Dr. Simon Van Gelder and the Neural Neutralizer

I’ve been trying to understand why Dr. Addams did what he did to Van Gelder. On the surface, it just seemed to be the act of a Trademarked Sixties TV Villain gone mad with power. But there were things I remember seeing in “Dagger of the Mind” way back when I was a kid that have seemingly been edited out over the years. Or perhaps it’s just my faulty memory. I could’ve sworn there was a scene where Van Gelder specifically asked Spock for a Mind Meld, and when Spock told him of the potential dangers of a Vulcan/Human Mind Meld, Van Gelder indicated he understood the risks. It’s pretty clear Van Gelder knew what a Mind Meld was, and maybe even how it worked. And that leads us to the Neural Neutralizer…

The thing seems to have worked a lot like a mechanical Mind Meld; which might explain why Addams did what he did to Van Gelder. Addams had a legendary reputation within the psychiatric profession, the Penal Colonies he had designed were rightfully considered a huge benefit for the mentally disturbed, more like pleasure resorts, instead of the prisons of yesteryear.

My belief is that it was Van Gelder who designed the Neural Neutralizer, taking his cue from how the Vulcan Mind Meld worked, and Addams did what he did to Van Gelder out of jealousy.

The really horrifying thing is that, had it not been for Van Gelder’s desperate bid for freedom, no one would have realized what Addams was doing.

At the end of “Dagger of the Mind”, Van Gelder reported the Neural Neutralizer had been dismantled. But, at the tail end of “Whom Gods Destroy”, one can see a Neural Neutralizer being used to bring Garth of Izar back to sanity. Perhaps Van Gelder added some safeguards so no one could abuse the Neutralizer ever again.

 

Dr. Noel tells Kirk that beam neutralizing is common in treatment. So perhaps the unit seen in "Whom Gods Destroy" was an entirely different design?

 

It looked exactly like the chair in "Dagger of the Mind"...

 

Been many months since I've watched this one, but IIRC Van Gelder did not suggest the mind meld and I got the strong impression it was something Vulcans did not talk much about. I'd have to go back to be sure, however. The big question for me in that episode is what Adams's motive was - it was made clear he was a very famous and well-respected professional.

 

TOS had a history of depicting men, at the top of their professions-Whizz Kids for lack of a better way to put it-getting brought down due to hubris; like Daystrom for example.
Like Daystrom, Addams had a legendary reputation, but he may have been resting on his laurels until Van Gelder joined his team at Tantalus. This reportedly happened around six months previous to the episode, and I think Van Gelder was the one who conceived of the Neural Neutralizer, and maybe even built it.

And Addams tried to steal it, and silence the creator of the device...

 

The deleted scene where Adam’s explains himself is reconstructed in Star Trek Lost Scenes.

 

The story is very similar to a Spinrad piece from two years before. The motivation may be similar, too.

 

And where would I find this? I'm intrigued. Adams having a motivation beyond being the nutjob in charge of the nuthouse.

 

Yes, but you shouldn't put too much faith in props, costumes, and sets.

Do you know what the frame story of Star Trek is? No, because there hsn't ever been one, and probably never will.
But whenever someone suspends disbelief in a Star Trek production and sort of half believes it is real future events, they sort of have to accept that there is some sort of frame story (that no one has ever hearde of) explaining how knowledge of future events has travelled centuries into the past, into our era.

One possible frame story for Star Trek would be that the visual records - menioned in The Menagerie and used in Court Martial - of various events have been sent back to our era somehow.. Thus possibly we could be seeing edited versions of the actual record tapes of various missions. And thus the look and sound of Star Trek would be 100 percent accurate, except when there are visual contradictions.

Another possible frame story for Star Trek would be that the official written reports of varius events have been sent back in time to our era. Those reports would be the basis ofthe scripts which would beused to film movies andepisodes with actors using props,costumes, and sets built in our era. So anything which is specified in a script, and finds its way into dialo gin an episode or movie, should be from the mission records sent bck in time to our era. But all the visual details would be result of people in our era uising their imaginations to depict a future world witout knowing what it looks like.

And in that case you couldn't trust that anything in any production would look like it does on screen. You can accep that the prop master would only make new props when they had to, and save money by reusing props stored from previous productions, even if the previouss users of a prop came from an entirely different culture than the ones using it in the more recent production.

And until we know the frame story of Star Trek, which may never happen, we should go with a minimalist interpretation, that the plot but not the visual details is based on knowledge of the future.

For example, one episode of TNG used a modified version of a matte painting used in an episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-1981), so fans who assume that the visual sare accurate could come up with complex theories about how the two shows could be shoehorned somehow into the same ficitonal universe!

One of my other interests in the winning of the US west in real history and in reel history, and comparing the two.

The film The Tall Men (1955) opens with a scene in a snow covered winter landscape. A title card indentifies it as Montana in 1866. There are many later scenes where the weather is much warmer. If the winter weather was in January to March, 1866, the scenes in warmer weather would be later in 1866. If the winter weather is October to December, 1866, the warmer weather later would be in 1867. So the only question about the fictional date is whether the whole movie happens in 1866 or whether it happens in 1866 and 1867.

In this thread https://moviechat.org/tt0048691/The-Tall-Men/58c7221e5ec57f0478eb91b2/Date-not-even-close someone asks why the film is set in 1866 when all lhe weapons used are 1873 models. And other persons answered
that the prop master probably just got a bunch of guns from older western movies out of storage insted of making new guns for The Tall Men (1955). That would save money and the prop master probably thought that only a few viewers would notice guns which were anachronistic especially if they were less than 10 years off the fictional date.

The wild west of ficiton is based on a real historic era. The Tall Men (1955), and the novel it is based on, is set in a not totally historic time and place - all the characters and their doings are fictional for example, even though some of what they do would get them mentioned in the history books and old court documents if it was real - but is definately more historical than simply "The Wild West". When the cattle drive approches Montana, soldiers warn them that the route they plan to take, the Bozeman Trail, has been closed for travel, due to the danger from attacks by the Sioux led by Red Cloud.

(Bozeman, Montana mentioned in Star Trek: Generations is named after John Bozeman, who blazed the Bozeman Trail, and the USS Bozeman in TNG "Cause and Effect" is named after the town.)

The protagonists sneak onto the Bozeman Trail instead of taking the safer Bridger Trail. And that plot point sets the The Tall Men (1955) firmly during the historic Red Cloud's War of 1866-1868, when Sioux attacks on travellers on the Bozeman Trail caused its abandonment, a quite famous event in the history of the west..

Obviously the fictional date was specified in the original novel to fit in with the historic Red Coud's War, and the script of the movie follwed it - because why go to the trouble of choosing a non historic date for the events - and so no doubt the stript specified that the title card would say:

.

Because that was the intention of the main creators of the film. But I'm sure the script didn't specify what type of guns would be used and that decision was left to the prop master.

So to me it seems to be rather dubious to deduce anything from the reuse of a prop in Star Trek. It would be vary rare for a script to specify which individual prop from any earlier episode would be used, and so that is very unlikely to be a detail from official reports of Captain Kirk sent back in time to our era, which is probalby the frame story that fans should use to avoid assuming too much about visuals of the era of TOS.

 

It's on page 152 of the book.

 

wait…what? I did not t know that. What episode

 

Never even heard of the book. Thanks.

**** Update: Just ordered one out of Alibris. At the rate I'm going, my most recent paycheck may get used up before I have a chance to pick up my repaired camera, or buy a replacement for my failed DOSbook.

 

You're welcome. I enjoyed it -- there's some good info in it, at least IMHO.

 

Maybe the same type chair, but completely different beaming technology. One has a single beam emitter in the ceiling that seems to need sight as part of the neutralizer beam technology. The other has two temple neutralizer beam technology which works even if the patient's eyes are closed.

The chair was not the neural neutralizer room that was dismantled, rather it was the beaming equipment and control panel that was the technology. Garth was "cured" by a new medicine that the Enterprise brought to the asylum.

 

The matte painting for Relva where Wesley fails the entrance exam in Coming of Age was re-used from a Buck Rogers episode.

 

https://www.metv.com/stories/a-planet-from-buck-rogers-later-turned-up-in-the-star-trek-universe

 

Been a while since I saw this episode, but that line "cure mental illness for all time" is an impressive one that gets glossed over. It's an interesting throwaway line.

 

And that looks vaguely like the Morbius homestead on Altair IV in Forbidden Planet. (I'd post a screencap, but have not set up an image service.)

 

These days the neural neutralizer has been made vastly more effective under its new name........ Kurtzman run Star Trek!

(Activates the new sheilds from TMP) lol.

 

https://i3.wp.com/caps.pictures/195...forbiddenplanet-movie-screencaps.com-1682.jpg