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?
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.
If you’re referring to the LDS flub, that could really be easily handwaved away as it was a drug that just fell so far out of fashion and use it’s barely a foot note in history books. Enough for Kirk to be aware of its history yet to not remember the correct name.
By his point in time humanity has chosen to expand their minds with knowledge and exploration…and lots of booze
He seems oblivious to swearing too. I’m glad that got retconned.
Swearing they’re aware of, but it’s more of correct colloquial context for the time. It’d be like me going back 40 years and calling someone a fucktard.
Kirk shouldn’t be so stupid that he can’t figure out what “dumb” and “ass” mean when you put them together. Especially when both words had already been in use for centuries by the 20th century and English had clearly barely changed in the following centuries.
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 probe sounds having subtitles (yes, the studio wanted subtitles)
Bc the mice that ran the universe in order to find the question that answered everything decided to call in someone to check in on their friends the dolphins, and the whales… never mind, I’ve said too much already!🤪
What do you expect them to do, not talk to a whale??
Dooo YOOOOUUUUU Know the way toooo SYDneeey?
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?
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.
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.
Maybe we can parallel it like this…
You’re out in your backyard playing with your dog. You’re both running around in the grass, rolling around, the dog digs for a moment at a spot in the yard. You think nothing of it.
But in those few minutes, you both stomped on and destroyed a couple ant mounds, squashed some other bugs and insects in the grass (their habitat) and the dog dug up and obliterated another creatures nest in the grass.
The problem here is that it wants to talk to the whales but it is also destroying the ocean. That doesn’t really match your scenario.
It’s just an overgeneralization. It’s doing something it thinks is harmless and possibly considering humans to be lesser beings like the insects
It’s doing something it thinks is harmless that would directly harm the thing it’s wants to talk to?
Are its programmers morons?
It’s been a minute for me - did they ever establish that it absolutely had to be whales or were whales just sea creatures that qualified?
What if this thing was sent to harvest water from planets lacking intelligent cetaecian life forms like humans might harvest a resource from an “uninhabited” world?
Not did it just have to be whales, it had to be humpbacked whales. And don’t ask me why they couldn’t fake it.
Spock explained that they could mimic the sounds, but not the language. They would be responding in gibberish.
And yet, 100 years later: Cetacean Ops.
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.
