Michael Wong Star Wars Fan Wank

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 5:44 am

virgil wrote:Reminds me of those epic Federation vs Empire debates I stumbled upon in the internet. Man, the sheer level of obsessive analysis by the Star Wars people in showing why & how the Empire is big enough to utterly wipe the Federation off the map.

Are you talking about Space Battles, hosted by Michael Wong? That guy really got pissed at Star Trek fans, and went out of his way to "prove" that the Federation was a Communist society. I'm no physicist, so I can't vouch for his accuracy, but it came off as though he had a vendetta.

Desdan_Mervolam · Post by **Desdan_Mervolam** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 5:56 am

Libertad wrote:Are you talking about Space Battles, hosted by Michael Wong? That guy really got pissed at Star Trek fans, and went out of his way to "prove" that the Federation was a Communist society. I'm no physicist, so I can't vouch for his accuracy, but it came off as though he had a vendetta.

Did he do anything to prove why we should care that the Federation has a communist economy? Whether it is or not is moot, it's definitely communist. It's just that nothing defangs the spectre of communism than a post-scarcity economy.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 6:13 am

Desdan_Mervolam wrote: Did he do anything to prove why we should care that the Federation has a communist economy? Whether it is or not is moot, it's definitely communist. It's just that nothing defangs the spectre of communism than a post-scarcity economy.

If I remember correctly, he made the essay to prove to Star Trek fans he argued with that the Federation's Communist because:

it's post-Capitalist,

there's no real need for currency,

and almost all business is nationalized.

I think he's one of those guys who just slings the label around as a snarl word.

I'd be interested in hearing why you think the Federation's Communist, though. I don't think that Gene Roddenberry would be able to slip that past the censors during the Cold War and all.

Edit: Got it wrong: it's stardestroyer.net, not spacebattles.com

Also found the essay. He's arguing that the strong, overarching government of the Federation is far from ideal and actually crushes individual freedoms.

As I hardly have watched the show itself, I cannot really discuss the essay on its portrayal of the Federation. But it does come off as biased, and his definition of Communism is quite broad. He also hints at a government "purge" of Christianity (from what I heard, religion just faded into obscurity in the setting).

His "State Seizure of Industry" part's the weakest link. Starships look the same, and have the same color scheme? Umm, isn't this standard procedure for the line models of real-world military vehicles as well?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:09 am

Libertad wrote:
Edit: Got it wrong: it's stardestroyer.net, not spacebattles.com

Also found the essay. He's arguing that the strong, overarching government of the Federation is far from ideal and actually crushes individual freedoms.

Ow. That guy is an idiot. He comes out flailing that the Federation can be mapped onto the blueprint of the Communist Manifesto. The Communist Manifesto is the blueprint for all mixed economies of the modern era. Every country on Earth follows the tenets laid out in the Communist Manifesto to a greater or lesser extent. There are no countries that recognize property rights in an early 19th century context. Central banks are normal. Compulsory public education is recognized internationally as a human right. That fight is fucking over, and the Socialists won. They won when Woodrow Wilson was president. Not just in Russia, but fucking everywhere.

If you're going to rant about how much you hate Star Trek fans (and this guy in particular compares them unfavorably to creationists and Bolsheviks), it doesn't make any sense to compare them to a revolutionary document from the mid nineteenth century that has long ago become mainstreamed. You'd have to do something at least a little recent. Something that is actually controversial rather than something that has a name that is scary to a lot of people. Maybe Mao's Red Book, or something by Stalin, Trotsky, or Lenin.

-Username17

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:26 am

My favorite part was his argument that the libertine sexual mores and pleasure planets in the Federation were inspired by Marx's "free love" attitudes.

Because only a Marxist would advocate for totally awesome sex parties!

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:42 am

Oh god, that fucking essay. It's a pain to read, but some gems:

Abolition of property rights. Government intervention in the buying and selling of goods increases by an order of magnitude. Investments are verboten. The concept of private property is virtually destroyed. Neo-marxists are quick to point out that Marx only wanted to eliminate "exploitative" capitalist property, rather than the personal property of the "artisan and craftsman". However, Marx never explained how to preserve one while eliminating the other. For example, at what point do Grandma's savings become exploitative capitalist investments? How do you criminalize one without criminalizing the other?. The result of his half-baked idea is a proposal which is impossible to implement, so real communist states have historically abolished all forms of private property (thus creating a vacuum which black marketeers sprang up to fill).

Haaah.

Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma'am: Karl Marx's "free love" idea seems to have taken root. Pleasure planets like Risa, whose economies are based entirely on the sex trade

Something about those bolded portions isn't quite right. I don't think that's what free love means. But more importantly: the idea that prostitution doesn't emerge in a capitalistic market is insane and requires willful ignorance of all the places in the world that happens (which is all of them). Men will pay non-trivial sums for sex, so of course "entrepreneurs" (are we calling them job creators now? whatever) will provide it. But beyond that, context is everything; the original "free love" movement was born at a time when marriage was still an institution that rendered women legally inferior to their husbands. Marx was interested in abolishing (or altering) the government institution of marriage because Marx was interested in abolishing the government-approved subversion of women's rights, which is what marriage was. By the way, the last state to criminalize raping your wife was North Carolina, in 1993, if that helps you understand where Marx was coming from.

Trying to make fun of Marx for the radical suggestion that maybe women should not be the property of men is monstrously backwards.

Libertad wrote:My favorite part was his argument that the libertine sexual mores and pleasure planets in the Federation were inspired by Marx's "free love" attitudes.

You sort of ninja'd me. That part is also my favorite, if you can't tell.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 8:05 am

Has anyone told that guy that his beloved Star Wars actually represents the international struggle of workers and peasants against the over classes?

Seriously: Han is a worker, Luke is a peasant. Do I have to draw you a diagram? A very Leninist diagram?

-Username17

K · Post by K » Mon Nov 19, 2012 8:42 am

Libertad wrote: Also found the essay. He's arguing that the strong, overarching government of the Federation is far from ideal and actually crushes individual freedoms.

As I hardly have watched the show itself, I cannot really discuss the essay on its portrayal of the Federation. But it does come off as biased, and his definition of Communism is quite broad. He also hints at a government "purge" of Christianity (from what I heard, religion just faded into obscurity in the setting).

His "State Seizure of Industry" part's the weakest link. Starships look the same, and have the same color scheme? Umm, isn't this standard procedure for the line models of real-world military vehicles as well?

That essay is just buckets full of crazy.

That being said, it's also just wrong. People clearly have personal property and even land. Picard's family has an ancestral vineyard and Sisko's dad owns a restaurant.

What they don't have is money. People work as a hobby and are given "credits" for individual services like planetary transporter use as mentioned in one episode (Sisko was homesick and transported to his family home for dinner his first month at Starfleet, using up a year's supply of "transporter credits").

One of the crew of Voyager came from a family that lived and worked on a Federation freighter, so even private ownership of ships is not out of the question.

What they don't have is private ownership of ships for pleasure. If you've got any reasonable goal that requires a personal starship and the qualifications to do that goal, it doesn't seem hard to get one (like Seven of Nine's parents who had one to research the Borg).

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 6:38 pm

This image is relevant to the essay discussion:

Oh my God, I just realized that Michael Wong's the Joe McCarthy of the Star Wars fandom!

Site where I got the image.

BTW Frank, I want you to draw that Leninist diagram of Star Wars. Bonus points if you can use Wong's own logic against him; say, finding examples of pleasure planets and libertine sexual mores in the setting.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 9:07 pm

Libertad wrote: BTW Frank, I want you to draw that Leninist diagram of Star Wars. Bonus points if you can use Wong's own logic against him; say, finding examples of pleasure planets and libertine sexual mores in the setting.

I can try. It's difficult because Wong's logic doesn't make any fucking sense at all. Also he has no idea what Communism is about. Let's run down his assessment of what "Communism" means (note that these are wildly out of order, I assume Wong's tirade was based on a reading of some right wing blog rather than the actual document):

Abolition of property rights. For some reason he thinks it's difficult, even impossible to ban exploitative property rights without banning personal property. Leaving aside the fact that he is dead wrong on Star Trek not having any personal property (from Riker's instruments to Sisko's family restaurant), and being dead wrong that the Bolshevik countries he rants against ever forbid people from owning small-p property, there's the niggling detail that the Property Rights that Marx was arguing against have in fact been thrown out by every country in the world. There is no country on Earth where being a Duke lets you set laws and own humans. Although Paraguay comes pretty close. But the bottom line is: in the Rebellion, the Glorious Leninist Army of Workers and Peasants will take Han Solo's privately owned space ship and repurpose it for the good of the collective by having Lando fly it when Han isn't using it.
State seizure of transportation services. I don't even know where the hell he's getting this. Marx asked for State investment in transportation and communication. As previously noted, Star Trek does indeed have independent freighter captains. Sisko was totes dating one of them (Kassidy Yates). Wong goes off on a tirade about how Marx never explained why governments providing transportation would be a good thing, which of course he did/i]. Hint: not everyone lives in a place where there are enough people to make it profitable to deliver packages or run a road, and without government intervention they don't get streets or mail. However, it should be noted that within the framework of Wong's tragically misguided interpretation of this concept: the Leninist Rebellion does commandeer all vehicles they can catch. Allowing Han Solo to leave with his ship was specifically an exception (and the Rebellion later took it even though that exception had been granted).
State seizure of communication services. This is actually part of the previous piece in the original Marx and was touched on there. It bears noting that the United States government does own all the airwaves, and that Fox News merely rents the frequencies from the government. Nonetheless, they manage to continue to get their message out of hating the president. Thus, I'm not really sure where Wong got the idea that governments voluntarily allowing messages that they don't like to be heard on communication systems they owned was implausible. That's literally exactly the system he lives under that he posted his diatribe on in the first place. Of course, in Star Trek, Picard hails every ship, planet, and outpost he comes across, whereupon they then start up two-way communication using their own communication systems. As far as I can tell, everyone has completely unfettered access to long-range communicators in that setting. Meanwhile, in the Leninst Rebellion, no one has long range communicators, and when Leia wants to send a message she has to hide it in a droid.
Elimination of religion and traditional families. OK, that's not even in the Communist Manifesto. Marx has some very not-nice things to say about religion, but of course he also recognized religion as an outlet of protest for working people. Christian Communists are totally a thing, and while Marx personally rejects religion, he does favor working with Christian Communists. The hard atheism reading of Communism is actually Lenin, who is not the same person. Marx never said you couldn't have a family. I have no idea where the hell Wong pulled that from. Marx says that the exploitation of women within families is wrong, and goes about various suggestions of how to do something about that. But unless by "traditional families" you literally mean "women are chattel property owned by men", then Marxism isn't eliminating anything. Star Trek's federation doesn't forcibly do either of those things. Picard was raised by his father and Sisko is raising his son on the station. Doctor Pulaski is some sort of sky fairy botherer, and the secret police never harrass her about it even when it interferes in her duties. Similarly, when people decide to join some crazy back-to-the-land religion and found a colony, they just do that (see Paradise). Of course, the state religion of the Empire is Sith, which the Leninist Rebellion attacks at every opportunity. The Glorious Leninist Rebellion of Workers and Peasants not only hunts down all the Sith priests and murders them, it tears down all Sith monuments and punishes people for even admitting to know Sith scriptures. As for eliminating families: the Leninist Rebellion totally takes children away from their parents and raises them in foster care. That's seriously the entire plot.
State seizure of industry. Now I think it should be noted that Marx explicitly stated that the property of emigrants and rebels should be seized. Also he advocated state investment in industry. That is not the same thing as state seizure of all industry. Furthermore, Wong's ridiculous strawman that Marx was for turning all things into a single monopoly, and his characterization of monopolies as necessarily bad are completely wrong (see: Natural Monopolies, also Market Failure). As for Star Trek's Federation, they seem to let anyone go make whatever they want, because they live in a post-scarcity utopia. The state cannot and does not seize all the industry. Sisko's dad runs a private restaurant. Picard's family runs a vinyard. There is some sort of prestige-based market for non-replicator industries, and people compete in it without being stomped on by the government. On the flip side, the Leninist Rebellion of Workers and Peasants does in fact take factories by force and repurpose them for the collective good.
Citizens are forced to work. I don't know what the fuck this is supposed to mean. A gun in your back and a paycheck at the end of the week are both incentives. Starving to death in poverty is no less of a death sentence than being hung. Wong is basing pretty much all of this on plank 8 of the Manifesto, or rather a tragic misreading of a sentence fragment of that plank that talks about "equal obligation of all to work". Then he rants about how this implies that spooky coercion is going to be applied. For fuck's sake, equal obligation just means that people are treated the same from a hiring perspective, and the rest of that plank (establishing industrial armies) just means that government should target investment to maintain low levels of unemployment. Nevertheless, in Star Trek many people go off and become shiftless artists, there are no forced labor camps that anyone can see. The Rebellion does in fact demand that everyone in their controlled area works.

-Username17

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:00 pm

The more I read this essay, the crazier it gets. It's seriously a "big government, get your hands off my propertah, rah rah rah!" list of talking points.

I've also found another treasured piece of Wong logic:

Little red corvette: We don't see a lot of red sports shuttles flying around, do we? This may not sound so bad, but think about it: what is one of the most cherished symbols of freedom, particularly in countries like Canada and America, with our wide-open spaces? Some think it's the Statue of Liberty, some say it's the Constitution, but as for me, I know what my favourite symbol of freedom is. Here's a hint: It's midnight blue, it has leather seats and a gas-guzzling V8 engine, and it sits in my driveway. Yup- my car. And it's not just me; for millions of people, the car is the ultimate symbol of personal freedom. Let me out on an open road, with a full tank of gas and Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55" on the radio, and I feel free. However, the effect only works if you actually like your car. An ugly or underperforming car just doesn't give you that same sense of enjoyment, and the lack of stylized or luxury-outfitted Federation spacecraft points to an absence of consumer choice.

Of course, some would claim that the desire for luxury and style is a cultural taste, and might have been eliminated in the "enlightened" Federation. That is a plausible argument on the surface, but in every society, there are those who stray from social norms. Furthermore, the Federation must experience "cultural contamination" from the activities of their Ferengi neighbours, so it can't be argued that the concept of style and luxury is completely unknown to them. It is therefore highly unlikely that we would never see people seeking style and luxury, unless they are prohibited from doing so by law.

Other would claim that style and luxury in transportation are a 20th century phenomenon, but that would be a historical fallacy. Stagecoaches were lavishly decorated before automobiles, and wealthy Romans decorated chariots and other forms of transportation. Even in primitive tribes, the elites of the village wear special decorations.

The open road: If you still don't agree that the car represents freedom, just close your eyes and think back to that very first day when you finally got to drive your parents' car on your own. Try to remember the exhilaration you felt as you pulled out of your parents' driveway for the very first time. Remember the exuberance when you were finally out on the open road? After all those years of waiting and anticipating, wasn't it great to finally be free? Just you and your car, with nobody to tell you where to go. Now that is freedom. That is an essential part of the fabled American Dream. Guess what- the Federation killed it. In the Federation, you don't have the futuristic equivalent of a car; you have a nice walk to the nearest loading stop, where you can take your assigned seat on the futuristic equivalent of a bus. Happy motoring.

Lack of pimped-out rides = Communism. Also, gas-guzzling cars are more important for freedom than the Bill of Rights.

No corporations: There are no known privately owned corporations in the Federation. We never hear a single corporate name, or a complaint about a corporate supplier, or any news of bidding for government contracts. It goes without saying that no one has investments in any of these corporations. And finally, in the DS9 episode "Prodigal Daughter", we found out that Ezri Dax's parents formed a mining company, operating out of New Sydney. Lo and behold, we also found out that New Sydney is a city on a non-Federation world. What a shock. And would you be surprised to hear that their financial dealings were handled with precious substances instead of Federation credits? Gee, I wonder why they left the Federation and moved to New Sydney to set up their company ...

I don't recall seeing private corporations mentioned in the original Star Wars trilogy. Oh, and in Episode I, the Trade Federation were bad guys that the Republic eventually attacked for joining the Separatists. The Old Republic is a Marxist State.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:18 am

How does Wong know that Federation citizens don't think the Federation-style ships are the height of spaceship fashion?

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Thu Nov 22, 2012 7:34 am

Michael Wong wrote:Time Travel

Ah, time travel. As a good Trekkie might say, "our last, best hope." I'm sure you've heard this argument before:

"The Federation would use time travel to jump into the past, and wipe out the Empire before it was ever created."
I left this for last because it requires a lengthy explanation. This argument is quite persuasive upon first glance, but upon reflection, a few obvious problems appear:

Why so rare? If time travel can be used as a panacea for every mistake, battlefield defeat, and ill turn of fortune, then why is it used so rarely on the show? Why were crushing defeats like Wolf 359 or the Romulan/Cardassian massacre in TDIC not reversed by time travellers? Federation law? Let's not be silly; if any ship with warp drive can use the slingshot, this opens up time travel to every half-assed starship captain in the galaxy.

Can they pull it off? We know starships can use the slingshot effect to travel several centuries into the past. However, this act requires fuel. It puts strain on the ship (serious strain, as we saw in ST4). So who's to say it could survive a much longer trip, say, a thousand years instead of a few hundred? What about ten thousand years? What about a hundred thousand?

What's the point? In the universe of Star Trek, there are an infinite number of parallel timelines (as seen in "Parallels" and "Mirror, Mirror"). When a ship performs a time-jump, it must create a divergent timeline (more on this later). It can wreak havoc in this divergent timeline, but why would its departure have any effect on its original timeline?

It may be helpful to list known examples of Federation time travel, all of which fall into a small number of categories:

Accidents

Too many to list. They usually involve some natural phenomenon, such as black holes, wormholes, or "temporal anomalies".

Assistance by outside forces.

Guardian of Forever: Seen in "City on the Edge of Forever". Not large enough for a starship, with a lower range limit of at least a few millenia. It cycles through a list of "permissible" destinations, generated through some unknown algorithm. Doctor McCoy inadvertently used it to go back to the 20th century.

Borg Sphere: Seen in STFC. Capable of moving entire starships, with a lower range limit of roughly three centuries. It sent itself back to the early 21st century in an attempt to assimilate Earth's past, and the Enterprise rode its "temporal wake".

Bajoran Orb of Time: Seen in "Trials and Tribble-ations". Capable of moving entire starships, with a lower range limit of roughly one century. It was used to send the USS Defiant 105 years back in time, as part of a failed assassination attempt against Captain Kirk. The use of this device, as with all of the Bajoran orbs, is presumably contingent upon the forbearance of the so-called "Prophets".

Atoz's time portal: Seen in "All our Yesterdays". Not large enough for a starship, with a lower range limit of many millenia, perhaps even millions of years. It was used on Kirk, McCoy and Spock, who all suffered loss of reasoning faculties when moved to a prehistoric era.

Timeships: Specialized time travel vehicles from the future or from alien civilizations. Seen in "A Matter of Time", "Future's End", and "Year of Hell". The latter two examples are Voyager episodes in which the writers' abuse of time travel finally reached the "ludicrous" stage, making TNG seem downright reasonable by comparison.

Slingshot effect.

The slingshot effect uses some horribly unrealistic pseudoscience to explain how one might use the Sun to travel backwards in time. It was used to send the Enterprise forward from the 20th century to the 23rd century in "Tomorrow is Yesterday."

A slingshot effect was used to send the Enterprise back to the 20th century in "Assignment Earth".

A slingshot effect was used to send a Bird of Prey back to the 20th century in ST4.

Transporters.

First seen in "Mirror, Mirror." A transporter accident (how many of these have we seen in Trek?) threw Captain Kirk into an alternate timeline. This timeline was visited again in the DS9 episodes "Crossover", "Through the Looking Glass", and "Shattered Mirror", again using the transporter.

Transporters were also used for time travel in "Time's Arrow", "Past Tense", and probably several other episodes, always to travel just a few centuries back in time.

As we can see, most Trek time travel has been limited to a few centuries of "temporal displacement". The small handful of long-range time travel incidents have involved technologies which can only move a person, not an entire ship (thus suggesting that movement through time is similar to movement through space; the bigger the object, the more difficult the move).

When we look through the list, we find that once we eliminate small-scale techniques and outside intervention, the only viable method of Federation time travel is the slingshot effect. This creates serious constraints. The slingshot effect places great strain on a starship, and long-range use of this technique has never been observed (or even attempted). The process consumes fuel at an undetermined rate. It places an undetermined stress on the ship. Given these problems, how can the Trekkies insist that there are no limits to the duration of time travel using the slingshot? How long must we suffer Trekkies who insist on assuming that every process is limitless and free unless proven otherwise?

In any case, even if they can somehow resolve the "how" part of the question, we must still wrestle with the "why" part of the question. It is widely assumed that problems can be "solved" through time travel, ie- if something went wrong, you can go back and make it "right". But does this make sense? How does time travel affect the timeline? This question affects the potential usefulness of time travel as a solution for problems, and it leads directly to the infamous "grandfather paradox."

The Grandfather Paradox

We've all heard about the Grandfather Paradox. You step into your handy-dandy time machine. You jump back in time. You murder your grandfather. Now he's dead, and he won't ever sire your father, who in turn won't sire you. This means that you won't be born. But if you were never born, then how could you go back in time and kill your grandfather?

This is an old question, pondered by scientists, philosophers, and anybody who watched "Back to the Future" or "The Terminator". One obvious solution is that time travel might simply be impossible, thus eliminating the problem. However, general relativity predicts the existence of wormholes, and wormholes would theoretically permit time travel. Stephen Hawking has suggested a sort of "cosmic censor" who acts as a universal timecop and ensures that causality paradoxes never happen. This timecop might kill you before you can kill your grandfather, or make him duck to tie his showlaces just as you pull the trigger, etc. And of course, those who optimistically predict the eventual feasibility of time travel tend to resort to the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Now, I must preface this with the very important caveat that the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics has been widely discredited. However, if we are using suspension of disbelief, then we must assume that it is valid anyway, because the parallel universes predicted by the "many worlds" theory have actually been observed in Star Trek. Parallel universes were seen first in "Mirror, Mirror" and then more spectacularly in "Parallels", where hundreds of thousands of Enterprise-D's from parallel universes could be seen.

Now, how does the "many worlds" theory explain the Grandfather Paradox? Well, if an infinite number of parallel timelines exist, then the Grandfather Paradox can be explained quite easily. You step into your handy-dandy time machine. You jump back in time, but in the process, you create (or enter) a divergent timeline. You murder your grandfather, but this happens in the new timeline. Back in your original timeline, your grandfather was never murdered, so you still exist. In effect, you are an alien visitor to this new timeline, having come from a different universe.

This solution is not without problems. If you move from one universe to another, then mass/energy conservation laws will be violated because both universes will experience a mass/energy change. However, this can be solved if an equal amount of mass/energy goes the other way, to take your place. Interestingly enough, this is precisely what happened in "Mirror, Mirror". Kirk and his mirror-universe alter ego changed places, thus preserving symmetry. This symmetry is not seen in the TNG and DS9 time travel incidents, but that's merely another example of how TOS is superior to its bastard stepchildren. One could always rationalize it by saying that the return mass/energy was dispersed widely across space etc., but the symmetry shown in "Mirror, Mirror" is a better solution.

"Many worlds" in Star Trek

Some serious problems with Star Trek time travel can be solved once you accept the "many worlds" theory:

"City on the Edge of Forever": When Doctor McCoy jumped through the time portal, the other crewmembers on the planet's surface perceived the sudden disappearance of the entire Federation. Supposedly, he changed the past so that the Federation was never created. But that is impossible because the other crewmen still existed. They still had memories of the Federation. They still had Federation uniforms and Federation weapons. The "many worlds" theory neatly explains this problem: McCoy and all of the people on the planet's surface were all transported into a timeline (or parallel universe, whichever you prefer) in which the Federation never existed. The original timeline is not destroyed, thus explaining why they still remember its history, but they can no longer perceive it or return to it. When Kirk and Spock jumped back to "fix the damage", they caused everyone to jump into another timeline, in which the Federation was founded again, but with slightly different events surrounding Edith Keeler's death. This is not the same as "going home", but as far as they're concerned, it's good enough.

"Star Trek First Contact": When the Borg jumped into the past, the crew of the Enterprise perceived the disappearance of the Federation's entire history. This is impossible because they still exist, and they still retain all of their memories, equipment, history files, etc. Data suggests that they were somehow "shielded from the changes in the timeline", but he doesn't even attempt an explanation of how this is possible. The "many worlds" theory provided a neater explanation: they were dragged into a new timeline by the Borg sphere's "temporal wake", and when they stayed in the wake long enough to perform a similar jump, they ended up in yet another timeline. In this new timeline, they tried to "fix" events so that they unfolded more or less as they remembered (albeit with an orbital bombardment of Cochrane's launch facility which didn't occur in their original history). Note that the "many worlds" theory also explains the biggest conundrum of STFC: why the Borg fought their way to Earth before performing the time-jump, instead of making the jump from the safety of their own territory. The answer is that a time-jump would move the travellers to a divergent timeline but it would have no effect on the original timeline. Therefore, it would do the Collective no good. You might ask why they performed the jump at all if this is the case, but the Queen's attack had failed and she was facing imminent destruction. A jump into a divergent timeline would not change history in her original timeline, but she may have found the prospect preferable to simply being destroyed by one of Picard's quantum torpedoes.

"Yesterday's Enterprise": History seems to change when the Enterprise-C appears two decades away from where it was supposed to be destroyed in battle. But the original timeline is not gone, and in the new timeline, Guinan can actually perceive that the Enterprise-C belongs to a timeline other than her own (she can even perceive some of the history of that timeline). This perception manifests itself as a disquieting sensation that something is "wrong", but that's an oversimplification. After all, how can a timeline be "wrong?" With countless timelines in existence as seen in "Parallels", why would one be more "right" or "wrong" than another? A better explanation is that Guinan perceived enough of the Enterprise-C's original timeline to know that she thought it was better than the one she was currently in. We jumped to a divergent timeline when the Enterprise-C arrived and we jumped to another divergent timeline when it departed.

Although the "many worlds" theory may have been discredited in real life, it seems to be the only way to explain Star Trek time travel as we've seen it on the show. It explains causality paradoxes in "City on the Edge of Forever" and STFC, and it also explains why time travel is not being used to solve problems, because it means that time travel doesn't really change anything. It only moves the traveller into an alternate universe where events unfold more to his liking. An interesting consequence of this explanation is that we've really been following a group of characters as they move from timeline to timeline, so we haven't stayed in a single universe throughout the series run of Star Trek.

Conclusion

We can now answer the original three questions posed at the top of this section:

Why so rare? This question can be answered by concluding that it probably is not so rare; it simply isn't perceived. There are probably countless time travellers, but each time a traveller leaves, he simply moves to a divergent timeline and disappears from his original timeline. Since we don't follow any timeline jumpers but the main characters, we don't perceive their activities. At best, we might perceive unexplained disappearances of starships, or mysterious "transporter accidents".

Can they pull it off? That's an open question. We know that the only viable method is the slingshot, and we have evidence that there may be range and durability issues. However, the evidence allows us to establish lower limits but not upper limits. This remains an open question.

What's the point? This is the real problem. The "many worlds" solution to the causality paradox leads us to conclude that a time traveller cannot change his original timeline. He can only move to a different timeline, in which events unfold more to his liking. For a soldier losing a war, it would be an act of cowardice since he would quite literally be running away from his defeat. That explains why they only use it when they've been moved to a different timeline against their will or by accident, since they can't get home but they can at least get to a timeline which they find preferable.

This appears to be a very long-winded answer to a simple argument. But the original argument is only simple because it deliberately overlooks numerous complexities affecting Trek time travel. When we take a more serious look at it, the time travel argument doesn't work.

tl/dr; Star Trek Time travel heavily references the 'Many Worlds' theory in order to make sense. A time-travelling assassination attempt on the Emperor would create an alternate timeline, where the Federation may or may not succeed. The original timeline continues, sans Starfleet time agents.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Nov 22, 2012 2:41 pm

Wong is always wrong about absolutely every single thing he ever says.

In Star Trek, people have found evidence of their own time tampering before having traveled to do the tampering. See: Data in a cave. Therefore, time traveling very obviously doesn't leave the original timeline to wander off on its own.

Yes, people from alternate timelines can come back and fuck with things. But then the future is different and their timeline doesn't exist any more. They are still "here" in the past, but that is because they are physical objects who are not dependent on having the original timeline exist for them to not fade out like Back to the Future characters.

Star Trek time travel has two different systems:

Closed Loop. In this case, the characters in the future see events that they have already modified. They go back in time, make the modifications history tells them they made, and return to the future/present checking off a time journey from their to-have-done list.
Time Changing. In this case, the characters in the future see an unmodified timeline, and when they go back and change things the future/present will be completely different. And it will remain completely different whether or not they return to a future star date.

Star Fleet guidelines suggest not going back in time, on the grounds that it is very difficult to tell whether you are going to be in the first or second system. And if you do the first one, you haven't really accomplished anything. And if you do the second one, it is entirely possible that you'll be like Spock in the Lens Flare movie and you won't even have a home world to go back to in the future/present.

But they can totally do it.

Just remember:

Wong is always wrong. Whether about physics, economics, sociology, chemistry, military theory or anything else, the things he says are not correct.
If for some reason it appears that Wong said something that makes the slightest bit of sense, think about it from another perspective and remember point 1.

-Username17

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Nov 22, 2012 8:10 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Who the fuck is Michael Wong and why should I care about him?

As near as I can tell, you shouldn't.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Thu Nov 22, 2012 8:42 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Who the fuck is Michael Wong and why should I care about him? The best I could get out of Google is that he's a big-name fanboy on stardestroyer.net. But only relatively so; he's no SF Debris or Red Letter Media or even confusedmatthew.

Guy who wrote a bunch of essays many years ago describing how the Galactic Empire would wipe the floor with the Federation. He heavily discusses physics in his essays to support his claims.

He used two "technical manuals" for the franchises, both of which talked about things such as the energy output of a Star Destroyer or how plasma guns would work scientifically. One of the manuals is Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections.

I don't study physics, and I really don't care to try and find holes in his essays, but he really hates Star Trek fans. So even if he's right, he's so insufferable that people inclined to agree with him side with the Trekkies because he's such a jerk.

But he hasn't updated the site in 8 years, so he probably moved on with his life.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Nov 22, 2012 9:05 pm

Libertad wrote:He heavily discusses physics in his essays to support his claims.

Oh, this oughtta be good.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Thu Nov 22, 2012 9:52 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
Oh, this oughtta be good.

You shouldn't provoke me, Lago, for I have a weak will. Relevant posts:

Star Wars vs. Star Trek in 5 Minutes.

The Engineering of Star Trek.

Galactic Empire Expansion Tactics.

Racism in Star Trek. Nothing to do with physics. Guess which one he thinks is more racist.

Plasma Weapons.

Empire vs. Federation: Ground Combat.

Energy Shields.

Also, does anybody know if Star Wars is a near post-scarcity society like Star Trek? I'm referring to the Matter Fabricator objects which create stuff seemingly out of thin air. Because I know Star Trek has it, which would give them a huge advantage if the Empire doesn't have access to them.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Thu Nov 22, 2012 11:33 pm

Avoraciopoctules wrote:
Don't think so. Star wars has all sorts of mineral extraction operations going on, and there's no talk of matter synthesis as an alternative when I read about them. But a quick Google search reveals one possibility:

http://scifi.stackexchange.com/question ... ars-univer
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Duplicator

As far as I can tell, this thing appears in a single spin-off novel.

First link has an answer linking back to stardestroyer.net.

Wong arrives to this conclusion: the Empire has replicators as well, but Federation replicators are inefficient because they use too much energy and in in-universe examples they are used for creating food.

But he hardly spends any time at all talking about Imperial Replicators. Also, "no military application?" Seems pretty unimaginative. I'd use them to create compact, volatile chemicals.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Nov 22, 2012 11:54 pm

Bwah? When was that rant written? The friggin' Federation in DS9 uses replicators to make a ridiculously huge minefield at a vital warp point. This is a plot point that shapes the climax of the Dominion War arc.

Libertad wrote:Wong arrives to this conclusion: the Empire has replicators as well,

There is no way the Empire has replicators. They're still using friggin' assembly-line factories in Episode I. Hell, Han Solo is a smuggler. A famous smuggler in the right circles, too. But he doesn't have some ridiculously huge smuggling operation like in Ace Attorney, his operation has literally two people in it. And not of something exotic and awesome like adamantium or latinum, but he smuggles drugs. Or spice. Or whatever.

Libertad · Post by **Libertad** » Fri Nov 23, 2012 12:33 am

Wong's a big Star Wars nerd, so he can pull up obscure and rare tech in the smorgasboard of Expanded Universe material out there.

Problem is, he's not as dedicated to Star Trek. If he opens up the "Anything goes" standard for Wars, then the same applies to Trek. So in a theoretical conflict, you've got all the crazy Force shit from Star Wars, but all the crazy Warp Speed, Q-level alien species, dimension-hopping, and assorted Trek stuff.

Which makes me wonder: in a theoretical conflict with the Empire and Federation, how would the Borg Collective get involved?

Edit: I think that this might be derailing the original thread, of Star Trek vs. Warhammer 40K. I'll ask fbmf if he can move the relevant posts to a new thread. Probably named "Star Wars vs. Star Trek."

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Fri Nov 23, 2012 5:35 pm

So, silly question here.

Does Trek actually give a crap about starfighters? The setting has AI and phasers are accurate enough that they would seem to be able to blast down waves of TIES.

I spend way too much time over at Atomic Rockets.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Nov 23, 2012 5:45 pm

CapnTthePirateG wrote:So, silly question here.

Does Trek actually give a crap about starfighters? The setting has AI and phasers are accurate enough that they would seem to be able to blast down waves of TIES.

I spend way too much time over at Atomic Rockets.

If you have starfighters that can generate their own deflector shields, like the Runabouts and Delta Fliers in Star Trek, then Trek cares. If you are something like a TIE Fighter that relies on "being fast" and "not getting hit", then Trek laughs openly at you.

TIE Fighters are fought in Star Wars by having people manually point flak laser cannons at them and try to hit them with a turbo laser pulse. In Star Trek, they would just be designated as a target and then vaporized with a button press as soon as Picard gave the order.

Death Stars and Star Destroyers might be a problem. They have shields and giant weapons that might be able to break through shielding. Hard to say how that would match up. But the Star Wars fighters would just be puzzling to the Star Trek Federation.

-Username17

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Fri Nov 23, 2012 6:12 pm

CapnTthePirateG wrote:So, silly question here.

Does Trek actually give a crap about starfighters? The setting has AI and phasers are accurate enough that they would seem to be able to blast down waves of TIES.

I spend way too much time over at Atomic Rockets.

Star Trek gives no fucks about lasers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4JUxQe4P4g

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Fri Nov 23, 2012 6:21 pm

I think Wong has some long argument about how they aren't really lasers, like a "laser rifle" has no actual rifled barrel but is a long gun and thus isn't really a rifle. Or something.

I don't remember him actually defining what the lasers were, except they weren't plasma because plasma sucks. and they weren't lasers because they move too slowly.