How did V***GER know how to say "V'ger"?

[gottacook]

Interesting where this has led. Yes, the Horta problem enters into it, sort of in reverse - not how it knew what to call itself in language the crew can understand, but how it knew to make the symbols NO KILL I. During the mind meld, the Horta would have had to pick up not only Spock's English vocabulary but how to spell - which in turn would require that Spock think in printed words rather than "sounded" words. (Well, he's Spock.) The only reason for inscribing the words was to add a little mystery as to the meaning; the same thought could have been transferred to Spock at the end of the mind meld, which after all was just a moment earlier.

As to the V'ger issue, the foregoing discussion - not that I planned it as such - just underscores that the questions of how and when V'ger learned how to name itself in audible English were simply not well thought out.

 

[JarodRussell]

Many films have that problem. Also the confusion of written words and pronounciation.

In Avatar, Neytiri introduces Jake to the tribe calling him "Sully". The tribe mother then goes on calling him "Soolly", as if she had seen it in written form in the script.


The V'Ger thing doesn't make much sense at all. Somewhere in its system, the name "Voyager 6" was certainly encoded. Then the sophisticated machines didn't recognize they could wipe the dirt of the plate?

And then, what difference did it make? Even if it called itself Voyager from the start, the crew wouldn't have made the connection that it was a lost Earth space probe.

 

[Robert Comsol]

Even if it called itself Voyager from the start, the crew wouldn't have made the connection that it was a lost Earth space probe.

Very good point!

Then the sophisticated machines didn't recognize they could wipe the dirt of the plate?

These machines started as cleaning devices and at some point in history they overcame their biological users. Hence, it's against their "religion" that any machine should clean another machine...

Bob

 

[Grant]

The innane original concept was that V'ger had looked at the scuffed nameplate and called itself that based on what it saw.

It had all the knowledge of the universe except how to clean dirt from it's own nameplate.


People mocked this in 1979.

 

[Maurice]

I always thought the nameplate dirt was silly. Did Voyager 6 go through a mud puddle? They should have just had a bit of damage there that obliterated the letters, and have Kirk just figure it out.

 

[Grant]

I always thought the nameplate dirt was silly. Did Voyager 6 go through a mud puddle? They should have just had a bit of damage there that obliterated the letters, and have Kirk just figure it out.

Absolutely. Just a small hole there in the middle and kirk reads the V___ger and says "this is one of the Voyagers launched from Earth"

The whole wiping the dirt and dramatically reading V-O-Y-A-G-E-R "Voyager!!"

Just sad.

 

[Christopher]

It's not dirt, it's probably accreted dust -- space is very dusty -- or some kind of corrosion or radiation burn.

 

[2takesfrakes]

That crud seemed kind of gummy to me, actually. In the novelization of TMP, at any rate, Gene Roddenberry does state that there was actual damage to the nameplate. It's also interesting to note that when Spock flips open the fuse box on the side of V'ger, there's other writing inside, probably instructions or directions for those who assembled it. Like there's a power pack thing sort of plugged in which has some print on it. There's print elsewhere inside, as well. What V'ger made of that, I haven't a clue. But knowing that the creator made use of this alphabet, V'ger would've made every effort to sort it out.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Did either of the two real Voyager spacecraft actually say "Voyager' on the side? Considering that these things were made to travel out into space, was there any expectation that some hypothetical alien would actually be able to decipher its meaning?

Even the man-woman-in-a-circle-thingie, which we easily interpret, might also just be a weird design to aliens, if they had no concept of representational line art. But I guess that's the thing with aliens: we really have no clue as to communications' starting point.

Troi's comments in that (whatever it was) episode are very valid: the word she applied to a coffee cup could mean hot, glass, dark, liquid, etc. That's the real problem!

 

[Robert Comsol]

Did either of the two real Voyager spacecraft actually say "Voyager' on the side?

I never heard of this, but then, we are dealing with the fictional Voyager probe # 6 so NASA did / will decide to use the Pioneer Plaque instead of the Voyager Golden Record and apparently a name tag.

Apparently, one of the Pioneer probes with the plaque became a target for practice shooting in ST V.

Even the man-woman-in-a-circle-thingie, which we easily interpret, might also just be a weird design to aliens, if they had no concept of representational line art.

What thingie are you actually referring to? But since you brought it up, I find the Pioneer Plaque in the context of TMP's story rather interesting:

The plaque shows the probe together with a man and a woman for scale.

It may almost sound like a cosmic joke, but it could seem that the machines misinterpreted the trio as one unit which could help to explain why V'ger was so desperate to "re-unite" with its creator, i.e. to re-unite the three elements (probe, man and woman) depicted on the Pioneer Plaque.

Bob

 

[Maurice]

Did either of the two real Voyager spacecraft actually say "Voyager' on the side?

I never heard of this, but then, we are dealing with the fictional Voyager probe # 6 so NASA did / will decide to use the Pioneer Plaque instead of the Voyager Golden Record and apparently a name tag.

Surely you mean that the nameplate includes elements from the Pioneer plaque (the pulsar diagram to the lower left of the V, for instance) as opposed to the actual Pioneer plaque.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Surely you mean that the nameplate includes elements from the Pioneer plaque (the pulsar diagram to the lower left of the V, for instance) as opposed to the actual Pioneer plaque.

The Pioneer Plaque flashes during the mindmeld, but did you see this quote from the above Voyager golden record wiki link?

"After NASA had received criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record#cite_note-6

 

[JarodRussell]

Did either of the two real Voyager spacecraft actually say "Voyager' on the side?

I never heard of this, but then, we are dealing with the fictional Voyager probe # 6 so NASA did / will decide to use the Pioneer Plaque instead of the Voyager Golden Record and apparently a name tag.

Apparently, one of the Pioneer probes with the plaque became a target for practice shooting in ST V.

Even the man-woman-in-a-circle-thingie, which we easily interpret, might also just be a weird design to aliens, if they had no concept of representational line art.

What thingie are you actually referring to? But since you brought it up, I find the Pioneer Plaque in the context of TMP's story rather interesting:

The plaque shows the probe together with a man and a woman for scale.

It may almost sound like a cosmic joke, but it could seem that the machines misinterpreted the trio as one unit which could help to explain why V'ger was so desperate to "re-unite" with its creator, i.e. to re-unite the three elements (probe, man and woman) depicted on the Pioneer Plaque.

Bob

I would be surprised if Aliens were able to make sense of the plaques and pictograms. They depend on two things: Gestalt theory and context.

What if the aliens do not recognize things according to Gestalt laws? Then those simple line drawings make no sense whatsoever to them.

What if they misinterpret the context?

 

[Maurice]

Surely you mean that the nameplate includes elements from the Pioneer plaque (the pulsar diagram to the lower left of the V, for instance) as opposed to the actual Pioneer plaque.

The Pioneer Plaque flashes during the mindmeld, but did you see this quote from the above Voyager golden record wiki link?

Oh, I know we see it in the mind meld, but it's not visible anywhere on the V___GER craft in the "microwave wok" set.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I find the Pioneer Plaque in the context of TMP's story rather interesting:

The plaque shows the probe together with a man and a woman for scale.

It may almost sound like a cosmic joke, but it could seem that the machines misinterpreted the trio as one unit which could help to explain why V'ger was so desperate to "re-unite" with its creator, i.e. to re-unite the three elements (probe, man and woman) depicted on the Pioneer Plaque.

Bob

This is very interesting conjecture. It does make me wonder what dimension this trio becomes. Two males and a female persona who are now, actually different aspects of one being ... V'ger went looking for god and ended up becoming the biblical representation of god. For as potentially offensive as this concept may be, the movie that it's embedded in is so otherewise benign and sterile, that I don't recall this ever having been observed, before, in reviews. Nevertheless, I cannot help but wonder what this All Knowing Energy Being ended up becoming, or doing with itself. Is it still servicing our collective Humanity, exploring other dimensions, with the intention of bringing that information back to us, some day? Or is it guiding and manipulating the future into a seemingly logical objective of its own choosing? I wonder. I wonder ...

 

[JJTrek4ever!]

Surely you mean that the nameplate includes elements from the Pioneer plaque (the pulsar diagram to the lower left of the V, for instance) as opposed to the actual Pioneer plaque.

The image depicting continental drift as a function of time on the right of that plaque appears to have been inspired by the one Carl Sagan and Jon Lomberg designed for NASA's LAGEOS spacecraft.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Even the man-woman-in-a-circle-thingie, which we easily interpret, might also just be a weird design to aliens, if they had no concept of representational line art.

What thingie are you actually referring to? But since you brought it up, I find the Pioneer Plaque in the context of TMP's story rather interesting:

The plaque shows the probe together with a man and a woman for scale.

It may almost sound like a cosmic joke, but it could seem that the machines misinterpreted the trio as one unit which could help to explain why V'ger was so desperate to "re-unite" with its creator, i.e. to re-unite the three elements (probe, man and woman) depicted on the Pioneer Plaque.

I need to learn to stop posting when my brain is in half-asleep shutdown mode. The plaque I described poorly is the one you speak of!

I, too, like your theory a lot! It might be interesting to post an image of the plaque here, and get possible interpretations of it:

 

[Avro Arrow]

^ It's obviously an advertisement for Saucer Country. It's got two of the characters right there!

 

[Robert Comsol]

Surely you mean that the nameplate includes elements from the Pioneer plaque (the pulsar diagram to the lower left of the V, for instance) as opposed to the actual Pioneer plaque.

Wow, I didn't notice these details before (HD is great!).

But I had always noticed the Pioneer Plaque in the mind meld scene (unless V'ger had encountered and digitized one of the Pioneer probes, too ).

Admittedly, it would seem somewhat redundant to have the pulsar diagram on the graphic plaque on one side of the probe and then again on the other side on the name plaque.

Bob

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Admittedly, it would seem somewhat redundant to have the pulsar diagram on the graphic plaque on one side of the probe and then again on the other side on the name plaque.

Given the whole conceit of the name "V'GER" being a result of missing letters, and the nearly disastrous consequences from that, I think it's safe to say that the Voyager 6 probe didn't have enough redundancy in its glyphs.