Well, yes, exactly. I figured that Kirk and Spock blew out their communicators with the rockslide, so Uhura called McCoy, and he led Scott and the security team to Kirk and Spock.
WTF moments in TOS & TAS....
- Thread starter Warped9
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I'll second that and I'll also mention from the same scene, Spock tries to turn of the switch, it's broken, so his logical conclusion is to.... cover it with his hands! He couldn't even keep it out any way and he really didn't seem to know for sure it couldn't eat green blood, did he?
Then later, in order to flush it out, Scotty dumps radioactive waste from the engines. Oh, no problem, that's only the air for the ship, a little radioactive waste never bothered anyone, right? The must have some kind of super cleaner to completely decontaminate the whole life support system before the air gets bad.
I think Spock was just hoping to delay the creature somehow, giving the crew time to deal with it if possible! A sort of self sacrifice on the part of the Vulcan! 
JB
JB
Thing was how did Kirk know the thing was heading home to spawn just from smelling it's whiff in the air? 
JB
JB
Did Kirk conclude that? I recall Kirk (impossibly) surmised that the creature was heading home. I don't recall how the conclusion was reached that it was there to spawn.
In Garrovick's quarters, I said the scent of the creature was somehow different. Something in my mind said home.
KIRK
Spock had somehow come up with the theory that it was going to to spawn, based on unnamed evidence.
The Gaseous Cloud is one of my unsung Trek heroes
I really wish it could have "taken out" the piece of wood that was Garovick
I really wish it could have "taken out" the piece of wood that was Garovick
In 50 years, I never questioned the AC business. I wonder if directors have tricks to discourage you from noticing such things...
In the greater Trek context, it's fine to breathe radioactive gases, because you can always breathe hyronalin next...
As for Spock putting his hands across the vent, he could have been trying to meld with the cloud, rather than attempting to physically block it. Nothing lost in trying, I guess - previously, the cloud's attentions had been inescapable, so Spock should logically be thinking of making the best out of his impending and inevitable death. Being able to gasp "It wants potassium, Jim!" or "It's Redjac in disguise!" with his last breath would have been of strategic importance, the needs of the many, things of that nature.
Timo Saloniemi
As for Spock putting his hands across the vent, he could have been trying to meld with the cloud, rather than attempting to physically block it. Nothing lost in trying, I guess - previously, the cloud's attentions had been inescapable, so Spock should logically be thinking of making the best out of his impending and inevitable death. Being able to gasp "It wants potassium, Jim!" or "It's Redjac in disguise!" with his last breath would have been of strategic importance, the needs of the many, things of that nature.
Timo Saloniemi
It's Kirk who senses the creature's intentions. Spock never does.
Well, how much can you expect of a three-second meld?
Had Spock succeeded, there would have been plot implications. So he didn't. But once again he makes a baseless claim about an alien entity, one that is never proven right or wrong (vampire cloud is about to spawn and specifically to split into thousands, doomsday machine came from outside the galaxy, whatever) - perhaps this time he bases it on something instead of nothing?
Kirk seemed adamant that being in physical or chemical contact with the cloud should provide insight into its thinking, and didn't believe Garrovick when he said he got nothing out of the cloud. Spock might have gotten a hunch, too, and would have little initial reason to confess to or believe in this, but a good and logical reason after Kirk's comparable hunch proved correct.
Timo Saloniemi
Had Spock succeeded, there would have been plot implications. So he didn't. But once again he makes a baseless claim about an alien entity, one that is never proven right or wrong (vampire cloud is about to spawn and specifically to split into thousands, doomsday machine came from outside the galaxy, whatever) - perhaps this time he bases it on something instead of nothing?
Kirk seemed adamant that being in physical or chemical contact with the cloud should provide insight into its thinking, and didn't believe Garrovick when he said he got nothing out of the cloud. Spock might have gotten a hunch, too, and would have little initial reason to confess to or believe in this, but a good and logical reason after Kirk's comparable hunch proved correct.
Timo Saloniemi
Since everyone seems to be obsessing about problems in "Obsession", here is another one:
It is easy to see how the creature could get from where it attacked two crewmen into the ventilating system. The crewmen needed to breath, and probably weren't wearing spacesuits, so they were probably in a compartment with a ventilation duct.
But how could the creature get from the number two impulse engine's radioactive disposal vent into a compartment with breathable air occupied by two crewmen and with a ventilation duct?
If the number two impulse engine's radioactive disposal vent was open to the vacuum of space, any air inside it would be connected to the vacuum of space and would expand into outer space, thus emptying the disposal vent and every compartment of the ship that was open to it. Therefore, every compartment in the ship which had breathable air must have been sealed off from the disposal vent by airtight bulkheads, in order to prevent he Enterprise crew from dying like the crew of Soyuz 11 on June 30, 1971.
And what about when the radioactive disposal vent was closed and shut and no longer open to the vacuum of space? would it have been safe to open a hatch in the bulkhead so air could flow from the ship into the vent and vice versa? No, because it was a radioactive disposal vent, and thus would accumulate radioactive wastes from the number two impulse engine. Nobody would want radioactive wastes from the impulse engines mixing with the breathable air inside the ship.
So there must have been at all times an air tight bulkhead between the radioactive disposal vent and the atmosphere filled compartment where the crewmen were attacked and the creature got into the ventilation system.
So apparently the creature can pas through some interior bulkheads on a starship. So why couldn't the creature enter the Enterprise anywhere it wanted to, but instead had to enter through the only open vent on the surface of the starship?
Because the hull of the starship,and the lids of all vents, would have been very thick and impenetrable and the creature would have been unable to penetrate the thick hull and vent lids, but could easily penetrate the thin though airtight bulkhead between the radioactive disposal vent and the compartment where the creature killed the two crewmen.
But does that make any sense? The outer hull of a space ship basically functions to keep good stuff, like air, inside the space ship instead of flowing out into the vacuum of space. But the bulkhead between the disposal vent and the compartment not only has to keep the good air inside the ship but, unlike the outer hull, has to keep bad stuff out. The vent sometimes does not contain a vacuum, but sometimes contains radioactive wastes which have to be kept out of the ship and kept from mixing with the air. If anything, the bulkhead between the radioactive wast vent and the air filled compartments of the ship should be more impenetrable than the outer hull of the ship.
And if the bulkhead between the radioactive disposal vent and the air filled compartments of the ship was thinner and more penetrable than the outer hull of the ship, it should still be thicker and less penetrable than the ventilation ducts and the walls, ceilings, and floors which contained the ventilation ducts. So it is surprising that the creature took a while to exit from a ventilation grille into a room and attack someone, instead of immediately passing through a few walls to a corridor and proceeding to attack and kill everyone it met as it moved through the ship.
Earlier, before the creature enters the ship:
When Spock is in Garrovick's quarters:
Again this indicates that the creature can only enter or exit the ship though an open vent, and cannot exit through the hull or closed vent lids or closed airlocks, etc.
But Garrovick damaged the the ventilation control in his quarters by throwing a food tray lid at it, which weakened it enough to snap off when Spock tried to close the vent. That indicates the vent control is fragile and light weight, and thus probably moves thin and lightweight louvers made of lightweight sheets of metal to open or close the vent. And apparently those thin louvers of metal were enough to keep the creature out of every compartment of the ship except for Garrovick's quarters where for some reason they had not been closed during the emergency or had been opened by Garrovick throwing the tray lid.
So if the creature managed to get through the bulkhead between the radioactive waste disposal vent and an air filled compartment of the ship, that bulkhead must have been thinner and more penetrable than the thin louvers in the ventilation openings in each compartment of the ship! Does that make any sense for a bulkhead that keeps everyone alive by keeping the breathable air in the ship from rushing out into space and by keeping radioactive wastes from contaminating the ships air?
So what is the answer? Was the compartment where the creature attacked the two crewmen separated from the radioactive disposal vent by some kind of force field that kept air in and radioactive wastes out but couldn't stop the creature? Maybe it was, but the door to the compartment was shut and the only way for the creature to get out was through the ventilation system. After all, what is the worst thing that could happen if there was a power failure and the force field turned off?
So what are your thoughts on the problem of how the creature got into the Enterprise?
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Is it? Kirk says he senses it's going home. Who's the one who suggest it's there to spawn?
That's what another poster thought.Wasn't it Spock, when they are about to set off for the creature's home planet?
Sadly, Spock never deigns to share what that "evidence" is
You can hardly expect me to remember that, it was...uh....TEN POSTS ago!That's what another poster thought.
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