From: "Jurgen van de Sanden" blakes7@hotmail.com Subject: [B7L] Blooper in 'SLD' & speed in 'Stardrive'
I know most of you don't like 'Stardrive' (Una perhaps?), but I have a question about this episode. What does the term 'Real Time' that Vila, Dayna and Atlan mention really mean? It seems as though the inclusion of 'Real Time' makes Time Distort speed closer to that of the Liberator. Anybody got any ideas?
This is just a purely uneducated theory, you understand...
Ships achieving high Time Distort speeds do so by (somehow) travelling faster than light; in doing so, their personal time is distorted relative to outside Universe time. For example, the journey to Cygnus Alpha was (started) at Time Distort Five and was stated to take "Eight months, ship's time". So in the journey, the occupants aged eight months. The rest of the universe aged more; I'd guess the elapsed Universe time took forty months. (TD5; therefore 5 times as long).
Basically, the ship wasn't REALLY travelling at such a high speed.
If a ship was stated to be doing a particular speed in Real Time, then this method of travel allowed Ship Time to pass at the same rate as Universe Time.
Basically the ship would be physically travelling faster, requiring much more energy.
This could explain the famous missing four months in the episodes "Space Fall" and "Cygnus Alpha". Liberator normally travelled in Real Time, but was stated (in "Moloch") to have a "Maximum Time Shift" option, presumably allowing high Time Distort Speeds; this in addition to normal ship speed could have allowed vast distances to be covered in lower ship time. This control was activated by Jenna, resulting in tremendous acceleration and distorting of Ship Time. The journey that took thirty seconds on board ship actually ate up four months for the 'London' (and maybe twenty months for the rest of the universe).
I'm not sure that actually made sense, but I'm afraid that if I go over it again, I may start bleeding from the ears.
Does anyone have any opinion on this (or possibly a translation into English)?
Wildean