Westworld with no robots....
A Piece of the Action ("Ending Issue")
- Thread starter Omega-Trekker
- Start date
I didn't see any evidence of that.
In Westworld, they killed the people in the end.
Why would you say "no robots"? What do you think allowed the Iotians to replace every citizen with a burly gangster or his shapely moll?
...Whom their co-cosplayers could slay at will, too.
McCoy never does his "They are human, Jim!" routine with his tricorder here...
Timo Saloniemi
...Whom their co-cosplayers could slay at will, too.
McCoy never does his "They are human, Jim!" routine with his tricorder here...
Timo Saloniemi
Since we're going waaaay out on limbs here, I wonder if there could be a connection between these robots and those of I, Mudd.
Using the ship's phasers to stun an entire city block... Now, how come they don't do that again, like, ever?
That part makes good sense. While phasers set to disrupt can make walls disappear altogether, phasers on stun don't seem to work through walls. What other sort of opponen would have his entire army of healthy musclemen standing out in the open, protected only by their felt hats, while every cute baby and frail old man and puppy stayed safely indoors? Generally, it would be vice versa, and the stun would kill bystanders while failing to stun the actual targets.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Kirk improvises in "The Corbomite Maneuver," the first regular episode filmed. Kirk improvising clever solutions to seemingly insolvable problems was a part of his character from almost the beginning.
True, but I was referring to the use of "improvisation" in relation to spontaneous acting (AKA extemporising) rather than creative tactical choices.
It's worth noting that Kirk also spent some time on Earth during the prohibition era so he also had that to draw upon. We only see him interact with Edith, Spock and Trooper/Rat; who knows what other accents he overheard during his many odd jobs.
It was probably already in pieces on an Iotian scientist's worktable by that time.
And yes, the Iotians definitely struck me as smart enough to pull it off. If they can extrapolate an entire society based on just ONE BOOK, they can take apart a communicator and figure out how it works. That'd be totally within their wheelhouse.
Exactly. I never had an issue with I, Mudd with the mains. Mudd is an irritant and the androids uninteresting, but the episode is fine as an adventure. Same with A Piece of the Action. It's Kirk adapting to the situation as he tends to do.
Maybe it's personal bias from too many years in amateur dramatics, but I've seen more than my share of people who are normally very creative in their own fields, yet when called upon to improvise a scene become like deers caught in headlights.
And even if our hero Kirk can manage it, what about all the others?
Well, maybe it's bias from both years of amateur dramatics AND having to apply it in different situations that makes me more accepting. Certainly I have had to use my drama skills in completely unrelated fields (retail and counseling, respectively) so that improvisation is more natural to me. And, what I have found to be even more helpful is someone who presents with confidence of a lead. If there's a strong leader then most secondary people can play off of them better. It's not perfect, but certainly in Starfleet I can see Kirk being easy person to be inspired by.
Spock is very awkward when called upon to improvise in the moment in "A Piece of the Action." He's better in "I. Mudd", but the crew obviously planned out their performance there, and Spock wasn't called upon to do anything too far outside his comfort zone.
I mentioned McCoy’s communicator and what became of it in a thread here not long ago. I’m glad to see that this time the discussion has blossomed, instead of being immediately dismissed.
Star Trek often spoke in parables, yet no one talks about the allegory in "A Piece of the Action." Yes, it is a silly episode, possibly inspired by Robin and the 7 Hoods, as suggested by ZapBrannigan. Unlike "The Trouble with Tribbles", "A Piece of the Action" has a message behind the comedy.
It was also ZapBrannigan who told me about cargo cults. The most outstanding examples are the Pacific cargo cults of World War II. Islanders would see American or Japanese military arrive, set up air strips, and then off-load bountiful "cargo" from the fleets of planes that would arrive. The islanders had no concept of modern, industrial society, but they understood that certain actions and behaviors brought in the goods. So, the islanders built their own "air strips," control towers and even "radios" out of wood.
Could the Iotians have puzzled out solid state electronics, optical circuits and other indistinguishable-from-magic technology from McCoy's communicator? Irrelevant. Like the cargo cults, what matters is that something taken out of context had a powerful influence on the society. And the effect isn't always one way.
In 1491, a book about the world prior to Christopher Columbus's historic voyage, author Charles C. Mann shows that who has the superior technology is not always so clear. Many Amerinds, especially those in the south, carefully cultivated huge regions of land, and kept back tangling undergrowth with annual burnings. These park-like farms and orchards naturally attracted wildlife. So the farmers built other gardens in remote regions and used other techniques to protect their own fields, while also encouraging populations of game animals only a few days journey from their own settlements. (That is, they did not maintain their own flocks of domesticated animals, but took advantage of what nature provides so readily when given a gentle nudge.)
The European explorers mistook this massive terraforming for an untouched and idyllic natural wilderness. The illusion persists to this day. Taken out of context, modern "green activists" push for a "return" to the Eden unsullied by Man. Untended, the ecology rapid collapses in "preserved" land.
In the first three "Bobiverse" books by Dennis E. Taylor, there is a running thread about Bob's involvement with a stone age, humanoid race. (The original Bob was a software engineer who dies in an auto accident in the early 21st century, and is cryogenically preserved. He "wakes up" to find that he is no longer human, but a recording of Bob maintained in a computer sim. He has been drafted to become the guiding intelligence for an interstellar Von Neumann probe. Being the complete sci-fi loving nerd that he is, Bob heads for the stars. He is the vanguard for humanity, and dutifully clones more Bobs. The stories indulge many of the Star Trek tropes, often with subtle twists and variations. One of the Bobs even assumes the name Riker—along with Riker's stilted behavior.)
Bob's early interactions with the "Deltans" (the stone age humanoids) are a string of disasters because he is taking action without all the facts. So the Deltans banish Bob. But he maintains discreet contact with an individual Deltan, and that is when both parties flourish from the contact. There is mutual benefit once both get to know the other better and understand where they came from. The fourth book in the series examines all of this in more detail when a group of Bobs push for a non-interference "prime directive."
It was also ZapBrannigan who told me about cargo cults. The most outstanding examples are the Pacific cargo cults of World War II. Islanders would see American or Japanese military arrive, set up air strips, and then off-load bountiful "cargo" from the fleets of planes that would arrive. The islanders had no concept of modern, industrial society, but they understood that certain actions and behaviors brought in the goods. So, the islanders built their own "air strips," control towers and even "radios" out of wood.
Could the Iotians have puzzled out solid state electronics, optical circuits and other indistinguishable-from-magic technology from McCoy's communicator? Irrelevant. Like the cargo cults, what matters is that something taken out of context had a powerful influence on the society. And the effect isn't always one way.
In 1491, a book about the world prior to Christopher Columbus's historic voyage, author Charles C. Mann shows that who has the superior technology is not always so clear. Many Amerinds, especially those in the south, carefully cultivated huge regions of land, and kept back tangling undergrowth with annual burnings. These park-like farms and orchards naturally attracted wildlife. So the farmers built other gardens in remote regions and used other techniques to protect their own fields, while also encouraging populations of game animals only a few days journey from their own settlements. (That is, they did not maintain their own flocks of domesticated animals, but took advantage of what nature provides so readily when given a gentle nudge.)
The European explorers mistook this massive terraforming for an untouched and idyllic natural wilderness. The illusion persists to this day. Taken out of context, modern "green activists" push for a "return" to the Eden unsullied by Man. Untended, the ecology rapid collapses in "preserved" land.
In the first three "Bobiverse" books by Dennis E. Taylor, there is a running thread about Bob's involvement with a stone age, humanoid race. (The original Bob was a software engineer who dies in an auto accident in the early 21st century, and is cryogenically preserved. He "wakes up" to find that he is no longer human, but a recording of Bob maintained in a computer sim. He has been drafted to become the guiding intelligence for an interstellar Von Neumann probe. Being the complete sci-fi loving nerd that he is, Bob heads for the stars. He is the vanguard for humanity, and dutifully clones more Bobs. The stories indulge many of the Star Trek tropes, often with subtle twists and variations. One of the Bobs even assumes the name Riker—along with Riker's stilted behavior.)
Bob's early interactions with the "Deltans" (the stone age humanoids) are a string of disasters because he is taking action without all the facts. So the Deltans banish Bob. But he maintains discreet contact with an individual Deltan, and that is when both parties flourish from the contact. There is mutual benefit once both get to know the other better and understand where they came from. The fourth book in the series examines all of this in more detail when a group of Bobs push for a non-interference "prime directive."
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