Daggar of the mind - motivation

[PCz911]

This from memory alpha:
"Various script drafts revealed Adams' reason for constructing the Neural neutralizer and conducting experiments on innocent people as being dissatisfied with humanity and doing good for others without properly redeemed for it, and deciding on gaining the only thing he was still interested in life: power. However, Gene Roddenberry removed these lines from the revised final draft script, suggesting that humanity has overcome such petty differences and hateful emotions in the future. Hence, Adams' motivation for his actions is never explained"

I'm still not sure why we had the "mad scientist of the week". Even the description above doesn't have much in the way of 'motivation' for Dr. Adams. What did he hope to gain? What was his end game? I just don't get why he suddenly veered off the reservation.

Other comments:
a- Air conditioning vent: How big can a vent be? Have you EVER seen a vent the size of this one? And, if it is indeed a penal colony, why would they build one so big and easily accessed?

b- Although I certainly did enjoy the lovely Ms Noel climbing through the vents. Sorry if that's a bit creepy.

 

[Timo]

It sounded plausible enough to me: humanity had found a way to deal with crime without having to torture people into abstaining from it, and that was curing them with some sort of psychotherapy. Adams was credited with much of that, and he had done very good work while causing little or no damage, on that the heroes were in agreement. But there were always incurables (see Elba II), and the hero of the anti-crime-brainwashing endeavor simply couldn't accept that. So he kept pushing.

Unfortunately, that meant that the cure became less benign, and tragic misfires like Lethe were the result. Adams knew the public would not accept this, so he became a recluse "until he had it all down pat". The road to hell was now paved...

Adams was simply doing what he had always done, but doing it harder, pushing for the impossible, and having to deal with things like witnesses on the side. He had no way of coping, as he didn't think of himself as a master criminal or universal overlord or anything; he had no plan. So he just made the situation worse.

Regarding air vents, they really do have to be really large ITRW to cope with losses from the unyielding laws of fluid dynamics. What they don't have to be is

a) quite that large at the inlet/outlet to a simple living space
b) interfacing with the room at such an accessible height, not really ideal for air circulation
c) apparently running their whole length at that same height, consuming space that would otherwise be available for further living spaces!

But the colony supposedly had security measures in place to prevent access. Kirk just circumvented them with the blackout thing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Melakon]

Air conditioning vent: How big can a vent be? Have you EVER seen a vent the size of this one?

Mission: Impossible used to have ventilator shafts that 6'2" Barney Collier crawled around in all the time.

Regarding Dr. Adams, he was probably a sadist. Check out his face when he cranks Kirk to 11.

 

[T'Girl]

A building I worked in once had a air conditioning duct going to the roof that was four feet in diameter, round in cross section not square, but bigger than the duct in the episode.

 

[Green Shirt]

b- Although I certainly did enjoy the lovely Ms Noel climbing through the vents. Sorry if that's a bit creepy.

No need to apologize, around here that's normal, not creepy.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Maybe a simpler explanation would be, that there isn't one; Adams is just NUTS!

 

[JD5000]

A building I worked in once had a air conditioning duct going to the roof that was four feet in diameter, round in cross section not square, but bigger than the duct in the episode.

Did you pretend you were in a Jeffries Tube? Who the hell is Jeffry anyway? I would have.

 

[Timo]

...Let's point out that the neural neutralizer was a benign and supposedly beneficial machine as such. Dr Noel found no fault in it, and indeed expressed no amazement, surprise or disdain at it let alone the concept underlying it. Which isn't a wonder, because apparently it was to become standard gear for criminal asylums throughout the Federation - we see it again on Elba II, and again without any suggestion that it would be an unusual or unwelcome piece of equipment. (Merely one easily perverted into a torture device. A bit like a surgical knife, say.)

It's just what Adams did with the device that didn't agree with UFP law or the moral views of our heroes. Basically a matter of choosing the settings. A little bit was fine and got good results (I could see the gentle van Gelder turning the knob, too), but that wasn't enough for Adams.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

Did you pretend you were in a Jeffries Tube? Who the hell is Jeffry anyway?

In reality, Walter M. "Matt" Jefferies was the art director for TOS. TOS named various things after its staff members; for instance, Uhura's earpiece and McCoy's medical devices were Feinbergers, after prop master Irving Feinberg. (TNG-era productions did the same thing -- "Mees panels" were wall panels with equipment behind them, after set decorator Jim Mees, and "Sims beacons" were Voyager's wrist-mounted flashlights, after prop master Alan Sims.)

In-universe, Enterprise established Captain W. M. Jefferies as a member of the NX Project, one of the designers of Enterprise NX-01, and most likely the person the tubes were named after.

 

[JD5000]

Love it.

 

[GSchnitzer]

This from memory alpha:
"Various script drafts revealed Adams' reason for constructing the Neural neutralizer and conducting experiments on innocent people as being dissatisfied with humanity and doing good for others without properly redeemed for it, and deciding on gaining the only thing he was still interested in life: power. However, Gene Roddenberry removed these lines from the revised final draft script, suggesting that humanity has overcome such petty differences and hateful emotions in the future. Hence, Adams' motivation for his actions is never explained"

I'm still not sure why we had the "mad scientist of the week". Even the description above doesn't have much in the way of 'motivation' for Dr. Adams. What did he hope to gain? What was his end game? I just don't get why he suddenly veered off the reservation.

Other comments:
a- Air conditioning vent: How big can a vent be? Have you EVER seen a vent the size of this one? And, if it is indeed a penal colony, why would they build one so big and easily accessed?

b- Although I certainly did enjoy the lovely Ms Noel climbing through the vents. Sorry if that's a bit creepy.

Well, the lines weren't removed from the Revised Final Draft; the motivation lines were indeed there. TrekBBS user "The Alchemist" might know if was actually shot but simply went unused.

Find my post on the subject from a few years ago:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=5330250&postcount=36

 

[PCz911]

It sounded plausible enough to me: humanity had found a way to deal with crime without having to torture people into abstaining from it, and that was curing them with some sort of psychotherapy. Adams was credited with much of that, and he had done very good work while causing little or no damage, on that the heroes were in agreement. But there were always incurables (see Elba II), and the hero of the anti-crime-brainwashing endeavor simply couldn't accept that. So he kept pushing.

Unfortunately, that meant that the cure became less benign, and tragic misfires like Lethe were the result. Adams knew the public would not accept this, so he became a recluse "until he had it all down pat". The road to hell was now paved...

Adams was simply doing what he had always done, but doing it harder, pushing for the impossible, and having to deal with things like witnesses on the side. He had no way of coping, as he didn't think of himself as a master criminal or universal overlord or anything; he had no plan. So he just made the situation worse.

Regarding air vents, they really do have to be really large ITRW to cope with losses from the unyielding laws of fluid dynamics. What they don't have to be is

a) quite that large at the inlet/outlet to a simple living space
b) interfacing with the room at such an accessible height, not really ideal for air circulation
c) apparently running their whole length at that same height, consuming space that would otherwise be available for further living spaces!

But the colony supposedly had security measures in place to prevent access. Kirk just circumvented them with the blackout thing.

Timo Saloniemi

Thank you. This is brilliant. I can now understand how, over time, this could pervert a brilliant scientist to start doing things he never would earlier in his career.

 

[FormerLurker]

In re: the ventilation shaft(s)

While on the one hand the shaft itself does need to be that big to facilitate moving high volumes of air around, each vent opening can be any size the designer/architect wants it to be, as long as the actual vents let in/out the necessary volume of air. In a facility like Tantalus, larger vents in guest quarters, with much smaller, even paired or triple vents, in the inmate quarters, could be considered normal. And then larger vents in key areas necessary for both access and maintenance would be ideal.

 

[scotpens]

. . . Air conditioning vent: How big can a vent be? Have you EVER seen a vent the size of this one? And, if it is indeed a penal colony, why would they build one so big and easily accessed?

It's a standard movie and TV trope: All air ducts are large enough for a grown man or woman to crawl through, and lead directly to vantage points above crucial events in the action.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

What they don't have to be is

a) quite that large at the inlet/outlet to a simple living space
b) interfacing with the room at such an accessible height, not really ideal for air circulation
c) apparently running their whole length at that same height, consuming space that would otherwise be available for further living spaces!

d) strong enough to hold a person's weight inside the duct.

Incidentally Timo, are you an engineer or something? This isn't your first analytic technical reply.

 

[Timo]

Just yer classic renaissance man with a baroque mind.

Naah... Yes, I'm an engineer. Although not a rocket scientist.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ZapBrannigan]

That's terrific. You're not just a poster, you're a consultant.

 

[Marsden]

It sounded plausible enough to me: humanity had found a way to deal with crime without having to torture people into abstaining from it, and that was curing them with some sort of psychotherapy. Adams was credited with much of that, and he had done very good work while causing little or no damage, on that the heroes were in agreement. But there were always incurables (see Elba II), and the hero of the anti-crime-brainwashing endeavor simply couldn't accept that. So he kept pushing.

Unfortunately, that meant that the cure became less benign, and tragic misfires like Lethe were the result. Adams knew the public would not accept this, so he became a recluse "until he had it all down pat". The road to hell was now paved...

Adams was simply doing what he had always done, but doing it harder, pushing for the impossible, and having to deal with things like witnesses on the side. He had no way of coping, as he didn't think of himself as a master criminal or universal overlord or anything; he had no plan. So he just made the situation worse.

Regarding air vents, they really do have to be really large ITRW to cope with losses from the unyielding laws of fluid dynamics. What they don't have to be is

a) quite that large at the inlet/outlet to a simple living space
b) interfacing with the room at such an accessible height, not really ideal for air circulation
c) apparently running their whole length at that same height, consuming space that would otherwise be available for further living spaces!

But the colony supposedly had security measures in place to prevent access. Kirk just circumvented them with the blackout thing.

Timo Saloniemi

Wow, Timo. Great post about Adams. I never thought I would agree with you so much, but I think you've got it.

 

[Vandervecken]

Ok--but what's Adams' motivation for kidnapping Kirk? What in the world did he think he was going to accomplish except piss of an entire starship crew eventually, as well as bring the authorities down on him?

I suppose he expected to be able to use the neural neutralizer to make Kirk a compliant servant. That didn't work out too well with Van Gelder, and it seems doubtful to me that a brilliant man like Adams could believe it would work with someone of Kirk's will, as well (i.e., it would do no better than mess up his mind). Plus, even if it had made Kirk into a compliant servant, I'd say there's exactly zero chance Spock, Bones, and probably many other crew members wouldn't notice--also something Adams would reasonably know/predict (not particular crew, just the crew). So what was the point of kidnapping Kirk and Noel?

Still love this ep. Just sayin'.

 

[PCz911]

Adams probably thought he could BS kirk and he'd go away. When Kirk was found playing with the machine then adams had no "choice", he was too far gone to turn back. I suspect the character was 'making it up as he went along'.