From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.tos
From Address: graemecree{at}aol.com
Subject: Re: Just A  Few Odd Things?

On Wednesday, September 25, 2013 3:34:51 PM UTC-5, Ron wrote:
> For one, on a planet with absolutely no technology, why didn't Kirk
& Spock think it strange that the doors would open and close for them
>
Who said the door closing mechanism was electronic?  Believe it or not,
even in medieval times, they had the ability to do something like this
mechanically.
>> And speaking of no  technology, isn't the Prime Directive supposed
to keep Federation people from making contact with backwards cultures that
doesn't have space travel.
>>
Nope.  The Prime Directive means whatever they want it to mean at any given
time.  This point has been made over and over again, but to show how
nonsensical it all is, take Bread and Circuses, where they state very
clearly that no identification of self or mission is permitted, or any
reference to the fact that there's life on other worlds.  A few weeks
later, in Omega Glory, Kirk cheerfully volunteers this information to Cloud
William.  Even Tracey, the guy who was supposed to be the PD violator,
didn't go that far.  Kirk is in no trouble for this because the PD didn't
forbid it that week.
If you want to try to fanwank it a little better than that, you can
presuppose that the Organians are supposed to have learned about other
worlds (maybe from those Vulcan traders we heard about) before the PD was
enacted, and so the secret was already out.  But I also suspect that when
the military defense of the Federation is involved, it's not too hard to
bend the Prime Directive.  You saw the same thing in Friday's Child.  They
wanted Topaline, so in they go, offering things that they wouldn't offer to
other planets.
>> I was also thinking about Wrath of Khan. I wont mention that big
plot hole about not recogniing the Ceti Alpha system
>>
Good, because no such plot hole exists.  They correctly identified the
system, just not the planet.  The story they gave was that the shock of
Ceti Alpha 6 exploding shifted Ceti Alpha 5 into the same orbit that 6 once
had, and so the Reliant mistook 5 for 6.  Best not to think about that too
much.  The novelization explains it a little better, by saying that 5 and 6
were twin planets circling each other, and that the Reliant assumed it was
5 that blew up, or something like that.  It still doesn't quite work.
No suggestion is given that Khan's presence was a secret.  Probably Ceti
Alpha V was off limits, and never considered for a landing.
>> And what's the deal with Spock setting his tricorder for silicon
in Devil In the Dark; isn't most of the planet he was on made of silicon?
>>
It's not well explained, but presumably he fine-tuned it to pick up more on
silicon to the exclusion of other things.  Like doing a word search on a
computer, I assume you can focus on things you really want to find and not
bother scanning other stuff.
>>
Oh, and while I am on the subject of tricorders, City On the Edge of
Forever: I don't know why no one eve brings this up but there is a view
screen on the tricorders, presumably to look at the data collected or the
recordings made by the cute yeomans who are always taking log tapes. So if
there is a view screen, why does Spock have to make some gizmo to see what
he had recorded? Isn't there a playback function on the TRI-corder?
> 
Not very well explained at all.  You'll have to fanwank it.  Spock did say
something about needing to hook the tricorder into the main computer. 
There is a playback screen, as you say (and that's what he used even after
building his contraption), so I assume that the external apparatus was
needed to be able to go through the mass of information he had to look for
certain things.  That doesn't really explain why he should see a movie of a
newspaper page, of course...
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