Episode of the Week : The Mark of Gideon

[Warped9]

In TOS? That show was on par with ST3:TSfS in establishing every Starfleet officer outside the hero cast as evil/needlessly adversarial, incompetent, or typically both.

Timo Saloniemi

Commodore Robert Wesley wasn't incompetent or evil. Maybe a bit of a dick.

Commodore Mendez wasn't incompetent or evil.

Most of the Admirals depicted weren't incompetent or evil.

Commodore Matt Decker was seriously traumatized resulting in incompetence and being overly adversarial.

Commodore Stone wasn't incompetent or evil.

One could argue Captain Ron Tracey was adversarial due to trauma.

 

[BillJ]

Commodore Mendez wasn't incompetent or evil.

We're not even sure he was ever there at all!

Commodore Stone wasn't incompetent or evil.

Well, he was incompetent. He didn't have the training to command a starship.

 

[Timo]

Stone is the competent one who is prejudiced against Kirk in "Court Martial" - falling squarely in the "needlessly adversarial" category. And he was one of Kirk's supposed friends!

Stocker is the one unqualified to command a ship, in "The Deadly Years". He's probably the only one who wasn't needlessly adversarial, though.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

What I don't like about this episode is that McCoy doesn't get a "what the blazes is wrong with these people that they would introduce sickness for the sole purpose of killing their people painfully?" moment. Though I suppose he might have vented after the episode ended in Kirk's quarters...

 

[Marsden]

What I don't like about this episode is that McCoy doesn't get a "what the blazes is wrong with these people that they would introduce sickness for the sole purpose of killing their people painfully?" moment. Though I suppose he might have vented after the episode ended in Kirk's quarters...

Yes. I think why not is the premise is, as I said before, too silly.
That is their solution. It makes no sense to me, and having Bones point it out would just make it even more obvious, so he's not allowed to.

 

[Warped9]

Well, he was incompetent. He didn't have the training to command a starship.

I'm referring Stone from "Court Martial" not Stocker from "The Deadly Years."

And based on the evidence of the time Stone felt he had no choice.

Maybe I've watched too of JAG, but there really should have been more of an investigation before charges were laid.

 

[BillJ]

I'm referring Stone from "Court Martial" not Stocker from "The Deadly Years."

Damn. I totally screwed the names up there!

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Also, why couldn't they suggest relocation and colonization of other suitable worlds? Nothing like a scarcity scare to promote one's space program.

 

[Timo]

The problem on Gideon isn't overpopulation. The problem is that Gideonites have religious ideas about how not to deal with the overpopulation. Which is the interesting aspect here, not the scifi cop-out of surgical contraception being ineffective on the super-healing Gideonites.

Incidentally, one of the things right out is killing. And the plan isn't to use the disease to painfully kill the breeding overflow. The plan is for Odona and Odona alone to die a quick and painful death, for its symbolic value, after which the disease spreads to the general population and simply shortens their lifespans to some sort of a "new normal". Nobody dies in the short term (now that Odona opts out, on Kirk's urging), everybody dies in the long term.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[TwoJakes]

The problem on Gideon isn't overpopulation

Really it is, certainly the immediate problem. They need to get their population down now, not over the course of multiple decades or centuries.

And who says it's a religious thing? Could just as easily be societial.

 

[Timo]

Well, "religious" as in sounding utterly irrational to the non-believer. And we see no clear signs of immediate distress - to the contrary, the Gideon way of life has already adapted to the crowds.

It's also a bit difficult to see what would change if the population were halved. It would be back to "normal" in no time flat unless there's something inhuman about Gideonite breeding habits and schedules we fail to hear. Gideonite attitudes stand in the way of "getting the population down now" by any means, and indeed their plan, even when successful, is supposed to fail to achieve that. It just introduces timely death to the equation, thus perhaps providing some relief in fifty years or so.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Old Mixer]

I have to wonder how it would take Spock so long to spot a simple number transposition. This is a guy who calculates things to multiple decimals off the top of his head.

 

[Indysolo]

Typical, unremarkable season three episode.

3

Neil

 

[Timo]

I have to wonder how it would take Spock so long to spot a simple number transposition. This is a guy who calculates things to multiple decimals off the top of his head.

Remember, though, how it happened. The first coordinates, the ones to the fake ship, were received by Spock via Uhura, on the Bridge. But the second set, to the Council chambers, were received by Scotty in the Transporter Room. We don't know if Spock ever overheard those being given; he was up at the Bridge at the time.

In the scenario that makes sense, Spock did not overhear anything, but eventually formulated a hypothesis and asked for the two sets of coordinates from the two separate people involved, thereby confirming his hypothesis.

Yet does the transposition trick make sense from the Gideon point of view? They first stun Kirk, then unleash him in the fake ship; they could just as easily allow him to beam down to the Council chambers first. And they seem to have their own transporter, from which Kirk emerges in the teaser, after the stunning and sampling is already done. Why risk using two separate beam-down sites, then?

The whole point of the trick is to play time against the likely Enterprise response where an armed landing party beams down to the coordinates where they think their Captain went, then secures that site and starts to spread out. If they beam down at the wrong coordinates first, it takes them longer to find Kirk and disrupt the operation - the longer, the more distance there is between the two coordinates. But providing the heroes with the correct set in addition to the fake set gives 50% odds of the raiding party hitting their target immediately and dead center...

Ultimately, though, the Gideonites need not worry. Their blood sample has already been taken; Kirk is supposedly only being held as an insurance against something going wrong, and nothing does appear to be going wrong. Let the heroes raid the place - it's too late for them to do any real damage there. So the trickery need not really be elaborate or watertight or anything. At worst, the UFP might decide to nuke the place in anger, a very welcome turn of events where the population would be slightly reduced even before the disease shortens lifespans!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Drusilla's valet]

All of its flaws aside, I've always sorta enjoyed this episode. It to me it the on a short list of episodes that come to mind when I think of the less than fantastic action and imagination of the 3rd season; stuff we were used to from the first two seasons. The empty corridors, drab background music and limited "oomph" do enough to underline some of the 3rd season's challenges, but at the end of the day, its Star Trek, and as such, still classic stuff to me. BTW.....I liked the eerie sound Kirk and Odona reacted to with the viewing port, which was also cool.