What of Lazarus?

I've always had a thought that Lazarus was potentially from the Mirror Universe. Anyone have any similar thoughts on that?

I can't remember if there's anything in the dialogue that would make that unlikely. Not an episode that gets heavy rewatches.

 

It's the obvious continuity porn.

 

I thought it was some sort of anti-matter universe.

 

Well, the good Lazarus is from the other universe. I suppose there's not the requirement that people in the Mirror Universe be eeeeeeeevil, but it is kind of the way things ran.

He called his murdered planet Earth, but there's really no way of telling if that meant ``the home planet of my species'' or ``Earth of this timeline'' or possibly something entirely because oy but this episode is confusing.

 

Whether there's any antimatter actually involved is anybody's guess.

Spock uses that well-known phenomenon as a "specific" description of the real phenomenon at hand, and Kirk immediately challenges him on the core concept of the description, that of annihilation, to which Spock says this is "precisely" what he meant. But neither "specifically" nor "precisely" mean Spock would not be making an analogy. It's just a specific and precise analogy, and indeed we should expect nothing less of Spock!

Timo Saloniemi

 

Spock was not using an analogy. For one thing, using "anti-matter" as an analogy would mean nothing to the audience, who is only just beginning to hear and try to puzzle out Trek's tech-speak. Lazarus was using an analogy. First, we know that's not Earth. Two, he speaks in quotation marks or italics, with emphasis. It goes something like "My planet... my Earth..." As in, My equivalent of what you call the Earth. Otherwise it would just be "Earth".

 

First off, Star Trek had already mentioned antimatter in "The Naked Time," which had aired six months earlier, and "Errand of Mercy," which had aired the week before "The Alternative Factor" (though it was filmed after TAF). And TAF completely contradicted what the show had already established about it -- matter-antimatter annihilation was the warp engines' power source, so obviously it wouldn't destroy the whole universe.

Second, of course, antimatter is not "Trek's tech-speak," but a real physical phenomenon first conjectured under that name in 1898 and first theoretically predicted in 1928. Antielectrons (positrons) were experimentally proven to exist no later than 1932, and antiprotons and antineutrons were observed in 1955-6. Science fiction had been utilizing the concept since the 1940s, although usually under the term "contraterrene matter" or "seetee" (C-T) -- see also the positronic brains of Asimov's robots. In mass media, the title monster in the 1957 B-movie The Giant Claw was from an antimatter galaxy. The dehydrated henchmen in the 1966 Batman feature film were converted to antimatter by the Penguin's mishap. So antimatter was already an established concept even in mass-media fiction by the time Star Trek came along.

 

He was from the smoke and mirror universe, actually.

 

I thought he came from the universe where Kellyanne Conway spouted real facts, not "alternative" ones (hence the episode name).

 

I think there's a separate board on this site for politics (hint, hint).

 

Not interested in a political discussion, just trying to make a pun.

 

I KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let me save time with a little shorthand please.
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Believe it or not, they were not expecting viewers to hang on to every word and remember it all, as they referred to the details of the operation of the fictional ship.

 

You weren't just saving time, you were claiming something demonstrably false: That the audience would have no idea what antimatter was. The concept was already reasonably well-known by the time Star Trek came along.

 

To the general audience of the mid 1960's?

 

Google's Ngram viewer suggests that by the late 60s 'antimatter' was in print much more than 'black hole' or 'Big Bang' were, for some other terms that were becoming popular in that era. Its late-60s presence is a bit over a third as common as its circa 2000 presence, a time when I think it's safe to say the average person would know that antimatter is a thing.

(What it is, I wouldn't bet on, but that it's a science thing certainly.)

 

There's a difference between on the one hand knowing that something (e.g., antimatter) is a thing and on the other hand knowing a dang thing about it, such whether "The Alternative Factor" is in line with the real-world stuff.

 

Not really. Knowledge isn't required, since it's all make-believe anyway. The point is that the audience can appreciate that Spock is explaining something fantastic in terms of something else fantastic, which is fantastic.

Whether the audience can do that or not is furthermore independent of what the writers originally intended. Trek writing is no exception from the "90% of everything is crap" rule, and this need not detract from the enjoyment one iota.

Since we can easily tell that what is being described does not agree 100% with the properties of antimatter, be it ITRW or in terms of Trek continuity, it's a good idea to interpret Spock and Kirk as using an analogy. And fun, just like hearing McCoy use 23rd century expressions such as "not firing on all thrusters"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

And what of Lazurus indeed! I'd like to think he's still out there fighting himself somewhere, with that smoke machine and soundtrack.

 

Regardless of how the term "antimatter" was used, I think it's clear than the intent was that two exactly opposite people would have to come in contact with each other for the big bad thing to happen, outside of the magic fuzzy room of course.

Nothing bad happens when negative Lazarus touches positive Kirk, or anyone or thing in the positive world. So obviously he is not antimatter of the kind that powers the ship's reactor(s).

If you want to put it down to a character employing "sloppy language," okay.

It happens.

 

As I said, it was a major plot point in a cheesy 1957 B-movie. I doubt anyone would argue that The Giant Claw was on the cutting edge of conceptual innovation, so the idea was probably familiar to the general public even then. And it showed up in at least three places that I know of in 1966-7 mass media -- Star Trek, the Batman feature, and the Lost in Space episode "The Anti-Matter Man." That indicates that the concept had already suffused popular culture fairly widely.

After all, unlike the dark ages of superstition and ignorance we currently live in, Americans back then were actually interested in science. The post-WWII era was a time of great optimism about scientific and technological progress, and breakthroughs like the detection of antiprotons and antineutrons in 1955-6 were covered in the news and followed with interest. Indeed, I checked the New York Times archives, and the discovery of the "negative proton" in October 1955 was reported on the front page of the Times, with two followup articles over the next two months. It was most likely covered on TV and radio news as well.