Was Spock wrong to abandon the Rigel colonies?

[Basill]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but something to point and it may be nothing. As far as the distance from the L374 system to the Rigel Colonies goes, the colonies had presumably been inhabited for some time especially with a population of millions, but the first system they reach in the beginning of the episode L370 (obviously a neighbor to L374) had _just_ been charted the previous year according to Spock. This makes me think that, while the Rigel Colonies might be the obvious course of the Planet Killer, it might not have been nearly as close as some are presuming.

I agree that Spock's plan (and Kirk's agreement) were totally sound and Decker was a bowl of soggy fruit loops. Even if you travel toward Rigel to escape the subspace interference you'd have had a better chance to warn the colonies and alert Starfleet Command, and possibly mount some sort of defense.

Also, I've also never thought of the Planet Killer as some ravenous monster that was tearing through planets with its salivation briefly sizzling and dimming stars as it moved across space. It was more like... a big neutronium... sheep. In hindsight it probably should have been called the "Planet Grazer."

 

[Timo]

This makes me think that, while the Rigel Colonies might be the obvious course of the Planet Killer, it might not have been nearly as close as some are presuming.

The exact wording is "she's back on course for the next solar system", which happens to be the Rigel colony. We can't really tell if it's "next" as in there's-nothing-between-L-374-and-Rigel-Colony-but-vacuum, or "next" as in the-next-item-on-the-menu. But until that point, the DDM has been eating all the planets in every star system the Enterprise surveyed.

So even if the DDM follows a beeline that necessarily makes it ignore some star systems that fall between the beeline ones, it has until that point been eating systems that are fairly proximal to each other. Sulu would have little reason to conclude that the next dinner should be different.

Of course, it's possible to say that Sulu doesn't mean the Rigel Colony would be the next star system. Perhaps Sulu says "The beast is moving again, towards the next system, and... Oh my God, the Rigel Colony lies that way! It'll get there if it keeps going in this direction, just a couple of dinners from now!".

Our heroes and villains spend so much time squabbling that we never really learn whether there was a hurry, a time limit, to things. Decker's concerns would hold true even if the Rigel Colony were to be at risk three months from now - and so would Spock's. But if the D-day is farther away than the time it takes to repair the Enterprise to full fighting trim, then Decker is crazy as a cuckoo. If the moment of truth is near, then he isn't, although his plan still carries little apparent merit.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Or Rigel is simply the furthest star system out in that direction that Starfleet has explored.

 

[Timo]

One wonders if the Rigel Colony has anything to do with Starfleet or the Federation.

The Rigel Colony probably is astrographically unrelated to any star named Rigel - just like Earth Colony 2 probably isn't located anywhere near Earth. If Rigelians founded that colony, they could well have done so independently of any UFP meddling, explaining why Starfleet has little knowledge of the neighborhood even though the colony is well-established and already sports a population in the millions.

Let's remember that various places named Rigel cropped up in TOS, and none seemed to be particularly closely associated with the UFP. One held human miners who didn't feel it to be their patriotic duty to be friendly to Starfleet. Others held exotic alien delights and dangers. Were any of those to found the Rigel Colony, UFP involvement would probably be unwelcome. Yet Starfleet's finest would feel obligated to protect the lives of the Rigel Colony millions, especially against a threat they had to stop at some point anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

I agree that Spock's plan (and Kirk's agreement)

Sorry, when did Kirk agree with Spock's plan? Kirk never agreed to break off and attempt to contact Starfleet.

if you travel toward Rigel to escape the subspace interference you'd have had a better chance to warn the colonies and alert Starfleet Command, and possibly mount some sort of defense.

If the DM and the Enterprise travel to the Rigel colony (singular) basically side by side, how was the Enterprise going to get clear of the subspace distortion field? If the Enterprise was significantly faster sure, however if the DM left the Enterprise in it's dust it would reach the colony first with the Enterprise only being able to contact Starfleet only after they had been left far enough behind.

Another problem is would Starfleet even have the capacity in the mid-23nd century to mount a wolf 359 style defensive fleet? TOS seem to suggest on a few occasions that Starfleet in that time period had relatively few Starships. The only time we even saw five of them in one place was during a pre-planned war game, there was also a Fleet mentioned in Errand of Mercy, assembled in response to a problem with the Klingons that might have taken weeks or months to develop.

How capable the Rigel colony is to protect itself would be the wildcard. The Rigelians, I believe, are not Federation members. Would this colony of "millions" have the means to defend itself against the DM? Do the Rigelians maintain a independent fleet presents there? And would an evacuation even be possible in the unknown time period available?

 

[Wingsley]

One tangent issue that has not been addressed here:

While it is obvious that alien machine's behavior is destructive, and could potentially post a serious threat to inhabited systems in the Federation and the Galaxy at large, there are some interesting gaps in the cause-and-effect relationship here. Kirk and Spock did not have time to sort them out during the Battle of L-374, but there are some things worth considering in the aftermath of the battle:

1: We do not know the specific origin of this machine. Spock preliminarily projects that the alien machine may have come from another Galaxy, but he also said "it is therefore self-sustaining as long as there are planetary bodies for it to feed on." There is a contradiction there. From our limited knowledge of intergalactic space, it seems unlikely that the alien machine could survive on a steady diet of planets, or even small asteroids, in a vast intergalactic void. Wouldn't the thing just die in the intergalactic void? Unless... maybe it came from some distant trajectory along the fringes of our Galaxy? In the end, we do not know who built the alien machine or what their motivation was.

2: We also do not know why someone would build a machine like this. What was the machine's intended purpose? Was the alien a "doomsday machine", in other words, a weapon, as Kirk suggested? We have no idea. For all we know, this could have been a mining machine built to digest the waste after extracting desired raw materials from dead planets. For all we know, Losira's people, the Kalaandans, may have built machines like this to digest unwanted planetoids and then use the materials (or the energy) to create or terraform other worlds. Whatever the intent, the machine's creators apparently died off and/or someone forgot the turn out the lights.

3: We also never see anyone specifically say the alien machine has been sighted traveling at warp speed. While it is an obviously foregone conclusion that the machine had to be doing so at some point, it is unclear when it was doing so and what the machine's FTL capabilities would be. Does it lumber along at low-warp speeds from system-to-system? Does it have a transwarp drive? We have no idea. For all we know, the alien machine could've used a transwarp conduit to arrive from another galaxy, then lumbered along at low-warp speeds from system to system once in our Galaxy.

4: Spock says that he believes the nature of the machine (as recorded by the Constellation's sensors) "precludes the possibility of easy access to its control mechanism". But how does he know that about a machine he's never seen before? If he doesn't know where the lock is, or if there is a lock, how is he going to figure out the combination? If, for sake of argument, we assume the alien machine is a weapon of war, why would someone go to the trouble of building such an offensive weapon without a way to control it? It is entirely possible that if Kirk and Spock had left the area for help, Starfleet may have found a way to analyze the Constellation's sensor logs and figure out how to get control of the machine, intact.

In which case, Kirk's next command may have been the recently-captured U.S.S. Doomsday... Boy wouldn't he have fun with the Klingons if he commanded that beastie...

 

[Timo]

If the thing is a weapon, it's probably indeed heavily secured against boarding or other takeover. Moreover, it's likely to conceal its point of origin, perhaps creating a false trail of seemingly linear destruction every now and then to throw the Spocks among its victims off the scent.

If it's a weapon doing its intended thing, then it's probably built to be truly unstoppable by UFP-level technology, at least as far its makers believe. Otherwise, it wouldn't follow an easily traceable and predictable path, and would be more wary of starships. But if it's an out-of-control weapon that in normal circumstances would have followed a tactically more sound flightplan, then there are better odds that some weakness can be exploited even by UFP-level defenders.

That Kirk did manage to stop it would tend to support the latter view. The mouth of the thing is an obvious vulnerability, and it shouldn't be difficult to keep on nuking it. Perhaps the DDM actively defends itself against antimatter bombs by that neat "deactivating" trick, but it doesn't seem to be able to do squat about hydrogen bombs. Possibly the thing was on its death throes already, and had lost most of its active defenses?

The deliberation by which the machine eats each and every planet might still suggest a more grandiose type of weapon, a true berserker that doesn't merely attack enemy civilizations in their tender youth, but preemptively removes all rocky planets so that enemy civilizations cannot evolve in the first place. OTOH, such deliberation (which fails at L-374, with two planets left uneaten) smacks of obsession and thus of malfunction.

If we're seeing a malfunctioning berserker, we should probably assume there are non-malfunctioning sisters to it roaming the galaxy, too. A berserker-launching civilization wouldn't stop at launching just one. If we're seeing something else malfunctioning, though, the galaxy might still be safe. Who knows, this thing just might be the anti-Borg weapon some novels claim it to be (no matter how piss-poor the idea of building a gigantic superweapon against an enemy known for its ability to adapt).

Certainly both Kirk and Spock seem to jump to conclusions when declaring that the thing is a vengeance weapon and comes from outside the galaxy. They might have been correct by sheer accident, but they shouldn't be too satisfied with their own cleverness when they can't really defend their claims with anything objective.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

One wonders if the Rigel Colony has anything to do with Starfleet or the Federation.

The Rigel Colony probably is astrographically unrelated to any star named Rigel - just like Earth Colony 2 probably isn't located anywhere near Earth. If Rigelians founded that colony, they could well have done so independently of any UFP meddling, explaining why Starfleet has little knowledge of the neighborhood even though the colony is well-established and already sports a population in the millions.

Let's remember that various places named Rigel cropped up in TOS, and none seemed to be particularly closely associated with the UFP. One held human miners who didn't feel it to be their patriotic duty to be friendly to Starfleet. Others held exotic alien delights and dangers. Were any of those to found the Rigel Colony, UFP involvement would probably be unwelcome. Yet Starfleet's finest would feel obligated to protect the lives of the Rigel Colony millions, especially against a threat they had to stop at some point anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

I'd agree with you here, but...

DECKER: You can't let that reach Rigel. Why, millions of innocent people would die.
SPOCK: I am aware of the Rigel system's population, Commodore, but we are only one ship. Our deflector shields are strained, our subspace transmitter is useless. Logically, our primary duty is to survive in order to warn Starfleet Command.
DECKER: Our primary duty is to maintain life and safety of Federation planets. Do you deny that?

One of the cards Decker seems to be playing here is protecting 'Federation planets', in regards to Rigel.

 

[Wingsley]

^ All sound reasoning. But let's not rule out the possibility that the alien machine may not have originally been a weapon at all.

 

[Warped9]

^^ That's a fair point I'd considered many years ago. When it comes to scale the DM is large in comparison to a starship, but it's still small in comparison to a planet. It could actually take awhile for it to totally dismantle a planet. Asteroids and small planetary satellites would be a lot less trouble to "feed on" and digest. The DM may actually have initially been the space going equivalent of a forest clearing device that someone forgot about or forgot to turn off.

 

[T'Girl]

3: We also never see anyone specifically say the alien machine has been sighted traveling at warp speed.

SPOCK: Captain, sensors show nothing but debris where we charted seven planets last year.

That was star system L-370, later when Enterprise entered star system L-374 Kirk said;

KIRK: Every solar system in this sector blasted to rubble ...

It implied (but not stated) that the Enterprise was entering the fifth star system as it tracked the destruction and continued to search for the Constellation. So, the DM destroyed five systems in less than one year, that would seem to indicate a relatively high warp speed capacity.

I wonder what exactly the DM is consuming? It leaves behind rubble in the various star systems after it departs so it's not eating everything. I believe it is cutting away the outer rocky shell of the planets and what it's actual consuming is the radioactive elements from the metallic cores. It "smelts out" what it wants and possibly simply expels the rest back into space. In the case of gas giants, in addition to the (hypothetical) inner cores, it also separate out deuterium or any other rare elements it might need too.

 

[blssdwlf]

If the DM and the Enterprise travel to the Rigel colony (singular) basically side by side, how was the Enterprise going to get clear of the subspace distortion field?
If the Enterprise was significantly faster sure, however if the DM left the Enterprise in it's dust it would reach the colony first with the Enterprise only being able to contact Starfleet only after they had been left far enough behind.

We do know that the Enterprise with working warp engines can outrun the DDM which implies that it is faster than it a straight line. If the Enterprise had to stay within beaming distance of the Constellation then the DDM is slightly faster in a sustained turning engagement - based on the episode.

Another problem is would Starfleet even have the capacity in the mid-23nd century to mount a wolf 359 style defensive fleet? TOS seem to suggest on a few occasions that Starfleet in that time period had relatively few Starships. The only time we even saw five of them in one place was during a pre-planned war game, there was also a Fleet mentioned in Errand of Mercy, assembled in response to a problem with the Klingons that might have taken weeks or months to develop.

We know at the time they had only 12 Constitution-type starships but the total number of available starships might be higher. When Starfleet thought they were under attack in "The Alternative Factor", Kirk requests extra starships but they were instead already being used for evacuating everything Starfleet within 100 parsecs. In "Amok Time" the Enterprise was to be one of three present. There were at least 10 ships under repair at Starbase 11 in "Court Martial".

I think with ships like the Enterprise they aren't usually used as part of fleet operations but act independently (and further out) and we usually see only the Enterprise in TOS because their 5 year mission isn't part of some border defense fleet.

Now a possible explanation for Decker's belief that the Rigel colony would be lost if the Enterprise went to go contact Starfleet would be that there would have been no other combat-capable starships or fleet close enough to respond in time based on the DDM's top speed. (How do they know the top speed? The Enterprise outran it earlier )

As a Commodore he probably would have been aware of other fleet activity and Spock didn't appear to disagree with that assessment. In this case, the Constellation was the only ship in the quadrant until the Enterprise showed up

How capable the Rigel colony is to protect itself would be the wildcard. The Rigelians, I believe, are not Federation members. Would this colony of "millions" have the means to defend itself against the DM? Do the Rigelians maintain a independent fleet presents there? And would an evacuation even be possible in the unknown time period available?

Yep, quite a wildcard

 

[T'Girl]

We do know that the Enterprise with working warp engines can outrun the DDM which implies that it is faster than it a straight line. If the Enterprise had to stay within beaming distance of the Constellation then the DDM is slightly faster in a sustained turning engagement - based on the episode.

Once the Enterprise entered the star system where the episode takes place, there is not a single reference to the ship going back to warp speed. The entire engagement with the DM occurs at sublight speed. Spock specifically makes reference to exhausting the ship's fuel in seven hours, I believe that's the impulse engines deuterium supply. The Enterprise was making an unusually large number of high speed sublight course changes.

Spock: We are more maneuverable, but it is gaining on us.

The remastered FX show the Enterprise making her escape by using the debris from the last planet the DM destroyed, not by being faster. The Enterprise did not stay within beaming distance of the Constellation, Spock kept harping about returning to beaming distance to Decker.

Between the Enterprise and the DM, there is no way to know which one was faster at warp speed.

 

[YARN]

3: We also never see anyone specifically say the alien machine has been sighted traveling at warp speed.

SPOCK: Captain, sensors show nothing but debris where we charted seven planets last year.

That was star system L-370, later when Enterprise entered star system L-374 Kirk said;

KIRK: Every solar system in this sector blasted to rubble ...

It implied (but not stated) that the Enterprise was entering the fifth star system as it tracked the destruction and continued to search for the Constellation. So, the DM destroyed five systems in less than one year, that would seem to indicate a relatively high warp speed capacity.

Not only this, but the machine arrived from another galaxy.

If it needs a steady supply of material to stay powered, one would not think that it could lumber along on impulse power or low warp for the many years (thousands or possibly millions depending on speed) needed to traverse the gap.

 

[Warped9]

^^ Not necessarily. If it attained a high relativistic velocity it could simply coast between galaxies while in a dormant standby mode.

However in Peter David's TNG novel Vendetta an elegant situation is put forth that the device actually originated in our own galaxy but was constructed beyond the galactic rim to hide it from enemies. After being launched it would then seem to have originated from outside the galaxy.

I'm not suggesting that Peter David's story is what makes the most sense, but his idea for the DM's origin works. The DM's builders were from the Milky Way, but the device was constructed outside the galaxy to keep it secret.

 

[blssdwlf]

We do know that the Enterprise with working warp engines can outrun the DDM which implies that it is faster than it a straight line. If the Enterprise had to stay within beaming distance of the Constellation then the DDM is slightly faster in a sustained turning engagement - based on the episode.

Once the Enterprise entered the star system where the episode takes place, there is not a single reference to the ship going back to warp speed.

In TOS, I tend to assume that they are always running with their warp engines unless specified otherwise. If you watch "Breads and Circuses", warp speed is never mentioned in the beginning but they obviously make the journey across 1/16th parsec in less than a minute.

In "The Doomsday Machine" when the Enterprise arrives at the edge of the system they make it to Constellation's position (3rd planetary orbit) in a very short period of time (faster than the Warp .5 in TMP from Earth to Jupiter). Granted there were cuts but no implication more than a few minutes went by.

The entire engagement with the DM occurs at sublight speed. Spock specifically makes reference to exhausting the ship's fuel in seven hours, I believe that's the impulse engines deuterium supply. The Enterprise was making an unusually large number of high speed sublight course changes.

What you are referring to with the fuel is after the DM takes out the Enterprise's warp engines forcing the Enterprise to run full out on impulse only.

Sequence of events:

1. Enterprise detects Constellation at outer edge of system and gets there in a minute or so (approx the 3rd planet location). Probably with warp drive ala "Breads and Circuses".
2. DM enters detection range of the Enterprise and forces her to leave the Constellation. The Enterprise circles around the Constellation maintaining transporter range.
3. Enterprise lowers shields and is hit by the DM, losing communications and transporters.
4. Enterprise leaves the Constellation completely and outruns the DM. DM turns away to next star system.
5. Enterprise turns back to attack instead of circling around and away from DM to pick up Kirk.
6. Constellation regains impulse power and phaser capability.
7. Enterprise loses warp drive and is caught in DM's tractor beam about to be pulled in.
8. Constellation fires phaser and distracts DM which lets the Enterprise go.
9. Enterprise fires phaser to get DM to chase it instead of the Constellation
10. Enterprise is in danger of running out of fuel in 7 hours at rate of expenditure in order to stay ahead of the gaining DM.

*I'm using the warp speeds I've calculated from the episodes as posted here. For the duration of the battle I am using the "in star system" speeds for both the Enterprise and the DM.

Spock: We are more maneuverable, but it is gaining on us.

The remastered FX show the Enterprise making her escape by using the debris from the last planet the DM destroyed, not by being faster. The Enterprise did not stay within beaming distance of the Constellation, Spock kept harping about returning to beaming distance to Decker.

Between the Enterprise and the DM, there is no way to know which one was faster at warp speed.

There are two versions of the story when you include the remastered FX. There is the original one with original FX where the FX doesn't get in the way of the dialogue. And then there is the remastered FX that TNG-ify the episode where although neat, makes little effort to match the dialogue. Instead it tries to normalize it with the TNG-tech.

So... in that case, the original episode shows that the Enterprise can outrun the DM with its warp engines. In the remastered, it appears to be ambiguous?! *In other words, two continuities/universes

 

[YARN]

Sequence of events:

1. Enterprise detects Constellation at outer edge of system and gets there in a minute or so (approx the 3rd planet location). Probably with warp drive ala "Breads and Circuses".
2. DM enters detection range of the Enterprise and forces her to leave the Constellation. The Enterprise circles around the Constellation maintaining transporter range.​
3. Enterprise lowers shields and is hit by the DM, losing communications and transporters.
4. Enterprise outruns the DM. DM turns away to next star system.
5. Enterprise turns back to attack instead of circling around and away from DM to pick up Kirk.
6. Constellation regains impulse power and phaser capability.
7. Enterprise loses warp drive and is caught in DM's tractor beam about to be pulled in.
8. Constellation fires phaser and distracts DM which lets the Enterprise go.
9. Enterprise fires phaser to get DM to chase it instead of the Constellation
10. Enterprise is in danger of running out of fuel in 7 hours at rate of expenditure in order to stay ahead of the gaining DM.

The Enterprise has to labor to outrun the machine.

At first the DM is gaining on the Enterprise (just before #4).

SULU: It's closing on us, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: Closing, Captain.

The Enterprise is hit with DM ray.

Following this, we return to the Constellation for a scene to listen to Kirk grumble about being stuck, blind, and deaf (and paralyzed!).

Next, we cut back to the Enterprise and find out that they have only just then managed to outrun the thing. Even after the first attack we learn that the Enterprise's engines are still "operative" (which appears to indicate no significant damage).

Two Major Points to Consider Here
​

1. The implication of all this is that the DM is capable of traveling at high warp and that the Enterprise (when undamaged) is only just a bit faster.

We aren't talking about a drag race between Ferrari and Chevy Cobalt, but something more like a showdown between a Ferrari and a Lamborghini. The Enterprise would not have realistically had enough time to circle back to the Constellation, warn Starfleet*, and then race ahead to Rigel to offer a defense (as some here have argued).

2. After the Enterprise is damaged at #7, she has no realistic chance of outrunning the DM; consequently Spock's logic at this point does not hold.

DECKER: Mister Spock, status report.

SPOCK: Warp drive and deflectors will be out for a solar day. Repairs proceeding on transporter and communications.

SULU: It's closing with us again, sir.

DECKER: Maintain speed and distance.

SULU: It's sucking in space rubble from those destroyed planets. Refueling itself.

SPOCK: We can maintain this speed for only seven hours before we exhaust our fuel, but it can refuel itself indefinitely.

DECKER: Then we'll have to fight it now before it gets any stronger.

SPOCK: Illogical. We cannot destroy it. Therefore, we cannot save Rigel. We must transport the Captain and the others from the Constellation and escape this thing's subspace interference in order to warn Starfleet Command.

As I pointed out up-thread, beaming aboard the Captain only dooms him to the same fate, and they have no chance of outrunning the thing's subspace interference, since they are being pursued by the DM. You can't get out of jamming range, if the jammer is pursuing you faster than you can run.

*the subspace interference spans across many star systems:

DECKER [OC]: Captain's log, stardate 4202.1. Exceptionally heavy subspace interference still prevents our contacting Starfleet to inform them of the destroyed solar systems we have encountered. We are now entering system L-374. Science Officer Masada reports the fourth planet seems to be breaking up. We are going to investigate.

We cannot know precisely what the distance between these star systems is, but a conservative estimate would be about 10 light years (a little more than twice the distance from Earth to Alpha Centauri).

Would you give a Lamborghini a ten mile head start in a race to the next town?

 

[Tom]

Why did Kirk stay on the Constellation in the first place after finding Decker? He should have left a damage control team there, why did Kirk himself need to stay there. Also, when the PK first shows up Kirk should have immediatly beamed up instead of have a long talk with Spock then deciding to beam up? Seems way out of character for Kirk to not wanting to be on the Enterprise when there is a danger like the PK lurking around.

 

[blssdwlf]

@YARN

I agree on the Enterprise laboring to stay ahead of the DM but only because the Enterprise was constrained to stay within transporter range. Both the Enterprise and DM are in a turning race (or more accurately: turn, accelerate, brake, turn, accelerate, etc). The Enterprise might be able to cut into it's turn faster but the DM might be able to carry more speed thru the turn and thus slowly close on the Enterprise. However in a straight line, the Enterprise is faster than the DM.

On your point 1: The Enterprise may or may not have enough time to overtake and get ahead of the DM in a tail chase situation depending on how far away the Rigel colony is. The Enterprise is faster but by how much we don't know.

Another thing to consider is whether there are any other starships capable of reaching Rigel to help in time. There may not be which is why Spock doesn't argue with Decker about the loss of the Rigel colony and then it has nothing to do with how much faster the Enterprise is since help wouldn't come in time anyway to save the colony.

On your point 2: You are arguing that the Enterprise is doomed with or without Kirk onboard the ship and it has no way of escaping. The answer to how the Enterprise would escape was shown just moments earlier when Kirk saves the Enterprise. To escape, as the Enterprise gets close enough to the Constellation to beam Kirk's group off they would use the Constellation to fire a phaser at the DM and it would then become the target and leave the Enterprise to escape.

The thing to remember is that we know what Decker and Spock would do fighting the DM but we have no idea what Kirk would do. IMHO, Decker knew that Kirk probably wouldn't take the DM head-on and had to have it his way thus grabbing the Enterprise before Kirk could come onboard.

 

[Warped9]

The impression is that events unfold very quickly before anyone can really decide on what to do.