TSFS- Nitpicks, Info, etc

[Mr Silver]

Actually, though, if David never used protomatter, then Genesis wouldn't have been completed. Khan would not have heard about it because nobody would have gone to his planet. It wouldn't have blown up in the nebula, then there would be no reason for the USS Grissom to be destroyed by Klingons who also wouldn't have anything to hear about. So yeah, his actions really did set it into motion.

The Enterprise Training mission would have been a success, the Enterprise would be decomissioned, Kirk would still be pushing papers, Spock would be taking out the next trainees, while the whale probe moves into the Sol System...Who would save Earth by travelling back in time and finding two humpback whales, if theres no fugitives on a stolen BOP heading for the Sol System?

 

[Timo]

If you look at it, the creation of Genesis doesn't make any sense, even within the rules created for TWOK. If we are to believe the proposal recorded by Carol, the Genesis device was meant to convert a dead spatial body into a living one, not convert any floating matter into a life sustaining planet. Otherwise, they could have tested the damned thing anywhere on any piece of crap ship they were going to junk.

Which is why it's difficult to believe the device would have worked on the Reliant alone, or on the ship and the surrounding nebula. Genesis wasn't flexible - it required complex programming, and even the Marcuses weren't able to "cram another byte" into it when they prepped it for use at the Ceti Alpha desert world.

OTOH, Genesis didn't require for the target to be devoid of life - the Genesis effect was specifically stated to be a risk to our very much predeceased heroes. The experiment involving Genesis was the thing that required an utterly dead target, because that was the only way to unquestionably prove the ability of Genesis to create life (and probably the exact sort of life the designers wanted).

The ultimate aim of Genesis was to create farming worlds against UFP-wide famine. Possibly a Genesis detonation would have been able to create fields of edible plants on a dead moon, in which case the planet we got in ST3 indicated a partially failed experiment with its rather weird animal and plant forms. Possibly, though, Genesis would at best have been able to create an uncontrolled and uncontrollable jungle (which we saw both in the cave and on the eventual planetary surface), and the farms would have been created later, probably by burning down the forests. In that case, the inflexible device probably did exactly what was asked of it in the Regula system. I personally think this means it acted on a planet, one close to the detonation point. And we never heard of any Regula II or Regula III, plus the Regula we did hear of wasn't called Regula I (the station was), so perhaps the system had no other planets to go by besides the ball the station orbited - meaning it became Genesis.

Of course, even in that interpretation, we might argue that the star system did have several planets, but the scientists had chosen to give each of them a proper name. Their little rock in the sky was Regula, but also something like Mutara VI, while somewhat closer to the star the system had Dracula, or Mutara V, and somewhat farther Spatula, or Mutara VII.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JarodRussell]

When I saw the movie the first time I know my first impression was that it turned the Mutara nebula and the Regula planetoid into the Genesis planet.

 

[Therin of Andor]

When I saw the movie the first time I know my first impression was that it turned the Mutara nebula and the Regula planetoid into the Genesis planet.

I recall some diary entries in William Rotsler's "ST II Biographies" book, that came out as a YA tie-in during ST II's cinema run, wrongly assumed that it was Ceti Alpha V that was caught up into the Genesis planet's creation, rather than Regula. (It was also speculated that the new planet was already being nicknamed "Khan".)

This unlikely scenario, however, isn't good news for Kyle, Beach and the other Reliant survivors, marooned by Khan on Ceti Alpha V.

 

[Christopher]

^Oh, yeah, there was a lot of stuff in ST II Biographies that Rotsler didn't think through. The one that sticks out in my memory was the claim that Pavel Andreievich Chekov's father was named Alexei rather than Andrei. Did Not Do the Research.

 

[Mr Silver]

This unlikely scenario, however, isn't good news for Kyle, Beach and the other Reliant survivors, marooned by Khan on Ceti Alpha V.

Yeah it appears they decided against including ideas that would have made the film a real downer along with the death of Spock, the statement made by Kirk at the end of the film "We're heading to the Ceti Alpha system to pick up the stranded Reliant crew" gave us a more "business as usual" approach rather than the marooned survivors being shockwaved to oblivion by the Genesis Wave, its interesting what they left out though

For example

*Scenes where Khan tortures the Regula 1 scientists for information

*Khan's baby crawling over to the Genesis Device just before it detonates

*[Deleted Scene] Where Peter Preston and Scotty are established as Nephew and Uncle respectively

*An idea to show Khan taking the belt buckle from a murdered Starfleet Officer and then it show him putting it around his neck as a medallion (notice how in the film it appears slightly stained it blood?)

*IIRC the Ceti Eel scene was meant to be much more graphic


You should be able to find some of this stuff on "Forgotten Trek" and various other sources (if you are interested in checking out some of the stuff Meyer and Co left out)

 

[Jeyl]

Actually, though, if David never used protomatter, then Genesis wouldn't have been completed. Khan would not have heard about it because nobody would have gone to his planet.

But Genesis wasn't completed even at the time of Khan's appearance. They were still on stage 2 of their experimenting with Genesis. And you can't fault him for getting something done early. It's like if I finished my artwork project early, it's my fault that some bad person decided to come by and steal it.

"What have you done Jeyl? If only you hadn't finished your project early, he would not have stolen it. What more damage is there to come thanks to your impatience?"

Please.

 

[Captrek]

Actually, though, if David never used protomatter, then Genesis wouldn't have been completed. Khan would not have heard about it because nobody would have gone to his planet.

But Genesis wasn't completed even at the time of Khan's appearance. They were still on stage 2 of their experimenting with Genesis. And you can't fault him for getting something done early. It's like if I finished my artwork project early, it's my fault that some bad person decided to come by and steal it.

"What have you done Jeyl? If only you hadn't finished your project early, he would not have stolen it. What more damage is there to come thanks to your impatience?"

Please.

Furthermore, the use of protomatter is probably what introduced the “bug” (accelerated processes) that allowed Spock to return.

And if it was a mistake, it’s not all David’s fault. There was a whole engineering team involved in the development of Genesis, and the decision to use protomatter made as a team. The ultimate decision, based on input from the whole team, may have come down to the project leader, but that’s Carol, not David.

 

[Timo]

Unless Carol just supervised something she didn't completely understand. It's not as if David need have physically smuggled some protomatter aboard and shoved it into the Genesis torp when his mother wasn't looking. Rather, he probably created the protomatter by altering a few lines of code in the programming of the device...

This is not to say that there's a dramatic need for David to have acted alone. But it's certainly a possibility, even on (and especially on) a secretive project like that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Basill]

Yeah, Saavik's protomatter high horse has always been my biggest nitpick from the film. Blaming David for all the death and despair that had happened up until that point always seemed a bit exaggerated in my opinion. Of course, I saw TSFS before TWOK and at the time it was a deliciously sanctimonious scene, but in proper context I've never been happy with how it played out. All the other issues with katras and possible continuity errors have never bothered me.