The Search for Plot - please help me!

[Whill]

...That is why Saavik did not question Spock’s funeral or any other actions Kirk made regarding the death of Spock.

So according to the novelization, Spock did indeed have a will that stated that his remains were not to be returned to Vulcan, and because of that, Kirk intended for Spock’s body to be launched into space and incinerated in the upper atmosphere of the Genesis Planet, not unlike a Viking hero‘s funeral pyre at sea. Gravity was in flux and the coffin-tube soft-landed, unbeknownst to the crew at the time.

There was no “Genesis hope” in either Sarek or Kirk that Spock’s body may have been regenerated. It is made explicitly clear that the deceased body of the Vulcan is necessary for the ritual to transfer the katra from the katra holder to the Hall of Ancient Thought on Vulcan (afterlife), so that and McCoy’s well-being alone are reasons enough to go back to Genesis to retrieve Spock’s dead body.

Sarek had always just assumed Spock would prepare for following all Vulcan death traditions. After Sarek learned the exact language of the Spock’s will from Kirk‘s mind, Sarek is convinced that because Spock was half human, Spock did not believe that he would be able to transfer his katra to another when he wrote the will, but he remained open to the possibility that he may change his mind in the future. That was obviously to suggest that is what ended up happening, that Spock must have changed his mind at the last minute and melded with McCoy.

Sarek speculates that the mind-meld didn’t work perfectly because of multiple possible factors such as Spock is half-human, McCoy is allergic to katras and McCoy is not Vulcan. If it had worked correctly, then Spock’s katra would have clearly explained to McCoy what was going on and that, contrary to the will, they had to keep Spock’s dead body after all. If McCoy had been completely lucid and not acting as fruity as a nut cake, it can then be assumed that Kirk would have believed McCoy, ignored Spock’s will, and sent the body and McCoy to Mt. Seleya on Vulcan so Spock’s katra can hopefully gain Vulcan immortality. (But then of course Spock couldn’t have come back to life so it’s a good thing the katra transfer didn’t work right!)

This also works to explain why McCoy refers to Spock’s body on Genesis and then immediately refers to going to Mt. Seleya on Vulcan. Spock’s katra and McCoy are not clearly communicating with each other due to the problematic katra transfer. Sarek also states that the issue is amplified by the distance between Spock’s katra in McCoy on Earth and Spock’s body on Genesis, furthermore impressing the value of a Vulcan’s body soon after death and McCoy‘s peril.

[Whill]

These explanations are extremely contrived, but they still work for me. Saavik was not raised on Vulcan and didn’t know anything about Vulcan death traditions. Sarek expected Spock would prepare for following all Vulcan death traditions. Spock had a will to not have his body returned to Vulcan because he believed at the time he wrote it that he couldn’t perform the katra transfer due to him being half-human. Spock changed his mind when the moment came and tried it anyway. It worked but not perfectly, so Spock’s katra did not clearly communicate to McCoy what had happened, or to save his body. The body was required for the Vulcan afterlife ritual, so they had a reason to go back to Genesis to get it without suspecting or hoping the body had been regenerated.

Of course even with the added dialogue between Sarek and Kirk in the novelization, the conversation still seems a bit disconnected in parts. For the book and more importantly the movie, I think I can now write this off as Sarek’s logic faltering when it comes to his son. I suspect the author writing the novelization was given the script and added dialogue with explanations in an attempt to make it make more sense. Since the movie is disconnected on its own, I am willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt in that she is largely responsible for working out the details more than the possibility that the script had all this dialogue and it was shortened during filming or editing.

Either way, I’m still critical of the film for not including essential details to make TSFS make more sense with respect to TWOK. This is the first katra transfer we have ever seen in Trek. The movie mentioning Spock’s will and how he changed his mind would have explained why he didn’t will his body to be returned to Vulcan even though the body is needed for the Vulcan afterlife ritual. From the movie alone, we had no idea that the katra transfer mind-meld didn’t work correctly and McCoy would have been able to explain things if it had.

But the point of this thread was always to help my appreciate of the movies. I think after first reading the novelization in my childhood the movie made sense to me, but after going so many years without watching the movie I forgot those details. This discussion and my rereading of the TSFS novelization (for the first time since 1984) completely resolves things for me. When I create a new custom DVD cover for the movie, I will include some of this essential information in the plot synopsis on the back! I love this movie on its own, and now I can fully appreciate it again as part of a larger continuity of films and series I enjoy.

And I’m so extremely thankful for the author including these essential details. In my mind, this completely redeems her for later writing an absolutely awful original Star Wars novel based on a rejected DS9 script (Crystal Star). Vonda N. McIntyre, I thank you again, and I finally forgive you!

[Therin of Andor]

Whill wrote:

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This is the first katra transfer we have ever seen in Trek.

No, as I said in an earlier post, having learned about katras in ST III, we can now go back and see that Christine Chapel once held Spock's katra in "Return to Tomorrow", in the ruse to thwart Henoch from possessing Spock's body.

[Whill]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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having learned about katras in ST III, we can now go back and see that Christine Chapel once held Spock's katra in "Return to Tomorrow", in the ruse to thwart Henoch from possessing Spock's body.

Thank you. I have very a very vague recollection of that episode, as I have not seen it since the mid-80's. I remember "Sargon" and some consciousness-swapping, but don't recall the transfer from Spock to Chapel. Maybe that's where they got the inspiration for the katra transfer in TWOK/TSFS?

Would you please elucidate and relate that to the Search for Spock topic at hand? I would very much appreciate any further participation in this thread you can provide. Thanks.

[Therin of Andor]

Whill wrote:

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Would you please elucidate and relate that to the Search for Spock topic at hand? I would very much appreciate any further participation in this thread you can provide.

Scroll to Act Four:
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Return_to_Tomorrow_%28episode%29

[Whill]

If you count this episode as in the same continuity as TSFS, then TSFS goes back to not making any sense.

We know the dead body is definitely needed for the ritual transfering the katra from the katra holder to the afterlife. The movie novelization implies that Spock, being half-human, didn't think he could transfer his katra to a holder (at the time he wrote his will), which is why his will specified that his body not be returned to Vulcan if he died in service of Starfleet, which is why Kirk launched Spock's dead body into space instead of following Starfleet regulation regarding the return of a dead Vulcan's body to the planet Vulcan.

If Spock had already transfered his katra to someone in TOS, then that totally unravels that explanation because if he had already done it then he would know he could do it. If he knew he could do it, then he would have willed his body to be returned to Vulcan, then it wouldn't have been launched into space, then it wouldn't have been regenerated on Genesis, then Spock would have stayed dead.

So if anyone's got another explanation as to why Spock's body was lauched into space after the katra transfer to McCoy that doesn't contradict "Return to Tomorrow", please post it. Otherwise, I'm just gonna delete RtT from my personal Star Trek continuity to allow TSFS to make sense.

[kkozoriz1]

Remember when McCoy was freaking Kirk out while hiding in the shadows of Spock's quarters. "Why did you leave me?" "Climb the steps of Mount Selaya." Apparently Spock thought that McCoy would be able to tell Kirk what to do. Something went wrong and in the absence of a written will, Kirk decided for burial in space.

Would Spock not have a written will? Apparently not since nobody knew about the katra, Mount Selaya or any of that.

[Timo]

It would be really inconsistent of Spock of TOS to write any deep revelations into his will: he would lie about his basic biological nature to his closest human friends and those responsible for his medical well-being and risk death rather than divulge details of the Vulcan lifestyle.

Whether Spock of ST2 would be more open is debatable. Some of his more easygoing ways only emerge in ST4, after his rebirth.

One wonders if it is possible to get the katra off a dead body. If so, it would make perfect sense for Sarek to yearn for his son's body when no living person is forthcoming with his son's katra...

I'm still far from convinced that the body (alive or dead) is needed for standard katra extraction. It's needed for the rare reinsertion, of course, but there's zero indication that Sarek would have been considering such a maneuver when he first approached Kirk. And we already clearly saw in ST2 that the katra effortlessly went from Spock's body to McCoy's, in a situation where Spock was deliberately taking his body to a radiation-filled chamber that would ruin it forever and then some - it would be pretty absurd that Spock's body would be of any further use to anybody, or in any way necessary in the subsequent steps of katra transfer business.

Doesn't mean the father wouldn't want the son's body back, of course. Klingons consider corpses "empty vessels" to be abandoned on the battlefield; there's no need for the Vulcans to think the same way. But any connection to the katra business is yet to be demonstrated...

Timo Saloniemi

[kkozoriz1]

Well reasoned as always Timo. I do wonder why Spock, through McCoy, was asking :Why did you leave me on Genesis?" That shows that the katra was still accumulating knowledge. It looks like the body and the katra were both supposed to be returned to Vulcan, for what reason I do not know. I don't think Spock would want to undergo fal-tor-pan with a body riddled with radiation damage.

[Therin of Andor]

kkozoriz1 wrote:

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Remember when McCoy was freaking Kirk out while hiding in the shadows of Spock's quarters. "Why did you leave me?" "Climb the steps of Mount Selaya." Apparently Spock thought that McCoy would be able to tell Kirk what to do. Something went wrong and in the absence of a written will, Kirk decided for burial in space.

McCoy doesn't start showing effects of the meld until quite some time after Spock's burial. Saavik and David have already left the ship and have a new posting on the Grissom, Carol Marcus is gone, the Enterprise is heading to Earth... and then McCoy goes loopy.

[kkozoriz1]

Very true, however that does not change the fact that Spock's katra is asking why he was left behind. As Sarek says later, "One alive, one not, and both in pain". It would appear to me that Spock had some instructions for McCoy but for whatever reason the meld didn't work as well as he hoped. Perhaps he should have said "Remember really well" during the meld.

[Basill]

Whill wrote:

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If you count this episode as in the same continuity as TSFS, then TSFS goes back to not making any sense.

We know the dead body is definitely needed for the ritual transfering the katra from the katra holder to the afterlife. The movie novelization implies that Spock, being half-human, didn't think he could transfer his katra to a holder (at the time he wrote his will), which is why his will specified that his body not be returned to Vulcan if he died in service of Starfleet, which is why Kirk launched Spock's dead body into space instead of following Starfleet regulation regarding the return of a dead Vulcan's body to the planet Vulcan.

If Spock had already transfered his katra to someone in TOS, then that totally unravels that explanation because if he had already done it then he would know he could do it. If he knew he could do it, then he would have willed his body to be returned to Vulcan, then it wouldn't have been launched into space, then it wouldn't have been regenerated on Genesis, then Spock would have stayed dead.

So if anyone's got another explanation as to why Spock's body was lauched into space after the katra transfer to McCoy that doesn't contradict "Return to Tomorrow", please post it. Otherwise, I'm just gonna delete RtT from my personal Star Trek continuity to allow TSFS to make sense.

I don't think it unravels at all. If you take into account that Spock's body wasn't actually dead in that episode, despite what Henoch might have believed. Spock (and Chapel) also had the experienced assistance of Sargon and Thalassa for all the musical-chairs mind transfers that eventually occurred.

This very experience might have been what prompted Spock to decide on his will as stated. If he found the experience particularly difficult he may have decided to spare anyone else the burden. His change of heart during the Genesis crisis may have been something akin to his Galileo 7 gamble.

[Whill]

Thank you. That is helpful rationizations and I appreciate your imput.

[Captrek]

Whill wrote:

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Saavik was not raised on Vulcan and didn’t know anything about Vulcan death traditions.

If Saavik wasn’t raised as a Vulcan, what’s with the Vulcan logic stuff like “Humor is a difficult concept, it is not logical” and “This is not logical, these coordinates are deep inside a lifeless planet”?

While we’re talking about it, if the coordinates are so far beneath the surface, what’s the relevance of the planet’s lack of a natural ecosystem?

[Therin of Andor]

captrek wrote:

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If Saavik wasn’t raised as a Vulcan, what’s with the Vulcan logic stuff like “Humor is a difficult concept, it is not logical” and “This is not logical, these coordinates are deep inside a lifeless planet”?

She wasn't raised "on Vulcan", but she has certainly been force fed lots of Vulcan heritage "as a Vulcan" by Spock, Sarek and Amanda since her rescue from Hellguard.

While we’re talking about it, if the coordinates are so far beneath the surface, what’s the relevance of the planet’s lack of a natural ecosystem?

They were examining the last coordinates entered into the transporter, expecting them to designate a region of the surface of uninhabitable Regula, a planet with no natural ecosystem. But the coordinates were bizarrely "deep inside", which is when they realize that there must be a cavern of some kind, perhaps capable of preserving life, but inside the planetoid. ie. the Genesis Cave.