That reminds me of something: When Spock is speaking with Hodin and he mentions the possibility of Kirk having materialized somewhere else, Hodin say "I hope it was on dry ground". This might suggested that Gideon was very extensively covered by oceans and lakes. This could've served to vastly reduce the amount of habitable land for people. Also its possible that on Gideon they drastically restrict the amount of land people can actually live on and preserve certain lands for food production. After all they have to feed their people and all the Gideonites we see seem to be well fed and robust.
I'll Admit I Never Understood "The Mark of Gideon"
- Thread starter Samuel
- Start date
That reminds me of something: When Spock is speaking with Hodin and he mentions the possibility of Kirk having materialized somewhere else, Hodin say "I hope it was on dry ground". This might suggested that Gideon was very extensively covered by oceans and lakes. This could've served to vastly reduce the amount of habitable land for people. Also its possible that on Gideon they drastically restrict the amount of land people can actually live on and preserve certain lands for food production. After all they have to feed their people and all the Gideonites we see seem to be well fed and robust.
Keep Kirk off kilter for a time, they might not have been sure the disease was easily transferable and might have needed Kirk as a ongoing source..
The Gideon people's philosophy might have precluded maintaining Kirk unconscious or held in a cell.
On the scale of a entire planet, even one as overpopulated as Gideon, setting aside the internal volume of the Enterprise wouldn't make that much of a difference.
That said, I like the idea of a holodeck, one linked in some fashion to Kirk's mind and memories. And later Spock's, although Spock's version of the ship didn't work fully.
Last edited:
Regarding the amount of congestion on the planet, the shoulder-to-shoulder thing should not be taken too seriously. That was an important government building -- such places would be highly congested today, too, or then almost totally empty, depending. Plus, there's the opportunity to ogle an alien. (Although nobody appears to take that opportunity - perhaps on a world like that, making eye contact is a big taboo?)
But it seems reasonable for the government to place the fake starship inside their own building, both for minimizing the degree to which the coordinates would need to be changed, and to limit the number of people in the need to know. Although both aspects can be critiqued here. Why bother having two sets of coordinates? Kirk supposedly fell unconscious at beam-down (and got readied for his role as bringer of death) - he could have been beamed down to perfectly legit coordinates and then moved, still unconscious. And wouldn't their effort to buy time before Spock raided the place work better if they moved Kirk far away from the legit coordinates? They would hardly trust Spock to second-guess himself and think "Surely they wouldn't keep Kirk close to where he's expected to be?"...
No need for telepathic perfection in the illusion. Just get Kirk suitably drunk so that he ignores the discrepancies and imagines the commonalities. With an aerosol if need be (so that Spock also gets some, although it doesn't work too well on Vulcans), but more easily when Kirk's unconscious and under preparation anyway.
Timo Saloniemi
But it seems reasonable for the government to place the fake starship inside their own building, both for minimizing the degree to which the coordinates would need to be changed, and to limit the number of people in the need to know. Although both aspects can be critiqued here. Why bother having two sets of coordinates? Kirk supposedly fell unconscious at beam-down (and got readied for his role as bringer of death) - he could have been beamed down to perfectly legit coordinates and then moved, still unconscious. And wouldn't their effort to buy time before Spock raided the place work better if they moved Kirk far away from the legit coordinates? They would hardly trust Spock to second-guess himself and think "Surely they wouldn't keep Kirk close to where he's expected to be?"...
No need for telepathic perfection in the illusion. Just get Kirk suitably drunk so that he ignores the discrepancies and imagines the commonalities. With an aerosol if need be (so that Spock also gets some, although it doesn't work too well on Vulcans), but more easily when Kirk's unconscious and under preparation anyway.
Timo Saloniemi
They were absolutely certain they would need Kirk as an ongoing source. That's why they wanted to keep him around in the first place. McCoy saving Odona transferred that role to her, so Kirk was allowed to go on his merry way.
This is one of those episodes you have to ignore large plot holes and just try to enjoy. Just an excuse to have Kirk alone on a ship with an attractive woman. Even as kid seeing the episode I could figure there had to be a bunch of better solutions to overpopulation than this
Its a good idea but they seem to try to fit the story to match not too successfully.
To me its like "Generations" giving the Nexus so many capabilities to fix potholes.
Why didn't the Gideons just go to the Federation honestly and seek a solution to their overpopulation?
Why not have everyone leave Gideon and colonise other planets?
Why not give its population Netflix and the internet and computer games and then no more babies?
Why did Kirk (or even Spock) leave them to kill off half their population? He should have ordered the Enterprise to keep Odona and let Federation officials deal with the crisis/solution?.
I just don't think Kirk would ever let anything like this happen even just on the principle that he can't let the Federation and himself be taken advantage of. Did Odona have those magic tears that made Kirk do her bidding?
And worst of all Kirk seemed OK with the solution at the end. Just as long as Odona didn't die.
Or perhaps the ratio of land to water is so great that they source most of their food from the oceans and haven't had a problem with overfishing yet.
In Star Trek when does anyone ever ask the Federation for help? It doesn't seem very often.
I forget which one, but one of the Star Trek source books said the Gideon's population was 500 billion at the time of the episode, and the disease reduced it to 3 billion by the time of TNG.
In the TNG episode where a wormhole is being competed over, one of the bidders suggest that people don't alway trust and want to do business with the Federation.
While he was seeking a advantage, there might have been truth in his statement. The Federation government might be quite different than Starfleet's example.
The Federation government did do business with the So'na.
"Mark of Gideon" is the only episode of TOS I can recall watching for the very first time. I was an infant when the show was on the air, so that would have been in re-runs in the early 70s. I had a B&W TV in my bedroom, and can remember excitedly running and telling my Dad (who was rather non-plussed) during a commercial break about the episode as it unfurled.
Can't quite see why I was so excited now...
Can't quite see why I was so excited now...
And what did they do with 497 billion corpses?
Probably fertilizer. That or an environmental disaster from burning them all.
And what did they do with 497 billion corpses?
One (completely noncanon) source suggested they requested a number of phaser disposal units from the Federation.
I could never believe just how lax Spock was with the two sets of co-ordinates to the council chambers on Gideon and the fake Enterprise! I think even my late Father picked up on it before the good Lieutenant Commander!
JB
JB
Remarkably, it's not just two sets of coordinates - it's two sets of people handling them.
The first set is known to Spock and Uhura (and to Kirk), but not to Scotty. Uhura on the bridge receives and recites them, Spock in the transporter room punches them in, and Scotty is nowhere to be seen in either location.
The second set is known to Scotty, who is in the transporter room alone. Whether Spock or Uhura overhears the coordinates is not established.
Now, the Gideonites naturally couldn't have been counting on this. But they didn't need to care - their project was already almost concluded by the time they provided the second set of coordinates.
As for Spock "failing", he never confesses to not noticing, and indeed would have had no reason to act sooner than he did on the information anyway. If there's anybody who could be accused of not noticing, it's Uhura, who could at least theoretically have overheard both coordinate sets, if we assume she is in the habit of eavesdropping. Or Scotty, if we assume he was minding the bridge (even if off camera) when the first set was sent through Uhura to Spock.
Timo Saloniemi
The first set is known to Spock and Uhura (and to Kirk), but not to Scotty. Uhura on the bridge receives and recites them, Spock in the transporter room punches them in, and Scotty is nowhere to be seen in either location.
The second set is known to Scotty, who is in the transporter room alone. Whether Spock or Uhura overhears the coordinates is not established.
Now, the Gideonites naturally couldn't have been counting on this. But they didn't need to care - their project was already almost concluded by the time they provided the second set of coordinates.
As for Spock "failing", he never confesses to not noticing, and indeed would have had no reason to act sooner than he did on the information anyway. If there's anybody who could be accused of not noticing, it's Uhura, who could at least theoretically have overheard both coordinate sets, if we assume she is in the habit of eavesdropping. Or Scotty, if we assume he was minding the bridge (even if off camera) when the first set was sent through Uhura to Spock.
Timo Saloniemi
And what did they do with 497 billion corpses?
Dematerialized with transporters.
I always figured Starfleet was in on it. They knew they were getting Kirk back, and what the Gideons were doing.
Section 31, Billj?
JB
JB
You mean they regularly pull this kind of job on non-Fed planets in order to weaken them and make them need the Federation and want to join (which they were having trouble getting the Gideons to do already) except rather fortunately for them, the Gideons actually wanted such a contamination for their own reasons?
I think the shadier sections of the Federation wanted to discover the secret to how the Gideonites fed their massive population and were prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to acquire it.
Then it was revealed that it was just the cities of Gideon which were absurdly overcrowded and the rest of the planet had been turned over to automated farming. Uh-oh!
Then it was revealed that it was just the cities of Gideon which were absurdly overcrowded and the rest of the planet had been turned over to automated farming. Uh-oh!
Similar threads
