Star Trek: The Original Series
(Redirected from The City on the Edge of Forever)
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry following the adventures of the crew of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701). It later acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began. The show is set in the Milky Way galaxy, circa 2266–2269.
Season 1
[edit]- Crater: The heroic captain and the intrepid doctor cross interstellar space to preserve our health! Oh, your sense of duty is overwhelming. Now, will you please go back where you came from and tell whoever issues your orders to leave me and my wife alone?!?
- McCoy: The machine is capable of almost anything, but I'll still put my trust in a healthy set of tonsils.
- Uhura: Mr. Spock, sometimes I think if I hear that word "frequency" again, I'll cry.
- Spock: It is illogical for a communications officer to resent the word "frequency."
- Uhura: Then I'm an illogical woman. Why don't you tell me what an attractive lady I am? Or how your planet looks when the moon is full.
- Spock: Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura.
- Uhura: I'm not surprised.
- Kirk: You bleed too much, Crater. You're too pure and noble. Are you saving the last of its kind... or has this become Crater's private heaven here? This thing becomes wife, lover, best friend, wise man, fool, idol, slave. It isn't bad to have everyone in the universe at your beck and call. You win all the arguments.
- Kirk: We're all aware of the need for salt on a hot and arid planet like this, Professor, but it's a mystery, and I don't like mysteries. They give me a bellyache and I got a beauty right now.
- Spock: Check.
- Kirk: Checkmate.
- Spock: Your illogical approach to chess does have its advantages on occasion, Captain.
- Kirk: I'd prefer to call it inspired.
- Spock: As you wish.
- Charlie Evans: Do you know about being with somebody? Wanting to be? If I had the whole universe, I'd give it to you, Janice. When I see you, I feel like I'm hungry all over. Do you know how that feels?
- Kirk: [to Charlie] You go slow, be gentle. It's no one-way street -- you know how you feel and that's all. It's how the girl feels too. Don't press. If the girl feels anything for you at all, you'll know.
- Kirk: Charlie, there are a million things in this universe you can have and there are a million things you can't have. It's no fun facing that, but that's the way things are.
- Charlie: What am I going to do?
- Kirk: Hang on tight and survive. Everybody does.
- Charlie: You don't!
- Kirk: Everybody, Charlie. Me too.
- Kirk: Mr. Spock?
- Spock: [unemotionally] My legs. They're broken.
- Kirk: Let him go too, Charlie.
- Charlie: Why?
- Kirk: Because I'm telling you to. You need me to run this ship and I need him.
- [When Charlie Makes Yeoman Janice Rand "Disappear".]
- Kirk: Where is Yeoman Rand? Dead? Gone?Destroyed?
- Charlie: I Won't Tell YOU
- Kirk: Have I ever mentioned you play a very irritating game of chess, Mr. Spock?
- Spock: Irritating? [smiling] Ah, yes. One of your Earth emotions.
- [Kirk considers Spock for a moment, then calmly moves one of his own chess pieces. Spock's smile fades and he frowns as he realizes the effect of Kirk's move]
- Kirk: Certain you don't know what irritation is?
- Spock: The fact one of my ancestors married a human female...
- Kirk: Terrible having bad blood like that.
- Kirk: What makes you so right and a trained psychiatrist wrong?
- Spock: Because she feels. I don't. All I know is logic.
- Mitchell: Time to pray, Captain. Pray to me.
- Kirk: To you? Not to both of you?
- Mitchell: Pray that you die easily.
- Kirk: There'll only be one of you in the end. One jealous god... if all this makes a god. Or is it making you something else?
- Mitchell: Your last chance, Kirk.
- Kirk: Do you like what you see? Absolute power corrupting absolutely.
- Dehner: Before long we'll be where it would have taken mankind millions of years of learning to reach.
- Kirk: And what will Mitchell learn in getting there? Will he know what to do with his power? Will he acquire the wisdom?
- Dehner: Please go back while you still can.
- Kirk: Did you hear him joke about compassion? Above all else a "god" needs compassion! Mitchell!
- Kirk: He didn't ask for what happened to him.
- Spock: I felt for him, too.
- Kirk: I believe there's some hope for you after all, Mr. Spock.
- Spock: Our spectro-readings showed no contamination, no unusual elements present.
- Scotty: At least none your tricorders could register.
- Spock: Instruments register only those things they're designed to register. Space still contains infinite unknowns.
- McCoy: We're doing everything that's possible!
- Kirk: Bones, I want the impossible checked out too!
- Joe Tormolen: We're all a bunch of hypocrites. Sticking our noses into something that we've got no business. What are we doing out here, anyway?
- Sulu: Take it easy, Joe.
- Joe Tormolen: Bring pain and trouble with us. Leave men and women stuck out on freezing planets until they die. What are we doing out here in space? Good? What good? We're polluting it! We're destroying it! We've got no business being out here! No business!
- [Spock has just used the Vulcan nerve pinch on Sulu, who was rampaging about with a fencing sword]
- Spock: Take D'Artagnan here to sickbay.
- Kirk: Love... you're better off without it, and I'm better off without mine. This vessel...I give... she takes. She won't permit me my life. I've got to live hers.
- Uhura: [over the intercom] Entering planet's outer atmosphere, sir.
- Scotty: Captain!
- Kirk: What is it?
- Scotty: He's turned the engines off. They're completely cold. It'll take 30 minutes to regenerate them.
- Uhura: [over the intercom] Entering planet's outer atmosphere, sir. Ship's outer skin is beginning to heat, Captain. Orbit plot shows we have about 8 minutes left.
- Kirk: Scotty!
- Scotty: I canna change the law of physics! I've got to have 30 minutes!
- Spock: We have here an unusual opportunity to appraise the human mind, or to examine, in Earth terms, the roles of good and evil in a man-- his negative side, which you call hostility, lust, violence, and his positive side, which Earth people express as compassion, love, tenderness.
- McCoy: Are you aware it's the captain's guts you're analyzing?
- Spock: Yes, and what makes one man an exceptional leader? We see indications that it's his negative side which makes him strong, that his evil side, controlled and disciplined, is vital to his strength. Your negative side removed from you, the power of command begins to elude you.
- McCoy: Jim, you can't risk your life on a theory!
- Spock: Being split in two halves is no theory with me, Doctor. I have a human half, you see, as well as an alien half, submerged, constantly at war with each other. Personal experience, Doctor. I survive it because my intelligence wins out over both, makes them live together. Your intelligence would enable you to survive as well.
- Spock: [to Captain Kirk] You're the captain of this ship. You haven't the right to be vulnerable in the eyes of the crew. You can't afford the luxury of being anything less than perfect. If you do, they lose faith and you lose command.
- Kirk: [about Evil Kirk] I have to take him back inside myself. I can't survive without him. I don't want to take him back. He's like an animal. a thoughtless, brutal animal. And yet it's me. Me!
- McCoy: We all have our darker side. We need it; it's half of what we are. It's not really ugly, it's human.
- Kirk: Computer, go to sensor probe. Any unusual readings?
- Computer: No decipherable reading on females. However, unusual reading on male board members. Detecting high respiration patterns, perspiration rates up, heartbeat rapid, blood pressure higher than normal.
- Kirk: Uh, that's sufficient. Strike that from the record, Mr. Spock.
- Harry Mudd: Men will always be men — no matter where they are.
- Harry Mudd: You're a hard-nosed one, Captain.
- Kirk: And you're a liar. I think we both understand each other.
- Kirk: There's only one kind of woman...
- Harry Mudd: Or man, for that matter.
- Kirk: You either believe in yourself or you don't.
- Harry Mudd: Don't you think you could possibly, by accident, arrange to leave me behind here? On this planet, that would be punishment enough.
- Kirk: I can't do that, Harry, but I will appear as a character witness at your trial ... if you think that'll help.
- Harry Mudd: They'll throw away the key.
- Dr. Korby: Can you imagine how life could be improved if we could do away with jealousy, greed, hate? ...
- Kirk: It can also be improved by eliminating love, tenderness, sentiment — the other side of the coin, Doctor.
- Dr. Korby: Can you understand what I’m offering mankind?
- Kirk: Programming. Different word, but the same old promises made by Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Hitler, Ferris, Maltuvis.
- Dr. Korby: Remarkable, isn't she? Notice the-- the lifelike pigmentation, the variation in skin tones. The flesh-- The flesh has warmth. There's even a pulse, physical sensation.
- Nurse Chapel: How convenient.
- Dr. Korby: I am not a computer. Test me. Ask me to solve any-- Equate-- Transmit-- Christine, Christine, Iet me prove myself! Does this make such a difference?!?
- Kirk: We humans are full of unpredictable emotions that logic cannot solve.
- Kirk: No blah, blah, blah!
- Children: Boom! Bonk bonk on the head!
- Spock: The older the victim, the more rapid the progress of the disease.
- Kirk: And you? The disease doesn't seem to be interested.
- Spock: I am a carrier. Whatever happens, I can't go back to the ship. And I do want to go back to the ship, Captain.
- Kirk: Of course, Mr. Spock.
- Kirk: I think children have an instinctive need for adults. They want to be told right and wrong.
- Kirk: One of the advantages of being a captain, Doctor, is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it.
- Spock: Interesting. You Earth people glorify organized violence for forty centuries, but you imprison those who employ it privately.
- McCoy: And, of course, your people found an answer.
- Spock: We disposed of emotion, Doctor. Where there's no emotion, there's no motive for violence.
- Kirk: What did you say your name was?
- Van Gelder: My name? My name is--aah! [struggling] Simon... Van Gelder! I was the director of-- director-- at the Tantalus colony. I was a graduate of...of...I was assistant to...Doctor...Doc--ah! [Sobbing] I knew... I knew. But they've erased it.
- McCoy: Erased?
- Van Gelder: Edited... adjusted... subverted me! But I won't forget! I won't forget!
- Dr. Adams: You're madly in love with Helen, Captain. You'd lie, cheat, steal for her, sacrifice your career, your reputation..... And now...she's gone.
- Spock: Has it occurred to you that there's a certain... inefficiency in constantly questioning me on things you've already made up your mind about?
- Kirk: It gives me emotional security.
- McCoy: [calling after Kirk as the latter leaves sick bay] Had to finish the physical on you, didn't I? What am I, a doctor or a moon shuttle conductor? [then, alone in the room] If I jumped every time a light came on around here, I'd end up talkin' to myself.
- Kirk: Captain to crew. Those of you who have served for long on this vessel have encountered alien life-forms. You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there's no such thing as the unknown-- only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood. In most cases we have found that intelligence capable of a civilization is capable of understanding peaceful gestures. Surely a life-form advanced enough for space travel is advanced enough to eventually understand our motives. All decks stand by. Captain out.
- Kirk: This is the Captain of the Enterprise. Our respect for other life forms requires that we give you this... warning. There is one critical item of information that has never been incorporated into the memory banks of any Earth ship. Since the early years of space exploration, Earth vessels have had incorporated into them a substance known as... corbomite. It is a material and a device which prevents attack on us. If any destructive energy touches our vessel, a reverse reaction of equal strength is created, destroying --
- Balok: You now have two minutes.
- Kirk: -- destroying the attacker. It may interest you to know that since the initial use of corbomite more than two of our centuries ago, no attacking vessel has survived the attempt. Death has... little meaning to us. If it has none to you -- then attack us now. We grow annoyed at your foolishness.
- Spock: I regret not having learned more about this Balok. He was reminiscent of my father.
- Scotty: Then may heaven have helped your mother.
- Spock: Quite the contrary. She considered herself a very fortunate Earth woman.
- See also The Cage (below) for the dialogue which derives from the first pilot.
- McCoy: Blast medicine anyway. We've learned to tie into every human organ in the body except one -- the brain. The brain is what life is all about. That man can think any thought that we can, and love, hope, dream as much as we can, but he can't reach out, and no one can reach in.
- Kirk: Mr. Spock, when you're finished, I want to talk to you. This regrettable tendency you've been showing lately towards flagrant emotionalism --
- Spock: I see no reason to insult me, sir.
- Kirk: A Vulcan can no sooner be disloyal than he can exist without breathing.
- McCoy: This is the first time in a week I've had time for a drop. Would you care for a drink, Mr. Spock?
- Spock: My father's race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol.
- McCoy: Oh. Now I know why they were conquered. What are you worried about? Jim generally knows what he's doing.
- Spock: It was illogical for him to bring those players aboard.
- McCoy: Illogical? Did you get a look at that Juliet? That's a pretty exciting creature. Of course your, uh, personal chemistry would prevent you from seeing that. Did it ever occur to you that he might like the girl?
- Spock: It occurred. I dismissed it.
- McCoy: You would.
- McCoy: What if you decide he is Kodos? What then? Do you play God, carry his head through the corridors in triumph? That won't bring back the dead, Jim.
- Kirk: No. But they may rest easier.
- Lenore: There is no mercy in you.
- Kirk: If he is Kodos, then I've shown him more mercy than he deserves. And if he isn't... then we'll let you off at Benecia, and no harm done.
- Lenore: Captain Kirk. Who are you to say what harm was done?
- Kirk: Who do I have to be?
- Anton Karidian (Kodos): I am tired! ... The past ... is a blank.
- Kirk: Those beautiful words, well acted, change nothing.
- Kirk: Worlds may change, galaxies disintegrate -- but a woman is always a woman.
- Kirk: [officiating at the wedding of Lieutenants Tomlinson and Martine] Since the days of the first wooden vessels, all shipmasters have had one happy privilege: that of uniting two people in the bonds of matrimony.
- Lt. Stiles: We know Outpost 4 has been attacked, sir. So if we intercept Romulans now, we--
- Kirk: After a whole century, what would a Romulan ship look like, Mr. Stiles? I doubt if they'll radio and identify themselves.
- Lt. Stiles: You'll know, sir. They're painted like a giant bird of prey.
- Kirk: I had no idea that history was your specialty.
- Lt. Stiles: Family history. There was a Captain Stiles in the space service then. Two Commanders, several junior officers. All lost in that war, sir.
- Kirk: Their war, Mr. Stiles. Not yours. Don't forget it.
- Kirk: [confronting Lt. Stiles] Well, here's one thing you can be sure of, mister. Leave any bigotry in your quarters, there's no room for it on the bridge. Do I make myself clear?
- Lt. Stiles: You do, sir.
- Romulan Commander: Danger and I are old companions.
- Centurion: We've seen a hundred campaigns together, and still I do not understand you!
- Romulan Commander: I think you do. No need to tell you what will happen the moment we reach home with proof of the Earthmen's weakness. And we will have proof. The Earth commander will follow, he must. And when he attacks, we will destroy him. Our gift to the homeland: another war.
- Spock: If Romulans are an offshoot of my Vulcan blood, then attack becomes even more imperative.
- McCoy: War is never imperative.
- Spock: It is for them, Doctor. Vulcan, like Earth, had its aggressive colonizing period, savage even by Earth standards. If Romulans retain this martial philosophy, then weakness is something we dare not show.
- Kirk: I wish I were on a long sea voyage somewhere. Not too much deck tennis, no frantic dancing. And no responsibility. Why me? I look around that bridge, and I see the men waiting for me to make the next move. And Bones,.... what if I'm wrong?
- McCoy: Captain, I--
- Kirk: No. I don't really expect an answer.
- McCoy: But I've got one. Something I seldom say to a... customer, Jim. In this galaxy, there's a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets. And in all the universe, three million million galaxies like this. And in all of that, and perhaps more, only one of each of us. Don't destroy the one named "Kirk".
- Romulan Commander: [referring to Kirk] He's a sorcerer, that one. He reads the thoughts in my mind.
- Kirk: Captain. Standing by to beam your survivors aboard our ship. Prepare to abandon your vessel.
- Romulan Commander: No. No, that is not our way. I regret that we meet in this way. You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you "friend".
- Kirk: What purpose will it serve to die?
- Romulan Commander: We are creatures of duty, Captain. I have lived my life by it. Just one more duty to perform.
- Spock: After what this ship has been through in the last three months, there is not a crewman aboard who is not in need of rest. Myself excepted, of course.
- Spock: I picked this up from Dr. McCoy's log. We have a crew member on board who is showing signs of stress and fatigue. Reaction time down 9 to 12 percent. Associational reading Norm minus 3.
- Kirk: That's much too low a rating.
- Spock: He's becoming irritable and quarrelsome, yet he refuses to take rest and rehabilitation. Now he has that right, but...we found -
- Kirk: A crewman's rights end where the safety of the ship begins. Now that man will go ashore on my orders. What's his name?
- Spock: James Kirk.
- [Realizing he's been tricked, Kirk stares somewhat balefully at Spock.]
- Spock: [continuing] Enjoy yourself, Captain. It's an interesting planet. I believe you'll find it quite pleasant, very much like your Earth. Scouts have detected no animals, artifacts, or forcefields of any kind. Only peace, sunshine, and good air. You'll have no problems.
- Spock: On my planet, to rest is to rest — to cease using energy. To me, it is quite illogical to run up and down on green grass, using energy, instead of saving it.
- Kirk: The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.
- Kirk: I do [believe you]! I've met some interesting characters myself!
- McCoy: Mr. Spock, remind me to tell you that I'm sick and tired of your logic.
- Spock: That is a most illogical attitude.
- Spock: It is more rational to sacrifice one life than six.
- McCoy: I'm not talking about rationality.
- Spock: You might be wise to start.
- Scott: Tapping our boosters ended our last chance for a soft landing.
- Boma: You mean a burn-up?
- Spock: It is the usual end of a decaying orbit.
- Mears: I don't want to die up here.
- Spock: Infinitely preferable to the kind of death we'd be granted on the planet's surface, I should think.
- Boma: I admire your ability to make so measured a choice.
- McCoy: Respect is a rational process. Didn't it ever occur to you that they might react emotionally...with anger?
- Spock: Doctor, I am not responsible for their unpredictability.
- McCoy: They were perfectly predictable, to anyone with feeling.
- Spock: I realize that command does have its fascination, even under circumstances such as these, but I neither enjoy the idea of command nor am I frightened of it. It simply exists, and I will do whatever logically needs to be done.
- Scotty: Mr. Spock, you said a while ago that there were always alternatives.
- Spock: Did I? I may have been mistaken.
- McCoy: Well, at least I lived long enough to hear that.
- Kirk: Uh, Mr. Spock, there's really something I don't understand about all of this. And maybe you can explain it to me. Logically, of course. When you jettisoned the fuel and ignited it, you knew there was virtually no chance of it being seen, yet you did it anyhow. That would seem to be an act of desperation.
- Spock: Quite correct.
- Kirk: We all know, and I'm sure the doctor agrees, that desperation is a highly emotional state of mind. How does your well-known logic explain that?
- Spock: Quite simply, Captain. I examined the problem from all angles, and it was plainly hopeless. Logic informed me that, under the circumstances, the only possible action would have to be one of desperation. Logical decision, logically arrived at.
- Kirk: Aha, ha ha. I see. You mean you reasoned that it was time for an emotional outburst.
- Spock: Well, I... wouldn't put it in exactly those terms, Captain, but... those are essentially the facts.
- Kirk: You're not going to admit that for the first time in your life, you committed a purely human, emotional act?
- Spock: No, sir.
- Kirk: Mr. Spock, you're a stubborn man.
- Spock: Yes, sir.
- Trelane: Oh, how absolutely typical of your species! You don't understand something so you become fearful.
- [Trelane picks up a phaser.]
- Trelane: Ah this setting won't kill...and THIS WILL
- [He vaporizes two alien creatures in wall niches.]
- McCoy: Does your logic find this fascinating, Mr. Spock?
- Spock: No. "Fascinating" is a word I use for the unexpected. In this case, I should think "interesting" would suffice.
- Trelane: You do realize that it's in deference to the Captain that I brought you here.
- Spock: Affirmative.
- Trelane: Well, I don't know if I like your tone. It's most challenging. That's what you're doing, challenging me?
- Spock: I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline. I object to power without constructive purpose.
- Trelane: Oh, Mr. Spock, you do have one saving grace after all - you're ill mannered. The human half of you, no doubt.
- Kirk: Our missions are peaceful — not for conquest. When we do battle, it is only because we have no choice.
- Kirk: We're living beings, not playthings for your amusement!
- Trelane: Silence! This trial is over! You are guilty. On all counts you are guilty. And according to your own laws, this court has no choice in fixing punishment. You will hang by the neck Captain, until you are dead, dead, dead!
- Metron: We are the Metrons. You are one of two crafts which have come into our space on a mission of violence. This is not permissible. Yet we have analyzed you and have learned that your violent tendencies are inherent. So be it. We will control them.
- Metron: Your captain is losing his battle. We would suggest you make whatever memorial arrangements, if any, which are customary in your culture. We believe you have very little time left.
- McCoy: We appeal to you in the name of civilization. Put a stop to this!
- Metron: Your violent intent and actions demonstrate that you are not civilized.
- Kirk: [to the helpless Gorn] No, I won't kill you. Maybe you thought you were...protecting yourself...when you attacked the outpost. [louder, to the Metrons] No, I won't kill him! Do you hear? You'll have to get your entertainment someplace else! [helpless Gorn disappears, and a Metron appears] You're a Metron?
- Metron: Does my appearance surprise you, Captain?
- Kirk: You seem more like a boy.
- Metron: I am approximately 1,500 of your Earth years old. You surprise me, Captain.
- Kirk: How?
- Metron: By sparing your helpless enemy who surely would've destroyed you, you demonstrated the advanced trait of mercy, something we hardly expected. We feel that there may be hope for your kind. Therefore, you will not be destroyed. It would not be...civilized.
- Kirk: What happened to the Gorn?
- Metron: I sent him back to his ship. If you like, I shall destroy him for you.
- Kirk: [calmly] No. That won't be necessary. We can talk. Maybe...reach an agreement.
- Metron: Very good, Captain. There is hope for you. Perhaps, in several thousand years, your people and mine shall meet to reach an agreement. You're still half-savage, but there is hope. We will contact you when we are ready.
- Kirk: We're a most promising species, Mr. Spock, as predators go. Did you know that?
- Spock: I frequently have my doubts.
- Kirk: I don't, not anymore. And maybe in a thousand years or so we'll be able to prove it. Never mind, Mr. Spock, it doesn't make much sense to me either.
- Spock: A thousand years, Captain?
- Kirk: Well that gives us a little time.
- Kirk: You said you had some additional information, Mr. Spock?
- Spock: I made an error in my computations.
- McCoy: Oh? This could be a historic occasion.
- Kirk: All right, Colonel. The truth is, I'm a little green man from Alpha Centauri, a beautiful place. You ought to see it.
- Colonel Fellini: I am going to lock you up for 200 years.
- Kirk: That ought to be just about right.
- John Christopher: You don't trust me, Spock.
- Spock: In fact, I do. But only to a certain point.
- Kirk: [to Spock] Your logic can be most... annoying.
- Kirk: [about John Christopher] But in our society, he'd be useless. Archaic.
- McCoy: But maybe he could be retrained, reeducated.
- Kirk: Now you're sounding like Spock.
- McCoy: If you're going to get nasty, I'm going to leave.
- Kirk: I hope I'm not crowding you.
- Cogley: What's the matter? Don't you like books?
- Kirk: Oh, I like them fine, but a computer takes less space.
- Cogley: A computer, huh? I got one of these in my office. Contains all the precedents, a synthesis of all the great legal decisions written throughout time. I never use it.
- Kirk: Why not?
- Cogley: I've got my own system. Books, young man, books. Thousands of them. If time wasn't so important, I'd show you something--my library. Thousands of books.
- Kirk: What would be the point?
- Cogley: This is where the law is, not in that homogenized, pasteurized, synthesized... do you want to know the law, the ancient concepts in their own language, learn the intent of the men who wrote them, from Moses to the tribunal of Alpha 3? Books.
- Kirk: You have to be either an obsessive crackpot who's escaped from his keeper or Samuel T. Cogley, attorney-at-law.
- Cogley: Right on both counts.
- McCoy: Well, I had to see it to believe it.
- Spock: Explain.
- McCoy: They're about to lop off the captain's professional head, and you're playing chess with the computer.
- Spock: That is true.
- McCoy: Mr. Spock, you're the most cold-blooded man I've ever known.
- Spock: Why, thank you, Doctor.
- Areel: Mr. Cogley is well-known for his theatrics.
- Cogley: Is saving an innocent man's career a theatric?
- Stone: Counsels will direct their remarks to the bench.
- Cogley: I'd be delighted to, sir, now that I've got something human to talk about. Rights, sir, human rights--the Bible, the Code of Hammurabi and of Justinian, Magna Carta, the Constitution of the United States, Fundamental Declarations of the Martian colonies, the Statutes of Alpha 3. Gentlemen, these documents all speak of rights. Rights of the accused to a trial by his peers, to be represented by counsel, the rights of cross-examination, but most importantly, the right to be confronted by the witnesses against him--a right to which my client has been denied.
- Shaw: Your Honor, that is ridiculous! We've produced the witnesses in court. My learned opponent had the opportunity to see them, cross-examine them--
- Cogley: All but one! The most devastating witness against my client is not a human being. It's a machine, an information system, the computer log of the Enterprise.
- Cogley: I speak of rights. A machine has none. A man must. My client has the right to face his accuser, and if you do not grant him that right, you have brought us down to the level of the machine. Indeed, you have elevated that machine above us. I ask that my motion be granted, and more than that, gentlemen, in the name of humanity, fading in the shadow of the machine, I demand it. I demand it!
- Spock: It is impossible for Captain Kirk to act out of panic or malice. It is not his nature.
- Landru Computer: I am Landru. I am he. All that he was I am, his experience, his knowledge.
- Kirk: But not his wisdom. He may have programmed you, but he could not have given you a soul. You are a machine.
- Landru Computer: Your statement is irrelevant.
- Kirk: Without freedom of choice there is no creativity.
- Kirk: It's time you learned that freedom is never a gift. It has to be earned.
- Spock: How often mankind has wished for a world as peaceful and secure as the one Landru provided.
- Kirk: Yes. And we never got it. Just lucky, I guess.
- Spock: I prefer the concrete, the graspable, the proveable.
- Kirk: You'd make a splendid computer, Mr Spock.
- Spock: That is very kind of you, Captain!
- Spock: Insufficient facts always invite danger.
- Spock: Superior ability breeds superior ambition.
- McCoy: [Khan has grabbed McCoy by throat and is holding a knife on him] Well, either choke me or cut my throat. Make up your mind.
- Khan: Where am I?
- McCoy: You're in bed, holding a knife at your doctor's throat.
- Khan: Answer my question!
- McCoy: It would be most effective if you would cut the carotid artery, just under the left ear.
- Khan: [releasing McCoy] I like a brave man.
- McCoy: [taking knife from Khan] I was just trying to prevent an argument.
- Khan: Go! Or stay! But do it because it is what you WISH to do!
- Spock: [To a guard] Sir, there's a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder. [Uses Vulcan nerve pinch on guard]
- Ambassador: What are you doing, Mr. Spock?
- Spock: Practicing a peculiar variety of diplomacy, sir. [Fires phaser]
- Kirk: Death. Destruction. Disease. Horror. That's what war is all about. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided.
- Kirk: [War] is instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands! But we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill - today!
- Spock: Captain, you almost make me believe in luck.
- Kirk: Why, Mr Spock! You almost make me believe in miracles!
- Spock: I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question.
- Spock: I've never stopped to look at clouds before. Or rainbows. You know, I can tell you exactly why one appears in the sky, but considering its beauty has always been out of the question.
- Kirk: [narrating] Captain's log, Stardate 3417.7. Except for myself, all crew personnel have transported to the surface of the planet. Mutinied. Lieutenant Uhura has effectively sabotaged the communications station. I can only contact the surface of the planet. The ship can be maintained in orbit for several months, but even with automatic controls, I cannot pilot her alone. In effect, I am marooned here. I'm beginning to realize... just how big this ship really is. How quiet. I don't know how to get my crew back, how to counteract the effect of the spores. I don't know what I can offer against... paradise.
- Spock: I have a responsibility--to this ship, and to that man on the bridge. I am what I am, Leila. And if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's.
- McCoy: Well, that's the second time man's been thrown out of paradise.
- Kirk: No, no, Bones, this time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.
- Spock: Captain, there are literally thousands of these tunnels in this general area alone. Far too many to be cut by the one creature in an ordinary lifetime.
- Kirk: Then we're dealing with more than one creature, despite your tricorder readings, or - we have a creature with an extremely long lifespan.
- Spock: Or, it is the last of a race of creatures which made these tunnels. If so, if it is the only survivor of a dead race, to kill it would be a crime against science.
- Kirk: Mr. Spock, give us a report on life beneath the surface.
- Spock: Within range of our sensors, there is no life other than the accountable human residents of this colony beneath the surface. Eh, at least, no life as we know it.
- Kirk: Mr. Spock, you are second in command. This will be a dangerous hunt. Either one of us, by himself, is expendable. Both of us are not.
- Spock: Captain, there are approximately one hundred of us engaged in this search against one creature. The odds against you and I both being killed are two thousand, twenty eight point seven to one.
- Kirk: Two thousand, twenty eight point seven to one? [Spock nods] Those are pretty good odds, Mr. Spock.
- Spock: They are of course accurate, Captain.
- Kirk: Of course. [pause] Well, I hate to use the word, but logically, with those kinds of odds, you might as well stay. But please stay out of trouble, Mr. Spock.
- Spock: That is always my intention, Captain.
- McCoy: You can't be serious. That thing is virtually made out of stone!
- Kirk: Help it. Treat it.
- McCoy: I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!
- Kirk: You're a healer. There's a patient. That's an order.
- Spock: The Horta is badly wounded. It may die.
- McCoy: It won't die. By golly, Jim, I'm beginning to think I can cure a rainy day.
- Kirk: Can you help it?
- McCoy: Helped it? I cured it.
- Kirk: How?
- McCoy: Well, I had the ship beam down 100 pounds of that thermal concrete. You know, the kind we use to build emergency shelters out of 'em. It's mostly silicone. So I just troweled it into the wound, and it'll act like a bandage until it heals. Take a look. It's as good as new.
- Kirk: Well, Mr. Spock, I'm gonna have to ask you to get in touch with the Horta again. Tell her our proposition: She and her children can do all the tunneling they want, our people will remove the minerals, and each side will leave the other alone. You think she'll go for it?
- Spock: It seems logical, Captain. The Horta has a very logical mind - and after close association with humans, I find that curiously refreshing.
- Spock: Curious. What Chief Vanderberg said about the Horta is exactly what the Mother Horta said to me. She found humanoid appearance revolting... but she thought she could get used to it.
- McCoy: Oh, she did, did she? Now tell me, did she happen to make any comment about those ears?
- Spock: Not specifically, but I did get the distinct impression she found them the most attractive human characteristic of all. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that only I have—
- Kirk: She really liked those ears?
- Spock: Captain, the Horta is a remarkably intelligent and sensitive creature with impeccable taste.
- Kirk: Because she approved of you.
- Spock: Really, Captain, my modesty—
- Kirk: ...Does not bear close examination, Mr. Spock. I suspect you're becoming more and more human all the time.
- Spock: Captain, I see no reason to stand here and be insulted.
- Kirk: Well there it is - war. We didn't want it, but we've got it.
- Spock: It is curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want.
- Spock: Captain, our information on these people and their culture was not correct. This is not a primitive society making progress toward mechanization. They are totally stagnant. There is no evidence of any progress as far back as my tricorder can register.
- Kirk: That doesn't seem likely.
- Spock: Nevertheless, it is true. For tens of thousands of years, there's been absolutely no advancement, no significant change in their physical environment. This is a laboratory specimen of an arrested culture.
- Kirk: Gentlemen, I have no great love for you, your planet, your culture. Despite that, Mr. Spock and I are gonna go out there, and quite probably die - in an attempt to show you that there are some things worth dying for.
- Kirk: What would you say the odds are on our getting out of here?
- Spock: Difficult to be precise, Captain. I should say approximately seven thousand eight hundred twenty four point seven to one.
- Kirk: Difficult to be precise? Seven thousand eight hundred and twenty four to one?
- Spock: Seven thousand eight hundred twenty four point seven to one.
- Kirk: That's a pretty close approximation.
- Spock: I endeavor to be accurate.
- Kirk: You do quite well.
- Kirk: I'm embarrassed. I was furious with the Organians for stopping a war I didn't want. We think of ourselves as the most powerful beings in the universe. It's unsettling to discover that we're wrong.
- Spock: Captain. It took millions of years for the Organians to evolve into what they are. Even the gods did not spring into being overnight. You and I have no reason to be embarrassed. We did, after all, beat the odds.
- Kirk: Oh, no, no, no, Mr. Spock, we didn't beat the odds; we didn't have a chance. The Organians raided the game.
- Spock: Jim, madness has no purpose, or reason, but it may have a goal. He must be stopped, held, destroyed if necessary.
- Kirk: Like Lazarus. Identical, yet both Lazarus. Except one is matter and the other antimatter. If they meet...
- Spock: Annihilation Jim. Total, complete, absolute annihilation.
- Lazarus: He'll kill us all if we don't kill him first! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!
- McCoy: He's in a lot of pain!
- Kirk: Sometimes pain can drive a man harder than pleasure. I'm sure you know that, Doctor!
- Kirk: So you're the terrible thing? The murdering monster? The creature?
- Anti-Lazarus: Yes, Captain. Or he is. It depends on your point of view, doesn't it?
- Kirk: My friend is obviously Chinese. I see you've noticed the ears. They're actually easy to explain.
- Spock: Perhaps the unfortunate accident I had as a child.
- Kirk: ...The unfortunate accident he had as a child. He caught his head in a mechanical... rice picker.
- Edith Keeler: One day soon, man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom... energies that could ultimately hurl us to other worlds in... in some sort of spaceship. And the men that reach out into space will be able to find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world and to cure their diseases. They will be able to find a way to give each man hope and a common future. And those are the days worth living for.
- Edith Keeler: I think that one day they're going to take all the money that they spend now on war and death...
- Kirk: And make them spend it on life.
- Edith Keeler: You know as well as I do how out of place you two are around here.
- Spock: Interesting. Where would you estimate we belong, Miss Keeler?
- Edith Keeler: [to Spock] You? At his side. As if you've always been there and always will. [to Kirk] And you... you belong... in another place. I don't know where or how... I'll figure it out eventually.
- Spock: I'll finish with the furnace.
- Edith Keeler: '..., Captain.' Even when he doesn't say it, he does.
- Spock: I am endeavoring, Madam, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bear skins.
- Spock: I am a Vulcan, doctor. Pain is a thing of the mind. The mind can be controlled.
- Kirk: You're only half Vulcan. What about the human half?
- Spock: It is proving to be an inconvenience, but it is manageable.
- Spock: I admire your curiosity Doctor, but I assure you I'm all right.
- McCoy: You may be controlling the pain, Mr. Spock... but you're far from all right.
- Spock: [presenting the first findings on the alien creature] Interesting, gentlemen. A one-cell creature resembling, more than anything else, a huge, individual brain cell.
- Kirk: Yes. That would answer a lot of questions.
- Spock: Do you understand what I'm suggesting, Captain?
- Kirk: I think so. This may be one cell in a larger organism, an incredibly huge organism, in fact.
- Spock: And although it is not physically connected to the other cells, it is, nevertheless, part of the whole creature, guided by the whole, drawing its strength from the whole, which probably accounts for its unusual resistance to our phaser weapons.
- Kirk: [narrating] Captain's log, stardate 3289.8. I am faced with the most difficult decision of my life. Unless we find a way to destroy the creatures without killing their human hosts, my command responsibilities will force me to kill over a million people.
- Kirk: Mr. Spock, regaining eyesight would be an emotional experience for most. You, I presume felt nothing?
- Spock: Quite the contrary, Captain, I had a very strong reaction. My first sight was the face of Dr. McCoy bending over me.
- McCoy: Hm, 'tis a pity brief blindness did not increase your appreciation for beauty, Mr. Spock.
Season 2
[edit]- McCoy: Come in, Spock. I'm all ready for you.
- Spock: My orders were to report to Sickbay, Doctor. I have done so. And now I'll go to my quarters.
- McCoy: My orders were to give you a thorough physical! In case you hadn't noticed, I have to answer to the same commanding officer that you do! [brief pause] Come on, Spock. Yield to the logic of the situation.
- Spock: Stonn. She is yours. After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical...but it is often true.
- T'Pau: Live long and prosper, Spock.
- Spock: I shall do neither. I have killed my captain... and my friend.
- Spock: [After realizing that Kirk is not, in fact, dead.] Jim! [Catching himself before he displays further emotion] I am...pleased to see you, Captain; you seem...uninjured.
- McCoy: There's just one thing, Mr. Spock. You can't tell me that when you first saw Jim alive that you weren't on the verge of giving us an emotional scene that would have brought the house down.
- Spock: Merely my quite logical relief that Starfleet had not lost a highly proficient captain.
- Kirk: Yes, Mr. Spock, I understand.
- Spock: Thank you, Captain.
- McCoy: Of course, Mr. Spock. Your reaction was quite logical...
- Spock: Thank you, Doctor.
- McCoy: ...in a pig's eye!
- Spock: Insults are effective only where emotion is present.
- Apollo: I am Apollo!
- Chekov: [sarcastically] And I am the Tsar of all the Russias!
- Kirk: Mr. Chekov...
- Chekov: I'm sorry, Captain. I never met a god before.
- Kirk: And you haven't yet.
- Scotty: Captain, we've got to do something.
- Kirk: We were doing something, until our brave lady stepped in and saved us.
- Kirk: Would it have hurt us, I wonder, just to have gathered a few laurel leaves?
- McCoy: He's dead, Jim.
- Nomad: You are the creator.
- Kirk: But I admit, I am imperfect. How could I have created a perfect being like you?
- Nomad: Answer unknown. I shall analyze... Analysis complete: Insufficient data to resolve problem.
- Kirk: I am the Kirk, the creator?
- Nomad: You are the creator.
- Kirk: You're WRONG! Jackson Roykirk, your creator, is DEAD, you have mistaken me for him! You are in error!... You did not discover your mistake, you have made TWO errors. You are flawed and IMPERFECT. And you have not corrected by sterilization, you have made THREE errors!
- Nomad: Error... Error... Error... Examine...
- Kirk: We've got to get rid of it while it's trying to think.
- Spock: Your logical was impeccable, Captain. We are in grave danger.
- Kirk: Conquest is easy. Control is not.
- Kirk: How long before the Halkan prediction of Galactic revolt is realized?
- Mirror Spock: Approximately 240 years.
- Kirk: The inevitable outcome?
- Mirror Spock: The Empire shall be overthrown, of course.
- Kirk: The illogic of waste, Mr. Spock. The waste of lives, potential, resources, time... I submit to you that your Empire is illogical, because it cannot endure. I submit that you are illogical to being a willing part of it.
- Mirror Spock: It is time.
- Kirk: In every revolution, there's one man with a vision.
- Mirror Spock: Captain Kirk, I shall consider it.
- Mirror Spock: One man cannot summon the future.
- Kirk: But one man can change the present.
- Kirk: What I don't understand is how you were able to identify our counterparts so quickly.
- Spock: It was far easier for you as civilized men to behave like barbarians, than it was for them as barbarians to behave like civilized men. I assume they returned to their Enterprise at the same time you appeared here.
- Kirk: Probably. However, that Jim Kirk will find a few changes, if I read my Spocks correctly.
- McCoy: Jim, I think I liked him with a beard better. It gave him character. Of course, almost any change would be a distinct improvement.
- Kirk: What worries me is the easy way his counterpart fitted into that other universe. I always thought Spock was a bit of a pirate at heart.
- Spock: Indeed, gentlemen. May I point out that I had an opportunity to observe your counterparts here quite closely. They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous; in every way, splendid examples of homo sapiens, the very flower of humanity. I found them quite refreshing. [he returns to the science station]
- Kirk: I'm not sure, but I think we've just been insulted.
- McCoy: I'm sure.
- Kirk: Are you trying to get yourself killed? Do you know how much Starfleet has invested in you?
- Spock: One hundred, twenty-two thousand, two hundred—
- Kirk: Never mind. But… thanks.
- Akuta: Love. Strange words, "children," "love". What is love?
- Yeoman Landon: Love is when two people are-
- Akuta: Ah, the holding, the touching. Vaal has forbidden this.
- McCoy: Well there goes paradise.
- Kirk: And you'll learn something about men and women-- the way they're supposed to be. Caring for each other, being happy with each other, being good to each other. That's what we call... love. You'll like that, too, a lot.
- McCoy: Well, I don’t agree with you at all, Mr. Spock.
- Spock: That's not unusual, Doctor.
- Chekov: It makes me homesick. Just like Russia.
- McCoy: More like the Garden of Eden, Ensign.
- Chekov: Of course, Doctor. The Garden of Eden was just outside Moscow. A wery nice place. It must have made Adam and Eve wery sad to leave.
- Kirk: [Sarcastically] Just....outside Moscow, all right.
- Decker: [describing the planet killer] They say there's no devil, Jim, but there is. Right out of hell! I saw it!
- Kirk: Matt, where's your crew?
- Decker: On the third planet.
- Kirk: There is no third planet.
- Decker: Don't you think I know that?! There was, but not anymore! They called me, they begged me for help, 400 of them! I couldn't! I-I couldn't! [breaks into sobbing]
- Kirk: Bones... ya ever hear of a 'doomsday machine'?
- McCoy: No... I'm a doctor, not a mechanic.
- Spock: Random chance seems to have operated in our favor.
- McCoy: In plain, non-Vulcan English, we've been lucky.
- Spock: I believe I said that, Doctor.
- [Decker has taken command of the Enterprise]
- McCoy: You can't let him do this, Spock!
- Decker: You are out of line, Doctor.
- McCoy: So are you!
- [pause]
- McCoy: ...sir!
- Kirk: [Upon hearing he has phasers available] Scotty! You've just earned your pay for the week!
- Kirk: Mr. Spock, relieve Commodore Decker immediately. That's a direct order.
- Decker: You can't relieve me and you know it, according to regulations...
- Kirk: BLAST REGULATIONS! Mr. Spock, I order you to assume command on my personal authority as Captain of the Enterprise.
- Spock: Commodore Decker, you are relieved of command.
- Decker: I don't recognize your authority to relieve me.
- Spock: You may file a formal protest with Starfleet Command, assuming we survive to reach a Starbase, but you are relieved. Commodore, I do not wish to place you under arrest.
- Decker: You wouldn't dare.
- [Mr. Spock waves two security guards forward, who immediately move to flank Decker.]
- Decker: You're bluffing.
- Spock: Vulcans never bluff.
- Decker: No. No, I don't suppose that they do. Very well, Mr. Spock, the bridge is yours.
- Kirk: If we weren't missing two officers and a third one dead, I'd say someone was playing an elaborate trick or treat on us.
- Spock: Trick or treat, Captain?
- Kirk: Yes, Mr Spock. You'd be a natural.
- Kirk: You can't think a man to death.
- Kirk: Did you pay royalties to the owners of those patents?
- Harry Mudd: Well, actually, Kirk, as a defender of the free enterprise system, I found myself in a rather ambiguous conflict as a matter of principle.
- Spock: He did not pay royalties.
- Harry Mudd: Knowledge, sir, should be free to all!
- Kirk: Who caught you?
- Harry Mudd: That, sir, is an outrageous assumption.
- Kirk: Yes. Who caught you?
- Harry Mudd: I sold the Denebians all the rights to a Vulcan fuel synthesiser.
- Kirk: And the Denebians contacted the Vulcans.
- Harry Mudd: How'd you know?
- Kirk: That's what I would have done.
- Harry Mudd: It's typical police mentality. They've got no sense of humour. They arrested me.
- McCoy: Oh, I find that shocking.
- Harry Mudd (mistaking sarcasm for sympathy): Worse than that! Do you know what the penalty for fraud is on Deneb V?
- Spock: The guilty party has his choice: death by electrocution, death by gas, death by phaser, death by hanging...
- Harry Mudd: The key word in your entire peroration, Mr. Spock, was..."death". Barbarians! Well, of course, I...left.
- Kirk: He broke jail.
- Harry Mudd: I, er, I borrowed transportation -
- Kirk: He stole a spaceship.
- Harry Mudd: The patrol reacted in a hostile manner -
- Kirk: They fired at him.
- Harry Mudd: They've got no respect for private property, they damaged the bloody spaceship!
- Kirk: Well, opinions?
- Chekov: I think we're in a lot of trouble.
- Kirk: That's a great help, Mister Chekov. Bones?
- McCoy: I think Mister Chekov's right. We are in a lot of trouble.
- Kirk: Spock? - and if you say we're in a lot of trouble -!
- Spock [eyebrow raised]: We are.
- Spock: [pointing to Alice #27] I love you. [looking to Alice #210] However, I hate you.
- Alice #210: But I am identical in every way with Alice 27.
- Spock: Yes, of course. That is exactly why I hate you. Because you are identical.
- [Alice #27 and Alice #210 are unable to understand. Their badges glow and beep as they process what Spock has said, but then they shut down from the effort.]
- Spock: Fascinating. [departs]
- [After Norman and the other Androids have been reprogrammed, Kirk and company prepare to leave Planet Mudd]
- Harry Mudd: But what do I do? Kirk, I'm no scientist.
- Kirk: No, you're an irritant. You'll stay here and provide a first-class example to the androids of a human failure. They'll learn by close observation how to avoid ones like you in the future.
- Harry Mudd: How long?
- Kirk: As long as you continue to be an irritant, Harry. It's up to you.
- Harry Mudd: I suppose that taking everything into consideration, as it were, and noting all the different possibilities, I could manage. And as detention sentences go, this one isn't too uncomfortable. And I'm back in the galaxy again!
- Kirk: Yes, you are. Oh, there's one more thing, Harry. We've programmed a special android attendant to take care of your every need. She'll help you find an incentive to work with the androids and not exploit them.
- Harry Mudd: I call that unexpectedly civil of you, Captain.
- Kirk: Yes.
- Stella Mudd: [offscreen] Harcourt! [Mudd looks horrified] Harcourt Fenton Mudd, what have you been up to...?
- Harry Mudd: Shut UP!
- [To Mudd's horror, Stella Mudd won't shut up on command (at the start, he was able to control the sole android of this type) - and there are 500 copies of her...]
- ...
- Harry Mudd: OH NO....KIRK, YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! IT'S INHUMAN!
- Kirk: [mockingly] Good-bye, Harry. HAVE FUN!
- [Kirk, Spock, and McCoy discover that the man called Cochrane is really the famous Zefram Cochrane]
- Zefram Cochrane: Believe me, Captain, immortality consists largely of boredom. What's it like out there in the galaxy?
- Kirk: We're on a thousand planets and spreading out. We cross fantastic distances and everything's alive, Cochrane. Life everywhere. We estimate there are millions of planets with intelligent life. We haven't begun to map them. Interesting?
- Cochrane: How would you like to sleep for a hundred and fifty years and wake up in a new world?
- Kirk: [about rigging the universal translator to communicate with the Companion] Not 100 percent efficient, of course, but nothing ever is.
- [Zefram Cochrane's disgusted at learning the Companion has feelings for him]
- McCoy: There's nothing disgusting about it. It's just another life form, that's all. You get used to those things.
- Zefram Cochrane: You're as bad as it is.
- Spock: Your highly emotional reaction is most illogical. Your relationship with the Companion has for one hundred and fifty years been emotionally satisfying, eminently practical, and totally harmless. It may indeed have been quite beneficial.
- Cochrane: Is this what the future holds? Men who have no notion of decency or morality? Maybe I'm a hundred and fifty years out of style, but I'm not going to be fodder for any inhuman monster. [leaves]
- Spock: Fascinating. A totally parochial attitude.
- Nancy Hedford: Doctor, Doctor...
- McCoy: Right here, Miss Hedford.
- Nancy: [speaking weakly from her fever] I heard. He was loved. And he resents it.
- McCoy: You just rest.
- Nancy: I've always been good at my job. But I've never been loved. Never. What sort of a life is that? Never being loved. Never... to have shown love. And he runs away from love. [breaks down sobbing]
- Amanda Grayson: After all these years among humans, you still haven't learned to smile.
- Spock: Humans smile with so little provocation.
- Spock: There is no logic in Gav's murder.
- Shras: Perhaps you should forget logic and devote yourself to motivations of passion or gain; these are reasons for murder.
- [Amanda Grayson appeals to Spock about undergoing a blood transfusion to save his father, Sarek, but Spock is too stubborn and harps on about being a Vulcan]
- Spock: It means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life, which is logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be.
- Amanda Grayson: When you were five years old and came home stiff-lipped, anguished, because the other boys tormented you, saying that you weren't really Vulcan, I watched you knowing that, inside... that the human part of you was crying, and I cried, too. There must be some part of me in you, some part that I still can reach. If being Vulcan is more important to you, then you'll stand there speaking rules and regulations from Starfleet and Vulcan philosophy and... and let your father die, and... then I'll hate you for the rest of my life.
- Spock: Mother...
- Amanda: Oh, go to him. Now. Please.
- Spock: I cannot. [gets slapped by Amanda, who leaves the room]
- Amanda Grayson: And you, Sarek. Would you also say thank you to your son?
- Sarek: I don't understand.
- Amanda Grayson: For saving your life.
- Sarek: Spock acted in the only logical manner open to him. One does not thank logic, Amanda.
- Amanda Grayson: Logic! Logic! I am sick to death of logic! Do you want to know how I feel about your logic?!
- Spock: Emotional, isn't she?
- Sarek: She has always been that way.
- Spock: Indeed? Why did you marry her?
- Sarek: At the time, it seemed the logical thing to do. [She smiles, realizing they're teasing her]
- Kirk: Bones. [He starts to collapse] No, no, I'm all right.
- [McCoy helps him onto a bed]
- McCoy: If you keep arguing with your kindly family doctor, you're going to spend your next ten days right here. If you co-operate, you'll be out in two.
- Spock: [starting to rise from his bed] Doctor, I'll return to my station now.
- McCoy: You are at your station, Mister Spock!
- Kirk: Doctor McCoy, I believe you're enjoying all this.
- Spock: Indeed, Captain. I've never seen him look so happy.
- McCoy: Shut up! [to Kirk] Shh! Shh! [to camera] Well, what do you know? I finally got the last word.
- McCoy: What Maab has said is true. Our customs are different. What the Klingon has said is unimportant, and we do not hear his words. [Aside, to Kirk] I just called the Klingon a liar.
- Kras: We Klingons believe as you do. The sick should die. Only the strong should live.
- McCoy: I'm a doctor, not an escalator.
- McCoy: Oochy-woochy-koochy-coo.
- Spock: "Oochy wootchy koochy coo," Captain?
- Kirk: An obscure Earth dialect, Mr. Spock. Oochy-woochy-koochy-coo. If you're curious, consult linguistics.
- Spock: The child was named Leonard...James...Akaar?!
- McCoy: Has a kind of a...ring to it, don't you think, James?
- Kirk: Yes. I think it's a name...destined to go down in galactic history, Leonard - what do you think, Spock?
- Spock: I think you're both going to be insufferably pleased with yourselves for at least a month ... Sir.
- Dr. Janet Wallace: The heart is not a logical organ.
- [at the bridge, Chekov is flustered over the repeat checkups in sickbay]
- Chekov: 'Give us some more blood, Chekov.' 'The needle won't hurt, Chekov.' 'Take off your shirt, Chekov.' 'Roll over, Chekov.' 'Breathe deeply, Chekov.' 'Blood sample, Chekov.' 'Marrow sample, Chekov.' 'Skin sample, Chekov.' IF...if I live long enough, I'm going to run out of samples!
- Sulu: You'll live.
- Chekov: Oh yes, I'll live, but I won't enjoy it!
- [Kirk fumes at learning Commodore Stocker is taking command of the Enterprise]
- Kirk: Don't talk to me about rank! The man's a chair-bound paper-pusher! I order you to take command.
- Kirk: Total senility?
- Spock: Yes, Captain. In a very short time.
- Kirk: What a way to die. All right. I want all the research facilities, all the scientific technicians, to start round-the-clock research immediately. I want the answers, and I want the remedy. Let's start by finding out why Chekov hasn't been affected.
- McCoy: I'm doing what I can. [to Spock] You're perfectly healthy.
- Spock: [sitting up] I must differ with you, Doctor. I'm having difficulty concentrating, which is most disturbing. My eyesight appears to be failing, and the normal temperature of the ship seems to me to be increasingly cold.
- McCoy: I did not say you were not affected, Mr. Spock! You are perfectly healthy...that is, for any normal Vulcan on the high side of a hundred!
- Spock: I have a question for the doctor. [Kirk leaves] Doctor, the ship's temperature is increasingly uncomfortable for me. I've adjusted the environment in my quarters to one hundred twenty five degrees, which is at least tolerable. However, I -
- McCoy: Well, I see I'm not going to be making any house calls on you!
- Spock: I wondered if perhaps there was something which could lower my sensitivity to cold.
- McCoy: I'm not a magician, Spock - just an old country doctor.
- Spock: Yes...as I always suspected.
- Kirk: Intuition, however illogical, Mr. Spock, is recognized as a command prerogative.
- McCoy: I'll bet he [Spock] left a bad taste in the creature's mouth, too.
- Scotty: Thank heaven!
- Spock: Mr Scott, there was no deity involved. It was my cross-circuiting to B that recovered them.
- McCoy: Then thank pitchforks and pointed ears.
- Spock: In the strict scientific sense, Doctor, we all feed on death, even vegetarians.
- Spock: Women are more easily and more deeply terrified, generating more sheer horror than the male of the species.
- Spock: Computer. This is a Class-A compulsory directive. Compute, to the last digit, the value of pi.
- Scotty: When are y'gonna get off that milk diet, lad?
- Chekov: This is vodka!
- Scotty: Where I come from, that's soda pop. Now, this is a drink for a man.
- Chekov: Scotch?
- Scotty: Aye.
- Chekov: It was invented by a little old lady from Leningrad!
- Spock: A most curious creature, Captain. [He puts the tribble to his ear] Its trilling seems to have a tranquilizing effect on the human nervous system. [mild shrug] Fortunately, of course, I am [he starts to sound drowsy]...immune to its...effect...[by this point he's nearly asleep on his feet. He abruptly wakes with a jerk and quickly puts the tribble down]
- Spock: Doctor, I am well aware of human characteristics. I am frequently inundated by them, but I've trained myself to put up with practically anything.
- McCoy: Spock, I don’t know too much about these little tribbles yet, but there is one thing that I have discovered.
- Spock: What is that, Doctor?
- McCoy: I like them - better than I like you.
- Spock: Doctor, they do indeed have one redeeming characteristic: they do not talk too much.
- Kirk: Too much of anything, Lieutenant, even love, isn't necessarily a good thing.
- Spock: Captain, Starfleet was able to divert that freighter.
- Kirk: Good. That means Sherman's Planet will get its quadrotriticale [he looks around the Bridge]...only a few weeks late. I don't see any tribbles around here.
- McCoy: And you won't find a tribble on this entire ship.
- Kirk: Bones, how did you do it?
- McCoy: I cannot take credit for another man's work. Scotty did it.
- Kirk: Scotty! Where are the tribbles?
- Scotty: Oh, er, Captain, it was really Mister Spock's recommendation.
- Kirk: Of course. Spock.
- Spock: Based on computer analysis, of course, taking into account the possibilities of -
- Kirk: Gentlemen, I don't want to interrupt this mutual admiration society, but I'd like to know where the tribbles are.
- McCoy: Tell him, Spock.
- Spock: Well, it was Mister Scott who performed the actual engineering.
- Kirk: Mister Scott. [slowly, for emphasis] Where are the tribbles?
- Scotty: I used the transporter, Captain.
- Kirk: You used the transporter?
- Scotty: Aye.
- Kirk: Where did you transport them? Scott, you didn't transport them into space, did you?
- Scotty: Captain Kirk, that'd be inhuman!
- Kirk: Well, where are they?
- Scotty: I gave them a good home, sir.
- Kirk: [exasperated now] Where?!
- Scotty: I gave them to the Klingons, sir.
- Kirk: [whisper] You gave them to the Klingons?!
- Scotty: Aye, sir. Before they went into warp, I transported the whole kit and kaboodle into their engine room, where they'll be no tribble at all.
- McCoy: You mean ... you're gonna leave here without them, and run off on some wild goose chase halfway across the galaxy, just because you found a discrepancy in a hydrogen cloud?
- Spock: Doctor, I'm chasing the Captain, Lieutenant Uhura and Ensign Chekov, not some wild aquatic fowl.
- McCoy: Well, Mr. Spock, if you’re going into the lion’s den, you’ll need a medical officer.
- Spock: Daniel, as I recall, had only his faith, but I welcome your company, Doctor.
- Kirk: My people pride themselves on being the greatest, most successful gamblers in the universe. We compete for everything -- power, fame, women -- everything we desire, and it is our nature ... to win.
- Kirk: We have found... that all life-forms in the galaxy are capable of superior development.
- Kirk: All your people must learn before you can reach for the stars.
- Spock: Logic and practical information do not seem to apply here.
- McCoy: You admit that?
- Spock: To deny the facts would be illogical, Doctor.
- Spock [After Kirk tries to drive an automobile]: Captain, you are an excellent starship commander. But as a taxi driver, you leave much to be desired.
- Kirk: It was that bad?
- Kirk: Hold on, Spock. Out of the mouth of babes..
- Young street urchin: Who are you callin' a babe?
- Kirk: I'm callin' you a babe.
- Young street urchin: You callin' me a babe?
- Kirk: Yeah, I'm callin'- [Urchin produces a knife and holds it up to Kirk's face] I'm calling you a babe, but it's nothing personal.
- Kirk: Are you afraid of cars?
- Spock: Not at all, Captain. It's your driving that alarms me.
- Kirk: Well, Bones, in the language of the planet, what's your beef?
- Spock: Brace yourself. The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive.
- Spock: Tell Doctor McCoy... he should have wished me luck.
- Spock: Do not risk the ship further on my behalf.
- McCoy: Shut up, Spock! We're rescuing you!
- Spock: Why, thank you, Captain McCoy.
- Spock: I've noticed that about your people, Doctor. You find it easier to understand the death of one than the death of a million. You speak about the objective hardness of the Vulcan heart, yet how little room there seems to be in yours.
- McCoy: Suffer the death of thy neighbor, eh, Spock? You wouldn't wish that on us, would you?
- Spock: It might have rendered your history a bit less bloody.
- Kirk: Spock, you're alive!
- Spock: Obviously, Captain.
- Nona: There is an old custom among my people. When a woman saves a man's life, he is grateful.
- Apella: I thought my people would grow tired of killing, but you were right. They see that it is easier than trading, and it has pleasures. I feel it myself. Like the hunt, but with richer rewards.
- Kirk: The only solution is what happened back then. A balance of power.
- Leonard McCoy: And if the Klingons give their side even more?
- Kirk: Then we arm our side with exactly that much more. A balance of power— the trickiest, most difficult, dirtiest game of them all, but the only one that preserves both sides.
- Kirk: War isn't a good life, but it's life.
- Kirk: We're very tired, Mr. Spock. Beam us up home.
- Sargon: There comes to all races, an ultimate crisis which you have yet to face.
- Kirk: I don't understand.
- Sargon: One day our minds became so powerful we dared think of ourselves as gods.
- Kirk: Bones? You could stop all this by saying no. That's why I called you all here together. We'll all be deeply involved. It must be unanimous.
- McCoy: Then I'll still want one question answered to my satisfaction. Why? Not a list of possible miracles, but a simple basic understandable why that overrides all danger. And let's not kid ourselves that there is no potential danger in this!
- Kirk: They used to say that if Man was meant to fly, he'd have wings. But he did fly. He discovered he had to. Do you wish that the first Apollo mission hadn't reached the moon, or that we hadn't gone on to Mars and then to the nearest star? That's like saying you wish that you still operated with scalpels and sewed your patients up with catgut like your great-great-great-great-grandfather used to. I'm in command. I could order this. But I'm not because Doctor McCoy is right in pointing out the enormous danger potential in any contact with life and intelligence as fantastically advanced as this. But I must point out that the possibilities, the potential for knowledge and advancement is equally great. Risk...risk is our business. That's what this starship is all about. That's why we're aboard her.
- Henoch [in Spock's body]: This is an excellent body, Doctor. I seem to have received the best of the three-- strength, hearing, eyesight all far above your human norms. I'm surprised the Vulcans never conquered your race.
- McCoy: The Vulcans worship peace above all, Henoch.
- McCoy: I will not peddle flesh. I'm a physician.
- Thalassa: A physician?!? In contrast to what we are, you are a prancing, savage medicine man! You dare defy one you should be on your knees worshipping? I could destroy you with a single thought!!
- Spock [notes Captain Kirk and his new Waffen-SS officer uniform]: Your uniform, Captain.... You should make a very convincing Nazi.
- Eneg: Punishment becomes ineffective after a certain point. Men become... insensitive.
- [At the Underground hideout, as Daras and her men seemingly capture the Underground members and the Enterprise landing party]
- Captainj Kirk: I'm Captain James Kirk of the United Spaceship Enterprise. This is my first officer, Mister Spock. John Gill, your Fuhrer, was sent here by the Federation as a cultural observer.
- Daras: You mean that the Führer is an alien?
- Spock: That is correct.
- Daras: I grew up to admire him, later to hate and despise everything he stands for. But I always thought he was one of us. Now to hear that he's an alien sent here to destroy us.
- Kirk: That was not his mission, ever. He was sent here to observe, not to interfere. Something went wrong, and that's why we're here. To find out and to correct. We must see him.
- Kirk: Very good, Spock. We'll make a human out of you yet.
- Spock: I hope not!
- [As Melakon arrests Spock and his group, John Gill suddenly appears not unlike his earlier state]
- Fuhrer John Gill: People. People of Ekos.
- Deputy Fuhrer Melakon: [to soldier] Go to the booth. See to the Fuhrer at once. He's ill. Turn off that camera.
- Gill: Hear me.
- Melakon: [to guests] I suggest we leave and let our Fuhrer rest.
- Gill: We were betrayed by a self-seeking adventurer who has led us all to the very brink of disaster. I order the immediate recall of the space fleet. This attack must stop. All units are to return to base. To Zeon I promise, this was not an aggression of Ekosian people. Only one evil man. Melakon is a traitor to his own people and all that we stand for. To the Zeon people, I promise reparation and - [is gunned down by Melakon firing at the curtained broadcast booth. Isak kills Melakon]
- Party Chairman Eneg: [seeing soldier aiming to shoot Isak] Wait, soldier. There's been enough killing. Now we'll start to live the way the Fuhrer meant us to live.
- Gill: [to Kirk, dying in his arms] I was wrong. The non-interference Directive is the only way. We must stop the slaughter.
- Kirk: You did that, Professor. You told them in time.
- Gill: Even historians fail to learn from history. They repeat the same mistakes. Let the killing end. Let... [dies]
- Rojan: We do not colonize. We conquer. We rule. There is no other way for us.
- Kelinda: This cultural mystique surrounding the biological function.
- Kirk: Yes?
- Kelinda: You realize humans are overly preoccupied with the subject.
- Kirk: You have a question?
- Kelinda: Yes, I was wondering... would you please apologize to me again? [She wants another kiss from him.]
- Scotty: I found this on Ganyroom...er, Ganymerean...mede.
- Tomar: What is it?
- Scotty: Well, it's, er...(he looks for a label - there isn't one. He uncorks and sniffs it, and finally goes with the only thing he knows for sure about it)...it's green!
- Kirk: A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive.
- McCoy: The infection resembles one developed by Earth during their bacteriological warfare experiments in the 1990s. Hard to believe we were once foolish enough to play around with that.
- Cloud William: Freedom?
- Kirk: Spock.
- Spock: Yes, I heard, Captain.
- Cloud William: It is a worship word, Yang worship. You will not speak it.
- Kirk: Well, well, well. It is... our worship word, too.
- Sirah: Yes, it is written. Good shall always destroy evil.
- McCoy: Spock, I've found that evil usually triumphs...unless good is very, very careful.
- Kirk: This was not written for chiefs. (general consternation) Hear me! Hear this! Among my people, we carry many such words as this from many lands, many worlds. Many are equally good and are as well respected, but wherever we have gone, no words have said this thing of importance in quite this way. Look at these three words written larger than the rest, with a special pride never written before or since. Tall words proudly saying 'We the People'. That which you call Ee'd Plebnista was not written for the chiefs or the kings or the warriors or the rich and powerful, but for all the people! Down the centuries, you have slurred the meaning of the words, 'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution.' These words, and the words that follow, were not only meant for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well!
- Cloud: The Kohms?
- Kirk: They must apply to everyone, or they mean nothing!
- Spock: Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them. Captain, a starship also runs on loyalty to one man, and nothing can replace it or him.
- Richard Daystrom: When a child is taught, it's programmed with simple instructions, and at some point, if its mind develops properly, it exceeds the sum of what it was taught, thinks independently.
- Kirk: Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. Did Einstein, Kazanga or Sitar of Vulcan produce new and revolutionary theories on a regular schedule? You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant."
- McCoy: Compassion: that's the one things no machine ever had. Maybe it's the one thing that keeps men ahead of them.
- [The M5 computer has just vaporized one of Scotty's engineering crewmen]
- Kirk: That wasn't a simulation!! That wasn't a robot ship!! That thing just murdered one of my crew and now you tell me you can't turn it off!!
- Richard Daystrom: It wasn't a deliberate act! M-5... needed a new power source. The Ensign -- simply got in the way.
- Kirk: And how long before all of us simply get in the way?
- Proconsul Claudius Marcus: The games have always strengthened us. Death becomes a familiar pattern. We don't fear it as you do.
- Master of the Games: You bring this station ratings down Flavius and we'll do a special on You!
- McCoy: [to Spock] I'm trying to thank you, you pointy-eared hobgoblin!
- McCoy: Do you know why you're not afraid to die, Spock? You're more afraid of living. Each day you stay alive is just one more day you might slip and let your human half peek out. That's it, isn't it? Insecurity. Why, you wouldn't know what to do with a genuine, warm, decent feeling.
- Spock: You humans have that emotional need to express gratitude. "You're welcome," I believe is the correct response.
- Proconsul Claudius Marcus:Your a Roman Kirk or you should have been...Get away Merick the thoughts of two men cannot interest you...
- [Marcus tells Kirk they premented 15 minuites on the regualar showing on empire TV for Kirk live execution]
- Proconsul Claudius Marcus: You May Not understand because your centuries beyond anything as crude as Television.
- Kirk: Caesar and Christ... they had them both.
- Spock: Without facts, the decision cannot be made logically. You must rely on your human intuition.
- Gary Seven: That, Miss Lincoln, is simply my cat.
- Spock: Live long and prosper.
Season 3
[edit]- McCoy: His brain is gone.
- Kara: Brain and brain — what is brain?!
- Kirk: No one may kill a man. Not for any purpose. It cannot be condoned.
- Spock: Captain, there is a definite pleasurable experience connected with the hearing of your voice.
- McCoy: I knew it was wrong, I shouldn't have done it.
- Kirk: What's that?
- McCoy: I should have never reconnected his mouth.
- Spock: It would be illogical to assume that all conditions remain stable.
- [having heard of Kirk's alibi for the Enterprise crossing the Neutral Zone, the Romulan Bird of Prey's female commander meets Spock]
- Romulan Commander: I must admit some surprise on seeing you, Spock. We were not aware of Vulcans aboard the Enterprise.
- Spock: Starfleet is not in the habit of informing Romulans of its ships' personnel.
- Romulan Commander: Quite so. Yet there are certain ships, certain officers, that are known to us. Your situation appears most interesting.
- Kirk: What earns Spock your special interest?
- Romulan Commander: He is a Vulcan. Our forebears had the same roots and origins. Something you wouldn't understand, Captain. We can appreciate the Vulcans, our distant brothers. I have heard of Vulcan integrity and personal honour. There's a well-known saying, or is it a myth, that Vulcans are incapable of lying?
- Spock: It is no myth.
- Romulan Commander: Then tell me truthfully now, by your honour as a Vulcan, what was your mission?
- Spock: I reserve the privilege of speaking when it will not violate my honor as a Vulcan.
- Spock: It is not a lie to keep the truth to oneself.
- [Spock explains to the Romulan Commander that the Federation engineered the ruse to get the cloaking device]
- Romulan Commander: You realize that very soon we will learn to penetrate the cloaking device you stole.
- Spock: Obviously. Military secrets are the most fleeting of all. I hope that you and I exchanged something more permanent.
- McCoy: Sickbay to Bridge.
- Kirk: What is it. Bones?
- McCoy: Well, if all the shouting's over up there, I'd like for you to report to Sickbay.
- Kirk: What for?
- McCoy: Well, you're due in surgery. I'm going to bob your ears.
- [Kirk reacts to that, not wanting such an unpleasant experience.]
- Spock: Captain... please go. Somehow they do not look aesthetically agreeable on humans.
- McCoy: Well, are you coming, Jim, or do you want to go though life looking like your first officer?
- Kirk: I'm on my way!
- Scotty: Me bairns ... me poor, wee bairns!
- Miramanee: The sooner our happiness together begins, the longer it will last.
- Salish: You bleed, Kirok! Behold the god who bleeds!
- Spock: Time, Dr. McCoy, is the one thing we do not have in abundance. [In "Star Trek: TNG" (episode: "Contagion"), Captain Picard says almost the same line to Geordi La Forge. It has become a catch-phrase for Trekkies.]
- Miramanee: [to Kirk, her husband] Each kiss... is as the first.
- Professor Starnes: Alien upon us... the enemy from within...
- Spock: Humans do have an amazing capacity for believing what they choose and excluding that which is painful.
- Spock: Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth.
- McCoy: Or by misleading the innocent.
- Kirk: Most legends have their basis in fact.
- Spock: Without followers, evil cannot spread.
- Larry Marvick: Don't love her! She'll kill you if you love her! I love you, Miranda. [he dies]
- McCoy: He's dead, Jim.
- Dr. Miranda Jones: I suppose it has thorns.
- Kirk: I never met a rose that didn't.
- Dr. Miranda Jones: The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity.
- Spock: And the way our differences combine to create meaning and beauty.
- Scotty: Half a gallon of scotch.
- [Chekov, as Billy Claiborne, is not too happy that Kirk has stopped him from deeply kissing Sylvia]
- Chekov: What can I do, Captain? You know we are always supposed to maintain good relations with the natives!
- [Spock notes how a forcefield stops them from getting out of town and thus avoid the upcoming showdown]
- Spock: Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. Where the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this...is unreal.
- [The Enterprise is hailed by the Melkotians]
- Melkotian: Captain Kirk. You did not kill. Is this the way of your kind?
- Kirk: We fight only when there is no other choice. We prefer the ways of peaceful contact. I speak for a vast alliance of fellow creatures who believe in the same thing. We have sought you out to join us. Our mission is still one of peace.
- Melkotian: Approach our planet and be welcome. A delegation will come out to meet you. Our warning threats are over.
- Kirk: Excellent. Lieutenant, cancel Red Alert. Mister Chekov, resume original course, warp factor two.
- Chekov: Warp factor two, sir.
- Spock: Captain. May I ask a question? You needn't answer if it seems too personal.
- Kirk: I'm sure I'll be able to give you an answer, Mister Spock
- Spock: This afternoon, you wanted to kill, didn't you?
- McCoy: But he didn't kill, Mister Spock.
- Spock: But he wanted to, Doctor.
- Kirk: Is that the way it seemed to you?
- Spock: Yes, sir.
- Kirk: Mister Spock... you're absolutely right. That's exactly the way it was.
- Spock: Mankind. Ready to kill.
- Kirk: That's the way it was in 1881.
- Spock: I wonder how humanity managed to survive.
- Kirk: ... We overcame our instinct for violence.
- Kirk: There's another way to survive-- Mutual trust and help.
- Spock: No one can guarantee the actions of another.
- Spock: Those who hate and fight must stop themselves, Doctor, otherwise it is not stopped.
- Kang: Only a fool fights in a burning house.
- Kirk: Captain's log: Stardate...Armageddon.
- Chekov: Has there ever been a mutiny on a starship before?
- Spock: Absolutely no record of such an occurrence, Ensign.
- Spock: We must accept the fact that Captain Kirk is no longer alive.
- McCoy: There's no hurry, Mr. Spock. The antidote probably doesn't concern you. Vulcans are probably immune. So just take your time.
- Kirk: [speaking to Spock and McCoy on a taped message] Bones. Spock. Since you are playing this tape, we will assume that I am dead. And the tactical situation is critical, and both of you are locked in mortal combat. It means, Spock, that you have control of the ship and are probably making the most difficult decisions of your career. I can offer only one small piece of advice, for whatever it's worth: use every scrap of knowledge and logic you have to save the ship. But temper your judgement with intuitive insight. I believe you have those qualities, but if you can't find them in yourself... seek out McCoy. Ask his advice. And if you find it sound... take it. Bones. You've heard what I've just told Spock. Help him if you can. But remember, he is the Captain. His decisions must be followed, without question. You might find that he is capable of human insight and human error. They are most difficult to defend. But you will find he is deserving of the same loyalty and confidence each of you... have given me, Take care.
- Scotty: What is it [the antidote]?
- McCoy: It's a diluted theragen derivative.
- Spock: Theragen-- a nerve gas used by the Klingons.
- Scotty: Aye, and deadly, too. What are you thinking of, Doc? Are you trying to kill us all?
- Natira: Is not that the nature of men and women? That the pleasure is in the learning of each other?
- Natira: Is truth not truth for all?
- McCoy: The release of emotions, Mr. Spock, is what keeps us healthy-- emotionally healthy, that is.
- Spock: That may be, Doctor. However, I have noted that the healthy release of emotion is frequently very unhealthy for those closest to you.
- Alexander: Become one of them?
- Kirk: Alexander, where I come from, size, shape, or color makes no difference.
- Kirk: & Spock:
I'm Tweedledee, he's Tweedledum." "We're spacemen marching to and from." "We slythe among the mimsey toves." "And tire among the borogoves."
- Spock: Take care, young ladies, and value your wine; Be watchful of young men in their velvet prime; Deeply they'll swallow from your finest kegs; Then swiftly be gone; Leaving bitter dregs; Ah, ah, bitter dregs. With smiling words and tender touch; Man offers little and asks for so much; He loves in the breathless excitement of night; Then leaves with your treasure in cold morning light; Ah, ah... in cold morning light.
- [Maiden Wine, also known as Bitter Dregs]
- Chapel {Forced to kiss Spock} "For so long I've wanted to be close to you. Now all I want to do is crawl away and die!"
- Parmen: Uncontrolled, power will turn even saints into savages. And we can all be counted upon to live down to our lowest impulses.
- Deela: We have the right to survive.
- Kirk: Not by killing others.
- Spock: I found it an accelerating experience.
- Vian: Their own fears killed them.
- McCoy: I'm a doctor, not a coal miner.
- Scotty: I would say that she [Gem, the Empath] was a pearl of great price.
- Kirk: What, Scott?
- Scotty: Do you not know the story of the merchant? The merchant, who when he found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
- Elaan: Were you responding to my demand for better quarters?
- Kirk: There are none better. I suggest you make do with these.
- Elaan: You suggest?!
- Kirk: There are no more available, but if that's the only way you can get gratification, I'll arrange to have the whole room filled from floor to ceiling with breakable objects. [turns to go]
- Elaan: I did not give you permission to leave!
- Kirk: [turns back and looks at her] I didn't ask for any.
- Ambassador Petri: Captain, when I am near them, I do not want peace, I want to kill them!
- Kirk: You're as bad as she is. It's not required that you like each other. Just... do your job.
- Elaan: We have granted your crew the permission not to kneel in our presence. What else do you want?
- Kirk: The prejudices people feel about each other disappear when they get to know each other.
- Spock: Captain, your analysis of the situation was flawless, anticipating that she would deny you admittance. However, the logic by which you arrived at your conclusion escapes me.
- Kirk: Mr. Spock, the women on your planet are logical. That's the only planet in this galaxy that can make that claim.
- Kirk: They were humanitarians and statesmen, and they had a dream-- a dream that became a reality and spread throughout the stars. A dream that made Mr. Spock and I brothers.
- Garth of Izar: Mr. Spock, you consider Captain Kirk and yourself brothers?
- Spock: Captain Kirk speaks somewhat figuratively and with undue emotion. However, what he says is logical, and I do, in fact, agree with it.
- Garth of Izar: Queen to Queen's Level Three, Captain Kirk.
- Marta: You mustn't stop me. He's my lover, and I have to kill him.
- Spock: What maneuver did we use to defeat the Romulan vessel near Tau Ceti?
- Kirk or Garth as Kirk: Very good, Spock. The Cochrane deceleration.
- Other Kirk or Garth as Kirk: Spock. The Cochrane deceleration is a classic battle maneuver. Every Starship captain knows that.
- Spock: Correct, Captain. [to both] Captains.
- Kirk: Why was it so impossible to tell us [Garth and Kirk] apart?
- Spock: It was not impossible, Captain. Our presence here is proof of that.
- Kirk: Yes, and... congratulations. What took you so long?
- Spock: The interval of uncertainly was actually fairly brief, Captain. It only seemed long to you. I was waiting for a victor in the hand-to-hand struggle, which I assumed would be Captain Garth. [Hastily explains] Because of your depleted condition. Failing a resolution to the struggle, I was forced to use other means to make my determination.
- Kirk: I see. Mr. Spock, letting yourself be hit on the head—and I presume you let yourself be hit on the head—is not exactly a method King Solomon would have approved. [Spock opens his mouth to reply, stops in confusion] Mr. Scott, ready to beam up.
- Scotty: Aye, aye, sir.
- Kirk: You may control the ship... but mine is the final command. From 0 to 5 no force in the universe can stop the destruct sequence. This is Captain Kirk. Destruct sequence 1, code 1-1A.
- Spock: This is Science Officer Spock: Destruct sequence 2, code 1-1A-2B.
- Scott: This is Lieutenant Commander Scott: Destruct sequence 3, code 1B-2B-3.
- Computer: Destruct sequence completed and engaged. Awaiting final code for 30 second countdown.
- Kirk: Begin thirty second countdown. Code zero-zero-zero-destruct-zero.
- Computer: Destruct sequence is activated. 30 seconds... 29... 28... 27... 25 seconds... 20 seconds... 15 seconds... 10... 9... 8... 7... 6..."
- Bele: I AGREE!!!
- Kirk: Code 1-2-3-continuity, abort destruct order.
- Spock: Change is the essential process of all existence.
- Bele: I once heard that on some of your planets, people believe they are descended from apes.
- Spock: The actual theory is that all lifeforms evolved from the lower levels to the more advanced stages.
- [After Bele hears he will not retain Loki without Due Process.]'
- Bele: Yes, he will delay, evade, and escape again. And in the process put thousands of innocent beings at each others throats, getting them to kill and maim, for a cause which they have no stake in. But, which he will force them to violently espouse by twisting their minds with his lies, his loathsome accusations, and his foul threats.
- Bele: What do you do? Carry justice on your tongues? You will beg for it, but you won't fight or die for it!"
- Kirk: After so many years of leading the fight, you seem very much alive.
- Spock: I doubt that the same can be said for many of his followers.
- Bele: You're finished, Lokai! Oh, we've got your kind penned in on Cheron into little districts, and it's not going to change! You've combed the galaxy, and come up with nothing but monocolored trash, do-gooders, and bleeding hearts. You're DEAD, you half-white!
- Loki: You useless pieces of bland flesh… I'll take you WITH me, you half-black!
- Kirk: I do not make deals for control of this ship, sir.
- Bele: My people... all dead?
- Spock: Yes, Commissioner. All of them.
- Lokai: No one alive?
- Spock: None at all, sir.
- Bele: [turns on Lokai] Your band of murderers did this!
- Lokai: [turns on Bele] You pyromanics!
- Kirk: The cause you fought about no longer exists... Give up your hate.
- Lokai: You're an idealistic dreamer! [flees toward the Transporter]
- Kirk: Bele, the chase is finished.
- Bele: He must not escape me!
- Spock: Where can he go?
- [Bele glances at the devastated planet Cheron and purses Lokai.]
- Kirk: Bele!
- [After Loki and Bele have beamed themselves down to Cheron]
- Uhura: It doesn't make any sense.
- Spock: To expect sense from two mentalities of such extreme viewpoints, is not logical.
- Sulu: But their planet is dead. Does it matter now which of them was right?
- Spock: Not to Lokai and Bele. All that matters to them... is their hate.
- Uhura: Do you suppose that's all they had, sir?
- Kirk: No. But it's all they have left.
- Spock: We must acknowledge once and for all that the purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis.
- Spock: Lieutenant Uhura, has Starfleet honored our request with a reply?
- Uhura: There has been no response as yet, sir.
- Spock: Did you advise them the Captain's life is at stake?
- Uhura: Yes, sir. They insist the matter must be referred to the Federation.
- Spock: What department?
- Uhura: The Bureau of Planetary Treaties.
- Spock: Contact them directly.
- Uhura: I did, Mr. Spock. They insist that we must go through Starfleet channels.
- Spock: Your Excellency, I am basically a scientist. Clarity of formulation is essential in my profession, also.
- Hodin: I am glad to hear it. Perhaps you could then make greater effort to choose your words more precisely.
- Hodin: The people of Gideon have always believed that life is sacred. That the love of life is the greatest gift. That is the one unshakable truth of Gideon. And this overwhelming love of life has developed our regenerative capacity and our longevity.
- Kirk: And the great misery which you now face.
- Hodin: That is bitterly true, Captain. Nevertheless, we cannot deny the truth which shaped our evolution. We are incapable of destroying or interfering with the creation of that which we love so deeply — life in every form — from fetus to developed being.
- Spock: [about to take Kirk and Odona away] Your Excellency, please do not interfere. I already have one serious problem to resolve with upper echelons.
- Sulu: Once in Siberia, there was a meteor so great that it flattened whole forests and was felt as...
- Kirk: Mr. Sulu, If I'd wanted a Russian history lesson, I'd have brought along Mr. Chekov.
- Sulu: What a terrible way to die.
- Kirk: There are no good ways.
- [Spock has just announced how much time Scott has left before the Enterprise is destroyed.]
- Scotty: [muttering] I know what time it is. I don't need a bloody cuckoo clock.
- Spock: Mr. Scott, you have accomplished your task.
- Scotty: You would at least say thank you.
- Spock: For what purpose Mr. Scott? What is it in you humans...
- Scotty: Never mind...
- Spock: ...which requires an overwhelming display of emotion in situations such as this? Two men pursue the only reasonable course of action indicated, and yet you feel... that something else is necessary.
- Spock: Beauty is transitory, Doctor. However, she was evidently highly intelligent.
- Kirk: Kirk to Enterprise. Five to beam up. I don't agree with you, Mr. Spock.
- Spock: Indeed, Captain?
- Kirk: Beauty... survives.
- Chekov: I didn't think Mr. Scott would go for the brainy type.
- Sulu: I don't think he's even noticed she has a brain.
- Scotty: Well, I'm sure that's what the Lieutenant wants. She just didn't understand. [to Lt. Romaine] Did you now, lass?
- Christine Chapel: [imitating Scotty's brogue] Well, with a bedside manner like that, Scotty, you're in the wrong business.
- Kirk: Scotty, where have you been? Where are you?
- Scotty: In the Sick Bay.
- Kirk: Are you sick?
- Scotty: Oh, no. I was just checking on the lass. She's going to be fine and there's nothing wrong with her.
- Kirk: Well, I'm relieved to hear your prognosis, Mr. Scott. Is the doctor there with you or will I find him in Engineering?
- Scotty: Mira has tried to tell me all along that she was seeing things in advance.
- Kirk: Why didn't you report it?
- Scotty: You don't report space sickness. That's all I thought it was.
- Spock: You mean... love as motivation? Hmm. Humans do claim a great deal for that particular emotion.
- Flint: Death, when unnecessary, is a tragic thing.
- Flint: The intellect is not all... but its cultivation must come first, or the individual makes errors... wastes time in unprofitable pursuits.
- Kirk: You said something about savagery, Mr. Flint. When was the last time you visited Earth?
- Flint: You would tell me that it is no longer cruel. But it is, Captain. Look at your starship. Bristling with weapons. Its mission to colonize, exploit, destroy if necessary to advance Federation causes.
- Kirk: Our missions are peaceful, our weapons defensive. If we were barbarians, we would not have asked for rytalin. Indeed, your greeting, not ours, lacked a certain benevolence.
- Flint: The result of pressures which are... not... your concern
- Kirk: Yes, well, those pressures are everywhere, in everyone, urging him to what you call savagery. The private hells, the inner needs and mysteries, the beast of instinct. As human beings, that is the way it is. To be human is to be complex. You can't avoid a little ugliness from within... and from without.
- Spock: The joys of love made her human, and the agonies of love destroyed her.
- McCoy: You see, I feel sorrier for you than I do for him. Because you'll never know the things that love can drive a man to. The ecstasies, the miseries. The broken rules. The desperate chances. The glorious failures, and the glorious victories. All of these things you'll never know, simply because the word "love" isn't written into your book.
- Spock: [mind-melding with Kirk, who wished he could forget about Rayna] Forget ...
- Chekov: I believe I know one of them. At least, I think I recognize her voice. Her name is... Irina Galliulin. We were in Starfleet Academy together.
- Kirk: One of those... was in the Academy?!
- Kirk: They really believe that (the planet) Eden exists?
- Spock: Many myths are based on truth, Captain. And they are not unintelligent. Their leader, Dr. Sevrin, is a man --
- Kirk: [surprised] Dr. Sevrin is their leader?
- Spock: Yes. A brilliant research engineer in the fields of acoustics, communications and electronics on Tiberon. He was dismissed from his post when he started this movement. Tong Rad inherits his father's extraordinary abilities in the field of space studies.
- Kirk: But... they've rejected all that, and all that this technology provides. And they seek the primitive.
- Spock: There are many who are... uncomfortable with what we have created. It is almost a biological rebellion. A profound revulsion against the planned communities. The programming. The sterilized, artfully balanced atmospheres. They hunger for an Eden... where spring comes.
- Kirk: We all do. The cave is deep in our memory.
- Spock: Yes, that is true, Captain.
- Kirk: But we don't steal space cruisers and act like irresponsible children. What makes you so sympathetic toward them?
- Spock: It is not "sympathy" so much as curiosity, Captain. A wish to understand. They regard themselves as aliens in their own worlds. A condition with which I am somewhat familiar.
- Kirk: Spock.... What does "Herbert" mean?
- Spock: [uncomfortable] It is, uh... somewhat, uh... uncomplimentary, Captain. Herbert was a minor official... notorious for his rigid and limited patterns of thought.
- Kirk: [taking that in] Well, I shall try to be less rigid in my thinking.
- Scotty: I don't know why a young mind has to be an undisciplined one. They're troublemakers.
- Kirk: I used to get into a little trouble when I was that age, Scotty. Didn't you?
- Spock: Miss Galliulin. It is my sincere wish that you do not give up your search for Eden. I have no doubt but that you will find it. Or make it, yourselves.
- Irina: Thank you. [leaves the bridge. Chekov and Spock go back to their stations.]
- Kirk: We... reach, Mr. Spock.
- Spock: Extreme feminine beauty... is always... disturbing.
- Spock: Violence in reality is quite different from theory.
- Vanna: It's hard to believe that something which is neither seen nor felt can do so much harm.
- Kirk: That's true. But an idea can't be seen or felt. And that's what's kept the Troglytes in the mines all these centuries-- a mistaken idea.
- Surak: I am pleased to see that we have differences. May we together become greater than the sum of both of us.
- Colonel Green: History tends to exaggerate.
- Colonel Green: No one talks peace unless he's ready to back it up with war.
- Surak: He talks peace if it is the only way to live.
- Yarnek: It would seem that evil retreats when forcibly confronted. However, you have failed to demonstrate to me any of the difference between your philosophies. Your good and your evil use the same methods, achieve the same results.
- Kirk: There's still so much of their work (Lincoln's and Surak's) to be done in the galaxy, Spock.
- Mr. Atoz: Wait! I haven't prepared you.
- Hag: Witch! Witch! They'll burn ya!
- McCoy: Think, Spock – what's happening on your planet right now?
- Spock: My people are barbarians... warlike barbarians.
- McCoy: Who nearly killed themselves off with their own passions. Spock – you're reverting back to the ways of your ancestors... five thousand years before you were born!
- Spock: There's no further need to observe me, Doctor. As you can see, I've returned to the present in every sense.
- McCoy: But it did happen, Spock.
- Spock: Yes, it happened. But that was five thousand years ago. And she is dead now. Dead and buried. Long ago.
- Dr. Janice Lester: [in Kirk's body] Youth doesn't excuse everything.
- Dr. Janice Lester: [in Kirk's body] Love? Him? I love the life he led. The power of a starship commander. It's my life now.
- Scotty: I've seen the captain feverish, sick, drunk, delirious, terrified, overjoyed, boiling mad. But up to now, I have never seen him red-faced with hysteria.
- Chekov: Captain Kirk would never order an execution; that cannot be the captain!
- Dr. Janice Lester: I've lost..To the Captain...Kill Him....Now I'll never Command a starship
- [last scene of series, Kirk laments Dr Lester's nervous breakdown]
- Kirk: Her life could've been as rich as any woman's... if only... if only..."
In the short story version by James Blish, Spock finishes the sentence, adding: "If only she had been able to take pride in being a woman."
Original pilot
[edit]- Dr. Phillip Boyce: Sometimes, a man will tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor.
- Dr. Boyce: A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he... turns his back on it and starts to wither away.
- Christopher Pike: Now you're beginning to talk like a doctor, bartender.
- Dr. Boyce: Take your choice. We both get the same two kinds of customers-- the living and the dying.
- Christopher Pike: There's a way out of any cage.
- Vina: When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating. You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit, living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought records.
- Keeper: She has an illusion and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant.
Unidentified episode
[edit]- Unknown: Warp Speed, Mr. Sulu. (Checked: Kirk never actually utters these words in the series. At the end of the Man Trap, he does say, for the first time, "Warp One, Mr. Sulu". Kirk also says this in the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)
Repeated lines
[edit].jpg)
- James T. Kirk: Captain's log, Stardate ____._
- [various episodes]
- Leonard McCoy: I'm a doctor, not a ______________!
- [various episodes]
- Examples: a moon shuttle conductor / bricklayer / psychiatrist / mechanic / engineer / scientist / physicist / escalator / magician / miracle worker / flesh peddler / veterinarian.
- Leonard McCoy He's dead, Jim! (Var.: "She's..." or "It's...")
- [various episodes]
- DeForest Kelley first uttered the line "He's dead, Captain" as a military physician in the 1956 film, "The Man in The Grey Flannel Suit".
- Spock: Live long and prosper.
- [This phrase was first uttered in "Amok Time".]
- Spock: Why, thank you, [Doctor / Captain].
- [various episodes, usually as a riposte during verbal sparring matches.]
- Spock: Fascinating.
- [various episodes, whenever anything fascinating occurs.]
- Spock: Interesting.
- [various episodes, whenever anything interesting occurs; Spock reserves "Fascinating" for unexpected events.]
- James T. Kirk: Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.
- [introduction to each original-series episode]
- James T. Kirk: Set phasers to stun.
- [various episodes, standard instruction to the away team while assessing the situation.
- Uhura: Hailing frequencies open.
- [various episodes, whenever Kirk felt it necessary to talk with an alien vessel.]
- Ship Computer: Destruct sequence engaged. Awaiting final code for thirty second countdown.
- James T. Kirk: Computer, this is Captain James Kirk of the USS Enterprise. Begin thirty second countdown. Code zero zero zero. Destruct. Zero.
- Whenever command of the Enterprise is compromised, first uttered in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield."
- James T. Kirk: Computer. This is Captain James Kirk of the USS Enterprise. Code one, two, three continuity. Abort destruct order. Repeat code one, two, three continuity. Abort destruct order.
- Ship Computer: Destruct order aborted. Destruct order aborted.
- Whenever command of the Enterprise is compromised, first uttered in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield."
Misattributed
[edit]- Beam me up, Scotty. - James T. Kirk
- Several variants of this do occur in the series, such as "Beam me aboard", "Beam us up home", or "Two to beam up", but "Beam me up, Scotty" was never said during the run of the original Star Trek series. The closest Kirk ever came to was in "The Gamesters of Triskelion" when he uttered "Scotty... beam us up." However, "Beam me up, Scotty" was used in Star Trek: The Animated Series. The film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home included the closest other variation: "Scotty, beam me up."
- Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor not a... - Leonard McCoy
- McCoy had several lines of this sort, but he never uttered "Damn it" during the series; the closest he or anyone ever came was the euphemisms "Blast it!" or "Blast!".
- You're dead, Jim. - Leonard McCoy
- McCoy had several lines of this sort, but he never said "You're dead" to Kirk. This is often attributed when it appears that Kirk dies, particularly in "Amok Time" and "The Tholian Web".
- She can't take much more of this, Captain. - Montgomery Scott
- While Scotty frequently expressed concern for the health of the Enterprise in dangerous situations, neither he nor anyone else ever used that famous (and oft-parodied) line during the original series. The closest variation came in "The Doomsday Machine," when Spock reported to Commodore Decker that the deflector shields were at full power, then added, "They can't take much more of this." The nearest line from Scotty was in "Who Mourns for Adonais?"; as Apollo's giant "hand" slowly crushes the ship, he reports, "It's becoming critical, Captain. We can't handle it."
- Millions of people who have never died before will be killed. - Spock
- This misquote from the episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" was printed as such in Kermit Schafer's 1973 collection "All Time Great Bloopers". The actual line of dialogue from the episode is "Millions will die who did not die before." Schafer's inaccurate quote of the line seems like an absurdity, but considering that the episode's story line involves time travel and an alternate history, Spock's actual statement makes sense in the context of it.
About Star Trek: The Original Series
[edit]
Ff^2 (MgE) - C^1R1^1 x M = L/So
Or to put it in simpler terms, by multiplying the 400,000,000,000 galaxies (star clusters) in the heavens by an estimation of average stars per galaxy (7,700,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000), we have the approximate number of stars in the universe, as we understand it now. And so…
…if only one in a billion of these stars isa “sun” with a planet…
…and only one in a billion of these is of earth size and composition…
…there would still be something near 2,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 worlds with a potential of oxygen-carbon life…
or… (by the most conservative estimates of chemical and organic probability), something like three million worlds with a chance of intelligent life and social evolution similar to our own. ~ Gene Roddenberry
- The original Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry, was, with a few exceptions, bad in every way that a science fiction television show could be bad. Nimoy was the only charismatic actor in the cast and, ironically, he played the only character not allowed to register emotion. This was in the days before series characters were allowed to grow and change, before episodic television was allowed to have a through line. So it didn’t matter which episode you might be watching, from which year — the characters were exactly the same. As science fiction, the series was trapped in the 1930s — a throwback to spaceship adventure stories with little regard for science or deeper ideas. It was sci-fi as seen by Hollywood: all spectacle, no substance.
- Orson Scott Card, "Orson Scott Card: Star Trek Was Bad Science Fiction, James Joyner, Outside The Beltway, May 3, 2004
- One of the truths I've been telling lately is that Kirk and Spock are not lovers... they're not even boyfriends. They're just good friends. This has offended a whole subculture that is convinced they are... I was at a convention in Milwaukee a few weeks ago. This lady comes up to me with this stuff, and after a thirty minute discussion, I finally said, 'Stop! We're arguing over whether or not two fictitious characters are getting their hands in each others' pants.'
- David Gerold, (1985). "[Interview]". DraftTrek (Interview). Interview with Randall Landers and Tim Farley.
- There was a sense of fun in the original series, and I think we wanted to try and create three characters as distinctive as Kirk-Spock-McCoy with Kai-Stan-Xev (plus a robot head). I watched the show quite a bit when I was younger, and enjoyed some of its campier moments, i.e. "The Squire of Gothos". I also liked the one with the weird head in the sky that turned out to be Clint Howard.
- Lex Gigeroff, "A Sci Fi Worlds Interview with Lex Gigeroff:Lexx Co-Writer/Actor" Binn all of America.
- The episode with Clint Howard is The Corbomite Maneuver.
- Well, when I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house. 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!'
- Whoopie Goldberg "'When I was 9 years old, Star Trek came on…'" March 8, 2014.
- The original Trek was never consistent; to modern eyes, its frequently ham-fisted writing, sexism, sluggish pacing, and lack of continuity between episodes can take some adjustments to accept. But at the show's peak, those flaws could never obscure the raw energy that drove the adventures of Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise, nor the way that energy so often coalesced behind a fundamentally optimistic view of the universe.
- Zack Handlen, "For Our Consideration: Star Trek brought heat to the Cold War", A.V. Club, (3/28/16).
- Again and again on the series, we see that communication is the solution to problems, and that understanding your enemy (if they even are an enemy) is the only way to resolve a dangerous situation. It's a concept that seems to belie every piece of Cold War doctrine foisted on the American public. The Red Menace was a danger so insidious, so malignant, that even trying to understand its beliefs and systems meant a form of surrender. This wasn't just a physical force, but a kind of philosophical brain snatcher whose tendrils, if left unchecked, would lay waste to the free world.
That kind of paranoid faith in the untouchable—the assumption that some beliefs must be walled away in silence and fear—was something that Star Trek stood against in stark opposition.- Zack Handlen, "For Our Consideration: Star Trek brought heat to the Cold War", A.V. Club, (3/28/16).
- The show, released in the decade of the Vietnam War, American Civil Rights protests, the second wave of the feminist movement and the threat of nuclear war, dared to imagine what peace might look like.
- Rachel Lopez, “Set phasers to stun: Your warp-speed guide to the Star Trek universe”, Hindustan Times, (June 8, 2019)
- In Roddenberry's 23rd-century universe, mankind had conquered conflict and catapulted into space as a unified species – men, women, Chinese, Russians, Africans.
And it seemed to work. Women weren't intergalactic secretaries, they were full officers. Communications officer Uhura, a woman and black, is fourth in command of the Enterprise.- Rachel Lopez, “Set phasers to stun: Your warp-speed guide to the Star Trek universe”, Hindustan Times, (June 8, 2019)
- In a world preoccupied by the Space Race and the Cold War, the Enterprise looked into the future and saw the Russians as allies, not bushy-browed villains. Young ensign Pavel Chekov was loyal to the crew even as he displayed his love for Russia.
- Rachel Lopez, “Set phasers to stun: Your warp-speed guide to the Star Trek universe”, Hindustan Times, (June 8, 2019)
- Fifty years on, as racism, sexism and dying migrants make headlines, it's easy to see how radical Roddenberry’s ideas remain.
- Rachel Lopez, “Set phasers to stun: Your warp-speed guide to the Star Trek universe”, Hindustan Times, (June 8, 2019)
- One of the keys to Star Trek's success is the fact that almost every aspect of the show is grounded one way or another in real-world concepts. Starfleet, the organization unifying humanity and aliens in the exploration of the galaxy, is one such concept and was undoubtedly influenced by Roddenberry's time as a pilot during World War II.
- Military.com, "Famous Veteran: Gene Roddenberry".
- I thought she (Uhura) was a glorified telephone operator in space.
- Nichelle Nichols "Interview: Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols On Uhura’s Groundbreaking Kiss With Captain Kirk", Rufus T. Firefly, The Geeks of Doom (September 8, 2012).
- He (Martin Luther King Jr.) felt it was important that children of all races see an African American female appearing on television as an equal.
- Nichelle Nichols "Interview: Star Trek's Nichelle Nichols On Uhura’s Groundbreaking Kiss With Captain Kirk", The Geeks of Doom (September 8, 2012).
- A major area of conflict was Bill's concern that Spock was getting ahead of Kirk in terms of problem solving. Bill was worried that Kirk would seem unintelligent by contrast. And so lines of dialogue that had logically been Spock's soon became Kirk's.
- Leonard Nimoy "Mr Spock, Captain Kirk and a bitter 40-year battle" Peter Sheridan, Express (June 25, 2007).
- I was a sucker for Star Trek when I was a kid. They were always fun to watch. What made the show lasting was it wasn't actually about technology. It was about values and relationships. Which is why it didn't matter that the special effects were kind of cheesy and bad, right? They'd land on a planet and there are all these papier-mâché boulders. [Laughs.] But it didn't matter because it was really talking about a notion of a common humanity and a confidence in our ability to solve problems.
A recent movie captured the same spirit—The Martian. Not because it had a hugely complicated plot, but because it showed a bunch of different people trying to solve a problem. And employing creativity and grit and hard work, and having confidence that if it’s out there, we can figure it out. That is what I love most about America and why it continues to attract people from all around the world for all of the challenges that we face, that spirit of "Oh, we can figure this out." And what I value most about science is this notion that we can figure this out. Well, we're gonna try this—if it doesn't work, we're gonna figure out why it didn't work and then we're gonna try something else. And we will revel in our mistakes, because that is gonna teach us how to ultimately crack the code on the thing that we're trying to solve. And if we ever lose that spirit, then we're gonna lose what is essential about America and what I think is essential about being human.- Barack Obama, “BARACK OBAMA, NEURAL NETS, SELF-DRIVING CARS, AND THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD”, Scott Dadish, Wired, (November 2016)
- Star Trek, like any good story, says that we're all complicated, and we've all got a little bit of Spock and a little bit of Kirk [laughs] and a little bit of Scotty, maybe some Klingon in us, right? But that is what I mean about figuring it out. Part of figuring it out is being able to work across barriers and differences. There's a certain faith in rationality, tempered by some humility. Which is true of the best art and true of the best science. The sense that we possess these incredible minds that we should use, and we're still just scratching the surface, but we shouldn’t get too cocky. We should remind ourselves that there's a lot of stuff we don't know.
- Barack Obama, “BARACK OBAMA, NEURAL NETS, SELF-DRIVING CARS, AND THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD”, Scott Dadish, Wired, (Nov 2016)
- In a time when social divisions seemed unbridgeable and nuclear war appeared imminent, Star Trek offered a positive vision of the future where a united and peaceful humanity explored the stars on behalf of a Federation in which poverty, disease and violent conflict were mostly things of the past.
- Sebastian Roblin, “Star Trek’s Original Series Brought the Cold War Into Space”, War Is Boring, Medium (October 28, 2016).
- Star Trek evoked this sense of technological insecurity when it introduced the Romulan Empire in the gripping "Balance of Terror." Unlike the expansionist Klingons, the Romulans are xenophobic and insular, destroying anyone who violates the Neutral Zone.
Thus, the Romulan Empire resembled Mao's isolationist China, then in the grips of the Cultural Revolution — a closed society perceived as a potential threat that might at any moment pour across neighboring borders.
The Romulan Neutral Zone also references the Demilitarized Zone separating the divided northern and southern halves of Korea and (at the time) Vietnam.- Sebastian Roblin, “Star Trek’s Original Series Brought the Cold War Into Space”, War Is Boring, Medium, (Oct 28, 2016).
- In spirit, the original Star Trek was opposed to war and nuclear weapons. However, it could not help sketching a universe in which opposing alliances resorted to espionage, gunboat diplomacy and covert operations.
That Cold War influence came across in a different way 25 years after the series debut in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the last Star Trek movie featuring the full original crew. An exploding moon-based power station — shades of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster — leads to an economic and environmental crisis in the Klingon Empire.- "Star Trek’s Original Series Brought the Cold War Into Space", War Is Boring, Medium, (Oct 28, 2016).
- Bill [Shatner] was very upset when Leonard came on particularly strong at the beginning [of the series] because he said, "Am I not the Captain? How come [the writers] don't appreciate that?" It was a very natural reaction. I said to Shatner, "If we had an Eskimo as a second character, you could be sure the Eskimo would get the most delightful lines because of what he is." I advised him not to worry about Spock because all that reflected on Shatner, particularly if Shatner continued to treat Spock properly in the show. I suggested they should show each other a lot of friendship in the show and it would eventually right itself. And, indeed, it did eventually right itself.
- Gene Roddenberry, from personal conversations with Gene in 1990 at La Costa, CA (as cited by Susan Sackett).
- Star Trek offers an almost infinite number of exciting Science Fiction stories, thoroughly practical for television? How? Astronomers put it this way:
Ff^2 (MgE) - C^1R1^1 x M = L/So
Or to put it in simpler terms, by multiplying the 400,000,000,000 galaxies (star clusters) in the heavens by an estimation of average stars per galaxy (7,700,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000), we have the approximate number of stars in the universe, as we understand it now. And so…
…if only one in a billion of these stars is a "sun" with a planet...<br /[A]nd only one in a billion of these is of earth size and composition...
[T]here would still be something near 2,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 worlds with a potential of oxygen-carbon life...
[O]r...(by the most conservative estimates of chemical and organic probability), something like three million worlds with a chance of intelligent life and social evolution similar to our own.- Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek Pitch, March 11, 1964.
- The time is somewhere in the future. It could be 1995 or maybe 2995.
- Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek Pitch (March 11, 1964).
- Star Trek was again a very inconsistent show which at times sparkled with true ingenuity and pure science fiction approaches. At other times it was more carnival-like, and very much more the creature of television than the creature of a legitimate literary form.
- Rod Serling "Was Star Trek Ever Really Intelligent, Grown-Up Science Fiction?" Charlie Jane Anders, IO9, 4/15/14.
- Captain Kirk was captain of everybody'sfate. He was a dictator.
- William Shatner "William Shatner's 'Armageddon Warning to Prez Candidates", Karrah Kaplan CNN (October 5, 2011).
- What matters is not what they look like now, but what they looked to others at the time that they prevailed... There is only one spaceship that's earlier than [the original Enterprise], and that's the flying saucer from The Day the Earth Stood Still. So, what matters here is, what did [the Enterprise] look like at the time it came out (1966) compared with anything that had been imagined before? And when you consider that, that is the most astonishing machine that has ever graced the screen.
- Neil deGrasse Tyson, "Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Starship Smackdown, Comic-Con 2012". Plumbline Pictures, (July 16, 2012). YouTube. Retrieved 2018-08-17.
- The Enterprise was the first ever [spaceship represented in storytelling that was not designed to go from one place to another; [it was] only designed to explore. It was revolutionary in terms of what we would think space would, and should, be about.
- Neil deGrasse Tyson, "Millennium Falcon or Starship Enterprise? - Fan Question | StarTalk". National Geographic. November 27, 2015. Retrieved 2018-08-17.
- Since its official beginning in New York city in the summer of 1972 with the first fan-organized convention, Star Trek has become a genuine popular phenomenon. So great has been the enthusiasm generated by viewers of the original 1960s series that in fall 1986, twenty years after its first telecast, Star Trek was syndicated in 145 national markets and numerous foreign markets.
- Rick Worland, “Captain Kirk: Cold Warrior”, Journal of Popular Film and Television, Volume 16, 1988 - Issue 3, p.109
- It is not my intention here to recount the history of the series or of the fan phenomenon, as these have been fruitfull explored in a number of popular and scholarly sources. Rather, I want to devote more attention to what I believe to be one of the least discussed aspects of the Star Trek phenomenon-the relationship of the series to the Cold War subtext of the post-war science fiction genre, especially in the context of the show’s original broadcasts during the period of the greatest scalation of the Vietnam War, 1966-1969. The meaning or appeal of any widely popular and enduring classic such as Star Trek is not reducible to any single reading or interpretation However, if we are to understand Star Trek in historical context, its mediation of Cold War themes would seem to be an important underlying element of the series and one worthy of further investigation.
- Rick Worland, “Captain Kirk: Cold Warrior”, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 16:3 (1988), p. 109
Cast
[edit]- William Shatner – Captain James T. Kirk
- Leonard Nimoy – Commander Spock
- DeForest Kelley – Doctor Leonard McCoy
- James Doohan – Montgomery "Scotty" Scott
- George Takei – Hikaru Sulu
- Nichelle Nichols – Uhura
- Walter Koenig – Pavel Chekov
- Majel Barrett – Nurse Christine Chapel/Ship Computer
- In "The Menagerie" & "The Cage" as Number One (credited as M. Leigh Hudec)
- Jeffrey Hunter – Captain Christopher Pike ("The_Menagerie" & "The Cage")
External links
[edit]
- Star Trek quotes at the Internet Movie Database
- Star Trek: The Original Series at StarTrek.com
- MemoryAlpha a Star Trek wiki
- Top Spock Quotes with accurate Citations
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| Creator | Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) | ||
| Television series | Star Trek (1966–1969) · The Animated Series (1973–1974) · The Next Generation (1987–1994) · Deep Space Nine (1993–1999) · Voyager (1995–2001) · Enterprise (2001–2005) · Discovery (2017–2024) · Picard (2020–2023) · Lower Decks (2020–2024) · Prodigy (2021–2024) · Strange New Worlds (2022–) | ||
| Feature films | The Original Series | The Motion Picture (1979) · The Wrath of Khan (1982) · The Search for Spock (1984) · The Voyage Home (1986) · The Final Frontier (1989) · The Undiscovered Country (1991) | |
| The Next Generation | Generations (1994) · First Contact (1996) · Insurrection (1998) · Nemesis (2002) | ||
| Reboot series | Star Trek (2009) · Into Darkness (2013) · Beyond (2016) | ||
| Video games | Borg (1996) · Klingon Academy (2000) | ||
| Proverbs | Klingon · Vulcan | ||
| Other | Star Trek franchise · Last words in Star Trek media · Jean-Luc Picard· Phase II | ||