THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE BY HUMANS

 

Film Title: The Wrath of Khan  

Air Date: 6/4/1982

Written by Harve Bennett and Jack B. Sowards

Directed by Nicholas Meyer

Cast: William Shatner as Rear Admiral James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Captain Spock             DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              James Doohan  as Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        George Takei  as Commander Hikaru Sulu              Nichelle Nichols as  Commander Nyota Uhura          Walter Koenig as Commander Pavel Chekov      Kirstie Alley as Lieutenant (junior grade) Saavik       Ike Eisenmann as Cadet First Class Peter Preston         Paul Winfield as Captain Clark Terrell       John Winston as Lieutenant Commander Kyle       Paul Kent as Commander Ralston "Stoney" Beach        Joel Marston as unnamed Chief Petty Officer      Bill Baker as unnamed Cadet          Steve Blalock as unnamed Cadet          Bobby Burns as unnamed Cadet           Gilbert B. Combs as unnamed Cadet                Richard Forinash as unnamed Cadet            Jim Painter as unnamed Cadet             Kimberly L. Ryusaki as unnamed Cadet             George Sasaki as unnamed Cadet            Philip Weyland as unnamed Cadet          Ricardo Montalban as Khan Noonien Singh           Judson Scott as Joachim      Laura Banks as Khan's unnamed Navigator     Steve Bond as Khan’s unnamed crewmember     Fletcher Bryant as Khan’s unnamed crewmember       Ann Chatterton as Khan’s unnamed crewmember     Brett Baxter Clark as Khan’s unnamed crewmember     Tim Culbertson  as Khan’s unnamed crewmember     John Gibson  as Khan’s unnamed crewmember     Dennis Landry as Khan’s unnamed crewmember       Cristian Letelier as Khan’s unnamed crewmember      Jeff McBride as Khan’s unnamed crewmember       Roger Menache as Khan’s unnamed crewmember      Nanci Rogers as Khan’s unnamed crewmember      Deney Terrio as Khan’s unnamed crewmember     Bibi Besch as Dr. Carol Marcus             Merritt Butrick as Dr. David Marcus         John Vargas as Dr. Jedda Adzhin-Dall         Russell Takaki as Dr. Vance Madison         Kevin Rodney Sullivan as Dr. Delwin March  Eddy Donno as unnamed Regula I Cook    Anthony Gordon             as Regula I Steward

Ships and Space Stations: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS Reliant NCC-1864, Space Station Regula I, unnamed shuttlecraft, SS Botany Bay  

Planets: Earth, Ceti Alpha V, and Regulas I 

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The adventure begins on the bridge of the Enterprise.  Where we see Starfleet officers who dressed better than Starfleet officer has before.  Although the bridge crew is familiar, we see not Captain Kirk but a young Vulcan woman in the center seat who wears the rank insignia of a lieutenant (j.g.).  The Enterprise receives a distress call from the freighter Kobayashi Maru. The ship is stuck in the Klingon Neutral Zone, she orders a rescue but when they arrive three Klingon K't'inga-class cruisers show up and blow them to bits.  It is at this point that we see this just a simulation. Lt. Saavik is a graduate student who is becoming a command focused officer.  Admiral Kirk is overseeing the simulation.  He has brief conversations with Saavik about the importance of facing death. 

The Admiral mentoring the young Lieutenant 

                Kirk talks to Spock thanking him for the birthday present, a hard copy classic edition of The Tale of Two Cities.  Kirk reads its famous first line.  They discuss the Kobayashi Maru test, and Spock points out that Kirk took the test three times with a unique result.  Later, McCoy stops by to give Kirk some Romulan Ale for his birthday along with a set of old-fashioned glasses since Kirk is allergic to the normal 23^rd century treatment.  McCoy urges Kirk to try to get command of a starship again. 

                Elsewhere the USS Reliant is searching for an uninhabitable planet to conduct a scientific experiment on.  The commanding officer is Captain Clark Terrell, and the first officer is none other than our favorite Russian, Commander Pavel Chekov.  He has come a long way since he was an ensign on the Enterprise. The planet they are exploring is Ceti Alpha VI, it is almost perfect except for one little thing that they noticed on a small sensor scan.  Terrell and Chekov contact Dr. Carol Marcus who is the lead scientist on the project.  Carol gives them permission to check out, but if it is so much of an indigenous microbe then it is over.  As the communication is cut the focus turns to Space Station Regula I, where the main research is being done.  Carol turns to her co-scientist and son, Dr. David Marcus.  He is concerned with what they are building, being perverted into an awful weapon.  Carol points out that not all Starfleet is bad, and Marcus makes a joke about her old boyfriend, Jim Kirk.

                Terrell, like Kirk, is very much a hands-on captain.  He beams down to the planet itself with only his first officer to accompany him.  They are in spacesuits, which is a good thing because the environment is not something they could survive without one.  They are about to give up their search when they come across what appears to be a crashed derelict vessel, which Terrell remarks looks like cargo carriers.  As they enter, they discover that it was clearly made for humanoids at least.  As Chekov looks at some books on the shelf titles such as King Lear, Moby Dick, Paradise Lost, and the Holy Bible.  He then sees a belt with the name SS Botany Bay.   Chekov then realizes what ship’s remains this is.  He tells the Captain they need to leave, but as they walk out they are captured.

This is not going well for the Captain and his First Officer

                The leader is the last to unmask.  He is Khan Noonien Singh, the 20^th century tyrant who at one point controlled a quarter of the Earth.  Khan recognizes Mr. Chekov and is a bit surprised that the Russian has failed to tell his new captain on what must have been one of his greatest adventures.  When the Enterprise found him and his fellow augments in cryo-freeze since 1996.  Khan goes on about being marooned by Kirk, briefly stopping to get over the shock that Kirk became an admiral. Chekov interrupts him pointing out that Kirk was his host and Khan tried to steal his ship and murder him.  He also challenged that Kirk had marooned them here, he points out that on Ceti Alpha V there was life and a chance.  That is when Khan shouts, “This IS Ceti Alpha V!”  He pointed out that six months after Kirk left them here Ceti Alpha VI exploded like Krypton.  However, unlike Krypton, that had a scientist place his only child in rocket to land on Earth and become Superman, Ceti Alpha VI’s explosion gave off a shockwave that altered the orbit of Ceti Alpha V. 

After explaining, it suddenly occurs to Khan, that they aren’t there for him.  He tells them this and demands to know the reason.   When they don’t cooperate, Khan decides to introduce them to Ceti Alpha V’s only remaining indigenous life from.  It was responsible for killing over twenty of his people including his wife.  A nasty sand burrowing creature whose young enter the ears of larger animals and wrap themselves up in the cerebral cortex making them extremely sensitive to suggestion.  After putting one in each officers’ helmet.  They put helmets back on and watch the creatures do their work.

Back in Earth’s orbit, Admiral Kirk and his party that consist of most of his former command staffers, are heading back to the Enterprise.   The old ship, instead of exploring new worlds, is in service as Starfleet Academy’s training vessel under the command of Captain Spock. Kirk’s job is to inspect and evaluate them.  Kirk has spent the whole previous day mourning about turning 50 and now he is about to embark on the same ship that he commanded through two five-year-missions, but now he is just a passenger getting ready to write a review.  

As they board Kirk is introduced to young Peter Preston, a cadet who is also Scotty’s nephew.  (Although that is never mentioned on screen.)  He admires Scotty’s drill of the student to have such a spotless inspection.  Kirk then heads to the bridge where he sees Captain Spock give Lt. Saavik the opportunity to lead the ship out of space dock.  She does well, it is as if we are watching the same scene from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This time they get into warp drive without encountering an artificial wormhole.  That’s a good thing because this movie doesn’t need one of those. 

Back on Space Station Regula I they receive a message from Commander Chekov on the Reliant. Chekov, under Khan’s control, tells them they need to be ready to transfer all Genesis materials to Reliant, when questioned who ordered it Chekov replied, “Admiral James T. Kirk.”  The researchers are infuriated Carol decides to reach out to Kirk.  However, the signal is blocked, Kirk can barely hear Carol and she can’t hear him at all.  She demands to know who is taking Genesis. 

We're here!

Starfleet wants this investigated and decides the Enterprise despite having a crew of mostly Starfleet cadets shall do that investigation. Kirk goes to tell Spock and the two of them haggle over which one of them should be in command of the ship.  It is decided that Kirk shall be, so they go to the bridge and announce it to the crew.  Afterward they decide they all should brush up on the Genesis project, so Kirk, Spock, and McCoy go to watch a video about the Genesis project.  It is an impressive video showing that it will be capable of.  The ability to take a dead planet and make it a living planet like Earth.  They are all impressed and McCoy is a little disturbed but while they are discussing it, they are alerted to the arrival of the USS Reliant.  

We are one big happy fleet!

Kirk and Spock arrive on the bridge, they see the vessel on the viewscreen and yet they are not communicating with them.  The scene shifts back and forth from the bridges of the Enterprise to the Reliant.  We see Khan’s crew is happy and eager to attack, even Joachim, who earlier tried to warn Khan about continuing his struggle with Kirk.  Khan is pleased to see that their subterfuge is working.  As the Enterprise crew is still trying to figure it out, Khan decides he has had enough and attacks.  The Reliant relentlessly pours its phasers into the Enterprise.  The attacks were right where they needed to hit for the Enterprise has been crippled in space.  If Khan wanted to kill Kirk now he could. However, he has other goals in mind and wants to discuss their surrender.

Khan and Kirk once again face to face!

Kirk is shocked to learn that Khan is once again his adversary.  After all, when they last saw each other, they were on pretty good terms.  Now to be fair Kirk was generous to him at first before and he tried control of the Enterprise, so maybe he shouldn’t be too shocked.  Let’s just say he wasn’t expecting it.  He tries to get Khan to explain but Khan isn’t interested, he wants Kirk to surrender himself and any information Kirk has on Genesis.  Kirk tries to play dumb, but Khan won’t fall for it, Kirk asks if he can look up the information and Khan gives him a minute.  Instead of sending over data on Genesis, Kirk sends the prefix code 16309.  This allows the Enterprise to lower the Reliant’s shields and give that ship a blast of her phaser banks.  Reliant is now damaged in both its weapons and warp capabilities. Joachim must convince Khan to retreat.

With the threat temporarily taken care of, they assess the damage, and it is great.  The ship is hobbled on emergency power, and worse is human casualties are mounting.  One of the dead is the young Preston, Scotty’s nephew.   Just when it seems like there is more death than they can handle the ship crawls on impulse to Space Station Regula I.  At the station they find most of the research team’s mangled corpses.  On the Enterprise they saw young men and women snuffed out in battle, here they were slowly tortured as their lives came to an end.  They do find some survivors: Captain Terrell and Commander Chekov.  Chekov tells his former captain what Khan had done to them and what he had done to the scientists who were here.  However, Kirk notices they are not all here, there are some missing. 

Killed in action!

They find a transporter pad still on as no one was left to shut it off.  Kirk uses his communicator to talk to Spock, unaware that Khan is listening in, Spock informs the Admiral that the Enterprise is going to take nearly a week to finish repairs. Kirk tells Spock that if they don’t hear back from him in that time, they are to leave without them as they will be dead. Kirk said that because the transporter was sent to the center of a dead moon, Kirk remembering the Genesis video recalls phase 2 of the experiment was to be conducted in a place like that.  Kirk decides to take a gamble and follow them there.

Look who we find!

The landing party find themselves in a corridor of some kind.  As soon as they materialize, they are attacked.  Kirk being the greatest fighter in the known galaxy whose speed and graze leaves all his opponents dazzled, he quickly defeats his opponent and demands to see Dr. Marcus and his opponent responds with “I am Dr. Marcus.” Kirk is shocked this man is his son and he is horrible at fighting. Carol shows up and Kirk tries to get confirmation that this horrible combatant is in fact his biological offspring.   This is when we see that Captain Terrell and Commander Chekov are still under the control of Khan as they draw their phasers.  David stupidly tries to rush them only to be saved by Saavik, but the action kills off a red shirt scientist instead. Khan order Terrell to kill Kirk but Terrell is still a Starfleet captain, and he puts up a resistance to cold blooded murder. He turns the phaser on himself wiping himself out of existence. Chekov then collapses as the creature that invaded his body tries to escape only to be blasted to death by Kirk.

So you want to see genesis!

Kirk grabs Terrell’s communicator and teases Khan about not being dead.  Khan transports the Genesis device to the Reliant.  Kirk continues to torment Khan about not yet getting him.  At this point Khan is probably tempted to go down there and finish Kirk, but he remembers that Kirk is the greatest fighter in the known galaxy whose speed and graze leaves all his opponents, including him, dazzled. The last time the two of them fought it did not go well for Khan.  The last thing he wants is for the Admiral to embarrass him in front of his men.  So, Khan pretends that trapping Kirk is what he always wanted to do and tells him such.

Now that they are left behind, they have plenty of time to talk.    Carol asks who Khan is but doesn’t get a straight answer.  Kirk explains to Saavik that he cheated on Kobayashi Maru test.  Carol shows off what Genesis is capable of, as she takes them to the center of the cavern that is like a tropical paradise.  To top it off they did it all in a day.  It is revealed that Kirk and Spock had been talking in code.  Repairing the ship was a matter of hours not days and they are ready to beam them up. 

As the landing party returns to the Enterprise sensor scans reveal that the Reliant is in better condition than they are.  Nearby, however, is the Mutara Nebula, if they were to enter it the conditions of the Nebula would make their shields and visuals useless.  Not normally a good thing but as Spock points out the odds will be even. As they head to the Nebula, Khan isn’t biting so Kirk calls him out on the subspace radio.  Khan, infuriated, flies into the Nebula after him despite warnings from his second-in-command. 

If Khan thought getting beaten by Kirk in “Space Seed” was embarrassing enough considering his greater physical strength, the superior intellect was going to be in for the worst day of his life trying to fight Kirk tactician to tactician.  As Spock points out it’s a game of two-dimensional thinking vs. three-dimensional thinking.  Although Khan will get one more good shot in, this will mostly be a one-way battle where the Enterprise rips the Reliant apart with its phasers and torpedoes. The Reliant has one of its warp nacelles blown off, most of the crew is dead, and Khan himself is severally injured.

 

Realizing that Kirk again has him beat Khan decides to end it all by activating the Genesis device.  The Enterprise detects it, and David lets them know that the Genesis wave will be able to destroy them.  The only way to escape is to warp out but the warp engines still aren’t functioning. To make matters worse, there is a radiation leak that is preventing anyone from accessing and repairing the damage.  Spock logically deducts that he could withstand the radiation long enough to effect repairs.  He heads down and is almost stopped by McCoy, but a quick nerve pinch solves that.  He then puts his hand to the Doctor’s face and says “remember.” 

Loser!

    

Spock makes the repairs, and the last Khan ever sees is the Enterprise warping away as the Genesis device destroys him and his ship.  Even though it’s not a planet, the Mutara Nebula begins to transform into a solar system with a new M class planet around it.  Krik is summoned to engineering where he is able to talk to Spock one last time before his friend dies.  Spock reminds him that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and that he will always be his friend.  He then dies and the whole ship mourns.  At the funeral, Kirk mentioned that of all the souls he had ever met, Spock’s was the most human. 

The loss of a legend!

The movie ends on the bridge of the Enterprise, Kirk pulls out The Tale of Two Cities, his birthday present from Spock, and reads its famous last line uttered by a character who gave his life for another.  Kirk, who began feeling old, tells his friends that he feels “young.”  The camera moves to the Genesis planet where Spock’s body lies, then back into space we hear the famous Star Trek phrase “Space the Final Frontier,” but the voice is not the traditional James Kirk’s but rather the voice of Mr. Spock.   

Additional thoughts: Guess which movie I just had to watch on January 1, 1996!  A great hero feeling his age and that time has passed him by, an archrival who was long-thought vanquished returns, epic naval space battle, the birth of a new world, and the death of legend.  Is it really any wonder why The Wrath of Khan is considered to be such a great film.  The type of film you want to watch so many times that you can quote all the dialogue along with the characters, and with such rich dialogue as this movie has it is so fun to do.  

Kirk getting the jump on Khan!

It is funny that at the end of The Motion Picture, after saving the Earth from V’ger the refitted Enterprise has its classical crew completely reunited and ready to begin a new five-year mission.  Then this movie gives about an eight-year time jump and now they are all relocated again.  Granted they mostly ended in the same space: teaching at Starfleet Academy, even the Enterprise itself is now assigned there.  The only person who finds himself elsewhere in the universe is Chekov, now first officer of the Reliant.   To be fair it was a time catch up in a way.  Ten years had gone by from the end of classic Star Trek and five years from the end of the Animated Series when The Motion Picture opened in theaters and yet Kirk in that movie stated that the original five-year mission had been over for about two years. So, if they were airing episodes from the third year of the mission during season 3 that means only four years went by in Star Trek’s time where ten years went by in ours.  Since “Space Seed” aired in 1967, and “The Wrath of Khan” was released in 1982 with Kirk claiming to have run into Khan “fifteen years ago” the timeline is now the same for both the fictional and real-life universes.  Still, it makes me grateful for the books that help fill in this gap.

Direct hit!

The uniforms in this movie are the best in the whole franchise.  I imagine the entire cast must have shown up to work every feeling pretty good knowing that they look so sharp.  Why couldn’t they always dress this good?  At least when they are in dress uniforms like in “Court Martial.”

This is a crew that knows how to dress!

I have made the decision that plot holes aren’t that big of a deal.  They only matter if the movie sucks.  If the movie is terrible, you notice the plot holes more but if the movie is great then the audience just ignores or forgets about them.  Think of the sudden drop off in the T-Rex pen in Jurassic Park, as Nedry would say “nobody cares.”  The Wrath of Khan has three popular plot holes in it and it’s still the best movie ever.  However, I am going to explain that two of these plot holes are not plot holes at all. 

Everyone knows this is awesome!

The first is the Chekov plot hole.  Ensign Chekov first appeared in the second season of the original series.  If you watch in the true production order than his first appearance is in “Catspaw.”  However, “Space Seed” was a season 1 episode.  So, Chekov never appeared in it and yet Khan recognizes him.  This however is the easiest thing to explain, clearly Chekov was serving in a different area of the ship before he transferred to the bridge.  Each episode is an hour long with commercials included and yet often episodes can take place over the course of days and sometimes as much as months. So, there is a lot of space and time to fill these tiny little plot holes with. 

So you don't care about this!

The second so called plot hole is: why didn’t the crew of the Reliant realize that one of the planets in the Ceti Alpha system was missing.  That is even easier to explain.  The thing is solar systems are huge.  You see a picture of them, and they look neat and orderly however if they were done exactly to scale and you made the sun the size of a small ball then Neptune would be almost a third of a mile away.  And that is not even taking into account the different orbits.  The distance between planets often changes.  The closest planet to Earth switches between Venus, Mars, and Mercury throughout the year.  Surprisingly enough Mercury is actually our closest neighbor most of the time. So, I can see how a starship heading towards coordinates where they expect a planet to be not to notice one is missing.

The scene where Kirk returns to the Enterprise and the scene where it is leaving space dock are both directly lifted from The Motion Picture.  I am completely okay with this as I suppose the Enterprise leaving space dock must look the same every single time.  So, it was a good budget saver. 

What was the regulation that Saavik was about to quote?  Was it “when approaching a fellow Starfleet ship where communication has not been established the captain should assume that the other vessel is in distress, and it must prepare to accept survivors?” I hope so, because if it was “when approaching another Starfleet ship where communication has not been established the captain should raise shields and go to red alert immediately” Kirk could very well be guilty of criminally negligent homicide multiple times over. 

The scene where Kirk sees Khan again for the first time is great.  You can feel Kirk’s shock.  The last time he saw Khan they were on reasonable terms.  It kind of reminds me of the 1990s comic series “The Reign of the Supermen” (spoiler warning) where Superman learns the top adversary was Hank Henshaw, he is floored because the last time he saw him they were on good terms.  Nevertheless, Kirk overcomes his shock and uses the prefix code trick.  That was a pretty cool trick.  

Superman was as surprised as Kirk in this issue.

Poor Scotty, he is in such shock over his nephew’s injuries he brings him to the bridge and not sickbay.  At least he and his crewmates died quick and cleanly as opposed to the poor folks on Regula One who got slowly tortured to death.  Ricardo Montalban was right when he said he couldn’t play the same character.  Khan changed a lot since “Space Seed” and is now an utter madman. 

Captain Terrell turns to Kirk and says, “He blames you for the death of his wife.”  Kirk responds with, “I know what he blames me for.”  No, he doesn’t.  His response should be, “what McGivers is dead?  What happened?  Why does Khan blame me for it?  What is he so upset about?”  There seems to be some missing dialogue somewhere.

It was hard for fans to learn that Kirk is a deadbeat dad.  The makes McCoy’s decision to try to get Kirk to be Charlie X’s mentor really bad in hindsight.  Shame on both parents because Carol encouraged it.  David needed his dad.  It’s clear because he loves to fight but doesn’t know how.  Your dad is the greatest fighter in the known universe, and you can’t fight your way out of wet paper bag.  How exactly did David not know who his father was?  What did his mother do when he asked this question?

Why didn’t the ear slug thing kill Chekov?  Wasn’t that the final stop with this thing.  That is some powerful plot armor protecting everyone’s favorite Russian.  Saavik claims that Kirk faced death, but he has twice, he only cheated on this third go at the Kobayashi Maru. How come Carol has never heard of Khan?  Or has she and she just hasn’t put two and two together.  If I met a person named Napoleon, I wouldn’t assume he was THE Napoleon.

In the beginning we see a chess game in the Botany Bay wreck.  However, we always see Kirk play 3-d chess with Spock and the battle in the Nebula shows why that was such a big deal.  Cold Space may be a good place for revenge, but you need to think 3-dimensionally, or you will be done in short order. 

When Khan started the Genesis device why couldn’t they have blown it up with torpedoes?  I assumed it was kind of like a nuclear weapon if you destroy externally then it won’t go nuclear.  I guess firing on the Genesis device would make the wave come earlier?

Instead of running away try to blow it up!

We come to the last plot hole and the only real plot hole.  We were told the Genesis device was to be fired on dead world, the Reliant was going around looking for the dead world.  Yet the Reliant became the dead world because apparently you can use it to make a planet out of a starship that is in a nebula.  The planet forms out of nowhere and the nebula also forms a star system for the new planet to orbit.  When I was a kid, I imagined the Reliant hit to warp with a single nacelle and hit a planet, but that clearly didn’t happen.  They probably should have done that it is almost like the author wrote himself into a corner.

The biggest event of the movie of course is the death of the noble Spock.  His sacrifice was logical, and he point out not a sacrifice because he would have died either way if the ship had been destroyed.  His death is certain but he can act in his final moment to ensure the ship he served on and the friends he served with would be allowed to live.  He was even allowed a few additional moments to explain this to Admiral Kirk.  If this was his final moments, they were certainly worthy of being so.  Rest in peace, Mr. Spock.  

  After Spock’s death we had a funeral on the ship.  This makes me think we had a lot of people die on this mission; did they all get funerals like this?  Or was it just Spock since he was the big hero who saved the day?  Maybe the other funerals were smaller more private affairs, or maybe they had one big funeral for all the people who died on ship and let their families do a private one later.  Sending him out to space.  Shouldn’t they contact Sarek and Amanda to see what they wanted, since he is their son?  Did they fire all their dead crew into space?  There might have been a more pragmatic reason to send Spock’s body off into space: he must have been quite radioactive.  Maybe incasing his body in a torpedo tube and sending him off to space was the best way to keep everyone else safe.  McCoy says he is not truly gone so long as they remember him.  McCoy should remember he is not truly gone because there is a giant Spock clone who lives on Phylos.

In closing as the title says this is the greatest movie ever created by humans.  One day an advanced artificial intelligence may give us a better one but that is unlikely.  What is certain is that humans never will.  I don’t know if the writers, director, film crew, and cast realized as they were making this movie that they were accomplishing the ultimate in human cinematic achievement but that is what they had accomplished.  For over forty years now movies that were made could only shoot for the slot of 2^nd greatest movie ever made by humans for the debate for #1 was over before I knew how to talk.  That might seem unfair but that is how the universe sometimes is.  

 

FINAL GRADE 5 of 5

WE SEE NO STARS

 

Name: The Abode of Life

Author: Lee Correy

Publication Date: 5/1982

Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #6)

Page Number: 207

Historian’s Note:  Given the events mentioned in the book this story takes place sometime after the episode “A Private Little War.” Most likely it takes place sometime between season 2 and season 3 of classic Star Trek.

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk       Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”       Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura              Lieutenant Kyle           Lieutenant Patten                    Lieutenant Gordon            Dr. Joseph M'Benga        Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Yeoman First Class Janice Rand             Noal       Orun     Othol       Pallar         Parna

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets: Mercan

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise has a rather routine mission exploring the gravitational anomalies in the Orion Arm.  They are trying to stay one step ahead of the Klingons in case there are worlds available for colonization. Suddenly one of the anomalies erupts in an unexpected manner causing the Enterprise to fly uncontrollably hundreds of parsecs away.  This does massive damage to the ship’s warp engines.  The damage is too extensive, and they won’t be able to fix it without a Starbase or some other help.  They look around to find they are in a strange solar system.  There is only one planet and the radiation from the star makes it so the planet’s inhabitants would not be able to see any stars outside of their own.

Finding a lost world

It now seems hopeless that any significantly advanced civilization is there to help them.  There doesn’t seem to be any transportation system nor communications network.  However, looks can be deceiving.  Upon closer examination it appears these people with their starless night have no need for starships, but they have built transporters similar to many warp capable species.  Maybe these are advanced like us after all?  Kirk decides to form a landing party and to go find out.  The landing party consists of the Captain, Scotty, Rand, McCoy, and some security officers.

Finding their way on a strange world

When they beam down to the planet, they run into a group of people called the Technic.  At first Kirk thinks that is what they mean by “engineer”, so he tries to present Scotty as one.  These people are very tall and have gold skin, so they find the Enterprise landing party’s appearance strange.  It turns out “Technic” is a group in rebellion against established authority.  The enforcement arm of that authority, the Proctors, show up an arrest the landing party and the one Technic who didn’t run away, Orun.  They are brought before a third group called the Guardians, who are the authority on this planet. 

They reach the Guardians quickly due to the planet’s transporter system.  It seems to be better than Starfleet’s.  Every member in their society carries a device that allows them to transport anywhere on the surface in an instant.  This works so well that they have no automobiles, planes, ships, or trains, for they have no need of them. They also don’t have any sort of communication system as anyone can just beam to someone they need to talk to.  It is a world without distance.

Everyone seems very polite, and the landing party soon notices why.  Every individual they can see is carrying a side arm.  Dueling in a quick draw is a thing on this planet.  Kirk introduces himself and the landing party as visitors from another world.  The Guardians are polite and withdraw to confer with themselves.  Left alone with Orun, the Technic explains many things about the local culture to the landing party.  He tells them that his people are on this planet as the Abode of Life, a place where life was brought from a tiny sliver of space they can sometimes see in their sky.  This planet is the only place where life can exist so it’s special.  The Technic are a group of people who started to challenge the general narrative.  He also explains their gun culture and lets them know if they want to have people’s respect then they will need to open carry as well.  They get arms and open carry over McCoy’s objection.  They also get a genetic sample up to the ship. It turns out they are related to a number of species that the Federation is aware of, including Vulcans.

The Guardians return and declare that the members of the Enterprise landing party are all Technic genetic creations.  They will do an experiment on some of them by forcing them to face the ordeal out on the service.  “The Ordeal” is when the sun goes through its strange flares baking the system with extra radiation.  The Guardians came to power based on their ability to predict these things and have taken precautions for them.  The landing party naturally doesn’t want to be made experiments, so they escape, which wasn’t hard because they weren’t really being held.  They find more members of the Technic who are more friendly than the Guardians.  However, the Guardians have followed. Kirk orders Spock to beam down so he can prove they aren’t from this planet, but the Guardians think it’s another Technic trick, so Kirk does an emergency beam out and the landing party, with the Technic allies, are sent to the Enterprise.

Everyone required to pack heat. 

 It turns out the crew of the Enterprise are not so likely to survive the sun’s ordeal.  Spock discovers that they could fix everything with two well-placed photon torpedoes.  If it works not only, will it save them now, but it will save the planet Mercan from ever having “The Ordeal” ever again.  This would mean a big change to their culture.  Worse, if they screw this up it could lead to the destruction of the solar system.     Kirk decides it’s worth the risk and they do it.  It works and now they must decide what to do next.

Enterprise must host diplomatic function

Kirk decides that the three powers on this planet must talk and that he would be willing to host, with the Prime Directive already shattered, they might as well go all the way.  The Proctors and the Technic are willing, but the Guardians are being pig-headed about it.  It takes a phaser fight and some communicator use, but eventually the Guardians agree.  This is where things get hard for Kirk.  Kirk just wants to host the meeting, but all three groups ask for the Enterprise crew to take a much more active role.  Kirk tolerates he and his officers serving as advisers to the three groups.  In the remarkable short time of ten days the Mercans have completed the planet-wide constitution called “The Enterprise Agreement.”  All three groups agree to share power and alter traditional doctrine to acknowledge other life in the universe.  The Technics aid the Enterprise in their repairs.  Federation xenobiologists have been assigned for the second contact, and Mercan people are looking forward to joining the Federation soon.

Additional thoughts: This was one of the first two Star Trek books that I ever bought.  The other one being “The Disinherited.” I bought them when I was eleven years old at Boarders bookstore located in the Windham Mall in my hometown of Windham, Maine on May 2, 1992.  I know the exact date because on the back of the front cover I signed my name, put in my address, phone number and dated it. You know in case I lost it and you found it, you could mail it back to me and call me ahead of time to let me know what you did.  The reason I picked the two that I did is I was rather drawn to their striking covers. Both were eye catching and stimulated the imagination. 

Not the one but close enough!

This was a fascinating story and probably one of the best “Prime Directive” debates.  Most Prime Directive debates involve “General Order Number One: Good or Bad.”  This one takes a much more nuanced view and asks: are we always judging whether to make first contact based on the correct reason?  As most fans know there are two levels to the Prime Directive. The first (although listed second) is no interference in the internal affairs of others.  Are the Romulans having a civil war, and do you like one side more than the other?  Too bad, the people of the Federation don’t get to decide the fate of the Romulans only the Romulans can.  Now if the Romulans were attacked by Omne and they requested help that is different.  The second part (but listed first) of the Prime Directive is its most stringent.  It was first spelled out in the episode “Bread and Circuses.” 

a) No identification of self or mission.

b) No interference with the social, cultural, or technological development of said planet.

c) No reference to space, other worlds, or advanced civilizations.

The level of development that a species/culture needs to achieve in order for the Federation to establish diplomatic relations is warp drive.  That is usually a good standard, but in this case a planet whose people can’t see the stars will have people who have no motive to attempt space travel.  Yet, they developed a superior transporter system to the Federation, and they have matter/antimatter power plants.  With that in mind, should Captain Kirk try to establish relations?  He decides yes but he realizes Starfleet might not agree with his logic. 

I do I have an issue with the whole “fixing the sun thing.”  Not that they did but how they went about it.  The situation was the sun’s ordeal was going to put the crew at risk of death.  Not guaranteed death, but clearly a likely death.  They had a chance to save themselves by fixing the sun and it would benefit the people on the planet.  However, if they messed up, they all might die, including everyone on the planet.  I don’t feel they had a right to make that decision for those people.  Instead, they should have just taken the risk themselves.  It reminds me of the end of the first season of Flash, where Team Flash of STAR Labs are helping Barry go back in time to save his mom but along the way they discover there is a chance that doing so would open up black hole on the Earth and kill everyone.  They then say, “well Barry deserves this because of all the times he saved people.”  Saving thousands does not give you the right to gamble the lives of billions.  I would have felt better if they presented the sun’s problems as ultimately going to kill the people of the planet if they don’t act.  The heroes in this moment don’t act like heroes. 

Origin of Starfleet

Similar in many ways!

I thought it was interesting when Spock and Kirk were talking about history and Kirk not wanting to accidentally become a conquistador.  My favorite part was when they explained that Starfleet was based on the United States Coast Guard. This makes a lot of sense when you think about it.  That organization has a command structure similar to the Navy and they also have a law enforcement arm to it.  Kirk’s actions in "Mudd’s Women" shows Captain Kirk in a law enforcement type role.

This book takes place during Classic Star Trek.  However, this book came out a year after “The Motion Picture.” I love how the author uses that to his advantage such as when Kirk and Spock are talking about how to deal with conflicting emotions, Spock references Vulcans who try to undergo Kolinahr.  Spock then expresses his desire to someday do that.  Which is a great little foreshadowing to Spock’s actual actions in the first film. 

There is a minor error at the end of the book.  It’s not that big of a deal but I found it annoying. Kirk twice refers to Spock’s rank as “Lieutenant Commander.” The problem is this story clearly takes place sometime past the middle of the second season.  This means Spock is now a full commander not a lieutenant commander.  What is weird is the author gets it right through most of the book.  Now it is typical to refer to a lieutenant commander as “commander” but when Kirk is noting his Captain’s Log he refers to both his first officer and chief engineer as “Commander Spock and Lt. Commander Scott.”  So it appears Spock’s correct title is being used here.  So, I view the error in the last few chapters as lazy editing.

 I like McCoy’s pep talk in the end to Kirk.  Where he tells the Captain that he should not think of himself as a conquistador rather as the second coming of Commodore Matthew Perry.  

Should it be canon: Yes, I don’t see why not.  It is a self-contained story that doesn’t conflict any standing canon.  It would be a great addition to canonical adventures in Star Trek.

Cover Art: The cover art is very beautiful and as I mentioned earlier it caught my eye and triggered my then-11-year-old imagination.  The Enterprise hangs in the sky over a mountain range. Kirk and Spock are on the ground in identical uniforms with no rank insignia, but the Star Trek delta is seen clearly on Kirk’s shirt. Kirk is holding a type of phaser.  As nice as the image is it is a complete lie.  Based on the uniforms and especially the Enterprise in post-retrofit state make it seem that this story takes place after “The Motion Picture.”  It doesn’t.  It clearly takes place sometime after the middle of the second season and before the third season of classic Star Trek. 

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5