What happened after the Genesis Planet finally tore itself apart?

[JediKnightButler]

Or did it? The planet appears to still be mostly intact by the time the BOP goes into warp. There seems to be something from the planet (like a big bubble) exploding into space but we never see the planet get completely obliterated like, say, the Death Star from the Star Wars movies.

I think the general assumption is that the planet eventually tore itself completely apart due to its inherent instabilities (protomatter) but there is never any follow up regarding the Genesis Planet after Spock is rescued and the crew leaves the planet for Vulcan, leaving a lot of questions unanswered.

Did the planet eventually tear itself completely apart and/or blow up? Did the Mutara Nebula re-form itself from the remnants of the Genesis Planet (since the Genesis Planet was formed partly with the Nebula)? Did David's use of protomatter in the Genesis matrix ever come to light? Was further research on Project Genesis ever conducted by Carol or others or would it be safe to assume, given the controversy over it, the project was simply dropped like a hot potato? Do any of the novels elaborate on the demise of the Genesis Planet?

 

[Mr Silver]

The Genesis Wave books by John Vornholt go into quite a lot of detail surrounding the project. They are all excellent reads and I highly recommend them.

As for what actually happened to the planet following the events of TSFS, in The Eugenics Wars: To Serve In Hell by Greg Cox, it's revealed that the planet did indeed destroy itself and it ceased to exist apart from it's gaseous remains and some debris. Again, this is another series of books that I highly recommend.

As for how the planet formed in the first place, the general consensus is that it formed from the Mutara Nebula and what was left of the Reliant. It's certainly a headscratcher as to how an entire planet was formed from very little raw materials - not to mention how it found itself within the orbit of a star. My personal theory is that the Genesis wave dissipated the Mutara Nebula and travelled until it found a planetoid (perhaps Regula) in orbit of a star. The wave then got to work on terraforming the planetoid and disspiated itself once the work was done.

When it comes to stuff like this, anyone's theory is fair game!

 

[Xerxes1979]

Assuming the remnants of genesis are solid, gravity will win out in the end. Our own solar system has numerous suvivors of ancient castrophes.

I think the case for genesis being a reformed regula are quite compelling certainly more so than the transmutation of the mutara nebula.

 

[FormerLurker]

To the above two posters; do you realize that the Mutara Nebula probably had enough matter in it to form not only the Genesis Planet, but the star it orbited? The description of the Genesis wave in Carol Marcus' film gives the idea that where the matter stops, so does the wave, so it wouldn't have reached out and found Regula anyway. Early drafts of the SFS script included scenes to support this, but as they were never filmed, are no more canon than any of the novel explanations.

 

[KarmicCurse]

I've always thought we were meant to assume it exploded completely, but they didn't have the budget for the special effects shot of the planet's complete destruction.

But now I wonder if maybe they left it deliberately vague in case they might want to return there in a future movie.

 

[JediKnightButler]

I didn't think of it initially but the Genesis Planet wasn't exactly created like the Genesis Project had originally intended it to be created. As we understood it from the Carol Marcus' recording, the Genesis Torpedo was basically supposed to be "injected" into a lifeless planetoid creating an effect by which it was terraformed into a habitable planet. I doubt it was meant to be detonated from a ship like it was. It was not surprising that the planet was able to be formed utilizing the Mutura Nebula as Nebulas-according to what scientists know (or believe) about nebulas- theoretically have all of the essential "ingredients" for the creation of stars and planets but, again, the Genesis Planet was not necessarily created in the way it was intended and had the detonation of the device occurred somewhere without the proper "ingredients" it would have (presumably) ended up being nothing more than a wave of mass destruction.

Come to think of it, what if the instability of the planet and the eventual destruction of the Genesis Project was the result of how it was created and not (necessarily) the protomatter in the matrix (or maybe it was the combination of the two)? I also wonder, how many other people were in on the fact that protomatter had been put in the matrix. Surely, David wouldn't have been able to just "sneak" it in there, right?

Another question I had was, when did Kirk record a video about Genesis that Kruge eventually obtained. Did he (I guess) record it as supplemental to Carol's recording after the planet was created?

 

[JediKnightButler]

I've always thought we were meant to assume it exploded completely, but they didn't have the budget for the special effects shot of the planet's complete destruction.

But now I wonder if maybe they left it deliberately vague in case they might want to return there in a future movie.

I didn't like how the matter was basically dropped after TSFS aside from the charges stemming from the incident. Sure, it wasn't necessarily essential to the storyline anymore after Spock had been recovered and the crew escaped the planet. Did the Klingons ever receive any sanctions for Kruge's destruction of USS Grissom, taking a Federation crew member hostage, and David's murder or did the Klingons essentially disavow Kruge and his crew as rogues?

 

[Captrek]

I didn't like how the matter was basically dropped after TSFS aside from the charges stemming from the incident. Sure, it wasn't necessarily essential to the storyline anymore after Spock had been recovered and the crew escaped the planet. Did the Klingons ever receive any sanctions for Kruge's destruction of USS Grissom, taking a Federation crew member hostage, and David's murder or did the Klingons essentially disavow Kruge and his crew as rogues?

The Klingon ambassador defended Kruge, saying, "We have the right to preserve our race." Kruge's mission to steal Genesis was essentially similar to Kirk's mission to steal the Romulan cloaking device.

Kruge's mission turned out much more deadly than Kirk's mission, but that wasn't the plan. The destruction of the Grissom was unintentional, and David's murder was the desperate act of a BOP commander who hadn't expected to go toe-to-toe with a Constitution-class starship. The parties responsible for screwing up the plan and allowing it to turn so deadly are themselves dead and therefore beyond sanction (with the possible exception of Maltz), so the matter is pretty much resolved.

 

[BriGuy]

Or did it? The planet appears to still be mostly intact by the time the BOP goes into warp. There seems to be something from the planet (like a big bubble) exploding into space but we never see the planet get completely obliterated like, say, the Death Star from the Star Wars movies.

I think the general assumption is that the planet eventually tore itself completely apart due to its inherent instabilities (protomatter) but there is never any follow up regarding the Genesis Planet after Spock is rescued and the crew leaves the planet for Vulcan, leaving a lot of questions unanswered.

Did the planet eventually tear itself completely apart and/or blow up? Did the Mutara Nebula re-form itself from the remnants of the Genesis Planet (since the Genesis Planet was formed partly with the Nebula)? Did David's use of protomatter in the Genesis matrix ever come to light? Was further research on Project Genesis ever conducted by Carol or others or would it be safe to assume, given the controversy over it, the project was simply dropped like a hot potato? Do any of the novels elaborate on the demise of the Genesis Planet?

The planet was annihilated right then and there.

I want to say "Don't over-think it," but...

 

[Timo]

the Genesis Planet wasn't exactly created like the Genesis Project had originally intended it to be created.

And that's quite implausible, considering how the very builders of the device seemed to agree that it was not a flexible one. If the Marcuses put together couldn't "cram another byte" into it, odds are that a disinterested superman from the past couldn't and wouldn't either. And thus the Genesis Device probably did exactly what it was intended to do: reformed a dead planetoid into a living one. (And, incidentally, dispersed a nebula in the vicinity.)

that the Mutara Nebula probably had enough matter in it to form not only the Genesis Planet, but the star it orbited?

Let's not forget that if the star was formed out of the nebula, then something had to go and make the original star disappear. Everything happened within impulse range of that original star, after all!

where the matter stops, so does the wave, so it wouldn't have reached out and found Regula anyway.

Yet the Mutara Nebula appeared to extend all the way to Regula, and indeed encompass it - we saw its glow all around the star system. If the wave could propagate along the nebula, it could reach the planetoid, too. Although we never learned of an inability of the wave to propagate through stark vacuum.

when did Kirk record a video about Genesis that Kruge eventually obtained. Did he (I guess) record it as supplemental to Carol's recording after the planet was created?

Makes sense: he'd realize a political disaster was brewing, and his involvement in it had to be spin-doctored somehow, with his absence from Earth complicating his ability to defend himself. So he'd release the report that establishes Genesis as a benevolent rather than malevolent tool, while staying behind with his wounded ship to ensure she got safely home.

The record could have been made earlier on, though, as Kirk supposedly indeed was responsible for managing the Genesis Project. Whatever bits there were that were specific to the events of ST2 could have been edited in afterwards, while Kirk's actual speech could be several years old.

The parties responsible for screwing up the plan and allowing it to turn so deadly are themselves dead and therefore beyond sanction (with the possible exception of Maltz), so the matter is pretty much resolved.

True enough - and neither side has much incentive to pursue the issue, as the Feds don't want to look bad (they'd rather everybody forgot about Genesis, and about Kirk's murdering of a dozen Klingons, and if possible, about Kirk, too) and the Klingons didn't want to look ashamed and defeated. Plus, Genesis itself was gone by then, too; whether the planet totally disappeared or not, its secrets apparently no longer could be divined from the remnants - insofar as they hadn't already become public.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

Frankly, the Genesis effect never made sense to me. That small torpedo couldn't possible contain enough power to create a self-propagating energy-wave to affect an entire planet. That was the purpose of David putting proto-matter in the Genesis project, because somehow it would counter this lack of energy.

Unfortunately, the instability of the protomatter undid the entire purpose.

Of course, if he'd just had the idea of "Why don't we just say they have to fire multiple Genesis devices at a planet to convert it, instead of relying on just one?" it could've been solved.

 

[22 Stars]

Anwar, not sure if we can pretend to know the physics behind future tech. Someone from 300 years ago could not imagine the 'power' of something as small as a Nuclear Bomb.

Also, it was not my impression that the proto-matter was an amplification device, counteracting the Genesis device's lack of energy. Where does that come from?

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Protomatter could have been used for any number of things. There's no solid information on Genesis whatsoever, other than "it goes boom and then life forms, and sometimes planets apparently".

Pretty much as the filmmakers intended.

 

[Whofan]

Although non-canon, the second TOS movie era comic ongoing revisited protomatter and David's legacy in one of the story arcs.

 

[Mr Silver]

Protomatter could have been used for any number of things.

True, but I always got the impression that Protomatter was used as an accelerant to create rapid terraforming. David says in TSFS that "It might have been years or never" and sure, this could be related to the research and development, but then again it could also be related to the terraforming process.

The flaw in this thinking is that it's suggested that Carol wasn't aware of David's inclusion of Protomatter in the Genesis matrix.

 

[Timo]

The concept of Genesis seems to flow rather naturally from that of the replicator and the transporter. Somehow, future science can mutilate matter with minimal energy expenditure - and going large scale is bound to happen sooner or later.

Also, the idea that one cannot stop Genesis would seem to nicely indicate a chain reaction, a self-feeding process that only needs a starter impulse. For all we know, one could use Genesis to turn three googoltons of nebula matter into two googoltons of sperm whales and petunias, with the energy coming from the expended one googolton of matter.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr Silver]

The concept of Genesis seems to flow rather naturally from that of the replicator and the transporter.

Possibly, but you have to look at the fact that the replication technology seen in later incarnations of trek isn't capable of replicating to that scale.

I've always imagined the Genesis technology as working by delivering a massive injection of living matter onto a lifeless planet/planetoid and then hyperstimulating it's potential to support life. Just because a planet might be effectively lifeless, doesn't mean it couldn't support life if the conditions were different.

I like to think of it as taking raw food and putting it into a microwave. The raw food being the living matter and the microwave being the hyperstimulator.

 

[Timo]

Possibly, but you have to look at the fact that the replication technology seen in later incarnations of trek isn't capable of replicating to that scale.

...And nuclear power wasn't truly harnessed until we learned to do it in much, much smaller scale than the initial applications.

In addition to introducing life, it seems Genesis was supposed to introduce water to a dead and dry planetoid. Capabilities quite similar to TNG replicators would then seem to be involved - possibly including transmutation of elements (like the "manipulation at subatomic scale" technobabble in ST2 would seem to imply).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

Protomatter could have been used for any number of things. There's no solid information on Genesis whatsoever, other than "it goes boom and then life forms, and sometimes planets apparently".

Pretty much as the filmmakers intended.

It's the same ideas as Star Wars and NuGalactica:

"Look, the tech does this and we're never going to really sit down and explain how anything really works so just accept it!"

 

[Captain Atkin]

I have always just assumed that Regula was caught in the wave, and that the planetoid became the Genesis planet. It was right next to the nebula. Genesis appears to be larger than the planetoid, but at the very least, I would think that Regula was part of the "building blocks" of the Genesis planet. It probably absorbed the raw material from the space station that was in orbit, and other nebula materials (space dust) that were affected by the blast.

I also don't think that the star was created by the explosion. Although we never see it in any of the planetoid shots, I always assumed that Regula orbited a star.