terraforming Archive

13

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Home Soil”

“Home Soil”
Teleplay by Robert Sabaroff
Story by Karl Guers, Ralph Sanchez, and Robert Sabaroff
Directed by Corey Allen

Season 1, Episode 18
Original air date: February 22, 1988
Star date: 41463.9

Mission summary

The Enterprise pays a visit to Velara III, a Tattooine-like planet chosen by the Federation for terraforming. The leader of the terraforming team, Mandl, looks nervous and tries to discourage the Enterprise from stopping by. Picard knows something’s up (who wouldn’t want a hello from the inspectors?) and sends Riker, Yar, Data, and La Forge down to check things out. The rest of the terraforming team–Malencon, the hydraulics specialist; Luisa Kim, the biosphere designer; and chief engineer Bjorn Bensen–don’t seem to have any secrets. But when Mandl tells Malencon to get back to work, the specialist disappears into a room only to start screaming moments later. The crew finds him too late, badly burned by a ceiling-mounted laser drill.  Though they beam him to sickbay, he’s dead, Jean-Luc.

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45

Re-Watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Screenplay by: Jack B. Sowards
Story by: Harve Bennett and Jack B. Sowards
Produced by: Robert Sallin
Directed by: Nicholas Meyer

Release date: June 4, 1982
Stardate: 8130.3

Mission Summary

The U.S.S. Reliant makes an unexpected discovery on a scientific mission to the Ceti Alpha system: the genetically-engineered superman Khan Noonien Singh and the surviving crew of the S.S. Botany Bay, who has been cooling his heels on the inhospitable fifth planet for the last fifteen years. Khan’s somewhat pissed that his old friend James Kirk never called or wrote since marooning them there, so he takes over Reliant and begins plotting his revenge, which mostly revolves around a) inserting gross, brain-controlling slugs into Captain Terrell and Commander Chekov’s ears, b) stealing the Genesis Device, an experimental probe that can terraform a dead planet within days (what could possibly go wrong?), and b) killing Kirk. A person has to dream big, and galactic overachiever Khan is reaching for the stars.

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