I Thought the original microbes (the one from David Marcus's interpretation) looked like a plate of pasta and tomato sauce.... oddly by the time the Klingons show up they looked more like Tape Worms
Genesis Torpedo
- Thread starter Johnny7oak
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I Thought the original microbes (the one from David Marcus's interpretation) looked like a plate of pasta and tomato sauce.... oddly by the time the Klingons show up they looked more like Tape Worms
Well, that was the whole impact of David using protomatter in the Genesis Device -- the planet and everything on it were aging rapidly. Even David didn't expect the planet to develop an entire set of ecosystems immediately. Presumably, if Spock had spent another twelve hours on the planet he may have looked as ghoulish as he did in Into Darkness.
But it's a bit unlikely the device created a star - after all, there was one there already, so Genesis would have to remove that one first.
And if Genesis doesn't create stars, it probably doesn't create planets, either. It was intended to transform one, and there was at least one available right where the star was. A small one, but then again, the horizon is awfully close for David and Saavik...
Timo Saloniemi
wonder what they'd have evolved into further down the line. Maybe Dune like worms. Actually just realised the snake thing in Prometheus that attacked the stupid guy was a similar scene to Kruge picking up one of the microbes
That's true
I'm really not going to your house for dinner
It's an interesting question. My personal opinion is that Genesis had no evolution. I think of it like a batch program that runs procedures in a particular order. A procedure to break down matter into usable atoms and molecules. Procedures for "building" things like air, water, and various forms of vegetation. And lastly, a program to accelerate growth of any biological organisms. Perhaps this even occurred in some kind of loop, the last round of which was happening when when Spock and his microbe-infested photon tube landed on the surface. Spock was reanimated given the type and amount of undamaged matter in his corpse and what the program knew of humanoid physiology. As for the microbes, maybe it just took its best guess.
More, though, Genesis is a barely-completed research project. It's enough to work out some scheme that reforms a planet into something life-supporting and life-bearing. To transform a star too is a whole another project. One massive task at a time!
(Besides, if Genesis were capable of making stars out of nebulas, they wouldn't need to find a ripe planet for the testing. They could pick a nebula, verify it hasn't got some nigh-omnipotent alien energy-being hanging around it, and send it going. Surely[1] easier than prowling around boring star systems looking for sterile planets.)
[1] Unless we remember how many energy beings there are in the Trek universe.
Good point! Dr. Marcus should have ask a Metron how to fix his experiment.
Carol Marcus seemed to claim that "cosmic problems of population and food supply" hinged on the availability of arable land, and that adding some across interplanetary (or perhaps even interstellar) distances would alleviate or eliminate said famine. Or was she saying that Genesis-bombing of inhabited planets would eliminate excess population...?
So, assume Genesis works as planned, on some hapless dead moon or planet. What happens next? Another one of those village-sized colonies is founded there, and the UFP is rid of yet another problematic population group and can breathe more easily? Such a colony is established and starts farming for millions, with grain carrier starships shuttling the produce to inhabited worlds? Ten million people immigrate overnight?
Timo Saloniemi
So, assume Genesis works as planned, on some hapless dead moon or planet. What happens next? Another one of those village-sized colonies is founded there, and the UFP is rid of yet another problematic population group and can breathe more easily? Such a colony is established and starts farming for millions, with grain carrier starships shuttling the produce to inhabited worlds? Ten million people immigrate overnight?
Timo Saloniemi
Yeah, the movie explains that the intended purpose of the device was to quickly terraform dead worlds into Class-M ones. Since the experiment fell apart before it could be used for its intended purpose, we have no idea if McCoy's fears of it becoming a weapon were accurate or what the logistics of colonization would be.
How would that work?
Genesis was able to essentially rewrite organic life. We saw 'food slots' in TAS and mention made of the galley using some form of food simulation in TOS ( I will ignore the galley in VI as it's silly.) But the advanced nature of the replicators on TNG could have benefitted from Genesis...many of the more advanced offerings do depend not only on more complex things like bacteria and whotnot.
An offshoot of Genesis may be replicated cheese or even synthehol.
Depending on how the holodecks work the same is true for some of the matter in there...not just food but plant life perhaps.
It's just a thought of course.
Huh, maybe. I always thought that the replicators or other food machines were based on transporter technology.
Me too...but fold in the Genesis project to that now. As I say, it's just a thought.
As they say in the comments section of The AV Club, it can be both things.
Yes. That was basically so that they could easily dispose of Genesis as a plot device. That's better than all those episodes where you see a miracle technology that's then never referred to again.
