Voyage Home Probe

[hux]

Sat here in bed (surrounded by peanuts, jelly babies and a flatulent Daschund) watching Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and it occurred to me, who actually sent the probe?

I've never bothered to think about it before. You just get caught up in the narrative of the film and enjoy the moment they save the day etc.

Has this been explored in the litverse? A whale-like species? Presumably one that has visited Earth prior to the events of the films.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Probe_(novel) is the only exploration of it so far that I know of.

 

[Kilana2]

All I can tell you is that there is a novel called The Probe by Margaret Wander Bonnano

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Probe_%28novel%29

Obviously only her name is on the cover. I have read it, but I can hardly remember any details.

 

[Kilana2]

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Probe_(novel) is the only exploration of it so far that I know of.

I'm happy that you didn't use the same quote....

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Great minds think alike, of course!

 

[OpenMaw]

All I can say to this thread is...

...WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB

That noise used to unsettle me as a kid. Very unearthly and intimidating. Who knew it was Nimoy.

 

[eyeresist]

Coincidentally we've been the discussing the cetaceans that are supposedly aboard the Ent-D in another thread. Maybe they opened relations with the Federation after TVH, and that's how they're in TNG.

Alternately the Aquatic Xindi from ENT may be involved somehow. They've been involved in devastating the Earth on a previous occasion.

 

[Doug Otte]

Sat here in bed (surrounded by peanuts, jelly babies and a flatulent Daschund) watching Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and it occurred to me, who actually sent the probe?

Trying to blame the dog? That's an old excuse, and I'm not buying it!

 

[hux]

All I can tell you is that there is a novel called The Probe by Margaret Wander Bonnano

Having done some minimal research, she seems keen to distance herself from the book. I gather she wrote it but then it was altered to such an extent that she rejected authorship.

Trying to blame the dog? That's an old excuse, and I'm not buying it!

They're small but they really pack a punch those Daschunds.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

All I can tell you is that there is a novel called The Probe by Margaret Wander Bonnano

Having done some minimal research, she seems keen to distance herself from the book. I gather she wrote it but then it was altered to such an extent that she rejected authorship.

I've read the original manuscript. It is vastly different than the published book.

When writing a Star Trek novel, the story gets approved by Paramount at every step of the way. It's their property, and they are protective of it. At the time, Roddenberry was still alive, and his office also had approvals. Paramount's licensing office approved Bonanno's outline, and she wrote the novel. Roddenberry's office wouldn't approve the manuscript when it was completed. There were elements of the outline Roddenberry's office would accept and many elements that they wouldn't. The Roddenberry-edited outline was handed off to another writer, Gene DeWeese, and he wrote a new manuscript, using one or two passages from her manuscript. (There's one page in the book that Bonanno will autograph, as it's her work.) The published book bears her name because Pocket had already printed up the dust jackets, and DeWeese is credited inside.

That's the story of Probe as I remember it.

 

[JoeZhang]

I have this really vague memory that it is hinted (and really vaguely) that the Borg wiped out their creators in another book (and I cannot remember even how they work that out).


Edit: or maybe this is in probe itself??

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I have this really vague memory that it is hinted (and really vaguely) that the Borg wiped out their creators in another book (and I cannot remember even how they work that out).

Edit: or maybe this is in probe itself??

That's in Probe, yes. Something like two billion years ago, the Borg came to the homeworld of the Probe builders and shattered it. When Spock mind-melds with the Probe he sees the destruction of the Probe's homeworld through its "eyes," and McCoy refers to the Borg as "Super-Klingons."

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

I always pictured the probe builders as a highly advanced whale-like species.

 

[Ronald Held]

I always pictured the probe builders as a highly advanced whale-like species.

Or highly evolved cetaceans.

 

[publiusr]

The Probe and the Doomsday Machine do have that rough hewn look to them--but the Whale-Probe was supposed to have been damaged by the Borg.

 

[Maurice]

Damaged by the Borg in some novels maybe. But this is exactly the kind of thing that I hate about fan service: everything is connected to everything else, like some stupid small town. In a galaxy of 400 billion stars there;'s two degrees of separation. Phooey.

 

[tharpdevenport]

I always pictured the probe builders as a highly advanced whale-like species.

Yes, and thye have plot balls which they randomly shove together to write new episodes of "Family Guy".



I think the real problem with the probe isn't that we never know who sent it but rather the vaguity of it and it's actions. From a race seemingly proclaimed to be more intelligent because it cares about ONE species of whale that went extinct, it seems to have no problems tearing up the oceans in a manner that would kill off large swaths and even make extinct other species (which may well include various types of whales), and almost destroy a planet full of civilized intelligent life. One could argue the probe was acting autonimously, but the tech' displayed would suggest a race smarter than that, that would have tech' onboard that would know what it is doing is wrong.

Unless we have a race that cares more about animals and killing animals in it's quest for supposed love and caring, like the PETA of space. In which case we'd have a hostile race. But since it didn't go out of its way to destroy every ship and people on the planetary surface, it could suggest a less intelligent race, another galaxy's Pakleds.

 

[Timo]

I don't see why this vaguity should be a negative thing. We simply don't know what the probe is up to, what it wants, what it does to achieve this, and whether it gets what it wanted. That it would care for whales is conjecture, not all that well supported by the events.

Heck, a better conjecture might be that this probe (or whatever) has been visiting Earth often enough that whales have learned to imitate the sounds it makes when it conducts its business here, in a cargo cult of sorts...

Having this whale noise in the oceans might be ruining all of the probe's so far beneficial plans (Noah was very pleased with the last visit, thank you), and it now has to leave Earth and never return because of these annoying cetacean pests that suddenly popped up from nowhere and polluted the oceans!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[dub]

Maybe its creators are the ancient versions of the Xindi-Aquatics?

 

[Marsden]

I think it was the Dingleberries from the planet MacGuffin that sent the probe.