Star Trek DS9 S05E06 Trials and Tribble-ations

O'Brian and Bashir added to the line-up for fighting in the bar.

I had wanted to cover the two tribble episodes for a few weeks now, because the TOS episode is one of the funniest, and the DS9 episode is wonderfully done. After seeing Into Darkness last week, I finally took the time to go re-watch the tribbles. This DS9 episode relies heavily on this TOS one.

Summary:

Two agents, Dulmur and Lucsly, from Temporal Investigation arrive on the station to question Sisko about taking the Defiant back in time. Sisko explains:

The Defiant picked up an orb on Cadassia (later determined to be the Orb of Time) to return to Bajor. Barry Waddle, a human merchant, also comes on board. While under cloak to avoid Klingons, the ship experiences a strange surge of power. When they get the view screen up, they see the Constitution-class Enterprise. (Dulmur notes that this is Kirk’s Enterprise and that Kirk has the biggest file of temporal violations. They are not pleased that this is who Sisko is meeting with in the past.) The Defiant has wound up over 105 years in the past and near space station K-7.

The crew quickly discovers that Waddle is really Darvin, a Klingon disguised to look human. He had broken into the room where the orb was being stored. Darvin was unsuccessful in sabotaging the Federation colonization efforts, and the Klingons made him an outcast. Over a hundred years later, when he learned of the orb, he went back in time to correct his errors, pulling the entire Defiant crew with him.

The men learn about 23rd century hemlines.

Darvin beamed off ship, so the crew has to go on board the Enterprise and K-7 to hunt him down. The crew gears up in twenty-third century uniforms, which they all totally pull off. There is the usual adjusting to this archaic time shenanigans: trying to blend in, wearing the right color uniform, remembering hand-held communicators, using handles on the turbolifts, Bashir getting hit on by his great-grandmother, Bashir believing that he’s in a predestination paradox of being his own great-grandfather (because a super-human doctor of the twenty-fourth century has no genetic tests that could prove that…). I'm not sure how much the Temporal Investigation agents will look into that, or would want to.

Odo sits in the station bar and watches Uhura receive the first troublesome tribble. Worf is less-than-pleased when Odo shows him one. Then again, when is Worf ever pleased? Worf explains that tribbles “were once mortal enemies of the Empire” because they would eat through crops and overbreed. Bashir and O’Brian join Worf and Odo in the bar in time for the big Starfleet/Klingon fight to break out.

Dax looks for the bomb right above Kirk's head.

While the tribbles are taking over the Enterprise and K-7, Odo and Worf find the Darvin from their timeline and take him back to the Defiant. They discover that Darvin is planning to kill Kirk with a bomb already planted in one of the tribbles. He thinks that as poetic revenge, seeing as a tribble is what alerting Kirk to the fact that Darvin was Klingon the first time round. So now the crew’s goal is to find the tribble-bomb in time to save Kirk. Sisko and Dax go down into the station storage compartments to look for the bomb; it is there, but they can’t find it under all the dead tribbles. On the other side, Kirk and Spock are opening up the storage compartment. Sisko finds the bomb and has Kira beam it into space before it explodes. After Sisko makes a quick stop on the bridge to introduce himself to Kirk, the crew is ready to go back to their time. Kira uses the orb to get back to the twenty-fourth century. Lucsly thinks Sisko testimony shows all the ends were tied up and the Defiant’s trip won’t warrant any penalties for temporal violation. But after the agents leave, it is shown that there was one end left untied:

Lesson:

Please leave all secret agents and tribbles in the upright and proper era before time-traveling. And don't tell Temporal Investigation more than they need to know.

Quotes:

Sisko: It was an accident.

Dulmur: So, you’re not contending it was a predestination paradox?

Lucsly: A time loop? That you were meant to go back into the past?

Sisko: No.

Lucsly: Good.

Dulmur: We hate those.

Bashir: Aren’t you two wearing the wrong color?

O’Brian: Don’t you know anything about this period in time?

Bashir: I’m a doctor, not a historian.

Odo: Tell me, do they still sing songs of the Great Tribble Hunt?

Star Trek TOS S02E15: The Trouble with Tribbles

I had wanted to cover the two tribble episodes for a few weeks now, because the TOS episode is one of the funniest, and the DS9 episode is wonderfully done. After seeing Into Darkness last week, I finally took the time to go re-watch the tribbles. 

Summary: 

The Enterprise is headed toward an area that is in dispute between the Federation and the Klingons. Nearby deep space station K-7 sends out a distress call, but when the Enterprise arrives, the station looks fine. Kirk and Spock beam down to demand an explanation Station Manager Lurry. It turns out Nils Baris, a Federation official of agriculture, made the call. He orders Kirk to provide security to the storage compartments on the station. The station is storing a high-yield grain, and he fears the Klingons might try to sabotage the Federation’s attempt to win control over a disputed planet. Kirk is upset, but assigns the guards and gives the rest of the crew shore leave.

Uhura and Chekov are hanging out in the station bar when they run into trader Cyrano Jones. He is trying to unload various items on the bartenders. When Uhura shows interest in a purring fuzzball called a tribble, he gives it to her for free. She takes it back to the Enterprise, where it has a little of babies which she shares with the rest of the crew. Meanwhile, Kirk has contacted the Federation over this distress call for grain guards. An admiral backs up Baris and tells Kirk that the grain and the station’s safty is Kirk’s responsibility. Kirk then receives the news that a Klingon cruiser is closing in on the station. But the Klingons are there claiming “shore leave rights.” Kirk allows the Klingons to come onto the station in small groups, most likely as a passive-aggressive way of showing Baris how little importance he gives this grain security business and showing Klingons how little importance he gives them them in general.

While Scotty and Chekov are in the bar, Cyrano Jones offers them a tribble. When they say no, he offers it to the Klingons at the next table. The Klingons call it a parasite, and the tribble shows a strong reaction to the Klingons. One of the Klingons starts trash-talking “Earthers,” specifically Kirk. The Enterprise crewmen are agitated but remain calm until the Klingon insults the Enterprise herself. Then Scotty throws the first punch, leading into a full bar fight. In response to the fight, Kirk cancels shore leave and restricts the crew to quarters.

 
Meanwhile, Bones and Spock are studying the tribbles and find them useless. They have a high metabolism and breed quickly, as Bones says, “They’re born pregnant.” They are taking over the ship in great number. Kirk, Spock, and Bones go down to the station to confront Cyrano Jones about the tribble infestation. Baris and his assistant Darvin confront Kirk and claims that Jones is probably a Klingon agent. 

After seeing the tribbles get into the Enterprise machines, Kirk worries that they may have gotten into the station’s storage. They find the storage compartments full of tribbles who have eaten all the grain. But something is wrong with these tribbles; the grain poisoned them. As security guards remove the tribbles, they react to Darvin in the same way they reacted to Klingons in the bar. Bones runs a scan on Darvin and identifies him as Klingon. He was the agent who sabotaged the grain. Kirk orders the Klingons off the station and orders Jones to remove all the tribbles from the station (a job that could take 17 years). As for the tribbles on the Enterprise, Scotty transports them onto the Klingon cruiser.

Lesson: 
Be wary of free gifts. Really, this episode was all on the fun side and any philosophy was lost in a mound of fuzzy, purring tribbles. 

Quotes:

Chekhov: I was making a little joke, sir.

Spock: Extremely little, ensign.

Kirk: I have never questioned the orders or the intelligence of any representative of the Federation. Until now.

McCoy: Do you know what you get if you feed a tribble too much?

Kirk: A fat tribble.

McCoy: No. You get a whole bunch of hungry, little tribbles.

Scotty: “Well, caption, Klingons called you a tin-plated, overbearing, swaggering dictator with delusions of godhood.”

Kirk: “Is that all?”

Scotty: “No, sir. They also compared you with a Denebian slime-devil.”

Kirk: “I see.”

Scotty: “And then they said you—”

Kirk: “I get the picture, Scotty.”

Trivia: 

"Well, you look like us, but the facial hair tells me you're the bad guys."

One of the most interesting things about this episode to me is the Klingons themselves. If you’ve seen The Next Generation, you know Klingons look a lot different in the twenty-fourth century than in the twenty-third. Although the difference is really due to TV production budgets, there is as in-universe explanation. The Klingon Empire went through a time of radical eugenics in the twenty-second century. This led to deformities, such as the loss of cranial ridges. By the twenty-fourth century, these features had returned. But in the twenty-third century, they looked very humanlike, which would have made it much easier for Darvin to be a secret agent. I'll also note here that Darvin was the only bad guy in this episode. The other Klingons really just wanted some vacation time on a Federation space station.

ISS Oddity

So much awesome. Commander Chris Hadfield on his last day on the International Space Station.