(by Collin R. Skocik)
The Enterprise happens upon the starship Exeter, abandoned and orbiting the planet Omega IV. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Lt. Galloway beam aboard and find the ship strewn with uniforms lying about, filled with little white crystals. McCoy discovers that the white crystals are what’s left of the crew; the entire crew was wiped out by a disease. Learning from the ship’s last medical log entry that their only hope is to beam down to the planet, they beam down and find that the Exeter’s captain, Ron Tracy, has been interfering in the native civilization, a war between the vicious, animalistic Yangs and the slightly more civilized Oriental Kohms.
Although these are a primitive people, barely out of the Stone Age, there was once a highly advanced civilization on this planet, but it destroyed itself in either a nuclear or bacteriological war. That must have been many thousands of years ago, because obviously generations of Yangs and Kohms have been fighting one another, but the lifespan here is thousands of years. By the end, Kirk and Spock deduce that the “Yangs” are really Yankees, and the “Kohms” Communists. “It would mean they fought the war your Earth avoided,” Spock says, “and in this case the Asiatics won and took over this planet.” The Yangs even have a tattered American flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Constitution.
I am a Star Trek fan and my interest is in reveling in a good science fiction series and analyzing it from the standpoint of the internal reality of its universe. I’m not interested in criticizing the show’s flaws; every series has flaws, and what separates Star Trek from other sci-fi TV series is not its problems, of which it does have some, but its assets, of which there are many. But seriously, am I supposed to believe that on a distant alien planet, a civilization identical to Earth’s arose by sheer coincidence, complete with the calligraphy on the Constitution? Did they have Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington too? Kind of takes the meaning out of McCoy’s speech in “Balance of Terror” that “in all the universe, [there are] a million million galaxies like this, and in all of that, and perhaps more, only one of each of us.” This is as bad as Earth Two in “Miri.”
Actually, this episode is much like “Miri.” In that adventure the Enterprise happened upon a planet that was just like Earth; Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beamed down and contracted an alien disease; the natives had drastically prolonged lifespans…except that “Miri” was an interesting and thought-provoking episode. This one is just plain ridiculous.
But even bad Star Trek is still Star Trek. “The Omega Glory,” for all its faults, is a fast-paced and entertaining adventure. As I understand it, there’s a Star Trek novel that reveals that a previous Earth ship had visited Omega IV, and had given the Yangs the Constitution, the American flag, and so on, as a standard around which to rally. Unfortunately, that’s non-canonical, as much as I prefer that explanation. No, in Gene Roddenberry’s universe, it’s not unusual for alien planets to follow an evolutionary course identical to Earth. As scientifically absurd as that is, we simply have to accept it.
Actually, the possibility of parallel Earths is not all that ridiculous. The mathematical probability of other Earths occurring in an infinite universe has been discussed by scientists, and was mathematically computed in Scientific American in the early 2000s. If our universe is infinite, other Earths are actually certain—an infinite number of them, actually—complete with duplicates of each of us, with minor variations; it’s just supremely unlikely to find one (let alone several!) in our galaxy. But since the scientific possibility exists…okay, Roddenberry, I’ll buy it. But only because I love your show. No other sci-fi series could get away with it. But okay.
This is the second time we’ve found a decimated starship and its crazy captain the only survivor. Last time was in “The Doomsday Machine,” when the shattered Commodore Decker was the only survivor of the Constellation. But Decker was an understandable and sympathetic character who was believably in a state of shock. Captain Tracy just seems…evil. McCoy points out that he lost his ship and his entire crew, and therefore must be under great emotional strain—but he doesn’t come across that way. He comes across as a mustache-twirling villain who even vaporizes Lt. Galloway with no sign of remorse. How did this guy get a starship command? In “The Doomsday Machine” we got a brief sample of Decker in command of his ship when we heard his last captain’s log; it would have been nice to get a sample of Tracy in command, just to get a picture of the man he was before he lost his ship.
Still, as we learned in “The Enemy Within,” it’s a man’s negative side that makes him a strong leader. Tracy is a man of decision. Command seeps from his every pore. I’ve heard that the United States military has had a few psychopathic generals.
We see here what could have happened on Earth had nuclear war broken out and destroyed civilization. Actually, though, Spock says “they fought the war your Earth avoided”—but in the Star Trek future, Earth still had the Eugenics Wars. Still, a nuclear war would be the final war. If hundreds of warheads were detonated in inhabited parts of the world, it would all be over. Civilization after that would quite resemble the tattered savagery of Omega IV—if the human race managed to survive at all. And 25 years after the end of the Cold War, it could still happen—we still have all those nuclear weapons, and many of the old Soviet weapons are unaccounted for. If it’s mathematically inevitable for other Earths to exist in an infinite universe, it’s also inevitable that as long as nuclear weapons exist, someday they will be used.
After Tracy’s blatant interference in this civilization, it barely seems to warrant a footnote that Kirk takes it upon himself to teach the Yangs the meaning of the Constitution, but nevertheless he has interfered. When Spock calls him out on this, Kirk justifies it by saying “We merely showed them the meaning of what they were fighting for.” Well, that is interference. But his next words are worth bearing in mind today: “Liberty and freedom have to be more than just words.” Kirk tells Cloud William that the words of the Constitution “were written not only for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well. They must apply to everyone, or they mean nothing!”
Morgan Woodward is always a compelling actor, but he’s a little stiff as Captain Tracy. He’s been on Star Trek before, giving a much more compelling performance as Dr. Simon Van Gelder in “Dagger of the Mind.”
The chief medical officer of the Exeter is played by Ed McCready, the chameleon of Star Trek. He appears as multiple bit characters throughout the series, but you’d never know it, because he looks different every time.
Although we see Mr. Galloway vaporized in this episode, he’ll inexplicably be back in “Turnabout Intruder.” Mr. Leslie was killed in “Obsession” and then came back, but you can rationalize that away; maybe he was almost killed and Dr. McCoy pulled him through. But Galloway…no, he’s gone. The only possible explanation is that he has a twin brother who is later assigned to the Enterprise.
(Collin R. Skocik is a fan of the Star Trek franchise and has written synopses of all 79 episodes of Star Trek’s original series and the first six Star Trek films.)
Principled Thoughts 