Some preliminary words...

As announced, this most recent issue of "The Star Trek Journey" is beamed to the Star Trek Dimension already on Sunday, because I am not in town next week...

As a focus of this issue, I've provided some interesting side views on two of the last episodes of Star Trek: Voyager we finally received complete synopses: "Friendship One" and "Natural Law". Read my impressions on the script spoilers in the weekly flashback, plus a more in-depth analysis on the happenings dealt with in the first episode (namely the feasability of Zefram Cochrane's warp probe) in the topic of the week.

Engage...

The weekly flashback

Again, there weren't any groundbreaking events this week: no announcements by Rick Berman, no creepy spoilers for Series V - after the faked (?) casting sheet had been published it has become suspiciously quiet concerning that hot topic, but this might very well be the silence before agitation! - and no earthshaking revelations on Voyager's finale by Ken Biller, now that the script has been completed and they're filming up to April 9th...

But wait, there was this news segment on Entertainment Tonight about the shooting of Voyager's last two hours! Well, even a small tidbit is a tidbit...

The series finale scene shown in the coverage was relatively meaning-less, at least, the techno-babble (tachyon beams and temporal rifts) resembled a lot the time line-issue in TNG's All Good Things... It seems the earlier spoilers stating that parts of the episode play in the future may be true, on the other hand, I don't hope they will re-hash any time-travelling issue dealt with a hundred times before, but give us a really exciting background story with surprising twists.

At least, Kate Mulgrew thinks so. She even said fans will be "unsettled", the script is "profoundly clever" and she will have "a hard time" with acting in the next weeks. What the hell is gonna happen in the finale??? It's an understatement when I admit that I'm worried. Will they kill off Captain Janeway? Won't Voyager get home, but pulled back to the starting point of their journey, or even farther away? Don't make "What You Leave Behind, the Voyager version", please! I think, it is important especially for Star Trek: Voyager, which has always sticked to the traditional, "Roddenberryan" Star Trek values, that the finale, as some kind of summary or conclusion for the entire series, submits a message of optimism, hope and confidence, thus rewards the crew for their efforts and sacrifices in the past seven years and brings them (well, at least all the persons we care about) home.

The series finale, of course, is preceded by six more episodes we don't know much about - with three of them even being "classified". But what would the fandom be without spoilers, rumors, speculations?

So we got a full synsopsis of "Friendship One" yesterday, and a nearly-complete story summary for "Natural Law" today. The latter one was the episode with most question marks up to that moment, since TPTB weren't very talkative concerning that one in contrast to "Friendship One", for example.

But if the spoilers are correct, we have two episodes with a completely different background, a completely different story, but a somewhat resembling, very strong social commentary: they're both about the Prime Directive.

It wouldn't surprise me if it's true, since, thanks to Ken Billers opportunity to realize his personal Star Trek vision as the executive producer of the show, season 7 seems to be the "social season", after season 4 "the fun season", season 5 "the character season" and season 6 "the innovative season". I miss a bit the high-concept science fiction, the fun, action and the freshness of previous seasons, but at least, we're getting Voyager stories more profound, professionally written, consistent and mentally demanding than ever before.

When the first short information on "Natural Law" were published, most fans were shocked: Chakotay and Seven TOGETHER - trapped on ONE planet??? Especially after "Human Error", where Seven uses a Holo-Chakotay for some, uh, "social lessions", both the J/Cers and the S/Ders were frightened of some sort of evolving relationship between both. Well, at least according to the synopsis we can hope again...

Given that "Natural law" is a location episode (we hadn't had much of them in this season except "Flesh & Blood") and shows Seven and Chakotay in some sort of primitive, nature-orientated culture, this may be this season's version of "Tattoo" or "Nemesis".

Don't get me wrong, the topics of these rather mediocre shows were completely different, but I could imagine the atmosphere, the mood will be akin. At least, this would explain why they chose Chakotay and Seven. In view of their supposed attitudes towards the new environment, they are very different, and so the chance of some profound character development is quite high: Chakotay, of course, is the Indian guide who has grown up with nature and will certainly understand and appreciate a more "primitive", original way of life, while Seven lived in a high-technology collective for eighteen years, which couldn't be farther away from a naturalistic way of life, and even before she was a child of the 24th century (living aboard the starship Raven with her parents, the progressive scientists).

Now considering these general oppositeness of the two main characters of this episode I realize this episode could also have a "Resolutions" touch, since similiar topics were explored in this controversial J/C show.

Oh yes, calm down, I don't think they will duplicate the "love" topic of that episode as well...

And "Friendship One"? Well, given the basic outline of "an old Earth-probe that has changed considerably since its launch in 2067", I was quite afraid they may want to make a Voyager version of TOS' "I, Nomad" or "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", which both featured an old Terran probe from the 20th/21st century that underwent major changes and caused harm instead of bringing peace and friendship.

Indeed, even if the probe isn't altered by a superior being, but causes - as it is - severe damages in an alien society, the story will still be very similiar to the mentioned predecessors. On the other hand, I am extemely eager to learn something about the period after the First Contact with the Vulcans and the first warp flight of Zefram Cochrane (he is explicitely mentioned in the official outline!) in 2063 - this is a time that was *never* shown nor mentioned in any episode or feature film. A subplot of "Friendship One" (like the one in "One Small Step") or at least some scenes and dialogues may very well appear as a continuation or sequel to the outstanding "Star Trek: First Contact" (which did only give a general outline of the development of mankind in the following 50 years, but did not say anything on Cochrane's career or the further steps of space exploration), and I think that makes the episode the most interesting one yet to come. So interesting that I couldn't resist to speculate how the facts we already got might fit into Star Trek history and science - take a look at the topic of the week!

And if the rumors are true that the historical subplot, dealing with the original Star Trek premise "exploring and encountering strange new worlds", will provide some kind of preface to Series V (the rumored BoF premise isn't dead yet!), "Friendship One" may be a similiar big scoop as the concluding two-parter!

I personally don't think so (it is just too obvious), but who knows? The times of surprise and excitement may be nearer than we think - the first bunch of new episodes is due in April!

Topic of the week

Speculations on "Friendship One"

Granted, we don't know very much for sure concerning the episode, but if we trust in the correctness of the published story outlines, we already got some fascinating - and debatable - facts on the further development of warp flight.

According to the official synopsis and the additional information that were published at startrek.com this week, in the episode, the crew of Voyager is informed by Starfleet Command that an old Earth probe should have reached their position by now. They're comissioned to find and retrieve that probe, which was launched in 2067 (interesting: earlier information said "the late 21st century". Was that two much resemblance with ST:TMP, dear authors?), 4 years after Cochrane's historic first warp flight to "make friendship" with the alien cultures it encounters (means: communicate with them and tell them of mankind; this was also the goal of "Project Ozma" back in the 1960s, and it was one of the missions of the Pioneer X probe with its famous "human greetings" plaque).

Now, my problem is: tens of thousands of light years in only 300 years seems to be quite alot, given that the Phoenix, Cochrane's first warp ship, achieved only warp 1 mere three years before. The probe must have been considerably faster, since if it travelled only with warp 1, it would have taken tens of thousands of years to reach Voyager.

We have two points of uncertainty regarding this question: first, the distance of Voyager in "Friendship One". The starship is 30,000 light years away from Earth according to several season 7 episodes, but we know that there might be another jump in "Q2", and the spoilers say that the exact bridged distance isn't revealed in that episode. On the other hand, we do know as well that Voyager is still in the Delta Quadrant in "Destiny" (they won't pass the border to the feared Beta quadrant - oh no! viewers might get confused because of all those Greek letters!), since McNeill and Phillips mentioned in an interview hat Voyager is "on the fringes of the quadrant" then. But even if they have nearly reached the border between both quadrants, they are still 26,000 to 28,000 light years away from Earth (whose distance to the Galactic core is 25,800 ly), depending on the exact trajectory.

The second point is, how long did the probe actually travel until it reached the alien planet and caused harm there? The fact is, this is irrelevant for the velocity considerations, since my questions are already relevant for the maximum duration (310 years).

So let's do some math. If we arbitrarily assume a distance of 28,000 light years and a travel time of 300 years (10 years may be enough time for the global war mentioned in the spoilers, to ensure that it still effects the live of the people in the same way as WWIII had a strong influence on the people's lives a decade afterwards), the travelling velocity of the probe would be 93.3c or warp 3.9 (TNG scale) and warp 4.5 (TOS scale), respectively. If the probe was discovered earlier, it would have travelled even faster. Now it is commonly believed that these speeds weren't achieved until the late 22nd century and the development of the considerably more powerful matter/anti-matter (M/AM) power generation. Do we have another blatant inconsistency concerning Star Trek chronology and treknology here?

First, I think we have to stick to the fact that the first generation of Earth warp vehicles were fusion-powered. I don't believe that Zefram and his team had the means to produce antimatter in a large scale such a short time after WWIII (even that they managed to break the warp barrier is amazing), but with regard to the real science, fusion reactors could be avaiable and - most important - economic and efficient at that time.

Additionally, if Friendship One was fusion-powered, it would explain how the aliens could use the rather primitive technology of the probe to start a war: they examined the power generation system and discovered the controlled fusion reaction. It is a small step from a controlled fusion reaction back to an uncontrolled fusion reaction - and the hydrogen bomb, an extremly powerful weapon releasing a large portion of energy from the fusion of hydrogen isotopes. So they developed nuclear weapons and used it against each other in a globar war, causing the destruction of their planet's surface and leading to a nuclear winter (the spoiler says: "the atmosphere is polluted with radiadition" - this resembles the situation on the Vaadwaur home planet in "Dragon's Teeth").

The problem with nuclear fusion is: it is way too inefficient - at least for warp propulsion. It hasn't been clearly stated in any episode, but to my mind the amount of energy needed for faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion depends on:

- the size of the vessel, and thus the size of the warp field. The larger the field has to be, the more energy for generation is needed. Since a warp probe, in contrast to a warp vessel, should be very small, this wouldn't be a problem for the "Friendship One" issue.

- the needed FTL velocity. The more powerful (and multi-layered, for experts) the warp field has to be, the more energy is required for its generation. This might be a problem, since the probe must not only reach light speed, but 93 times that velocity. That's pretty much.

Beside the question if a fusion reactor can provide enough energy/time unit to propulse a ship to more than warp 1 or 2, we must ask there it got all that fuel (deuterium) for a 300 year voyage. And in contrast to M/AM annihilation, which produces a large amount of energy with little raw material, nuclear fusion needs lots of fuel, worsening the problem. The fuel was definitely not stored in the probe, since this would require huge tanks, increasing the dimensions considerably, consequently requiring even more fuel/time unit, let alone the fact the mission of "Friendship One" was not determined, but somewhat open ("communicate with alien cultures you encounter during your voyage"). A possibility could be restocking fuel during the voyage using Bussard collectors, a concept developed in the 20th century by R.W.Bussard. The question is: could such a device restock enough fuel per time unit to allow the needed high velocities?

Having encountered all these problems, we might speculate that the "Friendship One" technology was not directly developed from the first generation of warp vessels, but was somehow inspired by the Vulcans. Perhaps one of the first actions of their Human Race Help Program^TM (didn't they have something like the Prime Directive, btw? Their help in the time after the first warp flight - mentioned in ST:First Contact - was a definite interference with our natural technical, scientific and social development, after all!) was to supply mankind with some probes which they could use to "say hello" to the Galactic community...

We don't know for sure. But speculation was fun, wasn't it? And finally, I don't think the deliberations were futile, since we will hardly get a detailed analysis of the Friendship One probe in the episode.

I am looking forward to April 25th, when we will hopefully find out more about the first years of "mankind at warp"!

Christian Rühl

Webmaster - Star Trek Dimension

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