The mysterious Eyemorg ship...

[Warped9]

No worries--I'm still working on the shuttlecraft stuff. But I am pondering my next build and my thoughts are wandering to the mysterious Eyemorg ship seen in TOS' "Spock's Brain."



This was a nice piece of classic TOS design. It's a seemingly simple and clean design that conveys mystery and sophistication because it is so simple. It's basically a classic rocketship idea but massaged into something that manages to look more exotic. It certainly has no obvious thrust nozzles or even something analogous to Federation or Klingon style warp nacelles. CBS thought it fit to replace the design in TOS-R (which isn't a bad design in itself), but I think it was totally unnecessary.

We have no idea of the scale of this ship. Is it merely a one-man vehicle or something reasonably large that in its heydey would normal have been manned by several? The fact that it also has a teleportaion system also speaks to rather advanced technology. I think it's safe to assume that it had FTL capability because if it were relegated solely to sublight, even high relativistic sublight, the Enterprise would likely have tracked it easily as it would have taken it a long time to return home.

I'm thinking it's likely the ship was able to land, if not by extending some sort of landing gear then into a form of landing gantry or cradle given the vessel's shape. I say this because in the episode there's no mention of the Enterprise finding a ship or any orbital complex in orbit of the planet.

I would say that after retrieving Spock Starfleet would certainly be interested in studying the vessel.

 

[Kemaiku]

Taking the appearance of the ship literally, ignoring budget concerns, it looks like the vessel has a single piece cast hull. That implies a very different construction ethic to nearly all other species, but as for scale, I'd say maybe under half the Enterprises' length.

The ship seems inspired by the rocket ship idea of the 30's to 60's, maybe it landed in a similar way, vertically. De-orbiting and landing with more conventional thrust into an underground hanger that is hidden when closed over. But the Thunderbird 1-esque shape and wings would imply it could be capable of flying inside planetary atmospheres.

Which could also mean, depending how alien we want it to be, that the decks are arranged that way inside, with a vertical arrangement in mind, the artificial gravity acting down through the ship.

That would give several decks above the apparent engine section of the ship, a large power plant and possibly several forms of propulsion in those 4 large projections. Sublight, FTL and atmospheric flight.

It may not even need a deflector, the hull metal being single piece and fused using some futuristic (even to the Federation) alloy or material could render it mostly invunerable to most impacts.

It would be interesting know if the Enterprise's weapons would even have any effect on it.

 

[E-DUB]

I always found it amusing that a society dominated by women would fly a ship that looks like a giant vibrator.

 

[Warped9]

The vessel itself as well as what is seen on the planet speaks of a high technology at least comparable to the Federation. And yet they still became nearly extinct--a recurring theme in Star Trek of advanced societies still falling prey to circumstances they are unable to overcome. What could have happened to have reduced their world to mere remnants of the former level of civilization?

To me the planet's current ice age might suggest something of a climate event that they couldn't cope with. The existence of the advanced ship suggests to me that some survivors might have escaped. I could even wonder if the Eymorg could be related to the race represented by Losira in "That Which Survives." Losira thought her entire race dead, but maybe there were survivors and some of them are on Sigma Draconis 6.

As per usual practice in television SF we see only a simplistic representation of this world. I somehow doubt that the race could have continued based solely on the Eymorg periodically taking in males from the surface. It seems more likely that surviving men and women were scattered about the planet scratching out an existence much as our ancient ancestors did. The Eymorg women were merely but one small group that managed to retain something of the civilization's past state.

Another thought occurs to me: could there be more than one teacher device? Would Kara had risked losing her knowledge if she didn't find a suitable replacement for the old Controller in time? Seems more likely and safer to have a Teacher at hand for when she found a suitable candidate which could have taken hours to days to weeks or longer. Given that there could have been another Teacher aboard the Eymorg ship.

And said Teacher might also have enabled her to pilot the ship. Or the ship had sufficient programming to pilot itself and might even have had an idea where to look based on ancient records.

 

[Kemaiku]

Similar in principle to Yonada and the Oracle. Only in this instance, distributing what was left to as many of the ion ships and what could be seen as variants of the Ancient Knowledge devices from Stargate, imparting only what was needed in various ways.

Maybe there are some similar to Spock's viewer and the Ancient device, something that connects more through the eyes on the ship, with only it's core to access for a shorter time.

The Teacher, as in the full on repository, is implied to be more unique to the complex. But there could be more bunkers across the planet, maybe some failed and succombed to the ice, others have managed to keep theirs going.

The idea of survivors on the surface, starting to adapt and maybe on their way (eventually) to being an offshoot of the underground people is interesting.

The mention of the "First Federation" in early TOS still sounds very much like an alliance of vastly older more advanced species (and their own nemesis races) well before the Earth Federation, there could be literally hundreds or in the low thousands of planets affected by colonisation, warfare, research, transplantation, refugees etc of each.

TOS is less a random exploration of the unknown, as the unearthing of this older era, running into the remnants of it on a regular basis. Something the later series dropped early on apart from TNG's T'kon and "Seeding" races.

 

[Warped9]

Of course another possibility for the Eymorg ship is it could be conceptually similar to the ringship Enterprise. Only instead of rings it has those four unusual looking pods. In some ways it could be a conceptual link similar to what Earth and the Federation had between the ring design and familiar twin nacelle configuration.

Anyway, here's a quick workup.

 

[Albertese]

Ooo, I like that. This is one of the ships I want to scratchbuild at 1:2400 scale, so I too am interested in how big we think it is. Frankly, I'm assuming it'll have to be an arbitrary decision, as there really are no clues about this size on the model. We know it's at least big enough to hold two people, and presumably their provisions, and if it has it's own Teacher that would take a bit of room. This could be as small as a runabout, really.

I had a weird idea just now, looking at this ship: what if it it lands on it's pointy nose and has it's four protrusions in the air; upside-down from the traditional rocket posture? Other examples in sci-fi of this type of design could be the Monogewon ship in the beginning of The Fifth Element, or the Quintesson ship that Kup and Hotrod steal in Transformers: The Movie (1986). This would really cement the idea of a very advanced technology which depends on very reliable anti-gravity. Perhaps there is also a cradle of some sort to keep it upright as it powers down at base, but it's so reliable that there is no expectation of ever needing to power down on a mission.

Just a thought.

--Alex

 

[Warped9]

I've been considering building something of a 3D diorama for this at some point. I'm envisioning it sitting in some sort of gantry and perhaps in a subsurface bunker waiting for one of its periodic forays into space in search and yet another new Controller.

Considering the aft end design I think antigravity makes perfect sense. I see it lifting off and landing in much the same way as the classic '40s and '50s era sci-fi rocketships and all handled by computer.

 

[Timo]

I think it's safe to assume that it had FTL capability because if it were relegated solely to sublight, even high relativistic sublight, the Enterprise would likely have tracked it easily as it would have taken it a long time to return home.

Indeed, the hero ship searches for the villainess for the better part of a day at warp six - definite overkill for finding a sublight fugitive even if she had a head start of several days (unlikely considering Spock's condition).

The Eymorg ship bears a close resemblance to the Vulcan vessel seen in ENT "Carbon Creek" and the fourth-season trilogy of Vulcan adventures. A spindle body and four propulsion pods - but not a set of Flash Gordonesque canards this time out! Might be a case of "no frills", of logically sticking to the simplest possible form even when oddities such as saucers-and-cigars-and-nacelles might yield minor performance advantages. Just use superior engines and there's no need for that sort of trickery...

Landing on the tip of the hull would look cool, but I could also envision "landing gear" based totally on advanced gravity control: the ship would just hover two centimeters above the hangar floor for millions of years unless commanded to do something else.

As for size, our heroes would probably comment if this were mere "craft". But technologically, she could well be two inches tall, accommodating passengers in a transporter buffer rather than in physical form. Some sort of advanced transporter trickery might well be behind the ability to extract functional brains anyway.

There are shades of Alastair Reynolds' pseudo-retro starships, too - the Eymorg ship could be dozens of kilometers long, intended to move whole societies, and now running errands she was never really designed for. Big would be in fitting with our heroes' commentary; small would not. But medium is always an option...

Finally, there's the silver finish. T-1000 technology, with the shape actually completely arbitrary and reprogrammable in flight? Perhaps this thing can look both like the TOS version and the TOS-R version, at the (mental) flip of an onboard Controller switch?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

How about something even weirder?

The Eymorg we see in "Spock's Brain" retain and use the following technologies:

• FTL space vessel capable of seeking out, overtaking and attacking an unsuspecting Federation starship with very little warning.
  
• Space vessel is an unconventional design, using ion power (like the Class F shuttlecraft?), and a single hull that appears to be a one-peice cast design. (Looks like a component from my mother's old sausage grinder.)
  
• A single Eymorg with a bracelet device can stun the entire crew of a Federation starship with the touch of a single button, all simultaneously, all over the ship, all while she stands on the command deck, unaffected by the stun.
  
• A single Eymorg can use a "teacher" device to acquire the knowledge to quickly steal someone's brain from inside of their head, and still leave the body behind untouched.
  
• The Eymorg society lives in a spaceship-like complex, deep underground, on a planet where there is very little to give away their existence. All a Federation starship can detect is faint indiscernible power readings.

Given all of these demonstrated abilities, wouldn't it seem logical that the Eymorg, well advanced technologically above the Federation, would have technology similar to the prototype "Pegasus" cloaking device used by Admiral Pressman in the TNG era, to not only conceal ships in flight, but also to use phase-shifting technology to allow the ship to "dock" to a mother complex deep beneath a planet's surface, indeed becoming part of the subterranean complex, while not in-flight? Think about it. Why would the Eymorg ship need landing gear when they can do all those other things? Why "land" on the planet at all? Why not just phase-shift inside of it after passing through the surface? (It would also explain why the Enterprise's sensors could not find and track the Eymorg ship directly.)

 

[Timo]

I guess that sooner or later, we have to hold our horses: the Eymorg may be advanced, but they are recognizably advanced by the standards of our heroes. Scotty has no trouble determining that the ship operates on ion power, say. It's beyond his skills, but not beyond his understanding.

That in mind, it might be fun to see two versions of the ship: one fantastically and mysteriously advanced, with a pure, perfect, seamlessly reflective surface - and one with all sorts of 1950s style Dan Dare detailing to it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[feek61]

Here is the only side view of the ship from the episode:

 

[Warped9]

Here is the only side view of the ship from the episode:

Cool. Looking at this I can see that the diagrams I based y model on were incorrect.

Oh, well. Back to the drawing board.

 

[publiusr]

It seems to have no exhaust of any kind

 

[Wingsley]

I don't see the 3D model as being that far off.

 

[publiusr]

A single Eymorg with a bracelet device can stun the entire crew of a Federation starship with the touch of a single button, all simultaneously, all over the ship, all while she stands on the command deck, unaffected by the stun.

• 
  
  The ultimate utility belt would have that, Scalosian materials (water and their instantaneous effect hand weapon...what else for a one man take-over of a Klingon ship--the Kelvin units...

 

[Atolm]

OOOOOh that's a sexy ship! I always love the original design. I like the redux version as well, but the original is really awesome!