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''By Any Other Name'' questions
- Thread starter Rowdy Roddy McDowall
- Start date
A.V.I.A.F.
Captain
The block-converted crewmen would have been returned to normal over the generations as needed to assist the Kelvans. I don't think their mission could have succeeded precisely for the reason that Kirk ultimately uses to convince Rojan to abandon the mission. Specifically, the Kelvan conquerors had "gone native" and became more human from being encased in human bodies and consequently had developed human characteristics. Presumably, this "contamination" would have been handed down through the generations and by the time the Enterprise returned to Kelva, Rojan's and the others' descendants probably would have been vaporized as soon as the local authorities discovered the contamination. That is my theory for what it's worth.
Here's some of my questions about this episode:
Rojan and Hanar have this big discussion about how agoraphobic the Kelvans are, about how they can't stand living on planets and are uncomfortable unless they are on board the confines of a space ship. If that's true, then what do they need a galaxy for? (Just so they can conquer and rule it?)
Would the Kelvans really have been able to conquer our galaxy? Wouldn't the Organians, for one, be able to stop them?
Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scott were the only four kept from being "neutralized" because the Kelvans considered them essential personnel. Were they intended to be essential through the entire voyage, which the Kelvans said that they themselves would not live to complete? How did the Kelvans intend on replacing the Enterprise men when they died?
The Kelvans said that they barely escaped to the planet they were on in a life craft, but they brought enough technology with them to take over the Enterprise and modify her engines.
Rojan also states that they had spent the time on the planet studying and learning about Earth people. How??
Rojan states that the Kelvans mission is going to be completed by his descendant. But he doesn't even know how to kiss a woman. Rojan, buddy, if you plan of having any descendants at all with that human body you're in, I think you need to study up some more on human mating rituals and practices.
The Kelvans modify the Enterprise's warp engines to make the ship achieve speeds unthinkable by Federation science. At the end of the episode, the Enterprise and the Kelvans appear to be on friendly terms. Why does the Enterprise not retain the superwarp drive the Kelvans gave them?
Rojan and Hanar have this big discussion about how agoraphobic the Kelvans are, about how they can't stand living on planets and are uncomfortable unless they are on board the confines of a space ship. If that's true, then what do they need a galaxy for? (Just so they can conquer and rule it?)
Would the Kelvans really have been able to conquer our galaxy? Wouldn't the Organians, for one, be able to stop them?
Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scott were the only four kept from being "neutralized" because the Kelvans considered them essential personnel. Were they intended to be essential through the entire voyage, which the Kelvans said that they themselves would not live to complete? How did the Kelvans intend on replacing the Enterprise men when they died?
The Kelvans said that they barely escaped to the planet they were on in a life craft, but they brought enough technology with them to take over the Enterprise and modify her engines.
Rojan also states that they had spent the time on the planet studying and learning about Earth people. How??
Rojan states that the Kelvans mission is going to be completed by his descendant. But he doesn't even know how to kiss a woman. Rojan, buddy, if you plan of having any descendants at all with that human body you're in, I think you need to study up some more on human mating rituals and practices.
The Kelvans modify the Enterprise's warp engines to make the ship achieve speeds unthinkable by Federation science. At the end of the episode, the Enterprise and the Kelvans appear to be on friendly terms. Why does the Enterprise not retain the superwarp drive the Kelvans gave them?
^ Maybe the Kelvans, friendly or not, have their own Prime Directive and chose not to allow the Federation to keep their advanced technology.
FOXHOT - Interesting to postulate, to be sure!
One thing I think which needs to be considered is:
What will the Kelvans meet when they return to our Galaxy?
One must consider:
1) That the UFP:SFC will have advanced significantly, when the Kelvans return to conquer
2) The Kelvan race is ancient compared to the human race, which means that while the Kelvan were of a more advanced technology at the time of the episode, it also means that the human technological index was growing at a geometrically disproportionate rate to that of the Kelvans to date, and if conditions of growth remained the same, by the time the Kelan returned to 'conquer', they would appear as cave-men with clubs to SFC,... potentially
Just some food for thought.
One thing I think which needs to be considered is:
What will the Kelvans meet when they return to our Galaxy?
One must consider:
1) That the UFP:SFC will have advanced significantly, when the Kelvans return to conquer
2) The Kelvan race is ancient compared to the human race, which means that while the Kelvan were of a more advanced technology at the time of the episode, it also means that the human technological index was growing at a geometrically disproportionate rate to that of the Kelvans to date, and if conditions of growth remained the same, by the time the Kelan returned to 'conquer', they would appear as cave-men with clubs to SFC,... potentially
Just some food for thought.
I guess the Kelvans could live in open space just like the Borg do, huddling inside floating structures that house more people than a planet ever could. But apparently they couldn't do that in Andromeda, which is in the process of exploding, or being swept by deadly radiation, or whatever. They'd have to build their floating worlds somewhere else. And that somewhere else would have to provide them with raw materials.
Thus, better go to the next safe place that has planets around, so that those can be stripped of key ingredients for Kelvan survival.
One wonders if Andromeda for some reason was lacking in really advanced cultures like Organians or the Q - in which case the Kelvans wouldn't have realized what they would be up against in any other galaxy. Perhaps the Andromedan gods left their galaxy when it became obvious the days of that galaxy were numbered? And since they were gods, they figured this out well in advance, meaning the Kelvans never had a chance to meet their masters?
Of course, if the Kelvans did come and conquer Milky Way, there's no telling whether the Organians would oppose the idea. It's probably irrelevant to them which type of lower lifeform comes to pester them: human, Klingon or Kelvan. They'll just shoo them away from their home planet and let them play with the rest of the galaxy as they please.
I can't see the Q as the valiant defenders of Milky Way against invasion, either. Why would they consider humans or, say, Jem'Hadar or Borg to have a superior claim to this galaxy? They'd probably welcome the Kelvans with open arms, then play their silly games with the Kelvan equivalent of Captain Picard.
The idea floated above by A.V.I.A.F makes lots of sense: they'd "thaw" four new people at a time whenever the previous four died or became too old to be of use.
It would suffice for them to bring along their power source, which might be extremely compact. We have seen time and again that the Enterprise can go way faster than her designers intended when forced to: the engines don't need to be "modified", they only need to be "violated", their safety valves jammed and whatnot. Apparently, warp coils rated for warp 8 are perfectly good for sustained warp 11, too - which makes sense, because they already span incredible orders of magnitude of speed, as the difference between warp 2 and warp 8 is supposedly really drastic. VOY "Threshold" would be fully justified in saying that warp drives can do basically infinite speeds if one simply finds a way to pump enough energy into them.
Even in the real world, a modern destroyer wrecked by a time storm on the beaches of the 15th century Caribbean might easily donate a working diesel engine or gyrocompass or radar that would transform a local pirate vessel just as fantastically as the Kelvan machinery transformed the Enterprise...
Very good question...
...Although where and when does he state that? I can find no mention of anything like that in the transcripts.
I rather doubt copulation of the human shells would help any in producing Kelvan offspring. That process must be completely separate!
Spock's insight into what the Kelvans really are like seems to preclude the idea that they are physical creatures hiding inside the human bodies. Rather, there's something more complex going on - and it seems likely the Kelvans have a means of stopping it from going on eventually. At some point, they would "emerge", and perhaps do their procreating then.
Or then they procreate while embedded in their human shells, and the kids are born with human shells, too. (That is, as far as we can tell, the shells of Rojan and his folks are artificial, rather than stolen human bodies. But they could be stolen bodies, too - in which case the kids would need to steal some more, from the stock of four hundred readily at hand.) If so, the procreation is unlikely to involve human genitalia or human mating rituals in any way...
The big question is, why do the Kelvans need the human shells at all? Given 300 years, it would seem they could modify the Enterprise so that it can support both unmasked Kelvans and their human slaves. But Rojan may realize that this would take too long to countermand Kirk's doomday prediction of the slow decay of the Kelvan identities.
Because the Kelvans still hold the upper hand? Or a hundred upper tentacles?
Rojan still has his weaponry that can neutralize all of Starfleet at the push of a button. He may still have his patriotic pride, too. If the folks back home will treat him as a monster and an enemy, so be it - but he will still remain a loyal Kelvan, and not aid and abet the Federation beyond what is absolutely necessary.
Timo Saloniemi
"Undoubtedly?"
Boy, how stupid Spock will look when the end credits roll and Rojan tells his newfound human friends that this immense tentacled being was the villain of the last horror movie they watched before hitting the Barrier and crashing...
...Or the Kelvan equivalent of a cow, foremost in his mind because he was dying for a beef.
Timo Saloniemi
Just watch your average "hentai" and you'll see just how well those naughty monsters can "hide" their tentacles!
Sincerely,
Bill
Indeed. How did they obtain the intel necessary for making the bodies, anyway? (I still haven't located the bit where they would have been "studying humans" during their stay on the planet...)
Note how Rojan sarcastically thanks Kirk for his "quick" rescue of the castaways, yet confides in Hanar that the stay on the planet was unbearably long already. We don't know the exact length of their stay on that planet, or the possible side trips they took before reaching the world; furthermore, we don't know how fast-paced their lives normally are. Perhaps they could have manufactured human bodies after Kirk's party beamed down but before contact with it was initiated?
On the other end of the reaction speed scale, it's quite possible the Kelvans had some intel on Milky Way affairs and were already disguised as generic Milky Wayites when braving the Barrier. A middle ground would have them encounter some human(oids) during their lifeboat trip and copy or steal their bodies, giving us an adaptation timescale of weeks or months.
Personally, I'd go with the "psychic camouflage" theory where the Kelvans remain tentacled beasts physically but impose the human image on any passersby - not merely in order to fool the passersby, but in order to fool themselves. That is, unlike the case with the salt vampire, they create such a profound illusion or perversion of reality that their physical interaction with the universe is altered. They use the thought of human bodies as a shield against the Milky Way reality on several levels - and if they let go their guard on one level (such as visual appearance), they risk losing control altogether and being exposed to the full physicality of Milky Way.
Timo Saloniemi
Note how Rojan sarcastically thanks Kirk for his "quick" rescue of the castaways, yet confides in Hanar that the stay on the planet was unbearably long already. We don't know the exact length of their stay on that planet, or the possible side trips they took before reaching the world; furthermore, we don't know how fast-paced their lives normally are. Perhaps they could have manufactured human bodies after Kirk's party beamed down but before contact with it was initiated?
On the other end of the reaction speed scale, it's quite possible the Kelvans had some intel on Milky Way affairs and were already disguised as generic Milky Wayites when braving the Barrier. A middle ground would have them encounter some human(oids) during their lifeboat trip and copy or steal their bodies, giving us an adaptation timescale of weeks or months.
Personally, I'd go with the "psychic camouflage" theory where the Kelvans remain tentacled beasts physically but impose the human image on any passersby - not merely in order to fool the passersby, but in order to fool themselves. That is, unlike the case with the salt vampire, they create such a profound illusion or perversion of reality that their physical interaction with the universe is altered. They use the thought of human bodies as a shield against the Milky Way reality on several levels - and if they let go their guard on one level (such as visual appearance), they risk losing control altogether and being exposed to the full physicality of Milky Way.
Timo Saloniemi
I don't actually excuse Rojan's actions. Not fully.
But, from his point of view they were at war, and he did what he thought necessary to deter further 'funny business' (and, by extension, greater casualties and/or the compromising of his vital mission). Show me where the Kelvans signed the 'Geneva Convention' - he didn't use torture or draw things out or anything like that, just one simple and very serious demonstration of what could be done.
From the other side, I am sure it was not the first time that Star Fleet lost someone during what turned out to be a First Contact. All things considered, the most probable Federation response would be to forgive this act. This time.
But, from his point of view they were at war, and he did what he thought necessary to deter further 'funny business' (and, by extension, greater casualties and/or the compromising of his vital mission). Show me where the Kelvans signed the 'Geneva Convention' - he didn't use torture or draw things out or anything like that, just one simple and very serious demonstration of what could be done.
From the other side, I am sure it was not the first time that Star Fleet lost someone during what turned out to be a First Contact. All things considered, the most probable Federation response would be to forgive this act. This time.
No argument here.
FOXHOT - Absolutely! If one examines the premise, the elements and dynamics implied,.. the implications are terrorizing.
Of course one has to look beyond any trite portrayal on the screen, and really think the ramifications through, and view what is really being said with the proper gravity.
Provided one does not 'trivialize' what is happening on-screen, i.e. - ho hum, the alien turned the guy into a cube,.. the real implications are utterly horrific.
Of course one has to look beyond any trite portrayal on the screen, and really think the ramifications through, and view what is really being said with the proper gravity.
Provided one does not 'trivialize' what is happening on-screen, i.e. - ho hum, the alien turned the guy into a cube,.. the real implications are utterly horrific.
Indeed - the black guy survives, while the young and innocent white girl will never smile at us again!
That was unexpected. Which in itself was unexpected, for the third season of Star Trek specifically, and for television entertainment of the time in general.
Timo Saloniemi
I wrote the beginnings of a script a while ago where the Kelvins finally showed up in the 29th Century Milky Way and the Federation was ready for them. After their ships are decimated by the barrier that no one warned them about the Federation takes all 200 billion of them in as refuges and have them fill jobs that had been automated just to give them something to do - kind of like futuristic illegal immigrants.
And, of course, they all look like multiple Rojans, Kelindas, Heynars, etc.
And, of course, they all look like multiple Rojans, Kelindas, Heynars, etc.
A.V.I.A.F.
Captain
Sounds like a cool idea. I have to admit that I am finding it difficult to get my head around a Rojan pool-boy or a Kelinda chambermaid. Actually that last one kinda works for me.
Who wants to bet that Jim and Leonard later find Scotty, unconscious, and face down in a pool of his own vomit? 
What do you suppose happened to Rojan, Kelinda, Tomar, Hanar, and Drea after Kirk and crew returned them to that planet?
The way the episode ended, it left itself open to the possibility that we would see the Kelvans again, after they colonized the planet and started a new life.
The way the episode ended, it left itself open to the possibility that we would see the Kelvans again, after they colonized the planet and started a new life.
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