A challenge question for anyone

[Mr Silver]

Thought i'd pose an open challenge to come up with a decent answer. After reading about the various TWOK arguments (and lack of explanation) elsewhere, i've found an interesting question that could create an interesting debate, although its probably nothing new to anyone here

Anyway, without further ado...

"Why was there not a failsafe to deactivate the genesis device, in case of emergencies?"

 

[Candlelight]

There probably was, but after Khan half-inched it he could've added any number of anti-fail safes/booby traps.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

There probably was, but after Khan half-inched it he could've added any number of anti-fail safes/booby traps.

This was the same "superman" who could only think in two dimensions, right?

 

[Mr Silver]

The way I see it, Khan is a genetically enhanced intellectual who lacks experience. He has brilliant intution and aptitude and could probably master complex systems in considerably less time than normal people (say 6 months as opposed to 10 years).

Project Genesis was something extremely tempremental and fragile, it required the participtation of some of the most most gifted and pioneering scientists and terraformers in the federation. I highly doubt that even Khan in a few hours could recalibrate something as advanced as the genesis device without prior knowledge. (something he was lacking as the scientists wouldn't talk, the Reliant crew knew only what they were ordered to do and all Kirk gave Khan was a run for his money)

What I don't get though is logically speaking, why would Marcus and Marcus, fully knowing the potential dangers of the device, not have a remote transmitter to disable the device, on their person at all times?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ 24th century Roddenberry colored glasses.

Everything was "fine".

 

[Christopher]

"Why was there not a failsafe to deactivate the genesis device, in case of emergencies?"

For the same reason that a device programmed only to modify the surface of an existing planet was somehow able to create an entirely new planet out of a nebula. For the same reason such a godlike level of technology can suddenly exist at all in a Federation that's never been shown to be anywhere near that level, or can be contained in a puny 5-foot-long torpedo, or vanishes without a trace after the movie despite the fact that it should have a transformative impact on the whole galaxy (even if it only works as a weapon). The simple fact is, nothing about Genesis makes any sense. It's plot magic, an ill-conceived and arbitrary thing that does what the script needs it to without any credibility or logic coming into play. It is, pure and simple, a McGuffin.

 

[Mr Silver]

"Why was there not a failsafe to deactivate the genesis device, in case of emergencies?"

For the same reason that a device programmed only to modify the surface of an existing planet was somehow able to create an entirely new planet out of a nebula. For the same reason such a godlike level of technology can suddenly exist at all in a Federation that's never been shown to be anywhere near that level, or can be contained in a puny 5-foot-long torpedo, or vanishes without a trace after the movie despite the fact that it should have a transformative impact on the whole galaxy (even if it only works as a weapon). The simple fact is, nothing about Genesis makes any sense. It's plot magic, an ill-conceived and arbitrary thing that does what the script needs it to without any credibility or logic coming into play. It is, pure and simple, a McGuffin.

That wins the dramatic technique and trope explanation, but can you come up with an in-universe explanation as to why?

 

[BillJ]

That wins the dramatic technique and trope explanation, but can you come up with an in-universe explanation as to why?

CAROL: I don't think there's another piece of information we could squeeze into the memory banks. Next time, we'll design a bigger one.

There wasn't room.

 

[BriGuy]

My stab at it...

The device had a complicated, multi-step "arming" process. Activating it took more than the press of a button. Accidental activation was not considered likely.

AND... given the volatile nature of the materials involved, once the process was initiated, it would be impossible to stop. That's why the arming process was so involved.

Perhaps, at any step along the way, the arming procedure could be aborted. But once finalized, it couldn't be stopped.

 

[SchwEnt]

I imagine there was a failsafe deactivation device. But it only works until a certain point.

Maybe it doesn't work with a press of a button and boom.
In order to detonate and work, an arming sequence must be initiated and some sort of build-up required.
Once initiated, the device has some sort of point-of-no-return, after which a failsafe shutoff wouldn't work.

It's not like a Bond atomic bomb, where you can stop the red digital countdown when the clock reaches one second. After a certain point, there's no stopping it once activated. David said so himself.

 

[SchwEnt]

I can't believe I just repeated BriGuy by coincidence.

 

[Christopher]

That wins the dramatic technique and trope explanation, but can you come up with an in-universe explanation as to why?

My point is that the whole concept of Genesis is fundamentally nonsensical on far deeper levels than this, so coming up with an explanation for this one tiny thing would be like applying one piece of duct tape to a crumbling dam. Even accepting the idea of Genesis's existence in the first place requires turning off one's critical faculties altogether. Try appealing to reason or credibility and the whole thing falls apart. I can't come up with a reasonable explanation for this design feature of the device when I can't even accept the premise that the device exists at all or is capable of doing what it's shown to do. Except to suggest that if it could exist, it would've had to be very poorly designed to be capable of going wrong as badly as it did, in which case the lack of a failsafe would merely be one more facet of the sheer incompetence of its creators.

 

[Timo]

I don't see why every device out there ought to have an abort option for each and every stage of operation - and that goes for very dangerous devices, too. A hand grenade doesn't have one, once the pin is pulled and the handle is allowed to pop free.

It may simply be impossible to stop an already brewing Genesis effect by any means that are less destructive than the effect itself. Genesis is the mother of all broths: once Khan triggered it, the ingredients were already thrown in the pot, and there was no "countdown to detonation", there was merely an informative counter indicating how soon the broth would finish its unstoppable brewing. Essentially, detonation had already happened when Khan pushed in the last of the child-proof activation mechanism elements.

For deciding why the brewing was unstoppable, we'd have to decide how Genesis works. Yes, it may look like an unrealistically potent technology even for Star Trek - but essentially it looks to me like it's just a really, really big replicator let loose. Sort of like the relationship between the A-bomb and the fusion powerplant: it's easier to achieve the former, unregulated, uncontained effect than the latter, contained and regulated one.

If replicators are an outgrowth of transporter technology, an advanced sort of Trek magic we already accept as default, Genesis could be an earlier spinoff. And if the Genesis effect is an expanding transporter wavefront that performs the replicator trick on everything it encounters and transports, it makes weird sort of sense that phasers would do squat in stopping it. Phasers and transporters both seem to be "phasing" phenomena, related technologies (hey, both make people disappear to some strange realm!), and hitting the already unstable Genesis phasing effect with phasers could plausibly only create a further reduced state of stability...

Now, we only need to decide how the wildfire transporter effect could be launched by Khan, then be contained in a bottle for X minutes, and then be released to do its typical lightspeed expansion. And TNG technobabble already establishes that the transporter effect is indeed imprisoned in a magic lamp, the "pattern buffer", during routine operations. Blowing up the buffer of a standard transporter may not do much harm. Fooling with the buffer of a replicator may result in the sort of mayhem we saw in VOY "State of Flux", though. Damaging the buffer of Genesis thus could plausibly release the Genesis Genie.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr Silver]

I don't see why every device out there ought to have an abort option for each and every stage of operation - and that goes for very dangerous devices, too. A hand grenade doesn't have one, once the pin is pulled and the handle is allowed to pop free.

The handle is the failsafe device for a grenade, if you let go it will eventually detonate (depending on the design) however if you keep holding on and replace the pin, the chemicals will not be released and therefore the grenade can be made safe.

It may simply be impossible to stop an already brewing Genesis effect by any means that are less destructive than the effect itself. Genesis is the mother of all broths: once Khan triggered it, the ingredients were already thrown in the pot, and there was no "countdown to detonation", there was merely an informative counter indicating how soon the broth would finish its unstoppable brewing. Essentially, detonation had already happened when Khan pushed in the last of the child-proof activation mechanism elements.

These are some good points and I'm inclined to agree with you here. The thing that does bother me is if the device is designed to be delivered as a missile, then why does it even have the ability to detonate? I suppose we could consider that delivering it as a missile would rapidly dissipate the "genesis wave" whilst a detonation sequence would spread the effect like a shockwave (which is possibly how the Genesis planet came into being, if we assume the wave hit a planetoid within the Mutara system)

For deciding why the brewing was unstoppable, we'd have to decide how Genesis works. Yes, it may look like an unrealistically potent technology even for Star Trek - but essentially it looks to me like it's just a really, really big replicator let loose. Sort of like the relationship between the A-bomb and the fusion powerplant: it's easier to achieve the former, unregulated, uncontained effect than the latter, contained and regulated one.

Again, I agree. My feeling though, is that the genesis device reforms a dead planet into a preanimate matrix using its terraforming technology then rapidly grows this matter (perhaps as a result of David's "protomatter) into flora and fauna, oceans, continents and even an atmosphere. Other matter and living material can be supplemented (such as Enteprise shooting microbes onto the surface as David mentions to Saavik) and will eventually adapt to the environment.

 

[Scrambo]

Because they were both so sure nothing would go wrong?

 

[Mr Silver]

Because they were both so sure nothing would go wrong?

Perhaps, but its clear from David's comments ("We are dealing with something that could be perverted into a dreadful weapon) that they hadn't really thought a lot through. They were unprepared for Khan and his followers finding out about the device and attempting to steal it, it was just luck they managed to escape to Regula without Khan finding out where they had gone (although the delay by the unfortunate scientists who remained would have been beneficial).

I seriously have trouble understanding why they wouldn't have the ability to cancel the device, like one would cancel a torpedo and retrieve it. Or in case of accidents, being able to remotely disable the device. As a missile based payload, it would have a detonator (and this is made obvious by Khan starting a detonation sequence), why would you not put a detonator on anything if there is a chance you would need to cancel? They are scientists after all! Maybe lacking in social skills but certainly not common sense

 

[Timo]

Not all things can be deactivated by detonating an explosive on them. That's a very poor approach to deactivating a chemical or biological warfare artillery shell, for example!

It's not all that difficult to think of Genesis as something that absolutely must not be released from its containment; it's basically a "biological warfare" device, after all. So destroying the container after the "biological agent" has been created would be unthinkable, and the only means to proceed with an abort would be to utilize a weapon that can "sterilize" the "biological agent". If phasers and photon torpedoes can't "sterilize" the Genesis effect, then that's that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Balrog]

Captain M, you bring up a good thought? The Enterprise cannot escape the Genesis Wave. Why not send over a team armed with phasers set to vaporize?

 

[Timo]

We don't know if Genesis was ultimately set off by a countdown timer, or by the destruction of the starship around it at roughly the time of the countdown zero. It wouldn't be difficult to postulate that any attempt at using weaponry against Genesis would simply trigger the effect - nor would it be difficult to believe that David Marcus would know this, and that Jim Kirk would know that David knew, and would act accordingly.

We could have two minutes of technobabble argument between the characters here, just like we could have Riker arguing with LaForge in ST:GEN about whether ejecting the core is an option or not. But with death looming just minutes away, would rational people stop to argue? Or would they trust expert opinion instead?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

I seriously have trouble understanding why they wouldn't have the ability to cancel the device, like one would cancel a torpedo and retrieve it.

The self-destruct charge was due to be installed on Tuesday.