the stratosphere as she did. And remember that the FX in TNT is remarkably consistent between the two versions, the CGI for the 2006 remastering also clearly showing a "clean" starship, not one that was in danger of nearly burning up.
Moff Tarquin wrote:We actually see bits of the hull smoking, glowing, and flaking off. When the Enterprise comes up through the clouds, you can still see the holes smoking. How exactly is this inconsistent with the "we'll burn up" view?

I'll be the first to admit that the Enterprise made it deeper into the atmosphere than I would have expected, but we can easily chalk this up to the "seeing the Enterprise come up through the clouds on thruster power would be KEWL!!!" factor.
Actually, you missed the big fact that the smoke, the burning debris and such are coming almost exclusively from the areas damaged by the Vengeance. None of that was caused by the reentry, and there was probably enough loose structure that the stress of the very high speed reentry just worked them off. And they just didn't simply fall out of low Earth orbit, they fell at hundreds to over a thousand km a second from Lunar orbit distance. Not only did they survive the reentry, but they slowed to few hundred meters a second, and the thrusters were not only able to kill the remaining momentum, but make the ship rise back the other way within seconds. Very damn impressive.

Moff Tarquin wrote:I don't think that we can infer that the asteroid is rotating from the visuals, but they are consistent with the hypothesis, so if rotation is necessary to explain how an asteroid can both be oblate and almost the size of of Earth's moon, then we have that option.
If the evidence of rotation wasn't so sketchy, I'd say it would be a decent way to reconcile Spock's statement to McCoy and the FX.
-Mike

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