wasn't there a comment in the DB,IP episode that Julian may not have needed treatment and that he could've grown up fine if his 'rents hadn't interfered...
I don't know, but I think it's possible. Poor hand-eye cooridination? There's this little thing called practice, which works very well. I should know.
Yes, he stated that they didn't really give him a chance. He wasn't the authority on that, but it is possible.
Just finished this book. Really liked it. I have not read the original so maybe someday I will backtrack and do that. I liked how we got to see the events of the movies play out differently (and similarly) but one question.... So the Whales are fine in MU? "Hey Probe, thanks for stopping by but all good here. .." LOL
The original is basically just Chapters 1, 2, 5, 23, 24, 26, 33-35, 39, 40, 45, 47, 49, and 50 of the expanded version. I don't think much of anything was changed, aside from maybe a few slight textual tweaks. So if you've read the longer version, you've essentially already read the shorter version.
FWIW This is what David said about the differences between the two versions in my interview with him for Uneality SF back around the time of the release of the novel version:
Maybe the Probe or its progenitor civilization exterminated the cetaceans during its first attempt to make contact with them, when they refused to serve its ends? It doesn't need to come back. And of course if there were evidence of possible extraterrestrial annihilation on Earth of the past, who knows how more swiftly and with how much more militant prepardness humans might have conquered space... Just a thought.
Have you read the Myriad Universes novella (or is it a short novel) The Chimes at Midnight? The whole story is looking at the an alternate version of the movies. I know it covers from around the time of Wrath of Kahn to at least The Voyage Home, possibly up to The Undiscovered Country, I can't remember for sure.
In the MU, perhaps the Empire somehow managed to destroy the whale probe before it reached Earth. Some kind of doomsday weapon or something like that. Or the probe could have simply avoided Mirror Earth altogether so as not to have to deal with those nasty mirror humans. Or, even more fancifully, maybe the alt-Earth just never had the extinction of the humpback whales. Without that, the probe would have no reason to threaten Earth at all.