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Brent
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Dude... get a life... (obvious response)
Do people say the same thing to Lord of the Rings fans as often, I wonder? Or sports fans? Or -gasp- Desperate Housewives fans?
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Brent
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I think dilithium is some relatively stable element we haven't discovered yet, which probably resembles lithium in some way.
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Brent
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Now who's taking it way too seriouisly? huh? huh? I understand completely that it's just a TV show! What's that? It's real? I knew it!
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Brent
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Yeah, there definitely are over 200 known elements by the time of Voyager, and one would assume that some of the undiscovered ones are stable. I don't know how those atoms would be created what with so many unstable ones you have to go through.
Cochrane only looks old due to radiation. They actually tried to get Tom Hanks for the role.
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Brent
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What about the Eugenics Wars? Is there some conspiracy concealing their existance? And I don't think Cochrane needed dilithium anyway.
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The Mad Monk
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of Ice Cream
Mar 2000
time: 23:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Brent
Yeah, there definitely are over 200 known elements by the time of Voyager, and one would assume that some of the undiscovered ones are stable. I don't know how those atoms would be created what with so many unstable ones you have to go through.
Cochrane only looks old due to radiation. They actually tried to get Tom Hanks for the role. |
I remembered reading about an "island of stability" among heavier elements back when I played Traveller, a sci-fi RPG that tried to keep fantasy physics to a minimum, so I decided to look it up:
quote:
island of stability
The island of stability is a term from nuclear physics, which describes the possibility of elements which have particularly stable "magic numbers" of neutrons. This would allow certain transuranic elements to be far more stable than others, and thus decay much more slowly.
The idea of the island of stability was first proposed by Glenn T. Seaborg. The hypothesis is that the atomic nucleus is built up in "shells" in a manner similar to the electron shells in atoms. In both cases shells are just groups of quantum energy levels that are relatively close to each other. Energy levels from quantum states in two different shells will be seperated by a relatively larger energy gap. So when the numbers of neutrons and protons completely fill the energy levels of a given shell in the nucleus, then the binding energy per nucleon will reach a local minimum and thus that particular configuration will have a longer lifetime than nearby isotopes that do not have filled shells.
The magic "number" of neutrons is 184, and the matching proton numbers are 114, 120 and 126 which would mean that the most stable possible isotopes would be ununquadium-298, unbinilium-304 and unbihexium-310.
The term "particularly stable" is in comparison to the half-lives of slightly lighter or heavier elements; the half-lives of elements in the island of stability are still expected to be measured in fractions of a second, or perhaps measured in days, though some theoretical possibilities include much longer periods. |
http://www.answers.com/topic/island-of-stability
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Brent
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I know of Traveller. I love the worldbuilding systems in the GURPS version.
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Q Cubed
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t3h y3ll0w p3ril
Apr 1999
time: 23:28
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Most of these have been answered, but.
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1. Why do they have a captain in charge of the station instead of an Admiral or some other higher ranking person? |
They don't necessarily need an Admiral there. For seasons 1-3, Sisko was a Commander, not a Captain.
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Because it is "the most strategially important station in the galaxy" |
In the early seasons, it wasn't a strategically important station: reasonably far from the Romulan and Klingon Empires, with the only threat being the Cardassians, who had finally given up their occupation of Bajor, not from pressure from the Federation, but because they were no longer interested in keeping such a troublesome people.
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2. Why do they allow a Bjorin (?) to hold such an important position? |
Bajoran. Technically, because it's a) in their system, b) the Bajorans aren't part of the Federation/Starfleet yet, c) the Federation and Starfleet are there at Bajor's request, and d) to serve as a liason.
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3. Why do they have the same senior officers as Picard's Enterprise? What happend to Picard, does DSN take place before he takes control of the Enterprise? |
TNG takes place between the years of 2363-2370; DS9 takes place between the years of 2369 (6th season TNG) and 2376. To place it into relation, Voyager begins in 2371 (3rd season DS9) and ends in 2378. The first episode of DS9 (Emissary) features TNG's Enterprise-D and Picard; the first episode of VOY (Caretaker) features DS9 and Quark.
O'Brien transfers in the beginning; Worf transfers in season 4 opener (Way of the Warrior).
Picard and Sisko also have a history--in the first DS9 episode, it's revealed that Picard-as-Locutus destroyed the USS Saratoga, a Miranda-class vessel, at the Battle of Wolf 359. Sisko had been the first officer aboard that vessel, and its destruction took Sisko's wife with it.
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edit: and why do they allow a captain who is clearly mentaly il have command (he believes he was born the sun of a wormhole alien or some such thing iirc) |
At first, they didn't know of this stuff. Towards the end, the Starfleet brass begins questioning him, but it also becomes apparent that nobody else would have the trust of the Bajorans.
I'd put all the links to the appropriate Memory Alpha page in this, but I'm almost ashamed to say virtually all of this is from memory.
And, for what it's worth, TNG/DS9/TOS are roughly on par with each other, with VOY a decent step down. I refuse to consider ENT canon, no matter what anyone says. It's ****, and while Trek might not be high art, I'm not desperate enough for a series to swallow the dirty spunk that the latest series is.
I've moved on to better series, like BSG and the dead-and-risen Firefly. I wish the loonies at that miserable failure would get a fscking life and let it die with the dignity that it never had in its run.
Last edited by Q Cubed on 27-03-2005 at 14:12
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27-03-2005 02:55
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