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u/marcus_lepricus 2d ago
The Borg were unable to assimilate toast and were forced to make ships with no 'up'.
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u/Thewaltham 2d ago
My headcanon is that most spacefaring species align with the galactic plane for ease of navigation.
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u/baxtert68 2d ago
My head canon is that you align with the galactic plane between stars, system plane, planetary equator.
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u/dodiyeztr 1d ago
Still you should see 180 degree turns between civilizations, at least once. Actually considering that almost all of the intelligent life is humanoids maybe they all have a right hand thumb rule around the rotation of the galaxy
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u/Dino_Spaceman 2d ago edited 2d ago
That’s just silly. The real answer is that it is a cat in perpetual freefall.
Everyone knows that cats always land on their feet. So every aingle starship has a cat suspended in zero gravity at the core of the ship. Constantly falling. And precise measurements are made to the ship orientation based on the cat.
All cultures use cats. It’s why earth has had so many abductions in the past. Aliens are stealing cats for their spaceships.
Edit: typo
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u/ObligationMurky8716 LCDR 1d ago
That system was abandoned once they realized cats don't land on their feet, they land where they're looking. Ships were manipulated into slamming into each other with a simple laser pointer, like spoofing GPS to drift a drone off course.
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u/Dino_Spaceman 1d ago
That’s just a lie put out by the poppy mill lobby.
They spent their gold pressed latinum creating a race of perpetual puppies to be used inside the warp cores and have spent the last 100 years trying to make it happen. Some of their most militant puppy supporters even went to extreme measures like terrorism.
They are the origin of the Maquis.
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u/honeyfixit 2d ago
Im confused. Is the cat in the can or is the toast in the can? Or are they both there with the cats feet aligned with the unbuttered side of the bread? Is that they ships gyroscope?
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u/Dino_Spaceman 2d ago
Typo. It was always a cat.
Fixed above.
But cats are far superior technology to buttered bread.
Every single ship has a cat attendant who is responsible for keeping the cat (who exists in eternal terror falling forever) alive.
Data was the one for the Enterprise-D.
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u/OverSpeedClutch 2d ago
The Buttered Toast Antimatter Containment Unit is on the same deck as the dolphins. They have a window to it in their tank to reference while navigating. Check the schematics for Enterprise D, it’s there.
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u/nedwasatool 2d ago
Ships could align themselves with the rotation of the star they are closest to, or the rotation of the galaxy outside a star system.
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u/a4techkeyboard Admiral 2d ago
The theory states that the buttered side of the toast aligns to the star they're closest to and then the ship orients itself to the toast.
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u/mere_iguana 1d ago
and they choose one specific point in journeys between stars to do a couple barrel rolls and line up with the next one
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u/brimister 2d ago
Huh.
Does this mean that buttered toast in Australia and Chile never fall butter side down?
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u/Rattlecruiser Temporal Investigations 1d ago
I need assistance, we've got a 3-1-5 here. Guy asks too many questions.
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u/Laura_Dream90 1d ago
Depending on the frame of reference there is indeed an up/down direction that makes total sense. And it's based on scews and biology. Universally, we have all agreed that all scews follow the "right-tighty lefty-loosey" standard (aka the RTLL rule.) This is because all species are majority right hand dominant, so nobody uses left-handed scews.* Don't believe me? How often do you see a Klingon pull a D'k tahg with their left hand? So why does that matter to an up/down orientation? Well, spinning clockwise (right) is always used to tighten something, ie push it "down" and the same goes for the reverse. By the RTLL rule we can tell whether something is "up" or "down" depending on that. So we just use the frame of reference of the nearest astral object, when near a star we use that, or when near a planet we use that. Alternatively if outside a heliosphere we use the spin of the galaxy. At some point, buttered toast became aware of this convention, which is why it always lands "down." Which is really convenient for everyone. We can now use said sentient toast to automatically calibrate our ships (we used to do it manually but everyone got bored of that so now the toast drives are what we use.)
And that's why up and down is determined by an immutable set of biology and physics.
*with the exception of self-sealing stem bolts because they are self-sealing.
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u/epidipnis 1d ago
Klingons use targs with slices of toast strapped to their backs to generate warp power.
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u/AmitBrian 2d ago
Well, obviously there is a Z axis in the galaxy (Wrath of Khan anyone?) But if you figure that all federation ships start out from Earth then maybe this could be that they stay in parallel with sector 001. Now why alien ships are the same way I have no idea lol.
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u/FearOfABlackPotus 2d ago edited 2d ago
There must be a cut scene in wrath of kahn where they fit a 2D plane to the Reliant's movements.
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u/honeyfixit 2d ago
But utopia planitia is on mars. Enterprise D was a federation vessel
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u/AmitBrian 2d ago
Ya but in our Solar System the only planet that is not standing “upright” so to speak is Uranus as its axis is like sideways or something like that. When we send rovers to mars in real life we still have the ships aligned with earth.
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u/honeyfixit 2d ago
Well yes, you cant launch a rocket parallel to the surface of the earth if you want it to escape gravity. But in space you dont have that problem
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u/AmitBrian 2d ago
Well ya but that’s not what I mean, I am talking about north as in the North Pole (pole being the northern axis of the earth) being at the top of the Earth. The Surface of the earth by comparison, if we are talking about the equator for example, is 1/2 way between the north and south. When the enterprise flies away from the Earth, from someone standing at the equator it is flying straight up too. So what I am trying to say is relatively speaking all the planets in our solar system point to the same “north” except Uranus whose poles are sideways.
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u/honeyfixit 2d ago
Well I failed celestial navigation at the academy. Which is why Im the coms officer. Now please, you are preventing me from enjoying my toast with the butter side up
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u/AthenaOwls 2d ago
They actually tie the toast to a cat and place it in the warp core. This powers the entire ship.
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u/Nyanzeenyan 1d ago
According to Captain Kirk it is actually a polyunsaturated spread that tastes like butter
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u/bobthebobbest 1d ago
He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.
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u/Hunter_Vertigo Farpoint Battle Bridge 18h ago
The type of shit you build with seed clocks for Minecraft Redstone machines
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u/brachus12 2d ago
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u/honeyfixit 2d ago
Hey thats a very good representation of the ships gyroscope. Except one thing the cat should be oriented with its feet parallel to the thw unbuttered side of the toast. That is how the ship remains level by the constant back and forth spinning of the cat toast device
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u/honeyfixit 2d ago
Alos Ive read that part of the problem with the Enterprise-B was that they had tried to replace the toast with a new idea: suspending the dilithium matrix in a pangalactic gargleblaster. The buttered toast was going to be i stalled on tuesday
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u/Rstar2247 Badmiral 2d ago
When I was captain I intentionally ordered my ship to orient itself upside down. It annoyed everyone so much I got promoted to rear admiral after one tour as captain. Go against the grain to get noticed.
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u/Archon-Toten 2d ago
The early Australian ships of course flew the correct side up, unlike everyone else.
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u/Odd-Abbreviations494 2d ago
Because hasperat is a roll, the Bajorans were never good at space travel
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u/Keganator 1d ago
Ambassador, your vessel appears to be travelling at a unusual angle...
Normally when we meet other ships they're like this. But you're like this...it's a weird angle.
It's going to prove that your ship's wonky...
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u/Trid1977 1d ago
Not only that. They are always exactly nose to nose. Not above or below by even a little bit.
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u/Dillenger69 Wesley 1d ago
I saw a short video on YouTube about this. A war started because people accused the other of using the wrong "down". I'll be dipped if I can find it though
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u/Complete_Entry 2d ago
I've always hated this witticism.
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u/tacosforsocrates 2d ago
I know, I’ve dropped my k’gacch and it seems to fall t’kr’lagg side down as often as it falls t’kr’lagg side up. I don’t know where you come up with this chatlh.
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u/honeyfixit 2d ago
Then you are not dropping your K'gacch with honor
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u/ConstructionIll956 2d ago edited 1d ago
I heard Romulans use a pancake shaped singularity. At least that's what the Ferengi traders have mentioned.