"The Apple" - The TOS Mythbuster Episode!

[CorporalCaptain]

The idea of equating cash with money is silly. Most of our money today exists in the form of demand deposits, not cash [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply#United_States].

In Star Trek, credits are obviously a form of currency. DS9 "In the Cards" explained the no-money discrepancy that cropped into canon in STIV pretty well: by confining the no-money idea to Earth. VOY echoed a few years later by name-dropping the New World Economy on Earth and saying that money went the way of the dinosaur (on Earth). They obviously didn't mean just cash, because IRL today we don't mean just cash when we say "money."

Anyway, until the time of STIV, it was a non-issue.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

DS9 "In the Cards" explained the no-money discrepancy that cropped into canon in STIV pretty well: by confining the no-money idea to Earth.

"In The Cards" is pretty hilarious in that it has that scene between Jake and Nog where Jake parrots the standard TNG line about how "we work to better ourselves," Nog quite naturally replies, "...And what does that mean, exactly?" and Jake's response is more or less "...I don't know, shut up!" I take that as DS9's writers basically admitting that a moneyless economy makes no f--king sense and advising viewers not to think about it too hard.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

"In The Cards" is pretty hilarious in that it has that scene between Jake and Nog where Jake parrots the standard TNG line about how "we work to better ourselves," Nog quite naturally replies, "...And what does that mean, exactly?" and Jake's response is more or less "...I don't know, shut up!" I take that as DS9's writers basically admitting that a moneyless economy makes no f--king sense and advising viewers not to think about it too hard.

Yes, it's a riot.

 

[jackoverfull]

On the other hand, most 16 years old of today’s world have plenty of trouble trying to explain our economic system.

 

[Hofner]

In that scene in DS9's "In The Cards", what always especially cracked me up is when, don't know the exact quote, Nog says "Well, if you don't need money, then you certainly don't need MINE!"

Robert

 

[TIN_MAN]

I’m a little late to the party, so forgive me if some of the following has already been covered, but I don’t see how two landing parties materializing on a planet a moment apart in any way suggests that there is not more than one transporter. After all, what are the odds that two groups in two different transporter rooms are going to beam down at exactly the same time anyway?
Also, since most fans like to go with what they see and hear onscreen, then there are multiple times when we are given clues to where "the" transporter is (or is not) and they are contradictory –unless we accept that there are more than one, for example…
In “Wink Of An Eye” the transporter is implied to be above Kirk's quarters (which generally given as deck 5) because one of the characters is in the transporter talking to another character in Kirk's quarters and says “get up here”.
In another episode (I don’t recall which one at the moment) McCoy is in sickbay and via intercom to the transporter says “whats going on down there?”, since “Amok Time” implies that sickbay is on deck 5 (along with Kirk's quarters) then there must be a transporter room below.
So if we take the above two examples at face value, then there has to be at least two transporters, one above deck 5, and one below.
In “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” it is implied that there is also a transporter on deck 5, so now we have at least three transporter rooms.
And there are other instances like the above, which are too numerous to list, but these few should suffice to make my point.
Then there is TAS , which I know for a while was not considered canon, but is once again generally accepted as such, for which the following direct quotes are specific and to the point…

The Lorelei Signal
UHURA: Lieutenant Uhura to Security Officer Davison.
DAVISON: Davison here.
UHURA: I want an all-woman security team on every transporter immediately. No one is to transport down to the planet unless it is on my order.
Mudd's Passion
SPOCK: Please, Captain.
KIRK: Check it out, Bones. Send me an immediate report.
[now in "Bridge"]
MRESS: Mudd has landed on the planet surface. Co-ordinates relayed to Transporter room four.
The Terratin Incident
KIRK: Kirk to Engineering. Scotty, can you hear me?
SCOTT: Barely, sir.
KIRK: Get a crew down to transporter room three. We have twenty minutes left while we can still operate transporter controls.
The Terratin Incident
ANNOTATION: (The crystals have retained a relative size to the crew)
UHURA: Nice to be back aboard, sir, and fitting the room again.
KIRK: All crew personnel report to Transporter rooms immediately. Prepare to beam down to planet surface.

So now we have at least four transporters mentioned.
My two quatloos worth is that “the transporter” simply refers to the main one that they use most of the time, unless otherwise specified, as in the above examples.
It’s also worth noting that D.C. Fontana was the producer and story editor for TAS, and she was also the story editor and script consultant for the second season of TOS, so it was probably she who tipped off Whitfield about the various transporters which he then mentioned in TMOST.

 

[Ssosmcin]

TAS was made 4 years after the original series and made it a point to update the ship. There are two turbolifts on tue bridge in TAS, but that doesn't mean there were always two and we just didn't see them. Any series made after the original series is irrelevant in this case.

The rest of the examples are continuity errors. Especially in the third season.

Sets change details based on the needs of the episodes. So a disappearing food selector is just another example of changing the set to fit the needs of the story. It doesn't mean it's a different room. There are lots of changes to the sets which don't necessarily indicate more than one room. The engine room changed throughout the series.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The rest of the examples are continuity errors. Especially in the third season.

So, in that case, the Writers Guide, written while the series was under production, expresses a continuity error too?

"We assume there are various Transporter Rooms through the vessel." [STAR TREK WRITERS/DIRECTORS GUIDE, third revision, April 17, 1967. p. 15]​

 

[Ssosmcin]

But it didn't make it to the episodes. People keep calling out TMOST and various memos and guides, but if it didn't wind up on screen then it doesn't matter. Intentions versus execution. It would've been simplicity itself to put an "s" at the end of "transporter room." They never did. Every later incarnation of Star Trek that has multiple transporter rooms specifies them clearly. Even the first six movies don't indicate more than one.

Changes in sets and characters happen on television shows, especially in those days. Kirk's middle initial changed. Spock initially referred to his parents in the past tense. Originally he was Vulcanian. They changed the name of what we refer to as the mind meld almost every time it's used. Things evolve and details are forgotten. So yes, continuity error.

It's actually easier to justify only one transporter and then there is the try to prove multiple.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

But it didn't make it to the episodes.

Nor did they say on screen that there is one and only one transporter room on the whole ship. So, it's jumping to an unfounded conclusion to claim it was a continuity error to let dialog in compatible with there being transporter rooms on multiple decks, especially since they said it was their intention that there in fact be multiple transporter rooms.

Intentions versus execution.

Claiming it is a continuity error is speaking to intention.

 

[Ssosmcin]

It's just rehashing all the statements I made already, but every indication on screen points to a single transporter room. If one transporter is out, nobody ever suggests going to another one. They all meet in "the" transporter room. Nobody ever specifies which one. The plural is never used.

In "Wink of an Eye" Kirk sabotages the panel. Nobody ever suggested going to any of the other transporters. Because there weren't any.

They never once made an effort to indicate there was more than one in the original series or the films.

 

[GNDN18]

They never once made an effort to indicate there was more than one in the original series or the films.

CLEARY: Transporter room, come in! Urgent! Redline on the transporters, Mister Scott!
SCOTT: Transporter room, do not engage! Do not...
CLEARY: It's too late. They're beaming now!​

 

[UssGlenn]

In “Wink Of An Eye” the transporter is implied to be above Kirk's quarters (which generally given as deck 5) because one of the characters is in the transporter talking to another character in Kirk's quarters and says “get up here”.
In another episode (I don’t recall which one at the moment) McCoy is in sickbay and via intercom to the transporter says “whats going on down there?”, since “Amok Time” implies that sickbay is on deck 5 (along with Kirk's quarters) then there must be a transporter room below.
So if we take the above two examples at face value, then there has to be at least two transporters, one above deck 5, and one below.
In “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” it is implied that there is also a transporter on deck 5, so now we have at least three transporter rooms.

While I'm in the 4 transporter camp, these particular points of data are all referring to the same transporter on deck 5. Up and down here is just slang for fore and aft. You also run up and down a football field and that's definitely all on one level.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

In "Wink of an Eye" Kirk sabotages the panel. Nobody ever suggested going to any of the other transporters. Because there weren't any.

They never once made an effort to indicate there was more than one in the original series or the films.

That's a fantastic point about "Wink of an Eye." Kirk disabled only one control panel, which means the other Transporter rooms should be unaffected. So it implies that there were no others.

But I am in the TMOST-Franz Joseph camp, so my counter argument is that the Scalosians had modified only one Transporter Room to work faster, and fixing Kirk's sabotage seemed like less trouble than modifying another Transporter Room.

In TMP, "Transporter Room, do not engage!" happened because Engineering had disabled a central resource that all Transporter Rooms depend on, and they got an alarm indicating that one Transporter was suddenly in use and of course failing.

And anyway, having just a single six-person Transporter seems like a terrible choke-point in an emergency, whether you're trying to abandon ship, or rescue a large group of people by beaming them onboard. To say nothing of times when the one room is undergoing repairs or maintenance. The ship's layout is too Transporter-reliant to get by on one. They just aren't equipped with sufficient alternatives. But on a day-to-day basis, they could have one room in use and treated like the only one, while there others are in reserve.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I never said it was SMART to only have one. Just that the show itself never indicated multiples.

The Franz Joseph designs are glorified fan blueprints and, again, created after the series.

TMOST and the writers guide are excellent documents in favor of multiple transporters because they are contemporary documents made by the production staff. It's just a shame it never made it to the filmed episodes.

 

[BK613]

I've mentioned this before (maybe in this very thread) but there are typically a port and a starboard quarterdeck area* and the one used is the one that is pier side. But it is "Report to the quarterdeck" regardless of which is in use. The only time the side is specified is when both quarterdeck areas are being used (as when another ship is moored outboard of a pier-side ship. )

*(The ceremonial area where the gangway attaches to the ship for boarding and leaving the ship)

 

[GNDN18]

Oh, look! A big line of people all waiting to get into the transporter room.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

That's a fantastic point about "Wink of an Eye." Kirk disabled only one control panel, which means the other Transporter rooms should be unaffected. So it implies that there were no others.

This issue was effectively dealt with upthread several months ago. I'll just quote from that post:

Issue two: Kirk disabled the transporter system at only one console. The Scalosians were on the ship for hours of ship time which to them could have been days modifying one room to beam them quicker. Deela implied that the transporter experience was slow. "DEELA: Yes. You beamed me aboard yourself when you came up. A ridiculously long process, but I've taken care of it." What's the problem to the Scalosians? Two ideas come to mind. One, as we discussed in the past, people in transit are conscious during the process. A couple of seconds seems to be okay for most humans (McCoy, Barclay and Hoshi are unsettled by the process though), but to the Scalosians, it would be hours of dematerialized consciousness which may be unbearable/maddening to do it a second time. Secondly, Deela's "fix" to the transporter system was needed to beam up the other Scalosians and their deep freeze equipment in a more timely manner in order to invaded the Enterprise and her many systems. Hours in transport would slow their timetable and give the Enterprise crew more time to stop them. In either case, she modified one room's console which was needed to operate that room's modified connection to the transporter system to make the beaming process faster. The Scalosians determined that fixing the sabotaged console would be faster than remodifying another room once they figured out where the problem was at. (Also, the Scalosians may not be able to get around the "lock out" or the maintenance "unreadiness" of the other rooms if those concepts are used. )

After the landing party beams back up to the ship, transporter circuits have been down, but at the moment we tune in they're back up again, and malfunctions are reported from all over the ship. We can infer that this is when the Scalosians are modifying the transporter and other ship systems to suit themselves.

@Henoch's astute suggestion isn't the only way to argue how Kirk's sabotage of one transporter console could affect all transporters ship-wide. If the transporter circuits on the whole ship are all connected, then the insertion of alien tech to modify the whole system could conceivably depend upon there being certain elements that must be in place at various points throughout the ship, or even just one point in particular. Take down one of those nodes, and the whole thing fails to operate. Un-accelerated crew members wouldn't even have time to do anything about it, even if they did discover the modifications..

In any case, the point is that the Scalosians modified the transporter. Kirk sabotaged those modifications. Since we're talking about alien modifications, it was simple enough for him to identify the alien component(s) on the console and do so quickly.

edited to add: Or, if you don't think that Kirk removed any of the alien components, then he just quickly removed a Starfleet component that brought down the system. It could be a component that brought down the whole network, or it could be a component that brought down that one room, which was the one that the Scalosians had modified. The point raised in dialog was that the transporter being down delayed them, but nowhere did they say they wouldn't be able to fix it to work with accelerated people again, given enough time.

 

[BK613]

Oh, look! A big line of people all waiting to get into the transporter room.

Math from earlier:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-apple-the-tos-mythbuster-episode.308312/page-3#post-13808467

tl;dr At 3 minutes a transport, you would have 104 people waiting outside each of four transporter rooms at the beginning and it would take 52 minutes to evacuate the crew. So a long line doesn't necessarily mean one transporter.

 

[GNDN18]

Math from earlier:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-apple-the-tos-mythbuster-episode.308312/page-3#post-13808467

tl;dr At 3 minutes a transport, you would have 104 people waiting outside each of four transporter rooms at the beginning and it would take 52 minutes to evacuate the crew. So a long line doesn't necessarily mean one transporter.

Yes, but the sign. The sign. ETA The sign doesn’t help my argument at all.

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-apple-the-tos-mythbuster-episode.308312/page-8#post-13965352

Carry on.