What's the big deal about the destructive power of Genesis?

[Vandervecken]

Why is everyone in TWOK "OMG! You can destroy a planet with that!" about Genesis? So what? A few starships can destroy the entire inhabited surface of a planet; and, in "Obsession," Kirk et al showed us that an ounce of antimatter would "rip away half the planet's atmosphere." Personally that seemed to me like a huge overstatement of the effect of that much antimatter, but still--obviously antimatter isn't so hard to get together in the 23rd century. If not an ounce, then probably 10 or so 1-lb-of-antimatter bearing torpedoes would do the job.

I wouldn't doubt that Starfleet has other means as well to destroy whole planetary surfaces (as well as the Klingons, and the Romulans, etc.), but antimatter is the obvious method. After that, a few capital ships' weapons arrays (for that matter, one ship alone can do the job: see "A Taste of Armageddon.") Why such a hullabaloo about Genesis?

 

[bbjeg]

With the Enterprise zipping away from Khan after he set it off, it's safe to assume it can destroy more than just a planet, but anything near it as well. Though a starship or two can obliterate a planet's surface, the Genesis device does far worse.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Star Trek is completely inconsistent about their destructive power. It depends entirely on which episode you'e watching at the time. Photon torpedoes are supposed to be antimatter warheads (orders of magnitude more powerful than nuclear weapons), but are never shown to be as such. Kirk and co even walked away from a photon torpedo strike in STV.


Genesis, however, was about remaking planets in Starfleet's image, not so much destroying them.

 

[BillJ]

Genesis, however, was about remaking planets in Starfleet's image, not so much destroying them.

But according to Spock, it would destroy all life in favor of its new matrix. So with one torpedo, you can wipe out every living thing on a planet.

That is one hell of a bang for one's dollar (or pound or Euro).

 

[HIjol]

Perhaps it is the nature of the "destruction" ( maybe, more accurately, the rearrangement?)

Bombs do what we expect them to, BOOM!, and leave what we expect them to leave, rubble and dust and twistedness and destruction...

Genesis is so different...there is nothing of the familiar about it's "destruction"...it actually leaves "re-struction"...and on such a scale...and perhaps the totality of "Gone" of what Genesis replaced....nothing familiar like bombs sometimes leave...nothing recognizable from the Former...on any scale...all is New...

 

[blueziggy]

remember, WoK was written during the cold war where nuclear warheads being dropped all over the earth was a distinct probability. Probably the same reason the director made genesis look like a miniature missile.

 

[BigJake]

The fear of the Genesis device as a weapon was analogous to the fear of a neutron bomb. It could be used not only to wipe out life on a planet, but to do it in a way that also conveniently left that planet lush and ripe for colonization by your own "side." Not hard to see why that prospect terrified Bones to his marrow. Uh, so to speak.

 

[E-DUB]

I also think that having a faster-than-light projectile rammed at ones planet could ruin your whole day, too. But combining the destructive power with the ability to recreate a safe environment does up the ante.

Think of it like the neutron bomb, which would kill people but leave buildings, infrastructure, etc. intact.

 

[Timo]

A starship might destroy a planet, or more like its surface, by spending a day or two lobbing torpedoes at it; that's how we see it work in DS9, with a big fleet of bigger ships. A single torp, no matter how big, has never been credited with the ability to wreck a planet. Instead, Cardassians built a massive automated starship for the purpose (VOY "Dreadnought")...

And here comes Genesis, packing equal or superior destructive power in a casing that fits in a transporter! Mind you, the machinery as shown would probably not fit aboard a standard torpedo, and we never saw the type of propulsive machinery (if any) that would need to be attached to it in order to achieve the flight profile we see in the simulation. But we can rather safely assume it wouldn't be starship-sized.

It's IMHO not a case of fearing the neutron bomb, but the basic A-bomb, from the time before ICBMs. Previously, the enemy might send a thousand bombers a day, but if you shot down fifty of them each day, your city would be more or less safe eventually. With the A-bomb, the enemy might send twenty bombers, and if you failed to shoot down twenty of them the first time around, your city would disappear from the map.

As for warp ramming, it's so seldom discussed that one suspects it wouldn't work. Perhaps a starship at high warp has the inertial mass of a very young beetle, rather than that of a midsized neutron star? Delivering the Genesis effect could in turn be achieved at very low speeds, perhaps better catering for stealth.

(Now, how can an ounce of antimatter do what a torpedo definitely capable of packing more than an ounce is never credited with? I can only guess that in the brave new world of SI units, "ounce" has been redefined, and the planet(oid) in question happened to be a very small one, too.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Redfern]

There's also the "TwiLight Zone" chill factor that the atoms of your family and friends might be reconstituted into a bowl of petunias and a rather surprised sperm whale.

Hmm, maybe that's more of a Douglas Adams "WTF?!" factor.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Nebusj]

Perhaps it is the nature of the "destruction" ( maybe, more accurately, the rearrangement?)

Well, first, any major new class of weapon is controversial to start. I think that's a good trait of people; finding new ways of killing should be met with some thought about whether that's the sort of thing you should be doing.

Second, absolutely the nature of the Genesis Torpedo destruction is controversial. Genesis may destroy just as surely as a tri-cobalt bombardment would, but it leaves behind not a ruined world but a great, beautiful world. So not only would the users of it get to kill their enemies, but they'd get a bonus of an instantly-ready prize. The user doesn't even have to rebuild the ruins; the Genesis Torpedo might be programmed even to build new cities ready for the colonizing.
It makes widespread destruction too rewarding.

 

[Haytil]

Part of the controversy must also lie in the simplicity of Genesis.

As another user pointed out, a fleet of starships could destroy a planet by lobbing torpedoes at the surface for a day. But that takes a lot of torpedoes and, more importantly, a lot of manpower - each ship has to be crewed by a large number of officers, who are willfully and deliberately participating in the destruction of a world over a relatively long period of time.

Genesis, on the other hand, can do the same thing with one push of a button. One moment later and - BOOM - it's done. Too late to stop.

All it takes is one man with his hands on Genesis, and a world can be doomed in moments.

It's the same reason the concept of a "Suitcase Nuke" is so terrifying, even though it's destructive power isn't quantitatively as much high as an ICBM's.

 

[Vandervecken]

Remember the blast that destroyed the Yamato in Contagion? How many of those do you think it would take to annihilate an m-class planet's surface?

 

[Clark Terrell]

With the Enterprise zipping away from Khan after he set it off, it's safe to assume it can destroy more than just a planet, but anything near it as well. Though a starship or two can obliterate a planet's surface, the Genesis device does far worse.

And because the Genesis device reorganizes matter at the molecular level, it leaves no trace of whatever it destroys.

 

[Push The Button]

David Marcus used protomatter in the Genesis design, which means that the perfect world that it
might create would fall apart faster than a Chrysler product from the 1970's.

I wonder if Phil Collins or the other guys in the band Genesis ever saw TWOK, and what they might have felt about a fictional world-destroying technology having the same name as their band?

 

[Vandervecken]

With the Enterprise zipping away from Khan after he set it off, it's safe to assume it can destroy more than just a planet, but anything near it as well. Though a starship or two can obliterate a planet's surface, the Genesis device does far worse.

I've thought about this. The only possible military advantage that I can see in this, is destruction of all ships in even far orbit around a world as well. If you have an enemy with most of its fleet clustered around one world, a surprise attack with Genesis could take out a world and all its fleet at once.

Even as I write that, I have to admit it's a pretty nice advantage. I still don't see it as more efficient at planetary surface wrecking than a few destabilized warp cores, but I can see some military advantage when using it against an interstellar enemy.

Still, I'd expect most galactic powers not to make such sitting ducks of their fleets on general military principle, for fear of even "conventional" surprise attacks..

 

[Clark Terrell]

I wonder if Phil Collins or the other guys in the band Genesis ever saw TWOK, and what they might have felt about a fictional world-destroying technology having the same name as their band?

When I was little, I thought they named their band after the planet.

 

[OpenMaw]

David Marcus used protomatter in the Genesis design, which means that the perfect world that it
might create would fall apart faster than a Chrysler product from the 1970's.

See, we don't actually know that for certain. Yes, David says he used proto-matter, but that does not mean the experiment would have failed had it gone forward as intended. The events of the creation of the Genesis planet were quite abnormal.

One example. Where did all the mass for the newly formed Genesis planet come from? Reliant, and the Nebula itself? The whole idea was to take a dead rock and hit the surface with the torpedo. So who actually knows. I always assumed that since David was the only one who really knew the secret of Genesis, the experiments simply died with him.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The danger is, Genesis is just one small device. Theoretically, it can be launched by just one person, or even automatically via a ship's computer.

True, a fleet of ships can have similar destructive power, but they would have to have their entire crews working together on it. That makes it much more likely that the whole thing would be aborted. With Genesis, one person can have all that power, and that's what's truly chilling.

 

[Nebusj]

I wonder if Phil Collins or the other guys in the band Genesis ever saw TWOK, and what they might have felt about a fictional world-destroying technology having the same name as their band?

``Funny, we were wondering if the Trek Wars people ever got asked if their gimmicky thingy wrote The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.''