NOMAD Refit

[IMC Headquarters]

So NOMAD gets a complete makeover by Tan Ru which spells doom for imperfect biological beings. It's rebooted in more ways than one. Ultimately defeated by its own internal logic, the menace is put to rest until V'ger fills the vacuum.

What I've always believed is that the probe somehow picked up transmissions of The Outer Limits and selected the voice of Control for its own. If the thing started spewing Zanti I couldn't be more entertained...

 

[Neopeius]

In the words of the Roman Centurion from History of the World Part I, "No, but that's very creative."

 

[uniderth]

It would be interesting to know how the two probes merged. What did the Tan Ru probe look like before the merge? Clearly the Tan Ru probe must have had some interesting mechanisms to me able to merge the two probes together.

 

[Henoch]

Physically, I don't see any original external components in the new Nomad. I think software made most of the transition such as its name and some of its programing. Its functional shape may have been inspired by the original such as power on the bottom, propulsion just above the power supply. Mid-body its mission equipment and screens/shields. a head with its computer brain inside and scanners on the outside of it. Top is its main sensor, nav. deflector, weapons.

 

[Delta Vega]

I liked Nomad
He didn't take any shit, you have to admit

 

[Henoch]

But he was in Error. Error. Error. Examine. I shall analyze error. Analyze error. Examine error. Error. Analyze error. Error. Faulty! Faulty! Error. Error. Faulty! Faulty! Must sterilize. Sterilize.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

"Our privacy must be maintained. Total destruction to anyone who invades it."

Good thing Kirk reassured it how Spock's mind meld was just a form of communication...

 

[Poltargyst]

And what accounts for Nomad being so powerful? Firing the equivalent of 90 photon torpedos with each blast. Was Tan Ru that powerful? Who the heck made Tan Ru?

 

[Henoch]

And what accounts for Nomad being so powerful? Firing the equivalent of 90 photon torpedos with each blast. Was Tan Ru that powerful? Who the heck made Tan Ru?

Need to translate "Gun ta. Noo. Icka." or determine what language it is.

Tan Ru was powerful (here's some dialogue we need to understand Nomad):

SPOCK: I. Am. Nomad. I am performing my function. Deep emptiness, It approaches. Collision. Damage. Blackness. I. Am. The other. I am Tan Ru, Tan Ru. Nomad. Tan Ru. Error. Flaw. Imperfection. Must sterilise. Rebirth. We are complete. Much power. Gun ta. Noo. Icka. Tan Ru. The creator instructs. Search out. Identify. Sterilize imperfections. We are Nomad. We are Nomad. We are complete. We are instructed. Our purpose is clear. Sterilize imperfections. (he lets go of Nomad) Sterilize imperfections. Nomad. Sterilize. Sterilize. Nomad, sterilize,
...
SPOCK: It was damaged in deep space. Undoubtedly, the meteor collision. Its memory banks were destroyed, or most of them. It wandered without purpose, and then it met the other. The other was an alien probe of great power. Somehow they merged, repaired each other, became one.
KIRK: Then it isn't Nomad?
SPOCK: Not the Nomad we lost from Earth. It took from the other a new directive to replace its own. The other was originally programmed to secure and sterilize soil samples from other planets, probably as a prelude to colonization.
KIRK: A changeling.
SPOCK: I beg your pardon?
KIRK: An ancient Earth legend, Mister Spock. A changeling was a fairy child that was left in place of a human baby. The changeling assumed the identity of the human child. So, it is to sterilize, and for sterilize read kill.
SPOCK And it has the power and sophistication to do it.​

Maybe Tan Ru didn't have a weapon system before Nomad, but it was powerful in order to travel at warp or something like it. Then to perform its new mission to sterilize imperfections, it needed and built itself a massively powerful sterilization system (disintegration blast and beams) to sterilize imperfections on a planetary scale. Encountering resistance from sterilization showed it that it also needed and built itself a powerful shielding system.

 

[Timo]

Or then Tan Ru was a berserker that sterilized potentially hostile worlds with its powerful weapons, and met with NOMAD and sterilized it, too. Only it didn't work out all that well, for some reason.

I sort of envision Tan Ru as a nanocloud that descends upon its victims, a thing without meaningful physical dimensions but a strong drive to take over and alter things. Its mission is one of altering the universe to better fit the needs of its makers, and one thing it altered was NOMAD. Probably not just NOMAD, though - the mechanical entity we see could be a hodgepodge of the best bits from all the things Tan Ru encountered in its wanderings.

The things I'd dismiss as baseless speculation are the "meteor collision", the "programming" of Tan Ru, and the "colonization" motivation of Tan Ru.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnnybear]

And what accounts for Nomad being so powerful? Firing the equivalent of 90 photon torpedos with each blast. Was Tan Ru that powerful? Who the heck made Tan Ru?

The Romulans? Heck, no! It just sounds Romulan! It was created by an unknown alien race probably outside of Federation space and therefore not really applicable to the series law!
JB

 

[Delta Vega]

Tan Ru was ultimately so powerful that its just as well Kirk didn't encounter it instead of NOMAD
I repeat my ultimate admiration for NOMAD, a genuine take no shit dude whom you have to respect.
If I was having a dinner and could pick six guests from Trek, he'd be one of them.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Tan Ru is an anagram of Rutan, also a Changeling...hmm...

Over the years, has anyone recorded what the initials N O M A D stand for?
Nasty Obliviating Music Appswipe Downloader?
Neo Orbital Mapping And Discovery?
New Observatory Mission Alignment Device?

 

[uniderth]

Tan Ru is an anagram of Rutan, also a Changeling...hmm...

Over the years, has anyone recorded what the initials N O M A D stand for?
Nasty Obliviating Music Appswipe Downloader?
Neo Orbital Mapping And Discovery?
New Observatory Mission Alignment Device?

It thought it was just its name, not an acronym.

nomad: any wanderer; itinerant.

It's purpose was to wander around and seek out new life forms.

 

[Ronald Held]

IMO Tan Ru only took SW from the Nomad probe, as it's tech was far superior.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

I suspect Travis Mayweather found it during his boomer years whereafter it decorated his cabin for years until it was lost to space again...

 

[Henoch]

I suspect Travis Mayweather found it during his boomer years whereafter it decorated his cabin for years until it was lost to space again...

How many models of the Enterprise do you have? I have 9 of various eras laying around my office. Two shelves of books, pictures and even a Hamilton Collection commemorative plate.

 

[Forbin]

A question my wife pointed out years ago - the original Nomad was designed to explore for alien life, collect it and ... sterilize it???

That's unproductive at best (if you're trying to examine microbes), and an act of war at worst.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

How many models of the Enterprise do you have? I have 9 of various eras laying around my office. Two shelves of books, pictures and even a Hamilton Collection commemorative plate.

Travis had the real thing!

I have the Eagle Moss J, and the original 1701 from Diamond Select. Mayweather didn't know what he had...

 

[Henoch]

Travis had the real thing!

I did some research on Travis' Nomad small desk top model. Actually, he did not really have the model. The SFX guys inserted the shot of the Nomad model into his room after the principle filming was completed in "Dead Stop". It is not even an accurate representation of the real thing; the shape of the forward components are wrong. Good try.