This Side of Paradise and Pike

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

As for the Talosians, it still kills me that their telepathic abilities can sustain such realistic illusions, and STILL they have no idea what a human body is supposed to look like or how it is supposed to fit together? Really?

Sustain, not create. So whatever they're causing people to see has more to do with the minds of those having the illusions than anything Talosians can dream up. Just like having a fever doesn't create the images in your fever dreams, it only stimulates your brain to blend and distort what's already in there.

 

[Shawnster]

No, but once the Talosians repeatedly see the image of a fully formed healthy human that they have called up from Vina's mind, then they would have a guide, a template. They would know what a human should look like.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

No, but once the Talosians repeatedly see the image of a fully formed healthy human that they have called up from Vina's mind, then they would have a guide, a template. They would know what a human should look like.

I think what Vina said was misleading. What the Talosians lacked was surgical finesse in general. If you've "even forgotten how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors," it stands to reason your medical schools have gone to crap as well.

But that line, "They had never seen a human before. They had no guide for putting me back together," was too chilling and eerie to be replaced with some prosaic exposition about fading technical skills. Roddenberry wanted a Twilight Zone moment and that was a good one.

 

[Christopher]

No, but once the Talosians repeatedly see the image of a fully formed healthy human that they have called up from Vina's mind, then they would have a guide, a template. They would know what a human should look like.

I know what a car should look like, but if I tried to build one knowing nothing about auto mechanics, what I ended up making probably wouldn't look much like it was supposed to.

 

[Tallguy]

I know what a car should look like, but if I tried to build one knowing nothing about auto mechanics, what I ended up making probably wouldn't look much like it was supposed to.

What are the chances that you'd get it to work and drive?

 

[Shawnster]

But if you could read the mind of a mechanic or auto designer, you no doubt could.

The Talosians put Vina back together and everything worked. They understood quite a bit about human medical knowledge. Everything worked, but they lacked a guide, according to Vina. The only knowledge the Talosians lacked was apparently only structural.

Maybe Vina had medical knowledge about anatomy? Or maybe she was an engineer who didn't know a thing about medicine. Regardless, she knew what a human in good shape looked like. She knew what she looks like before the crash.

The Talosians had her memories as a guide.

 

[Christopher]

What are the chances that you'd get it to work and drive?

Better than the chances that I'd get it to work and look good. And I would prioritize the former.

For an alternative analogy, if I still could, I'd offer photos of my childhood plastic model kits of the Enterprise, C-3PO, and Darth Vader's TIE fighter. I followed the instructions, everything was in the right places, but they still looked pretty sloppy. Even if you know what to do in principle, it takes skill and practice to do it well.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

But if you could read the mind of a mechanic or auto designer, you no doubt could.

The Talosians put Vina back together and everything worked. They understood quite a bit about human medical knowledge. Everything worked, but they lacked a guide, according to Vina. The only knowledge the Talosians lacked was apparently only structural.

Maybe Vina had medical knowledge about anatomy? Or maybe she was an engineer who didn't know a thing about medicine. Regardless, she knew what a human in good shape looked like. She knew what she looks like before the crash.

The Talosians had her memories as a guide.

Vina's claim about not having a "guide" is just her being wrong about something. Characters can have mistaken beliefs. It's like I said here:

I think what Vina said was misleading. What the Talosians lacked was surgical finesse in general. If you've "even forgotten how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors," it stands to reason your medical schools have gone to crap as well.

But that line, "They had never seen a human before. They had no guide for putting me back together," was too chilling and eerie to be replaced with some prosaic exposition about fading technical skills. Roddenberry wanted a Twilight Zone moment and that was a good one.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Apart from the obviously larger head, a Talosian looks pretty much the same as a human.

How do you know? The Talosians could look incredibly different from us underneath those shapeless robes.

 

[Tallguy]

How do you know? The Talosians could look incredibly different from us underneath those shapeless robes.

You heard it hear first: Arex is a Talosian! CANON!

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Sustain, not create

then they would have a guide

I have assumed that Vina was unconscious when the had to do surgery to save her, and could not read her mind to see what human looked like, either just because she was asleep or because of the severity of the crash. The Talosians may have not been able to fully understand surgery, but they also had to use their knowledge to interpolate what a human looked like. It fits the lines spoken, but also allows for some room for characters to say what they are feeling.

 

[Christopher]

I have assumed that Vina was unconscious when the had to do surgery to save her, and could not read her mind to see what human looked like, either just because she was asleep or because of the severity of the crash. The Talosians may have not been able to fully understand surgery, but they also had to use their knowledge to interpolate what a human looked like. It fits the lines spoken, but also allows for some room for characters to say what they are feeling.

I'm not sure that works, because the brain doesn't turn off when it's unconscious, it just goes into sort of a standby state, where the different portions of it are still active but don't communicate with each other, so there's no conscious awareness of that activity. So it should be possible for a telepath to read the mind of an unconscious person, though what they read may not be as cohesive.

Indeed, if they're looking for stored information in long-term memory, I'd think that would work the same whether the mind was awake or asleep. We know the Talosians could draw on Pike's memories and subconscious desires.

 

[Victoria]

The thing that strikes me as an adult is that, externally at least, the Talosians have bilateral symmetry and, even although everyone else was killed in the crash SS Columbia, there would have the bodies to show that humans also have external bilateral symmetry.

I can see that fitting the internal bits together might have been harder in that some things come in pairs and some things singularly but, again, inspection of the bodies should, one would have thought, given some clues. As it is, they did manage to get the inside bits in working order (the really hard bit and something that Vina would be unlikely to have stored in her memory in the first place) so there seems to be little reason why the outside bits should not be "right" too.

There's a further point in that, even if the Talosians didn't realise what a human/Vina should have looked like until she recovered consciousness, they could have corrected the errors in their surgery then.

Overall, it looks as though the Talosians were well-meaning but slapdash.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Talosians are just lazy. "Close enough for government work" is their motto.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The thing that strikes me as an adult is that, externally at least, the Talosians have bilateral symmetry and, even although everyone else was killed in the crash SS Columbia, there would have the bodies to show that humans also have external bilateral symmetry.

I can see that fitting the internal bits together might have been harder in that some things come in pairs and some things singularly but, again, inspection of the bodies should, one would have thought, given some clues. As it is, they did manage to get the inside bits in working order (the really hard bit and something that Vina would be unlikely to have stored in her memory in the first place) so there seems to be little reason why the outside bits should not be "right" too.

There's a further point in that, even if the Talosians didn't realise what a human/Vina should have looked like until she recovered consciousness, they could have corrected the errors in their surgery then.

Overall, it looks as though the Talosians were well-meaning but slapdash.

I give up.

I just don't see what was missing from my explanation, that it should be ignored in favor of wild theories. Maybe it's a matter of needing to take every line of dialogue at face value, even though we are constantly told things in real life that are not true.

 

[DonIago]

Talosians are just lazy. "Close enough for government work" is their motto.

Isn't that how they ended up in their predicament to begin with?

 

[FredH]

Better than the chances that I'd get it to work and look good. And I would prioritize the former.

For an alternative analogy, if I still could, I'd offer photos of my childhood plastic model kits of the Enterprise, C-3PO, and Darth Vader's TIE fighter. I followed the instructions, everything was in the right places, but they still looked pretty sloppy. Even if you know what to do in principle, it takes skill and practice to do it well.

That’s very true. When I painted my model F-16 fighter at age ten or so, I couldn’t understand why the red and blue painted bits looked so neat and straight-edged on the box cover photo, but dripped and smudged all over the place when I tried to do them…

 

[Christopher]

That’s very true. When I painted my model F-16 fighter at age ten or so, I couldn’t understand why the red and blue painted bits looked so neat and straight-edged on the box cover photo, but dripped and smudged all over the place when I tried to do them…

As a kid, I had the AMT Enterprise kit where the model on the box cover was lit in blue and orange lights, and since I didn't have color TV, I didn't know that was a lighting effect, so I painted my model blue and orange. I was always pretty literal-minded.

 

[FredH]

As a kid, I had the AMT Enterprise kit where the model on the box cover was lit in blue and orange lights, and since I didn't have color TV, I didn't know that was a lighting effect, so I painted my model blue and orange. I was always pretty literal-minded.

Me too, at first! The instructions said to paint it cobalt blue, I’m pretty sure. So my dad and I spray-painted it cobalt blue, and it was a beautiful dragonfly-like shade of deep dark metallic blue that looked absolutely nothing like the ship ever looked on TV. We eventually redid it in silver. And the damn pylons never aligned properly.

 

[fireproof78]

I give up.

I just don't see what was missing from my explanation, that it should be ignored in favor of wild theories. Maybe it's a matter of needing to take every line of dialogue at face value, even though we are constantly told things in real life that are not true.

Star Trek isn't real life. How often do we see things taken literally as "absolute fact" from characters speaking, even though they probably are only speaking from their experience.

And, yes, I took Vina's comments as accurate too. I don't see a reason to see her as misleading. The Talosians knew enough and that's about it.