Man Trap Versus Turnabout Intruder
- Thread starter Spock's Barber
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Another similarity between MT and TI was that both doctors were involved in the murder aspect.
And you somehow equate that with banishing it on a place where its extinction is guaranteed?
There is no saving to be done - unless we go the abandoned route, of her being pregnant or capable of budding, and even then the culture can't be saved, merely the species. But, as said, that route was abandoned. By the writers rather than by the heroes, that is.
What is left is a good death. And the planet cannot provide any, since it is lethal torture in the very meaning of both words.
Which is what I'm talking about: it doesn't take salt even when it's available. It merely stares at it. Yet it also kills, with abandon.
This is not self-preservation through abstinence. The creature engages in high-risk hijinks through and through, apparently not comprehending the conditions of survival at all. And how could it? It apparently doesn't speak any human language. Or rather, it speaks fluent Swahili, proving its inability to do languages, since it could never have learned that language for real. It's a mere mirror, reflecting on its victims what they want to see or hear. (Such as a compassionate speech from McCoy, for the purposes of being dismissed.)
Nothing in the episode suggests this. It is driven by a need to kill, against odds and survival. It scorns salt sources of other sorts. And, hell, it's the last of its kind. That can't be through starvation - the unperishable salt couldn't have been consumed to the last grain in such a fashion as to leave enough for a single individual. Rather, the last survivor must have killed the second-to-last. These things are murder machines, rather than salt-eating herbivores or omnivores.
Whether they built those stone buildings, we can't tell - Crater is crazy as a cuckoo and retelling lies it has told the telepathic mirror previously. Possibly the buffalo killed the builders and then themselves.
Which is something the heroes could find out once not blinded by the telepathic mirror. Killing it will give as great insight into the culture as any other action. Letting it die a good death far away from the planet it killed would also do.
What later season? Kirk doesn't let hippies live hippie lives, but whips them to submission, even when their weed gives them life everlasting. Kirk isn't a believer of "living out one's life" in any episode, unless said life meets Starfleet standards.
And again, torture. The creature would SUFFER HORRIBLY if let to live. It is shown doing exactly that, being driven to insane things by nothing more than continuing existence. And if that isn't suffering, then the critter certainly deserves to die!
Timo Saloniemi
That dialogue would have been helpful, but Spock's reasoning was faulty, not "McCoy"'s. It's a big galaxy, Mr. Johnson, and surely finding a similar planet with naturally-occurring sodium chloride would have been as easy as saying "Drake's Equation."*
I agree with some of the other posters that the creature was a psychopath. There was enough in the filmed presentation to support that premise, especially if you underlined its desire for stronger emotions as another motive for killing. Had this aspect been developed more fully, Crater becomes a tragic anti-hero and the crew is painted into a corner by the creature"s pathologies.
*Reading this episode along with WNMHGB makes me wonder whether Spock is just as homicidal as the creature appears to be.
I snipped my two favorites aspects of each episode from your wonderful comments.
The thing about Kirk in Man Trap that I always found fascinating is his mundane attitude to the job, and his "bellyache" line when things get complicated is so down-to-earth.
Indeed, while "Corbomite Maneuver" (let alone the airing of the pilot right away) might have been a more glorious way to get TOS started, "Man Trap" is great at establishing our heroes as the bluecollar exploiters of space, rather than wide-eyed tinfoil-collar adventurers. A supply run to a desolate world, one out of many, goes horribly wrong, and our set of heroes copes with this through procedure and firepower. Not just the main swashbucklers, mind you - we get the viewpoint of a guard, a transporter operator, a botanist, a communications officer... All in the middle of their everyday duties and little pleasures of life. The cook doesn't get a word in for comic relief; the people who die didn't quite have it coming; and there is little in the way of gloating or moralizing in the end.
This is pretty far removed from Forbidden Planet, despite appearances!
Timo Saloniemi
This is pretty far removed from Forbidden Planet, despite appearances!
Timo Saloniemi
Later in the season, Gene Coon would have offered a way to save it. A few lines of dialog and boom, preserved species.
Kirk didn’t try to kill the hippies even after they tried to kill him. He just didn’t agree to ferry them into Romulan space. Different. And nothing at the end of that episode shows them being submissive. Kirk beams them up, treats their injuries and sends them on their way where they will continue their quest.
Look, this is tiresome, but the CONVERSATION should have happened. And if they would have left Spock’s dissertation as to WHY sending it down with salt wouldn’t have worked, then this wouldn’t be a discussion. Instead, they just went with shooting it.
I just can't agree with that, is all. On a level fundamentally unrelated to what Star Trek is supposed to be like. It just makes zero sense to even consider sending the creature to its horrid doom, as if it hadn't already had enough of that.
That the heroes would not consider that is a good thing, because it makes them look more sane. And the episode would not benefit from a line establishing that they aren't considering it and aren't insane, because that really should be our default assumption, even for a set of heroes we never met before.
(As for space hippies, Kirk already met some in the first season. "Maybe we weren't meant for paradise" is his feeble excuse for (literally!) beating sense to the counterculturists and dragging them away. Kirk isn't out to preserve life if it doesn't meet his expectations. And any life that kills, he mercilessly kills back, be it vampire clouds or vampire amoebae or vampire humanoids. Because, you know, he really is van Helsing at heart.)
Timo Saloniemi
That the heroes would not consider that is a good thing, because it makes them look more sane. And the episode would not benefit from a line establishing that they aren't considering it and aren't insane, because that really should be our default assumption, even for a set of heroes we never met before.
(As for space hippies, Kirk already met some in the first season. "Maybe we weren't meant for paradise" is his feeble excuse for (literally!) beating sense to the counterculturists and dragging them away. Kirk isn't out to preserve life if it doesn't meet his expectations. And any life that kills, he mercilessly kills back, be it vampire clouds or vampire amoebae or vampire humanoids. Because, you know, he really is van Helsing at heart.)
Timo Saloniemi
In "This Side of Paradise," Kirk had no other choice. He had to find a way to shake off the spores to get his ship and his crew back. Without the spores, the colonists would have succumbed to the deadly Berthold rays within a week (according to the dialogue).
I forgot to mention TURNABOUT INTRUDER has good sci-potential in general, and it's a shame Irwin Allen didn't have the guts to try the premise with June Lockhart and Jonathan Harris.
Uh, where did you get that? He/she/it certainly doesn't appear to have any difficulty communicating.
Where do you get that? Rand shoos the false Green away when "he" tries to grab the salt shaker!
(emphasis added) And that was a good thing? They're supposed to be explorers, not exploiters.
And as soon as Sandoval "comes down," he doesn't want to stay.
At any rate, Spock's cut monologue ultimately works out to be an argument for transplanting the salt vampire to another planet. Presumably one with lots of salt, and no sentient life.
The salt vampire is clearly either well aware that he/she/it is facing murder charges, or is completely nuts (albeit not as completely nuts as the basic premise itself is), or most likely both.
(And of course, this whole discussion begs the question of how that salt vampire blackout gag in Lower Decks made any sense at all.)
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Using the Hornblowr metaphor, according to the rating system of the Royal Navy as used in the Naploeonic Wars, ships wee rated mostly on the number of guns they carried, which of course required them to be of specific sizes.
First rates would have at least 100 guns on three gun decks, second rates had 8 0to 98 guns on 3 decks, 3rd rates had 64 to 80 guns on 2 decks, 4th rates had 50 to 60 guns on 2 decks, 5th rates had 32 to 44 guns on 1 or 2 decks, 6th rates had.20 to 28 guns on 1 deck, and smaller vessels were not rated. smaller vessels included, Sloops-of-war with 16 to 18 guns and gun-brigs, brigs, cutters, and schooners with few guns.
First, second, and third rates were ships of the line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rating_system_of_the_Royal_Navy.
So using the Hornblower metaphor, an second-rate ship would be a ship-of-the-line.
Umm, what? Sure there is a choice - do not shake off the spores. Berthold rays will be no problem then.
If Kirk himself selfishly wants to flee, he's free to do so. He doesn't need to drag the space hippies with him - after the ultrasound trick is done with, they can go get a new dose of protection from the spores, and return to their bliss.
Ah, but that's exactly what he/she/it did appear to have. There was a lot of blah blah blah, but no evidence through subsequent actions that the creature comprehended any of it.
Dr. Crater thinks he has a rapport with the beast. Then again, he thinks it's his wife!
The rest is just the beast sounding like a tall, dark stranger or the compassionate doctor, exactly like it looks like the parts.
Again, that's just it: the creature has options, and the ones it chooses are the worst possible ones. Instead of pressing on with attempts to steal salt, it murders. Instead of asking, it murders. Instead of relying on its "husband" to secure an endless supply of salt tablets, it murders.
The easy outs do not appeal to the beast. It desperately and indeed suicidally seeks the real deal. Sentencing it to what would amount to a diet of moldy bread and stale water at best is not merciful and compassionate protection for a pitiful survivor, but its conceptual opposite.
I rather doubt that. Every instance of them being assigned a "survey" was about them helping the UFP exploit the local resources. Idle scientific curiosity was a hobby Spock was allowed to have during his working hours, as long as it didn't interfere with his duties.
Well, he "gives every cooperation" to the violent oppressors. What choice would he have? He already knows what this monster in a gold shirt is capable of, and how he responds to perfectly reasonable arguments.
And this is the thing that simply sounds morally highly dubious. Would you want to live alone on a desert island with but an endless supply of, say, cheddar? If the alternative were at least some sort of care? This "another planet" might not be to the beast the horrid hellhole the original planet was, but it wouldn't be "home", either. So care would best be facilitated in some other fashion, any other fashion.
People who actually care about animal welfare don't obsess about not killing. People who care about human welfare carry different ballast, but those going for a good death (which is the only option available to this Lonesome George or Gracie here) would try and alleviate the effects of the unavoidable solitary confinement, rather than accentuate them.
And what the salt vampire in Trelane's castle was supposed to be all about. Do these beasts wander throughout the galaxy, killing innocent planets before themselves succumbing to cannibalism? Is that fishnet, worn by all vampires seen so far, just generic alien haute couture rather than Mad Max chic for the last survivor? Are we looking at a sapient species that either has its rotten apples, or is rotten to the core to begin with? Or at a true vampire, a creature with as little moral justification for not being killed as a Borg Drone does?
Timo Saloniemi
"The Man Trap" is obviously based on, or influenced by, A.E. van Vogt's "Black Destroyer", like a number of other science fiction stories, movies, and tv episodes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Destroyer
It shares with "Black Destroyer" the problem of how the vital substance is becoming lost. In nature, evreything is more or less recycled.
In some versions of Van Vogt's story Couerl needs the element potassium, which is indestructable, but coluld be removed from circulation in the environment somehow. In other versions Couerl needs the element phosporus. Both potassium and phosporus are necessary for Earth lifeforms. So the problem in making their scarcity in "Black Destroyer" plausible might be solved by imaging some chemical reaction which is becommong much more common on the planet grabs potassium or phosporus, as the case may be, from a compound that is usable for lifeforms and put sit into a compound which is not usable for lifeforms. If all the potassium or phosphorus is being taken into unusable compounds, it might as well be disappearing as far as lifeforms are concerned..
Salt, on the other hand, is a compound. A chemical compound can be broken up into less complex compounds or into its elements, sodium and chlorine in this case, by various chemical eactions. But apaprently this planet has been occupied by lifeforms with a biological need for salt for billions of years and it hasn't run desperately short of salt until comparatively recently, indicating that slat was probably formed as fast as it was broken up for most of those billions of years. .
Possibly vast amounts of some substances were releaed into the atmosphere by war or massive vulcanism or a giant impact which depleted the salt supply. One or more chemicals.might have been catalysts which broke up molecule after molecule of salt into sodium and chlorine. And other substances might have been chemicals which reacted with sodium to torm compounds with strong molecular bonds that would not be broken easily. And others formed strong bonds with chlorine. Thus salt would be broken up and not reformed nearly as fast, becoming rarer and rarer..
The atmosphere of planet M-113 was breathable for humans and so contained enough oxygen. It also contained enough nitrogen and carbon dioxide for the plants, and since there was some liquid water for the plants and animals there would have been some water vapor. Chlorine is not lighter than nitrogen or oxygen and so would not escape from the planet's atmosphere faster than they would, so that is not the reason for the depletion of salt.
As I remember, in "Black Destroyer" Couerl was a member of the species that created the extinct civilization on his planet, but when the story was rewritten for The Voyage of the Space Beagle it was suggested or even stated that he was an artifical lifeform created by the advanced biological science of the former civilization.
Thus we might wonder whether the salt vampire was a member of the M-113 civilization species or a member of an artifical species created by the advanced science of that civilization, or possibly an artificial species created by aliens as a weapon to destroy the M-113 civilization. In that case the salt vampires might be designed to need a lot of salt and to break it down into sodium and chlorine before excreting it, along with other chemicals which would react with the sodium and cholorine to form new compoudns which were not salt. Thus the salt vampires could have been designed to destroy the civilization and also destroy the salt they needed and die out, thus enabling the other alien society to settle on the planet afterwards, restoring the salt supply.
I note that a statue, or a dead specimen, or possibly a specimen in suspended animation, of a salt vampire, was in Trelanes's residence in "The squire of Gothos".
What is the size of planet M-113?
Here is a link to a quesiton about the smallest possible size of apalnet whichis habitable.
https://astronomy.stackexchange.com...-be-smaller-than-0-58-earth-radii/41599#41599
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Destroyer
It shares with "Black Destroyer" the problem of how the vital substance is becoming lost. In nature, evreything is more or less recycled.
In some versions of Van Vogt's story Couerl needs the element potassium, which is indestructable, but coluld be removed from circulation in the environment somehow. In other versions Couerl needs the element phosporus. Both potassium and phosporus are necessary for Earth lifeforms. So the problem in making their scarcity in "Black Destroyer" plausible might be solved by imaging some chemical reaction which is becommong much more common on the planet grabs potassium or phosporus, as the case may be, from a compound that is usable for lifeforms and put sit into a compound which is not usable for lifeforms. If all the potassium or phosphorus is being taken into unusable compounds, it might as well be disappearing as far as lifeforms are concerned..
Salt, on the other hand, is a compound. A chemical compound can be broken up into less complex compounds or into its elements, sodium and chlorine in this case, by various chemical eactions. But apaprently this planet has been occupied by lifeforms with a biological need for salt for billions of years and it hasn't run desperately short of salt until comparatively recently, indicating that slat was probably formed as fast as it was broken up for most of those billions of years. .
Possibly vast amounts of some substances were releaed into the atmosphere by war or massive vulcanism or a giant impact which depleted the salt supply. One or more chemicals.might have been catalysts which broke up molecule after molecule of salt into sodium and chlorine. And other substances might have been chemicals which reacted with sodium to torm compounds with strong molecular bonds that would not be broken easily. And others formed strong bonds with chlorine. Thus salt would be broken up and not reformed nearly as fast, becoming rarer and rarer..
The atmosphere of planet M-113 was breathable for humans and so contained enough oxygen. It also contained enough nitrogen and carbon dioxide for the plants, and since there was some liquid water for the plants and animals there would have been some water vapor. Chlorine is not lighter than nitrogen or oxygen and so would not escape from the planet's atmosphere faster than they would, so that is not the reason for the depletion of salt.
As I remember, in "Black Destroyer" Couerl was a member of the species that created the extinct civilization on his planet, but when the story was rewritten for The Voyage of the Space Beagle it was suggested or even stated that he was an artifical lifeform created by the advanced biological science of the former civilization.
Thus we might wonder whether the salt vampire was a member of the M-113 civilization species or a member of an artifical species created by the advanced science of that civilization, or possibly an artificial species created by aliens as a weapon to destroy the M-113 civilization. In that case the salt vampires might be designed to need a lot of salt and to break it down into sodium and chlorine before excreting it, along with other chemicals which would react with the sodium and cholorine to form new compoudns which were not salt. Thus the salt vampires could have been designed to destroy the civilization and also destroy the salt they needed and die out, thus enabling the other alien society to settle on the planet afterwards, restoring the salt supply.
I note that a statue, or a dead specimen, or possibly a specimen in suspended animation, of a salt vampire, was in Trelanes's residence in "The squire of Gothos".
What is the size of planet M-113?
Here is a link to a quesiton about the smallest possible size of apalnet whichis habitable.
https://astronomy.stackexchange.com...-be-smaller-than-0-58-earth-radii/41599#41599
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It should be noted that the location of the Crater survey consists of ruins that must be at least centuries old (although not too many thousands of years, given their fairly good condition, even taking into account the arid surroundings), rather than the remains of a city that fell within the lifetime of your average Trek humanoid. Or even three or four lifetimes. The surviving vampire has not survived by the traditional means inherent in the construction of structures of the sort we see: it can't have been eking out a living out of the land (which is dead, and in any case there is no sustenance farm there to be seen) or pillaging supplies (the techniques for keeping the supplies from decaying would not exist), unless we assume it lives of salt alone (and such an implausible thing is never claimed in the episode).
And the Craters have been here for just a couple of years. Hitting the narrow time window where evidence of the means of survival would have totally disappeared from view but the last survivor would still be there is statistically hyper-improbable!
A living weapon designed to survive for a given amount of time, regardless of resources, is a good match for what we see. Quite possibly it is also incapable of reproduction of any sort, then. After all, reproduction would suggest a cycle of life and death, and death is an ingredient mysteriously missing from the picture here... Instead of it, we get a mass extinction.
The other interpretation is an extremely sudden disaster that somehow spares a single individual. Perhaps a cosmic impact or Trek-specific atmospheric disaster could take this pseudo-South-American civilization and tear its buildings into the ruins we see and its fields into the (salt?!) flats we witness. And perhaps the one sheltering tower that juts out of the landscape would call in the attention of our archaeologists just when its one occupant has ceased leaving marks on its environment and prepares to die? But the probability considerations aside, nothing in the dialogue or the visuals suggests sudden, that is, recent disaster. To the contrary, Kirk's brochure reads "ancient and long-dead".
Timo Saloniemi
And the Craters have been here for just a couple of years. Hitting the narrow time window where evidence of the means of survival would have totally disappeared from view but the last survivor would still be there is statistically hyper-improbable!
A living weapon designed to survive for a given amount of time, regardless of resources, is a good match for what we see. Quite possibly it is also incapable of reproduction of any sort, then. After all, reproduction would suggest a cycle of life and death, and death is an ingredient mysteriously missing from the picture here... Instead of it, we get a mass extinction.
The other interpretation is an extremely sudden disaster that somehow spares a single individual. Perhaps a cosmic impact or Trek-specific atmospheric disaster could take this pseudo-South-American civilization and tear its buildings into the ruins we see and its fields into the (salt?!) flats we witness. And perhaps the one sheltering tower that juts out of the landscape would call in the attention of our archaeologists just when its one occupant has ceased leaving marks on its environment and prepares to die? But the probability considerations aside, nothing in the dialogue or the visuals suggests sudden, that is, recent disaster. To the contrary, Kirk's brochure reads "ancient and long-dead".
Timo Saloniemi
I just had a new idea about 4:50 AM EST 09-28-2021.
Mabe the Salt Vampire arrived on the planet with no way of leaving - crashing, being deliberately marooned, running out of fuel, sufferent a long distance transporter malfunction, etc. - sometime after the Craters arrived, and could sense the Craters telepathically at a distance. And it could sense that Robert was very misanthrophic and would probably kill any unscheduled human visitor, while Nancy was extremely xenophobic and would probably kill any non human visitor. But they both deamed of someday finding a survivor of the lost M-113 ciivlization.
So the salt vampire introduced itself to them as the last survivor of the M-113 civilization and told them whatever they wished to hear about what it had been like and what happened to it. And eventually Nancy was alone with the salt vampire, and perhaps desired to see Leonard McCoy again, and perhaps the creature changed its illusion to McCoy for a second, and she realized it was a fraud, and it could read her intention of getting a phaser and killing it.
So it used its hypnosis to paralize Nancy and drain her salt, and perhaps felt the thrill of predation for the first time. And then it probably impersonated Nancy for a while, claiming that the native had left, until Robert found out somehow but didn't decide to kill it.
Mabe the Salt Vampire arrived on the planet with no way of leaving - crashing, being deliberately marooned, running out of fuel, sufferent a long distance transporter malfunction, etc. - sometime after the Craters arrived, and could sense the Craters telepathically at a distance. And it could sense that Robert was very misanthrophic and would probably kill any unscheduled human visitor, while Nancy was extremely xenophobic and would probably kill any non human visitor. But they both deamed of someday finding a survivor of the lost M-113 ciivlization.
So the salt vampire introduced itself to them as the last survivor of the M-113 civilization and told them whatever they wished to hear about what it had been like and what happened to it. And eventually Nancy was alone with the salt vampire, and perhaps desired to see Leonard McCoy again, and perhaps the creature changed its illusion to McCoy for a second, and she realized it was a fraud, and it could read her intention of getting a phaser and killing it.
So it used its hypnosis to paralize Nancy and drain her salt, and perhaps felt the thrill of predation for the first time. And then it probably impersonated Nancy for a while, claiming that the native had left, until Robert found out somehow but didn't decide to kill it.
Fair enough. Hornblower's frigate, The Lydia, was a 36-gun vessel. So a fifth-rate vessel.
A heavy cruiser is two notches down from a battleship so it's a third-rate vessel.So the Enterprise isn't a second-rate vessel. It's at best a third rate vessel! That should be hauled as garbage.
It's an interesting backstory. It requires more complexity than Occam's Razor would prefer, but it's interesting.
All we'd need to find is one other faux M-113 creature wandering the galaxy to validate it.
All we'd need to find is one other faux M-113 creature wandering the galaxy to validate it.
I have some blood sucking welfare bums that live across the street from me...Nope, no M-113 creatures though.
It's an interesting backstory. It requires more complexity than Occam's Razor would prefer, but it's interesting.
All we'd need to find is one other faux M-113 creature wandering the galaxy to validate it.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Salt_vampire
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