Your TRIZ class was engaging in the way you connected with us. It helped broaden the way we approached problems.
Podcast Enterprise: S2E18 Immunity Syndrome
Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before
We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:
- Synopsis or summary of the episode
- Story structure
- Character analysis
- Our likes and dislikes
The synopsis: When this episode begins, you have the USS Enterprise in a state of exhaustion.
Everybody on board is extremely tired after their last mission and they’re looking forward to some short leave on Starbase 6 and they’re on their way to the Starbase 6. Here, on the way though, Uhura picks up some distorted signals and with some sector coordinates. There’s also a lot of static with this communication, so she can’t make out what they are saying.
Eventually, though she does get through, and this communication is coming from Starbase 6, they want the Enterprise to change course and go to the Gamma 7A system where the Intrepid was last seen investigating. This is a Vulcan ship and something has happened to the Intrepid which the Enterprise must now investigate Kirk is a little reluctant to do it because everybody is so tired.
While they’re in the process of changing course, Spock wasn’t goes into a state of shock because he has apparently suffered some sort of a psychic attack where he has received mental communication of some kind from the Vulcan ship Intrepid, and it seems that everybody on board the Interpret has been killed.
And he also says, eventually later, much later, Spock also says that they were surprised by this death that suddenly, suddenly hit them. And this is a huge mystery. As the Enterprise goes to the Gamma 7A system, they find that there’s something or there’s something completely wrong that the system is dead.
There are no people, there is no life. And they also approach some sort of a dark zone, a dead zone. They can’t see anything. The stars are blotted out and it seems like a gash in deep space. They can’t see anything beyond it. They are not able to probe into it and they’re not able to see it except for this large void right directly in their path.
Spock has trouble trying to figure out what it is exactly and this irritates Kirk quite a bit. But, and as they approach this black zone, it seems that everyone is getting more and more tired. The engines are somehow losing power. There’s a lot of issues with the forward thrust because engineering has issues and the ship’s systems have issues.
And then finally Kirk, after a briefing with McCoy and Spock decides to send some sort of a probe into this dark zone. And by this time, the Enterprise has also entered the dark zone. So they’re losing power. They’re losing light. They’re losing energy. Everybody’s beyond tired and they need to be given boosters.
After some investigation, it is found that this dead zone is actually some sort of a shielding for a single cell creature, an amoeba-type creature that kind of creates a zone around it. It radiates negative energy and it leaches off the energy of anything that approaches it.
And It’s sometimes it’s also capable of killing off entire solar systems. And the Intrepid had approached this creature and it got killed in the process. It’s not actively killing the, um, it’s not actively killing anything that approaches it. And you just die. That’s what it does. And The radius of this thing is about 11, 000 miles, apparently, which is huge.
Both McCoy and Spock volunteer to travel into this creature to try and figure out a way to destroy it. However, Spock wins over McCoy, which causes a bit of irritation for McCoy. And we can talk about it. And He takes a shuttlecraft, goes into the thing to study it, and then through his analysis and studies of this amoeba, they find that they can actually blow it up.
The episode ends like that because they have to, they figure out this way, how to blow it up. They use a certain way to blow it up and you can talk about it. And as there is also some issue with the gravitational pull of this thing, because it’s drawing the ship forward.
They cannot break free of that pull. They rig an explosion, break free of it, move backwards, grab the shuttlecraft with Spock in it and his heroics and whatever jokes he has with McCoy, they grab Spock in the shuttle craft, they go back and this thing was finally killed. And that’s how the episode ends.
That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!
Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!
