Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 – Story 8 “The Sleeping
God”
Author: Jesco von Puttkamer
Publication Date: 1/1978
Publisher: Bantam Books
Page Number: 51
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 Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Lieutenant Endercott Nurse Christine Chapel Ensign Pavel Chekov Admiral Olaf Sondergaard Manda-Rao Signa Nagha
Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701,
Columbus NCC-1701/2, unnamed Nagha sphere ship
Planets: Raga’s Planet, Nagha-Planet
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The adventure
(and most sections of this story) begin from the point of view of the
Nagha. I think all readers will come the
conclusion when they start that this Nagha is the sleeping god the title
suggests. She is not, rather she is an ever growing and increasingly powerful
artificial intelligence. The Nagha
overthrew the biologicals that created her and ultimately destroyed them. Due to her experience with her creators, she
decided that all biological life-forms were a threat and built fleets of
sphere-shaped ships and sent out on mission of conquest and genocide throughout
her universe. She was extremely successful
and then she figured out there was another universe.
In our regular universe, the crew of the Enterprise receive unpleasant news of an unknown enemy attacking the Altair system in Federation space. Altair VII is colony with millions of people living there. No one knows who this new enemy is but they are doing a lot of damage. It is not just the Federation who is under attack either, the Enterprise receives word that the Klingons are also suffering from these strangers from elsewhere.
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| Okay maybe not quite like this, but right shape |
As the Enterprise
rushes to the Altair system to aid the starships USS Republic and USS
Excelsior already there in battle with the enemy, they receive a priority
communication from Starfleet. Admiral Sondergaard orders them to change course
and head to Raga’s Planet to and pick up Signa, known to the locals as the “the
Sleeping God.” Starfleet considers Signa
to be a prime asset and do not want him to fall to the enemy.
At this
point Spock gives a long monologue where he explains the origins of Singa the
Sleeping God. Singa was once human.
Spock explains, Singa’s family was of Indian descent and he was exploring
space with them, over eighty years ago, when there was an accident on their
nuclear-powered spacecraft. This killed
the entire complement of crew and passengers. However, the nuclear radiation affected him
differently. He grew large, green,
strong, and mean whenever he became angry.
Just kidding, that is not what Spock said. Spock explained he gained
great mental powers and used them to stowaway aboard a ship looking to form a
colony on Raga’s Planet. Singa was
adopted by all of the townspeople. Signa
later confides to the Elders of Raga’s Planet and to a representative of the
Federation about his amazing abilities and wanted to use them to aid
mankind. The Federation came to regard
Singa was one of its greatest assets. But Singa had a slight problem, he wasn’t one
of the those superhumans who was immortal.
He was aging just like anyone else. Within one generation his great mind
and powers would be gone. So, he came up
with a solution. He built a machine that
would keep him in suspended animation but with access to his mental
powers. The farming community of Raga’s
Planet formed a whole religion around their Sleeping God, and the Federation
would help him while he helped the Federation when it needed. Now Singa needed to be transported off planet
and the Starfleet wasn’t going to say “no.”
The Enterprise
reaches Raga’s Planet and Singa, his suspended animation machine, and his
priests who worship him are all brought aboard. His chief priest, Manda-Rao, acts as a go
between. No sooner did they have the Sleeping God secured, the ship came under
attack. One of the strange sphere-shaped
ships that had been causing trouble all over showed up. The Enterprise tried to fight but its
attacks were ineffective. Nevertheless,
the enemy doesn’t destroy the Enterprise, it simply sees it as not a
threat and moves onto its next target. 
Enterprise has to leave its sisters behind
Under
“normal” war circumstances Kirk should have the Enterprise give chase in
order to try to stop it from killing millions of colonists along the way. But Kirk has a killer instinct, one that
served him well in “Balance of Terror” and not so well in “Arena.” Kirk thinks instead of fighting them over
here he should instead fight them over there. (Anyone who was older than 10 during the
2001-2009 years will know what I am talking about.) Kirk is determined to find the enemy’s homeworld
and attack it. They fly to a star system
where they think it should be but discover there are no planets orbiting that
star. However, they do encounter another
enemy ship and this time when they attack, they do some damage. This seems to open a rip in space and Sulu
sends the ship into and claims some outside force made him do it. When they were through Kirk realized they
were in a parallel universe. I’m
assuming this experience in “The Tholian Web” helped him recognize it. There were planets in this new solar system
that they were in.
Suddenly
Kirk and the crew lost consciousness after the ship was seemingly jolted. When
Kirk woke up, he found the ship nearly empty.
In a situation that must have given him flashbacks to “The Mark of Gideon”
the only people he could find was a security officer still out on a sickbay
bed, and the Sleeping God with his priest.
At first Kirk things that Singa might be dead, but it becomes clear when
Manda-Rao speaks it is actually the Sleeping God who is talking. Singa tells Kirk that their enemy took control
of the crew’s minds and they all beamed down to the planet.
Kirk takes the shuttlecraft Columbus down to the Nagha-Planet in search of his crew. He finds Spock, who is strapped buck naked to a metal table. Then Kirk is captured by some robots and also stripped naked and tided up to a table next to him. Spock tells Kirk that they are going to be experimented on. Kirk wonders if they are going to be dissected like frogs. Spock confirms this and is also taken back by the irony of a science officer being part of a science experiment. It is unlikely that their captor will suddenly realize their intelligence and free them like the alien did in the fourth story in this volume.
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| Kirk has been here before |
However,
the Nagha is already doomed. Kirk the
Bane of All Artificial Intelligence has already set a plan in motion. Kirk knew what the Nagha was going to do and
acted like a trojan horse. While the Nagha had focused on Kirk, Sleeping God
using the power of the Enterprise stuck at the Nagha where she was
vulnerable destroying her and freeing our universe from her wrath. The crew all
get back to the ship, they conclude that Nagha was behind everything from the
start from getting the Admiral to order them to pick him up to taking control
of Mr. Sulu at a key moment. It was now time to bring the Sleeping God home.
Additional thoughts: Well, this a very fun
story. It’s not really that
original. The evil AI that has decided
it knows better or no longer needs its creators is a story that had been told
for over half a century by the time this book was published. It is nevertheless a very solid Star Trek
tail. Its end is a bit rushed but that
is to be expected with short stories.
So Nagha had already conquered and exterminated all biological lifeforms in her universe. However, she dips her toe into our universe and gets her head handed to her. Apparently, in her own universe there is no one with the talent of Captain Kirk. Here in this universe however he is the Bane of All Artificial Intelligence even when he is not aided by a Sleeping God person. If Singa hadn’t been there than Kirk would have just talked Nagha into suicide.
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| Kirk is good at getting these things to kill themselves |
On a
much lighter note, am I the only one who thought it was weird that Dr. McCoy
had such a hard time believing Singa’s origin story? McCoy insists that exposure to radiation can
only make some into a Captain Pike. However, it is not like they haven’t seen
things like this before. Granted, McCoy wasn’t on the ship for the Gary Mitchell adventure, but he must have heard about it. He lives in a universe where this stuff is
outright normal.
Should it be canon: I see no reason why it shouldn’t
be. It’s a great one act adventure. Since the villain was destroyed, you don’t
have to worry about any continuity issue.
Cover Art: As I stated in 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 5 of 5
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