Update - this has been bugging me for a while, I finally had to write it out.

It's speculation (not taken from the scripts), but internally consistent with at least the first two movies.

In regards to Jeff's question, "why would Skynet invent a time machine that only works on living tissue"

- I'm not convinced that a) Skynet did the inventing, or that b)

it only works on living tissue.

First, we don't know that Skynet really invented time travel - even if one of the characters said Skynet did.

It's entirely probable that some (human) laboratory had worked out the basic principles, but alas, never got a chance to publish their exciting results, prior to most of the human race being wiped out in a nuclear Armageddon.

Second, the Temporal Transfer Field doesn't only work on living tissue - see the T-1000 for a counter-example.

In fact, the problem that Skynet encountered, was a lack of understanding of the principle of Chrono-topology .

Chrono-topology is the principle that the energy required to activate the Temporal Transfer Field, is correlated to the number of bundled timelines inside the Field 1 .

One timeline exists for every object that had a separate existence through the past.

: Note that power requirements appear to be 1.21 Gigawatts per timeline, making it prohibitive to send more than a single object.

For instance, a (naked) human has one timeline, as he exists as a unitary object going back in time.

This includes his hair/fingernails, which are biologically dead tissue, because they are all in the same timeline.

If the field only worked on purely living tissue, the subject's hair (and fingernails - ouch) would need to be removed.

If the subject human puts on a pair of jeans - now there are two timelines inside the field, as the jeans have their own existence and path back through the past.

The same for picking up a gun (and the bullets).

The T-800s, having been created and (presumably) immediately had skin grown on, have a single timeline.

Likewise for the T-1000s.

If they were to pick up a weapon, that would double the number of timelines in the Field.

Why the increased energy requirements?

The TTF, when activated, is basically trying to push an object out of its existing temporal path back in time, into a different path.

The more distinct timelines, the more energy is required for the Field.

A timeline is a four-dimensional path made by a physical object, travelling forward through time.

Think of a bikepath through soft dirt, where the wheels have made a trench.

If you ride a bike back down the trench, it takes an effort to force the wheels out of the trench.

Now, it is true that Skynet could do a number of things to circumvent this restriction, but see the next section for an explanation of why it doesn't .

Skynet is Pac-man on steroids.

Skynet is an AI , and doesn't process scenarios like a human .

It follows certain rules programmed into it, no differently from one of the ghosts in Pac-man (just slightly more complex).

Two rules in particular, Local optimum , and Satisficing , prevent Skynet from doing more than the minimum planning necessary.

First, when considering the sub-goal of how to send a cyborg through a time-field that seemed to only work on flesh-covered objects, Skynet would run through its list of available assets, realize that it already had flesh-covered cyborgs, and move to the next step - how to arm the newly-arrived Terminator.

For this second sub-goal, Skynet would realize that the Terminator could locally acquire weapons, sufficient to take out a waitress .

Having satisfied both of its subgoals, Skynet would stop evaluating additional options , and carry out its plan.

It has achieved a local optimum, and doesn't realize (or care) that there might be a better answer elsewhere.

Skynet, as an AI, just isn't creative , and doesn't seem programmed to make intuitive leaps, which would be obvious to a human.

It processes trees of (known) options, and picks the ones that meet the given criteria.

Lucky for us...

I suspect it was deliberately kept vague to make a good story.

But from the script : SILBERMAN: Why didn't you bring any weapons?

Something more advanced.

Don't you have ray guns?

Show me a piece of future technology REESE:

You go naked.

Something about the field generated by a living organism.

Nothing dead will go.

SILBERMAN:

Okay.

Okay.

But this... cyborg...

if it's metal...

REESE: Surrounded by living tissue.

SILBERMAN:

Of course.

I think that's it for "official" explanations.

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/143/Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE

I don't recall very clearly, but I think this issue was raised in the first movie.

The guy sent back in time is being questioned about the terminator and he says that the terminator is surrounded by living tissue because bare metal can't be transported back, only living material can.

In some of the comic books, Terminators bring weapons with them back in time by storing them inside of dead humans.

The general argument posed in all such scenarios is that something about clothing is fundamentally difficult to transport at the same time as a person.

One connected entity is easier to transport than multiple objects which are closely bound.

It could mistake the distance, and thereby force clothing to stick to a person, for instance.

The Terminator wiki states: The Terminator arrives nude because of the time machine being powered by organic matter, so that clothes, weapons, etc. can't be sent back.

Question: Why do they travel naked in time in Terminator universe? Is it ever explained in the movies or tv serials? If they cannot carry weapons, how do the cyborgs travel with metal under their skin?

Nude time travel in Terminator Universe

This is considered to be speculation, but internally consistent with at least the first two movies.  It may have been deliberately kept vague for storytelling purposes.

It's suspected that this topic is deliberately kept vague for the purpose of good story telling as people can only speculate as to why they can time travel with metal under their skin, but not with clothes over their skin.


In the Book, He doesn't break it.

Instead he puts it back in Dumbledore's tomb.

He explains why he does that:

“I’m putting the Elder Wand,” he told Dumbledore, who was watching him with enormous affection and admiration, “back where it came from.

It can stay there.

If I die a natural death like Ignotus, its power will be broken, won’t it?

The previous master will never have been defeated.

That’ll be the end of it. ”

Dumbledore nodded.

They smiled at each other.

“Are you sure?”

said Ron.

There was the faintest trace of longing in his voice as he looked at the Elder Wand.

“I think Harry’s right,” said Hermione quietly.

“ That wand’s more trouble than it’s worth ,” said Harry.

“And quite honestly,” he turned away from the painted portraits, thinking now only of the four-poster bed lying waiting for him in Gryffindor Tower and wondering whether Kreacher might bring him a sandwich there, “ I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime. ”

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 36.

The flaw in the plan, page 631 of 638

Because it's powerful and dangerous and brings misery to (almost) everyone who possesses it?

Because he doesn't want the power it has, and can't give it away in good conscience?

Essentially, the Elder Wand is a magnet for trouble and violence.

Its very purpose is to make the wielder unbeatable.

Harry knows that whoever has the wand, if it is known, is a target.

He is tired of fighting, and wants peace.

He is the only one who can destroy the wand, so he does.

As they discuss, whoever controls the wand would simply have too much power.

Maybe Harry feels that the power would corrupt him, maybe he worries that possessing the wand would make him (and by extension his loved ones)

a target of those who would steal the wand, or

maybe he just fears what would happen to the wand after he dies if he kept it.

More likely, it's some combination of all three.

He decides that an implement with such power simply shouldn't exist.

The fate of (almost) every wizard who has had the Elder Wand has been a violent death, as the wand is taken away from it's previous owner.

Even those suspected of having a connection with the wand (Snape) seem to have the same fate met.

What point is there to having such a powerful wand if it will only lead to one's own death?

Harry broke the wand because he did not want it to fall into the wrong hands again like it did with Voldemort and almost kill everyone in his quest to kill Harry Potter.

Harry broke the Elder Wand because he knows that all its past owners, including Antioch Peverell (its first owner), had used it for boasting and power.

He also knows that those who are pure of heart (Harry and Dumbledore) can tame it.

Dumbledore said: I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary.

I was fit to own the Elder Wand, and not to boast of it, and not to kill with it.

I was permitted to tame and to use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.

And like Dumbledore, Harry tried to protect himself and others from too much power.

So, in order to do this, he must destroy the source of the power, the Elder Wand.

Which, in conclusion, is why he destroyed the Elder Wand.

Question: At the end of the film version of  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 , Harry broke the Elder Wand in two and threw the pieces away.  Why did he do that?

Why did Harry Potter break the Elder Wand?

The fate of (almost) every wizard who has had the Elder Wand has been a violent death, as the wand is taken away from it's previous owner. What point is there to having such a powerful wand if it will only lead to one's own death? Harry knows that whoever has the wand, if it is known, is a target.  Another reason why Harry broke the wandis  because he did not want it to fall into the wrong hands again like it did with Voldemort.

Harry broke the wand in the film for a number a few reasons, some being that he did not want him or his friends to become the target for people who would seek the wands power and he also did not want the wand to fall into the wrong hands. Therefore he broke it.

Harry knows that whoever posses the wand will becom,e a target and will suffer a violent death. Therefore he broke it.

Harry roke the wand, because he did not want it to fall into the wrong hands again.


I've read a handful of Conan books in random order without feeling like I'm missing anything, but I don't think that's really intended, particularly for the early books written by Robert E. Howard himself.

Several different authors have tried to put together a chronology, but according to Wikipedia : A completely consistent timeline that would accommodate every existing Conan story is impossible for several reasons.

These include: (a) errors that crept into the earliest chronologies (b) subsequent disregard by the early chronologists of chronological evidence in later-discovered Conan material contrary to the existing schemes (c) similar disregard for this contrary evidence in the writing of much post-Howard Conan material, and (d) disregard of both the existing chronologies and chronological information established in previous stories by Howard and others in the writing of other post-Howard Conan material.

The page I linked to has several of the major chronologies, so you could either pick one of those (I'm considering following the Robert Jordan version, since I'm a big fan of his), or you could look to see where they're similar and make your own.

The Barbarian Keep by William Galen Gray looks like the most comprehensive timeline of Conan by Howard and others, but there is little in the canon that compels one to read in any given order.

I have the conan stories by Howard in the Gollancz Fantasy masterworks series.

Its two books and claims the have all the conan stories by Howard in in-universe chronological order.

That does not seem to be the order in which they were written.

A nice series of stories.

The Conan Chronicles - Volume 1: The people of the Black Circle

The Conan Chrnicles - Volume 2:

The Hour of the Dragon

The 12 book series published by Ace that attributes the authors as Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter is an excellent start.

The series includes stories by Howard that were published and unpublished, and the other two authors finished partially written manuscripts and outlines and ideas left by Howard.

Howard had a grand chronology in place from early on, including maps, but he did not publish the stories in chronological order.

The 12 books, in order, are:1 Conan (with a fabulous Frazetta cover)2 Conan of Cimmeria3

Conan

the Freebooter4 Conan

the Wanderer5

Conan

the Adventurer6 Conan

the Buccaneer7 Conan

the Warrior8 Conan

the

Conan

the Conquerer10 Conan the Avenger11 Conan of Aquilonia12 Conan of the Isles

As for other works I have not noticed that the authors totally respect the original Howard vision.

Perhaps some do.

I would not consider works outside of these 12 books to be canonical.

Truly the stories are not meant to be read in order.

The stories were not published in a any particular order because REH meant for the reader to believe that the teller of the story, Conan, told the stories as he remembered them randomly.

Source:"As for Conan's eventual fate - frankly I can't predict it.

In writing these yarns I've always felt less as creating them than as if I were simply chronicling his adventures as he told them to me.

That's why they skip about so much, without following a regular order.

The average adventurer, telling tales of a wild life at random, seldom follows any ordered plan, but narrates episodes widely separated by space and years, as they occur to him."

Robert E. Howard, Letter to P.S. Miller, March 10, 1936.

Question: Is there a recommended order of reading for Conan books? The order should include both Robert E. Howard's and other authors' material.  Don't really care about comics and other non-book sources.

Is there a suggested order of reading Conan books?

Several different authors have tried to establish a chronology, but according to  Wikipedia :   A completely consistent timeline that would accommodate every existing Conan story is impossible for several reasons. However, the stories were not published in a any particular order because Robert E. Howard meant for the reader to believe that the teller of the story, Conan, told the stories as he remembered them randomly.

There is no order in which you have to read Conan's books nor is there a definite chronological sequence. This is the case, because the books were written in a way that makes it seem like Conan is telling the stories as he remembers them.

There is no specific order in which readers should read any of Conan's books.

There is no sequence to read the books in as the stories we published in a way that makes them seem as if Conan was telling the stories as he remembers them.


Not ever defined, that I know of, in universe..

but I'd say it's an intentional self-limiting gesture... with near omnipotence and the ability to simply will things into existence

, mere thinking could quickly get messy... unless you created some form of action and tied to the concept of 'invoking' your power, at least in your mind... as Xantec points out, they each have some gesture that they use.

Imagine the chaos for a new Q until they learn to do this!

Every stray thought becoming reality!

This is the same reason the Dresden books have wizards use obscure languages for spells..

once you associate a spell and an effect to a word or phrase, you don't want to trigger it accidentally by thinking it..

so pick something you would not think, except for the specific reason.

I suspect the members of the Q continuum could invoke their powers without their personal gesture...

but it might take a pretty strong act of will after a few millennia of habit forming.

Because he is a drama queen, and the rest of the Q collective aren't far behind.

Q only appears in human form only when addressing humans.

If Q appears to another race as a member of that race, he does not necessarily have the correct appendages to snap his fingers.

Q knows a making things change with a snap of a finger is an impressive show for humans, and milks it for all he can.

I don't know if there was ever an in-universe given by the writers, producers or anyone else but the finger snap was likely that individual Q's method of focusing their power; although as has been seen on mutliple occassions the motion isn't strictly necessary.

If you watch all of the various Q episodes you'll see that each Q has their own action they perform when they use their powers (single finger snap, double finger snap, hand wave, etc).

It's questionable that the real Q is actually snapping his fingers (or hand waving, or other kinds of fluorishing) -

don't forget, we're only seeing a representation of him in this dimensional/existential/plane/thingie.

But, it kind of makes sense - if you were omnipotent, the last thing you want is for stuff to happen as soon as you think it - it would get kind of chaotic (us mere mortals are rather flighty, and I'd imagine an omnipotent being to be more so).

So, link it to a physical gesture to enforce the desire for something to happen.

Frankly, I think it's just for show.

After all, there are certainly occasions in which Q does not snap his fingers, or make any other noticeable movements.

At the end of "Encounter at Farpoint," Q leaves without a gesture, and just after commencing the game of Hide and Seek with Amanda Rogers he does the same thing.

Amanda also leaves without apparently making any movements ("True Q").

It may be that young Q are taught to do this in order to first definitively establish whatever it is they want to do, so that every stray thought of theirs doesn't immediately become reality.

However, for experienced Q, like most of the Q Continuum, it seems that such movements are totally superfluous.

Note that in "Q2," Q vanishes after directing a wink toward Captain Janeway.

Q most certainly was trying to be showy in that instance!

In addition to the other excellent answers, I think Q snaps to accentuate the ease at which he uses his powers.

The term "it's a snap" refers to something that is very easy to do, like snapping your fingers, so I think this makes sense.

Question: Why does Q click (snap) is fingers whenever he uses his powers? Is there an in-universe reason or is it pure theatrics?

Why does Q click his fingers?

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/143/Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE

The finger snap may have been Q's method of focusing power. However, as has been seen on mutliple occassions, the motion isn't strictly necessary.

There is no in-universe answer for this. Just speculation.


In the Golden Age of comics, Superman's hair didn't grow on Earth.

There was even an entire issue dedicated to this fact at one point - Clark Kent was being tailed by a reporter/photographer for a rival company.

She was one of the company's sleaze artists - always digging up gossip.

Her hired investigator kept taking photos of Clark, and she measured his hair in all of them.

She found that his hair never grew by so much as a centimeter and jumped to the obvious conclusion: That it was a wig.

She then got a photo of him in his apartment - completely bald.

She tried to 'out' him on national TV by pulling off his wig, and got her comeuppance when it was revealed that it was his actual hair.

He tweaked her nose by telling all their viewers that he'd explain everything...that night, on the Planet's news cast (I think that at the time, he was working for the Daily Planet's TV section - it was the golden age, and they had one).

On the news cast he revealed that he'd been wearing a cue ball wig to set Lex Luthor up for a police sting or something.

The issue ended with the reporter swearing to figure out why his hair never grew.

I believe this went away by the time of the 80s or 90s, and has yet to come back.

At one point in canon, however, Superman couldn't grow hair at all, and an entire story (which seemed likely to produce a new, lame supervillainess) was based around it.

In John Byrne's The Man of Steel , a retelling/retcon of Superman's origin, he has Superman shave via heat vision.

He has a small piece of the Kryptonian spacecraft that brought him to Earth, which he bounces his heat vision off of to shave.

A very common bronze age interpretation of Superman's powers are that most of them stem from a "bio-energy matrix", a field of energy surrounding his body that is able to nullify or amplify the effect of other energy fields it comes in contact with (this field is powered by solar energy, stored within his body.

That's why Batman blocks out the sun in Dark Knight Returns to drain Supes of his powers temporarily).

For an example of this, he flies by neutralizing gravity.

This field is controlled by him subconsciously, it's like a reflex.

This field can be extended to other objects as well, which is why he doesn't compromise the structural integrity of buildings when he catches them, because he extends his gravity nullification to surround the building.

He's also been shown in some cases to be able to remove this field temporarily at will, which would be how he shaves with regular tools.

Another common, but very unlikely, assertion is that he is unable to remove the field at will, and thus has to shave with either 1.

a kryptonite coated razor or 2.

a magically imbued razor, as those are the only external influences known to be able to either cancel out or ignore the bioenergy matrix.

That, or his bathroom light is red sun (which neutralizes the yellow sun energy stored in his body).

If you remember from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace , Lex Luthor was actually able to cut a piece of Superman's hair that was holding up a 1000 lb weight in a museum display.

This suggests that his hair has a superhuman tensile strength, but is still susceptible to being sheared by a sharp object with a high enough pressure per square inch (i.e. a good pair of bolt cutters).

Superman seems to shave (mostly) by using his own heat vision, reflected back at himself.

Reflecting his heat-vision off of a piece of his pod and and and In a normal mirror and and and For a bit of variety, sometimes he gets other Kryptonians to help

I remember reading a comic where he gets some sort of weird orange pollen on his head to escape a gorilla (?)

that reacts to black like a bull reacts to red.

Then he is forced to get a haircut.

As he waits, worried that the blade will break, it actually cuts his hair.

He even thinks that hair cuts are so relaxing.

Something I remember even when I get a hair cut these days...

I am sick...

As an analogy, of a similar style super character, similar problems, we have Will Smith, playing the Superman like character Hancock who handled this by using his fingernails to scrape his face and shave.

Perhaps a solution for Superman?

I remember it being explained in the letters page in the back of one of the DC comics of the early-mid '60s that his beard only grew, and could only be cut, under a red sun.

It was also explained that he could visit Kandor and grow and/or shave a beard.

I remember going through my dad's old silver age comics as a kid, and in one, there was a point where superman as superboy, was rendered bald by red kryptonite and wore a wig for the duration of the comic, eventually waiting two weeks for the kryptonite effect to wear off and then flying to a planet where they had a hair tonic that worked on his invulnerable body enough to speed the recovery process.

(he didnt go to the planet the day he lost his hair because he knew the kryptonite had to wear off first.)

in another he had to get his hair cut and so went to a planet with a red sun, bringing green lanter with him to get him back without worry of his temporary power loss

Question: I've seen several times when Superman is sporting a beard. How does he shave his indestructable hair?  I remember once in Superman the Animated Series that he used his heat vision, but that doesn't make sense to me seeing as he can fly through a star and not get burned.  Also related, how does he go from Super Mullet to short hair? IE, how does he cut his hair?

How does Superman shave?

He has a small piece of the Kryptonian spacecraft that brought him to Earth, from which he reflects his heat vision to shave.

There are different variations as to how superman gets his hair cut such as; using his heat vision or going to a planet with a red sun. Though there are some cases in which he can just get his hair cut normally.

Superman popularly shaves using his heat vision. In some cases he even uses Kryptonite to reflect his lazer vision off of to help shave.

Superman has to be exposed to a red sun in order to gain the ability to cut his hair or shave his beard.

In some cases he can actually get his hair cut normally.


Yes.

From an interview with Grossman: The funny thing is, Lewis was notoriously sloppy as a world-builder.

He liked to drag in whatever was handy — nymphs, fauns, wizards, Father Christmas, whatever — without much regard to internal consistency.

For Christ’s sake, Mrs. Beaver has a sewing machine!

It drove Tolkien crazy.

Part of the joke of The Magicians is that I’m taking a Narnia-style fantasy world and forcing it to behave consistently.

It turns out that you have to bend it and distort it and break it to make it fit.

The Magicians essentially takes a re-look at two of fantasy's most popular tropes - the magic boarding school and the children off to fantasy land.

The latter is exemplified by Narnia, and Grossman seems to have based Fillory off Narnia.

So you have a bunch of children who go to Fillory, and fulfill the quests provided by the god-sheep.

However, as you read further you will find that though Fillory does resemble Narnia on the surface, it is given a much more adult treatment.

People still die, and they seem to have more realistic personalities etc.

The biggest difference is that unlike the books that follow the two tropes in a traditional manner, happiness is not guaranteed, and magic does not automatically make people happier or better.

Fillory plays the same role in the characters' childhoods and imaginations as Narnia does in our world, but it doesn't have a bunch of copyright lawyers potentially issuing cease-and-desist notices to authors who write about it.

To add to "Mark S."'s excellent answer, The Magicians was intentionally meant as a deconstruction of the fantasy genre, using both Narnia and Harry Potter as main fodder for deconstruction.

See, for example, reviews: [1] , [2] .

I believe The Magicians borrows a lot of fantasy ideas from Narnia:

The magic wardrobe --

> The magic clock.

The white witch, not native to Narnia but bent on controlling it -->

The Beast/Mothra, not from Fillory but bent on controlling it.

The "land between lands" comprised of pools that act as portals to different worlds --> the fountains.

The concept of 2 kings and queens of Narnia, sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve (high king Peter, etc) --> 2 kings and queens of Fillory, both human also but without alluding to Christian themes as C.S. Lewis did.

The first to enter and explore Narnia is a young girl and boy, primarily the girl, Lucy, followed by her brother Edmund.

> the first in Fillory is likewise a girl and boy;

Jane then Martin Chatwin.

Also siblings, similar ages to Lucy and Edmund.

In both, time passes differently in the real world and in the Fantasy, and the similarities go on.

Therefore, it's safe to say several parts of "fillory" were based on Narnia.

In my view, The Magicians essentially combines the ideas of Alice and Wonderland as well as Narnia and takes a Grimm Fairy Tales spin on it, at least in regard to Fillory plots.

This is done by symbolism and similarity.

The first book of the Narnia series actually does start with a magician, two children, and a series of pools.

Within the Narnia settings the pools are muddy and spread amongst a forest, but each pool led to another world...

much like the pools leading to Fillory and other such places.

The God Ember is a satyr much like Mr Tomnus in book 2.

Later in The Magicians , the fairies appear and they are not unlike the white witch and followers within Narnia.

The 4 rulers from Earth.

The list goes on.

And like Alice in Wonderland , there are rabbits which serve as messengers between worlds.

The air is opium, referring to the fact that Lewis Caroll was said to have written alive in wonderland based on drug induced hallucinations.

They dig at Lewis Carolls rumored paedophilia in regard to Alice by doing the bit with Martin Chatwin and the author of the Fillory books.

What's nice about this is that you can interpret what happens however you'd like and it would still be correct.

You can take everything at face value, that this is about magicians where magic happens and there is a magical land with it's own lore and secrets, and it is enjoyable.

Or you can look into it and interpret meaning from the objects and story lines, and it is easily just as enjoyable.

Question: I've recently started reading the book  The Magicians  by Lev Grossman. There is considerable mention of a land known as Fillory, which seems to be related to  Narnia , from C.S. Lewis's series.. Is there an intentional relationship, and if so, what is it?

What is the relationship between Fillory and Narnia?

Grossman seems to have based Fillory on Narnia. Fillory plays the same role in the characters' childhoods and imaginations as Narnia does.

Yes there is a relationship between Fillory and Narnia. Officialy Grossman has based Fillory off of Narnia and many of it's characters and laws seem to be similar, if not, the same.


While the accepted answer was somewhat correct (one of the 2 reasons was indeed the fact that you could "fool" a child into thinking they had been playing a game, so that they would be able to make the necessary tactical sacrifices without worrying about losing men they command; and not carry around the psychological burden of "what if we lose"), that was not the only reason, and possibly not even the main one.

The reason was articulated by Graff even before Ender was born, in First Meetings collection, in

The Polish Boy , when he explained why he did not care that he wasn't getting John Paul Wieczorek (who we later would know as John Wiggin, Ender's father) into Battle School:

it was because their research suggested that pre-adult kids were better commanders than grown ups .

"There is a definite fall-off in outcomes after the trainees reach adulthood," said Graff.

"That's a fact, however much we may not like the implications.

"They know more, but do worse?" said Chamrajnagar.

"It sounds wrong.

It is hard to believe, and even if we believe it, it is hard to interpret.

" ... and further on, Graff expands on it:

"You're forgetting the research we've been conducting.

It may not be final in some technical scientific sense, but it's already conclusive.

People reach their peak ability as military commanders much earlier than we thought.

Most of them in their late teens.

The same age when poets do their most passionate and revolutionary work.

And mathematicians.

They peak, and then it falls off.

They coast on what they learned back when they were still young enough to learn.

We know within a window of about five years when we have to have our commander.

John Paul Wieczorek will already be too old when that window opens .

Past his peak."

Spoilers for Ender's Game below.

Because they probably can't fool teenagers or adults for long enough for them to destroy the buggers while believing that it's all still a simulated war game.

And if they know it's real, then they will break under the pressure, and possibly also start to worry about committing genocide.

Since I'm not familiar with any official answer to this, I'll give another hypothesis.

The initial ships were launched years before the start of the book, around the time of the previous war ending.

They were likely populated with adults who fought in that war.

Thanks to time dilation, they do not age significantly, and are still capable of fighting upon reaching the buggers' world, though it's not clear if they can come back.

For those left on earth, there would be quite a wait, so it made sense to start training children in the hope that the right commander would come along.

If that was to happen, they could then "preserve" the child(ren) using relativistic trips.

My impression reading the book was that the battle school system had been going on for a long time, but that the right candidate has not been found / engineered to that point, making Ender and his friends "the last hope" as the fleet was getting close to the bugger homeworld, thus the rush to advance the training.

Separately from that, there seems to be a common theme in many fantasy/sci-fi books of giving children out early to the organizations that foster them to a particular destiny.

Makes them much easier to indocrinate as well.

For example, the Dragon Age IP (while a game) has that notion with the templars and the mages.

I'll add to the "accepted" answer.

The need for child training was two fold: "Deception" was needed to cater to the "empathetic genius".

If you love the enemy so much that you can understand and know their moves before THEY do - kinda hard to kill them all dead without hesitation.

THAT, IMHO, was the deciding factor on using genius children.

Adults who know what they are doing will make different decisions when they have to look in mirror and know they just sent someone...

someone's father, brother, mother, etc... to their death.

They wouldn't be able to make the decisions that needed to be made - out of love for their brothers AND their enemies.

Also... add to the fact that training leads to graduation...

graduation leads to captains and generals of the fleet.

A glorified "West Point" academy that starts training at a younger age to further instill the needed qualities in the warriors that make the war machine.

I believe the Ender's Game states that the need for the use of children is to take advantage of their ability to think in an abstract manner that cannot be taught to adults.

If I recall correctly, at some point it's heavily implied in the book that children are still young enough that they're willing to reach new conclusions and change their thinking if necessary, where adults are more set in their ways.

The big advantage with that is that if you start young, and start in zero-g, instead of on Earth, they'll be able to form new strategies that someone who's formative strategies required gravity, and were fairly close to two dimensional (see also Star Trek: the Wrath of Khan , where Kirk bests Khan because Khan couldn't think in three dimensions).

i thought it was because children s reflex's are faster then adults especially between 10-13, 14 yrs old & in a video game environment (I.E. controlling your ships via the video screen back on earth)

the Formacs were crushing the humans with their fast reflex s, at least that's what I read..

Question: Why is there such a big focus on children in Ender's game and why are only children trained in the battle academy?  Why can't teenagers or adults start training also if they have whatever skills the academy is looking for.

Children in Ender's game

The reason for child training was that you could "fool" a child into thinking they had been playing a game. "Deception" was needed to cater to the "empathetic genius".

There were a number of reason they used children instead of teens and adults. A few being that they could not deceive adults and teenagers into believing that they were in a simulation instead of a real war as well as they wanted to exploit the fresh minds ability to learn and develope in certain situations if it needed to.

The main reason seems to be to deceive the children into believing they are play a simulation. This probably wouldn't work on adults and teenagers.

Children were still open minded to learning where as adults are more stuck in their ways and they needed that open mindedness to reach new conclusions and change their thinking if necessary


The Star Trek:

Enterprise episode "Cogenitor" introduces a race called the Vissians who have 3 genders: male, female, and cogenitor : The cogenitor does not pass on genetic material to the offspring they help create; Dr. Phlox suggested that they may supply an enzyme during the sex act which facilitates conception.

Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves has a three-gendered race.

Raphael Carter's short story "Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation" concerns the revelation of a number of different human genders.

A theatre troupe including SF author Geoff Ryman presented an improvised piece at the 1991 Edinburgh Festival called USEXCO that concerned the creation and marketing of two additional human genders.

They show up from time to time.

Ian Banks' The Player of Games features a three gendered pan-human race.

Niven's Puppeteers are likewise three gendered (though one could argue about this as the bearing gender is strictly a separate species).

Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness features a human race that lives as neuters except during brief periods during which they take on one or the other gender (but not always the same one), which could be construed as three genders if you wanted to.

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/231/dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten

In the Alien Nation series the Newcomers have three genders.

Come to think of it, more than two sexes is not very plausible.

Finding a suitable mate is challenging enough in a two-sex species.

Imagine having to find two suitable mates for a three-sex species, or generally n-1 suitable mates for an n -sex species.

Your chances of reproducing will decrease rapidly as n increases.

The concept of a third sex is as old as writing.

In Greek myth there's the figure of Hermaphroditus .

In the Sumerian creation myth , the goddess Ninmah creates an intersex human from clay: Sixth, she fashioned one with neither penis nor vagina on its body.

Enki looked at the one with neither penis nor vagina on its body and gave it the name Nibru [perhaps = eunuch ], and decreed as its fate to stand before the king.

The idea recurs in other ancient cultures; see Wikipedia's third gender article for many more examples.

A few notable early examples in science fiction:

In A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay (1920)

some of the characters belong to a third sex:

Nowadays there are men and women, but in the olden times the world was peopled by phaens .

I think I am the only survivor of all those beings who were then passing through Faceny's mind.

The Last Men in Olaf Stapledon's novel Last and First Men (1930) have many sexes, though these are apparently organized into "male" and "female" sexes: The traveller would recognize among us unmistakable sexual features, both of general proportions and special organs.

But it would take him long to discover that some of the most striking bodily and facial differences were due to differentiation of the two ancient sexes into many sub-sexes.

Full sexual experience involves for us a complicated relationship between individuals of all these types.

Of the extremely important sexual groups I shall speak again.

In

That Hideous Strength (1945) by C. S. Lewis

there's a cryptic reference to the "Seven Genders":

The three gods who had already met in the Blue Room were less unlike humanity than the two whom they still awaited.

In Viritrilbia and Venus and Malacandra were represented those two of the Seven Genders which bear a certain analogy to the biological sexes and can therefore be in some measure understood by men.

It would not be so with those who were now preparing to descend.

These also doubtless had their genders, but we have no clue to them.

These would be mightier energies: ancient eldils, steersmen of giant worlds which have never from the beginning been subdued into the sweet humilations of organic life.

Lewis didn't expand upon this, perhaps because he believed that it would be impossible to convincingly imagine a new sex.

In a 1943 letter he wrote, "Try to imagine a new primary color , a third sex , a fourth dimension , or even a monster that does not consist of existing animals stuck together .

Nothing happens."

(This now seems rather defeatist.

Maybe he should have tried harder.)

Just to inject a bit of science into this: Sex is always well worth its two-fold cost claims to demonstrate why more than 2 sexes are evolutionarily unstable.

Why two sexes? claims to explain why two sexes has arisen so often in Terran evolution.

The existence of a three-gendered animal species actually forms a plot twist in

The Hugo and Nebula winning novel Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

Question: How has this issue addressed? How was reproduction capable between the 3 or more genders?  What are the first instances where a race with more than 2 genders occurred?  I know of instances when there was 1 gender. A  neuter race  in Star Trek where the species chose to remove the sexuality from themselves.   I haven't however, seen any times when they try to introduce the concept of more than 2.

What is the history of the concept of more than 2 genders?

Enterprise  episode  "Cogenitor"  introduces a race called the  Vissians  who have 3 genders: male, female, and  cogenitor. The cogenitor does not pass on genetic material to the offspring they help create. Dr. Phlox suggested that they may supply an enzyme during the sex act which facilitates conception.

There are a number of examples of early work that dipicts the idea of races with more than 2 genders such as David Lindsay's " A Voyage to Arcturus". Star tracks episode "Cogenitor" depicts the idea and also shows how such as race re-produces and sustains itself.

A primary example of 3 gender race that shows how it could exist and be produced lies in start trek episode "Cogenitor". The Cogenitor insert additional enzyms during reproduction in order to produce more genders within their race.

There are a fewe early instances of races with more than 2 genders going as far back to touch on old Greek myths i.e. Hermaphroditus. Other examples include "A voyage to Arcturus" and "Last and First Men".


The IMBD FAQ page for Terra Nova has the following - How can the commander communicate with the alternate 2149 if it's a one way portal and in a different timeline?

According to creator Craig Silverstein, the commander can communicate with the people in 2149 only while the portal is open .

Only while it is open can he order more supplies, communicate info back and forth.

The main drawback with this is that if he orders medical supplies, he has to wait till the next opening to get them.

(So, does this mean the trip isn't really 'one-way'?)

It hasn't been described in show yet

but my guess will be that they are following the same rules of Stargate in which the wormholes are one way traveling for solid objects but radio waves can travel two ways.

It's a massive plot hole.

There's no way for them to know.

Even if they did have some sort of inter-dimensional communication device that was time delivered 85 million years later -- there is no way to tell the future that was what they needed and have it sent back to Terra Nova in the first place so they can set it up.

In fact, there is no way for the future to even know where/when these probes and people are being sent.

Essentially, the first team had to have been sent over blind.

But there's no way for them to tell anyone what they found and what supplies they need because it was a one-way ticket.

So, every single transport sent over was sent over not knowing what was on the other side of the rift, if anything at all.

In fact, they can't even be sure they weren't sending these people into a rift that simply killed them.

There is no reason the temporal anomaly could not transmit radio waves back and forth across the cross-time region.

This could potentially explain how communication is done in a fashion similar to radio transmissions across wormhole horizons in the Stargate franchise.

Energy would not have the same limitations matter would have crossing between universes.

Please notice the way they discovered --the so called-- "Terra Nova":

First they lost the discovery satellite, then they followed up the signals andthey then determined that where their satellite landed (or crashed) was nota different planet, but the earth in past (but in different time stream).

That means that the anomaly through which this satellite passed ispermanent, so they can track down signals from it.

In my humble opinion, that explains everything.

Also, as shown in the last episode, Mira has a communication device and she receives commandsfrom her peers in future.

I was asking the same question too.

Perhaps it could be like the time rift in Julian May's Pliocene Saga.

In those books, people can pass through a rift in time to 6 million years earlier safely but they cannot return; if they stay in the time rift when it "recycles" they return to their present and take on an age of 6 million years and rematerialize as fossils or ash.

Some substances like amber and platinum can be sent back without being destroyed.

Perhaps this could be the same idea behind the Terra Nova portal?

I believe that the issue of supplies and weapons etc. could be solved via predictability.

You know on one pilgrimage they send x number of people with nx supplies and weapons.

And as the x increases they just send that much more supplies and weapons.

Don't be silly.

The two parties, the future and the past can easily agree on scribbling something on some stones or, more probable, some techy solution they have in Terra Nova, and the recipients (the future) could read/watch it.

So, ask a question on a (metaphorical) stone, get a reply back with the next recruit.

Question: In the first episode of  Terra Nova , it's mentioned that Terra Nova is able to communicate with the future.  However, it was established earlier that going through the time schism is a one-way trip, and that you go to the past of a parallel Earth.  So they shouldn't be able to send messages back through, nor can they leave time capsules with messages inside to communicate with the future.  So how are they able to send messages back to the future?

How does Terra Nova send messages to the future?

According to creator, Craig Silverstein, the commander can communicate with the people in 2149 only while the portal is open. There is no reason why the temporal anomaly could not transmit radio waves back and forth across the cross-time region.

Radio waves can travel across the temporal anomaly (portal) without issue. The creator Craig Silverstein confirms that communication can only be made when the portal is open.


For English speakers it's a really not subtle hint that he's bad and evil.

It's like naming a villain "Bad Man".

The name Sidious by itself isn't a word, but it's probably derived from the word insidious.

Google defines the word insidious as Proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects.

Which is a good description of what Darth Sidious did in the prequel trilogy.

Strictly speaking, "Sidious" means nothing in English.

The word insidious is defined as intended to entrap or beguile .

This word in turn comes from a Latin word, sedere , meaning "to sit" (think sedentary ).

Insidere means "to sit in"...

perhaps a reference to eavesdropping or surveillance.

The suffix "osus" means "full of" in Latin (just like "ous" does in English), so it's just a short trip from insidiosus to "insidious".

As Jeff noted, Lucas seems to like to drop the first syllable for scary names - Invader to Vader, Insidious to Sidious.

Presumably, a Sith who could control fire would be called Darth Flammatory...

It was a form of naming convention, I believe.

Darth Vader from the OT was named based on the word 'invader'.

Darth Sidious for Episode 1 works the same way from 'insidious'.

This falls apart, however, for Darth Maul and Darth Tyranus.

Edit, additional info:

As has been pointed out in the comments, 'Maul' and 'Tyranus' both wear their meanings on the sleeves, and they were apparently not intended to survive long as Sidious' seconds.

Their names were likely chosen offhand or self-chosen, then.

Plutor posited a link that discusses the history of Vader's name.

In my opinion, the dismissal of 'invader' as a source is purely offhand, with no real consideration given.

At the time the OT was written, Lucas didn't know Vader was Luke's dad, and had no concept of his history.

And Anakin DID act as an 'invader' - he acted from within the Jedi to help destroy them.

His corruption to the Dark Side began in AotC, and culminated with his invasion of the Temple in RotS.

So there's certainly a case to be made for 'vader' to be shortened from 'invader', in-universe.

In-universe, however, there's no sign that it means 'Dark Father'.

The language it stems from (purportedly Dutch) isn't stated in the article, and most likely doesn't exist in the SW universe.

It's based on insidious (slow, subtle, gradual harm) and assiduous (constant application & attention to detail until task is finished), combined with the new Sith philosophy — the rule of two — to sit, wait and work in secret at the whole plan to destroy the Jedi (as was the Sith’s original goal).

His character believed he was the Sithari — the chosen one of the Sith, the culmination of 1000 years of Sith evolution.

He learned through his prolonged study of Sith history to renew the way the Sith operated.

He cultivated a small but powerful Sith Order to use against the Jedi and entered politics to work in secret (but in plain view as a Senator) to infiltrate the Republic.

The discrediting of the Jedi was his whole plot, combined with Order 66

so he was only left with a small number of Jedi to deal with in his rise to power, which he totally orchestrated & manipulated through controlling the war as the villain and the hero by keeping battles even to prolong the war and exhaust the Jedi.

Also so much study of the Dark Side made him pure evil as he was able to train with his master for decades to learn all he could to prepare himself for his plan to become Emperor by gaining power through the illustrious career of starting and controlling outcomes of war, slowly guiding events to align with his plan until he could gain emergency power to execute Order 66.

The phantom menace was his beginning as the new improved Sith & mastermind of the Republic.

Naming a Sith is a Skill.

Its based on English word describing a certain kind of evil or dark thing.

For example : Darth Sidious is short for the word INSIDIOUS, which is a form of evil.

As to Darth Maul is short for Malicious, Darth Vader is short for Invader, Darth Tyranous (count dooku) is short for Tyrany.

Darth Revan is for Ravenous, Darth Plaguies is short for Plague.

Darth Bane is basically BANE itself..

Darth Gravid is short for Gravity, Darth Ramage is short for Damage.

Question: The Sith name of the emperor is Darth Sidious. As English is not my native language, I wonder if the is any hidden meaning for the name Sidious.

What does Sidious mean?

Sidious by itself isn't a word, but it is probably derived from the word insidious.

The term "sidious" means nothing in actuality, but was derived from the term "insidious" which is how "Darth Sidious" came to be.

The name sidious is derived from the term insidious through which "Darth Sidious" received his name.

The term "sidious" itself means nothing in english.


Part of it was that many of the actors were moving on, part of it was cost as Xantec mentioned.

Another factor was that the man driving the Star Trek franchise after Gene died was Rick Berman.

By the time Nemesis came out, many fans and critics had grown restless and were saying that Star Trek had become stale and lifeless under Berman's guidance, that it wasn't going boldly anywhere.

Berman was pushing forward for an eleventh film with a group of writers, but they weren't getting very far coming up with an acceptable script.

Then, as often happens, the powers that be changed and Paramount got a new president.

Their script in progress was shelved indefinitely by the new president.

A few months later Rick announced that he was walking away from Star Trek, stating that if Star Trek were ever re-energized, it would be by fresh faces that hadn't been involved before.

Over the years several people proposed reboots of the series that were all rejected by Paramount, including Bryan Singer (who failed to reboot Superman successfully), J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5), Jonathan Frakes (Riker) and William Shatner.

They finally got an acceptable proposal for a reboot from JJ Abrams and that brought us to where we are now.

Honestly, there's never going to be a live-action film resolution of B4 - the whole reason Brent Spiner wanted to leave the show is that he felt he was growing too visibly aged to continue playing a character that wasn't supposed to age

(who looks like he did in the mid-80s).

The entire series has been suffering for a while from a lack of new ideas, and it will likely never live up to the expectations of fans.

DS9 and Voyager aren't really suited to feature-length movies (Voyager especially, since it has canonically finished it's journey), and Enterprise was a disappointment to the studio (not to mention many fans), so it's low on the list for a live-action movie.

In short, the studios won't do it because there's no money in it.

And the direction they seem to be heading is for the sure-thing: retreading TOS with the reboot series.

After fifteen years of working on Star Trek (1987 - 2002)

it is likely that (A) the actors were ready to move on and (B)

it was becoming very expensive to hire the actors.

Not to mention that Star Trek Nemesis came out about mid-way through Star Trek Enterprise, arguably during the waning years of the second Star Trek Era (Voyager had just ended, Enterprise wasn't doing so hot and people were pretty much Trekked out).

Mainly because the opinion of most Star Trek fans I know (including myself), Insurrection and Nemesis were bad movies and ended up being financial flops.

Look to The Numbers or Box Office Mojo for specific numbers and poor reviews of both films.

I blame the budget that Paramount gave Next Generation to work with.

If Paramount would have given them the same as the re-boot from JJ Abrams, they could have made better movies.

I believe that cost and creative issues ended the TNG series of movies.

The budget for Star Trek: Nemesis was $67 million.

(It earned $67.3 million.)

The budget for StarTrek (2009) was $150 million.

I suspect a $70 - $75 million budget in the hands of someone like Jonathan Frakes would have done quite well.

Question: The Next Generation crew filmed Generations, First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis. Then nothing. Why was there no follow up film?  I was expecting some kind of resolution to the Data / B4 story.

Why didn't they make a new TNG movie after Nemesis?

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/143/Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE

It is believed that some of the actors wanted to move on to other things and/or were getting older. Cost and creative issues may also have been factors, along with the death of Gene and the performance of the previous films.

Most of the actors were ready to move on with the series. Aside from that the original director had died, which was one of the reasons the franchise started to become dull and boring. In the end the franchise wasn making too much of a loss in the box office so another film was never made.

Most of the actors were ready to move on from the series. An example being Brent Spiner wanted to leave the franchise is that he felt he was growing too visibly aged to continue playing a character that wasn't supposed to age

The original director died leaving Rick Berman to take his place.

Aside from Star Trek being rediculed by fans for becoming dull and boring it also started to flop in the box office turning up very little to no profit whatsoever.


I'd say that one of them (not time-traveling yet) would be pretty shocked.

Even Hermione said it before they ran to save the hippogriff.

Hermione would probably be okay, because she already knows that she might meet herself in the future.

Harry saw himself saving himself (yes, that's really paradox ) and the only effect was a confused Harry, because he thought it's his killed dad.

You guys are, of course, missing the simple point that since future Harry has already LIVED through the past situation, he is armed with the knowledge that past Harry never ran into future Harry visiting (otherwise future Harry would have the memory of having run into someone who looked exactly like him).

Everything that happens when they travel to the past is exactly what had ALREADY happened by the time they made the decision to go to the past in the first place.

In other words, they couldn't screw anything up by 'accidentally' running into themselves, because if it had happened, they would already know about it.

The only reason Harry didn't have the memory of seeing himself from the future is because it was too far away for him to see the figure properly, and he assumed it was his father, until he went back in time, saw his past self across the lake and then realised that he was currently the figure past Harry thought was his father.

Hermione does mention that time-travelling wizards have been injured or even killed by their confused previous selves.

Understandable

if you didn't know time-travel was possible and suddenly come across somebody posing as yourself in a world of magic and polyjuice potions (though, I'd think about stunning first and asking questions later)

Harry thought he was seeing his father in the night-dark forest, so while confused, didn't feel threatened (plus, he had enough trouble with the Dementors swooping in).

Due to the fact that the non-traveling Hermione already knows about the watch, she would pull non-traveling Harry away and maybe explain the watch to him.

It could become difficult when Harry rescues himself with the Patronus; because he knows he can do it

he won't have such strong feelings as if he is in fear.

In the books, Hermione addresses this in a little more detail than in the movie, but the movie does explain it a bit.

Basically, there's no paradox preventing someone from visiting their past or future self, but... if Harry were to burst in on the three people in Hagrid's hut, including his past self, his past self might think he'd gone mad, or that his future self was some trick or illusion, and Harry's future self might be attacked by any of the people in the hut.

Even if his past self believed that his future self was really him, changing the course of time so radically might have unintended consequences.

If Harry had killed Pettigrew alias Scabbers in the hut, then Scabbers wouldn't have run off toward the tree, and all the events that unfolded, including Harry learning that Sirius was innocent and thus wanting to go back in time to save him, would never have happened.

By remaining unseen, they changed time in such a way as to preserve the basic timeline and thus all knowledge of the events, thus not removing the reason they would have gone back in time in the first place.

Question: What would happen when Harry and Hermione would meet other Harry and Hermione while using time travel clock? For example scene of execution of hippogriff in Prisoner of Azkaban.

Trouble of time travel in Harry Potter?

There is no paradox preventing someone from visiting their past or future self, but if Harry were to burst in on the three people in Hagrid's hut, including his past self, his past self might think he'd gone mad. Hermione does mention that time-travelling wizards have been injured or even killed by their confused previous selves. However, Hermione would probably be okay, because she already knows that she might meet herself in the future.

In most cases the individuals none time travelling self will most likely get shocked and may even injure or kill their time travelling self. However in the case of Hermione she may be okay, because she is aware of the time travelling watch.

Theoretically your confused none time travelling self may be shocked and in some cases, according to Hermione, some time travelling wizards have been injured and even killed by their none time travelling selves.

Hermione would potentially be okay, because she is already aware of the time travelling watch. Harry may freak out as he is unaware of the ability to time travel.


While I wouldn't discount the occasional (or even often) slipup by saying "arrived in the X system", often what you'll hear is " approaching the X system".

That is, the announcement is taking into consideration that they are well enough away from the destination for it to matter.

Why would they announce it ahead of time instead of just doing it?

Consider another,

similar paradox: Enterprise is in pursuit of another ship at high warp when the helm says, "Captain, they've dropped out of warp!"

The captain then says, "take us out of warp, lieutenant."

In the time to relay the condition and give the order, Enterprise should be nowhere near the ship they were pursuing.

To reconcile this, it's important to understand that creating and destroying a warp field is not instantaneous: this is usually glossed over in the episodes, but it's illustrated to dramatic effect at the beginning of Star Trek:

The Motion Picture , where the bridge officers spend a good 5-10 minutes getting anxious while bringing the Enterprise up to Warp 1 after a major refit.

When the helm prompts the captain that they're approaching a star system or that the ship they're pursuing is dropping out of warp, they're taking into account the time and relative effort it takes to drop out of warp and asking the captain if they can proceed.

Why ask?

Chain of command.

The helm gets his or her information on a need-to-know basis: the captain could've received new information or wants to make a tactical decision that would contradict the obvious next step (drop out of warp).

So the helm asks for confirmation of the new task once he's completed his previous one (navigating the ship at warp).

IMHO, this is mostly because in a lot of space sci-fi - Star Trek included - space ships are usually modeled after regular wet Navy ships.

Navy ships move slowly enough that this formalized real-time chain of command is fully adequate as far as human reaction speed.

Unfortunately, Star Trek is a Shakespearean Theater in sci-fi setting.

So it didn't bother getting many details right scientifically - including this one - unlike a lot of good hard sci-fi, where the authors actually put in a bit of thought, realized this would be a problem, and switched to a more appropriate captain pre-selects parameters (e.g. how close to system to drop out of hyper-speed), crew enters parameters into the system, the system exits hyper-speed at pre-programmed point .

The comparison to a naval "look and feel" is quite apt.

It's partly a question of aesthetic preference that overrides the science.

But consider.

Even in modern naval maneuvers, and especially in naval (or really any) aviation where timing is much tighter, there is not always time to actually process decisions in the way that the formal chain of command would theoretically imply.

Often in these real-world cases what will happen is that everyone already knows in advance what needs to be done and the crew is already effectively executing the command as, or even before, the captain issues it.

Even a routine trip from one planet to another probably involves an enormously complex flight plan (or "warp plan") that is meticulously worked out in exhaustive detail long before the ship makes planetfall.

If the ship is on course and cruising according to plan, the captain may be formally informed of their impending arrival long after the preliminaries of the de-warp procedure have already begun.

Presumably the captain knows this already and is perfectly aware of how the journey has been progressing.

Everyone is sitting there calmly as the captain almost off-handedly gives the (formal) order because no one is in the slightest bit surprised, and indeed as far as the below-deck crew is concerned the maneuver may already be in progress by the time they actually hear him sign off on it.

This is one reason, incidentally, why quality of crew training and the fine line between discipline and initiative are so important.

You want combat officers who know that if you are following a pursuit plan and the target starts coming out of warp, that you should start coming out of warp too, even if the order hasn't technically been confirmed yet from the captain's chair.

It can have a very plain explanation -- warp drive works by putting a ship in a spacetime bubble which may be sliding through normal space at FTL, but maybe not necessarily has to .

In other words both warp and impulse would use spacetime folding, and going out of warp would only mean switching from faster to more maneuverable drive.

This has some justifications in some mentions that impulse may also be FTL, and is reasonable because conventional flight with near c is also quite problematic -- the energies are so large that a collision with a grain of salt could easily destroy the ship.

Anyway in this scenario the ship may just slow down to 0.1-0.01c, which is quite a reasonable speed to cross a solar system and give the captain a chance to pick a planet and orbit.

I think there are a number of reasons behind this.

Primarily, it is a plot device - it says "we are arriving at x".

The captain needs to be seen to be driving the ship - as per DVKs comment - and so has to make a response.

In reality, the process of bringing the ship down to sub-light speed at this point, and it is merely a confirmation that this is still the right thing to do.

Question: Often when they arrive in a star system from warp, someone will say something like, "Captain, we've arrived in the such-and-such system." And he will give the order to take the ship out of warp. Now, at warp speed, if he responds too slowly, even by a fraction of a second, why doesn't the ship end up light years away?

Why does Picard need to give verbal orders to bring the ship out of warp?

Primarily, it is a plot device - it says "we are arriving at x". However, while he may sometimes say "arrived in the X system", often what you'll hear is " approaching  the X system". This is mostly because in a lot of space sci-fi, space  ships  are usually modeled after regular Navy ships.

There are as number of theories as to why the captain has to give the order such as; space ships being designed with navy like hierarchy, the idea that this is just a plot device, warp drive not having to function at faster than light speed etc. However these are all theories and there is no canon explanation for it.

In most cases the pilot states that they are "Approaching" location X, which in theory gives the captain plenty of time to make the order.

The space ships hierarchy resembles that of what is found in the navy and the writers of the Star Trek universe specifically designed it that way regardless as to how realistic this is to the situation. Much like the hierarchy in the navy they have to wait for captains orders as they may decide to make a decision outside of the obvious for tactical reasons.

Warp drive works at faster than light speed, but it can probanly funking at less.

Primarily it is a plot device used to move the story forward.


In the comics it is established that everyone already is infected , though the symptoms only show after you "die" unless the brain is damaged too much.

This was shown with Shane.

He died by gunshot, yet turned into a zombie while laying six feet under without having endured any zombie-bites.

After Rick learned of that fact, he dug him up again and killed him for good.

This also applies to the TV-show:

There was a man, who committed suicide by hanging himself in a tree, and he turned into a zombie as well.

Andrea had him killed out of mercy.

The survivors have no immunity.

In both the graphic novels and the show the survivors have at least one member of their group get bitten, and start to show symptoms of the infection.

It is also mentioned that they had to take care not to get any part of the walkers, particularly the fluids, near their mouths or eyes.

this comes up particularly when they are covering themselves in walker fluids to mask their scent.

Presumably this is to reduce chance of becoming infected by contact.

This answer is based on information up through the end of season 2 of the TV series.

In the episode Better Angels , we see two people die.

Neither die from walkers, instead they die from human on human violence.

Their dead bodies are not touched by walkers.

They both return as walkers.

Afterwards, Rick confirms to the group that Jenner told him that they're all infected.

In season 1's Vatos , one of the survivors, Jim, is bitten during a walker attack.

In the next episode, we see that he's getting very sick incredibly quickly.

We're led to believe he'll soon become a walker, an experience some of the survivors have had prior to Rick's waking up.

I think what we're seeing is that the disease that causes the walkers is dormant in living humans.

Only once a human dies does the disease become active.

Once active, it animates the brain stem and turns the body into a walker (as shown in TS-19 ).

Now that the disease is active in that body, biting a living person introduces the active form of the disease to the living person's system.

This disease is deadly or at least turns them into a walker quickly.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with Lori's growing fetus in season 3.

Almost every interaction with the walkers ends with an inspection for cuts or bite marks.

This suggests that the current survivors don't believe that they have any particular immunity to becoming zombies themselves.

It also indicates that casual contact with the walker's fluids is not sufficient for transmission.

It is said in the series that all people are already infected with the disease...

This was revealed by Dr Jenner to Rick back in the first season.

TL;DR: Neither.

Zombie blood isn't that dangerous.

Word of God: Franchise creator, writer of the comics, and Executive Producer of both shows, Robert Kirkman: Q:

This is a real Comic Book Guy question – but do

I gather that if someone swallows a tiny bit of zombie blood they won’t turn into one of the undead?

There was a lot of it being sprayed around this episode

[Season Three, Episode 6, Hounded ].

A:

Yeah, people to a certain extent think of zombie blood as being like the blood from Alien.

You know, in the Alien movies it’s like, “Oh god, if it touches you, you explode!”

or whatever.

Whatever it is that turns these people into zombies is in them already.

So the idea of getting zombie blood on your face, which happens all the time, and it turning you into a zombie is something that’s just not the case.

Now, that doesn’t make the zombie bite any less lethal.

You know, breaking the skin, having that kind of contact with the toxicity that zombie mouths would have, would be something that causes an infection that definitely would lead to your death and then the thing that’s already in you would turn you into a zombie.

So there is a science to this, to a certain extent.

Q:

Although, to be clear, you are not technically a scientist.

A:

No.

No, no, no.

But I know about everything that scientists know, I’m pretty certain!

But anyway, zombie blood is not quite as deadly as a lot of people think.

I wouldn’t drink it in high volumes, though .

- Robert Kirkman, interview with Entertainment Weekly

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/44025/Wad Cheber stands with Monica

Question: From what I recall of  28 Days Later , where the old guy gets infected and turned with a bit of infected blood, they (or at least he) didn't have immunity to the plague, unlike in  Left 4 Dead .  Is this the case in  The Walking Dead  as well?  They don't seem to be particularly careful about how they splatter the undeads' bodily fluids all over themselves (be it a rock to the head or machete to the gut).

Do the survivors in The Walking Dead have immunity to the zombie plague or are they just lucky?

The survivors do not have immunity. In the comics it is established that  everyone  is already  infected. However,  the disease only become active once a human dies and provided that the brain is not too damaged.

In the series and comics it is stated that everyone, alive or dead, is infected, however the disease does not become active until afterr they die. None of the survivors are immuned to the disease.


Nearly every species that controls their entire home world/system is named after said home world/home system with the notable exception of two: the Klingons and the Humans.

So it's natural to ask, "okay, if they were going to make an exception for two, why not all of them?"

However, it's much easier to explain if we ask the converse first:

why are Klingons and Humans treated differently?

Qo'noS wasn't established as the Klingon home world until Star Trek VI .

Before that, the only canonical mention of the Klingon homeworld was in " Heart of Glory " when it was actually called Kling .

Klingons from Kling: follows the same convention as all the other species.

The Star Trek Encyclopedia explains why it was changed: At the time the episode was written, Kling was intended as the name of the Klingon Homeworld.

Once the episode was filmed, it was realized that the name sounded pretty silly, so later scripts simply referred to "the Homeworld.

" The only time the Homeworld was given a name was in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, when it was called Qo'noS, pronounced "kronos."

So that just leaves us Humans on Earth: calling us anything other than Humans or Earth anything other than Earth would be too foreign and confusing for the audience.

We're humans, so that's what we're called.

In Human languages, the use of the word predates First Contact and moreso the convention of calling species by their origin planet/world.

You might ask, "why do the species all call themselves by their planet name instead of by a local name like the Humans do?"

Well, they do use localized names: for example, "Klingon" in Klingonese is "tlhIngan".

But due to the magic of the universal translator , whatever localized name species use to call themselves gets translated to follow the Human convention.

That is, Klingons could call themselves "tlhIngan" or " Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabadoo " in Klingonese, but the word would automatically be translated to "Klingon" by the Human universal translators.

In the same manner, the word "Human" would be translated to the localized word used by Klingons for Humans by their translators.

So to answer the question, the reason why species aren't given more exotic names is because, given the universal translator, it'd be entirely unnecessary.

Humans (and by extension, the audience) wouldn't need to use the localized name in everyday situations.

Those are their names in English.

In Vulcan, perhaps Earth is called the equivalent of human-world and English is called human-speak.

Keep in mind the country we call Germany calls itself Deutschland.

And many tribal peoples have words for their tribes that also mean all humans.

I'm guessing the main reason is lazy writing.

However, there are some in-universe explanations for some notable cases:

Some races are given English names that are very different from theirnative names.

For example, the Orions call themselves Kolari (thoughthey also call their homeworld Kolar, so I guess that's a badexample).

Conversely, Klingons normally refer to humans as tera'ngan , meaning "inhabitant of Terra".

This also happens on Earth.

The term "Native American" wasn't made up by Native Americans, nor is the word "Aboriginal" derived from an Aboriginal Australian language.

Some have made a conscious choice.

For example, it appears that when the Romulans left Vulcan, they called themselves Rihannsu , meaning "the Declared".

When they found a homeworld, they chose to call it ch'Rihan , meaning "of the declared".

Notice, by the way, that they don't call themselves Romulans; in one very influential Trek novel ("My Enemy, My Ally" by Diane Duane), the main character expresses surprise that humans would use such a strange name for them.

To complicate matters further, in "Klingon for the Galactic Traveler", it's explained that the Klingon words romuluS and romuluSngan (for the planet and species respectively) is based on the word "Romulus", rather than on the native Rihannsu .

So now we have former Vulcans referred to by Klingons with a word presumably made up by Humans.

It's also possible that as the peoples of a world unite, the words they use to describe themselves and their planet will grow to reflect this.

U.S. Americans haven't always called themselves Americans.

Swedes haven't always called themselves Swedes.

Christians haven't always called themselves Christians. ...

and before the great unification, the Federation Standard Dialect was called "English", apparently named after some obscure tribe native to some Federation planet.

I would expect other aliens call their planet Earth too (land/ground/dirt/soil/etc in their language).

Maybe "Breen" means ground and "Betazed" means Dirtlands and "Vulcan" actually mean rock in vulcanese.

:D

Who knows?

English:

Earth - EarthlinLatin: Terra - Terranand possibly "human" is also related to an ancient word for Earth which appears in the term humus, from the Latin word for soil.

So folks from the third planet circling Sol (the sun) are named for their home world, just like all the others.

Question: Andorians come from Andoria (or Andor)  Vulcans come from Vulcan  Romulans come from Romulus  Breen come from Breen  Betazoids from Betazed  Cardassians from Cardassia   The list goes on and on (with a few exceptions, like Kronos).   And then you have humans (terrans) which come from third planet in the Sol system called Humania, err Terra, err Earth.   Why the lack of creativity in planet names for other species?

Why aren't more species' planets named differently from their species name?

The reason why species are not given more exotic names is because, given the universal translator, it would be unnecessary. That said, some races are given English names that are very different from their native names.

Just because the name of the planet is wriiten as it is in english does not mean that the planet uses the name on its home world.


Terminal , the final episode of season 3, was originally going to be the end of Blake's 7 (this is why Gareth Thomas was persuaded to reprise the role of Blake for the episode, which of course happened again for the real conclusion).

The destruction of the Liberator was a suitably dark ending to the show, and the real set was used for filming its destruction (March 7th, 1980).

The end was so certain, that when the episode was broadcast (March 31, 1980), the cast and crew had already dispersed.

Most of them didn't even know that there would be more episodes until this was announced during the credit sequence at the end of Terminal .

The story (according to the Blake's 7 Summer Special for the final season) is that the Head of BBC Television was impressed by the episode and instructed (while it was airing!)

that an announcement be made during the end credits that the series would return.

At this point, there were both in-universe (it was a fairly definitive destruction, unlike the destruction of the 'sister ship' in the first season, and this was stolen technology was more advanced than most, so not easily repaired/rebuilt) and out-of-universe (the set was blown up!)

reasons to need a new ship, rather than a repaired/rebuilt Liberator .

Peter Tuddenham voiced both Zen and Slave (the computer of their next ship, Scorpio ), and also Orac, who survived the Liberator 's end.

Since he was already continuing as Orac, it made sense for him to do the voice of the new ship as well (and Zen and Slave's characters were sufficiently different that it wasn't especially obvious that this was the case).

The destruction of the Liberator (in the context of Terminal being the final episode at the time) provided Nation with with the opportunity to give Servalan what she has been seeking for the entire series...but only for a short time.

Servalan's desire for the Liberator can be argued as being the main story arc of Season 3 and this is arguably one of the reasons why many see Season three as weaker than season 1 or 2 as there was no real story arc for the heros.

It is even mentioned on the DVD commentary that when Tarrant says to Vila "Can't always have what we want now Villa...

" that this is the main theme of the episode.

Here we see the obsessed Servalan seizing control, gloriously commanding "maximum power", only to have her whole prize disintegtrate around her.

The destruction of the Liberator therefore becomes one of the strongest symbols of irony in the (entire) series.

Avon's smile at the end is also such a symbol of irony.

Throughout season 1 and 2, Avon had tried frequently hinted that he wanted the Liberator, "I am free, I intend to stay that way", "....

I will take you back to earth

then the Liberator is mine, agreed ?

" even proclaiming "This is MY ship" in Powerplay.

In Terminal, Avon is tricked into believing that Blake is alive, he falls into the trap, based on Servalan's conditioning about Blake.

"You wanted to belive Blake was was alive" and yet, in his persuit of Blake, he looses the one thing that he managed to win from Blake in the first place.....

The destruction of the Liberator therefore provides Ironic tradgedies to both hero and villian and was a stroke of genius from Nation.

A Blake's 7 magazine of the mid 1990's said that makers were influenced by the film Alien , which they found darker and a more grim reality.

They thought Liberator was too glamorous.

Though some of the Alien films are quite good, Blake's 7 is superior, and should never have sought to copy something inferior.

Best regards.

Steven Summer, of the Blake's 7 obsession website.

I saw in an interview, it was for one simple reason.

The set was falling apart.

If it was not broke, it was stolen by visitors to set.

Limited wrist bracelet and guns.

So they started over.

Very simple, everyone associated with the show thought that 'Terminal' would be the final episode of the series.

Therefore, they destroyed the Liberator sets in one massive finale.

I read somewhere that the technology of the federation was catching up with that of the Liberators.

And the new persuit ships that Servalan had nearly caught them in a trap .Not

sure of the episode now, mentions the new persuit ships,so Blakes crew where going to have to upgrade soon anyway,which they got in Stardrive.

The photon drive or Stardrive was fitted into Scorpio.

Which makes sense ,everything is oudated sooner or later.

Question: The Liberator was a beautiful ship design with good sets and an interesting computer (Zen). My question is not why it was destroyed in-universe, but why the writers decided to get rid of it. Was it too powerful? Did they have to dismantle the sets for some reason (cost, perhaps)? Did the new producer try to fix things that weren't broken? Did the voice of Zen choose to leave the show?

Why did the writers of Blake's 7 destroy the Liberator?

Terminal , the final episode of season 3, was originally going to be the end of  Blake's 7. The destruction of the  Liberator  was a suitably dark ending to the show, and the real set was used for filming its destruction (March 7th, 1980). It is also said that the set was falling apart.

AS this was supposed to be the final episode of the series the directors wanted to go out with a big bang. In addition it served the plot conveniently as tp give Servalan what she had been seeking, but only for a short time as a cruel twist of irony. In addition there were some rumours about the set falling apart and so they needed to come up with a new one after the show was re-newed.

Terminal was supposed to be the final episode of the series and The Liberator being destroyed was going to be part of the big finally.

The destruction of the Liberator served as plot convenience at the end of the season to allow Servalan to take control of the ship she was seeking, but only for a short time allow for a cruel twist of irony.


In the classic series, the episode " By Any Other Name " features aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy.

In Next Gen, they end up in galaxy M33 in " Where No One Has Gone Before ".

Bonus answers: By Any Other Name: It was a 300-year journey, so one presumes "the hard way", at a high warp speed.

Where No

Has Gone Before - enabled by the Traveler (and Wesley, I guess?), and his "magic" powers.

UPDATE:

The androids from I, Mudd were created by beings from the Andromeda galaxy.

Along with the other answers, Voyager introduced the Caretaker and his mate Suspiria, which are beings from another galaxy.

Memory Alpha has a list of Extra-galactic species , although not all have been "encountered".

Of course, The Enterprise was TRYING to leave the galaxy in " Where No Man Has Gone Before ", but the Galactic Barrier made things go all kablooie.

In " By Any Other Name " the beings from the Andromeda Galaxy makes reference to this barrier and Kirk rather snidely waves him off: "Yes, I know, we've been there!"

It's one of my favorite Kirk moments.

In the original series episode, "By Any Other Name", visitors from the Andromeda Galaxy attempt to steal the Enterprise to return home.

It seems like there was a TNG or later episode that might have had visitors from another galaxy.

I thought it might have been "The Nth Degree" but the aliens in that episode were from the center of the Milky Way.

In season 3 episode 26 of Star Trek Voyager, Species 8472 is referred to as being from "outside of our galaxy" (they're probably also outside of our universe, since they're from fluidic space).

The Borg used a modified deflector array to open a rift in space to invade fluidic space from the Delta quadrant, and since they were unable to assimilate the Undine, the creatures counterattacked into our galaxy.

TOS Season 2

" Catspaw ":

Sylvia takes an interest in Kirk and decides to learn more about human feelings and experiences.

Kirk feigns romantic interest, promising to fulfill her desires and be her loyal servant.

She responds by changing into three different but attractive forms to test his emotions.

Kirk tries to subtly extract information from her while he has her charmed, and learns that Sylvia and her partner Korob are explorers, but not from this galaxy .

Tin Man, AKA Gomtuu may have been "born" outside of our galaxy:

Gomtuu was a living spaceship who seemed to have been "born" far from Federation space, possibly in another galaxy.

Like a traditional starship, Gomtuu possessed a warp drive, transporter capability, and was fully equipped to defend itself.

However, much of its technology was beyond that known to Federation science.

Upon its discovery it was dubbed "Tin Man" by Starfleet and the "Star Creature" by the Romulans. From Memory Alpha As far as the "bonus", Tin Man transversed the distance over the course of millennia.

Question: The Star Trek universe is set inside our own Milky Way, however has there been any instances of contact with life outside our own Milky Way? I understand the distance between our galaxy and the next is much bigger than distances typically traveled by warp capable ships but there could have been other means of communication or travel.  Edit: Bonus question, how was such a vast distance traveled?

Has there been any contact with life outside our own Milky Way in the Star Trek universe?

In Next Gen, they end up in galaxy M33 in " Where No One Has Gone Before ". Voyager introduced the Caretaker and his mate Suspiria, which are beings from another galaxy. Also, in season 3 episode 26 of Star Trek Voyager, Species 8472 is referred to as being from "outside of our galaxy".

There are multiple instances of contact with beings from outside of the milky way galaxy. A specific reference point being the episode " By Any Other Name" where the enterprise is a target for the Andromeda species, which come from outside of the Wilkyway. There are also reference to the main crew ending up in other galaxies, such as galaxy M33, and meeting up with species from different galaxies like the Voyager's.

The episode " By Any Other Name" is a staple episode for being from the Andromeda galaxy being introduced.

In next gen they end up in a galaxy other than the milky way i.e. galaxy M33

The voyager have been introduced to the series and are a race from outside of the milky way galaxy.


With regards whole ship replication, there are notes in the Next Generation Technical Manual .

It states that replication of an entire ship would take too many resources/too much energy.

The behind-screen notes say this is for dramatic effect as the viewer would care too little for the fate of the ship if they can just replicate a new one in minutes.

From Construction Chronology (P17):

Given the existence of matter replication devices (like the show's "food replicator" terminals), a very logical question is: "Why can't they just replicate entire starships?

" The real reason is that such an ability would allow us to create entire fleets of starships at the touch of a button.

This might be great for Federation defense and science programs, but makes for poor drama.

For this reason, starship construction facilities (seen at Utopia Planitia in "Booby Trap" and Earth Station McKinley "Family") have been depicted as construction platforms rather than large replicators.

We assume that replication is practical for relatively small items, but that energy costs would be prohibitive for routine replication of larger objects.

(Jon Singer points out that if you could make a starship at the push of a button, you wouldn't need to....)

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/3460/The Wandering Dev Manager

I would think that the cost/resources needed to make a replicator that size would take so long that it wouldn't be feasible.

I would think that it would be more cost effective to have small replicators to replicate all the parts, then have people or machines build the ships.

This would also give people jobs which would help with the whole 'perfect utopia' of Earth that Star Trek was trying to create.

I think that they do, at least they replicate the majority of the components and assemble them by hand.

Star Trek:

Enterprise foreshadowed the eventual use of replicators in the Dead Stop , where an automated repair station not only have the ability of replicating food but also ship components on-the-fly.

It stands to reason that replicators are how crews are able to repair massive damage to their vessels without the need to drydock.

Smaller replicators make much more sense than larger, ship-producing ones given their versatility: you can make components, useful for both construction and repair.

Plus there could also be a relation to the amount of energy and resources needed according to the size of the replicator.

In other universes, for example Stargate SG-1, the power requirements for the Stargate go up exponentially the larger the ring gets.

The same could be true in Star Trek: the larger the replicator, the greater the power draw to the point of being beyond diminishing returns.

There are industrial replicators , ostensibly used for mass production of components, but not anything as large as a starship.

Replication requires a lot of energy (as evidenced by the rationing of their use on the USS Voyager ) and it is very likely that assembly of components is more feasible than replicating a finished product.

For the same reason that they still farm and mine minerals.

Storage is at a premium on a starship, so there is nowhere near enough room to store months and months of food for hundreds or thousands of people.

Therefore, there is an advantage to replicate food

so you don't have to carry it, even though a single apple might require many times as much energy to "build" out of subatomic particles as it takes to grow.

The benefits outweigh the costs for space travel, but if it takes a billion units of energy to construct a starship out of mined materials, it might take a quintillion units of energy to entirely replicate one.

Similarly, they can replicate critical parts onboard rather than having thousands of parts prebuilt, stored onboard, and waiting, or finding, retrieving, processing, and fabricating the parts.

So the advantage is that a unit the size of a refrigerator takes the place of a dozen farms, a kitchen, a mine, a foundry, a factory, a tailor, and countless other facilities, with the expense of consuming a huge amount of energy.

The fact of the matter is that without one, the ships would need to come back to port every month, or be met wherever they were by a resupply ship, periodically, which would badly impair their ability to explore.

The replicators work very similarly to how the transporter works.

It is to put it simply a matter energy converter.

It takes energy from the ship which is fueled by deuterium then converts it into matter.

The size of the replicators adds to the power draw along side the energy required to be converted into matter.this means that large replicators would not be as efficient as several smaller ones.

On top of this the replication of smaller parts allows for more room for error because if there is a defect instead of Dematierializing a large object and thus using more energy, they can dematierialize a small object and expend less.on top of all this if it is put together by people or machines

it gives error control meaning that instead of the whole ship being faulty.

Its just one piece which a builder can spot, identify and get rid of.

There is also the fact that SF is not a military organization intent on conquest so mass production is not a Necessity instead focus is put on innovation and improvements for each new ship which is something that requires finesse and precision changes not to mention R&D etc.

this is why you never see two ships that look 100% the same!

Question: In Star Trek, it seems like they take forever to build ships.  It takes months, if not years to make them.  So why not just build gigantic replicators in space, then replicate the ship (excepting non-replicatable objects like the warp core)?  This would presumably come with a huge energy cost, but would save massive amounts of time.

Why don't they just replicate ships instead of build them?

Replication of an entire ship would take too many resources/too much energy.  The benefits outweigh the costs for space travel, but if it takes a billion units of energy to construct a starship out of mined materials, it might take a quintillion units of energy to entirely replicate one. In addition, the viewer would care too little for the fate of the ship if they can just replicate a new one in minutes.

In universe it would cost too many resources to replicate a large ship so it is not fesable. Behind the scenes it has been states that this has also been done to make the audience care more about the ship.

In-universe it has been stated that it would take too many resources to replicate.

Behind the scenes it was states that it is to make the audience care more about what happens to the ship.