The Omega Glory...

Tracey's life expectancy was exactly the same as his firebox's power packs.

LATE ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:

So what was the fate of the Exeter herself? Torpedoed and sunk in the gravity well of the planet's star? Dissected by Section 31 for the lethal biological agent? There's no sign of her being towed by the Enterprise as she departs, so what exactly happened? It would be terribly irresponsible to just let the ship's orbit decay and have her burn up to rain the planet with toxic debris.

 

She went on to cruise again in Starship: Exeter.

The Captain Wrap-Around gets a rebirth, too.

 

I would love a plot that explains them both - it seems like both societies ended up with varieties of a Cold War era apocalyptic immortality plague....

 

I guess the out-universe point is obvious: "this could happen to us" or at least "this is how idiotic we'd look to any visiting alien". In-universe, we can always assume there is a Grand Design behind this, a social experiment of some sort - and the later the experimenter interferes, the less divine his powers need be. Say, deciding that every planet should spawn sapient bipeds in four billion years takes some skill - but deciding that the dominant industrial power of the day should assume Nazi regime and regalia only takes one silver-tongued individual with a catalog from Hugo Boss and another from Krupp.

Omega IV is a modest case of Grand Design, as the planet itself has not been made to resemble Earth - only the casting of roles speaks of Earth influence (or vice versa, as Omega got there first and may have influenced the way the New World colonies on our planet gained their independence). There's nothing modest about Miri, though, as terraforming in the UFP doesn't even involve doing pretty fjords yet, let alone whole continents: a century later, Gideon Seyetlik only did waterfalls...

I doubt the Kohms would have been all that interested in killing the poor fella, who really didn't offer them anything extra dead, and was observed helping them out while alive. More probably, once he ceased to be useful, he would have been sold to the Yangs. And who knows, perhaps he could have carved himself a niche in that group, too. Although probably not.

Decay probably wouldn't happen: the orbit had been stable for six months already, so it wasn't one of those dangerously short-lived ones. Just let the ship sit there for a couple more years as Starfleet ponders whether it needs the hull or the scrap metal or just a practice target.

Then again, Starfleet does blow up plague ships in TNG. Kirk could have fired a torpedo when we weren't looking.

What fascinates me here is Starfleet operating practices. Two starships happen to visit this same planet for some reason, left unexplained - Kirk certainly isn't hunting for the missing Exeter, has not heard of any trouble regarding her, and is surprised to stumble onto her here. OTOH, he does know that Tracey's ship was "patrolling in the area". Why doesn't Kirk get exact information on what another starship is doing in his current area of operations? Why does Starfleet allow its resources to be wasted by having two ships visit Omega IV wholly independently of each other? Is there a general Klingon scare going on, and Starfleet wants to randomize its raids against primitive worlds that might have fallen under the influence of Klingon agents, "Friday's Child" or "A Private Little War" style? Or does Starfleet simply launch out "The Hundred", expecting most of them to perish and a couple of them to eventually return with useful results, and thus not minding any futile "plans"?

Timo Saloniemi

 

...and to get them to speak and write in English.

I find it incredible that the Exeter didn't send a message to Starfleet Command instead of just making a Medical Log about their dire situation. I guess the communications officer and other bridge command officers died too quickly and the ship's doctor didn't know how to turn the radio on.

 

Who's to say Captain Tracey wasn't sent to the planet to locate the deadly biological agent and test it on his crew? Odd that he didn't order the members not yet affected on his ship to immediately transport down to the surface. Odd that he alone was the only survivor. He's got Matt Decker Syndrome written all over him, yet thinks nothing wrong in gunning down the poor Redshirt GoneAway and countless Yangs.

And, my god, what is the deal with the silk bookmark insignia for the Exeter crew??? It looks like they're all wearing traffic tickets!

 

To be fair, only the pseudo-Romans ever spoke explicit English. Apart from that, the UT does exist, and does translate written text, so what our eyes and ears tell us is actually merely implicit.

(Why the Romanoids would speak English is odd as such. Perhaps there was a meddler from Earth influencing the society planetwide, and making use of that powerful language-standardizing tool, global television? We might then further assume that John Gill introduced German know-how on oppression and bigotry, but did that using English, which explains why the ruthlessly effective SS Weapons Laboratory uses English door signs. Or then it's all in the "implicit" bit.)

Well, the Doctor dictated his log on the Bridge, rather than at Sickbay. Probably he caught on to what was happening at the last possible moment, too. No time for a plan, certainly not for procedure such as turning on the quarantine beacons or whatnot; just enough time to dictate the last message, and then perhaps to fail to press "send".

Timo Saloniemi

 

Yes, he must have accidentally hit the OFF button instead of the SEND button in his death throes.

 

Saved to Drafts.

 

Based on something T'Bonz said in another thread, they were booted.

 

"I'm a doctor not a communications expert. And I'm dead, Ron."

 

Well, a society that invents television would have a very hard time doing so if all their mathematics were in Roman numerals. (Of course, by that logic, they should all be speaking Arabic, I guess...)

As for "Miri," I read the James Blish adaptation - the Scholastic Book Club paperback edition of the first such book - before ever seeing it in syndication. I was surprised that the actual episode was set on a parallel Earth; there's zero mention of this in the Blish version, supposedly based on early drafts.

I wonder if there's any relationship between this being among the earliest episodes filmed, and the fact that "The Omega Glory" - one of the two scripts not chosen for the second pilot - wasn't produced until late in season 2, whereas the other non-chosen script "Mudd's Women" was produced quite early. I mean that once the decision was made to set Miri on a quasi-Earth - really, a quasi-English-speaking Earth, considering the printed materials left behind by the scientists - it wouldn't have done to have two parallel-Earth episodes in such close proximity.

 

Yet they kind of went over the top with it back half of season 2....

 

So how did Ron Tracey perform on his Kobayashi Maru test? Did he put his ship in the heart of the Klingon attack force and set the auto-destruct?

In light of his and Matt Decker's complete loss of command...and maybe Captain Lucero's, come to think of it, should the Kobayashi Maru test be scrapped to see how a candidate for command performs under ultimate duress? It needs to be replaced with an Exeter or Constellation scenario to see how the best and brightest would cope.

 

Ah, the dreaded Larkin Scenario... It frequently wreaks havoc with students and equipment.

(I doubt anybody but Jim Kirk, and those young, smart and pretty students of his he really hates when turning fifty, actually faces the Kobayashi Maru Test specifically. Others get other sorts, all with a no-win element to them.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

I've always seen it that the Kohms have become a relatively peaceful people after the thousands of years since the plague and the Yangs have reverted to savagery due to living out in the woods and exposure to the elements! But the Kohms seen at the beginning of the episode were well able to execute Cloud William and his woman with an axe no less!!! So either the Kohms were scared of the Yangs that much to induce that kind of behaviour or Captain Tracey's description of them was off by a bit?
JB

 

I hope the 2nd landing party stayed down there for awhile before leaving. The end of the episode doesn't give much time before they all get out of dodge after the last second beam down.

 

Good point. I'm surprised Cloud William didn't gasp, "A Kohm god!" when he saw Sulu.

 

I wonder what rules apply when this much contamination has already taken place? In "Bread", Scotty kept the velvet gloves on even though the local government knew about phaser bombardment and would have expected one. In "Piece of Action", he arranged a demonstration instead. In "Patterns", he took no action. Should Sulu have beamed down in disguise? If so, in the disguise of a nameless Kohm, or as their Anger God, complete with lightning effects?

Timo Saloniemi

 

Captain Tracey screwed over the whole culture by siding with the Kohm minority. Even with phasers they were no match for the Yang locust horde. They were likely going to wipe out all of the villagers in "the last of the Kohm places" and afterward find themselves with no more outlet for their savagery. Cloud William would then recite his slurred intonation with absolutely no clue as to the meaning of the holy texts. Somehow the Yangs found unity in opposing the Kohms, but what now? Kirk was right in getting them back on the rails. It was the least the Federation could do.