When I was a kid in the seventies, I had a viewmaster set of this epsiode. For those of you young 'uns who don't know what I'm talking about, a viewmaster was a toy in which you could insert photographic slides and view into and see 3D-diaoramic images from movies and TV shows. The booklet which came with this one also told the story. I remember Lt. Galloway was called Lt. Raintree in this particular adaptation as he was in the original script. I don't know if any more TOS episodes were ever released on viewmaster besides this one.

As far as I know Todd, "The Omega Glory" was the only one, discounting the Animated ep. ("Yesteryear" or as it was called on the Viewmaster label, "Mr. Spock's Time Trap.") I used to have both of those and I also remember the Lt. Raintree nit (if such it is) that you point out.

Boy, those GAF Viewmasters were cool.

IIRC...dragging this forth from the deep recesses of my Trek memories, mind you...'Raintree' was one of the rejected names for the original Enterprise Captain.

There's a list of suggested names for the ship's captain in Stephen Whitfield's original The Making of Star Trek and Raintree may indeed have been one of them. Apparently Roddenberry liked the name enough to use for this script. He may have been inspired by Raintree County, Ross Lockridge's classic novel of small-town Americana. (The film adaptation of which stars none other than DeForrest Kelly!)

Todd is correct, Raintree is on that list of about 20 names. The only one of those names ever used for a TOS character (besides Kirk) was Christopher. He wasn't in Starfleet, however.

One name on the list that would have fit well with this episode -- Flagg.

<snerk> Ooh, now I'm having wonderful mental pictures of M*A*S*H's stonefaced CIA officer of the same name trying to interrogate the Kohms...

Roddenberry originaly wrote "The Omega Glory" as a contender to be made into the second pilot. Besides WNMHGB, "Mudd's Women" was also considered. WNMHGB, of course, was chosen.

In this early draft of "Omega Glory," the navigator was one Lieutenant Phil Raintree, and the ship's medical officer was Doctor Milton Perry.

Raintree and Perry were killed in this draft.

Sir Rhosis

>One name on the list that would have fit well >with this episode -- Flagg.

> Ooh, now I'm having wonderful mental >pictures of M*A*S*H's stonefaced CIA officer of >the same name trying to interrogate the Kohms...

What about a mysterious dark quasi-Satanic figure with strange mental powers who gathers all the surviving Kohms in the ruins of Las Vegas for a final apocolyptic showdown with the Yangs?

Michael Jackson's available.

The Bible prop is the same one that was seen in "When Worlds Collide" (another Paramount feature, BTW)

I don't know if this has ever been brought up. Maybe Phil brought it up in his book, and I don't remember (and I'm being too lazy to look it up), but in re-reading James Blish's adaptation of this story, it becomes obvious that the crew of Tracy's ship, the Exeter knew that being on the planet surface provides an immunity to the disease that afflicted the crew. The disease, I don't think, acted instantaneously. So at least some of the Exeter's complement should have had time to beam down to the planet to take advantage of the immunity the world bestows. Why didn't they? I know that if I was in their predicament, I'd be using the transporter to beam my butt down to where it's safe.

Live long and prosper.

Maybe some went crazy and prevented the others from using the transporters; the transporters might have been damaged by crazed crewmembers; some crewmembers beamed down to any old coordinates and ended up thousands of miles from where Tracy was.
Some might have taken the shuttles down and didn't know or care where Tracy was and landed on another part of the planet. Trek episodes often don't acknowledge how comparatively vast a planet can be--the other crewmembers could be stuck on another continent.

Good point, stephen. And that's one of the things that annoys me to no end: how TREK has long tended to treat all planets and races in such a simplistic manner. They really do ignore that planets are very huge things and that there will be a greater variety of life and cultures on each planet, rather the usual one or two we see throughout the series. There is no reason, for instance, why there shouldn't be green or red Andorians. If there are, we never see them. And probably never will.

Live long and prosper.

Or, like in "A Private Little War", how McCoy tells Kirk he may be condemning the "whole planet" to a war. All we see is two small tribes in conflict. Does this really comprise the population of the whole planet?

>She also introduces an intriguing race
>of bronze-haired/-eyed Vulcans

Oh yeah, the possible ancestors of Doc Savage, as I believe has been discussed elsewhere on another board.

I bet Ronald Reagan would have loved this episode. LOL

During the mid-23rd century (the Pike-Kirk era), Starfleet is pretty small, just a few dozen craft. It must be very expensive to build ships as well as to crew them and train the crew, and the same for starbases. By Picard's time, Starfleet very obviously has hundreds and hundreds of ships. How many times is the Enterprise the only ship in the sector or the quadrant? Not the only starship, not the only heavy cruiser, the only SHIP.

Since there are so few ships, there must be hundreds of tasks for them, with an incredibly long waiting list (an idea broached by Alan Dean Foster in one of his animated adaptations IIRC). Unlike the US Coast Guard (which some believe Starfleet is based on, in part), Starfleet does not go searching for missing ships unless there is a distress signal. (Perhaps this was a reaction to the ship losses of the Earth-Romulan War. The subsequent creation of Starfleet, Starbases, and the Academy must have been soooo expensive, they had to go do these other tasks. Callous, in the extreme, but strangely plausible.)

Nobody searched for the S.S. Valiant 200 years earlier; it's a complete surprise to find her recorder-marker buoy. Seems like they went off to the galactic edge without filing a flight plan.

In the short time frame after the War, when the Federation was founded, a large number of ships was lost. Fleet new construction consumed sooooo much of the budget, existing ships couldn't look for them. The USS Archon's last mission took it to Landru's World, but it was never searched for; in a Next Gen, disembodied aliens try to convince Picard they are the survivors of a ship crash themselves and take over the bodies of O'Brien and Troi and one other, but they have no idea that that ship was lost there at Mab-Bu VI; and the Horizon visited the Iotians. Because of their non-subspace radio capabilities, the Horizon simply vanished to Starfleet's eyes. Kirk specifically states that the Horizon's distress signal had just been received last week, so the Enterprise went to track it down.

The USS Valiant was destroyed 50 years ago during the Eminiar-Vendikar War, but again, Starfleet records only showed it disappeared in the general area.

Pike wasn't willing to search for the S.S. Columbia unless there was a follow-up distress signal 13 years ago.

Thanks to subspace jamming by the planet killer, the Enterprise didn't even know the Constellation's whereabouts until she got within the same star system, then picked up the distress beacon.

Considering how many colonies and research expeditions were long overdue for routine contact (mentioned in postings elsewhere very frequently), there must be a huge backlog of missions and very few ships able to do them.
Prof. Starnes summoned a relief/rescue mission to make a pickup because of his terror of the Gorgon, but then called Starfleet again to cancel it. His messages were very confusing, so Starfleet sent in the Enterprise.

The Enterprise just happens on the Denevan ship flying into the Denevan sun at the beginning because Kirk was ordered to explore the mass insanity. By chance, it seems, one mission or two missions discovered the previous worlds, and saw that they were in a straight line. Backtracking or going forward, the Enterprise found more of those worlds (which, being colonies, SHOULD HAVE been in constant contact but weren't) and then followed the chain onward to Deneva. (That tracking mission must take a couple of weeks from assignment to first reaching Deneva...this would seem to indicate Starfleet is VERY concerned this could be an invasion--and considering NextGen's "Conspiracy" and the little bluegill aliens, perhaps not without reason.)

Things appear to be improving in terms of ship availability by the end of the first season/year of Kirk's mission, as Starfleet is willing to send out one ship on a risky, lengthy mission. In fact, by the end of the second season/year, the Enterprise is sent on an EXTREMELY risky timetravel mission, which must be an experiment to send a ship back in time to change history by telling then-Starfleet where the missing ships are. (No wonder Starfleet wasn't worried! LOL) In Friday's Child, Scotty is able to attempt to effect rescues while Kirk is on the Capellan mission. Throw in a few medical missions and supply relief (wait--why should a heavy cruiser be carrying supplies...unless there aren't enough ships in the fleet of all types!)

And Archer's Enterprise just happened to go visit Terra Nova, the first world colonized by Earth humans--which conveniently was never tracked down by either other Earth humans, or Vulcans, etcm, and the colony disappeared without a trace.

Sorry if this gets rambling, it's very late here.

This ep would bring tears to the eyes of G. W. too.

In the archived nits somebody said that only an American would like this episode. Well, I'm certainly not American and I must say I liked it a lot. I respect patriotism at large and I find it very reassurring that in the 23rd century flags and documents would still be revered.

Of course, the overall idea of another planet developing exactly the same culture to the point of having the same constitution (or the Bible for that matter) word for word, fails my eye roll test. So what? It was an interesting episode and it was touching.

I noticed something interesting; the scene where Tracy asks the Khomm to tell Kirk his age is replicated, nearly verbatim in the end of the Dune novel "The Butlerian Jihad", when a character first learns of what spice can do about aging.

For some reason, James Blish in his adaptation of this episode spells Captain Tracy's name as "Tracey", despite the fact that it is spelled "Tracy" in the shooting script.

I will not comment on the parallel world theme, although it wasn't needed for this ep in the first place. The episode is very good in the beginning and middle and only deteriotes at the end when the flag/constitution gabble begins.
But like I said it is a very good ep, especially, and contradict me if I'm wrong, as this is one of the only times that Kirk and Co actually beam into the bad guys tribe.

Now for the actual nitpicking: what is this with those Federation safety rules? I have called this in the past 'jump into the pit first, count the snakes later'. Here two captains from the Federation make exactly the same mistake.

The captain of the USS Exeter beams down and brings back a deadly virus to his own ship (well not him, but part of the landing team to be exact). What about quarantine measures?

The second captain, Kirk this time, beams into the ship filled with the deadly virus without checking first why there is nobody alive.
I suppose they could have checked the Exeter logs from the Enterprise.
I suppose there must be an automatic alarm signal to warn passing ships not to enter a dead(ly) ship.
I suppose there must be an automatic (backup) transmission from all logs from all ships send over to Federation headquarters.

The 1st and second commanding officers of the Enterprise beam down in order not to die. I can understand that. What does the third commanding officer do when he hears from them? He beams down too, with 2 (two) guards to protect them against hordes of attackers. Haven't they monitored the planet and didn't they see that there was a battle going on with thousands of people involved? If you keep on beaming down the most efficient officers of the starship you'll end up with the janitor in command...

What was wrong with the Commies in first place? Of course we didn't see their culture and political system, but apparently these were just plain, decent folk trying to live by the ancient words: Aspe ctreis haun tingeu rope -- thespe ctreof comm unism.

(I forgot to add this in my previous post)
I found the true reason why the Yangs are the good guys, it is not the book with the holy words, nor the flag that makes Kirk decide not to interfere with the war. No it's the fact that they have independently developed the use of the miniskirt as Sirah quite professionally exposes in prison...

Benn said on Monday, November 17, 2003:

---

Quote:

...at least some of the Exeter's complement should have had time to beam down to the planet to take advantage of the immunity the world bestows. Why didn't they? (...) I'd be using the transporter to beam my butt down to where it's safe.

---

Uhhhh, yeah. Fine, Felix. But why didn't some of the other crewmembers of the Exeter beam down? That's what I was talking about. I really don't care about Tracey's clothes. Heck, I didn't even think about his clothes when I made my post.

Live long and prosper.

Hi Benn, my 'answer' was only reflecting your criticism in a kind of garbled funny way.

So I try once again (and then I'll give up, promised): Why didn't the entire or part of the crew leave, well... because they were ALL busy packing their suitcases, only much too slow...

LOL. Gotcha, Felix. That makes sense to me now.

Live long and prosper.

Why didn't the Exeter send out a "do not board this ship" warning before they died? If they all saw what was happening, somebody should've done so...especially that last guy seen in the Exeter's logs.

Good call, John A. I'd point out that he was, I believe, the ship's Chief Medical officer, and not a bridge officer, but all he had to do, really, was turn on the intercom and access the computer, and give it your instructions. Instead, he leaves the ship a mass of infectious contamination-- not a very good doctor if you ask me!

You'd think that the ships would have some kind of quarrentine beacons.

How come we saw a shot of an empty Engineering section aboard the Exeter, when it's established that Kirk is paging the ship for crew members from there, and there are even empty uniforms on that big dilithium crystal synthesizer (?) right in the middle of the floor? (The shot of an empty Engineering was re-used from "The Ultimate Computer," with that power beam that killed the redshirt removed.)

Isaac Asimov's novel "The Stars, Like Dust" (spoiler warning) contains a bizarre and unlikely role for documents from American history, not entirely dissimilar to the unsatisfying role they play here. Asimov, it turns out, hated the idea; it was forced on him editorially.

The parallel development idea, beloved by Roddenberry, makes sense only if (1) there are so many earthlike planets (I mean millions of millions) that it would become likely that duplication at this level would occur randomly, or (2) the development of worlds is not random, but is perhaps the result of some superbeing with limited imagination. For a compelling account of a superbeing who never uses the same idea twice, check out Stapledon's Star Maker.

You're right, Paul, the parallel development idea is the least plausible of Roddenberry's favorite plot devices. Look at his original proposal for the series, presented to NBC in 1964. Of the twenty-five episode outlines he provided, six have overt Earth parallels, including episodes set in parallels of Al Capone's Chicago, St. Louis c. 1910, and "ole plantation days". The parallel worlds concept was presented as a budgetary consideration as it would allow for the use of existing sets. However, one gets the idea that this is really the type of story that Roddenberry wanted most to tell. Would "The Omega Glory" have been a weaker episode had it just been the story of a power-hungry ship's captain going bad, and left the Cold War parallel out? Is "Miri" helped in any way by the fact that it takes place on a twin of Earth? It almost seems that there was a belief that to have a story set on an Earth-like planet it had to actually BE Earth, or a planetary doppelganger.

I agree. Especially with the "Miri" comment-the crew seems amazed that the planet is a copy of Earth, but then that never affects the story. I think there are two possibilities in addition to the budgetary limits: (1) maybe it was felt that viewers would find it implausible that there could be totally human-appearing people, with human emotions etc, on a truly different world. But science fiction abounds with such scenarios. (2) Maybe it was felt that viewers would catch onto the idea "it could happen to us!" better if in some sense it really did happen to "us." But I think viewers could make the connections w/o the planetary isomorphism. In fact, sci fi viewers are typically overeager to anthropomorphize even the craziest species.
As for the idea two posts above, about the planet being seeded, I have always liked this concept in principle, but I hope if we were seeded in some way, the specific wording of our documents was left up to us!

That would be a nice idea. It almost seems like though that in Trek when a society is seeded on another world that society is then locked in whatever form they where when they where moved.

And no the Starship captain abusing his power and setting himself up on a planet could hav ebeen done just as effectively wihtout the little morality play. But then the whole point of the episode was to hammer home the idea and concept that america was right and more powerful than anything else no matter how long it took or what it took to win in the end. A very amerocentric episode/moral as a prodcut of the times. Whats funny is you get the major pro america propaganda like this then you also get the antiwar/flower chiuldren episodes in trek. So trek was good for that in trying to provide both sides of the issue.

Can't believe I never noticed this before; Sulu beams down at the end; Sulu, a guy that looks JUST LIKE THE KOHMS! Wouldn't THAT mess with Cloud William's mind, considering this supernatural Kohm appears out of nowhere?

It's ironic, don't you think, that this americentric episode has William Shanter -- A CANADIAN -- reading "We the people.."

Liked the new orbital shot, though it looked like Sulu was orbiting a bit too close.

Although I've seen some people complain, I think the new planets are much more convincing than the originals. I always thought it strange that the class M planets all looked like gas giants from orbit. The really purple Omega IV was an egregious example of this.

In addition to seeing Sirah's navel, the Kohm woman that brings McCoy food is also wearing a midriff-baring outfit.

By Todd Pence on Thursday, June 29, 2006 - 7:45 pm:
"You'd think that the ships would have some kind of quarrentine beacons."

This is another thing the TOS Klingons are useful for. Every time some tech isn't used, it's because before this episode takes place, the ship had been in battle with the Klingons, and--in this case the quarantine beacons had been damaged in the battle.

(I won't bother mentioning you misspelled a word, no biggie. But in "Enemy Within" they didn't use the shuttles because they'd been damaged in battle with Klingons the week before. )

NANJAO: The wooden wagon from "Errand of Mercy" makes a comeback in this episode

>Some might have taken the shuttles down and >didn't know or care where Tracy was and landed >on another part of the planet.

At the beginning of this episode, it was noted that all of the Exeter's shuttlecraft were still in the hangar.

So on July 4th, be sure to recite the sacred words: "E Pleeb Neesta!"

I just finished watching the remastered version of "The Omega Glory." Seems to me that the CGI team could have redone the conclusion of this episode by having the Enterprise take the Exeter in tow as it leaves the planet.With only tweleve Federation Starships of the Constitution Class existing according to the episode "Tomorrow Is Yesterday,"I cannot believe that something as invaluable as a starship would be so casually left behind.Not to mention security issues such as having any unfriendly races who would like to steal the vessel & learn all there is to know about a Federation starship.

also, they should have blown up the poor Exeter- seeing it was infected, like Picard did for that Uss Lantree?

Next weekend's remastered episode is "The Omega Glory". I don't have the following week's title yet.

I just found out. It's "Day of the Dove."

Going back to a comment on the Viewmaster reel, here's why the somewhat odd choice of "The Omega Glory".

The reel came with a story adaptation, so the original writer would get a royalty for it. "The Omega Glory" was written by... Gene Roddenberry.

By Benn on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 10:02 pm:
There is no reason, for instance, why there shouldn't be green or red Andorians.

Right you are. We saw white Andorians in The Aenar(ENT).

Many, including Phil, found this episodes parallel Earth scenario kind of out there (U.S. Contstituion, Declaration Of Independence, the Christian Bible).

The new Department Of Temporal Investiations novel, Forgotten History, by Christopher L. Bennett, offers an alternative explanation.

In the 2140's, the Philadelphia, a cargo ship of the space boomers (Travis Mayweather's people), visted Omega IV. The crew then interacted with the Yangs (the Prime Directive not being in effect at this time). They sympathyzed with the Yangs and gave them all the American stuff, we saw on the episode (of course, these are copies of the U.S. Constitution and DOI, of course), to help inspire them in their fight for freedom. The Yangs, taking this to be a sign from their deities, simply incorporated these things into their culture. After leaving Omega IV, the Philadelphia was lost in space (the crew having fallen victim to the same disease that killed the Exeter crew).

When Kirk and Co. came to Omega IV, more than a century later, they simply made the wrong conclusions, based on what they saw.

I know this novel is not canon, but this explanation does make more sense. They also tackled the question of Miri's planet, which I will address in the thread for that episode (the novel gave the Roman world of Bread And Circuses a free pass though).

E Pleeb Neesta Fan says

Happy 4th!

(we the people of the United States of America In order
to form a more perfect Union to establish etc)

Anti-nit (sort of) to GR's parallel planet thing: as the number of class M planets approaches N, where N is an integer of arbitrarily large integer, it *will* lead to planets exactly like the one in this episode. Kind of like if an arbitrarily large number ("infinite") of monkeys had typewriters they'd end up writing Shakespeare in there somewhere — or if one monkey had a sufficiently long enough time ("infinite"), he'd end up writing the Constitution (along with any conceivable thing)!

But IRL I don't think even in our whole universe N is big enough to let us end up with such a planet.... :p


****Now for the Nit****: so the Yahngs had the US declaration of independence, flag, constitution, quasi-medieval decorative " Bible", these guys are no way going to accomplish anything! Did you notice any Thomas Paines/Jeffersons, Ben Franklins, John Lockes, James Madisons, Alexandar Hamiltons, et al. among them? They were primitive barbarians, kind of like the Germanic, Slavic, and Turkic/Hungarian hordes that swept into the cultured Roman areas and wound up losing almost all the knowledgle etc. for a *thousand* years!

Those Goths, Lombards, Slavs, etc had no idea about the writings of the learned Greco-Roman forebears. It took trade with Muslim scribes who helped unlock the lust for learning.

Another Nit: the Kohms were obviously in control, yet they allowed the Yahngs to live unmolested? Conquered ppl usually intermingle as lower class groups and lose their identity (if they're lucky not to be killed). A few exceptions, yes, but it didn't appear it was that kind of situation.

Even though the landing party has developed immunity from the virus after the time they all spent on the planet, aren't they still carriers? Aren't they immediately going to infect the rest of the Enterprise crew, who have no such immunity, after they beam back up to the ship, as the Exeter landing party did before them?

It's possible that once the immunisation process if completed, the infectious agent is eradicated from the body and it is safe to go back to the ship. The crew of the Exeter was killed because the landing party went back to the ship before the immunisation process ran its course.

John A. Lang on Saturday, June 24, 2006 - 6:12 am: Why didn't the Exeter send out a "do not board this ship" warning before they died? If they all saw what was happening, somebody should've done so...especially that last guy seen in the Exeter's logs. The comm system may have been disabled.

The comm system may have been disabled.

After Uhura reports that the Exeter is not responding to her hail, Sulu states that sensors indicate the ship is not damaged. The Exeter is intact, all of her systems are fine, there's just nobody onboard. The crew also had time to set the helm on automatic. An automatic warning to not come onboard would have been no more difficult to initiate.

Valid points, but the fact is there wasn't a warning set up.
My theory is that it was a case of 'Not my job-- somebody else will surely do it instead of me?!', which proved very bad judgement on everyone's part.
The last man that died on the bridge was supposed to be the Exeter's Chief Medical Officer, and unfortunately for him, he didn't have the knowledge of how to send out such a warning, let alone a distress signal.

The flag used in this episode did not have to be a 50-star version. It would have been interesting if they'd used a 43 or 38 star flag, and it still would have been instantly recognizable as Old Glory. It could be taken to mean that the planet's geography dictated a somewhat different number of states, though the 13 stripes would still be an amazing parallel.

Okay, I think I have a reason for the Exeter not having an automated warning.

Tracey wanted rescuers to beam down and have to help him, so since Doctor "Macready" needed another authorization code to activate the warning, he called Tracey. Tracey gave a deliberately bolluxed-up authorization, preventing activation of a warning, then "had to close communications" because of imminent attack by Yangs.

How did Ronald Tracey ever become a captain, considering what he did in this episode. He willing murders innocent people, including a fellow Starfleet officer (Lt. Galloway, but he somehow later reincarnated himself as Lt. Johnson later on). Yes, he lost his whole crew, but come one, this is going too far.

Kirk mentioned that Bob Merrick (the guy in Bread Circuses) failed a psych profile test and got booted out of Starfleet Academy because of it. I'm assuming that Tracey took that same profile . How, based on his actions in this episode, did he pass?

My theory is he is a sociopath who was able to fake being normal.

You would think that Starfleet, being much more advanced than us, could better screen such people out.

I wonder how Tracey's trial went down. Did he try to cop an insanity plea, due to the loss of his crew?

Maybe somebody higher up in the Admiralty thought, "Tracy is a little weird, has a tendancy towards violence, doesn't bat an eye against cold blooded killing...Yep! He's our man-- to fight the Klingons on their own terms!"
Sort of like having our own Stone Cold Steve Austin as a vicious good guy.

Well, if that's the case, Starfleet really dropped the ball here.

Hey, I'd think that losing your entire crew would be enough that break most people( this isn't the only case of this happening in Trek).

(Note:Tracey also thought he could give near immortality the the Federation--in his eyes a gift that would surely pay for his crimes).

(Also not the only case in Trek.)

Could be.

Starfleet really needs to find a better screening process.

Cloud William's woman, Sirah, and the Kohm servant girl both have exposed navels, something that NBC didn't usually allow back then.
Kirk doesn't introduce Spock, McCoy, and Galloway to Tracy.
The computer that Spock is working on before Tracy disintegrates it is from the briefing room table.
You can just barely hear a small 'creak' as Kirk tells Spock his efforts "should be sufficient'. The creaking sound is the door opening off camera, because it's Tracy who seconds later disintegrates the computer in front of Spock.
Cloud William picks up a book, where the back says 'HOLY', and his hand covers the bottom part-- maybe it said 'BIBLE' and NBC told them, 'You can't do that.'?
If you ever wondered why Sirah conveniently has a communicator near her, I believe it has to be the one that Tracy took back from Kirk (just before the fist fight) where Kirk ordered 10 phasers and 3 extra power packs each. It was confiscated from Tracy when he and kirk were captured.

Is this from one of those books?

Nope. Just my usual nit-picking observations after watching the episode.

Ah, okay then.

See my May 03, 2012 post. You might find it interesting.

Jumps from 2011 to 2013.

Never mind. For some reason, your post is in the middle of some 2009/2010 stuff...

That's odd. Wonder how that happened?

I wonder what Starfleet did about the Exeter? At the end of the episode, the Enterprise leaves the planet by itself. Would exposing the ship to the emptiness of the void, opening all hatches and shutting off gravity and life support kill the disease in the ship?

I'm guessing they would try and 'clean' the ship before writing it off as a lost cause.

They know exactly what the problem is at that point, so sterilizing the ship should not be a problem.

And once the ship was sterilized, it was no doubt put back into service.

Although they might have changed the name. I mean would YOU want to serve on a ship where all the crew died?

First Starfleet cadet; "So, what ship are you assigned to?"

Second starfleet Cadet; "A new ship! The USS Bexeter!"

If they could salvage the ship, they would. I mean there are only twelve like them in the fleet (well, 11, since the Constellation was destroyed in The Doomsday Machine).

The Vulcans would probably accept it. They don't get, according to T'Pol, the creeps, the willies or the heebie-jeebies.

In fact, it could be recommissioned as the U.S.S. Intrepid, NCC-1631A, since the Intrepid was lost (this episode has no stardate, but since it aired later, we can infer that possibly it occurred after the amoeba incident).

Guess we'll never know.

In this episode Kirk records a supplemental Captain's log. But we never hear an original log thathat this was a supplement to.

Check that, he does record a first log at the beginning of act one, but oddly gives no stardate as is standard procedure.

Star Fleet was losing a lot of ships at the time including the Intrepid,the Constellation, the Excalibur, and the Defiant,and those are just the ones that I remember.

It was a tough time to be assigned to a Constitution class ship.

If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross, but it's not for the timid.

Q to Picard, as he was leaving after the events of the TNG episode "Q Who"

True, but Q can be a insensitive smeghead at times.

Risk is our business: James Tiberius Kirk.

That doesn't say that risk isn't dangerous.

Can I just say it's nice to see Todd and Francois back at Nitcentral, and new comments and opinions by John? It got to the point where it just seemed like Tim and I were playing tag here by ourselves!

Steve- That you for the nice welcome- I'm trying to reach an understanding with Emily--if we can't reach an understanding, I don't think that I can keep posting here.

Do you know where I can find a neutral arbitrator?

Emily's activities here are fully confined to the Who forum, she does not go anywhere else (except the Moderator section, in which only Mods are permitted to enter).

In short, John, you don't have to leave the whole site to avoid Emily, just stay out of the Who forum.

Problem solved.