SPOCK SUFFERS BRAIN DAMAGE

 

Name: Mindshadow

Author: JM Dillard

Publication Date: 1/1986

Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #27)

Page Number: 252

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 Varth Regev                Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura            Dr. Joseph M'Benga      Dr. Emma Staenz              Lieutenant Ingrit Tomson                                 Lieutenant Giorgo Mikahlis                   Lieutenant Mohamed Jahma              Lieutenant (junior grade) Mohamed al-Baslama                   Lieutenant (junior grade) Reems                Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov              Ensign Lyle               Ensign Rachel Lanz       Admiral James Komack          Ambassador Sarek             Amanda Grayson              Tela’at Stalik              T'Pala        Natahia             Grower Mahali        various unnamed Growers         unnamed Romulan pirate      various unnamed Romulans

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Starbase 12, Galileo II NCC-1701/7, unnamed and unclassified small Romulan fighters  

Planets: Aritani and Vulcan

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The adventure begins with a landing party from the Enterprise visiting the planet Aritani.  The Aritanians are former space faring people who surrendered advanced technology to live a simple life with nature as independent farmers.  So, they are like the Amish except they are from an alien world, and they don’t follow and real strict religion. Unfortunately, they are now under attack from an unknown enemy who is destroying their villages and killing their people.  The Federation has offered to help.  Kirk explains that they are not here to change their way of life.  Although they would love to have them as Federation members Starfleet helps is free regardless. Their leader Natahia is skeptical but desperate.

Trying to help a reluctant people

Spock wants to explore the nearby hills as his tricorder as he tries to find out more about the natural minerals of the planet to see if he can explain why they have been attacked recently.  When he doesn’t return, they go out looking for him.  They find him and it appears that he has fallen down a steep hill and is severely injured with broken bones all down his left side.  Most importantly his injuries to his head have resulted in severe brain damage.  Spock’s status as a Vulcan/Human hybrid complicates potential treatment.  

While Spock is being treated, Aritani is under attack again.  Even though there was a shield up the enemy fighters managed to get through.  They devastate Aritani and the Aritanians.  It is clear from the attackers’ ships that they are Romulans.  What the Romulans want with the planet and how they were able to get through the shield are mysteries.  The incident kills Natahia’s faith that Starfleet is able to protect her people and she requests they leave.  If the Romulans kill all of them so, be it so long as they are living their true lives. 

Romulan attack!!

Back on the Enterprise, a neurologist named Dr. Emma Staenz has been transferred to the ship and given Mr. Spock’s case.  Her prognosis is bleak; his injuries are affecting his logical thinking and have caused the Vulcan mind rules to vanish.  He is now incapable of controlling his telepathic abilities which cause him great pain.  Staenz recommends Kirk to find a temporary replacement for Mr. Spock. 

Kirk and Staenz work out together.  It turns out the good doctor grew up on a high gravity planet giving her great strength for a person her size.  She is more than a match for Captain Kirk, as he ends up hitting the deck more than she does.  There also might be something darker about her because when she is alone with Spock, she tries to force a mind meld and starts a suspicious line of questioning.  She and Dr. McCoy start to see each other romantically. 

Trying to treat Mr. Spock

When the pirates return the Enterprise is able to capture a pirate ship.  The Romulan pirate will not cooperate refusing to answer any questions posed to him.  In Sickbay Spock is getting somewhat better.  His voice comes and goes; he has a hard time remembering people’s names and ranks but does enjoy hearing music.  Spock is aware of his condition and is unhappy about it.

Things are starting to go bad.  First, the Romulan prisoner is murdered, and the murder was made to look like suicide.  Second, it appears that Mr. Spock has attempted suicide himself.  When he awakes Spock claims not to remember but denies trying to commit suicide.  He requests to be sent home to Vulcan and McCoy approves. Staenz objects to sending him away, leading to her first lovers quarrel with McCoy.  She, however, relents.  

Spock has not been himself

Their shuttlecraft, Galileo II, nearly crashes like its famous namesake predecessor, but they get out of it okay.  Their trip is delayed as Scotty has to make repairs.  While they are gone, back on the ship Kirk is injured in a workout routine with Staenz.  While she is treating him, he kisses her and then passes out.  It looks like a love triangle brewing.  The next morning, Lt. Tomson, the Enterprise’s current chief of security, tells the tired Captain that her primary murder suspect is Scotty.  Like the last time Scotty was accused of murder, Kirk doesn’t believe it.  However, he has to let her issue an arrest warrant when he fails to appear on time.

Spock returns home to discover his parents have taken in a young Vulcan woman.  Like Spock, T’Pala is half human/half Vulcan although the reverse with a human father and Vulcan mother.  Her mother died and she was raised by her father she hopes to join the Vulcan diplomatic service and serve under Sarek.  Her father’s status as a criminal makes this difficult. 

Spock being treated at home.

              Spock’s home return is not going well.  He is not relearning the mind rules as expected.  He refuses to help T’Pala with her control even though that is one thing he is currently good at.  Worse, he ends up barking at his mother who was just trying to help.  At one point he thinks about swallowing all of his pills and just ending it. He doesn’t, the next day he makes apologies to all concerned and resumes his lessons. 

Spock has a difficult recovery

Back on the ship, McCoy and Staenz make up and are on romantic terms.  Kirk is hosting a “Journey to Babel”-type of conference to deal with the Aritani situation.  The new first officer, Lieutenant Commander Varth Regev, is very useful when it comes to dealing with the Tellarites.  Scotty returns and is arrested and immediately cleared since he had an airtight alibi.  This conference truly resembles the Babel Conference, when two ambassadors are murdered.  Kirk becomes suspicious of the exact nature of Staenz’s mission.  He discovers that she is actually a Starfleet Intelligence Agent working for Admiral James Komack.  A device is discovered on Regev showing him to be a Romulan spy.

Back at home Spock drops his medication and starts to recover he relearns the mind rules in record time.  His recovery is halted by an attempted assassination on him and his father.  They are saved by T’Pala, who revels she had been working with the Romulans who came to her after she had been rejected for her career and felt isolated from Romulan society.  She had told them of Spock’s recovery and they attacked, but she felt close toward Spock’s family, so she saved them.  Before Spock loses consciousness, he sees her commit suicide with a phaser.

Since T’Pala disintegrated herself, Spock is blamed for the attack on his father which they think is a murder/suicide.  Kirk upon hearing this now wants to head to Vulcan, Staenz tries to talk him out of it, but Kirk is determined to help Spock.  When they get to Vulcan Kirk and McCoy go down to see Spock.  When he wakes up, they explain the situation to him.  Since Sarek is expected to recover Spock is not concerned about the blame as Sarek is expected to recover and will explain everything to the authorities.  Spock knows why he was injured; he had to jump to avoid certain death if the Romulans had caught him.  Spock tells Kirk and McCoy that the drugs Staenz gave him were delaying his recovery and increasing his symptoms not helping him.  It turns out Staenz knew this would happen as she is co-author of a paper that describes its effects on Vulcans.  Staenz is a double agent Romulan spy. Regev was framed. By the time they learn this she has escaped, injuring the chief of security in the process.

Back in disguise 

   The Enterprise heads back to Aritani where Regev managed to locate the Romulan base.  Kirk disguised himself as a Romulan again, and he and Spock beam down to see if they could expose and sabotage the place. While there they run in Staenz again, whose real name is Subcommander Tanirius.  It turns out she is a triple agent and that her true allegiance is not the Romulan Preator or the Federation but rather a reform movement in Romulus that seeks to bring down the tyrannical imperial government. She helps the two of them escape and sets the base up for destruction.  After they get back to the ship the base is destroyed but six fighters escape leaving our mystery lady’s fate up in the air.  McCoy is hopeful that she is okay.  The Aritani accept the Federation’s help and defending their home.   

Additional thoughts: This was one of the best Star Trek books that I had read in a while.  One of the main things I liked about the story was that even though the author invented some interesting characters they didn’t displace the main Star Trek cast from the story.  The story was an exciting traditional Star Trek adventure that took advantage of the book format to give us more depth.

While reading the book I referred to myself the people of Aritani as the “space Amish” since they turned their backs on technology to live like the world never developed past the 19^th century.  I had to question Captain Kirk’s judgement when it came to placing the crew on shore leave on this planet.  They Aritanians barely wanted the Federation’s help do really want to send down multiple landing parties of people whose sole purpose is recreation?

I thought it was creative to have Spock’s status as a Vulcan/human hybrid make it difficult for his injuries to be diagnosed and treated.  The fact that Vulcan brains and human brains function differently makes it hard to plot the proper course of treatment. Do you treat him more as a human or Vulcan?  One might think Vulcan, but Spock’s right-handedness suggests otherwise.   

Scotty accused of murder again.  Poor Mr. Scott, all he tries to do is help, yet people often want to accuse him of killing people. Good thing for him is this time it was much easier to prove that he didn’t do it.

McCoy falls hard for women, doesn’t he?  He only knows them for a short time, and he gets all committed and remains in love with them for quite some time.  He should learn to let go more, like his good buddy Captain Kirk.

A short while

For some time

I found the “Vulcans don’t apologize” to be a bunch of baloney.  We see them apologize all the time.  How else are they going to admit fault and take responsibility for their actions especially if those actions unintentionally caused someone harm.  Also, sometimes people have legitimate excuses for things like tardiness, how would any society function if they were not able to address them.

Lieutenant Commander Varth Regev turned out to be a more interesting character than I originally thought.  I really like the way he handled the Tellarites situation.  It was a neat reveal that it turned out to be a Starfleet intelligence officer the whole time.

 T’Pala was such a sad and tragic case.  The Vulcan/human hybrid with nowhere to turn. It was easy to feel for the poor girl when she told Spock that no Vulcan male wanted to bond with her.  All she wanted to do was fit in and this was precisely what was not allowed.  She had no home anywhere and that led to her being manipulated by the Romulans.  It was easy to understand why Spock and his family felt for her and he continued to cover for her so she could have dignity in death.  It is too bad that Spock didn’t meet her when he was healthy and in control.  She could have been his perfect mate.

 Finally, the Emma Staenz reveal was perfect.  The best twists in a story are ones you don’t see coming yet seem obvious when you look back on it.  Her advanced strength for her size makes more sense when you remember that Vulcan/Romulans have enhanced strength.  I was constantly guessing throughout the book to what side she was truly on, and every time I thought I figured it out the author would pull out some new information that made me realize I was wrong but maybe I was right before, most likely I was wrong there too.  

Should it be canon: I see nothing in this story that should prevent me from being canon in official Star Trek lore.  Given the story is great I love to add it to official Star Trek canon.

Cover Art: We have Spock’s left side profile on the viewer’s right and in front of Spock’s face are Kirk, McCoy, and Emma Saenz. Behind all of them is a mountain range.

Final Grade: Final Grade 5 of 5

 

THE CREW IS BRAINWASHED AGAIN!

 

Name: Mutiny on the Enterprise

Author: Robert E. Vardeman

Publication Date: 10/1983

Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #12)

Page Number: 189

Historian’s Note:  This book takes place right after Pocket Books’ Star Trek #3 The Klingon Gambit

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk       Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”       Lieutenant Commander Buchanan              Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura              Lieutenant Candra Avitts                Lieutenant Kyle           Lieutenant Patten                    Lieutenant Gordon            Lieutenant Candra Avitts          Lieutenant Deke Kesselmann            Dr. Joseph M'Benga        Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Ensign Anita Ross          Chief Petty Officer  Heather McConel     Chief Petty Officer Andres        Crewman Bretton             Crewman Gabriel               Admiral McKenna          Ambassador Mek Jokkor       Ambassador Zarv        Ambassador Donald Lorritson    Speaker Lorelei        

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS Scarborough (unknown registry number), USS Farallones, (unknown registry number), Galileo NCC-1701/7, Sklora

Planets: Unnamed single life-form planet, Ammdon, and Jurnamoria

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise is in serious need of a maintenance overhaul and the crew is desperate for some shore leave.  When they arrive at Starbase One, however, they are greeted by an Admiral who throws a new assignment on their laps.  Despite Kirk’s pleading, Admiral McKenna insists that the mission is important, and the Enterprise is the least damaged ship they have.  She tells him that they must get a diplomatic team led by Ambassador Zarv, a Tellarite, to the Ammdon system because the planets Ammdon and Jurnamoria are about to go to war.  The two other ambassadors are a human named Lorritson and a sentient plant named Mek Jokkor.  It is important to make peace in the region as if it becomes unstable the Romulans could become involved.

On their way to Starbase One

Ambassador Zarv is annoying and impatient.  He is upset at the Enterprise’s slow speed.  He doesn’t want to or can’t acknowledge the reality of the situation.  The Enterprise is in such a condition that they can’t do any more than warp 3.  He even gets upset when they are diverted for a distress call. They find a small ship with a single passenger in distress.  The passenger is a woman of an unknown species, and her name is Lorelei.  Lorelei claims to come from the planet Hyla, that has been undiscovered by the Federation.  When Kirk tells her of their mission she tries to talk him out of it.  She says the Enterprise’s presence will lead to a war between the two parties.

Annoying ambassador

Lorelei is having a strange effect on the crew.  Even Kirk finds her arguments persuasive, but many of his crew are taking what she says to heart.  Many are acting openly insubordinate and put on report. To make matters worse Zarv is becoming even more annoying, at one point suggesting Kirk fire Scotty and give Spock his job.  Spock concludes that this woman has a special power and that this may lead the crew into a munity.  Kirk isn’t convinced of what Spock is saying.  Kirk sees this as a case of a smart person making a strong case against an overworked crew.  He decides, against Spock’s advice, to have a debate between Lorelei and Zarv. 

Crew not playing along

It turns out Spock was right, and Lorelei was able to get control of a good deal of the crew. Almost all become pacifistic and won’t fight even if needed.  The ship is sabotaged, and they lose warp drive and subspace communication.   They are close enough to a solar system to explore it.  The ship limps over and finds a planet that seems to have intelligent life upon it.  It seems to be very advanced, but it has no space travel.  They decide to make first contact anyway in hopes of securing resources to repair the Enterprise.  Given the security situation on the ship Kirk doesn’t dare leave it so he sends a landing party led by Spock and McCoy.  It appears that all the technology on this planet is plant-based, the buildings are grown not built.  When the landing party encounters the local life forms, they notice their universal translator is useless as the locals have no ears.  Spock then attempts a mind meld, but the locals react negatively and capture the landing party.  Hearing this Zarv volunteers his diplomatic team to go down and negotiate.  Kirk refuses but Zarv ignores this and proceeds anyway, commandeering the transporter for that use.  When the Ambassadors beam down, they too are all captured by the local population.    

Hacking into a tricorder dropped by the landing party, the bridge crew is able to see what is happening on the surface.  They see one of the security officers try to escape but is killed by the biological prison.  Kirk tries to help them with the ship’s phasers, but his entire bridge crew is now under the spell of Lorelei.  The crew munities, hence, the title, and Kirk is deposed and transported unconscious to the surface for the world.  Kirk finds the missing tricorder they were using to watch things from the bridge earlier, and he uses it to find the landing party and ambassadors.

Finding a way to get back

When he gets there Spock informs him that the entire planet is one living organism and the “people” they saw weren’t individuals at all but rather they were more like antibodies in a human. Kirk also learns that Ambassador Mek Jokkor was eaten alive by the antibody people.  McCoy, being the great doctor that he is, finds a way to put their section of the world to sleep so the main intelligence doesn’t know what is going on there. 

Lorelei has managed to communicate with the planet and has secured the necessary materials for the crew under her control to fix the ship.  McCoy designed a material to put in their ears to block Lorelei’s power.  Kirk is able to liberate Scotty from her control and together they use a shuttle craft that was transporting materials to sneak back on the ship. Before that occurs the Zarv and Lorritison are killed, and Kirk almost dies trying to save them.   

As soon as the shuttle’s door opens, they begin firing phasers to stun.  Kirk manages to fight all the way to the bridge, but Lorelei is able to escape with the aid of the bridge crew.  She locks herself in auxiliary control and tries to take control of the ship from there.  Kirk and Lorelei debate their philosophies with Kirk pointing out some of the obvious inconsistencies such as saying they shouldn’t use their phasers even in self-defense while trying to use them on him.  This is a ruse, however, as Kirk’s motive isn’t to win an argument it is to delay.  Scotty has rewired the ship’s intercom system so that when she tries to communicate with the crew, she receives annoying screeching gibberish back overwhelming her and causing her to pass out.   

sneaking back in the shuttle

With Lorelei looked away so she cannot speak with anyone, and ship repaired they make all possible speed to their original destination.  Ammdon and Jurnamoria are on the brink of war and with the diplomatic team all dead, it looks like nothing can stop it. Kirk’s attempts at negotiation fail, but he has one more trick he can pull.  He kidnaps the leaders from both sides and looks them up with Lorelei.  With her power she is able to convince the leaders of both planets that war is not in their best interest. After that they go back to their respective worlds and Lorelei convinces the leaders’ immediate underlings that war should not happen and after that peace is declared.

 With the war averted Kirk and Lorelei come to an understanding and they agree to let her go on her way.  She does leave them with some information on how to reach Hela in order to establish first contact.

Additional thoughts: This was a fun adventure.  It may be a little mistitled after I would only call the crew’s action a mutiny if they were acting within the right minds, not pawns under someone else’s control.  This is not the first time the crew has had their minds messed with.  We saw that during both “The Naked Time” and “This Side of Paradise.”  This is more like the second case.  When they went to Omicron Ceti III it led to the crew disobeying Captain Kirk and leaving the ship.  The only difference is someone is directing the cause, where the locals on Omicron Ceti III were also victims. In all three cases Captain Kirk is able to overcome the mind control by just being awesome.   

“We’re the only ship in the quadrant or sector” is one of the most overused phrases in Star Trek.  How many ships is Starfleet supposed to have?  Why are they the only ship to defend Earth from V’ger?  This book has a unique take on it.  As they entered Starbase One the commanding Admiral shows Captain Kirk the state of the fleet.  Every ship was damaged more than the Enterprise.  One ship was even missing its bridge. So, the Enterprise must undertake the mission. 

When Zarv keeps refusing to acknowledge the reality of the ship’s condition, Kirk should have stolen his chief engineer’s line and tell him that he can’t change the laws of physics.  I think such an action might have pleased Kirk more than he would realize. 

In the book “The Abode of Life” they have a debate on how the prime directive may apply to a planet that is separated from the rest of the universe visually, so they never develop space travel but have developed to be almost equal or better in other levels of technology.  In both cases the Enterprise is damaged and needs the planet’s help to effect repairs.  Now in this book there is no debate on how to proceed, however that is not a contradiction as the earlier book took place between season 2 and 3 of classic Star Trek and this book takes place after season 3 but before the start of the Animated Series. 

The crew discovers that the planet is one singular life form and the “people” on it function mostly as antibodies of that lifeform.  We have seen that before also in the book “World Without End.”  The difference between the two is the previous book the Chatalia all had names and personalities.  That made me question the whole “they aren’t alive” bit.  In this book there is no question about the singleness of life on this planet.  

The part where the crew all at once became pacifists reminded me of the book “Perry’s Planet” where the Enterprise crew were infected by a virus that made anyone who thought of violence faint.  This was a huge problem because it made the incapable of dealing with the Klingon threat.

It is a bit of a mystery of how Lorelei was able to negotiate with the planet.  The lifeform was completely deaf, so it had no concept of sound.  Lorelei’s power is clearly audible, so how did she get the planet to do what she wanted it to do?  I kept waiting for this to be explained but it never was.

When Scotty is saved from Lorelei’s control, he is deeply ashamed to have been under it.  Why? He has been mind-controlled before he knows there is no shame in it.  You didn’t see him moping about because of what happened in “Cat’s Paw” did you?  

Scotty and Sulu under control

So, what were the planets Ammdon and Jurnamoria fighting about anyway.  It was never explained in the book, someone mentioned some dispute over land ownership, but it was never explained on.  Personally, I thought the Federation should have been more in favor of its member world.   

I did think it was amusing that Spock thought it might be beneficial to arrange for the Romulans to kidnap Lorelei.  What a surprise they would be in for.  However, Spock was able to hold Lorelei’s power at bay for some time, maybe the Romulans might have the same ability?  Nevertheless, I think what the Enterprise should do once they get her repaired is to go back to that single life form planet and study it.   

Should it be canon: I don’t see a reason it shouldn’t be.  Nothing in this story contradicts anything else in the series as a whole.

Cover Art: The Cover is located on the bridge of the Enterprise.  With the science stations in the background there are three charters facing the viewer.  From the viewers left to right they are Captain Kirk, Lorelei, and Mr. Spock.  The cover is a bit of a lie because Kirk and Spock are in their Motion Picture uniforms while this takes place during the classic five-year mission. 

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5

 

CAPTAIN KIRK PLAYS "MEET THE PARENTS" WITH SPOCK

Episode Title:  Journey to Babel 

Air Date: 11/17/1967

Written by Dorothy C. Fontana

Directed by Joseph Pevney

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock             DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 James X. Mitchell as Lieutenant Josephs                        Frank Da Vinci as unnamed Vulcan Aide          Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley         Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel          Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov                 Jerry Catron as Crewman Montgomery Jeannie Malone as Purple-Skinned Delegate            Mark Lenard as Ambassador Sarek                     Jane Wyatt as Amanda Grayson           William O'Connell as Thelev           John Wheeler as Ambassador Gav           Reggie Nalder as Ambassador  Shras                   Billy Curtis as Small Copper-Skinned Ambassador             Russ Peek as unnamed Vulcan Aide                        

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Galileo NCC-1701/7, unnamed Orion ship

Planets:  Vulcan, Babel

My Spoiler filled summary and review:  The episode begins with the USS Enterprise providing a ferry service to delegates that will be attending a conference on a neutral planet named Babel.  The conference is to decide the admission of the planets of the Coridan system to the Federation, which are rich in dilithium but poorly defended.  Its dilithium stuffed surfaces has led to many competing claims to these planets some of them from fellow Federation members.  Coridan itself wishes to be part of the Federation as a full-fledged members.

Kirk meets Spock's Mom and Dad

As the shuttlecraft Galileo drops of the Vulcan Ambassador and his human wife. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy go down in dress uniforms to meet the couple and there is a funny moment where McCoy tries to learn the Vulcan hand salute.  The Ambassador introduces himself as Sarek and his wife Amanda Grayson.  Sarek seems to rudely blow off Spock as first officer extends the traditional greeting, and refuses to have Spock be his tour guide. Kirk, taken back by Sarek’s refusal to have Spock as his tour guide, asks his first officer if he like to go down to the planet to see parents before they leave Vulcan.  Spock then informs his Captain that the Ambassador and his wife are in fact his parents.  (More on that point in my “additional thoughts” section.)

Kirk decides to give the Sarek and his wife a tour himself and in the engineering room tries to spark up a conversation between the father and son, however Sarek cuts it short.  After the two Vulcans leave Amanda explains to Captain Kirk the source of the trouble. Spock went off to Starfleet instead of his father’s chosen occupation through the Vulcan Science Academy.  Kirk tries to point out that Spock can better explore the universe in Starfleet, but Amanda says that Sarek despises the potential for violence.  So he will no longer speak to Spock.

McCoy with Spock's parents

Kirk hosts a feast in the officers’ lounge for the dignitaries and two important things happen while they are there.   The first is the Tellarite Ambassador Gav demands to know Sarek’s position on the issue of Coridan.  Sarek refuses to tell him anything to which Kirk backs him up.  Also we have Dr. McCoy meeting with Spock’s parents.  We learn from McCoy’s questions that Sarek is over 100 and retired relatively young.  More importantly McCoy learns from Amanda that Spock, as a child, had a sehlat that she describes as a type of teddy bear.  This delights McCoy until Spock informs him that these “teddy bears” are alive and have fangs. 

Sarek not getting long with the Tellarite Ambassador 

Later on the bridge, Spock discovers that the Enterprise is being followed by a mystery ship.  It matches no known configurations of anything they have seen before.   It passes them at warp 10 but does not fire.  The ship is going to become and ongoing annoyance for the rest of the episode.

In their quarters Sarek chastises Amanda for telling personal stories about Spock.  Amanda is rather pleased at Sarek’s defense of their son.  She even tells him that she believes he is now proud of Spock.  Sarek says his feelings are immaterial and logically a first officer of a Starfleet vessel is entitled to respect, regardless of their relationship.  Sarek returns to the reception where he is once again confronted by Gav, which ends in a physical altercation that Kirk breaks up. 

Sarek defending his son to Amanda's surprise

A security officer later discovers that Gav has been murdered.  The method of death was identified by Mr. Spock as tal-shaya, a Vulcan fighting technique.  Spock bases this on the precision in how the neck of Gav was broken.  Given their earlier encounters suspicion falls on Sarek.  Captain Kirk and Spock then confront Sarek.  Sarek actually agrees that he is mostly likely suspect, and he was off mediating by himself at the time.  It looks bad as Sarek has no alibi; however he then has a heart attack.

Dead

So it turns out Sarek does have an alibi and a good one.   Sarek isn’t as healthy as he let on.  He has a heart condition, hence his earlier retirement, and he off having another heart attack while the Tellarite was being murdered.  McCoy confirms this and confirms that Sarek needs heart surgery now.   McCoy can do it, in theory, but they are going to need a blood donner.  Fortunately Spock is a match but he needs to take a drug that will make him produce more blood.  This is will take Spock out of active duty for a little while almost like an organ donner.  Spock of course will do it.

In the corridors of the Enterprise Kirk is attacked by the Andorian aide Thelev , who we later learn is the actual murder.  He isn’t fighting an overweight Tellarite now, Thelev is combating James T. Kirk one of the greatest fighters in the galaxy.  Thelev finds himself outmatched fighting an opponent with such speed and grace that he needs to cheat.  He pulls a knife and with pure luck happens to connect and stabs Kirk right in the back.  A lesser fighter would have then fallen and been another murder victim but this is Captain Kirk.  Even with his stab wound he manages to beat his opponent unconscious and then calls for security to take him away. 

A sick Sarek, can't be the killer

With Kirk now recovering from his injury in sickbay Spock realizes that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  With the Captain undergoing treatment it is up to him to assume command and defend the ship against the unknown attacker.  His father will therefore have to wait and that means he will most likely die. His mother tires to argue from logic which fails because Spock is already convinced of his logic.  She then tries to appeal to his emotion which is useless. 

                

Kirk and his would-be-murder

Kirk realizes that in order to save Sarek he needs to go back on duty and convince Spock that he is fine.  Kirk gets up, gets dressed, and heads to the bridge.  Spock is convinced and goes down to sickbay.  Kirk is then about to call Scotty to the bridge to take over when the Enterprise is then attacked.  Kirk decides to stay and fight wounded.  Their opponent is speedy and all the Enterprise’s phaser shots miss.  The crew learns from their security division that their prisoner is not really Andorian and has been communicating to the other ship with a device in his fake antennae.  Kirk orders him brought to the bridge, and Thelev gets to watch his side lose.  Kirk decides to play possum.  He orders the ship to cut power and act like they are dead.  As the enemy ship goes in for the kill the Enterprise launches a surprise attack of photon torpedoes crippling their opponent’s ship.   Kirk was about to have the other ship boarded but then it self-destructs.  Thelev said they were under orders to do that it was a suicide mission from the start. With that Thelev dies having taken a suicide pill from before. 

While Kirk is winning the space battle McCoy is winning the medical one

While Kirk had his impressive space naval victory, McCoy completed Sarek’s surgery all while the ship was shaking under attack. Spock uncovers that this was all an operation conducted by the Orion Syndicate trying to start a war and sell dilithium.  The reason the ship seemed so powerful is they were giving all their energy to the attacks with no attention of returning.  When all was said and done Kirk, Spock, and Sarek were all in sickbay recovering and the family from Vulcan had a fun family together, and McCoy gets to tell everyone to be quite and lay down happy with the fact that he got the episodes last word.  This is the only time in Star Trek that I can remember that a character seems to break the fourth wall when they are not doing a log entry.  I assume he was talking Chapel.     

Additional thoughts: So earlier this year the crew of the Enterprise discovers that Mr. Spock had a betrothed who he never mentioned before; and now after preparing for this conference, which must have been weeks, Spock knew his parents were coming and never bothered to tell anyone.  I am sensing a pattern.  Spock has family members that he does not want talk about or even acknowledge.  To be fair he did mention that he had a father and mother and gave their occupations however he had to work up to that.  When we first see Kirk and Spock together Spock says he had a human ancestor.  I suppose one’s parents are their most immediate ancestor but when one talks about an ancestor we assume you mean ancient grandparent with too many ‘greats’ to count.

Amanda, a surprise Spock family member and not the last

One of the great misconceptions about Vulcans is they don’t have emotions.  They have emotions they just maintain absolute control over them.  We have at this point of the series seen Mr. Spock lose control of his.  In “The Naked Time” the virus caused him to confront his guilt of never telling his mother that he loved her.  In “This Side of Paradise” the spores allow him to openly express love and infatuation.  The episode “Amok Time” his pon farr erodes his control.  

While Mr. Spock seems to display emotion only when something causes him to lose control Sarek, despite his stoic demeanor, seems to actually driven by his emotional state while pretending to driven just by logic.  For example the first thing we learn about Sarek is that he engaged emotional blackmail of his son by cutting him out of his life trying to make him quit Starfleet and attend the Vulcan Science Academy.

Sarek a Vulcan led by emotions that he pretends is logic

Being driven by his pride and emotions isn’t something that Sarek has limited to his son, but he also applies it to his career as well.  He undertakes this mission to Babel knowing that he is very ill. Yet because of his pride and desire for privacy, he does not bring a Vulcan physician that would be familiar with condition, nor does he bring a backup diplomat who could take over if his health becomes an issue.  Even worse when suspicion falls upon him for potentially being the murderer of Gav, instead of informing Kirk and Spock that he was off having a heart attack at the time of the murder that Dr. McCoy could probably verify with a quick exam, he lies and says he was meditating in private.  Instead of admitting weakness he allows himself to continue to be a suspected murder, slowing down the potential of catching the real killer who was still on the loose at this time.  Not to mention failing to get justice for the family of Gav.  Then it all became pointless because he had a heart attack right in front of everyone so his privacy didn’t even last long enough to justify the deception assuming you ever could.

This episode was particularly insightful to the inside workings of the mind of Mr. Spock.   Throughout the series we have seen Mr. Spock a challenge by various members of the Enterprise crew on his outsider status of being a Vulcan. Sometimes is done playfully like with Mr. Spock’s rivalry with Dr. McCoy, conversations with Captain Kirk or even Lt. Uhura.  However there are other times where it’s more of insidious attack like Stiles in “The Balance of Terror ” or Boma in “The Galileo Seven.”  In this episode however we learn through his mother that when he was a child he was harassed by other Vulcan children for being half human.  Not only was he verbally harassed but he was often bullied and beaten by his classmates.  Since Vulcans control their emotions as adults he does not have to worry about unapologetic harassment and humiliation, however there is always the lingering thought that they do not truly accept him.  We learned in “Amok Time” that Mr. Spock in his voyages on the Enterprise has become something of a legend on Vulcan. 

The irony is that it took him leaving Vulcan to truly become accepted amongst his people.  That probably was not part of the plan but for it was also how he became accepted by his own inner psyche.  As a child Spock was labeled a human by Vulcans and as an adult when he surrounds himself with humans he is labeled a Vulcan.  This is the reason why he left Vulcan and this is the reason why he chooses to be among humans.  In “I, Mudd” Mr. Spock told Dr. McCoy that he didn’t know of any other place in the universe where he was much more needed than on a starship full of irrational humans.  However it is not their need to why he chose to be there, but his own.  Only in being surrounded by humans can he ever feel Vulcan.  

In this sense Spock always wins his conflicts with Dr. McCoy.  For whenever Dr. McCoy starts on his whole teasing of Mr. Spock on his Vulcan characteristics he only pleases Mr. Spock in ways that he can't understand.  Mr. Spock must get in the small arguments with Dr. McCoy on purpose for his own psychological therapy.  No one makes Spock feel more Vulcan than Dr. McCoy.

                    On a side note this is a great Captain Kirk episode as well.  We could see Kirk engage in hand-to-hand combat with the assassin and win despite the fact that the assassin stabbed him with a knife.  We could see a weakened Kirk take control of the bridge when the ship is under attack by a strange and foreign adversary and prevail in that situation as well.  Kirk kicks butt all the way through.

Kirk to take command despite injury

Despite the fact that he’s talked about a lot Mr. Scott never makes it apparent since entire episode.   To be fair there wasn’t much for him to do; they were only going to a conference there were no great feats of engineering that needed to be done on screen.  However I could see a fan forgetting and thinking he was in this episode is seeing how often his name is dropped.

When I was watching this once with my father, who himself has had two heart surgeries, he found McCoy’s describing the condition and necessary steps to fix it absurd.  Particularly, the part about needing so much blood.  I tried to explain to my father that they are aliens so it is probably different.   He is probably right about the show’s writers not really researching the subject.

Meeting the many aliens of the United Federation of Planets

This episode has long been a fan favorite and he can easily see why there a lot of fun and interesting things that happen.  This is an episode that truly begins to explore what it means to be in the United Federation of Planets.  We meet all sorts of different aliens for the first time and we get to watch them interact amongst each other.  As Star Trek grows this is something we see much more of but the foundation is here.   And of course that final scene is one of the great scenes of the franchise.  With Kirk, Spock, and Sarek all laid up in sick bay and McCoy trying to control everything so his patients can focus on getting better. There is a Star Trek novel I once read that took place shortly after this episode and scene with the three patients was continued.  I can’t remember which book it was however.

FINAL GRADE 5 of 5