TMP: What are these lines suppose to mean?

[Duane]

I'm a big fan of TMP but I still haven't figured it all out. What were the writers thinking when the added these lines to the script, near the end of the movie when the landing party is with the Voyager spacecraft:

McCoy: "Capture God? V'Ger's liable to be in for one hell of a disappointment."

At that point in the movie is was clearly established that humans created V'Ger, and that V'Ger was looking for it's creator, not our concept of "God." The line makes it appear as if McCoy isn't very bright or just wasn't paying attention.

Is there any context that could make this line sensical?


Decker: "I'm going to key the final sequence through the ground test computer."

What is the "ground test computer"? Is that something within the original Voyager spacecraft? Why does "keying in the final sequence" start the cascade that dissolves Decker and merges him with V'Ger?

There is one other thing that don't make sense to me, but that is enough for now. I hope someone can help me make sense of all of it. Thanks.

 

[WillCAD]

Bones knew that since V'ger did not consider Humans and other organics to even be life forms, the realization that V'ger was, in fact,, created by Humans would blow it's mind (figuratively speaking, that is). V'ger obviously considered its creator to be some sort of hyper-advanced, superior version of itself, just as many Humans do.

How would you like it if you found out your creator was a fungus? You'd be in for one hell of a dissapointment.

As to the ground test computer; well, that probably wasn't a real feature on any of the Voyager series probes, but it was obviously meant to be a computer interface used by NASA to program and test the probe's functions on the ground prior to launch.

By entering the final sequence into this interface, Decker demonstrated that "the creator" was physically present in V'ger's core. Decker entering the sequence didn't cause the cascade, V'ger caused it - when it realized that the Creator was physically proximate enough to begin the merger. Which was V'ger's intent all along - by melting away its own antenna leads, it made it impossible for the Creator to enter the final sequence any other way but using the ground test computer.

 

[Ward Fowler]

I believe that what McCoy meant is that V'Ger probably has its own concept of its creator (i.e. God), and humans aren't exactly what it has in mind. Hence the disappointment.
As far as the ground test computer, I couldn't really say. I assumed it was some sort of diagnostic computer used to check the systems on Voyager 6 before it went up and Decker was able to use it to key in the code.

 

[uss_griffin]

NASA probes do indeed have dedicated ground test equipment (I was involved in developing a ground test system (as a subcontractor) a few years ago.)

But these ground test systems don't go into space with the flight hardware, of course. I assume Decker really meant he was going to interface his tricorder directly with the probe using the connector that's there for the ground test computer.

 

[A beaker full of death]

This thread makes me sad.

 

[Duane]

Hey, this has helped a lot. Thanks.

Now, when Ilia was zapped by V'Ger's probe, why didn't her "human" qualities (I know she was Deltan, but I assume she had "our ability to leap beyond logic" & the ability to imagine "other dimensions, higher levels of being") get absorbed into V'ger, which apparently was all he was looking for when he merged with Decker?

Any thoughts?

And Beaker, what makes you so sad? That 28 years after this movie came out I am still trying to figure it out? Makes me sad, too

: )

 

[Timo]

Well, the movie doesn't make it all that easy, what with all sorts of half-baked rewrites and well-intentioned obscurities. Perhaps with just one more rewrite, it would have become coherent enough for release...

Perhaps V'Ger "ruined" his specimen when absorbing them the usual way (like it scanned Epsilon IX) or when turning them into probes (as with Ilia), and needed to be extra careful in order to retain the essence of Decker. It wasn't thinking of Epsilon IX or Ilia as potential candidates for Creator, after all, so it would not have been attempting a merger with them... Any more than a soldier rampaging through a battlefield would attempt marriage with every one of his victims, even though the potential for marriage would be sort of inherent in the encounters.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Doomsday]

roger1999 said:
Now, when Ilia was zapped by V'Ger's probe, why didn't her "human" qualities (I know she was Deltan, but I assume she had "our ability to leap beyond logic" & the ability to imagine "other dimensions, higher levels of being") get absorbed into V'ger, which apparently was all he was looking for when he merged with Decker?

Any thoughts?
: )

Every time V'ger tried, it kept getting the message "Abort/Retry/Failed".

V'ger managed to upgrade to DOS2.0 by the time it merged with Decker.

 

[Therin of Andor]

roger1999 said:
I'm a big fan of TMP but I still haven't figured it all out.

Find yourself a second hand copy of Gene Roddenberry's novelization of TMP. It answers all your questions quite thoroughly.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Timo said:

Perhaps V'Ger "ruined" his specimen when absorbing them the usual way (like it scanned Epsilon IX) or when turning them into probes (as with Ilia), and needed to be extra careful in order to retain the essence of Decker.

Except they made a point of having a scene in which they are able to reach Ilea's human - uh, Deltan - part.

 

[Maurice]

I think it's more to the point that V'ger didn't merge with those thoughts...it just stored the information and recreated it (the probe) without any context or understanding of what it was. Once it realized Decker was "it", it merged with him rather than digitized him. Who's to say that during this it didn't also access an absorb all the stored memories of all the other carbon units it zapped, including the Klingons?

 

[Duane]

Thanks for all the input. TMP now makes perfect sense to me. This movie will always be a favorite of mine.

 

[Computer]

I always took it from the perspective that we all create god in our own image (which I think Kirk even says) So Voyager looking for its creator (god) just as we humans search for our own perception of god.

Assume for a moment that you got to meet god when you die. Its not a muscular old man with a beard and trident or even a ball of energy, Its a green blob of goo. Youd probably be kinda disappointed.

 

[number6]

I think McCoy was implying that God doesn't exist, a common point of view in the Roddenberryesque world of Trek.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

^Perhaps, it was De Kelly's performance but I always got the sense that McCoy did believe a bit in God.

 

[DaleC76]

Another line in TMP that always seems strange to me is on the bridge, when Ilia arrives.

Decker says, "Captain Kirk has the utmost confidence in me."

Kirk says, "And in you, too, Lt."

Then, stangely, Ilia responds with "My oath of celibacy is on record, Captain."

Later Decker tells her that Kirk meant no insult. I've always wondered where the insult was, unless there was some deeper meaning in the line, "And in you, too, Lt."

 

[David cgc]

I think Kirk was just trying to segue back from Decker's anger at being demoted to welcoming Ilia to the bridge. Maybe the perceived insult would be in Kirk cutting off Ilia's questioning of why Decker was demoted, rather than answering frankly. That could be taken to imply that Kirk didn't think she would understand the whys and wherefores of the last-minute change in the ship's command structure, and Decker was just confirming to her that Kirk didn't mean that.

As for the "Oath of Celibacy," the backstory goes that having sex with a Deltan was so incredible that any non-Deltan who attempted it would be driven mad by the ecstasy, so they had swear not to have sex with anyone (well, anyone who wasn't Deltan) in order to serve in Starfleet. The only other reference to this is the fact that all the men on the bridge grin like idiots when she first shows up, and when she assures Sulu after he falls all over himself that she "would never take advantage of a sexually immature species."

In the final cut of the film, it's a bit obscure why an Oath of Celibacy would be so important that Ilia has to verify that she's made it before she can start to work. Especially since Deltans never appeared aside from background roles before or since, so you'd pretty much have to know some behind-the-scenes background to understand the line.

 

[number6]

middyseafort said:
^Perhaps, it was De Kelly's performance but I always got the sense that McCoy did believe a bit in God.

Perhaps.. I took it as simply another one of McCoy's cynical moments.

 

[RyanKCR]

Number6 said:

middyseafort said:
^Perhaps, it was De Kelly's performance but I always got the sense that McCoy did believe a bit in God.

Perhaps.. I took it as simply another one of McCoy's cynical moments.

I always took it to mean one of two things. Either that God is so big He cannot be captured or two that Vjure believes it's god ia a machine and will be disappointed to learn that it really was a human.

 

[A beaker full of death]

David cgc said:
I think Kirk was just trying to segue back from Decker's anger at being demoted to welcoming Ilia to the bridge. Maybe the perceived insult would be in Kirk cutting off Ilia's questioning of why Decker was demoted, rather than answering frankly.

The insult was in his explicitly stating he had confidence that she wouldn't fuck around and distract the crew. Of course, it doesn't play very clearly on screen.