Trekyards EP56 - Whale Probe

[@stryletz]

When I first saw the movie, for some reason, I got it in my head the the probe was full of water and housed a bunch of hyper-intelligent space whales.

[@shiningarmor2838]

Have you been reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

[@jacquesaaron9072]

Exactly.

[@TheZennex99]

This would be my best guess too. Ancient hyper- intelligent alien whales in water filled cylindrical space tank. lol

[@CharlesUrban]

That's not a bad bet. The probe was intelligent enough to have a conversation with the two whales, so either it had great AI or a cetacean was on board with orders to yell at the planet until someone answered.

[@modeschar]

Or it was a rescue ship and the water was for the whales if they found any.

[@billhiers4171]

The novelization of the film has an entirely different explanation for the probe. For one thing, it isn't a probe, but a sentient being so utterly alien and incomprehensible that it appears non-living and the characters just assume it's a probe. It is effectively near godlike in its power. There are numerous scenes told from its point of view, wherein we learn it listens to whale songs and communicates with them through the vastness of space by singing back to them. Its arrival on Earth is in response to the singing having stopped on account of the whales being hunted to extinction (it may have even heard their death songs). It has come to see why they stopped singing because it's worried about them. I like this explanation far better than the "it was sent by alien whales" one the other book gave us.

[@vali6717]

Interestingly, I always have thought of the probe as something completely solid, like a massive ore sample tube in space, and the sphere that extends from the cylinder has always had an organic look to me, almost like a brain.

[@Theri4444]

I prefer the idea that it was a space probe sent by an advanced race to find out why the whales no longer contacted it

[@Airwolf357]

Guys the size of the ship is directly proportional to the size of the species that created the probe ship. An Alien Cetacean similar to our whale cetacean but larger could account for its (the probe) massive scale. Another thing the cylindrical shape is feasible for a space faring alien cetacean much like doors that accommodate our human shape as morbius said in forbidden planet. A Sperm Whale is an excellent example of cylindrical shape in underwater fluidic space. There is more to say but to much to say.

[@CharlesUrban]

Hell yes. I want to live in a galaxy with space whales flying around.

[@RetroBerner]

I always thought of it as being aquatic, basically just a giant aquarium flying around.

[@SumDumGy]

So it's Xindi!

[@tyranusfan]

Why do you conclude the Probe was restricted to sublight? In the movie, it made it from the Neutral Zone to Earth in a matter of days. Clearly it's traveling an warp speeds.

[@SumDumGy]

That's my take on this too. Seems a big thing to miss.

[@robinhodson9890]

At superluminal velocity, but not in warp nor subspace/hyperspace. This makes it all the more visible, alien, and powerful.

[@FLAME4564]

how can it be? when it cearly show now signs of a warp field for something this large.

[@baph_nooky8255]

I always think of if somebody took an enormous drill-sample chunk out of a moon and used it as a craft. In the sense we use a tree to build a canoe. That would also explain why it would be so slow with sub-light speeds. It's just so huge, alien and different it really lets your imagination spin. I love the little bit about the Borg coming in contact with it too

[@Ma55ey]

so refreshing going back through your library guys....

[@philliplafferty6926]

what if the whale probe was sent from the Xindi-Aquatic to find out why they lost contact with the whale from earth

[@donfelipe7510]

Given the film is set a while after 'Enterprise' and their contact with the Xindi-Aquatic that could be possible, the Aquatics are one of the most advanced of the several Xindi races. However we know who the Xindi are and where they come from by the time of Star Trek IV. That's the only trouble with this theory. However I love typing Xindi ;-)

[@damocles279]

The xindi where apart of the federation by this time.

[@sirjaunty1]

Three words. Rendezvous With Rama.

[@dongaffney998]

I always thought the interior was an aquatic environment.

[@dougg1075]

I thought it was a great design along with the noise it made. Very mysterious and awe inspiring

[@chrishexter9458]

This one always fascinated me, loved the way the probes hull appears to glisten, as if its slightly moist, great vid :-)

[@randybentley2633]

I vaguely remember in the Probe novel that the WP was capable of transwarp velocities.

[@GigaTrope]

As a kid I always got the impression that the probe was "stepping" on us by accident & the destruction it caused was just some sort of research. also, it kinda reminds me of the monolith from 2001

[@novax-ig9yt]

I personally liked the Probe being unexplained. It definitely doesn't need to be tied to the Borg somehow.

[@TheMockSun]

Great episode, guys! A thought: Why should it be on a humanoid or even cetacean scale? Maybe it was a micro-probe sent by a race of gigantic aquatics who originated on a super-terra or an oceania. The ionization of the oceans might have been due to a super-invasive last-ditch scan trying to determine the whereabouts of the whales once they found that they couldn't detect them (they knew that they would be negatively affected by something that powerful, so the purpose of the scan at that point would have been to determine cause of death, rather than to communicate).

[@CaminoAir]

Was the design a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke's 'Rama'?

[@CybercoreProtos]

As was reading the book the probe did come to mind.

[@damdumah2552]

I will always be scared to death of that thing

[@gerardduffy4004]

Nice episode, I like that you are also taking on things like the probe, I also liked the TNG episode "Thin Man", Gomtuu was a organic ship/being, I always considered the "Probe" as a life-form, immeasurably ancient that over its life-span is exploring space just as humanity is doing in the 23th century. The orb that drops down, in a way I for some reason thought as it "face or brain". Its powerful field that knocks out ships and stations power systems, may simply be a side effect (perhaps unintentional) of its propulsion. I read the Book but really don't remember any of it,, time to reread.

[@billhiers4171]

+Gerard Duffy (gmd3d) The novelization follows your thought process, wherein the probe is actually a sentient being and even has some scenes told from its P.O.V. where we get to see what it's thinking. For whatever incomprehensible reason, this explanation for it was thrown out in favor of the one where it was sent by space whales, which is kinda dumb if you ask me.

[@cathyvickers9063]

I always assumed it didn't notice the little bipeds & their structures. It was looking for a specific kind of lifeform, & ignored everything else.

[@cathyvickers9063]

@@billhiers4171 A lot of the novels were stand alone: for example, there are 3 very different & totally conflicting identities of the Romulan Commander Spock was seduced by in a Classic TOS episode. There was initially no effort to weave these books into a shared universe.

[@kabukiwookie]

I can still remember watching this movie in the theatre and thinking.. "Hmmm Earth is being attacked by a gigantic Tootsi-Roll with one testicle".....

[@simonriddick]

wob wob wob wob wob wob wuaahhhh wob wob wob wob wob wob ;).

[@CharlesUrban]

Whenever I see satellite footage of a hurricane, that sound pops up in my head.

[@md28stads]

I read the book "Probe" as well. They say in the book that the sentient aquatics lived in the Delta quadrant and evolved thousands of years ago. They had telekinesis and telepathy. When a Borg armada of hundreds of cubes attempted to assimilate their world, the entire species working in tandem were able to fend off the Borg fleet using their mental abilities and whatever tech. The Borg in turn came back and using some technology (unspecified) killed the star of the aquatic's system and since they weren't really space faring, but rather sent out probes for exploration, they died off and their oceans dried up. The Probe was later attacked by the Borg again and that is what damaged it's memory core and why it was trying so badly to find another sentient aquatic species. In the book, it came to Earth to search for a species that was similar to what its creators once were... (humpbacks). After leaving the Earth, however, it travels to worlds in the Roman Empire (this is quite some time later) and it leaves a path of destruction. The Enterprise is dispatched to aide the Romulans before the probe reaches Romulus. Spock surmises that a tractor beam can create the vibrations to communicate with the probe, but has no idea of language structure. Once this happens, however, the Probe seizes the ship and takes it at transwarp back to its "homeworld," as it is confused. This is where they find the ruins of that long dead culture, find out what happened to them and the probe and figure out how to repair the stupid probe. The Romulans are not as grateful as they should be of course and interestingly enough the Roman commander is the same one from "The Enterprise Incident" who had spent the last 20 years trying to rebuild her career on board an old Bird of Prey. They should have gone to chat with the Xindi😅

[@YezaOutcast]

when i watched this movie as a kid i was extremely scared of the noises it made. not only the communication whale sound, but especially the accompanying dark 'thud thud thud' sounds in the background.

[@jimtilley1158]

wonder if in the 80 years between the movie era and TNG was contact made between the race that built the probe and the federation. The Galaxy class Enterprise's blueprints shows navigation labs for cessation ops who there was two races. one that were similar to orca and another similar to dolphin.

[@kevinwestrom4775]

i had read the book "Probe" as well, way back about 10 years ago. From what i remember of it, near the end of the book the probe had went on its way wandering into the Romulan Empire after it had disrupted life in the Federation. Gotta wonder how the builders of the Probe ship built it, as in managed to manipulate physical matter in shaping the hull, and then to also design/create its propulsion system and the little sensor/communications ball.

[@ronniejacksonjr5607]

In novel the probe The whale probe did returns home in 2287.

[@dontaylor4501]

It's one of the navigator ships from the Dune universe. Folds space for travel and has spice milange inside with the fish/human-like navigators.

[@MrMartechi]

When I think about a giant cylindric object in space...I can't help but thinking about a giant artificial habitat. Almost like an o'neill cylinder. Somehow, I imagine it being hollow, maybe housing a fleet but mostly just a habitat, space to live. Maybe it was some kind of generation-ship project that just floats around on its own because its inhabitants long went extinct or simply don't care about the rest of the universe anymore, since everything is so unimportant to them. If a whole federation is nothing but annoying little bugs to them, I think they wouldn't come out of their habitat much. I actually liked the design, but I always thought that the whole idea of this movie was cool, but in the rest of the lore, simply not very logical. I mean, really...when a borg cube came, starfleet immidiatly was able to pull a fleet of 40 ships to attack it, and that thing went with high warp speed. That whale probe was not even on lightspeed. Even if federation ships were much slower in that era, they should've been able to gather a giant fleet around earth after the first encounter in the neutral zone. Also: They clearly knew that this thing was able to shut down their forces. wouldn't they at least TRY to figure an alternative out? How long has it been since V'Ger attacked earth. Shouldn't starfleet slowly come up with any kind of emergancy plan for giant-unknown-spaceprobes that destroy everything on their way to come to earth? I love the movie, but I just don't like the idea how a dozen ships and spacedock are really everything a federation of 150+ planets could come up with when faced with such a danger, that doesn't even move at warp speed.

[@gugeyewalker]

+MrMartechi Have you read Arthur C Clark's Rama series? That is pretty much what you are describing in your first paragraph. Except Rama slowly rotated to make artificial gravity. This probe seems to be up there with Rama in size, perhaps a bit smaller.

[@MrMartechi]

gugeyewalker Thanks for that great suggestion! I'll look into it!

[@ronniejacksonjr5607]

The Whale Probe is not only to communicate with whales but also design for Terraforming planets for oceans.

[@craighilton8526]

i think I've probe would be FTL because even federation ships don't go to warp inside the solar system so maybe as it entered ours it dropped out of warp...plus i think inside might be a self contained world a bit like Rama just a lot smaller.

[@OldDood]

Well, it ALWAYS looked to me like a Galvanized Pipe filled with Cement.... Exactly like the ones used on car lots to protect buildings/doors to keep people from smashing into them...

[@Anlushac11]

Did Captain Foley just try to use Dora speak to try to talk to us in the Whale language?

[@CybercoreProtos]

It used to remind me of a giant hostess yodel cakes.

[@SumDumGy]

Why would we assume sublight travel? It got to Earth in relative short time after disabling the Klingon vessels, presumably in Klingon space. We're talking a passage of no more than several days here.

[@spd579]

Hey guys, great video! I've read the book "Probe", and it was very interesting. The Traveler, as it was called, reminded me of a circit marshall, of the old west. In the book, The Traveler was checking up on worlds that had similar species that they would check up on from time to time. In the book, it investigated a Romulian colony world. The colonists were wiped out. The Traveler, figured or concluded by process of elimination, that the Romulians were responsible for the extinction of the like or communicative species. In a way it made me think this race of beings that created The Traveler, were checking up on planets, that had been seeded with their genetic essence. In the book, they are described as a race of something similar to a dalphin. The essence then evolving independently on a particular planet. The story was quite good. Plus, all of the twists and turns of the Romulain invaulvment. Read the book and enjoy the story. Sad advisory to make is I read it just as it came out and have forgotten a lot of the details. My apologies.

[@saquist]

+SP D I've forgotten alot on Probe too. I didn't enjoy like her other book "Strangers from the Sky." Do you remember what was actually in side the probe? It makes NO sense..

[@CharlesUrban]

That probe was intelligent, or it had intelligent beings on it. It had a conversation with the whales once they'd gotten to the future: "HEY! HEY, GUYS! HEY--" "Yes, we're here! Please stop yelling!" "THERE YOU ARE! WHAT, COULDN'T YOU HEAR ME BEFORE?" "No, we just got here by time traveling. Wouldn't recommend it, by the way." "COOL! SO, EVERYBODY OKAY DOWN THERE?!" "Well, we're the only ones left, but we've got things handled here...also, with all that yelling, you're kind of ruining the planet for the bipeds who live here as well." "OH, SO _THAT'S_ WHAT ALL THOSE LITTLE SHIPS ARE! THOSE GUYS ADVANCED FAST!" "Too fast for their own good, I'd say. Now get going." "OKAY. SEE YOU ALL AGAIN IN TWO THOUSAND YEARS!"

[@MrClassicor]

I don´t actually know about that "probe" concept - when I watched the movie as a kid it seemed more alive to me, some living organism instead of a spaceship. With an alien mind obvioulsy, but maybe that´s why it contacted the whales originally, maybe their thought patterns were compatible? Maybe this was, for lack of a better description, some sort of "space whale"?. We have seen giant, space-dwelling organisms in TOS, TNG VOY, and while the strict geometric shape is a bit counterintuitive for a living creature, the texture of the hull (skin?) looks very organic to me. A naturally grown neutronium hull build from metallic and elemental trace particles ingested in nebulas and debris fields, maybe? The energy beam a natural phenomenon generated by a species (maybe of only one specimen) that had evolved in interstellar radiation? To me, that would be more wonderous and awe-inspiring than "just" another big ship build by some unknown race. And while the size is quite impressive, it exists in a universe with Iconian gateways and Dyson Spheres and the like - this probe being artificial would actually be feasable. But it being organic/alive? That would be harder to fathom, harder to understand - which feels more Trek to me ::)

[@saquist]

+MrCrollsDice I thought it had living element to it aswell. Like it was grown.

[@gugeyewalker]

+MrCrollsDice Perhaps it is a bit alive and a bit artificial. Another living machine.

[@TheCastellan]

+saquist If a species is millions of years ahead of us, their technology would look magical and impossible to our limited standards. I study UFO's and other paranormal phenomena as a passion, and I seen some objects in the sky that the conventional can not explain, and they did look like they were poured, woven, grown or manifested, the ships......it's my own rule of thumb is that an advanced alien species' ships would not have primitive, clunky things as we have, like rivets, bolts, screws, panels and so on, and if you see something that does have it, it's human made.

[@softdreams1776]

oh gosh the vibrating prob is a giant space dilldo, imagen how big the beings that made it are

[@donfelipe7510]

I think we should ask 'Q' who the probe came from, he would know, since he's done crashing planes over Albuquerque in 'Breaking Bad' now.

[@FLAME4564]

haha XD we could try and most likely even the Q continnum will probbly be at a loss for words as we all are to describe it.

[@mikebrzoska9741]

I’d say the probe most likely had its own warp drive or possibly even used a trans warp conduit. Has anyone presented the theory that this probe could be from fluidic space like species 8472?

[@donfelipe7510]

I recall an episode of Voyager where they came across an alien race descended from dinosaurs who decreed that humans had "no right to exist under doctrine." I thought that was a cool premise, millions of years of uncharted history before humans gave rise to other civilisations that we can't see the evidence of today. The historian in me says this is unlikely but for the realm of Sci-fi that's an interesting topic. Maybe the probe wasn't uninhabited but was in fact a mother ship of some kind filled with water in which the descendants of Humpback whales swam about? Like the Xindi aquatics...

[@baronvonfritz]

I've always kind of thought that the ship had an ocean inside of it, and that it came from a different galaxy but with the immense power required to travel between galaxies, it would have to slow down to sublight speed because the space time warping might damage whole planets.

[@bobdole6345]

Wasn't this the recycled model for the canceled movie Rendezvous with Rama based on the book, that they used to save money as it was already built.

[@johnwrath333]

How about a Navigator ship from Dune ?

[@mrandrossguy9871]

The Whale Probe is Heavily Underrated ! That Thing is Terrifying more than the V’Ger and Borg combined , Mostly cause it’s Mysterious Oh And the Sound can’t forget the Sound !

[@litlclutch]

I always thought it was filled with water and the aliens that control it are whale sized, so they need a massive space to swim around in.

[@krisguntner4805]

Whales are huge creatures because they live in the water,so I'm surprised it never occurred to you that maybe a gigantic kilometer/10 kilometer sized whale type being was in the probe floating in a life support sea,controlling the ship with ultra sonic sound wave's. Makes sense to me.

[@Sgt_Glory]

+kris guntner That whale pilot would have to have been one massive a-hole then to do all that damage. I always thought it was just a probe who's programming didn't notice or care about the ships and space station it was wrecking with it's brute-force signal.

[@krisguntner4805]

AEigner I'm sure ants think the same of us.

[@donfelipe7510]

Pretty sure whales do have a grudge against humans for nearly hunting them to extinction (or in the realm of Star Trek at least, actually doing so.)

[@krisguntner4805]

Don Felipe I seriously doubt star trek writers would depict whales as vengeful. Moby dick for example was generally more about the hatred and obsession that consumed Ahab then a 'vengeful' whale.

[@donfelipe7510]

Yeah true, just saying, if I was a whale...

[@ninjawannabe87]

the whale probe to me always looked like a concrete post that you would see in front of commercial buildings to stop cars from ramming the doors. when I first saw ST4:TVH I wondered if that's what they made it out of

[@jacquesaaron9072]

I think it resembles the Rama vehicle-habitat of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. Perhaps it contains land and oceans on the inner side, in which the whale-cousin intelligences live from generation to generation, kept in place when it rotates about its long axis. Blue whales live for a century or so, perhaps their highly evolved cousins live for longer. Remember Motion Picture? Uhura: It could hold a crew of tens of thousands. Leonard McCoy: Or a crew of a thousand ten miles tall. Perhaps it is a hollowed out, shaped asteroid. It's thick walls allow it to travel close to the speed of light and protect it from exotic, heavy particles. Its crew are long-lived and patient.

[@TheCastellan]

Was the Saratoga seen here the same one Sisko was on before it went boom?

[@andaikatalah]

I imagined that the Whale Probe looked like a giant black chalk floating in space trying to communicate with whales

[@TheCastellan]

Many ancient cultures speak of beings descended from the sky and interacting with them.....I would not be surprised if they seen something like the probe, or its makers.

[@shanehunsinger2609]

I personally think that along with V'ger, the whale probe is an example of Star Trek throwing a mystery at us that was never intended to be solved. Leonard Nimoy made it clear that he did not want subtitles used when the whales contacted the probe when the movie was being filmed. I think his personal outlook was that the conversation should've been left up to the audience to interpret. I tend to agree with his line of thinking because if subtitles had been used, it would've taken away from the probes overall mystique. Sometimes leaving the situation in a shroud of doubt creates a much better scenario to run with. We never truly find out if the probes intentions were hostile, despite Spock stating that he felt that wasn't the case. To me, that makes the final moment between the whales and the probe much more intriguing, because we never TRULY know. With that being said, I personally didn't like the novelization of the film, because when I read it back in '94, it depicted the probe as being vengeful and wanting to slaughter the earths human inhabitants for killing off the whale species, which was deterred by "George" when the probe made contact, citing that the people of this current earth had evolved past those barbaric practices and that he and Gracie had "new songs to sing." I was personally disappointed in this exchange because once again we were presented with the "sins of the father" ordeal that had been rehashed so often over the previous years. I felt the true premise of the story was that the probe was not indeed hostile, but only concerned with the long silence that had come when it attempted to contact the cetacean species. This is only my personal opinion, but, I felt this story worked better when approached from the more "eco-friendly" angle, instead of every alien that is new or unfamiliar being forceful or violent in the end.

[@jadziadax5365]

Read the Star Trek Novel called "The Probe" . Answer's alot of questions about the Probe and the Creator's. What is interesting is the collaboration with the Romulan Scientist and Diplomats. According to the Novel, the probe was capable of doing Warp 30 plus the creators were located in a different Galaxy.

[@robtomlinson1007]

i always thought of the probe as being an O'neill cylinder,O'Neill cylinder (also called an O'Neill colony) is a space settlement design proposed by American physicist Gerard K. O'Neill in his 1976 book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in space

[@TheCastellan]

7:19, Cockings, that's what an advanced race, millions of years ahead of us would appear unphathonable

[@garageguy879]

I always thought that Whale Probe ship looked like some kind of water storage tank with a soccer ball hanging below it,,lol.

[@HeathInClearLake]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Excelsior's power plants immune to the probe's effect? I seem to recall everything powering down in space dock, then moments later the Excelsior powered right back up?

[@TheCastellan]

+HeathInClearLake Probably going on and off, like how a device with a drained battery will go on and off sometimes.

[@darrenwright2024]

Only problem with that though when they bring the whales back to earth it just buggers off

[@k.c.lejeune6613]

The thing is, NO ONE will EVER know what George and Gracie told that probe. But apparently the Probe understood and scampered off.

[@Tounushi]

Another idea from this: are whales the second evolution of animal life on Earth that managed interstellar communication or travel? First would be the Voth, second would be whales, third being humanity.

[@TeamBoxCutta]

Its a space traveling water tank... for whale sized aquatic aliens.... think of the zindi water race. imagine if they were wale sized

[@jankjason]

You'd think a probe would be small.

[@TrustsLiars]

Avoozl whales don't fit inside ford probes

[@diabeticalien3584]

Well, then again, whales are mammoth compared to us. Perhaps to them, this is small.

[@CLAIR.L]

dear god if this is a probe can you imagine how big this races ships would be

[@CLAIR.L]

interesting point

[@billhiers4171]

+CaptainROXAS In the novelization, it's a lifeform itself and not actually a probe.

[@tonyf8358]

Reminds me of RAMA.

[@curtstokes4304]

Guys love your show and I am catching up. Been collecting the Eagle Moss starships and I noticed that there are many ships over 1000m long. Would you be interested in doing a segment or segments on starships in Star Trek 1000 m and above. Seems to be more and more ships that length and more. Hope to see a New Enterprise that is at least 1000 m long someday.

[@saquist]

-It's not 8,000m -It's not as big as 70,000m i It's somewhere in between. -It's doubtful any Borg vessel could do any damage to the Probe as their technology is based on assimilated technology. A Cube would be just as disabled as Space Dock. -The probe does not travel at sub light speeds. They merely didn't deem it important to show a warp effect which cost money. Instead the chose to give the probe a type of "space fold" which is why the probe appears in a distortion cloud suddenly. This slower look to it's travel resembled the whales which it represented. -It's clear the Probe is traveling through Federation and Klingon space so it's definitely FTL. I Think it's one of the strangest simplest Trek Designs. Its familar by the texture gives a really ALIEN concep I've never looked at anything so hard to try and understand yet given so little to actually look at. It's a conudrum. This is being even the Borg design in simplicity. We see a borg cube and we know what ever rhyme or reason behind the exterior is BEYOND conprehension...like V'ger. But this... We see everything...it's not complicated but our eye is trying to figure it all out. It's wonderfully paradoxical. Great Episdoe, I didn't see this one coming.

[@ShumaiAxeman]

In "Probe" the memory of the probe mentions an attack by vessels that match what we know as the Borg, though Star Fleet knew nothing of the Borg at the time.

[@robinhodson9890]

I think the primary point of that thing, was that it's mysterious and impervious. Trying the classify it in everyday terms is missing the point, because it isn't an everyday phenomena. All attempts by terrestrial vessels to understand, communicate, stop, or destroy it are futile, and it doesn't consider humans as relevant. Basically, a giant, crushing ants foolish enough to get underfoot, yet with an alien purpose of its own. Rather like a gardener pruning a bush, with short-lived ants attempting to interact and not even being noticed.

[@CaptainM792]

Maybe the probe was sent by the Voth.

[@gugeyewalker]

Now I can say I've been 'whale probed' by Trekyards! :P

[@donaldhill3823]

Never thought about it before but if the aliens who built the probe are whale like then the probe could have easily been a ship with whales in it explaining the need for it to be so big.----------it did not take that long for it to cross Federation space so I do not think it was travelling sub light until it was close to earth.

[@TheDogGeneral]

It has taken the Bridge and the Second Hall. We have barred the gates, but cannot hold them for long. The Stars shakes... Drums. Drums in the deep. We cannot get out. A Shadow moves in the dark... We cannot get out... It is coming."

[@TheCastellan]

Do the Constellation class, and/or V'ger, please.

[@cdsnuts2012]

so it's likely v'ger met the whale probe. what would of happened ??

[@stairwayunicorn4861]

what if the spherical part is Moon Base Alpha from the TV show SPACE1999

[@Chaydex]

It is kinda weird that ship this big doesn't have any gravity effect on earth like tidal waves or something

[@TheCastellan]

+Cyclone Official probably was able to cancel it out, with an advanced anti gravity system, as not to effect anything...plus we don't know what it's made out of.

[@noneuno53]

do to the damage it may not know that it can go faster. and also do to its size it would look like its moving slower than it is from our pov. thanks for both of yours time.

[@mrandrossguy9871]

I Always recognized it as A Giant Space Vienna Sausage XD Or a Log of Marble

[@KertaDrake]

Core sample from when you want to actually hit the planet core!

[@Retronightvintage1993]

lol you could probably put all of the star fleet ships ever made inside the prob

[@REVERSE-th2bb]

I always thought it was automatic, with no life on it.

[@shagadelic28]

The probe always reminded me of one of the browns at the superbowl...sorry. But seriously, I have a hard time believing this thing was only capable of traveling at sub-light velocities. If that were the case, Starfleet would have been aware of its approach hundreds of years in advance. In fact, I'd venture to say that we would probably be able to spot an object that large with our telescopes currently in service in the 21st century. It certainly could not make it from the neutral zone to earth in a matter of days. And, after being told to go pound sand by George and Gracie, at sublight speeds, it would have been traveling slow enough to still be in the interstellar neighborhood by the events depicted in TNG. This leads me to believe that the probe must be equipped with some type FTLT. Or, perhaps a vessel this powerful was even capable of creating artificial wormholes to jump around the galaxy...or beyond, periodically popping to have a look around. One of the (very few) disappointments of Trek was to not ever have any other canonized reference to this amazing thing.

[@JLConawayII]

Somehow I find it hard to believe that whatever highly advanced civilization built this didn't realize their phone call to the whales was destroying the entire planet. That's like saying hello to a friend by writing "hello" in sharpie on a nuclear missile and then shooting them in the face with it. How do you not realize that this scenario is going to end badly?

[@FLAME4564]

I have to agree too. My speculation was that mabey this probe came from another galaxy long long ago. Just like the Doomesday Machine.

[@gugeyewalker]

+FLAME4564 Our own galaxy is mind-boggling big. Star Trek de-emphasizes that a lot unfortunately.

[@FLAME4564]

Indeed. But for such a thing as alien as this to be so old really is as confusing as the mystery of the origin of the Doomesday Machine. Let alone conflicting sources putting it BIGGER than the Doomesday Machine?

[@gugeyewalker]

FLAME4564 So old? :) You know each star in the galaxy varies in age by an order of hundreds of millions, and often billions of years. Most spacefaring civilizations are ancient on the order of magnitude that is hard for us humans to fathom.

[@FLAME4564]

Indeed. But its doubtful that the preservers would have ever known or had any concact with the species who built the probe unless an exact replica of the Doomesday Machine somehow made its way into their space. The Doomesday Machine at something like 50,000 or 2million years old. The Whale Probe mmm say 4million or 200 million years old or more.

[@FLAME4564]

+Andy Wilderness Mabey your right but then again theres no way that neither the Cardassians or the Breen could have sent it. Since in the tmp era the Cardassians and Breen were non existant.

[@Tounushi]

How would the Kelvin continuity handle this?

[@shimmergloom74]

Blind it with lens flares and disorient it with classical music.

[@bsdandrum27]

The basis of this "monolith" is pretty much the same basis as the monoliths seen in 2001, and 2010 Space Odysseys in that they are "status" markers for a highly advanced race to essentially keep track of progress. Much like our own Black Knight satellite that no one can explain it's existence it may be here to make sure we haven't destroyed ourselves. However. The difference here is that the whale probe appears to be actively seeking the progress whereas Kubrick's monolith was left to where we had to come find it as a way to prove we were ready for the next evolution. I like to lean towards it being an Iconian Probe, however it could very well be Voth as the Voth did evolve on Earth before humans. Spock even states in the movie that humans were not the first species to evolve on Earth and an episode of Voyager confirms the Voths origins from Earth. So, could this be Voth?

[@gugeyewalker]

+bsdandrum27 What 'Black Knight' satellite are you referring to?

[@bsdandrum27]

The "Black Knight" satellite in orbit over the Earth that no one seems to have put there. It is considered as an artificial satellite, but we didn't make it. It's there, there's no doubt about that. What it is and where it came from are very debateable.

[@bsdandrum27]

There are a multitude of videos on the internet that feature the Black Knight satellite.

[@TheCastellan]

+gugeyewalker Check on on youtube "black knight, Pepsi" there is a Hugely watched video that came out about it, and it got like hundreds of thousands of hits after it came out......I think someone in the know is trying to get a message about ET life to us....saying "Hey, NUDGE, NUDGE, we're not alone!"

[@TheCastellan]

+bsdandrum27 Check out the video Pepsi made regarding it, it is AMAZING, sir/ma'am. If you watch it, you'll be thinking "someone is trying to tell the masses something, that we're not alone"

[@NephritduGrey]

Hm, could be a sort of mobyle dyson...well not spehere but cylinder now, just not with an actual star inside but a smaller cylinder and could hold quite a lot of people inside of it. And the whales would be the actual scouts and they, in the movie, just saved earth due to the effects and told them humans can be cruel but also nice and that there are humans on the planet now being the dominant species. So the colony cylinder made it's way to the next planet where they seeded scout whales :P

[@Chaydex]

Do Trekyards episode about some Undine ships, they are quite unique as they are organic in nature

[@2thpic]

The dudes from The Abyss built the whale probe.

[@jasonnewsham7724]

What if it''s full of water

[@michaeljessicapayton]

lol samuel.: "classic cylinder!"

[@ib_aryayogabharata]

or inside it a few giant alien Leviathan Whale with a lenght over 1000 meter maybe,

[@jimtilley1158]

i always thought it would be a whale like race and the inside was all liquid and crewed by space whales (lacking for a better word.)

[@jaywiegs1712]

I always though it looked like a ginormous turd with a huge dingle berry on the front....

[@philipgater6855]

i aways thought it might be crewed by whale sizes creature's that could not not understand humans in the same way we couldn't understand them

[@Eremon1]

Its official size is "Big-AF".

[@Lyaller]

Maybe the ship is a living creature

[@bookfound]

Still waiting for the Arthur C. Clarke's Rama movie.

[@mikep1592]

What if it was designed by an intelligent race of humans that cared very much for the planets animal species alone. Then sent it out into deep space to one day return to check on the the giant mammals of the sea? Just a thought

[@softdreams1776]

and it plays dubstep music pulses

[@vahidhosoda6614]

How would dory react to this movie

[@Carwyn.Morris]

OH come on guys why does it have to have a fleet or weapons must it always come back to what can it blow up. Here's an idea what if this probe is just as it appears in the movie and only does what you see on screen. why is it so huge because that's the way it was constructed. No Fleet, No weapons, No crew, Just a probe