Korby's androids

[ZapBrannigan]

And, if he's programmed to service the machines and protect, why did he rescue korby?

But I suppose I can give the benefit of the doubt there....

However I'm still mystified on brown. He was only partially transferred. Poor guy, got the short straw.

And no others from the research group made it?

Brown does not come across as a guy with all of his personality intact. But he's pretty hip for a robot. We just can't tell.

The whole story may never be told. Just as Spock's library computer has fragmentary data on the 1990s, we're missing a lot of detail about 23rd century events.

 

[Melakon]

And , if he's programmed to service the machines and protect, why did he rescue korby?

Perhaps his original Old Ones programming was to perform machine maintenance and serve as an android St. Bernard. He may have been more of a caretaker of the underground complex than a guard. The protection order doesn't seem to come up until Korby programs him to protect his experiments.

 

[Timo]

I have always wondered what happened to the others like Ruk

Were there others like Ruk?

Note that the installation has doorways shaped to fit the Krell species, rather than ones suited for humanoids like Ruk, and all furniture suited for humans appears cobbled together. Perhaps the Old Ones were actually giant crabs, and their servant robots were accordingly shaped. "Ruk" may have been what the machines spat out when they realized that a new master, now shaped like Korby, was in need of robotic services. It's just the servant's latest body, many of the former ones having been crab-shaped.

Ruk actually being an entity residing in the installation's mainframe most of the time would also make it natural for him to locate and assist Korby originally: he'd have ears and eyes everywhere, waiting for masters in need, and would only develop a pair of helping hands when needed. Although we don't need to assume Korby was found outside; rather, his survival may be due to him finding his way inside the installation first.

The protection order doesn't seem to come up until Korby programs him to protect his experiments.

Good point. And while the Old Ones may have died exactly because their servants became overeager as guardians, Ruk thereafter may have lost his appetite for guarding and developed a yearning for servitude, that is, companionship. He does have the ability to flexibly reprogram and reprioritize himself; he only struggles with circumventing direct orders.

I'm still a bit unconvinced that Korby did to himself (or had Ruk do to himself) what he did to Kirk. That is, Kirk got "synthetic organs" while Korby got "direct transfer (of mind and soul)" - but it doesn't appear that the opposite would be true, as the copy of Kirk was programmed and reputed to be less than the original, while the copy (?) of Korby had rather crude-looking mechanical parts inside.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Melakon]

Maybe the lump of Play-Doh used on the carousel was Korby's refinement of the process, with Andrea as the result. Unless she's Korby and Brown's transistor sister*.


* = apologies to Freddy Cannon.

 

[Redfern]

Apropos of nothing, but consider the "turntable" approach of creating these androids.

I have this goofy mental image of Andrea having her, ahem, "pectoral mass" veering to the side due to the centrifugal force of the rotation!

"Quick, Ruk! Before the 'material' sets! Spin the apparatus in the opposite direction to offset the 'lean'!"

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[johnnybear]

I've always thought that Korby died of frostbite perhaps due to the terrible conditions on the surface! But before Dying Ruk transferred his mind into one of the android duplicates!
JB

 

[Forbin]

^Which makes me wonder - if the machine duplicates an exact copy of the source material onto an android body, why wouldn't the android be reproduced with the same physical injuries as the original?

 

[johnnybear]

That defeats the object of duplication surely?
JB

 

[ZapBrannigan]

...if the machine duplicates an exact copy of the source material onto an android body, why wouldn't the android be reproduced with the same physical injuries as the original?

I've taken a long, careful look at these knobs...

...and they appear to offer enough positional versatility, or fine tuning if you will, to allow Andrea to control for that problem. She can "dial out" deformities and injuries in the original to create an idealized copy.

I love a fembot who knows what she's doing.

 

[Forbin]

I'm taking a long look at those knobs too!

 

[Vandervecken]

Note that the installation has doorways shaped to fit the Krell species,

Wait--we know it's the Krell? The Forbidden Planet Krell?

I'm not saying they might not have been hinting at that, but do we know this somehow?

 

[Timo]

I don't think any Trek novelist has made quite that connection, but several have in-jokingly referred to the FB Krell existing in the Trek universe... Peter David does that a lot.

No, it's just that it's so obvious where those doorway shapes came from ITRW. And much less obvious why they would later be seen on purely UFP installations, or those of alien species that had no excuse for not always having been humanoid.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Commander Balok]

I'm not sure you can infer anything from the shapes of the doors beyond that they are what set designers thought looked good for a science fiction show. The basic shape appeared everywhere except the Enterprise.

The Krell also had those odd locks - the wheels you could spin and cant in various directions. We never saw those, or anything that might be an homage to them.

 

[Maurice]

Krell doors are just squares rotated 45 degrees with the floor cutting off the bottom, thus 5-sided. Those Trek doorways are 6-sided.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Krell doors are just squares rotated 45 degrees with the floor cutting off the bottom, thus 5-sided. Those Trek doorways are 6-sided.

Krell doors are stupid. Don't put them in your house. We're getting rid of ours. It's going to be all 6-sided with us.

 

[Forbin]

You want Forbidden Planet references? Watch Requiem for Methusela - old man alone on a barren world with his beautiful young "daughter", visiting spaceship captain falls for the girl, servant robot built by the old man, robot disables hand weapons, old man a victim of his own hubris... story details differ, and the payoff is different, of course, but the broad strokes are there.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

You want Forbidden Planet references? Watch Requiem for Methusela - old man alone on a barren world with his beautiful young "daughter", visiting spaceship captain falls for the girl, servant robot built by the old man, robot disables hand weapons, old man a victim of his own hubris... story details differ, and the payoff is different, of course, but the broad strokes are there.

There's nothing to see here, folks. Move along!

 

[johnnybear]

You want Forbidden Planet references? Watch Requiem for Methusela - old man alone on a barren world with his beautiful young "daughter", visiting spaceship captain falls for the girl, servant robot built by the old man, robot disables hand weapons, old man a victim of his own hubris... story details differ, and the payoff is different, of course, but the broad strokes are there.

Wonder if Gregory Widen liked this episode? Might explain his love of immortals fighting each other down through the ages! Maybe Flint won and left earth to go into space and gain the prize?
JB

 

[Commander Balok]

You want Forbidden Planet references? Watch Requiem for Methusela - old man alone on a barren world with his beautiful young "daughter", visiting spaceship captain falls for the girl, servant robot built by the old man, robot disables hand weapons, old man a victim of his own hubris... story details differ, and the payoff is different, of course, but the broad strokes are there.

Well, they're both based on The Tempest, so...

Bixby later wrote a script for a film called "The Man From Earth" which is about an immortal. It's... okay. Basically, it's a conversation between a number of people after they learn an acquaintance is immortal, and thousands of years old.

 

[ThankYouGeneR]

Interesting discussion.