TSFS-time from Mutara to Spacedock?

[David cgc]

I still say that has nothing to do with it, because they were not "the crew." They were Academy cadets assigned to the ship for a single training flight. Basically it was a field trip. Their experience or the political situation had nothing to do with it; they were just never meant to be aboard the ship for longer than that one training mission. And the training cruise was a birthday outing for Admiral Kirk, which suggests that it was intended to be just a day long. So getting diverted to Regula I and getting their butts kicked by Khan made them all very, very late for their next classes.

It was definitely going to be more than a day or two. Kirk says he's glad to have Sulu at the helm "for three weeks," and the infamous trimmed line after that makes it clear he's phrasing it that way because that's when Sulu leaves to take his new job, and not because the training cruise will be done. The cadets' on-board practical experience could've been planned to be their classes for an entire quarter or semester.

Of course, we also don't know how much of the training cruise was finished. The plot doesn't synchronize until Marcus calls Kirk. That could've been anything up to three weeks after they left Earth, if only because Sulu hadn't slipped away yet. The only clue we've got is that it's a short enough people of time that Saavik hadn't had a chance to speak to Kirk privately off-the-record about the Kobayashi Maru, but considering he's the Admiral on a ship with hundreds of people, they could just have not crossed paths in any sort of semi-private space before she caught him in the elevator.

 

[Christopher]

Spock repaired the warp drive, at the cost of his life. Would it have conked out as soon as they were out of reach of the Genesis explosion?

A temporary, makeshift repair just good enough to avoid getting immediately killed. It would just be common sense after such a devastating battle to take time to conduct more extensive, lasting repairs to replace the hasty bypasses and patch jobs made during the heat of combat.

Perhaps they were patched and then other places were patched later, as others have said.

No, there was more damage in TSFS than there had been in TWOK. At the end of the battle in TWOK, the ship had three visible battle scars on its port side -- along the engineering hull, along the torpedo pod, and on the rear underside of the saucer -- and the starboard side was pristine. Yet in TSFS, on the port side, the three previously established scars are even larger and more gruesome, and there are two big splotches of damage on the port nacelle. Moreover, the starboard side which was totally untouched in TWOK is utterly covered in battle scars in TSFS! Where the hell did they come from?

If what you are saying is so, are you suggesting the the Genesis Planet is not gone at the end of ST:III? What do you think the implications of that should be? (Arguably, the implications of the planet's existence would be good to know even otherwise.)

What? I'm talking about the interval between TWOK and TSFS, addressing the thread's question of how much time elapses between them. I've said nothing about what happens after TSFS, because that's not the topic here.

Although, really, it shouldn't be gone afterward, since even a planet whose mass was totally disrupted would still be held together by its own gravity and would eventually re-coalesce, just as a dead, molten ball of rock rather than a living planet. But then, this is a continuity in which Ceti Alpha VI somehow spontaneously exploded, and the very existence of Genesis throws physics and common sense out the window anyway.

It was definitely going to be more than a day or two. Kirk says he's glad to have Sulu at the helm "for three weeks," and the infamous trimmed line after that makes it clear he's phrasing it that way because that's when Sulu leaves to take his new job, and not because the training cruise will be done. The cadets' on-board practical experience could've been planned to be their classes for an entire quarter or semester.

Okay, that's a good point. I'd forgotten that part.

Still, they were only meant to be there for a training cruise, and had probably never experienced the trauma of battle before. I think it's obvious why they'd be sent home early for care and counseling, with no need to invoke the political situation.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

No, there was more damage in TSFS than there had been in TWOK. At the end of the battle in TWOK, the ship had three visible battle scars on its port side -- along the engineering hull, along the torpedo pod, and on the rear underside of the saucer -- and the starboard side was pristine. Yet in TSFS, on the port side, the three previously established scars are even larger and more gruesome, and there are two big splotches of damage on the port nacelle. Moreover, the starboard side which was totally untouched in TWOK is utterly covered in battle scars in TSFS! Where the hell did they come from?

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I am just also agreeing with others who suggest that another battle or other source of damage between the two movies would account for this damage. Of course that would not be canon since we don't know what happened.

What? I'm talking about the interval between TWOK and TSFS, addressing the thread's question of how much time elapses between them. I've said nothing about what happens after TSFS, because that's not the topic here.

My comment there was meant for a different poster, who was speculating about how many times Genesis could have regenerated whom.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I am just also agreeing with others who suggest that another battle or other source of damage between the two movies would account for this damage. Of course that would not be canon since we don't know what happened.

Uhh... yes, that's what I'm saying. I was the one who first brought up that possibility, that the battle depicted in DC issue 8, leading directly into TSFS, could explain where all the damage came from.

I just don't get what you intended by mentioning patching. Patching between movies would explain there being less visible damage afterward, but the problem is that there's much more damage.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Uhh... yes, that's what I'm saying. I was the one who first brought up that possibility, that the battle depicted in DC issue 8, leading directly into TSFS, could explain where all the damage came from.

I just don't get what you intended by mentioning patching. Patching between movies would explain there being less visible damage afterward, but the problem is that there's much more damage.

Oh. Sorry I was not clear. I meant that they damage we see, which appears to be patched over (not holes) but not fully replaced with correct parts, could have partly come from the battle with Khan and and partly from something else. The damage from with Khan would be already patched by the end of the movie, and the other damage would have occurred and then been patched later.

 

[Indysolo]

And the McIntyre novelizations mention the USS Firenze, which rendezvoused with Enterprise to take severely injured crew (and cadets) to Earth while the Enterprise returned to Ceti Alpha V to rescue Kyle, Beach et al.

Which also conveniently explains how Janice Rand was able to be at Spacedock (in ST III) to see the wounded Enterprise arrive. She (and Dr Chapel) had been aboard the Enterprise for the ST II novelization, even though not in the movie.

Well, there it is then!

 

[Christopher]

The damage from with Khan would be already patched by the end of the movie

The rest of what you say makes sense, but we clearly saw that the battle damage was still there at Spock's funeral. And if you look at the first picture I linked to from TSFS, there actually are hull patches covering part of the phaser scar along the portside engineering hull -- but that scar, like the others, is still bigger and more gruesome than it was in TWOK.

Well, I can excuse the portside scars being more graphic as an improvement in the depiction, a result of the FX team having more time to refine their work. So that's along the lines of, say, Worf getting a new forehead appliance in season 2, or Saavik getting recast for that matter -- not an in-story change, just a change in how the story is visualized for our benefit. But that doesn't work for the starboard damage, because we saw every step of the battle in TWOK and there was just no opportunity for that to happen. ILM just went overboard there.

 

[Timo]

If what you are saying is so, are you suggesting the the Genesis Planet is not gone at the end of ST:III? What do you think the implications of that should be? (Arguably, the implications of the planet's existence would be good to know even otherwise.)

We never saw the planet blow up, no. But we did see it grow less planetlike by the minute, what with it burping lumps of magma all the way up to orbit and all. So its potential as a rejuvenation spa would probably be greatly reduced by the time our heroes leave.

The power to make Spock an infant again was there some time after the jungles emerged and the torpedo coffin soft-landed. We have little idea whether the power went away after this: the changes the planet undergoes after this do not involve increasing the life in evidence, but decreasing it (icing over, fires, then the lava fields). But Spock kept super-aging, and for all we know David also rose from his supposed shallow grave and wandered around like a zombie, as clueless as Spock, till the planet melted from beneath him.

Is the Enterprise an "older" class at this point, and the way we see the ship treated a result of it being older, or would it have gone back out into service in regular duty had it not bee attacked by Khan?

Well, the Enterprise herself was supposed to be old in TOS already. Even if the TMP refit zero-houred her (allowing Morrow to refer to mere two decades of age, rather than four or five), at some point the cost-benefit analysis would support retiring of essentially unhurt ships of this design. A bit of battle damage would merely expedite the process.

Kirk seems to believe in a future for both NCC-1701 and NCC-1701-A. In both cases, he's proven wrong: Starfleet strongly feels both ships should be retired after taking arguably repairable damage. I seriously doubt either ship would have seen service against the wishes of Starfleet! The first time something like this actually happens would appear to be when the four-pip Admiral Riker gives the E-D a new lease of life. The mere two-pip (and later zero-flag-pip) Kirk probably wouldn't have had a prayer.

As regards damage to the starboard side of the ship, we know there was some from the get-go:

https://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twokhd/twokhd0469.jpg

It just wasn't penetrating damage: Khan fired through the port flank, but managed to hurt something on the starboard side anyway. Apparently it didn't explode in a giant fireball immediately. But perhaps it did after a few hours of warp strain?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Therin of Andor]

To invoke the McIntyre novelization of TWoK is to acknowledge that in her version of the story, Spock's coffin is seen to burn up upon entering the atmosphere of the Genesis planet.

IIRC, she retro corrects that in her ST III novelization.

 

[Indysolo]

To invoke the McIntyre novelization of TWoK is to acknowledge that in her version of the story, Spock's coffin is seen to burn up upon entering the atmosphere of the Genesis planet.

From the novelization....

"Saavik armed the torpedo guidance control with the course she had so carefully worked out, and moved forward."

I've always read that as she programmed the torpedo to not burn up.

"With a great roar of igniting propellant, the chamber reverberated. The bagpipes stopped. Silence, eerie and complete, settled over the room. The company watched the dark torpedo streak away against the silver-blue shimmer of the new world, until the coffin shrank and vanished."

There's no indication that it burned up.

 

[UssGlenn]

not an in-story change, just a change in how the story is visualized for our benefit. But that doesn't work for the starboard damage, because we saw every step of the battle in TWOK and there was just no opportunity for that to happen. ILM just went overboard there.

Interestingly, after the initial attack the computer damage readout that Spock shows Kirk ("He knew exactly where to hit us") does show Starboard damage.

https://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twokhd/twokhd0469.jpg

Edit: Timo beat me to it.

 

[Timo]

Even thought the graphics we see are not actually true to the Probert-designed interiors, it would be easy to argue that a hit from Khan's firing angle could penetrate all the way to the starboard side. The ship is practically hollow around there, after all!

There's rather concretely room for further speculation, too. If we take into account a certain matted-in corridor in TMP, the vertical shaft in Main Engineering must be relatively far back in the secondary hull, basically flush against the forward bulkhead of the vast hold area. If the shaft fails, there's the potential for rapid pressure increase and major hull ruptures all across the hold area... (This assuming that the shaft isn't actually a "warp core", but more like a plasma conduit from a proper annihilation nest somewhere farther down, and thus can go kaboom without taking the entire ship with it.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ozzfloyd]

Had the planet not destroyed itself, and given enough time; I wonder if Genesis would have resurrected David...

 

[Christopher]

Had the planet not destroyed itself, and given enough time; I wonder if Genesis would have resurrected David...

My first thought, with nothing solid to base it on, is that it wouldn't, because the Genesis effect wouldn't have been a perpetual presence. If the planet had stabilized, then the Genesis field would've died out and it would've just been a normal planet.

Besides, even if David had regenerated, it would just be his body. Remember? "His mind's a void." There was nobody to preserve David's katra/consciousness/whatever, so the result would not have been David Marcus, it would've been a mindless clone of David Marcus.

 

[Indysolo]

We never saw the planet blow up, no.

You actually have to see it in total with a "Praxis ring" to know that the planet blew up? It blew up. There's enough onscreen evidence to know that the planet is destroyed.

If you're not convinced, the European Star Trek IV prologue has the line, "Just as the planet began to self-destruct..." The official site says, "The Enterprise crew, Saavik, and Spock then escape in the Bird-of-Prey, just as the planet violently explodes, a victim of its own dangerous growth." James Horner titled the cue, "Genesis Destroyed."

 

[Christopher]

You actually have to see it in total with a "Praxis ring" to know that the planet blew up? It blew up. There's enough onscreen evidence to know that the planet is destroyed.

As I said, even if the physical mass of the planet held together from its own gravity (as it realistically would), its biosphere would still be completely destroyed, and it would just be a ball of molten rock that would take millions of years to cool down. So you could validly say the planet was destroyed even if its mass was still together, just as you can say a building that's collapsed to rubble has been destroyed even though every piece of the building is still on the lot.

Sci-fi viewers and storytellers care far too much about whether the physical mass of a planet is intact or not. Most of the mass of a planet is irrelevant. The only part that really matters to us is the thin surface layer where the life and air and water are. If that surface is destroyed, then it doesn't matter if the remaining 99.999...% of the planet's mass below it is still untouched, because it's just rock. So sci-fi's obsession with making entire planets explode in order to destroy their inhabitants is pure flamboyant overkill. All you have to do is render the surface uninhabitable, and that's immensely easier than disintegrating the huge hunk of rock underneath it.

 

[gottacook]

I'll be damned: She revised it! I located the passage in McIntyre's novelization via Google Books, and -- unlike the version I personally read in the 1980s -- it reads:

"The company watched the dark torpedo streak away against the silver-blue shimmer of the new world, until the coffin shrank and vanished."
​

That's a surprise, as Marge Gunderson once said.

 

[Indysolo]

I'll be damned: She revised it! I located the passage in McIntyre's novelization via Google Books, and -- unlike the version I personally read in the 1980s -- it reads:

"The company watched the dark torpedo streak away against the silver-blue shimmer of the new world, until the coffin shrank and vanished."
​

That's a surprise, as Marge Gunderson once said.

What did it say previously? I don't have the paperback I read in 1990 handy, but I always remember the part about Saavik programming the coordinates.

 

[gottacook]

What did it say previously?

I don't remember precisely -- I never owned a copy, and probably I read it within a year of its initial publication; that is to say, more than 37 years ago. But I know I didn't misinterpret the "shrank and vanished" language back then. I'm confident that what I read was different: The coffin/torpedo is seen to burn up.

 

[Timo]

Having the surface of Genesis become molten lava isn't particularly convincing, as if the planet is famed for one thing, it's for remaking its surface in timescales well short of geological...

If anything at all remained at the location, it would be a major cause of worry for everybody, and in need of constant vigil, just like the coffin of any self-respecting vampire, stakes through the heart or not. (OTOH, Starfleet might have the means to make the planet disappear for good, and could indeed be itching to try out those for a rare once!)

Timo Saloniemi