Galileo 7 – Was it Boma, Spock or is it me?

[ssosmcin]

Timo wrote:

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What was the ticking clock as regards the burial?

The shuttle had lost fuel, but there was no dialogue to the effect that the leak would persist and more fuel would be wasted by the minute. The crew lacked supplies, but there was no immediate danger of starvation. The starship in the vicinity would be forced to depart in a couple of days, after which she would be gone for a maximum of six days, and then return to continue the rescue efforts. And the natives could be kept at bay indefinitely as long as our heroes did not loiter far away from each other and from the immense firepower they possessed.

Timo Saloniemi

Of course they had limited time. The Enterprise was leaving soon. The "immense firepower" was being drained for fuel, so there would be no defense against the creatures (who were out for blood). Search parties were being attacked and killed almost as soon as they arrived. The shuttle crew couldn't continue to use the batteries to electrify the ship because they needed that power. Once draining the phasers, they would only have enough fuel to reach orbit for a short time before being forced to land or burn up. So, yes, they had to get into orbit BEFORE the Enterprise left. That was a major plot point, actually.

It's all right here:

SPOCK: Yeoman, your phaser.
MEARS: But what if the creatures attack again?
SPOCK: They won't attack for at least several hours. By then, with luck, we'll be gone.
SCOTT: If I can get a full load, we should be able to achieve orbit with all hands. Not that we can maintain it long.
SPOCK: We don't have to maintain it very long, Mister Scott. In less than twenty four hours, the Enterprise will be forced to abandon its search in order to make a rendezvous. If we can't maintain orbit after that time, it won't make any difference. If we burn up in a decaying orbit or die here on the planet's surface, we shall surely die.

Regarding the services:

BOMA: Mister Spock. we're ready.
SPOCK: For what?
BOMA: The services for Latimer.
SPOCK: Mister Boma, we're working against time.

Spock did find the time to have a quick burial in the end, but only when it was deemed practical and they were ready to go. Also beacue the creatures were quiet at the time. It never should have been the priority Boma made it out to be.

[ssosmcin]

JimZipCode wrote:

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By the way, McCoy's behavior in Tholian Web was about on the same level. And for that matter, in Paradise Syndrome too. Unprofessional, non-supportive, inexcusable in a senior officer.

I chalk this up to the whole "missing the mark" aspect of the third season. Someone glanced at a few episodes in the first two years and saw "McCoy is cranky and fights with Spock" without paying attention to the layers below. Bones was still insubordinate in the previous seasons, but for the most part, it was their "banter." In the later episodes, the banter slipped and it became kind of nasty.

But I like the idea that McCoy gets bad reports and is saved by being Kirk's pal. It would explain why Bones never seems to have an assignment under anyone else in the films. He simply quit the service, to be called back by Kirk in TMP. Nobody else wanted to deal with his bullshit.

[Timo]

Spock is making hurry a priority by his odd choices. Why strive to reach orbit immediately? That only makes Scotty work under unnecessary pressure, possibly leading to mistakes. Why drain the phasers so soon? This could be done at any point, just before the chosen time of departure. And firing at the natives would not drain the phasers, unless the cavemen arrived in the thousands - "Omega Glory" teaches us that much.

Staying put for a week should be an option here, and a fairly safe one at that. Outside rescuers would have great odds of success; the castaways had virtually none. Doing nothing (except burials and a perhaps a friendly game of baseball) would be a perfectly valid survival tactic, if not for Spock's oddly biased approach to the crisis.

Really, the sooner the Enterprise left, the better. She would be back all the sooner, too. It would take three days to make the scheduled rendezvous. Or just two if Kirk called ahead after the first day of sailing, caught the Yorktown at the rendezvous spot, and asked her skipper to come meet the Enterprise one-third way in because of the overriding emergency. Kirk would be back in four days, then. If the additional two days for the delivery of the medicine were not possible, it would be the aforementioned six days, within which none of our castaways would yet have to go cannibal. And there are always higher warp factors...

Timo Saloniemi

[ssosmcin]

I just don't get how staying put for a week is a "fairly safe" option when giant ape creatures keep attacking.

Scotty's comment about "a phaser can only drain so fast" tells us that it is a very slow process, so waiting until the last minute doesn't work. Again, the creatures aren't happy with them being in the area. Without provocation, they speared Latimer. Once Spock went on the offensive, the creatures were pissed. They were smashing the shuttle with boulders. Spock scared them off, but they came back. Once the batteries burned out, there would be nothing to stop them from damaging the shuttle to the point where it couldn't lift off at all. I don't understand why you think they could hold out for six days under these circumstances. Not a chance. And then consider Kelowitz's report:

KELOWITZ: Ensign O'Neal got a spear through the body before we even knew they were around. Lieutenant lmmamura has a dislocated shoulder and severe lacerations, but he'll make it all right. Captain, the creatures are all over the place. If the Galileo is down on that planet…

The clear message is that the shuttle crew cannot survive for long down there. Drained phasers = no weapons. Possibly little or no food or water. Even if you could hold off the creatures with stones or clubs, why would you WANT to delay departure in this situation? Wouldn't you want to leave the planet ASAP? The sooner you leave, the better the chance of the survival of everyone left. If Spock dilly dallied and let the Enterprise fly off, how many of the crew would be left to pick up on the return trip? They already lost two in the first few hours. That would also make him a pretty crappy commander. The landing party is in jeopardy. If you were in this situation, would you be okay with waiting around a week for the Enterprise to come back and keep searching?

[Lt. Zanne]

Spock always said he never wanted command, never wanted to be captain, etc. I think he knew he was not really cut out for that type of position. Also too, there was at times in other episodes, an underlying understanding that Spock was discriminated against because he was half Vulcan and I thought that was partly why the Galileo crew was not respectful of him. And that the episode was exploring what it took to command~ not just superior knowledge and ability to make decisions, but an ability to read and understand people- not just human - because Spock mis read not just his crew, but the species that lived on the planet and attacked them.

And as for Scotty, I thought he always worked well with Spock because he never judged him and always seemed very practical (until you insulted his "bairns")

McCoy is just scrappy and doesn't care what he says to anyone - it is his one fearlessness. If you don't like what he says, tough beans. I like when he says what everyone else is thinking but won't say. Don't we all know someone like that and smile inside when they do it?

[Nacluv]

Lt. Zanne wrote:

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McCoy is just scrappy and doesn't care what he says to anyone - it is his one fearlessness.

I love McCoy but sometimes I find him to be so self-righteous that it corrodes his capacity of seeing things from more perspectives than his own, sometimes making him very unilateral.

Lt. Zanne wrote:

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I like when he says what everyone else is thinking but won't say. Don't we all know someone like that and smile inside when they do it?

I guess I am the only one, but I've had even more such experiences with Spock actually.

[Admiral_Sisko]

Nacluv wrote:

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I love McCoy but sometimes I find him to be so self-righteous that it corrodes his capacity of seeing things from more perspectives than his own, sometimes making him very unilateral.

I guess I am the only one, but I've had even more such experiences with Spock actually.

As have I. I think that people tend to remember McCoy's statements because they're often extremely dramatic, whereas Spock's are not, but that distinction doesn't diminish the value of Spock's statements, nor does it undermine the honesty behind them. His interactions with Kirk in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "The City on the Edge of Forever" are excellent examples of his ability to cut through irrelevancies and focus only on the truth of a particular situation.

[Lt. Zanne]

Admiral_Sisko wrote:

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As have I. I think that people tend to remember McCoy's statements because they're often extremely dramatic, whereas Spock's are not, but that distinction doesn't diminish the value of Spock's statements, nor does it undermine the honesty behind them. His interactions with Kirk in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "The City on the Edge of Forever" are excellent examples of his ability to cut through irrelevancies and focus only on the truth of a particular situation.

well I like that about Spock too~ his focus and his intellect and the way he can think thru things logically without the interference of emotions (usually). And I like McCoy because he is not really a military man or a very disciplined man.They are both great characters. I enjoy McCoy's irreverence. Bread and Circuses is one of my favorite episodes where you see them arguing/debating, just not being able to get along or understand each other very well.

[Gary7]

Timo wrote:

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Spock is making hurry a priority by his odd choices. Why strive to reach orbit immediately? That only makes Scotty work under unnecessary pressure, possibly leading to mistakes. Why drain the phasers so soon? This could be done at any point, just before the chosen time of departure. And firing at the natives would not drain the phasers, unless the cavemen arrived in the thousands - "Omega Glory" teaches us that much.

I'm surprised by your stance here. It looks pretty clear to me, as ssosmcin pointed out, that they have a very limited time frame. Getting the shuttle fueled up to take off is high priority. On top of this, they have the angry Sasquatch natives to deal with, who seem to sense when they're wandering about. Having people outside making a burial is like throwing chum in the ocean and thinking sharks might not come.

Every time a phaser is fired, they suffer drainage. And, they don't seem particularly effective against the natives, except to frighten them only momentarily. They never mention phaser settings, so we don't know what setting they used (probably too early in the show before they established this detail), but a logical guess would be stun at first, then kill when that wasn't effective. Citing one line from "Omega Glory" is not credible, as Tracey was deranged at that point anyway. "Thousands" is ambiguous in this context, given his state of mind. In fact, Spock says there were "several hundred Yang bodies" that they discovered near several discharged phaser packs. Who knows precisely how many were killed per power pack, but it's definitely not in the thousands. So, the power would need to be conserved. As it was, they barely had enough to get into orbit and landing was theorized to be very rough, if Spock hadn't jettisoned the fuel and ignited it.

[Timo]

There is a sense of hurry in the episode - but that is a human instinct, to get out of danger as fast as possible. Spock if anybody should be able to calmly assess the facts of the matter and decide that, counterintuitively, staying put is the sensible thing to do. A major dramatic opportunity is lost here...

Phasers can be drained for fuel (or other sort of takeoff oomph) in a few hours, which means this need not take place until a few hours before takeoff. Which could happen a week from the funeral.

OTOH, phasers have never been indicated to suffer from lack of ammo in preceding episodes, and later ones will show they are good for thousands of kills. In the episode, we fail to see even a single kill - but OTOH we fail to see any sort of physical damage e.g. to the shield of one of the beasts, heavily indicating our heroes are using the stun setting. "Disintegrate" would not distinguish between strong and weak opponents! Plus, even a single established kill would raise morale on the hero side and drop it on the villain side, so an outright attack met by a determined phaser defense would actually be highly desirable.

In fact, Spock says there were "several hundred Yang bodies" that they discovered near several discharged phaser packs. Who knows precisely how many were killed per power pack, but it's definitely not in the thousands.

Why not? A clean kill in TOS does not leave a body!

the power would need to be conserved

This is never stated in the episode.

As it was, they barely had enough to get into orbit and landing was theorized to be very rough, if Spock hadn't jettisoned the fuel and ignited it.

Getting to the orbit was a frivolous exercise in the first place. The castaways had no need to get into space, other than to get out of the reach of the cavemen - and that would have been far better achieved by camping out and slaying any approaching giants. Leave it to Kirk to effect the actual extraction, as he's so much better equipped to achieve it.

Timo Saloniemi

[Nacluv]

Isn't it in Bread and Circuses where Spock says that he's tired of McCoy constant use of the term logic?

[ssosmcin]

Timo wrote:

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Getting to the orbit was a frivolous exercise in the first place. The castaways had no need to get into space, other than to get out of the reach of the cavemen - and that would have been far better achieved by camping out and slaying any approaching giants. Leave it to Kirk to effect the actual extraction, as he's so much better equipped to achieve it.

Sure, Kirk could have come back and extracted the seven corpses.

That the creatures were able to kill two men armed with phasers proves staying put was not the right decision. Latimer didn't see or hear them coming, so the natives can apparently be stealthy when necessary.

Gitano had his phaser knocked from his hand and without it was helpless to save himself. The creatures have good aim. They pinned Spock with the rubber boulder very neatly. They can disarm and trap their fleeing prey.

The planet was full of these creatures, according to Kelowitz. Even with phasers, the landing party might not have been able to mow them all down. And Spock didn't seem to be willing to slaughter hundreds of natives. Why should he be? You expect him to decide to wipe out hundreds of lives who may only be guilty of preemptively protecting themselves, and still keep his people in jeopardy because he felt like he could wait a few days for Kirk to get back? If my car got a flat tire in a dangerous neighborhood, I'd work like hell to get the spare on as quickly as possible rather than wait the hour and a half for a tow. I might even drive on the rim until I got clear of the danger area, even though I'm ruining it in the process.

I watched this episode again last night. After assessing the situation, Spock saw no chance of survival on the surface. None. The script was very clear on this. Getting into orbit increased their chances of survival since it's apparently easier to detect a ship in orbit than it is to find one crashed on the surface of a planet. Even if they failed, a quick death by burning up in a decaying orbit was considered preferable to the death at the hands of the hostile natives. It's all very well presented. They had no other option. You keep insisting they could camp out and wait six days. The problem is that nothing in the episode supports your assumption. They make it very clear they will not survive that long.

[Lt. Zanne]

Nacluv wrote:

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Isn't it in Bread and Circuses where Spock says that he's tired of McCoy constant use of the term logic?

yes! I think he said if he were capable of getting annoyed, McCoys constant (purposeful, don't you think?) use of the word logic would be completely annoying. I think McCoy likes trying to get a rise out of Spock. I think it's his nature to be that way with anyone. ;D

[Timo]

Sure, Kirk could have come back and extracted the seven corpses.

The fundamental fact of the matter is that humans cannot survive in space, or in ballistic flight. In contrast, humans can survive on the surface of a Class M planet for an indeterminate period of time, that is, a period not subject to countdowns of any rational sort. For a week, a human could survive on nothing but water licked off moist rocks, in bountiful supply at the crash site!

The only factor really threatening the survival of the castaways on the planet was a bunch of cavemen. But why should the cavemen be a threat? There was no evidence of them being organized or united. Unlike the savage hordes of Cloud William, they would have no cultural animosity towards the exotic arrivals. If they were in any way humanlike, they would have no concept of armies at this stage of cultural development, no experience in campaigns, and no interest in territorial squabbles. Our heroes weren't sitting on a coveted local resource - they were occupying wasteland, the dwellers of which would be sorry outcasts indeed by local standards.

The response of people like this to a deadly threat would in all likelihood have been a cautious retreat. But even a full-blown suicide assault would have done nothing but eradicated the threat posed by the very small mountain tribe eking out a living there. The key would be to stop sending human sacrifices to the locals, and to set up a camp of civilized people.

Spock was acting alarmingly irrationally here, perhaps due to his human half overruling his Vulcan one, perhaps out of misguided (and misunderstood) concern for his human companions' feelings. Unless his aim indeed was a swift, fiery death for everybody, as opposed to the assured survival of some until inevitable rescue. But he himself claimed he would not be that egalitarian in his decisions of life and death.

Timo Saloniemi

[Gary7]

Timo wrote:

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Phasers can be drained for fuel (or other sort of takeoff oomph) in a few hours, which means this need not take place until a few hours before takeoff. Which could happen a week from the funeral.

A week. Well, clearly you've forgotten the time frame. It's no more than 2 days. Of course, we're not shown the landing party settling in for the night, waking up the next day, or the change from daylight to night time. The Captain's log starts the episode with stardate 2821.5 and later Kirk says they have until 2823.8 to complete the search. That's 2.3 star days.

OTOH, phasers have never been indicated to suffer from lack of ammo in preceding episodes, and later ones will show they are good for thousands of kills.

Well, sensibly speaking any energy weapon has a charge limit, so it's only logical to assume they are discharged in use and faster with higher settings.

In the episode, we fail to see even a single kill - but OTOH we fail to see any sort of physical damage e.g. to the shield of one of the beasts, heavily indicating our heroes are using the stun setting. "Disintegrate" would not distinguish between strong and weak opponents! Plus, even a single established kill would raise morale on the hero side and drop it on the villain side, so an outright attack met by a determined phaser defense would actually be highly desirable.

We are not shown any kills, that's right. If they used the highest setting, certainly a body, shield, or spear would disintegrate as we're shown in other episodes. At this point in TOS the only complete vaporization shown is of the duplicate Kirk in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", which was produced earlier. Why didn't the landing party use the vaporize setting at all? I consider it an oversight of the writing. To "make it fit", you have to assume that they started with stun first and then the lowest kill setting, either to conserve power or perhaps theoretically Spock mandated to only wound them, not kill.

Why not? A clean kill in TOS does not leave a body!

You're forgetting that there are at least three lethal phaser settings. One is to heat up objects (like rocks, and this would certainly burn someone), another is to cut through objects like a lance (kill), or vaporize (dead for sure). Vaporize would obviously require much more power. Captain Tracey used the more conservative setting so he could kill more men. There's no "partial" vaporization ever shown in TOS, TNG, or DS9. If you're touched by the beam on the highest setting, you vaporize.

This is never stated in the episode.

If you stick to that argument, forget about making any assumptions beyond what is stated in the episode, something you've taken great liberty of in many, many other discussions.

Getting to the orbit was a frivolous exercise in the first place. The castaways had no need to get into space, other than to get out of the reach of the cavemen - and that would have been far better achieved by camping out and slaying any approaching giants. Leave it to Kirk to effect the actual extraction, as he's so much better equipped to achieve it.

Frivolous? To get off the planet and head back to the Enterprise? Spock knew that the effects of the Murasaki quasar would make a search nearly fruitless. As he said, "SPOCK: If the ionisation effect is as widespread as I believe it is, Doctor, they'll be searching for us without instrumentation, by visual contact only. On those terms, this is a very large planet." They had to get off the planet, pure and simple.