posted
The Regula system was as it was when if was formed billions of years ago. Genesis did nothing new except create that jungle in the asteroid/planet. If Genesis created Regula, people would be wondering how it got there so quickly. And the crew of Enterprise would have known something about it before arriving.
------------------ [Bart's looking for his dog.] Groundskeeper Willy: Yeah, I bought your mutt - and I 'ate 'im! [Bart gasps.] I 'ate 'is little face, I 'ate 'is guts, and I 'ate the way 'e's always barkin'! So I gave 'im to the church. Bart: Ohhh, I see... you HATE him, so you gave him to the church. Groundskeeper Willy: Aye. I also 'ate the mess he left on me rug. [Bart stares.] Ya heard me!
posted
Which makes one wonder. Presumably, the asteroid was there from the beginning, and apparently, it was orbiting a star which illuminated the scene. The two ships, traveling at impulse speed, then managed to reach a nebula. Later, a life-bearing planet was discovered circling a star, somewhere within the range of the Genesis blast from the nebula.
Now, the simplest setup to me would be one where there was a single star with at least two pre-existing solid bodies, the asteroid and the planet, and a pre-existing nebula that extended practically into this system. Since the Regula scenes looked darker than the Genesis-planet ones, I'd say Regula was farther out from the star - and from the light angles, I would say Mutara was outer still.
What are the max/min distances we could consider here? Kirk and Khan could have traversed something like a couple of light-hours at impulse from Regula to Mutara - there was major snippage in that chase scene anyway, so why not something like 5-10 hours? Or then there was very little snippage and the nebula was within a lighthour, practically enveloping the star system.
Then Khan would trigger Genesis, and Kirk would go to warp. A rear view (but not necessarily an exact 180--degrees-from-forward one) would show the Genesis effect enveloping the nearby star system at lightspeed or faster, and transforming the pre-existing planet there, while leaving the pre-existing star unaltered.
Kirk would later return to the system, not to the exact site of Khan's demise, and would find this life-bearing planet there where originally only a lifeless one had existed. The Regula asteroid would also bear life at this point, most probably - unless it had shattered under the blast.
This sounds to me more acceptable than the idea that the Genesis wave created the planet at a suitable distance from a pre-existing star, or even created the star as well. The effects shots of the planet "forming" could just as easily be interpreted as a pre-existing planet "reforming".
Of course, the easiest solution of them all is to say that the Regula asteroid *was* the Genesis planet. It was spherical to begin with, and had plenty of gravity (to keep the ships and the station in orbit and the waterfall falling, even if the people walked with the help of grav-plates under the dirt floor).
And one would think the Genesis torp would have been preprogrammed by the Marcuses to do what it did - it's not appealing to think that it created a planet through *malfunction*! Surely the Marcuses would have used Regula once more for their experiment, this time shooting for the surface instead for the caves, unless there was something to prevent this. And we weren't told of any such hindrance. So presumably the Genesis torp was crosshaired to the 'roid all the time.
posted
Good point. Okay, so the device *wasn't* crosshaired to Regula. Probably it wasn't crosshaired to the pre-existing planet in the Regula system, either. Perhaps that planet originally had too much life on it?
If a pre-existing planet was needed for Stage Three, then it seems unlikely the device would be programmed to generate a planet out of nebulaic gas. It is slightly more plausible that a misfire would convert any planet encountered, not just the one in the crosshairs. It would of course be the most plausible if the device worked as programmed, and converted only its intended target, but that doesn't seem to be an option here.
If David Marcus originally wanted to convert a Ceti Alpha planet from desert to jungle, and his machine ended up converting a nebula into a planet instead, one would think he and Saavik would be less surprised to see things go badly wrong on the planet. "The planet isn't what you expected, is it?" wouldn't be a very observant observation from Saavik if David had expected to convert a preexisting planet and had accidentally converted a nebula instead. If, OTOH, the plan had proceeded almost as intended and the planet *still* was behaving oddly, the statement would make more sense.
posted
Moreso, why did they need a sterile planet? "Not so much as a microbe" that Esteban-pussy said. Don't you think Chekov and the other fellow spread a couple of thousand microbes when they exhaled in the (then unknown) Botany Bay?
Besides, there were plenty of life and meat aboard the Reliant, although not much of it was singing anymore, and the planet still came out fairly well...
------------------ Here lies a toppled god, His fall was not a small one. We did but build his pedestal, A narrow and a tall one.
posted
Had another idea, related to the original topic. Since the new quantum-torps are stored battle-ready, unlike the photons, wouldn't they make a formidable self-destruct tool? If a Sovereign would detonate all their magazines simultaneously, I think it'd be a nice last stab at the foes.
------------------ Here lies a toppled god, His fall was not a small one. We did but build his pedestal, A narrow and a tall one.
posted
No, because we saw what happened to foreign microbes introduced into the Genesis effect - the ones on Spock's torpedo. In the words of one of those Asshole Admirals which Starfleet seems to have no shortage of, it would introduce an uncertain element into an unstable situation. And as for what it did to the very large gift-wrapped pointy-eared microbe. . .
------------------ Luke Ford: "What's it like having a dick in your ass?"
Zoe: "Imagine taking your bottom lip and pulling it over the top of your head. You get used to it but it does hurt."
posted
Well, probably the Marcuses wanted to demonstrate that their nifty device could produce life out of absolute lifelessness - it might have been a claim they made to their funders or something. If they just fired at an already life-bearing planet, the financiers would come and say "Oh, your machine does nothing but diversify existing life. We wanted one that makes agricultural planets out of sterile deserts. How can we be sure it works if those bacteria and algae and sand eels you had at your test planet aren't there to begin with?"
Or then the Marcuses wanted to do a small-scale experiment at Stage Three - not create an entire biosphere at "full yield" but just transform enough of the surface to create a layer of microbes out of silica dirt. They couldn't rely on their post-blast analysis if there had been pre-blast organisms.
As for Nimrod's idea, yup, blowing up the torps sounds like a good way to cripple the ship. Unless it is one of those with podded launchers. A Galaxy would be nicely severed in half, and Main Engineering probably ruptured as well, if her neck and tail and saucer aft rim blew - but a Miranda might just get some charring at the upper aft hull. Depends on how powerful one of those prearmed q-torps really is, and how many are available. They haven't been all that impressive in the engagements we have seen them used in.
posted
I don't think it would be wise to rely on q-torps as self-destruct system. This would mean that SD would only work if you still had a certain number of torpedos left - which is not the likeliest thing in a battle situation. So it would still require the standard antimatter-containment-failure and backup system - which would render the "q-torp autodestruct mode" absolutely useless.
posted
Yes, I didn't mean it to be the sole destruct-system, just a tactical addition for captains in need of crippling a battlegroup, if they couldn't let anyone past that point in space maybe. I think the torps could be programmed to go off through a timer, syncronizing themselves through radiowaves.
If two bombs are placed next to eachother and the second bomb detonates 1/1000sec (or shorter?) after the other, wouldn't the first shockwave travel at double the speed when hit in the back by the second shockwave? I didn't read ballistics or pyro-thermic physics in school, but it sounds plausible to my little ears.
(IMO, the end-scene in "Warhead" was a real diamond-in-the-rough, FX-wise...)
Therefore, a Sovvie-magazine (containing 150+ torps) would severely damage at least twenty 500m-cruisers close-by, as the stupid enemies in Trek usually likes to stand next to the ship when firing the decisive salvo, like in "Yesterday's Enterprise" or Kruge's dumbass-move.
------------------ Here lies a toppled god, His fall was not a small one. We did but build his pedestal, A narrow and a tall one.
posted
If you look at it differently not only the stupid eneimes of Star Trek do it so do the good guys. Starfleet often flies in the "flying wall" tactic. If you create a decent explosion in the middle it would severely damage or destroy the nearby ships. Then the destroyed ships will create another explosion and damage or destroy their nearby ships.
Of course there is probably a good explanation for this.
------------------ Predict the unpredictable, but how do you unpredict the unpredictable?
Printer-friendly view of this topic
