Talk:Ceti Alpha VI

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is speculated that the explanation given in the movie was necessary as a plot device to get the Reliant crew to encounter Khan as Terrell and Chekov would not knowingly return to Khan's exile planet and there was no other reason to mistake one planet for the other. On a strictly visual basis, given the convention for numbering planets from sunward outward, it makes more sense to mistake Ceti Alpha VII for Ceti Alpha VI since the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI would make VII the new sixth planet in the system.

Ah, but if you are counting from the last planet, as you would when entering a solar system (since you encounter the last planets first), then it's the other way around. Perhaps this paragraph should be amended or removed entirely. - furrykef (Talk at me) 12:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah (and that's an important plot point in an old Arthur C. Clarke story), but it is firmly established that in the Star Trek Universe, planets are numbered going outwards (e.g. Mercury is 'Sol 1', Earth 'Sol 3', etc). Part of the reasoning for counting that way is that an observer has more chance to discover the innermost planets first, since they move faster. It's also the way that moons are numbered in our own solar system. CFLeon 10:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, Neptune is called the "eighth planet", not the first (or second). The recent novel also uses the black hole to explain Ceti Alpha V's orbital shift - the black hole stressed the surface of VI so it could no longer contain the interior; as it traveled, it subjected V to a pull that shifted its orbit.

As to mistaken identity, they should have had Khan say, "Ceti Alpha IV exploded six months after we arrived". But is it possible that Ricardo Montalban read the numeral wrong, or that the writers even used the wrong number in error, and it was never noticed and corrected? Planet four exploding and disappearing would allow V to appear to be IV. Also, where's all the debris of Ceti Alpha VI? 15 years is not enough time to cleanse even the majority of the debris. GBC 22:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)