Strangers from the Sky
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Strangers from the Sky (ISBN 0671734814), (ISBN 9780671734817) is a a novel by Margaret Wander Bonanno.
[edit] Overview
This novel is an adventure involving the original Star Trek series cast and journeys through many eras of the Trek timeline.
Initial story events take place during James T. Kirk's years in the admiralty when he begins to suffer from psychological issues after reading a book Dr. McCoy gave him entitled Strangers from the Sky. This book is a recent publication which explains why the "official" records of how Human and Vulcan races met for the first time were incorrect. The book's story drives into Kirk's mind causing him to dream of the story as if he were there during the events. Psychoscans shows him to be in a mentally unstable state and when Spock is similarly diagnosed the only cure for them both is to be found in mind meld...
The meld takes them into the adventure starting with "something as simple as a stardate" from the early days of the Enterprise's 5 year mission where they "boldly go where no one has gone before."
[edit] Note
The basic concept of this book-- in which Vulcans accidentally land on Earth years before the official "First Contact"-- is echoed in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Carbon Creek".
- Strangers from the Sky article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
[edit] Questionable Science
(1) page 136: Infrawhite, a wavelength Vulcans can see but humans cannot. Assuming that the root of infrawhite follows that of infrared , infrawhite light should be at wavelengths somewhat longer than regular white light. The shorter wavelengths of infrawhite should be visible to humans as red, orange and possibly yellow. If it falls entirely below the human visible spectrum then it is already infrared.
(2) page 181: "the turnaround from Mars is over two weeks on conventional radio this century, so that buys you some time".
At its extreme distance of roughly 400 million km the turn around time for radio signals should be 44.4 minutes. Either Mars moves a lot further from Earth or extremely long line ups in accessing radio equipment are anticipated.
