And that assumes the Iconians of today we're running into are the same guys who got bombarded into rubble back in the day. My personal pet theory is that since a lot of those gates open in the Andromeda Galaxy, what we're really facing here is Kelvans, or that the Kelvans are somehow connected to this. Maybe the Iconian refugees gated to Andromeda and got themselves taken over or replaced, or the Kelvans are pretending to be Iconians, or something else is going on.
I did notice that the wildlife on New Romulus, or Dewa, has the same physical arrangement of eyes as the Iconian we see.
I prefer the notion that the Iconians are the reason why the Kelvans came to the Milky Way. One of them mentioned that they'd left their home galaxy because it was slowly becoming uninhabitable due to steadily increasing radiation. The Kelvans we saw in TOS were the descendants of Kelvans that left Andromeda 300 years before they met Kirk. Kinda makes you wonder.... just how dire is their situation if they're willing to send out scout ships knowing that it will be 600 years before they receive any actionable intel from those scouts? And why so far? Andromeda has many satellite galaxies, are those irradiated too?
But yeha, the Kelvans as we saw them in TOS couldn't have been using Iconian tech since the Kelvans NEEDED space ships to travel between stars/galaxies.
I would fathom a bit of protomatter and trilithium would do the trick. While the shell itself might survive, most of the survace (and near-surface) facilities would be easily destroyed.
Well, consider the mass of a dyson sphere should be so great that it's impossible and punches a hole in space and time. Protomatter may not work, because this is a thing that's somehow not creating a black hole just by existing, and we have no idea how or why it's not creating a black hole.
A dyson sphere of this style is a thing that Alpha Quadrant science looks and goes "I have no clue how that's even possible." Which makes the Klingons and Romulans nervous and Starfleet gets really excited about all the SCIENCE! they can do on it.
Well, consider the mass of a dyson sphere should be so great that it's impossible and punches a hole in space and time. Protomatter may not work, because this is a thing that's somehow not creating a black hole just by existing, and we have no idea how or why it's not creating a black hole.
Get an APU-Ship and a captain named Carter
As for the mass thing: Yes, the mass of it is great, BUT so is the dimension. A black hole is a singularity: Small dimension, very high mass. Might be a relation-thing, but basically the dyson spheres density is not necessarily that great. After all, everything between sun and Surface is most likely -some small atmosphere aside- more or less empty.
You could easily destroy a sphere if you got the star at the center to go supernova, or even grow in size, and we know from Hobus that this is quite within the realms of the powers in STO.
Event though the sphere itself has a huge volume it's mostly hollow and is really a wafer thin shell round a star. I'd hazard a guess and say it's very fragile to most changes in the star at the center. Heck even the movement of the star naturally within the galaxy over time would present real risks of the whole lot going to hell if the star moves too close to one side of the sphere around it.
If I had to fancy a guess i would say they function a lot like a stargate or a more like a peer to peer network. Each gate can access every other gate. Knowing the lore about the iconians that makes the most sense - that is, being able to go anywhere from any location.
You could easily destroy a sphere if you got the star at the center to go supernova, or even grow in size, and we know from Hobus that this is quite within the realms of the powers in STO.
Event though the sphere itself has a huge volume it's mostly hollow and is really a wafer thin shell round a star. I'd hazard a guess and say it's very fragile to most changes in the star at the center. Heck even the movement of the star naturally within the galaxy over time would present real risks of the whole lot going to hell if the star moves too close to one side of the sphere around it.
The star's natural movement wouldn't affect the sphere that much because every section of it is orbiting the star. If the star changes course (and this would happen slowly) its gravity will tug on the far end of the sphere that it's moving away from, which will pull the sphere in the same direction. Hence, the sphere goes where the star goes. It would take a high gravity outside force or the expansion of the star to destroy the sphere.
Why bother with that? If they can open an undetectable gateway on the bridge of a moving starship they can open a stationary gateway in front of the ship and allow the ships momentum put a gateway shaped hole thru the length of the ship. With the speeds Starships travel the damage would be done before anyone on the ship could react.
Image a minefield of gateway portals small enough and close enough together that a starship passing thru it would look like swiss cheese before exploding due to a warp core/singularity breach.
The problem with that method is what to do with the debris that goes through the gateway. Having the gateway in space might be the only reasonable method since having it on a ship or planet would mean that a stream of material traveling at relativistic speeds would be entering the gateway room.
The bomb method is far less messier. Just toss a bomb through the gateway and move to the next target.
While gateways are the ultimate in military technology, it doesn't mean the Iconians were a militaristic society. I personally agree with Picard that the other races bombarded Iconia out of fear and greed while STO went with them being militaristic.
and yet being so militaristic they dont send through armies to obliterate their target? sending bombs is not a militiaristic approach, its the tool of an assassin. i can understand that point, but iconians usualy work through others to do their dirty work, they are the ones who plant bombs if they think of it as well. but again, lacking proof to build on that speculation.
As far as Iconians knowing what a bomb is and how to construct them is not the issue. They are a highly advanced race so if they want to create weapons like bombs, then it would be easy. The issue is if they would create bombs to attack their enemies. Iconians could have been a highly advanced race of peaceful explorers that were destroyed by war-like races to gain the gateway technology for themselves.
they could be so far beyond some understandings, that the idea of a bomb may not of even occured to them when they have other far more useful means. again to be determined.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
and yet being so militaristic they dont send through armies to obliterate their target? sending bombs is not a militiaristic approach, its the tool of an assassin. i can understand that point, but iconians usualy work through others to do their dirty work, they are the ones who plant bombs if they think of it as well. but again, lacking proof to build on that speculation.
they could be so far beyond some understandings, that the idea of a bomb may not of even occured to them when they have other far more useful means. again to be determined.
The amount of canonical information about the Iconians is extremely limited. We only know of their technology not their culture, history, or intentions. Cryptic has made the Iconians into a manipulative race that usually hides behind other races.
Sending bombs towards the enemy while at war is a militaristic approach. There is not much difference between using an Iconian gateway and bomb and using a smart bomb. The only difference is the method of transportation. If the Iconian gateway and bomb is used to get rid of some civilian that is in the way, then it is a tool of an assassin.
Sending through armies through the gateway when you can send through weapons is just being reckless. If an advanced race has gateway technology, then it is better for them to make the enemy area safe from attack before sending in the army unless they like to fight like Klingons. It is the issue of fighting a war with armies or with a push of the button. But we don't know how or if the Iconians fight. They could just use it as a method of running from their enemies and never use the militaristic capabilities of the gateway.
Well, we do know from canon that the Iconians use drone technology. We've not seen drones that explode, but we only saw one type of drone in canon.
I wonder if the drones' purpose is the targeting system for the gateways. A drone scans a particular ship or planet and the gateways are now able to access that location. It could explain why the gateway was showing only certain locations on a 4 minute cycle instead of being random.
I wonder if the drones' purpose is the targeting system for the gateways. A drone scans a particular ship or planet and the gateways are now able to access that location. It could explain why the gateway was showing only certain locations on a 4 minute cycle instead of being random.
This does make a certain kind of sense.
Fleet Admiral Joseph D. Ridgeway
The Armada
Original join date: Feb 5, 2010
Twitter: @davejl_99, & @STO_BBArmada
I wonder if the drones' purpose is the targeting system for the gateways. A drone scans a particular ship or planet and the gateways are now able to access that location. It could explain why the gateway was showing only certain locations on a 4 minute cycle instead of being random.
There was a crossover novel series called Gateways that dealt with an alien race who gained access to the gateway tech back during TOS times, then during the post-TNG movie era foolishly activated the entire network with disastrous results to the whole galaxy. What was seen there is that these gateways were all over the place, and took many forms. Some had physical frames, some did not. Some were small ground based personnel gateways, some were large orbital gateways. Some connected fixed points, some cycled through a set of destinations. There were even a pair of portable gateways. It was surmised that the gateway system was built over a long period of time, and some were of older type than others, thus explaining the differences.
Of particular interest, Picard is able to actually control one using a combination of a control panel and his own thoughts to put himself directly on the Enterprise's bridge. This suggests that someone in control of a gateway could potentially go anywhere they want.
The Gateways story itself is probably incompatible with STO, considering Picard basically shuts the network down for good. However, since STO borrows a lot from the Pocket novel continuity while ignoring other aspects, I see no problem with borrowing specific elements from the Gateways story to explain the gateways in STO. So there you go. The gateways can work in all the ways described, depending on the specific gateway and who's in control of it.
So while an intact gateway may be able to open portals just about anywhere, we may not have figured out how to do that yet. The Iconians, obviously, know how to, which you see in instances where they do stuff like kidnapping Taris or you. Right now all we've managed to piece together from this alien tech is how to open large portals to other gates.
It's also possible that opening the gates without a gate on the other end is rather power intensive, and it's difficult for us to recharge the old machinery.
Yes. To use Stargate terminology again, we have the Gates, but we don't really know any valid addresses to dial, so we are stuck with the few preset defaults that are available. The gate in the Tau Dewa sector could probably connect to any of the other fleet-sized gates in the network, but for now it is set to the Solane Dyson Sphere, and we don't know how to control the setting.
There was a crossover novel series called Gateways that dealt with an alien race who gained access to the gateway tech back during TOS times, then during the post-TNG movie era foolishly activated the entire network with disastrous results to the whole galaxy. What was seen there is that these gateways were all over the place, and took many forms. Some had physical frames, some did not. Some were small ground based personnel gateways, some were large orbital gateways. Some connected fixed points, some cycled through a set of destinations. There were even a pair of portable gateways. It was surmised that the gateway system was built over a long period of time, and some were of older type than others, thus explaining the differences.
Of particular interest, Picard is able to actually control one using a combination of a control panel and his own thoughts to put himself directly on the Enterprise's bridge. This suggests that someone in control of a gateway could potentially go anywhere they want.
The Gateways story itself is probably incompatible with STO, considering Picard basically shuts the network down for good. However, since STO borrows a lot from the Pocket novel continuity while ignoring other aspects, I see no problem with borrowing specific elements from the Gateways story to explain the gateways in STO. So there you go. The gateways can work in all the ways described, depending on the specific gateway and who's in control of it.
So each different form of the gateway was different revisions like Apple has to do a new iPhone each year?
However, this is all soft canon so it has no effect on how Iconian Gateways work in STO. Cryptic might have got their inspiration from that novel series, but I suspect that it is from Stargate.
I read some of those. One of them had a truely screwball premise. An alien race from a planet with a very limited biosphere, instead of rock the planet was mostly metal.
Yeah, the explanation for how it could support humanoid life was extra dumb, but yeah. anyways, they were used as an alien of the week who had a bizarre take on technology, since everything they had was 90% metal or more. They preferred a form of mechanical docking, and their favored weapons were dense metal spears fired at high speeds.
Also they used the idea that the Iconian gateway network was partially directional. IE the Iconians built them going in a certain general direction as a way of escaping an attacker.
anyways, one thing to consider is that Starfleet doesn't understand the software that controls the gates. they know a few simple commands but nto much.
The amount of canonical information about the Iconians is extremely limited. We only know of their technology not their culture, history, or intentions. Cryptic has made the Iconians into a manipulative race that usually hides behind other races.
Sending bombs towards the enemy while at war is a militaristic approach. There is not much difference between using an Iconian gateway and bomb and using a smart bomb. The only difference is the method of transportation. If the Iconian gateway and bomb is used to get rid of some civilian that is in the way, then it is a tool of an assassin.
Sending through armies through the gateway when you can send through weapons is just being reckless. If an advanced race has gateway technology, then it is better for them to make the enemy area safe from attack before sending in the army unless they like to fight like Klingons. It is the issue of fighting a war with armies or with a push of the button. But we don't know how or if the Iconians fight. They could just use it as a method of running from their enemies and never use the militaristic capabilities of the gateway.
militaristic ambitions are to expand to conquer, not destroy when you got other means to get your goal to dominate and control, only when its impossible to get at an objective the brute force fashion would someone try other means to weaken these enemy strongholds.
iconians were or could of been known as conquerors during their time, and that they appeared out of thin air. again due to lack of information on iconians, we dont even know if they can even be damaged or hurt by nadion, disruptor, tatryon, polaron, proton, anti proton... blasts. im arguing that iconian thinking is a lot different from human thinking and their priorities are different. im not dismissing your claim, but i am skeptical. iconians are advanced as they could just come through themselves again and start attacking, if what one iconian did to those 6 klingons was anything but a tiny flick of their power, they dont even need tanks, bombs, handheld weapons when they could think of defense fields and using their funky powers to destroy things.
it depends how many iconians still exist ofcourse if they can even do invasions, but to save time playing it like a broken record, not enough info on them to go further.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
So each different form of the gateway was different revisions like Apple has to do a new iPhone each year?
Pretty much. That, and just that different gateways are built for different purposes. One other thing I forgot to mention is that the books make much mention of how the gateways have remained in perfect working order after so long. They didn't really know how, just that the Iconians built to last.
However, this is all soft canon so it has no effect on how Iconian Gateways work in STO. Cryptic might have got their inspiration from that novel series, but I suspect that it is from Stargate.
I don't know if they referenced these books or not, but there's a good chance they did since Cryptic tends to do a lot of research into the IP when creating storylines. I'm not saying we count Gateways as STO canon (as I said, the story doesn't fit), just that some elements of it can be patched into our "head canon" to explain how the Iconian tech works. We don't need to jump outside Trek to explain those things since Gateways provides us answers that already exist in the extended Trek mythos. That "in universe" explanation is independent of where Cryptic may or may not have taken their original inspiration.
I read some of those. One of them had a truely screwball premise. An alien race from a planet with a very limited biosphere, instead of rock the planet was mostly metal.
Yeah, the explanation for how it could support humanoid life was extra dumb, but yeah. anyways, they were used as an alien of the week who had a bizarre take on technology, since everything they had was 90% metal or more. They preferred a form of mechanical docking, and their favored weapons were dense metal spears fired at high speeds.
Also they used the idea that the Iconian gateway network was partially directional. IE the Iconians built them going in a certain general direction as a way of escaping an attacker.
anyways, one thing to consider is that Starfleet doesn't understand the software that controls the gates. they know a few simple commands but nto much.
That was the Challenger book, the only one from that series I've read (I don't think it lasted very long). Basically, a ship from each of the two main races who live out where Challenger takes place got sucked into a gateway like 20 years ago. On the other side is this crazy metal planet, and time passes much faster so many generations go by on that side. The "aliens" are mixed race descendents of the survivors of those ships, who have mastered some aspects of the gateway tech.
But yeah, it was a damn weird story. Probably would be my least favorite of the series if not for the fact that the entire main TNG book is concerned with setting up the framework that ties everything together and is tedious as hell. Everything interesting that happens with the TNG crew happens in the final book, which contains the final parts of all the other stories. That whole crossover was weird really.
The Iconians have already shown us they can move to anywhere and return there as they choose, apparently killing instantly with little regard to our weapons. They allow those who serve them to use and build gateways when it suits the Iconians purpose. Notice, much like a spiders lair, only a small number of gateways were active. This helps funnel prey and predator alike to places of the Iconian's choosing. They have the means and ability to wipe out all in existence. And yet they don't launch an attack they would obviously win. So that leaves the following:
- they can't directly attack
- something/someone is preventing them from attacking
- it isn't in their interest to attack
- they have a plan so big and so amazing we should multiply it by 6 and that's how bad it will be.:D
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Comments
But yeha, the Kelvans as we saw them in TOS couldn't have been using Iconian tech since the Kelvans NEEDED space ships to travel between stars/galaxies.
My character Tsin'xing
Well, consider the mass of a dyson sphere should be so great that it's impossible and punches a hole in space and time. Protomatter may not work, because this is a thing that's somehow not creating a black hole just by existing, and we have no idea how or why it's not creating a black hole.
A dyson sphere of this style is a thing that Alpha Quadrant science looks and goes "I have no clue how that's even possible." Which makes the Klingons and Romulans nervous and Starfleet gets really excited about all the SCIENCE! they can do on it.
Get an APU-Ship and a captain named Carter
As for the mass thing: Yes, the mass of it is great, BUT so is the dimension. A black hole is a singularity: Small dimension, very high mass. Might be a relation-thing, but basically the dyson spheres density is not necessarily that great. After all, everything between sun and Surface is most likely -some small atmosphere aside- more or less empty.
Event though the sphere itself has a huge volume it's mostly hollow and is really a wafer thin shell round a star. I'd hazard a guess and say it's very fragile to most changes in the star at the center. Heck even the movement of the star naturally within the galaxy over time would present real risks of the whole lot going to hell if the star moves too close to one side of the sphere around it.
The star's natural movement wouldn't affect the sphere that much because every section of it is orbiting the star. If the star changes course (and this would happen slowly) its gravity will tug on the far end of the sphere that it's moving away from, which will pull the sphere in the same direction. Hence, the sphere goes where the star goes. It would take a high gravity outside force or the expansion of the star to destroy the sphere.
The problem with that method is what to do with the debris that goes through the gateway. Having the gateway in space might be the only reasonable method since having it on a ship or planet would mean that a stream of material traveling at relativistic speeds would be entering the gateway room.
The bomb method is far less messier. Just toss a bomb through the gateway and move to the next target.
and yet being so militaristic they dont send through armies to obliterate their target? sending bombs is not a militiaristic approach, its the tool of an assassin. i can understand that point, but iconians usualy work through others to do their dirty work, they are the ones who plant bombs if they think of it as well. but again, lacking proof to build on that speculation.
they could be so far beyond some understandings, that the idea of a bomb may not of even occured to them when they have other far more useful means. again to be determined.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
The amount of canonical information about the Iconians is extremely limited. We only know of their technology not their culture, history, or intentions. Cryptic has made the Iconians into a manipulative race that usually hides behind other races.
Sending bombs towards the enemy while at war is a militaristic approach. There is not much difference between using an Iconian gateway and bomb and using a smart bomb. The only difference is the method of transportation. If the Iconian gateway and bomb is used to get rid of some civilian that is in the way, then it is a tool of an assassin.
Sending through armies through the gateway when you can send through weapons is just being reckless. If an advanced race has gateway technology, then it is better for them to make the enemy area safe from attack before sending in the army unless they like to fight like Klingons. It is the issue of fighting a war with armies or with a push of the button. But we don't know how or if the Iconians fight. They could just use it as a method of running from their enemies and never use the militaristic capabilities of the gateway.
My character Tsin'xing
I wonder if the drones' purpose is the targeting system for the gateways. A drone scans a particular ship or planet and the gateways are now able to access that location. It could explain why the gateway was showing only certain locations on a 4 minute cycle instead of being random.
This does make a certain kind of sense.
The Armada
Original join date: Feb 5, 2010
Twitter: @davejl_99, & @STO_BBArmada
My character Tsin'xing
Of particular interest, Picard is able to actually control one using a combination of a control panel and his own thoughts to put himself directly on the Enterprise's bridge. This suggests that someone in control of a gateway could potentially go anywhere they want.
The Gateways story itself is probably incompatible with STO, considering Picard basically shuts the network down for good. However, since STO borrows a lot from the Pocket novel continuity while ignoring other aspects, I see no problem with borrowing specific elements from the Gateways story to explain the gateways in STO. So there you go. The gateways can work in all the ways described, depending on the specific gateway and who's in control of it.
Yes. To use Stargate terminology again, we have the Gates, but we don't really know any valid addresses to dial, so we are stuck with the few preset defaults that are available. The gate in the Tau Dewa sector could probably connect to any of the other fleet-sized gates in the network, but for now it is set to the Solane Dyson Sphere, and we don't know how to control the setting.
So each different form of the gateway was different revisions like Apple has to do a new iPhone each year?
However, this is all soft canon so it has no effect on how Iconian Gateways work in STO. Cryptic might have got their inspiration from that novel series, but I suspect that it is from Stargate.
Yeah, the explanation for how it could support humanoid life was extra dumb, but yeah. anyways, they were used as an alien of the week who had a bizarre take on technology, since everything they had was 90% metal or more. They preferred a form of mechanical docking, and their favored weapons were dense metal spears fired at high speeds.
Also they used the idea that the Iconian gateway network was partially directional. IE the Iconians built them going in a certain general direction as a way of escaping an attacker.
anyways, one thing to consider is that Starfleet doesn't understand the software that controls the gates. they know a few simple commands but nto much.
My character Tsin'xing
militaristic ambitions are to expand to conquer, not destroy when you got other means to get your goal to dominate and control, only when its impossible to get at an objective the brute force fashion would someone try other means to weaken these enemy strongholds.
iconians were or could of been known as conquerors during their time, and that they appeared out of thin air. again due to lack of information on iconians, we dont even know if they can even be damaged or hurt by nadion, disruptor, tatryon, polaron, proton, anti proton... blasts. im arguing that iconian thinking is a lot different from human thinking and their priorities are different. im not dismissing your claim, but i am skeptical. iconians are advanced as they could just come through themselves again and start attacking, if what one iconian did to those 6 klingons was anything but a tiny flick of their power, they dont even need tanks, bombs, handheld weapons when they could think of defense fields and using their funky powers to destroy things.
it depends how many iconians still exist ofcourse if they can even do invasions, but to save time playing it like a broken record, not enough info on them to go further.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Pretty much. That, and just that different gateways are built for different purposes. One other thing I forgot to mention is that the books make much mention of how the gateways have remained in perfect working order after so long. They didn't really know how, just that the Iconians built to last.
I don't know if they referenced these books or not, but there's a good chance they did since Cryptic tends to do a lot of research into the IP when creating storylines. I'm not saying we count Gateways as STO canon (as I said, the story doesn't fit), just that some elements of it can be patched into our "head canon" to explain how the Iconian tech works. We don't need to jump outside Trek to explain those things since Gateways provides us answers that already exist in the extended Trek mythos. That "in universe" explanation is independent of where Cryptic may or may not have taken their original inspiration.
That was the Challenger book, the only one from that series I've read (I don't think it lasted very long). Basically, a ship from each of the two main races who live out where Challenger takes place got sucked into a gateway like 20 years ago. On the other side is this crazy metal planet, and time passes much faster so many generations go by on that side. The "aliens" are mixed race descendents of the survivors of those ships, who have mastered some aspects of the gateway tech.
But yeah, it was a damn weird story. Probably would be my least favorite of the series if not for the fact that the entire main TNG book is concerned with setting up the framework that ties everything together and is tedious as hell. Everything interesting that happens with the TNG crew happens in the final book, which contains the final parts of all the other stories. That whole crossover was weird really.
- they can't directly attack
- something/someone is preventing them from attacking
- it isn't in their interest to attack
- they have a plan so big and so amazing we should multiply it by 6 and that's how bad it will be.:D
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Expatriot Might Characters in EXILE