motive of probe's "attack"

[Mr Silver]

It's possible that the probe considered the various starships and space stations along it's path hostile and neutralised them as a defensive precaution. But it's also possible that it didn't mean to effect Earth, the way it did. The vaporisation of the oceans and power drainage, seemed like an unintended effect of transmitting the probe's message.

That would mean on one hand that it didn't mean to cause the damage it was causing, but on the other hand it couldn't stop transmitting until it recieved an answer, or the planet was "neutralised".

 

[CoveTom]

Also remember that Spock's statements about the probe being unaware its actions are harmful and it being illogical for it to be hostile are all speculation on Spock's part. Speculation based on a very limited amount of evidence, in fact. There's no reason to assume he's correct. Perhaps the probe's orders were something more direct like "go to Earth and find out what's happened to the whales and don't let ANYTHING stand in your way."

 

[Uxi]

This kinda reminds me of the Sylandro probes from Star Control 2. You keep running them into attacking with a lightning weapon. You find the guys that launched/bought them and they are puzzled and say they attack with a missile system. Then they realize they set their consumption/replication level too high which means they weren't attacking at all though the victims would hardly be expected to appreciate the difference.

Another analogy could be the Predators. We see the equivalent of well-heeled monocle and Safari Hat wearing cats using bolt action/compound bow-equivalent hunting gear. Imagine what their military must be like in Heinlein style powered armor and lasers.

 

[The Dominion]

Star Control 2

 

[Uxi]

Star Control 2

I've been replying it as Ur-Quan Masters on my MBP. <3 that game.

 

[RAMA]

Why did the probe start vaporizing the Earth’s oceans in TVH?

OK, it was a probe, it did what it was programmed to. What is the thinking behind the program, “Try to reestablish contact with the humpbacks, and if the humpbacks aren’t there, destroy the ecosystem”? Revenge?

Without reading the rest of the thread...I always thought: The probe incident occurs in two phases: A) An incidental interference in Federation operations because of its emanations B) An attack on Earth because one of the outposts it had seeded with cetacean life did not respond.

Perhaps it was doing this in countless star systems...and it's systems weren't smart enough or designed to respond to other lifeforms.

RAMA

 

[Timo]

But a failure to comprehend other lifeforms would make the Probe a poor performer in sorting out most of the problems that might plague seeded whale populations. After all, if the whales can be seeded by their masters, then there quite probably are competing seeders and seeded species that must be dealt with. If the whale masters cannot comprehend of land-dwelling species/masters, they still have to take into account aquatic species/masters, meaning they have to be able to respond to competing starships.

OTOH, if the Probe did deliberately attack the land-dwellers of Earth in revenge for the loss of aquatic life, it chose a pretty inefficient way of doing so! This would support the idea that any damage to mankind was incidental and accidental...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RAMA]

But a failure to comprehend other lifeforms would make the Probe a poor performer in sorting out most of the problems that might plague seeded whale populations. After all, if the whales can be seeded by their masters, then there quite probably are competing seeders and seeded species that must be dealt with. If the whale masters cannot comprehend of land-dwelling species/masters, they still have to take into account aquatic species/masters, meaning they have to be able to respond to competing starships.

OTOH, if the Probe did deliberately attack the land-dwellers of Earth in revenge for the loss of aquatic life, it chose a pretty inefficient way of doing so! This would support the idea that any damage to mankind was incidental and accidental...

Timo Saloniemi

Or like automated human probes...they have limited capabilities...and lack of response simply sets off some kind of attack mechanism...now its also possible there is no offensive weaponry on the probe at all, BUT itwas damaged in transit...so it could have been accidental in that respect...

 

[Timo]

We have seen probes of great power behaving like simpletons before: NOMAD and V'Ger both. The first was explicitly damaged and corrupted (and empowered!) by outside influences, no doubt contributing significantly to the mental handicaps. The second consisted of essentially nothing but outside influences and appeared to be a simpleton by design - its true creators were simply too alien. The Whale Probe could indeed represent either case, or then a mixture of those.

It bears a resemblance to the Doomsday Machine, too, and not just visually. Perhaps both were terraforming devices of some sort, and rather than malfunctioning, or responding to perceived threats in undue panic, they operated correctly in the pursuit of an ecological outcome where humans were far too tiny pieces to be taken into consideration? That is, both devices might well have recognized the existence of the human(oid) cultures, but saw the necessity of acting against human interests for their own ultimate best, and also considered themselves immune to human response (but the DDM was mistaken about that).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JediKnightButler]

I find Spock's (?) suggestion to be the....ahem....most logical one, specifically that it was not malevolent but that it did not and/or could not realize that it's transmissions were causing harmful effects to Earth.

 

[Uxi]

Right. It didn't come shooting beams or plasma or the like and tearing the Starfleet ships up. Just caused interference with their mojo and left them as drifting hulks. Everything powers up nicely as it leaves.

 

[RAMA]

Right. It didn't come shooting beams or plasma or the like and tearing the Starfleet ships up. Just caused interference with their mojo and left them as drifting hulks. Everything powers up nicely as it leaves.

Well you may have too narrow a definition of "weapons".

 

[Uxi]

Right. It didn't come shooting beams or plasma or the like and tearing the Starfleet ships up. Just caused interference with their mojo and left them as drifting hulks. Everything powers up nicely as it leaves.

Well you may have too narrow a definition of "weapons".

Given the lack of permanent damage, I think it was clear that attack and destruction wasn't the intent. Whether it intended to disable Starfleet is debatable, though, I think it just as likely it was completely unintentional and that it didn't recognize the ships or life forms in them as intelligent life.

 

[Timo]

That does show a remarkable lack of self-awareness, though - the starships were spitting images of the probe itself, after all!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Uxi]

Or a certain inverse myopia (or arrogance, depending on how much the production intended irony or not).

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I love this film. My interpretation has always been that, if whales could have answered the call of this species, they would never have had to send e probe. With no answer, they sent the probe to go to earth to find out what happened, but they turned their signal up to 11 in hopes to get a response, but this amplification was harmful. They were determined to find out what happened to their aquatic friends.

What makes this film great is at not everything needed an explanation. Some of the work was left to the viewer.

Of course, in retroactive continuity, it could have been a Xindi-aquatic probe.