Is Tin Man Species 8472?

[Christopher]

But there are a lot of similarities, are there not?

Similarity does not prove connection. Similarity is frequently the result of coincidence or parallel evolution. The eye evolved eight separate times in the history of life on Earth. All the different types of eye are similar because they evolved to fulfill similar needs and were shaped by the same laws of physics, but they evolved entirely independently of each other.

Then there's the common tendency to assume that if two works of fiction are similar, then one must be a "ripoff" of the other, when the reality is that accidental similarities happen all the time and it's hard for writers to avoid them. When I sent my first spec script off to TNG, they aired an episode with a similar premise the very next week, rendering all my work for naught. When I later pitched for VGR, it turned out that one of my pitches was similar to a movie script the producer I pitched to had written.

So similarity proves nothing but similarity. It's a big universe, and any viable pattern is bound to recur.

Semantics, IMO. Stars and Space could be seen as interchangeable to some species. There are stars in universe A, stars in universe B, and Fluidic space exists "between the stars".

And you accuse me of playing semantics? That's one of the most absurdly labored justifications I've ever heard, and it's completely unviable. The line about "the wastes between the stars" was spoken by Tam Elbrun before he'd even met Gomtuu, before he'd had any telepathic contact with it. It's in the scene where he first describes what the Starfleet probe detected and why he's been assigned to try to communicate with it. http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/168.htm So it is absolutely impossible that he could have any specific knowledge of Gomtuu's origins when he says those words.

 

[Edynol]

I don't understand this need to connect everything to everything else.

There is no need to connect everything. The need is of knowledge. Discovering the origins of things. And being that our knowledge of the universe is limited, we tend to make connections to things we know to exist first. Then if that theory is conclusively proven, we look to discover something knew and explore other theories to better understand something. Just human nature.

 

[Paradise City]

Tin Man and his space armadillo pals had been buzzing around our spacial dimension for donkeys years.

Whereas the spaces hornets are in fluidic space. You'd have to strangle the life out of canon to contrive even a tenuous link between the two.

 

[Edynol]

Similarity does not prove connection. Similarity is frequently the result of coincidence or parallel evolution. The eye evolved eight separate times in the history of life on Earth. All the different types of eye are similar because they evolved to fulfill similar needs and were shaped by the same laws of physics, but they evolved entirely independently of each other.

Then there's the common tendency to assume that if two works of fiction are similar, then one must be a "ripoff" of the other, when the reality is that accidental similarities happen all the time and it's hard for writers to avoid them. When I sent my first spec script off to TNG, they aired an episode with a similar premise the very next week, rendering all my work for naught. When I later pitched for VGR, it turned out that one of my pitches was similar to a movie script the producer I pitched to had written.

So similarity proves nothing but similarity. It's a big universe, and any viable pattern is bound to recur.

This is correct. But it still doesn't disprove my theory. See, I am willing to see the other side and acknowledge I may be wrong. Why can't you acknowledge I might be right? Maybe bring up some differences between two as I have brought up similarities?

And you accuse me of playing semantics? That's one of the most absurdly labored justifications I've ever heard, and it's completely unviable. The line about "the wastes between the stars" was spoken by Tam Elbrun before he'd even met Gomtuu, before he'd had any telepathic contact with it. It's in the scene where he first describes what the Starfleet probe detected and why he's been assigned to try to communicate with it. http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/168.htm So it is absolutely impossible that he could have any specific knowledge of Gomtuu's origins when he says those words.

I did accuse you of semantics. I was merely giving an example. And yes, it was an absurd example. My point was to show the over all absurdity of that particular argument.

 

[cooleddie74]

This thread gives me Harry Groener-like facial spasms of delight.

 

[CorporalClegg]

 

[cooleddie74]

Close the thread, mods. It's not going to get any more awesome than this.

 

[Edynol]

Yeah I loved Buffy. I discovered Tam was the Mayor while researching. Seems every TV show in existance has some connection to Star Trek. What I mean is, I can't think of any series that doesn't have an episode with someone who played a character in one of the ST series. XD

 

[Kemaiku]

What do the Undine need with a living space turd?

 

[Edynol]

What do the Undine need with a living space turd?

Like I said, it may had been one their earlier vessels. Gomtuu was very, very old. Maybe one of their first vessels. It somehow got out of fluidic space, maybe an experiment gone wrong or something, and got stuck in regular space with no way to get back.

 

[cooleddie74]

Living Space Turds was the most underrated Parliament Funkadelic album. You shut your dirty whore mouth now.

 

[Kor]

No, Gomtuu isn't Species 8-4-7-2. If they were meant to be related, then TPTB would have indicated it.

Kor

 

[Mudd]

I doubt that the writers who created Species 8472 had the episode "Tin Man" in mind when they did so - there's no way to know, but there's no evidence of it. Certainly there was no intention on the part of the "Tin Man" writers to place the story in any other context but the immediate one.

That said, the OP is correct in that later Trek writers could create explicit connections between previous bits of continuity in any way they chose. There's no evidence that they did so or meant to do so in this case. But yeah, the parts could be made to fit without too much stretching.

The "Tin Man" writers did have their own vague notions of Gomtuu's origins, which had nothing to do with fluidic space.

The phrase "living its life in the wastes between the stars" was a posturing neophyte's notion of an evocative phrase for interstellar space, nothing more.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I have another interpretation of that phrase, if you don't mind.

Tinman is a shit eater.

Remember the Destiny from Stargate Universe refueling by opening up it's gills and then diving into a sun?

What if Tin Man refueled by snorting up pollution (waste) from other star faring cultures? And if it finds a large enough volume of waste in space, between the stars, it just sits there getting fat, until it's all gone?

I may mean warp plasma waste/exhaust dumped in space, or I may literally mean bio waste dumped in space like those thousands of coffin sized blue bricks of toilet-water and doodoo big aeroplanes jettison every day here on Earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ice_(aviation)

15 dolphins a year die from falling blue ice. Sad.

 

[Mudd]

(Not about the dolphins. That's sad. ).

 

[cooleddie74]

I like the mystery of Gomtuu. We saw just one of its kind and its fate remained a mystery after the episode concluded. I lean towards Tin Man being a lifeform that evolved in the depths of uncharted space and, as the episode suggests, spends its natural life journeying between stars and deriving sustenance along the way from the compatible matter found in the interstellar void.

Would it be cool to learn more about Gomtuu's origins and others like it? Sure, I suppose. But much like V'Ger's fate after joining with Will Decker and absorbing Ilia and disappearing into space I think it's much cooler and interesting to leave Tin Man and its species an unsolved mystery. In this case a mystery whose resolution is perhaps known only to Tam Elbrun.

#NerdskillzYo

 

[GNDN18]

I doubt that the writers who created Species 8472 had the episode "Tin Man" in mind when they did so - there's no way to know, but there's no evidence of it. Certainly there was no intention on the part of the "Tin Man" writers to place the story in any other context but the immediate one.

That said, the OP is correct in that later Trek writers could create explicit connections between previous bits of continuity in any way they chose. There's no evidence that they did so or meant to do so in this case. But yeah, the parts could be made to fit without too much stretching.

The "Tin Man" writers did have their own vague notions of Gomtuu's origins, which had nothing to do with fluidic space.

The phrase "living its life in the wastes between the stars" was a posturing neophyte's notion of an evocative phrase for interstellar space, nothing more.

This is so deliciously gracious. You've restored my faith in humanity.

 

[fireproof78]

I like the mystery of Gomtuu. We saw just one of its kind and its fate remained a mystery after the episode concluded. I lean towards Tin Man being a lifeform that evolved in the depths of uncharted space and, as the episode suggests, spends its natural life journeying between stars and deriving sustenance along the way from the compatible matter found in the interstellar void.

Would it be cool to learn more about Gomtuu's origins and others like it? Sure, I suppose. But much like V'Ger's fate after joining with Will Decker and absorbing Ilia and disappearing into space I think it's much cooler and interesting to leave Tin Man and its species an unsolved mystery. In this case a mystery whose resolution is perhaps known only to Tam Elbrun.

#NerdskillzYo

They actually jumped back in time and became the first Leviathan in Farscape

 

[JRTStarlight]

One might reach for the "possible" and try to build on it as they might firm ground or bedrock - particularly when they wish to write a story and need to use an idea, but also wish not to violate canon - but for speculation, I prefer the probable.

For that, I'd have to see far more connections or similarities between Gomtuu and species 8472 before I'd even bandy about the word "hypothesis" let alone the word "theory" and demand it be disproven first before doubting the idea.

The wastelands between the stars is just a perfectly natural phrase and expression of interstellar space, which is mostly an empty and lifeless vacuum, and it doesn't even begin to suggest interdimensional origins. The enormity of the galaxy alone makes it far more likely two similar things are unrelated than related, so in the absence of more proof to the contrary, that is a better starting position with far fewer assumptions.

Can one write a story about how Gomtuu is related to species 8472 and not violate canon? Probably. But without a better reason than those stated, I probably wouldn't, and I sure wouldn't assume they were related from anything I've seen.

If anything, our natural tendency to try to connect things or relate things to one another when there is no obvious connection and only a passing similarity is . . . unfortunate, and usually wrong.

 

[Mudd]

The phrase "has evolved or has adapted itself" to serve as a spaceship represented a specific idea about Gomtuu's origin. It was something borrowed (ahem) from Stapledon's Star Maker - the symbiosis between the two species evolved naturally on a planet, and one of the species was modified to serve as a host vessel for the other when they began exploring space together.