Enterprise replica in Mark of Gideon

I was watching The Mark of Gideon the other day and started thinking about all the things in the episode that I thought didn´t make sense or were strange one way or the other. Especially I thought about the replica of the Enterprise the Gideonites created. After a while I came to a conclusion, that I was really excited about and shared it with a friend. However, since my conclusion was based on the assumption, that the Gideonites built a full, physical replica of the Enterprise, my friend brought me back down to Earth by pointing out that it may just have been a holographic simulation and Kirk may have spent the episode on sort of a holodeck. After discussing this for a while, with both of us finding "evidence" that could support either approach, we thought it best to make this discussion public and get some input from the community here at the TrekBBS.
So what do you think: Did the Gideonites build a physical replica or did they create a holographic simulation of the Enterprise?

Mario

 

I would say not, based just on the scenes with the Gideonites looking in the windows of the ship. I just can't see how they could look into the windows of a simulation which isn't really there, and why would a holodeck have windows to the outside?

 

That was my thinking as well.

 

As ridiculous as building an entire replica Enterprise on the surface of an impossibly overcrowded planet is, I like the idea that their technology would be advanced enough of Starfleet to do so.

 

I was thinking, that they may have built the (physical) replica underground. That way construction wouldn´t be out in the open, getting in the way of the masses of people, and construction would probably be less challenging (less problems with structural stability, etc.). It would also explain, how people could press up against the outside of the "ship", so Kirk and Odona could hear their heartbeats.

Mario

 

Or you could simply give up trying to rationalize a silly episode and admit it makes no sense. This "duplicated environment" story line has been used in all kinds of other shows, and it never makes any sense. (One example that comes to mind is the Baker-era DOCTOR WHO episode "The Android Invasion." Yet I've seen this general plot dozens of times.)

How could an "enemy" with no info on their opponent's ship/base/home planet so perfectly duplicate the space—right down to the finest detail—so that it would fool someone intimately familiar with the place? And why would the hordes of people crushed up against the side of the sim suddenly be visible for only a brief moment? Did the janitor forget what was going on, step into the room for some supplies and turn the light on? "Hey, down front!"

This scenario is on a par with conspiracy theories about the Moon landings being faked. The Gideons could have achieved their aims with far less effort in some other fashion. Or if they were—somehow—able to pull off such an absurdly complicated scheme, why would they fumble it with oversights like people outside the window in space and heartbeats (for only a moment!) pressed up against the sides of the sim?

And there are numerous other problems with the episode.

 

I agree, this elaborate hoax by the Gideonites doesn´t make much sense and is way too complicated for the rather simple goal they wanted to reach. But that´s not the point of this thread - and the fact remains, that the episode exists the way it does. Should we stop debating topics from episodes that contain too many plotholes or other errors?

Mario

 

You've just answered your own question, then. Why debate it? Does it matter whether or not a holodeck or a physical replica was used, so long as Kirk was tricked?

For that matter, why did the Gideons bother with any kind of replica? Kirk knew that he had lost nine minutes somewhere, during which time he acquired a minor injury. It would seem that he was knocked out, and a sample of his blood taken. Why didn't the Gideons simply lock him up until a lethal disease had been confirmed? Kirk was going to learn of the deception sooner or later.

Again, there are numerous other problems with the episode, but they are not germane to the holodeck-vs-physical question.

 

The episode does indeed raise many unanswered questions not limited to the how, where or why of the replica Enterprise. Metryq touched on an intriguing one with the "nine minutes" - Kirk somehow knows he has lost this time (glanced a wall clock, presumably) but when on earth did it happen? He materialised on the replica Transporter Pad and started off to explore without delay! The Gideonites don't seem to have Transporter tech (unless Hodin was faking ignorance) so I doubt it was a case of them jumping him after beam-down then re-beaming him back to the pad when they'd extracted the blood. Maybe he was dosed with memory suppressant knockout gas the first time he entered a turbolift?

The bit of the episode that I most often see taken to task is the description of the population levels:

I have to wonder, can we take her line literally? Are mountains really crowded with people from top to bottom? And the beaches - what about when the tide comes in, is there room enough for the beach-people to shuffle up or do they all get their feet wet instead? How would you even go about distributing food to such a wide ranging group? Or (and this is where it gets grisly) maybe the source of food IS the sea of people! Is that why they're suffering so much, being eaten alive by their brothers and sisters? Nah, that's even more silly

 

My reason for opening this thread was not deciding whether or not the plan of the Gideonites (or the episode as a whole) made sense. If you go back to my OP you´ll see, that I drew a conclusion based on the assumption the Gideonites built a full physical replica. But if they instead created merely a holographic simulation my conclusion goes out the window. That´s why I wanted some input / thoughts on this one question.

Mario

 

I thought about that too, and it just adds to the very strange things going on in the episode. But it doesn´t help to answer my question

That whole line of thought is very disturbing indeed and I really had trouble with it as a kid.

Mario

 

Fair enough! But in returning to exactly WHERE the replica was constructed, my answer is actually related to the issue I mentioned: If every landmass on the planet were indeed full of people shuffling along shoulder to shoulder then it quickly becomes apparent there would be no room to grow the food to feed them all. So, what would happen instead if Gideon’s entire planetary population were confined within a few large cities?

http://static.persquaremile.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/the-worlds-population-concentrated.png

Lots of leftover space for farmland there! The food production facilities may be automated, or may be run by a privileged few Gideonites who are permitted free space (the Council members also had this luxury).

The replica Enterprise components could have been constructed in the open farming areas but I think it is more likely to be within the city itself, snaking in or above the crowded streets and habitation levels. Height certainly does not seem to be a hindrance to the Gideonites, as they show their faces everywhere from the Bridge to the observation window, and Kirk can hear the sound of their heartbeats. The replica probably cuts across several buildings, gangways and levels, and looks nothing like the Enterprise from the outside.

As to Odona's flamboyant description featuring mountains and beaches, I do not see why she should be referring to natural landmarks. For the cities to work in way I described they would basically have to be completely enclosed structures, prisons if you will (the classic sci-fi domed city, perhaps? See episode 1 of Blakes 7 for an example). In such an enclosed design, there would be (or at least used to be, until the population trampled on them) purpose-built recreation and exercise areas; "The lake", The Wood", "The Mountain", "The Park" and so on.

 

Holodeck technology was not a concept heard of when the episode was written. The dialog of the script keeps referring to it as a duplicate or replica. If you didn't have TNG to draw from, there would be no reason to conclude that this is a holodeck type replica. We'd seen holograms in TOS (Landru) and TAS (Practical Joker), this Enterprise was not intended to be such a thing.

To state that the replica was merely a holodeck is a retcon. Now, it's an intriguing concept and would make much more sense than building an exact duplicate of the entire starship on the overcrowded planet's surface.

I think either you or your friend want it both ways, though. You tell us here that you didn't start this topic to debate the sense vs. nonsense of The Mark of Gideon, then you turn around and want to discuss if the Enterprise replica makes sense as a full construct or a holodeck. You'll have to forgive us if we want to discuss if the episode makes sense. After all, you opened that door.

The entire overcrowding doesn't make sense. As already pointed out, people are really EVERYWHERE? From the tops of the mountains to the bottom of the sea? Where does the food come from? Is there enough room to lay down and go to sleep?

If they have enough technology to steal the plans of the Enterprise and build a duplicate (or program a holographic duplicate) with enough detail to fool Kirk, then why haven't they used that technology to help alleviate the overcrowding? Contraception might e taboo, but that isn't the only option. Orbital habitats and colonies on other planets in Gideon's system would offer some relief. What about undersea colonies?

The citizens of Gideon had no moral qualms against using a virus from Kirk to "kill" citizens. Contraception is immoral but voluntarily killing citizens isn't? If that is the case, then why haven't they just been executing people? Capital punishment for minor crimes would be just as effective. Blood sports or extreme sports with a high risk of death would be welcome, I would think. Even painless, efficient suicide booths like on Eminiar could have been built.

No beach to walk on, yet they had enough room to build the Enterprise replica. Heck, those Gideon council chambers looked spacious (true, there were people through the window...)

 

Like the titles of "Friends" eps, this is simply "The One with Kirk on an Empty Enterprise." Like "The Indian One" or "The American Flag One." Best not to dig too deep, imho.

 

When I grew up, I realized what this episode really was all about, the consequence of a pro-life philosophy in a society that has virtually eliminated natural death. The result would seem to be pretty horrible, but also improbable, as people would die of starvation long before filling up every square foot of land mass on the planet.

I did like the "up thru the tabletop" camera angles when Kirk is in the council chamber, and the observation port set. Proof that even in an underfunded, mediocre third-season episode like this, there are still good things to be found.

 

Exactly. It's an abstraction and can't be taken literally. It's like a fever-dream or a twilight-zone episode. A lot of television at the very end of the 60s tended to have that almost psychadelic vibe to it where it was more about mood than plausibility.

 

I don't think it was quite that. I imagine you were born well after Roe v. Wade, and your perceptions are colored by the times you were born into.

When Gideon was written in the late 60s, there was no such thing as a "pro-life" movement. It wasn't a movement and it wasn't labled "pro-life." Likewise, there was no such description as "pro-choice." Those two terms were completely unheard of.

Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the United States, was decided by the Supreme Court in January, 1973, about 4 years after Gideon aired.

You know, maybe you are right. Since Roe v. Wade was only 4 years later, abortion may, indeed, have been a hot topic in 67, 68, and 69 just like gay marriage was a hot topic in the previous few years prior to the state legalizations we saw last year.

 

I was born in 1966, and know all about Roe V. Wade. Women were having abortions long before 1973, they just weren't legal and/or safe. Gideon: No contraception, no abortions, no suicides, every life is sacred.. sounds an awful lot like the Catholic Church and most of Christianity in general to me.

 

Exporting populations to space is a fine idea for science fiction, but it doesn't hold up when you actually look at the numbers. Right now on Earth with a mere seven billion people there's a net population increase of about six thousand people per day; if you aren't exporting at least that many, you're falling behind.

Given that Gideon is supposed to be riotously overpopulated … well, we don't get any actual numbers, but, let's imagine some. Suppose that Gideon has as much land area as Earth, about 148,940,000 square kilometers; and is as densely populated as Singapore (which is far from being overpacked --- I loved it there --- but which doesn't have to provide for most of its own food or minerals or other stuff that has to come from the ground); that's about 7,300 people per square kilometer. That's a population of about 1,087,262,000,000, or, 155 times that of present Earth.

So, assuming Gideonites are no more fertile than present-day Earth, that's a net daily population increase of on the order of a million people. There's no building orbital colonies fast enough for that.

 

Based on what the episode itself clearly intended, my opinion is that the Gideons did indeed construct a physical (not virtual) duplicate of the Enterprise. It doesn't make sense, but very little in this episode does. (How anyone on Gideon should even have enough knowledge of the Enterprise to build such a duplicate is just the beginning; this episode falls apart logically from almost any angle you look at it.)

Were I writing this episode today, I'd probably opt for a holodeck simulation of the Enterprise instead of a physical duplicate, even though that is only very slightly easier to swallow.

I could, of course, blame it all on Gideon mind-control tricks--the empty Enterprise was only in Kirk's head--but that really doesn't solve the other logic problems and, from an audience perspective, comes off as mundane and unsatisfying, IMO. (Not to mention, Spock's planetside visit would have to be dropped or replaced with him finding, not an empty Enterprise, but an unconscious Kirk, maybe hooked up to some mind-control device).

Then again, as with any episode, the actual quality of the finished product would depend much more on execution than on premise.