"The Magnificent Seven" was in 1960.
The Galileo....why Seven crewmembers?
- Thread starter MarsWeeps
- Start date
To sort of debunk the reasoning by "Why not just send a probe?", in "The Immunity Syndrome", where they face that giant amoeba that sucks the life force from the ship and crew, in the dialogue, Kirk refused to send the shuttle out, saying, "Probes are giving us all the information that we need", and Spock says something like, "They are providing some information, but not all the information we need to learn to destroy it." - or something like that.
So, Kirk ends up sending Spock in Immunity, they send a research team in Galileo Seven to do more of a comprehensive study.
Seven though? That is a bit overkill.
So, Kirk ends up sending Spock in Immunity, they send a research team in Galileo Seven to do more of a comprehensive study.
Seven though? That is a bit overkill.
A.V.I.A.F.
Captain
I am actually watching the episode right now. I notice that Boma, and not Spock seems to be the authority on quasars. Frequently, Spock seems to respond in a way that suggests he is not terribly experienced with quasars like the Murasaki 312. Case in point when the Galileo loses control:
SPOCK: Position?
LATIMER: Three point seven. Sir, I
SPOCK: Make up your mind please, Mister Latimer.
LATIMER: Sir, this indicator's gone crazy.
BOMA: That's to be expected, Mister Spock. Quasars are extremely disruptive. Just how much, we don't know.
SPOCK: Considerably, Mister Boma.
MEARS: Mister Spock, radiation is increasing.
SPOCK: Stop forward momentum, Mister Latimer.
LATIMER: I can't, sir. Nothing happens.
SPOCK: Galileo to Enterprise. Galileo to Enterprise. Come in, please.
BOMA: Ionic interference, Mister Spock.
MCCOY: We're being drawn right into it.
SPOCK: Galileo to Enterprise. Galileo to Enterprise. We are out of control, being pulled directly into the heart of Murasaki three one two. Being hit by violent radiation on outer hull. Course three point two five
Spock gets a little bitchy with Latimer but then Boma chimes in with some info that Spock doesn't seem to have known (otherwise he shouldn't have been so testy with Latimer). Further, Boma jumps in to tell Spock about the ionic interference...suggesting that Spock may not have predicted this problem.
Later, after the opening credits, when we cut to the shuttlecraft crew right after they have crashed. McCoy, after helping Mears back to her seat, turns to Boma, and not Spock (the CO):
MCCOY: What happened?
BOMA: I can't be sure, but I'd say that, the magnetic potential of the effect was (McCoy gives him a tissue for his nose bleed) Thank you. Was such that, as we gathered speed, it was multiplied geometrically. And we were simply shot into the centre of the effect. Like a projectile.
SPOCK: I'd say your evaluation is reasonable, Mister Boma.
Spock almost sounds like he is trying to save face here. I get the impression that Spock is almost saying, "Yeah, I knew that, duh!"
In other words, I don't think that the uber-intellectual aspect of Spock's character had been developed yet. Boma, and not Spock is the science expert on this mission. At least, that is my explanation for why Boma is there.
It might be more diplomatic to say that Boma is the quasar specialist, giving him a bit of an edge on Spock's more generalized knowledge.
So, Kirk ends up sending Spock in Immunity, they send a research team in Galileo Seven to do more of a comprehensive study.
Seven though? That is a bit overkill.
Well, I can understand if each person was sitting at a computer console suited to their individual job responsibilities where they can gather the necessary data for a thorough analysis....but they were just sitting in chairs that were much less comfortable than today's minivans and NO EQUIPMENT.
It's almost like going on a trip with a bunch of back seat drivers saying "turn here...no wait...the next exit...what do you think...are we there yet?"
And it would jibe well with the interpretation where the shuttle is not an observation instrument - it's just a vehicle taking the experts to their real target of study, somewhere within the quasar thing. Which gives the set of seven much more to do, potentially: McCoy wouldn't be merely keeping the survey team healthy, but could be assessing a planet within Murasaki for its suitability as a long term observation post, for example.
Curiously, though, it is only after the shuttlecraft has been lost that Uhura digs up the fact that "this" solar system has one habitable planet. Apparently, she found this out by going through previous records, but she appears to only have done so a few moments before telling Kirk. If the idea was to send the shuttle to a planet where the seven could do serious research, then surely the heroes should and would already have a good idea of which planets within Murasaki were capable of accommodating the research party.
Okay, so perhaps Kirk sent the shuttle to survey a planet close to the edge of Murasaki, but since the quasar blew the shuttle off that course, he now has to find out whether it found a safe haven in this other star system far deeper within Murasaki - a system he didn't do his homework on originally.
From Boma's speculation on what happened, involving a "magnetic potential", we could associate the course-disrupting effect with the various magnetic storms that have thrown starships far off course previously - like in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Such a storm could have displaced the shuttle by several lightyears in the short time, much as one seemed to displace the Valiant in the pilot episode, and thus forced Kirk to study up on at least three previously uninteresting star systems.
Spock and the landing party don't seem to know where they ended up - not even in terms of which star system they might be in. And while Kirk is concentrating exclusively on Taurus II, this need not be because he knows the shuttle must be down there. It's probably simply because he knows that in two days of searching with the disadvantaged instruments, he can either just barely find the shuttle party alive on that planet, or then completely fail in attempting to find them somewhere else (remember his needle-in-haystack reference). It doesn't matter whether there's evidence of the shuttle being on Taurus II or not - searching Taurus II is the only course of action available to Kirk.
I'd say it all holds together fairly well if we just fill in a few gaps. But not without such gapfilling, as the mission and predicament of our shuttle team were apparently only sketched in the vaguest of terms by the writer originally.
Timo Saloniemi
Curiously, though, it is only after the shuttlecraft has been lost that Uhura digs up the fact that "this" solar system has one habitable planet. Apparently, she found this out by going through previous records, but she appears to only have done so a few moments before telling Kirk. If the idea was to send the shuttle to a planet where the seven could do serious research, then surely the heroes should and would already have a good idea of which planets within Murasaki were capable of accommodating the research party.
Okay, so perhaps Kirk sent the shuttle to survey a planet close to the edge of Murasaki, but since the quasar blew the shuttle off that course, he now has to find out whether it found a safe haven in this other star system far deeper within Murasaki - a system he didn't do his homework on originally.
From Boma's speculation on what happened, involving a "magnetic potential", we could associate the course-disrupting effect with the various magnetic storms that have thrown starships far off course previously - like in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Such a storm could have displaced the shuttle by several lightyears in the short time, much as one seemed to displace the Valiant in the pilot episode, and thus forced Kirk to study up on at least three previously uninteresting star systems.
Spock and the landing party don't seem to know where they ended up - not even in terms of which star system they might be in. And while Kirk is concentrating exclusively on Taurus II, this need not be because he knows the shuttle must be down there. It's probably simply because he knows that in two days of searching with the disadvantaged instruments, he can either just barely find the shuttle party alive on that planet, or then completely fail in attempting to find them somewhere else (remember his needle-in-haystack reference). It doesn't matter whether there's evidence of the shuttle being on Taurus II or not - searching Taurus II is the only course of action available to Kirk.
I'd say it all holds together fairly well if we just fill in a few gaps. But not without such gapfilling, as the mission and predicament of our shuttle team were apparently only sketched in the vaguest of terms by the writer originally.
Timo Saloniemi
Indeed. Like how cars always have five people in them.
Not in Los Angeles.
Obviously, the shuttlecraft and the transporter platform were both built so that one operator can move six people for pure storytelling reasons. Probably it was envisioned from the very start that there would be three principal characters, and then some redshirts to be expended as plot dictated - and just one redshirt would be silly, but more than three would be impractical.
That this story logic gives us a shuttlecraft that is sized much like a van (which is also a manageable size for a prop, even if just barely) is something of a coincidence... But comparisons to automobiles are inevitable, and it's somewhat unusual for a group of heroes to be so large that they would move about in a van. Even the A-Team was smaller... The transporter set could of course have been built to accommodate just about any number of people, from two to twenty, without a similar need to worry about the cost of the construction, as it's "just" a set rather than a moveable prop.
Given these Desilu choices, we're actually forced to believe that Starfleet, in-universe, also believes it is useful to move six or seven people at a time. So the sarcasm may ot be completely valid here - perhaps we are to believe that the shuttle will seldom be flown "undercrewed".
Timo Saloniemi
That this story logic gives us a shuttlecraft that is sized much like a van (which is also a manageable size for a prop, even if just barely) is something of a coincidence... But comparisons to automobiles are inevitable, and it's somewhat unusual for a group of heroes to be so large that they would move about in a van. Even the A-Team was smaller... The transporter set could of course have been built to accommodate just about any number of people, from two to twenty, without a similar need to worry about the cost of the construction, as it's "just" a set rather than a moveable prop.
Given these Desilu choices, we're actually forced to believe that Starfleet, in-universe, also believes it is useful to move six or seven people at a time. So the sarcasm may ot be completely valid here - perhaps we are to believe that the shuttle will seldom be flown "undercrewed".
Timo Saloniemi
They sent seven so they could have some crewmen who were not coming back to the Enterprise at mission's end, just to beef up the drama I suspect.
So, Kirk ends up sending Spock in Immunity, they send a research team in Galileo Seven to do more of a comprehensive study.
Seven though? That is a bit overkill.
Well, I can understand if each person was sitting at a computer console suited to their individual job responsibilities where they can gather the necessary data for a thorough analysis....but they were just sitting in chairs that were much less comfortable than today's minivans and NO EQUIPMENT.
Are you sure about that no equipment? It looks like every seat on the right side had some blinky control panel. Even Mears was apparently reading data and high radiation from the panel and/or from her tricorder. From some shots it looks like there was one panel on the left side as well.
If anything, I'd guess that McCoy was just along for the ride to get some shuttle hours in but most of the people on the shuttle had something they were going to do with the instruments.
M5 didn't seem to think so.
It probably had more to do with how many seats could comfortably fit inside the hull.
If there was room for nine seats, the episode would've been titled "The Galileo Nine".
Yeah, that extra 7 in the registry number has caused all kinds of confusion over the years (probably a subconscious throwback to the Mercury flights, when every capsule had "something 7" as the name). I never knew the title referred to the stranded crewmembers until I read Blish's novelization, where he clearly explains it in the opening paragraphs.
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