Mistakes You Thought Were Made In OS, But Weren't
- Thread starter Samuel
- Start date
Those characters aren’t simulations or illusions. They are conscious recreations made for studying the strength of good and evil. Their reactions to each other are the reason they exist. If anything, once Yarnek got hold of the concepts and characters from their minds, there was no actual need for Kirk and Spock. They could have just pit recreation against recreation.
But did they find that recreational?
Yeah, "The Savage Curtain" never says why the Excalbians wish to honor Kirk and Spock by having the two teach them in the play why good is stronger. There could have been all sorts of reasons. I got the impression that the suggestion was that it was, according to the Excalbians, an obligation of the "intruder" to participate and defend their own values, but that's just me reading between the lines and again it's never actually said.
I agree with this. The Excalbians can't learn anything by observing the behavior of their own self-created puppets. And it's even worse than that: if the evil puppets are so accurate, then how can the Excalbians claim not to understand good and evil? They must be masters of the subject to sculpt such faithful duplicates of Green and Lincoln. And since Green and Lincoln can play out full interactions with each other, there is no justifiable need for Kirk and Spock.
The Excalbians are no better than the Platonians, the Triskelion Providers, the 20th century Romans, and possibly the Metrons. They just want to use captives for violent entertainment.
I never got the impression that the Excalbians were interested in "entertainment". To me it seemed the whole "good vs. evil" thing was more about testing the Federation to see just how far their officers would go to defend their ship despite their rhetoric
Again, these are not puppets. These are self aware recreations based on the memories of Kirk and Spock acting completely on their own. You are correct. How could the Excalbians puppet good and evil if that's what they're studying? They're not.
I'm starting to think that the only thing that mars The Doomsday Machine - Kirk walking by the door of auxiliary control - is because he was headed to the other door to the room (there appear to be be two).
The door to the first room had debris in front of it and the door was messed up, so Kirk was headed towards the other room. But when he stopped to glance into the first room on the way by, he saw Decker at the desk and so Kirk went into the first room instead. Simple enough to understand, and always was. I don't know why people have a problem with it.
Spock's Brain is actually an at least average episode up until they start to "reinstall" Spock's brain. Even the remote control Spock's body isn't too huge a drag on the episode. But the entire McCoy reimplanting Spock's you know what without so much as messing up his hairline, Scotty helping out, and finally Spock telling McCoy how to finish just kills the entire fifth act.
Well, I do or did because I wasn't sure auxiliary control has two doors. I think other episodes show it with just one, but I'm not certain.
The second door is the one to the fenced in area where Washburn works (ed - which is what I referred to as "the other room" in my previous post). Why can't the duplicate ship's log be activated from there as well as out at the desk? No reason at all.
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Love the Godzilla ref!
Me too! He/it definitely looks Gorn-like, right?
Back in the mid seventies I was mad about The Gorn! I remember being on holiday in 75 I think up north, and I discovered that Arena was on that week so I made sure I got to see it, in colour too!!
JB
JB
Oh I see. Mea culpa.
The "voice dialing" on Star Trek is actually completely backwards. "Kirk to Sickbay" means the computer can't know how to route the call till the end of the message, which makes those instant replies basically impossible. On a navy ship you actually do it the other way around, saying who you are calling first, so to grab the person's attention, and then identifying yourself, as in "Flight Deck / Bridge."
This is a very interesting discussion. If the Trek computers are as advanced as they seem, and they know where to send the call based upon the voice command, why does the caller need to identify him/herself? It seems the computer would know who was speaking, and that person would only need to say "Call Spock" like we do today.
The benefit is for the receiver who will hear the routing information, e.g. the transporter room will hear "Kirk to transporter room" and know it's Kirk calling (as in "Mudd's Women"). That's especially beneficial when it's audio only.
I agree with @Maurice's point that the destination should go first. The only way to handle it, which is more significantly a problem the way it is, is for the computer to delay transmission until it actually knows the destination, and then sync up during the conversation. We really never hear that happening.
As I initially said, that's what I've finally decided. The fenced-in area just doesn’t seem to be depicted quite the same in other episodes and there doesn't seem to be a "whoosh" when Scotty leaves the fenced-in area at one point (when Kirk orders Washburn to stay behind with him rather than going with Scotty). But I'll go with it.
I thought the auxiliary control set with the "fenced in area" was the same set used in "The Children Shall Lead" when the possessed children cause the crewman to take the Enterprise out of orbit. IIRC one of the creepy kids stands behind the "fence" and peers in as he manipulates the crewman into taking Enterprise out of orbit (and knocking Scotty out).
