Day of the Dove

[Captain McBain]

Kirk remarks in this episode that the alien force will have the Enterprise crew and the Klingons fighting for eternity. I can understand the serious wounds being healed quickly with the help of the entity, but how is the alien force going to shut off the aging process? Unless Kirk was anticipating the respective crews having children, and those children fighting one another, etc., but I doubt it. There was no indicator in the episode that the entity had the ability to shut off the aging process, as the Companion apparently was able to, so maybe Kirk was speculating.

 

[Bubbles McGee]

You raise a good point. Maybe Kirk was speaking figuratively. Constantly fighting day in and day out even for just the next 40-50 years would probably seem like an eternity.

 

[Pavonis]

If the Beta XII-A entity can heal serious head wounds, why would mere aging present a problem to it?

 

[Captain McBain]

Even the EMH can heal serious head wounds. But it obviously cannot stop or slow the aging process.

 

[Pavonis]

It's quite a stretch to equate the Beta XII-A entity with a holodoc. My point was that, if this thing can swap all the phasers for swords, then resurrect seriously injured or dead crewmen, why should mere aging present a problem for it? The Beta XII-A entity could've been an equal to Q, for all we know, and capable of holding everyone on the Enterprise at their current age indefinitely.

 

[Timo]

Of course, the entire question is somewhat ill-founded. Why should we think Kirk knows the first thing about what he's talking about?

Eternity for him might mean "until we grow old and die". Or he may not have stopped to think it through at all. He's not firing on all thrusters anyway, as the alien is guiding his thinking towards needlessly aggressive ideas, as evidenced by the action he takes and the silly phrases he utters (even though he does appear to maintain his cool better and longer than, say, McCoy).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain McBain]

Q doesn't require the negative emotions of lifeforms to sustain it. That's a weakness. The Q seemingly have no weaknesses. Also, if it were equal to Q, it could just will that the two crews fight for eternity, so it wouldn't need to leave the ship at the end.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Of course, the entire question is somewhat ill-founded. Why should we think Kirk knows the first thing about what he's talking about?

Because he's Kirk. Of course he knows what he's talking about.

 

[Timo]

Only when he's dictating his logs ex post facto (and not deliberately falsifying them in order to look good). The claim about eternal damnation seems to be delivered in real time... The first time around at least.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Gary7]

Figure of speech. It's the easiest answer and works quite nicely, I think.

 

[Garrovick]

It would have been interesting to see if Kirk really did reassemble after Kang chopped him to bits...

Kirk was definitely speculating about the Entity's long-term plans. They just didn't learn enough about the limits of its abilities to really know much beyond the immediate situation.

 

[Timo]

So many things are left unclear here, thanks to the entity perverting the thoughts of our heroes. Chekov says he had a brother; Sulu says he did not. Which one is right?

Sulu could honestly be ignorant of the brother Chekov never talks about, due to the tragedy. Or the entity could make him forget, in order to cause additional schism between the bridge heroes who otherwise seem to maintain their calm better than, say, McCoy or Scotty down below.

Or Chekov could be deceived by the entity. Yet he starts hollering about Pyotr in the teaser already, where everybody else seems to be acting fairly rationally.

But are they? Was there a Federation colony on the planet, destroyed by the entity rather than the Klingons? Or was the colony a Klingon ruse rather than an entity one? Was the battle cruiser a risk to Kirk's ship, or was the radiation leak imaginary? And did the heroes and villains fight, die and get resurrected, or was it all in their minds?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain McBain]

Not sure. No mention of Chekov's having a brother on Memory Alpha, though. I could be wrong, but I do believe the entity was responsible for the deaths of the Federation members.

 

[MikeS]

I've not seen alot of season 3, always been put off by negative reviews. So I only just bothered to watch this and it was great! Makes me wonder how many other gems I've yet to discover!

You're all correct - alot of open ended questions/answers.

"Stardate: Armageddon"

 

[Therin of Andor]

No mention of Chekov's having a brother on Memory Alpha, though.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Piotr_Chekov

 

[Captain McBain]

That's referring to a fictional brother.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The last word in the episode, in my opinion what we are supposed to believe, is that the colony on Beta XII-A was never really there. From http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/66.htm:

KIRK: A brother that never existed, a phantom colony, imaginary distress calls, the creation of these weapons. Do you sense a pattern, Mister Spock?

The simplest explanation is that all these, the brother, the colony, the distress calls, were just the pretense for war.

 

[Captain McBain]

That does make sense.

 

[AtoZ]

I always found this episode to be far weaker than what many feel towards it. Whatever....it had its moments but in this corner it didn't make a whole lot of sense.....but we got a great Klingon in Michael Ansara....and Scotty got a claymore.

 

[Redfern]

And we got the see our first Klingon female, Mara.

Sincerely,

Bill