As for how the knowledge of the Yang/Kohm struggle could spread if there were no widespread communication ability: Perhaps Tracey had a hand in that? He could have had equipment which he used to keep tabs on what was going on?
What is up with 'The Omega Glory'?
- Thread starter Bones_McCoy21
- Start date
The Naked Time said:
And don't we have viruses here on Earth that could easily kill a whole lot of us before we could get a handle on the situation? I don't find it to hard to believe an unknown ailment could afflict and kill a starship crew in a short amount of time. Plus we see a bug kill an entire starship crew in TNG's Unnatural Selection.
I think the episode is damn near perfect. It's a classic and I wouldn't change a thing.
But Tracey never gives us a bigger picture on what's going on. His sole concern is defending the village while McCoy searches for a cure. Spock and McCoy speculate on what happened to cause the Omegans to live so long and Cloud William is the one to tell us, "what was ours is ours again".
The Naked Time said:
And don't we have viruses here on Earth that could easily kill a whole lot of us before we could get a handle on the situation? I don't find it to hard to believe an unknown ailment could afflict and kill a starship crew in a short amount of time. Plus we see a bug kill an entire starship crew in TNG's Unnatural Selection.
I think the episode is damn near perfect. It's a classic and I wouldn't change a thing.
Yes, but when encountering a new world for the first time, wouldn't the Federation be smart enough to be wary of potential bio-hazards? By the time of TOS, at the very least, Earth and her allies have been in space for at least 200 years. ("Where No Man Has Gone Before") You would think after loosing so many starships and having that long to develop at least some countermeasures, a premium starship-of-the-line wouldn't fall prey to something as simple as "Hey! Your shoe is untied!"
Yes, but when encountering a new world for the first time, wouldn't the Federation be smart enough to be wary of potential bio-hazards? By the time of TOS, at the very least, Earth and her allies have been in space for at least 200 years. ("Where No Man Has Gone Before") You would think after loosing so many starships and having that long to develop at least some countermeasures, a premium starship-of-the-line wouldn't fall prey to something as simple as "Hey! Your shoe is untied!"
Then how do you fight pathogens you don't know exist? The populace shows no outward signs of infection and the transporter bio-filters obviously didn't pick it up which means your instruments didn't pick it up. You can inoculate against the known, but the only way for it to become known is to find it and starship crews normally find it the hard way.
A wizard did it!
I chalk things up to timeline contamination and/or radio/tv signals from Earth influencing other cultures, like that book did with the gangster world.
The conveniently Spockish drawing of the devil in the book, made me wonder if the planet hadn't been encountered by Romulans or another Vulcanoid race.
I'm amused that Kirk was so romantic about savage cavemen wiping out the last civilized place on the planet (it seemed).
I chalk things up to timeline contamination and/or radio/tv signals from Earth influencing other cultures, like that book did with the gangster world.
The conveniently Spockish drawing of the devil in the book, made me wonder if the planet hadn't been encountered by Romulans or another Vulcanoid race.
I'm amused that Kirk was so romantic about savage cavemen wiping out the last civilized place on the planet (it seemed).
When the war on Omega IV took place the Magna Carta hadn't been written yet. So I doubt it was radio/tv signals influencing them. This is just wrong on so many levels.
I don't think he was romanticizing it, simply putting the pieces together.
Apparently not. Alien viruses were slipping aboard the Enterprise as early as "The Naked Time." And let's not forget those sneaky spores in "This Side of Paradise."
Not to mention the tribbles!
Yes, but when encountering a new world for the first time, wouldn't the Federation be smart enough to be wary of potential bio-hazards? By the time of TOS, at the very least, Earth and her allies have been in space for at least 200 years. ("Where No Man Has Gone Before") You would think after loosing so many starships and having that long to develop at least some countermeasures, a premium starship-of-the-line wouldn't fall prey to something as simple as "Hey! Your shoe is untied!"
Then how do you fight pathogens you don't know exist? The populace shows no outward signs of infection and the transporter bio-filters obviously didn't pick it up which means your instruments didn't pick it up. You can inoculate against the known, but the only way for it to become known is to find it and starship crews normally find it the hard way.
We can readily assume that, in the TOS era, there were either no such thing as transport biofilters, or the technology must have been in its infancy then. So we can assume that TOS-era starships maintained quarantine procedures like those used during ENT. For a "first contact" S.O.P., that would seem to be a low-tech no-brainer.
But how long do you keep someone in quarantine? An hour, day, week, month, year...
They had a decontamination protocol using the transporters as early as The Naked Time.
Indeed.
But it is a big Galaxy, and I doubt if ANY biofilter or whatever other technobabble screening system is used can be guaranteed to be 100% effective on every single frackin' supergerm ever encountered. That includes all the ones that Star Fleet haven't even heard of yet, mind you.
The odds might be billions to one against, but a supergerm only has to be lucky once. Also, maybe someone on Exeter got careless or simply made a mistake at a critical juncture.
But it is a big Galaxy, and I doubt if ANY biofilter or whatever other technobabble screening system is used can be guaranteed to be 100% effective on every single frackin' supergerm ever encountered. That includes all the ones that Star Fleet haven't even heard of yet, mind you.
The odds might be billions to one against, but a supergerm only has to be lucky once. Also, maybe someone on Exeter got careless or simply made a mistake at a critical juncture.
Morgan Woodward was a total bad-ass in that episode. The fight in the end, probably the best hand held camera, gritty, kick in the ribs fight ever on Trek. also, the lighting in this episode is amazing. And I love the teaser as well as the whole idea that the infected landing party is forever trapped on that world. But yeah, the whole duplication of the declaration of independence was a bit hard to believe. But it was hard for Spock to believe as well, and he states so onscreen. But as it was with the Romans of Bread and Circuses or the Nazis of Patterns of Force, you just accept it as parallel planet development and move on.
I loved "Omega Glory" as a kid and I still like it today for some of those very reasons. Yeah, I can see how some folks might not like it because it doesn't fit in with what they think Star Trek should be. But Star Trek contains multitudes.
Personally I think GR was trying to go for a Rod Serling/Twilight Zone type reveal. Sadly, on the writing front, GR was not Rod Serling.
The Nazis were explained as a Federation historian John Gill's deliberate intervention/contamination of an alien culture.
Hell, I'm an American and it makes me wince a bit . . . .
You get the sense that Kirk never leaves Earth like Heston in Planet of the Apes, or it's all a telepathic illusion or elaborate hoax. Kirk is always questioning the reality of the situation like in COEF or when he says 'right down to the carbon filaments in the prison bars' or some such. Or how about the line from TMP where Spock says 'All of this is V'ger'. What does that mean? - That none of it is real.
