| "The Omega Glory" | |||
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| Star Trek: The Original Series episode | |||
The landing party encounters Captain Tracey |
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| Episode no. | Episode 52 | ||
| Directed by | Vincent McEveety | ||
| Written by | Gene Roddenberry | ||
| Production code | 054 | ||
| Original air date | March 1, 1968 | ||
| Guest stars | |||
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Morgan Woodward |
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Star Trek: The Original Series episodes | |||
"The Omega Glory" is a second season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, first broadcast March 1, 1968 and repeated July 26, 1968. It is episode #52, production #54, written by Gene Roddenberry, and directed by Vincent McEveety. The story was one of three outlines submitted for selection as the second pilot of Star Trek: the others being "Mudd's Women" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before".[1]
Overview: Captain Kirk must find the cure to a deadly disease and prevent a meaningless war.
The episode begins with the USS Enterprise finding the USS Exeter in orbit around the planet Omega IV. Captain Kirk forms a boarding party with Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Lt. Galloway, and beams over to find the other ship deserted, save for scattered crew uniforms with a crystalline substance scattered in and around them — the total chemicals in the human body when all water is removed. The team learns from the ship's logs that the Exeter's landing party contracted a strange disease on the planet and spread it back to the ship. The logs warn that they have now been exposed and will die unless they go down to the planet; returning to their own ship would only expose their own ship's crew to the disease.
Kirk's party beams to the last coordinates of the Exeter's landing party and find themselves in what resembles a Tibetan village where two fur-clad prisoners, a man and woman, are being prepared for a beheading by warriors of Asian appearance. Leading the warriors is the Exeter's Captain Ron Tracey (played by Morgan Woodward) who stands down the execution and greets Kirk. Tracey explains he was stranded when his crew succumbed to a disease, and only remaining on the planet confers immunity. He assures the landing party they will be safe, but only if they stay on the planet. Tracey then explains the prisoners are from a group of savage barbarians called the "Yangs" who wage war with the villagers called the "Kohms".
Soon, the Yangs attack the village and Galloway is injured. McCoy takes him into a hut for treatment while Spock investigates a pile of Yang bodies. He finds drained phaser power packs, clear evidence that Tracey helped in a previous battle in a blatant violation of the Prime Directive. Kirk tries to contact the Enterprise, but Tracey suddenly interrupts him and forcibly takes his communicator. When Galloway tries to defend Kirk, Tracey disintegrates him. He defends his actions, saying the planet offers valuable medical benefits — not only are the people immune to the disease, but they also have incredibly long life spans. He presents a villager who claims to be 462 years old with a father who is over a thousand.
Tracey orders McCoy to get to work on solving the secrets of their longevity and has Kirk and Spock taken away. The two are placed in a crude jail with Spock in one cell and Kirk thrown in one with the two Yang prisoners. The Yangs savagely attack him until Spock manages to nerve pinch the female into submission and the male stops in concern. When Kirk plots an escape, he mentions the word "freedom" to Spock, and the Yang male suddenly objects to an "enemy" uttering a "Yang worship word". Kirk convinces the Yang to help loosen the bars of the cell window. Once an opening is created, the Yang knocks Kirk out and takes the woman with him out the window. When Kirk recovers, he and Spock make their own escape.
Reuniting with McCoy, Spock works at modifying some medical equipment into a makeshift communicator. McCoy believes the natives' immunity to disease and longevity was simply the result of natural evolution; the inhabitants developed disease-resistant, hardy physiologies as a result of a cataclysmic war. As such, there is no isolated agent to find and any infected visitor naturally acquires an immunity in a short period of time on the planet.
Suddenly, a maddened Tracey bursts in and destroys the communicator with his phaser. He demands that Kirk order down a supply of phasers from the Enterprise to help fight off another wave of Yang forces. McCoy and Kirk try to explain that there is no Fountain of Youth, adding that the natives live such long lives because it's natural for them to. Kirk declares that Tracey's interference with the war between the natives has been for nothing. Tracey's mind snaps at this invalidation of all his efforts. He forces Kirk outside and demands that he order down the weapons. Kirk calls Lt. Sulu; however, Sulu insists on finding out the captain's situation before complying with the order, asking Kirk if he should have a security team beam down. Kirk refuses to explain why the arms are needed and tells Sulu the security team is not needed. Once again, Kirk tries to wrestle Tracey's phaser away, but fails. He escapes Tracey, momentarily, but is captured. Tracey is about to disintegrate Kirk, but he discovers his phaser is out of power.
The two fight over a nearby axe when Yang warriors suddenly arrive and take everyone back to their village, which appears as ruins of an ancient building. Their leader, Cloud William, turns out to be the prisoner who was in the cell with Kirk. Cloud curiously produces a very old American Flag and removes ancient manuscripts from a box where he begins to recite words — a poorly pronounced version of the Pledge of Allegiance. When Kirk completes the pledge, the Yangs are shocked. McCoy questions how they know the pledge, and Spock surmises that the cultures may have developed along very similar lines to Earth. Kirk speculates that the Kohms were originally "Communists" and Yangs originally "Yankees". Apparently, the Omegans had a Cold War much like the one between the United States and the Soviet Union, but unlike Earth, their war heated up and a conflict was fought many centuries ago. Even Spock found the parallel between the two worlds to be "almost too close."
The Yangs decide that Kirk and his companions will be executed, but Tracey tries to save himself by claiming that Kirk and the others are evil. Tracey tries to convince Cloud that Kirk and his party were cast out of Heaven, by building upon Kirk's Prime Directive-influenced vague description of his place of origin as "up there", and by drawing attention to the similarity between Spock's appearance and an image of Satan contained in one of the Yang's documents. To further bolster his claim against the Enterprise crew, Tracey informs Cloud that Spock "has no heart," knowing that the Yang chief is unaware of Vulcan physiology and doesn't realize the Vulcan's heart is not located in the same position as it is in humans and Omegans. Despite McCoy's and Kirk's attempts to convince Cloud that the Vulcan is no devil, but just physiologically different, Cloud is not fully convinced and asks Kirk to complete the "sacred words" starting with 'E Plebneesta' from an ancient document he produced. Unfortunately, Kirk cannot quite decipher the words, despite their familiarity, and suggests instead that he and Tracey duel to the death — stating good always triumphs over evil. As Kirk and Tracey begin to fight, Spock notices a communicator near Cloud's female companion, and makes a mental suggestion which causes her to pick it up and activate it. (Neither she nor Spock speak into the communicator, but the implication is that she activated its emergency-alert signal.) Soon, just as Kirk subdues Tracey, Sulu and a security detail beam down to investigate the situation. Kirk spares Tracey's life and has him taken into custody to face Federation charges.
The Yangs now bow to Kirk as a deity, but he orders them to stand and face him. He looks over the ancient, crumbling document, which appears to be a distorted version of the American Constitution. Kirk finishes the sacred speech (the Preamble to the United States Constitution) and rebukes the Yangs for allowing the document to degrade to mere shibboleth. He declares that the words were not just for the Yangs, but for Kohms, as well, declaring that they "must apply to everyone or they mean nothing." Cloud doesn't fully understand, but swears to Kirk that the "holy words" will be obeyed. Kirk smiles at Cloud, convinced that the Yangs, along with the Kohms, will now rebuild their ruined world. Before departing, Kirk stops to take one last proud look at Old Glory.
According to author/UCLA assistant professor Daniel Leonard Bernardi in his book, Star Trek and History: Race-ing Toward a White Future: “Like the Federation, the Comms have full command of the English language (although they speak with a homogenized “Asian” accent). The beginning of the episode thus shows that those with white skin can be uncivilized savages and those with yellow skin can be civilized and rational[...]This would be counter to the hegemonic representation of Asians in the United States media; that diverse collective of peoples are consistently constructed in film and television as a menacing “yellow horde.” Bernardi goes on to say: "“The Omega Glory” is not, however, a counter-hegemonic episode. In fact, the episode not only reveals an unwillingness to be critical of the hegemony of racist representations, but also systematically participates in the stereotyping of Asians. As the story progresses, the Yangs are constructed as noble savages; their cause to annihilate the Comms is established as justified. The Comms, on the other hand, are constructed as brutal and oppressive; their drive to suppress the Yangs is established as totalitarian. This more hegemonic articulation of race is made evident when Kirk and Spock realize the extent to which the Yangs and Comms parallel Earth's civilizations. In this light, the Yangs are no longer savages, but noble warriors fighting for a just and honorable cause. They want to regain the land they lost in a war with the Asiatics.”[2]
This episode was re-mastered in 2006 and was first aired June 30, 2007 as part of the remastered 40th Anniversary original series. This episode was broadcast again on July 7, 2008 and on July 4, 2009. It was preceded two weeks earlier by the remastered version of "Plato's Stepchildren" and was followed a week later by the remastered version of "Return to Tomorrow". Aside from remastered video and audio, and the all-CGI animation of the Enterprise that is standard among the revisions, specific changes to this episode also include:
This story was originally offered by Roddenberry as an option for the second pilot titled "The Omega Story".[3]
The original script, while not significantly different in tone and message, did have some significant differences in characterization and background information. As the character of Dr. Leonard McCoy had not been created yet, the ship's surgeon is named Milton Perry, and in one version of the script it is Perry who attempts to use a "Medi-Scanner" to signal the Enterprise for rescue, only to be killed when Captain Tracey destroys the scanner with his phaser. Dr. Carter of the Exeter was also to be shown dissolving onscreen.
A scene filmed, but cut from the final episode (all versions, including original broadcast and DVD version), has Kirk, Spock and McCoy speculate that Omega IV was settled by explorers of Earth's early space race.
This episode was also adapted for View-Master in 1968 (GAF Packet # B499). In the accompanying booklet, the Yangs are called the "Meraks" (Americans), making the connection more obvious. [1] However, some early draft scripts for this episode reference Cloud William's people as the "Meraks", so there remains some question as to whether the VM booklet used an early draft script, as was common practice at the time. One of the View-Master reel images shows a mistake on the View-Master photographer's part: the scene of Uhura and Sulu (at Uhura's console) talking to the landing party was shot between TV production takes as Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) still has her script clearly resting on her lap, and the console lights are not on, leaving only the shiny, black screens visible.
The View-Master packet cover uses an image created exclusively for the product: a shot of the 11-foot model of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the foreground, and another model in the background, presumably meant to be the U.S.S. Exeter seen briefly in the episode. It is unconfirmed if the background model was the 3-foot miniature built for the TV series, or a modified AMT model kit—which were commercially available at the time this episode was produced (as seen standing in as the U.S.S. Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine"). However, the end of the background model's nacelles do not have the regular series modifications of half spheres, so it is possible the model is a converted AMT plastic model kit.
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