"Have you ever seen eyes that are both dead and hungry? To them, humans are just walking feed bags of flesh and bone and jelly. The Gorn trigger a primitive, ancient terror in warm-blooded species. We. Are. Prey. And when they hunt, they're unrelenting. The truth is, plenty of people have seen the Gorn; they just don't live long enough to talk about it."
— La'an, on the Gorn
The Enterprise is delivering an AP350 air filter to a colony, but upon landing find no human lifesigns, just indications of a slaughter. Some refugees from the colony are hiding out in an old mining trawler, and Enterprise extends a docking tube so that the refugees can transfer over. La'an, supervising the transfer, happens upon a little girl who insists that the monsters who took her father are coming; she replicates the clicking noise these monsters make, and La'an has an Oh, Crap! when she recognizes them. Enterprise can't raise shields because of the docking tube, and a Gorn ship begins with an Attack Hello, destroying the freighter and damaging the Enterprise.
It's the classic "Crisis-on-a-ship Bottle Episode where we put unexpected members of the crew together," and the show develops into Three Lines, Some Waiting.
- Chief Engineer Hemmer has been assigned Cadet Uhura for the day, and the two are in the cargo hold supervising the AP350. It's damaged by the Gorn attack and starts Going Critical. Hemmer, who was injured, cannot operate it; he provides the brain, and Uhura the hands, as they try to stabilize the filter before it can explode... and take Enterprise with it.
- Six crewmembers and three colonists were slain in the initial attack, and quite a few more were wounded, including Una. Worse, Sickbay is out of commission, forcing Dr. M'Benga and Nurse Chapel to engage in "Archaeological Medicine" — i.e., stitches and IVs for blood transfusion — as they try to keep the wounded stable until power can be restored and actual healing can begin.
- Up on the bridge, La'an reveals who the attackers are. Ortegas protests that no human has ever met the Gorn; La'an retorts that plenty have, but only one has survived. When Pike asks if she's doing okay confronting her Dark and Troubled Past, La'an tells him that she's fine. The fact that she's hallucinating someone who was on the SS Puget Sound with her, one of those many humans who met the Gorn but didn't survive, implies otherwise.
Pike orders the Enterprise into the upper atmosphere of a brown dwarfnote where the ship has no sensors or shields, but neither do the pursuing Gorn. Spock improvises a way to track the Gorn, and Pike manages to maneuver the Enterprise so that it can use their one remaining photon torpedo as an unguided munition. The Gorn ship is destroyed... only for two more, plus a mothership, to vector in. Pike manages to destroy a second by luring it deeper into the brown dwarf's atmosphere, where it is squished by the gravimetric conditions; however, this results in hull breaches on the lower decks and a seventh casualty. La'an and Spock, venturing forth on the shuttlecraft Galileo to do some reconnaissance, are able to do for the third: La'an invites Spock to Mind Meld with her, and she relives her moments in a Gorn nursery, where the Puget Sound colonist — her brother — gave her a book with everything he had learned about how the Gorn communicate using their own form of Morse code, before helping her escape at the cost of his life. With that code in her head, she suggests to the Gorn mothership that the smaller ship was boarded by humans and is being used in a False Flag Operation; the Gorn react by blowing it out of the sky.
The Enterprise's cover is being sucked away: the brown dwarf is in orbit of a black hole, and the black hole is winning. Pike decides his best chance is to play dead: he has Ortegas plot a course that will allow the Enterprise to use the black hole for a gravitational slingshot. He then talks to Hemmer and Uhura in the cargo hold: despite their best efforts, the AP350 is going to blow. Therefore, as they tie themselves to the walls in EVA suits, Pike opens the hold, allowing the AP350 to be sucked out. To the Gorn mothership, observing from afar, it appears that the Enterprise fell into the black hole and was destroyed. The mothership goes away, and the Enterprise escapes to fly another day.
Tropes:
- 2-D Space: In a Mythology Gag to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the Enterprise hides in a brown dwarf cloud and the Gorn ship follows, rendering both blind. Spock develops an improvised sonar-type sensor system which registers the Enterprise from a top-down view, and some tension is built over the Gorn ship heading in their direction. But the ship passes by, as there is plenty of space to go above or below. The Enterprise then pulls off a maneuver where it rotates itself 90 degrees directly above the Gorn ship for a gravity-assisted torpedo drop.
- Alien Geometries: Gorn raiders look like flying claws, and their capital ship is a mess of protrusions with no discernible logic to its design.
- Call-Back:
- When the Gorn first attack, their theme from the TOS episode "Arena" starts playing.
- In a similar vein, Khan was found on 'Botany Bay'. La'an, his descendant, is later on a ship named 'Puget Sound'.
- Pike's Starfleet Remembrance Day pin is of the U.S.S. Discovery, while Chief Kyle's is the U.S.S. Shenzhou.
- Captain's Log:
- La'an Bookends the episode with her personal log."Security officer's log, stardate 3177.3. The Enterprise is currently en route to deliver an atmospheric processor upgrade to Finibus III. Without our assistance, the air on this remote colony will become unbreathable in a matter of weeks. As we prepare for our arrival, we pause to remember Starfleet Remembrance Day."
"Personal log, stardate 3177.9. Today, the Enterprise encountered the Gorn. Seven of the crew gave their lives. But... we survived." - Pike also makes his own log entry during the battle."Captain's log, supplemental. Enterprise is currently in the center of a gas giant, hiding from an enemy we've never faced before. So far, three civilians and seven of my crew have lost their lives. The battle is far from over, but I am determined to keep everyone else alive. My newest obstacle is the presence of a nearby black hole."
- La'an Bookends the episode with her personal log.
- Combat Pragmatist: The Gorn put civilians in danger and wait for the Enterprise to render aid, attacking them while their shields are lowered trying to evacuate passengers from the disabled transport (a form of perfidy under The Laws and Customs of War, not that the Gorn have ever evinced any care for those).
- Dare to Be Badass: Pike goads Ortegas into pulling off a dangerous maneuver around a black hole. Ortegas is skeptical, but Pike makes it sound fun. She is an Ace Pilot, after all, and if Pike thinks she can do it...
- Deer in the Headlights: La'an is frozen in terror inside the docking tube as the Gorn ship approaches. Number One has to grab her out of the tube before it's destroyed.
- Dive! Dive! Dive!: Ortegas says this phrase when Pike orders her to take Enterprise into the brown dwarf, in a darkly humourous comparison to a submarine movie.
- Due to the Dead: The start of the episode has the crew participate in "Starfleet Remembrance Day", a day in which officers wear pins of past ships where they've served and lost others. For La'an, it's the SS Puget Sound, the colony ship that was attacked by the Gorn, which she's reluctant to reflect on.Pike: Attention. This is the captain speaking. Many of us have known those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Officers, scientists, civilians who gave their lives in the hope for galactic peace. Today we remember the friends and comrades we lost. Exploration can exact a heavy toll. As captain, there is no loss more devastating than that of a crew member. Remembrance Day is about them. Those of us left behind wear the insignia of past ships on which we served together. As we honor the lives that have been given, let us also be grateful to be still on the journey.
- Everyone Knows Morse: The Gorn use their own version with flashes of light. Once La'an remembers the code, she tricks the Gorn mothership into destroying one of the fighters by sending a fake message that the fighter is a Trojan Horse.
- Faking the Dead: To escape the Gorn, Enterprise performs a slingshot around a black hole while dropping the unstable AP350 behind them, making it seem as if the ship exploded.
- The Ghost: The Gorn are not seen at all in the episode, thus a bit of Loophole Abuse as, while the Enterprise deals with the Gorn ships, they don’t meet any individual Gorn to perform First Contact with.
- Going Critical: The nuclear-powered AP350 air filter is damaged when the Gorn attack, and if it explodes, it will take out the entire ship. Hemmer tries to guide Uhura through repairs, but the process is too complicated and takes too long to talk her through, so the device winds up being used as a decoy explosion.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Chief Kyle tries to drag a wounded blue shirt to safety on Deck 22, but when the bulkheads come down, the blue shirt shoves Kyle through at the cost of his own life.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Both Pike and Singh exploit Gorn cultural ruthlessness against them.
- Pike uses the Gorn's relentlessness against them, diving the Enterprise deeper into the brown dwarf so one of the pursuing fighters, not nearly as sturdy as Enterprise, gets crushed by the pressure.
- La'an and Spock, after the mind-meld revealed hidden secrets about how the Gorn communicate, devise a method to slip in a signal between the mothership and the remaining raider ship that the latter has been boarded by attacking humans. The mothership promptly destroys the raider in a hail of weapons fire; the raider crew were too "weak" to keep boarders off their ship, and the mothership didn't hesitate to cull that weakness.
- Internal Reveal:
- La'an tells the rest of the bridge crew about her history with the Gorn.
- During their mind-meld, La'an learns about Spock's sister Michael, and her sacrifice.
- Layman's Terms: La'an asks Spock if he ever speaks everyday English.
- Mythology Gag:
- Ortegas suggests that their Faking the Dead stunt should be called the “Pike Maneuver”. Deadly and crazy stunts have been a thing in later years of Star Trek.
- Getting a sneak attack before shields are raised and forcing the crew to be on the defensive is the underlying plot of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Hiding in a gaseous anomaly that disables shields but also blinds everyone in order to even the odds against an attacker was a key part of that film's climax too (and used in various other forms across the franchise).
- A ship-wide threat that isolates crew members having to deal with their own unique problems is similar to the TNG episode "Disaster". Hemmer and Uhura having to repair a malfunctioning air filter before eventually ejecting it from the ship is similar to Geordi and Crusher finding a plasma fire in a cargo bay and suffocating it by depressurizing the space. The way the Enterprise evades the Gorn ships by diving into the brown dwarf is a similar plot to the Deep Space Nine episode "Starship Down".
- Spock boards a shuttle named Galileo in this episode when stealth is the highest priority. Spock will later arrange the end of a shuttle named Galileo in a desperate attempt to be noticed.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The away team finds the colony ravaged and a gigantic blood stain with trails leading away from it. It's left to the viewer's imagination as to what exactly happened, as not even the surviving colonists know.
- As pointed out above, although their ships are seen, the Gorn are not, leaving their status as a myth intact.
- Oh, Crap!: La'an has this reaction upon hearing a little girl running from "monsters", and describing the sound that the Gorn make. Pike equally utters a soft "Oh, no." when he realizes that they just walked into a trap.
- One Bullet Left: Thanks to the damage the Gorn caused, Enterprise has no phasers and only one torpedo that can't be fired accurately inside the brown dwarf. Unfortunately, when they do use it, the Gorn use it to find them.
- Red Shirt: Ten people on Enterprise are killed — and that doesn't include the civilians who were already dead before the episode started.
- Relex: When given her brother's book on the Gorn language, La'an opens it to reveal a 1:1 recreation of the English alphabet.
- Rousing Speech:Pike: Attention, this is the Captain speaking. Earlier today, we were reminded of the cost of exploration. What it means to chart the stars, to push the boundaries of what is known and what is possible. When we seek out the unknown, we will find things that challenge us. That frighten us. But we do not back down. We do not give in to fear. And I believe today will not be our last mission, but our finest hour. All hands make ready for impact.
- Sadistic Choice:
- Just before Una goes under for surgery, we find out that they only have enough plasma for one person. Even worse, another patient just ran out of theirs. Una immediately orders M'Benga to give them the plasma. M'Benga ultimately opts to directly transfuse his own blood to Una for the surgery.
- As the Enterprise begins to go deeper into the brown dwarf, the damaged lower decks begin to breach under the pressure faster than anticipated, endangering the crew that has yet to evacuate. Pike has to decide between giving the crew still in these decks more time — at the risk of compromising the entire ship — or close the bulkheads down, dooming part of his crew but saving the rest of the ship. He reluctantly orders the bulkheads closed, causing the death of at least one crewmember. Spock points out it was the logical decision, and when Pike replies that it doesn't feel like it, Spock points out that the reason for Pike's regret is the same reason he made the choice: because he values life.
- Saved by Canon: Implicitly exploited by Captain Pike when reassuring the crew that the risky black hole slingshot maneuver will work. He knows he has a date with Fate in the training accident in ten years, and failure of the risky slingshot maneuver would inevitably result in the total loss of the Enterprise and her crew, but Pike in particular... which he knows would be impossible due to his moment of future-sight.
- Sensor Suspense: Spock, on orders to "get creative", repurposes the atmospheric navigation sensors' ability to detect air turbulence and ties it into the tactical display, on the basis that ships' movements would create jet wash turbulence in the brown dwarf atmosphere. Turbulence signatures indicating the Gorn ships show up as sensor blips on the tactical display, and one instance has the bridge crew tensely watching as one such signature approaches and then passes by them.
- Series Continuity Error:
- TOS: "Arena" treats the Gorn as though the Federation have never run into them before, under any circumstances, ever. As such, either Kirk was misinformed or this episode can't have happened. (Of course, neither can the first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, with the handwave that it was all rendered Classified Information.) The episode instead contends that the Gorn, while certainly known to exist, have never been seen by anyone who lived to tell about it, La'an being an exception.
- In "Dagger of the Mind," Spock, when about to perform the first Mind Meld in the franchise, mentions he's never done one with a human before. In this episode, which takes place before that one, he mind-melds with La'an, a human.
- Shout-Out: The young girl traumatized by the Gorn attack is named Fig. Given all the parallels with Aliens the Gorn exhibit this season, it's unlikely to be a coincidence how well her name pairs with "Newt," as in, Fig Newton.
- Sub Story: The way the Enterprise evades the Gorn is this. It talks about pressure on the hull, having to evacuate the lower decks, they turn navigational sensors into a "radar" display that works just like the Hollywood version of a sonar. There's even a Sadistic Choice for Pike who has to order the bulkheads dropped to prevent implosion of the ship, followed by a Heroic Sacrifice where Chief Kyle looks like he might die with a wounded medical officer, only for the medical officer to shove him through the bulkhead before it closes and kills him.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When Hemmer is injured, Uhura has to try to fix the unstable atmospheric processing unit under his direction. However, because she's a cadet on training rotation and not a veteran starship engineer, it takes too long and she makes too many mistakes while figuring things out and the overload can't be contained. Despite this, Hemmer praises her efforts on the day, and the ensuing explosion proves crucial to the Enterprise's ultimate escape.
- Take a Third Option: Sickbay has no power for surgical tools and only has enough blood plasma left for a single person. Una is bleeding out and can either wait for the advanced medical tech to come online or take the blood and have Chapel perform more primitive surgery. Then another crew member also needs blood, and Una immediately insists they be given the last bag, willing to risk bleeding out. When the danger has passed, it's revealed that M'Benga instead performed a direct transfusion from himself.
- Technical Pacifist: Hemmer explains that while he is a pacifist and won't fight for Starfleet, he will defend its ideals. For him, pacifism isn't passivity.
- Techno Babble: Lampshaded.Spock: Atmospheric density is decreasing. I believe the singularity is advancing its accumulation of substellar material.
La'an: Do you ever speak in plain English?
Spock: The brown dwarf we're hiding inside is being sucked into a black hole. - Thanatos Gambit: One of the Gorn raiders allows itself to be destroyed by the Enterprise so their capital ship can pinpoint Enterprise inside the brown dwarf.
- Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: La'an describes the Gorn in this context, a species that inspire primal fear in warm-blooded beings and consider them nothing but food.
- Trauma Button: La'an freezes up when she sees a Gorn ship on the attack. Number One has to pull her out of the docking tube before it's destroyed.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The Gorn herd the colonists into a cargo ship meant to haul radioactive ore, possessing a hull that resists transporters. When Enterprise extends a docking tube, the Gorn attack while they're vulnerable.
