Kirk dumped the Augments on Cet Alpha V without checking out all the planets to see which one was the most favorable to strand them on? And Spock would do a substandard job of mapping and analyzing the system? The latter seem highly improbable.
A Thought About Ceti Alpha VI
- Thread starter JonnyQuest037
- Start date
Even if we plugged this minor plot hole, the much larger planet-sized one remains: What the hell cased Ceti Alpha VI to explode!?! Don't tell me that was any meteor shower.
Also....no matter the situation, time, or place I will always read "Ceti Alpha VI" in Khan's voice.
Also....no matter the situation, time, or place I will always read "Ceti Alpha VI" in Khan's voice.
Hmh? Why should a planet exploding be a "plot hole" in Star Trek? It's almost an expected event, compared to space amoebae, suddenly uppity old Earth space probes, giant automated neutronium starships or sapient antimatter clouds (all of which, incidentally, make planets explode).
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Which is more or less the point: it allows for all those interpretations where scanning for the absence of CA VI would be highly exceptional and unlikely.
Ah, I see - a fair point. Although I don't really see a couple of decades making a difference in the real world: it wouldn't be enough for either the complete dissipation or complete reagglomeration of the planet, assuming it went the way of those "DDM" worlds which "broke up" and left a lot of rubble behind.
In any case, we get Starfleet's response to star systems suddenly missing planets. It's a mystery that must be studied at close range, but also literally nothing to write home about (neither Kirk nor Decker appears to have called for reinforcements until it was way too late). The biggest difference here IMHO is that both Decker and Kirk have the spare time to study the phenomenon, while Terrell is explicitly busy with a mission.
Which is a bit surprising. Yes, the impression is that Kirk and Decker are in the desolate far frontier (possibly even close to the edge of the galaxy, to allow Spock to postulate that extragalactic origin for the DDM), thus probably with fairly generic assignments (because there's nobody they'd know or care about out there). But why are two starships following not just each other but their own tracks (Kirk has been to L-370 recently)? For idle loitering, that's particularly inefficient... But I digress again. Planets go missing, Starfleet investigates, and we find out about the limitations on doing so, even when the spoor is fresh.
How is that a problem? At any level of technology, aggressor cultures can get to victim cultures in a reasonable length of time for conquest. Yet the universe remains largely unconquered. Generally speaking, we can always assume there to be obstacles to conquest, and it's left as an exercise to the audience to come up with the obstacle of the day. My bet here is Vulcans (the ones to make ill-informed first contact with Klingons "centuries" before that TNG episode, resulting in a brutal war where the technologically inferior Klingons got extra bumps on their foreheads).
Timo Saloniemi
The thing is, even if and when scapegoats were found, Starfleet procedures regarding these things probably wouldn't change much. After all, we see no improvement in later Trek adventures.
Captains beaming down to missions of danger do not risk just their own lives. They also risk the scenario seen here, and in many other places: they have, and need, the authority to skip protocol for a hasty return to the ship. This authority is easily abused, as clearly transporter operators have only the vaguest of pictures on what they are transporting in any given situation, and certainly aren't expected to stop and scan the customers to any useful degree. "Three to beam up" never leaves room for arguments like "But Sir, you went down with five / just one!" or "But that other blips looks like a Klingon, Sir!". And it really shouldn't, either.
It's a big surprise in "Whom Gods Destroy" that there's protocol in place to complicate beam-up. And it's a surprise to Garth of Izar, a decorated Starfleet veteran!
On the other hand, Kirk beaming up at the end of the next movie manages to thwart Klingon transporter protocol easily enough, so it's not a specifically human shortcoming here...
Timo Saloniemi
Captains beaming down to missions of danger do not risk just their own lives. They also risk the scenario seen here, and in many other places: they have, and need, the authority to skip protocol for a hasty return to the ship. This authority is easily abused, as clearly transporter operators have only the vaguest of pictures on what they are transporting in any given situation, and certainly aren't expected to stop and scan the customers to any useful degree. "Three to beam up" never leaves room for arguments like "But Sir, you went down with five / just one!" or "But that other blips looks like a Klingon, Sir!". And it really shouldn't, either.
It's a big surprise in "Whom Gods Destroy" that there's protocol in place to complicate beam-up. And it's a surprise to Garth of Izar, a decorated Starfleet veteran!
On the other hand, Kirk beaming up at the end of the next movie manages to thwart Klingon transporter protocol easily enough, so it's not a specifically human shortcoming here...
Timo Saloniemi
Indeed. But I guess it would be easy to plead "beamup coordinates" on this special occasion where we already know the sensors of the starships are making grievous mistakes as regards the presence/whereabouts/numbers of human beings down there...
What other adventures feature returning to beamup coordinates?
Timo Saloniemi
What other adventures feature returning to beamup coordinates?
Timo Saloniemi
Novelization has Chekov trying to call for beam-up but too much atmospheric interference even for a clear communications signal. Given the weather conditions, it's hard to argue with that. Chekov and Terrell are leaving the cargo containers specifically to try to reduce the signal interference at the point where they're caught.
Just stumbling on to here..but a couple of thoughts:
1. Even if a planet exploded -- could there be enough of it left for scanners doing a brief non-detailed scan to think it was a planet? And if it wrre knocked out of it's initial orbit, it might "switch places" so that scans are off.
2. Even though they are looking for a planet that is lifeless, it still needs to be in some kind of habitable zone, so when the terraforming takes place, it will hold. Being too far or too close will negate the terraforming. So while a very important factor is lifelessness -- it needs to be able to sustain life after the Genesis effect. (Edit: Nebusj seems to have thought of that! Doh!)
1. Even if a planet exploded -- could there be enough of it left for scanners doing a brief non-detailed scan to think it was a planet? And if it wrre knocked out of it's initial orbit, it might "switch places" so that scans are off.
2. Even though they are looking for a planet that is lifeless, it still needs to be in some kind of habitable zone, so when the terraforming takes place, it will hold. Being too far or too close will negate the terraforming. So while a very important factor is lifelessness -- it needs to be able to sustain life after the Genesis effect. (Edit: Nebusj seems to have thought of that! Doh!)
...Of course, terraforming a planet that isn't even in the Goldilocks Zone might be an even more impressive feat and a better test of the device. And if Nature swiftly erased the results afterwards, all the neater. Especially if the test wasn't a success.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
That's no moon.
Wouldn't they just count out the orbits from the Ceti Alpha sun? The sensors should be able to do that.
Why would they? It's been said over and over again, both in this thread and many others; they don't need to know which planet by count from the primary (that's the local sun). They only need to know which planet is the one they're looking for, and they then fly to that planet and begin their tests. It doesn't matter which orbit it's in, it only matters that it meets their initial criteria for testing.
Wouldn't they have scanned the entire system? Or did they already have Ceti Alpha VI in mind?
Similar threads
