Sequel to The Doomsday Machine

I always wondered what a sequel to The Doomsday Machine would be like. I know that when they chose to do a sequel (The Wrath of Khan) for Space Seed, part of the decision may have been based on the following exchange between Spock and Kirk at the end of Space Seed:

SPOCK: It would be interesting, Captain, to return to that world in a hundred years and to learn what crop has sprung from the seed you planted today.
KIRK: Yes, Mister Spock, it would indeed.

I noticed that at the end of The Doomsday Machine, they have similar dialogue that could very easily have suggested a sequel:

SPOCK: Appropriate, Captain. However, I can't help wondering if there are any more of those weapons wandering around the universe.
KIRK: Well, I certainly hope not. I found one quite sufficient.

So, what do you think a sequel to The Doomsday Machine would have been like, either as another episode in Season 4 or 5 or more than likely, as a movie (instead of TWOK) - STII: The Doomsday Ultimatum?

I could imagine a bunch of different scenarios:

• A dozen Doomsday Machines attacking our galaxy, sent by the race that built the originals. The newer ones are much more advanced.
• Will Decker somehow returning and playing a vital role in defeating them (That's for my father!!)
• Time Travel (ok I had to say it) used to return to the original battle, possibly saving Matt Decker and obtaining more information needed to defeat the new machines. Matt & Will sacrificing themselves (again) to defeat the new machines.

Those are just a few ideas. I can imagine a trilogy of movies sort of like how TWOK, TSFS and TVH all tied in together. After defeating or turning back the new Doomsday Machines, additional movies could have been about going to the source of the problem - the alien homeworld in another galaxy which produced the machines. Heck, maybe even resurrect Gary Mitchell somehow to get his help. The possibilities are endless!

Maybe if we ever get another Trek series on TV, we'll finally get the sequel.

 

In interviews episode writer Norman Spinrad said he was thinking along the lines of MOBY DICK. Although the premise of the story is very similar to Fred Saberhagen's BERSERKER stories.

If you are interested in a sequel, Saberhagen wrote many others to follow this first anthology—including a time travel story (book 2).

The idea of "newer," more advanced machines doesn't dovetail with the premise of the DM being an ultimate weapon, or series of weapons that destroyed everybody in an ancient interstellar war. TREK's Doomsday Machine seemed like a dumb brute mindlessly destroying everything in its path—which is frightening enough. However, Saberhagen's Berserkers were self-aware machines; devious and dangerously clever. It's been a while since I read the Berserker stories, so I cannot recall if they repaired each other, or improved their systems. (I have a vague memory of a drydock planet for the Berserkers, but perhaps I am remembering some other story.)

At the very least, the first anthology is recommended.

 

That was purely speculation on Kirk's part. We don't have a clue about the origins and purpose of The Doomsday Machine.

Maybe the machine had other uses or other capabilities that we don't know about. Perhaps its other capabilities failed, putting the machine in "safe mode" (from the machine's perspective) where survival was the #1 priority - eat and continue.

Maybe it wasn't a weapon at all, maybe it was some type of mining ship whose crew had died long ago and it malfunctioned. If you look at how small Nomad was in "The Changeling" and yet it was responsible for wiping out an entire system of 4 billion people, we could speculate that the size of The Doomsday Machine implied other capabilities that we know nothing about. Maybe it was a life form? If Data, who is a machine, can be considered a life form, why not The Doomsday Machine?

I wonder what happened to it? Was it towed back for study? Better to take it, tear it apart, see what made it tick than leave it for someone else to do. Imagine if the Klingons got ahold of it and somehow got it to work again.

There are so many stories that could be written about it, I think it's begging for a sequel.

 

Folks are reminded that the Star Trek New Voyages / Phase II episode "In Harm's Way" was a sequel to "The Doomsday Machine"--of sorts. It was one of our earliest efforts--and has everything in it but the kitchen sink. Nevertheless, it's fun to see (the late) William Windom reprise his Matt Decker role--and it's nice to know that the Doomsday Machine didn't just destroy the shuttlecraft with Matt Decker aboard; it simply flung them safely into Earth's past.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyCJ57eQyoE[/yt]

 

Vendetta by Peter David?

 

I have a vague recollection of that but have never read it. Honestly, I'm absolutely sick of the Borg. Initially they were interesting but I just never cared for them. I think they were overdone as a villian. Yes, I realize the Romulans and Klingons were long time bad guys but at least they had character.

I won't be too displeased if I never hear about the Borg again. I certainly wouldn't want to see them in another TV episode or movie or even a novel.

 

That was the first book that came to my mind, too.

 

I saw it when it first came out, I'll have to rewatch it again. It also ties in with the Guardian of Forever if I'm not mistaken.

 

This one is as fan-wanky as fan-wanky can get. That is both very good and very bad.

 

I was reading those during the 60s and 70s, always hoping someone would do a big screen version of them.

 

Yes--fan-wankery. And intentionally so. The intent was to throw everything we could into this one episode. I think we wanted to get it out of our system.

 

It was inferred by Kirk that it was probably the last weapon of it's kind from a war in another galaxy from long ago! I think it works best like that! Another installment might detract from this one I'd say!
JB

 

I actually submitted a DDM sequel to TNG, titled "The Day Before Doomsday", in which the dead, and supermassive neutronium hulk of the Planet Killer was drifting towards an inhabited solar system, and its gravitational influence itself was threatening to disrupt the orbits of the planets and thus kill everyone. Since it was too massive to move or deflect, the crew's only choice was to somehow re-activate it and use the Enterprise to lure it away from the system before it was too late. I remember actually doing the math to figure out the bloody thing's mass based on formulas for neutron star core material density. Sca-ry.

 

Good point.

Ugh, no. That would suck all the life out the original episode, like Arthur C. Clarke destroying the awe and mystery of the monolith in one of the 2001 sequels where he turned it into a mere computer—one that could be attacked by a "generic" computer virus. Gimme a break.

Double ugh! Tired, wishy-washy cliché. Don't go there.

See? Listen to Johhny Bear.

If it were possible for neutronium to exist. (Nuclear chemistry says no.) Still, since you're talking fiction, I'll grant your neutronium. The builders of the DM stole the neutronium bricks out of the gateway to a wormhole highway.

 

Okay, what would a sequel's story be all about? The original Doomsday Machine episode was all Moby Dick with Matt Decker's tragic sense of loss, and his suicidal quest to avenge his dead crew.

Pretty powerful stuff back in the 60s, and still as powerful today. I still rate that episode as my all-time favourite. A sequel would need to find an angle that's different, but just as compelling (and if someone would ever get as great a script on the page, I wouldn't encourage them to introduce a Matt Decker substitute character in there, you'd be nuts to think you could cast an actor as well as William Windom was suited for Decker).

I like to put In Harm's Way on my computer screen as a guilty pleasure, but it went all over the place, story-wise. An editor's nightmare, but lots of fun play-acting...

 

I quite liked that back in the day. I might even still have my copy.

There is room for speculation about the true intent for the device given we know nothing about its background. It possibly had other caabilities and could be more directed in its actions, but possibly it was damaged or malfunctioned in some way so that it was left to simply destroy indiscriminately.

There is a big issue with the device. While it was massive in comparison to a starship it would still be less than miniscule compared to a planet. With that in mind it could take quite some time for it to reduce a planet to complete rubble. The device would be better off to feed on asteroids which are more plentiful and much, much smaller.

So it might not have been a weapon by design originally. It became one when it attacked inhabited planets and even starships. In its simple (albeit malfunctioning) programming it possibly didn't even discern between habitable and non habitable worlds. A starship became nothing more than an annoyance equal to that of a mosquito without any recognition that there could be any intelligence involved.

 

FASA had a game scenario called "A Doomsday Like Any Other" as a movie era sequel. Another machine is spotted, but this time the Romulans are trying to gain control of it. FASA includes some form of interior control space to the device as Starfleet tries to beat the Romulans in gaining control or destroying this Doomsday Machine.

 

I had a story I outlined for one of my comics that was sort of a sequel to Doomsday Machine. We've dropped the idea, so I'll give it away here.
What we saw in the episode TDM was actually the second time the machine had been encountered. The first time, while Kirk was aboard the Constellation, when he called for impulse power and phasers from Scotty, he could not produce them, and the Enterprise was destroyed. Kirk and Scotty survive, but their lives are ruined by the guilt. 30 years later, Scotty and someone else go back in time and attempt to fix things behind the scenes so this time the events play out like we saw in the original ep.
We dropped the idea because we could never quite figure out who was with Scotty helping him. We came up with several ideas, none of which we were really happy with. A new character who had their own agenda for the DM, to hijack it and use it for revenge, Scotty's own future son, who ends up sacrificing his own existence to save his Dad's past, or some version of future Kirk. One who was mad, a play on what had happened to Decker, or one who in the end turned out to be a figment of future Scotty's unbalanced imagination.
We couldn't decide, so we dropped it.

 

Which is basically what happened in Voyager's last episode. Janeway goes back in time to change things because she felt guilty about Tuvok's condition and other issues with her old crew.

Using time travel to "fix" things is overused in Trek. I suppose it's ok when it's used like it was in The City on the Edge of Forever, because McCoy initially altered the time line and they went back to fix it. But to use it like they did in Voyager, simply because Janeway felt bad and wanted to change the previous 30+ years shouldn't be allowed.

 

Mars, that's another reason we dropped it, couldn't think of anything NEW we could say. The story needed to be ABOUT something.