Must've been Greg, since I've never read those.
The Niven/Trek comparisons seem odd to me, since I don't see that much similarity. Niven's future is less idealistic, more cynical. "The Slaver Weapon" is strangely ruthless for a Trek story, particularly a TAS story, since there's no attempt to find a peaceful solution, no moral message, just strategy to outwit the villains and let them get killed. It's the only TAS episode, and one of the few episodes in Filmation Associates' entire body of work, where anyone dies onscreen.
I've said before, "The Slaver Weapon" is strange as adaptations go, because it doesn't adapt the original story to fit the universe it's adapted to (the way the novel Tin Woodman was adapted into TNG: "Tin Man," for instance), but rather adapts the Trek universe and story format to fit a nearly exact retelling of "The Soft Weapon" complete with most of its Known Space worldbuilding. I'm tempted to believe the whole thing was just Uhura and Sulu convincing Spock to join them in a holonovel of "The Soft Weapon" in the holographic rec room.
