The Enterprise Incident... and the Pueblo Incident

[Wingsley]

I remember reading in "The World of Star Trek", a book written in the 1980s by TOS writer David Gerrold, that he objected to the Starship Enterprise being used for an espionage mission in "The Enterprise Incident", comparing it to the 1968 Pueblo Incident, in which the U.S.S. Pueblo was captured after being caught spying on North Korea.

"The Enterprise Incident" was framed around the perceived necessity of the Federation aggressively responding to the Romulans (1: introducing a newer, more powerful cloaking device that made Starfleet tracking devices of the day useless, thus leaving the Federation extremely vulnerable; and (2: the Romulans entering some kind of deal to acquire Klingon starships to populate the technologically limited Romulan fleet of the day. Apparently, the combination of these two developments compelled the Federation to action.

Obviously, a case could be made that the Pueblo was caught red-handed, and that Gerrold and other critics found this unacceptable. But does "The Enterprise Incident" compare?

It would seem to me that if one took the TOS episode and compared it to the Pueblo Incident, one would have to wonder how the North Koreans of 1968 could be seen as enough of a threat to justify risking the U.S.S. Pueblo. Clearly the Enterprise crossed the Romulan Neutral Zone without immediate cause, a deliberate provocation and an act of war under the subspace radio treaty negotiated over 100 years before, according to Spock in "Balance of Terror". But the Romulans seemed to be at work as well, cultivating a new and very dangerous threat. Indeed, the new Romulan threat was confirmed by the rapid capture of the Enterprise by Klingon-designed Romulan ships which appeared out of nowhere.

I would say that if TOS were to make an episode about the Pueblo Incident, it would have to be written very differently than "The Enterprise Incident". Indeed, the whole story would have to be framed differently. I think Ronald D. Moore did this in 1989 with "The Defector", a very grim counterpoint to "The Enterprise Incident". (Moore's story relied heavily upon Klingon allies who used cloaked ships to assist the Enterprise; this would not be possible in TOS, unless either the Federation developed its own cloaking device or found an ally who had one.)

The only other way TOS could have conceptually made an ep that would be a more reasonable allegory to the Pueblo Incident would be if the Enterprise was first involved in picking up the captured crew of some other Federation starship from the Romulans, and then embarking on an espionage mission. It could be said that the captured crew was released but not their starship, and that the Romulans used their new device to effect the capture. This would tip-off the Federation about the new Romulan cloaking device.

The shaky elements about "The Enterprise Incident" that is glaring to me are not the Romulans, their device, or the espionage. It is (1: Kirk's over-the-top contrived insanity and "I'll kill you!" silliness, and (2: What's up with Romulan arousal over Spock. Have the Vulcans discovered that Romulans are hot for their Vulcan cousins? Or does the female Romulan Commander have issues? Apparently there are Vulcan operatives working behind the scenes that new about the device, and the Romulan-Vulcan mystique.

D.C. Fontana distanced herself from this episode, making fun of everything from the size of the Romulan device to the interracial romance.

Was this episode really that bad, or did it diverge so far from the Pueblo Incident that "The Defector" would be a more appropriate allegory?

 

[Maurice]

Well, the original story was called "Ears" and was really very very different, and even featured Sarek. It changed so much that only the basic premise survived all the revisions.

 

[Marsden]

I really enjoyed this episode. I don't know how good it is, though. I enjoyed seeing Kirk's barely contained insanity and Spock's lying to the crew and the Romulans.

There's no doubt that it's contrived, I still don't know why no one raised their shields the whole time, but I've seem much more contrived crap that was not nearly so fun to watch, so this really doesn't motivate me to complain.


I think the only thing that made it from Pueblo to Enterprise was "Incident" Almost nothing else is similar.

 

[Timo]

if TOS were to make an episode about the Pueblo Incident

I don't see why.

It's a great idea to take a real-world event, incident or premise and use that as bait for the viewers. But if it's just "X in spaaaaace!", there's little point to it. It should be "X in spaaaaace! (but with a twist you didn't see coming)" at the very least, which usually means the message being sent would be the exact opposite of the possible "moral" of X. It's still an allegory IMHO even if the angle differs - and it definitely is good bait.

I still don't know why no one raised their shields the whole time

Nobody raised any shields in "Balance of Terror", either. Or if they did, they didn't tell the audience.

That's probably more a case of the latter, in both episodes. But there does appear to be a pressing in-universe reason to drop shields as soon as possible, as often as possible. Power consumption? Disruption of sensors and communications? Tactical wisdom of not shining like a beacon at subspace frequencies? We don't know. But every era does this consistently: the clever and experienced skipper doesn't raise shields until half a second before the first shots are exchanged, if then.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[J.T.B.]

It would seem to me that if one took the TOS episode and compared it to the Pueblo Incident, one would have to wonder how the North Koreans of 1968 could be seen as enough of a threat to justify risking the U.S.S. Pueblo.

It was the Cold War, everybody on "the other side" was considered a threat. Pueblo was a spy ship, that's the only reason she existed. She, and many other ships and planes of both sides, picked up electronic emissions to gain intelligence on anything possible: Communications protocols, codes, spectrum use, radar profiles, countermeasures etc. They were gathering whatever pieces they could of a big, big puzzle. North Korea was not only a potential enemy itself (just as today) but was supplied with Soviet and Chinese equipment. Pueblo was also in an area where the Soviet Navy cooperated with North Korea.

It's not exactly parallel to what was in the episode, which seems to be much more "inspired by" than "based on."

Also, contrary to what I always heard, I found out that "Ride Captain Ride" by Blues Image was not about the Pueblo Incident!