Does it have to be COMPLETELY lifeless?

[Crazy Eddie]

Something's been bothering me about The Wrath of Khan for a couple of days now. Reliant's mission is apparently to search for a lifeless space body, "A moon or other dead form" to test the genesis device. The only stated criteria is that it has to be completely lifeless and incapable of supporting life. Now, I'm assuming the reason for this is Doctor Marcus' concern that anything living on the planet might screw up the experiment somehow, either hyper-evolve into something weird or just throw a monkey wrench into the works (I never got the impression she was all that concerned about a few dead microbes).

The thing that bugs me is this: our solar system is currently teeming with lifeless space bodies--moons and assorted dead forms. These obviously wouldn't be suitable for genesis because by the 23rd century most of them would have already been colonized (possibly terraformed, in the case of Mars). But in a galaxy that is apparently chock full of Earthlike planets, why would it be in ANY WAY difficult to locate an uninhabited lifeless planet? I mean, I should think that a planet with no life on it at all should be the EASIEST thing to find, right?

So what the hell was Reliant's problem?

 

[kkozoriz1]

First of all Marcus dis say "There can't be so much as a microbe" so I wouldn't say she wasn't concerned.

On the second point, when you're dealing with something that is capable of completly destroying all life on a planet I hardly think testing it in your own system is the smartest thing to do.

Also, it's implied by the Genesis film that the planet would be a fairly typical class M. For that, you'd also need it to be the right distance from the star, radation levels couldn't be too high, etc. It's not just a lifeless planet, it's one that could be a class M but isn't. Mars and Venus may qualify. Pluto wouldn't.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Yes, Genesis would have needed very specific conditions to work. It wouldn't work if it was detonated, say, inside a nebula with only a few bits of space dust and a wrecked ship for company.

...oh wait .

Nonsensical endings aside, I think Carol was worried about extinguishing microbes that might otherwise evolve into something by themselves in a few million years. Spock made it clear that any life on a target world would be destroyed in favour of whatever Genesis came up with.

 

[T'Girl]

^^^
When both the Enterprise and the Reliant entered the nebula, they both impacted something, a boundary. I think the nebula was already well along in the slow process of collapsing into "something." If the mass of the gases and dust in the nebula was around six times ten to the twenty-first tonnes, and the genesis device could speed the existing collapse, then okay it could create a planet.

 

[blssdwlf]

Yeah - it must've been pretty dense to slow down/stop those ships so there could've been enough mass for a planet (and then some) there.

 

[Bill Morris]

I assume this relates to the ethical issue of killing off indigenous life, as mentioned in one of the 47 suborders of the Prime Directive.

Also, microbe-bearing rocks do occasionally get thrown from Earth into space by meteor impacts, a few of which make it to lifeless orbs in our solar system. If one were potentially habitable, those microbes could be the start of something, if they didn't burn up in the atmosphere.

 

[Timo]

Ethical concerns ("replacing of preexisting matrix" as Spoc puts it) would be easily eliminated by choosing the local Pluto. Ditto for technical concerns relating to truly validating Genesis: if even a single microbe would screw the results (Ha! Genesis didn't create life of complete nothingness after all!), using a Pluto would solve everything.

But the Marcuses already knew Genesis worked perfectly. They had created the Genesis cave, after all! What they wanted was an impressive demonstration of the actually intended purpose of the device: creation of a farming world to combat interstellar famine.

For that, it would make a lot of sense that the planet would have to be in the Goldilocks Zone of the local star, a Class M planet with just one ingredient, life, missing. Genesis would create that life, after which the planet would continue to exist as a farming world - something impossible for most of the formerly lifeless bodies of the universe, because those wouldn't be Class M and in the sweet zone. They'd wither and die soon after the Genesis detonation, ill serving the Marcus cause.

Of course, it's also possible that the Marcuses wanted a more generic demonstration, perhaps one that would show the full range of Genesis tricks (hence the device when detonated created a planet full of different environments). But the dialogue doesn't support that - the diversity of the eventual Genesis Planet surprised David.

The idea of creating a sustainable farming world would still make the best sense. And that would further narrow the range of available worlds: there might be a perfect fallow Class M planet somewhere, all the original life gone but the oxygen atmosphere remaining and the temperature perfectly in comfort range - but it could be located off the shipping routes that would make farming practicable.

No wonder, then, that Terrell and his crew would be pulling their hair and cutting corners and not bothering about, say, counting planets when we join them in the adventure...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[diankra]

...using a Pluto would solve everything.

Timo Saloniemi

Except that Pluto, even with Charon added in, doesn't have enough mass to produce what Genesis seems to be aiming at - an inhabitable planet roughly the size of Earth, Mars, or, come to that, Vulcan or Kronos.

 

[Timo]

But that would only be an issue if the Marcuses wanted to demonstrate a farming world - in which case they couldn't use a Pluto anyway. If they just wanted to show that Genesis worked, they could have used tiny rocks in the space - in fact, they already did, when creating the Genesis cave.

Odds are, they actually used that particular rock twice. The Genesis device was programmed to turn a solid dead body into a solid body with life on it. Furthermore, it was an inflexible device - not even the Marcuses could "cram another bit" to its programming. So, when the completely inexpert Khan detonated the device, it probably converted the nearest solid dead body (namely, the Regula asteroid, easily within range) into a solid body with life on it (namely, the Genesis planet, whose size was never established and whose "gravity was in flux")...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SonicRanger]

^^^

Indeed, considering the Enterprise didn't have warp drive at the time, the Mutara Nebula would have to have been quite close to Regula.

 

[Mr Silver]

It slightly bothers me that there were only 3 stages for such a complex and ambitious project... As far as i'm concerned they should have done it as follows

Stage 1: Lab

Stage 2: Regulus Cave

Stage 3: Attempt to form the Matrix above ground, within a limited range, perhaps a ravaged city, etc

Stage 4: Attempt to Terraform a Continent Sized area

Stage 5: Test the Device on a Planetary Scale

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ That might be what Spock was thinking when he uttered "fascinating!" Something along the lines of "Lifeless underground to planetary scale? How's that supposed to work?"

 

[SicOne]

In the novelization, there is reference made of a star-generating subroutine...so when the Genesis planet was formed out of the material in a nebula in the middle, they had an honest-to-God star to keep said new life from immediately dying off in the cold of the spaces between the stars.

 

[Ghel]

Another idea which pops up in a novel (which I like) is the idea that Genesis would have been a success if it had been tested on a planetary body correctly. In essence, although protomatter was dangerous, the problem with the genesis planet was that the device had to expend so much of its energy creating the planet, that there was not enough energy left to stabilize the new creation.

Closer to point though, I believe that the idea was to find a planet in the goldilocks zone but free of any life that might evolve into something. I assumed this would be difficult because most class M worlds within the Federation would presumably be colonized already

 

[Pauln6]

Yeah, they would need a planet in the goldilocks zone large enough to retain its atmosphere with an iron core (to protect from cosmic radiation and prevent the atmoshphere being blasted away by the sun) but which had not developed life (possibly due to the absence of water). Presumably the distance from the sun can vary depending on the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere. Given that Genesis was geologically active it may be that the device can re-invigorate a cold planetary core and somehow replenish the atmosphere - molecular re-sequencing might have been used to turn some of the surface into gas to boost the atmosphere and also to create water.

 

[Timo]

In the novelization, there is reference made of a star-generating subroutine...

That sounds a bit too much... And it would have to be a star-deleting subroutine as well - somehow, the star that lit Regula was no longer visible in scenes featuring the Genesis planet. That is, unless those two were one and the same star, not created by Genesis, but simply left to shine like it always had. (Or a bit more brightly, as the Genesis detonation apparently dispersed the nebula that may have extended its mists to the Regula system as well.)

most class M worlds within the Federation would presumably be colonized already

Probably not - our heroes were always finding new, unknown, uncharted or at least unsettled Class M planets, after all. And there was no problem in finding a "free" known Class M planet for, say, marooning Khan in "Space Seed" or housing the Skreeans in "Sanctuary". The bigger problem would be the presence of native life...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Gojira]

The Drake equation theorizes that there may be many planets capable of supporting life. That being said I often think that there must be numerous planets and planetary bodies that are incapable of supporting life. Therefore the Genesis project should have had a pretty easy time finding a lifeless body in the galaxy.

 

[FlapJoy]

This may seem like a dumb question, but:
If it was so hard to find a suitable planetary body without life, but one that could sustain life; and if the prime directive prohibits the destruction of previous life on said planetary body even on an microbial level, then what is the purpose of the Genesis device?

It's not like the universe was begging for someone to create life sustaining planets when seemingly the universe is teeming with them, so much so that it's impossible to find such a lifeless world to test the device in the first place. It works in the story as a plot motivator, but the concept is suspect.

Is it to resuscitate a dead or dying world? To revive a planet decimated by some global catastrophe or war? Why couldn't the device be used on a large moon, perhaps orbiting a gas giant? What problem is it trying to solve? And why create something so devastating that, in the wrong hands, could be used as a weapon if it has no other particular use? ...Just because they could?

And why does it need to work on a planetary scale in the first place? It can create a bio system in a cave... ain't that good enough? A decent sized Federation colony could live on some smaller "Genesized" part of a planet that may already have microbial and even primitive plant life, and simply co-exist?

Just sayin'.

 

[Timo]

if the prime directive prohibits the destruction of previous life on said planetary body even on an microbial level

That can't be true, though: our heroes always treat "native life" with utter callousness. It's as expendable as shuttlecraft - mere material thing, too ubiquitous and inexpensive to be cared about. Indeed, a planet may be indicated to "lack lifesigns" if the only thing it has is lush jungles without vertebrates...

The worry about microbes in ST2 must have been in relation to how Genesis operates, then.

It's not like the universe was begging for someone to create life sustaining planets when seemingly the universe is teeming with them

Indeed, it seems in TNG that terraforming is done for the heck of it - out of scientific curiosity in "Home Soil" (let's see if we can turn this very challenging sand desert into something useful), out of sheer aesthetic enjoyment in "Second Sight" (let's do the most impressive waterfalls in the UFP). There's no pressing reason for it, apparently.

It could be that something changed between TOS and TNG, however. Perhaps it was technologically or politically impossible to reach a sufficient number of those empty Class M worlds in the 23rd century, giving the Marcuses an excuse to perform their experiments?

To be sure, we've given no indication that they'd be operating on anything more than an excuse there. "...Just because they could" sounds like a perfectly good reason to attempt Genesis, from the Marcus POV at least.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Closer to point though, I believe that the idea was to find a planet in the goldilocks zone but free of any life that might evolve into something. I assumed this would be difficult because most class M worlds within the Federation would presumably be colonized already

The only problem with this theory is that they evidently had subroutines in Genesis already to control the new environment's climates in some extremely unnatural ways. The finally formed Genesis Planet, for example, remained entirely habitable despite its accidental creation in the middle of a nebula in the ass end of space. Likewise, Ceti-Alpha Five WAS in the Goldilocks zone until Ceit-Alpha Six pulled an Alderaan and knocked it out of its orbit; it apparently would have been suitable in every way EXCEPT for the presence of microbes on the surface.