Matt Decker...Hero or fool?

[Maurice]

At the top of the episode Kirk says "Every solar system in this sector blasted to rubble." It seems the DDM is still within System L-374 when Spock reports the two inner planets appear intact, because the DDM jumps the Enterprise shortly after it starts towing the Constellation. So, yes, AFTER this the DDM breaks off and goes "back on course for the next solar system--the Rigel colony, sir," but there's no indication that this was the case when Decker encountered it. Everything he appears to have seen indicated the DDM would smash all planets in each solar system it entered.

Now, as to WHY the DDM would leave L-374 with two planets intact, perhaps pursuing the Enterprise led it far enough from the system that when it broke off it continued on its primary course rather than backtracking to the system it left?

 

[Wingsley]

Kirk and Spock wanted the record to reflect well on Decker, for the good of the service.

Decker was neither a hero or a fool. He was simply a victim. His ship met an overwhelming force that he and his crew could not comprehend. As with the Intrepid, the unlucky crew met a super-powerful threat and was victimized so that Kirk and company could sail in and learn from their mistakes, stop the monster and save the day.

So Kirk's duty was to consider Decker's death to be a sacrifice. In a sense, it was. But Decker didn't get command of a starship or flag rank by being a fool. The catastrophe of loosing his ship and crew was too much for him; it affected his mental state and made him into Moby Dick. So, I guess if you consider Decker's breakdown made him into a "fool", then he was one. I see him as a victim.

 

[Son_of_Soong]

And how many other times has kirk, picard, sisko, janeway and archer saved the day through pure luck, it happens all the time to everyone else.

 

[Maurice]

Wingsley said:...The catastrophe of loosing his ship and crew was too much for him; it affected his mental state and made him into Moby Dick.

I think you mean Captain Ahab. Moby Dick was the whale.

 

[Timo]

The episode has at least one major and a couple of minor instances where the writer dropped the ball and left it for the audience to pick up. As written, the plot makes sense only in the broadest terms.

The big one is the utter insanity of the decision to "protect" a crew by sending it ashore. As already examined here, the decision cannot be rationally defended - but that as such is not a damning fault, because we see that the individual who made the decision was not rational. We just have to drop the notion that Decker would have been sane at the crucial unseen moments that led to the loss of his crew. How we do that is up to personal interpretation - Decker could be a cold-blooded defender of greater good, a cowardly hero, a dangerous lunatic, or simply confused or frozen at the key moment. The one uninteresting choice would be to have him be the same sort of mental wreck before and after the incident, as the episode indeed is about change. The one impossible choice would be to have him be the spitting image of the composed, rational Kirk up until his great loss.

The other obvious problem is the leaps of logic made by our heroes in determining the motivations and goals of the DDM. Spock's claim that it came from outside the galaxy is of course rubbish, because he can only determine that a star system has been destroyed if the Enterprise enters that system. At very best, he has established that a short stretch of the DDM's path of destruction is pointed at the denser parts of our galaxy at the forward end and at the less dense parts at the other. We'd need to know how fast the thing moves, and how long it has kept on going, to understand whence it came from.

And what do we learn in system 374? That the DDM heads out towards its next target at impulse speed, slower than the crippled Constellation can follow. Indeed, it may have taken a full year for it to get from system 370 to 374 as far as the evidence goes. At such a speed, Decker's haste in stopping the beast is completely misplaced, as he could not only sail out to warn Starfleet, but tell them to build the fleet needed to stop the DDM and have it waiting at Rigel a few years from now.

Of course, the DDM at first pursues the Enterprise, which explicitly remains fully capable of warp. If the monster is limited to impulse, why doesn't Spock immediately warp to safety? But since warp is optional for the Enterprise yet impossible for the Constellation, we really have to go by the latter evidence of impulse speed here. Probably Spock just didn't want to abandon his captain with an immediate warp maneuver.

A smaller nit is that Kirk decides the DDM is a DDM on flimsy evidence indeed. There is no real effort to determine the actual motivations of the device. By evidence so far, anything between a berserker intent on sterilizing our galaxy, a precision weapon aimed at building up strength until it can attack the mighty Noseeums, and a benevolent probe that only eats lifeless worlds to survive, would be possible. Strategies could be formulated to defeat each of those, yet neither Decker (who has the luxury of time and resources) nor Kirk (who doesn't) really opts for one.

The episode works even with these plot holes and leaps of logic, but it doesn't tell a full story. For that, at least some degree of speculation is always needed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dale]

Jackson_Roykirk said:

Dale Hoppert said:

Jackson_Roykirk said:I think that William Windom's performance was among the best in all of TOS, and in the top 10 of all Star Trek TV.

Don't you think I know that?!?

...followed by a matter-of fact and oddly sarcastic "there was, but not anymore!"
Those are my favorite lines and favorite scene from all of TOS.

:thumbsup: Yup... mine too.

 

[Maurice]

^^^To be fair, it's never said if the Enterprise is at warp at any point in the story, so we don't really know how fast the DDM can move.

 

[Timo]

The issue of warp vs. impulse was always muddled in TOS... It's only relatively seldom that this hurts the plot, though. In this instance, we hear the Constellation can't go to warp; then we get a running battle between the DDM and the Enterprise; the latter receives a few hits but the warp engines are said to still be working; then there's more running, with the DDM said to be heading for its next target; and then the Constellation catches up with the action.

So we don't know how fast the DDM can move - but we know how fast it does move. That is, not as fast as the crippled Constellation. So flying either this crippled ship or the supposedly much faster Enterprise to beyond the jamming field of the DDM would seem a prudent choice.

The speed issue thus makes it look as if Decker pursued a doubly irrational approach in trying to attack the DDM. If the enemy were at least a bit faster than the hero ships, then Decker would have more of a point in attacking. And the writer may indeed have intended for Decker to be rational here, interestingly leaving Spock the irrational, emotional guy who wants to save his captain while billions of lives are at stake.

So, technobabble turns a plot point upside down. Not too often that this would happen in TOS. But it definitely is something that happens in "Doomsday Machine" - even by the internal rules of the episode, without need to evoke the general rules of TOS let alone the spinoffs.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[siskokid888]

I remember reading (I can't recall where) that the writer of the episode originally wanted Decker to be found sitting in his command chair with a determined look on his face, rather then slumped over a desk. This would lend some creedence to the idea that, in the original story, he had some plan in mind by beaming the crew down, and the plan obviously failed, but he was determined to get revenge. Whether this makes him a hero or fool is debatable. Roddenberry and co. thought that presenting him that way made him less sympathetic and too "hard assed", so they changed it to the filmed version.

 

[Shaw]

So lets make sure that we are all getting this straight... any captain whose ship is disabled while under direct enemy attack and orders his crew to abandon ship to the surface of a planet that is about to be destroyed is (by your definition) utterly insane. His decision cannot be rationally defended and is either a cold-blooded defender of greater good, a cowardly hero, a dangerous lunatic, or simply confused or frozen at the key moment.

I can accept that you feel that way, and that from your point of view this is the only way to read this. But your own logic falls apart with this statement...

Timo said:
The one impossible choice would be to have him be the spitting image of the composed, rational Kirk up until his great loss.

That statement defies all logic considering that in those exact same circumstances Kirk made pretty much the exact same choices (that is, after all, the circumstances under which the Enterprise herself was destroyed).


As for your other leaps of logic, if the path of destruction is not parallel in any way with the plane of our galaxy, and starts near the upper or lower boundary of the galactic disk, then one could assume that it came from outside. And your description of what was said as denser parts of our galaxy is not accurate, he stated that it was headed for the most densely populated parts of our own galaxy. The Planet Killer speed can be determined by the fact that both the Enterprise and Constellation only just then found destroyed solar systems, which means that the Planet Killer must be able to reach warp speeds... just maybe not within the influence of a star system.

Additionally, the Constellation doesn't need to follow at any great speed because the Enterprise and Planet Killer are engaged in a cat and mouse battle which kept both of them within range of the Constellation.


What I basically get from your statements is pretty much the same as I got before... you want Decker to fit your idea of the maniacal villain of this episode, and nothing (specially not the circumstances of the story) will stand in your way of painting him that way.

 

[Timo]

Why the overtly personal take? Why the italics? Why the hyperbole? Why all the fuss? Can't these things be discussed without undue passion?

any captain whose ship is disabled while under direct enemy attack and orders his crew to abandon ship to the surface of a planet that is about to be destroyed is (by your definition) utterly insane.

Indeed. This may be due to severe mental deficiency, or then hidden knowledge that there is in fact some sense in the action.

Decker wouldn't have any reason to think the planet would be spared, not after looking at half a dozen systems turned into rubble already. At most, he might have hidden knowledge that the planet killer could be stopped if the crew were to be sent away from the ship (even to the deadly planet if necessary) and a single expendable pilot were to perform a suicidal mission. Which is what I very much like to postulate, considering that this is what Decker later attempts, and what eventually succeeds in crippling the DDM.

If I don't suggest this, then the only choice left is that Decker is a maniacal villain. And that's not a path I want to take.

That statement defies all logic considering that in those exact same circumstances Kirk made pretty much the exact same choices

As far as ST3:TSfS goes, Kirk had no knowledge that the planet was about to break up. Moreover, he was aware that Klingons were holding hostages down there. And ultimately, he was trying to get to that planet, to retrieve Spock's body (and now that of his son as well).

So I can see absolutely no merit to your argument in this respect. Sorry.

if the path of destruction is not parallel in any way with the plane of our galaxy, and starts near the upper or lower boundary of the galactic disk, then one could assume that it came from outside.

If the path really began at the upper or lower boundary (such things exist in the Trek galaxy although not really in ours), this might be true. However, we get no such indication from the episode. It would be a nice addition, of course, but surely that belongs to the fanfic section?

In terms of distances normally traversed by our heroes, the snippet of path they explored could at very most give them a line of search for the points of origin and destination. And unless that line was absolutely straight (and I cannot see how it could be, as no neighboring star systems would naturally lie in a straight line) the errors would be staggering.

This is really a minor technical-treknological nitpick, far from having the plot effects that the why-did-Decker-strand-the-crew thing does. But it's IMHO worth mentioning anyway. It has at least the following consequences:

If our heroes really have surveyed a line of destruction that has some statistical significance - say, a line a thousand lightyears long - then they must have visited hundreds of star systems. Surely the mood of the episode doesn't support this. Even the star system designations only suggest half a dozen systems visited.

Alternately, they have only visited half a dozen systems along a path a thousand lightyears long. But then they would have skipped a great many systems en route. And they would have no proof that the DDM doesn't skip systems as well. The theory about a benevolent probe that only eats lifeless systems could hold true, then, and Rigel would be under no threat.

But this is a common fallacy in all sorts of fiction. Trek does this in half a dozen other episodes later on, most recently in ENT "Regeneration" where our heroes only get the direction into which a Borg subspace message is sent, and immediately divine the distance to which it is aimed, and its arrival there. That just plain doesn't work unless additional knowledge exists - lines of search do not give points of origin or destination.

And your description of what was said as denser parts of our galaxy is not accurate, he stated that it was headed for the most densely populated parts of our own galaxy.

Oops, sorry. That's what I meant. Although it's probably the same thing.

..the Planet Killer must be able to reach warp speeds... just maybe not within the influence of a star system.

Excellent theory. Good material for fanfic.

Additionally, the Constellation doesn't need to follow at any great speed because the Enterprise and Planet Killer are engaged in a cat and mouse battle which kept both of them within range of the Constellation.

I don't really think this is sufficient excuse here. The order of events should be noted:

1) Heroes arrive, board Constellation
2) DDM attacks, Spock raises shields, maneuvers a little bit
3) Spock gets back to Constellation, lowers shields for retrieval of boarding party, gets blasted by DDM
4) Spock continues evasive, course not established; Kirk attempts engine repairs
5) Spock outruns DDM
6) DDM veers to new course, for the next system
7) Spock wants to double back to the Constellation; apparently some separation has emerged between her and the Enterprise at this stage
Decker overrules, begins attack; DDM seems to continue on course
9) Kirk finally gets the Constellation moving, at slow impulse; the battle is within viewing range
10) The Enterprise loses warp and veers off; but apparently, loss of warp would not have necessitated abandoning the battle
11) DDM captures Decker's ship in tractor beam
12) Kirk reaches phaser range, frees Decker from tractor beam
13) DDM gives chase at impulse speed, eating rubble as it moves
14) Kirk gives chase at one third impulse
15) Decker steals shuttle, dives into DDM
16) DDM continues chase
17) Kirk dives into DDM in turn, destroying it

Of interest here is the chain of events from 6 to 11. During that time, the DDM gives no indication of folding back, or maneuvering, or even acknowledging Decker's futile attacks. That should put considerable separation between Kirk and Decker if the DDM and Decker maneuvered at warp, yet 12 shows this is not the case.

Furthermore, we already heard in 5 that Spock initially got rid of the DDM by outrunning it. That strongly implies that the DDM was slower than Spock, in simple, straight-line terms. Yet this straight race didn't suffice for putting distance between Spock and Kirk. Either it happened at relatively low speeds, or then it happened in a direction that was exactly cancelled by the course that the DDM later took towards Rigel.

Subsequently, and more damningly, 13 through 17 shows the DDM giving deliberate chase and still being overtaken by a ship that moves at one third impulse power. So we need some more fanfic here. Perhaps the DDM was playing sadistically with its prey? Or perhaps it knew that Spock's ship would soon lose fuel, and intended to take it easy until then? I'm at loss of other theories to justify 13-17 (except of course to say that the DDM at its very best could only do about 1/3 starship impulse speed). Any ideas?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RobertScorpio]

I loved your numbers the events. Great job. If they ever remake COLUMBO, you are my first pick!!

 

[Shaw]

I write the way I write, it is nothing personal and it isn't going to change... when including ideas or statements that are not my own within text, they will be italicized.

Timo said:
Decker wouldn't have any reason to think the planet would be spared, not after looking at half a dozen systems turned into rubble already. At most, he might have hidden knowledge that the planet killer could be stopped if the crew were to be sent away from the ship (even to the deadly planet if necessary) and a single expendable pilot were to perform a suicidal mission. Which is what I very much like to postulate, considering that this is what Decker later attempts, and what eventually succeeds in crippling the DDM.

I think he had every intension to follow his crew to the surface the same way Kirk had in ST:III. And he had no reason to think that the Constellation would be spared either. Moving to the planet was most like an attempt to buy time to think of something else while the Planet Killer finished off the Constellation.

But there were no suicide attack plans, the Constellation was dead in space at this point... had Scotty not thought of using the warp control circuits on the impulse engines, it wouldn't have moved under it's own power again.

If we return to what was said (I know you show little regard for this, as you think he was destroying records with a phaser before the Enterprise arrived)...

• Decker: We... We were dead. No power, our phasers useless. I stayed behind, the last man. The captain, the last man aboard the ship... That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? And then it hit again and the transporter went out.

Beyond making sure that everyone had left first, I don't think he had planned on staying on the Constellation as it would have been pointless.

If he had kept a small crew aboard with him, then I could imagine that he was going to attempt to get the Constellation running again for an attack... but that didn't happen.

As far as ST3:TSfS goes, Kirk had no knowledge that the planet was about to break up. Moreover, he was aware that Klingons were holding hostages down there. And ultimately, he was trying to get to that planet, to retrieve Spock's body (and now that of his son as well).

So I can see absolutely no merit to your argument in this respect. Sorry.

No need to be sorry, you just need to get better versed in Trek.

From ST:III...

• Saavik: He is not himself -- but he lives. He is subject to rapid aging -- like this unstable planet.

But the Klingons were holding hostages, maybe they would be willing to take more? In Kirks mind, not likely... they had just killed his son, and we should recall what Kirk told Saavik after the Kobayashi Maru scenario...

• Kirk: Prayer, Mister Saavik. The Klingons don't take prisoners.

So moving the crew to the planet, there was no guarantee that they would leave it (dead or alive) before it met it's end.

If the path really began at the upper or lower boundary (such things exist in the Trek galaxy although not really in ours), this might be true. However, we get no such indication from the episode. It would be a nice addition, of course, but surely that belongs to the fanfic section?

You seem to be talking about a barrier... I'm not. The physical nature of the Milky Way was well known by the time that the episode was in production, so that scientific information can also be assumed.

If you are unaware that the galaxy is basically a flattened disk, that isn't my problem or a problem with the episode itself... it is just another reason why you are getting a lot of this stuff wrong.

In terms of distances normally traversed by our heroes, the snippet of path they explored could at very most give them a line of search for the points of origin and destination. And unless that line was absolutely straight (and I cannot see how it could be, as no neighboring star systems would naturally lie in a straight line) the errors would be staggering.

The error's would have been Spock's to answer for, so I see no reason to waste time on this when it is Decker we are talking about.

Excellent theory. Good material for fanfic.

Not really, see if it doesn't move at warp speed (as you suggested) then it would take years (again, like you suggested) to go from system to system.

Now, if I had no evidence, sure, you could call that fanfic... but I rarely work without evidence.

• Spock: Captain, sensors show this entire solar system has been destroyed. Nothing left but rubble and asteroids.
  Kirk: But that's incredible. The star in this system is still intact. Only a nova could destroy like that.
  Spock: Nonetheless, Captain, sensors show nothing but debris where we charted seven planets last year.

It didn't have years to move from system to system, these systems had been charted relatively recently. So the only way for it to move from system to system that fast would be at warp speeds.

Sorry, that was part of the story itself.

Of interest here is the chain of events from 6 to 11. During that time, the DDM gives no indication of folding back, or maneuvering, or even acknowledging Decker's futile attacks. That should put considerable separation between Kirk and Decker if the DDM and Decker maneuvered at warp, yet 12 shows this is not the case.

And yet when the Enterprise is fired upon and is caught by the Planet Killer (which can only fire in the general direction of travel). And the Constellation hasn't moved throughout all this, yet Kirk can see it unfolding on his screen and hopes that moving the Constellation will be enough to distract the Planet Killer. That would seem to be pretty close to me. And after only a few moments of moving, the Constellation was back within weapons range.


Now, what you should keep in mind is that I have watched this episode... a lot. You are going to have a hard time arguing it if you haven't watched it enough, so you may want to get a copy to review before attempting any further posts. Have the episode on hand and double checking your theories before posting would save all of us a lot of trouble.

Just a suggestion.

 

[Shaw]

RobertScorpio said:
If they ever remake COLUMBO, you are my first pick!!

Well, if it is Columbo minus the attention to detail or logic, then yeah, Timo would be my first pick too.

 

[Maurice]

^^^A few nits, Timo:

5 and 6 could have the DDM chasing the Enterprise back beyond the Constellation. There's no reason to think they were constantly moving away from her.

11 why "Decker's ship" and not "the Enterprise". That's a little confusing.

14 To clarify for everyone, is "one third impulse power", not a speed. This means probably less than .33c, since I doubt full impulse is c.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Very interesting thread.

Timo said:

any captain whose ship is disabled while under direct enemy attack and orders his crew to abandon ship to the surface of a planet that is about to be destroyed is (by your definition) utterly insane.

Indeed. This may be due to severe mental deficiency, or then hidden knowledge that there is in fact some sense in the action.

I must say that Decker's beaming the crew down to a planet that had an extremely high probability of being destroyed always seemed to me to be indication of at least serious incompetence and more likely insanity.

That Decker might have come up with the same plan as Kirk eventually does hadn't occured to me.

The DDM doesn't seem to mind that the Constellation, piloted by Kirk is heading striaght into its maw, but according to Decker, it attacked the Constellation with just him aboard.

Maybe Decker's mistake was to do something that aggravated the DDM as he was flying into its maw? Maybe he used the last remaining phaser power or some other agressive action?

Having to listen, helplessly as his crew begged for help afterwards would be enough to unbalance a lot of people, I would imagine.

 

[Vance]

Did he get emotionally crushed AFTER the deaths of his crew, while he was helpless to do anything? Sounds like it.

But, thinking that Decker murdered his crew is some all new level of Orewellian think here. Decker knew that any odds of survival were slim, and the the DDM was still attacking even as he was sending the crew down! The Constellation was dead, holes all over it, and the DDM was still attacking. It left just AFTER the transporters were taken out, the last of the Constellation's worthwhile capabilities...

So it then took out the planet.

 

[Nebusj]

TigerOfDarkness said:
I must say that Decker's beaming the crew down to a planet that had an extremely high probability of being destroyed always seemed to me to be indication of at least serious incompetence and more likely insanity.

Not at all. Beaming down to the planet for shelter must have been at least apparently reasonable or else Decker could not have got his entire crew to beam down. Decker's first officer and medical officer would be as aware of the potential for the Captain becoming irrational under extreme circumstances as Spock and McCoy were concerned for Kirk -- and they did question his competence when it seemed he was going out too far on a limb.

Therefore, beaming down to the third planet must have appeared somewhat reasonable, at minimum as reasonable as remaining aboard did.

While Decker was clearly shell-shocked when discovered, this would not likely have affected him during Constellation's battle with the planet killer. Decker was returned to active, alert, competent behavior on McCoy's treatment: Decker's medical officer would provide similar medication while she or he was able.

 

[Wingsley]

Timo said:
The episode has at least one major and a couple of minor instances where the writer dropped the ball and left it for the audience to pick up. As written, the plot makes sense only in the broadest terms.

The big one is the utter insanity of the decision to "protect" a crew by sending it ashore. As already examined here, the decision cannot be rationally defended - but that as such is not a damning fault, because we see that the individual who made the decision was not rational. We just have to drop the notion that Decker would have been sane at the crucial unseen moments that led to the loss of his crew. How we do that is up to personal interpretation - Decker could be a cold-blooded defender of greater good, a cowardly hero, a dangerous lunatic, or simply confused or frozen at the key moment. The one uninteresting choice would be to have him be the same sort of mental wreck before and after the incident, as the episode indeed is about change. The one impossible choice would be to have him be the spitting image of the composed, rational Kirk up until his great loss.

The other obvious problem is the leaps of logic made by our heroes in determining the motivations and goals of the DDM. Spock's claim that it came from outside the galaxy is of course rubbish, because he can only determine that a star system has been destroyed if the Enterprise enters that system. At very best, he has established that a short stretch of the DDM's path of destruction is pointed at the denser parts of our galaxy at the forward end and at the less dense parts at the other. We'd need to know how fast the thing moves, and how long it has kept on going, to understand whence it came from.

And what do we learn in system 374? That the DDM heads out towards its next target at impulse speed, slower than the crippled Constellation can follow. Indeed, it may have taken a full year for it to get from system 370 to 374 as far as the evidence goes. At such a speed, Decker's haste in stopping the beast is completely misplaced, as he could not only sail out to warn Starfleet, but tell them to build the fleet needed to stop the DDM and have it waiting at Rigel a few years from now.

Of course, the DDM at first pursues the Enterprise, which explicitly remains fully capable of warp. If the monster is limited to impulse, why doesn't Spock immediately warp to safety? But since warp is optional for the Enterprise yet impossible for the Constellation, we really have to go by the latter evidence of impulse speed here. Probably Spock just didn't want to abandon his captain with an immediate warp maneuver.

A smaller nit is that Kirk decides the DDM is a DDM on flimsy evidence indeed. There is no real effort to determine the actual motivations of the device. By evidence so far, anything between a berserker intent on sterilizing our galaxy, a precision weapon aimed at building up strength until it can attack the mighty Noseeums, and a benevolent probe that only eats lifeless worlds to survive, would be possible. Strategies could be formulated to defeat each of those, yet neither Decker (who has the luxury of time and resources) nor Kirk (who doesn't) really opts for one.

The episode works even with these plot holes and leaps of logic, but it doesn't tell a full story. For that, at least some degree of speculation is always needed.

Timo Saloniemi

There is nothing explicit in the ep that rules out the "DDM" having warp capability; Sulu informs Kirk after their final approach to the Constellation that all scanners show no other vessels in the area. This could mean that the DDM was cruising around the opposite side of the L374 system, on the far side of the L374 sun, where it would be eclipsed from the Enterprise's scanners.

 

[Timo]

Interesting points, although with strange undertones... Oh, well.

Saavik: "He is not himself -- but he lives. He is subject to rapid aging -- like this unstable planet."

Doesn't bring the ST3 scenario any closer to the "DDM" one. Not even Saavik knows the planet is actually doomed, and she certainly doesn't communicate such suspicions to Kirk in the above sentence. A few volcanoes is no match for the known criminal record of the DDM...

But the Klingons were holding hostages, maybe they would be willing to take more?

Huh? Are you suggesting that we study this from the angle that Kirk was offering himself as a further hostage, in order to get to safety? Please clarify.

In Kirks mind, not likely...

To be sure, while Kirk said "Klingons don't take prisoners" once (while grinning mischievously), he himself has been prisoner to Klingons, and now witnesses his colleague and son held prisoner to Klingons. Denial isn't his natural state of mind.

But that wouldn't affect the specifics of the scenario one way or another. Kirk is beaming down to a planet that is safe as far as he knows, with the intent of performing an important mission there. He'd have done that in any case, whether or not his ship had to be blown up. So commonalities with the "DDM" scenario are superficial at best.

You seem to be talking about a barrier... I'm not. The physical nature of the Milky Way was well known by the time that the episode was in production, so that scientific information can also be assumed.

If you are unaware that the galaxy is basically a flattened disk, that isn't my problem or a problem with the episode itself... it is just another reason why you are getting a lot of this stuff wrong.

Oh, rest assured that all assuming is your own doing, once again. Although all that assuming is getting extremely tiresome. Can't you do without the crutch of putting words in others' mouths?

As the Trek galaxy has a sharp barrier as its outer limit and the real one does not, the point here was that there is no way in the real galaxy to have the trail of evidence start at such a point that the point of origin would have to lie outside the galaxy. It could just as well lie in the next Milky Way star system over. While the sharp limit of the Trek barrier might alter that somewhat, we'd have to get confirmation that the adventure began somewhere near that rather iconic barrier. "DDM" does not offer such confirmation, making Spock's conclusions far-fetched.

The error's would have been Spock's to answer for, so I see no reason to waste time on this when it is Decker we are talking about.

Huh? If the point were to only hero-worship Decker, I could see the merit of staying mum about everything else in the episode. But if we want to discuss the background and rationale of Decker's actions, we need this sort of additional information. Did Spock and Masada work from different assumptions? From different facts, even? How did that affect the plans and decisions of their commanding officers?

Admittedly, this is not a central point or anything, but it should be noted that Spock did exceed his scientific mandate with his conclusions, and that Kirk later engaged in further baseless speculation. Of course, McCoy put a quick end to it soon enough, declaring the theorizing useless in their current situation. (Although I must say I think he was dead wrong there...)

Not really, see if it doesn't move at warp speed (as you suggested) then it would take years (again, like you suggested) to go from system to system.

And the episode gives us a year to play with. Which might be plenty, in this intriguing Trek galaxy of sometimes very closely spaced star systems.

Obviously, the thing must be able to go somewhat FTL, but that's fanfic country in the sense that the episode itself rather clearly shows it to be slower than 1/3 impulse in everything it does. What sort of fanfic we should write on it depends on our personal preferences. I like the already suggested idea that the DDM would only be capable of interstellar speed after a bit of acceleration - several days, perhaps. Or it might need time to digest. Or perhaps it didn't have enough fuel for warp yet, having left two of the planets intact - which is why it would be eating all that rubble even during the final chase. The fanfic possibilities are endless...

5 and 6 could have the DDM chasing the Enterprise back beyond the Constellation. There's no reason to think they were constantly moving away from her.

There is, actually. Spock first outruns the DDM (5), then the DDM alters course for Rigel (6). After that, Spock wants to take a course towards Kirk, but Decker insists that they follow the DDM instead (7). So Decker's course, which the ship eventually takes, must be farther and farther away from Kirk.

11 why "Decker's ship" and not "the Enterprise". That's a little confusing.

Sorry, my mistake. Should have kept it consistent.

(Also, should have remembered what the bullet looks like on screen. )

14 To clarify for everyone, is "one third impulse power", not a speed. This means probably less than .33c, since I doubt full impulse is c.

Good point. Also, we might have to wonder whether 1/3 impulse power for the crippled Constellation is measured on the same scale as 1/3 impulse power for an intact starship. In light of the slow-as-molasses fractional impulses in the TOS movies, especially ST3 where the wrecked Enterprise crawls out of Spacedock, it might be prudent to say that "impulse" is a throttle setting and that a hurt vessel's throttle set at 1/3 won't give as much speed/acceleration as an intact vessel's.

Admittedly, though, "impulse" sometimes is used as an absolute measurement of speed, or made to sound like it.

That Decker might have come up with the same plan as Kirk eventually does hadn't occured to me.

I'd like to think that Decker reacquired his clarity of mind after his initial shell shock. Thus, his decision to fly the shuttle into the maw could be seen as a rational act, rather than one of pure self-hatred and suicidal urge.

Rational, yet obsessive. Which is why it occurs to me that this could have been his original plan, foiled the first time around either by failure of his ship or of his courage.

Which reminds me, I forgot this one:

If he had kept a small crew aboard with him, then I could imagine that he was going to attempt to get the Constellation running again for an attack... but that didn't happen.

I don't think he would have needed a crew, or wanted one. Kirk did it alone. Decker would not have wasted lives needlessly if he could do it alone.

That would depend on the hidden timeline of the final moments of the ship. When did she truly become incapable of suicidal attack? When did the transporters fail? What is Decker really rambling about in his incoherent state?

But, thinking that Decker murdered his crew is some all new level of Orewellian think here.

That's not really what I want to postulate - although since I didn't write out the full fanfic on those final moments originally, I can see how one might get that impression.

It's a bit odd that Shaw wants to argue that Decker killed his crew by deliberate beam-down in nonsurvivable conditions, while I want to argue that he had a plan for their survival. In light of the tone of much of this discussion, shouldn't our roles be reversed, with him arguing that Decker was a hero and me saying that he was a fool?

Decker knew that any odds of survival were slim, and the DDM was still attacking even as he was sending the crew down!

I do wonder how a starship crew would act in such a situation. Death would be certain no matter what. Wouldn't they choose to go down with their ship, fighting or not, rather than be helplessly slaughtered on an alien planet?

Timo Saloniemi