Why kill off David Marcus?

[/QUOTE]Agree completely. I was just about to post something exactly along these lines. The protomatter plot (and tumble with the knifey Klingon) was a cheap writer's trick to turn David into some kind of tragic hero. For all anyone knew, Genesis could have worked if they used a real planet.[/QUOTE]

I always wondered about this too, given that the Genesis Planet that was created in TWOK using matter from the Mutura Nebula was not created in the way that it appeared to have been intended per Carol Marcus' proposal video. For all we know, the way it was created might have made the planet unstable, NOT the Protomatter (necessarily)

 

I never bought into the idea that David warranted any kind of punishment for what he did. Using proto-matter was only revealed in STIII so you can't blame him for Khan killing the station's personal. And the klingons? Kruge was more than willing to kill for it even if it was a failure because it could still pulverize a planet.

And probably the biggest point of all, Genesis being unstable due to David using proto-matter was the whole reason why Spock came back to life! So when Saavik asks "How many have paid the price for your ambition? How many have died? What damage have you done and what is yet to come?" Uh, I'll go with -1 death since the person who did die is sitting with us at this very moment! And thanks to Spock's revival, he plays an extremely vital role in not just saving the Earth in the next movie, but preventing a galactic meltdown between the Federation and the Klingons.

Also, it's not as if the reveal of David using proto-matter would be a grievous crime since the experiment was being done under very controlled circumstances. Their restrictions were so tight that even unseeable microbes were protected. Plus maybe if Genesis was delivered in the way it was meant to be delivered, on the surface of a dead planet and not from the gasses of a nebula, the results may have been better? All I know is that Genesis, even as a failure is still a FANTASTIC START!

David did no wrong.

 

In 1986, I heard Jimmy Doohan say that it seemed the fans just didn't warm to new characters like David and Saavik.

 

I thought Kirk should have focused on his actual family, too. I know sometimes they don't want to confuse audiences by referring to minor characters from previous productions, but the writers had nothing to gain by introducing yet another love interest (Antonia), especially as we never even see her. Heck, all they would have had to do is just name her Carol and that would have helped. Or if they did show a younger David, it would have made a nice parallel between Kirk and Picard both regretting not having families.

 

I remember watching "Generations" in the theater and these two guys behind me yelled at the screen, "Yo, what about Carol Marcus?"

 

Indeed, as the SF Debris review pointed out, when Saavik asks how many people have died because of his actions he should have pointed at Spock and gone "Minus 1".

 

Well, except that if the ``problems'' with Genesis hadn't been solved or nearly solved, there'd have been no need to send Reliant out looking for test planets. So, the Reliant's crew, Khan's followers, the Enterprise cadets, Spock, and whatever Enterprise regular crew were killed wouldn't have died. Also the Klingons who were killed around Genesis, come to think of that.

There's no way that David Marcus could possibly have foreseen any of that? Agreed. This is so. But then there's also no way that David Marcus could possibly have foreseen that Genesis would somehow have the effect of reviving the dead.

(If he could have foreseen that effect, then that would have been the project's selling point. Not ``making new livable planets'' when the Federation obviously has a hard time finding non-livable planets.)

If moral luck absolves him of the blame for those who died following the scouting for test sites for Genesis, then it must also absolve him of credit for the life it did save.

 

Surely the death's in Khan are directly the fault of whoever it was on the Reliant who had the job of making sure they went into orbit of the right planet? It's kind of worrying a solar system can lose an entire world and a Star Fleet science vessel with a crew member who has been there before completely fails to notice it. No wonder they struggled to find a lifeless planet for Genesis, they probably flew right past dozens.

 

Plus, that's not really the fault of David for illegally using proto-matter to try and speed things up (which is what Saavik was chucking a tizzy about.) That was just the consequences of creating something like Genesis in the first place. There are always going to be people who will try to steal or reverse engineer new technology for their own ends.

Khan didn't even really know that Genesis problems had been solved. When they ran into him, they were looking for an area to do more tests.

 

Agreed, making David the moral fall-guy doesn't stand up to examination of the facts. The Genesis cave was fine, showing no sign of instability. The planet was unstable - but Genesis was not meant to create planets, and David didn't try to do so. Furthermore, David is not responsible for the actions of the Klingons - the responsibilty for any deaths should really fall to Starfleet, for not providing adequate security.

I agree that Kirk being there for David's childhood would have been a great Nexus fantasy. But then convincing him to leave would be much more difficult, and some of the audience would think Kirk heartless for abandoning his son.

 

Assuming it's a standard feature of the Nexus and not one of Guinan's magical plot utility belt powers, an "echo" of Kirk's (and Picard's) consciousness could still remain in the Nexus, carrying on having dreams with both David and Antonia and others indefinitely.

Personally, I always likened the Nexus to a spaceborne lifeform feeding off the happiness of its captives, and replaying their hopes and dreams in its "memory banks" even after some of them escaped, which is what Guinan's echo was (it doesn't have control over their thoughts though, which is why they can assist others in escaping). It could explain why it randomly accelerates and slows down, and how it has energy tendrils that seem to seek out targets to grab and repel ships that could make large scale rescues.

While it had a different structure and methods, the spaceborne lifeform in VOY Bliss fed off its victim's happiness as well, so it's not unprecedented.

 

I think Guinan's "echo" would be the result of her special powers, though I also think the movie might have been stronger (from a TOS perspective) if it had been Spock in the Nexus instead of Guinan.

 

In the DC Comic of the time (non canon, I know) when Kirk showed up at Regula 1 for David's funeral (in the stolen BoP) she called Starfleet on him and had his ass arrested.

 

I thought that Guinan's echo was the result of being ripped away from the Nexus with the transporter while in a state of flux instead of voluntarily leaving it. And her mysterious sixth sense, or whatever (as seen in "Yesterday's Enterprise") came from having an echo of herself trapped outside of our spacetime continuum, not the other way around.

Now I'll have to watch that turkey GEN again.

Kor

 

I guess you could infer that, but it's in no way implied in the film.

 

^ Maybe I read it in one of the books. I don't think I made that up myself.

I think something like that may have been in either the junior novelization, which some young lady gave me at the time the movie came out, or the regular novelization, which I read later. And back then I had no idea that Trek books weren't "cannnnnon."

EDIT: I just looked up Memory Alpha, and the source of my supposition about Guinan's special sense is the novel "Engines of Destiny."

Kor