Talk:Beta Penthe system

The "operation retrieve" chart labels the planets in this system "Beta Penthe VII" and so on, so given that it's a trinary, should this article be moved to "Penthe system", with Rura Penthe orbiting "Beta Penthe"?– 86.138.43.184 17:47, 23 June 2009 (UTC)


 * First, we'd need an image of that chart with actually readable labels. That would only help us in regards to a possible Beta Penthe VII article, though. The jump from "Beta Penthe VII" to "Penthe system" seems rather speculative to me. -- Cid Highwind 18:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Here, the guy that ended up with the chart has posted some close-up photos. Admittedly you can't see the label on the star in that shot, but give that it's a trinary system, it would be a fair bet that the stars are called Alpha, Beta & Gamma Penthe. It's just a matter of confirming it. Small point, it also seams to have the system located in "Sector 21166-8". – 86.138.43.184 21:55, 23 June 2009 (UTC)


 * http://flareupload.pleh.net/uploads/293/retrieve01.jpg  there - that's the location of the image. &mdash; Morder (talk) 22:11, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

You can't hotlink to flare upload, which is why I linked to the thread instead. – 86.138.43.184 00:10, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Works for me - but i have a no-referrer extension installed...but you can just copy and paste and it works fine. :) &mdash; Morder (talk) 00:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, thanks. The situation is still a little muddy, though. There seem to be planets called "Beta Penthe #" - but there's no trinary star on the map, just a single one, and without apparent label itself. It stands to reason that this star would be called "Beta Penthe", then - but even that borders on speculation. At the same time, the "Sector 21166-8" reference could be put to some use, I'm sure - but the chart doesn't state that the depicted system is in this sector, just that further ships are available there. It might be a neighbouring sector, or even just the closest (non-neighbouring) Federation sector. -- Cid Highwind 11:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Well one could presume that if this is Beta Penthe's local system, then Alpha and Gamma's relative orbits may not figure on this scale. The same way an illustration of the orbits of the Jovian or Saturnian moons wouldn't necessarily include Sol. Of course, in the absence of a better look a the chart (and perhaps the other pages), it's all up in the air. Also agreed about the Sector, though suffice to say it's a Federation sector close the the Klingon border. In the least, it has a place in the Endeavour Emden & Ahwahnee articles as well as of course the Operation Retrieve article. Also, from that chart, counting the planetary bodies listed it would appear that Rura Penthe's actual (or alternative) name is Beta Penthe VI. I realise it's supposed to be an asteroid, but it's between V & VII with no VI in sight. Perhaps the Klingons have a different idea as to what constitutes an asteroid? ;) Either way, it would appear to be the 6th major orbiting body from the local star and in fact the other chart pages seam to treat it as a planet too. As for the name being borderline speculation, as far as assumptions go, I'd say it's a fairly safe one, though a disclaimer within the article explaining the reasoning behind it should be sufficient. – 86.138.43.184 15:09, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * At least the bigger two (as seen from RP) seem to be a close binary, though, so they should both be depicted on the chart. We could assume that Beta Penthe IV is actually a borderline dwarf star, but that would mess with the suggested naming scheme of Alpha/Beta/Gamma, too - let's better not got there in the first place.
 * You're definitely right about RP being Beta Penthe VI on that chart - there are seven orbits, and I-V and VII are all accounted for. Since this seems to clash with the "asteroid statement", it would make a nice bginfo comment, I think. -- Cid Highwind 21:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If you look at the third page, it has a "planetary scan" of RP and a globe/map image. Combined with the fact that it had a breathable O2 atmosphere (they could even set a fire) a gravity field as close to 1G as to make no difference and an earth scaled horizon, I'd say it's not an asteroid at all, but a planet, at least in human terms. For all we know RP is geologically dead and the Klingons only consider it a planet if it's "alive".
 * As for the relative sizes of the two major stars, you should also take into account the relative distances. For all we know "Beta Penthe" could be a small main sequence sun, only a few AUs away while "Alpha Penthe" (ftsoa) could be a supergiant and much farther away. You might even argue that the lack of an alpha star on the chart could indicate that the entire system is orbiting a much larger centre of gravity, too far away to be relevant to the diagram. For instance, a map of the inner planets of the Proxima system (assuming there are any) wouldn't necessarily include Alpha & Beta Centauri. Without a distinguishable sense of scale on the chart, there's really no way of knowing. – 86.138.43.184 14:30, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


 * There are tons of changes being made at the moment, based on some page of the flip chart that may or may not have been visible at all in : Special:Contributions/Airtram3 - check around the time of this comment.
 * In any case, I'm putting this here, because we were discussing these charts here. Someone please double-check the edits made. Even if all of them are correct and considered valid, I think we need a better resource than some forum URL, which in turn links to some image, all of which may no longer be available in some months - and can only be found through one edit comment in the first place! Please, let's make this more persistent than it is now... -- Cid Highwind 22:38, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Addition: only the three pages of the flipchart shown on the Operation Retrieve page were seen in the movie. The fourth sheet with the starship names, captains and sectors was not seen in the movie at all. (not even in deleted scenes) --Jörg 23:01, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm but it seems to me that the info from the fourth sheet can still be added in the "unreferenced material", right? It's a very similar situation to the Picard family album. But I agree the validity of the images might need better verification, Cid has a very good point about the sketchyness of the source. -- Capricorn 05:41, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Citation needed
I'd like to see confirmation for two bits of information currently located in the article. I guess it's enough if this is posted here on the talk page: --Cid Highwind 21:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * "a trinary star system":Is this just based on the image located in the article, or is there a better one in the film. I really can't clearly make out the third sun in the image, does it really exist?
 * "within 2 sectors of the Federation border":Based on dialogue, or just on the Operation Retrieve chart? If the latter, we shouldn't assume that grid really translates to sector borders.
 * I can't even imagine that the "2nd sun" is actually a sun, vs a large planet or gas giant (reflecting the sunlight - especially if it's a close planet - but i can see the assumption). There was nothing in the dialog that says it was 2 sectors away but kirk said "now that we're outside the shield, they'll be able to locate us 2 sectors away". I would say that's the range of the homing beacon and not the location of Rura Penthe compared to federation space. &mdash; Morder (talk) 21:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * However, I think it's fair to infer that since Kirk appears to think it likely that the Enterprise will be within that range that the Federation border is at least that close. As for "Trinary"; yes the third star (or what appears to be it) is rather faint and from an objective standpoint could be anything from a nearby gas giant to a high magnitude star in the neighbouring system. However, from a subjective POV, we know that if the effects people put 3 suns in the sky, that they probably thought it should be a trinary system (or more likely that it'd just look interesting.) However, having said that the OR chart does have what looks like a gas giant further in the system, closer to Beta Penthe. Of course for all we know that planet could have been behind the sun in it's orbital path, so it's still up in the air. – 86.138.43.184 14:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

But that's just more speculation - let's have some facts instead. If we wanted to speculate, we could also do that by assuming that the biggest light is the system's only sun, the smallest light is the gas giant Beta Penthe IV as depicted on the map, and the medium light is another moon of the gas hypergiant Beta Penthe VI (with the star's light reflecting from BP6 to the moon to RP's surface), while Rura Penthe is, in fact, not a planet itself, but just orbiting one. That would match all the evidence, would make for an interesting star system, and wouldn't even be without precedence - the Andorian homeworld turned out to be a moon after years, too. Unless we have at least an official statement from someone who was involved with the production, wouldn't it be better to move any speculation about this system being trinary to a background comment?

Likewise, I don't think we can infer even a maximum distance to the Federation border from that statement. The crew knew where Kirk was, so even if the border was more distant than two sectors, the Enterprise may already have had crossed it - at least according to Kirk's own personal speculation at the time. -- Cid Highwind 16:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Two and a half years later, I removed the trinary claim, as it still lacked a citation.–Cleanse ( talk 07:48, January 10, 2012 (UTC)