Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 – Story 3 “The
Patient Parasites”
Author: Russell Bates
Publication Date: 1/1978
Publisher: Bantam Books
Page Number: 40
Historian’s Note: Sometime after The Second Season of the Animated Series
Cast of Characters: Captain James T. Kirk Commander
Spock Dr. Leonard H. McCoy
AKA “Bones” Lieutenant
Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”
Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu A number of unnamed crewman
Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: unnamed barren planet
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise
has uncovered a strange energy source coming from this barren planet. Since they are here to explore the unknown,
they go to check it out. Although not good for long-term survival, the planet’s
air is breathable. Captain Kirk sends a
landing party down lead by Spock with Sulu and a number of unnamed security
personnel as well. This turns out to be
a bad idea for they find that the energy that drew them here has turned now a
massive energy cloud, and as they get close the energy cloud suddenly expands
to envelop the landing party.
Having failed to beam the landing party up, Kirk leads a new landing party down to the planet. They find their missing crew mates trapped in a construct contained in this energy field with their minds, according to the tricorder, in a state of flux. Using their phasers, they are able to free Spock and Sulu but not the others. Considering these are red shirts to most fans it will seem their fate is sealed.
 |
| Landing party quickly captured! |
Then it
is revealed that the construct is an artificial intelligence called the
Finder. Its creators sent the Finder and
others like it to search the universe for technology. This finder’s personal mission is to locate a
design for faster than life travel. It
is designed to capture those who may have this technology and transfer their
minds back to the Finder’s creators.
That is what it intends for those still within the forcefield. It is not
the most efficient way of producing technology however the Finder’s masters’
culture teaches them that patience is a virtue and good things come to those
who wait.
What
the Finder doesn’t know is it is going up against James T. Kirk, the Bane of
All Artificial Intelligence. The Finder
was doomed the moment this encounter happened. It’s already dead it just
doesn’t realize it yet.
 |
| This crew can take down anything AI |
After
the senior officers all talk it over, they conclude that the Finder’s creators
were a bunch of space parasites. They
don’t invent anything they just try to steal it from others. This makes them dangerous, and Mr. Spock goes
so far to suggest they may have to sacrifice the crewmen captured to prevent
it. McCoy’s horrified but he has
forgotten that red shirts usually die.
Sulu
suggested they look for its power source and that plan panned out. Realizing that the Finder is tapping into the
sun for a power source, the Enterprise cause an artificial solar
eclipse. The Finder however adjusted to this trick by tapping directly into the
Enterprise. Kirk orders Scotty to
cut the ship’s power long enough to disable the Finder’s abilities. During this time Mr. Spock finds something
interesting, the Finder’s creators were a people called the Tullvans. The most interesting thing about them is that
they went extinct over 1800 years ago.
So, if the Finder tries to send minds over space there won’t be anyone
on the receiving end.
Kirk
now has the information he needs to kill this AI. He lets the Finder know his
origins and as expected the Finder now wants to die. While it is dying, the
Finder releases the redshirts, so no redshirt is sacrificed today. They all
head back to the Enterprise and onto their next adventure.
Additional thoughts: This story was originally
attended to be an episode for Star Trek: The Animated Series. It was rejected
because it didn’t “make use of the potential in animation” enough, what ever
that means. Mr. Bates would get an
episode made which would be “How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth” in the show’s
second and final season.
This
would have been a fine episode and uses many traditional Star Trek
troupes. They are fighting and
artificial intelligence that one point almost pulls the Enterprise out
of the sky, which we have seen before in both “The Return of the Archons” and
“The Apple.” McCoy and Spock fight about
many things. The ship is threatened by a
civilization that no longer exists. Both Mr. Sulu and Mr. Scott contribute in
critical moments. Kirk talks a machine
into killing itself. Most importantly
for the “anti-woke how dare Star Trek have politics in it crowd,” there are no
female characters in it so no woman could possibly do anything. (That last
sentence was called sarcasm for those who might be reading this but are not
smart enough figure that out. I know most of you are smart enough but there are
always the occasional fools.) Finally,
the episode did forget to have the redshirts die, but every now and again Kirk and
crew should be able to save them.
 |
| Nowhere to be found! |
Should it be canon: I see no reason it shouldn’t
be. It was written by an actual Star
Trek writer to be an episode. It
definitely fits the lore.
Cover Art: What I said after the first story:
The cover has the Enterprise flying in front of what appears to be a wrecked space station. Both appear to be in orbit around a planet that you can see part of in the corner. There is this red haze that surrounds everything.
Final Grade: Final Grade 3 of 5
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