In "The Ultimate Computer" the M-5 took over the Enterprise and attacked the War Games fleet of ships, resulting in "killing" the U.S.S. Excalibur and it's entire crew. The onscreen evidence of the damage caused is minimal as the producers obviously couldn't create (or have the money for) elaborate special effects or models and the portrayal of space combat on screen was still in it's infancy. As a result, the only evidence we got was the re-use of the wrecked Constellation to represent the Excalibur seen at a distance on the Enterprise's view screen and dialogue about the ship "looking dead" and the sensors showing no life. The TOS remaster of the episode really doesn't add any more clues other then the new shots of Enterprise's phasers hitting the Excalibur with some flashes where the beams land.
So I often wondered, especially after ST:TWOK came out and we finally saw how a phaser strike actually damaged a ship, how exactly could the attack by the M-5 have resulted in the entire crew being decimated yet left the vessel itself relatively intact?
As damaging as phasers were in TWOK, they still seemed more like something to soften up a target or weaken the shields, then use a photon torpedo as a secondary strike to cause serious harm if not outright blow a ship apart. While the Reliant and the Enterprise may trade some pretty good blows with their phasers, the end result is still fairly functional ships with just some burn marks, exposed deck plating and internal fires and explosions. It's only after a torpedo blows off Reliant's nacelle does one of the combatants seem permanently out of commission. The superiority of photons over phasers was demonstrated again in ST: TUC when the Klingon torpedo goes completely through the Enterprise's saucer once the shields are down. So while I don't doubt that phasers alone could destroy an enemy ship it just seems like unless a hit is scored on a vital area, like say the warp core or anti-matter storage, it will require quite a few strikes to cause enough damage piecemeal.
Since we are given no evidence M-5 used torpedoes, one can only conclude all the overall damage that killed the Excalibur was done with phasers. The most obvious conclusion was all the combined strikes were enough to kill the entire crew through hull breaches and internal explosions, but I always had a problem with that. While undoubtedly that might be responsible for a good majority of the crew deaths, but there still should have been some survivors, if only a scant few, maybe found in an area that due to forcefields or emergency bulkheads, were spared any fires or exposure to space. But we are given no indication that this is the case and perhaps this lingering question could have been easily solved by causing the Excalibur to explode, maybe by just using the same "starburst" explosion effect TOS reused whenever they wanting to show something blowing up on the main screen.
I also often also wondered of the premise of M-5 being able to inflict such complete strikes on the Excalibur while simultaneously firing on three other starships and those 1 to 4 odds of the Enterprise against ships of it's own class always seemed a stretch even if the other crews were caught unprepared.
My theory of thought experiment has always been that the only way the entire crew was killed off and left the ship mostly intact was one of those phaser hits damaged one of the nacelles or other part of the warp drive systems to the point a baffle plate was ruptured and spewed delta rays systematically throughout the volume of the ship thereby insuring there would be not a single person left even if they survived any other damage as well as allowing what was left of the Excalibur to be salvaged and any bodies recovered.
This also has always left the unanswered question of what did become of the Excalibur afterwards though I'm guessing since there was no reason for the other starships to engage in a rescue operation of its crew, that it was simply towed back to a Federation port and then being too badly damaged, scrapped.
But one of the biggest disadvantages of TOS never following up on events in previous episodes, was in how this event affected Kirk in the long-term, since it was his ship that killed hundreds of fellow Starfleet officers. If TOS would had a continuity or character growth the same way the later Trek series did, I always imagined he might be dealing with some post-event guilt and lingering command doubts in the same vein Picard did after being forced to destroy so many starships as Locutus. But instead we are left with the impression it was just another business as usual adventure by the time next week's episode aired and no source I've ever seen or read, canon or not, that involves Kirk seems to bring up the events of this episode again.
So I often wondered, especially after ST:TWOK came out and we finally saw how a phaser strike actually damaged a ship, how exactly could the attack by the M-5 have resulted in the entire crew being decimated yet left the vessel itself relatively intact?
As damaging as phasers were in TWOK, they still seemed more like something to soften up a target or weaken the shields, then use a photon torpedo as a secondary strike to cause serious harm if not outright blow a ship apart. While the Reliant and the Enterprise may trade some pretty good blows with their phasers, the end result is still fairly functional ships with just some burn marks, exposed deck plating and internal fires and explosions. It's only after a torpedo blows off Reliant's nacelle does one of the combatants seem permanently out of commission. The superiority of photons over phasers was demonstrated again in ST: TUC when the Klingon torpedo goes completely through the Enterprise's saucer once the shields are down. So while I don't doubt that phasers alone could destroy an enemy ship it just seems like unless a hit is scored on a vital area, like say the warp core or anti-matter storage, it will require quite a few strikes to cause enough damage piecemeal.
Since we are given no evidence M-5 used torpedoes, one can only conclude all the overall damage that killed the Excalibur was done with phasers. The most obvious conclusion was all the combined strikes were enough to kill the entire crew through hull breaches and internal explosions, but I always had a problem with that. While undoubtedly that might be responsible for a good majority of the crew deaths, but there still should have been some survivors, if only a scant few, maybe found in an area that due to forcefields or emergency bulkheads, were spared any fires or exposure to space. But we are given no indication that this is the case and perhaps this lingering question could have been easily solved by causing the Excalibur to explode, maybe by just using the same "starburst" explosion effect TOS reused whenever they wanting to show something blowing up on the main screen.
I also often also wondered of the premise of M-5 being able to inflict such complete strikes on the Excalibur while simultaneously firing on three other starships and those 1 to 4 odds of the Enterprise against ships of it's own class always seemed a stretch even if the other crews were caught unprepared.
My theory of thought experiment has always been that the only way the entire crew was killed off and left the ship mostly intact was one of those phaser hits damaged one of the nacelles or other part of the warp drive systems to the point a baffle plate was ruptured and spewed delta rays systematically throughout the volume of the ship thereby insuring there would be not a single person left even if they survived any other damage as well as allowing what was left of the Excalibur to be salvaged and any bodies recovered.
This also has always left the unanswered question of what did become of the Excalibur afterwards though I'm guessing since there was no reason for the other starships to engage in a rescue operation of its crew, that it was simply towed back to a Federation port and then being too badly damaged, scrapped.
But one of the biggest disadvantages of TOS never following up on events in previous episodes, was in how this event affected Kirk in the long-term, since it was his ship that killed hundreds of fellow Starfleet officers. If TOS would had a continuity or character growth the same way the later Trek series did, I always imagined he might be dealing with some post-event guilt and lingering command doubts in the same vein Picard did after being forced to destroy so many starships as Locutus. But instead we are left with the impression it was just another business as usual adventure by the time next week's episode aired and no source I've ever seen or read, canon or not, that involves Kirk seems to bring up the events of this episode again.
