Hypothetical scenario: Doomsday Machine Heads for Earth.

[Acenos]

What if instead of the Rigel System, the Planet Killer headed straight for Earth?

The situation would be far for intense if it was heading for the Federation's capitol. Imagine more Federation ships having to engage the planet killer rather than just Enterprise and the Constellation.

As the planet killer would make it's way through the solar system, it would devour each of the planets of the Solar System one by one until it reaches it's destination. The planet killer flying through the sun and then eating up Mercury and Venus. The Moon being the final satellite it consumes. Leaving Earth as the only planet in the sol system left

 

[BillJ]

Tsar Bomba.

Though if it is coming from outside the system, how does it eat Mercury and Venus before getting to Earth?

 

[Tosk]

As before, just throw a starship in it.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

The Federation Council and Starfleet Command decant to Vulcan as planetary evacuation procedures are put into effect.

 

[1001001]

As before, just throw a starship in it.

 

[Acenos]

Tsar Bomba.

Though if it is coming from outside the system, how does it eat Mercury and Venus before getting to Earth?

planets up to mars are aligned on one end, but the inner planets starting with earth are lined up on the opposite end

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Imagine the amount of Neutronium Alloy you can harvest from the Doomsday Machine's dead carcass.

 

[Acenos]

Imagine the amount of Neutronium Alloy you can harvest from the Doomsday Machine's dead carcass.

I'd like to think that they'd coat battleships and dreadnoughts in that material

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I'd like to think that they'd coat battleships and dreadnoughts in that material

Probably too resource intensive to do that.

But imagine smaller things.

Warp Cores (Matter/Anti-Matter Reactors)
Bridge Room
Computer Room
Torpedo Room
Shuttle Bay.
Anti-Matter containment pods

Coat those entire rooms so that they're super strong boxes that can't be easily destroyed from the outside.

 

[The Wormhole]

Imagine more Federation ships having to engage the planet killer rather than just Enterprise and the Constellation.

Chances are someone would still get desperate enough to fly their ship into the things maw thus neutralizing the Machine.
/SCENARIO

 

[Sci]

What if instead of the Rigel System, the Planet Killer headed straight for Earth?

The situation would be far for intense if it was heading for the Federation's capitol.

1) A capitol is a building that houses a legislature. A capital in this context is the city (or, in fiction, planet) from which the main constitutional bodies of a government are located. (Interestingly, the novels established almost 20 years ago that the Federation capitol is a large tower in Paris called the Palais de la Concorde. A lot of small details from the novels have made their way into the canon in the new CBS shows; I wonder if we'll ever see the Palais?)

2) It may be more intense for the viewer (who has no emotional connection to the fictional alien system). But the Rigel system is literally identified as the most densely-populated system in the Federation in "The Doomsday Machine," and this is backed up by numerous references to multiple planets in the system and multiple species living on those planets. Rigel seems to be New York to Earth's D.C. So I don't think the characters in-universe would treat it as any more of a crisis if the Doomsday Machine had targeted Earth instead of the Rigel system.

Imagine more Federation ships having to engage the planet killer rather than just Enterprise and the Constellation.

In-universe, I think Starfleet would have sent more ships to go up against the Doomsday Machine as soon as they were able if the Constellation and Enterprise had failed to stop it.

As the planet killer would make it's way through the solar system, it would devour each of the planets of the Solar System one by one until it reaches it's destination. The planet killer flying through the sun and then eating up Mercury and Venus. The Moon being the final satellite it consumes. Leaving Earth as the only planet in the sol system left

... why would it eat the planets in any particular order? There's no malicious operating intelligence. It's just a machine.

planets up to mars are aligned on one end, but the inner planets starting with earth are lined up on the opposite end

That is not how planetary orbits work.

 

[BillJ]

planets up to mars are aligned on one end, but the inner planets starting with earth are lined up on the opposite end

Either way, Earth would be in the middle. No reason it wouldn’t get eaten before other planets in our system.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Either way, Earth would be in the middle. No reason it wouldn’t get eaten before other planets in our system.

Eh, orbital mechanics is weird. I mean, none of the planets will be lined up in any particular way, and while the Machine is definitely zipping around at Warp, it's probably going back and forth seeking out planets to eat (and probably scarfing down on large asteroids and fine lunar dining, while avoiding the Sun instead of flying through it).

Earth wouldn't really be "in the middle" except on an Elementary School model of the Solar System. As CGP Grey told us, Mercury is (most often) the closest planet to every other planet in the Solar System. There would be no discernible pattern, even (especially!) if it was programmed to just seek out the nearest planetary body after each ingestion. Earth is just as likely as any other planet to be eaten last.

 

[The Wormhole]

Star Trek typically does mix up on planetary allignments. Not that I'm an expert, but I remember a nitpicking site once commenting the Borg must have been taking quite the leisurely jaunt around the solar system in order to do orbital flybys of Jupiter and Mars on their way to Earth.

 

[at Quark's]

Star Trek typically does mix up on planetary allignments. Not that I'm an expert, but I remember a nitpicking site once commenting the Borg must have bee taking quite the leisurely jaunt around the solar system in order to do orbital flybys of Jupiter and Mars on their way to Earth.

Well, at least they had to fly by Mars first. Imagine they hadn't, heading straight for earth, happily and obliviously trudging along their assimilation business, only to unexpectedly be fiercely attacked in the rear by those menacing Mars perimeter defense fighters....

 

[Timo]

...Which might in fact have been ideal for stopping a DDM. Or a Space Amoeba, for that matter. They don't seem to fire anything, but they do appear to attempt collision course; them being big missiles with big warheads appears reasonable. Too bad the Borg were capable of putting out flak.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Silvercrest]

Eh, Galactus shows up and calls dibs.

 

[Nyotarules]

Get some whales

 

[Qonundrum]

I prefer how TOS showed there were other planets that could be made drama-worthy and not using that good old anchor known as "Earth". It would have found Earth over time anyway.

In TOS+movies (20th century), they went to Earth... four or five times total?

Tomorrow is Yesterday
Shore Leave (Well, this is stretching it as it was simulating Earth environment and Earthly delights for its happily ignorant customers that all risk thinking themselves to death?!)
Assignment Earth
TMP
TVH
TFF (for about 5 seconds, at the very start and only because TVH ended there)

Now Tosk had a great point - but the question here is, if the big killer windsock hadn't been intercepted by Constellation and thus Enterprise following, would anyone at Starfleet Command be able to figure it out in time than bunging a starship loaded with am imbalanced matter/antimatter reaction system down its gullet would work?

As for lobbing whales its way per Nyotarules, I am skeptical to believe that would cause a mechanical equivalent of indigestion. Worse, the machine might have a whale of a time with those...

 

[The Wormhole]

In TOS+movies (20th century), they went to Earth... four or five times total?

Earth is featured four times in TOS:
The Cage (in a fantasy setting)
Tomorrow is Yesterday
The City on the Edge of Forever
Assignment Earth
Plus all six movies have at least one scene set on Earth.