What The Heck?....That Makes No Sense.

[Mres_was_framed!]

SCOTT
All right, Mr. Spock, I'm now opening the access panel to the magnetic flow valve itself. Keep your eye on the dial. If there's a jump in magnetic flow you must jettison me and the entire matter-antimatter nacelle immediately. It will blow in two seconds after the rupture of the magnetic field.

I am beginning to think that maybe the "nacelles," include the secondary hull in this sense. One engine pod is the "anti-matter nacelle," one is the "matter nacelle," and the secondary hull is the "matter-anti-matter nacelle." Then all those various version from dialogue would make sense.

If you think about it, there is no reason for intraship beaming to be dangerous, if beaming over to a space station or down to a planet is routine. All beaming requires pinpoint accuracy, or else your feet might be melded into the ground when you arrive.

b) it only being dangerous to beam intraship when the ship is careening out of control at unsafe velocities.

Perhaps transporters are farsighted. To beam within the ship you need to use the special "reading glasses" mode. More seriously, it occurs to me that the transporter emitters are aimed away from the hull (one would assume), so they would have to beam backwards through themselves to materialize someone not on the pad inside the ship.

I'm going with the idea that intra-ship beaming is hard when the ship is at warp. They even have trouble beaming at warp from ship-to-ship early in TNG, because of the precision needed. So maybe the same thing applies when beaming within ones own ship at warp?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Scotty says their (Romulans) power is simple Impulse.

I don't think they traveled from Romulus, waged a thousand campaigns and got though the Neutral Zone traveling at sub-light speeds. What ever Scott meant by "simple impulse" it can't be sub-light.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

I don't think they traveled from Romulus, waged a thousand campaigns and got though the Neutral Zone traveling at sub-light speeds. What ever Scott meant by "simple impulse" it can't be sub-light.

There are two good theories for that. One is that they cannot travel at warp with the cloaking device on, and that they can partially tracked. The other theory, less popular but my preferred interpretation, is that the Enterprise can use its Warp Drive alongside Impulse to make Impulse work more effectively, kind of like in TNG, but the Romulans cannot, hence they have "simple" impulse power, rather than a more complex version.

 

[Commishsleer]

They had blankets.

Correction: They needed more.blankets.- a mountain of blankets
And sleeping bags.
And a tent.

 

[johnnybear]

And lots of hot coffee because Sulu was damn thirsty!
JB

 

[Commishsleer]

There's a lot of WTH moments in "Turnabout Intruder".
1. I thought there was no death penalty in the Federation (aside from visiting Talos - sometimes)
2. How did Lester learn how to run a ship and the names of the crew and who was on each watch?
3. Real Kirk asked Coleman to look after Lester at the end of the episode. Coleman was as guilty as Lester so he could not look after everyone.
4. The whole trial is Turnabout Intruder was ridiculous. .

 

[Phaser Two]

There's a lot of WTH moments in "Turnabout Intruder".
1. I thought there was no death penalty in the Federation (aside from visiting Talos - sometimes)
2. How did Lester learn how to run a ship and the names of the crew and who was on each watch?
3. Real Kirk asked Coleman to look after Lester at the end of the episode. Coleman was as guilty as Lester so he could not look after everyone.
4. The whole trial is Turnabout Intruder was ridiculous. .

Yeah. The episode is enjoyable overall but has a lot of issues. Looking back from the perspective of someone who didn't watch as the series came out originally, but caught up later, it must have been very sad for most fans that most of the final hour-or-so with the characters was spent with a Kirk who wasn't. Although Shatner's oft-maligned performance is actually pretty good. But I have not seen this one in many a year.

 

[Timo]

There's a lot of WTH moments in "Turnabout Intruder".

Hear, hear. But:

1. I thought there was no death penalty in the Federation (aside from visiting Talos - sometimes)

The one death penalty in (Starfleet) books relating to Talos and General Order 7 comes and goes within a timespan of a dozen years. Starfleet is supposed to be more than a century old at the time of these adventures. We might well assume that death penalties keep on coming and going, with the one tangenting on GO7 currently resolved but one relating to GO4 a hot topic some starship skipper stumbled upon and no fellow skipper has sorted out yet...

The Federation of course has no death penalties because it has no penalties. Naughty people for the past twenty years have been beneficiaries of Dr Adams' non-punitive brainwashing instead.

2. How did Lester learn how to run a ship and the names of the crew and who was on each watch?

She's nuts. Specifically, she's nuts about Kirk. She would have been studying - and if the Gideonites can get details of Kirk's service record and the interiors of his ship, Lester, a former Starfleet hopeful, might stand a good chance of knowing who serves under Kirk at the time. Details would be left as an exercise to the crew themselves - it's not as if Lester is challenged on any specific issue within the hours we see her hold the reins, and "Kirk not being Kirk" would not be Scotty's first assumption if she fumbled something minor. "Och, no, he might need a wee whiff of adrenalin' again, now mightn't he?" probably would.

3. Real Kirk asked Coleman to look after Lester at the end of the episode. Coleman was as guilty as Lester so he could not look after everyone.

Why not? Even if they went to prison, they might well go in together, this being the brave unisex future and all. But what should happen in the TOS context is that both get brainwashed and then return to their lives - and it is at this point that Lester needs a man to fill the vacuum left by Kirk, this not being the brave unisex future or anything.

Kirk is thinking farther ahead here than just the next few hours or days, is all.

4. The whole trial is Turnabout Intruder was ridiculous.

Which I gather was more or less the point. If it weren't a mockery, would half the jury end up being accused?

It may seem that Security is going along with Lester here. But it seems to me that the exact opposite happens. Lester wants to see dead people. What does Security do? Escort the accused to protective custody!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

I think some things got lost as the story was scripted and finalized.

Here's how the Revised Story Outline for "Survival" (August 8, 1968) describes the situation:
The matter-antimatter control is inoperative; it has been inexplicably and totally destroyed. Scott can fix it, if he begins now... but he might not have enough time. The area where he must work is tight and cramped -- room for just one man. Scott scrambles in and gets to work. The uncontrolled matter-antimatter mixture that provides warp power is almost out of control and will explode in ten minutes -- more or less. At this point, it's impossible to tell -- and just one man can do the job: Scott. Kirk clears the entire "disposable" warp nacelle area, moving all personnel into the saucer section. If they must jettison the nacelles, it is understood by both Scott and Kirk that Scott might not have the time to get out before the thing blows.

And here's how the relevant part appears in the First Draft of "That Which Survives" (September 9, 1968):
INT. CRAWLWAY - CLOSE - SCOTT

SCOTT
All right, Mr. Spock, I'm now opening the access panel to the magnetic flow valve itself. Keep your eye on the dial. If there's a jump in magnetic flow you must jettison me and the entire matter-antimatter nacelle immediately. It will blow in two seconds after the rupture of the magnetic field.

And you know how the above scene wound up in the finished episode.

These original script intentions are pure gold!
For years I've wondered why the writers of TOS and this episode in particular deviated from the notion that the nacelles are where the M/AM reaction takes place.
Looking harder at the episode, I speculated that Scotty was supposed to be in one of the nacelles (which were often referred to as "pods" anyway). Certainly that seems to be the indication in the second script extract.

I am beginning to think that maybe the "nacelles," include the secondary hull in this sense. One engine pod is the "anti-matter nacelle," one is the "matter nacelle," and the secondary hull is the "matter-anti-matter nacelle." Then all those various version from dialogue would make sense.

An even more simple interpretation is that the "warp nacelle area" from the first script extract could simply be the area of the ship that has the warp nacelles attached to it (AKA the secondary hull).

In the second script extract I do think that they're referring to either the port or starboard nacelle though, since the term was replaced by "pod" in the final rewrite and those are always used to mean the engine nacelles in TOS.
Also, the way that Scotty talks about placing the explosives makes it sound like a location fairly close to the service crawlway. This would make sense if he's up in the nacelle - less so if he planned to sever the dorsal from the saucer.

The only difference in TWS compared to the earlier mention of nacelle jettisoning is that a single nacelle is being popped off, whereas in The Apple the idea was to reduce the weight of the ship. In Savage Curtain Kirk specifically mentions jettisoning the nacelles, but it is not clear if that would have required loosing the secondary hull along with them.

 

[Commishsleer]

She's nuts. Specifically, she's nuts about Kirk. She would have been studying - and if the Gideonites can get details of Kirk's service record and the interiors of his ship, Lester, a former Starfleet hopeful, might stand a good chance of knowing who serves under Kirk at the time. Details would be left as an exercise to the crew themselves - it's not as if Lester is challenged on any specific issue within the hours we see her hold the reins, and "Kirk not being Kirk" would not be Scotty's first assumption if she fumbled something minor. "Och, no, he might need a wee whiff of adrenalin' again, now mightn't he?" probably would.

I'm going to add another one. How could the Gideoonites create an Enterprise so accurately that it could fool Kirk. Kirk is quite a hands on captain. Even if they got plans, bribed a disaffected crew member, how could their info be so up to date that they know whats say in Kirk's bathroom, top drawer, the amount of shampoo left in the bottle...
I can only think they drugged Kirk a little so his perceptions were off.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

An even more simple interpretation is that the "warp nacelle area" from the first script extract could simply be the area of the ship that has the warp nacelles attached to it (AKA the secondary hull).

I like that idea. But if this service crawl-way were next to the Power Transfer Conduits, would that mean a crew-person in the main engineering set would see Scotty crawling in the area behind the grating? Doug Drexler made those structures behind the grating the Power Transfer Conduits in his diagram on the U.S.S Defiant NCC-1764. What a mental image. Lastly, if Scotty was in the nacelle, then what could we make of the hallway that was visible? Could there be a room or two in the nacelle?

 

[GNDN18]

4. The whole trial is Turnabout Intruder was ridiculous.

True. “Court Martial” looks like Witness for the Prosecution by comparison.

 

[Timo]

I'm going to add another one. How could the Gideoonites create an Enterprise so accurately that it could fool Kirk. Kirk is quite a hands on captain. Even if they got plans, bribed a disaffected crew member, how could their info be so up to date that they know whats say in Kirk's bathroom, top drawer, the amount of shampoo left in the bottle... I can only think they drugged Kirk a little so his perceptions were off.

That, plus if we look at the episode, it seems Kirk doesn't really have time to examine the ship in any detail. After Kirk declares he has "searched every area of the ship", Spock in turn declares the Captain beamed down "minutes ago". I doubt Kirk could have seen more than a couple of rooms in those "minutes", especially considering that the Gideonites first sedated him and successfully performed whatever probing their twisted alien plans required.

A drugged Kirk, constantly distracted by Odona, could be kept happy in a partial fake starship the size of, oh, a single Desilu movie studio, to pull a comparison point out of thin air...

As for the sources the Gideonites had, today we could probably perfectly reproduce what Kirk saw simply by studying footage from the episodes. Gideonites could in turn study footage from innocent encounters with the ship: the bridge would be visible behind Kirk during comm calls, the corridors would have been visited by dignitaries, castaways or other folks Kirk picked up, and anybody entering the ship could be carrying a 3D camera the size of a button anyway. Tellingly, we never see Kirk visit "secure" spaces such as Engineering or Phaser Fire Control or Secret Mancave With Skeletons.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Phaser Two]

I'm going to add another one. How could the Gideoonites create an Enterprise so accurately that it could fool Kirk. Kirk is quite a hands on captain. Even if they got plans, bribed a disaffected crew member, how could their info be so up to date that they know whats say in Kirk's bathroom, top drawer, the amount of shampoo left in the bottle...
I can only think they drugged Kirk a little so his perceptions were off.

I think MOG is one that is best just enjoyed for Shatner's performance, Nimoy's really good stuff, the vivacious and charming Sharon Acker as Odona, and the high-concept stuff about overpopulation. It's really, really difficult to explain the mockup of a Federation starship on a planet where no one has room to move around. I do like your take, though.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

True. “Court Martial” looks like Witness for the Prosecution by comparison.

Since you brought up "Court Martial," the fact that Areel Shaw doesn't immediately recuse herself from the trial because the accused is an old boyfriend of hers drives me NUTS when I rewatch the episode now. I know, I know, rule of drama (Not that they ever did anything with it - Shaw is never terribly conflicted about prosecuting Kirk), but it's severely dumb.

When you add in other dumb stuff like the prosecutor recommending a defense attorney to the accused (How is THAT not a conflict of interest?), Finney nursing a secret grudge against Kirk for 15 or so years, however old Jamie is supposed to be, and "one to the fourth power," the whole episode pretty much falls apart.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Since you brought up "Court Martial," the fact that Areel Shaw doesn't immediately recuse herself from the trial because the accused is an old boyfriend of hers drives me NUTS when I rewatch the episode now. I know, I know, rule of drama (Not that they ever did anything with it - Shaw is never terribly conflicted about prosecuting Kirk), but it's severely dumb.

When you add in other dumb stuff like the prosecutor recommending a defense attorney to the accused (How is THAT not a conflict of interest?), Finney nursing a secret grudge against Kirk for 15 or so years, however old Jamie is supposed to be, and "one to the fourth power," the whole episode pretty much falls apart.

That's why I never watched Perry Mason or Matlock. Courtroom 'dramas' cure my insomnia. Boring.

 

[Tenacity]

Since you brought up "Court Martial," the fact that Areel Shaw doesn't immediately recuse herself from the trial because the accused is an old boyfriend of hers

The prosecution of a starship captain would require a senior lawyer, is there a possibility that Shaw was the only game in town with the starbase JAG unit?

And while Kirk and Shaw knew each other, were they more than old friends?

Shaw might have (off screen) discussed her past relationship with Kirk to her commanding officer, and also informed the court with a statement that she didn't feel it would be a professional obstacle.

When you add in other dumb stuff like the prosecutor recommending a defense attorney to the accused

Part of my head-canon is that Shaw deliberately recommended a defense attorney to Kirk that she knew was only slightly above incompetent.

"one to the fourth power,"

Commonly used verbal "short hand" that everyone understood?

 

[Phaser Two]

Since you brought up "Court Martial," the fact that Areel Shaw doesn't immediately recuse herself from the trial because the accused is an old boyfriend of hers drives me NUTS when I rewatch the episode now. I know, I know, rule of drama (Not that they ever did anything with it - Shaw is never terribly conflicted about prosecuting Kirk), but it's severely dumb.

When you add in other dumb stuff like the prosecutor recommending a defense attorney to the accused (How is THAT not a conflict of interest?), Finney nursing a secret grudge against Kirk for 15 or so years, however old Jamie is supposed to be, and "one to the fourth power," the whole episode pretty much falls apart.

You're on target that the ep has a lot of problems. My favorite is the whole pod concept and how the captain has a special button for "jettison pod" right on his chair.

But if Kirk didn't object to Shaw being the prosecutor, assuming that Starfleet took its ethic codes from the US armed forces or something similar, there wouldn't automatically be a problem. In fact, if anyone had grounds to object it was Starfleet, given the hold Jimbo seemed to have on his past loves. And Starfleet selected her.

There's also nothing outrageous or even all that unusual about a prosecutor recommending a defense lawyer. That happens, particularly in smaller jurisdictions.

But points taken. It's not a great episode overall, unfortunately.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

You'd almost be hard-pressed to find anyone in Starfleet Kirk has no history with, or has left no impression on, if other episodes are any indication.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Stephen Hawking, Jr.

Kirk : "Yes, he was my instructor at the Academy."