Name: The
Trellisane Confrontation
Author: David Dvorkin
Publication Date: 2/1984
Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #14)
Page Number: 190
Historian’s Note:
Sometime between “Turnabout Intruder” and “More Tribbles More Troubles”
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 Kinitz Lieutenant Bill Nurse Christine Chapel Ensign Pavel Chekov Governor Lerak Kepac Mr. Johnson many unnamed crewmen Fleet Commander Kaged Captain Karox several unnamed Klingon soldiers Fleet Commander Tal Hander Morl unnamed Nacterns unnamed Onctiliians Veedron Goldor Goro Matabele
Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Starbase
28, Karox's unnamed battleship, four unnamed Romulan ships, Matabele's unnamed ship,
unnamed Sealon attack ship, unnamed Sealon invasion craft, unnamed Sealon
shuttlecraft
Planets: Treflog and Trellisane
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise
is on a sensitive mission near the Romulan Neutral Zone. They are picking up prisoners from Starbase
28 in orbit around Treflog. These
prisoners are a human named Hander Morl and his band of trained assassins. Morl is part of a group called the Federation
Expansionist Party, who believe it is the Federation’s destiny to conqueror and
rule the entire universe. They planned
to refit one of their ships to look like a Starfleet vessel and use it to start
a war. It is a good thing they were caught.
The ship receives a distress call from a planet called Trellisane, a planet on a world that is natural territory but one that has been looking to receive Federation membership. Kirk decides to answer it before dropping off the prisoners because time may be of the essence when it comes to saving lives. When they arrive, they are attacked by what appears to be a Klingon ship, they however make a short work of it. Upon further investigation, these weren’t Klingons at all, but their ships were only made to look that way. That sounds familiar to something from earlier.
 |
| They beam down only to find themselves in a conflict |
The fake Klingon ship wasn’t
connected to our newly captured terrorists but instead belongs to the
Sealons. Sealon is another planet in
Trellisane’s own solar system that also has intelligent life. Its main intelligent species is aquatic and
violent. They fought many wars amongst
themselves before the people of Trellisane contacted them. They decided to help their neighbors by
upgrading their technology. Now due to
the prime directive the Federation would never do that and after their
experience Trellisane would learn why.
The people of Sealon unified and decided to wage war on their former
beneficiaries. They were able to do so with their alliance with the Klingons
who Kirk now learns are sticking their noses in this solar system. It was one of these attacks that prompted
them to send out the distress call.
The Enterprise is again attacked while Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are leading a landing party on the planet. Sulu, in command on the bridge, easily defeats their opponent but the ship suffers some minor and unexpected damage. This damage allows the prisoners in the brig to escape. They are able to head to the bridge and commandeer the Enterprise. They give an apology to Kirk as they take the ship, letting him know that while he might lose this command the coming war with the Romulans will require officers like him to command ships against the enemy. Kirk, in brief state of shock, before brainstorming with Spock on how to proceed. With Veedron, one of the leaders of Trellisane who was assigned to great them, not knowing how to help his planet recover from these attacks Dr. McCoy volunteers to organize relief.
 |
| Desperate to return to the ship! |
As the Starfleet officers help the
citizens of Trellisane they learn about the planet’s class structure. The leaders are called the gemot. Each
gemot rules either a continent or the head of a government agency. Veedron is the head gemot of the
planet. However, there is also a slave class.
These people are called the yegemot. These people are considered nothing but
chattel with no rights whatsoever. When
one collapses the regular citizens look at Dr. McCoy oddly when he tries to
treat them. Kirk at one point tells the yegemot that things are going to be
different if their world joins the Federation.
When McCoy is doing medical work on these enslaved people, he finds
chips have been implanted in their heads.
He also finds chips placed in the gemots heads as well.
Back on the Enterprise, Sulu and Chekov wake up from being stunned and begin to study their situation waiting for an opportunity to strike. In the meantime, they cooperate and do their duty to make sure the ship doesn’t fly apart. Little do they know that Hander Morl is sending the ship on a suicide run.
 |
| Trying to free themselves from their captors! |
On Trellisane, Kirk and Spock leave
McCoy to continue the relief and rescue efforts towards the places that were
targeted in the attack. With their
disastrous contract with Sealons the locals have given up on space travel. Kirk and Spock take a small boat to the
landmass where the old ships could be found and hopefully get off this planet
to track down the Enterprise.
After not getting any real contact
from the bridge, Scotty forces his way up there. In doing so he sees that the ship has been
taken over by hostels. However, Scotty
doesn’t flinch he informs Morl that ship needs repairs and as a result is
falling out of warp. Morl assigns a
guard for him and has him fix it. But
Morl wants the cheap quick repairs done so they can continue with their
mission.
Kirk and Spock run into a Klingon named Karox who is aiding the Sealons against Trellisane. Kirk lets Karox know that his ship has been stolen and tries to convince him that it is his best interest to help him get it back. Spock points out that the Romulans won’t believe Mohl’s plan as they are more likely to capture the Enterprise rather than destroy it. If they do that the Romulans will develop an interest in this solar system. The Klingon agrees to take Kirk so they can capture the ship for the Klingon Empire instead.
 |
| Kirk works out a deal with the Klingons! |
Turns out the Romulans are already
on their way, which means to Mohl’s eternal disappointment he won’t be able to
provoke a war because he can’t invade Romulan space. He might get a Starfleet ship captured
anyway, giving the Romulans a huge edge in future conflicts. This would clearly derail his dreams of the
Federation galactic conquest. They are
surrounded and are about to be boarded but Mohl does a rather cruel trick on
the Romulans: moving the ship just as the Romulans are beaming over causing
them to beam into empty space. However,
it is out of the frying pan and into the fire because the Enterprise now
faces the Klingons. Kirk tricks the Klingons into allowing him to lead the
boarding party. When he beams over, he
finds that the crew has retaken the ship.
This changes the legalities somewhat and now the Klingons can’t take the
Enterprise without formal war. Kirk
contacts the Romulan Fleet Commander who turns out to be Tal from “The Enterprise Incident.” 
Surrounded
When McCoy’s collection of chips
explodes, he realizes just how the gemot are controlling the yegemot.
McCoy confronts Veedron about
this. All along Veedron insisted that
the yegemot’s weren’t “fully people” and were bread from lower animals. McCoy as a medical scientist can see this is
not true. Then Veedron shows him how much his people truly believe it. Veedron brings up the meat they ate together
as part of a ceremony, even though the people of Trellisane are vegetarians 90%
of the time. He takes McCoy to the local
butcher shop, and it is something out of a horror movie, as McCoy is introduced
to butchers who are clearly slicing up yegemot people. McCoy sees numerous torsos hanging from the
ceiling.
The Sealons turn on the Klingons
killing those who are on the planet.
Spock is able to use these events to negotiate a peace on the
planet. At the same time Kirk negotiates
a peace with the Klingons and Romulans.
Everything ends well and the crew of the Enterprise goes along
their way.
Additional thoughts: The overall story has some good
concepts, but the execution of these concepts leaves a lot to be desired. I’ll
elaborate as I go on.
The Federation expansionists were
an interesting bunch. They clearly love
the Federation a lot while simultaneously not understanding anything about the
Federation. These people would be much
more at home in the Terran Empire of the Mirror Universe, I bet their
counterparts are happy. (Or miserable,
if that is the case then maybe they should switch places.) The group also reminds me a bit of American
settlers that would live in the late 18th and 19th
centuries would move to and live in territory that was outside the United
States hoping that the nation would expand and absorb their new home
territories. I also found reading this
story feels very odd in a post-911 world.
With their suicide mission to bring about their desired world, caring
not for the people they were about to kill. It’s hard not to think of the terrorist
attack while reading this.
According to this book the Klingon
Empire is larger than the Romulan Star Empire and the Federation is larger than
both combined. I suppose that makes
since in a way, since the Federation is a diverse society of thousands of
planets and species working in harmony together that they would have a larger
home territory than either of their homogenous enemies.
When they discover that the
Trellisanians have a slave caste our three primary heroes are taking a
back. They inform Veedron that the
Federation only permits free societies.
However, I remember that not being true.
In the episode, “The Cloud Minders” we meet a Federation member world
that clearly had a caste system with one group clearly in a slave-like
status. It was Ardana and when
confronted about their planet by Kirk the leader, Plasus, invokes a
state-rights argument. So, is this a new
rule the Federation has come up with? 
"No slavery in the Federation! Are you sure?"
It was good to see Tal again, and
good to see that he has advanced higher in the Romulans Star Empire. Tal was always an interesting adversary. I assume the “death” of his Commander was a
“spiritual death” as we have seen her in other stories. 
Fleet Commander Tal
My main issue with this book is
that things got resolved too quickly or didn’t matter at all. Take McCoy’s trip to the cannibal butcher
shop in a scene that seemed to come straight out of a horror movie leads to nothing. Nothing.
McCoy is never seen even so much as talking about it with his shipmates.
Kirk and Spock both quickly but together peace deals. There seemed to be something major
missing. It’s almost either the author
got bored with his own story or he quickly came up to a publishing deadline and
had to submit what he had. As I said
earlier, there are a lot of good ideas, but the execution fails.
Should it be canon: Yes, as I don’t see anything here
that would interfere with it.
Cover Art: A strange ship in the background with
Spock and an unknown woman in the front of it.
Next to the characters on the viewers’ left is a Sealon, I believe.
Final Grade: Final Grade 2 of 5
