Mapping the galaxy

[Timo]

There's a black-and-white set photo around showing the whole arrangement with 4+2 TMP containers, the cargo train spine and the workbee cradle. Out of the TrekCore screencaps, this one shows the cradle to advantage (while only hinting at the shapes):

https://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twok-dc-hd/chapter03/st2-twok-dc-0383.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

 

[yotsuya]

Hmh? They are identical, save for the size which was altered to make for better huts. It's just that since they're mostly shot from the inside, this may not be obvious from the first glance. But from the outside, they are part of a TMP-style cargo train, wth the towing spine and even the adapter for the workbee still attached.



Which reinforces the idea that they can't come from Khan's own bays. The rather unique shape would be unlikely to be found in a random other context, such as 1990s Earth, unless Starfleet in the 2270s went retro for the sake of going retro, after doing something else altogether during the 2260s.



Now that depends on who launched the ship and why. And we still don't know either of the answers.

Khan woke up after two centuries of sleep and closer to three centuries of travel. Was that anywhere near like his intent? Or was he headed for Jupiter's moons (another trip that back then called for cryosleep) in order to conquer those and overslept? Or was he aiming at a planet 500 years away and was rudely interrupted?

The last sounds the least likely of them all. Why would Khan want to go to a faraway planet? Why would he be surprised when the idea of taming one was suggested to him?



Not really. Kirk decided on the depositing. Kirk had the means to do so. Why wouldn't he use those means through and through?

Giving Khan his own stuff would be like letting a prisoner retain his personal phone and knife and set of lockpicks...



Well, nothing in TOS did.



Books might plausibly be of value for Khan, so he could take a bundle when abandoning his old ship, bound with a genuine Botany Bay cargo strap. Otherwise, he'd travel light, as seen.

Nothing material is of value for Kirk, who declares precious jewels "worthless baubles that can be manufactured at will". So a superman is short on Shakespeare? Print him fifty voumes, so that he can burn 47 for warmth and use two for toilet paper.



Surely it would be a "problem", even if a solvable one. I just can't see the point of making the effort. Except perhaps to blow up the ship for good, so that the eighty Napoleons could be hidden from the future forever.

But, well, wasted effort. Finding the ship with her transponder shut down should be impossible now, for anybody but Spock, and Spock isn't interested in collecting Khanalia. He doesn't worship the superman, and even openly expresses the sentiment that in a hundred years, he can't really be bothered to come back and have a look at how things are going.

Timo Saloniemi

I'm just going to quote the whole thing and say that I disagree with nearly everything you say. I just watched Space Seed and there is no indication that Khan's people have mastered running the Enterprise. They are trying to recruit, through threats, enough of the crew to help them operate the ship. So the chances of them doing more than cutting the tractor beam are slim. They were towing the Botany Bay at Warp 2 to Starbase 12. It would be easy to locate based on that. If they needed to. Khan could have transported everything he needed to the Enterprise.

But the cargo containers. I have never seen any indication they are 23rd century. There is nothing in the film showing they are "modern" TOS era containers or TMP era containers. They are generic containers, though I think they were purpose built for the film because they aren't 20th century cargo containers (but why would they be if they had been on the Botany Bay). There is nothing to identify what time they come from, but they are far larger than anything we saw in TMP. The TMP containers were way too small. They are only about 2m x 2m x 1.2m. Even clumped together with the partitions cut away they are not the size we see in Khan's containers. So they are not the containers from TMP (which we see in scale multiple times). They are generic, unlabled, very large, cargo containers and the only likely source is the Botany Bay. There would be no danger in letting them have the contents of those containers because those are all late 20th century items.

So the logic of the containers being 23rd century fails. The logic of not letting Khan have the supplies he brought fails. Not being able to find the Botany Bay again is a rather ridiculous assertion. Everything about the set indicates it was from the Botany Bay. Containers set down to offer them temporary shelter and stores while they got their new colony started. The idea that Enterprise had containers of that size has no basis in TOS or TMP. We only see the stasis chamber deck of the Botany Bay so we don't know what else the ship had, but it did have several cargo pods large enough to hold what we see in TWOK. So I cannot agree with any point of your post. All I see is Botany Bay items (why would they bring a random seat belt buckle?) with a few cases of modern supplies thrown in to help them out. Kirk was being very generous at the end of Space Seed. I think looking at it any other way breaks down and falls apart.

 

[yotsuya]

There's a black-and-white set photo around showing the whole arrangement with 4+2 TMP containers, the cargo train spine and the workbee cradle. Out of the TrekCore screencaps, this one shows the cradle to advantage (while only hinting at the shapes):

https://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twok-dc-hd/chapter03/st2-twok-dc-0383.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

I don't see it. I see a large cargo container that could have come from the Botany Bay. The TMP cargo containers were 2 meters tall and this structure is at least 3 meters. The TMP cargo containers were 2 meters long and this is at least 12 meters long. The TMP cargo containers were 1.125 meters wide. That would make the internal space, even if you merged containers 2m x 2.25m x length and the internal space seen in TWOK is at least twice that. Even turning them on their side doesn't get that (they would have had to install a flat floor and wouldn't have installed two unleveled floors). It just doesn't fit and doesn't make sense. These are Botany Bay cargo containers, not Enterprise cargo containers. Nothing else makes any sense.

And here is a shot showing the worker bee/cargo containers in scale. The TMP blueprints confirm this scale (the worker bee is barely large enough for a person to sit in it. It is tiny.
https://thirdwavedesigndotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/star-trek1-movie-screencaps-com-2131.jpg

 

[yotsuya]

And there is a great shot of the joining wall of one of the containers behind Khan (at 24:36 in the director's cut). You can see the tapered walls and some of the curved ceiling AND the volume, 42.5 cu meters. So this cannot be a group of TMP containers welded together with the internal partitions cut out. It is intended to be a large container. Larger than we have seen in 23rd century Trek. Containers of this size would, however, have fit in the cargo pods of the Botany Bay.

 

[Timo]

The designers designed TMP containers, and placed them in a TMP cargo train / workbee rig. They just had to increase the scale in order to allow these to serve as Khan's huts. Whether you see it or not isn't really relevant.

What we make of the scale discrepancy is the one issue. Do these things come in several sizes in the Trek universe? They aren't stackable, so there's nothing stopping this from being the case.

Do we insist on size mattering so that it somehow overrules the shape, the presence of the workbee spine, and the UFP and Starfleet signs? This would suggest we see Khan's own gear. But again this goes against design intent, now in the plot sense: we are supposed to see jury-rigged stuff allowing the supermen to survive when their planet suddenly turns to sandy Hell. If Khan had come prepared, he wouldn't need to jury-rig - his "be prepared" gear wouldn't be the sissy stuff one needs on a nice Class M planet such as Ceti Alpha V before the explosion, at the time of banishment. Gear donated by Kirk would be.

EDIT: Here's one of 'em obscure photos of the whole setup, from a trading card set, dug up by our very own Dukhat. Tiny, but you see how it is a workbee train. A rather large one, but still.

http://www.wixiban.com/images/roddenberry/11-16.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

 

[publiusr]

So…as to Botany Bay herself. Still adrift? What other secrets could it hold? Could someone on Earth have sabotaged it? What was its destination?

 

[Timo]

Since Khan deadpans everything, we can't really tell whether he even knew he was aboard that ship before our heroes revealed this to him. We get categories of interpretations, then:

1. Khan did it himself.
1.1. Khan wanted what he got: he set out to lure innocent starships into rescuing him, so that he could hijack those and once again rule the universe. The ship performed as expected, and the losses to cryofailure were acceptable.
1.2. Khan wanted to return to Earth after things had cooled down: the ship was supposed to turn back. A lot went wrong, then, including navigation, alarm clock, and stealth at arrival.
1.3. Khan wanted to reach a planet or a moon in order to conquer it: he either expected a long interplanetary journey, or then a long interstellar one.
1.3.1. Interplanetary would mean Khan would know where he was going, and would be battling humans at the other end.
1.3.2. Interstellar would be a plunge into the unknown, there not being good data on what was out there - but "humans" wouldn't be it. Conquest then would have to be flag-planting rather than battle, as Khan couldn't expect to fight bug-eyed monsters with what little he had.

2. Somebody did it to Khan.
2.1. Khan was banished by the victors of the Eugenics Wars. They might have felt sympathy or guilt and therefore opted to spend a spaceship rather than eighty rounds of rifle ammo. Heck, they may have been the folks who created Khan in the first place, or at least hired him.
2.2. Khan was banished by his competitors slightly before they lost the EWs. They might have felt sympathy, being supermen themselves, or might have wanted to make use of Khan at a later date, with plans to retrieve the ship eventually. Or this might have been but a cruel joke to torture an opponent with.
2.3. Khan was sent to safety by his followers or allies, who eventually lost the EWs.

Sabotage is possible in all contexts. Supermen would be highly competitive and likely to play dirty tricks on each other - Khan's own crew might have made the ship do things Khan never wanted, too. And supermen divide opinions, so the people responsible for the launching might include those wishing for survival and those wishing for death, working at cross purposes.

Khan himself might have been frozen long before his fate was decided, but it appears his cryochamber in "Space Seed" was integrated to the ship, so this is somewhat improbable. Then again, in ST:ID, the supermen are in separate (and ancient) cryocoffins, indicating that transfer is possible.

The name Botany Bay could be a "cruel joke" all right. What would be the intended symbolism? Being banished forever? Being the founders of an all-new realm? Being intrepid explorers of a new world? All are possible, and if this is a joke, all might be relevant at the same time... The first and second options apply if the ship is named when Khan gets banished or saved. The third might apply if the ship got named long before seeing Khan-related use.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[yotsuya]

The designers designed TMP containers, and placed them in a TMP cargo train / workbee rig. They just had to increase the scale in order to allow these to serve as Khan's huts. Whether you see it or not isn't really relevant.

What we make of the scale discrepancy is the one issue. Do these things come in several sizes in the Trek universe? They aren't stackable, so there's nothing stopping this from being the case.

Do we insist on size mattering so that it somehow overrules the shape, the presence of the workbee spine, and the UFP and Starfleet signs? This would suggest we see Khan's own gear. But again this goes against design intent, now in the plot sense: we are supposed to see jury-rigged stuff allowing the supermen to survive when their planet suddenly turns to sandy Hell. If Khan had come prepared, he wouldn't need to jury-rig - his "be prepared" gear wouldn't be the sissy stuff one needs on a nice Class M planet such as Ceti Alpha V before the explosion, at the time of banishment. Gear donated by Kirk would be.

EDIT: Here's one of 'em obscure photos of the whole setup, from a trading card set, dug up by our very own Dukhat. Tiny, but you see how it is a workbee train. A rather large one, but still.

http://www.wixiban.com/images/roddenberry/11-16.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

But they are not just enlarged. The TMP cargo containers could fit through the corridors of the ship. They were compartmentalized.

https://thirdwavedesigndotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/carg-pod-antigrav-shot.jpg

It isn't just a matter of upscaling them. They are not even the same design. There is a vague shape similarity, but the cargo pods are curved and Khan's cargo container has straight edges. Khan's contailer is much much larger and a totally different design. You are reading in worker bee train where I see no connection.

And again, all the Starfleet indications are on smaller pieces. A door, a book. And as for the jury rigging, I'm sure they lost most of what they had built and developed when the disaster struck. Jury rigging is often needed to survive a disaster or other unexpected situations. So nothing is out of place. Nothing in any way makes the cargo containers being from the Botany Bay impossible. The buckle indicates that it is from the Botany Bay. Such an item would have been on the temporarily abandoned ship, not with Khan's survivors. So the evidence is they went back on got the ship, towed it to Ceti Alpha V and in some way got the cargo pods to the surface. Plus a few modern supplies (possibly what he allowed Marla to take). It is what makes sense for the story rather than some oversided cargo pod that the Enterprise supposedly was carrying.

 

[Timo]

Interpreting against designer intent is fair as such. It's just that there is no ambiguity about that intent here. Those are TMP containers (enlarged) on a TMP workbee rig, with a UFP symbol on the outer shell of one of them, even if this is difficult to see in the movie. But they could well be taken for something else.

I just don't see any merit in Kirk going back to Khan's ship and giving Khan back whatever possessions he left behind. This is not an action Kirk would be motivated to perform. He has no interest in giving Khan the superman's old tools of trade. OTOH, we know he is well stocked in colonizing gear, including the means to build habitats (say, "Devil in the Dark"). And Kirk doesn't "go back" when deciding to maroon Khan. He is already going forward, on a course that will allow for the dropoff at Ceti Alpha.

If Kirk for some reason towed the derelict, where is she now? If he just rummaged through it for ancient containers that just happen to look like modern ones, why would he take the containers with him, rather than just the relevant contents? The middle choice, of taking entire old containers aboard the Enterprise, makes the least sense of all. Kirk in "Devil" has hut-building material for making a proper condo for the supermen; additionally, he could land a cluster of his own containers with proper modern survival gear, carefully selected so as not to feature reconquista-facilitating stuff, and then fly off with the workbee so that Khan would be truly stranded. The environmental calamity would then wreck Khan's palace and twist the containers out of shape as shown, but Khan would have no choice but to move into them now.

As for material evidence, UFP signage vastly outnumbers BB signage on those containers. Only a single cargo strap comes from Khan's ship - meaning Chekov has low odds of spotting the origins until it's too late. It's also closely associated with other stuff coming from Khan's ship (no doubt packed with the help of the cargo strap, this being an item designed for the very purpose after all).

Timo Saloniemi

P.S. Incidentally, the display device in Khan's hut is a Phase II prop for a medical monitor, thus "Starfleet gear" out-universe. What about in-universe? Well, the design language is that of TMP rather than of the Botany Bay. But again, interpreting differently is fair.

 

[yotsuya]

Interpreting against designer intent is fair as such. It's just that there is no ambiguity about that intent here. Those are TMP containers (enlarged) on a TMP workbee rig, with a UFP symbol on the outer shell of one of them, even if this is difficult to see in the movie. But they could well be taken for something else.

I just don't see any merit in Kirk going back to Khan's ship and giving Khan back whatever possessions he left behind. This is not an action Kirk would be motivated to perform. He has no interest in giving Khan the superman's old tools of trade. OTOH, we know he is well stocked in colonizing gear, including the means to build habitats (say, "Devil in the Dark"). And Kirk doesn't "go back" when deciding to maroon Khan. He is already going forward, on a course that will allow for the dropoff at Ceti Alpha.

If Kirk for some reason towed the derelict, where is she now? If he just rummaged through it for ancient containers that just happen to look like modern ones, why would he take the containers with him, rather than just the relevant contents? The middle choice, of taking entire old containers aboard the Enterprise, makes the least sense of all. Kirk in "Devil" has hut-building material for making a proper condo for the supermen; additionally, he could land a cluster of his own containers with proper modern survival gear, carefully selected so as not to feature reconquista-facilitating stuff, and then fly off with the workbee so that Khan would be truly stranded. The environmental calamity would then wreck Khan's palace and twist the containers out of shape as shown, but Khan would have no choice but to move into them now.

As for material evidence, UFP signage vastly outnumbers BB signage on those containers. Only a single cargo strap comes from Khan's ship - meaning Chekov has low odds of spotting the origins until it's too late. It's also closely associated with other stuff coming from Khan's ship (no doubt packed with the help of the cargo strap, this being an item designed for the very purpose after all).

Timo Saloniemi

P.S. Incidentally, the display device in Khan's hut is a Phase II prop for a medical monitor, thus "Starfleet gear" out-universe. What about in-universe? Well, the design language is that of TMP rather than of the Botany Bay. But again, interpreting differently is fair.

I tend to go by what is on screen. On screen there is not a single Starfleet logo affixed to the containers. The only two logos I see are one on a book and one on a crate lid now serving as a door. Some random unreadable detailing on the exterior of the set that is not visible in the final film is irrelevant. Those cargo containers are too big to fit on the Enterprise except in the hanger. They fit easily into the cargo pods of the Botany Bay. And what equipment might Khan have in them that would be objectionable? Weapons? 20th century communication equipment? Doubtful. There would be nothing that could be in those cargo pods that would be potentially harmful or dangerous and it would be supplied that Kirk would not have to replenish and have to explain later.

Logic is on the side of the cargo container being from the Botany Bay. And I see no design elements in the container itself that indicate 23rd century Starfleet. As I pointed out, the only label inside the containers is the one over Khan's head with the cargo volume. Nothing else is visible. The one panel that has the Starfleet logo is the top of a box being used as a door in a hand cut opening. While we do have an SS Botany Bay seat belt buckle indicating that they retrieved the ship and something from it had such a buckle. So the evidence in the film is that the containers came from the Botany Bay. There is nothing in Space Seed indicating that they didn't do that or that it would have been difficult or impossible. And the evidence in the TWOK indicates that is what happened. I don't really care what the intention of the set designer was. If they enlarged a workbee cargo train they didn't pay attention to any of the design elements. The sides are wrong, it is too large, it is one unit instead of divided into 6. The details on the sides and ends don't match. So there is nothing visible in the film that ties the design to the TMP cargo pods. Nothing. And the story and props indicate it was from the Botany Bay. And reusing props is nothing unusual. Nothing from Phase II is canon so we don't know if that is something they had in their cargo or if it was something Kirk gave them to make things easier.

But if you are going to take that approach then they used part of Botany Bay to redesign one of the sickbay labs since they reused part of the Botany Bay when they expanded the sickbay set. And I think the Aux control room used a Botany Bay arch. So if you want to talk about reusing set pieces indicating things, then those mean they did go back for the Botany Bay. I hope you see how ridiculous that sounds. Things got reused in Star Trek over and over in many ways for many species and many time periods. It doesn't mean anything other than they were recycling. I mean, if in Khan's day they could build a DY-100 ship, what was their tech level like? It was far ahead of our own in some ways. So reusing an outdated Phase II prop for Khan's people makes sense.

But again, there is nothing tying the containers to the TOS era or TMP. Not even the container design. You see a workerbee pod joining beam and I just see a fuzzy horizontal feature. And even if they did get inspired by the TMP cargo pods, they didn't build cargo pods, they build a cargo container, something we don't see in TMP and something not imagined for the Enterprise in TOS. But something that would fit inside the pods on the Botany Bay. And the container walls have a distinctly 20th century cargo container feel, even if the design isn't the normal boxy shape.

 

[Henoch]

Those cargo containers are too big to fit on the Enterprise except in the hanger.

They would fit through the darker gray rectangle on the bottom to the TOS-E or side though the big red square on the undercut below the hangar. Agreed, they are not the TMP/TWOK cargo containers as in the mid-2270's and 2280's, rather they are most probably mid-2260's TOS era cargo containers: some similar shape/modularity concepts but bigger. The TOS-E has plenty of space for a cargo hold that will store these larger containers in the bottom decks of the ship. As a matter of fact, I plan to redesign the lower two decks in my TOS-E deck plans to fit such containers.

And there is a great shot of the joining wall of one of the containers behind Khan (at 24:36 in the director's cut). You can see the tapered walls and some of the curved ceiling AND the volume, 42.5 cu meters. So this cannot be a group of TMP containers welded together with the internal partitions cut out. It is intended to be a large container. Larger than we have seen in 23rd century Trek.

A 42.5 cu. meter container is roughly a 3.5 m cube or 11.5 feet cube. Put three together and you get Khan's box. Three containers connected together in transport would fit through the darker gray rectangle on the bottom of the TOS ship.

Aside for one belt buckle used to clue Chekov (and the audience), everything else looks "Starfleet" to me. I think there two thoughts on this issue, equally valid based on our assumptions. YMMV.

 

[Ronald Held]

It might be worth finding the BB for any historical records it had. Eventually tow it to Earth and put it in a museum?

 

[Timo]

Yet the whole point of the exercise seemed to be that the world still wasn't ready for 80 Napoleons. News of their survival mustn't reach the public, so making an exhibit out of their ship is pretty much out of the question.

Secretly retrieving her... Would be a trick comparable to the Allies secretly recovering surrendered U-boats during WWII. It was done a couple of times, with people sworn to secrecy or jailed in isolation till further notice.

Would historical records be relevant missing knowledge? Spock suggests shipping records being in chaos in the 1990s would be the reason for the Botany Bay slipping through the net. But it turns out this wasn't it - that instead, the ship being Khan's temporary tomb was the reason for all the secrecy. Perhaps there's nothing particularly wrong with the records, but more probably Khan would carry nothing to set matters straight, it being in his interest to perpetuate confusion if anything.

I tend to go by what is on screen.

This brings forth the dichotomy between what is on screen, and what one sees there. In this case, TPTB went to great lengths to put the TMP-style Starfleet containers there. But if one doesn't see them there, it's an epic fail. On their part.

Likewise, we never got proof that Kirk had testicles. The writers, the directors and the actor tried. God knows they tried. We nevertheless never got a glimpse of one, let alone two. Drawing conclusions is free game for everybody in the audience.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[yotsuya]

They would easily fit through the darker gray rectangle on the bottom to the TOS-E or side though the big red square on the undercut below the hangar. Agreed, they are not the TMP/TWOK cargo containers as in the mid-2270's and 2280's, rather they are most probably mid-2260's TOS era cargo containers: some similar shape/modularity concepts but bigger. The TOS-E has plenty of space for a cargo hold that will store these larger containers in the bottom decks of the ship. As a matter of fact, I plan to redesign the lower two decks in my TOS-E deck plans to fit such containers.

A 42.5 cu. meter container is roughly 3 m x 3 m x 4.7 m or 10' x 10' x 15'. Put two together and you get Khan's box. Two containers connected together in transport would easily fit through the darker gray rectangle on the bottom of the TOS ship.

Aside for one belt buckle used to clue Chekov (and the audience), everything else looks "Starfleet" to me. I think there two thoughts on this issue, equally valid based on our assumptions. YMMV.

The size container you suggest would very easily fit in the Botany Bay's 5 cargo pods. You don't have to figure out what opening they would go into on the Enterprise or fit in a taller deck to stow them. It is a far simpler solution all around (one that matches the on screen evidence) for those containers to be from the Botany Bay. The angle even works out about right. If they were the right size, you could fit about 40 of those in the Botany Bay. The size is nearly perfect for what we see of the BB model in TOS (or the remastered). The base of each pod is about 55'x35'.

 

[yotsuya]

It might be worth finding the BB for any historical records it had. Eventually tow it to Earth and put it in a museum?

Per the episode, there were no records on board.

 

[yotsuya]

This brings forth the dichotomy between what is on screen, and what one sees there. In this case, TPTB went to great lengths to put the TMP-style Starfleet containers there. But if one doesn't see them there, it's an epic fail. On their part.

Likewise, we never got proof that Kirk had testicles. The writers, the directors and the actor tried. God knows they tried. We nevertheless never got a glimpse of one, let alone two. Drawing conclusions is free game for everybody in the audience.

Timo Saloniemi

There are many things done behind the scenes that never made the screen. And I'm curious if you have had a conversation with the designer of those containers or found plans of them as proof of what you are claiming. Because you are speaking with the certainty of someone who has direct report. But from the evidence you are just guessing. I recall one other discussion on this site about the lower hanger in the Excelsior. One person was convinced that one of the features was a propeller. No proof. And quite in contrast to what we can see on screen in Star Trek VI. And with the much better pictures that obviously is not the case, but they spoke with the same certainty as you do. I see no evidence that those are supposed to be TMP style cargo containers. None at all. I don't see it in the design and I don't see it in the set. I see cargo containers that look 20th century rustic and would fit with the design of the Botany Bay better than anything else. I see nothing in the intent of the design to indicate Starfleet in any way, other than a few odd bits.

 

[Timo]

The right person to ask would be the one who made the Memory Alpha entry, I guess.

But we're back at the "I see" thing here: what I see is strong support for what is stated at MA (the Botany Bay entry), and a lack of ways to explain the evidence in any alternative way. Why would the workbee train spine complete with the cradle be there if it weren't what it purports to be? A fancy electricity bus to link the containers is fine, and might utterly accidentally look exactly like the train spine, without the set designer or the carpenter realizing. But the bee cradle?

That goes for backstage interpretation, that is. They did build what MA says they built, is my interpretation. In-universe, everything is open to debate (including things like Kirk's gender). And there my position is that going back to the Botany Bay fails on all criteria:

- Going back is never mentioned.
- Going back would be a chore.
- Going back for what? The ship has nothing to offer that Kirk couldn't have without the chore.
- Khan didn't want his ship back. Why would Kirk?
- Khan didn't even bring his weapons along, but chose to steal Kirk's. So what he would bring over, in addition to his crew, would be things of emotional resonance. Such as books tied with the one item of Botany Bay origin, funnily enough specifically designed just for the purpose of bringing along items...
- Nothing on the containers says Botany Bay. Things on the containers say Federation and Starfleet. The belt buckle is more mobile than the random pieces of metal and whatnot - and why would Khan have those pieces of labeled metal if he weren't getting his metal from Kirk?

Plotwise, the part where it takes the belt buckle to reveal that the hardware comes from the Botany Bay is quite telling, and necessary for the plot. We can't have a hut with "Khan's Hut" painted on the door in blood...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tuskin38]

Aren’t we completely off topic here? This discussion could probably be moved to it’s own thread.

 

[Timo]

Oh, right. So, mapping the galaxy...

...Isn't a full-time job for starships, is what ST2:TWoK appears to establish. Star charting is its own mission, sometimes imposed on Kirk's ship and presumed others, sometimes not.

How it is really done is somewhat unclear. We hear of probes, of previous visits by lesser ships or by crews that did not bother to be too detail-minded or inclusive, and of old star charts (such as Vulcan ones). Plus the realtime long range telescopes, and implicitly/probably today's type of lightspeed observation. The end result must be something of a hodgepodge, of questionable reliability, considering our heroes and sidekicks don't seem to rely on it much.

In early TNG, the percentage of Milky Way "charted" suddenly jumps from 11% to 19%. One season is unlikely to allow Starfleet to accomplish that with ships or probes or telescopes, even if the 11% reference is accompanied by the discovery of a new, superfast means of travel... But it's quite possible the UFP managed to purchase the extra 8% from folks they met. The Tkon, perhaps? Sort of the reverse of the "lost memory" scenario proposed by the original poster.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[yotsuya]

The right person to ask would be the one who made the Memory Alpha entry, I guess.

But we're back at the "I see" thing here: what I see is strong support for what is stated at MA (the Botany Bay entry), and a lack of ways to explain the evidence in any alternative way. Why would the workbee train spine complete with the cradle be there if it weren't what it purports to be? A fancy electricity bus to link the containers is fine, and might utterly accidentally look exactly like the train spine, without the set designer or the carpenter realizing. But the bee cradle?

That goes for backstage interpretation, that is. They did build what MA says they built, is my interpretation. In-universe, everything is open to debate (including things like Kirk's gender). And there my position is that going back to the Botany Bay fails on all criteria:

- Going back is never mentioned.
- Going back would be a chore.
- Going back for what? The ship has nothing to offer that Kirk couldn't have without the chore.
- Khan didn't want his ship back. Why would Kirk?
- Khan didn't even bring his weapons along, but chose to steal Kirk's. So what he would bring over, in addition to his crew, would be things of emotional resonance. Such as books tied with the one item of Botany Bay origin, funnily enough specifically designed just for the purpose of bringing along items...
- Nothing on the containers says Botany Bay. Things on the containers say Federation and Starfleet. The belt buckle is more mobile than the random pieces of metal and whatnot - and why would Khan have those pieces of labeled metal if he weren't getting his metal from Kirk?

Plotwise, the part where it takes the belt buckle to reveal that the hardware comes from the Botany Bay is quite telling, and necessary for the plot. We can't have a hut with "Khan's Hut" painted on the door in blood...

Timo Saloniemi

Yeah, I read the MA page. That paragraph has no citations so its accuracy is debatable. But stuff that happens behind the scenes does not mean that it explains what we see on screen or that such an idea is the most logical. Many things intended later get completely different explanations. So even if that was supposed to be an oversized workerbee cargo pod, no such oversized pod was ever seen and the design we see on screen does not match what we saw in TMP or any other Star Trek cargo container we have ever seen. So if there was any intent to the design, none of it shows up on screen in any way. The only internally consistent explanation for what we see on screen is that the Enterprise returned to the Botany Bay and Khan and his party were stranded on Ceti Alpha V with the containers and the items retrieved from SS Botany Bay. Since those items would have come from SS Botany Bay, it makes sense that since we never saw such cargo containers before or after that they belonged to SS Botany Bay, not Enterprise. A one off appearance of the container matches the one off appearance of the Botany Bay. That makes a whole lot more sense than a mystery container we have never seen before or since.