The Voyage Home alternative objective

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Suppose it wasn't humpback whales the crew needed to retrieve?

The One About the Whales

For Earth Day 2020, a look back at one of our favorite movies.

www.startrek.com

An early story idea had not whales as the target of the probe, but the tiny snail darter — a fish roughly the length of two paper clips. It’d recently been discovered, and Bennett liked the very Star Trek-esque idea of something so small having such a big impact (as well as its potential for cost-savings in production). Humpback whales, though, were ultimately chosen. They’re grander and a better cinematic choice because of their size and elegance and distinctiveness from so many other sea creatures. They also play a critical role in the overall health of the marine ecosystem in their spot at the top of the oceanic food chain.

Aside from snail darters or whales, what else could our crew have needed to bring back from 1986 to the 23rd century? (The plexiglass and water was necessary only because of the whales, Gillian Taylor was a bonus.) Serious answers, if possible.

 

[Newt]

I think they could still could do whales but maybe another species. It's quite unusual to have humpbacks in captivity. Maybe more plausible if it was an Orca whale or Beluga as they are common in may aquariums and zoos.

 

[Qonundrum]

Ringtail lemurs quickly come to mind, they are an endangered species and they wouldn't require such a massive risk in terms of required weight for their localized environment. It'd also avoid that scene where they immediately warp out of Earth's atmosphere and only due to the power of plot did the ship not create a wake that stripped the planet of said atmosphere as a result!

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They sound similar, too! Just don't ask how any animal species could rig a sound system that can penetrate the vacuum of space to any distance...

...then again:

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Or this version below, complete with background muzak that detracts utterly from the point of itself!

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(Though you have to fast forward to that bit, but the explanation as to why is wicked cool! )

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(Explains why sounds cannot travel through the sheer vacuum of space, so no probe from any distance away would know of its own accord, so maybe the whales or lemurs or whatever the probe was looking for were biologically/genetically engineered with technology far in advance (by the makers of the mystery probe), but those sound waves still can't traverse outer space... maybe subspace if they're naturally inclined and assuming their vocalizations send out radio waves as much as larynx-induced utterances, which seems implausible and as humans can detect sound waves versus radio waves, it's pretty much ruled out that whales don't produce radio signals being beamed anywhere, nor would they be powerful enough as such without amplification and whalers would have jumped at that technology a long time ago... )

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

1) You can't just tuck a couple whales under your coat and go. Somehow, Kirk boosting Spock over the wall into a zoo monkey enclosure with a pet carrier would be a lot less dramatic.

2) Somebody's definitely going to notice if they go missing.

3) The necessity of having to create a tank for them to live in until you return and the sheer size of the creatures makes for a bigger story on their end.

You'd still have the "rescue Chekov" plotline, at least.

@Newt predating "Free Willy" by 7 years.

 

[Riley]

I'm going to have to think about this one for a while. The idea that an extinct species is needed to communicate with a probe threatening Earth is already brilliant, and the use of humpback whales was, too. I don't have a better idea yet, but I'll chime in when I do.

 

[CoveTom]

When I was a young kid, I wrote my own little Star Trek script which I thought was absolutely brilliant in which the Enterprise crew has to come back in time to find pizza for an alien probe. I'll let them have that idea for free.