Scotty and.....Tribblecide!!!
- Thread starter MarsWeeps
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It's entirely possible Scotty was just telling a story to make Jimbo laugh. The tribbles may have been a problem for the authorities at K 7 to solve.
Why should that matter? To paraphrase Gillian in ST:III - "My compassion for a creature is not limited to its intelligence."
That only means she is a hypocrite, unless she can state she's never stepped on and ant or swatted a fly. No mouse/rat traps, no exterminators or roach motels.
I wonder if tribbles become cannibalistic with no other food sources?
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Tribbles are hairy zebra mussels, they're definitely not in the same league than Hortas, birds or mammals. The're also an ecological bomb when they're not into a specific ecosystem. So, searching an appropriate world for the Tribbles could have been very long, a little miscalculation is mortal, and the Tribbles on the Enterprise would have soon endangered the life of the crew by their overpopulation.Well, what exactly did he think would happen to them when he beamed them aboard the Klingon ship? Did he think the Klingons would lovingly collect them all & provide proper care for them until they found them new homes? I'm sure beaming them out into space would have been a more "humane" solution compared to what the Klingons did to them. Shame on you Scotty!!
So Scotty simply acted in self-defense against brainless creatures, he didn't torture little puppies.
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Hmm, I hadn't really thought about this before, but yes it does seem rather..... 'extreme', possibly very anti-Trek, for the crew to be so blase about the fate of the Tribbles. Especially as you say OP the "everybody laughs ending", when compared to the stance Trek usually takes that all life is valid, as epitomized by the Horta, it would seem that sending the Tribbles to the Klingons would not necessarily be a laughing matter. It does drive to the heart of this being a comedy script, and in comedy such moments are justified by their punch-line. But even so, one gets the impression even before this moment that Kirk has already concluded Tribbles are nothing more than rodents, fit only for extermination. He is shown consistently to be irritated by them throughout the episode, and doesn't show the same interest in them as unique life-forms that for example Uhura does.
Script writer David Gerrold swears blind that this scene with the "No Tribble At All!" lines wasn't in his version of the script, he claims that it was added later by some-one else, perhaps by Gene Coon. Which makes it even more out-of-character, as Coon himself had earlier written the episode with the Horta.
Script writer David Gerrold swears blind that this scene with the "No Tribble At All!" lines wasn't in his version of the script, he claims that it was added later by some-one else, perhaps by Gene Coon. Which makes it even more out-of-character, as Coon himself had earlier written the episode with the Horta.
What league would that be?
The league of Silica, Mullosks, Birds and Mammals?
And why would that matter?
I'm with Scotty, the laughing crew at the end of the tribble episode, and the Klingons in deeming tribbles vermin and nothing more than a menace. They eat grain so I imagine those ecological threats might be tasty. They should have ended the episode with the station introducing the tribble-burger.
There are so many squirrels/chipmunks/mice/what-have-you that get into my basement during the winter and pull apart my porch furniture during the summer that it isn't that hard to view tribbles as an ecological menace that needs to be contained through a campaign of violence. I'd have been perfectly fine had Scotty actually spaced the bastards.
And imagine if those squirrels/chipmunks/mice/what-have-you were born pregnant and didn't leave until there was nothing left to eat in your home.
I say kill it with fire.
IIRC the script writer David Gerrold spoke about his inspiration for the Tribbles being something he read about the introduction of rabbits becoming an ecological menace in outback Australia, and how the Australian government had made it a priority to try and cull their numbers. This is the context in which I think we are invited to look at the Tribbles: they're not regarded by any-one in the story as being anything other than a rodent, a pest, something that eats and breeds and contributes nothing else. Only Uhura speaks with any eloquence about the possibility of them as life-forms in and of themselves (and even then only in the possibility of them as pets).
I can definitely see how the OP might see this as a contradiction of the message of "The Devil of the Dark", though. Basically, the same people who might make the case for all life being fundamentally equal in regards to the Horta, are here instead shown to regard the Tribbles as being... *less* worthy.
I guess the only defence I can offer is that the Horta was shown to be cognitive and able to communicate with our heroes. The Tribbles, by contrast, are all about instinct. They *are* somewhat lesser beings. Even when they uncover the traitor, they do so not because they actively point the finger in awareness, but simply because Tribbles have an instinctive fear of Klingons, so they 'react' in his presence.
I can definitely see how the OP might see this as a contradiction of the message of "The Devil of the Dark", though. Basically, the same people who might make the case for all life being fundamentally equal in regards to the Horta, are here instead shown to regard the Tribbles as being... *less* worthy.
I guess the only defence I can offer is that the Horta was shown to be cognitive and able to communicate with our heroes. The Tribbles, by contrast, are all about instinct. They *are* somewhat lesser beings. Even when they uncover the traitor, they do so not because they actively point the finger in awareness, but simply because Tribbles have an instinctive fear of Klingons, so they 'react' in his presence.
Again with the "born pregnant" thing. If you actually watch and listen to the scene where Dr. McCoy makes that remark, I think it's pretty clear he was joking and didn't mean it literally.
It's a factoid arising out of a misunderstanding, like Vulcans having sex only once every seven years.
I have to say that I don't really care what happened to the tribbles and I can't imagine Kirk would either because they are as stated overpopulated vermin. They are not on the same level as the Horta or the humpback whale.
Scotty could have easily locked onto all the tribble signatures and beamed them as one, the mass would not have been the same as a whole crew.
Scotty could have easily locked onto all the tribble signatures and beamed them as one, the mass would not have been the same as a whole crew.
I fully agree that tribbles are vermin, but the Scotty-beams-em ending is flawed.
A better ending would be for Kirk to return to the ship laughing, saying that Jones is going to be picking up tribbles for a long time, then looking around at the mess he's forgotten and saying grimly, "And so are we."
A better ending would be for Kirk to return to the ship laughing, saying that Jones is going to be picking up tribbles for a long time, then looking around at the mess he's forgotten and saying grimly, "And so are we."
Yes, that's what he claims but I can't help thinking he had other influences when he "came up" with the idea of tribbles.
See this thread:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=229585
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