I'd forgotten how little the Tholians are in "The Tholian Web."

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Could the ruins be an ancient NY sister city in space?

The Nexus doesn't want you to figure out there's something screwy right off, so it doesn't create a reality consisting of something you'll figure out immediately. Though if you wake there in a kind of dream-like state, maybe you don't notice there's something rotten in the state of Nexus immediately...

 

[Noname Given]

Some other poster mentioned that it sure took a long time to build that web, almost as long as the overflight of V’Ger in TMP.

Well to be fair, one of the Tholian ships had been damaged/disabled to a degree by the 1701. It also shows the Tholians themselves aren't all that 'bloodthirsty' (aside from Spock's supposition in the episode that the Web is somehow destructive when he states "If they have completed their structure before we've completed our repairs, we shall not see home again" -- and later (and I assume they had more sensor info); Chekov refers to it as 'the Tholian Tractor field...' -- and once the Tholians do activate it, it essentially starts pushing the 1701 out of Tholian space...

So yeah, in the end, I like that at least in TOS, we have an alien race that's (much like our heroes in most instances) just looking to protect its territory, but not by just wantonly attempting to destroy the intruder outright.

 

[Henoch]

Chekov refers to it as 'the Tholian Tractor field...' -- and once the Tholians do activate it, it essentially starts pushing the 1701 out of Tholian space...

So yeah, in the end, I like that at least in TOS, we have an alien race that's (much like our heroes in most instances) just looking to protect its territory, but not by just wantonly attempting to destroy the intruder outright.

Wrong. The tractor field was pulling them deeper into Tholian space; Spock's comments was based on rumors that the Tholian's eat their prey. It was not Tholian space, Spock said so. The Tholians were conducting an illegal land grab in space. Spock is not an over emotional exaggerator. Least that's my take.

 

[Noname Given]

Wrong. The tractor field was pulling them deeper into Tholian space; Spock's comments was based on rumors that the Tholian's eat their prey. It was not Tholian space, Spock said so. The Tholians were conducting an illegal land grab in space. Least that's my take.

Chekov's line was: "We're being pulled out of here..."

Thus I believe the impression was that they were being removed from Tholian space.

 

[Henoch]

Pulled = move toward yourself. Completion of the web as "bad". "Out of here" clearly meant the interphase zone where they are trying to recover Kirk. Remember, this was NOT Tholian space. To avoid an international incident, the Tholians were dragging the Enterprise back into their own space; once inside their boundaries, possession is 90% of the law or maybe 100% for Tholians. They opened fire first and attacked the Enterprise. These were not good guys.

 

[Maurice]

Wrong. The tractor field was pulling them deeper into Tholian space; Spock's comments was based on rumors that the Tholian's eat their prey. It was not Tholian space, Spock said so. The Tholians were conducting an illegal land grab in space. Spock is not an over emotional exaggerator. Least that's my take.

Nope.

 

[Marsden]

Ellison.

Thank you! I thought you or maybe Harvey would tell me, thank you again.

Re: the last few Tholian posts, I think it's clear to me, the Tholians were looking to expand their territory, at the expense of the Federation isn't clear, but they weren't expecting them. The web, very much like some spider webs, was to trap the Enterprise, the Tholians really couldn't out gun the Enterprise but if they closed the door on that field, nothing the Enterprise could do would allow them to escape. Then being drug back to Tholian space proper with dozens or more Tholian ships available to do whatever they wanted to Enterprise, so Spock was right about not seeing home again.

 

[Maurice]

The Tholians "stealing space" is actually a big plot point in the Starship Exeter fanfilm I shared upthread.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

According to ENT, the whole "interphase" hazard was a trap deliberately set by the Tholians. That was the best episode of ENT, and it wasn't even close. That whole series, from the word go, should have been set entirely in the mirror universe. And none of this "Vulcans are holding us down", "Earth is the weakest planet" bullcrap. Just get on with it! Boy, they made stupid mistakes when the developed ENT, even to the point of putting Jolene Blalock in a fugly wig. She had beautiful real hair, so they fixed that problem. Jesus.

Also, I just noticed that the Defiant's canonized NCC-1764 matches "The Tholian Web" being the 64th episode of TOS. That's neat.

 

[Prax]

Technically these are either the mirror universe Tholians (retroactively) in this episode, or there is no distinction, and the Tholians work in both universes.

 

[scotpens]

When I was a kid I assumed the ruins were what was left of a city, it never occurred to be at the time (so I didn’t consider it for the next 45 years) that it was also referring to NYC - oops...

My impression was the opposite. I assumed the eponymous city was New York in 1930, and only learned much later that it also referred to the ruined city surrounding the Giant Lopsided Time Bagel.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

If the title is poetic, then New York is the city in the title. If the title is literal, then the Guardian's ruined surroundings are the city.

I always thought it was the latter, that the Guardian was in the city. But I now like the idea that New York, being intruded up by a cosmic time portal, becomes the city on the edge of forever.

It seems that the Sarpeidons invented the exact same technology for time portals, but had much smaller ambitions and didn't mess with other planets.

 

[Maurice]

In the original script the title directly referred to the distant city on a mountaintop. Kirk points it out to Spock and when Spock confirms it's there Kirk comments, "Like a city on the edge of forever," and the 1930s city they travel to (originally Chicago) is only perhaps metaphorically like the title.