So in this episode they go into a cave, and can read some sort of energy field, as well as Troi having a sense that there are lifeforms present. Geordie explains that the people must be displaced in time, but only by a few milliseconds. If thatā€™s true, how is there not overlap? Say the people are a few milliseconds ahead of the enterprise when they arrive, shouldnā€™t they appear a few milliseconds later, as they still would have had to be ā€˜presentā€™ during that time? I donā€™t understand how they would be consistently invisible if time is a dimension like space that can be traveled through. Some past (or future) version of them would be present regardless of the desynchronization would they not?

Please if anyone could help me understand or shed some light on this Iā€™d appreciate it.

  • Ensign_Seitler@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    My understanding of the concept was that it was something like multiple channels of data being sent along the same wire. So long as the frequencies are the right kind of different theyā€™ll essentially exist completely independent of each other.

    Maybe this requires a minimum of two time dimensions so that the variance can result in the different beings following time along different ā€œtracksā€?

    I took Troiā€™s awareness of the beings to be a result of the intermittent overlapping bits of time where they did overlap. Like, it happened too quickly to perceive visually, but enough for the empath to have something to pick up on.

  • half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Hereā€™s a shot at the balloon filling up with water explanation:

    Itā€™s like two cars driving down a highway at night. You see the headlights from the car ahead of you illuminating the scenery, but you never catch up to them.

    • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I think OP is implying that time works like a film strip, so that if Iā€™m five minutes behind you, I see where you were five minutes ago.

      Thatā€™s the way time travel in Trek works. If you travel from Time B in the future to Time A in the past at a given place, you see the place as it was at that time, including the people who were there.

      I think that rather being just shifted in time a la time travel, they were actually dealing with a flex in spacetime, like a curve in the road you canā€™t quite see around, but Diana could see their essence like light from the tail lights, as in your example.

      In other words, they were caught in a time warp, again.

  • rah@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    You wonā€™t be able to make sense of it because the idea is just some nonsense words made up by writers as a means of allowing the story they wanted to tell to be told. It doesnā€™t make sense because itā€™s writing, not science.

    Edit: fascinated by the downvotes.

    • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.deOP
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      1 year ago

      Thereā€™s a lot of made up nonsense in star trek, sure, but thereā€™s also a reason they call it ā€˜scienceā€™ fiction. I guess my question had two points. Firstly to see if anyone more knowledgeable than ne could either confirm that itā€™s nonsense or give me a way that itā€™s actually potentially possible based on some legitimate scientific theory, or secondly, like the other person said, just to see how people could use their creativity to explain away the inconsistency in universe.

      • rah@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        if anyone more knowledgeable than ne could either confirm that itā€™s nonsense or give me a way that itā€™s actually potentially possible based on some legitimate scientific theory

        Ah, an actual answer.

    • Lumidaub@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      The downvotes are because what you wrote is pointless. We all know itā€™s made up and in the end there is no actual, definitive, real answer. Thatā€™s not what weā€™re here for. We are here for the creative exercise of finding an answer that fits the universe of the show and episode. You just shut down that creative process.

      • rah@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        We all know itā€™s made up and in the end there is no actual, definitive, real answer

        We are here for the creative exercise of finding an answer that fits the universe of the show and episode.

        OPā€™s question gives the impression that theyā€™re here for an actual answer.

    • williams_482@startrek.websiteM
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      1 year ago

      As other posters have pointed out to you, blithely dismissing OPā€™s question because they are asking about the meaning of ā€œnonsense words made up by writersā€ is completely missing the point of this community. We all know Star Trek is fiction constructed by writers; pointing that out while adding nothing else of interest is both pointless and boring.

      We donā€™t expect or require all answers to be from an in-universe perspective, but we do expect everyone to engage in discussion politely and seriously. If this is all you have to say on the subject, donā€™t comment.

      • rah@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        we do expect everyone to engage in discussion politely and seriously

        My response was both serious and polite. No idea what youā€™re talking about.

  • commander_la_freak@startrek.website
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    9 months ago

    Huh. It occurs to me that the writers were treating the passage of time as though they were frame rates of film/ video.

    Iā€™m not sure thereā€™s anything to this but the concept of matter and energy in our observable reality ā€œvibratingā€ at a certain frequency might have something to do with the episode. Putting this in film terms we would say that the universe runs at 120fps (or more) while the Enterprise, crew, et al, reside/ experience reality at 60fps, and the orifice aliens experience it on the alternating frames also at 60fps. Weā€™re seeing two different narratives taking place on alternating frames.

    This doesnā€™t explain why the same planet is still there on the alternating frames.