I think its a fine plot device if handled properly. The fact that it was pretty much not mentioned in the later series is curious. I like the idea that the 'Q' made it to protect something from something else. However, its not something I have never found to be a problem, and having something unexplained by science in the show is sort of satisfying. Maybe one could argue that the Q put it in place to be a final test for humanity in the universe. It could, ultimately be used as a goal post device, where if the federation can prove its peaceful intent within the galaxy, then it earns the privilege of expanding its message outside of the galaxy, in a few thousand years, and people getting ESPer powers is an indication of what will be needed in other parts of the universe, when they are ready... sort of like a galactic leaving home... Or some other plot device. Either way I don't mind it at all.
I know exposure to the barrier can awaken psionic abilities in humans with a high esper rating. Humans in star trek have psychic potential but lack the neural structure to use them.
@@john.premose no, its sci fi myth. Its myth, and can be anything the writers want, as shown by decades of contradictory writing. Sounds a bit like its a sacred thing to you?
@@maarkaus48 not if it wants to have any credibility. The Q might portray themselves as “gods” but it’s to the credit of captain Picard and the other crew that they dismiss that entirely. The idea of the Q “creating” parts of the galaxy is like some kind of myth which is not scientific at all
@@john.premose Very little about star trek is really scientific at the end of the day. Some of it is grounded, but much of it is science fantasy. I love the show, at least up to the Rick Berman years, and especially the TOS as its called, but I can recognize that its largely a fantasy or modern myth. And myth can be something to inspire, not explain. Science explains, myths inspire. There can be room for both. As for the barrier, I don't mind it, and that was my point. Its part of the canon now, and so there it is. I have had many issues with things from TNG and later Star Trek, but if its set as canon, then so be it... until the writers decide its not again. Star Trek Voyager, for example has had many moments of near death experiences for Janeway. Weird evolutionary salamander moments, and many other things that were not thrown out later, and so are canon... as much as its cringe. I don't care that much about the barrier, if 'Q' invented it, or if they just claimed it to promote themselves, or if its completely natural. Its a plot device first, explanation second. Star Trek is modern myth, and at times not very well done, because of many writers. That is fine, because its entertainment which is meant to provoke the mind and challenge us to reflect, and that it does well. I have real issues with some of Voyager, but love the series as a whole.
That's a good theory, and fits in a bit with The Traveler's statements in "Where No One Has Gone Before". Just as long as it isn't interpreted in such a way that the power of love is actually what holds the galaxy together or something.
@@bjorn00000 didn't it physically destroy their ship and they had to use spacemagic to reinforce the enterprise to pass through? Idk tos was all over the place plot wise that episode felt like they included the "love" barrier because half way through writing about beings from another galaxy they realized they wrote in an impenetrable barrier in season 1 and had to figure something out lol also want to add the entire theme of tos is love conquers all it's their solution when facing any superior being showing them that the loss of compassion is the negative trade off to power. Star trek has always been about space hippies don't doubt the love barrier idea lol
did you ever notice that more often than not the phenomenon that seemed to be most able to cause their high technology damage or to be unusable (all based on the "standard model" we are all taught) is/was electromagnetic in nature?
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
Someone theorized that overcoming the barrier was a matter of speed and not shields. When Enterprise D was flung out of the galaxy they weren't affected by it because they spent microseconds in it.
@@overweightactor more along the lines of radiation exposure. Even deadly radiation can be harmless if you're exposed to it a short enough amount of time.
My head canon is that it was created by ancient civilizations to keep out the intergalactic super-intelligent AIs responsible for both V'Ger and the more recent second season of Discovery and first season of Picard; it contains elements designed to augment the minds of organic beings passing through it, so that they can withstand encounters with the otherwise vastly superior entities outside the Milky Way that have formed a type 3+ civilization but still haven't gotten over issues with organic life forms.
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
@@dabrams84 This is a great video on our fleet of probes used to monitor solar wind and earth magnetic field interactions, plus the Heliopause and Terminations shock: ua-cam.com/video/1oDUN74yzuo/v-deo.html
I think the barrier is just supposed to be scary and weird - Where No Man Has Gone Before is about an encounter with the paranormal. I should add, I find the story pretty effective - the whole thing FREAKED me out as a kid - especially Dehner and Mitchell with their shiny eyeballs.
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
Galactic Barrier? Absolute Nonsense! But those who cannot give up their beloved reality for an hour or how it takes to read and enjoy a good (science) fiction (FICTION!) movie/book should possibly "waste" their time with other things. Like posting useless comments on Twitter or UA-cam?:) Homer's Troy, Shakespeare, Your last tax declaration, Star Trek, etc.? All full of inspiration and may give back inspiration and new ways to think. That is nothing bad;)
It’s interesting that the Star Wars galaxy also has a galactic barrier. Although, that’s a clustering if hyperspace anomalies rather than an energy field. Speaking of which, you should dig into the age-old question of, could the Millennium Falcon beat the Enterprise in a race, and talk about the scientific feasibility of hyperspace vs. warp travel.
Yes, the millennium falcon is faster than enterprises a, b, c, d and e. Outside of slipstream drive and transwarp corridors they lack means of travel that reach hyperdrive speeds. I’d have to find the numbers again, but Voyager’s slipstream drive was around the speed of a hyperdrive with a 2 ranking (higher is slower). The millennium falcon has a .5 hyperdrive, which beats out many transwarp speeds (but not all of them), the transwarp corridors are drastically faster than the millennium falcon, even if ships within them are only using a sublight speed themselves(relative to the space within the corridor). So the millennium falcon is faster than starfleet ships outside of the Enterprise E and Voyager using a transwarp drive or Discovery (spore drive matches borg transwarp network in speed) and the protostar (whose protodrive is nebulously faster than the slipstream drives, but definitely able to travel across quadrants in under a day, possibly in under an hour… prodigy wasn’t clear in how much time passed).
hyperspace works fundamentally differently to warp drive, it's incredibly fast but has to follow set hyperspace lanes, hyper drives can get ya across the galaxy in a week, but if there's no hyper lane then they'll have to travel at sublight, in which case the warp drive wins
I appreciate how you go into some actual physics in these types of vids. Admittedly, my recollection is mostly limited to "Oh, the one with the plates, I've heard of that" but that's still part of the fun
Hahaha, I just make videos about whatever I'm interested in lol. Many are audience suggestions but I only implement them when I feel the time is right ;) Glad you enjoyed it jasper!
A short trip just up or down relative to the galactic plane get you to the barrier. Meaning it’s even closer to Earth than, say, Vulcan. So I’m surprised we don’t hear about it more often in the series.
The galactic barrier up-or-down is still much farther than Vulcan. Vulcan is 16 light-years away, the galactic barrier would be at least 500 to 1000 light-years.
Another piece of trivia is that "The Star Gazer" actually has a commemorative plaque in the background that suggests Uhura was the captain of an exploratory mission to the Small Magellanic Cloud (which would require a crossing of the barrier). This would actually not make that much sense, as the SMC is about 200,000 light years away and would involve crossing a huge void, but it's an interesting tidbit. However, that extreme distance is why it probably wasn't covered in TNG/DS9/Voyager. Simply put, under current canon the trip would be impractical, and it wouldn't have really mattered if there was a barrier there. Even without intergalactic threats or a dangerous interface that turned you into a god, extragalactic space would have few or no accessible stars, meaning that refueling would be challenging and there would be few planets available for supplies or support. There's also probably not that much to explore either with crewed vessels. It would be like an ocean voyage in a rowboat. My take on the science has been that the galactic barrier seems very equivalent to the termination shock at the edge of our solar system (and others) or even just surface tension at the interface of two different types of liquids. However, what's been missing from that explanation is that if the galactic barrier is really just a natural interface between intra- and extragalactic space, there must be some fundamental differences in space outside of the galaxy to cause that interface. That wasn't really discussed in "By Any Other Name" or "The Galactic Barrier"/"Rosetta", but would be an important piece of context.
I mean, it's only really extreme distance in canon if it really is only around the rim of the galaxy, but that doesn't make any sense fundamentally regardless of its origin. The Star Charts explanation is really the only thing that makes any sense irrespective of what was literally stated, since there isn't any reason the Kelvans would have approached _or_ departed along the galactic plane. If they were leaving the Milky Way for Andromeda starting from somewhere within a few hundred light years of Earth in a straight line, they wouldn't be leaving anywhere near the rim of the Milky Way. And even if they were, they were talking about a travel time measured in hundreds of millennia; taking a few years to go up and around the barrier would be nothing. Edit: Oh, I'm dumb; I just realized you didn't mean the extreme distance _to the galactic rim,_ you meant the extreme distance _to another galaxy._ Whoops, sorry about that. :P
bjornooo I'm glad you put in the statement "My take on the science has been that the galactic barrier seems very equivalent to the termination shock at the edge of our solar system (and others) " Is it possible things will change when we enter ...... I don't know what to call it. When our ships crossed into interstellar space, we received a surprised. (Sorry I don't have enough information or knowledge to do this topic justice) You have brought up a number of points on this. I hope others hop in and add to your observations. I know it won't be cannon but it would be a wonderful excersie in attempting to interpret the universe.
Travel to other galaxies might be feasible if there is a naturally occurring traversable wormhole with one end in our galaxy and the other end in the other galaxy. Perhaps Captain Uhura's exploratory mission to the Small Magellanic Cloud was via such a wormhole. If so, then the mission would not have required crossing the galactic barrier. In 1995, a theory was proposed that suggested there may be many wormholes in the universe if cosmic strings with negative mass were generated in the early universe since if a tiny wormhole held open by a negative mass cosmic string had appeared around the time of the Big Bang, it could have been inflated to macroscopic size by cosmic inflation. In the article Morris, Michael S.; Thorne, Kip S.; Yurtsever, Ulvi (1988). "Wormholes, Time Machines, and the Weak Energy Condition" Physical Review Letters. 61 (13): 1446-1449. Bibcode:1988PhRvL..61.1446M , and subsequent work by others, it was shown that negative matter could be used to stabilize a wormhole. Cramer et al. argue that such wormholes might have been created in the early universe, stabilized by negative-mass loops of cosmic string. [John G. Cramer; Robert L. Forward; Michael S. Morris; Matt Visser; Gregory Benford & Geoffrey A. Landis (1995). "Natural Wormholes as Gravitational Lenses". Physical Review D. 51 (6): 3117-3120. arXiv:astro-ph/9409051.] In the Star Trek TNG episode "The Loss," the USS Enterprise-D was nearly destroyed after an encounter with a cosmic string fragment 107 kilometers in length. So macroscopic cosmic strings are consistent with Star Trek canon.
Yes, I thought the same thing until I realized the Barrier was like a squished bubble enveloping the entire galaxy, and that it's just thicker along the edges which it why you can see it more clearly from there.
The idea that the barrier is thinner above and below the galactic plane than the full extent at the rim reminds me of the trajectory that Apollo missions took to avoid the most intense regions of the Van Allen Belts on their way to the Moon.
Ironically that's the argument the moon landing deniers use to say why we couldn't go to the moon. The belt would cook humans. They don't know Apollo went through the thinnest part at high speed.
Cood analysis indeed! From whan I first watched Star Trek in 1973 and here now 50 years later, I would have this recurring dream about an actual "probe" that was sent out to explore the outer reaches of the infinite "space", but not limited to the Milky Way....past Andromeda and beyond. The probe was manned, but as it reached the final depths, there was a vast light of multiple colors...but in turn the probe would be deflected, forbidding aby further travels beyond. With that said, I only wish more would have been expanded on the Galactic Barrier storyline rather than the just the various encounters. THANK YOU for the upload and insights!
In the ST canon, I always figured that the barrier was a natural phenomenon. On speculation (for story-telling purposes) I would say that the barrier isn't so much "negative energy" as "dark energy". According to scientific theory, dark energy is repelled by positive gravity. Therefore, it would have been repelled out of the galaxy. But, it could also have its own negative gravity, which would cause the dark energy coalesce. The balance of the two forces keeps the dark energy around the galaxy, like an inflated balloon. Also, because the dark energy is fluid, it would not be evenly distributed. There could even be gaps or holes in the barrier, allowing ships to pass through it, at certain points. It's likely thicker at the edge of the galactic disk, due to centrifugal force---as centrifugal force is not gravity. Anyway, that's my working theory for future ST adventures. Oh, by the way, 'espers" WERE revisited in the TOS episode, "Plato's Stepchildren"---though the story had nothing to do with the barrier.
Enterprise has what may be a similar phenomenon in the thermobaric clouds around the Delphic Expanse, and galaxies in our universe appear to be surrounded by dark matter haloes. Which is to say, the idea of an energy barrier around the Milky Way is not inconceivable either in canon or in reality.
I was thinking of Star Trek V, but after seeing that map, that was the "Great Barrier" around the center of the Milky Way...not the "Galactic Barrier". You learn something new everyday. TY.
I agree with the Star Trek Continues/Star Trek Star Charts depiction that shows the barrier enveloping the whole galaxy, not just surrounding the rim. Otherwise why did the Kelvans have to cross it to enter and leave our galaxy and why did Discovery have to do the same? I'm also good with the explanation given for it in the novels; the Q put it there to protect the galaxy from 0 and/or the Progenitors put it there to protect the galaxy from The Totality...maybe the Progenitors put it there then the Q boosted it when they needed to also keep 0 out, much like they erected the great barrier at the center of the galaxy to imprison "God" (a story also told in the aforementioned Q Continuum novel trilogy). This explanation also makes a hell of a lot more sense if the barrier surrounds the entire galaxy, as it would be pretty pisspoor protection otherwise. I also assume that the Valiant encountered it 100 years before TOS, not 200, as that would put it barely after Earth developed warp drive at all. I just chalk the date given up to early Trek weirdness from before they established when exactly the series was set, a common occurrence in early Trek. I do disagree with the notion that the galactic barrier is one of the whackier TOS elements. I doubt it cracks the top 50. This is a show that had Apollo, space Lincoln, Alice and the White Rabbit, a person getting split into his good and evil halves, space hippies...next to a lot of Star Trek stuff, a random energy barrier is extremely mundane.
"Is There In Truth No Beauty" the ship was not trapped in the barrier, but because they went faster than warp9 in a chaotic way they were trapped in uncharted hyperspace or subspace and couldn't pop out since they had no navigational references. The post production team just reused the Barrier photography to save cash. VFX budget after S1 was really tight, with lots of reused space shots from S1. The big Enterprise filming model(s) had been boxed up after S1 and they'd lost the Romulan model (got in a conflict with the prop contractor). The best thing about that episode is the writers actually tried to address subspace or hyperspace as being in the extra dimensional universe. Star Trek was bad enough about seldom referencing the third dimension of space....much less the 10th or 11th. WNMHGB was vaguely supposed to be 700 to 1000 years in our future in 1966. They really were all over the future in the first year. Dorothy Fontana preferred 200 years in the future. Most external contributing writers assumed 700 or more in the future (Squire of Gothos fir instance). Gene Roddenberry didn't want to be specific, thus the random jibberish StarDates of TOS. Coon and Fontana settled on 2267 by the end of S1.
There is one Star Trek novel, at the moment I can't remember which one, which said that the energy barrier was actually the leading edge front of the Andromeda Galaxy which is on it's way in several million years to collide with our own galaxy. Which I know is not cannon but that always kind of made sense to me! I do not remember though which Star Trek novel it is that said that. But it was one I had for a very long time!
I wonder if our galaxy doesn't have a Dark Energy barrier. A point outside the galaxy in which the effects of galactic gravity shrinks so low that Dark Energy effects over whelm gravity.
I was thinking about the plot hole in ST V about galactic center just being near. They should've added some kind of wormhole that appears at the long time interval, 10.000 years maybe. They could added a bit of character development about Spock's and Sybok's past, his rebellion against teaching of Surak about pure logic and against abstract. That makes him finding some Vulcan scrolls in forbidden part of the library, a history about light that appears every 10.000 years in some constellation. As wormhole opens it carries a message and visions about Sha Ka Ree. Then he travels on other worlds find some clues, but finds out that those worlds with telepathically sensitive species have more conclusive and clearer clues like same descriptions of messages, visions and map of same constellation of stars where bright wormhole appears. Then Sybok calculated and found time is near for wormhole to appear. When it appeared Sybok got the visions, but the God told him he needs a powerful ship to get through the barrier. He needed a Starfleet grade ship. It would explain why Sybok was in such a hurry to get a fast flagship, why they were able to fast travel to the center of the Galaxy and find God. Also I would add Spock's wits to pull out history facts how 10.000 ago years some civilizations near wormhole waged religious wars that led their civilizations near or to total extinction. It could show that Entity of Sha Ka Ree is total chaos, and if his mere presence could destroy civilizations through manipulating minds, driving basic instincts to the surface, his freedom would be devastating to entire Galaxy.
@@robertcampbell6349 it was weird as hell, but very much a send-off of the old series. Where else but old fashioned Star Trek would you go to the center of the galaxy to fight god?
@@tsm688 in spite of its many flaws, i see three major qualities about Star Trek V: (1) the "fighting god" plot, or as Bones put it, "ask the Almighty for His ID". That someone (just why is it Kirk alone) at last did question that being feels like a satisfaction for me. (2) another thing i like is how the movie dives into the rich and intimate kirk-spock-mccoy friendship (just why did the rest of the crew not get so much nuance, too). (3) also we get the important psycho-philosophical lesson that you should not get rid of your painful memories but carry them. When Kirk declines Sybok's brainwashing tricks, he rightfully points out that our shortcomings make us who we are.
Don't worry I have subscribed, started watching your videos yesterday, and watched 3 videos in a row and then subscribed this morning watching my 4th video.
I personally kinda liked the idea of the Galactic barrier and viewed it similar to the Van Allen radiation belt here on earth. I've often related the Galactic barrier to the dark forest theory. As if perhaps it was put in place to protect the Milky Way in ST from something bad out in the universe.
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
The solar system has a barrier called the Oort cloud at the outside edge. Scientific data shows its an area of extremely violent atomic discharge and thermal energy. This is thought to have came from the making of our little solar system. Can you imagine the force of such a barrier created by an entire galaxy?
I wish we had more information. Some people think "The Barrier" is a trial to make sure when the species gets out, they can survive the vast distances needed to make it to another galaxy.
Modestly, I'd agree with Subraxas--46,000 is quite an accomplishment I'm proud of. Less modestly, I'd say...WTF PEOPLE!!!??? HOW COME I'M NOT OVER 100K YET!!!??? OR A MILLION!!!??? Seriously though, I appreciate it Sam :D
I can understand the concept of a galactic barrier. In the way our solar system also has a barrier around it that is made up of the solar winds charged particles extending out until it meets resistance from the interstellar medium. Since our solar system is orbiting the galactic center (very rapidly), the bubble around us is very odd shaped & doesn't extend as far ahead of our orbit as it does behind us. So, I can imagine the galaxy having something similar around it made up of particles that build up where they meet intergalactic space. Like our own solar system bubble, it helps protect us somewhat from certain harmful radiation.
If I remember correctly, the barrier was used in ST 5 The Final Frontier. Since humans have not traveled to space, we cannot say for certainty if the barrier actually exists. Unless the Voyager probes have left the milky way.
You did a great job of explaining a dificult subject. This is the kind of thing that makes your channel stand out and makes it worth subscribing to. Thanks.
Suggestion on a next video?, could you do a video on the borg.. explaining the early species assimilated? As there are many early species the borg assimilated such as species 116, species 47 etc. Its a question i see avidly on the reddit threads for Star Trek. Thats if there is enough source material? Thanks mate! ^_^
My brother subbed right away after I showed him a Mass Effect video of yours He was surprised by the level of lore knowledge To which I was like, Yeah he knows his shit 🙄
I think the barrier was a simple tool writers used to make a single episode and was intended to be forgotten. Since it hasn't been forgotten, I think it could be explained away saying it is a natural consequence around galaxies, much like the heliopause surrounding our solar system or the aurora borealis around the Earth. In short, the barrier is the condensation of intergalactic energies being buffeted (and built up) near the edge of our galaxy.
I always felt the character reaction to the barrier is that it was an unexplained/unexpected phenomena that shouldn't be there. Like it was placed there by some force to keep something in or to keep something out. Maybe like many mature races were fearful of young races first starting out on inter-planetary travel. Maybe the barrier is aimed at races just starting out on intergalactic travel. It did work like this for the Kelvins.
It's been a long time since I read it, but if I remember correctly, the TNG book trilogy called the Continuum states that it is basically a prison for a powerful being
In one of the novels (I know they are not canon) it was mentioned that the existence of the barrier pretty much kept all beings of this galaxy trapped inside...even though the barrier had been breached by the Enterprise.
Perhaps the great barrier represents the edge of the dark matter halo theorized to exist around our galaxy (and around most galaxies). Dark matter is not visible, but if you ran into it with your star ship it would probably be like hitting a wall. Also consider the solar heliopause (the outer boundary of the helosphere)- Voyager 1 encountered this boundary in August 2012, when the spacecraft measured a forty-fold sudden increase in plasma density. Perhaps there is a galactic heliopause of some kind but there is a much greater increase in plasma density that could serve as some kind of barrier. The plasma cloud created around space capsules re-entering earth's atmosphere at high velocity blocks all radio waves resulting in a communications blackout for several minutes.
In one of the Star Trek novels Q accidently opened a portal to an other universe. Several powerfull beings crossover. One of them is the "God" from the Star Trek movie "Final Frontier" and one called "Zero". It takes the Q's a lot of power too defeat this beings. The "God" is improsent and "Zero" is cast out of the Milkyway. Because Zero cann't travel faster than the speed of light a barrier was created too keep him out of your Milkyway for thousends/millions of years.
I always thought that the “badlands” nebula was placed near the galactic barrier, hence why the Wormhole was prone to stability. This could also explain the psionic effects shown in TOS, as the badlands were a dumping ground for a lot of high tech aliens
Nah, it's nowhere near the galactic edge. The edge of the galaxy is a couple thousand light years away even if you go straight "up" instead of towards the rim, but we know from DS9 that Bajor is only a few dozen light years from Earth. The reason the Bajoran wormhole is stable is solely thanks to the Prophets and nothing else. The part of the galaxy we see where the Federation and its border states are really isn't all that massive, it's measured in hundreds of light years across or so. The space claimed by the Federation and every significant interstellar nation that borders it only amounts to somewhere around 1% of the galaxy based on the distances they've mentioned here and there.
@@Idran huh, I always thought it was further out. You know, Deep Space 9. Which source stated that Bajor was closer than the closest known habitable planet to earth? A few dozen light years just sounds like a wrong number for something on the edge of federation space and days away from starfleet backup. Maybe it was a few dozen lightyears away from the nearest federation planet?
Depending on the plot, Bajor is about 52 light years from Earth-- travel between the two worlds takes approximately a week. In contrast, Vulcan is located 16.5 light years away. During an episode of ENTERPRISE, Risa being out 90 light years away from Earth had been the furthest humans had traveled away from Earth. It's not necessarily that Bajor was within a certain distance from Earth. Remember, space isn't a flat plane. 52 light years away, yes, but in which direction? Some regions are going to be less explored and charted than others and The Federation doesn't possess unlimited resources; therefore, without Bajor officially joining The Federation, there would naturally be less Starfleet presence in the region.
@Em E. Yep, I'm currently working on another mapping related video and this is something I try to emphasize. From a top-down view, Bajor is on the Federation's "western" frontier (literally...I'm just now processing the allusion there lol. Good ol' Bashir and his frontier medicine). But 3-dimensionally, the territory claimed by the Federation likely wouldn't have clean borders. All the powers would have pockets of space above and below each other connected by heavily traveled space lanes. This is why one week the Enterprise can be visiting a colony established one or two hundred years ago and the next week be close to their previous location but see some wacky shit no human has ever encountered before lol
This is a very interesting subject. It can be wacky if the subject of the galactic barrier is not approached right. It is fascinating to think that it was made, rather than a natural phenomena.there is a lot of thought, and research goes into these videos.I really enjoy these videos.
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
Should be noted too by the 26th century starfleet would develop a highly advanced transwarp that would alow them to travel beyond the milkyway and bypass the barrier without issue that's why ships like enterprise j were so massive to house the new warp core and alow comfortable travel during the extended exploration missions
I read in a novel called MUTE that the galactic barrier caused strange mutations in humans and children born from people exposed to the barrier had psychic abilities. And.. that these psychics were able to navigate through lightspeed. So the barrier was a boon or catalyst to space travel. A strange gift from the universe. I thought star trek should have done something like this.
One might speculate that all the Beings encountered by Kirk (et al.) exhibiting 'god-like' powers -- such as those who aided Charlie X, the 'parents' of Trelayne, the Organians, the ones who tested Kirk and the Gorn, etc. -- were ordinary-level humanoid creatures who, upon achieving a warp-capable culture, ventured out far enough to encounter the Barrier, and then got 'zapped' like Gary Mitchell and survived to become 'transcendent' Beings who, of course, can still take on a humanoid form when it suits them. By the way, STAR TREK STAR CHARTS (pg. 10-11) has the Great Barrier's galactic plane inner-and-outer radial length extending from ~ 40,000 LY to just over 50,000 LY from the galactic center, with the UFP being located at ~ 25,000 LY from the galactic center -- NOT at 40,000 LY, as is asserted in this video (at 6:30ff), with the screenshot of page 10 clearly showing UFP's location about halfway between 20,000 and 30,000 LY from the galactic center. In fact, on page 8 of STSC, there's an overhead view of the Milky Way Galaxy with the distance from the galactic center to the UFP (just under a corresponding side-view) stating that the distance is 25,800 LY, which seems to have been the estimated distance then known when STSC was published in 2002. A better estimate done within the past year has the distance being about 25,600 LY or about 99.2248062% the 2002 estimate. The map on page 81 -- depicting the route of the USS VOYAGER from the Delta Quadrant back to the UFP -- shows the UFP just past the 5th grid square from the galactic center, where each grid square has a side 5,000 LY long or just over a total of 25,000 LY (i.e. the 25,800 LY figure given earlier on page 8), so I don't know where OrangeRiver is getting this supposed 'mistake' regarding the distance of the UFP from the Center as 40,000 LY in STSC.
My personal theory, in my grand unified Star Trek Milky Way theory: the group that seeded the universe Set up the barrier to protect their children from what is out side of the galaxy. And I think that is the AI of the andromeda galaxy hinted at in TOS. Timelines don’t really match but progenitors may have had time travel or computing power to predict future events. Being a Type 5 civ at that point. The barrier has something in it to unlock their children abilities when they are ready, but humans aren’t ready, but are on our way to be. Which is why the Q are interested in humanity. I don’t think we will be ready until some child is born of multiple generations of inter species breading. The dominant genes of each species adding to the generation until the progenitor species returns through their children. Then we are them. Then the barrier will unlock that species. With out negative effects. And then we would be ready to be like the Q or type 5 inter galactic travel.
I dig the galactic barrier, kinda old god vibes. I'd love to see the results of a galaxy without it through andromeda refugees or something. Like the dark forest is legit and our galaxy is surprisingly peaceful.
We have our own barrier around our old social solar system beyond the Oort cloud. I found this channel about a couple weeks ago and I've been binging all the episodes
There's also the heliopause: the theoretical boundary where the Sun's solar wind is stopped by the interstellar medium. Perhaps there is an inter-galactic energy that reacts with the various energies emitted by our galaxy similar to the heliopause.
@@Dirtzoo Both Voyagers (I think) have passed through the heliopause and are now in what some consider to be interstellar space. Some day when the Borg find them they will rebuild them and send them back as v'ger.
Thsnks for doing the heavy lifting on this one 'cuz whenever I run in to murky/questionable science in SF now, I just go with the advice from MST3K and repeat to myself 'its just a show, I should really just relax.'l
Little known scientific fact: there is a barrier surrounding our solar system composed of radiation from our sun and other inter-solar magnetic fields. (Or that's my non-astrophysics understanding) because this barrier does exist, it's not too far to theorize a similar barrier exists at the edge of our galaxy.
This is a bit off topic, but has anyone ever charted the Enterprise course during TOS? I've seen some pretty detailed maps of the Star Trek Milky Way galaxy, and pretty much every episode of TOS has a captain's log with a stardate, so if someone hasn't drawn the Enterprise's course on a map yet I'd be pretty surprised. I think it would be cool to see it.
If you can get your hands on an old STAR TREK MAPS (published in 1980), it included a 31-page booklet titled "INTRODUCTION TO NAVIGATION" which includes a list of all the places to which the USS Enterprise traveled (Appendix -- Star System Data) on pages 22 through 31, from ADHARA (Epsilon Canaris) to ZETAR, with the XYZ coordinates of each place given. The system then used -- well before they started making TNG, DS9, VOY, etc. -- has SOL at the coordinate (23.9, 61.8, 0.0) and AL RIJIL [Alpha Centauri] at (24.6, 62.5, -1.0). Doing the math, we have the total distance from Sol to Alpha Centauri as sqr(0.49 + 0.49 + 1) = 1.407124728, which means that the XYZ coordinates are given in PARSECS rather than in LIGHTYEARS, as 1.407124728 x 3.2616 LY/parsec = 4.589478013 lightyears. An ambitious STAR TREK fan could conceivably 1) put all the TOS episodes, from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" to "All Our Yesterdays," into STARDATE order, and 2) then figure out where (in XYZ coordinates) each episode ends and the next one begins, and then chart the course of the ship, making sure to include whichever STARBASES are mentioned -- and I believe the locations of various starbases are given in STAR TREK MAPS, with page 21 of the booklet stating that Star Base 11 was located at XYZ coordinate (-90.00, 0.00, 0.00), and the Enterprise then going to Talos IV at XYZ coordinate (-119.45, -43.73, -24.00), a distance of 57.93 parsecs. Note that the XYZ coordinate (0, 0, 0) is NOT located in the Sol system, but is 23.9 parsecs in the X-direction and 61.8 parsecs in the Y-direction (and 0 parsecs in the Z-direction), for a total distance from the Sol system of 66.26 parsecs (i.e. the square root of (23.9 squared + 61.8 squared) = sqr(4,390.45) = 66.26047087 parsecs = 216 lightyears. Why they didn't have the (0, 0, 0) XYZ coordinate in the Sol system is a mystery to me, but perhaps it has something to do with the pre-TNG folks figuring that the Zero location ought to be located in the center of the TOS-era zone where the UFP is located, with Earth's sun (Sol) not necessarily being located smack-dab at the center of that spherical zone of member systems. By the way, one location which is not given in the list of star systems in that booklet is Ceti Alpha V (unfortunately), so unless one is to gather that by this is meant the 5th planet in the Alpha Ceti star system (a.k.a. Menkar, located about 220 LY from Earth), then figuring out where "Ceti Alpha V" is might be difficult. Also, there are 6 episodes of TOS which didn't have any official stardates given for them: "A Piece of the Action," "Assignment Earth," "Day of the Dove," "Patterns of Force," "That Which Survives," and "The Omega Glory" -- though "The City on the Edge of Forever" mentions a stardate in the original teleplay {Stardate 3134.6), so I consider that to be canon. Where to place these 6 undated episodes is anyone's guess, though perhaps fitting them in nearest to those episodes which aired before and after them might be advisable. However, it needs to be said that the 1st appearance of Chekov -- according to stardates -- was in "Catspaw" [3018.2], which is, indeed, BEFORE the stardate of "Space Seed" [3141.9], proving that Chekov WAS a member of Kirk's crew when Khan was aboard; this is one great reason to put the episodes into stardate order, rather than going by the dates in which they were aired. The 'official' TREK publications which have been published after the TNG shows began to be aired have rejiggered the way the galaxy is divided into Quadrants and Sectors (etc.) compared to how they did it in STAR TREK MAPS in 1980, and the location of Ceti Alpha is shown (in STAR TREK STAR CHARTS, published in 2002) as being approximately 355.26 LY away from Sol (i.e. about 45 mm away on a circular map where its diameter of 190 mm = 1,500 LY), with the Mutara Nebula being nearby. Why the Enterprise would fly so far away from Earth during a training mission with a bunch of Starfleet cadets -- and, thus, being the only ship in the quadrant able to respond to the situation on Regula 1 -- is, again, beyond me. Alpha Ceti [Menkar] is about 220 LY away, at Galactic Longitude 173.32 degrees, Galactic Latitude -45.59 degrees; whether or not that corresponds with the location depicted in STSC, I'm not sure, though the distance is obviously off by about 135 LY or so. It's a damn shame that STAR TREK MAPS didn't include Ceti Alpha V in its list of star systems in that booklet. Alas! Anyway, it could be fun to do what suggested above, going from place-to-place in stardate order, using the XYZ coordinates listed in the INTRODUCTION TO NAVIGATION booklet to figure out the necessary distances needed to get from one star system to the next. One could even figure out a way to create a set of star charts -- with the XY plane of the galaxy being the flat surface divided into squares 10 parsecs on the side, and the Z-coordinates given next to each star (i.e. Talos IV being at -24.00 on the Z-axis, etc.), and dashed lines indicating the route of the Enterprise from each place to the next. Again, one would have to assign stardates to the 6 episodes which were never given one, and thus place those adventures in their proper time-and-place, preferably in a spot where travel times between other known locations would make sense. I have a feeling that there will end up being a somewhat random hopscotching of the Enterprise around this part of the galaxy, once such an itinerary is settled on and plotted out.
If I remember right the giant creature which the Enterprise encounters in S2E18 The Immunity Syndrome is also not from the Milky Way galaxy but is an intruder that has bypassed the barrier. In only a few episodes do we actually see something or someone manage to sneak through the barrier. Maybe the writers will revisit it if there's a good story to be told. One thing is for sure, though, anything which does come from outside the Milky Way, perhaps originating in the void between galaxies, is sure to be unlike anything that has been encountered before.
There are several epixodes with Espers. Platos stepchildren etc. You just only mention them if it doesn't ruin the story. The writers of Star Trek were really good at forgetting canon when it got in the way of an idea they had for a story.
the galactic barrier is our very own noob shield. it'll stay in place until we're ready to play on the intergalactic stage. space is a very dangerous place.
I think the barrier is like a skin. The network in Discovery is a life form. It forms this skin around the galaxy like a giant organism. Explains why the network falls off rapidly as it approaches the edge.
Hey Tyler Inde here. It was in response to my comment from Mondays (?) announcement of this video that someone said Esp tests were also mentioned in the TNG episode Tinman. One thing that intrigues me about Where No Man Has Gone Before is the line from Dehner that "he's been like that for hours now" referring to Mitchell just standing still seemingly oblivious to the world. What has Mitchell been doing all those hours? I'd speculate that he's been working on Dehner. That he gave her the extra boost to convert her so that he could have a mate. That's my thought anyway. Also Dehner didn't turn against the crew the way that Mitchell did. WNMHGB is one of my favorite episodes of Trek. It's a tragic story though with Kirk having to kill his best friend. In the episode In Truth There Is No Beauty I didn't think they were inside the Galactic Barrier. I just thought they were lost outside the Galaxy. In fact if they were in the galactic barrier wouldn't that have affected Dr. Miranda Jones? Her telepathic skills are compared quite favorably to Spock's. Perhaps they were in a space similar to that one in the TNG episode where we are introduced to the Traveler and Kozinski. Just some weird pocket of subspace. Finally the TNG episode where Q gives Riker the power of the Q seems like a watered down version of WNMHGB. When Picard says that he can't advise Riker because nothing like this has ever happened before I'm yelling at the screen eliminate him you absolute dolt! Surely you must know about Gary Mitchell. You eliminate a mutant like Mitchell (or Riker) before it's too late.
Uh The entire point of the ending of "Hide and Q" is that Riker wasn't going mad with power? And that that isn't a universal truth of humans? Mitchell was just kind of fundamentally a petty guy in the end and/or literally driven insane by the barrier rather than just that being the inevitable result of gaining a lot of power? Plus it wasn't a ramp-up or something there like it was for Mitchell, Q literally jumped Riker immediately to omnipotence,. Killing anything "mutant" like that is pretty well against the Trek ethos, even Kirk only attacked Mitchell as a last resort. Killing someone because they have power that they might use against you isn't smart, it's fashy nonsense. And if you're yelling at your screen for a character on Star Trek to kill someone because they _might_ be dangerous, I think you might be watching the wrong franchise.
@@Idran I am definitely not watching the wrong franchise. When god like powers come to a person through natural evolution I'm cheering them on just as happened in the one episode of TNG where they rescue the guy who is evolving. But when power is handed to you even good intentions can go wrong. At the end did Riker ask permission to age Wesley up 10 years or give Geordi human sight or call Picard by his first name? No he just does it. Riker may even be a worse choice to get that kind of power because he likes to joke around. He'd end up being another John DeLancey type Q. Using his power for amusement. Getting people into serious trouble in the process. Plus he, and the other TNG characters are self righteous. Give any of them that kind of power and the next thing you know they'll be reshaping the universe to meet their standards. For your own good. At least with Gary you knew he was going to turn bad.
I'm surprised that you didn't mention the barrier at the center of the galaxy in STV:TFF. I always assumed they were related or maybe i read too much into that as a kid. I was always fasinated by the barrier even though it didn't really make sense. I'd like to know the though process behind the barrier from the writer who created it.
I think the concept can have some merit with a slight amount of retconning. If it was indeed created to keep things out, it wouldn't make much sense to keep beings of the Milky Way inside the confines of the galaxy, as it would've been obvious that civilizations would eventually gain the means to intergalactic travel. It would make more sense for the galactic barrier to function similar to a cell membrane. Allowing certain things in while keeping certain things out, which could go along with the basis of energy signature. It serves as an obstacle for space fairing races until they are ready and develop the means to cross it. In this case if the Q created it, it served as a sort of boundary in which worthy civilizations could advance without interruption from much more powerful beings.
The Galactic Barrier is an example of what is missing in modern sci-fi. Large constructs that spark the imagination with their awesome implications. It's from a time when writers took risks and really trusted their audience to fill the blanks in themselves.
This just makes me want to watch the second TOS pilot again lol. While the galactic barrier is a bit silly, it does a good job of creating a sense of the galaxy as familiar and an uncanny "other" in the extragalactic void. Thank you for another of these great videos! God be with you out there everybody! ✝️ :)
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
@@mrspaceman2764 I haven't seen Discovery yet, but I may get around to it one of these days. I found it fascinating when I was first reading about the Voyager probes making their way into interstellar space. This is an exciting time to be alive for space exploration. Thank you for your reply!
@@Numba003 Yeah, it's something new every day. This one blew my mind just earlier this week: ua-cam.com/video/1sWMKaTand0/v-deo.html Interesting implications for the Fermi Paradox and why were not finding anyone out there. Radiation sucks😥
The toroidal shape of the Great Barrier also explains why its at the center of the galaxy (in Star Trek V) as well as at the edge of the galaxy in the TOS episodes. I've heard before that there were two Great Barriers but, this makes a lot more sense. There's also some weird apocrypha about the "God" being found at the center of the Galaxy in Star Trek V. Though a lot of people probably don't like or like to think much about Star Trek V. It also seems like the Enterprise travelled a rather long distance to get there in that movie in too short a time. The whole psionic "esper" thing is a little silly. But its a sci fi thing I guess and there are telepaths and empaths across the ST universe. Though there being human "espers" is just kind of dropped. There is a running theme of people encountering the Great Barrier and surviving it developing grand delusions in addition to their mental powers and thinking they're like gods. Sybok was drawn to the barrier and developed his delusions for some reason before encountering it. The creature at the center may have something to do with all this. Maybe it was mentally influencing Sybok and trying to draw him, someone or anyone really, in to be useful in its plans. There are also the Venturi from the game Starfleet Academy, who go from being kind of generic pirates to a weird religious cult when their leader encounters the Barrier. Though Starfleet Academy is itself not canon and the story is part of an Academy simulation even within the game's universe itself.
I always assumed that the barrier is so large in every direction that it would take longer than the universe has left to exist, to actually be able to go around it in any direction....well that is my canon of the barrier.
Wait wait wait hold on, second pilot? I remember the story of the guys becoming gods but I don't remember these scenes of the galactic barrier. I NEED TO WATCH STAR TREK RIGHT NOW
I've had your channel for a while but realized I didn't have notifications turned on, that has been corrected. As far as negative energy goes, to me it seems perfectly plausible as just an electrician. What about every action has an equal and opposite reaction? Just like a galaxy has a bunch of energy in it, it stands to reason that there is an equal amount of negative energy on the periphery to keep things in balance.
From the beginning of Star Trek it seemed there was often mention of tests to evaluate psi potential that cadets, including human cadets took. Dr. Miranda Jones was obviously an exception, but not the only human with native unenhanced beyond innate genetic potential telepathy. Where else in any of the series is human telepathy mentioned? For that matter, in any scl-fi series?
Ben Babylon 5 not only has human telepaths, but an entire organization dedicated to telepaths that searches them out, trains them, rates them, and creates and enforces the rules that govern telepaths.
I think it makes more sense for the barrier to not be artificial. For one, thing, something would have to be able to travel the circumference of the galaxy and then the mass of it's upper and lower levels. I think it makes more sense that some aspect of how the milky way orbits the supermassive black hole at it's center causes these negative particles to gravitate to the outer regain, maybe a product of it's mass. On a smaller scale, it would be like the outer asteroid belt of our solar system. Perhaps millions or billions of years ago, some race worked out a way to utilize this phenomena to create a shield and once set, it can't be unset. I think maybe it ties into the issues in the last season of Discovery, how a race near this outer edge was mining space to help with shielding themselves from discovery. I think the two have to be related.
I’m curious who created the galactic barrier from a story writing perspective. I’m imaging a smoke filled room with typewriters and someone asks what keeps all the stuff in the galaxy together; must be like a fish bowl right otherwise everything would fly away? Yeah, let’s go with that!
I actually felt the Galactic Barrier theory to be quite probable, especially since we know about the Van Allen's belt of the earth for example or the Heliosheath & Heliopause of the Solar System, which we now know about thanks to Voyager 1 and 2. So basically there's several protective layers in the universe in various sizes and densities. I do not think that a galactic barrier would be as dangerous and hard to penetrate from within but who knows? We can't say for sure yet. But the existence alone could not be entirely ruled out.
Who knew that the Galactic Barrier and the UA-cam comments section are the same in that they are a region of negativity that violently react to anything positive that gets introduced into it. ;o)
I wouldn't really say it's been forgotten in more recent times it's just one of those things that only has to be shown if the story brings the crew into contact with it and let's face it unless we somehow conquered the entire galaxy and need to go to others there's not much reason except for fleeing an enemy trap forcing them beyond the edge.
There is a book that describes the barrier as a means of keeping a rogue Q out. Along with the head of another rogue placed in the middle of the galaxy at Sha Ka Ree needing help getting back into the galaxy so he could heal and cause mayhem again.
The Barrier is very interesting and could have an awesome backstory. The Kelvin's said there was no barrier around Andromeda galaxy and the one around the Milky Way was completely unexpected. Also notice how the civilizations in the Milky Way are dominated by humanoids? There are few non-humanoid species. And all those humanoids have enough in common not to be completely alien to each other. That is explained by the Progenitor race. In Discovery 3rd season, the race outside the Barrier is unlike anything ever encountered inside the barrier. And it is made quite clear that outside the Barrier it is extremely hostile and very different than inside. So what if the Barrier is artificial and constructed by the Progenitors to keep their diaspora seeding of humanoids races safe? Who were they protecting the Galaxy from? If it is artificial, then there is a lot of potential story telling and exploration! I would love to see more of that.
There are two Barriers, the Galactic Barrier "Where No Man Has Gone Before," and the Great Barrier "Star Trek: The Final Frontier." The Galactic Barrier encircles the Milky Way galaxy completely and is a pinkish purple color, while the Great Barrier encircles the Galactic core and is a bluish white color. The Great Barrier was clearly made to imprison the God-like entity, but the Galactic Barrier was either made to keep us in or something out.
I have a love-hate with the galactic barrier. Love: It explains why the Milky Way is almost a humanoid-centric galaxy that has so few problems from other galaxies or beings from "dark space". Hate: The very idea of s science-loving universe making the Milky Way a gigantic ship in a bottle and-or ant farm, metaphorically speaking.
I think its a fine plot device if handled properly. The fact that it was pretty much not mentioned in the later series is curious.
I like the idea that the 'Q' made it to protect something from something else.
However, its not something I have never found to be a problem, and having something unexplained by science in the show is sort of satisfying.
Maybe one could argue that the Q put it in place to be a final test for humanity in the universe.
It could, ultimately be used as a goal post device, where if the federation can prove its peaceful intent within the galaxy, then it earns the privilege of expanding its message outside of the galaxy, in a few thousand years, and people getting ESPer powers is an indication of what will be needed in other parts of the universe, when they are ready... sort of like a galactic leaving home...
Or some other plot device.
Either way I don't mind it at all.
I know exposure to the barrier can awaken psionic abilities in humans with a high esper rating. Humans in star trek have psychic potential but lack the neural structure to use them.
Don't be totally rubbish. The "Q" didn't "make" anything. This is Star Trek not some tribal creation myth smh
@@john.premose no, its sci fi myth. Its myth, and can be anything the writers want, as shown by decades of contradictory writing.
Sounds a bit like its a sacred thing to you?
@@maarkaus48 not if it wants to have any credibility. The Q might portray themselves as “gods” but it’s to the credit of captain Picard and the other crew that they dismiss that entirely. The idea of the Q “creating” parts of the galaxy is like some kind of myth which is not scientific at all
@@john.premose Very little about star trek is really scientific at the end of the day. Some of it is grounded, but much of it is science fantasy. I love the show, at least up to the Rick Berman years, and especially the TOS as its called, but I can recognize that its largely a fantasy or modern myth.
And myth can be something to inspire, not explain. Science explains, myths inspire.
There can be room for both.
As for the barrier, I don't mind it, and that was my point. Its part of the canon now, and so there it is.
I have had many issues with things from TNG and later Star Trek, but if its set as canon, then so be it... until the writers decide its not again.
Star Trek Voyager, for example has had many moments of near death experiences for Janeway. Weird evolutionary salamander moments, and many other things that were not thrown out later, and so are canon... as much as its cringe.
I don't care that much about the barrier, if 'Q' invented it, or if they just claimed it to promote themselves, or if its completely natural. Its a plot device first, explanation second.
Star Trek is modern myth, and at times not very well done, because of many writers. That is fine, because its entertainment which is meant to provoke the mind and challenge us to reflect, and that it does well.
I have real issues with some of Voyager, but love the series as a whole.
Since the Barrier affects psi ability, maybe it's a mental phenomenon, and not a physical one, which explains its weirdness.
That's a good theory, and fits in a bit with The Traveler's statements in "Where No One Has Gone Before". Just as long as it isn't interpreted in such a way that the power of love is actually what holds the galaxy together or something.
Beyond the barrier is where the care bear kingdom lies
@@bjorn00000 didn't it physically destroy their ship and they had to use spacemagic to reinforce the enterprise to pass through? Idk tos was all over the place plot wise that episode felt like they included the "love" barrier because half way through writing about beings from another galaxy they realized they wrote in an impenetrable barrier in season 1 and had to figure something out lol also want to add the entire theme of tos is love conquers all it's their solution when facing any superior being showing them that the loss of compassion is the negative trade off to power. Star trek has always been about space hippies don't doubt the love barrier idea lol
What a fun way of proposing the possibility that Star Trek is a prequel to 40k
did you ever notice that more often than not the phenomenon that seemed to be most able to cause their high technology damage or to be unusable (all based on the "standard model" we are all taught) is/was electromagnetic in nature?
I really enjoy your more intelligent look at Star Trek compared to other channels.
The galactic barrier was a weird plot device the TOS writers room cooked up. The central barrier felt extra silly in ST V.
Bah, that was just a prison for the creature that was being held there :P
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
Someone theorized that overcoming the barrier was a matter of speed and not shields. When Enterprise D was flung out of the galaxy they weren't affected by it because they spent microseconds in it.
Maybe the barrier is also a product of the Q Continuum.
So, it's like the walls in a speed run. You go fast enough for collision to not register and just no clip your way outside of the known galaxy. 😀
@@overweightactor more along the lines of radiation exposure. Even deadly radiation can be harmless if you're exposed to it a short enough amount of time.
The D was flung out by the Traveler. If the guy can go to the edge of the universe, a barrier is probably no problem.
Barrier was totally retconned in tng
My head canon is that it was created by ancient civilizations to keep out the intergalactic super-intelligent AIs responsible for both V'Ger and the more recent second season of Discovery and first season of Picard; it contains elements designed to augment the minds of organic beings passing through it, so that they can withstand encounters with the otherwise vastly superior entities outside the Milky Way that have formed a type 3+ civilization but still haven't gotten over issues with organic life forms.
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
@@dabrams84 Here is a NASA video explaining the situation: ua-cam.com/video/suo7_u18C_s/v-deo.html
@@dabrams84 This is a great video on our fleet of probes used to monitor solar wind and earth magnetic field interactions, plus the Heliopause and Terminations shock: ua-cam.com/video/1oDUN74yzuo/v-deo.html
Discovery and picard ain't part of my head cannon.
@@StinkyGreenBud You need to get out of your head, see the world.
Whoof, these videos really get me through my long shifts.
I'm really glad to hear that. People telling me my content has that effect is super encouraging and super humbling :D
Hey guys, sorry I'm late... it's been, one of THOSE days ... but I'm here now to behold the latest from Orange River! Love your videos!!!!
I think the barrier is just supposed to be scary and weird - Where No Man Has Gone Before is about an encounter with the paranormal. I should add, I find the story pretty effective - the whole thing FREAKED me out as a kid - especially Dehner and Mitchell with their shiny eyeballs.
The thing that makes me uncomfortable about the episode is how painful the contact lenses look 😬
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
@@mrspaceman2764Fascinating! I hadn't heard of the termination shock (and just did some reading on it at your prompt).
@@lossatt Nice! This guy releases interesting space nuggets almost daily, check him out: www.youtube.com/@whatdamath
Galactic Barrier? Absolute Nonsense!
But those who cannot give up their beloved reality for an hour or how it takes to read and enjoy a good (science) fiction (FICTION!) movie/book should possibly "waste" their time with other things. Like posting useless comments on Twitter or UA-cam?:)
Homer's Troy, Shakespeare, Your last tax declaration, Star Trek, etc.? All full of inspiration and may give back inspiration and new ways to think. That is nothing bad;)
It’s interesting that the Star Wars galaxy also has a galactic barrier. Although, that’s a clustering if hyperspace anomalies rather than an energy field.
Speaking of which, you should dig into the age-old question of, could the Millennium Falcon beat the Enterprise in a race, and talk about the scientific feasibility of hyperspace vs. warp travel.
Hyperspace speed is already established to be orders of magnitude faster than star trek's.
@@danielmyers-cowan3416 Ah! Looks like I’ve got some homework to do then. 🔥
Plot armor barrier. Or they would've faced the reapers by now 🙄 🤷
Yes, the millennium falcon is faster than enterprises a, b, c, d and e. Outside of slipstream drive and transwarp corridors they lack means of travel that reach hyperdrive speeds. I’d have to find the numbers again, but Voyager’s slipstream drive was around the speed of a hyperdrive with a 2 ranking (higher is slower). The millennium falcon has a .5 hyperdrive, which beats out many transwarp speeds (but not all of them), the transwarp corridors are drastically faster than the millennium falcon, even if ships within them are only using a sublight speed themselves(relative to the space within the corridor). So the millennium falcon is faster than starfleet ships outside of the Enterprise E and Voyager using a transwarp drive or Discovery (spore drive matches borg transwarp network in speed) and the protostar (whose protodrive is nebulously faster than the slipstream drives, but definitely able to travel across quadrants in under a day, possibly in under an hour… prodigy wasn’t clear in how much time passed).
hyperspace works fundamentally differently to warp drive, it's incredibly fast but has to follow set hyperspace lanes, hyper drives can get ya across the galaxy in a week, but if there's no hyper lane then they'll have to travel at sublight, in which case the warp drive wins
I appreciate how you go into some actual physics in these types of vids. Admittedly, my recollection is mostly limited to "Oh, the one with the plates, I've heard of that" but that's still part of the fun
Same :)
How do you pick just the right topics? I just love your videos. Thanks Tyler! Again.
Hahaha, I just make videos about whatever I'm interested in lol. Many are audience suggestions but I only implement them when I feel the time is right ;)
Glad you enjoyed it jasper!
A short trip just up or down relative to the galactic plane get you to the barrier. Meaning it’s even closer to Earth than, say, Vulcan. So I’m surprised we don’t hear about it more often in the series.
I never thiught of that.. I always visualised it as a huge sphere around the galaxy and nit just a sheet over the galaxy...
The galactic barrier up-or-down is still much farther than Vulcan. Vulcan is 16 light-years away, the galactic barrier would be at least 500 to 1000 light-years.
Another piece of trivia is that "The Star Gazer" actually has a commemorative plaque in the background that suggests Uhura was the captain of an exploratory mission to the Small Magellanic Cloud (which would require a crossing of the barrier). This would actually not make that much sense, as the SMC is about 200,000 light years away and would involve crossing a huge void, but it's an interesting tidbit.
However, that extreme distance is why it probably wasn't covered in TNG/DS9/Voyager. Simply put, under current canon the trip would be impractical, and it wouldn't have really mattered if there was a barrier there. Even without intergalactic threats or a dangerous interface that turned you into a god, extragalactic space would have few or no accessible stars, meaning that refueling would be challenging and there would be few planets available for supplies or support. There's also probably not that much to explore either with crewed vessels. It would be like an ocean voyage in a rowboat.
My take on the science has been that the galactic barrier seems very equivalent to the termination shock at the edge of our solar system (and others) or even just surface tension at the interface of two different types of liquids. However, what's been missing from that explanation is that if the galactic barrier is really just a natural interface between intra- and extragalactic space, there must be some fundamental differences in space outside of the galaxy to cause that interface. That wasn't really discussed in "By Any Other Name" or "The Galactic Barrier"/"Rosetta", but would be an important piece of context.
I mean, it's only really extreme distance in canon if it really is only around the rim of the galaxy, but that doesn't make any sense fundamentally regardless of its origin. The Star Charts explanation is really the only thing that makes any sense irrespective of what was literally stated, since there isn't any reason the Kelvans would have approached _or_ departed along the galactic plane. If they were leaving the Milky Way for Andromeda starting from somewhere within a few hundred light years of Earth in a straight line, they wouldn't be leaving anywhere near the rim of the Milky Way. And even if they were, they were talking about a travel time measured in hundreds of millennia; taking a few years to go up and around the barrier would be nothing.
Edit: Oh, I'm dumb; I just realized you didn't mean the extreme distance _to the galactic rim,_ you meant the extreme distance _to another galaxy._ Whoops, sorry about that. :P
bjornooo I'm glad you put in the statement "My take on the science has been that the galactic barrier seems very equivalent to the termination shock at the edge of our solar system (and others) " Is it possible things will change when we enter ...... I don't know what to call it. When our ships crossed into interstellar space, we received a surprised. (Sorry I don't have enough information or knowledge to do this topic justice) You have brought up a number of points on this. I hope others hop in and add to your observations. I know it won't be cannon but it would be a wonderful excersie in attempting to interpret the universe.
Travel to other galaxies might be feasible if there is a naturally occurring traversable wormhole with one end in our galaxy and the other end in the other galaxy. Perhaps Captain Uhura's exploratory mission to the Small Magellanic Cloud was via such a wormhole. If so, then the mission would not have required crossing the galactic barrier.
In 1995, a theory was proposed that suggested there may be many wormholes in the universe if cosmic strings with negative mass were generated in the early universe since if a tiny wormhole held open by a negative mass cosmic string had appeared around the time of the Big Bang, it could have been inflated to macroscopic size by cosmic inflation. In the article Morris, Michael S.; Thorne, Kip S.; Yurtsever, Ulvi (1988). "Wormholes, Time Machines, and the Weak Energy Condition" Physical Review Letters. 61 (13): 1446-1449. Bibcode:1988PhRvL..61.1446M , and subsequent work by others, it was shown that negative matter could be used to stabilize a wormhole. Cramer et al. argue that such wormholes might have been created in the early universe, stabilized by negative-mass loops of cosmic string. [John G. Cramer; Robert L. Forward; Michael S. Morris; Matt Visser; Gregory Benford & Geoffrey A. Landis (1995). "Natural Wormholes as Gravitational Lenses". Physical Review D. 51 (6): 3117-3120. arXiv:astro-ph/9409051.]
In the Star Trek TNG episode "The Loss," the USS Enterprise-D was nearly destroyed after an encounter with a cosmic string fragment 107 kilometers in length. So macroscopic cosmic strings are consistent with Star Trek canon.
I always wondered why they couldn't just go over it. But if it surrounds the entire Galaxy I guess that answers that.
Yes, I thought the same thing until I realized the Barrier was like a squished bubble enveloping the entire galaxy, and that it's just thicker along the edges which it why you can see it more clearly from there.
The idea that the barrier is thinner above and below the galactic plane than the full extent at the rim reminds me of the trajectory that Apollo missions took to avoid the most intense regions of the Van Allen Belts on their way to the Moon.
Ironically that's the argument the moon landing deniers use to say why we couldn't go to the moon. The belt would cook humans. They don't know Apollo went through the thinnest part at high speed.
@@cb-gz1vl You are correct.
@@cb-gz1vl A little bit of shielding could even easily make it through the thickest parts as well.
@@mrspaceman2764 Yeah they were going through fast enough. I think you take more rads on a plane than they did.
Nice try but they didn't. It is a well known fact they had no idea the Van Allen Belt was there and this is an evidence they never went to the Moon.
This is just so 60’s I kind of love it
Cood analysis indeed! From whan I first watched Star Trek in 1973 and here now 50 years later, I would have this recurring dream about an actual "probe" that was sent out to explore the outer reaches of the infinite "space", but not limited to the Milky Way....past Andromeda and beyond. The probe was manned, but as it reached the final depths, there was a vast light of multiple colors...but in turn the probe would be deflected, forbidding aby further travels beyond. With that said, I only wish more would have been expanded on the Galactic Barrier storyline rather than the just the various encounters. THANK YOU for the upload and insights!
In the ST canon, I always figured that the barrier was a natural phenomenon. On speculation (for story-telling purposes) I would say that the barrier isn't so much "negative energy" as "dark energy". According to scientific theory, dark energy is repelled by positive gravity. Therefore, it would have been repelled out of the galaxy. But, it could also have its own negative gravity, which would cause the dark energy coalesce. The balance of the two forces keeps the dark energy around the galaxy, like an inflated balloon.
Also, because the dark energy is fluid, it would not be evenly distributed. There could even be gaps or holes in the barrier, allowing ships to pass through it, at certain points. It's likely thicker at the edge of the galactic disk, due to centrifugal force---as centrifugal force is not gravity.
Anyway, that's my working theory for future ST adventures. Oh, by the way, 'espers" WERE revisited in the TOS episode, "Plato's Stepchildren"---though the story had nothing to do with the barrier.
My in-head canon states that the barrier wasn't designed to keep something out, but to keep something (humanity) in.
Enterprise has what may be a similar phenomenon in the thermobaric clouds around the Delphic Expanse, and galaxies in our universe appear to be surrounded by dark matter haloes.
Which is to say, the idea of an energy barrier around the Milky Way is not inconceivable either in canon or in reality.
I was thinking of Star Trek V, but after seeing that map, that was the "Great Barrier" around the center of the Milky Way...not the "Galactic Barrier". You learn something new everyday. TY.
I agree with the Star Trek Continues/Star Trek Star Charts depiction that shows the barrier enveloping the whole galaxy, not just surrounding the rim. Otherwise why did the Kelvans have to cross it to enter and leave our galaxy and why did Discovery have to do the same? I'm also good with the explanation given for it in the novels; the Q put it there to protect the galaxy from 0 and/or the Progenitors put it there to protect the galaxy from The Totality...maybe the Progenitors put it there then the Q boosted it when they needed to also keep 0 out, much like they erected the great barrier at the center of the galaxy to imprison "God" (a story also told in the aforementioned Q Continuum novel trilogy). This explanation also makes a hell of a lot more sense if the barrier surrounds the entire galaxy, as it would be pretty pisspoor protection otherwise.
I also assume that the Valiant encountered it 100 years before TOS, not 200, as that would put it barely after Earth developed warp drive at all. I just chalk the date given up to early Trek weirdness from before they established when exactly the series was set, a common occurrence in early Trek.
I do disagree with the notion that the galactic barrier is one of the whackier TOS elements. I doubt it cracks the top 50. This is a show that had Apollo, space Lincoln, Alice and the White Rabbit, a person getting split into his good and evil halves, space hippies...next to a lot of Star Trek stuff, a random energy barrier is extremely mundane.
"Is There In Truth No Beauty" the ship was not trapped in the barrier, but because they went faster than warp9 in a chaotic way they were trapped in uncharted hyperspace or subspace and couldn't pop out since they had no navigational references. The post production team just reused the Barrier photography to save cash. VFX budget after S1 was really tight, with lots of reused space shots from S1. The big Enterprise filming model(s) had been boxed up after S1 and they'd lost the Romulan model (got in a conflict with the prop contractor).
The best thing about that episode is the writers actually tried to address subspace or hyperspace as being in the extra dimensional universe.
Star Trek was bad enough about seldom referencing the third dimension of space....much less the 10th or 11th.
WNMHGB was vaguely supposed to be 700 to 1000 years in our future in 1966. They really were all over the future in the first year. Dorothy Fontana preferred 200 years in the future. Most external contributing writers assumed 700 or more in the future (Squire of Gothos fir instance). Gene Roddenberry didn't want to be specific, thus the random jibberish StarDates of TOS.
Coon and Fontana settled on 2267 by the end of S1.
There is one Star Trek novel, at the moment I can't remember which one, which said that the energy barrier was actually the leading edge front of the Andromeda Galaxy which is on it's way in several million years to collide with our own galaxy. Which I know is not cannon but that always kind of made sense to me! I do not remember though which Star Trek novel it is that said that. But it was one I had for a very long time!
I wonder if our galaxy doesn't have a Dark Energy barrier. A point outside the galaxy in which the effects of galactic gravity shrinks so low that Dark Energy effects over whelm gravity.
I was thinking about the plot hole in ST V about galactic center just being near. They should've added some kind of wormhole that appears at the long time interval, 10.000 years maybe.
They could added a bit of character development about Spock's and Sybok's past, his rebellion against teaching of Surak about pure logic and against abstract. That makes him finding some Vulcan scrolls in forbidden part of the library, a history about light that appears every 10.000 years in some constellation. As wormhole opens it carries a message and visions about Sha Ka Ree. Then he travels on other worlds find some clues, but finds out that those worlds with telepathically sensitive species have more conclusive and clearer clues like same descriptions of messages, visions and map of same constellation of stars where bright wormhole appears. Then Sybok calculated and found time is near for wormhole to appear. When it appeared Sybok got the visions, but the God told him he needs a powerful ship to get through the barrier. He needed a Starfleet grade ship. It would explain why Sybok was in such a hurry to get a fast flagship, why they were able to fast travel to the center of the Galaxy and find God.
Also I would add Spock's wits to pull out history facts how 10.000 ago years some civilizations near wormhole waged religious wars that led their civilizations near or to total extinction. It could show that Entity of Sha Ka Ree is total chaos, and if his mere presence could destroy civilizations through manipulating minds, driving basic instincts to the surface, his freedom would be devastating to entire Galaxy.
Star Trek V was a real turd in the punch bowl of Star Trek movies
@@robertcampbell6349 it was weird as hell, but very much a send-off of the old series. Where else but old fashioned Star Trek would you go to the center of the galaxy to fight god?
@@tsm688 Very true!
@@tsm688 in spite of its many flaws, i see three major qualities about Star Trek V: (1) the "fighting god" plot, or as Bones put it, "ask the Almighty for His ID". That someone (just why is it Kirk alone) at last did question that being feels like a satisfaction for me. (2) another thing i like is how the movie dives into the rich and intimate kirk-spock-mccoy friendship (just why did the rest of the crew not get so much nuance, too). (3) also we get the important psycho-philosophical lesson that you should not get rid of your painful memories but carry them. When Kirk declines Sybok's brainwashing tricks, he rightfully points out that our shortcomings make us who we are.
I've been waiting for this one. Thanks Tyler.
Don't worry I have subscribed, started watching your videos yesterday, and watched 3 videos in a row and then subscribed this morning watching my 4th video.
Haha nice!
I personally kinda liked the idea of the Galactic barrier and viewed it similar to the Van Allen radiation belt here on earth. I've often related the Galactic barrier to the dark forest theory. As if perhaps it was put in place to protect the Milky Way in ST from something bad out in the universe.
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
Nuts, I just read The Dark Forest by Cixin Lui
straight to the point.. this is a cool channel for sure
The solar system has a barrier called the Oort cloud at the outside edge. Scientific data shows its an area of extremely violent atomic discharge and thermal energy. This is thought to have came from the making of our little solar system. Can you imagine the force of such a barrier created by an entire galaxy?
I wish we had more information.
Some people think "The Barrier" is a trial to make sure when the species gets out, they can survive the vast distances needed to make it to another galaxy.
This dude's content is so good. I don't understand the low sub count.
Modestly, I'd agree with Subraxas--46,000 is quite an accomplishment I'm proud of. Less modestly, I'd say...WTF PEOPLE!!!??? HOW COME I'M NOT OVER 100K YET!!!??? OR A MILLION!!!???
Seriously though, I appreciate it Sam :D
I can understand the concept of a galactic barrier. In the way our solar system also has a barrier around it that is made up of the solar winds charged particles extending out until it meets resistance from the interstellar medium.
Since our solar system is orbiting the galactic center (very rapidly), the bubble around us is very odd shaped & doesn't extend as far ahead of our orbit as it does behind us. So, I can imagine the galaxy having something similar around it made up of particles that build up where they meet intergalactic space.
Like our own solar system bubble, it helps protect us somewhat from certain harmful radiation.
If I remember correctly, the barrier was used in ST 5 The Final Frontier. Since humans have not traveled to space, we cannot say for certainty if the barrier actually exists. Unless the Voyager probes have left the milky way.
They haven't and they won't do so until far, far, far after we've either gone extinct or visited the edge of the galaxy ourselves.
@@danic_c agreed
You did a great job of explaining a dificult subject. This is the kind of thing that makes your channel stand out and makes it worth subscribing to. Thanks.
Suggestion on a next video?, could you do a video on the borg.. explaining the early species assimilated? As there are many early species the borg assimilated such as species 116, species 47 etc. Its a question i see avidly on the reddit threads for Star Trek. Thats if there is enough source material? Thanks mate! ^_^
the galactic barrier concept is an an excellent plot dev took
My brother subbed right away after I showed him a Mass Effect video of yours
He was surprised by the level of lore knowledge
To which I was like, Yeah he knows his shit 🙄
I think the barrier was a simple tool writers used to make a single episode and was intended to be forgotten. Since it hasn't been forgotten, I think it could be explained away saying it is a natural consequence around galaxies, much like the heliopause surrounding our solar system or the aurora borealis around the Earth. In short, the barrier is the condensation of intergalactic energies being buffeted (and built up) near the edge of our galaxy.
I always felt the character reaction to the barrier is that it was an unexplained/unexpected phenomena that shouldn't be there. Like it was placed there by some force to keep something in or to keep something out.
Maybe like many mature races were fearful of young races first starting out on inter-planetary travel. Maybe the barrier is aimed at races just starting out on intergalactic travel. It did work like this for the Kelvins.
It's been a long time since I read it, but if I remember correctly, the TNG book trilogy called the Continuum states that it is basically a prison for a powerful being
I'm subscribed, and I always will be!!! Thanks for all the awesomeness!!!
Thank you Buzz!
In one of the novels (I know they are not canon) it was mentioned that the existence of the barrier pretty much kept all beings of this galaxy trapped inside...even though the barrier had been breached by the Enterprise.
Been waiting a while for this video. Thanks
Perhaps the great barrier represents the edge of the dark matter halo theorized to exist around our galaxy (and around most galaxies). Dark matter is not visible, but if you ran into it with your star ship it would probably be like hitting a wall. Also consider the solar heliopause (the outer boundary of the helosphere)- Voyager 1 encountered this boundary in August 2012, when the spacecraft measured a forty-fold sudden increase in plasma density. Perhaps there is a galactic heliopause of some kind but there is a much greater increase in plasma density that could serve as some kind of barrier. The plasma cloud created around space capsules re-entering earth's atmosphere at high velocity blocks all radio waves resulting in a communications blackout for several minutes.
In one of the Star Trek novels Q accidently opened a portal to an other universe. Several powerfull beings crossover. One of them is the "God" from the Star Trek movie "Final Frontier" and one called "Zero". It takes the Q's a lot of power too defeat this beings. The "God" is improsent and "Zero" is cast out of the Milkyway. Because Zero cann't travel faster than the speed of light a barrier was created too keep him out of your Milkyway for thousends/millions of years.
I always thought that the “badlands” nebula was placed near the galactic barrier, hence why the Wormhole was prone to stability. This could also explain the psionic effects shown in TOS, as the badlands were a dumping ground for a lot of high tech aliens
Nah, it's nowhere near the galactic edge. The edge of the galaxy is a couple thousand light years away even if you go straight "up" instead of towards the rim, but we know from DS9 that Bajor is only a few dozen light years from Earth. The reason the Bajoran wormhole is stable is solely thanks to the Prophets and nothing else.
The part of the galaxy we see where the Federation and its border states are really isn't all that massive, it's measured in hundreds of light years across or so. The space claimed by the Federation and every significant interstellar nation that borders it only amounts to somewhere around 1% of the galaxy based on the distances they've mentioned here and there.
@@Idran huh, I always thought it was further out. You know, Deep Space 9. Which source stated that Bajor was closer than the closest known habitable planet to earth? A few dozen light years just sounds like a wrong number for something on the edge of federation space and days away from starfleet backup. Maybe it was a few dozen lightyears away from the nearest federation planet?
Depending on the plot, Bajor is about 52 light years from Earth-- travel between the two worlds takes approximately a week. In contrast, Vulcan is located 16.5 light years away. During an episode of ENTERPRISE, Risa being out 90 light years away from Earth had been the furthest humans had traveled away from Earth. It's not necessarily that Bajor was within a certain distance from Earth. Remember, space isn't a flat plane. 52 light years away, yes, but in which direction? Some regions are going to be less explored and charted than others and The Federation doesn't possess unlimited resources; therefore, without Bajor officially joining The Federation, there would naturally be less Starfleet presence in the region.
@Em E. Yep, I'm currently working on another mapping related video and this is something I try to emphasize. From a top-down view, Bajor is on the Federation's "western" frontier (literally...I'm just now processing the allusion there lol. Good ol' Bashir and his frontier medicine). But 3-dimensionally, the territory claimed by the Federation likely wouldn't have clean borders. All the powers would have pockets of space above and below each other connected by heavily traveled space lanes. This is why one week the Enterprise can be visiting a colony established one or two hundred years ago and the next week be close to their previous location but see some wacky shit no human has ever encountered before lol
Also @Idran that's exactly right. And it's funny, it reminds me of how in Mass Effect, Citadel space is said to comprise 1% of the Milky Way as well.
This is a very interesting subject. It can be wacky if the subject of the galactic barrier is not approached right. It is fascinating to think that it was made, rather than a natural phenomena.there is a lot of thought, and research goes into these videos.I really enjoy these videos.
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
Should be noted too by the 26th century starfleet would develop a highly advanced transwarp that would alow them to travel beyond the milkyway and bypass the barrier without issue that's why ships like enterprise j were so massive to house the new warp core and alow comfortable travel during the extended exploration missions
I got way too excited that you were talking about this.
I think the barrier is a great narrative idea, just implemented poorly.
I read in a novel called MUTE that the galactic barrier caused strange mutations in humans and children born from people exposed to the barrier had psychic abilities. And.. that these psychics were able to navigate through lightspeed. So the barrier was a boon or catalyst to space travel. A strange gift from the universe. I thought star trek should have done something like this.
Oh yes this was a good episode.
Sweet video Tyler! Keep it up.
Thanks Worf!
One might speculate that all the Beings encountered by Kirk (et al.) exhibiting 'god-like' powers -- such as those who aided Charlie X, the 'parents' of Trelayne, the Organians, the ones who tested Kirk and the Gorn, etc. -- were ordinary-level humanoid creatures who, upon achieving a warp-capable culture, ventured out far enough to encounter the Barrier, and then got 'zapped' like Gary Mitchell and survived to become 'transcendent' Beings who, of course, can still take on a humanoid form when it suits them.
By the way, STAR TREK STAR CHARTS (pg. 10-11) has the Great Barrier's galactic plane inner-and-outer radial length extending from ~ 40,000 LY to just over 50,000 LY from the galactic center, with the UFP being located at ~ 25,000 LY from the galactic center -- NOT at 40,000 LY, as is asserted in this video (at 6:30ff), with the screenshot of page 10 clearly showing UFP's location about halfway between 20,000 and 30,000 LY from the galactic center. In fact, on page 8 of STSC, there's an overhead view of the Milky Way Galaxy with the distance from the galactic center to the UFP (just under a corresponding side-view) stating that the distance is 25,800 LY, which seems to have been the estimated distance then known when STSC was published in 2002. A better estimate done within the past year has the distance being about 25,600 LY or about 99.2248062% the 2002 estimate. The map on page 81 -- depicting the route of the USS VOYAGER from the Delta Quadrant back to the UFP -- shows the UFP just past the 5th grid square from the galactic center, where each grid square has a side 5,000 LY long or just over a total of 25,000 LY (i.e. the 25,800 LY figure given earlier on page 8), so I don't know where OrangeRiver is getting this supposed 'mistake' regarding the distance of the UFP from the Center as 40,000 LY in STSC.
My personal theory, in my grand unified Star Trek Milky Way theory: the group that seeded the universe Set up the barrier to protect their children from what is out side of the galaxy. And I think that is the AI of the andromeda galaxy hinted at in TOS. Timelines don’t really match but progenitors may have had time travel or computing power to predict future events. Being a Type 5 civ at that point. The barrier has something in it to unlock their children abilities when they are ready, but humans aren’t ready, but are on our way to be. Which is why the Q are interested in humanity. I don’t think we will be ready until some child is born of multiple generations of inter species breading. The dominant genes of each species adding to the generation until the progenitor species returns through their children. Then we are them. Then the barrier will unlock that species. With out negative effects. And then we would be ready to be like the Q or type 5 inter galactic travel.
i love the barrier. It adds a bit of mystery to the galaxy and makes me wonder about what might be lurking outside
I dig the galactic barrier, kinda old god vibes. I'd love to see the results of a galaxy without it through andromeda refugees or something. Like the dark forest is legit and our galaxy is surprisingly peaceful.
We have our own barrier around our old social solar system beyond the Oort cloud. I found this channel about a couple weeks ago and I've been binging all the episodes
There's also the heliopause: the theoretical boundary where the Sun's solar wind is stopped by the interstellar medium. Perhaps there is an inter-galactic energy that reacts with the various energies emitted by our galaxy similar to the heliopause.
@@zenscott6477 is it one of the probes out there surfing the heliosphere? Is it one of the Voyager or v'ger?
@@Dirtzoo Both Voyagers (I think) have passed through the heliopause and are now in what some consider to be interstellar space. Some day when the Borg find them they will rebuild them and send them back as v'ger.
There is also a 'barrier' around Earth as well, known to us as the Van Allen belt(s.
Thsnks for doing the heavy lifting on this one 'cuz whenever I run in to murky/questionable science in SF now, I just go with the advice from MST3K and repeat to myself 'its just a show, I should really just relax.'l
Little known scientific fact: there is a barrier surrounding our solar system composed of radiation from our sun and other inter-solar magnetic fields. (Or that's my non-astrophysics understanding) because this barrier does exist, it's not too far to theorize a similar barrier exists at the edge of our galaxy.
This is a bit off topic, but has anyone ever charted the Enterprise course during TOS? I've seen some pretty detailed maps of the Star Trek Milky Way galaxy, and pretty much every episode of TOS has a captain's log with a stardate, so if someone hasn't drawn the Enterprise's course on a map yet I'd be pretty surprised. I think it would be cool to see it.
If you can get your hands on an old STAR TREK MAPS (published in 1980), it included a 31-page booklet titled "INTRODUCTION TO NAVIGATION" which includes a list of all the places to which the USS Enterprise traveled (Appendix -- Star System Data) on pages 22 through 31, from ADHARA (Epsilon Canaris) to ZETAR, with the XYZ coordinates of each place given. The system then used -- well before they started making TNG, DS9, VOY, etc. -- has SOL at the coordinate (23.9, 61.8, 0.0) and AL RIJIL [Alpha Centauri] at (24.6, 62.5, -1.0). Doing the math, we have the total distance from Sol to Alpha Centauri as sqr(0.49 + 0.49 + 1) = 1.407124728, which means that the XYZ coordinates are given in PARSECS rather than in LIGHTYEARS, as 1.407124728 x 3.2616 LY/parsec = 4.589478013 lightyears.
An ambitious STAR TREK fan could conceivably 1) put all the TOS episodes, from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" to "All Our Yesterdays," into STARDATE order, and 2) then figure out where (in XYZ coordinates) each episode ends and the next one begins, and then chart the course of the ship, making sure to include whichever STARBASES are mentioned -- and I believe the locations of various starbases are given in STAR TREK MAPS, with page 21 of the booklet stating that Star Base 11 was located at XYZ coordinate (-90.00, 0.00, 0.00), and the Enterprise then going to Talos IV at XYZ coordinate (-119.45, -43.73, -24.00), a distance of 57.93 parsecs. Note that the XYZ coordinate (0, 0, 0) is NOT located in the Sol system, but is 23.9 parsecs in the X-direction and 61.8 parsecs in the Y-direction (and 0 parsecs in the Z-direction), for a total distance from the Sol system of 66.26 parsecs (i.e. the square root of (23.9 squared + 61.8 squared) = sqr(4,390.45) = 66.26047087 parsecs = 216 lightyears. Why they didn't have the (0, 0, 0) XYZ coordinate in the Sol system is a mystery to me, but perhaps it has something to do with the pre-TNG folks figuring that the Zero location ought to be located in the center of the TOS-era zone where the UFP is located, with Earth's sun (Sol) not necessarily being located smack-dab at the center of that spherical zone of member systems.
By the way, one location which is not given in the list of star systems in that booklet is Ceti Alpha V (unfortunately), so unless one is to gather that by this is meant the 5th planet in the Alpha Ceti star system (a.k.a. Menkar, located about 220 LY from Earth), then figuring out where "Ceti Alpha V" is might be difficult. Also, there are 6 episodes of TOS which didn't have any official stardates given for them: "A Piece of the Action," "Assignment Earth," "Day of the Dove," "Patterns of Force," "That Which Survives," and "The Omega Glory" -- though "The City on the Edge of Forever" mentions a stardate in the original teleplay {Stardate 3134.6), so I consider that to be canon. Where to place these 6 undated episodes is anyone's guess, though perhaps fitting them in nearest to those episodes which aired before and after them might be advisable. However, it needs to be said that the 1st appearance of Chekov -- according to stardates -- was in "Catspaw" [3018.2], which is, indeed, BEFORE the stardate of "Space Seed" [3141.9], proving that Chekov WAS a member of Kirk's crew when Khan was aboard; this is one great reason to put the episodes into stardate order, rather than going by the dates in which they were aired.
The 'official' TREK publications which have been published after the TNG shows began to be aired have rejiggered the way the galaxy is divided into Quadrants and Sectors (etc.) compared to how they did it in STAR TREK MAPS in 1980, and the location of Ceti Alpha is shown (in STAR TREK STAR CHARTS, published in 2002) as being approximately 355.26 LY away from Sol (i.e. about 45 mm away on a circular map where its diameter of 190 mm = 1,500 LY), with the Mutara Nebula being nearby. Why the Enterprise would fly so far away from Earth during a training mission with a bunch of Starfleet cadets -- and, thus, being the only ship in the quadrant able to respond to the situation on Regula 1 -- is, again, beyond me. Alpha Ceti [Menkar] is about 220 LY away, at Galactic Longitude 173.32 degrees, Galactic Latitude -45.59 degrees; whether or not that corresponds with the location depicted in STSC, I'm not sure, though the distance is obviously off by about 135 LY or so. It's a damn shame that STAR TREK MAPS didn't include Ceti Alpha V in its list of star systems in that booklet. Alas!
Anyway, it could be fun to do what suggested above, going from place-to-place in stardate order, using the XYZ coordinates listed in the INTRODUCTION TO NAVIGATION booklet to figure out the necessary distances needed to get from one star system to the next. One could even figure out a way to create a set of star charts -- with the XY plane of the galaxy being the flat surface divided into squares 10 parsecs on the side, and the Z-coordinates given next to each star (i.e. Talos IV being at -24.00 on the Z-axis, etc.), and dashed lines indicating the route of the Enterprise from each place to the next. Again, one would have to assign stardates to the 6 episodes which were never given one, and thus place those adventures in their proper time-and-place, preferably in a spot where travel times between other known locations would make sense. I have a feeling that there will end up being a somewhat random hopscotching of the Enterprise around this part of the galaxy, once such an itinerary is settled on and plotted out.
The galactic barrier is what my wife calls my undies...
If I remember right the giant creature which the Enterprise encounters in S2E18 The Immunity Syndrome is also not from the Milky Way galaxy but is an intruder that has bypassed the barrier.
In only a few episodes do we actually see something or someone manage to sneak through the barrier. Maybe the writers will revisit it if there's a good story to be told. One thing is for sure, though, anything which does come from outside the Milky Way, perhaps originating in the void between galaxies, is sure to be unlike anything that has been encountered before.
I also know the planet killer is stated to come from outside the galaxy.
9:23 I would like to refer you to The Science Asylum's video on Hawking Radiation for a full understand of what he is explaining here.
There are several epixodes with Espers. Platos stepchildren etc. You just only mention them if it doesn't ruin the story. The writers of Star Trek were really good at forgetting canon when it got in the way of an idea they had for a story.
Galactic barrier is less goofy than the mycelial network.
Cutscene....
THE MYCELIAL NETWORK!
🖖😎👍Very nicely well done and very well informatively explained and executed indeed 👌.
the galactic barrier is our very own noob shield. it'll stay in place until we're ready to play on the intergalactic stage. space is a very dangerous place.
I think the barrier is like a skin. The network in Discovery is a life form. It forms this skin around the galaxy like a giant organism. Explains why the network falls off rapidly as it approaches the edge.
Hey Tyler Inde here. It was in response to my comment from Mondays (?) announcement of this video that someone said Esp tests were also mentioned in the TNG episode Tinman.
One thing that intrigues me about Where No Man Has Gone Before is the line from Dehner that "he's been like that for hours now" referring to Mitchell just standing still seemingly oblivious to the world. What has Mitchell been doing all those hours? I'd speculate that he's been working on Dehner. That he gave her the extra boost to convert her so that he could have a mate. That's my thought anyway. Also Dehner didn't turn against the crew the way that Mitchell did. WNMHGB is one of my favorite episodes of Trek. It's a tragic story though with Kirk having to kill his best friend.
In the episode In Truth There Is No Beauty I didn't think they were inside the Galactic Barrier. I just thought they were lost outside the Galaxy. In fact if they were in the galactic barrier wouldn't that have affected Dr. Miranda Jones? Her telepathic skills are compared quite favorably to Spock's. Perhaps they were in a space similar to that one in the TNG episode where we are introduced to the Traveler and Kozinski. Just some weird pocket of subspace.
Finally the TNG episode where Q gives Riker the power of the Q seems like a watered down version of WNMHGB. When Picard says that he can't advise Riker because nothing like this has ever happened before I'm yelling at the screen eliminate him you absolute dolt! Surely you must know about Gary Mitchell. You eliminate a mutant like Mitchell (or Riker) before it's too late.
Uh
The entire point of the ending of "Hide and Q" is that Riker wasn't going mad with power? And that that isn't a universal truth of humans? Mitchell was just kind of fundamentally a petty guy in the end and/or literally driven insane by the barrier rather than just that being the inevitable result of gaining a lot of power? Plus it wasn't a ramp-up or something there like it was for Mitchell, Q literally jumped Riker immediately to omnipotence,.
Killing anything "mutant" like that is pretty well against the Trek ethos, even Kirk only attacked Mitchell as a last resort. Killing someone because they have power that they might use against you isn't smart, it's fashy nonsense. And if you're yelling at your screen for a character on Star Trek to kill someone because they _might_ be dangerous, I think you might be watching the wrong franchise.
@@Idran I am definitely not watching the wrong franchise. When god like powers come to a person through natural evolution I'm cheering them on just as happened in the one episode of TNG where they rescue the guy who is evolving. But when power is handed to you even good intentions can go wrong. At the end did Riker ask permission to age Wesley up 10 years or give Geordi human sight or call Picard by his first name? No he just does it. Riker may even be a worse choice to get that kind of power because he likes to joke around. He'd end up being another John DeLancey type Q. Using his power for amusement. Getting people into serious trouble in the process. Plus he, and the other TNG characters are self righteous. Give any of them that kind of power and the next thing you know they'll be reshaping the universe to meet their standards. For your own good. At least with Gary you knew he was going to turn bad.
I'm surprised that you didn't mention the barrier at the center of the galaxy in STV:TFF. I always assumed they were related or maybe i read too much into that as a kid. I was always fasinated by the barrier even though it didn't really make sense. I'd like to know the though process behind the barrier from the writer who created it.
maybe the barrier's a big donut. then it'd easily be the same barrier
@@tsm688 i originally laughed at this but ended up thinking way too hard on it for the last 10 minutes. LOL!
I think the concept can have some merit with a slight amount of retconning. If it was indeed created to keep things out, it wouldn't make much sense to keep beings of the Milky Way inside the confines of the galaxy, as it would've been obvious that civilizations would eventually gain the means to intergalactic travel. It would make more sense for the galactic barrier to function similar to a cell membrane. Allowing certain things in while keeping certain things out, which could go along with the basis of energy signature. It serves as an obstacle for space fairing races until they are ready and develop the means to cross it. In this case if the Q created it, it served as a sort of boundary in which worthy civilizations could advance without interruption from much more powerful beings.
The Galactic Barrier is an example of what is missing in modern sci-fi. Large constructs that spark the imagination with their awesome implications. It's from a time when writers took risks and really trusted their audience to fill the blanks in themselves.
Depends on how you define "modern" Mass Effect has done this very well, in the form of planets you can read about in Mass Effect 1.
@@mechanomics2649 That's true - Mass Effect is probably the lone exception, though.
Now this is a great channel
This just makes me want to watch the second TOS pilot again lol. While the galactic barrier is a bit silly, it does a good job of creating a sense of the galaxy as familiar and an uncanny "other" in the extragalactic void. Thank you for another of these great videos!
God be with you out there everybody! ✝️ :)
All Star Trek techno babble and plot McGuffins aside, there actually probably is the galactic version of our own Solar system's termination shock. The region where all the stellar matter ejected by all the stars in the Milky way meet all the stellar matter pushing in from the universe all around. The bubbles shown in Discovery (though extremely exaggerated) are also based in real science, voyager 2 has passed through several floating in what astrophysicists are calling "magnetic foam".
@@mrspaceman2764 I haven't seen Discovery yet, but I may get around to it one of these days. I found it fascinating when I was first reading about the Voyager probes making their way into interstellar space. This is an exciting time to be alive for space exploration. Thank you for your reply!
@@mrspaceman2764 Do you have a link you could give me to info on that "magnetic foam" comparison you mentioned?
@@Numba003 Sure: ua-cam.com/video/suo7_u18C_s/v-deo.html
Also, this guy is awesome:
ua-cam.com/video/S4eg95rG18M/v-deo.html
@@Numba003 Yeah, it's something new every day. This one blew my mind just earlier this week: ua-cam.com/video/1sWMKaTand0/v-deo.html
Interesting implications for the Fermi Paradox and why were not finding anyone out there. Radiation sucks😥
The toroidal shape of the Great Barrier also explains why its at the center of the galaxy (in Star Trek V) as well as at the edge of the galaxy in the TOS episodes. I've heard before that there were two Great Barriers but, this makes a lot more sense. There's also some weird apocrypha about the "God" being found at the center of the Galaxy in Star Trek V. Though a lot of people probably don't like or like to think much about Star Trek V. It also seems like the Enterprise travelled a rather long distance to get there in that movie in too short a time.
The whole psionic "esper" thing is a little silly. But its a sci fi thing I guess and there are telepaths and empaths across the ST universe. Though there being human "espers" is just kind of dropped.
There is a running theme of people encountering the Great Barrier and surviving it developing grand delusions in addition to their mental powers and thinking they're like gods. Sybok was drawn to the barrier and developed his delusions for some reason before encountering it. The creature at the center may have something to do with all this. Maybe it was mentally influencing Sybok and trying to draw him, someone or anyone really, in to be useful in its plans.
There are also the Venturi from the game Starfleet Academy, who go from being kind of generic pirates to a weird religious cult when their leader encounters the Barrier. Though Starfleet Academy is itself not canon and the story is part of an Academy simulation even within the game's universe itself.
I always assumed that the barrier is so large in every direction that it would take longer than the universe has left to exist, to actually be able to go around it in any direction....well that is my canon of the barrier.
fun stuff here. thanks for making this.
You made a Mistake.
Garry Mitchell and humans with Psionic abilities was mentioned and referenced in Star Trek Lower Decks
This is true :D
I thought there was at least one other TOS episode with a psychic human, Dr Polaski. Or at least the same actress.
Wait wait wait hold on, second pilot? I remember the story of the guys becoming gods but I don't remember these scenes of the galactic barrier.
I NEED TO WATCH STAR TREK RIGHT NOW
I've had your channel for a while but realized I didn't have notifications turned on, that has been corrected. As far as negative energy goes, to me it seems perfectly plausible as just an electrician. What about every action has an equal and opposite reaction? Just like a galaxy has a bunch of energy in it, it stands to reason that there is an equal amount of negative energy on the periphery to keep things in balance.
Haven't finished the video yet but I'm wondering if the q continuum has anything to do with it.
Have a Great Weekend Y'all 💯🌻😎
I don't remember the original Star Trek visual effects being that good 😅
From the beginning of Star Trek it seemed there was often mention of tests to evaluate psi potential that cadets, including human cadets took. Dr. Miranda Jones was obviously an exception, but not the only human with native unenhanced beyond innate genetic potential telepathy. Where else in any of the series is human telepathy mentioned? For that matter, in any scl-fi series?
Ben Babylon 5 not only has human telepaths, but an entire organization dedicated to telepaths that searches them out, trains them, rates them, and creates and enforces the rules that govern telepaths.
I think it makes more sense for the barrier to not be artificial. For one, thing, something would have to be able to travel the circumference of the galaxy and then the mass of it's upper and lower levels. I think it makes more sense that some aspect of how the milky way orbits the supermassive black hole at it's center causes these negative particles to gravitate to the outer regain, maybe a product of it's mass. On a smaller scale, it would be like the outer asteroid belt of our solar system. Perhaps millions or billions of years ago, some race worked out a way to utilize this phenomena to create a shield and once set, it can't be unset. I think maybe it ties into the issues in the last season of Discovery, how a race near this outer edge was mining space to help with shielding themselves from discovery. I think the two have to be related.
I’m curious who created the galactic barrier from a story writing perspective. I’m imaging a smoke filled room with typewriters and someone asks what keeps all the stuff in the galaxy together; must be like a fish bowl right otherwise everything would fly away? Yeah, let’s go with that!
I actually felt the Galactic Barrier theory to be quite probable, especially since we know about the Van Allen's belt of the earth for example or the Heliosheath & Heliopause of the Solar System, which we now know about thanks to Voyager 1 and 2. So basically there's several protective layers in the universe in various sizes and densities. I do not think that a galactic barrier would be as dangerous and hard to penetrate from within but who knows? We can't say for sure yet. But the existence alone could not be entirely ruled out.
Who knew that the Galactic Barrier and the UA-cam comments section are the same in that they are a region of negativity that violently react to anything positive that gets introduced into it. ;o)
Does anyone know what background music he uses? And no, the links in the description which link to 100s of songs don't help
Great video live long and prosper🖖🏻
there will evenly be a DLC pack that gets us past the galactic barrier
I wouldn't really say it's been forgotten in more recent times it's just one of those things that only has to be shown if the story brings the crew into contact with it and let's face it unless we somehow conquered the entire galaxy and need to go to others there's not much reason except for fleeing an enemy trap forcing them beyond the edge.
There is a book that describes the barrier as a means of keeping a rogue Q out. Along with the head of another rogue placed in the middle of the galaxy at Sha Ka Ree needing help getting back into the galaxy so he could heal and cause mayhem again.
The Barrier is very interesting and could have an awesome backstory. The Kelvin's said there was no barrier around Andromeda galaxy and the one around the Milky Way was completely unexpected. Also notice how the civilizations in the Milky Way are dominated by humanoids? There are few non-humanoid species. And all those humanoids have enough in common not to be completely alien to each other. That is explained by the Progenitor race. In Discovery 3rd season, the race outside the Barrier is unlike anything ever encountered inside the barrier. And it is made quite clear that outside the Barrier it is extremely hostile and very different than inside. So what if the Barrier is artificial and constructed by the Progenitors to keep their diaspora seeding of humanoids races safe? Who were they protecting the Galaxy from? If it is artificial, then there is a lot of potential story telling and exploration! I would love to see more of that.
There are two Barriers, the Galactic Barrier "Where No Man Has Gone Before," and the Great Barrier "Star Trek: The Final Frontier." The Galactic Barrier encircles the Milky Way galaxy completely and is a pinkish purple color, while the Great Barrier encircles the Galactic core and is a bluish white color. The Great Barrier was clearly made to imprison the God-like entity, but the Galactic Barrier was either made to keep us in or something out.
I love your videos so much
@@subraxas possibly even haha
I have a love-hate with the galactic barrier. Love: It explains why the Milky Way is almost a humanoid-centric galaxy that has so few problems from other galaxies or beings from "dark space". Hate: The very idea of s science-loving universe making the Milky Way a gigantic ship in a bottle and-or ant farm, metaphorically speaking.