Worldbuilding in Season 1

[Christopher]

As opposed to the alien species names "Horta" and "Borg" which both appeared in Tom Purdom's 1964 book, I Want the Stars.

Coincidence?!?

Well... probably. Maybe.

With words that short, it's no surprise that different people have independently come up with them. Heck, they're both real surnames anyway -- for example, Hollywood sound editor Sam Horta and Swedish tennis champion Bjorn Borg.

It's hard to come up with "alien" names that nobody's come up with before. I had a species in my original fiction that I was going to call the Linya, but then Anne McCaffrey introduced a species called Linyaari in her Acorna novels. Then I was going to call them Pharenya, until I realized that sounded too much like Ferengi (and they're a big-eared species). I eventually settled on Zhalevey.

 

[publiusr]

The old book “The 36 Dramatic Stuations” has names most people haven’t heard in awhile. A couple of items that would fit a TOS set would be Hala Fruit:
https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/hala-fruit-fruit-looks-exploding-planet?amp

-and “Marble Berries”
https://wonderfulengineering.com/these-marble-berries-are-the-worlds-brightest-living-thing/amp/

 

[Commishsleer]

Early on in Trek they had Christine Masters, Number One ordering around men subordinates in a military situations. Rand was not afraid to order the salt vampire Green away and Uhura ordered that guy to fix her door. Then there were various alien princesses and the female Romulan commander during the series but generally Starfleet women were subordinate to men after initially starting out so promising.

 

[Christopher]

Rand was not afraid to order the salt vampire Green away

"Why don't you go chase an asteroid?" is not an order, it's just a woman telling a creep to stop following her. A yeoman and a crewman are both enlisted, so they probably wouldn't be giving orders to each other like officers.

and Uhura ordered that guy to fix her door.

No, she asked nicely. "The door to my quarters still rattles when it opens. Would you stop by and see if you can do something about it? Thanks, Bobby." "The Man Trap" is perhaps the episode that most heavily plays up the feel that these are just ordinary coworkers in a workplace that just happens to be an interstellar starship. They're hanging out together off-shift, trading banter, doing hobbies, asking each other favors, just ordinary everyday people stuff instead of grandiose space adventures or military discipline. (There's also an extraordinary amount of eating going on in the episode for some reason. Even when people aren't snacking on things, they're talking about food. I've often wondered if it was some kind of ironic parallel with the Salt Vampire.)

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

No doubt that the eating or food discussions in "The Man Trap" were intentional to tie to the episodes theme of consumption for survival.

Even the buffalo, which was food source for Native Americans, could be seen as another thematic tie to that. Obviously, the buffalo is also in reference to their near extinction to tie into the Salt Vampire.

 

[Maurice]

Early on in Trek they had Christine Masters [...]

Charlene Masters. Christine was Chapel.

 

[Henoch]

(There's also an extraordinary amount of eating going on in the episode for some reason. Even when people aren't snacking on things, they're talking about food. I've often wondered if it was some kind of ironic parallel with the Salt Vampire.)

After 25+ years of ship life eating, you'ed have to worry about your waistline...I'm looking at you, Scotty.

 

[Greg Cox]

"Why don't you go chase an asteroid?" is not an order, it's just a woman telling a creep to stop following her. A yeoman and a crewman are both enlisted, so they probably wouldn't be giving orders to each other like officers.

Exactly. It was just a sci-fi spin on "Go take a hike" or "Go jump in a lake."

She was just telling him to get lost.

 

[Neopeius]

A yeoman and a crewman are both enlisted, so they probably wouldn't be giving orders to each other like officers.

We don't know their ranks/rates. All we know is that they don't have stripes on their sleeves.

 

[Christopher]

We don't know their ranks/rates. All we know is that they don't have stripes on their sleeves.

Yeah, but there's no valid way to interpret that scene as her giving him an order. It's a woman telling off a creepy guy.

 

[Neopeius]

Yeah, but there's no valid way to interpret that scene as her giving him an order. It's a woman telling off a creepy guy.

That is true.

 

[Commishsleer]

Charlene Masters. Christine was Chapel.

Ooops!

Exactly. It was just a sci-fi spin on "Go take a hike" or "Go jump in a lake."

She was just telling him to get lost.

Yeah, but there's no valid way to interpret that scene as her giving him an order. It's a woman telling off a creepy guy.

It just seemed to me that earlier in the series That Starfleet women had a bit more sass. Later on female Starfleet officers were more "Save me Captain!". I know Rand tried to get Spock to help her in Naked Time (which he did not) but Rand was not all damselly about it.

 

[Neopeius]

Ooops!





It just seemed to me that earlier in the series That Starfleet women had a bit more sass. Later on female Starfleet officers were more "Save me Captain!". I know Rand tried to get Spock to help her in Naked Time (which he did not) but Rand was not all damselly about it.

Uhura is not damselly in "The Changeling" or "Who Mourns for Adonais" or "Mirror, Mirror".

 

[Christopher]

It just seemed to me that earlier in the series That Starfleet women had a bit more sass. Later on female Starfleet officers were more "Save me Captain!". I know Rand tried to get Spock to help her in Naked Time (which he did not) but Rand was not all damselly about it.

Rand had her more submissive moments too, like "Captain, look at my legs" in "Miri," or the part in "The Enemy Within" where she effectively said that she would've been okay with letting the captain rape her.

Uhura is not damselly in "The Changeling" or "Who Mourns for Adonais" or "Mirror, Mirror".

I'll give you the others, but Uhura in "The Changeling" is the epitome of a damsel in distress -- a helpless victim of the villain, needing rescue by others, with her identity so unimportant to the storyteller that she can have her entire life's memory erased and it's shrugged off as a minor speed bump.

 

[Neopeius]

I'll give you the others, but Uhura in "The Changeling" is the epitome of a damsel in distress -- a helpless victim of the villain, needing rescue by others, with her identity so unimportant to the storyteller that she can have her entire life's memory erased and it's shrugged off as a minor speed bump.

If Uhura's a damsel, Scotty's a damsel. He's dead for a good part of the episode.

Her identity clearly wasn't erased. She was back on the job in a few weeks. Considering they still have grades in the future (1st grade, high school, etc.), folks probably still go through them normally one year at a time.

What likely happened to Uhura was the equivalent of a stroke, temporarily severing access to knowledge she'd gained beyond a certain point. It didn't even particularly affect her personality -- note her interactions with Christine; she doesn't come off as a little girl, but as a grown woman retraining herself (and excited at regaining her skills).

The only one treating her like a child is Christine, who makes the dopey comment about her having an aptitude for mathematics, like she's a promising child, but perhaps that was just her maternal instinct speaking, or a tongue in cheek comment.

Anyway, Uhura gets to be a competent bridge officer directing operations who suffers an injury. She's not tied to railroad tracks. She's not compelled to confess her fear. She doesn't fall doe-y eyed for a tyrant or God.

She's not a damsel. At least in this episode.

 

[Christopher]

If Uhura's a damsel, Scotty's a damsel. He's dead for a good part of the episode.

But that's not the only thing he does.

Her identity clearly wasn't erased. She was back on the job in a few weeks.

You're literally making my case for me. Her job was the entirety of her identity? What about her family? Her friends? Her hobbies, her childhood memories, anything that made her an individual rather than just "Communications Officer"? This is the whole point. She was given so little characterization that it didn't matter to the story whether she remembered anything beyond her professional skills. I mean, I literally wrote a whole novel to correct that oversight.

 

[Commishsleer]

If Uhura's a damsel, Scotty's a damsel. He's dead for a good part of the episode.

Her identity clearly wasn't erased. She was back on the job in a few weeks. Considering they still have grades in the future (1st grade, high school, etc.), folks probably still go through them normally one year at a time.

What likely happened to Uhura was the equivalent of a stroke, temporarily severing access to knowledge she'd gained beyond a certain point. It didn't even particularly affect her personality -- note her interactions with Christine; she doesn't come off as a little girl, but as a grown woman retraining herself (and excited at regaining her skills).

The only one treating her like a child is Christine, who makes the dopey comment about her having an aptitude for mathematics, like she's a promising child, but perhaps that was just her maternal instinct speaking, or a tongue in cheek comment.

Anyway, Uhura gets to be a competent bridge officer directing operations who suffers an injury. She's not tied to railroad tracks. She's not compelled to confess her fear. She doesn't fall doe-y eyed for a tyrant or God.

She's not a damsel. At least in this episode.

I agree. Her memory wasn't erased. Presumably had years of experience on-the-job before she became Chief Communications Officer of the Enterprise. .Putting her back on the job after a few weeks would be like taking an Ensign on straight out of the Academy. I think Chapel and McCoy meant that we just have to retrain her brain to reaccess her memories. So she can't speak English. Reading the children's book in English will trigger the paths in her brain back to find her knowledge of English.
And all her interactions with Nomad and the situation were perfectly professional. Except maybe "bluey" but that was just a joke.
I think you could substitute say Sulu for Uhura in this situation and not change any dialog and the episode would remain the same.

 

[Christopher]

I agree. Her memory wasn't erased.

The episode claimed it was, however nonsensical that is. I'm not saying you can't fill in the gaps after the fact -- as I mentioned, I literally based a whole novel on doing just that. I'm saying that the writers of the episode treated Uhura's identity as so unimportant that they could claim it was entirely erased and barely pay any attention to what a life-changing tragedy that would be. The fact that we need to fill in the gaps ourselves, to make our own assumptions about what it meant or didn't mean to Uhura, proves my point that the text of the episode itself neglected the issue. The script claimed that Uhura's entire memory was erased, and just did not care what that would mean to her on a personal level, treating it as a minor speed bump that was fixed with ease. That's very careless writing, showing a lack of concern for her characterization. Her identity was treated as unimportant.

Of course, the episode is careless in other ways, in that Nomad commits genocide against the Malurians and murders multiple Enterprise security guards, yet at the end, Kirk is joking around about "My son, the doctor" instead of processing the horrific tragedy. It's shallowly written on a number of levels, and the cavalier treatment of Uhura's memory erasure is one of the biggest failings of the writing.

 

[Henoch]

What information did Nomad really erase from Uhura's memory?

NOMAD: What is music? (a ray of light envelopes her head) Think about music.​

We have the answer. Simple. I imagine that some associated information was also affected, like language ties and composition skills, but the bulk of her memories should be mostly intact. The memory wipe ordeal may have temporarily "stunned" her brain leaving the impression of a total memory wipe. After her recovery, the major missing memories will be about music. Have we seen Uhura sing anytime after the event?

 

[Kor]

... Have we seen Uhura sing anytime after the event?

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Kor