02-02-2023, 11:54 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-04-2023, 02:41 PM by FaceInTheCrowd.)
I had no idea what might cause a planet to explode, so I looked it up. It turns out there is nothing known to our contemporary science that could cause a planet to explode on its own. So unless there's something science hasn't discovered yet, it would take a planetary collision of some sort. If Khan didn't have any telescopes, what looked like an explosion to the naked eye might have been the planet being shattered by a huge meteor or asteroid strike. Such an occurrence would probably be noticed by someone, but if the entire system was on record as being uninhabited it might just have been a note in someone's astronomical log.
I cannot imagine any circumstances in which the hijacking of the Enterprise, if it became publicly known, would not have become as notable within Starfleet as the capture of the USS Pueblo is in the US Navy. It would have resulted in investigations, inquests and changes in starship security protocols to prevent such occurrences that would have been instituted throughout the fleet. Clearly, none of these things happened, because the Enterprise was hijacked again in the second season by one of Harry Mudd's androids and again in the third season by a bunch of space hippies. My unavoidable conclusion is that everyone onboard who knew the details of the incident conspired to bury it and as far as the rest of the crew and Starfleet Command knew the whole thing was a routine encounter with some space junk followed by a shipwide malfunction of the ship's anesthizine gas system. Either that or Kirk put it all in his log and someone above his head decided to cover it up "for the good of the service."
One of Roddenberry's principles was that humans might travel into space and have many adventures but they would still be humans. CYA will no doubt be just as much a thing in the future as it is today.
I cannot imagine any circumstances in which the hijacking of the Enterprise, if it became publicly known, would not have become as notable within Starfleet as the capture of the USS Pueblo is in the US Navy. It would have resulted in investigations, inquests and changes in starship security protocols to prevent such occurrences that would have been instituted throughout the fleet. Clearly, none of these things happened, because the Enterprise was hijacked again in the second season by one of Harry Mudd's androids and again in the third season by a bunch of space hippies. My unavoidable conclusion is that everyone onboard who knew the details of the incident conspired to bury it and as far as the rest of the crew and Starfleet Command knew the whole thing was a routine encounter with some space junk followed by a shipwide malfunction of the ship's anesthizine gas system. Either that or Kirk put it all in his log and someone above his head decided to cover it up "for the good of the service."
One of Roddenberry's principles was that humans might travel into space and have many adventures but they would still be humans. CYA will no doubt be just as much a thing in the future as it is today.