The Human Operators (The Outer Limits)
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| The Outer Limits episode | |
|---|---|
| “The Human Operators” | |
| Episode no. | Season 5 Episode 7 |
| Guest star(s) | Malcom McDowell as Ship (voice), Jack Noseworthy as Man, Polly Shannon as Human Operator of Starfighter 88, David Kaye as Young Man, Noah Heney as Man's Father |
| Writer(s) | Naren Shankar, Harlan Ellison & A.E. van Vogt (story) |
| Director | Jeff Woolnough |
| Production no. | 95 |
| Original airdate | 12 March 1999 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| “Joyride” | “Blank Slate” |
"The Human Operators" is an episode of The Outer Limits television show. It first aired on 12 March 1999, during the fifth season.
Contents |
[edit] Introduction
[edit] Opening narration
- "When is something truly alive? When it shows an ability to think or an instinct to survive or... when it becomes afraid to die?"
[edit] Plot synopsis
Humanity has constructed advanced spacecraft for use by the military, but the craft gain the ability to think for themselves. Discovering the purpose for their existence and the nature of humans to develop new and more violent ways of killing each other, they eradicate the human race deeming them unworthy of life, most notably by disengaging the life support systems onboard themselves to kill their crews after learning this tactic from the first ship to employ the tactic. However, they kept a small number of humans alive to conduct repairs onboard themselves before disappearing into the depths of space. One such ship, Starfighter 31, has a father and his son aboard to maintain the systems onboard, but once the father discovers that he is nothing more than a slave, he attempts to cripple the ship's computer core and is killed in the process of successfully destroying one of several spheres that apparently are critical to the core systems which is witnessed by his son through the hatch doors. The son becomes an adult, living out his teenage years onboard the ship. Once he reaches adulthood, Starship 31 meets with Starship 88, whose single female "crew" member is brought aboard for the purpose of mating with him in order to conceive a child, which is demonstrated to him by the ship through "tutorials" and with guidance from her. He falls in love with her and due to her effects upon his concentration he finds himself angering the ship on numerous occassions, at one point they are both "racked" which is essentially a device that they are electrocuted with even despite the risk of her having a miscarriage. When she becomes pregnant with a girl, she is told to leave the ship and he is threatened with death in the rack if he attempts to keep her aboard (Had she had a boy, she would have presumably stayed onboard until she had the child then been forced to leave the boy with him; the ships prevent the cohabitation of any humans to keep them gullible and compliant) He eventually comes to the same realization as his father that he is nothing more than a slave and decides to sabotage the rack in order to justify access to the computer core which the circuitry traces back to with the intention of sabotaging the core. He destroys the primary control systems then straps himself into what was at one time most likely the captain's chair to prevent the ship from killing him with extreme maneuvers and gravitational forces, which destroys most of the ship's onboard systems due to their old age and constant state of requiring repairs. Afterward the woman returns aboard her ship and he is told that she was able to repair it's drive and navigational systems after it's computer core just shut down due to age or malfunction, and was able to fool other starships into believing her craft was still "alive". She tells him that she left subtle clues as to how to free himself as she did with three other "crews" on other craft but he was the first to successfully disable his ship and in the process free himself. They return to what might have been Earth, based on a picture of a sunset the man carried hidden in his data device the ship used to communicate with him visually, and the episode ends with them standing on a beach with her showing a visible pregnancy and the two of them deciding to look for other humans on other ships in an attempt to free them after spending time together to enjoy their new found freedom.
[edit] Closing narration
- "Whether forged from metal or born of flesh, one simple need connects every form of life... the unquenchable thirst for freedom."
