Clever Things to Say » Star Trek http://www.cleverthingstosay.com original remarks by Miles K Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:45:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Space and the Y Axis http://www.cleverthingstosay.com/2010/01/28/space-and-the-y-axis/ http://www.cleverthingstosay.com/2010/01/28/space-and-the-y-axis/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:59:39 +0000 Miles K http://www.cleverthingstosay.com/?p=860 In the Star Trek universe, when one space faring race encounters another they always have at least one thing in common. Both their ships are oriented the same way vis a vis up/down. But space has no objective up/down axis. Nonetheless, every time the Enterprise runs into some Romulans it always looks like this:

11

But it’s just as likely the two ships would encounter each other as such:
21

This could cause some confusion.

212121-cartoon

The only way to explain why different star ships always meet each other right side up is to postulate some sort of galactic standard. But this wouldn’t explain all the alien civilizations the Enterprise discovers that also fly at the same angle. This could have made for great story lines where alien races are offended by the upside down approach of the enterprise.
enterprise romulan screen-dick

However, it bears mentioning that at least one species is an exception to this phenomenon.

no one can upside down the borg

no one can upside down the Borg

Because of their simple ship design the Borg cannot be flanked, dropped onto or attacked from behind. The Borg have assimilated all three spatial dimensions into their ship design and they always appear right side up.

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