Hello peeps, Ric here with another Star Trek bestiary where we look into various creatures
of Trek that do not fit into things like a cultural index. Today, Gomtuu from the next
generation’s “Tin Man”. It was originally encountered by the Federation and the Romulan
Star Empire in 2366 at the Beta Stromgren system, orbiting a dying red star.
As far as we know, Gomtuu, the intelligent and powerful, living space vessel is the last
of its kind and suspected to be extra galactic in origin. I have a crazy theory on this which
I’ll touch on at the end. It is made of an organic material, which technically classifies
it as a cosmozoan, like the Farpoint creatures, or a Gormagander and in many ways has some
similar characteristics in common with the Farpoint Star-Jellies. It is an organic vessel
with a mind of its own, however, it appears to be non-mutable and its tear-drop shaped
form is set. The hull is a dark brown colour and sort of
resembles tree bark in its texturing. Its layers appear to be segmented and rough at
the edges, except at the nose which narrows down to a blunted tip. It is from in between
these layers that a bright orange glow emanates, giving Gomtuu the appearance of being a glowing
ember, I like to think a conscious design choice to reflect its age and quietening state.
Internally, there were a series of twisting corridors which opened up into various rooms
all throughout the “ship” and probably functioned as all the hubs that you would
need to operate a Starship. This was underscored by the fact that its interior, which was still
solid but noticeably more flesh-like, could sculpt itself into basic designs such as seating
for its crew. The lighting was minimal and an ambient groaning or pulsing could be heard
within. There was a warp drive, running on an unknown
power source, which seems to supply an array of immense abilities. Although there are detailed
scans of Gomtuu, Starfleet has learned precious little about it and is unlikely to do so in
the future as the lone vessel has moved on. In the short time observed, it displayed the
following abilities. It had powerful transporter systems that could
work over incredible distances and even through shields. Additionally, it did possess its
own shield system, but in addition to providing an untested level of protection, it acted
as a scattering field that prevented communication and scanners from passing through.
Impressively, it could generate strong energy waves that radiated outwards and were enough
to completely destroy a fully shielded D’Deridex class warbird at close range, and severely
cripple the Enterprise with a simple glancing blow at range. This damage resulted in the
main computer being heavily damaged, the warp systems being destabilised, sensors dropping
and an estimated 20 hours of repair time needed. This was down to the fact that many of the
Galaxy-class ship’s systems were overloaded or fried by the blast.
It could also generated a harmless version of this shockwave, that catapulted the Enterprise
3.8 billion kilometres in only 11 seconds, which, I think is 11,523 times the speed of
light. I tried to compare this to warp scales, but the warp chart is all over the place and
has literally zero consistency. Sufficed to say, it seems to be above warp 9.99.
Aside from its immense power, Gomtuu’s other prominent ability was its telepathic nature.
It had a very long range to its senses, however at a distance of lightyears, it’s thoughts
could not be clearly read, only empathic impressions. Once inside the creature however, its telepathic
connection was strong enough to transfer thousands of years of knowledge in seconds. The ship
would also communicate with its crew in this fashion and respond to their requests and
desires. It did have a control centre, but the lack of consoles and manipulable panels
suggests that the crew operated Gomtuu with telepathy too.
Gomtuu’s interior atmosphere had an M-class environment, suggesting its crew were humanoid
and carbon based. Millennia ago (we don’t have an exact timescale), Gomtuu was crewed
by a race of humanoids that used it to traverse the galaxy but eventually a radiation surge
made its way through Gomtuu’s shell. While the creature was unaffected, the crew died
from the exposure, leaving Gomtuu alone, which was detrimental to the vessel.
Without a crew, the vessel proved to be completely capable of flying itself, but had no orders,
not direction, no purpose. It eventually gave up its search for fellow ships and settled
into an orbit around the dying star. In this fashion, Gomtuu was symbiotic with its crew
as it needed them to effectively keep it company, having been created, grown or engineered to
operate alongside its former occupants. So when they were gone, it lacked any motivation
of its own and was willing to end its own existence. It was missing its heart.
As a side note, I did a bit of digging into why the episode was called Tin Man (not just
because of the name Gomtuu was assigned by Starfleet), and after a quick search, I came
to the Wiki page for a 1976 short story from Bailey and Bischoff’s titled “Tin Woodman”
about a psychic boy who bonds to a sentient vessel that derived its name from the Wizard
of Oz, tin-man. So there we go. That is about everything we know on the Tin-Man
and its mysterious history, sufficed to say that it was powerful enough to be a serious
tactical advantage to whatever power could control it, but being sentient in its own
right, it elected to embark on a new adventure with a new pilot. Which is just as well, such
powerful telepathy and technology would really unbalance the status quo of powers in the
quadrant. I would now like to post a crazy theory here,
but I’ve already done several videos where I mention the state of the Andromda galaxy
(I highly advise watching it if you haven’t I am proud of that one) and Gomtuu said that
millennia ago, a radiation surge wiped out its crew from an vaguely defined “explosion
in space”… it is also theorised to be from outside of the Milky Way… so… perhaps
whatever irradiated Andromeda killed Gomtuu’s crew millennia ago, the same disaster that
forced the Kelvans to leave. I’m still hoping for some cosmic level galactic
mystery tied to all this ancient civilization lore and stuff. There’s a lot of overlap
that is probably coincidental but man would it be cool. Thanks for watching this video
on Gomtuu, the “Tin Man” space ship of incredible power, and mournful heart. I’ve
been Ric and I’ll see you again next time, goodbye!