A STAR TREK EPISODE WITHOUT CAPTAIN KIRK OR THE USS ENTERPRISE

 

Episode Title:  The Slaver Weapon

Air Date: 12/8/1973

Written by Larry Niven

Directed by Hal Sutherland

Cast: Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock        James Doohan  as Chuft Captain, Kzinti Telepath, Kzinti Flyer                      George Takei  as Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura     Majel Barrett as Slaver Weapon Computer

Ships: Copernicus NCC-1701/12, Traitor’s Claw

Planets: unnamed ice planet

My Spoiler filled summary and review: An away team consisting of Spock, Uhura, and Sulu are traveling in the shuttle craft Copernicus, which is a long-distance shuttle.  They are transporting a valuable item called a Slaver Box.   The box we are told is a relic from the Slaver Civilization, a power that once ruled and enslaved the galaxy billions of years ago.  The rebellion that overthrew it caused the end of intelligent life in the galaxy at that time until it evolved again.  The only thing left over are these boxes that are like time capsules only better. For what goes in a Slaver Box time stops.  If you put a ham sandwich into a box a million years later someone could open the box and eat it.  Since finding these boxes have often led to great discoveries, like improved anti-gravity, there is great importance placed in locating them.  However, unless you find one by accident, the only way to detect one is to have a box with you.  Today they think they might have found a new box thanks to the box that they have.

Cool new shuttle craft refit!

The team stops at an unnamed ice planet to where they believe this box to be located. However, it turns out to be a trap.  The three Starfleet officers are captured by the Kzinti and are imprisoned in their “web” that is basically a force field that surrounds a web design on the ground.  The Kzinti are cat-like race of aliens who first encountered humans at the end of the 21^st century and fought four wars with them.  The Kzinti lost all four wars and are now forbidden even to have weapons.  Now the must resort to treachery.  They are complete carnivores and view Vulcans with distain because they are vegetarians.  Humans as omnivores are only less disgusting.  Spock points out that they might underestimate Uhura because their own female population are just dumb animals. (I have more to say on that in the additional thoughts section.) Some of their species are telepathic and they usually have one on each of their crews.  However, the telepath can be thrown off if you focus your thoughts on eating vegetables. 

The Kzinti’s slaver box was empty so it was just really awesome storage unit that could also be used to lure someone else with a box in.  Opening Starfleet’s box, they find a picture of slaver (they were ugly), some fresh meat (good for them to eat), and a device that maybe a weapon.  The device changes shape per setting and it first does nothing really useful.  One setting deactivates all the technology allowing the Starfleet trio to escape.  Spock knocks over the Chuft Captain and takes the weapon.  This is a huge afront to the Chuft Captain’s honor to be hit by an herbivore.  The Chuft Captain remembers that human females are intelligent so they capture Uhura to use her as a hostage to set up a rematch with Spock and get back the weapon.

Nasty cats!

Spock and Sulu try to figure out the weapon, to which Sulu thinks it might have been used as device for intelligence officers given its many functions.  They find a setting that gives off a massive explosion.  It can give off enough power to put the Kzinti as the top power in this side of the galaxy.  They realize they can’t allow the Kzinit to have the weapon now, but it is too late as the vibrations from the explosion reach them knocking them down and unconscious.  Spock and Sulu join Uhura as prisoners again as the Chuft Captain tries to figure out the weapon.

Time to make an escape!

The Kzinit are having the hardest time finding the setting that the Starfleet officers had it on.  At one point the weapon has a reasoning computer phase. Spock begins to speculate that this might be the weapon’s own security mechanism.  When the Kzinit demand the setting their enemies just had it on, the shape it changes.  However, the new shape not the one Sulu and Spock saw earlier.  Instead, it’s a self-destruct mechanism that takes out the itself and the Kzinit.  As the three leave, they reminisce about a Kzinti legend about old weapons being haunted by their previous owners.

Slavers were ugly!

Additional thoughts: Well, here we have it, the first ever episode of Star Trek that had neither Captain Kirk nor the starship Enterprise anywhere to be found.  This wasn’t bad but I can’t say that I like it.  The only other time we didn’t have the Captain was in “The Cage” and the TV executives were so unhappy they almost dropped the series. It wasn’t until Kirk was added in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” that the show could begin.  But even in the first pilot we still got to have our starship Enterprise.  I think I speak for all of us when we say “no” to episode long shuttle craft adventures.  Shuttle craft are a tool not a story setting.  We should always have the Enterprise.

umm...lunch!

In the episode “The Paradise Syndrome” fans were introduced to the Preservers.  An ancient people who once ruled the Milky Way galaxy before the current groups of spacefaring powers (the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans) discovered faster-than-light travel.  They are long extinct and we don’t even know their real name.  The Federation calls them “the Preservers” because they come across their handiwork from time to time.  Species or cultures that were endangered were relocated to another M-class planet where they could thrive.  In this episode we learn there was an ancient race before them who the Federation calls “the Slavers.”  Guess why?  Apparently because they enslaved so many other intelligent beings in the galaxy.  It was so bad that a revolt happened that ended all intelligent life in the galaxy, until it evolved again.

Okay, this could be bad!

So, I guess the moral of the story is slavery is bad or slave revolts are bad.  It is one of those two.  It if is the later isn’t it just kind of weird?  I mean I suppose if I were living in the antebellum American South, I would be always in favor of a slave rebellion.  However, if such a rebellion would cause the extinction of the human species, I suppose that could turn me against it.  Let’s wait for a time to rebel where and when the whole human species won’t die. For such horrible slavers they did have some interesting technology.  However, given the size of boxes I think I would only use them for food storage.

So, the Kzinti women.  As there have been many patriarchal societies in real life, it is not strange to encounter them as we explore the universe.  However there seems to more here than simply a patriarchy.  For it is Spock that makes the claim that Kzinti women are unintelligent animals.  So, for a second let’s say Spock is 100% correct and under no possible misinterpretation.  How would such a species function?  You have one gender with human level intelligence and the other with the intelligence of a dog?  How are courting rituals done?  What do family structures look like?  It is the only thing I want to know about but the episode never addresses it.

Overall, this story was okay but it was just kind of weak.  It was good to see Sulu and Uhura given an opportunity to shine.

FINAL GRADE 3 of 5