Patterns of Force

[cdrood]

Well, we saw what Vandal Savage did with one laptop in "Savage Time."

Checking the script of "Patterns of Force", I was surprised to find the episode actually answers my question:

CHEKOV: Spacecraft approaching from inner planet.
KIRK: From Ekos?
SPOCK: Yes, but it must be a Zeon ship. Zeons do have a crude interplanetary capability. Reaction powered. A small rocket. It is on an intercept course. That would mean it has sophisticated detection devices which neither Zeon nor Ekos should have.
KIRK: Have you raised anyone, Lieutenant?
UHURA: Nothing, sir.
SPOCK: Captain, it's an unmanned probe which seems to be carrying a warhead.
KIRK: Stand by phasers.
CHEKOV: Phasers ready.
KIRK: Range, Mister Chekov?
CHEKOV: Two thousand kilometres, closing fast.
KIRK: Fire.
SPOCK: Fascinating. A thermonuclear warhead.
MCCOY: That's generations ahead of where these people should be technically. How'd they manage that?
KIRK: Maybe they had help. Maximum orbit. Take us out of range of their detection range.
SPOCK: Most interesting. We were attacked by a thermonuclear missile from a planet which should have no such weapon.
CHEKOV: Orbit computed and locked in, sir.
KIRK: Execute.
UHURA: Captain, no response from John Gill on any channel.
MCCOY: He must be dead. And what's going on down there on Ekos?
SPOCK: According to our records, the Ekosians are a primitive, warlike people in a state of anarchy. The other planet, Zeon, has a relatively high technology, and its people are peaceful.

Generations ahead could be about a century so maybe they were about Industrialized Era. That may be taking Kirk too literally, though.

The thing is, in real life, there is no reason why other planets should follow our technological ''levels''. What if Rome never fell, or Ming China never became insular, or the Library of Alexandria was never burned? What if we missed out on an Einstein because he was a slave or died before his time?

I would say it is possible for an alien planet to be simultaneously 19th and 20th century depending on who, what, where and how its people had developed.

Even so, McCoy's statement of "generations" seems off since they were somewhere around early to mid 20th century technology. At most they were one generation away by Earth standards.

[CharlesPhipps]

Is there evidence they were mid-20th century?

The Zeons had interplanetary rockets but not the Ekos.

[McAvoy]

Well, we saw what Vandal Savage did with one laptop in "Savage Time."

Checking the script of "Patterns of Force", I was surprised to find the episode actually answers my question:

CHEKOV: Spacecraft approaching from inner planet.
KIRK: From Ekos?
SPOCK: Yes, but it must be a Zeon ship. Zeons do have a crude interplanetary capability. Reaction powered. A small rocket. It is on an intercept course. That would mean it has sophisticated detection devices which neither Zeon nor Ekos should have.
KIRK: Have you raised anyone, Lieutenant?
UHURA: Nothing, sir.
SPOCK: Captain, it's an unmanned probe which seems to be carrying a warhead.
KIRK: Stand by phasers.
CHEKOV: Phasers ready.
KIRK: Range, Mister Chekov?
CHEKOV: Two thousand kilometres, closing fast.
KIRK: Fire.
SPOCK: Fascinating. A thermonuclear warhead.
MCCOY: That's generations ahead of where these people should be technically. How'd they manage that?
KIRK: Maybe they had help. Maximum orbit. Take us out of range of their detection range.
SPOCK: Most interesting. We were attacked by a thermonuclear missile from a planet which should have no such weapon.
CHEKOV: Orbit computed and locked in, sir.
KIRK: Execute.
UHURA: Captain, no response from John Gill on any channel.
MCCOY: He must be dead. And what's going on down there on Ekos?
SPOCK: According to our records, the Ekosians are a primitive, warlike people in a state of anarchy. The other planet, Zeon, has a relatively high technology, and its people are peaceful.

Generations ahead could be about a century so maybe they were about Industrialized Era. That may be taking Kirk too literally, though.

The thing is, in real life, there is no reason why other planets should follow our technological ''levels''. What if Rome never fell, or Ming China never became insular, or the Library of Alexandria was never burned? What if we missed out on an Einstein because he was a slave or died before his time?

I would say it is possible for an alien planet to be simultaneously 19th and 20th century depending on who, what, where and how its people had developed.

That's TOS for you. Its why TOS should be put in that blurry area of what to take seriously and what not to.

This brings me from another post in the Discovery post, but how stupid Kelpians are as a species.

Writers really don't think that much into the creation of species. And set designers, costume designers will do what they can on the budget they got, and sometimes they will get lazy about it.

It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that a species not to have gasoline engines because their oil is not readily accessible.

Like would the Vulcans or Cardassians would actually have coal? Do they have a forests on desert plants? Or are they scattered like on Earth?

I think the general rule with Star Trek is that everything other than earth and humans is going to be homogenized. We all know that the cultures and governments of other planets are always treated as these monolithic things without any diversity or variation, and I think ultimately the same is probably true of something like their environments. Vulcan is a giant desert. Ferenginar is all rainy, all the time, all over. This is just how Star Trek is for whatever reason.

Yeah. That's pretty much my point. Only the Cardassians got any semblance of social complexity.

Writers the producers are not there to create an elaborate history of the L'oi'lli'Pop Guild showing their civilization history of the past 10,000 years or how they evolved on their planet. Or how 5,671 years ago they slaughtered the K'areba'a'rs in a global battle of Supremecy of the Gr'ai Castle.

Nope this is Species ABC and their species needs help when their star partially stripped their atmosphere. That's the episode.

For planet of the week races its fair enough. You got like 45 minutes.

In terms of long term races being "fleshed out" it seems to depend on whether or not you have a fan favourite character as part of that race or not. Worf, Garak, Spock brought that history and culture with their characters. Even Quark did much to expand the Ferengi. (As an aside, we need a female Ferengi in New Trek if there isnt one. Would be cool to see what Rom actually managed to do.)

That's the point. One off species doesn't need it because that sort of information isn't needed and is always boring anyway.

Species that is consistently with the series like Klingons or Cardassians or species that one of the main members of the series is part of show dont have that sort of world building. It's made up along the way.

How much do we know about the Cardassians, Bajorans and Trill? DS9 out of all of the series did try its beat to build up species more than TNG ever did. With the exception of the Klingons.

But this whole speculation on species even if they are one offs, are enjoyable to think about. Why? Because you are world building in your head. Using what you learned from that episode and then filling the blanks.

[MithrandirOlorin]

If Gill really wanted to try "Efficient Authoritarianism" without the Bigotry the Italy would been a better model. The idea that they were efficient was also a once popular view "made the Trains run on time' originally referred to Mussolini, but Bigotry was never an innate part of his ideology, that stuff only came in after he became dependent on Hitler in 1938.

The only reason to think Italy was less "Efficient" then German was that they did more poorly militarily during the War. But that's that thing, Hitler obesively focused on rebuilding the army over everything else, Mussolini was less single minded.

[CharlesPhipps]

One irony of the episode is that it was meant to counteract post-War glorification of the Nazis.

And now it is primarily criticized because it glorified the Nazis post-War at least by the fact that it provided SOME praise for them.

I suspect its because we now realize that it's not enough to condemn the Nazis on being murderous evil scum because the people who are drawn to Nazism don't care about that. Being "efficient" is certainly enough.