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Was Kirk Lying?

Really, people speaking about money doesn't mean they would use money, any more than people speaking about religion would use that... The "credits to Navy beans" might have been a DeSalle family phrase from back when there still was such a thing as a Navy, which was a bit after they abolished credits!

But they actually used credits a few episodes later as a means of exchange, in "The Trouble With Tribbles"...
 
Or, Korob's mind reading was in fact flawed...

I'd go for flawed all the way. The idea of being able to read minds, especially those of aliens (Kirk was an alien from Korob's perspective) seems problematic from the get-go. But Kirk wasn't lying. The gems weren't too valuable to him in comparison with getting his hide out of that situation with the cat. :rommie:
 
Possible answer: Sylvia and Korob drew on their captives' emotions, on the cultural archetypes and myths that resonated with them viscerally, rather than on their factual knowledge. That's why we got a haunted castle with witches and skeletons and black cats. On a factual level, Scott, Sulu, and Jackson knew there were no witches or haunted castles and that black cats are no different than any other kind; but it was the archetypal, emotional symbolism of those things that the aliens tapped into and expected the landing party to respond to.

By the same token, jewels have been cultural archetypes of wealth and preciousness throughout history, and those archetypes and emotional resonances will remain in our stories and lore even after reality renders them moot. So just as with the haunted-house imagery, Sylvia and Korob were attuned to the ancient emotional/cultural archetypes in the backs of the humans' minds and were surprised when the humans reacted with modern, rational thinking instead.

EDIT: Looks like Greg and I were on the same page.

You are both writers.:bolian:

Maybe it's both - the Enterprise can manufacture gems by the bucketful, but that doesn't mean that the crew has access to them, to keep them for themselves. So, the jewels could be prized, Karob's info could be correct, and Jim could also be telling the truth.

Yes, Karob. One of the illusions he cast was that he was made of chocolate.;)
 
The central issue in Kirk's brag to Korob is that the Starship Enterprise's personnel and equipment "could manufacture a ton" of precious gems. This suggests that the Enterprise has an industrial process (like a super-advanced 3D printer) that, given the product's specifications and that they do not exceed the machine's capabilities, can "manufacture" many different articles, including clothes, food, machine parts, medical items, blankets, etc. Another possibility, quite a bit more advanced, would be that the TOS-era starships did have some early kind of replicator technology, maybe not food replicators, but maybe a room-sized industrial replicator for fabricating needed parts and other necessities while on the frontier. Either way, the technology would be very limited, possibly crude by TNG standards, but still a useful part of a starship's standard equipment.
 
The central issue in Kirk's brag to Korob is that the Starship Enterprise's personnel and equipment "could manufacture a ton" of precious gems. This suggests that the Enterprise has an industrial process (like a super-advanced 3D printer) that, given the product's specifications and that they do not exceed the machine's capabilities, can "manufacture" many different articles, including clothes, food, machine parts, medical items, blankets, etc. Another possibility, quite a bit more advanced, would be that the TOS-era starships did have some early kind of replicator technology, maybe not food replicators, but maybe a room-sized industrial replicator for fabricating needed parts and other necessities while on the frontier. Either way, the technology would be very limited, possibly crude by TNG standards, but still a useful part of a starship's standard equipment.
Variations of this have been accepted parts of the mythology since the beginning. Need one hundred flintlocks? Use the industrial printer/fabricator. McCoy needs Nazi jackboots? Use the industrial printer/fabricator(which explains why they didn't fit, if you ask me). Need uniforms/new clothes for whoever? Use the industrial printer/fabricator. Et cetera.
 
McCoy needs Nazi jackboots? Use the industrial printer/fabricator(which explains why they didn't fit, if you ask me).

Actually, speaking as someone who just bought a new pair of shoes yesterday, I'd think that it'd be easier to get shoes that fit via "print-on-demand" than by trial and error with a pre-existing selection. As long as the computer knew McCoy's measurements, it should've been able to manufacture custom-fit clothing on request. So if anything, the poor fit was probably the result of human error in the quartermaster's office.
 
The quartermaster's the one running the industrial printer/fabricator. He screwed up McCoy's measurements when he programmed the thing. ;)
 
Or then it's a matter of vanity, and McCoy steadfastly insists that his shoe size in the records be the same as when he enrolled.

(If he did make public the real reason for his swollen feet, the combination of the gout and painkillers, this might not do good for his career...)

Timo Saloniemi
 
McCoy needs Nazi jackboots? Use the industrial printer/fabricator(which explains why they didn't fit, if you ask me).

Actually, speaking as someone who just bought a new pair of shoes yesterday, I'd think that it'd be easier to get shoes that fit via "print-on-demand" than by trial and error with a pre-existing selection. As long as the computer knew McCoy's measurements, it should've been able to manufacture custom-fit clothing on request. So if anything, the poor fit was probably the result of human error in the quartermaster's office.

Maybe the problem was that the shoes weren't "broken in"?
 
Really, people speaking about money doesn't mean they would use money, any more than people speaking about religion would use that... The "credits to Navy beans" might have been a DeSalle family phrase from back when there still was such a thing as a Navy, which was a bit after they abolished credits!

You do know that DeSalle was speaking about a variety of bean and not the military branch, don't you?
 
No.,

There is a most excellent video on you tube called the Quantum revolution in which Michio Kaku (sp?) examines technology that has been developed that can move atoms, but can not form them into objects yet. He postulates that that technology, which he calls more appropriately a matter rearranger, will arrive in about 50 years.


When it arrives it does mean that there will be the ability to make as much gems and precious minerals that the government or the corporations that controls it wants.
 
When it arrives it does mean that there will be the ability to make as much gems and precious minerals that the government or the corporations that controls it wants.
Providing it's possible to tell the natural jems mined from the Earth, from the manufactured jems, the natural ones might be more valuable.

Authentic is usually more valuable than a well executed fake.

:)
 
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