"The Voyage in Amok Time"

[Phaser Two]

I never understood why the Kelvans came to our galaxy for a looksie and then went or tried to go straight back? Surely they had to leave Andromeda before the rising radiation levels make their existence impossible anyway? Plus if both galaxies are going to collide one day perhaps won't that radiation be here then as well? Plus it's Kelvans, not Kelvins, that's the JJ Abrams ship not the many tentacled giants from a Cuthuluu style existence in Andromeda!
JB

Don't hold back!

 

[johnnybear]

Just for you, Phase! I won't!!!!
JB

 

[Timo]

I thought Abrams did the many-tentacled thing right off the bat in the 2009 movie?

The Kelvans were a scouting force, trying to figure out how to best conquer Milky Way for the hordes of refugees to follow. They had to get a word back, but they lost most of their gear trying to get in through the Barrier (apparently it's much more difficult in that direction than out).

The weird bit is, the Kelvans shoot down Kirk's idea of merely phoning home by saying that the call would be blocked by the Barrier. Why not make the call right after the hero ship has penetrated the Barrier, then? Rojan's vanity would be served in full, and Andromeda would get 300 years of extra time for evacuation. Of course, it might be that the transmitter capable of this does not exist, and Rojan invented a fake showstopper so as not to reveal the technological incompetence of his glorious culture to Kirk...

As regards "Amok Time", Kirk may or may not be on course towards Altair originally, or even on a course in that general direction. He's intent on making it to Altair in time, yes, but perhaps he intends to stop at Celtair and Beltair first, and a further stop at Vulcan isn't out of the question, either. Perhaps the diversion to Vulcan, only adding those 2.8 light days, is from the current course towards Celtair (and thus away from Altair), and not from the final leg between Beltair and Altair?

This sort of a zigzag setup would make much better sense of the situation where seven days are removed from the schedule. Just drop the visits to Celtair and Beltair altogether and go straight for the designated goal, rather than try and add to your speed. The infinitesimal disturbance of the Vulcanian stop-and-go shouldn't affect an increased-speed dash along an already intended course much (and indeed would affect it even less than in the original situation, since the ship would be covering those 2.8 ld at higher speed and thus in shorter time). But going to Vulcan would be wholly out of the question if the only way to lose those seven days were to drastically alter course.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnnybear]

Why didn't they just get the Enterprise to smash through the barrier, transmit their message back to Andromeda and then wait for the reply? It seems such a waste that the Kelvans just looked at one planet instead of a long detailed research of the area let alone the entire galaxy before heading back home with the information!!! Plus was it explained why the Kelvans were in human form instead of their giant many tentacled forms?
JB

 

[Timo]

Well, watching the episode does help...

These particular Kelvans were the survivors of a crash where they lost everything but their lifepod. They weren't going to get much surveying done with that - but they would learn more from hijacking Kirk's ship. And what they learned seemed to be that the Feds were total pushovers. Whether they also established that the Feds were the only local landlords of note, or merely a nice beachhead to establish, we don't learn, and the writers probably weren't sure: perhaps in their minds, the whole Milky Way was the Federation's oyster and the Feds the only factor the Kelvans would have to take into account here.

As for the human form, it is implied it was camouflage originally - and then explicated that they have to remain in that form in order to survive inside the Enterprise. Kirk later speculates the human form was always intended to facilitate takeover of his starship, but that's pretty egoistic thinking: we get little idea when the Kelvans assumed the form, but they did have it when first seen, and they did complain about having to live on that planet in this form, having already endured at least some of that. Minutes, hours, days, weeks? We are never told.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Henoch]

Plus was it explained why the Kelvans were in human form instead of their giant many tentacled forms?

It was; it was all about the ship:

KIRK: I'm Captain James T. Kirk, of the starship Enterprise. We came in answer to your distress call.
ROJAN: It was very kind of you to respond so quickly, captain. Now you will surrender your ship to me.

IRK: What do you want?
ROJAN: Your ship, Captain Kirk. It will serve us well in the long voyage that is to come.

ROJAN: Report, Hanar.
HANAR [OC]: The ship is ours. We control the bridge, engineering, and life support systems.

SPOCK: Why use our vessel? Why not transmit a message to your galaxy?
ROJAN: No form of transmission can penetrate the barrier.

HANAR: Tomar has examined the ship. The modifications are underway.
ROJAN: Space again, Hanar. I do not think we could have kept our sanity living too long on this accursed planet.
HANAR: It is an undisciplined environment. One cannot control it. Yet there are things of interest.
ROJAN: Yes, but disturbing. These shells in which we've encased ourselves, they have such heightened senses. To feel. To hear. To smell. How do humans manage to exist in these fragile cases?
HANAR: Since the ship was designed to sustain these forms, we have little choice.

The last quote is definitive; no question as to why they took human form, so that they can live using the life support systems of the ship as it takes them back to Andromeda over the next three centuries.

 

[Phaser Two]

I still want to know where the Kelvans got Starfleet blueprints & technical manuals. Unlike the similarly equipped Scalosians, their knowledge and aptitude is never explained.

 

[Timo]

Probably they just are clever to start with. But there is no great need for technical knowledge there, nor much evidence of the villains having it. To the contrary, the Kelvans argue that they absolutely need the crew awake in order to get the long journey started...

Was the hooking up of the Kelvan lifeboat's outboard motor to Scotty's pipework a demanding task? Might rather be that it was trivial: they already have a machine of their own that pours out a great deal of energy for centuries, and they already have an alien starship that translates energy into warp travel for as long as there is energy available, and the exact type of energy isn't a big deal. I mean, annihilation is likely to produce pretty "raw" output, with the starship's own machinery thus necessarily already well equipped to refine that to whatever is needed. The Kelvan 30-Php Evinrude then provides the raw.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnnybear]

And if the Kelvans are becoming too human with these accursed emotions and types why don't they just change into some other form? When we first meet them they are very pale faced, almost ghostly but by the episode's conclusion they have an almost human glow! Shame they never did a sequel episode somewhere with the robot ship's message of peace and goodwill being rejected by the all conquering Kelvan Empire!!!
JB

 

[BK613]

And if the Kelvans are becoming too human with these accursed emotions and types why don't they just change into some other form? When we first meet them they are very pale faced, almost ghostly but by the episode's conclusion they have an almost human glow! Shame they never did a sequel episode somewhere with the robot ship's message of peace and goodwill being rejected by the all conquering Kelvan Empire!!!
JB

I figure that if SF even sent a ship, and I mean if, then it accidentally on purpose broke down on the way there.

 

[Hofner]

What other form could the Kelvans take? Vulcans? They would be overwhelmed by the illogic of things.

Tellarites? They'd be so busy arguing with each other they wouldn't get anything done.

Andorian? They'd be too busy scheming and plotting to get anything done.
Maybe they could change themselves into big dogs. oops, wait, Everytime they try to punch a button with their big paws, they'd also be punching the adjacent buttons.

I know what could work, small dog standing in chairs on their hindlegs with their fore paws on the consoles, that's the ticket.

Here's what happens the first time Rojan tries to talk to the computer:

Rojan: Arf arf.

Computer: That does not compute, please repeat.

Rojan: Arf, arf!

Computer: That does not compute, please speak english.

Rojan: aaarrrfff!!!


Robert

 

[johnnybear]

I was thinking of something closer to their own forms but in a much smaller design!
JB

 

[MAGolding]

...As regards "Amok Time", Kirk may or may not be on course towards Altair originally, or even on a course in that general direction. He's intent on making it to Altair in time, yes, but perhaps he intends to stop at Celtair and Beltair first, and a further stop at Vulcan isn't out of the question, either. Perhaps the diversion to Vulcan, only adding those 2.8 light days, is from the current course towards Celtair (and thus away from Altair), and not from the final leg between Beltair and Altair?

This sort of a zigzag setup would make much better sense of the situation where seven days are removed from the schedule. Just drop the visits to Celtair and Beltair altogether and go straight for the designated goal, rather than try and add to your speed. The infinitesimal disturbance of the Vulcanian stop-and-go shouldn't affect an increased-speed dash along an already intended course much (and indeed would affect it even less than in the original situation, since the ship would be covering those 2.8 ld at higher speed and thus in shorter time). But going to Vulcan would be wholly out of the question if the only way to lose those seven days were to drastically alter course.

Timo Saloniemi

That makes a lot of sense. If the Enterprise was on a zig zag course between several star systems before reaching Altair, it might not have been heading on a line from some star to Altair when the decision to divert to Vulcan was made.

I wonder if there is any pair of stars A & B such that diverting slightly from a straight line between them to visit 40 Eridani would add only 2.8 light days to the total journey traveled?

It is easy to calculate the maximum possible speed of the Enterprise on the last leg of the journey, from Altair to Vulcan. Since the Vulcan star system must be between 16.0 and 17.0 light years from Earth, and since Altair is itself one of those stars, being about 16.73 light years from Earth, the maximum possible distance between Vulcan and Altair would be about 33.73 light years. Make it an even 34 light years, or about 12,418.5 light days.

When McCoy says that Kirk has to get Spock to Vulcan soon, he says:

MCCOY: Jim, you've got to get Spock to Vulcan.
KIRK: Bones, I will, I will. As soon as this mission is
MCCOY: No! Now. Right away. If you don't get him to Vulcan within a week eight days at the outside, he'll die. He'll die, Jim.

That implies that McCoy believes that the time necessary to reach Altair, plus the time that the Enterprise is ordered to spend at Altair for the ceremonies, which McCoy may have learned, since it might be public information and his close friend Kirk might have told him, plus the time to get from Altair to Vulcan, would be more than eight days and probably more than seven days.

When Kirk ask Admiral Komack for permission to divert to Vulcan before going to Altair:

KIRK: Sir, the delay would be, at most, a day. I can hardly believe that

If Kirk intended to stay in the Vulcan system for only two hours at most, or 0.08333 days, and if he told Admiral Komack that the delay wold be, at most, a day, that implies that the journey from Vulcan to Altair should have taken at least
about one day. If Kirk knew the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take only 0.1 day, he would have told Komack that the delay would be, at most a quarter of a day, for example.

So if the voyage from Vulcan to Altair, a distance of no more than 12,418.5 light days, took 0.5 days, the speed would be at most 24,837 times c, the speed of light.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 1 day, the speed would be at most 12,418.5 c,

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 2 days, the speed would be at most 6,209.25 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 3 days, the speed would be at most 4,139.5 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 4 days, the speed would be at most 3,104.625 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 5 days, the speed would be at most 2,483.7 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 6 days, the speed would be at most 2,069.75 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 7 days, the speed would be at most 1,774.0714 c,

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 8 days, the speed would be at most 1,523.3125 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 9 days, the speed would be at most 1,379.8333 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 10 days, the speed would be at most 1,241.85 c,

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 11 days, the speed would be at most 1,128.9545 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 12 days, the speed would be at most 1,034.875 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 13 days, the speed would be at most 955.26923 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 14 days, the speed would be at most 887.03571 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 15 days, the speed would be at most 827.9 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 16 days, the speed would be at most 776.15625 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 17 days, the speed would be at most 730.5 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 18 days, the speed would be at most 689.91666 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 19 days, the speed would be at most 653.60526 c.

If the voyage from Vulcan to Altair would take 20 days, the speed would be at most 620.925 c.

And so on.

And if the Vulcan system is a lot less than 34 light years from Altair, the speed necessary would be considerably slower. Of the stars known to be 16 to 17 light years from Earth like Vulcan is, 70 Ophiuchi is is said to be 7.772 light years from Altair, and 40 Eridani is said to be 29.69 light years from Altair.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/widgets/view.jsp?id=1ece06643e87f3c4d90813af5ee12223

 

[Nerys Myk]

I still want to know where the Kelvans got Starfleet blueprints & technical manuals. Unlike the similarly equipped Scalosians, their knowledge and aptitude is never explained.

Amazon.