Did the Nibirans Start a Cargo Cult?

[Cryogenator]

In 2259-K, the Enterprise prevented a supervolcano from causing the extinction of the preindustrial Nibirans who saw the starship, immediately drew an outline of it in the dirt, and fell onto their knees in worshipful wonder. I wonder if this scene was inspired by the real phenomenon of the cargo cult and if the Nibirans started one of their own. Perhaps a schism might form in Nibiran society with one group insisting on continuing to passively await the return of the sky machine and another attempting to create a functional one of their own in a battle of "skywatchers" versus "skymakers."

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[F. King Daniel]

Well they somehow have a photos in Guinan's LA Ten Forward in 2401. So they either made it to space or someone got them into space.

(In reality, they just used tons of fan cosplay photos but in-universe implications are... something)

 

[JoseNoodles]

Boy, that third video was going good until the last three minutes...

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Then there's a third group of "skykillers" who vow to destroy the abomination when it returns - Prime Directive types who think their destiny was thwarted or religious ones who fear the ship.

@F. King Daniel Memory Alpha doesn't mention that photo on the Unnamed Nibirans/Nibiran/Nibiru pages. Should be added - where is it?

 

[David cgc]

It always annoyed me that they somehow managed to draw a perfect top-down orthographic schematic of the ship, when they only saw it from the front and below, and maybe from the side. It wouldn't have been as clear (unless, of course, they did the match-cut thing they did in the actual film), but I would've preferred they depicted the ship as some kind of dragon-beast with a giant blue flaming mouth or cyclopian eye.

Personally, I think that with the rest of the stuff that happened that day, I'm guessing they island's culture would've probably incorporated it into a pretty good myth with a giant sea-dragon that lays eggs in the angry mountain, and maybe has imps that look like strangely colored men but can turn into fish and swim off into the sea. A far sight from something like a random starship captain declaring himself Almighty Zeus and using his phaser to "smite" nonbelievers with "lightning," which is what the Prime Directive is supposed to prevent. That's cultural contamination, not some context-free UFO sighting, spectacular though it may be, especially not one that only happened because of a humanitarian mission.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

It always annoyed me that they somehow managed to draw a perfect top-down orthographic schematic of the ship, when they only saw it from the front and below, and maybe from the side.

Maybe they have visual perception skills beyond that of humans, to enable hunting and tracking.

 

[Tosk]

Maybe they have visual perception skills beyond that of humans, to enable hunting and tracking.

If they do, I guess it's not good enough to see a ship through some smoke.

 

[somebuddyX]

It always annoyed me that they somehow managed to draw a perfect top-down orthographic schematic of the ship, when they only saw it from the front and below, and maybe from the side. It wouldn't have been as clear (unless, of course, they did the match-cut thing they did in the actual film), but I would've preferred they depicted the ship as some kind of dragon-beast with a giant blue flaming mouth or cyclopian eye.

Personally, I think that with the rest of the stuff that happened that day, I'm guessing they island's culture would've probably incorporated it into a pretty good myth with a giant sea-dragon that lays eggs in the angry mountain, and maybe has imps that look like strangely colored men but can turn into fish and swim off into the sea. A far sight from something like a random starship captain declaring himself Almighty Zeus and using his phaser to "smite" nonbelievers with "lightning," which is what the Prime Directive is supposed to prevent. That's cultural contamination, not some context-free UFO sighting, spectacular though it may be, especially not one that only happened because of a humanitarian mission.

It's three cylinders and a circle. They see it rise from the ocean seeing it sideview. Then it turns front view, the deflector looking at them as it rises but the saucer now has to be above them. Then they watch it fly off. I'm sure they could draw three cylinders and a circle from that.

 

[Cryogenator]

Boy, that third video was going good until the last three minutes...

Ah, yes... wow. I hadn't heard of the narrator until I found that video yesterday, and I didn't notice that bit of irrelevant Egyptian pseudoanthropology tacked onto the end (I think all actual evidence indicates that most pharaohs and ancient Egyptians in general looked the same as most modern Egyptians, unsurprisingly). I just discovered that this Robert Sepehr falsely claims to be an anthropologist but has no credentials nor academic publication history and is an ancient alien and Hollow Earth conspiracist. Most of his video I shared consists of clips from an old, legitimate documentary, however.