Yup, given it's human appearance is only illusory, I wonder what orifice he was banging. I mean, in the interests of science, I wonder how this particular aspect of xeno-biology works out.
The Man Trap - Was Crater Right?
- Thread starter CoveTom
- Start date
Yup, given it's human appearance is only illusory, I wonder what orifice he was banging. I mean, in the interests of science, I wonder how this particular aspect of xeno-biology works out.
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
As for Crater banging it and orifices...let's just say "The Man Trap" has more than one meaning. 
As for Crater banging it and orifices...let's just say "The Man Trap" has more than one meaning.
It had that damned toothy mouth, but I'm betting digital stimulation must have been a bit of a hoot with those suckers
Indeed. Trelaine immediately aimed the phaser right for that one, out of all his wall niche specimens. He could just as easily have blown away that wierd bird thing.It was an ugly critter. It deserved to die.
Even if the salt creature took the form of Dr. Helen Noel, naked and dancing on a revolving android factory platform, would it be an attractive choice?
RobertScorpio
Pariah
maybe it had to come in contact with those it took shape of...
Rob
Rob
We didn't see it meet and touch the young woman that lured in the crewman who died planetside, or the tall, black man that charmed Uhura, and there was every indication that these people were either fictional, or far away from the planet and the ship at the time - so probably no.
You need to ask?
OTOH, were it in the form of anybody other than Helen Noel, I'd claim that I also valued the intelligence and personality of the heavenly body in question, and that I'd be unlikely to find much of either in the creature's otherwise convincing illusion. It just didn't seem to me at any point of the episode that the salt vampire would have been a great conversationalist, or possessing of an interesting alien viewpoint, or anything like that.
Timo Saloniemi
You need to ask?
OTOH, were it in the form of anybody other than Helen Noel, I'd claim that I also valued the intelligence and personality of the heavenly body in question, and that I'd be unlikely to find much of either in the creature's otherwise convincing illusion. It just didn't seem to me at any point of the episode that the salt vampire would have been a great conversationalist, or possessing of an interesting alien viewpoint, or anything like that.
Timo Saloniemi
I guess it doesn't matter where the salt comes from. . .
Exactly. If some guy attacked me and I was fighting back, my only thought would be to stop him. Not "knock him out" or "disable him" but stop him any way I could. If that meant jamming his nose into his brain, so be it. In America, if an intruder bursts into your home and threatens you, you can shoot the SOB.
At the very least, it would be ruled "justifiable homicide" if not self defense.
Actually, Kirk hints at that when he's grilling Crater; "lover" is in the list of things he says the creature can be for Crater.
Peeps:
I think McCoy was justified in killing the creature simply because it was killing his friend, Kirk. Sure, it might've been nice to negotiate with the creature, but it didn't seem willing to do that, either.
I have an idea about McCoy's emotional state when he killed the creature, though. From his dialogue, McCoy asks God to forgive him that he's killing the creature that imitated his lost love, Nancy, but I think another emotion gripped him: hate that the creature used the image of his old love to manipulate him, as it did so effectively.
I also think the creature had no choice, as its dependence on salt probably prompted a blood-lust -- or should I say, a salt-lust -- that could only be satisfied by draining another life-form.
Red Ranger
I think McCoy was justified in killing the creature simply because it was killing his friend, Kirk. Sure, it might've been nice to negotiate with the creature, but it didn't seem willing to do that, either.
I have an idea about McCoy's emotional state when he killed the creature, though. From his dialogue, McCoy asks God to forgive him that he's killing the creature that imitated his lost love, Nancy, but I think another emotion gripped him: hate that the creature used the image of his old love to manipulate him, as it did so effectively.
I also think the creature had no choice, as its dependence on salt probably prompted a blood-lust -- or should I say, a salt-lust -- that could only be satisfied by draining another life-form.
Red Ranger
In retrospect, although couched as "monster of the week," this ep was miles above a lot of sci-fi on TV up until that time. Nobody really wins in this ep and apart from a fantasy series like "The Twilight Zone," you rarely saw that on TV.
Nobody, especially Kirk, is happy about the way things ended.
Nobody, especially Kirk, is happy about the way things ended.
Saxman1:
I think you're quite right. Man Trap was different in that, while it doesn't set the monster notion completely on its ear, like Devil in the Dark, it does give the creature a motivation -- survival. It doesn't just kill to kill.
Red Ranger
In the 60s, it probably wasn't thought about as in-depth as this, it was just a case of "hooray, our heroes won!", but we're a bit different as a culture these days. The episode finishes, and you're kinda left feeling a little ashamed of what just happened
That's a bit of an oversimplification.... Kirk's pensive mood in the final scene tells us he is very much aware of the magnitude of what has just happened; not only has a life ended, but an entire species is now extinct.
But this is a window into the psychology of Kirk. He is a thoughtful, learned, compassionate man who sees the bigger picture in all situations. But even here his feelings must take a back seat to the safety of his ship and crew. In the final scene he muses that he "was thinking about the buffalo", but what is evident to me is that he had actually begun thinking about them from the moment it became clear to him that Nancy the Salt Sucker would have to be killed in order to be stopped.
Kirk understood the bigger picture, but also understood that without an alternative his course of action was clear, and he did not flinch from it. In this we see once again why he is the consummate starship commander. (This is why I prefer Kirk to Picard, who would have wasted time agonizing over the moral ramifications even as the creature was running loose sucking his crew dry.)
Or as Jack O'Neill would have put it, "This is the way it had to go down!"
-Dan
I would expect more comprehension of human nature out of the salt monster, due to her ability to read minds enough to mimic. She was able to pull Swahili out of Uhura's mind; plus she mimicked each person's speech and behavior patterns.
The monster should have been able to predict humans would supply her with nourishment and hence stop killing. But maybe she already detected the horror in individual minds at what she had done; or maybe Kirk was right about Crater that he was optimistically biased about the nature of her species' character.
The monster should have been able to predict humans would supply her with nourishment and hence stop killing. But maybe she already detected the horror in individual minds at what she had done; or maybe Kirk was right about Crater that he was optimistically biased about the nature of her species' character.
It also incidentally puts Star Trek into the genre of the adult Western, and Kirk a character much like Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke. A big feature of that is that the characters are there trying to being safety and order to the universe and yet that means even when you succeed that doesn't mean it's going to be a happy ending. In fact, it can be a pretty bitter ending.
I'm not sure mimicry would require comprehension. The critter just gave everybody what they wanted to see; I'm not convinced it pulled anything out of Uhura's mind, as opposed to just holding a mental mirror in front of Uhura and letting her brain do all the deluding.
It probably was nonconscious mimicry in addition to being instinctual, too. Remember that the creature offered multiple conflicting illusions to as many as four people at the same time. Did it really actively target Kirk, McCoy and the extra guy, and possibly also Dr. Carter, with a carefully thought out illusion of a customized female human in its introductory scenes? Or did it merely wear its usual mental fur, causing any human within range to experience an illusion of his or her own making, even when the salt vampire didn't realize it was being watched by that person? The latter would appear more probable IMHO.
Timo Saloniemi
^^ To have a long conversation as Bones at the conference table, I think she would have had some inkling of what humans were like. And having lived with Crater all those years, she would have picked something up about human nature. Her species was not a simple instinctual one; there are ruins scattered around the planet, as we see it, and Crater indicates they had a civilization.
