The Enemy Within Question

[darkshadow0001]

I watched the first season episode "The Enemy Within" last night and something bothered me about it. With Sulu and the other men trapped on that planet at -20 degrees below zero, how is it they are surviving with just their uniforms on? I realize that they had phasers to keep the rocks warm and blankets, but when it was -20 degrees below zero here in real life this winter I was barely able to stay outside with even winter clothes on. Did they evolve enough in 200 hundred years where humans can withstand cold weather better then we can or could it be because the planet maybe registered different temperatures then we do on earth?

 

[Timo]

Well, we can't really argue that they were "withstanding" the cold. They were almost immobilized, their faces covered in frost, their extremities no doubt suffering from severe frostbite. It's probably only thanks to superior, futuristic 23rd century medicine that they survived without having their limbs amputated - or that they survived at all.

Yours is a refreshingly new question, BTW. Usually, people as "why didn't they beam down blankets?", as if a few more blankets would have helped them at minus twenty, let alone the minus 70 that was forecast...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[22 Stars]

Or where the heck is the shuttlecraft!

 

[JustKate]

I always figured - and I'm probably just making this up - that there was something about the uniforms themselves. One hundred years ago, you had to wear thick, itchy wool to stay warm, and now (as those of us who live in colder climates know) we can have long underwear made of modern miracle fibers and it keeps us much warmer with much less bulk. I have one pair not much thicker than a pair of pantyhose and though it cost an outrageous amount of money, it's worth it because it keeps me much warmer than those awful thermal cotton things used to and it's much more comfortable. So why not even more miraculous fibers in the 23rd and 24th centuries? (I mention the 24th century because I think I remember noticing TNG crew not bothering with visible cold-weather gear in cold climates, too, though I cannot remember any specific episodes.)

But of course, the best miracle fibers these days have their limitations, so presumably the super-miracle fibers of the 23rd century have limitations as well. So the uniforms helped, which is why they managed to stay alive long enough that 23rd century medicine would help them, but that doesn't mean they were comfy.

Darkshadow, I happen know it gets cold where you live! You must not have bought long underwear recently.

 

[Christopher]

In "Spock's Brain," when the landing party beams down to the glaciated planet surface, Kirk orders "Suit temperatures to 72" and they all fiddle with some unseen control at their waists. This was, of course, a way to avoid spending money on new wardrobe items such as parkas, but it comes off as a very interesting bit of futurism -- ordinary-looking clothes with temperature-regulating circuits built in. Which is actually very plausible, a technology that we'll probably have within a few decades. It's a shame this intriguing throwaway line was forgotten and its ramifications never explored in later shows or films.

Anyway, it could provide a handy answer to the original poster's question. Sulu's landing party could've turned up their uniforms' built-in heating mechanisms to deal with the cold on Alfa 177. But it was so frigid and windy that the benefit was limited.

 

[simmsbc]

The biggest problem I had with the freezing part of the episode was that phasers and other tools they should have been able to construct a rudimentary cave and cover the entrance with the blankets and warm it up with other phasers heating rocks and they would have been able to survive the cold. I live in northern Alberta and have had intimate contact with temperatures bordering on -40 c and the most important thing to do is find protection from the wind. Enclosing the group in a small area with a heat source out of the breeze and you can make things quite warm.

 

[Christopher]

^Given what the elements in the local rock did to the transporter, they might've reacted badly to phaser fire as well. Maybe it just wasn't practical to dig a cave in that particular location. (I know, lame, but it's the best I can come up with on the spur of the moment.)

 

[nx1701g]

Or where the heck is the shuttlecraft!

If I recall correctly the set had yet to be built so the Enterprise didn't have shuttles yet - or they weren't capable of the cold.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I always figured - and I'm probably just making this up - that there was something about the uniforms themselves.

People who have mastered teleportation and FTL travel should long since have created lightweight body armor that can be crafted to look exactly like any fabric you'd care to name, including velour. The uniforms themselves should be able to keep them warm (or cool) under extreme circumstances and also deflect most energy weapons, not to mention blades, boulders, etc. (That sure would have helped the wear & tear on the Redshirts.)

No need for hats, masks or gloves, either. A very lightweight fabric, effectively invisible, could cover their entire bodies with the velour-looking uniforms just layered on top for show and also nudity is frowned in in the Federation. So any part of the body that seems exposed really isn't.

Or just go the Dune route and give everyone personal force fields. That way all Federation citizens could also have their own person atmosphere to breathe. It's very weird to assume that everyone breathes an Earthlike mix of nitrogen and oxygen.

Bottom line, environmental control of individuals shouldn't be an issue for these people...

 

[darkshadow0001]

Or where the heck is the shuttlecraft!

That's what I wondered, too

 

[Christopher]

The usual justification for not using shuttles is that the winds were too intense for a shuttle to handle.

 

[Gary7]

Well, we can't really argue that they were "withstanding" the cold. They were almost immobilized, their faces covered in frost, their extremities no doubt suffering from severe frostbite. It's probably only thanks to superior, futuristic 23rd century medicine that they survived without having their limbs amputated - or that they survived at all.

Yours is a refreshingly new question, BTW. Usually, people as "why didn't they beam down blankets?", as if a few more blankets would have helped them at minus twenty, let alone the minus 70 that was forecast...

Timo Saloniemi

I agree. Sure, they couldn't beam up the men, but even if the blankets beamed down a bit distorted, they'd still work towards helping to keep them warm.

I do buy the whole wind issue making it just about impossible for a shuttle to land, but you'd think that these shuttles could be used for drop payload missions... obviously they didn't consider that.

I do wonder if frostbite issues were handled easily in TNG/DS9/VOY, or if there were "impossibilities" faced.

 

[Nerys Myk]

They beamed some down, but they were all evil blankets. Scratchy and too short.

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure about the viability of cave-digging in these particular circumstances. Remember that they needed the phasers for one purpose already: they were their only source of heat. It is quite possible that emptying the batteries in an effort to dig a cave would not have resulted in a nook that was superior to the blanket-shelter they used, yet it would have left them without a further source of heat. Apparently, a phaser-heated rock isn't heated very deeply, and grows cold again relatively quickly, as seen here. So the heat from the cave-digging process wouldn't have been all that significant an aid, unless one could dig a cave deep enough to prevent the heat from escaping. Which they probably couldn't do if they already ran out of phaser juice with their simple rock-heating efforts...

The bottom line of course was that the surface was going to drop to minus 120 degrees at night. Whether that's Celsius of Farenheit, the only way to survive that would be in a spacesuit - no passive protection system, or even a well insulated log cabin with a stove, would suffice.

As for equipment drop, it might have been an option, but probably not a very viable one. If the high winds prevented shuttles from landing, they would also have made aiming rather difficult - and the landing party couldn't travel far to search for the drop.

High, multi-hundred km/h winds in mid-atmosphere do sound like a showstopper for shuttle ops. But they wouldn't necessarily stop other types of entry, such as a dedicated penetrator probe, or a quick dip down by the starship herself. Perhaps the planet was one of the many in the Trek universe that had an annoying technobabble anomaly around them? Although one would assume that transporters would be the technology worst blocked by a given anomaly...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tan Ru]

They beamed some down, but they were all evil blankets. Scratchy and too short.

..............and they tended to bunch up around the knees. Most uncomfortable.

 

[guardian]

If this has been mentioned--sorry.

But Spock says they tried to send down heaters and they didn't function, but then send down giant thick blankets and if they duplicate---GREAT. Presumably their protection against wind and cold would survive duplication.

 

[Timo]

But they already had ample blankets. We saw those. And we also saw that they did squat in keeping out the cold, which by midnight might have come close to condensing the very air they breathed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kissthestar]

To me, the strange thing about this episode is that both Kirk and Spock fail to notice the damage done to the transporter relay when the Evil Kirk fires the phaser and misses Good Kirk. Later, Scotty mentions that they STILL can't use the transporter because there's a big ole hole in ripped in the casing down in that lower deck.

 

[GSchnitzer]

The main reason why they couldn't beam down blankets is because the transporters weren't working at all (ship-wide) for most of the episode. The Evil Kirk Double shot a big hole in the transporter systems' circuitry casing when Spock nerve pinched him:

SCOTT

Mr. Scott, sir, on the lower level of the
engineering deck. I found the new trouble
with the transporter. The casing has a
gap ripped in it. The main circuits have been
burned through. The abort control circuit
is gone altogether....The transporter unit
ionizer--Nothing much left of it, sir....We can't
repair it in less than a week.

So although they discovered that the transporters were duplicating people and things in the middle of Act One, by the middle of Act Two, it was a whole new ballgame with the transporters and they weren't working at all.

Why didn't Kirk beam down a whole bunch of blankets in that short interval after they discovered the duplicating problem but before the transporters stopped working altogether? Well, because the "Good Kirk" was already losing his power of command and wasn't thinking clearly. In fact, even after the transporters circuitry was damaged by the phaser fire, Good Kirk never even thought to mention this new damage to Scotty. Here's some pretty interesting dialog from the actual Final Draft shooting script that didn't make it to the final episode:

KIRK

Haven't you checked all the circuits yet, Scotty?

SCOTT

Yes, sir, we have. And we'd thought we found
the trouble. Now something else has gone wrong.

KIRK

What?

SCOTT

We don't know, sir. We're checking on it now.

And then after Scotty does finally track down the problem, here's what he has to say in the Final Draft shooting script:

SCOTT

Mr. Scott, sir. I'm on the lower level of the
engineering deck. I've just found the new
trouble with the Transporter. The Transporter
Ionizer Unit has been mangled! Looks as if a
phaser gun's been fired at it.

So, Kirk hadn't even mentioned the problem to Scotty, even though Kirk saw the whole thing happen and knew about the problem; clearly Kirk was already becoming forgetful, neglectful, and preoccupied. Poor Scotty had to hunt down the cause this new transporter problem even though Kirk saw it happen!

So, why were no additional blankets beamed down? Because during the very short window of opportunity they had to beam down any blankets, Kirk wasn't thinking straight (and then all the transporters stopped working altogether).

In looking at the terrain of Alfa 177, it looks pretty rocky with high crosswinds. I don't think there's a place to set a shuttlecraft down within hundreds of miles of Sulu's survey team. It might have been possible, but as I mentioned,the Kirks weren't thinking very clearly that day. Even if using a shuttlecraft were possible, the poor, incapacitated Kirk "slowly losing the power of command" didn't think of it.

 

[Grant]

"They already had ample blankets.' ???

really? That paper thin aluminum sheet they had was ample?

Even if it was a 'space age' warming material--more would have hurt their situation?