[Futureguy]

Tomorrow is Yesterday - TOS

At a Warp Speed, off the scale, Captain Christopher is beamed back to a point in time and space (on Earth) from the Enterprise. There did not seem to be a "BIG" discussion as to whether it could be done or not. They just did it as if it could have always been done.

So is there room here for Scotty to have "invented" Trans-Warp beaming or was it already possible from the standpoint of the prime universe. If it were so possible there, why was the alternate timeline unable to do the same?


I know, I know, it is how it was written for STXI, but that aside, it was just something I became aware of while watching TIY tonight. I'm just being quizzy about the continuity canon of Transporter capabilities. This must have been covered in another thread, but maybe not.......STXI seemed (to myself) to imply that Transwarp beaming was not possible even in the prime universe until Scotty invented the technique...(much later?) in his career.

[Quark]

I don't think transwarp beaming is mentioned ever in Star Trek before the 09 film. At the same time, it could have happened between Scotty's time on the Enterprise-B and before his accident on the Jenolan.

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by Quark

I don't think transwarp beaming is mentioned ever in Star Trek before the 09 film. At the same time, it could have happened between Scotty's time on the Enterprise-B and before his accident on the Jenolan.

He could have developed it after the Jenolan. With all that free time he could easily sit back and pick up on old theories that he might have been working on prior to the ship's disappearance. It's never actually established in the movie that transwarp beaming was ever actually done in the prime timeline prior to Spock Prime's encounter with Nero. The only thing that is established is that at some point in time, Scotty had been working on a theory about transwarp beaming, including the mathematical formulas. Exactly how long he was working on it is up for speculation. It could easily have been something that he had been working on as a junior officer then shelved and then picked up again years or decades later. Spock's knowledge of the formulas could simply be a result of him reviewing Scotty's work during peer review in the prime timeline. Spock might have been assisting Scotty with the theory prior to the events in the movie. The scene in the movie might very well have been the very first test of the finalized theory.

But yeah, with Tomorrow is Yesterday, you're talking about a 1st season episode. You're going to have a lot of plot blatant plot devices floating around. I'll have to pull out my dvds and watch that episode again but for now I'm going to take Futurguy's interpretation of the events in that episode. TNG seems to suggest that transporting from a ship in warp is probably not done regularly if at all. The episode "The Schizoid Man" they use near-warp transport where the ships drops out of warp and then jumps back to warp just as the subject being transported is in the rematerialization phase.

[Futureguy]

But yeah, with Tomorrow is Yesterday, you're talking about a 1st season episode. You're going to have a lot of plot blatant plot devices floating around. I'll have to pull out my dvds and watch that episode again but for now I'm going to take Futurguy's interpretation of the events in that episode. TNG seems to suggest that transporting from a ship in warp is probably not done regularly if at all. The episode "The Schizoid Man" they use near-warp transport where the ships drops out of warp and then jumps back to warp just as the subject being transported is in the rematerialization phase.[/quote]
Precisely. In TIY, the Enterprise was definitely exceeding even the warp scale of that time. She never slowed down while transporting Captain Christopher back to a point before he saw the Enterprise, same with the security guard.

I did have a though though that trans-warp beaming might just have been merely what described beaming a person or persons a (really) great distance, but Spock in STXI mentioned something about transporting aboard the Enterprise WHILE at warp (not possible at the time to Spock), which would sort of point to the fact (in reverse) of Capt. Christopher being beamed a great distance from a ship at warp. TOS did it "first" though as I mentioned, there did not seem to be any consideration as to its safety...lol It's as if that was an everyday occurrence or ability of the current technology, not necessarily of Mr. Scotts doing.

Now if he had spouted some tecno-babble of an experiment he was working on (TNG style) that would solve the problem of returning Capt Christopher to earth WHILE at whoop-azz warp, then I would concede to the fact that Scotty did invent it, but not enough information to give him (TOS) credit for the achievement.

Another point.......has anyone considered the possible connection of Capt. Christopher to Capt. (Christopher) Pike, as in a deeper connection to the real need to return (Pilot) Capt. Christopher back to Earth? A backstory that Spock would only understand and feel a need to see to it being done without appearing emotional? Could be a good story there, just not for the new-Trek.

[Quark]

Originally Posted by Akula2ssn

The episode "The Schizoid Man" they use near-warp transport where the ships drops out of warp and then jumps back to warp just as the subject being transported is in the rematerialization phase.

Which is close, but not the same thing. In addition to it being in the 24th century, I take it the technology wasn't established at the time during the tenure of the Enterprise-D. But at the same time, Scotty [alternate] wasn't totally sure if it could work. I mean, it's not like he ever tried it before. Or at least, not that we know of.

Here's information on transwarp beaming on Memory Alpha: http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Transwarp_beaming

[Akula2ssn]

Wouldn't be the first time something in the first season of TOS regarding warp drive or the transporters didn't jibe all that well. Like BoT and the question about whether or not Romulans having warp drive. Lot of debate on the meaning of the wording. Obviously they needed FTL capabilities but Scotty's words seems to contradict it. Then you get into the whole issue of if he's referring not to propulsion but power generation. Which is all well and good but the discussion in that scene seems to be a propulsion specific. Warp and impulse are means of propulsion in my book, not means for power generation. Fusion reactors, matter anti-matter reactors, or quantum singularity reactors are power generation. It's like nuclear propulsion on ships. It's the propeller that drives the ship. The reactor just provides the power. Or you get into the idea that maybe the Romulans had some other means of FTL travel other than warp drive, which I won't argue against. Perfectly happy giving Romulans mass effect cores to fill the gap.

[Futureguy]

Originally Posted by Akula2ssn

Wouldn't be the first time something in the first season of TOS regarding warp drive or the transporters didn't jibe all that well. Like BoT and the question about whether or not Romulans having warp drive. Lot of debate on the meaning of the wording. Obviously they needed FTL capabilities but Scotty's words seems to contradict it. Then you get into the whole issue of if he's referring not to propulsion but power generation. Which is all well and good but the discussion in that scene seems to be a propulsion specific. Warp and impulse are means of propulsion in my book, not means for power generation. Fusion reactors, matter anti-matter reactors, or quantum singularity reactors are power generation. It's like nuclear propulsion on ships. It's the propeller that drives the ship. The reactor just provides the power. Or you get into the idea that maybe the Romulans had some other means of FTL travel other than warp drive, which I won't argue against. Perfectly happy giving Romulans mass effect cores to fill the gap.

Maybe they did not have warp capability while cloaked...ie:they could not fire weapons while cloaked. If they had dropped cloak and gone to "warp", Scotty would have had to eat crow...lol

They would have been visible at that point and Kirk would have followed the same...

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by Futureguy

Maybe they did not have warp capability while cloaked...ie:they could not fire weapons while cloaked. If they had dropped cloak and gone to "warp", Scotty would have had to eat crow...lol

They would have been visible at that point and Kirk would have followed the same...

Quite possible. Which brings me back to Mass Effect, which I love in that it is surprisingly well thought out for a video game. I particularly liked the ship's stealth system where all the ship's EM emissions are captured and stored in sinks in the ship allowing the ship to be invisible to sensors for a period of time. And, in keeping with the conservation of energy, the sinks have to be bled off after a time or the energy stored up in them will cause the to heat up to dangerous levels. Furthermore, if the ship goes to FTL speeds, the Doppler effect shifts the emissions to wavelengths that can't be collected by the sinks causing them to become visible to sensors.

[Futureguy]

Anyone have any thoughts about Captain Christopher being (retroactively) written in as Christopher Pike's ancestor.
"Another point.......has anyone considered the possible connection of Capt. Christopher to Capt. (Christopher) Pike, as in a deeper connection to the real need to return (Pilot) Capt. Christopher back to Earth? A backstory that Spock would only understand and feel a need to see to it being done without appearing emotional? Could be a good story there, just not for the new-Trek."

[Akula2ssn]

I don't know, it feels like a bit of a stretch to go from Captain John Christopher to Captain Christopher Pike. Feels rather contrived and more of a play on words as one is a first name and one is a last name. And the ranks end up feeling even more like a pun in the end because an Air Force captain would be the equivalent of a lieutenant in Star Fleet where a Star Fleet Captain is the equivalent of an Air Force Colonel. Yes, it could be possible but as far as good writing, I'm not sure it would go over very well.