THE BLUE QUIET

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 – Story 6 “Marginal Existence”

Author: Connie Faddis

Publication Date: 1/1978

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 20

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 Horst Gorshim           Lieutenant Elva Vigeland     Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      unnamed  blue aliens

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, shuttlecraft Discovery Registry unknown and one unnamed shuttlecraft

Planets: unnamed planet

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story begins with McCoy leading a landing party on a planet that has had most of its civilization vanish over six hundred years ago.  Yet in an abandoned city they have found life support pods set up for suspended animation. The people inside look like Andorians, but without the antenna.  Some of the people in there are still alive.  Excitement soon turns to terror as they are attacked.

Kirk is going to have to rescue McCoy

                The Enterprise was busy with studying a supernova.  When McCoy’s shuttlecraft did not make the rendezvous, Kirk left Scotty in command of the ship while he, Spock, and another landing party would take a second shuttlecraft to find them.  When the second landing party arrives and they enter the building.  Mr. Spock quickly concludes that the pods are for suspended animation.  Chapel and Chekov find a local young man who is completely non-verbal, a trait that seems common among the indigenous of this area.

Spock chooses to go with Kirk so Scotty takes command.

                The find the three crewmembers who were missing in the pods as well, except they weren’t doing well.  Spock and Chapel are able to save McCoy and Vigeland but Gorshim was too far gone. The landing party find itself attacked by the silent natives on the outside but also by a robot that tries to put them in the pods on the inside.  The robot is triggered by sound. 

Spock later concludes that the outside natives were descendants of those who refused to enter the pods six hundred years ago or had otherwise escaped at some later date.  Since the robots are triggered by sound the inhabitants evolved their society a nonverbal culture.  Kirk wants Spock to wake one up and they are attacked by the robot.   In the battle Kirk is knocked unconscious, when he wakes Chekov informs him that Spock was able to pull him out of there.  Spock managed to find the central computer and revive those in the pods.  With the tyranny of the robots at an end they head back to the Enterprise.  

Additional thoughts: This was a fun little story.  The only real complaint I have about it is its short length requires everything be solved rather quickly.  There was a lot of buildup that did not follow with a great deal of reward.  For example, it would have been fun to hear from of the recently released humanoids. 

                This does seem to be a huge prime directive violation though and that is mentioned once.  However, Kirk could probably get away with it with his selective interpretation of "developing" civilization.  With Spock waking all the survivors up that line is well crossed. I do like the references to the Botany Bay and the events from “Space Seed.”

This is a little too familiar 

                Kirk did not talk the machine into killing itself this adventure.  The in-story reason however was the machine was not smart enough to be talked into suicide.  Kirk compares the computer to the old IBM 360, which in the real world had been discontinued the same year this volume was published. It is clearly not an AI.         

Should it be canon: I see no reason why it shouldn’t be.  It’s a self-contained story that fits right in.

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 3 of 5

 

Nurse Chapel to the Rescue

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 – Story 2 “Snake Pit”

Author: Connie Faddis

Publication Date: 1/1978

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 34

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 Irvin Domberwicky         Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Administrator Gehres      many unnamed Hualans      

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets: Vestalan

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise has been sent to the planet Vestalan to deal with a diplomatic disaster.  Vestalan is the home of a species of snake called coatls, whose venom is used to make Derivative 249. D-249 is used to treat pan-human neurotransmission disorders.  Thousands of lives are at stake.  Federation rules and morals demands that they don’t take any without the permission of the local inhabitants, a primitive people called the Hualans.  The Hualans are organized into a cult and that cult lately sees that the omens have turned on the Federation.  They refuse the to allow the taking of the snakes and Administrator Gehres has sent two representatives to talk to them. The Hualans then turned the two representatives into sacrifices. 

                The reason the Enterprise was chosen for this mission was not due to the usual excuse of their being the only starship in the sector, rather because the Enterprise’s expert in anthropology, Lt. Cmdr. Domberwicky has direct successful experience with the Hualans.  Nurse Chapel was chosen for the landing party as she had been to this planet before with Roger Colby.  Vestalan itself is an interesting planet, hot enough it long ago melted its polar ice caps and what little land it has left is very tropic. In addition to that the planet is small like Earth’s moon with the gravity to match.  So, they get to travel with great leaps in a single bound.

Chapel doesn't like things that remind her of Roger

                Domberwicky doesn’t return so Kirk and Chapel go looking for him.  They get captured by the Hualans.  While captured some of the Hualans enter their cell and beat on Captain Kirk, when he refuses to let the female Hualan molest him. When they beat on him enough, they leave, and Kirk asks Chapel if these people ever had any nice traits.  Later they come back and drag Captain Kirk out of his cell bringing him somewhere and leaving Chapel behind.

                Domberwicky finally returns and tells Chapel he has made a deal with the Hualans to release them.  She can leave now as they have already returned Captain Kirk to the ship.  She calls him a liar and he admitted it. He says Kirk has already been sent to the snake pit and is as good as dead.  Chapel, remembering how upset Spock was when he thought Kirk was dead in “Amok Time” refuses to leave without him.  She goes down to wear the snake pit is.  Kirk is in there sounded by dangerous animals who want to leave him and pools of lava.  He is wounded, mostly naked with sunburns, and barely conscious.

A traumatic experience for Mr. Spock

                Chapel, remembering she was told the Hualans often get drunk at these ceremonies and are prone to gambling.  She tells Domberwicky to see if they will allow her to rescue him with only her knife and she bets she can do it without injury.  Domberwicky does this and the Hualans are eager and start taking bets about this among themselves.  The conditions are Chapel will be allowed to try with only her knife as a tool and she will have to be completely naked.

                Chapel agrees to this and she strips down and attempts her rescue.  Chapel leaps into the pit and with the low gravity is able to leap her way to the Captain.  She defeats some of the snakes, and then lifts the Captain up in a fireman’s hold.  With the Captain secure she carries him out of the snake pit.  This impresses the Hualans so much that they see Chapel’s success as an omen that they want the Federation around.   Chapel has saved Captain Kirk, completes the mission, and there will be plenty of Derivative 249 for everyone. 

All is right in the world

Additional thoughts: Well, that was fun little story.  I complained in my last review about the supporting cast not getting its due and this story delivered.  The whole story is told from Chapel’s point of view. I liked in the beginning how we learned about Chapel’s unhappiness with this assignment as it brought up memories of Roger.  I also enjoyed how one of the reasons she is determined to save Kirk is because of her affection for Spock.

                The fact that planet had such low gravity made it easier to imagine that Nurse Chapel could lift Captain Kirk over her shoulder and carry him out. It created quite the visual in my mind.

                I always think it’s weird when we are introduced to a lieutenant commander we haven’t meet before.  That is the rank that both Dr. McCoy and Scotty hold. It was also the rank that Mr. Spock held in the first season.  Since Sulu is the third officer of ship, I think most other officers should be beneath him in rank with exception of some doctors.

                I did take a little bit of issue with the story claiming that Chapel was already a doctor who just took the job of a nurse. The author apparently got this idea from Majel Barrett, according to the footnote.  However, it is clearly stated later (yes, I am violating my rule of talking about future Star Trek in a review) in The Motion Picture that she recently became a MD.  That was my only issue and its minor. 

Should it be canon: I don’t have any problem with this story line being added to the canon of Star Trek.  I think it would be a great addition.

Cover Art: As 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 4 of 5