Doomsday machine theory

[blssdwlf]

SPOCK: Negative, Captain. Its hull is pure neutronium. There is no known way of blasting through it.

If Neutronium is a neutron particle, and if it is considered a noble gas (element 0 location on Antropoff's periodic table), then theoretically, under enough pressure (incredibly high) and/or low enough temperature (absolute zero?), Neutronium can be made solid. Somehow, the Doomsday Machine maintains these conditions for its hull, or once Neutronium is solidified, it becomes stable matter (since it doesn't "vaporize" once the machine is "dead", i.e. no power output).

A more likely scenario is that TOS has an actual element called Neutronium which is is impervious to their phasers and scanning. It doesn't have to be just neutrons. This would be consistent with TOS having a "black star" that is similar to a black hole or antimatter that behaves far more energetically than what we know of in the real world. YMMV.

 

[publiusr]

Ironically some think there could be dark matter stars that deserve the name black star:

Dark star (dark matter) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Element zero is the tetraneutron…some even entertained the idea of femtomatter:

Femtotechnology - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

As it turns out, our solar system actually has an object that *appears* to be denser than known matter:

33 Polyhymnia - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

In terms of cosmological defects, cosmic strings may have cousins, membrane like “domain walls” and 3d “textures.” Some thought “cold spots” might have been textures.

A texture hasn’t been used in sci-fi as of yet —that I know of.

 

[Rockson]

I always found it interesting that Kirk dreams this all up what the history and reason for the Doomsday machine was and that in their thinking becomes the reason. Can we all go to staff room and talk this out Jim?

 

[Ssosmcin]

I always found it interesting that Kirk dreams this all up what the history and reason for the Doomsday machine was and that in their thinking becomes the reason. Can we all go to staff room and talk this out Jim?

The was literally no time for further discussion and supposition. They had Kirk's theory that worked for their purposes in the moment. It doesn't really matter exactly what the thing was made for they just had to stop it right quick. Once it's finally shut down, they can send a research team to figure it out.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Can we all go to staff room and talk this out Jim?

Absolutely not.

The was literally no time for further discussion and supposition. They had Kirk's theory that worked for their purposes in the moment. It doesn't really matter exactly what the thing was made for they just had to stop it right quick. Once it's finally shut down, they can send a research team to figure it out.

For the in-universe rationale, absolutely this.

For the out-of-universe rationale, boring!

And in this case absolutely redundant. There are great briefing room scenes in TOS, but Spock had already analyzed the Constellation's data tapes back on the Enterprise, given his report, and, with Kirk's theory extrapolated from that, there was nothing more to be said at that time. The rest came after Matt proved that the machine could be damaged from the inside by an exploding vessel.

 

[Maurice]

Digging through the story outline and scripts for this reveals a lot of details about things which are only sketched in the aired episode, like that Spinrad indeed meant neutron star-like "collapsed matter" when he wrote "neutronium," and Decker gives a rather detailed account of what happened to his ship step by step.

In short, they went in to study the thing, figuring they could warp off if necessary, but didn't anticipate the "eater" weaponry, which slammed through their "screens" and knocked out the "screen generators", and without the screens the antimatter in the warp pods collapsed into neutronium (don't ask how) and in a later draft, were drained of energy, which is why they could not escape on warp drive. After the ship was hammered into a wreck, Decker says the thing ignored them once they powered down everything but life support, but he thinks use of the transporter to beam the crew down to the third planet caught its attention so it came back and took another shot at the ship, stranding him. Then it spent several days blowing the third planet apart while he watched.

Spock says "isotope dating" indicates the "eater" may be as much as three BILLION years old.

Unlike the finished episode, Decker had been clearer about his intentions with the shuttle. He was hoping to damage its guts. The slowness of the various ships' speeds was something Justman griped about as he repeatedly suggested cutting off the script.

 

[Phoenix219]

Digging through the story outline and scripts for this reveals a lot of details about things which are only sketched in the aired episode, like that Spinrad indeed meant neutron star-like "collapsed matter" when he wrote "neutronium," and Decker gives a rather detailed account of what happened to his ship step by step.

In short, they went in to study the thing, figuring they could warp off if necessary, but didn't anticipate the "eater" weaponry, which slammed through their "screens" and knocked out the "screen generators", and without the screens the antimatter in the warp pods collapsed into neutronium (don't ask how) and in a later draft, were drained of energy, which is why they could not escape on warp drive. After the ship was hammered into a wreck, Decker says the thing ignored them once they powered down everything but life support, but he thinks use of the transporter to beam the crew down to the third planet caught its attention so it came back and took another shot at the ship, stranding him. Then it spent several days blowing the third planet apart while he watched.

Spock says "isotope dating" indicates the "eater" may be as much as three BILLION years old.

Unlike the finished episode, Decker had been clearer about his intentions with the shuttle. He was hoping to damage its guts. The slowness of the various ships' speeds was something Justman griped about as he repeatedly suggested cutting off the script.

More interesting info here than in 35+ years of watching this episode, and I did read a lot of bonus material back in the 80s/90s. I've never heard most of this before - so very fascinating. Kudos for this post, thank you.

 

[Maurice]

More interesting info here than in 35+ years of watching this episode, and I did read a lot of bonus material back in the 80s/90s. I've never heard most of this before - so very fascinating. Kudos for this post, thank you.

Sure. I'm part of the FACT TREK project and we spend a lot of time digging through old documents to untangle this stuff.

 

[Phoenix219]

Sure. I'm part of the FACT TREK project and we spend a lot of time digging through old documents to untangle this stuff.

with all the urban myths surrounding Trek, from "the network didn't want a woman" to "Lucy saved Star Trek" that is a VERY NEEDED project. Awesome.

 

[Maurice]

with all the urban myths surrounding Trek, from "the network didn't want a woman" to "Lucy saved Star Trek" that is a VERY NEEDED project. Awesome.

Thanks. We've done a bunch of articles and we're considering writing a book.

Our current big research project is for a piece we hope will be the last word on the show's ratings.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

@Maurice

Commodore Mendez: hidden reference to José Jiménez

During the 1960s, a comedian named Bill Dana became popular performing one of his characters, a timid astronaut named José Jiménez. José was well known at the time, became an unofficial mascot of NASA's Mercury program, and was enough of a cultural phenomenon to have been later referenced in...

www.trekbbs.com

 

[Phoenix219]

i would love an article debunking the lucy thing, i would post it on every facebook group i've seen that on lol.

 

[MarcKle1964]

This needs to be done before AI idiocy sets in.

 

[Maurice]

i would love an article debunking the lucy thing, i would post it on every facebook group i've seen that on lol.

Ask and ye shall receive. We covered that almost five years ago in our article Lucy Loves Star Trek?

Example of printing the legends: Screen Rant.​

 

[Phoenix219]

Ask and ye shall receive. We covered that almost five years ago in our article Lucy Loves Star Trek?

Example of printing the legends: Screen Rant.​

weird, i have googled for a page like this so many times to debunk morons on facebook, but never actually ran into that.

Bookmark activated.

 

[Maurice]

@Maurice

Commodore Mendez: hidden reference to José Jiménez

During the 1960s, a comedian named Bill Dana became popular performing one of his characters, a timid astronaut named José Jiménez. José was well known at the time, became an unofficial mascot of NASA's Mercury program, and was enough of a cultural phenomenon to have been later referenced in...

www.trekbbs.com

Speculation. I'll reply there.

 

[publiusr]

Spinrad made some drawings of his Doomsday Machine, correct? I can’t find it on the web.

That inspired by the ramscoop starship concept—or vice versa?

 

[Maurice]

Spinrad made some drawings of his Doomsday Machine, correct? I can’t find it on the web.

That inspired by the ramscoop starship concept—or vice versa?

I have it somewhere. The machine we got in the episode is basically the front end of Spinrad's design, where the conical maw (which had four tractor beam emitters around the open end) was followed by a cylindrical body with blaster beam emitters, and behind that was a sort of "atomic rocket". Both the maw and the rocket could flex relative to the body.

I don't recall any mention of a ramscoop concerning the DDM, but Bussard's idea for it dates from 1960.

 

[somebuddyX]

I always found it interesting that Kirk dreams this all up what the history and reason for the Doomsday machine was and that in their thinking becomes the reason. Can we all go to staff room and talk this out Jim?

 

[Ssosmcin]

I have it somewhere. The machine we got in the episode is basically the front end of Spinrad's design, where the conical maw (which had four tractor beam emitters around the open end) was followed by a cylindrical body with blaster beam emitters, and behind that was a sort of "atomic rocket". Both the maw and the rocket could flex relative to the body.

I don't recall any mention of a ramscoop concerning the DDM, but Bussard's idea for it dates from 1960.

You wanna debunk that "windsock dipped in cement" thing while you're at it? Welcome back @Maurice