Three questions about The Wrath of Khan

[SellusGravius]

Ok i'm a relatively new Star Trek fan (last 6 months or so) but i just watched Star Trek II and i have a couple questions about not really important stuff but yeah...

Firstly, this may be completely dumb and obvious, but why to they call Saavik, Mr. Saavik? I mean surely she's a female, right?

Secondly, that part where they were searching that research station... And Dr. McCoy saw a rat. How the heck did a rat get aboard there? >_>

And lastly... If the Genesis planet was made in the middle of some nebula, how come it had a Sun? Did the genesis thing create a sun also?

Btw i've only seen the first two movies so please no spoilers of any of the others

 

[Xerxes1979]

Well since the planetoid Regula itself appeared to be illuminated by natural light I can only assume the star existed prior to creation of the Genesis planet.

What was illuminating the Genesis cave if not the sun?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Firstly, this may be completely dumb and obvious, but why to they call Saavik, Mr. Saavik? I mean surely she's a female, right?

23rd century naval parlance. And Saavik's personal choice.

Secondly, that part where they were searching that research station... And Dr. McCoy saw a rat. How the heck did a rat get aboard there?

It was a science station. An escaped lab rat, after Khan's people wrecked the joint torturing the scientists.

If the Genesis planet was made in the middle of some nebula, how come it had a Sun? Did the genesis thing create a sun also?

This is covered quite well in the novelization. Even the Genesis Cave had a mini-sun.

 

[Klaitu]

It was my impression that the sun for the Genesis planet was also the sun for Regula 1.

 

[Christopher]

Firstly, this may be completely dumb and obvious, but why to they call Saavik, Mr. Saavik? I mean surely she's a female, right?

I imagine it was the filmmakers' idea of a unisex form of address. Although the character was male in early drafts, so it's been suggested that they just didn't bother to change it.

Secondly, that part where they were searching that research station... And Dr. McCoy saw a rat. How the heck did a rat get aboard there? >_>

You've heard of lab rats, surely?

And lastly... If the Genesis planet was made in the middle of some nebula, how come it had a Sun? Did the genesis thing create a sun also?

That's just one of the many, many absurdities about the Genesis concept. Opinions differ. I believe Vonda McIntyre's novelization asserted that the sun was the same star Regula I orbited, but I've read other tie-ins suggesting that the Genesis wave created a whole star system, sun and all. Both ideas are problematical. The problem with the former is that a dense HII nebula like Mutara couldn't exist at a habitable distance from a star; actually any realistic nebula would engulf dozens of star systems, but its gas would be displaced by the stellar wind at that distance. The problem with the latter is that the Genesis torpedo was specifically programmed to terraform a planet, so how could it have the programming to create a star as well? Not to mention that it's ludicrous enough to claim that a torpedo that tiny has the power to create an entire Class-M planet, let alone a star, which is hundreds of thousands of times more massive. (Back in '82, I read the book before I actually saw the movie, and I was assuming from the book that the Genesis torpedo was a massive device. It strained my credibility when I finally saw the film and it turned out this mighty planet-transforming instrument was only about 5 feet long.)

Well since the planetoid Regula itself appeared to be illuminated by natural light I can only assume the star existed prior to creation of the Genesis planet.

What was illuminating the Genesis cave if not the sun?

The cave was deep inside the planetoid, so it wouldn't have been getting any natural sunlight, unless it was shunted there by some complex (and airtight) system of mirrors and shafts. More likely the light was artificially produced.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

Wasn't the rat brown? Lab rats are white. Of course, that could be different three centuries from now. In any case, I think the rat was silly.

Anyway, I just assumed that the Genesis planet's sun was also Regula 1's sun. Yes, Christopher has explained rather well why that is scientifically unrealistic, but this movie was never a great example of scientific accuracy in any case.

You know, I used to think that the Genesis planet was just Regula 1 transformed, since it didn't seem like they traveled too far from there before they reached the nebula anyway.

 

[Christopher]

You know, I used to think that the Genesis planet was just Regula 1 transformed, since it didn't seem like they traveled too far from there before they reached the nebula anyway.

Now, that would've almost made sense. Aside from how intrinsically nonsensical Genesis is to begin with.

 

[SellusGravius]

The genesis device was able to make a planet there because it was detonated inside a nebula right? I mean if they detonated it just in the middle of open space, it would have just exploded?

 

[Christopher]

The genesis device was able to make a planet there because it was detonated inside a nebula right?

In theory, yes, but that doesn't make a lot of sense because it was programmed to remake an existing, barren planet, not to form a whole new planet from scratch. How did it have this magical ability to do something so far beyond its programming?

 

[Zeppster]

Nebula's are made of dead stars basically. So that can explain why a star was there. But the stars are basically a mass(if you want to call it that) of mass now so that part really isn't plausible.

 

[apenpaap]

Firstly, this may be completely dumb and obvious, but why to they call Saavik, Mr. Saavik? I mean surely she's a female, right?

That's something you regularly see in Star Trek, female officers being called Mr. or sir. It really annoys me, and I'm very glad it annoys Janeway too.

Secondly, that part where they were searching that research station... And Dr. McCoy saw a rat. How the heck did a rat get aboard there? >_>

Rats get into the weirdest places. Though I agree it is kinda improbable.

 

[Timo]

The problem with the former is that a dense HII nebula like Mutara couldn't exist at a habitable distance from a star; actually any realistic nebula would engulf dozens of star systems, but its gas would be displaced by the stellar wind at that distance.

But that's a problem we have to tackle in any case, because it's explicit in the movie that the nebula is just a few lightminutes away from Regula I: the ships heading for the final battle cannot move at FTL ships, yet they reach the nebula in a few minutes.

A realistic nebula might not be able to exist close to a star - for long. But we could well be catching Mutara at an opportune moment, during the few thousand years when it's in the process of colliding with the Regula system, or being spat out of the system after being born there.

In that respect, it seems very likely that the star in all the shots, pre- and post-Genesis-wave, is the same one (possibly named Regula). And the idea that the Genesis planet is the former planetoid Regula is also a plausible one.

As for brown lab rats, those are in fact pretty common today. The Norwegian rat being used in experiments is grown in several strains, of which only two or three are albino. The rat in the movie could be from the so-called Long-Evans strain, for which typical traits are a fur mixing black or brown areas with white, and non-albino eyes. Those are easy for a movie company to buy or rent, and plausible residents of a future space laboratory as well, I guess.

Of course, that could be somebody's pet, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Sneeze Police]

I will defer to any poster with naval experience, but I believe it is an archaic (but I believe still legitmate) mode of address to refer to junior naval officers as "Mister XXXX" regardless of gender.

 

[sbk1234]

I suppose it's possible that someone might have simply had a pet rat. They do make excellent pets, and on a space station, they'd be very pracitical, since they don't take up a lot of space and wouldn't have to be walked.

 

[Chaos Descending]

I will defer to any poster with naval experience, but I believe it is an archaic (but I believe still legitmate) mode of address to refer to junior naval officers as "Mister XXXX" regardless of gender.

No. We refer to female junior officers as "Miss". Especially since the idea of female officers is a new development in the 20th century.

 

[Christopher]

Nebula's are made of dead stars basically. So that can explain why a star was there. But the stars are basically a mass(if you want to call it that) of mass now so that part really isn't plausible.

Sorry, none of that statement makes sense. Nebulae are made of gas and dust. Some of that gas and dust consists of material blown off from stars in supernovae, but that doesn't mean nebulae are "made of dead stars" any more than a tree in the forest is made of dead forest animals.

Contrary to their portrayal in Trek, real nebulae are vast, diffuse objects dozens or hundreds of light-years across, and thus they contain multiple stars. But the particular type of nebula that Mutara seemed to be, an HII region (known for their distinctive magenta hue, the color of excited hydrogen gas), would generally be a stellar nursery from which new stars are born. Such nebulae contain sufficient mass to form hundreds of stars, but it's very, very thinly spread.

But aside from the color, nothing about the way Mutara is depicted is realistic. It's close enough to Regula I to reach on impulse drive in a matter of minutes or hours, yet its apparent size as seen from Regula I would have to make it extremely small, only a few light-minutes across at most. It was also far, far denser than a realistic nebula would be; inside a nebula, conditions would be little different than in the vacuum of space. Still, I doubt that as depicted it would have enough mass to form a star as well as a planet.

 

[Myasishchev]

I always figured it was a planetary nebula, and the Genesis Effect blew the outer shells of the dying star away from the planet.

 

[MarianLH]

I assumed the genesis effect created a star and planet because having a whole nebula gave it more mass to work with. I never really thought about it, though.

Personally, I prefer the unisex form of address. To me, it suggests a truly integrated, gender-blind Starfleet, while using "ms." or "miss" for a female officer brings to mind the still-segregated navies I grew up with. Those are my personal associations, though. Someone actually living in the 23rd century wouldn't make those connections, so "in universe" it could go either way.


Marian

 

[Timo]

...Of course, "Mister" has some civilian connotations that link it specifically to the male gender, while "Sir" has no currently used civilian counterpart that would make it a specifically male designation. If anything, it might associate with "S(en)i(o)r", which is all good and well. So use of the latter might go down more easily than of the former, even though both would be needed in a hierarchial superior/inferior setup.

Scifi shows are infamous for making up words for units of measurement, technobabble and profanities. When will we get a show that makes up forms of address? Those are certainly free game, considering how obscure their origins are in the real world.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I do think it was intended to be gender-blind, but in the 24th century, it seems some women prefer Ma'am in a pinch. Hey, if you're a woman, there's nothing sexist about being addressed as such.