My Trek of the Stars, Part 8: Balance of Terror

Guest Starring: Stephen Mines, Barbara Baldavin, Garry Walburg, John Warburton

First, the Lowdown: The Enterprise goes to war! That’s pretty much it.

It’s wedding season on the Enterprise! Everyone is gathered in the ship’s chapel to speculate on the cost of the reception, how much weight the bride has gained, and whether or not the groom is going to last more than 2 minutes on their honeymoon. But before Kirk can even say, “I think of it not as losing an officer, but as losing a chick before I had the chance to nail her,” red alert is sounded! Someone is attacking Outpost 4 which monitors the neutral zone between us and the Romulans!

No one is entirely sure who is attacking Outpost 4, though current speculation rides on it being the Romulans. (Gee, ya think?) Kirk orders Spock to give a ship-wide message re-hashing the history of war between the Romulans and the Federation for any of the crew who failed their History final. A hundred years ago the Romulan Star Empire declared war against the Federation. When peace was finally achieved, a Neutral Zone was establish to separate the two territories. (Kinda like North Korea, only without a crazy Christopher Walken midget supervillain running things.) Because the war was fought before the advent of video (I guess they forgot?) no one knows what the Romulans look like. Navigator Stiles, however, has a pretty good idea of what their ships look like – because his ancestors fought in the Romulan war, too. I Romulan ship apparently has a boss mural of a bird of prey on its underside – it probably has the Styx box set too.

Before Outpost 4 sent its distress call, Outposts 2 and 3 lost communications. Sweeping by the area to see what happened, Spock reports that the Outposts have been blown all to hell and the asteroids they were stationed on are now the consistency of Pop Rocks. Kirk calls to battle stations and orders the speed increased to “Haul Ass.” Soon technicians are barking pseudo-science and flipping switches at random everywhere. Outpost 4 resumes communication and reports that Outposts 2, 3, and 8 have been nuked to death. Some ship just appeared out of nowhere and started lobbing balls of energy at them, and then disappeared! Right on cue, a spaceship with a boss Trans Am firebird painted on its undercarriage shows up and blows Outpost 4 all to heck before disappearing. It appears to have a cloaking device that makes it invisible, but not unable to be detected on the Enterprise’s motion sensors. To make the invisible ship look even more retarded, the cloaked vessel can’t see the Enterprise, real tactical advantage, huh? Even though Kirk is still waffling on the idea that the attackers are Romulan, the enemy ship turns toward the Neutral Zone. Kirk orders the Enterprise into a parallel course, so that the Romulan ship thinks they’re a reflection – ‘cause those happen in space all the time. Stiles reminds the captain that the Romulans have obviously have come to kick ass and take names, and that because it was a sneak attack, it means there may be Romulan spies on the Enterprise! (Ask him about the Freemasons sometime, you’ll get an earful.) Right on cue, Uhura intercepts a communiqué from the Romulan ship and feeds it to the main viewer, showing a crew of men with 1980s minivan upholstery suits and pointed ears! Spock slumps back in his chair and says, “Well, there goes my day.”

To break the awkward silence, Kirk orders Uhura to decode the intercepted message, to which Stiles snidely suggests Spock do it. The captain, however, tells Stiles he can shitcan the space-racism (or “spacism” as they call it).

Because of fuel consumption, the Romulan cloaking device turns off. The Romulan Commander orders it turned back on because they are being followed by an Earth ship. The ship’s helmsman disagrees because the blip on their scanner moves as they do – so it’s a reflection, right? The Commander then bawls out a junior officer for breaking radio silence and thereby creating a large plot point in the episode.

Back on the Enterprise, Kirk calls for a staff meeting. The engineering team has brought samples of the Outpost 4 debris to the conference room. They are made of cast rodinium (a derivative of unobtainium), the hardest substance known, but after being hit by the Romulan weapon, they have the consistency of Magic Shell. The lab theorizes that the Romulans have the ability to use BIG TECHNOLOGY WORD which causes a SCIENTIFIC EFFECT on whatever it strikes. Obviously the Romulans have superior firepower and a cloaking device to hide their ass, but all their cash was spent on those two things so even though it has a boss mural and a waterbed in the back, their engine is about as powerful as a Ford Escort. Stiles insists that the Enterprise attack first and ask questions later, otherwise more Romulans will come back for a taste of ass-kicking. Stiles then proceeds to ran on about how the Romulans control the banks and the media, when Spock suddenly agreed that they should go on the offensive. The science officer further clarifies his opinion by saying that he believes the Romulans to be an off-shoot of Vulcans, who in their own history had a colonial period which makes England’s look like a football riot. Fortunately, the Romulans appear to be heading for a comet – which will give their invisible vessel a trail to take bead on. Kirk orders the Enterprise to bomb the bejeezus status and has the ship take an interception course.

In the Romulan vessel, the Commander has their ship enter the comet’s tail thinking that the stoopid humans are going to follow them in – crippling their ship’s ability to track them. But the helmsman points out that the humans aren’t following, so the Commander orders evasive maneuvers. Realizing that he has been duped, Kirk orders a phaser barrage in the general direction of the Romulans, causing dust and Styrofoam packing to fall from the ceiling inside their vessel. But the barrage causes a burnout (I guess they forgot how to make circuit breakers in the 23^rd century) and gives the Romulans ample time to fire their weapon of mass ass-kickery. The Enterprise retreats in a direction of away (because side-stepping it would make them look like pussies), and find out that the weapon’s charge dissipates over time – but still hits them, causing everyone to lurch sideways out of their chairs. Spock returns phaser function and reports that the Romulan ship is returning on its original course. Kirk has the Enterprise follow them again.

Kirk orders the Enterprise to enter the Neutral Zone to headshot the Romulans and teabag them. The Romulan Commander orders all debris from the ship damage to be jettisoned, to fool the humans into thinking they’ve been destroyed. The ploy works, because while the Enterprise sits there, looking at the scanners and scratching their nuts, the Romulans amscray it out of there.

In order to lure the Romulans out of hiding, Kirk orders the Enterprise systems shut down to conceal themselves. However, he is in for a wait, because the Romulans know how to play the silent game too. The good news is that it means Kirk can catch up on his masturbation; the bad news is that it means there is little else to do except rub one out and wait for an attack.

On the bridge, Spock is trying to fix a panel or two when he accidentally switches something on! The Romulans take advantage and move toward the Enterprise to attack. Kirk says “fuck it” and orders the ships weapons to be fired at random, hitting the Romulans with more dust and Styrofoam. The Romulan Commander orders the garbage ejected again, but this time with a nice, nuclear surprise waiting for them. The explosion disables the Enterprise – so the Romulans turn around to kick ass. The Enterprise’s phasers are functional, but there is no backup crew available. Stiles volunteers to help because the smell of pointed ears is getting overpowering to him.

In the phaser room, a coolant seal breaks – flooding the room with purple gas (the bad kind, not the kind that makes Pink Floyd music “deep”.) To make matters worse, the Romulans have de-cloaked and are bearing in for an attack! Sure enough, Mr. Spock just happened to be in the outside corridor and manages to drag Stiles to safety and fire the phasers allowing Kirk to hit the Romulans like the fist of an angry god. Crippled and disabled, the Romulan Commander decides to blow his ass up than deal with the indignity of being pwnzord by a bunch of human noobz.

Recapping the situation, Kirk finds out that Stiles has recanted his spacism from before (because having a Vulcan save your life is akin to not being racist by virtue of having a Mexican gardener), and that the only person who died during the attack is Tomlinson, who was supposed to be getting earlier. So Kirk rushes back to the chapel to see if he can get some condolencing nookie out of the grieving fiancée.

Things to look out for:

Stiles: he’s like that guy you know who has memorized all of his ancestors who fought for the Confederate Army and thinks the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is a true account.

Hansen from Outpost 4: When the Enterprise finally makes visual contact, they’re greeted by a guy who looks drunk. It makes the place seem less like it was attacked and more like it was piloted by some dingbat who can hold his ripple.

And what about Spock? When it’s revealed that the Romulans look like the Vulcans, he looks about as embarrassed as you did when you got an erection while standing in front of the whole class.