In truth is there no beauty?

[ZapBrannigan]

Then there's Monty Python's "World's Funniest Joke" skit.

That's a clever way of looking at it (no pun intended).

I think it's also important to keep in mind that, by human standards, Medusans have extrasensory perception. It seemed to me that Kollos might have been telepathically sensitive beyond his interactions with Spock and Miranda. If Medusans really are telepathic, then what a being sees when looking at a Medusan might depend upon the experience of the perception itself. In that case, it would not be apt to discuss the appearance of a Medusan as if it were a static or fixed thing.

Well, given that only severely crazy people have even seen a Medusan. It's unlikely that they would even give a description of what they saw, that wasn't tainted by madness.

The realistic course of events is that everyone would satisfy their curiosity about what Medusans look like via photographes and such, which couldn't possibly harm you.

 

[Metryq]

Think about how some epileptic seizures are triggered by flashing lights. Mayve something about the Medusan appearance triggers some sort of short-circuit in most humanoid brains and makes them go cuckoo.

Flashlight Weapon Makes Targets Throw Up

It looks like a big flashlight — but it's really a nonlethal weapon designed to make you sick.

Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc., of Torrance, Calif., has been granted a contract by the Department of Homeland Security to develop what it calls the "LED Incapacitator," according to a DHS online newsletter.

The handheld device using light-emitting diodes to emit super-bright pulses of light at rapidly changing wavelengths, causing disorientation, nausea and even vomiting in whomever it's pointed at.

"There's one wavelength that gets everybody," says IOS President Bob Lieberman. "Vlad [IOS top scientist Vladimir Rubtsov] calls it 'the evil color.'"

Phase 1 of the contract — creating a working prototype — has already been completed, and Phase 2 will begin this fall as researchers at Penn State's Institute of Nonlethal Defense Technology put the puke-saber through its paces.

"Phase 3 will be our shrink phase," Lieberman said, admitting that the prototype, 15 inches long with a 4-inch lens, is too large and heavy to be comfortably carried on a belt.

DHS hopes to equip police, Border Patrol agents and National Guardsmen with the barf-beamers by 2010.

 

[scotpens]

Flashlight Weapon Makes Targets Throw Up

It looks like a big flashlight — but it's really a nonlethal weapon designed to make you sick.

. . . The handheld device using light-emitting diodes to emit super-bright pulses of light at rapidly changing wavelengths, causing disorientation, nausea and even vomiting in whomever it's pointed at.

According to this source, the real-life "sick stick" has been abandoned as impractical. (Scroll down to 7. The Puke Ray.)

 

[Metryq]

According to this source, the real-life "sick stick" has been abandoned as impractical. (Scroll down to 7. The Puke Ray.)

Thanks for the update. I had the 2007 article in my archives, and I hadn't seen anything else on the subject since. The device obviously works. But as noted in the article you linked, it's impractical. Kollos must be very small to fit both himself and one of those big flashlights into that travel box...

To deviate from the OP just a bit more—
A recon scout in Eric Frank Russel's novel NEXT OF KIN is captured by the enemy. They are poking through the hardware carried by the scout and discover a simple air pistol. It does not appear all that threatening, so the officer in charge decides to test it:

The weapon went phut! A tiny pellet burst on the wall and its contents immediately gasified. For a moment Klavith sat gazing in puzzlement at the damp spot. Then the awful stench hit him. His face took on a peculiar mottling, he leaned forward and spewed with such violence that he fell off his chair. Holding his nose with his left-hand, Leeming snatched the compass from the desk with hs right and raced for the door. The guard who had fired the gun was now rolling on the carpet and trying to turn himself inside-out with such single-minded concentration that he neither knew nor cared what anyone was doing. By the door the other guard had dropped his rifle while he leaned against the wall and emitted a rapid succession of violent whoops. Not one of the three was in any condition to pull up his own socks much less get in the way of an escapee.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Well, given that only severely crazy people have even seen a Medusan. It's unlikely that they would even give a description of what they saw, that wasn't tainted by madness.

This makes me think of the dusty old bromide about "If you fall in your dream and hit the ground, you die in real life". Who ever lived through that to tell others about it?

 

[T'Girl]

]Dr. Jones disproves this by wearing the visor ...

I wonder if the visor is simply a colored filter, or if it's something more complex, like a scanner/display that renders Koilo into a altered form that doesn't trigger insanity.

The realistic course of events is that everyone would satisfy their curiosity about what Medusans look like via photographes and such ...

Medusan porn?

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

I wonder if the visor is simply a colored filter, or if it's something more complex, like a scanner/display that renders Koilo into a altered form that doesn't trigger insanity.

You know, you've got me to thinking, who exactly built and designed the visor? Seems to me you'd have to know exactly what about the Medusans it is that drives people insane, and if the designer was immune, how would he know what to filter out?

Not to mention, the thing had to be tested. What pooor soul got that job?

Oh, and who's Koilo?

 

[kirkfan]

I wonder if the visor is simply a colored filter, or if it's something more complex, like a scanner/display that renders Koilo into a altered form that doesn't trigger insanity.

You know, you've got me to thinking, who exactly built and designed the visor? Seems to me you'd have to know exactly what about the Medusans it is that drives people insane, and if the designer was immune, how would he know what to filter out?

Not to mention, the thing had to be tested. What pooor soul got that job?

Oh, and who's Koilo?

Well, you can know something in theory which is both more useful in some cases and less harmful that knowing it in practice. Maybe by analyzing the brains of the victim you can infer the kind of stimuli that they were subjected to that put them in that state. As for the test subjects, well. I wonder how they test hazmat suits, for example.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Well, you can know something in theory which is both more useful in some cases and less harmful that knowing it in practice. Maybe by analyzing the brains of the victim you can infer the kind of stimuli that they were subjected to that put them in that state. As for the test subjects, well. I wonder how they test hazmat suits, for example.

Good point!

Also, is it really necessary to be able to look at a Medusan?

It's like, say, gruesome crime scene photos which are blurred for broadcast purposes. Sometimes, that seems worse, by invoking thre imagination of the viewer!

 

[Metryq]

I wonder how they test hazmat suits, for example.

Good point!

As Spock noted in one episode, sensors detect what they've been designed to detect. Hazmat suits aren't designed in a trial-and-error fashion by having people wear them. The suits are designed to block out known hazards—certain gases, biological agents, etc.—things that we already know something about. At some point, yes, someone will have to wear a suit against the hazard. But I imagine that's a last stage test, like test piloting today, where many aspects of a new design can be tested in unmanned ways before risking a pilot.

As for the Medusans, is sight really the whole story? Or is sight merely the buffer overflow that exposes a human to some other aspect of the Medusans?

Then again, why did Spock have to wear a visor, and why were the ship's corridors cleared when Ambassador Kollos would not be visible? Surely the Enterprise crew knew something of the Ambassador's nature—so that Spock would not confuse Dr. Jones for the Ambassador? All of that is atmosphere, part of the storytelling.

So is it the sight of the Medusans that is too much to bear (keep in mind that they are inherently telepathic), or is it a deep reflection of the beholder that is too much to bear?

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Then again, why did Spock have to wear a visor, and why were the ship's corridors cleared when Ambassador Kollos would not be visible?

I figured it was a precaution in case Kollos accidentally leaned up against the 'open' button for his hatchway.

 

[Melakon]

Also, is it really necessary to be able to look at a Medusan?

Only when trying to sell him a used car.

 

[kirkfan]

Also, is it really necessary to be able to look at a Medusan?

Only when trying to sell him a used car.

So why do all used car salesmen have shifty eyes.

Maybe they think, they're dealing with a Medusan...

 

[scotpens]

Oh, and who's Koilo?

One of the gangster bosses on the planet Sigma Iotia Two?

 

[kirkfan]

Oh, and who's Koilo?

One of the gangster bosses on the planet Sigma Iotia Two?

"I am gonna put the bag on you."

I think it's Kalo.

 

[Metryq]

No, Kollo is the one who's always dangerous because he never finishes sparklin'.

 

[CrazyMatt]

I always thought that this episode could have also been titled, "Is There in Beauty No Truth."

Or "This Is Really One Boring Hour."

Sorry.

 

[Shawnster]

I came to the conclusion they could build an encounter suit for Medusans. An android body they could control.

 

[kirkfan]

I came to the conclusion they could build an encounter suit for Medusans. An android body they could control.

Too bad it wasn't on Voyager or they could have given him a holographic body. (as they did for the Vidiian woman for instance or the bomb)

 

[Timo]

Interestingly, the idea that Kollos would drive humans mad because he's "ugly" is only introduced in the dinner scene, by McCoy - in a bit of banter that Kirk launched by speaking of beauty. Perhaps there's nothing to it in Trek reality, and McCoy is stretching the definition of "utterly hideous" to score a poetic point? That is, perhaps what actually is "utterly hideous" is the very fact that Medusans drive people mad, and aesthetics have nothing to do with it?

Beyond the dinner scene, any mention of Kollos' "ugliness" is with respect to Miranda Jones' beauty and either an attempt at flattery or an attempt to drive a wedge between her and Kollos...

Timo Saloniemi