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Name: Planet of Judgment
Authors: Joe Haldeman
Publication Date: 8/1977
Publisher: Bantam Books
Page Number: 151
Historian’s Note:
Sometime between The Counter-clock Incident and The Motion Picture
Cast of Characters: Captain James T. Kirk Commander
Spock Dr. Leonard H. McCoy
AKA “Bones” Lieutenant
Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”
Lieutenant Commander Andre Charvat Lieutenant
Hikaru Sulu
Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Lieutenant Sharon Follett
Lieutenant Hevelin Lieutenant Bill Hixon Nurse Christine Chapel Ensign Pavel Chekov Ensign Bish Davoff Ensign Frost Ensign Octavio Hernandez Ensign Alan Huff Ensign Bill Johnson Ensign Sikh Ensign Rosaly Ybarra Crewman
Mark Moore Dr. James Atheling Captain Mohammed Tafari Lieutenant Tabakow Crewman Delacroix The Arivne main voice Irapina (three representatives)
Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS
Lysander NCC-540, five unnamed shuttlecrafts
Planets: Anomaly
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise
is transporting Dr. James Atheling to take over the science department at
Starfleet Academy. In his short stay,
Dr. Atheling, has become something of a celebrity among Spock’s
department. While on their way the ship
encounters a rouge planet. A rouge
planet is a planet flying through space attached to no solar system. Yet, this one is out right bizarre. For it has an Earth-like atmosphere. It also seems to be orbiting a black hole as
its “sun” despite the fact that such a system should be impossible. Since their primary mission is to explore
strange new worlds, Kirk decides to take a detour and explore this little
world.
They plan to transport to the service but when Kirk has his landing party available it is discovered that the transporter, for some reason, is not working. So, the Captain instructs Scotty and his engineers to get to work on the transporters in the meantime he will take his party to the surface via shuttlecraft. They take a shuttlecraft to the surface and while the trip was fine the landing party discovers as soon as they land that the shuttlecraft suddenly stopped working. The engine is off and the communication system is out. As far as their individual equipment goes everything but the communicators are working.
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| Shuttle stuck on the ground |
With the landing party not
communicating with the ship, it made Mr. Spock wonder if his they were still
alive. This is kind of extreme scenario
to jump to as there may be many things keeping the landing party from
communicating however Spock says that would be the most logical. They find the shuttle on the planet but the
sensors do not indicate any life forms. Spock sends a security team on a second
shuttle and when as soon as they touch down the Enterprise loses all
contact with them. Spock decides that instead of having just two shuttles
trapped on the planet he might as well have all five. He organizes a much
larger landing party to make use of the three shuttles. He decides to lead the
mission himself and leaves Scotty in command of the Enterprise. Spock
orders the Chief Engineer to take the ship to the Academy planet for support if
they are unable to maintain contact. (We learn that Starfleet Academy has a
whole planetary campus that we never heard about, more on that later.) With that the three shuttles leave the Enterprise
and head down to the planet.
Now with all shuttles down on the planet and stuck the combined landing parties organize and form a perimeter to best defend themselves against whatever might be out there. The team is caught between the Prime Directive and its own survival. Among the landing party is Dr. James Atheling. It turns out the Academy professor is actually a commodore in the Starfleet reserves, and pulled rank to go on the mission. Kirk sends out scouting teams to search for food in case they run out of rations. Over the next two days however they lose two crewmen. They discover that the native life forms, who were responsible for one crewman’s death, have hair all over their bodies and they don’t have anything that looks like eyes or ears. Their mouths have no tongue their hands have four long fingers. However, things really hit the fan when Lt. Bill Hixon gets attacked and begins to physically transform into one of the planet’s native inhabitants. When they find him his eyes and ears are missing, but he has gained the ability to communicate telepathically. Everyone in the landing party is horrified by what happened except for Nixon himself. The mutated human seems to think the changes are great and he is better for them. I almost wanted to say “where we’re going, we don’t need eyes to see” but that is in a different science fiction story.
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| Going to the rescue |
They learn from the mutated comrade they learn that the people who live on this planet are the Arivne. (Arivne is actual a Vulcan term but these people think term explains them so they adopt it.) The Arivne want to test their visitors but they do not clarify the reason. Then through some unknown power they are able to transport all those of the landing party and the shuttlecrafts back onto the Enterprise. The only people they keep are the science and medical officers. When the remaining party realizes that their companions and transports are going, McCoy accuses them of murder. The Arivne explain what they actually did and begin their tests. They force the remaining party to relieve some of their most unpleasant memories. Spock relives the events of “Amok Time,” McCoy relives the day his wife and child left him and he decided to join Starfleet in response, Atheling revives a moment of guilt when cheated in college, and the others also experience equally unpleasant things.
Back on the ship the crew is
relieved to have its Captain back no matter how strange it is, but they want to
know what the Arivne plan to do with their missing colleagues. Lt. Uhura also discovers that the Enterprise
is repeatedly sending out a message to Starfleet designed to look like it comes
from Captain Kirk. The message states
that they have encounter a virus that has wiped out a third of their crew, and
caused the survivors to hallucinate. The
message was so convincing that for a moment they wondered if maybe they were
hallucinating and did an attendance check to find out that the crew who were
listed as dead were actually alive. Kirk then orders the Enterprise to
return to the Anomaly planet.
At this point the Arivne confess to
the remaining Starfleet crew. They are
aware of a malevolent alien race bent on conquest called the Irapina. These nasty creatures are insectoids whose
elite rulers use the lower classes for involuntary organ donation to make
themselves immortal. The Arivne became
aware of them do to their extreme telepathic powers, and were able to
communicate. At first the Arivne were hopeful that Irapina would just ignore
them and instead conqueror the rest of the Alpha Quadrant. However, the more
they “talked” to them the Arvine came to the conclusion that they could not
trust the Irapina at to leave them alone.
So, they decided to scare them off by telling them of the Federation. In order to scare the Irapina, they built up
the Federation to be far powerful than it actually is. The Irapina now want to test in contest wills
the Federation and their Starfleet officers.
The Enterprise’s trip to the
Anomaly planet is delayed when they are stopped by the USS Lysander. The Lysander has been ordered to bring
the Enterprise in. Not wanting to
fire on a Federation starship, Kirk surrenders.
That is when the Arvine arrive, they now want the Enterprise back,
so they let Captain Tafari of the Lysander know
the truth of the matter and demonstrate their abilities to alter perceived reality. Tafari agrees to let the Enterprise go
with the understand that he and Kirk will need to be witnesses in each other’s
court-martial.
Not being patient, the Arvine use their powers to bring Kirk back to the planet before his ship can get there. They sent everyone else back but quickly recalled McCoy because he was needed. The Irapina has sent three representatives to perform in the challenges. It turns out these challenges take place on a plane of illusion where all six members were put into a trance and their minds were linked in a simulation. McCoy’s simulated competition was a poker game. Despite all the normal rules being ignored McCoy wins and his opponent is killed by his other two comrades. Kirk and Spock compete with their opponents at the same time but on different fields. Kirk is a battle of old wooden ships on the high seas. (Since Kirk is based off Horatio Hornblower, I wonder if this is an intended easter egg by the author.) Spock is completing with science knowledge. The Irapina are cheating but Kirk and Spock beat them anyway.
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| Kirk fighting in a different type of enviroment than he is used to. 1743 oil panting by Samuel Scott |
The Irapina end the simulation and
attack them in real life. However, the
bugs learn that Captain Kirk is greatest fighter in the known universe whose
skills always leave his opponents spell bound.
Spock is not a bad fighter, either. In addition, the Arvine augmented the
strength of the two officers, allowing Kirk and Spock to throw entire trees at
their opponents.
The Irapina gave up. They decided that when they get to this
sector of space, they will go an invade the Romulans instead because the
Federation was far too dangerous an opponent.
With that it was time for the crew of the Enterprise to
leave. As they left the Arvine removed
from Enterprise’s computer banks the location of the Anomaly planet.
So that in the future they will be left alone.
Additional thoughts: When I first read the back cover to this story, I thought we were going to get something similar to “Shore Leave.” I like “Shore Leave” nevertheless I was pleased that this book was nothing like that. I thought the claim from the back cover of “Never before had their systems, instruments and weapons failed to respond” as false. I can think of a number of times that has happened for different reasons. However, since I started this blog to begin my own personal re-journey through the franchise of Star Trek, this story is much better written than all the ones that preceded it. I have read a number of Star Trek books so I know this won’t remain the case as this journey goes on but it is my favorite one reviewed so far.
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| A very different adventure |
I like the use of both Star Trek’s
actual past in the series as well as making new content to tell the story. When the Arvine were making the landing party
relive their past, is the best example.
Spock was forced to go the memory of getting rejected by T’Pring, having
the challenge issued, and the battle where Spock thought he killed Kirk. Haldeman’s description gives the reader a
“re-watch” of “Amok Time,” but there are added parts as well. Such as Spock’s internal thoughts on the
matter of the rejection. The challenge
is viewed as old fashioned even though it is still law. Most Vulcans who don’t want to marry their
parents’ choice usually go through the ceremony and get an annulment
later. However, the annulment is a
shameful embarrassment to both families but it is still better than the
challenge. Here the reader can see how
deep this rejection really was to Mr. Spock.
The only thing I didn’t like was the added dialogue. In this re-telling T’Pau tells T’Pring that once this marriage is complete, she will be like chattel to the winner, with no rights at all. This baloney Vulcan society does not treat its women like that. They are equals. Now, in the episode it did say she would be the “property” of the winner. I never took that to mean in the literal sense. I always assume it was just some vestige term from a time Vulcan had a more patriarchal society. Like “the father ‘giving’ his daughter away” in Western society. It meant something different along time ago, but nowadays it is just a loving tradition between father and daughter not a property exchange. However, T’Pau’s new dialogue rejects my interpretation and hammers home the woman-as-property status.
McCoy’s trip to the past made him
relive the day his wife and daughter left him.
McCoy’s work obsession kept him at the hospital so long that his
marriage fell apart. Once dumped he finds an ad for Starfleet medical
officers. It was some nice background
into one of Star Trek’s most popular characters and I enjoyed it.
I thought what the author did with
the other characters was interesting too.
Lt. Follett re-living her decision to get an abortion so she wouldn’t
have to postpone a career in Starfleet was a daring decision. Roe v. Wade was only four years old when this
book came out, and the author chooses to include but not make that big of a
deal. By the 23rd century a
woman’s right to body autonomy is a given.
Too bad that is not true in the 21st century.
Modern Star Trek fans might find a
bit of a shock that prior to Star Trek IV it was common to hear Starfleet
officers to talk about money. Dr.
Atheling talked about how he used to have to work in order to cover expenses
that his scholarships weren’t paying. It
had its benefits because it allowed him to cheat on an exam.
I also enjoyed when they went for a
second round of bad memories, Spock had a moment where he was rejected by his
human cousins, who tried to frame him for something they did. This ended the relationship of Amanda and her
sister.
I though the Arvine reminded me of the Talosians. They had similar powers and they needed the less evolved species to help them do something they could not. Unlike the Talosians, the Arvine were also highly intelligent. I do like when it was mentioned that the Arvine tried to contact the Organians for help.
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| The Arvine just as powerful and more intelligent than these three! |
So, Starfleet Academy has its own
planet? Why? So, they have a San
Francisco campus and a second campus that takes up an entire planet. If you
have a planetary campus then what do you need the smaller one for? Not to
mention the massive distance between the two would make the set-up seem
improbable.
Lastly, I want to talk about Kirk’s
willing surrender to Captain Tafari of the Lysander. This is such a difference from the
traditional Star Trek troupe of defying any order that the characters think is
wrong. In a typical story Kirk would have been “sorry I know my friends are in
danger, I can’t let you stop me.” And he
might even go so far to engage in battle with the other vessel to the point of
crippling it. Afterwards they would just
ask for forgiveness that they always seemed to receive off screen. In this little story once Kirk realizes that
Tafari’s orders of genuine he just complies.
There is even no sign in Kirk’s internal monologue about breaking free
and getting back to the Anomaly planet.
Should it be canon: I would have no problem having
this story as official canon in Star Trek lore. It fits all my normal
standards. Like most episodes of the
classic series, the book is a self-contained adventure, where everything has
returned to the status quo for all the main characters. No major event or
discovery effects any of the traditional alien cultures such as the Vulcans,
Klingons, or Romulans. There are some
continuity conflicts such as the book’s instance that Starfleet Academy has its
own planet. I don’t see these being any different than the many later
contradicted statements in the original series.
Cover Art: The cover features the USS Enterprise as
seen from slightly below the port side. The ship appears to be flying over some
skyscrapers. The viewer cannot see much
below the skyscrapers because of clouds that obscure it. Behind the starship is a moon. Overall, it’s a striking image.
Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5
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