The Planet Killer a creature? Hmm...

[Captrek]

The Doomsday Machine could be just as alive as V'Ger or Data is (or was). It could be a living machine traveling thru space like Tin Man but one that "eats" planets for fuel, Like Galactus.

It “could be” alive, in the same sense you can speculate the same thing about any mysterious object floating through space. However, I see no evidentiary basis for the hypothesis. My telephone exhibits more complex and sophisticated behavior than the Doomsday Machine.

 

[T'Girl]

I do wonder why Kirk never attempted to contact it?

He talked, or tried to talk to, everyone and everything else. Maybe he could have preserved the Constellation by yakking it to death.

 

[Captrek]

I do wonder why Kirk never attempted to contact it?

Spock informed Kirk that there was “no evidence of life.” I imagine Spock didn’t render such a judgment without so much as a cursory “Yo, anybody there?” hail having been attempted, although this is not depicted onscreen.

 

[Satyrquaze]

There are a number of things about the plot of "The Doomsday Machine" that contradictory.

If the DDM originated from outside our galaxy, then how did it "survive" without fuel? It only seems to consume planets and yet it never travels above Warp 4. How did it get from its point of origin to the Milky Way without 'eating'?

I've always been comfortable thinking of the DDM as a living organism, just one that Star Fleet could not identify with it's crude 23rd century insturments through a neutronium shell.

 

[Captrek]

There are a number of things about the plot of "The Doomsday Machine" that contradictory.

If the DDM originated from outside our galaxy, then how did it "survive" without fuel? It only seems to consume planets and yet it never travels above Warp 4. How did it get from its point of origin to the Milky Way without 'eating'?

1) This was aimed to a broad audience and it was 1967. The average viewer might not have known quite how empty or how enormous the intergalactic void is. (I mean, come on, Murasaki is a “quasar or quasar-like phenomenon”?)

2) Fanwank?

2a) It was on “coast” with no warp field but at near light speed. It consumed almost no energy during the million-year journey.

2b) It had stored up a tremendous amount of energy to sustain it during the journey. When it set course for our galaxy, it presumably had used up its own. That’s one hell of a lot of fuel.

I've always been comfortable thinking of the DDM as a living organism, just one that Star Fleet could not identify with it's crude 23rd century insturments through a neutronium shell.

Feel free to think of it that way if you like the story better that way.

 

[Satyrquaze]

Thank you for all of your generous allowances.

 

[Timo]

I mean, come on, Murasaki is a “quasar or quasar-like phenomenon”?

Well, yes.

That is, "quasar-like" is a redundant way of saying "quasar", which already means "like", "ersatz", "fake". And compact phenomena like that inside the Milky Way are a modern science fact even if they were unknown in the 1960s.

Surprisingly many of Trek's "scientific predictions" (that is, lucky guesses that were never meant to predict anything) have turned out smelling of roses. Like black stars, intragalactic quasars, Moon shots on a Wednesday... It's probably just a matter of getting better telescopes before we verify the existence of Space Amoebae and Doomsday Machines, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Kirk says he has standing orders to investigate quasars and quasar-like phenomenon he encounters. Given the destructive nature of quasars, finding one in our galaxy would be a BAD thing. So of course he's got orders to investigate them.

 

[Captrek]

Sorry about the snark, Satyrquaze.

 

[Satyrquaze]

Sorry about the snark, Satyrquaze.

Nah. I was in a bad mood and partly reacting to something else.

My fault.