The Cloud Minders & The Federation
- Thread starter Methuselah Flint
- Start date
It's even harder, though, to imagine the Federation enslaves people to do those jobs.
I get the idea in TOS the UFP is something closer to the United Nations than the United Kingdom. Being a member of it does not require a great record on human rights. Someone mentioned the planet on Friday's Child, which clearly did not share Enlightenment values.
My understanding of the The Could Minders is Kirk could have gone through UFP channels to lobby for Troglyte rights as he promised Vanna. I also thought it was possible that Vanna was correct that reforms would be very slow in coming, even if Kirk didn't lose interest in the cause. In the TOS era, the galaxy felt more spread out, more wild west, more of what Picard called "cowboy diplomacy." In The Cloud Minders, we get the idea that cowboy diplomacy was more effective than whatever legal/diplomatic machinery the UFP had. The problems are far from solved because Plasus openly laments that the filter masks will make the Troglytes harder to control. But we also get the idea that the word is out among the Troglytes that the masks work and that it's too late for Plasus and illiberal elements to put the genie back in the bottle. So reforms will be coming quickly.
Journey's End.
Picard: Admiral, I have every reason to believe that they will resist any attempt to remove them. I strongly urge you to request an emergency session of the Federation Council. The issue of Dorvan Five must be reopened.
Necheyev: Captain, I made that request two days ago. The answer was no.
After receiving Kirk's petition, would the council say no, that the plight of the miners on Ardana were a internal problem. The last thing the Federation membership in general would want is set a precedent of the Federation imposing itself on individual members.
And if they did decide to step in what could the council do? Threaten to expel Ardana from the Federation, threaten to send a starship to destroy the sky city, maybe land troops?
If their membership were canceled, Ardana might still sell zenite to Federation worlds, but such sales would no long be a priority by treaty. Other customers might be higher on the delivery schedule.
If Ardana refuses to sell to Federation worlds, then worlds in desperate need of zenite might withdraw from the Federation if that's what it took to obtain zenite and save their worlds.
Ardana could have planetary weapons capable of defending the world from assault, the finest weapons available on the interstellar market (much better than Betazed's).
If they have Trog police officers, why not Trog military forces. Separated from the existence of regular Trogs, given different rations, housing, training, pride in themselves. They could view themselves as unassociated with other Trogs.
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Only the miners are dummies?
Why are the rest of them putting up with this treatment?
Why are the rest of them putting up with this treatment?
I gather that instead applies to the original writers of the story.
Nothing wrong with that as such: Trek may have its cracking that is not ours, its time crystals that are not ours etc. Terminology like that gets recycled in the real world, too, especially if the original usage has been rendered irrelevant (no oil industry in Trek any longer, say).
I'd frankly like to think that most of the astronomical terminology has been recycled, too, now that folks have learned how the skies actually work, and thus their nova and supernova are more useful and intuitive concepts than ours... But I digress.
This may have been writer intent, too - but they do refer to the planet itself as a source of crystal and minerals, as you point out. In which case the way to accommodate both ideas would be to say that crystals are good for processing the incoming ore, and while they are catalysts of some sort, rather than reactants, they do wear down in the process so it's handy to have the next one ready in a quarry next door.
This is the other possibility. Then again, our heroes scavenge the place for pretty much everything, including control duotronics and cabling. Perhaps stealing the fuel is not tantamount to taking the primary product of the facility, either?
Assuming the heroes do steal fuel. But see below:
The other option is that the station is right where Kirk needs it. After all, it is.
Delta Vega being the fourth supply station for the VEGA project of braving the rim of the galaxy would explain why Kirk emerges from the barrier right next to it - he's following the VEGA route which involved an optional last call at Delta Vega (one that Kirk may or may not have made). This is why the place is well stocked in survival gear, including a dispensary and a gaol, even though crewed visits are not supposed to be routine. They will be, though, once Kirk hopefully reports back on how penetrating the barrier is a walk in the park.
Might be the camp has a stash of gasoline in addition to sporting first aid kits and barrelfuls of pemmican. Might be the camp actually has an oil well. The dialogue IMHO strongly supports the latter - but the heroes may be interested in the place not because they need the oil, but because they want to pillage the nodding donkeys for spare parts. "Fuel" is only mentioned in the passing, after all, as something they need to "bypass" or then abuse as an explosive, while Spock's logic of going there is to "adapt some of its power packs".
I'm thinking the fuel is antimatter. The Lithium Cracking Station uses lithium crystals in a M/AM reactor to power the plant and produce antimatter fuel (just like the power system of a Starship, hence the concept to rob the plant of its "power packs" (are these lithium crystal assemblies?) to "regenerate the main engines, save the ship".) Kelso mentions "fission chamber" which could mean, with the M/AM heart of the plant removed, the plant was put on its back-up power system, namely its fission reactor to provide power until a repair team can return to bring its M/AM reactor back on-line. YMMV.
I like your mileage, but see the metric alternative, too.
"Regenerating" is associated with the engines in "The Naked Time" and arguably "Mark of Gideon", too, and is something the engines will normally do by themselves, without needing fuel or spares. So which one becomes necessary in "WNMHGB"? I'd love to argue that regenerating is essentially Borg terminology here: after hard use or abuse, the engines self-repair themselves in normal circumstances.
And then I'd love to shoot off to a tangent and decide that diithium in the 23rd century is normally only available as "diamond dust" rather than proper macroscopic crystals, and these need to be perfectly aligned on a ping-pong-paddle matrix in order to emulate a proper crystal. Use will degrade the alignment; rest and recuperation will restore it, although typically in a separate "dilithium hospital" as seen in "The Alternative Factor". In situ energizing is a later technology; what keeps Kirk's ship from going home is a combination of dilithium paddle draining similar to "The Alternative Factor" and damage on the machinery that's supposed to correct that. Fuel (antimatter) never went anywhere.
The possible connection to the thread topic? Well, umm, ah... A thematic one? Starships and their bigger kinsmen colonies are essentially self-sufficient. But they exist in an extremely hostile environment, and there's always an Achilles heel or five. The ruthless supplier can run quite a racket with spares or other remedies to space problems.
Conversely, while Ardana is the one spot in the neighborhood that will never succumb to a plant disease, it may be strangled to death by the cartel of topaline suppliers... In the rare case where its self-sustaining systems fail.
Timo Saloniemi
Yes. the Federation only acts when something stands in the way of its interests. The Capella IV (hair-trigger violence / "only the strong should live" worldview) and Ardana (caste system/racism) situations were all about what they (the UFP) was getting, and all native issues were not their concern, even though they were aware of it. Typical of a self-interested government, and its undeniable that was the TOS Federation's standard operating / philosophical procedure.
.Agreed, and TOS repeatedly backs up the UFP position.
Perhaps there is a multi-step hierarchy among the Trog, with a middle class below the upper class, but above the lower class (the miners and others).
Service industry, police and fire, construction workers, manufacturing, middle management.
All part of the upper class plan, divide and conquer.
Not agreeing with her world view is one thing, however Droxine is likely highly educated and intelligent, no doubt being groomed for a eventual government leadership position.
It very unlikely that she is "dumb."
Just because someone doesn't agree with you and your views, doesn't make them stupid.
What do views have to do with anything? The character is portrayed that way. If she's "highly intelligent," then she's a space cadet
If Spock finds her fascinating, she's not dumb.
Poser: what IFF the troglytes were a second sentient bipedal species that were genetically much less intelligent than the elites. Would a caste system be wrong, or would it be loving to find them work and livelihoods appropriate to their relatively less able minds?
Poser: what IFF the troglytes were a second sentient bipedal species that were genetically much less intelligent than the elites. Would a caste system be wrong, or would it be loving to find them work and livelihoods appropriate to their relatively less able minds?
It's a plot point that all the Ardanans are one species, both City dwellers and Troglytes alike. The "loving" the city dwellers have for the Troglytes ends where their personal space begins. They'll do anything to keep the Troglytes from benefiting from being in the city, to the point of making it a crime for them to be there without explicit permission. And they'll make up any reason for doing so.
Then the miner's health and safety should be a high concern of the ruling caste...<cough>black lung disease<cough>...which they, specifically Plasus, High Advisor of the planet council, demonstrates is not a concern.
I'm sure that there are mostly ground cities on the planet, and only one Cloud City where only the high elitists can reside. It seems to be the seat of the planet government since Plasus lives there and he is high advisor of the planet council, so, I assume the council chambers are also on Stratos. Stratos is possibly positioned over the source of the planet's most valuable export and revenue stream, zenite.
Remember the Lost City of Atlantis?
Are we sure that that city is not a Ship?
Remember orbiting refinery Terok Nor?
Are we sure that that city ship was floating around the planet, or the solar system, or the sector, picking up Zenite from hundreds of Mines across the planet, the solar system or sector and refining it?
Are we sure that that city is not a Ship?
Remember orbiting refinery Terok Nor?
Are we sure that that city ship was floating around the planet, or the solar system, or the sector, picking up Zenite from hundreds of Mines across the planet, the solar system or sector and refining it?
Dialogue heavily suggests there's only one floating city:
The suggestion that there is only one mine is much more ambiguous: all we hear is the use of the definite article.
However, the zenite mining we witness is surprisingly petty: tiny pickaxes, a total lack of surface facilities, an output supposedly measured in jars of 20-25 liters. Does this suggest that Stratos indeed floats all across the planet, milking the modest output of the multiple primitive mines so that the sum total is worth shipping out? But Kirk thinks an entire planet can be saved by the five jars they beam up. Are those refined and condensed zenite, or are they the very ore that the troglytes chip off the bedrock with their hand tools? The implication seems to be that it's the latter: the stuff is for Vanna to hand out, and as far as we can tell she doesn't have access to any sort of a refining process.
In theory, then, the planet could very well operate so that the mines produce virtually nothing, and exist principally for the purpose of enslaving the troglytes. Perhaps the troglytes are in turn enslaved principally for their role in "tilling the soil", a vital service for Stratos, and the zenite mines are more a means to that end than a raison d'etre for the place.
Since the surface is so barren and completely lacks any hints of agriculture, I'm tempted to think the place has lost all its vegetation to an imported disease (the mechanism by which entire planets just plain die out must be "unnatural", and starships bringing in alien diseases sounds like a good candidate), except for those underground caverns rich in zenite. So all the soil to be tilled is underground, and this is the real reason the troglytes live down there. The Stratosians would actually be better off without the zenite exports, preferring to just receive guests who admire their art, but since the galaxy knows about the stuff, they have to live with it and occasionally allow a few jars to be shipped out.
Indeed, it seems there is no industry whatsoever: the stuff is mined solely on demand, in the minute quantities witnessed, perhaps once per decade or so. Otherwise, there would exist stockpiles, and Kirk would never go to the mines.
The opposite alternative is that zenite has huge inherent value to the Stratosians, and this is the very reason they flat out refuse to sell it to the galaxy, except for the handfuls we see. There are no real zenite mines, just these stupid little hobbyholes, exactly because zenite is what makes Stratos so powerful. Who knows, perhaps it is what makes the city float, when suitably refined or tickled?
The related possibility is that zenite has very short shelf life and is somehow hypersensitive, needing to be hand-mined because even the gentlest of machines would just ruin it. So the "industry" we see is the most efficient one possible. Nothing of the sort is hinted at in dialogue, though, even though one would expect the putative shelf life time-criticality to compete evenly with the (as such mysterious) time-criticality of reaching Merak II.
Timo Saloniemi
The suggestion that there is only one mine is much more ambiguous: all we hear is the use of the definite article.
However, the zenite mining we witness is surprisingly petty: tiny pickaxes, a total lack of surface facilities, an output supposedly measured in jars of 20-25 liters. Does this suggest that Stratos indeed floats all across the planet, milking the modest output of the multiple primitive mines so that the sum total is worth shipping out? But Kirk thinks an entire planet can be saved by the five jars they beam up. Are those refined and condensed zenite, or are they the very ore that the troglytes chip off the bedrock with their hand tools? The implication seems to be that it's the latter: the stuff is for Vanna to hand out, and as far as we can tell she doesn't have access to any sort of a refining process.
In theory, then, the planet could very well operate so that the mines produce virtually nothing, and exist principally for the purpose of enslaving the troglytes. Perhaps the troglytes are in turn enslaved principally for their role in "tilling the soil", a vital service for Stratos, and the zenite mines are more a means to that end than a raison d'etre for the place.
Since the surface is so barren and completely lacks any hints of agriculture, I'm tempted to think the place has lost all its vegetation to an imported disease (the mechanism by which entire planets just plain die out must be "unnatural", and starships bringing in alien diseases sounds like a good candidate), except for those underground caverns rich in zenite. So all the soil to be tilled is underground, and this is the real reason the troglytes live down there. The Stratosians would actually be better off without the zenite exports, preferring to just receive guests who admire their art, but since the galaxy knows about the stuff, they have to live with it and occasionally allow a few jars to be shipped out.
Indeed, it seems there is no industry whatsoever: the stuff is mined solely on demand, in the minute quantities witnessed, perhaps once per decade or so. Otherwise, there would exist stockpiles, and Kirk would never go to the mines.
The opposite alternative is that zenite has huge inherent value to the Stratosians, and this is the very reason they flat out refuse to sell it to the galaxy, except for the handfuls we see. There are no real zenite mines, just these stupid little hobbyholes, exactly because zenite is what makes Stratos so powerful. Who knows, perhaps it is what makes the city float, when suitably refined or tickled?
The related possibility is that zenite has very short shelf life and is somehow hypersensitive, needing to be hand-mined because even the gentlest of machines would just ruin it. So the "industry" we see is the most efficient one possible. Nothing of the sort is hinted at in dialogue, though, even though one would expect the putative shelf life time-criticality to compete evenly with the (as such mysterious) time-criticality of reaching Merak II.
Timo Saloniemi
Well, lets leave off the thing that its a tv show, with writers..
Here we go..
As said before, mining is a minor thing here on Earth, with a population of 7 Billion, have what, 10's of thousands of miners, very small minority.
Now with Ardana, there's no past knowledge of things, What is the planet population, do people live on the surface? do they all live in floating cities? Is the surface completely unlivable? Is the Zenite the only thing they produce? and how many mines do they have? When was the planet inducted in to the Federation?
Whole lot of if's and maybe's on what is happening. I belived Manny Coto wanted to visit the city in the Defunct Season 5 of Enterprise. That would have given us more background on what happened. Maybe they leveraged there Zenite deposits as a reason for Fed Membership, you don't let us in, you don't get your Rocks. Or they put on a dog and pony show for the Federation reps showing, were all good here, nothing to see.. Its not the first time the Council has gone the fast and loose approch, even in the 24th century.
Now the other planets that were pre warp, Either the contamination was done by us like the Iotians because early ships didn't have the Prime Directive, and they just did willy nilly.. or some other speices interfiered like the Capellans. But even witht he Capellans, we arn't going in to "Civilize" tthe place, but was pretty much.. were' over here, you do your thing, and we'll leave you alone to go your own way.
Here we go..
As said before, mining is a minor thing here on Earth, with a population of 7 Billion, have what, 10's of thousands of miners, very small minority.
Now with Ardana, there's no past knowledge of things, What is the planet population, do people live on the surface? do they all live in floating cities? Is the surface completely unlivable? Is the Zenite the only thing they produce? and how many mines do they have? When was the planet inducted in to the Federation?
Whole lot of if's and maybe's on what is happening. I belived Manny Coto wanted to visit the city in the Defunct Season 5 of Enterprise. That would have given us more background on what happened. Maybe they leveraged there Zenite deposits as a reason for Fed Membership, you don't let us in, you don't get your Rocks. Or they put on a dog and pony show for the Federation reps showing, were all good here, nothing to see.. Its not the first time the Council has gone the fast and loose approch, even in the 24th century.
Now the other planets that were pre warp, Either the contamination was done by us like the Iotians because early ships didn't have the Prime Directive, and they just did willy nilly.. or some other speices interfiered like the Capellans. But even witht he Capellans, we arn't going in to "Civilize" tthe place, but was pretty much.. were' over here, you do your thing, and we'll leave you alone to go your own way.
Spock was apparently working through some personal issues. Perhaps he was having some hormone imbalance or he was ill. Notice:
From Amok Time:
SPOCK: It is a thing no out-worlder may know except those very few who have been involved. A Vulcan understands, but even we do not speak of it among ourselves. It is a deeply personal thing. Can you see that, Captain, and understand?
So, pon farr is a personal, private matter that is not discussed with outsiders. It is deeply personal. No out=worlder may know about it.
From Cloud Minders:
DROXINE: You only take a mate once every seven years?
SPOCK: The seven-year cycle is biologically inherent in all Vulcan's. At that time, the mating drive outweighs all other motivations.
DROXINE: And is there nothing that can disturb that cycle, Mister Spock?
SPOCK: Extreme feminine beauty is always disturbing, madam.
Also
SPOCK: Here on Stratos, everything is incomparably beautiful and pleasant. The High Advisor's charming daughter Droxine, particularly so. The name Droxine seems appropriate for her. I wonder, can she retain such purity and sweetness of mind and be aware of the life of the people on the surface of the planet? There, the harsh life in the mines is instilling the people with a bitter hatred. The young girl who led the attack against us when we beamed down was filled with the violence of desperation. If the lovely Droxine knew of the young miner's misery, I wonder how the knowledge would affect her?
Suddenly Spock is comfortable discussing this extremely personal matter with someone he just met. Can't bring it up to his closest friends whom he has served with for years, but tells the first chick he sees on Stratos.
From the episode Spock found Droxine beautiful. Extreme beauty is disturbing to him. He's even waxing poetic in his off camera thoughts. Almost an emotional response. Spock was completely off-kilter.
As "dumb?"
Certainly wasn't my impression from the episode. When Droxine is talking to Vanna on the sky city in the guest quarters, Droxine's demeanor and voice briefly changes. She becomes stronger, focused and more forthright, less polite.
This isn't the Droxine greeting her father's guests or flirting with a potential lover, perhaps it's the real Droxine behind the gentile facade.
In any case, Droxine at no point is depicted as someone who is unintelligent.
Zenite might occur sole in one region on the planet, an unusual geologic formation.
Or maybe the Federation approched Ardana and begged them to join?
Consider, this is the one time we see Spock alone with a woman he's (obviously) attracted to when he is not out of his mind or under alien influence. The voice over reveals Spock's inner-monolog thoughts at the time.
I think this is a unusual window into the true Spock.
