The Barrier —What exactly is it?

[Patrick Degan]

The most famous and mysterious phenomenon in the Star Trek universe has to be the Extragalactic Barrier. First encountered by the probeship S.S. Valiant in 2164 and rediscovered by the USS Enterprise a century later, the Barrier is observed to be a vast forcefield which at the least encircles the perimetre of the galaxy beyond the definiable edge of the spiral arms and may actually enclose the entire galaxy. According to sensor readings, the Barrier is composed of negative energy, has a negative density, and is filled with negative radiation (whatever that may be).

Starships encountering the Barrier at FTL velocities experience extreme sensory distortion and can suffer damage to various systems affected by the energy flux; also, the strange conditions of the Barrier can boost the psionic capacity of ESPer-sensitive individuals, or kill them through extreme sensory and neurological disruption. Ships can become lost within the Barrier, since there are no navigational fixes upon which to plot a course, and sensors cannot penetrate outward beyond its field effect. Furthermore, no ship travelling at sublight velocities can cross the Barrier from either side.

It goes without saying that there is no known natural explanation or theory which could conceive of such a phenomenon as the Barrier having a natural origin, and no observation of galactic space has revealed the presence of such a galaxy-encompassing forcefield. So the question is just what explains the Barrier? One fan-theory published in the Star Trek 25th Anniversary edition of Starfleet Dynamics suggested the theory that the Barrier is an artefact, the construction of a now dead race which was meant either as a defence against extragalactic intrusion (the Kelvans, the Old Ones, the Makers) or possibly as a cage to keep anything from leaving the Milky Way (perhaps a second-layer defence against the ShaKaRee Entity?).

If the Barrier is an artefact which exists physically in normal space/time, one possible explanation for our never observing the field from Earth-based telescopes would be that it was constructed sometime within the last 20,000 years and that the visible light from the forcefield has not yet reached Federation space. Or is the Barrier wholly a subspace phenomena? A boundary between "normal" subspace and the deeper layers of the hyperspace domain? This would account for the Barrier only ever being encountered by ships traveling at warp and for the lack of an observable forcefield envelope in normal space/time beyond the reaches of our galaxy.

Or is the Barrier simply that zone beyond which all the maps stop; denoted by the legend "Here be dragons"?

[Uraniun235]

I'd be inclined to go with the barrier explanation, myself. I know one of the widely popular explanations was that it might have been constructed as a defense against Doomsday Machines. I never considered it as a second-layer ShaKaRee defense... interesting thought, especially given the heightened powers granted to ESPer sensitive people, although one would think a civilization advanced enough to construct such a Barrier would also have weapons technology far in excess of Federation/Klingon abilities. (although perhaps the prolonged imprisonment of the Shakaree entity resulted in decreased powers? Perhaps the Great Barrier not only contained the entity, but also drained it's power?)

My guess would be as a barrier against extragalactic invasion. But that's just my tastes.

[JodoForce]

Or is the Barrier wholly a subspace phenomena? A boundary between "normal" subspace and the deeper layers of the hyperspace domain? This would account for the Barrier only ever being encountered by ships traveling at warp and for the lack of an observable forcefield envelope in normal space/time beyond the reaches of our galaxy.

You yourself said that sensors cannot penetrate it and ships travelling at sublight cannot go through it. Both are realspace phenomena (although the bit about sensors seems nonsensical given that you can see outside the galaxy...)

[Patrick Degan]

Or is the Barrier wholly a subspace phenomena? A boundary between "normal" subspace and the deeper layers of the hyperspace domain? This would account for the Barrier only ever being encountered by ships traveling at warp and for the lack of an observable forcefield envelope in normal space/time beyond the reaches of our galaxy.

You yourself said that sensors cannot penetrate it and ships travelling at sublight cannot go through it. Both are realspace phenomena (although the bit about sensors seems nonsensical given that you can see outside the galaxy...)

If you recall from the episode "Is There In Truth No Beauty" when the Enterprise became lost within the Barrier, Spock stated that it could not be recrossed on impulse drive. If the Barrier is not a realspace phenomena, a ship in normal space running at sublight certainly would not encounter and cross into it, and objects within the zone would not be able to enter realspace at sublight.

As for sensors being unable to penetrate the Barrier, see "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "Is There In Truth No Beauty".

[Jason von Evil]

The frell is a ShaKaRee?

[El Moose Monstero]

Vulcan mystical planet, what Sybok thought the planet at the centre of the Galaxy was. The source etc.

[Patrick Degan]

The frell is a ShaKaRee?

From Star Trek V: The Final Frontier; ShaKaRee was the mythical "creation planet" supposedly at the centre of every myth of the civilised races concerning God and origins. The Vulcan mystic Sybok and his followers hijack the Enterprise to travel to this planet, which lay behind the Great Barrier at the centre of the galaxy —an energy field of such intense flux and radiation that nothing alledgedly could survive the passage. The Enterprise breaches the barrier and discovers ShaKaRee, wherein a powerful being Sybok assumes to be God is located. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Sybok travel to the surface and discover that "God" is anything but. The Great Barrier surrounding ShaKaRee appears to have been for the purpose of caging this single, dangerous lifeform, erected by intelligences unknown at some point in the past.

[Stravo]

One theory I heard in a Trek novel that sounded good to me and was consistent with what we've seen in TOS is that the barrier was erected by the Preservers to keep things and aliens out of our galaxy. A sort of fire break to prevent any nasty influences to come in from other galaxies. COnsidering what we have seen of the Preservers influence in TOS Trek this rings true to me, otherwise the barrier really makes no sense. nor does the fact that in one instance it can make gods of men and in another (In truth no Beauty) it did nothing to anyone on the ship.

[Patrick Degan]

One theory I heard in a Trek novel that sounded good to me and was consistent with what we've seen in TOS is that the barrier was erected by the Preservers to keep things and aliens out of our galaxy. A sort of fire break to prevent any nasty influences to come in from other galaxies. COnsidering what we have seen of the Preservers influence in TOS Trek this rings true to me, otherwise the barrier really makes no sense. nor does the fact that in one instance it can make gods of men and in another (In truth no Beauty) it did nothing to anyone on the ship.

Interesting speculation.

As for the psi-effect, there are three possibilities:

1) It may be that only when a starship crosses the Barrier threshold at low warp that psi-effects are experienced by anyone on board. This was the case with the voyage of the Valiant and the first encounter by the Enterprise, but not so in the "By Any Other Name" and "Is There In Truth No Beauty" incidents, when the ship crossed at maximum warp or higher. The effect also appears to be one-way —affecting ships flying into but not out of the Barrier.

2) It may be that repeated exposure negates the psi-effect; the crew of the Enterprise had already been through the passage once when the Kelvans and later an insane Lawrence Marvick hijacked the ship; alternatively, the Enterprise may have had an upgrade to its deflector shield system since WNMHGB.

3) The presence of Kollos aboard the Enterprise in the "Is There In Truth No Beauty" incident may in some way have been a factor.

[Jason von Evil]

Ah, ok.

What would God need with a starship?

[Jeremy]

I heard something about the Q making it to defend against something stronger then them.

[Gil Hamilton]

I heard something about the Q making it to defend against something stronger then them.

I don't think the Q have anything to do with it. The Q have no problem going to other galaxies or anything, and anything stronger than them isn't going to be bothered by it either. Even the Traveller could transport the Enterprise-D to another galaxy in "Where No One Has Gone Before".

Though that is a thought. In "Where No One Has Gone Before" the Traveller sent them to a galaxy where the what ever the crew thought about popped into existance, which could be seen as extreme psychic power. In the TOS episode when they crossed the barrier, they started to get psychic powers too. Perhaps that's what the barrier is, it's a bubble to protect the galaxy from the normal condition of the Universe, which has sentient lifeforms able to cause things to pop into reality psychically and other crap like that. That could be why the psychic effects seem to go one way, since the crews are carrying back what ever on the other side causes the psychic phenomena. That's complete speculation of course, as there is no real answer to the question, but hey.

[Chris OFarrell]

I heard something about the Q making it to defend against something stronger then them.

That was from a series of ST novels about the Q. They were actualy quite interesting.

The basic story is that Q had pulled a handful of other omnipotent beings into the Galaxy to 'have fun' with. Of course while he was just a young Q wanting to have a good time, they were actualy rather bad people who had fun subitly pushing races this way or that way for ammusement. When one of the races actualy managed to beat these guys at their own game, their leader threw a tantrum, supernovaed their star and blew that race away.

At this point, the Q continum said enough is enough and moved to stop and take into custody Q's companions. In a five thousand year running battle, the group of Q's who had been sent to arrest them all were successful (not without an absurd amount of collateral damage to the rest of the Galaxy of course). One of Q's friends was sent to the center of the Galaxy (with nothing but his head left) and 'locked' in there until either his true repentence for his actions...or the heat death of the universe. Hence that barrier. The other was exlied from the milky way and the galactic barrier was put in place to protect the young races of the Galaxy from this REALY bad dude until they could protect themselves.

[RedImperator]

I like the idea that it was erected to protect the Milky Way from whoever built the Doomsday Machine, actually. I think there was a Trek novel that touched on that, though not in precisely the same way (the Doomsday Machine was actually a prototype Borg killing machine that was on its way to the Delta Quadrant when Kirk destroyed it, and a much, much bigger Doomsday Machine was on the way to destroy the Borg once and for all. This was long before Voyager thoroughly pussified the Borg, of course--these were unstoppable relentless TNG Borg who still assimilated worlds by carving the cities out of the ground and tractoring them up into the cubes).

[Darth Wong]

I think the barrier is not real, and is actually some kind of telepathic illusion set up by some kind of advanced alien race which could build technology capable of projecting such phenomena. That explains the paradoxical instrument readings, the ability of a starship helmed by believers to penetrate the barrier, and the odd psi-effects (unpredictable interactions of the powerful telepathic projection with people who had latent psi abilities).

[Gil Hamilton]

I like the idea that it was erected to protect the Milky Way from whoever built the Doomsday Machine, actually. I think there was a Trek novel that touched on that, though not in precisely the same way (the Doomsday Machine was actually a prototype Borg killing machine that was on its way to the Delta Quadrant when Kirk destroyed it, and a much, much bigger Doomsday Machine was on the way to destroy the Borg once and for all. This was long before Voyager thoroughly pussified the Borg, of course--these were unstoppable relentless TNG Borg who still assimilated worlds by carving the cities out of the ground and tractoring them up into the cubes).

Ah, Vendetta. The one Startrek novel I've actually read.

[Jason von Evil]

these were unstoppable relentless TNG Borg who still assimilated worlds by carving the cities out of the ground and tractoring them up into the cubes).

They could what?

[ArmorPierce]

I think the barrier is not real, and is actually some kind of telepathic illusion set up by some kind of advanced alien race which could build technology capable of projecting such phenomena. That explains the paradoxical instrument readings, the ability of a starship helmed by believers to penetrate the barrier, and the odd psi-effects (unpredictable interactions of the powerful telepathic projection with people who had latent psi abilities).

motivation?

[Gil Hamilton]

They could what?

Originally, in TNG, the Borg would scoop cities out of the ground with their tractor beams, leaving behind the "footprint" that SHelly was talking about in Best of Both Worlds.

[RedImperator]

these were unstoppable relentless TNG Borg who still assimilated worlds by carving the cities out of the ground and tractoring them up into the cubes).

They could what?

Don't you remember? In "The Neutral Zone", Romulan and Federation outposts just vanished, replaced by holes in the ground. In "Q Who?", the E-D encountered a planet with the road network still intact by giant craters where the cities should have been, right before they encountered the cube. In "BoBW, Part 1", the colony that sent the distress call had vanished by the time the E-D arrived--Geordi, Data, and beamed down right on the lip of a huge crater with a few broken roads leading right to the edge. It makes sense--the Borg were interested in technology, so they'd just scoop up the cities and dismantle them for anything interesting. If you happened to be in the city when it was tractored into space, well, tough nuts.

Then First Contact came along and the Borg became space zombies--if they bite you, you become a zombie too! Voyager finished craptizing the Borg, but FC started it.

[Peregrin Toker]

I think the barrier is not real, and is actually some kind of telepathic illusion set up by some kind of advanced alien race which could build technology capable of projecting such phenomena. That explains the paradoxical instrument readings, the ability of a starship helmed by believers to penetrate the barrier, and the odd psi-effects (unpredictable interactions of the powerful telepathic projection with people who had latent psi abilities).

motivation?

Maybe the makers of the Barrier intend to make it look like there's no way out of this galaxy, so that they can be the first to go outside the Milky Way.

[Jason von Evil]

I haven't seen BoBW in something like five years.

[Patrick Degan]

I think the barrier is not real, and is actually some kind of telepathic illusion set up by some kind of advanced alien race which could build technology capable of projecting such phenomena. That explains the paradoxical instrument readings, the ability of a starship helmed by believers to penetrate the barrier, and the odd psi-effects (unpredictable interactions of the powerful telepathic projection with people who had latent psi abilities).

An alternate possible explanation for the Great Barrier surrounding ShaKaRee, certainly. But the Extragalactic Barrier is an altogether different phenomenon, wouldn't you agree?

[TheDarkling]

The other was exlied from the milky way and the galactic barrier was put in place to protect the young races of the Galaxy from this REALY bad dude until they could protect themselves.

That is not exactly how I remember it, "The One" (inventor of that entire monotheism idea) was locked up in the middle of the galaxy as you pointed out, of the other Q compatriots only one(the ring leader of the group called 0) was exiled from the milky way and the barrier erected to keep him out (he couldn't flee to another galaxy because he had a "limp" which prohibited him from moving at FTL speeds or doing the standard omnipotent very long range teleport) the other two were allowed to remain at large in the galaxy although with their powers reduced, they were the glowing energy cube from "Day of the Dove" and Gorgon from "And the Children Shall lead".

Of course it has been a few years so I may be mistaken.

[Enola Straight]

The gravitational field of the galaxy drops off past the edge of the rim.
The same can be said of electromagnetic fields.
Presumably, something similar occurs with naturally occurring subspace fields.

The three phenomena drop off at uneven rates, resulting in spatial and energy flux