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Who really said it

She can't take much more of this, Captain!

Not quite — the actual line is Spock’s: “They can’t take much more of this.” Norman Spinrad b. 15 September 1940 · American science-fiction novelist · credited writer, “The Doomsday Machine” (1967)
Disputed In copyright

Scotty never said it. Wikiquote’s Misattributed section ↗ for Star Trek: The Original Series records that neither Montgomery Scott nor anyone else spoke this line during the series. The closest real dialogue is Spock’s, in “The Doomsday Machine” (first aired 20 October 1967, teleplay credited to Norman Spinrad): “Deflector shields at full power. They can’t take much more of this.” The popular version swaps Spock for Scotty, the shields (“they”) for the ship (“she”), and adds a “Captain” who is not in the scene.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“She can't take much more of this, Captain!” Spock: "Deflector shields at full power. They can't take much more of this." — Star Trek, "The Doomsday Machine" (1967), teleplay by Norman Spinrad. Scotty never said "She can't take much more of this, Captain."

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Paramount / CBS Studios (corporate successors to Desilu Productions)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Norman Spinrad — American science-fiction novelist, essayist & Star Trek teleplay writer. Theme: "She can't take much more of this, Captain!". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "She can't take much more of this, Captain!". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The real line, in context

Work
Star Trek: The Original Series — “The Doomsday Machine” (season 2, episode 6)
Written by
Norman Spinrad (teleplay); directed by Marc Daniels
First aired
20 October 1967, NBC
Spoken by
Spock (Leonard Nimoy) — a fictional character. Not Scotty, who is aboard the Constellation in this scene.

SULU: Closing fast.
SPOCK: Deflector shields at full power. They can’t take much more of this.
DECKER: Helmsman, hold your course. Stand by all phaser banks.
SULU: Aye, aye, sir.
(The planet killer fires at them.)
SPOCK: Deflectors holding, but weakening. We must retreat, Commodore. The energy drain…
DECKER: I’m in command here, Mister Spock. Maintain your course, helmsman. Get us in closer. “The Doomsday Machine” · 1967

“They” is the deflector shields — not “she,” the ship. And there is no “Captain” in the line: Spock is reporting to Commodore Decker, who has taken command, while Kirk is away aboard the derelict Constellation. Every distinctive element of the popular quotation — the speaker, the pronoun, the rank — is absent from the real one.

“The Doomsday Machine” — full episode transcript

How we verified this

  • The specialist finding. Wikiquote’s Misattributed section ↗ for Star Trek: The Original Series lists “She can’t take much more of this, Captain” under Montgomery Scott and states that neither he nor anyone else ever used the line during the series, naming Spock’s report to Commodore Decker in “The Doomsday Machine” as the closest variation. Quote Investigator has not examined this quotation; Wikiquote is the anchor.
  • Independent confirmation against primary transcripts. Rather than rely on that summary, I searched the complete chakoteya.net transcript archive ↗ — all 79 original-series episodes and the ten feature films — for “take much more,” “cannae/canna take,” “all she’s got” and related variants. Exactly one match exists, Spock’s line in “The Doomsday Machine.” Wikiquote’s finding holds.
  • Scotty’s nearest real line. Wikiquote points to “Who Mourns for Adonais?”, where Scotty reports as Apollo’s hand crushes the ship. The transcript ↗ confirms the exchange: “One thousand GSC and climbing… Becoming critical, Captain. We can’t handle it.”
  • Credit and date. Wikipedia ↗ gives the on-screen writing credit to Norman Spinrad, direction to Marc Daniels, and first broadcast as 20 October 1967, and notes Spinrad based the script on a rejected novelette, “The Planet Eater.”
In copyright

“The Doomsday Machine” first aired on 20 October 1967 ↗, so the episode and its dialogue are firmly in copyright — US public domain currently reaches only works published through 1930. Television writing is work-for-hire, so the rights sit with the producing studio and its corporate successors (Desilu → Paramount / CBS Studios), not with Norman Spinrad, who holds the writing credit. No rights status is asserted for the popular catchphrase itself: it has no located source in any script.

Fact-check

What the popular version gets wrong

This is a catchphrase that outgrew its source. It is quoted, printed on merchandise and parodied as Scotty’s signature line — but it belongs to the same family as “Beam me up, Scotty”: a line everybody remembers and nobody ever said. Three separate things are wrong with it.

Montgomery Scott (“Scotty”), played by James Doohan never said it

Wikiquote’s Misattributed section ↗ for the series states that “neither he nor anyone else ever used that famous (and oft-parodied) line.” The line that exists is Spock’s. Searching the complete transcript archive ↗ for all 79 episodes and the ten features surfaces exactly one occurrence of “take much more of this” — and Scotty is not the one saying it.

“She” — meaning the Enterprise drift

In the real line, “they” is not the ship: it is the deflector shields. Spock’s full report in “The Doomsday Machine” ↗ is “Deflector shields at full power. They can’t take much more of this.” The popular version also appends “Captain” — but Spock is reporting to Commodore Decker, who has seized the conn, while Kirk is aboard the derelict Constellation.

“Who Mourns for Adonais?” (1967) closest real line

Wikiquote names this as Scotty’s nearest equivalent: as Apollo’s giant hand crushes the ship, he reports “It’s becoming critical, Captain. We can’t handle it.” The episode transcript ↗ renders it “Becoming critical, Captain. We can’t handle it.” Right character, right panic, different sentence.

“Beam me up, Scotty” same pattern

The same Wikiquote section ↗ records that this, too, was never said during the original series — the closest being “Scotty… beam us up” in “The Gamesters of Triskelion.” Both misquotes attach to Scotty, and both smooth real dialogue into something easier to remember.

What is actually said, on the bridge while Commodore Decker drives the Enterprise at the planet-killer, is “Deflector shields at full power. They can’t take much more of this” ↗ — and Spock says it. Scotty is not even in the room: he is aboard the wrecked Constellation with Kirk, splicing warp-drive control circuits.

Context

Why this one stuck

Scotty’s function on Star Trek was to stand between Kirk’s ambition and the laws of physics, and the writers gave him a steady supply of dialogue to that effect — warnings, refusals, repair estimates that Kirk then halved. None of it is the sentence the culture kept. What survived instead is a composite: a Scottish burr, a ship in distress, and a “Captain” tacked on the end.

Misquotes of this kind are less failures of memory than of compression. The public remembers a character’s job and invents a sentence tidy enough to carry it — which is why the remembered line is almost always cleaner than anything actually filmed. The real line is a flat technical status report about deflector shields, delivered by the least excitable officer aboard. The catchphrase is what that report sounds like after decades of parody.

A line everyone remembers — from an episode in which the man they credit for it is on another ship entirely.

Did the line originate somewhere else — a novel, an earlier draft?

Origination is the question that usually rescues a misquote: famous screen lines are often borrowed from the source novel and merely sharpened by the film. Not here. The honest answer is that the popular sentence originates nowhere traceable — it is not a tightened version of an earlier line, and it does not appear in any produced Star Trek episode or film, in any speaker’s mouth, in any form.

The episode it is most often traced to does have an origin story of its own, but it is not the line’s. Spinrad built “The Doomsday Machine” out of an unsold novelette; he told StarTrek.com ↗ he had “an early novelette, which wasn’t very good,” resembling both the Doomsday Machine story and Moby Dick. That novelette is the source of the episode’s premise, not of this dialogue.

One caution on authorship. In the same interview Spinrad notes the produced dialogue differed from his script — some was adjusted because William Windom rather than Robert Ryan was cast, and William Shatner had Spock lines trimmed during filming. The on-screen credit is Spinrad’s and he is the author of record; whether these exact words left his typewriter is not something the available record establishes, and this page does not claim it.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Resilience

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Star Trek: The Original Series — Misattributeden.wikiquote.org

The anchor source. Lists this exact line under Montgomery Scott in its Misattributed section, states nobody said it during the series, and identifies Spock’s “They can’t take much more of this” in “The Doomsday Machine” as the closest variation.
“The Doomsday Machine” — episode transcriptchakoteya.net

Full transcription of the 1967 episode. Contains the real line in context: Spock reporting the deflector shields to Commodore Decker, with Scotty elsewhere aboard the Constellation.
“Who Mourns for Adonais?” — episode transcriptchakoteya.net

Transcription containing Scotty’s nearest genuine equivalent: “Becoming critical, Captain. We can’t handle it.”
The Doomsday Machine (Star Trek: The Original Series)en.wikipedia.org

Episode record: written by Norman Spinrad, directed by Marc Daniels, first aired 20 October 1967, adapted from Spinrad’s rejected novelette “The Planet Eater.”
“Doomsday” & More With Norman Spinrad, Part 1startrek.com

Spinrad interview: the Moby-Dick-like novelette behind the episode, and his account of dialogue being altered in production — including Spock lines trimmed during filming.
Norman Spinraden.wikipedia.org

Biography of the credited writer: born 15 September 1940, American science-fiction author, and confirmation that he wrote the Hugo-nominated “The Doomsday Machine.”

The credited writer

Who actually wrote the real line

Norman Spinrad

b. 1940 · American science-fiction novelist, essayist & Star Trek teleplay writer

Norman Spinrad (born 15 September 1940) is an American science-fiction author, essayist and critic, known for novels that earned Hugo and Nebula nominations and the Prix Apollo. He was 27 when he wrote the teleplay for Star Trek’s “The Doomsday Machine” (1967), which he built from an unsold novelette and consciously modelled on Moby-Dick; the episode was nominated for a Hugo Award. He is the author of record for the real line — though, as he has said himself, some dialogue was altered during production, so which of the episode’s exact words are his is not something the record settles.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Norman Spinrad, “The Doomsday Machine,” Star Trek, season 2, episode 6, directed by Marc Daniels, aired October 20, 1967, on NBC. Dialogue confirmed against the episode transcript at chakoteya.net and against the Misattributed section of Wikiquote’s Star Trek: The Original Series page.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘She can't take much more of this, Captain!’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/she-cant-take-much-more-of-this-captain

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