What is up with 'The Omega Glory'?

[Timo]

Sure. It's seldom you get to see a) suppositories or b) ugly women in the very focus of things. But the pathogen containment procedures of that movie are no more realistic than those of, say, ENT. Or, rather, they are no more effective - arguably, inefficient procedures are highly realistic, and it's something of a plot point in that movie that the procedures are fundamentally useless.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[scotpens]

If classic Trek had employed forcefield belts, from a production standpoint, they would probably have depicted the occasional establishing shot of the landing party (why do people keep applying that bloody Next Gen' terminology of "away team"?) . . .

Hear, hear!

Landing Party -- nautical and traditional.

Away Team -- sounds like high school football.

 

[Timo]

Which I guess was more or less the point. Had Roddenberry fully had his way with exorcising all signs of the old, we'd probably have lost "starships", too, the way we lost "helm" and damn near lost "port" and "starboard" in early S1.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[scotpens]

Sure. It's seldom you get to see a) suppositories or b) ugly women in the very focus of things.

If I have to choose, I'd rather see ugly women.

The thing is, it's not realistic to decontaminate a human body: we're far too good at sucking in all sorts of dirt and integrating it into our bodies in no time flat.

Ever seen The Andromeda Strain?

Yes, and both the movie and the source novel make a point of the difficulty of such a task.

"We face quite a problem: How to disinfect the human body, one of the dirtiest things in the known universe. That is, without killing the human being at the same time. It gets tougher as we go."

 

[Maurice]

What is up with "The City on the Edge of Forever"?

I find it way too hard to believe that a planet could have a giant doughnut that would transport you back through time to an exact specific moment and place in the past of a completely different planet.
I find it way too hard to believe that a timeline is created where a spaceship never existed to bring Kirk and company to the planet, yet they are somehow still on the planet after McCoy changes history.
Finally, what are the odds that the death of one sole woman would change the outcome of World War II?

What is up with a fine episode like "The Omega Glory" getting slagged for plotholes that EVERY SINGLE Star Trek episode has?

The premise that a small change can change all of history that follows is not that radical. Think of the discovery of penicillin, had it happened a decade earlier or later some people would have survived who didn't or vice versa. Children would or wouldn't be born, and the changes ripple out from that one event. Maybe it changes nothing much in the world, or maybe it changes everything. In the first draft script Edith's Keeler's living was an event that changed everything, and Trooper's sacrifice to save Kirk changed nothing in history.

Sure, perhaps we're picking on the Omega Glory for flaws that riddle sci-fi premises all over, but there's no denying that some absurdities are dramatically interesting and others are just weak plot twists.

 

[A.V.I.A.F.]

Disbelief can only be suspended so high and for so long. I agree that it is a question of degrees.

 

[siskokid888]

I watched the episode this morning and I found it hard to believe that another civilization with a John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, And an exact copy of the Constitusion. I found it WAY too hard to believe, and when in in 1776 to 18 whatever did we fight communsits. Finally what arre the odds that they have the same pledge of alligance and flag with 50 stars? All in all a Very hard to believe episode

IIRC, one of the novels (and I can't remember which) posited a scenario where, sometime in its past, earth passed through a time anomaly, which deposited multiple twin earths throughout the galaxy. Now, Miri's planet was an exact duplicate, but there is no indication that Omega or the Roman planet were, but I think the explaination was that the further away the planet was, the less it geographically resembled earth. An admittedly greatly rationalized explaination, but one that's out there.

 

[Timo]

On the other hand, something like a dozen TOS plots hinge on there being cultural exchange between Earth and distant worlds, either by very advanced aliens in the distant past, or then by only moderately advanced space travelers recently.

It's not difficult to believe that visitors from outer space, especially advanced ones, would greatly influence a pre-starflight world - and surprisingly, the influence in "Omega Glory" is among the most plausible, as it is shown to be realistically corrupted, distanced from its origins, and creating a culture completely different from the one that here on Earth thrived under the same influences.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

It's not difficult to believe that visitors from outer space, especially advanced ones, would greatly influence a pre-starflight world - and surprisingly, the influence in "Omega Glory" is among the most plausible, as it is shown to be realistically corrupted, distanced from its origins, and creating a culture completely different from the one that here on Earth thrived under the same influences.

Not even close. How in the world would starfarers be responsible for them developing the same exact language, their Constitution and flag are direct copies of the United States. The white guys are even the "good guys" upholding truth, justice and the American way.

Every parallel Earth story is massively unlikely. The only reason they work is because they represent fun "what if?" style stories.

 

[Timo]

How in the world would starfarers be responsible for them developing the same exact language, their Constitution and flag are direct copies of the United States.

That's trivial: they aren't speaking English (because Star Trek is based on the concept of the Universal Translator), and their Constitution and Flag aren't merely "copies" but actually the real thing exported from Earth by the starfarers.

The white guys are even the "good guys" upholding truth, justice and the American way.

No, they aren't. They are bloodlusty barbarians who engage in genocidal warfare and terrorize an entire planet, paying no attention to truth, justice or the American Way (unless we define the American Way as being genocidal barbarism?). They couldn't even spell "truth" or "justice"!

That's the forte of "Omega Glory" - the planet isn't a parallel Earth in any sense. It has gone down the drain for attempting to be one; for all we know, the animosity between Kohms and Yangs was artificially created when the people contaminated by the American Way had to find a suitable anti-American opponent, or if there was none, then create one. The Yang realm is a horrible perversion of frontier America, perhaps even a critical comment on the exporting of cultures.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[7thsealord]

The white guys are even the "good guys" upholding truth, justice and the American way.

No, they aren't. They are bloodlusty barbarians who engage in genocidal warfare and terrorize an entire planet, paying no attention to truth, justice or the American Way (unless we define the American Way as being genocidal barbarism?). They couldn't even spell "truth" or "justice"!

That's the forte of "Omega Glory" - the planet isn't a parallel Earth in any sense. It has gone down the drain for attempting to be one; for all we know, the animosity between Kohms and Yangs was artificially created when the people contaminated by the American Way had to find a suitable anti-American opponent, or if there was none, then create one. The Yang realm is a horrible perversion of frontier America, perhaps even a critical comment on the exporting of cultures.

Timo Saloniemi

Yet, at the end of OG, Spock notes the large number of Kohm prisoners with them, and says something like "Clearly the Yangs are not as savage as we first thought."

 

[Timo]

"Not as savage as we first thought" isn't something we'd expect from the people who wrote the Constitution. It's an observation we might make of the native Americans instead. And traditionally the American Way (or the Constitution) has had nothing to do with native Americans.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Sure, perhaps we're picking on the Omega Glory for flaws that riddle sci-fi premises all over, but there's no denying that some absurdities are dramatically interesting and others are just weak plot twists.

This.

I got a real charge out of "The Omega Glory" the first time I saw it, BTW - I was thirteen or fourteen years old, and just thought it was cool as hell. I kind of thought the point of science fiction and comic books was to do this kind of thing.

Remember that just a few years previously The Twilight Zone had done stories like "Third From The Sun" and "Eye Of The Beholder" that are still well-regarded and both of which depend partly for their impacts on this bit of (not-so-subtle, now) obfuscation. To the Trek producers at the time this story's twist probably seemed similar enough to that kind of thing that they were comfortable with it.

Now, this was also a story that Roddenberry wrote before a single frame of Trek as it was revised with Shatner, etc. was shot. The tone of Star Trek turned out to be very, very different from TW or The Outer Limits. Those shows "followed their weird," to use Bruce Sterling's delightful phrase, and sought to evoke chills at the strangeness of the drama. Star Trek developed into something stylistically not that different from any other action-adventure TV series.

 

[Greg Cox]

Disbelief can only be suspended so high and for so long. I agree that it is a question of degrees.

I believe it was Judith Merrill who said that disbelief should be suspended, not hung from the neck until dead . . . .

 

[xortex]

They had all the conventions and history of our planet but couldn't understand the meaning of how it all fit together and what it meant so it wasn't an AU story but highly imitative aliens like the Icotions or (the Thermians) playing Human with some highly authenticated toys and props, etc. to mimic Humanity and try to understand it. 'The Bonding' had a similar premise of an alien who felt guilty at the death of one of the Enterprise's crew members by it's own hands that it imitated the officer to play mother to her son who was berieved. Now was that story RDM's or did the writing staff shape it into that because it seems he had just got a handle on the holosuite imitating the boy's dead mother for him, which was part of a concept done much better later on several times starting with 'Hollow Pursuits.'

 

[plynch]

I got a real charge out of "The Omega Glory" the first time I saw it, BTW - I was thirteen or fourteen years old, and just thought it was cool as hell.

Warp drive, space navy, artificial deck by deck gravity - it's all pretty absurd. Why quibble over the flag and e plebneesta? It's "the one with the flag in it, surprise ending one." I can hear the muted trumpets playing the anthem and see the camera zoom in on the flag right now. Think I'll go watch it and see how green the tunics look outdoors.

 

[7thsealord]

"Not as savage as we first thought" isn't something we'd expect from the people who wrote the Constitution. It's an observation we might make of the native Americans instead. And traditionally the American Way (or the Constitution) has had nothing to do with native Americans.

Timo Saloniemi

... And as I also recall, Kirk and Spock speculated between them in the exact same scene about what might have happened if Kirk's ancestors had been driven into the hills. They might well have taken up the ways of spear and lance, warrior-stoic mannerisms, etc..

 

[BillJ]

"Not as savage as we first thought" isn't something we'd expect from the people who wrote the Constitution. It's an observation we might make of the native Americans instead. And traditionally the American Way (or the Constitution) has had nothing to do with native Americans.

Timo Saloniemi

... And as I also recall, Kirk and Spock speculated between them in the exact same scene about what might have happened if Kirk's ancestors had been driven into the hills. They might well have taken up the ways of spear and lance, warrior-stoic mannerisms, etc..

Exactly. These are people thousands of years removed from civilization. They may hold the symbols, but it doesn't mean they understand them. I thought that was the whole point of Kirks end statement about it being for everyone.

 

[plynch]

... And as I also recall, Kirk and Spock speculated between them in the exact same scene about what might have happened if Kirk's ancestors had been driven into the hills. They might well have taken up the ways of spear and lance, warrior-stoic mannerisms, etc..

Kirk being a Scottish name, his ancestors HAD probably been driven into the hills and been stoic, nomadic, warring herders.

 

[BillJ]

Without the flag and constitution, are we even talking about this one forty-five years later?