The only impressive thing I saw just the sheer amount of matter. A Venus orbit sphere ~1500 meters thick is like 250,000 Earths. Over 100 Jupiters. They probably had to haul most of that from other star systems.
All so they could use solar cells for power.
Which they then had to abandon because the star was set to explode.
...probably not your sharpest of aliens. This is the most brute force solution to energy possible. Probably robots that just mindless build it over millions of years.
If they were that advanced they would have their own power sources.
And this is Star Trek, a no name poor guy had the access to build three man sized missiles capable of blowing up a star system (generations). And the reboot gave us red matter, a drop of that blew up a sun too. The Federation doesn't need a Dyson sphere.
Edit - Google says our sun outputs a total of 3.8×10^26J/sec. Per TNG's technical manual, the Enterprise's engines output 1.2×10^18J/sec just to maintain Warp 9. It's only one one-hundred-millionth the sun's value but consider how large of a solar panel it's take to replicate a warp coil which is about the size of a semi truck. DS9/Voy also introduced faster ships too.
Dilithium isn't a power source, it's used to regular the antimatter reaction. When magically rendered inert, ships don't stop flying. They blow up (plot arc in Discovery).
The theta-matrix compositor which can recrystallize dilithium even appears in the episode Relics that's the center of this topic.
I would assume recrystalizing isn't the same as generating new dilithium for additional starships. And without dilithium, there wouldn't be a power source of this type.
We are basically just discussing super steel. The quantity may be limited, but once you build a ship with it the ship doesn't need any more.
What we were discussing is power generation. The Federation uses antimatter for that and apparently society is advanced enough to harness and black holes as a power source. Relatively, the Dyson sphere to them is simply to costly to use. Which is probably why Riker had never heard of it.
In season 1 Wesley unlocked latent psychic ability with the help of some alien who basically told him he's a superhuman who can do anything as long as he thinks hard enough. This is never again mentioned. Not that it should be, because it's fucking stupid, but TNG is no stranger to the crew encountering something that could change the galaxy forever and then just ignoring it.
This got me thinking about how they ended Kirk in ST: Generations and the huge plot hole of how Kirk was hit by just a fraction of that energy ribbon in space and was still inside it like a century later but somehow Soran needs it to pass through a planet in order to stay inside of it or it'll not work or something. He could have flown a shuttle into it and it still comes off as lazy and contrived. I'm still disappointed by that writing.
Because the ribbon blew a hole in the hull first, it didn't completely destroy the ship. The shuttle would blow up after 1 hit, but the question is why doesn't he fly a ship in front of it then just get out in an EVA suit?
For the same reason Zod didn't use the terraforming machine on Mars or another planet in the solar system instead of Earth in Man of Steel. It would make too much sense.
Perhaps they meant to say that no starship could withstand the energy ribbon and by being on the surface of the planet, they were able to enter the fissure? Who knows. That movie was laughable, with the low-budget dune buggies and bazookas. Or was that another movie? :')
Same. Liked seeing Doohan again but the writing for him was shoddy and didn’t actually understand his character “ya didn’t tell your Captain the truth about your repair time?!” - WTF?!
The only impressive thing I saw just the sheer amount of matter. A Venus orbit sphere ~1500 meters thick is like 250,000 Earths. Over 100 Jupiters. They probably had to haul most of that from other star systems.
All so they could use solar cells for power.
Which they then had to abandon because the star was set to explode.
...probably not your sharpest of aliens. This is the most brute force solution to energy possible. Probably robots that just mindless build it over millions of years.
Could be they got so advanced that they saw that sort of problem as a small thing not worth thinking too hard about.
If they were that advanced they would have their own power sources.
And this is Star Trek, a no name poor guy had the access to build three man sized missiles capable of blowing up a star system (generations). And the reboot gave us red matter, a drop of that blew up a sun too. The Federation doesn't need a Dyson sphere.
Edit - Google says our sun outputs a total of 3.8×10^26J/sec. Per TNG's technical manual, the Enterprise's engines output 1.2×10^18J/sec just to maintain Warp 9. It's only one one-hundred-millionth the sun's value but consider how large of a solar panel it's take to replicate a warp coil which is about the size of a semi truck. DS9/Voy also introduced faster ships too.
But a warp coil requires dilithium and can't be replicated. The Romulans went around their dilithium shortage by using miniature black holes.
Dilithium isn't a power source, it's used to regular the antimatter reaction. When magically rendered inert, ships don't stop flying. They blow up (plot arc in Discovery).
The theta-matrix compositor which can recrystallize dilithium even appears in the episode Relics that's the center of this topic.
I would assume recrystalizing isn't the same as generating new dilithium for additional starships. And without dilithium, there wouldn't be a power source of this type.
And that is a separate issue.
We are basically just discussing super steel. The quantity may be limited, but once you build a ship with it the ship doesn't need any more.
What we were discussing is power generation. The Federation uses antimatter for that and apparently society is advanced enough to harness and black holes as a power source. Relatively, the Dyson sphere to them is simply to costly to use. Which is probably why Riker had never heard of it.
In season 1 Wesley unlocked latent psychic ability with the help of some alien who basically told him he's a superhuman who can do anything as long as he thinks hard enough. This is never again mentioned. Not that it should be, because it's fucking stupid, but TNG is no stranger to the crew encountering something that could change the galaxy forever and then just ignoring it.
Isn’t Wesley’s final fate to become some godlike entity that travels space, time, and other dimensions for eternity?
I liked seeing Scotty and the scene where he visits the old bridge in the holodeck was cool.
Getting drunk on the bridge was peak Scotty
Spitting out the synthahol whiskey may be the most Scottish thing we've ever seen him do.
It's spelled "whisky" when it's from Scotland.
Never liked this episode. Thought they wasted Scotty.
At 4:03 he explains why 'Star Trek: Picard' never should have happened. haha
This got me thinking about how they ended Kirk in ST: Generations and the huge plot hole of how Kirk was hit by just a fraction of that energy ribbon in space and was still inside it like a century later but somehow Soran needs it to pass through a planet in order to stay inside of it or it'll not work or something. He could have flown a shuttle into it and it still comes off as lazy and contrived. I'm still disappointed by that writing.
Because the ribbon blew a hole in the hull first, it didn't completely destroy the ship. The shuttle would blow up after 1 hit, but the question is why doesn't he fly a ship in front of it then just get out in an EVA suit?
For the same reason Zod didn't use the terraforming machine on Mars or another planet in the solar system instead of Earth in Man of Steel. It would make too much sense.
All the TNG movies are garbage.
Perhaps they meant to say that no starship could withstand the energy ribbon and by being on the surface of the planet, they were able to enter the fissure? Who knows. That movie was laughable, with the low-budget dune buggies and bazookas. Or was that another movie? :')
I think that was Nemesis which was far worse. They were looking for the parts of B4 (for fucks sake) on the planet surface.
Same. Liked seeing Doohan again but the writing for him was shoddy and didn’t actually understand his character “ya didn’t tell your Captain the truth about your repair time?!” - WTF?!
The novelization of this episode was much, much longer.