But given how recently they’ve dealt with Klingons, and especially given Nahla’s relationship with Obel Wochak, how much sense does being out of practice actually make? It’s not as if the Burn expunged all records of Klingon-Federation relations and the Federation had to rebuild from illuminated manuscripts copied by monks.

Don’t get me wrong - I liked the focus on the Klingons and it answered a lot about what happened to the Empire after the Burn. I’ve had a soft spot for the Klingons ever since John M. Ford’s The Final Reflection and the work that Ron Moore put in during TNG and DS9 and I was feeling really sad at seeing how far the Empire and the Klingon people had fallen.

I just think that the episode put too much heavy lifting responsibility on that last twist, because really, the solution was that obvious.

Now, I don’t profess to be a writer (not anymore), but maybe the structure could have been different. Of course the debate isn’t supposed to affect policy, but the cadets could have debated it differently, and the adults watching to see if they reached the correct solution which was obvious (to them) all along.

I remember when I was in the equivalent of my junior year of high school, and coming up with what I thought was a brilliant insight into Shakespeare’s Henry V, Part 1. All excited, I went to my English teacher and started blabbering about it. He listened patiently and let me finish, then said, “That’s great. You know, it’s been said before, but the important part is that you came up with it on your own.”

A possibility could be centering the core of the cadet debate not so much on whether or not they should force a solution on the Klingons (which as I said is a non-starter because the PD should have settled the question very quickly), but how to get Faan Alpha into the hands of the Klingons without violating their autonomy.

Then you could still get Caleb to take the side of “fuck it, what’s so good about the PD anyway?” and Jay-Den says, “But we have to remain who we are!”

And when Jay-Den has his epiphany, then the adults go, “Excellent. So this is what we’re going to do.” Because the adults have always known what had to be done but wanted the kids come to the conclusion on their own.

Then it doesn’t look like anyone is being an idiot.

The PD applies to everyone the Federation encounters, pre- or post-warp.

The PD prevented the Federation from intervening in Bajoran internal affairs (DS9: “The Circle”). It prevented the Federation from intervening in the Klingon Civil War (TNG: “Redemption”). It prevented Picard from interfering with the Kaelon tradition of elder euthanasia, despite Lwaxana’s entreaties (TNG: “Half a Life”) and with the Ligonian’s racist culture (TNG: “Code of Honor”). Kirk assured the Vians that even though they were more advanced than the Federation, the PD applied to them as well (TOS: “The Empath”).

The pre-warp and post-warp distinction is not about whether or not you get to interfere; it’s just the useful and most common criterion for first contact, i.e. when it is likely safe enough that first contact - revealing the existence of aliens - will not immediately alter the social and technological order. And a world that has achieved warp drive will be finding out about aliens soon enough. And even then it can be assessed that a civilisation still isn’t ready (TNG: “First Contact”).

At the end of the day, the PD is about non-interference, period. TOS even calls it the “non-interference directive” in TOS: “The Apple”, “A Piece of the Action” and “Patterns of Force”. Picard calls it that in TNG: “Justice”.

It was okay, and I like that we got some insight into why Jay-Den is the way he is.

But… to be honest, I’m not sure why this debate between Caleb and Jay-Den is even happening. If they’re going to throwing regulations and laws around, doesn’t the actual Prime Directive exist anymore? Because I’ve not heard a single mention of it. If the PD exists, you just don’t mess with the internal workings of a civilisation (TOS: “The Apple” and “The Return of the Archons” notwithstanding). You can offer, you can plead, but whether they accept is their choice and right, even if it means they go extinct because of it. Yes, I know it’s all a metaphor for Jay-Den’s internal struggles, and perhaps given how they’re debating the Prime Directive is now scattered across several statutes and case law instead of one all-encompassing General Order and other sub-orders (VOY: “Infinite Regress”). But when you’re talking about this kind of situation, it’s precisely the Prime Directive you should be using to frame the debate.

Also, I saw the ending coming from very early on in the episode - it’s the obvious solution, and they should have thought of it so much earlier. Yes, if conquest, not charity, is what Klingons care about, just let them “conquer” Faan Alpha!

Annotations for 1x04 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/34851748

And I was right!

Annotations for 1x03 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/34543028

Thanks!

Thanks!

Annotations for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x01 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/34296905

Annotations for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x02 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/34297028

deleted by creator

Annotations for 1x08 are up here: https://startrek.website/post/31579269

I do apologise if people are waiting for my annotations. I also apologise for any arrogance in assuming people are waiting for them.

I haven’t found a window where I can sit down and actively listen to do them. I’m working on “Original Sin” right now and it’s taking a bit of time because (as an English nerd in high school), I have a bit to say about the use of poetry and Shakespeare in this episode.

I mean, it’s being very heavily hinted that Lear is Kali.

Annotations for 1x07 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/30720634

It was in the TOS Writer’s Guide as far back as April 17, 1967, where it was stated (page 8):

Hyper-light speeds or space warp speeds (the latter is the terminology we prefer) are measured in WARP FACTORS. Warp factor one is the speed of light — 186,000 miles per second (or somewhat over six hundred million miles per hour.) Note: warp factors two, three and four are so on are based on a geometrical formula of light velocity. Warp factor two is actually eight times the speed of light; warp factor three is twenty-four times the speed of light; warp factor four is sixty-four times the speed of light, and so on.

It was subsequently mentioned in the behind-the-scenes book The Making of Star Trek in 1968 and Franz Joseph’s Star Fleet Technical Manual. The TOS scale was finally made canonical when it appeared on a viewscreen in ENT: “First Flight”.

The TNG scale was established in the series’ Writer’s Guide in 1987 establishing Warp 10 as the absolute limit (and infinite speed), so the scale had to be adjusted accordingly.

That’s correct as far as the TNG-era scale is concerned. In the TOS/SNW era it was a simple speed = warp factor³ equation, meaning Warp 6.25 is about 244c.

While not stated explicitly on screen, it was clear in behind-the-scenes documentation, and it was also clear that Enterprise in TOS exceeded Warp 10 in a handful of episodes, which I cited in my original comment. How fast a particular Warp Factor is may have been inconsistent, but the scale itself definitely changed between the two eras.

The thing I freeze framed on was the close-up of the helm console. Here we see the warp speed control and the impulse and weapons controls.

What’s interesting at the warp speed control is that it indicates the speed at Warp Factor 6.25, but that seems to be less than half speed. If the dots at the bottom of the throttle circle are correct, 6.25 is about two-fifths the top speed of the ship, which means theoretically they have a top speed of about Warp 15.6, which is just a bit higher than the Warp 14.1 we saw Kirk’s Enterprise achieve in TOS: “That Which Survives”, although Scotty said there that the ship wasn’t structured to even take Warp 11 for any length of time. The Kelvans did modify Enterprise to take that speed in TOS: “By Any other Name”, though. That being said, the specifications of the TOS-era Enterprise usually indicate a cruising speed of Warp 6 and a maximum speed of Warp 8.

On the other side, the impulse throttle circle and the dots at the bottom seem to indicate that they are also at two-fifths impulse power (which may be different from speed), and there appears to be a speed limiter next to the circle, although the speed indicator on the inside goes about a third higher than that. That’s actually consistent with the idea that full impulse isn’t the top impulse setting but there’s a limit placed on it (traditionally 0.25c) so as to avoid time dilation issues.

But I could be wrong and for all you know those dots are just to swipe left or right to get other controls visible.

Another interesting bit is the weapons controls. SNW: “What is Starfleet?” stated that Enterprise had six phaser banks and two torpedo tubes. The buttons here indicate two forward phaser controls - one ready to fire and one ready to charge. There are also two photon torpedo buttons, one ready to fire and one ready to load. Does that mean a single button fires three phaser banks?

There’s also a bunch of indicators above the impulse control (where Ortegas dismisses the warning pop-up alert) which seem to be communications or sensor indicators because they talk about band limits and Rx levels (received signal strengths).

Annotations for 1x06 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/30326603

Annotations for 1x05 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/30064816

Annotations for 1x04 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/29717239