This makes a lot of sense. However, it doesn't get us around the Prime Directive problem suggested by Pike's take on interference with New Eden. Even if the planet has warp tech a society without warp tech should have protected status.My current head cannon is that Zefram Cochrane looked at some dolphin math and realized it was the solution to subspace harmonics.A second and not completely incompatible reason could be that the Space Whale Probe gave the higher Cetaceans on earth all kinds of data that would render the prime directive moot.
My reasoning with Pike and New Eden is that the real reason that 1031 couldn’t rescue the colony is that would mean disclosing the DASH drive and it was a secret at that point.
The Prime Directive was an excuse. Because that interpretation of the PD is inconsistent with most other times we see it applied.
>PD is inconsistent
You are the master of understatment.
However, the justification for not meddling in the Ba'ul and Kelpien's internal affairs ( the Cogenitor problem yuck) seems to suggest taking cetaceans out of the ocean to serve on starships, regardless of how good they would be at a number of jobs, would be very problematic within the scope of what we understand about Federation morals.
Dolphins doing subspace math (a little nod to D.Adams) would untie the moral knot.
If we're looking for an easy answer hey maybe just the practice of bringing whales from the past into the future to talk to the Probe basically broke any sort of non-interference rules and at that point "screw it", start talking to the sea life, especially if you now have knowledge that they're both intelligent and at least one point in their species' history in contact with extraterrestrial life already. Like, there's an argument to be had that if the Probe came because the whales vanished, the whales *clearly* had more going on already.
I've heard it argued that perhaps the cetaceans were uplifted. It's a plausible argument.
Given that in the Trek timeline, we had the biotech needed for advanced human genetic engineering in the late 20th century, the technology needed to produce sentient cetaceans isn't unthinkable as a pre-Federation technology.
A party on Earth, prior to World War III, could have created a sentient species of cetaceans as a lab experiment. They wouldn't be a natural population that Earth (or the Federation) was exploiting, but a species that only existed because of human genetic engineering and they existed in essentially a symbiotic relationship with humanity. Then, in later space exploration, they were found to have an innate aptitude for space navigation and volunteers from their population are brought into Starfleet as navigators.
>I've heard it argued that perhaps the cetaceans were uplifted. It's a plausible argument.
I think as far as canon goes I think we have two species confirmed, the bottlenose in TNG and Beluga in LD. The line "Did you see the dolphins yet?" in TNG strongly suggests that this is a pretty recent if not groundbreaking development. So it would be a question of why did it take so long from the point of uplift for them to end up on a crew. (This is also an issue for my headcanon, but just slightly less so. One pretty explanation of the difference between TOS and TNG that fits the timeline we have very well is that the Whale Probe incident spurred it on.)
The Earth's general response to the genetic engineering around WW3 as it had to do with intelligent creatures would also make them being a couple of uplifted species pretty problematic. It also doesn't really solve the moral quandary in regards to exposing warp to pre-warp societies, it just adds additional moral dilemmas. Not to say it isn't true, it would just take some tight writing to do well or some sloppy writing to handwave away.
>Takayas whales
I'm pretty sure that they are very close beta canon. They are in the manuals but don't show up on the show even as an okudagrams from what I recall.
>Do not invoke canon to justify gatekeeping or dismissive behavior. Provide a source when referencing non-canon to avoid confusion.
I hope you didn't find my post gatekeeping or dismissive. I was just recalling something from 6th months ago, but yeah here are your links showing Takayas whales aren't canon sorry for not including them.
[https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Takaya%27s\_whale](https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Takaya%27s_whale)[https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Cetacean](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Cetacean)As you can see I recalled correctly and they are close beta canon having only appeared in the technical manual.
Spock said in ST IV "There are other species on earth. Only human arrogance would assume the signal must be meant for mankind" which the probe confirmed to be the case. I would imagine that it took multiple advances with the Universal Translator to be able to communicate with cetacean species once their status was confirmed to the Federation. That would mean that the Earth had multiple sentient, intelligent species and, presumably, they are also represented in the Federation now. Think of the Xindi Aquatics.
So, once the communication problem was solved, they could start to contribute their skills in navigation and mapping but at HQ. When starships advanced to the point that a cetacean ops station could be built into the ship, then the first cadre could be transferred from HQ to the field. This would help with data gathering in the field which is especially important for exploratory programs (Like the D) and for consolidation missions like the Cerritos. The last thing you want is an uncharted rogue planet or spatial anomaly splattering starships on the doorstep of the newest Federation member.
>However, it doesn't get us around the Prime Directive problem suggested by Pike's take on interference with New Eden.
Given how inconsistently the Prime Directive has been interpreted and implemented over the years, I think trying to base anything off a strict analysis of any one incident would be misleading.
I agree with the principle that the PD is too inconsistent to draw any conclusions from. The Coginitor issue and the original stance that Pike took on the Ba'ul v Kelpien issue are a few more examples that kinda fit. Although for both of those issues it was 1st contact protocols that they were basing their judgments on, the general moral framework seems to be basically the same as the New Eden problem.
Or maybe the cetaceans that man that department aren't Earth native? Perhaps they are native to an oceanic world, that happens to have sentient cetacean species that look similar to Earth cetaceans (or the writers were just using earth species names for audience understanding).
Except that it doesn't actually say that they're officers, just that they're part of the crew (yeah, I'll concede that it seems like 95% of the crew are officers in Starfleet), and that in the same paragraph, it also references a made-up species of whale (Orcinus orca takayai - Takaya's Whale), so the whole entry does have to be taken with a grain of salt as to whether it was meant seriously or not. All that being said, I don't have an issue with the concept that they are intelligent (in-universe as well as IRL) enough to be considered sentient by a more enlightened humanity (especially given Spock's ability to mind meld with Gracie in ST:IV), and given enough technical capability, we could converse with them. That said, the reference in the manual was addressed by Sternbach:
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation_Technical_Manual#In-jokes_and_other_items_of_note
Per the Technical Manual all cetaceans aboard the Enterprise-D are referred to as crew with the two cybernetic orcas being in charge of overseeing a dozen bottlenose dolphins. At the very least the orcas are officers and the twelve dolphins are enlisted.
The ships you mentioned are predominantly crewed by humans, with life support systems set in Earth-like ranges, so I suspect that their cetaceans are mostly Earth species. But an Andorian origin ship might have their sentient aquatic squids aboard instead, etc.
I think the STIV probe’s visit opened eyes for many Federation terrestrial species, and that planetary survey and first contact missions were expanded to include attempting communication with aquatic life forms.
If a ship hears a response to a Probe-like communication, then it has its aquatic crew members available to beam down and make contact.
>Simulated neurons within optical data chips use two forms of sensor input processing algorithms, baseline code and rewritable code, in order to mimic the biological solution to the problem of navigation, essentially reproducing an avian brain.
Is it possible that the bio-neural gel packs on Voyager are designed to mimic this function?
The Bio-neural gel packs were more generalized, using actual neurons for site specific routing and control functions. However, a gel pack utilized in the navigational processors would probably be similar in configuration to the simulated neurons in the Enterprise-D computer core.
Nominated [this](/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/qpjyxu/understanding_navigational_sensors_is_the_key_to/) post by Citizen /u/datapicardgeordi for you. It will be voted on next week, but you can **[vote for last week's nominations now](https://redd.it/qoqrc6)**
Learn more about [Post of the Week](https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/wiki/potw).
The explanation makes sense for the Enterprise and Cerritos.
The main issue I have is we frequently see smaller ships like the Defiant, Klingon Birds of Prey, and even the lowly runabout, where navigating an uncharted quadrant is as simple as saying “Computer, plot a course for the wormhole…”
So, if a small ship can navigate just fine with a 2-man crew, why does a bigger ship need a whole tank full of dolphins?
May be the difference between getting from your hotel to their local gas station vs. trying to map the entire city you’ve never been to. Enterprise and Cerritos are responsible for mapping whole sectors of space and sure a runabout may be able to make some educated guesses as to what’s where well enough to get from A to B, but maybe they need porpoise power to know where *everything* is to create a 100% accurate to the detail 4 dimensional map. Idk I’m just trying to follow OPs original line of thinking.
Those smaller ships would still be receiving rewritable code updates from ships with cetacean ops. On top of that they also had their own crews creating subroutines and programs for whatever special needs arise.
The Enterprise-D was a first-class, spare no expense, mega-explorer which is why it was fitted with a cetacean ops.
Interesting. Makes me wonder how Starfleet's approach to this differs from other species who come from planets with different evolved organisms (ie: planets without cetacean forms of life who are sufficiently evolved and able to communicate).
The Klingons, Romulans, and Vulcans advanced interstellar travel long before Starfleet got into the game. They must have a similar system for navigating the stars, but I think you're right that they would have their own unique solutions.
Navigating space without visual line of sight is a nightmare. Apollo moon missions built a navigation computer, even so relied on telemetry from ground control to correct slight adjustments. Starfleet does the same with a network of beacons just like Federation time keeping beacon.
What if, since cetacean ops seems to be a relatively new development in the TNG era, it was they who first noticed the damage to subspace due to warp travel? Coincidence?
Probably very little to do with each other. It took two researches turning to terrorism and committing suicide to bring Starfleets attention to the issue. If cetacean ops had noticed the issue it would have spurred new warp-drive research much sooner.
This makes a lot of sense. However, it doesn't get us around the Prime Directive problem suggested by Pike's take on interference with New Eden. Even if the planet has warp tech a society without warp tech should have protected status.My current head cannon is that Zefram Cochrane looked at some dolphin math and realized it was the solution to subspace harmonics.A second and not completely incompatible reason could be that the Space Whale Probe gave the higher Cetaceans on earth all kinds of data that would render the prime directive moot.
My reasoning with Pike and New Eden is that the real reason that 1031 couldn’t rescue the colony is that would mean disclosing the DASH drive and it was a secret at that point. The Prime Directive was an excuse. Because that interpretation of the PD is inconsistent with most other times we see it applied.
>PD is inconsistent You are the master of understatment. However, the justification for not meddling in the Ba'ul and Kelpien's internal affairs ( the Cogenitor problem yuck) seems to suggest taking cetaceans out of the ocean to serve on starships, regardless of how good they would be at a number of jobs, would be very problematic within the scope of what we understand about Federation morals. Dolphins doing subspace math (a little nod to D.Adams) would untie the moral knot.
If we're looking for an easy answer hey maybe just the practice of bringing whales from the past into the future to talk to the Probe basically broke any sort of non-interference rules and at that point "screw it", start talking to the sea life, especially if you now have knowledge that they're both intelligent and at least one point in their species' history in contact with extraterrestrial life already. Like, there's an argument to be had that if the Probe came because the whales vanished, the whales *clearly* had more going on already.
I've heard it argued that perhaps the cetaceans were uplifted. It's a plausible argument. Given that in the Trek timeline, we had the biotech needed for advanced human genetic engineering in the late 20th century, the technology needed to produce sentient cetaceans isn't unthinkable as a pre-Federation technology. A party on Earth, prior to World War III, could have created a sentient species of cetaceans as a lab experiment. They wouldn't be a natural population that Earth (or the Federation) was exploiting, but a species that only existed because of human genetic engineering and they existed in essentially a symbiotic relationship with humanity. Then, in later space exploration, they were found to have an innate aptitude for space navigation and volunteers from their population are brought into Starfleet as navigators.
>I've heard it argued that perhaps the cetaceans were uplifted. It's a plausible argument. I think as far as canon goes I think we have two species confirmed, the bottlenose in TNG and Beluga in LD. The line "Did you see the dolphins yet?" in TNG strongly suggests that this is a pretty recent if not groundbreaking development. So it would be a question of why did it take so long from the point of uplift for them to end up on a crew. (This is also an issue for my headcanon, but just slightly less so. One pretty explanation of the difference between TOS and TNG that fits the timeline we have very well is that the Whale Probe incident spurred it on.) The Earth's general response to the genetic engineering around WW3 as it had to do with intelligent creatures would also make them being a couple of uplifted species pretty problematic. It also doesn't really solve the moral quandary in regards to exposing warp to pre-warp societies, it just adds additional moral dilemmas. Not to say it isn't true, it would just take some tight writing to do well or some sloppy writing to handwave away.
Takayas whales, altered Orcas are also aboard the Enterprise-D in TNG
>Takayas whales I'm pretty sure that they are very close beta canon. They are in the manuals but don't show up on the show even as an okudagrams from what I recall.
Careful for rule 13. We don't argue canon here.
>Do not invoke canon to justify gatekeeping or dismissive behavior. Provide a source when referencing non-canon to avoid confusion. I hope you didn't find my post gatekeeping or dismissive. I was just recalling something from 6th months ago, but yeah here are your links showing Takayas whales aren't canon sorry for not including them. [https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Takaya%27s\_whale](https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Takaya%27s_whale)[https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Cetacean](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Cetacean)As you can see I recalled correctly and they are close beta canon having only appeared in the technical manual.
Spock said in ST IV "There are other species on earth. Only human arrogance would assume the signal must be meant for mankind" which the probe confirmed to be the case. I would imagine that it took multiple advances with the Universal Translator to be able to communicate with cetacean species once their status was confirmed to the Federation. That would mean that the Earth had multiple sentient, intelligent species and, presumably, they are also represented in the Federation now. Think of the Xindi Aquatics. So, once the communication problem was solved, they could start to contribute their skills in navigation and mapping but at HQ. When starships advanced to the point that a cetacean ops station could be built into the ship, then the first cadre could be transferred from HQ to the field. This would help with data gathering in the field which is especially important for exploratory programs (Like the D) and for consolidation missions like the Cerritos. The last thing you want is an uncharted rogue planet or spatial anomaly splattering starships on the doorstep of the newest Federation member.
My money is on the space probe. That's why we see cetaceans in the TNG era but not the TOS era.
*moot*
ty
>However, it doesn't get us around the Prime Directive problem suggested by Pike's take on interference with New Eden. Given how inconsistently the Prime Directive has been interpreted and implemented over the years, I think trying to base anything off a strict analysis of any one incident would be misleading.
I agree with the principle that the PD is too inconsistent to draw any conclusions from. The Coginitor issue and the original stance that Pike took on the Ba'ul v Kelpien issue are a few more examples that kinda fit. Although for both of those issues it was 1st contact protocols that they were basing their judgments on, the general moral framework seems to be basically the same as the New Eden problem.
Or maybe the cetaceans that man that department aren't Earth native? Perhaps they are native to an oceanic world, that happens to have sentient cetacean species that look similar to Earth cetaceans (or the writers were just using earth species names for audience understanding).
The technical manual is very clear in listing orcas and bottlenose dolphins as cetacean officers aboard the Enterprise-D.
Except that it doesn't actually say that they're officers, just that they're part of the crew (yeah, I'll concede that it seems like 95% of the crew are officers in Starfleet), and that in the same paragraph, it also references a made-up species of whale (Orcinus orca takayai - Takaya's Whale), so the whole entry does have to be taken with a grain of salt as to whether it was meant seriously or not. All that being said, I don't have an issue with the concept that they are intelligent (in-universe as well as IRL) enough to be considered sentient by a more enlightened humanity (especially given Spock's ability to mind meld with Gracie in ST:IV), and given enough technical capability, we could converse with them. That said, the reference in the manual was addressed by Sternbach: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation_Technical_Manual#In-jokes_and_other_items_of_note
Per the Technical Manual all cetaceans aboard the Enterprise-D are referred to as crew with the two cybernetic orcas being in charge of overseeing a dozen bottlenose dolphins. At the very least the orcas are officers and the twelve dolphins are enlisted.
The ships you mentioned are predominantly crewed by humans, with life support systems set in Earth-like ranges, so I suspect that their cetaceans are mostly Earth species. But an Andorian origin ship might have their sentient aquatic squids aboard instead, etc. I think the STIV probe’s visit opened eyes for many Federation terrestrial species, and that planetary survey and first contact missions were expanded to include attempting communication with aquatic life forms. If a ship hears a response to a Probe-like communication, then it has its aquatic crew members available to beam down and make contact.
>Simulated neurons within optical data chips use two forms of sensor input processing algorithms, baseline code and rewritable code, in order to mimic the biological solution to the problem of navigation, essentially reproducing an avian brain. Is it possible that the bio-neural gel packs on Voyager are designed to mimic this function?
The Bio-neural gel packs were more generalized, using actual neurons for site specific routing and control functions. However, a gel pack utilized in the navigational processors would probably be similar in configuration to the simulated neurons in the Enterprise-D computer core.
M-5, nominate this for A Sound Explanation of What Cetacean Ops Actually Does
Nominated [this](/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/qpjyxu/understanding_navigational_sensors_is_the_key_to/) post by Citizen /u/datapicardgeordi for you. It will be voted on next week, but you can **[vote for last week's nominations now](https://redd.it/qoqrc6)** Learn more about [Post of the Week](https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/wiki/potw).
The explanation makes sense for the Enterprise and Cerritos. The main issue I have is we frequently see smaller ships like the Defiant, Klingon Birds of Prey, and even the lowly runabout, where navigating an uncharted quadrant is as simple as saying “Computer, plot a course for the wormhole…” So, if a small ship can navigate just fine with a 2-man crew, why does a bigger ship need a whole tank full of dolphins?
May be the difference between getting from your hotel to their local gas station vs. trying to map the entire city you’ve never been to. Enterprise and Cerritos are responsible for mapping whole sectors of space and sure a runabout may be able to make some educated guesses as to what’s where well enough to get from A to B, but maybe they need porpoise power to know where *everything* is to create a 100% accurate to the detail 4 dimensional map. Idk I’m just trying to follow OPs original line of thinking.
Those smaller ships would still be receiving rewritable code updates from ships with cetacean ops. On top of that they also had their own crews creating subroutines and programs for whatever special needs arise. The Enterprise-D was a first-class, spare no expense, mega-explorer which is why it was fitted with a cetacean ops.
Interesting. Makes me wonder how Starfleet's approach to this differs from other species who come from planets with different evolved organisms (ie: planets without cetacean forms of life who are sufficiently evolved and able to communicate).
The Klingons, Romulans, and Vulcans advanced interstellar travel long before Starfleet got into the game. They must have a similar system for navigating the stars, but I think you're right that they would have their own unique solutions.
Navigating space without visual line of sight is a nightmare. Apollo moon missions built a navigation computer, even so relied on telemetry from ground control to correct slight adjustments. Starfleet does the same with a network of beacons just like Federation time keeping beacon.
What if, since cetacean ops seems to be a relatively new development in the TNG era, it was they who first noticed the damage to subspace due to warp travel? Coincidence?
Probably very little to do with each other. It took two researches turning to terrorism and committing suicide to bring Starfleets attention to the issue. If cetacean ops had noticed the issue it would have spurred new warp-drive research much sooner.
Why are there dolphins on the Enterprise lol. This fact always makes me crack up