Star Trek DTI: Watching the Clock - How disappointing!

In 1997 I discovered the existence of Star Trek novels.  Since then, I bought and read 146 novels, mostly in The Next Generation series.  To be precise: 97 TNG, 4 OS, 3 DS9, 26 Voyager, 5 Enterprise, and 11 New Frontier.  Very recently, I discovered that Pocket Books had started publishing a new series, centred on the Department of Temporal Investigation (DTI).  As I have always liked stories involving time travel and time paradoxes, I immediately bought the two DTI novels published so far, and started reading the first one, Watching the Clock.

At the time of writing this post, I have read 287 of its 488 pages.  I will finish it, but it has been a disappointment.  Before saying what I don't like in it, I will reproduce for you the index of major sections, chapters, and subsections of the first 100 pages:

PRESENT TIME - STARDATE 58188.4 TO 58193.8
    1  March 10, 2381 Common Era, Gregorian Calendar - A Tuesday
        DTI Branch Office - San Francisco, North Am, Earth - 18:32 UTC
        U.S.S. Everett NCC-72392 - March 12, 2381 CE (A Thursday) - 03:14 UTC
        03:21 UTC
        05:47 UTC
        06:11 UTC
        08:27 UTC
        Regulus Passenger Lines Transport Verity - 10:36 UTC
        U.S.S. Everett - 11:02 UTC
        11:37 UTC
        18:02 UTC
        18:27 UTC
DOWNTIME - STARDATE 41697.9 TO 41906.7
    2  Kartika 13, 2286 Saka Era, Indian National Calendar - A Wednesday
        Dulmur Residence - Motilal City, Nehru Colony - 05:46 UTC
        Indira City - 13:27 UTC
        Dulmur Residence - 17:54 UTC
        Vandor IV - Agrahayana 7, 2286 SE (A Friday) - 20:43 UTC
        20:52 UTC
PRESENT TIME - STARDATE 58281 TO 58365.9
    3  Julian Day 2590805 - A Monday
        DTI Headquarters - Greenwich, European Alliance, Earth - 14:11 UTC
        Julian Days 2590812 to 2590823
        Julian Days 2590825 to 2590833
        Julian Days 2590834 to 2590838
        Julian Days 2590841 to 2590849
DOWNTIME - STARDATE 42692.8 TO 42704.5
    4  Day 18 of et'Khior, Year of ShiKahr 9051 - A Saturday
        Lucsly Residence - San Francisco - 14:54 UTC
        DTI Branch Office - San Francisco - 16:14 UTC
        Shuttlecraft Deutsch - Traversing Sector 006 - 21:16 UTC
        Warlock Station - 19 et'Khior, YS 9051 (A Sunday) - 19:59 UTC
        20 et'Khior, YS 9051 (A Monday) - 07:06 UTC

What is immediately apparent from the titles of the major sections is the alternance of events in the present and downtime (i.e., in the past).

First of all, according to Wikipedia, Star Trek The Next Generation Writer's/Director's Guide of March 23, 1987 (p. 13) defines stardate as follows:

A stardate is a five-digit number followed by a decimal point and one more digit. Example: "41254.7." The first two digits of the stardate are always "41." The 4 stands for 24th century, the 1 indicates first season. The additional three leading digits will progress unevenly during the course of the season from 000 to 999. The digit following the decimal point is generally regarded as a day counter.

As the DTI series is contemporary to TNG and Voyager, stardates beginning with 58 are wrong.  Another mistake: the differences in stardates of the major sections are clearly too large.  For example, 5.4 in the first section, while everything happens between a Tuesday and a Thusday, which would imply a stardate change of 0.3.

But there is a more substantial problem: headings are meant to help the reader understand what's going on, but things like "Kartika 13, 2286 Saka Era" and "Day 18 of et'Khior" are at best irrelevant and at worst confusing.  Furthermore, and somewhat ridiculously, although the dates are given in a cryptic way, the hours are always given in UTC and there is always the day of the week.  Does Bennett expects us to believe that Greenwich time is used on a planet that follows an "et'Khior" calendar (whatever that is)?  Or that they have seven-day weeks?  I find it pathetic.

Before I forget, the Julian Day of January 1, 2000, was 2,451,545.  How can it suddenly be back to 2590805 in 2381?

I hate useless/wrong/confusing things only done for show!

The bottom line is that you should only look at the distinction between PRESENT TIME and DOWNTIME, consider the UTC time (which is sometimes marginally useful), and ignore the rest.

Besides the detail I have just talked about, there are two further (and, in my opinion, more serious) issues: the first one concerns the use of references to events described in the TV series, and the second one has to do with how the story flows (or doesn't).

Bennett seems to have gone out of his way to cram into the novel as many references as possible to timeflow-related incidents that occurred to Kirk, Picard, and Janeway.  For a fan, it is nice to find references, but Bennett does it excessively.  As far as I can see, he refers to all time-inversions and time-loops that occurred in the TV series, with descriptions and stardates.  After the first couple, I started thinking: Oh no...  not another one!  I'm curious to see what he will refer to in his second novel...

But I have left last the biggest criticism I have about this novel: it is full of irrelevant facts, which only contribute to interrupt the flow of the narrative.  I'm pretty confident that if we removed all Downtime sections, the main story would come out better.  Flashbacks have been used in fiction for centuries.  Some novels have even been written as single flashbacks.  But these Downtime stories are like self-contained short stories, with little or no connection to the main story.  He didn't need so many flashbacks to introduce the characters and provide context.

In general, I find the main story fragmentary and unfocussed.  It might be due to the presence of so many distracting flashbacks, but I am not sure.  Perhaps Bennett thought that the silly dates, the many references to past events, and the plethora of races new and old would keep ST fans happy.  But it is nothing more than a heap of clutter.  There is no substitute for a good plot presented in a clean, uncluttered way.  Especially when talking about time travel.

James Kirk Street

As a Trekker, I’d love to live in James Kirk Street, even without the “T.”. Wouldn’t you?

James Kirk Street, less than 5km away from where I live, was named after James Frank Kirk (1920-1997). The ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Planning Authority explains that he was Chief Executive of Esso and of the Australian Bicentennial Authority. Kirk was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, awarded an honorary DSc from Newcastle University and became a champion of the environment as chairman of the Landcare Australia Limited.

Fair enough.

Science, the Scientific Method, and Hard SF

Non-scientists find it difficult to comprehend that scientific theories cannot ever be completely proved. No theory is ever “final”, but with the passing of time, as new experiments and refined measurements keep verifying it, a theory becomes the foundation upon which scientists can build new theories. As a scientist, you can believe in the validity of a theory and, provisionally, do as if it were completely certain, while knowing in the back of your mind that a new fact discovered tomorrow might not fit into it. When that happens, especially with well established theories, the obvious reaction is to find a way of extending the theory to include the new fact.

In a sense, a theory that has worked well in many cases cannot ever be disproved. You just need to know when it can be applied. For example, Newtonian Mechanics is perfectly correct in your everyday life. You don’t need to be concerned with relativistic or quantum effects when catching a bus!

Consider the Theory of Evolution. The bigots (according to Wikipedia, a bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices) who push for Intelligent Design to be taught in schools have no idea of what a scientific theory is, and have no qualms in proposing their beliefs as an alternative to Darwinian Evolution. They insist on the word “theory” associated with Evolution without realising that, by doing so, they only show their scientific ignorance. After so many decades, Darwinian Evolution has survived every criticism thrown at it, and every new discovery in Molecular Biology keeps confirming its validity. Therefore, even if tomorrow somebody discovered something that doesn’t fit into it, it will not change the fact that the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection applies to us, the dinosaurs, the amoebas, and the rest of species that populate earth.

One problem is that many (perhaps most) people find it difficult to cope with uncertainty. They “need” to believe in something, to be certain that it is true. Dare I say that the less intelligent people are, the more they depend on certainties? It makes sense, because it is easier to deal with simple choices than having to evaluate complex factors and cope with fuzzy ideas. Then, everything becomes black or white, without shades of grey; stereotypes drive your behaviour; and a priest, speaking on behalf of a God who is by definition unprovable, tells you what is right or wrong. How easy is that?

Another debate that only shows scientific ignorance is the one about climate change. Even the question “do you believe in it?” is nonsensical, because it is not a matter of belief at all. Changes have been measured and the influence of humanity is clear. But even if it were not, it would still remain a stupid debate, because, regardless of how much humanity contributes to them, climate changes are going to cause us problems soon.

We have been cutting forests, burning in decades what took millions of years to put into the ground, using up natural resources as if they were unlimited, and creating substances that don’t exist in nature. You can bet your ass that sooner or later you will have to pay the bill for all that. The only questions are when, how high the price, and in what currency. If the earth climate reaches a tipping point, like the stopping of the Gulf Stream, just to mention a possible one, we are going to regret to have wasted so much time debating whether computer models are credible or what influence the Sun spots have on our temperature.

The effects of science and technology have become pervasive in our modern world. Science is too important to be considered a subject of choice. We should teach the scientific method in all schools. Physics should become a compulsory subject, beside literature and languages. It would automatically resolve many of the senseless debates that afflict us today.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the huge technological development in computing had a deleterious effect on understanding science. The reason is that films and computer games show what is physically impossible as if it were real. Already the battering that Bruce Willies, Silvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger could endure in their action movies of some years ago was superhuman. But today’s Computer Generated Images (CGI) completely remove the boundaries between reality and fantasy. The children that grow up with these images think that everything is possible.

Many years ago, when Wile E. Coyote ran past the edge of the cliff and looked down suspended in mid air before falling, he was violating the laws of Physics. But he was clearly a cartoon character. It was funny to see him precisely because he and the Roadrunner were unrealistic.

Compared with the fantastic worlds we see on the screen today, our real world is unexciting. Some people respond to these stimuli by seeking the thrills of extreme sports. Many others just look for “more”: more exciting, more entertaining, more extreme, more fantastic, ... It doesn’t surprise me that Science Fiction has become a minor component of what we call Speculative Fiction.

SpecF is used to collectively indicate Fantasy, Horror, and SF, but you only need to go to a bookshop to see that the SpecF shelves are full of extremely thick books about dragons, elves, wizards, vampires, zombies, and people with supernatural powers.

Not much SF around these days, and even less of what I call “Hard Science Fiction” (HSF). That is, a work of fiction that relies for its existence on scientific or technological facts.

When Jules Verne in 1865 wrote “De la Terre à la Lune” (From the Earth to the Moon), he got it wrong: you cannot use a mass of expanding gas to propel a payload into space and, in any case, the initial acceleration would kill you. But Verne gave birth to the idea of reaching into space with technological means rather than, say, being transported on the wings of an angel.

It is not necessary for a HSF story to be consistent with all scientific knowledge we currently have. For example, you can hypothesise that one day we will discover a way of breaking the speed of light barrier. Although this contradicts Relativity, it is conceivable that one day we will formulate a more general theory that admits superluminal speed under specific circumstances not considered in Relativity, exactly as Relativity generalises Newtonian Mechanics without invalidate it.

Sometimes, a HSF story speculates on possible consequences of what we already know. Some other times, it relies on a new discovery to trigger a chain of events. But, in any case, it remains consistent to its premises.

Arthur C. Clarke, one of the greatest HSF authors of all times, formulated three laws to help people predict the future:

1.  When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2.  The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3.  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The difference between Clarke’s third law and the magic found in so many books sold today is that the magic Clarke refers to is perceived, not real. If somebody of even just a couple of hundred years ago could visit today’s world, would see spells and charms where there are none.

I am a Trekker, a convinced Star Trek fan. Gene Roddenberry’s stories rely on three things that, when Star Trek was first aired, were considered impossible: warp drive, transporters, and artificial gravity. They were “tricks” to make the stories possible. Without superluminal speed, travel between the stars would have taken many years, too long for 45-minute episodes; transporters made landing onto alien worlds easy, as always shuttling forth and back would have been bothersome and time consuming; and artificial gravity was necessary for two reasons: a film with people constantly floating around would have been annoying to say the least, and the acceleration of a starship would have killed the crew.

I don’t remember who said that in a good HSF story, you can ask the reader to believe something that is considered impossible, but only once. And yet, although Star Trek expected from us to suspend disbelief more than once, those stories inspired real astronauts and scientists, and it is no longer clear that faster than light travel will remain impossible forever.

Without HSF, where would future generations of scientists find their inspirations? Who would tell them stories about all those impossible things they can aim for?

A Walk in the Sun

I recently read the short story “A Walk in the Sun” by Geoffrey A. Landis. It was based on the fact that on the Moon, if you walk towards the Sun, you can keep up with it.

I absolutely needed to check it!

The calculation is trivial. The circumference of the Moon at the equator is 10,921 km. Its orbital period around Earth is 27.322 days. Then, the surface speed at the equator is 10,921 / 27.322 / 24 = 16.65 km/h (or 10.35 miles/h). Considering that the Moon gravity is about 1/6g, it should be possible to sustain 16.65 km/h for quite a while.

In the story, an astronaut stranded on the Moon, in order to survive, needs to keep the solar panels of her life-support unit in sunlight. She has no problem in keeping up with Sun, at least on the near side of the Moon, which is less rugged than the far side. In fact, at times, she can easily gain ground.

The pilot crash-lands her shuttle near Mare Smythii, which is close to the equator. Therefore, Landis is right in saying that she needs to run at about 10 miles/h. But, in my opinion, he made a mistake: instead of running directly towards the Sun, considering that she could actually outrun it and that the Sun was still quite high, the pilot should have also moved towards one of the poles (e.g., the North Pole).

This is because what the pilot needed was to move towards the Sun 360 / 27.322 / 24 = 0.55 degrees of longitude per hour, not to run at 10 miles/h around the equator. The closer to a pole, the slower she would have needed to move. At a pole, by climbing to the top of a hill or of a crater, she might have not needed to move at all, and just adjust the orientation of the solar array every now and then.

Assuming that the pilot moved along a major circle of constant inclination with respect to the equator, to calculate how she should have moved, we have to look at spherical triangles. We can first of all define the following:

O: The point of origin, where the shuttle crashed, assumed to be on the equator. We can also use this symbol to indicate the angle of inclination of the pilot’s path.

t: The current time.

P: The point reached by the pilot at time t while moving on a great circle with inclination O and speed V.

E: The point on the equator on the same meridian of P.

d: The distance between O and P measured on the Moon surface.

R: The Moon radius (average = 1,737.10 km).

lat: The latitude of P. That is, the angle subtended by the radii through P and E.

lon: The difference in longitude between O and P (or between O and E, as E, by definition, has the same longitude as P). That is, the angle subtended by the radii through O and E.

W: The speed of 16.65 km/h necessary to keep up with the Sun when running on the equator.

The spherical triangle OPE is right in E, because a meridian always intersect the equator at 90 degrees. Therefore, from a simple (!) formula of spherical trigonometry for right triangles, we can write:

(1): sin(lat) = sin(O) * sin(d/R)

In case you are interested, the formula can be expressed in words as follows: “In every right spherical triangle, the sine of one of the sides adjacent to the right angle equals the sine of the opposite angle multiplied by the sine of the hypotenuse”. Note that in spherical geometry, instead of saying “the angle formed by the radii passing through the ends of a segment of great circle”, you can simply say “the sine of the segment”.

Another formula of spherical trigonometry let us calculate the difference in longitude between O and P:

tg(lon) = tg(d/R) * cos(O)

If we impose to keep pace with the Sun, tg(lon) becomes tg(W*t/R).

(2): tg(W*t/R) = tg(d/R) * cos(O)

This lets us resolve (2) in d:

(3): d(t) = R * arctg(tg(W*t/R) / cos(O))

When the pilot starts her run, she needs to maintain a speed given by W/cos(O). For example, if she travels with an inclination of 30 degrees, she needs to go just a bit faster than 19.2 km/h. With an inclination of 45 degrees, her initial speed needs to be around 23.5 km/h.

As she progresses, the length of the parallel she is on becomes shorter. That means that she can walk slower and still maintain the 0.55 degrees/hour necessary to keep up with the Sun.

There is a problem, though: when t passes the value 1.57*R/V (i.e., 163.8 h), W*t/R becomes greater than 90 degrees (which means that the pilot has completed 1/4 of the journey around the Moon), and tg(W*t/R) goes through a point of singularity before becoming negative. It turns out (but I am too lazy to study the configuration and understand why) that the singularity always occurs when the latitude equals the inclination (i.e., when lat equals O).

The solution is to move O to the coordinates of P when the tangent diverges, and keep going from there. To do so, we need to replace W with the speed needed to keep up with the Sun when travelling at the latitude of P, which is given by W_p = W * cos(lat_p). But in tg(W*t/R), we also need to replace R with R * cos(lat_p). This means that we can leave (3) as it is. And it makes sense, because we are only interested in the angle around the Moon, not in the actual distance travelled.

Well, I have spent quite a bit of effort on this problem, and it’s time to stop. The conclusion is that, if the pilot had run at an inclination of 30 degrees, she would have reached a latitude of 60 degrees in less than two weeks, progressively slowing down from the initial speed of 19.2 km/h to a more sedated 9.6 km/h. Then, she could have followed the 60 degree parallel and kept up with the Sun by walking at 8.3 km/h.

If the pilot had maintained a more ambitious inclination of 45 degrees, after two weeks, she would have reached the pole. The initial speed would have needed to be a more brisk 23.5 km/h. But only initially, because already after six days, the speed to keep up with the Sun would have gone down to 16.8 km/h.

The bottom line is: if you remain stranded on the Moon and need to keep pace with the Sun, don’t just run towards the Sun. Go as quickly as possible towards the nearest pole.

A New Year's Tale

As soon as the starship enters the solar system, the board AI begins the process of thawing the crew. Despite the powerful zero-point energy propulsion, the trip from Tau Ceti 4 has lasted almost three decades.

I am what I am

This is a very short story that I wrote for the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild.  To be honest, I don't know whether they used it.  I include it here to show that it is possible to write micro-fiction in 124 words.

      When I was first switched on, people often asked me “How does it feel being a robot?”

      My answer was always “When my operational parameters are close to their optimal values, I could say I feel good.”

      They didn’t seem to be entirely satisfied by my answer, and kept asking questions like “Are you happy to be a robot?”

      Bios are very much interested in what they call feelings. Robots are not. When I do what I have been built to do, the potentials in my positronic brain are in balance. Whether this condition could be called happiness is irrelevant.

      Now that they have become used to me, the bios have stopped wasting time with useless questions. It is better so.