That's been postulated about the salt vampires before, and is the main reason I question whether they're the ones who had the advanced civilization on M-113. If any intelligence they're able to manifest is directly linked to whoever or whatever they're creating an illusion for, it's a false intelligence; a masquerade to lower the defenses of its prey, and little more. Crater seemed to take advantage of the masquerade, until the creature sensed he was no longer going to be able to help it. Then it tried to get McCoy to take advantage of the masquerade, until he saw its true form. Apparently it couldn't keep the illusion in place while it was feeding.
M-113 Creature/"Salt Vampire" in "The Man Trap"
- Thread starter t_smitts
- Start date
Maybe they de-evolved after their society collapsed? That way they reverted to using their abilities for survival especially as this one was the last of it's kind like Crater explained!
JB
JB
Intriguingly, Kirk likened the beast to the last of the buffalo - not to the last of the Bengali tiger, as might perhaps have been more fitting, what with the known man-eating qualities of the thing.
Perhaps something of the true nature of the creature was leaking through with all the telepathy going on, and Kirk unconsciously understood that this animal would have been "grazing" or at least preying on purely nonsapient life if not for the extreme situation.
It's a bit difficult to tell what the telepathic camouflage originally evolved for. Yet we humans retain canines in our mouths despite not savagely ripping apart prey animals any longer (as we have found superior means of savagery); they would probably come in handy were civilization to collapse again. And of course many only formerly functional or always nonfunctional characteristics of our bodies are retained and exaggerated for sexual purposes - the big jaws of the males for one, with their nonsensical lumps. Wouldn't the ability to be anything and everything your partner hoped for be the ultimate sexual advantage?
Timo Saloniemi
Perhaps something of the true nature of the creature was leaking through with all the telepathy going on, and Kirk unconsciously understood that this animal would have been "grazing" or at least preying on purely nonsapient life if not for the extreme situation.
It's a bit difficult to tell what the telepathic camouflage originally evolved for. Yet we humans retain canines in our mouths despite not savagely ripping apart prey animals any longer (as we have found superior means of savagery); they would probably come in handy were civilization to collapse again. And of course many only formerly functional or always nonfunctional characteristics of our bodies are retained and exaggerated for sexual purposes - the big jaws of the males for one, with their nonsensical lumps. Wouldn't the ability to be anything and everything your partner hoped for be the ultimate sexual advantage?
Timo Saloniemi
I really enjoy the episode, and I don't really like trying to rip apart every damn thing like some do, but salt?
I am assuming it's Sodium Chloride they are talking about. A very simple ionic bond of two basic elements, what is the process of digestion and what are it's waste products? Does it exhale chlorine gas? Would it react violently with water like sodium? A water gun might have been more effective than a phaser, but it survived the moisture of the bodies of it's victims. I'm just not sure how a planet can run out of salt being that it's such a basic compound and it's only two constituent ingredients can't be broken down because they are elements.
BTW, thanks for those pics. I really think the actress should have gotten some kind of credit, but I realize that wasn't how things were done then, or maybe even now.
I am assuming it's Sodium Chloride they are talking about. A very simple ionic bond of two basic elements, what is the process of digestion and what are it's waste products? Does it exhale chlorine gas? Would it react violently with water like sodium? A water gun might have been more effective than a phaser, but it survived the moisture of the bodies of it's victims. I'm just not sure how a planet can run out of salt being that it's such a basic compound and it's only two constituent ingredients can't be broken down because they are elements.
BTW, thanks for those pics. I really think the actress should have gotten some kind of credit, but I realize that wasn't how things were done then, or maybe even now.
Maybe it's a type of blood salt that the creature needed? The salt on the planet was of no use to it and it needed the chemical found in living bodies to survive on! Maybe Crater's salt pills were aenough for it to subsist on but it preferred the tastier stuff present in humans?
JB
JB
It is in fact possible that Crater was eating the salt and then letting the creature feed on him, just enough to sustain itself. It can subsist on the pure stuff, but salt that has been absorbed and processed for use by the body is not only tasty, but better for it.
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This^ The appearance that the creature assumed might not necessarily be someone in the prospective victim's memory, but just having features that coalesced into a form that the creature sensed they would find appealing. As you say, there would be no need for it to have knowledge of the person's native language, just putting phrases together that it knew the victim would also find compelling.
I don't think that this is really substantiated. We simply aren't shown any behavior or thought on its part that doesn't relate to the need to feed, the means that it uses get its fix, and that it seems to have no bounds in limiting the pursuit of its goal. It may well be conscience, aware, and concerned about other things, but given the cornucopia of full sized sustenance now available, any other matters may simply pale in comparison. I find it interesting that of the creatures featured on the series that can speak for themselves, it may be one of the few that doesn't really say anything about its nature, identity, ethos, or anything really other than the received thoughts that it uses for this single function. Even many of the sophisticated computers we saw, onboard or on an alien planet, often explained themselves, to some degree. Why not beg for its life by revealing its nature of the last of its species, that it will cease its murderous behavior (whether truthful or not) and will allow itself to be studied if an accommodation on the salt stores provided to it, satisfactory to both parties, can be reached? In a way, the character does somewhat strike me as Kirk describes it, roughly an empty cipher for Crater.
As to it being unmasked, finally, before McCoy, you're suggestion may be possible. My thought on the situation, was that concealing its identity no longer served a purpose, at least for anyone in the quarters. Spock knew what it was, Kirk was about to die, and as that intention was clear, its appearance being hidden from McCoy had outlived its usefulness, as both he and Spock were gong to have die as well, so the pretense (and possible the energy required to maintain it) was now superfluous.
This^ The appearance that the creature assumed might not necessarily be someone in the prospective victim's memory, but just having features that coalesced into a form that the creature sensed they would find appealing. As you say, there would be no need for it to have knowledge of the person's native language, just putting phrases together that it knew the victim would also find compelling.
I don't think that this is really substantiated. We simply aren't shown any behavior or thought on its part that doesn't relate to the need to feed, the means that it uses get its fix, and that it seems to have no bounds in limiting the pursuit of its goal. It may well be conscience, aware, and concerned about other things, but given the cornucopia of full sized sustenance now available, any other matters may simply pale in comparison. I find it interesting that of the creatures featured on the series that can speak for themselves, it may be one of the few that doesn't really say anything about its nature, identity, ethos, or anything really other than the received thoughts that it uses for this single function. Even many of the sophisticated computers we saw, onboard or on an alien planet, often explained themselves, to some degree. Why not beg for its life by revealing its nature of the last of its species, that it will cease its murderous behavior (whether truthful or not) and will allow itself to be studied if an accommodation on the salt stores provided to it, satisfactory to both parties, can be reached? In a way, the character does somewhat strike me as Kirk describes it, roughly an empty cipher for Crater.
As to it being unmasked, finally, before McCoy, you're suggestion may be possible. My thought on the situation, was that concealing its identity no longer served a purpose, at least for anyone in the quarters. Spock knew what it was, Kirk was about to die, and as that intention was clear, its appearance being hidden from McCoy had outlived its usefulness, as both he and Spock were gong to have die as well, so the pretense (and possible the energy required to maintain it) was now superfluous.
I just looked at the final draft script from June 16, 1966.
As to who built the structures on the planet, that's made pretty plain in the script. On page 57 there's what I think is a line cut from the final episode where the Creature as the unreal McCoy says:
The facts are available to you
also, Mister. Spock You've
seen the evidence of their
civilization... one can draw
certain conclusions.
There's a NOTE TO DIRECTORS on a page at the front of the script which only muddies the waters as to what the Creature's abilities are. "Crater and McCoy see her the same because both knew the real Nancy. Others see what they want to see or expect to see. "Nancy's" ability to change her appearance..." So it seems like the idea is that it's a hypnotic sort of thing, but then how come Rand sees Green? It sorta smacks as not really thought through.
As to who built the structures on the planet, that's made pretty plain in the script. On page 57 there's what I think is a line cut from the final episode where the Creature as the unreal McCoy says:
McCOY
also, Mister. Spock You've
seen the evidence of their
civilization... one can draw
certain conclusions.
Rand probably saw Green because she knew him, as did everyone who addressed the creature as Green. The creature was appearing as a common image to everyone to be able to blend in, and as many of them knew Green, that's the image it stuck with.
Maybe George Clayton Johnson was the dude in the displayed Salt Vampire suit in "The Squire of Gothos".
I read into the episode that the creatures' nature, the salt vampirism, was a trait that destroyed life on the planet, with their having to prey on animals, then each other, till only one was left.
It's interesting, I guess, that they went out of their way to pose questions about whether s/he was malevolent or misunderstood, only to avoid dealing with all that in the end. They certainly didn't have to raise the questions if they wanted a straightforward monster story, but then they rush past whether it's possible to reason with her/him, having it just start killing indiscriminately, so that it has to be killed, one way or the other. You're left feeling it's pointless to try to reason with such a creature, why even try? You'll only get more people killed. Weird alien threats must be destroyed. Crater's heart bled too much, according to Kirk. Yet this is Star Trek, not a monster movie, and they did get us thinking about saving it. Strange. I never know how to take this episode.
It's interesting, I guess, that they went out of their way to pose questions about whether s/he was malevolent or misunderstood, only to avoid dealing with all that in the end. They certainly didn't have to raise the questions if they wanted a straightforward monster story, but then they rush past whether it's possible to reason with her/him, having it just start killing indiscriminately, so that it has to be killed, one way or the other. You're left feeling it's pointless to try to reason with such a creature, why even try? You'll only get more people killed. Weird alien threats must be destroyed. Crater's heart bled too much, according to Kirk. Yet this is Star Trek, not a monster movie, and they did get us thinking about saving it. Strange. I never know how to take this episode.
Saving the alien would have been an academic exercise anyway - she (?) was the last of her (?) kind, and the species was doomed anyway. At most, 23rd century technology could create a substitute species of clones, largely unrelated to the species let alone the culture of which the monster of the week was the last representative.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
I wonder what they called their planet? I doubt it was M113 to them!
JB
JB
But our canines have shrunk to the point where they're pretty useless for tearing flesh. Just look at the dentition of a cat or a dog -- now, those are some canine teeth.
That reminds me of a bit of careless writing in "The Man Trap." Professor Crater compares the creature's ability to assume other forms to "the way the chameleon uses its protective coloring, an ability retained no doubt from its primitive state, the way we have retained our incisor teeth. They were once fangs."
Of course, it's our canine teeth that were once fangs.
But he did sound drunk after being hit by that phaser! Maybe it still hadn't fully worn off? 
JB
JB
I don't quite understand your indifference to the prospect. By academic, are you relegating the significance of the accumulation of knowledge of a soon to be extinct species, perhaps gaining insights on its culture, values, and history, to be of no account? How do we know how long the creature might have survived in a sheltered environment where its needs could be met in a way that wouldn't endanger any more lives? You bitch and moan so much about the callous, unchecked machinations of Starfleet and its captain minions who arbitrarily, and without sanction from an ultimately enabling Federation, to instigate war at the drop of a hat and level planets with inhabitants whom they don't find particularly aesthetically pleasing, amongst other ridiculous contentions, and yet you seem casually content with the idea of not even attempting to preserve a remnant of a race that no one will ever see again, other than in a spoiled brat's alcove.
Laudable and enlightened philosophy? Not so much.
...preserve a remnant of a race that no one will ever see again, other than in a spoiled brat's alcove.
And the first opportunity said brat gets, he vaporizes it.
And the first opportunity said brat gets, he vaporizes it.
Also, "the way the chameleon uses its protective coloring" is wrong as well - the coloring is not for protection but for communication... Although perhaps 23rd century science has established that the communicative colors originally evolved from camouflage?
I'm arguing two things, I guess: that no such insight is to be gained from this single individual, who is unlikely to have accumulated anything at all - and, further, that saving this creature or it species could in no way result in this insight somehow coming back into being.
Artificially prolonging the life of this single individual would be nothing but hideous torture for torture's sake, no different from waterboarding a suspected terrorist long after it has become clear he or she knows nothing at all. Forcibly creating a slave race of laboratory specimen out of the individual's genes would be worse than what the Talosians (claimed they) intended.
Humans of tomorrow may have their fun with resurrecting mammoths and dinosaurs if they wish. Those aren't on our side of the uncanny valley of intellect. The salt vampire certainly is, even if that's just camouflage. Torturing close human analogues for "scientific" freak show purposes... Not for me, please.
Timo Saloniemi
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