Is Tin Man Species 8472?

[Guy Gardener]

Tinman is going to keep collecting more crew, urging them to make babies, and more babies, until we're into a Logan's Run Bio-Dome situation, where Gomtuu has to kick out the old people to make room for the next generation, or eat them, or juice the olds to make baby formula.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Tinman is going to keep collecting more crew, urging them to make babies, and more babies, until we're into a Logan's Run Bio-Dome situation, where Gomtuu has to kick out the old people to make room for the next generation, or eat them, or juice the olds to make baby formula.

Tinman is actually a Conman, who goes from a galaxy to galaxy pulling the same routine of "Oh I'm so lonely. I'm going to kill myself unless a kind telepath comes by and travels with me." Then he collects the telepath, feeds of its tasty telepathic powers, disposes of the remains, and it's off to the next galactic cluster for some more telepathic tastiness.

 

[Mudd]

The "no natural phenomena" line is another holdover from the spec script which specified Gomtuu' s cyborg nature.

It was also an deliberate contradiction of some canon that the authors thought was dumb.

 

[publiusr]

I can see 8472 wanting to capture Gomtuu, however.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You do recall that (when we first met 8472) they are arrogant xenophobes who destroy anything that is different?

 

[Myko]

Can Tam turn into a giant snake?

 

[Guy Gardener]

That's another possibility, like an episode of Botched Tinman might "rejigger" Tam's DNA until he is no longer Betazoid. Using the blokes biomass to resurrect the species that's "supposed" to pilot the ship.

Similar genus modification happened to Archer in Extinction, To Paris in Threshold and the entire crew of the Enterprise 1701d in Evolution.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

That's another possibility, like an episode of Botched Tinman might "rejigger" Tam's DNA until he is no longer Betazoid. Using the blokes biomass to resurrect the species that's "supposed" to pilot the ship.

Similar genus modification happened to Archer in Extinction, To Paris in Threshold and the entire crew of the Enterprise 1701d in Evolution.

More apropos, I would think, would be the crewmembers in "Identity Crisis."

 

[Guy Gardener]

That's one of those hard to watch episodes, that I never bothered with again.

A kooky timid misunderstood alien that only wants to be friends.

BAH!

I'm just wondering about the political ramifications of the Tinman incident?

The Romulans might even ask for reparations, to have Starfleet pay to have those two ships replaced, and Picard has to apologise to all the crew's families.

Obviously, that wouldn't happen, but the Romulans could still make similar demands.

 

[Shawnster]

Did species 8472 actually use starships? Or were those "starships" really just large members of that species? I don't remember if it was ever depicted those large 8472 ships could be borded.

Spoilers, sorry. Farpoint was a wish granting space whale.

Speaking of the other weirdo they encountered at Farpoint, the special effect used to show the Enterprise being pushed through space to safety in Tinman, was familiar. It looked (from memory) like in Q-Who when Q threw the Enterprise at the Borg.

I don't think Tinman is a Q, just that there is a constancy to certain aspects/forces in the universe, like gravity, light and magnetism.

So, the Farpoint aliens were giant telepathic ship-sized creatures that had an internal structure humanoids could walk through just like a starship.

Tinman was a giant telepathic ship sized creature that had an internal structure humanoids could walk through just like a starship.

Maybe Tinman is more closely related to the Farpoint creatures.

 

[Guy Gardener]

8472 had "bio-Ships" but I always assumed they were well trained animals like Cylon raiders, or husbands.

 

[cooleddie74]

Gomtuu would have really hit it big in pop culture had Ron Popeil or Billy Mays pimped Tin Man products on late night television. He did kind of look like a detergent packet or a steel wool pad.

Need to clean out an entire sector's worth of food stains and grease? TIN MAN IT®!

 

[Guy Gardener]

Tinman looked literally like a turd, or maybe a pinecone shaped like a turd.

It was a terrible design.

By Jove, those Romulan Warbirds were beautiful though.