posted
In the TOS episode 'Court Martial' Kirk is charged with causing the death of an officer whilst the Enterprise was passing through an ion storm. The officer was working within the ion pod and Kirk was accused of jettisoning the pod with the officer still inside.
I was wondering what the precise purpose of the ion pod would be. From the context, it appears to have something to do with collecting data on ion storms. The Enterprise accelerated to warp 1 whilst passing through the storm and the deployment of the ion pod seemed to cause some risk of danger to the ship, which might require Kirk to jettison the pod to prevent the ship being damaged.
So, from this we can infer that the ion pod cannot be operated remotely and has it's own control room of some kind; that when deployed it somehow affects the flying characteristics of the ship, although there is not information as to whether the pod physically deploys outside the ships hull or not; that the function of the pod cannot be halted quickly enough in an emergency to prevent damage and that the quickest way of stopping it is to jettison it.
FAO Mars Needs Women, I understand the ion pod is a plot device, honest
Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Great. For ages we need more Brits onboard, and when one finally comes along he starts trying to rationalise MacGuffins. Coming up next, what was in Marsellus Wallace's briefcase?
posted
Although there's nothing inherently wrong with him trying to rationalize one-off lines in Star Trek, the ST novel writers take this to such an extreme that it quickly became annoying. Case in point: The "Lost Era" novel "The Art of The Impossible" was written based entirely on one throw-away line in DS9. That's just too anal for me.
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Then again, this sub-forum does have a motto...
Whatever the pod's nature and mission, it seems that an officer is needed there "for reading on ion slates". And a fairly senior officer at that: if the duty roster for the pod included every Ensign, it would have been extremely difficult for Finney to have arranged for the "accident"/"murder" within his period of service aboard Kirk's ship.
One entertaining idea is that the reason why the pod can't be automated is that it takes readings on the officer, not the storm itself. "Ion slates" are things that slate the poor subject with ions... Perhaps Starfleet wants to tell apart those ion storms that kill people, and those that turn them into silver-eyed demigods?
posted
Timo, an amusing notion, and one that is not without historical precedent. The atom bomb tests of the 50's, for instance, in which thousands of service personnel were intentionally exposed to phenomena that were known to be harmful.
Either that, or the kind of information Starfleet is gleaning from ion storms is, for some reason, best gathered using the Mark 1 eyeball.
What is this sub-forums motto?
Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
"You know those dorky kids in Galaxy Quest?"
Clearly, Starfleet is desperate to learn more about ion storms, enough to have some sort of standing orders to steer starships deliberately into them despite the known risks. I mean, clearly Kirk wasn't trying to avoid the storm or anything.
posted
Is steering in to ion storms much different than steering in to hurricanes?
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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