The Talos IV sky and Forbidden Planet

[Maurice]

Looking at Talos V, is that a moon or is the planet broken up? Looks like the latter to me.

The only thing next to the ball for planet 4 is a small #4...and its orbital arrow.

He's talking about Talos v (5), isn't he? Talos V could have a moon, the picture is too small for me to make it out clearly which of Lieut. Arix's possibilities it could be.

Yeah, that 's what I get for trying to read posts on my phone.

 

[Gov Kodos]

It's worth mentioning that in the diagram of the Talos IV star system shown on the overhead monitor on the bridge, the diagram shows twin suns at the center of the system:

If you look closely at this diagram, Talos IV is the planet with the really eccentric orbit compared to its neighboring inner satellites. I wonder why it's so out of balance.... maybe the Talosians' long-ago ecologically destructive war actually knocked the planet off its proper orbit?

Looking at Talos V, is that a moon or is the planet broken up? Looks like the latter to me.

Talos IV appears to come quite close to Talos V's orbit. Perhaps in the early evolution of the system the two were a binary pair like Earth and its moon but some incident set Talos IV onto its eccentric path?

 

[ATMachine]

One can, for the sake of argument, come up with elements in a lot of skiffy movies and old TV shows that are similar enough to Star Trek to claim "oh, these ideas were common" - the kids in Tom Corbett, for example, were in a space service.

But the fact is that there is not in the history of movies or TV another show or movie that is so near to identical in tone and content to Star Trek as Forbidden Planet (before Trek's premiere, I mean. Lots has copied it since).

There are those two, nearly identical in many respects, and nothing else like them - lists of similar elements don't really prove anything.

Agreed. Certainly as far as visual media goes, Forbidden Planet is the closest thing to early Star Trek there is.

Yeah, I should have specified that I meant they were unique only in the visual media. Forbidden Planet actually incorporates tropes about the future and space travel that had become widespread in pulp sf literature during the previous three decades: starships as naval vessels, interplanetary/interstellar governments and even FTL starflight itself to name a few examples.

Robbie's "basic inhibition against harming rational beings" isn't something you see much in earlier movies either, but it does sound very familiar.

Oh, definitely. Just in terms of interstellar Federations with FTL ships that patrol the galaxy, Edmond Hamilton and EE "Doc" Smith come to mind immediately, and they were writing in the 1930s.

And, as you mentioned, Robby is definitely Asimov-compliant.

 

[Warped9]

I'm no astronomer or cosmologist, but from what little I do understand the system as it's depicted in that bridge monitor shot doesn't make much sense. I don't think it's possible to have two suns so close together and have a stable orbit of planets around the two suns with them at the centre. From what I understand it would be possible for two stars to orbit each other and one or both of them to have their own planets, given the suns were sufficiently distant from each other. It would still be a binary system, or star group, but it wouldn't look anything like that diagram.

 

[TIN_MAN]

^^Yeah, I thought about that too, but clearly the diagram can't be to scale anyway, so who knows? I suppose its possible two suns could orbit that way around their common center of gravity, maybe they're white dwarfs or something?

 

[ATMachine]

I'm no astronomer or cosmologist, but from what little I do understand the system as it's depicted in that bridge monitor shot doesn't make much sense. I don't think it's possible to have two suns so close together and have a stable orbit of planets around the two suns with them at the centre. From what I understand it would be possible for two stars to orbit each other and one or both of them to have their own planets, given the suns were sufficiently distant from each other. It would still be a binary system, or star group, but it wouldn't look anything like that diagram.

I need to track down Arthur C. Clarke's The Exploration of Space; apparently Harvey Lynn critiqued Roddenberry's idea of a binary star using a relevant excerpt from this book, but The Making of Star Trek excised the excerpt when reprinting Lynn's letter.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I agree with ATMachine's idea. If I were in universe, I would wonder whether the highly inclined orbit is due to the war that destroyed the Talosian civilization.

Note - The correct terminology is that the orbit of Talos 4 is highly inclined relative to the invariable plane of the system, rather than "really eccentric"; its orbit appears to be just as circular as the those of the other planets in the system.

 

[ATMachine]

I agree with ATMachine's idea. If I were in universe, I would wonder whether the highly inclined orbit is due to the war that destroyed the Talosian civilization.

Note - The correct terminology is that the orbit of Talos 4 is highly inclined relative to the invariable plane of the system, rather than "really eccentric"; its orbit appears to be just as circular as the those of the other planets in the system.

Thanks for the note on proper astronomy terminology. I guess "eccentric" was a poor choice of words--I merely meant to say "dang, that is one strange orbital path compared to the other planets."

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Thanks for the good idea on how it got that way.

 

[Shon T'Hara]

I'm no astronomer or cosmologist, but from what little I do understand the system as it's depicted in that bridge monitor shot doesn't make much sense. I don't think it's possible to have two suns so close together and have a stable orbit of planets around the two suns with them at the centre. From what I understand it would be possible for two stars to orbit each other and one or both of them to have their own planets, given the suns were sufficiently distant from each other. It would still be a binary system, or star group, but it wouldn't look anything like that diagram.

With the stars that close together, the planets would be orbiting the center of gravity between them. The problem is having two stars that close together.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

Yes, looking at Talos V, it appears that it has a single moon orbiting it. Talos I and II and IV seem plain (aside from IV's weird orbit), Talos III seems to have rings, and Talos V has a moon. A blow up of the image seems to show a single spherical moon, not a bunch of rocky chunks:

If you look closely at this diagram, Talos IV is the planet with the really eccentric orbit compared to its neighboring inner satellites. I wonder why it's so out of balance.... maybe the Talosians' long-ago ecologically destructive war actually knocked the planet off its proper orbit?

Looking at Talos V, is that a moon or is the planet broken up? Looks like the latter to me.

The upper right limb of Talos V has a chunk missing and looking at a blow-up, the whole planet isn't spherical. It's very clear in a negative of the image. I'm convinced it's broken into two large pieces, most likely as a result of the war.

I'm no astronomer or cosmologist, but from what little I do understand the system as it's depicted in that bridge monitor shot doesn't make much sense. I don't think it's possible to have two suns so close together and have a stable orbit of planets around the two suns with them at the centre. From what I understand it would be possible for two stars to orbit each other and one or both of them to have their own planets, given the suns were sufficiently distant from each other. It would still be a binary system, or star group, but it wouldn't look anything like that diagram.

The Talos stars could be part of a contact binary, a pairing whose orbits could be stable for billions of years, long enough for planets to form and life to develop.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Any zoological gardens Pike and Vina might've had produced on the surface, would've been reduced to ashes by the summer - looking at the orbital path Talos IV takes.

Not that it spoils my enjoyment. Just an interesting observation on a background graphic weren't not meant to see in this kind of detail.

 

[Timo]

Do we really see that the path would diverge significantly from a circle?

I mean, the above 'cap could easily feature a perfectly circular path; the cropping prevents us from seeing where the farther part of the path would intersect the ecliptic, and it could well be halfway between III and V just like in the nearer path.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[alchemist]

Looking at Talos V, is that a moon or is the planet broken up? Looks like the latter to me.

Talos V is indeed a strange planet upon closer look:

What the heck does this show? Poor artistry, since it was never intended to be seen up close?

 

[ATMachine]

Incidentally, for those who are interested, here's a better look (from an old issue of Cinefantastique) at the early "TMP Vulcan" style sky shown in Forbidden Planet storyboards. Reminds me of Al Williamson's Flash Gordon artwork.

 

[scotpens]

Do we really see that the path would diverge significantly from a circle?

I mean, the above 'cap could easily feature a perfectly circular path . .

Most planetary orbits are nearly circular, but all are actually ellipses with the sun at one of the two foci.

Any zoological gardens Pike and Vina might've had produced on the surface, would've been reduced to ashes by the summer - looking at the orbital path Talos IV takes.

And where would the animals come from?

“Zoological gardens” is the long form of “zoo.” The Keeper meant to say “botanical gardens.”

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Any zoological gardens Pike and Vina might've had produced on the surface, would've been reduced to ashes by the summer - looking at the orbital path Talos IV takes.

And where would the animals come from?

“Zoological gardens” is the long form of “zoo.” The Keeper meant to say “botanical gardens.”

Yeah. Or, to be more accurate, the writer of the dialog was ignorant - something my dad never let me forget whenever that episode (The Menagerie, part two) aired when I was growing up.

 

[Timo]

Most planetary orbits are nearly circular, but all are actually ellipses with the sun at one of the two foci.

In terms of graphics like this, though, this is fairly irrelevant - even the orbits of Mars and Pluto, the most extremely elliptic in our solar system, would show up as perfect circles. At most, one could observe the center star to be slightly off center. And in this particular case, the portrayal of the twin suns negates even that effect.

And where would the animals come from?

From the underground zoo we saw?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Any zoological gardens Pike and Vina might've had produced on the surface, would've been reduced to ashes by the summer - looking at the orbital path Talos IV takes.

And where would the animals come from?

“Zoological gardens” is the long form of “zoo.” The Keeper meant to say “botanical gardens.”

Yeah. Or, to be more accurate, the writer of the dialog was ignorant - something my dad never let me forget whenever that episode (The Menagerie, part two) aired when I was growing up.

Or, Talos IV is the origin of the Audrey II spore.

 

[Noname Given]

Looking at Talos V, is that a moon or is the planet broken up? Looks like the latter to me.

Talos V is indeed a strange planet upon closer look:

What the heck does this show? Poor artistry, since it was never intended to be seen up close?

It could have been envisioned as a large asteriod. That's what it looks like in that blow up image.