For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky

I'm on a bit of a Star Trek kick lately, and I've been watching some of TOS remastered episodes. I just saw the one about the Fabrini worldship in the episode that shares its title with this thread.

Question: The Enterprise is drawn to the worldship because Kirk & Co. are tracking old-style chemical missiles that have been fired at the ship. The trail leads to the Fabrini worldship.

My question is: Why were the missiles fired in the first place? It makes no sense, given the rest of the episode.

I would have to re-watch but I thought missiles were fired at it because it course would hit a planet. That point became moot when it was found to be a ship.

On stardate 5476.3, Dr. McCoy, the USS Enterprise's Chief Medical Officer, discovers he has a rare, incurable disease called xenopolycythemia and has only one year to live. At the same time, the sensors suddenly detect a set of ballistic missiles targeting the ship; however, the Enterprise quickly disposes of the primitive weapons. The missiles' point of origin is quickly determined, and the Enterprise approaches. It is a large asteroid called Yonada which is on a deadly collision course with the Federation world of Daran V, a planet with nearly four billion inhabitants. Unless a way is discovered to divert Yonada, the asteroid will destroy the planet in just over a solar year.

Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_World_is_Hollow_and_I_Have_Touched_the_Sky

The Enterprise definitely had to track the missiles to their source of origin. But, there's a logical thought posted on another forum where I asked the same question: The missiles were part of the worldship's auto-defense system. So, although the Enterprise was at some range, maybe it was still close enough to trigger the launch.

Taking it a step further....maybe the Enterprise wasn't close enough, but close enough by the old, faulty standards of the world-ship's multiple-thousand year old sensors.

I'm wondering if James Blish tackled this in the novelization of the episode.

I also understand that Chris Bennett's Ex Machina is a must read Star Trek novel that takes place just after TMP and features that episode. Maybe it's addressed there.

Random Thoughts....

I sure an enjoying these remastered Trek episodes. Man, take a look at the Constellation after the Doomsday Machine got threw with her.

















This is interesting. At the very beginning of the episode, The Doomsday Machine, for a moment, you see a yeoman cross the bridge. From the side angle, she looks like she's of Asian decent.

I don't know if they did this for the Re-Mastered show, of if she was like this all along, but she's wearing white make-up on her face, almost like a Geisha. Her hands have no make up.

Little touches like that is one of the reasons I love Star Trek.

It sets the mind to speculating....
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Also in The Doomsday Machine episode, Uhura is missing, at least from the first scenes. This is a second season show. Lt. Plamer, instead, is filling the position as communications officer.



I don't know the real reason. Maybe Nichelle Nichols was sick that day. Or, maybe, she was filming a movie. I understand that George Takei missed man filming days during the second season of Trek because of his role on the John Wayne movie, The Green Berets. Many of the moments during that season that went to Chekov were originally written for Sulu.

But, another thing I like about Star Trek is that we don't always see the series regulars in their positions. In For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky, Kirk puts Assistant Chief Engineer DeSalle in charge of the ship while he is down on the planet.



This gives the impression of a real, working starship where there are more than one person for the main positions aboard a vessel.

I'm not sure, but I don't think this practice was carried on as much with later Trek series (though, I think, it should have been).







I was thinking. You know, Uhura would be one of the most important characters on the show if every alien race encountered by the Enterprise didn't already speak English.

Think about it: I think it would add quite a lot to the show if more aliens races had their own languages and dialects.
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More Random Thoughts...this time, some creative speculation of my own...



You know that not only are the colors for the three main branches of Starfleet different, but there is also a symbol that is seen in the center of the various assignment badges.

USS Exeter, Command Department



The star has been used as a symbol of rank and command for hundreds of years in human history. It seems fitting to me that it would be the symbol for the Command Department of the Star Fleet.

USS Enterprise, Sciences Department



To me, this looks like the symbol of a scanner--the number one tool used by Star Fleet personnel, no matter which science speciality in question, including medical.

This isn't quite the pic I had in mind, below, but you can see where I got the idea. Check out Spock's scanners at his station.



The shot I wanted, I couldn't find. But, there's a scanner in one of TOS movies--I think it's The Motion Picture, but not sure--that shows a scanner that is almost exactly like that sciences symbol. It shows two perfect circles, both perpendicular to each other, revolving around each other. The sciences symbol, to me, looks like that in motion.
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Lastly, there's the funky looking backwards question mark that represents the engineering and services department.




My creative speculation on this one is that it's a Vulcan symbol. Why? Well, just look at Spock's robe...



Looks like the same stuff, to me.

I speculate that the symbol used by Star Fleet is some symbol representing some quotient or math product basic to engineering. Like the Greek symbols used in math for different things: Like Pi, or Delta, or Sigma, or Omega....or even the symbol for infinity. Maybe this is the Vulcan symbol for the Speed of Light (it's neater looking than the human character "C"), or Relativity, or some other basic concept to the theory or practice of starship engineering and service.

And, it makes sense, given First Contact and the special relationship that Vulcans have with Earth, shepherding the Earthers as they stretched out across the void, eventually founding the Federation together, that a Vulcan symbol be used.
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You know, I really miss assignment patches. I wish Trek had never strayed from them. I've always gotten a little kick when I see a new one. Alas, that really only happens in TOS and TOS related comics and shows (animated series, fan-made, etc).

USS Defiant, as seen in the Star Trek Enterprise episode, In A Mirror Darkly





USS Constellation, as seen in TOS episode The Doomsday Machine




USS Intrepid



Although never seen in a Star Trek production, it is widely held that the USS Intrepid, a Constitution class cruiser like the Enterprise (in TOS), is completely crewed by Vulcans. If so, then it seems correct that their ship's insignia would be a version of the Vulcan IDIC.

Here's a couple of other assignment patches that I think are cool. None of these, to my knowledge, are canon (although some of the ones I posted above are part of the official canon).

USS Constitution




USS Cortez





USS Alexander





USS Archernar


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Here's a thought: What if the Command Star represents the starring visual effect that a starship makes when it enters warp?

If so, maybe the Engineering mark represents a wormhole (not necessarily a bad one, but the bending of space time needed to enter warp). And the Sciences globe either represents scanners and the technology to make warp speed possible (or...possibly, it represents a planetary globe...as in "Strange New Worlds").

I think I read one time that even the Star Fleet arrowhead (the Enterprise arrowhead in TOS) had some significance--something like it showing the power curve needed to make the initial jump to warp speed or something....

EDIT: Ah..here it is. Good old Googlefu delivers...

"In a novelization it is explained that the symbol represents one side mass (one side) vs. the required amount of energy to move that mass (as speed increases as does the energy required to infinity). The bottom curvature represents how warp drive creates a bridge (or shortcut) between these two constants."

If this is true, then it's probable that the other assignment insignias also "mean something" and are not just adopted shapes. It would be interesting to speculate. The Cortez, above, is a science vessel. Maybe that shape is a ringed planet, like Saturn. Maybe Saturn is the Cortez's home port? Or, maybe it's another scanner shape, meaning the detection of....??? Maybe it represents a galaxy--it certainly looks like one if you look at the galaxy from the rim inward. Lots of ideas.

The Exeter's badge, from an episode of TOS, reminds me of the transporter...mabye it has somethign to do with that.

And that engineering department insignia above in red? I look at it and think of Newton's Third Law of Motion: To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. I think it's the two triangles pointing at each other that makes me think of that.