The Cloud Minders

[Bones_McCoy21]

In The Cloud Minders Kirk is forced to "Dig as the troglodites do." though he is trying to convince the woman he's with that "something he can't see" will lower his IQ because the gasses have a certain affect on the brain. It occurs but I always believed that things like that took two things 1. time and 2.exposure so it would be unrealistic that it would happen in about 4 or 5 hours. Besides the fact that it's Star Trek is there any proof that it could happen in such a short time?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Without any idea what the gas is (in real life) the question is impossible to answer. However, there are many gases which affect the human nervous system within minutes. That the gas from zenite affects the human nervous system at the speed of plot is entirely plausible.

 

[Timo]

...Also, if Kirk did too good a job in sealing the trio in, the underground volume would soon start running out of oxygen, or more exactly, start accumulating carbon dioxide. The three would pretty quickly grow drowsy, irritated and irrational - just as we see happen.

Quite possibly Vanna was the only one with a realistic view of what was going on. Kirk and Thasus might have been equally deluded in their conviction that the zenite gas was the culprit; Vanna would know it was just the oxygen going out, but she'd also be smart enough to tell the two idiots a placating and life-saving lie: "The gas! Captain, you were right!"

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

...Also, if Kirk did too good a job in sealing the trio in, the underground volume would soon start running out of oxygen, or more exactly, start accumulating carbon dioxide. The three would pretty quickly grow drowsy, irritated and irrational - just as we see happen.

Quite possibly Vanna was the only one with a realistic view of what was going on. Kirk and Thasus might have been equally deluded in their conviction that the zenite gas was the culprit; Vanna would know it was just the oxygen going out, but she'd also be smart enough to tell the two idiots a placating and life-saving lie: "The gas! Captain, you were right!"

Timo Saloniemi

But how likely is it that a starship captain wouldn't understand the physiological effects of being in an unventilated enclosure?

 

[Timo]

Well, increasingly likely as the oxygen slowly runs out.

Certainly Kirk himself grows dimmer by the minute as his "plan" proceeds. Whether this is because of the zenite gas, or because of simple oxygen deprivation, is anybody's guess.

But my actual guess would be zenite. Note how Kirk grows irrational sooner than Plasus - possibly because he has been waiting down there for some time while Plasus has only recently arrived. That wouldn't happen if the nonsensical behavior were due to a shared oxygen-poor environment, but would happen if individually accumulating exposure to zenite were the culprit. Plus, Vanna seems to have reached a long-term "plateau stage", which wouldn't happen with oxygen deprivation.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

I like the episodes where Kirk grows dimmer by the minute. The Deadly Years, The Enemy Within, some bits of Dagger of the Mind and The Paradise Syndrome, a few scenes in Plato's Stepchildren...

 

[Ssosmcin]

Kirk and Thasus

Plasus. Thasus was like the big giant face that took Charlie Evans away.

Play on!

 

[Knight Templar]

Good points here that I never considered. Though IIRC David Gerrold roundly ridiculed this episode saying the conclusion of it amounted to

"just give the poor proles gas masks and they'll mine all we want".

He also found the idea of the woman from the Cloud City going down to the mines (as she said she would) to be completely ridiculous.

 

[Warped9]

Well there are well-to-do celebrities who like to slum it in the Third World to show how enlightened they are. Say hi to Angelina.

 

[awiltz2]

Kirk and Thasus

Plasus. Thasus was like the big giant face that took Charlie Evans away.

Play on!

I always found this episode a little unrealistic. They were a highly advanced race, highly intellectual, highly intelligent.

There is a basic characteristic of their planet, within view, that they aren't familiar with? No sociological experiments that found the negative side effects of exposure?

And as a highly advanced race (capable of technology that even Spock is impressed by), wouldn't you think they'd have developed a better method of mining? Humans are slow, prone to error, require food, prone to death and injury, prone to fatigue, require waste facilities, and all of the other inconveniences of, well, human life.

Being the highly intelligent and advanced species they are, the ONLY option was to essentially enslave a highly inefficient collection of defiant humans?

The purpose of this episode was (I'm guessing) to show how illogical class/social prejudice is/are, and that even the most intelligent people (or species) are subject to bouts of prejudice and ignorance from time to time.

 

[Warped9]

The purpose of this episode was (I'm guessing) to show how illogical class/social prejudice is/are, and that even the most intelligent people (or species) are subject to bouts of prejudice and ignorance from time to time.

Bingo.

 

[Timo]

...Of course, if they did devote resources and personnel to advanced automated mining and the like, they'd soon find this a useless drain as the people running the automation (yes, there's always some) would become morons faster than they could train replacements.

We don't really have much reason to believe Plasus was genuinely ignorant of the zenite effect. All we see is him acknowledging that effect while held at phaserpoint by Kirk - a good time to feign whatever it is you need to feign to keep your head on your shoulders and your planet running the way you want it to keep on running.

Timo Saloniemi