I'd like to speculate a little on the origin and purpose (which are still a total mystery ) of the creature they find on Sha Ka Ree. I'm kind of hoping to have a fun, speculative discussion as opposed to "TFF sux and they didn't know what they were doing when they wrote it" or whatever. Let's go through what very little we do know about the creature...and have some discussion! 1. Chekov says "there is a power source...like nothing I have ever seen." This doesn't necessarily mean "more powerful than I have ever seen," but it does point to the entity having some considerable, detectable power that is unique and not immediately identifiable. 2. The creature is apparently able to telapathically reach other minds, even at great distances and through the Great Barrier. Sybok claims that the vision was "given to me by God..." which seems to imply that this being reached out to him and initiated his quest. (side note: Are Vulcans particularly open to this kind of contact and influence? We see Spock "feel the death" of the Intrepid, and we also see him in some form of contact with the V'Ger entity) 3. It is apparently also capable of reading minds to some extent. It portrays multiple visual representations of "Gods" or other supreme beings. It would not know this, and how to present itself otherwise, if it didn't have some insights into the expectations of the landing party. 4. Apparently, this being has the capability of merging with technology. It requests several times for the Enterprise to be brought "closer" and at one point, very malevolently says "so that I might....JOIN with it." That's actually a really creepy thought...that this being could literally use a starship as it's physical body. I think that's a good concept. 5. It apparently isn't too familiar with Vulcans and Humans. It simply refers to them as "puny things" and threatens to kill them horribly. I wonder if this is a being not overly familiar with corporeal life in general. 6. It creates an image of itself in Sybok's likeness. What was this about? I often thought it was the creature's way of taunting Sybok...of basically showing Sybok that he was no different than it ultimately in that it wanted the ship for its own purposes. "Don't you like this face? I have so many, but this one suits you..." 7. It seems as though the creature has been imprisoned behind the Barrier for a very long time. I know there's been some good work in the Novelverse explaining this, but what other theories are out there? Other questions: How powerful was this being? Was its power restricted on the planet as part of its imprisonment? If it "joined" (still a chilling concept to me) with a Starship and escaped the Barrier, what kind of threat might it have posed? Once freed, would it have evolved into an unstoppable malevolent force? Would the Enterprise have become it's new "body" or would it simply have gotten outside the Barrier, and become a non-corporeal terror of some sort? What did the Klingon attack do to it? Were we to assume that it was dead, or that it was simply stunned (between that and the Enterprise torpedo blast). If not dead, what is preventing it from making another attempt? Also if not dead, was it wise of the Enterprise crew to have a cocktail party while in orbit, when clearly this thing is super-evil and wants to take control of the ship? What do you all think? I tend to look at this from the opposite as many fans. Instead of "this was a stoopid, under-cooked concept," I like to think of it as one of Trek's great unsolved mysteries. Discuss...!
Follow-up: I'd love to see a story (novel, whatever) exploring this creature being SUCCESSFUL in hijacking another ship using roughly the same methods that almost proved successful in Star Trek V. What would the consequences be, and what would have to be done to confront / stop it? I've often thought about it, completely freed of its prison and therefore able to exert its power and malevolence fully, being kind of like a "reaper" from Mass Effect (I put the quotes there purposefully...Ah yes..."reapers") in that it is very powerful and can "indoctrinate" people or entire cultures with its telepathic prowess. Could make a pretty cool Star Trek story.....
I can provide speculative any day. For the fun part, let's hope somebody else chimes in, too. Plus it's carefully masked from study except at point blank range. What to make of this? The Great Barrier has not been braved for reason X. This reason probably has to do with the inability of any ship or probe to take sensor readings of, or within, the Barrier; certainly Chekov suffers from this inability here. If nothing good or bad can be seen within, but no probe (or perhaps ship?) going in ever comes back, then "bad" ought to be a good guess. But why does this jamming end when one reaches Sha Ka Ree? Because it served the purposes of God and now being visible serves those purposes better? Because that's just how the Barrier is, a layer between A and B, and there is no purpose? Because the Barrier both hides and imprisons God, and thus serves the purposes of His jailers, but putting Him inside the phenomenon rather than just surrounding Him with it would not be as effective? And we could argue this is how he experiences the death of Vulcan through the overcast Delta Vega sky and potentially across a great distance. Yes, this could be a Vulcan thing. Or then a Vulcan Royalty thing, and Sybok has purple blood from both the mother's and the father's side while Spock has daddy's royal genes undiluted by any Vulcan peasant genes from a peasant Vulcan mother. (We don't now much about Vulcan royalty, but generally that sort is big on bloodlines, while OTOH royals never were said to have a role in ruling the planet, and OTTH Sarek was never said not to be one of 'em.) The other possibility is that Sybok's quest/exile came first, and took him to a location where the influence of God was strong. Both this and the "only special Vulcans" model would limit the numbers of people who could free God. Which is good for our premise of His continuing imprisonment. If all Vulcans everywhere could sense Him, then He might have escaped at the dawn of Vulcan's interstellar history already, thousands of years ago. Worse still if just any telepath would do! But perhaps Vulcans are of a special sort, custom-built by Sargon's folks, and there's a God/Sargon connection there? Sargon did specifically state they dared think of themselves as gods, and was good at taking over people and androids and whatnot. This might also be fairly "dumb" behavior, though, akin to how the Salt Vampire gives Swahili-speaking black hunks to people who want to see and hear those, despite not knowing any Swahili or blackness or hunkness. That is, yes, there's mind-reading - but not necessarily mind-comprehension. Else God would be likely to have easier time giving Kirk what he wants and getting what He wants in the process. Kirk would have some personal experience on that, too: "Beyond the Farthest Star" featured a threat of this very sort, and Redjac playing in the ship's computer was nasty as well. Kirk knows about that sort, too. It would be tempting to think of this beast as an exact match of the "Beyond the Farthest Star" one, actually, but that one lacked the telepathy bit. Nevertheless, Kirk would be well experienced in uttering "Don't call me puny!" after giving the beast its comeuppance, were he not the composed and polite sort. I gather God indeed moved from luring and lying to suddenly dropping the pretense, at which point the taunting started because that's what He is like when not pretending. "Fooled you, sucker!" would be His line here. Nothing specific to Sybok as such, merely a taste of things to come to all Puny Things. Might be nobody in particular did the imprisoning: the beast may have evolved on its own, perhaps devouring resources around it, until finding out it could no longer expand and had no means of leaving. Perhaps others of its kind, not hatched inside inconvenient Barriers, would grow up to be more benign creatures, or then creatures of such power that they would never have this stage where they make contact with Puny Things. Our God would feel bad about His sad fate, though, and would use words implying wronging to describe this. Here we don't even get speculation. In the TAS episode, we did, and Spock thought the beast there would utilize the crew as "blood cells" in its new body, reach other computers, split and multiply, and eventually take over everything. Probably to its own detriment, because its blood cells wouldn't survive this sort of oppression for long. Possibly there is a connection after all, and these things are relatively common and immortal, only containable through imprisoning? Which takes us to this: It's difficult to believe the Klingon blasts would be markedly stronger than one photon torpedo, no matter how low-yield. At least the collateral damage was equally minimal. So I'd say Not. Dead. Kirk would have a pretty good idea of safe distance now: he was at such a distance originally, after all, since his ship was not taken over. FWIW, the ships at the end do appear closer to the planet than Kirk's initial orbit - it's the same shot of the planet in the background, but originally we saw Kirk's shuttle approaching from behind our backs, suggesting the ship was farther out at that time. Timo Saloniemi
The Enterprise torpedo and the BOP beams disrupted its "instrinsic field", but since it's father was a watchmaker...
I'm afraid I don't have much to contribute speculatively, but it is strange upon observing the facts how much the Sha Ka Ree creature resembles the deity Majora from "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask." For those who are unfamiliar, Majora was sealed in the form of a mask by an ancient tribe who feared it, and whoever wore it was possessed by Majora itself. A character called Skull Kid wears the mask, and begins acting strangely malevolent, more than merely his mischevious usual self, and is referred to as "the imp" by powerful forces throughout the game. At the end, after the hero Link defeats Skull Kid and calls four giants to stop the moon from crashing into the earth (the moonfall was strongly hinted to be caused by Majora's power) Majora realized that the Skull Kid has limited powers, and abandons him, possesing the moon itself. Link ascends to the moon in pursuit, and upon being told by Majora that he is too weak to be considered a threat, is given a mask to transform into what is referred to as the "Fierce Diety". Fortunatly, Majora overestimates it's own powers, and Fierce Diety Link destroys Majora, restoring the Moon to orbit and saving Skull Kid and the earth, not to mention rendering the mask harmless.
I think it was once suggested the creature could have been a Cytherian, the same species encountered in The Nth Degree on TNG. I believe it was speculated that this Cytherian was imprisoned on Sha Ka Ree. Perhaps this Cytherian had an effect on Sybok similar to the way Barclay was, but this Cytherian's motives weren't as harmless as the ones encountered in TNG.
Gary Mitchell didn't actually die. He became a giant floating blue head. And Sybok just tricked everybody into thinking they were going to the center of the galaxy; it was actually the edge. Kor
Nah, it wasn't the edge. It was the gap between the galactic arms. They went toward the center, but didn't actually get there.