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Old 02-14-2019, 08:08 PM
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Nate the Great Nate the Great is offline
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February 14th, 1969, “Requiem for Methuselah”

I’ll have more to say about Flint’s supposed biography later, trust me!

Fiver (by Wowbagger)
Transcript
Memory Alpha

The Episode

Captain's log, stardate 5843.7. The Enterprise is in the grip of a raging epidemic. Three crewmen have died and twenty three others have been struck down by Rigelian fever. In order to combat the illness, Doctor McCoy needs large quantities of ryetalyn, which is the only known antidote for the fever.

1. Where did this Rigelian fever come from? Did they rescue some Rigelians offscreen? Was Dr. McCoy working on a cure in his spare time and a Klingon attack made him lose containment? Was this a biological attack by the Klingons? We kinda need answers here!
2. Once again we have “antidote” used as a synonym for “cure for a disease” when in reality it’s “counteracts a poison.” Just use “cure”, it’s not an obscure word!
3. If we’re still in the sticks exploring, a line should be dropped about how we’re currently outside Federation territory and would never reach the nearest starbase in time.

MCCOY: Jim, there's a large deposit bearing two seven three, four kilometres away. I've got four hours to process that stuff.

On rough terrain a person can walk about two miles per hour. Four kilometers means over an hour just to get there. Even if you’re going to tell me that there’s some interference in the atmosphere that prevented the ship’s sensors from triangulating more exactly from orbit, now that we’re on the ground we can beam back to the ship and then beam down closer. There must still be a few people on duty up there.

SPOCK: Strange. Readings indicate a life form in the vicinity, apparently human. Yet ship's sensors indicated this planet was uninhabited.

Okay, so there’s some interference in the atmosphere that prevents precise sensor contact. My problem is that a building with human inhabitants would generate enough disturbances to the surrounding environment that even inhibited sensors would notice something. Why would Flint build his compound to be invisible to everything around it?

KIRK: We're in need! We'll pay for it, work for it, trade for it.
FLINT: You have nothing I want.

I doubt this. I’m reminded of the miners in “Mudd’s Women.” You just can’t build a single building that is self-sufficient with only two people to change the fuses. He’s going to need more antimatter, or a new stock of raw material for the replicator, or even just the latest galactic news and publications. He took himself into exile thirty years ago; things have changed a lot since then. Wouldn’t he be interested in hearing about the Organian Peace Treaty or the reemergence of the Romulans?

MCCOY: Yes, a Shakespeare first folio. A Gutenberg Bible.

There are 235 copies of the First Folio around today; no doubt this number will decrease in three hundred years. A single copy is worth about four million dollars. Rough estimation of future inflation puts it at over 6 billion dollars. The value of a complete Gutenberg Bible is about 30 million dollars today, 50 billion in Kirk’s time.

But of course you’d assume that several copies of both will be destroyed in World War III, putting the value even higher.

SPOCK: This is the most splendid private collection of art I've ever seen, and the most unique. The majority are the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Renaissance period, some of the works of Reginald Pollack, 20th century, and even a sten from Marcus Two.

Da Vinci paintings are about fifty million each (eighty billion in the future). Pollack is fifty thousand (eighty million). Don’t ask me what a sten is worth.

RAYNA: What is loneliness?
FLINT: It is thirst. It is a flower dying in the desert.

Obligatory Brave Little Toaster clip.

MCCOY: What else interests you besides gravity phenomena, Rayna?
RAYNA: Everything. Less than that is betrayal of the intellect.

I’m reminded of Kamala for some reason.

RAYNA: You are the only other men I've ever seen.
MCCOY: The misfortune of men everywhere, and our privilege.

As SF Debris likes to say, McCoy is a player. Too bad he’s hitting on a girl young enough to be his daughter. Ick. Then again, he’s only forty-nine, which I suppose is still young by 23rd-century standards. Even so, I’ll stick with “Ick.”

KIRK: You said something about savagery, Mister 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 colonise, exploit, destroy, if necessary, to advance Federation causes.

I hate it when pacifists condemn Starfleet for possessing weapons. I get that enough from the Vulcan guest stars. If we sent out our exploratory ships without weapons, they’d get destroyed by the Klingons immediately. Just like not having money only works if nobody else does (I’m looking at you, Deep Space Nine), but not having weapons only works if everyone else agrees to not have weapons either.

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.

Exactly. One wonders if TNG-era Gene would remove this episode from canon if he noticed this line.

Captain's log, stardate 5843.75. Have I committed a grave error in accepting Flint's word that he would deliver the antidote to us? The precious time I have let pass may result in disaster for the Enterprise and her crew.

Good line. Self-doubt is important for proper characterization and to prevent the boring overpowered syndrome that some people think makes Superman boring.
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