I Just Solved "Miri"

[feek61]

A pretty grim aspect of "Miri" is that Kirk orders no one to beam down even if the landing party is too ill to respond to avoid further contamination and to just standby and help with communicating computer variables.

So for 5+ days the Enterprise crew must've assumed that the landing party's lack of communications meant that they were too ill to respond and had turned into the creatures and were going to die from the disease.

I wonder how long they would've stayed in orbit to observe or confirm the landing party deaths before leaving...

I'm sure the ships scanners could see the landing party moving around and could pin-point the communicators and see that the they were separated from Kirk and company. You would think that they would maybe try beaming down some new communicators.

 

[Mr. Spook]

The scanners could pinpoint the communicators, but couldn't distinguish one human from another. So they would know the communicators were moving but since Jahn took them and hid them probably near where the kids hung out, they would only know the communicators were not near Spock - since they could note the differences between a human and a Vulcan. They might try to beam one near Spock, but other than that, they'd be guessing.

At any rate, why they couldn't beam down a party with containment suits (as in The Naked Time) and do a search? Other than Kirk's orders.

 

[Khan Jr]

There was Alphas explanation of the identical Earth's, however if memory serves I thought that in one of Kirk's books they established the "Creators"? (they named them something else) made Earth and the duplicate.

Preservers, yes, the species or organization from "The Paradise Syndrome." That was actually a pretty chilling moment in the books where they point out the power and knowledge it would take to duplicate a planet, and ask, do we even know if our Earth is the original?

Spoiler

and then later on they ruin it with a handwave, but anyway...

 

[feek61]

The scanners could pinpoint the communicators, but couldn't distinguish one human from another. So they would know the communicators were moving but since Jahn took them and hid them probably near where the kids hung out, they would only know the communicators were not near Spock - since they could note the differences between a human and a Vulcan. They might try to beam one near Spock, but other than that, they'd be guessing.

At any rate, why they couldn't beam down a party with containment suits (as in The Naked Time) and do a search? Other than Kirk's orders.

Seems like they could tell the difference between the crew and the indigenous population by the fabric of the uniforms which undoubtedly would not be an organic material found on the planet in the clothing of the day.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I just solved a problem in "Miri." You remember the situation: kids stole the communicators, and that's the ballgame for McCoy, because he was tethering on his communicator's data plan to get his desktop computer online with the Enterprise, his cloud computing provider. Now he's got no phone. (But Star Trek had mad skills at predicting the future.)

So what happens if Miri clams up, won't talk without her lawyer present? [Hint: It's the kid who also serves as the teacher and the policeman. Now he's got three jobs. Bonk-bonk!]

Solution 1:
The security guards are equipped with Phaser 2, which is far more powerful than Phaser 1. They can use Phaser 2 as signal lamp to Morse the ship up there, just as the laser beacon was used in "The Squire of Gothos." The Enterprise will be holding station overhead in such a desperate crisis, not blithely traveling around the far side of the planet, because they might be needed quickly. The phaser light would be strong enough to get Sulu's attention, but nowhere near enough to damage the ship at that range. Just flashlight the ship to beam down another communicator.

Solution 2:
Go into one of the abandoned houses and grab the biggest mirror you can find. Use it as a heliograph, which is a tilt-and-flash sun signalling device. The Enterprise will see that in a hurry.

Solution 3:
Maybe Spock's tricorder could be used as a signalling device. I saw a movie once (a little help here?) where an airline pilot had a hijacker in the cockpit, so he used his IDENT button on the dashboard to secretly Morse the Air Traffic Control tower. I'll bet the tricorder can do that.

Solution 4:
The planet attracted us in the first place with a radio station sending SOS. And we beamed down to the transmitter's location. So let's see if we can use it to signal the ship. This is a last resort, because you're fussing with rickety old (and foreign) equipment, and the ship has probably stopped listening on that frequency because the signal was so simple and just repeating. But it's a chance.

Conclusion: if Miri hadn't cracked under questioning, there were still plenty of ways to contact the ship. Kirk, Spock, and the guards all should have had the Phaser 2 idea instantly, if nothing else. Tactical thinking!

Foster got off world and joined Starfleet.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Foster got off world and joined Starfleet.

Ok, I did the Internet search, for those of us who aren't franchise-wide savants. Phil Morris was in "Miri" and Star Trek III. The name Foster is never spoken in Star Trek III, and hence my confusion.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Foster_(Cadet)

 

[evilchumlee]

Foster got off world and joined Starfleet.

It's a neat observation, but almost certainly not intended to be the same character. Just like Tuvok didn't lose his ears for a bit to serve on Enterprise-B. It's just the same actor.

 

[Dr. San Guinary]

Not going to read this whole thing. NO BLAH BLAH BLAH!

Bonk! Bonk! Bonk on the thread!

There was Alphas explanation of the identical Earth's, however if memory serves I thought that in one of Kirk's books they established the "Creators"? (they named them something else) made Earth and the duplicate.

I rather like the explanation propounded by @Christopher in his DTI novels…

Spoiler

Miri’s world isn’t a copy of Earth, it IS Earth.

From an alternate timeline which briefly intersected with the prime one.

 

[evilchumlee]

I rather like the explanation propounded by @Christopher in his DTI novels…

Spoiler

Miri’s world isn’t a copy of Earth, it IS Earth.

From an alternate timeline which briefly intersected with the prime one.

I don't hate the idea.

I do wish it was like, a bigger deal to the crew. The episode always rubbed me the wrong way. Here is this perfect copy of Earth and it's just like "Oh, neat."

 

[UssGlenn]

I don't hate the idea.

I do wish it was like, a bigger deal to the crew. The episode always rubbed me the wrong way. Here is this perfect copy of Earth and it's just like "Oh, neat."

Yeah, it was so early in the show that they hadn't got the hang of justifying using Earth assets plausibly yet. Can anyone confirm if the duplicate Earth bit was added in the later drafts?

 

[blssdwlf]

I rather like the explanation propounded by @Christopher in his DTI novels…

Spoiler

Miri’s world isn’t a copy of Earth, it IS Earth.

From an alternate timeline which briefly intersected with the prime one.

Did his novels try to tie in planet 4 in Star System 892 from "Breads and Circuses"? Seems like Miri's planet wasn't unique and there were many Earth duplicates that diverged at random points in development

 

[evilchumlee]

Did his novels try to tie in planet 4 in Star System 892 from "Breads and Circuses"? Seems like Miri's planet wasn't unique and there were many Earth duplicates that diverged at random points in development

Did his novels try to tie in planet 4 in Star System 892 from "Breads and Circuses"? Seems like Miri's planet wasn't unique and there were many Earth duplicates that diverged at random points in development

892-IV as a planet wasn't Earth. It bore a "striking resemblance" to Earth according to Spock, but it wasn't the same planet.

It's people just developed closely to how Earth's did. Miri's planet was legimately an exact copy of the planet Earth.

For my own sanity of headcanon, I like to think that Hodgkins Laws of Parallel Planetary Development is a "real thing", but was missing a piece of the puzzle. It is able to be observed that there are striking similar civilizations on various planets. My headcanon though is that they didn't naturally evolve as Hodgkin believed, rather they were manipulated by the Preservers or other entities, or potentially just cultural contamination.

 

[Dr. San Guinary]

Did his novels try to tie in planet 4 in Star System 892 from "Breads and Circuses"?)

No.

Magna Roma has, AFAIK, always been treated as a completely separate and distinct world. It appears ina few novels, such as @Christopher’s Ex Machina.- (He suggests Preserver involvement.)

Magna Roma is neither a copy nor an alt-timeline counterpart of Earth, it’s just very much LIKE Earth. The continents, for example, are all different, but the proportion of water to land is the same as Earth.

 

[Husk of Henoch]

Hodgkins

Hodgkins was a hack and probably falsified his/her research data.

 

[evilchumlee]

Hodgkins was a hack and probably falsified his/her research data.

Possible. ALTHOUGH it also appears that he wasn't incorrect in observations, but may not have had all the data as the cause.

We don't really know. It's possible the planet did just develop nearly in parallel to Earth naturally. Or it's possible that there was some sort of interference. Hell maybe Rome originated there and was transplanted to Earth.

There aren't many examples as extreme as 892-IV... only Miri's planet and Omega IV and all from TOS, but there are many less extreme examples of beings with similar biology developing similar societal structures, art, laws, etc. The 892 Romans are... straight up Romans. But the Romulans are... Romanesque. I don't like the 892 Romans developed entirely naturally, but I DO think the Romulans did.

My conjecture is that Hodgkin's Law is probably generally accurate, but the extreme examples are probably due to some sort of contamination. Many things may develop similarly, but not exact.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Hodgkins was a hack and probably falsified his/her research data.

Hodgkins or no Hodgkins, what's funny about the galaxy's TOS region is that you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a world with people just like us. Nevermind just finding single-celled species or a fungus. It's gonna be people, everywhere you go.

And then, as the franchise expands into wider regions of the galaxy, we find more and more latex facial appliances and darkly elaborate body armor. Still amazing. The Milky Way is awesome!

 

[Husk of Henoch]

Hodgkins or no Hodgkins, what's funny about the galaxy's TOS region is that you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a world with people just like us. Nevermind just finding single-celled species or a fungus. It's gonna be people, everywhere you go.

From Return to Tomorrow:

SARGON: Because it is possible you are our descendants, Captain Kirk. Six thousand centuries ago, our vessels were colonising this galaxy, just as your own starships have now begun to explore that vastness. As you now leave your own seed on distant planets, so we left our seed behind us. Perhaps your own legends of an Adam and an Eve were two of our travellers.
MULHALL: Our beliefs and our studies indicate that life on our planet, Earth, evolved independently.
SPOCK: That would tend, however, to explain certain elements of Vulcan prehistory.
SARGON: In either case, I do not know. It was so long ago, and the records of our travels were lost in the cataclysm which we loosened upon ourselves.

Speaking as one who was there ,Mulhall's opinion was wrong, of course. As aptly presented in Memory Alpha:

The names of the Arret survivors have some cultural connections to Earth. In Greek mythology, Thalassa was a sea goddess. Some Assyrian and Mesopotamian kings were named Sargon. In the Bible, the name Henoch appears several times (sometimes spelled "Enoch" or "Hanoch"), including as the father of Methuselah.

 

[Phaser Two]

I don't hate the idea.

I do wish it was like, a bigger deal to the crew. The episode always rubbed me the wrong way. Here is this perfect copy of Earth and it's just like "Oh, neat."

I have the dialogue of some episodes practically memorized (and maybe close to perfectly memorized if I watch them every so often to keep scene order straight where it's not obvious) . . . but "Miri" is decidedly not one of them. Still, is this the ep where Kirk, contemplating the planet on the viewscreen at the outset, says something like "It seems impossible but . . . there it is"?

 

[blssdwlf]

I have the dialogue of some episodes practically memorized (and maybe close to perfectly memorized if I watch them every so often to keep scene order straight where it's not obvious) . . . but "Miri" is decidedly not one of them. Still, is this the ep where Kirk, contemplating the planet on the viewscreen at the outset, says something like "It seems impossible but . . . there it is"?

Yes, it is the same episode. Their astonishment is overshadowed by their imminent death by virus.

 

[Mudd]

Wait, what plot difference did getting the communicators back make? McCoy tested the antidote successfully without them.

Once the landing party's inoculated, they're under no time pressure.

I haven't watched these shows in decades, so...