Friday, March 09, 2007

Time Travellers.

Time travel is the concept of shifting through time to different locations into the past or the future. Indeed Star Trek's Enterprise starships have travelled to many alternate realities, with transporter malfunctions, intergalactic temporal rips, omnipotent beings and gravity slingshots taking viewers where none have gone before. In Star Trek First Contact, the U.S.S. Enterprise-E travelled back in time to an alternate Earth/Borg reality by entering the temporal vortex - a door into another time - created by a Borg Sphere.

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Humans were assimulated by the Borg in the past with Earth's defences at their weakest. Data's brilliant intellect surmised that the Temporal Wake protected the Enterprise and her crew from the Borg vortex. The Enterprise-E was the only remnant of a timeline not completely errased by the Borg. Captain Picard made the decision to go back and restore Earth's former timeline.

The concept of Time Travel was first introduced by Enrique Gaspar Y Rimbaus in his 1887 book "El Anacronopete" which was the featured time travel machine. In 1895, H.G. Wells wrote the "The Time Machine" story which promoted the time travel idea and gained popularity with an already interested public. Years before in 1888, H.G. Wells wrote the inspirational science fiction story called "The Chronic Argonauts" featuring a time machine theme. This far reaching story and enlightening resource has stimulated the minds of countless sci-fi writers engrossed with time travel.

Image Copyright Belongs To Paramount Pictures or CBS Paramount Television.

The most daring plan of all time to save planet earth required a Klingon Bird of Prey, tricky time travel computations and flying towards the most powerful gravity source available in earths solar system at maximum warp. In this case earth's sun. (or a black hole would do.)

Star Trek IV is a supreme space adventure concerning an extremely powerful and precise computer, Time travel, Captain Kirk's heroic crew of explorers, a Klingon ship, a singing space entity and all that saving earth humbug

Risky business heading back to Earth. Captain Kirks inherited bird of prey is a klingon deathtrap. Dr Mccoys irrational diagnoses of Spock not exactly working on all thrusters makes sense. It was weird hearing Spock using profane language and developing a sense of humour. Weird but cool.

The plan was to slingshot the Bounty around the sun to achieve speeds beyond maximum warp without burning up and exploding into a fireball. Achieving breakaway speed at the correct point in time was really down to Spocks logical computations and flaky memory. Heading into earths past. Admiral Kirk took the Klingon Bounty 200 years back in time from the year 2286 time travelling to 1980's earth. So far out!

Time travel capability for 21st century earthlings is totally theoretical. Do future humans exist with this time travel technology? Who knows. Heavily advertised events are organised by Perth's Destination Day and MIT's Time Traveller Convention inviting future time travellers to a time and location so they can demonstrate their time travel gizmo's to eager humans. Unfortunately futuristic time travellers have yet to reveal themselves to 21st century earthers. Sniff, I'm so choked up. Really I am.

Dr Who is a time traveller moving through time known for buzzing around in the universe. This sci-fi show encapsulates time travelling adventures and other wacky stuff. I have to admit to being a little green about the Doctors spaceship, whovians fondly refer to as the "Tardis." Its easy to under estimate this little ship so beware! Its kitted out with cool time travel technological gizmology, although tbh the ship itself is essentially a plain phone box "type 40" Tardis but of course there is a simple explanation. A malfunctioning chameleon circuit which is supposed to camouflage the ship is permanently stuck rendering the ship in the shape of a 1950's police box.

Dr Who's spacecraft has the technology to take it's crew anywhere in the universe and through time itself with the doctor at the helm. Its important to realise, the Tardis outer hull isn't a reflection on its inner dimensions which illogically are much larger. The Doctors simple explanation? Its got a "dimensionally transcendental" personality. The things alive,  right?



Tardis Long and Prosper Trekkers. (Cringe, yeah I know you love me) Enjoy your Star Trekking.

3 comments:

Jeffrey Scott said...

Awesome, a Doctor Who post.
Well, if you ever have any questions about the Doctor or his Tardis, I'll be your resident expert. Because I've followed the show since 1963 and all.

SpacerGuy said...

Thanks Jeff, So why is the Tardis bigger inside than on the outside? Whats the technical term which aptly describes that little magic trick?

Jeffrey Scott said...

The Doctor says his Tardis is dimensionally transcendental.
What that essentially means is the dimension inside his Tardis is different than the dimension outside his Tardis.

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