HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: melvin@alien.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
Subject: Re: Enterprises's Shields (TNG) are Worthless
Date: 31 Aug 92 05:30:40 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


>This subject is always popular.  There is evidence that the Federation
>has cloaking technology, or at least understands it, but that they
>don't use it for political reasons.
> 
>There is also evidence that they don't have cloaking technology.

Well, the evidence points more towards the Enterprise not using it.  We have
seen various groups in the Federation that would be less 'principled' in its
use.

>The conclusion:  The Federation has knowledge of cloaking technology,
>but does not use it for political reasons.  

I could believe this, especially when the Enterprise seldom uses SHEILDS when
meeting new races, let alone cloaking technology :-).  The Federation, at
least as seen through JLP, wants to be above board in their dealings with
various races they encounter.

-Joe
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
From: jsbell@acs.ucalgary.ca (Joshua Bell)
Subject: Re: Cloaking device and the Fed.
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 92 17:26:13 GMT
Organization: The University of Calgary, Alberta

In article <1992Sep3.152056.14571@news.unomaha.edu> tomcat@cwis.unomaha.edu (Jeffrey S. Jo) writes:
>	I remember someone had asked this before a while back.  The reponse
>went something like this:
>	The Federation has the ability to use the cloaking device, but
>that would give reason to other races not to trust the Federation.  The
>UFP do not need a cloaking device because they do not violate nor wish
>to give any reason to violate any of its current or future treaties, peace
>talks, etc.  Also, the UFP is not a military organization, so there would
>not be a logical need for a cloaking device if they are strictly an 
>exploratory organization.

I agree, but the 1701-D could definitely use a cloaking device
for use during First Contact missions - don't want the natives to
get paranoid when they see you orbiting...

Speaking of which, how large would the Big-E appear to naked-eye
observers on the ground? Would any detail be visible? Visible
during the daytime?

One could speculate that the 1701-D has Klingon Empire-tech
cloaking devices, which are inferior to Romulan cloaks, and the
first thing you do when you develop a cloaking device is come up
with a way to detect it (then develop a cloak that eludes that,
etc etc etc)... so it never bothers to use them during combat (As
the Romulans/Borg can detect them), and we just haven't seen it
in action yet. Not likely, but we're grasping at straws here. :)

>	Another reason, which kind of makes sense, is that the ships of
>the Federation are much too large to cloak, the power needed to cloak
>a Galaxy class ship would be tremendous.  That's why most of the
>Klingon and Romulan ships are small.  I don't know about any specific 
>layouts for the Romulan Warbird (which is about the size of a Galaxy class
>ship)

I've heard that its a fair bit larger, but looking at the
diagrams/show, its mostly empty space. I'll do an ASCII of it
eventually. :)

>, but I can imagine the size of their engine room.  Now we know that
>the Galaxy class ship is faster than a Warbird, probably because of the
>energy the cloaking shield consumes.

>	Now, all of this is from memory, so I could be wrong, could be
>pure speculation.  If I am wrong, sorry.  

Egads, mon, there isn't any wrong. :) We're all just tossing our
speculations out and trying to justify some silly scriptwriters'
and producers' decisions made solely on the basis of dramatics
and action with pseudo-tech and unobtanium support brackets. :)

Joshua
+      "Each woman is a promise that she can't keep that appeals to           +
|  a hope you can't control." - joe theseus, Deadface: Earth Water Air Fire   |
|                                                                             |
+ jsbell@acs.ucalgary.ca   Academic Computing Services, University of Calgary +
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
From: jwindley%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Jay Windley)
Subject: Re: Enterprises's Shields (TNG) are Worthless
Date: 28 Aug 92 15:43:10 MDT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept

dug@hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Dug Smith) writes:
>Why don't
>they always go everywhere with the shields on... I thought energy wasn't a big
>problem.

1. Energy is always a problem.  We've always been able to think of
ways to use more energy than we can generate.  Yes, the ship can
generate power in the terawatt range, but it can also use power in the
terawatt range.  If you waste your shield power when you don't need
it, you may run out when you do.

2. Something has to be generating those fields, and it probably isn't
going to last very long if it's constantly in use.  The navigational
deflectors operate continuously, but that's their job.  The more
frequent maintenance and changeout cycles are an acceptable tradeoff.
This probably is not so for the tactical deflectors.

3. The sensor operations (and, presumably, also the communications)
are severely curtailed when the shields are up.  This is yet another
tradeoff.  It may be acceptable in battle, but since most of
Starfleet's missions seem to be nothing more than gathering
information it wouldn't be acceptable as a general policy to have the
shields raised.

4. You can't beam through shields, nor can you land a shuttlecraft
through them.

>Why don't they always go everywhere at Warp 9... Shitty gas mileage?

Yes, but a more acute problem than you'd expect.  You have to create a
warp field of X cochranes to achieve an equivalent velocity of X times
the speed of light.  Since warp 9 equates to about 1500 times the
speed of light, the field at warp 9 is about 1500 cochranes.  This is
all opposed to warp 2 or 3 which require a field stress amounting to a
few cochranes.

The clincher is that power consumption PER COCHRANE increases
exponentially with the number of cochranes of field stress.  In other
words, you have to pay more energy for each cochrane the more total
cochranes you want.  So you don't just pay 1500 times more energy for
a 1500 cochrane field as you do for a 1 cochrane field.  You pay
millions of times more energy.

So warp 9 is millions of times more expensive in terms of energy than
lower warp factors.

Besides, there's the obvious problem that running any machine at
maximum capacity for long periods of time increases wear and tear on
it.  The same holds for warp engines.
--------------------------------+---------------------------------------
Jay Windley                     | jwindley@asylum.cs.utah.edu
Department of Computer Science  +---------------------------------------
Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City   | Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
From: jts@jtsamy.krk.fi (Janne Siren)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
Subject: Re:  Holodeck Tech
Distribution: world
Date: 27 Aug 92 21:48:57 GMT
Organization: Radio Club of Kauniainen (OH2NRG)

>This is strange. Way prior to TNG I could have _sworn_ there was
>an 'environment deck' used TOS. Since we started getting
>bombarded with reruns, I've checked off TOS episodes one by one,
>and haven't seen diddly.

The Animated Series had holodeck, I remember an 'enviroment deck' from one of
those TAS episodes, maybe that was it? There was no holodecks on TOS. (?)

Hmm... TAS was about the original Enterprise NCC-1701, right? But as Patrick
Stewart says in The Cage show, there were no holodecks on the original Enter-
prise. Where did this one came from?

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I Janne T. Siren I Epsilon Indi BBS <> 24h <> v22bis MNP <> 358-0-505-4201  I
I     OH2KFU     I                                                          I
I   jts@krk.fi   I "That's one of those puzzles we may never solve." Picard I
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
From: GLETTY@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu ("Bruce E. Gletty")
Subject: Re: what is the significance of 11001001 in "11001001"
Organization: C.C.S.O.
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 18:26:28 GMT

In article <181jprINNe2@agate.berkeley.edu>
ph111-bx@violet.berkeley.edu (;;;;7202) writes:
 
>In article <92Sep02.031401.26433@acs.ucalgary.ca> jsbell@acs.ucalgary.ca
>(Joshua Bell) writes:
>}Unless I'm mistaken, 11001001 is 'I' in ASCII. Surely the most
>}important word in the universe. :)
>
>You're mistaken.  01001001 is 'I' in ASCII.
 
Yup, hex C9 is I in EBCDIC - 11001001
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
From: mikey@yoho.carleton.ca (Mike G McFaul)
Subject: Re: Warp Detection -- more like Warp 10 discussions
Keywords: Really Warp 9.9999
Organization: Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 00:07:44 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.031559.3498@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> ira2p@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Iain Robert Asplin) writes:
>In article <1992Aug26.181954.737@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> edreas@nyx.cs.du.edu (Eric Dreas) writes:
>>If you are stationary.  v = 0 in all directions.
>>And a ship is approaching you at Warp speed.
>>Can you:
>>
>>    1.  Detect the approaching vessel with sensors.
>>    2.  Determine the velocity of the vessel.
>>    3.  View the approaching vessel.  (Say on the Viewscreen)
>>
>>Eric
>>
>
>First, from some reference frame you are never stationary.
>
>As for the approaching ship, the sensors work via subspace signals which
>can easily outrun any warp-driven ship as long as it isn't from some
>super-race like Q.  Using the subspace signals as radar, the Enterprise

I just want to interject here... the 'super-race's may not be able to
travel beyond warp 10... Maybe they just change some space-time
parameter to make warp 10 (or nearly warp 10 :-) seem really really
fast to those of us in regular space time.

In one of the 'Q' episodes from the 4th season, 'Q' was bounced out of
the 'Q-continueum'. The Enterprise had to move a moon that was really
huge. 'Q's solution was to change the 'Gravititation Constant of the
Universe' locally, the moon would have less mass and you would be able to move
it...

Maybe thats all there is to it :-), especially if your an 'Omni-potent
Being' like 'Q'.

>can detect the oncoming ship and quite easily determine its velocity.
>As for viewing, well, the ship is outrunning its natural light, so
>you wouldn't be able to see it with natural light.  No doubt your 
>computers can tell what it would look like, however, and generate an
>image based on the sensor data.  I would think this one reason why
>a viewscreen is used on the bridge as opposed to a windoe.
>
From: dowling@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Stephen Dowling)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
Subject: Ships registry
Date: 30 Aug 92 00:25:01 GMT
Organization: People-Net [pnet51], Minneapolis, MN.

Can anyone tell me when the next edition of the TNG ships list is due?  Or 
to whom I should write for a copy?
 
stephen dowling          dowling@pnet51.orb.mn.org         minneapolis minnesota
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
From: petitc@vccnorthb.its.rpi.edu (Christopher Jon Petit)
Subject: Re: A theory on whizzing stars...
Reply-To: petitc@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 18:43:03 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.112925.1@bronco.fnal.gov>, colombo@bronco.fnal.gov writes:
|> 
|> 
|> Why does the E (in the opening credits) disappear in a flash of light?
|> Later, you can *see* it cruising at FTL speed, with a little blue
|> (I think?) shifting at the back even though its coming towards you?
|> The flash when going to FTL speed kinda reminds me of SW, but they
|> never tried to show you what it looked like at FTL speed.

  That little blue flash is well-known.  But, yes, SW did show you what going
FTL looked like (or what they thought it looked like).  Remember when the
Falcon was going through hyperspace, and you got a peek out the window, when
it was getting close to Alderan?   Well, it looked like swirls of white and
dark that spun around the ship.  (Bad description---watch the film).

|> I don't by the streaking stars either, for one thing, they are red
|> AND blue shifted all the time (at FTL speed). The big E may have warp
|> coils, but the starts don't, so how can you even see them when you
|> are travelling FTL?  Doesn't the Einstein thought experiment (the
|> subway train) explain that it would be dark all around you and that
|> the only light would be coming from a point in front of you?
 
 No, I don't think that would happen.  Remember, even if it IS going FTL
(which is supposedly impossible), light would STILL hit you from other angles
that would "hit" in front of the ship.  So, you'd end up with a small circle,
yes, but not a point.  Here's what it looks like:

                     /   (light beams hitting window on ship)
/---------------\   /
|  (M. Falcon)   | <-------
\----------------/  \
                     \

 As long as a light beam hit the window, it would be seen.  You couldn't see
all around the ship, but in front, you'd get a view (sorta like what happens
when you're moving close to c)

-- 
"The mightiest weapon in the history of science fiction is the writer's pen"
"Although the pen is mightier than the sword, I know which one I'd choose to
fend off a murderer."
"Stop, or ELSE."  "Or else WHAT?"  "Oh.  Never mind."
From: max@west.darkside.com (Erik Max Francis)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
Subject: Re: Twin Paradox
Date: 22 Aug 92 16:03:02 GMT
Organization: The Dark Side of the Moon +1 408 245 SPAM

comet@west.darkside.com (The Real Comet) writes:

> another force at work).  The twin that experienced the greatest 
> acceleration will have aged the least.  Special relativity covers the 

This depends on the relative velocities.  Relative velocities also cause 
different decaying rates.  And acceleration/gravity causing changing in 
decay rates is predicted by general relativity.

> case where the effect of gravity is negligible (say that both twins lived 
> their lives in inter-galactic space, and never came close to any other 
> mass).  General relativity covers the effects of gravity.

Special relativity is "special" (that is, restricted) because it only 
deals with inertial reference frames -- that is, frames of reference 
which are not accelerating.  So if one of the twins accelerates at all, 
then you can say nothing about him with special relativity, other than 
"That's beyond the scope of special relativity."  General relativity is 
"general" (less restricted than special relativity) because it takes into 
account accelerating frames of reference.  General relativity begins by 
saying that thrust (acceleration) and gravity are indistinguishable _on a 
fundamental level._  Any effect you experience due to acceleration will 
be experienced by another person in a similar gravitational field, and 
vice versa.  This is how light-bending, gravitational time dilation, and 
others come into effect.

The twin paradox doesn't work in special relativity because one of the 
twins accelerates (_has_ to if he returns to his starting point) -- and 
thus, special relativity can't say anything about it.  You usually answer 
the question as, "The second twin accelerates -- but the first twin does 
not.  So the symmetry is broken, and something different happens when he 
returns."  If you look at special relativity, as they're travelling away 
from the other, from the point of view of one, the other is decaying 
slower.  If they come back together, it makes sense that one -- but not 
both -- should have decayed more, especially if one experienced an effect 
(acceleration) that the other did not.
> Anyhow, you can see that if one twin stayed on Earth, and the other one 
> left and came back, that the travelling twin experienced three 
> accelerations as a consequence of his motion.  This will be observed from 
> all inertial reference frames; there is no confusion as to which twin 
> will age less.  The only paradox is that one twin will be older than the 
> other, even though both were born on the same date...
> 
> --------
> !apple!uuwest!comet <comet@darkside.com>
>     or via U.S. Mail to
> Comet
> 437 Wessex Way
> Belmont, CA  94002-2757
>     or via telephone at
> (415)593-5101


----------
Erik Max Francis   Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt.  Coming soon:  UNIVERSE _ | _
USmail:  1070 Oakmont Dr. #1 San Jose CA 95117  ICBM:  37 20 N  121 53 W _>|<_
UUCP:  ..!apple!uuwest!max   Usenet:  max@west.darkside.com   464E4F5244   |
From: h7l@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
Subject: Found the FAQ, ignore my post!!!
Date: 3 Sep 92 23:40:48 EDT
Distribution: rec
Organization: Cornell University

   Oh my, I have just discovered the FAQ, ignore my question, sorry!
Sarah
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
From: zog@pecan.cns.udel.edu (Michael D. Eisenberg [Dan])
Subject: help - ship stats needed
Organization: University of Delaware, Newark
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 01:46:45 GMT

	heya,
		Im goinb to try and rewrite netrek (for those of you who
know what it is - cool -- for the others, read r.games.netrek :)) this year.
A certain group of players of netrek would like to see a variant based more
on TOS.  so what i need are the class names and stats (# of phasers, # of torps
overall length, width & height, etc).  I looked through the Star Trek Tech
MAnual and found the following...

Constitution Class - Heavy Cruiser

phasers : 3 banks/ 2 each
torps : 2 banks
"safe" warp : 6
"emergency" warp : 8
L : 288.6 meters
Breadth : 127.1 meters
H : 72.6 meters

				...i also got values for the destroyer,
scout and transport, so i guess what i need are the comprable klingon, 
orion and romulan ships.  i can think  of a few : d-7 cruiser and the
bird-of-prey, but i need to know more and also which ones can cloak.
that info wasnt in the tech manual.

Id appreciate mailed response as soon as possible, but post if you want to.
thanks in advance....

-dan/zog

-- 
	ZZZZ  OOOO  GGGG	|	zog@freezer.cns.udel.edu
	  Z   O  O  G __	|	   zog@bach.udel.edu
	 Z    O  O  G  G	|	In Newark: ??????
	ZZZZ  OOOO  GGGG	|	In Maryland: (301) 384-6507
From: cec35848@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Chuck Carroll)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
Subject: Re: Seatbelts
Date: 2 Sep 92 23:35:28 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

crick@htlv.med.umn.edu (Ed Crick (CD)) writes:

>Since there are also children on the Enterprose it qualifies as a family
>vehicle, and should also have dual-front airbags and anti-lock brakes.
>Wouldn't it be cool if airbags exploded from the helm, and every other
>instrument panel, whenever the Enterprise was rocked?

It would certainly make more sense than the shrapnel bombs they seem
to be putting in the instrument panels.  (Well, okay, the prime example
was the alternate E-D in YE.)  But airbags would certainly be an
improvement over those.

-- 
Chuck Carroll		  | "What can I say when I've ruined your day
cec35848@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu |  And made you all angry and surly?
			  |  How could I make such a thoughtless mistake
			  |  And bury your mother too early?" -- Earl Sinclair
Xref: sparky rec.arts.sf.science:2781 rec.arts.sf.written:11721
From: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science,rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Something Nasty in the Human Genome
Date: 3 Sep 92 13:47:21 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:

>Hmmm. I read an article in my local newspaper a few days ago that claimed
>that several research teams have found a "fractal pattern" in the "junk"
>DNA of many diverse lifeforms, including man. (According to one team, the
>fractal complexity was highest for man, according to the other, it wasn't.)
>
>Kind of intriguing...makes me think that information is encoded in the DNA
>in ways other than the direct code we know about. Hmmm...how about a
>fractal data compression algorithm? Maybe it's a picture of God?
>Directions for the next step in evolution? The Cosmic Self-Destruct
>Command? Guess I'm in one of those moods...

     I wouldn't worry too much, considering that you can find "fractal
patterns" in anything you care to look at, e.g. cloud forms (including the
clouds in yer coffee....)



| James P. H. Fuller, Research Coordinator     Soil/Water Biology Laboratory |
|                                              Institute of Ecology          |
| work: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu               University of Georgia         |
| home: (crom2 rejoins the bitstream one day)  Athens, GA U.S.A.             |
From: wixer!cactus.org!wixer!pro-smof.cts.com!rfletcher@cactus.org (Robert Fletcher)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Re: Worm Holes
Date: 23 Aug 1992 12:11:10 -0500
Organization: The SMOF-BBS: Science Fiction Online Since 1985 [512-467-7317]
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

  Maybe you could talk about space warping that is not a full blown Worm
Hole. Perhaps some area of space that has a current that moves all objects
within it at a faster or slower rate. Not unlike the jet stream.
----
ProLine:  rfletcher@pro-smof
Internet: rfletcher@pro-smof.cts.com
UUCP:     crash!pro-smof!rfletcher
ARPA:     crash!pro-smof!rfletcher@nosc.mil

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
From: beede@sctc.com (Mike Beede)
Subject: Re: Ringworlds
Organization: SCTC
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 15:14:21 GMT

baylor@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com writes:

>When you spin a dyson sphere, it may as well be a ringworld. The gravity
>and air will collect at the equator anyhow, and there's no way you'd
>have enough air to fill a significant fraction of a 1AU diameter sphere.
>Besides, given the vector of the centripetal acceleration, you'd have
>very steep hills at a very short distance off the equator.

>The only reason I can think of to close the ends, is for defense
>(against space invaders, or maybe asteroids)

Isn't the idea of a Dyson Sphere to capture the entire energy
production of a star?  I believe a ring may allow a not-insignificant
amount of Ye Olde Rays to escape.

As for ``steep very close to the equator'' -- isn't a couple million
miles wide enough?  A rational culture advanced enough for cosmic
engineering will not have an ever-expanding population, since that
would _reduce_ the amount of energy available per person (not to
mention leading to eventual death and other such nasty things).

	Mike


-- 
Mike Beede         Secure Computing
beede@sctc.com     1210 W. County Rd E, Suite 100           
------------------ Arden Hills, MN  55112
                    (612) 482-7420
From: wixer!cactus.org!wixer!pro-smof.cts.com!rfletcher@cactus.org (Robert Fletcher)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Re: Holograms (was Re: Niven's blunders)
Date: 23 Aug 1992 12:11:14 -0500
Organization: The SMOF-BBS: Science Fiction Online Since 1985 [512-467-7317]
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

  My one cent worth.
You would have to keep some speration between the particals that are being
energyed or decaying. Mixing three different energy levels in the same
media would do nothing as I see it.
  BUT, I have not working knownledege of Quantum theory
----
ProLine:  rfletcher@pro-smof
Internet: rfletcher@pro-smof.cts.com
UUCP:     crash!pro-smof!rfletcher
ARPA:     crash!pro-smof!rfletcher@nosc.mil

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science