Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

The Star Trek; The Next Generation episode featuring the Dyson Sphere, and Scotty, is on Spike right now. It's odd that the crew isn't more... astounded by the Dyson Sphere. Also, how come it wasn't ever mentioned or featured again in other episodes or movies? I assume that the Federation was trying to study and explore it. In the episode there is a mention of "surveying" it.

I love the concept of Ringworlds and Sphereworlds. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

-Wade

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

it was going to be in season 8 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

Hell, I always wanted to know what happened to Tinman. Yeah ,there were a lot of loose ends they could have tied up in additonal episodes or movies instead of the seemingly endless holodeck episodes.

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

Well, after the Enterprise escapes back through the portal Picard says in naration that Starfleet has dispatched two science vessels to study the Dyson Sphere. I'm thinking, "Only two vessels?" I suppose more would come later.

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

This was treated in a novel. I don't want to spoil it for you -- So

*Help: How do you do invisible text? I tried color="#F5F5FF", but that didn't work. I know someone did it before.

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The Enterprise went back with a ship captained and crewed by Horta members of the Federation. Do they ever have fun, they really enjoy digesting their way through the planet and moon that orbit inside the sphere. It appears they are also hollow spheres, with inner stars and inhabited inner surfaces.

Meanwhile, the sphere is drifting, running the risk of burning its surface. It turns out an automated system is trying to avoid a neutron star fragment on a collision course -- apparently, the sphere builders have enemies, who bear extremely long-lived grudges and are very powerful in their own right.

This is all the sort of stuff that lends itself to a more for a novel, and less for a TV show or movie.

Here's a philosophical debate bought up by the novel. To build the Dyson sphere, the builders had to scavenge material from the entire solar system, if not from other ones. They swept the surrounding area of cometary debris and dust gas. Their world is pristine and beautiful. Now, no other worlds can evolve life because of their actions. Isn't that just a little bit selfish. Maybe even evil.

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

Beck said:
Hell, I always wanted to know what happened to Tinman. Yeah ,there were a lot of loose ends they could have tied up in additonal episodes or movies instead of the seemingly endless holodeck episodes.

I thought it was quite a downer that those conquering insect parasites from "Conspiracy" in season 1 were never reused. I always wondered where the story was going to go. As I understand it, they were supposed to be the Borg, but then the show went with a more technological menace as the evil hive for the Borg.

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

Those were brought back in some of the DS9 novels that take place after the 7th season of DS9. Apparently (as the novels explain) they are like a evil off shot of the Trill (the symbiot) or they were Trill, just evil, banished from the homeworld ones.

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

Spectarofdeath said:Apparently (as the novels explain) they are like a evil off shot of the Trill (the symbiot) or they were Trill, just evil, banished from the homeworld ones.

Ah...I didn't see any of them with a goatee, so I missed it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

It's sad that they had so many episodes of different things, and most of them never got explained or finished the story arc on. And now that they seem to not care about it anymore....

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

Not selfish, not evil. No life existed, so who cares?

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

Renegade 13 said:
Not selfish, not evil. No life existed, so who cares?

I suppose you have to think in Star Trek (tm) terms -- there are thousands of civilizations, each in close proximity (relative to warp travel), each one arising, flourishing, interacting, falling, and rising again from the dust clouds of a past civilization.

The Dyson sphere halts all that -- it is the ultimate plowing of virgin forest to build an apartment complex. Maybe they plowed under a Demon class world that could have held some of that intelligence replicating silver goo. Or completely ate up a Silicate world -- Horta and all. And for what -- they don't even live there anymore. Just like Space Empires -- if you can build it, you pretty much don't need it anyway.

Our current sparse solar system, and the short lifespan of the effects we can have will leave us with a more casual point of view. It came up in these forums once a while back -- a civilization that was the extreme preservationists -- no forming planets from asteroids and stuff like that.

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

Um...wouldn't a civilization far advanced in the Star Trek universe use a construction method of some sort of energy to matter? Why would it bother with harvesting planets and asteroids to construct a Dyson Sphere?

The energy could be from the star or many stars or from a black hole or from a generator/power plant; or even some other technology we can't imagine. .

The matter created could be self replicating nanites that are the basis of the construction; or even some other technology we can't imagine.
Maybe they harvested the theoretical dark matter and converted it to regular matter. Only a tiny fraction of the overall amount of dark matter in this galaxy would be needed even for a Dyson Sphere.

Maybe they used some process that we can't imagine.

Maybe the builders of a particular Dyson Sphere are Trancended and "placed" it there for their "pets" or for study.

I think that if a civilization is advanced enough to construct a Dyson Sphere and stay powerful then a much lesser civilization most likely would not be able to unwelcomly encounter it. As the lesser civilization approched the borders of the advanced civilization they might be met by ships, barriers, or transporters. The entire advanced civilization might even be cloaked and/or phased.

-Wade

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

energy to matter conversion is totally imba!

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

What's "imba"?

How can we know what science will reveal thousands or even millions of years from now? Just over a hundred years ago our science told us it was impossible or not worth the cost for much of our current technology.

Much of what we now have as science and technology could not even be imagined by earlier generations. Much of what was imagined has developed. We can currently imagine much, including energy/matter conversion.

All matter is just organized energy.

(Besides, I stated, "in the Star Trek universe" where there is energy/matter conversion.)

-Wade

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

If you spent more time on #spaceempires, you'd know such things. You'd also know strange, disturbing and frightening things that would keep you up at night. But hey, everything has it's price!

Re: Random Thoughts, Observations, and Questions.
 

Wade said:
Um...wouldn't a civilization far advanced in the Star Trek universe use a construction method of some sort of energy to matter? Why would it bother with harvesting planets and asteroids to construct a Dyson Sphere?

Well yeah, there is that whole point of view. The whole "ethics of a Dyson sphere" was just a train of thought from Picard, as he tried to understand the stellar fragment on a collision course and the Dyson sphere "dodging" it.