Balance of terror, balance of evidence?

Koloth, that pasty faced pataQ!

 

Koloth was to have been a regular adversary for Kirk in the second season too! Thirteen episodes I believe but can you imagine if it had of happened would the make-up men have remembered the correct Mongolian look or would Koloth's look have been the set face from then on in?
JB

 

There is an aspect of the BoT plot that I never fully understood. I hope somebody can answer my questions.

At one point in the BoT, Kirk ordered Sulu to fly a parallel course with the Romulan ship, matching the Romulans move for move as well as with the speed. Kirk wanted to give the Romulans the impression that the Enterprise was merely an echo or shadow.

In a later scene, a Romulan centurion on the Romulan bridge speculated that they "run from a reflection".

I never understood the science of a space reflection as implied in the episode. When a ship travels in space does it actually create an "echo", whatever that might mean?

In deep space, what is supposedly being reflected off of a ship, and what is it being reflected onto that would create the phenomenon of a reflection?

Or was this plot device merely the product of the writer's imagination?

 

Empty space is rare if not non-existent. Some nearby wisp of dusty hydrogen or something could reflect an image of a star-lit object so long as the angle was correct.

The flaw they either overlooked or dismissed is, sensors should sense the dusty wisp too.

 

Since Spock was famous for being the first Vulcan to serve on a Federation vessel, we can assume contact with them has always been rare prior to TOS. I thought the Companion was as isolated as Cochrane. More isolated, in fact. Cochrane would become old if he left, but the Companion couldn't leave at all. It's been awhile since I read the adaptation or saw the show, though, and it has never been one of my favorites. I could be wrong.

But I imagine the reason the Romulans remained mysterious was their methods. Destabilizing regional politics, so that everyone but the Roms got blamed and then went to war with each other, that sort of thing. Remember, these are the ones who developed cloaking technology first. They are deceptive and manipulative and operate from the shadows as much as possible, or at least did before their secret was out.

They must have known they couldn't keep it forever. Surely it was not coincidence that the reveal happened while Spock was the Enterprise's first officer. They were seeking the upper hand by destabilizing the very command structure of the ship and destroying confidence. It almost worked too.

But it makes little sense to expose themselves only after the war. There's a story there somewhere. Probably already been told, in fact. I all but stopped reading TOS books after a hundred or so, and there have been way more than that. Or perhaps they expected to win, and no one was supposed to survive.

 

Nope. It was never said Spock was the first Vulcan to serve on a Federation ship.

Between Sarek being an Ambassador of great renown with many debates in Federation Council and the Intrepid,a Federation ship crewed by Vulcans we can assume there is quite a bit of contact prior to TOS.

 

It was a product of something being lifted from The Enemy Below with little or no change. Early in the movie the radar operator gets something he thinks might be a submarine on the surface at extreme range. The captain decides to follow it through the night, keeping the same speed and distance and matching every course change, hoping that the submarine won't get spooked and dive. The U-boat notices something at long range on the radar too, but it fades in and out and the state of the sea makes them think the weather might be creating a "false echo." That doesn't make as much sense in space, of course!

 

Or the fact that the Azanar incident (which must have only been in the previous 10-15 years) obviously had a substanially positive effect on Vulcan-Human relations, and in Court Martial we had mention of a "Vulcanian mission" (which sounds quite separate and non-inclusive) and that Spock was unique enough that a capital ships officers were obviously not very familiar with Vulcans, even a little uncomfortable around them sometimes, and even the CMO didnt really know the anatomy (JTB). Makes me wonder how close, for how long, Humans and Vulcans (and Andorians and Tellerites??) really were at the start of TOS.

 

One wonders whether Starfleet would actually be an environment where interaction between species and cultures was less likely than in the civilian world or in politics or media. Perhaps segregation would be a Starfleet policy intended to keep the crews more comfortable in deep space, physiologically and psychologically? Or a motivational trick to make them more prepared to mow down alien scum in the name of the Federation than they'd be if their best buddies already happened to be said scum?

It's worth pondering whether the Praetor really timed his strikes to coincide with the assignment of a Vulcan to that stretch of the Neutral Zone. Was that to test allegiances? Did Spock pass or fail, what with his clumsy "accident" alerting the Romulans and all? Or was Spock charged with gently introducing to Starfleet the fact that Romulans are Vulcans, via that suspiciously effortless tapping of their CCTV? However, one would probably need a duraniumfoil hat two inches thick to carry the conspiracy theory through all the necessary hoops. It's extremely difficult to see anybody benefiting from such a conspicary, after all.

Timo Saloniemi

 

That's more about the show evolving as it was made. At the start, the Enterprise was an Earth ship and Spock might have been intended to be a "foreigner" serving in Earth's fleet. By the time we get to JTB, the ship serves the Federation and Vulcan is one of many members and one in good standing.

 

Yes, that is the Real-World (tm) answer, but surely an in-universe answer must take the "canon" on-screen evidence into account? In the first season we have "UESPA" and "Earth Ship", we have an alien on board whom even some officers are unsure of, hold racist views about and in BoT, even accuse of being a enemy collaborator! As I already stated, the CMO doesn't even seem to be familiar with Vulcan physiology! How can he heal such a crewmember if he doesn't even know how that species works? Whatever happened at Axanar is not just any old event, it allowed Human and Vulcan to call each other brothers. Surely a major coming together of societies, minds and hearts? And, going by Garth's apparent age it wasn't too long ago.
A Federation is a coming together of sovereign nations who agree to form and place themselves under a central government, while at the same time reserving a certain amount of individual control over their affairs. My answer to all this is that in season one the UFP was still quite a loosely controlled Federation, with United Earth just one part of it and Vulcan, Andor and Tellar having their own star encompassing societies. Axanar was the catalyst to substantially strengthen the ties, the slow movement of that is then what we see unfold over the three years of TOS. An even more into he movies and finally at its height in TNG.

 

That's why I think Axanar was part of a Federation civil war. In American terms it essentially took the Federation from "these united states" to "THE United States.

 

Canon is mutable. When Episode A is contradicted by Episode B, you go with Episode B. Like I said, the show's concepts evolve. Nothing is written in stone. Move forward and leave "the past" behind. By Season 2 most of what we think of as "Star Trek" is in place: The Federation, Starfleet, Vulcan's status and Spock's background. And all of that is retroactive. It's no different than the Superman mythos. We don't pretend that Superman changed his name from Kal-L to Kal-el or that he worked for George Taylor at the Daily Star before he worked for Perry White at the Daily Planet.

That doesn't happen until Stiles sees the Romulans.

He's as familiar as the script needs him to be. In Operation: Annihilate, McCoy is quite comfortable operating on Spock. Even in Amok Time, he knows enough is to establish Spock's physical condition is not Vulcan normal and is dying. And of course in JTB, he operates on Sarek.

 

Why? What if Episode A has better ideas?

 

Obviously the folks in charge didn't think so or simply forgot. On the bright side, they might remember by Episode D.

 

That is one possibility that my idealistic view of the UFP doesn't want to consider, but one I am increasingly drawn to. I certainly agree that it offers one logical interpretation of the onscreen evidence. I wonder if United Earth brokered the peace deal, hence why so much of the UFP organisational infrastructure is on Earth? I also wonder what Garth's role was in it? He was obviously on the winning/more central government side and either led the victorious forces or committed some battle winning/heroic/tactical act during the battle.
Maybe the bad-ish feeling and conflict between Sarek and the Tellarite in JTB are a hangover from the Axanar period?? And although I am not an ENT fan this could also tie in with the Andorian/Vulcan conflict presented there. Yes I know it's not graven in (canon) stone, but it makes for an interesting what if.

 

I personally love ST canon. It can be used in so many ways. It can be used to argue a reimaging of a given person or situation etc, or it can be used to argue a strict adherence to ST "fact". Pick a card, any card........!!
Personally I am sooooo sick of it and would love to see a little more imagination utilised in this forum. But that's just me.

 

I see all sorts of imagination in the forums.

 

Reading these last few comments has stirred some questions regarding the Romulan point of view.

In BoT we are told that neither side knows what the other looks like. That means that (as far as Humans know) the Romulans had never seen a Human, either. Yet, by the time we see the Romulans again in the flesh in Enterprise Incident, nobody is shocked as to what the other side looks like. The Romulans act as if they have been seeing Humans for years.

Further, when did the Romulans and Federation open relations and exchange ambassadors?

Nimbus III, the "Planet of Galactic Peace" was established in 2267. This is a year after the events of BoT. They went from being never seen before to establishing a 3 way peace planet within 1 year? They were exchanging ambassadors and opened up so much in such a short time? By ST:TWOK there are smugglers regularly bringing shipments of Romulan Ale across the Neutral Zone.

Almost as if the extreme isolationism and never having seen each other before didn't happen. Yet that is the whole point of the BoT subplot.

 

They probably realized how silly the idea was and decided to ignore it. The Enterprise Incident retcons a few things about BoT.