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Old 03-14-2019, 10:32 PM
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January 24th, 1969, "That Which Survives"

Fiver (by Derek)
Transcript
Memory Alpha

The Episode

SPOCK: The age of this planet would seem to be only a few thousand years. It would be impossible for vegetation to evolve in so short a period.
KIRK: Its size is approximately that of Earth's moon.
SPOCK: But its mass and atmosphere are similar to Earth.
KIRK: That would be difficult to explain.
SPOCK: It would be impossible, Captain. An atmosphere could not evolve in so short a period of time.
KIRK: And yet it has.
SPOCK: Evidently. But the inconsistencies are so compounded as to present a seemingly impossible phenomenon.

Those wily Magratheans have been hard at work it seems. Once again a TOS episode starts with questions that will never be answered. Grrr....

SULU: What kind of earthquakes do they have in this place?
KIRK: I don't know. Any more like that and they'll tear this planet apart.

Obviously not, or else the planet wouldn't be here for you to visit. Unless you're going to claim that this earthquake doesn't have a natural cause and this is really the first one this strong.

D'AMATO: Captain, this tremor we felt, if that's what it was, it's certainly like no seismic disturbance I've ever felt before. I got a reading of almost immeasurable power, but it's not there any more.
KIRK: Could seismic stress have accounted for it?

If a tricorder can't tell the difference between a power source and seismic stress, you need to return it for a refund.

MCCOY: Could it be the Enterprise hit the planet?
SULU: Once in Siberia there was a meteor so great that it flattened whole forests and was felt as far away as
KIRK: Mister Sulu, if I'd wanted a Russian history lesson, I'd have brought along Mister Chekov.

Burn! This is probably in reference to the Tunguska Event. 770 square miles of forests.

AHDA: It doesn't make any sense. But somehow I'd say that in a flash we've been knocked one thousand light years away from where we were.
SPOCK: Nine hundred and ninety point seven light years to be exact, Lieutenant.
SCOTT: But that's not possible. Nothing can do that.

The only thing I can think of that can do this would be Q. A thousand light years is about as far as a ship goes in a year in the 24th century. For the 23th century we're probably talking about closer to two. Yet another indication that TOS speeds are way faster than TNG speeds, when both the center and edge of the galaxy aren't considered extremely distant journeys.

SULU: All vegetation is inedible. Poison to us.

I hate nonsense like this. First, Sulu can't have scanned all possible plantlife within easy walking distance in so short a time. Second, plants get poisonous because of natural selection, the ones that don't prove poisonous to the local wildlife tend to get eaten. No animals mean no poison.

KIRK: Yes. I don't see any water, but there must be some to grow the vegetation. A source of water would stretch our survival.

Yeah, by a matter of a few days. It's stuff like this that suggests that the crew are idiots for not beaming down to uninhabited planets without taking at least a backpack survival kit. Surely one of the redshirts could carry some energy bars, a tarp to extract water from the atmosphere, a blanket, etc.

SULU: Poor D'Amato. What a terrible way to die.
KIRK: There are no good ways, Sulu.

Fair enough, but some ways are better than others and Kirk's line almost seems like preaching. Are we sure Gene wasn't around this season?

RAHDA: We're holding warp eight point four, sir. If we can maintain it, our estimated time of arrival is eleven and one half solar hours.

They're implying that Warp 8 in TOS can cover a thousand light years in 12 hours. I did the math before discovering that Memory Alpha did it for me. 765,000 times the speed of light, faster than any other method of travel that's not caused by Kes or Q. And of course the big problem is that the thousand light years wasn't required and was clearly only put there to imply a large distance.

Using the usual TOS warp speed equation, this distance takes almost two years. A reasonable twelve hour high warp distance in TOS would be...wait for it...2 light years. Not quite as dramatic a number, is it? Another site says that to achieve these kinds of speeds you're talking warp factor 90 or so.

FYI, if the Kelvans modified the engines to do the journey to the Andromeda galaxy (2.537 million ly) in three hundred years, that's about warp factor 9.5. TLDR, this thousand light year thing is absolutely insane.

KIRK: We've got to figure this out and devise a defence against it. Is it possible that the rocks have life?
SULU: You remember on Janus Six, the silicon creatures
MCCOY: But our instruments recorded that. They were life forms. They registered as life forms.

It's nice to hear a reference to the Horta.

KIRK: This planet has no magnetic field.

Absolutely insane. I can't imagine why someone would build a planet without a magnetic field. Were the Magratheans too busy so the second-stringers had to be brought in?

UHURA: Yes, sir. Mister Spock what are the chances of the captain and the others being alive?
SPOCK: Lieutenant, we are not engaged in gambling.

Huh? He did this very thing back in the Horta episode! Spock can calculate these kinds of odds in less time than it took to say that sentence!

SCOTT: I've sealed off the aft end of the service crawlway, and I've positioned explosive separator charges to blast me clear of the ship if I rupture the magnetic bottle. I'm so close to the flow now it feels like ants crawling all over my body.

So I guess saucer separation really isn't a thing yet. As for plasma flow, Geordi didn't find it nearly this unpleasant.

SPOCK: Please do not take your eyes off of it. Lieutenant Rahda, arm the pod jettison system.
RAHDA: Aye, sir. I'll jettison the pod at the first sign of trouble.

So wait, did Scotty set up charges, or are they using a built-in system like the one that supposedly killed Finney?

The Fiver

D'Amato: I don't think it's actually a Genesis planet, sir. I mean, the Genesis project hasn't even been started yet.

I'm pretty sure it has. The real question is whether Carol is still experimenting in a lab or if the asteroid cavern has been started yet.

Losira: That not important. I am for you, Lieutenant D'Amato.
D'Amato: A metamorph? Sweet.

Coincidentally I watched SF Debris' review of The Perfect Mate just the other day.

Sulu: Since he's dead, no use in him going to waste, right?
Kirk: Mr. Sulu, I'm am offended at your insinuation. Offended!

I'm not very fond of cannibalism jokes unless they're actually funny. Like the old one about them not eating clowns because they taste funny...

Scotty: If by "intentional" you mean "sabotage", then yes. We may not be able to stop.
Spock: No worries. We can just use the kemacite in our cargo hold.
Scotty: We're out of kemacite.

Nice Little Green Men reference, but I'd have had Scotty make a punchline about how it doesn't arrive until Tuesday.

Losira: I am for you, James Kirk.
Kirk: I bet you're a copy of the woman that left you here, aren't you? And it's such a perfect copy that you don't really want to kill me, do you?
Losira: What makes you say that, Kirk-unit?

STTMP, too? The desire to bring out my TOS Bingo card has come back.

Nitpickers Guide

* The only time Kirk has refused a beautiful woman's advances. Surely something to record in the log!
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