posted
So I'm working on a page about planet-killers, and while I'm at it I go into the Genesis Device a little bit, since it blows 'em up real good (if even inadvertently).
Now, I'd already noticed way back when that the Genesis Planet seems to be quite a bit closer to its sun by the end of the film . . . the last scene with the BoP leaving has a huge, close sun compared to the shots of the Grissom and Enterprise arriving. I decided to cross-check with any shots from the surface, and came across something weird.
First, we have the strange-looking sunset scene David watches (no doubt wondering where the hell the atmosphere ran off to), available at Trekcore.com:
But then I noticed something . . . a few of the peaks and whatnot in the distance are the same. So I did an overlay just to be sure, and sure enough it's the same horizon:
So either these guys landed on the north pole, or else the planet tearing-itself-apart thing happened to include the whole place flopping all about so that its rotation seemed to nearly reverse.
Of course, the idea of landing on the north pole doesn't work, given the rapid drops-straight-down sunset we saw earlier in the film . . . and thus we're stuck with the planet shifting into reverse somehow. I don't think it was a hard rotational 180 given the long, slow pre-dawn (during which Kirk kicks various forms of Klingon ass), but certainly the sun wasn't supposed to rise there.
(Even if we don't allow for a 180, the sun is several degrees from where it ought to be . . . roughly the equivalent of the difference in sun position between summer and winter in the temperate region of Earth.)
The only other possibility I see is that the landmass they were on spun around all by itself. But that comes with its own problems. A planetary core going all wobbly-goblin might somehow produce a shift for the whole mass without someone on the surface noticing too much (just like we don't really catch on to the rotation of Earth normally), but a continent riding the merry-go-round would require that if any poor bastard was on those hills at the horizon he'd have to be hanging on tight.
But that's just my take. I could be right, or I could be smoking crack. The two may not be mutually exclusive, so any thoughts are appreciated.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
So they only built one horizon set/painted one horizone matte, not knowing that in 20 years' time there'd exist technology whereby a bunch of obsessives could superimpose them and talk about it by computer. Cue another 20 years of complaints as each successive ST3 Special Edition DVD/BluRay/datachip/memorycrystal/direct cortical download fails to correct the duplicate horizons, which TOTALLY ruins the film for everyone.
But if you absolutely must find an explanation, consider that the planet was formed from a nebula that (presumably) contained a protostar which became the genesis sun once all the surrounding gas has been converted into winter cacti and Styrofoam rocks. Now I'm sure having a planet spontaneously appearing in a protostar's life zone would cause all sorts of problems with things like gravity, inertia, orbital trajectories and tidal forces...needless to say the chances of it spontaneously having a stable orbit are rather slim. Now I don't have the mass of squiggly lines and long division to back it up, but I can imagine that the planet would find itself on an elliptical orbit, with an unstable molten core and plenty of wobbling going on. So yes, I can see a 180, pole to pole flip happen at some point as it tumbled through space.
Or you might presume that the "sunset" was actually a nearby moon (Regula was within impulse drive range of the nebula, correct?) reflecting the light from the sun having already set over the opposite horizon.
posted
Well, since the Marcuses "couldn't cram a byte more" into their programming, they probably cheated and copy-pasted some of their landform templates.
Or then the planet indeed is wobbly, perhaps spinning around multiple axes. If it were thrown together from nebular mass, this is actually a reasonable possibility: the Genesis device wasn't supposed to do such things, so it had no provision for simulating the millennia of Newtonian Wienerwaltz that would give a planet its nice and orderly spin.
OTOH, if the Genesis planet actually is the Regula asteroid or some other pre-existing rock in the Regula system genesiformed (which is the likelier explanation IMHO), we're speaking of a template that didn't have nice Class M climate to begin with - a potential tumbler or wobbler.
OTTH, if we go in the other direction and claim that Genesis not only made the planet but also the star literally out of thin air, then we could see one sun setting and another rising while the planet rotates in an orderly and civilized manner. The "synthetic" star would probably be in fairly close orbit around the planet in order to be effective. Make that orbit retrograde and you're done.
An Edosian would throw up his hands at this point. But a T*rellian would still be good for another attempt: OTFH, is that sunrise really a sunrise? Or perhaps just another sunset on that topsy-turvy planet with two-hour days, confusing the audience because of all the cuts?
posted
Dang, Reverend beat me to a couple of those points.
The Mutara nebula was so close to the Regula I lab and the Regula asteroid that I'd argue that both of those, and in fact the entire system, were already deep within the nebula. A good location for secret research, really... In the mere minutes of the flight-from-Regula chase, the limping ships couldn't really have moved out of the system or anything.
The Regula system could have had plenty of stars, really. Perhaps it was a stellar nursery, with dozens of little starlets zooming this way or that, and making the definition of "day" or "night" interesting from the planetary point of view. Assuming there was a planetary point of view.
The name of the asteroid was "Regula", without any Roman numerals; it was the station that was called "Regula I". So perhaps there was just this one rock in the area, and the station was tagging along that rock when surveying the stellar ballet around it, as Starfleet understood that the orbit of the asteroid (no matter how screwy or wobbly) would be the stablest and safest in the region, at least in the near past and hopefully near future.
quote:Originally posted by Reverend: What he said.
But if you absolutely must find an explanation, consider that the planet was formed from a nebula that (presumably) contained a protostar which became the genesis sun once all the surrounding gas has been converted into winter cacti and Styrofoam rocks. Now I'm sure having a planet spontaneously appearing in a protostar's life zone would cause all sorts of problems with things like gravity, inertia, orbital trajectories and tidal forces...needless to say the chances of it spontaneously having a stable orbit are rather slim. Now I don't have the mass of squiggly lines and long division to back it up, but I can imagine that the planet would find itself on an elliptical orbit, with an unstable molten core and plenty of wobbling going on. So yes, I can see a 180, pole to pole flip happen at some point as it tumbled through space.
Or you might presume that the "sunset" was actually a nearby moon (Regula was within impulse drive range of the nebula, correct?) reflecting the light from the sun having already set over the opposite horizon.
Let's not forget Reliant's warpcore thrown in to fuck things up.
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posted
Yeah, you have to wonder what antimatter would do to the Genesis matrix, not to mention all the organic matter that made up the crew and whatever else happened to be on board. I mean, wasn't Carol Marcus worried about something as small as a microbe effecting the experiment?
posted
Well I think Drs. Marcus were more concerned about the ethics of destroying indigenous species/life than upsetting their results. Not that they weren't above using the apparently dangerous proto-matter to make their little invention work. Which proto-matter in conjunction with the anti-matter of Reliant's warp core and the distinct lack of an actual planetary body to affect no doubt led to the short life of planet Genesis.
It is cool, however that G2K discovered the recycling of matte-paintings. And I like Timo's idea of their copy-paste shortcuts, reminds me of some RTS map-building utilities.
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
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posted
Re: the warp core explosion: it's a lovely touch (in addition to being an apparent VFX necessity) how the nebula disappears in an eyeblink when the Reliant explodes. Whether this sweeping of nebular gases is done by the explosion, or by the Genesis effect, it still looks pretty.
But the presence of lifeforms at ground zero seems to be as much a results-biasing concern as an ethical concern to the Marcuses. Sure, they ah so touchingly want the life on CAV/VI transplanted rather than incinerated, but David's "If there's as much as a microbe down there..." makes it sound more like he's concerned the test won't prove Genesis if there already was life there before the detonation.
Yet what would be the odds of finding a Class M planet without microbes there?
quote:Originally posted by Lee: So they only built one horizon set/painted one horizone matte, not knowing that in 20 years' time there'd exist technology whereby a bunch of obsessives could superimpose them and talk about it by computer.
This is undoubtedly true. Hollywood just isn't set up for obsessive superimpositions, MACO counting, or absolutely realistic depictions of things. Dammit.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Reverend: [QB]needless to say the chances of it spontaneously having a stable orbit are rather slim.
Fair enough, but there was no indication of it naturally forming into an extremely rapid descent into the sun, either. The planet survived at a stellar distance not-observably-different than that at the time of its formation for three months. The Klingons seemed to think the place would be stable enough to serve as a forward base for use in war against the Empire.
But again, the issue of the view from the planet showing suns-of-similar-size contradicts the huge-angry-sun space view, so the idea is not without its potential evidentiary pitfalls.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: An Edosian would throw up his hands at this point. But a T*rellian would still be good for another attempt: OTFH,
I'm so stealing that.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: is that sunrise really a sunrise? Or perhaps just another sunset on that topsy-turvy planet with two-hour days, confusing the audience because of all the cuts?
Well, the cloud cover on the planet seems light in that area, judging by the thought-to-be-sunrise view. If it were sunset I'd imagine we'd have had a brighter day during Kirk's wanton asskicking.
That said, though, the theme of the planet rapidly aging like Spock does seem consistent with the idea that the planet's rotation might've been increasing.
In any event, it seems the orbital issues are a bit uncertain, though something clearly went at least a little awry with the rotation. Thanks!
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
What huge, angry sun? Maybe I need to go watch it again, but the only huge, angry anything I remember from TSFS was the planet breaking up as they fled in the BoP.
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
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WizArtist II
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posted
I don't think Genesis was involved in the creation of the star. It was intended to be introduced to a planetary body and terraform it not create a mini-solar system. My guess is that Regula was a small star just outside the nebula with "Regula I" being the planetoid orbiting it. That would also mean the orbital was "Spacestation at Regula I".
I question where the mass came from. The Reliant was the center of the explosion and its tonnage would naturally become part of the planet. So where did the bulk of the mass come from?
Here is my worthless two cents. We know it took a few minutes for the Enterprise to make it to the outskirts of the Nebula from Regula on impulse power. We also know it took several seconds of warp speed to escape the detonation. A five second burst at lightspeed would take the Enterprise 930,000 miles from Reliant. That's a huge range for one detonation to present a danger unless other forces were in play.
Genesis would have to be programmed to work around a greater mass than a small starship. Considering the density of the nebula, its range would have to be incredible to form a planet from just Reliant and some stardust. That is totally infeasible. It would need a far larger initial mass as its intent was the terraforming of a surface, not the creation of an entire planet. Therefor I think the "Genesis Effect" would naturally select the greatest nearby mass, in this case Regula I and form a gravity well that then pulled in all the other stellar debris from the nebula along with the Reliant to begin the terraforming. IIRC there was still stuff falling planetward at the end of ST2 which could have been residuals from the initial effect. That would give us the planet in the location of the Regula I planetoid and explain a star. As this was not how the device was intended to be used, the programming trying to adapt itself, along with the protomatter could explain the resultant instability and perhaps even the duplication of surface features. The wobble could well be the result of the planetoid originally having an eccentric rotation and the effect attempting to correct it.
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quote:...with "Regula I" being the planetoid orbiting it. That would also mean the orbital was "Spacestation at Regula I".
The movie dialogue repeatedly refers to the station as "Space station Regula I". While that as such means little, when Kirk asks for scans on the station and the asteroid after arrival, Spock tells the scanners don't work, so there's no way to see inside "Regula I". He then says "As for Regula itself", referring to the asteroid...
If we try to keep that within the Trek naming practices, it seems likely that "Regula" is the "proper name" of the asteroid, not the "systematic name". That is, it's like "Earth", not like "Sol III". Consequently, the star would be named anything BUT "Regula"...
(Heck, perhaps the star could even be named Mutara!)
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