WTF moments in TOS & TAS....

[Timo]

Regarding the vent business, I think it's fallacy to consider the airtightness of a starship a Boolean issue. I mean, physically speaking, it isn't and can't be: apply a thousand atmospheres on either side and something is going to give. But the ship could also have plenty of vacuum-air interfaces where a much smaller pressure difference makes a difference.

We know the cloud can push through shields, and Spock thinks this comes naturally for an entity that manipulates gravity; this meshes well with the later (largely backstage) ideas of shields being based on gravity manipulation, essentially an englobing type of tractor beam. But we don't learn the creature could push through solid matter. The closest it gets is invading the jar of blood in the end - but our heroes would have prepared the jar so that the creature would consider it a snack, so we can't rule out them punching macroscopic holes in the lid. More probably, though, they'd use a membrane they think the creature can push through.

So, why would there be a suitably permeable membrane between the impulse engine and the ventilation ducts?

Why not? There were people attending to the engine. If we assume the dangerous innards of the engine are safely behind airlock and key, we invoke airlocks - and those are definitely in need of air ducts with selective membranes. The inspection hatch Scotty speaks of could be the engine-side hatch of an airlock, and thus quite plausibly a weak spot for the gas cloud to exploit.

The ventilation system would probably be hard pressed to create the sort of counterpressure that could defeat the cloud, assuming the system features membranes that are permeable to the cloud but don't otherwise cause leakage. But odds are the cloud isn't defeated by mere backdraft - it withdraws because it is surprised and confused by the taste of Spock (not just his blood but arguably also his mind), or because it has completed its attack as usual and retreats as usual (we saw this behavior time and again down on the planet). The fans activating is just a minor boost for the entity in completing this action...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ZapBrannigan]

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?

The only explanation I can think of comes out of the TNG era. You know how the spin-off shuttle bays (and Picard's picture window in First Contact) kept the air in with a force field? Well, the impulse vent has a physical hatch that opens to space, and the inner-compartment's barrier to space is just a force field that keeps air in. The cloud creature can pass the ship's shields and force fields, but not the hull and bulkheads.

So when the vent was open, the creature breezed in through the atmospheric containment force field. Our own shuttlecraft are seen doing this all the time on the spin-offs and The Orville.

 

[Phaser Two]

It's funny - Obsession has some of the best dialogue of the entire series and is arguably the most militarily accurate episode of Star Trek. But I sense the heavy hand of some of the editors on the whole vent business, which is really confusing. And "Hey, Scotty, try flushing the radioactive waste into the ventilation system" (WHAAAAT??) is honestly one of the most Whiskey Tango Foxtrot lines of the entire franchise.

 

[drt]

Smaller WTF moment but still makes me roll my eyes every time: Kirk doesn't even try to follow the rules in the final battle on Triskellion. Your entire ship is in danger dude!!! Don't count on the refs to not throw a flag in the last two minutes!

Heh, that always bugged me as well. I always placed the blame more on Shatner not paying attention to his footwork rather than Kirk flaunting the rules.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Heh, that always bugged me as well. I always placed the blame more on Shatner not paying attention to his footwork rather than Kirk flaunting the rules.

Shatner and the director et al. If only they could have kept doing takes until Shatner kept his feet in the lines. I'd expect they were pushing production constraints to the limit as it was, though.

 

[Timo]

It's funny - Obsession has some of the best dialogue of the entire series and is arguably the most militarily accurate episode of Star Trek. But I sense the heavy hand of some of the editors on the whole vent business, which is really confusing. And "Hey, Scotty, try flushing the radioactive waste into the ventilation system" (WHAAAAT??) is honestly one of the most Whiskey Tango Foxtrot lines of the entire franchise.

Umm, the heroes had completely shut down the system at that point: they were going to suffocate in two hours because the air was no longer circulating. Releasing radioactives, poison or flying piranhas into it wouldn't make a difference, supposedly.

The real mystery is how the cloud nevertheless got into Garrovick's cabin, if there were airtight barriers between that cabin and the radioactives. But as said, the creature ought to be able to push through certain things air cannot penetrate, and the starship most probably would have such things as parts of its ventilation system, almost by default.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Shatner and the director et al. If only they could have kept doing takes until Shatner kept his feet in the lines. I'd expect they were pushing production constraints to the limit as it was, though.

I'm sure staying on schedule was part of it. But also: the need to make the combat look vigorous, exciting, and "all out." That's a higher priority than following some picayune little rule stated in the dialogue.

And more broadly, "You try getting a major fight scene on film, with weapon props and multiple participants, and let us know how many takes you needed to get it perfect." And remember, you'll have no instant video playback to check each take; you have to wait for film to be developed and checked the next day.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I'm sure staying on schedule was part of it. But also: the need to make the combat look vigorous, exciting, and "all out." That's a higher priority than following some picayune little rule stated in the dialogue.

And more broadly, "You try getting a major fight scene on film, with weapon props and multiple participants, and let us know how many takes you needed to get it perfect." And remember, you'll have no instant video playback to check each take; you have to wait for film to be developed and checked the next day.

Yeah, all in all I was OK with it. It could have been executed better, but I got the idea, and it worked for me.

 

[Nyotarules]

The reason was given:
FOX: Captain, in the past twenty years, thousands of lives have been lost in this quadrant. Lives that could have been saved if the Federation had a treaty port here. We mean to have that port and I'm here to get it.

Sounds like Imperial Britain after Hong Kong for the opium

 

[Maurice]

I'm sure staying on schedule was part of it. But also: the need to make the combat look vigorous, exciting, and "all out." That's a higher priority than following some picayune little rule stated in the dialogue.

And more broadly, "You try getting a major fight scene on film, with weapon props and multiple participants, and let us know how many takes you needed to get it perfect." And remember, you'll have no instant video playback to check each take; you have to wait for film to be developed and checked the next day.

I'm sure that's it. Of course, if I shot it I would have avoided the down-angles that emphasize when the feets land in the wrong place, and shot some close angles of the feet teetering on the brink of crossing the line. But that's me.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

shot some close angles of the feet teetering on the brink of crossing the line.

That would have been glorious.

 

[Marsden]

Smaller WTF moment but still makes me roll my eyes every time: Kirk doesn't even try to follow the rules in the final battle on Triskellion. Your entire ship is in danger dude!!! Don't count on the refs to not throw a flag in the last two minutes!

I guess I'd better watch closer, I didn't notice anything too bad, he was on the edges a lot but not actually running across the other color.

It's funny - Obsession has some of the best dialogue of the entire series and is arguably the most militarily accurate episode of Star Trek. But I sense the heavy hand of some of the editors on the whole vent business, which is really confusing. And "Hey, Scotty, try flushing the radioactive waste into the ventilation system" (WHAAAAT??) is honestly one of the most Whiskey Tango Foxtrot lines of the entire franchise.

Here's another question about Obsession, so what if the switch wasn't broken? If Mr. Spock successfully closed it, part of the creature was already in the cabin, would both parts have survived? Would it then be two creatures?

Also, I have to mention McCoy had one of the best lines ever because of this:
MCCOY: It's not enough! You didn't care as long as you could hang your trophy on the wall. Well, it's not on it, Captain, it's in it.

 

[johnnybear]

Umm, the heroes had completely shut down the system at that point: they were going to suffocate in two hours because the air was no longer circulating. Releasing radioactives, poison or flying piranhas into it wouldn't make a difference, supposedly.

The real mystery is how the cloud nevertheless got into Garrovick's cabin, if there were airtight barriers between that cabin and the radioactives. But as said, the creature ought to be able to push through certain things air cannot penetrate, and the starship most probably would have such things as parts of its ventilation system, almost by default.

Timo Saloniemi

The Cloud had also attacked the USS Farragut eleven years earlier and must have been inside that ship as well to have killed so many of the crew!
JB

 

[Timo]

Or then not, because Kirk knew a lot about that incident but the ability of the cloud to threaten his starship came as a rude surprise.

Kirk was crewing a "phaser station", yet was able to smell his enemy. He probably wasn't aboard the ship, then, but was doing the same thing his redshirts in this episode were doing, standing guard for a landing party. Yet a "phaser station" is new terminology for us, sounding more substantial than just a guy with a Type 2 looking around. Perhaps we should deduce that the landing party in that case was more extensive, too, with hundreds of people milling around and dozens of guards situated at hilltops to cover the action*? A feast for the creature, without any need for it to reveal the fact that it can also leap into space and threaten entire starships!

We also have to wonder what saved Kirk. The failure to pull the trigger in time would be fatal to the targets of the cloud, but Kirk need not have been one of those: the cloud enveloping the others would be a likely scenario where Kirk could no longer fire after his initial hesitation. The cloud seemed happy with consuming just two or three people at a time, but we get no real data on whether it would have turned down the opportunity to suck dry hundreds at a time. Perhaps Kirk saw the carnage and was told to beam up before it reached his hilltop phaser station - at which point the cloud was sated and Kirk mistook this for an inability to threaten the ship, when it was mere unwillingness?

Timo Saloniemi

* Why Captain Garrovick would wish to deploy half his crew this way is an interesting question. And what was he afraid of down on Tycho IV, to deploy those phaser stations? In the 24th century, this place warrants a spaceport. Perhaps it was a key location for Burnham's War, and Garrovick was trying to flush out some Klingons, not realizing they had all been sucked dry already?

 

[MAGolding]

Or then not, because Kirk knew a lot about that incident but the ability of the cloud to threaten his starship came as a rude surprise.

Kirk was crewing a "phaser station", yet was able to smell his enemy. He probably wasn't aboard the ship, then, but was doing the same thing his redshirts in this episode were doing, standing guard for a landing party. Yet a "phaser station" is new terminology for us, sounding more substantial than just a guy with a Type 2 looking around. Perhaps we should deduce that the landing party in that case was more extensive, too, with hundreds of people milling around and dozens of guards situated at hilltops to cover the action*? A feast for the creature, without any need for it to reveal the fact that it can also leap into space and threaten entire starships!

We also have to wonder what saved Kirk. The failure to pull the trigger in time would be fatal to the targets of the cloud, but Kirk need not have been one of those: the cloud enveloping the others would be a likely scenario where Kirk could no longer fire after his initial hesitation. The cloud seemed happy with consuming just two or three people at a time, but we get no real data on whether it would have turned down the opportunity to suck dry hundreds at a time. Perhaps Kirk saw the carnage and was told to beam up before it reached his hilltop phaser station - at which point the cloud was sated and Kirk mistook this for an inability to threaten the ship, when it was mere unwillingness?

Timo Saloniemi

* Why Captain Garrovick would wish to deploy half his crew this way is an interesting question. And what was he afraid of down on Tycho IV, to deploy those phaser stations? In the 24th century, this place warrants a spaceport. Perhaps it was a key location for Burnham's War, and Garrovick was trying to flush out some Klingons, not realizing they had all been sucked dry already?

Yes, I was wondering about what happened with the Farragut incident, and I think your speculations are very reasonable. I guess Kirk's phaser station was something like the laser cannon in "The Cage" upgraded from laser to phaser.

I note that the second officer's report said Kirk showed great courage. I don't think that most of the victims would have shown great courage, unless the creature wiped out a few landing parties and their mission was to seek out and destroy it. Unless they were seeking the creature, it probably ambushed them, appearing out of nowhere, and giving them no time to show heroism or not. So it is a wonder that Kirk survived.

 

[Timo]

We also know he lost consciousness in the incident - whether due to being directly attacked by the cloud, or due to being stunned by the XO so that she could drag him to safety from a futile fight, we do not know. The latter would appear dramatically satisfactory, but it could be a mix of both, too.

For 200 people to die, I still envision a single large massacre, perhaps preceded by an isolated loss or two and followed by an isolated attempt at a retribution sortie (possibly involving both Kirk and the Captain himself). But either Garrovick or his surviving XO would cut their losses soon enough and leave the place - piecemeal loss of 200 would be unthinkable from the psychological or tactical standpoint, while OTOH a single disastrous loss would be enough to send the Farragut running even if this meant abandoning an originally important mission for good.

Abandoning the mission might be prudent in any case: if Starfleet wanted to exploit the place, the threat would make that too costly, and if Starfleet was worried about Klingons doing something with this place, well, they're very welcome to it now!

A scenario where the Farragut herself would be damaged or even threatened by the creature appears unlikely. In theory, I guess even a total loss would be possible: the wartime mission to this place a thousand lightyears away from Kirk's usual hunting grounds might have involved two or more ships, allowing for evacuation by those others. In practice, it would be a contradiction if Kirk were aware of the creature being a threat to starships.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ZapBrannigan]

We also know he lost consciousness in the incident - whether due to being directly attacked by the cloud, or due to being stunned by the XO so that she could drag him to safety from a futile fight, we do not know.

"MCCOY: The ship's exec didn't seem to think so. His log entry was quite clear on the subject. Lieutenant Kirk is a fine young officer who performed with uncommon bravery."

Emphasis added.

Abandoning the mission might be prudent in any case: if Starfleet wanted to exploit the place, the threat would make that too costly, and if Starfleet was worried about Klingons doing something with this place, well, they're very welcome to it now!

Nice.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

I guess I'd better watch closer, I didn't notice anything too bad, he was on the edges a lot but not actually running across the other color.

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x16hd/thegamestersoftriskelionhd1148.jpg

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The Providers loved the fights, but they'd never needed much in the way of referees before, and the skill set just wasn't there. Luckily for Kirk.

 

[Mytran]

Shatner and the director et al. If only they could have kept doing takes until Shatner kept his feet in the lines. I'd expect they were pushing production constraints to the limit as it was, though.

I recently rewatched the episode and Shatner actually does a pretty good job staying on the yellow most of the time, leaping dramatically from one section to the next. His opponents are the ones who violate the "wrong colours" rules more, especially Kloog (the big guy) who just wanders wherever he wants!