The Doomsday Machine (TOS episode)
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"The Doomsday Machine" is an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. It is episode #35 and was first broadcast on October 20, 1967. It was repeated on April 19, 1968. It was written by Norman Spinrad, and directed by Marc Daniels.
Quick Overview: The Enterprise plays a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with an alien planet-killing machine.
On stardate 4202.9, the starship USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, responds to a distress call and finds that seven planets in star system L370 have been destroyed. A check of a nearby system, L374, finds that all but two of its planets have been destroyed. Energy output within the system interferes with communications, but they still manage to pick up another distress call coming from the USS Constellation. The ship is found adrift, heavily damaged and barely operating on reserve power. The ship's bridge is completely blown apart and uninhabitable.
Kirk beams over with a boarding party to inspect the ship and locate survivors. They find only the Constellation's commanding officer, Commodore Matthew Decker, remaining aboard and holed up inside the auxiliary control room. Mr. Scott reports the ship's warp engines are damaged beyond repair and the ship's weapon systems are exhausted. Decker is incoherent and in shock, unable to respond to questions and only says "that thing" attacked him.
Scotty manages to playback the Constellation's flight recorder and they find out Decker discovered the obliterated systems and went to investigate as one of the worlds was breaking up. They soon came across an enormous "machine" with a conical shell miles in length and a giant opening at one end filled with sparkling energy. The machine then attacked the Constellation, damaging the ship so severely that Decker had to beam his remaining crew to the surface of one of the remaining planets. The machine then destroyed that world and all Decker could do was to watch helplessly.
Mr. Spock describes the machine as a robot, the function of which is to break down planets into rubble and consume it for fuel. Kirk believes that it is a "doomsday machine", built according to the theory of mutually assured destruction.
Decker is beamed aboard the Enterprise where Dr. McCoy is to look him over, while Kirk and Scotty are overseeing repairs on the Constellation. However, arriving aboard, there is a red alert and Doctor and patient both go to the bridge. The machine has made an appearance, drawn to the energy output of the ship. Spock orders an evasive course to pick up the Captain and repair crew, then exits the system's interference to warn Starfleet Command. However, the machine attacks the ship, but damage is luckily limited to the transporter and communications. Commodore Decker, whose transfer to sickbay was preempted by the Red Alert, pulls rank on Spock and assumes command of the Enterprise over the protests of the First Officer and Dr. McCoy. However, with neither allowed to stop Decker under regulations, the Commodore orders a full attack against the machine.
As Spock warned, the ship's weaponry is ineffective against the machine's pure neutronium shell and the Enterprise is badly damaged in the machine's counterattack. The ship is then drawn towards maw of the machine and cannot break free. Back on board the Constellation, Kirk, using a phaser bank Scotty has recharged, manages to fire off a few shots at the planet killer, which distracts it before it can finish off the Enterprise. The machine then targets the Constellation, but the Enterprise pulls a distraction of its own. Appearing confused, the planet killer disengages and then pursues the Enterprise. However, the situation is still grave with Spock estimating that ship can only maintain its distance and speed for seven hours with its warp drive damaged while the planet killer has nearly unlimited fuel.
After contacting the Enterprise and learning about Decker's takeover, Kirk furiously orders Spock, on his personal authority, to relieve Decker of command. Spock has the commodore escorted to sick bay but then Decker escapes and steals a shuttlecraft. He pilots it on a direct suicide attack course into the planet killer's maw. Decker's attack fails to destroy the machine, but a slight reduction in the machine's energy output, believed caused by the anti-matter explosion of the shuttle's reactor, reveals the attack still had a slight effect.
Kirk gets an idea to have Scotty rig the Constellation with a 30-second delayed time explosive and try Decker's plan on a much larger scale. While the loss of crew means that they cannot activate the destruct system and there is no antimatter left with which to detonate the warp core, Kirk suggests detonating the ship's impulse engines as it enters the maw of the planet killer. An action that Spock points out will cause a nuclear explosion of nearly 97.835 megatons.
Kirk must stay behind until the last 30 seconds and guide the ship in manually, and orders Scotty and the rest of the repair crew back to the Enterprise.
With everything set, Kirk steers a course into the planet killer's maw. Kirk activates the bomb and calls for a beam out, however, the earlier battle had damaged the Enterprise's transporter and the system's emergency repairs short out when activated, at the worst possible moment. Scotty rushes to make repairs while Kirk nervously watches the energy maw of the doomsday machine drawing closer. Scott's repairs work, and at the last second, Kirk is beamed out as the ship enters the maw. The resulting explosion burns out the doomsday machine, and its indestructible body shell remains drifting dead in space.
The episode ends with speculation that if this really is a doomsday machine, there may be more out there somewhere.
Trivia
There is a school of thought that speculates that the energy barrier around the perimeter of the galaxy was created to keep these planet killers out. If this is true, then it is not 100% effective.Template:Citation needed
There is another school of thought that connects these planet killers with a speculative ancient race that may have fought the Borg. This was the premise behind the Peter David TNG novel Vendetta. This method of attack used against the Borg would be consistent with that seen used by Species 8472 in Star Trek: Voyager.
James Doohan briefly loses his Scottish accent when he says the words "Thirty seconds later, poof," while explaining to Kirk how to use the Constellation's self-destruct switch.
The Constellation's registry of NCC-1017 came from rearranging the Enterprise's NCC-1701 on a model kit.
The "sequel" to this episode is on the Internet and titled "In Harm's Way" and produced by Star Trek: New Voyages. This episode even has a cameo by William Windom (as Commodore Matt Decker) and Barbara Luna (as Matt's wife). Barbara Luna played Marlena Moreau ("The Captain's Woman") from the Star trek episode, "Mirror, Mirror").
External links
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