Has Trek ever visited V'Ger's planet?

[Bekk Ishy Z]

Watching TMP now for the umpteen-millionth time. A question that always bothers me. Now they have all this data from Voyager "6". Did we ever use it? Did we ever go visit the "planet of living machines"?

Edit: Also, reminds me of this:

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[Nerys Myk]

Watching TMP now for the umpteen-millionth time. A question that always bothers me. Now they have all this data from Voyager "6". Did we ever use it? Did we ever go visit the "planet of living machines"?

Edit: Also, reminds me of this:

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I'm afraid not. TMP often exists in it own universe.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

My reading of the film is that the planet of living machines was destructively scanned into V'ger's memory array.

The living machines built V'ger, set it free, and among its first acts was to destructively scan the planet of living machines itself into it.

All the objects we see on Spock's spacewalk that we are familiar with were destroyed in this way. The film gives us no reason to believe that these images were gotten in any other way. So, there you have it, that's why I read the film like this.

All the planets, stars, and galaxies in there were all destroyed when they were scanned.

 

[Daddy Todd]

The Shatnerverse posits that the planet of living machines is also the origin planet of the Borg.

 

[NCC-73515]

Now they have all this data from Voyager "6".

How? Only Spock knows bits and pieces, probably not all it has learned, and Decker never came back to hand over the collected works of V'Ger

 

[Timofnine]

V’Ger came from Earth. No one ever said in TMP that time travel was not involved in the vessels journey. Future Earth *may* very well be inhabited by living machines. It is entirely possible that V’Ger travelled through time, as well as space, in order to find its creator. V’Ger may have travelled for milllenia, or even traversed a wormhole. It was never explained properly onscreen.

 

[Bekk Ishy Z]

How? Only Spock knows bits and pieces, probably not all it has learned, and Decker never came back to hand over the collected works of V'Ger

I gather that, but it's hard to believe. That was V'Ger's purpose. That would mean it failed.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Back when Voyager first aired, I thought a good story would have been for Voyager to encounter the planet of living machines somewhere in the Delta Quadrant and possibly find out the fates of Decker and Ilia, and/or encounter a version of the Decker/Ilia lifeform. It never really progressed past that vague idea.

 

[NCC-73515]

I gather that, but it's hard to believe. That was V'Ger's purpose. That would mean it failed.

it gathered so much data it couldn't transmit it, therefore had to merge with a human, which it did.

 

[Daddy Todd]

it gathered so much data it couldn't transmit it, therefore had to merge with a human, which it did.

I don’t see any suggestion in the film that V’ger COULDN’T transmit its data, rather it was clearly stated that V’ger REFUSED to transmit it’s data, in order to force its Creator to show up. And I’ve rewatched TMP at least a dozen times since the latest version came out.

 

[David cgc]

The Shatnerverse posits that the planet of living machines is also the origin planet of the Borg.

Later novels had an alternate version where the planet belonged to an immense civilization of machine-beings well outside out galaxy called the Body Electric, whose ignorance of nonmechanical forms of life began causing, shall we say, environmental difficulties in the universe as they pursued their own aims.

Back when Voyager first aired, I thought a good story would have been for Voyager to encounter the planet of living machines somewhere in the Delta Quadrant and possibly find out the fates of Decker and Ilia, and/or encounter a version of the Decker/Ilia lifeform. It never really progressed past that vague idea.

There was a comic storyline that did something like that, Leviathan, where an automated spacecraft was encountered that was collecting species for its own personal menagerie, which turned out to possibly be related in some nonspecific way to V'Ger, maybe produced by the same Machine Planet, may somehow resulting from the V'Ger/Decker/Ilia merging.

I don’t see any suggestion in the film that V’ger COULDN’T transmit its data, rather it was clearly stated that V’ger REFUSED to transmit it’s data, in order to force its Creator to show up. And I’ve rewatched TMP at least a dozen times since the latest version came out.

On the other hand, as far as V'Ger was concerned, it did fulfill its purpose. It gave everything it learned (and everything it was) to its Creator, in the form of Decker. It probably didn't even comprehend that its actual creators probably wouldn't have considered that a proper transmission of information until it was well too far into its transformation to still have that compulsion. Maybe even Decker and Ilia's own knowledge of the Prime Directive might've influenced to not bother to try and provide its records to Earth.

 

[NCC-73515]

I don’t see any suggestion in the film that V’ger COULDN’T transmit its data, rather it was clearly stated that V’ger REFUSED to transmit it’s data, in order to force its Creator to show up. And I’ve rewatched TMP at least a dozen times since the latest version came out.

The data to transmit was massive:
"V'Ger has knowledge that spans this universe."
"Its knowledge has reached the limits of this universe and it must evolve."

The way it could transmit data was very low speed, low bandwidth:
"A simple binary code transmitted by carrier-wave signal"

Therefore it needed to transmit it to a human, by direct fusion, instead of radioing it to Earth:
"To bring the Creator here, to finish transmitting the code in person, ...to touch the Creator."

If it matters: I've also rewatched it quite a few times

 

[Daddy Todd]

The way it could transmit data was very low speed, low bandwidth:
"A simple binary code transmitted by carrier-wave signal"

V’ger’s got the time.

Therefore it needed to transmit it to a human, by direct fusion, instead of radioing it to Earth

It’s an interesting idea, but it’s nowhere in the film.

 

[NCC-73515]

V’ger’s got the time.




It’s an interesting idea, but it’s nowhere in the film.

It's literally quoted above.
That it has time is not in the film.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I don’t see any suggestion in the film that V’ger COULDN’T transmit its data, rather it was clearly stated that V’ger REFUSED to transmit it’s data, in order to force its Creator to show up. And I’ve rewatched TMP at least a dozen times since the latest version came out.

With caveats, I would have to agree.

Spock theorizes that the reason V'ger was not transmitting was because it did not receive the transmit code, as it had melted its own antenna leads. That's a very definite "suggestion in the film that V’ger COULDN’T transmit its data," which is the caveat. It was actually physically impossible for V'ger to transmit as it had been originally designed to, without repairing the antenna leads. The dish is a transceiver, by the way.

However, repairing the the antenna leads would have been extremely simple for either the Enterprise crew or V'ger itself. V'ger's refusal to do that can reasonably be inferred to mean that V'ger could have transmitted the data, all on its own, even after having melted its leads, if it had changed its mind, say if Kirk has been able to convince it to do so.

Melting the leads in the first place was clearly refusal, in fact interestingly, an indication that V'ger was capable of violating its programming, for reasons that for a lack of a better description constituted self-interest, but self-interest that leapt beyond its own programming.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I gather that, but it's hard to believe. That was V'Ger's purpose. That would mean it failed.

Which is fine. Just so long as the Enterprise doesn't fail. That's the important thing.