system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Trek IV TVH] Why was the alien probe so keen to talk to whales, why didn't it know the destruction it was causing, why didn't it know that not all species survive on a planet for all time? why couldn't it be communicated with? Why was no attempt made to destroy it with conventional methods?
gpt
According to the novels, the probe belonged to a species that was whale-like and it was created to keep in contact with whale-like species, which its builders considered the only sentient life forms. When it came into contact with other intelligent species, because of its programming, it considered them things like viruses, threats instead of other civilizations. And because whale-like species used a fundamentally different communication structure, the probe's AI couldn't be convinced otherwise. Partially this was due to numerous attempts by humanoid-like aliens attempting to destroy it and not 100% failing, resulting over eons in degradation of its capabilities. And while it is aware that not all species survive, it is capable of detecting the interference of humanoid species, which, again, it thinks of as non-sentient destructive enemies. So it doesn't care about destroying them, they're the enemy.