Fact-Checking Inside Star Trek: The Real Story

[UnknownSample]

My 9 year old self was being introduced for the VERY first time here (in the briefing room scene in AF) to the idea of another reality somehow existing in the SAME SPACE, at the same time. Starting with Mirror Mirror, mainstream audiences have been presented with parallel universes ad nauseum, and it's a standard tired-out entertainment cliché by now. It's trotted out to get another episode made. Back then though, unless you were a reader of SF novels, it was new, at least in a show purporting to be based on possible science, not fantasy. Viewers probably don't think about WHERE parallel universe stories take place, any more than they wonder where heaven is. "Somewhere else" is enough for them. AF, though, talked about overlapping realities in the exact same space, in the same room you're sitting in. This stuff is happening right now, right here, and it's as real as this table, or me..... A later generation viewer is obviously just going to think "just another parallel universe story", but timing matters. An overlapping reality in the same space was mind bending to me, never ever having heard it before, and then the idea of the other being anti-matter, making contact between the two disastrous, that grabbed me. I knew what anti-matter was.
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I'm trying to think of when I learned what anti-matter is. This may be the only TOS episode where it's explained that m and anti-m particles annihilate each other, and putting that together with references to the m/anti-m engines, I got it. Maybe. So this supposedly worthless scene may have explained a key part of Star Trek for me, as well as a key part of physics, which I was able to flesh out further on my own.

 

[Christopher]

^Okay, that's fair. Still, it was an incredibly clumsy and erroneous presentation of the concept, and you needed additional information from better sources to fully understand what it was trying to say.

 

[UnknownSample]

^Okay, that's fair. Still, it was an incredibly clumsy and erroneous presentation of the concept, and you needed additional information from better sources to fully understand what it was trying to say.

Another thing I'd given Trek credit for was actually making a plot point out of the possibility of a form of life based on silicon rather than carbon, because of similarity in the two molecules, I think. (Devil in the Dark, of course.) On last viewing, though, I noticed that they dropped this concept on us, without spending even a fraction of a second explaining it. So how much credit do I really want to give? I found out quickly enough. It was actually being talked about by some kid at school who was supplying the explanation... But it's very strange now, hearing the big dramatic music go off at the word SILICON! ... as if we're supposed to know already.

 

[Harvey]

Who knew "The Alternative Factor" could result in such a lengthy discussion!?

Today, I re-posted Mr. Eversole's script review of the staff re-write for "The Alternative Factor" (dated November 11, 1966, although many pages in the draft are actually from after that date).

https://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2016/12/unseen-trek-alternative-factor-final.html

This script was the episode as it was shot and -- largely -- broadcast.

I'm putting the finishing touches on a lengthy fact-check (or at least on part 1 -- part 2 to come later) about the episode as it is discussed in These Are The Voyages and (to a much lesser extent) an interview with the late Don Ingalls in Starlog. Suffice it to say, Cushman and Osborn's version has...problems when compared to the archival record.

Hope to have that out this week.

 

[Hey Missy]

Isn't there actually no true account on what really happened behind the scenes of TOS, with most of the books and autobiographies being lies and half-truths and exaggerations?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I don't think it's possible to get an objectively true account of what happened behind the scenes of TOS, especially this many years after it was produced. Memory is selective, and everyone is the hero of their own story.

I just finished William Shatner's book about Leonard Nimoy, and there are several instances where Nimoy remembered Shatner being harsher than Shatner recalled.

 

[Christopher]

Isn't there actually no true account on what really happened behind the scenes of TOS, with most of the books and autobiographies being lies and half-truths and exaggerations?

One of the first things I learned as a history major is that every source has a bias, intentional or otherwise. What we think we perceive or remember is filtered by our perspective, our expectations, our worldview, etc. And human senses and memories are fallible. A dozen eyewitnesses trying to recount the same event as truthfully as possible will give a dozen different versions -- closer to two dozen if they have to tell it twice. There's no way to have perfect knowledge of what really happened. All we can do is gather as many accounts as possible, recognize the tellers' likely or known biases, and try to construct the best approximation of events that we can, with the understanding that it will be shaped by our own biases and expectations as well.

 

[Harvey]

What @Christopher said.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

That's why I like the oral history format so much. You read direct quotes from the participants, largely unfiltered, sometimes in direct contradiction to each other, and you decide for yourself which statements are likely closest to the truth.

 

[plynch]

I rely on Harvey, actually!

 

[mb22]

That's why I like the oral history format so much. You read direct quotes from the participants, largely unfiltered, sometimes in direct contradiction to each other, and you decide for yourself which statements are likely closest to the truth.

What do you think about Gross & Altman 50 Year Mission books?

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I rely on Harvey, actually!

Yes, Harvey is as sharp a Star Trek historian / tall tale crusher as I've ever read.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

What do you think about Gross & Altman 50 Year Mission books?

I haven't read them cover to cover yet, but I've been enjoying what I've read of them so far. You?

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

From the last few pages, I think we can all agree—"The Alternative Factor" is a horrid episode all around.

 

[Indysolo]

It is the worst. Make no mistake about it.

Neil

 

[mb22]

I haven't read them cover to cover yet, but I've been enjoying what I've read of them so far. You?

I'd like to know the date and context of the quotes.

 

[Harvey]

That's why I like the oral history format so much. You read direct quotes from the participants, largely unfiltered, sometimes in direct contradiction to each other, and you decide for yourself which statements are likely closest to the truth.

I like reading oral history, but there's nothing like a thoroughly researched, primary source based archival history (in case that wasn't obvious from my own research).

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I like reading oral history, but there's nothing like a thoroughly researched, primary source based archival history (in case that wasn't obvious from my own research).

Exactly. As a journalist, I never wanted to rely on just a single source of truth. I wanted at least two sources and some documentation if possible.

 

[Christopher]

Exactly. As a journalist, I never wanted to rely on just a single source of truth. I wanted at least two sources and some documentation if possible.

I wish more "journalists" on the Internet understood that principle. These days "confirmed" seems to mean "I saw a tweet about it somewhere."

 

[BillJ]

From the last few pages, I think we can all agree—"The Alternative Factor" is a horrid episode all around.

Bad episode? Yeah, it is. But, I'd rather watch it than a lot of episodes from the various spinoffs. It is goofy, yet it seems to be trying to reach for greatness (yet fails in spectacular fashion).