I realize you can just answer, “mysterious aliens beyond our understanding,” but why would a space probe have a mandate of either talk to a whale for 30 seconds or destroy Earth and disable everything in its path on the way to Earth?
Why? What does that achieve?
It probably should’ve been dolphins, just as a nod to H²G², but also because I’m not sure the scale of that Klingon BOP ever read as big enough for two whales to me.
But, some possible suspects: whales (maybe they are superintelligent, pan-dimensional beings and the business with the krill and the singing is just a front), whale keepers or collectors (maybe they’ve stocked Earth with an important livestock that they want to protect from the apes, or see TNG S3E22 “The Most Toys”), whale descendants (see VOY S3E23 “Distant Origins”), or a species that has determined that loss of the whales indicates humanity has become irredeemable (or a corrupted timeline).
Maybe its programming was damaged or tampered with. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Which is more improbable: that, or there being no hallucinogenic drugs in Kirk and Spock’s time?
If they can easily manipulate molecules to make sheets of materials like transparent aluminum, AND they seem to keep an illegal stash of Romulan Pale Ale, imagine the mind-bending mind-enhancing substances they can come up with four centuries from now, yet square-jawed Kirk seems completely oblivious to the whole concept.
He seems oblivious to swearing too. I’m glad that got retconned.
We don’t know. That’s part of the mystery of the movie. We don’t even know if the probe was intentionally destroying things. If you can’t vibe with the mystery and go along for the ride, then it’s not for you. Nothing’s for everyone.
Which makes me glad that they shot down the idea of the prob sounds having subtitles (yes, the studio wanted subtitles)
These were beings who were casually chatting, non-technologically (at least on the whales end), over hundreds of light years. Their tech is completely unlike anything The Federation has ever seen, or even imagined within its understanding of physics. Whatever it is is incompatible with earth-like worlds and anything they make, but we needn’t think it necessarily malicious.
Imagine if tube worms from a deep sea volcanic vent sent a probe to check in with a major city. Their probe would likely be toxic to anyone downwind because of all the sulphuric chemicals and heavy metals, it may set everything around it on fire if it maintains its home temps, and would likely be giving off radon in a way that would shorten neaby lives. It’s not intentional, its just their natural state.
It was destroying the ocean. How does that help the whales it was trying to talk to?
What good did the last russian lunar probe do when it cratered into the surface a few months back?
If the builders didn’t know it would do that and weren’t in real-time control then it may have just been an oopsie-daisy. They’re contact with us has been via an IRC chatroom, hanging out with with a bunch of flipper dogs. How were they supposed to know?
Their communication signals are able to reach and retrieve thousands of light-years instantly. When they get to earth and aim directly at the oceans of course that massive signal would have adverse effects. It’s if you’re trying to talk to someone from across a crowded room you’re screaming, but they can hear you. If you walk up right next to the and scream directly in their ear from an inch away it’d hurt their ears
What do you expect them to do, not talk to a whale??
Dooo YOOOOUUUUU Know the way toooo SYDneeey?
I believe the probe was not destroying anything intentionally, but this was rather a side effect of whatever it was doing to attempt to communicate with the not-the-hell-your-whales. Once it did so and was satisfied it shut off its transmitter and went about its merry way.
I don’t know why it specifically needed whales. Maybe some other similarly whale-like alien species would also have sufficed.
I’m pretty sure Spock actually said this and this is the way I always understood it. Spock went on a hunch that it wasn’t intentionally destroying the planet, it was a byproduct of looking for the whales. Maybe it had to look harder than expected and turned up the transmit power which is why things got weird.
“Hell of a way to say hello.” - Bones, probably.
Edit: Yeah, “I find it illogical that its actions would be hostile.”
Second edit: I just saw a thread the other day about the weakest sonar pings from Navey subs being strong enough to vaporize people’s insides. Context I guess.
I think the long and the short of it was that the writers and Leonard Nimoy were going to drive home An Aesop about environmentalism, no matter what it took.
There is also some parallelism here with the real world in addition to your sonar ping observation. For instance, I always recommend anyone to read “Last Chance to See,” by Douglas Adams (yes, that Douglas Adams) and in this case the chapter on the Yangtze river dolphin wherein Adams and his crew (or rather, the crew with Adams tagging along) go to China to observe said creature. The Yangtze river dolphin was – it is now believed to be extinct, but was not at the time the book was written – functionally blind and relied on echolocation to navigate and, you know, not bump into things. Just through the course of normal river navigation there is so much noise in the Yangtze from engines and boat propellers that the dolphins were just about deafened as well as blind, which was probably a contributory factor to their extinction.
Humans didn’t set about to blast the dolphins clean out of the water via noise pollution on purpose, but nevertheless that’s exactly what we did just as a result of how our vehicles worked and without thinking about it.
I always recommend anyone to read “Last Chance to See,” by Douglas Adams (yes, that Douglas Adams)
That is my favorite Douglas Adams book and I have read everything he wrote. I wish more people would read it.
I thought they found more Yangtze River dolphins in a lake not that long ago? Did they not?
I haven’t been following closely, but the last couple of potential sightings I’ve read about have been unconfirmed and certainly nobody’s captured one or even a picture of one sufficient for a positive ID lately.
Its status is officially “functionally extinct” which does not necessarily rule out that some individuals may remain somewhere, but researchers are pretty much agreed that however many might be left in hiding (if any) probably aren’t enough to sustain any kind of ongoing population.
As Granny Weatherwax famously observed, just one of anything doesn’t work. If you only have e.g. one dolphin left, maybe it’s not technically extinct, but that doesn’t do you any good without a mate. Same deal if there are enough of them in nooks and crannies to theoretically breed but they’re all geographically disparate and can’t reach each other.
Or if you prefer:
“Yes,” we agreed, “Ficky-ficky.”
Yeah, even Wikipedia goes with “probably extinct.” How sad.
Anyway, it’s an amazing book. There was also a radio series which is decent (I believe you can get it on the Internet Archive) and Stephen Fry did a follow-up TV series around 15 years go.
This is a good take.
One hell of a side effect. You’d think its creators would understand the whole ‘destroy the planet’ aspect of their ‘must communicate with a whale for a very brief period of time unless there aren’t any and then I just stick around’ plan.
Well, you know how Starfleet admirals are all insane?
Turns out, that’s not species specific.
Now that makes sense!
Maybe they didn’t expect no answer and they are just meh at programming.
“Plot device.”
I know this movie is a subculture favorite (my personal theory is because of the popularity of who directed it), but except for some funny moments it’s one of my least favorite; not least for how much it has to lean on inexplicable plot devices. At least in ST:TMP, Vger had a motivation for blowing things up and being petulant: it clearly had its own understandable desires.
I have warmed up to it over the years, but I admit I have always thought of it more as “Comedy Star Trek” than “Star Trek with Comedy.” But now we have Lower Decks, so…
