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Portrayal of Higher-Dimensions
Higher-dimensions are never really portrayed as infinitely superior to lower ones. For example, 2-D beings are shown interacting with normal space without height or width, although they're suggested not to be native to the 3-D universe. Instead, they live in cosmic strings (extremely thin, but nonetheless 3-D, objects with the pull of black holes).- LAFORGE: Best idea for now is to try a controlled overload of the warp drive. Jump directly to warp six. The laws of a three-dimensional universe say it should work. Don't know about a two-dimensional universe though.
- PICARD: Fascinating. So many questions. How can a two-dimensional entity have access to a three-dimensional universe? And are they aware of us? Number One, if we can put off the T'lli Betans, I would like to investigate this further as soon as we're free of the graviton field.
- DATA: The probe's point of view reveals that the objects exist entirely in two dimensions, on a single plane.
- LAFORGE: They have length and width, but not height. Virtually flat.
- DATA: That is why the ship's forward sensors did not detect them initially. We were looking at them along their edge. There was no surface to read. I will illustrate.
- EINSTEIN: G sub I, J of t as t approaches infinity.
- BARCLAY: G of t over G naught.
- EINSTEIN: So it is, so it is.
- BARCLAY: I still don't see how you're going to incorporate quantum principle into general relativity without adjusting the cosmological constant a lot more than you're doing here.
- EINSTEIN: If we increase the value as you suggest, we must face the possibility of twenty six dimensions, instead of ten.
- BARCLAY: I don't think I could deal with that.
- EINSTEIN: I certainly could not.
- BARCLAY: If the semiset curved into the subatomic, the infinities might cancel each other out.
- EINSTEIN: Gruss Gott. They just might.
Furthermore, the realms that these entities live in are never described as higher-dimensional, just new or different planes of existence. Speaking of which, the description of "new" is used in John Doe's case, not "higher", although I'd argue that's what the writers intend. Kevin Uxbridge is also never referred to as nigh-omnipotent/omnipotent or hailing from a higher dimension.
- JOHN: My people are about to embark upon a new realm, a new plane of existence, thanks to you.
- KEVIN: Very well. For what it's worth. I am a Douwd. An immortal being of disguises and false surroundings. I have lived in this galaxy for many thousands of years although until today, no one has known my true identity. Once, while traveling in human form, I chanced to fall in love with an Earth woman. I put aside my powers and became her husband. Our life was happy and rich. Eventually we came to this planet to live our final years. Now she is dead. She never knew what I really was.
Subspace
The quotes on the profile are both heavily out of context, as Geordi LaForge isn't referring to higher dimensions. For context, the characters have been invaded by an extra-dimensional alien species from what's explicitly referred to as a Solanogen-based universe.- LAFORGE: Good question. The emissions are coming from a tertiary subspace domain, but subspace has an infinite number of domains. It's like a huge honeycomb with an endless number of cells. We need to isolate the exact cell that these emissions are coming from.
- PICARD: If someone homed onto the subspace signals created by our modified signal array, could we do the same to them? Track the tetryon emissions to their universe?
- LAFORGE: We think that's why they couldn't come through into our space, as easily as they could take us into theirs. They needed to learn how to remodulate their cellular energy states in order to survive in our universe.
- STAMETS: So we need the spore drive to save Captain Lorca, but the spore drive is killing the Tardigrade. All right, let's start with our mushroom, prototaxites stellaviatori, a species made up of exotic material found not only in normal space, but in a discreet subspace domain known as the mycelial network. Its fungal roots, a.k.a. mycelium, spread across the universe, fanning out into infinity to create a matrix that serves as our intergalactic freeway system.
- LORCA: We suspected the mycelial network extended way beyond anything we'd imagined.
- BURNHAM: A vast system underpinning all quantum realities.
- STAMETS: Airiam flagged it. A massive energy signature coming off the central orb.
ARIAM: It's mycelial.
STAMETS: This is what my counterpart has been using his mycelium for. It powers their ship.
SARU: As it does ours.
TILLY: Not exactly. We ride along the network with the spores. That orb is pulling power directly out of the network.
SARU: But I thought the network could regenerate itself.
STAMETS: Typically it does, but this process is poisoning it, spreading infection back up into the system.
TILLY: Without a fresh supply of spores, it'll only get worse.
SARU: The Terrans must be aware of this flaw. It's not sustainable.
STAMETS: I don't think sustainability is their main objective, but it does provide them with far more energy than I ever thought possible. Enough to run their city-sized ship and power weapons that can destroy a planet.
AIRIAM: As they did on Harlak.
SARU: How can a people be so shortsighted?
STAMETS: Well, the Terrans are egotistical enough to believe that they can replenish this resource before it collapses. The other Stamets must have been looking for a solution when he got trapped in the network with me. If we don't stop them soon, the contamination will be irreversible. The network will continue to deteriorate everywhere. Here, in this universe, back in ours, across the entire multiverse.
SARU: And when it does?
STAMETS: Life as we know it will cease to exist.
Fifth Dimension/Exosia
The origin of this claim comes from The Bride of Chaotica!, where Voyager encounters a subspace layer that is inhabited by light-based entities. The problem with this is that only the Holographic characters who are programmed with the personalities of 50s to 60s era sci-fi schlock characters refer to it as the Fifth Dimension, to the confusion of the characters who run the starship.- CHAOTICA: The Fifth Dimension. Bring them to me.
- CHAOTICA: Take Miss Goodheart to Arachnia. Invite the Queen to join me in battle. Together, we will rain destruction on the Fifth Dimension!
- PARIS: A Fifth Dimension? There's not supposed to be alien invaders in this story. That's in Captain Proton versus the Cosmic Creature.
- CHAOTICA: Eighth? Everyone knows there are only five dimensions.
- There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call "The Twilight Zone".
Also, they actually couldn't detect this photon-based subspace layer, and the inhabitants of the supspace layer mutually couldn't detect them. But, holograms were able to interact with them due to being made of light.
Chaotic Space
Chaotic space is not 18th dimensional. It intersects with the universe at the 18th dimensional gradient, which would technically make both 18th dimensional if this logic was accurate.- CHAKOTAY: Chaotic space intersects ours at the eighteenth dimensional gradient. Voyager entered through a trimetric fracture.
- KIM: Some kind of spatial sinkhole just opened up beneath us.
- KIM: I'm picking up a lot of raw data. Subspace flux, graviton waves. Sensors must be confused. The readings are shifting around so much I can't make heads or tails of what's out there.
- TUVOK: If the physical constants are shifting, our sensors can't function.
- SEVEN: The problem is here. Changes in the gravitational coefficient will cause sudden shear forces against our hull. Shields will protect us, but only for a time.
Entities
The Traveller
A higher-dimensional being from another plane of existence, whose nature surpasses the human concept of four-dimensional timeIt's never stated that humans can't comprehend his origin. I will get into this later.
Capable of creating and collapsing parallel universes with their own space and time to some degree.
That is not as impressive as the profile tries to portray it as. The "parallel universe" was just an artificial subspace bubble that existed outside normal space-time. Also, The Traveller could hardly accomplish this feat on his own.
- TRAVELLER: Your species have very narrow perceptions of time and space and thought. When Beverly Crusher was caught in the static warp bubble, she created her own reality. Her thoughts at the precise moment she was trapped determined its shape and form.
- TROI: Can you go in and get her back?
- TRAVELLER: No, it is her reality. I cannot enter it any more than I can enter her thoughts.
- WESLEY: But you said there's still a way.
- TRAVELLER: I can help, but I can't do it myself. Wesley, there is a power within each of us that most people haven't begun to realise, but you have begun, or else I would not have known to come here now. Together we may be able to open a gateway for her. But she must choose to walk through it.
This isn't really a feat of power. Plus, the only dimensions we know they travel between is the normal universe and their own.
His presence could not be detected by the likes of Deanna Troi, an empath who could sense even abstract beings' emotions and thoughts.
Not really that impressive. Beings of a certain nature, such as the android Data and four-lobed Ferengi (albeit to varying degrees), can elude even the most powerful Betazoids.
While the Traveler did not show the same mastery over subspace and space-time as them, they should nevertheless be somewhat comparable to the Q, who were described as being impressed by individuals being selected by Travelers to explore the multiverse.
The Traveler didn't select anyone specifically until Wesely, whom the Continuum and its individuals have expressed little to no interest in outside their capacities as crew members. He basically chose a bunch of Federation starships to travel under the guise of an assistant to amplify their warp bubbles just so he could travel.
- TRAVELLER: What wonderful arrogance. There is no record because we have not visited you before.
- RIKER: Why not?
- TRAVELLER: Well, up until now, if you'll forgive this, you've been uninteresting. It's only now that your life form merits serious attention. I'm sorry.
I don't think I need to go too far into the rest, it's basically just the same leaps that require very similar assumptions. Namely, manipulating subspace fields isn't that impressive, as even the Enterprise-D can perform similar feats.
Edo God
The Edo God was defined as a higher-dimensional being/s that existed above our world and while not transcending the space-time continuum (multiverse), they existed in multiple places in it at once. While there is a strong implication that their multi-dimensionality exactly refers to multiple higher dimensions, it is unknown if this statement refers to them existing in multiple universes or higher dimensions, or perhaps both, as is likely.There isn't any implication that this refers to higher-dimensions. Although I'll admit that this is one of the only instances where the term 'dimension' is even brought up.
- DATA: Any sufficiently advanced life form would appear to others to be that, sir. But when they were probing my thoughts, Captain, I could feel that whatever they are now, they once existed in this dimension, just as we do. Perhaps in the same kind of flesh and blood form. Since then, however, they have evolved considerably. Their present existence in multi-dimensions no doubt has advantages we do not understand.
- DATA: Exactly. As if it were neither in or out of our dimension.
- DATA: It is perhaps not what we would understand as a vessel, sir. The dimensions this one occupies allows them to be, well, to be in several places at once. But they consider this entire star cluster to be theirs. It was probably unwise of us to attempt to place a human colony in this area. Of course, there are three thousand four other planets in this star cluster in which we could have colonised. The largest and closest
V'ger
Machine
The being was capable of emitting energy pulses beyond the scope of power of "thousands of starships".Its natural size, including the cloud which surrounds it, would be enough to engulf Earth's solar system.
That first statement is actually referring to the entire cloud, which kind of makes the second part a little suspect.
- KIRK: Navigator, lay in a conic section flight path into the Cloud center. Bring us parallel to whatever we find in there... Mister Sulu, tactical plot on viewer.
- SULU: Tactical on viewer.
- DECKER: That measures twelfth power energy? Thousands of starships couldn't generate that much.
Effortlessly capable of annihilating any ship or planet it encounters, and considers all biological lifeforms as "infestations" which it must destroy.
The second part of that statement is totally irrelevant. The first part, on the other hand, is actually a lot more impressive. Not only could it vaporize K't'inga-class Starships (basically a more powerful variant than the TOG Birds of Prey), it reduced the refitted Enterprise's shields to 30% with a single plasma blast that was hundreds of times less powerful than its maximum output.
- SCOTT: We cannot hold full power on forcefields. Deflector power is down seventy percent!
- McCOY: They're the same things that hit us.
- SPOCK: They are hundreds of times more powerful, Captain. From those positions they could devastate the entire surface of the planet.
- Attack Potency: At least Moon level (The power generated by its cloud, which measures two AU in diameter, exceeds the output of thousands of starships. Spock described it as the most powerful force he's ever encountered, which includes a litany of corporeal and non-corporeal entities that far surpass the Enterprise. Reduced the refit Enterprise's shields by 70% with a single blast; later fired blasts hundreds of times more powerful that were going to devastate the Earth's surface), likely far higher (V'ger's imaging systems contained moons, stars and whole galaxies, although it's indeterminable if they were outright destroyed or simply replications in its memory banks)
Fusion
The Low 2-C part doesn't exactly seem wrong, but all Decker says is that he'll experience other dimensions, not greater. The "higher levels of being" part is outright referring to qualities that only the human experience can provide, or something like that, hence why it can't be proven with logic.- SPOCK: Perhaps not. Captain, V'Ger must evolve. Its knowledge has reached the limits of this universe and it must evolve. What it requires of its God, Doctor is the answer to its question, 'Is there nothing more?
- McCOY: What more is there than the universe, Spock?
- DECKER: Other dimensions, higher levels of beings.
- SPOCK: The existence of which cannot be proved logically, therefore V'Ger is incapable of believing in them.
- KIRK: What V'Ger needs in order to evolve is a human quality. Our capacity to leap beyond logic.
Prophets
At least Low Complex Multiverse level (Within the Wormhole, the Prophets of Bajor are considered all powerful. They have full control of the extra-dimensional realm the Wormhole gives access to via subspace through it, and transcend space and time, having no knowledge of causality or events occurring, as time is a lower-dimensional concept they feel they are above. With time, they come to understand Sisko's explanations of causality, but they are most effective when in their own realm. Furthermore, even if the Wormhole were to be destroyed, their higher-dimensional realm would not be)All of this is actually fine to an extent. The only real problem is that none of this would be above Low 2-C.
While they are weakened outside of their home domains, they should still be far more powerful than the Pah-Wraiths, who were stated to be capable, if released, of "burning the universe in their wake", with none able to stop them
Multiple problems with this, namely that we don't have a timeframe. Another is that there's no source on the Pah-Wraiths being inferior, granted I can't remember all of what happens in DS9 (though I've seen every episode). I'd say it's definitely true on a collective level, since the Prophets somehow banished them, but not individually; two of them even fought on par with each other in The Reckoning.
Q
Not going through what I went over before, just the new stuff.Vastly superior to the Travelers
Never stated in canon, as likely as it is.
Furthermore, the Q have been stated to encompass the "limitless dimensions of the galaxy"
This is the full quote for clarification.
- Q: After Farpoint, I returned to where we exist. The Q Continuum.
- RIKER: Which means exactly what?
- Q: The limitless dimensions of the galaxy in which we exist.
The Continuum
This is the last profile I'll be going over.consists of thousands or possibly even hundreds of thousands of Q working in tandem, multiplying their collective power by an incalculable amount
Neither their numbers nor the Q's collective multiplication are stated in canon.
Q-Weapons are weapons made by other Q, which rupture the fabric of space-time itself. It is stated these weapons can kill the Q, but this was never demonstrated, and Quinn, a rogue Q, could not kill himself until his powers were removed. This would suggest these weapons have some degree of Power Nullification, immortality nullification, and regen nullification.
It's entirely possible that Q-weapons were developed during the Civil War.
- JANEWAY: Be still. I never thought a Q could be injured.
- Q: As I said, this is only a perception of what is happening. I can assure you, those are not mere cannonballs and lead charges being fired at us.
- JANEWAY: So they're some sort of Q weapons?
- Q: You'd be surprised what innovative munitions can be created by one immortal being who's set his mind on killing another.
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