It’s only logical: defeating AI in Star Trek
- Carla Ra
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
I have a confession to make. Before my research for this post, I had never watched a single episode of Star Trek. I know… and I call myself a sci-fi fan. Shame on me!
This glaring flaw in my character has been finally corrected with the encouragement of my friend, fellow author, and physicist Gregory Allen Mendell. You see, I’m more of a Star Wars kind of girl, but Greg is a Trekkie. He very convincingly asked me to watch five episodes of the original series, saying they could become a great blog post. After watching them all, I couldn’t agree more.
Today, we’ll discuss episodes 7 and 20 of the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series, and the 3rd, 8th and 24th of the second season. They all have a similar plot and resolution: the introduction of a machine menace and Captain Kirk’s effective method to defeat them.
Instead of analyzing one by one, I decided to discuss the episodes in bulk, comparing their structural narrative in three acts. Let’s go where no one has gone before and talk about a superposition of five episodes: What are little girls made of?; The return of the Archons; I, Mudd; The Changeling; and The Ultimate Computer. Buckle up! This will be a long one.
There’s no way of escaping SPOILERS, so be warned!
Act I: Meeting new characters
The setting of these episodes is where they most differ from each other. However, we do start these stories by meeting new characters: i) a crew member’s old love with his android employees; ii) the inhabitants of a 19th-century Earth-style village on a different planet, hosting a strange festival; iii) a society of androids worshiping an old foe; iv) a malfunctioning space probe; v) and a brilliant scientist with its computer creation.
Right off the bat, the situation surrounding the new characters introduced us to some deep questions about intelligent machines and our relationship with them.
Could we win over death by cloning ourselves into perfect android bodies? Could someone create an army of obedient robots and become a ruler of an android empire? Should we engage with a being so far from human being that has no regards for life as we know it? Should we let our fate be in the metaphorical hands of more efficient artificial intelligence?
Episode Highlight: The Return of the Archons
Of these five episodes, this stands out the most in Act I. There was no introduction of any machine lifeform in the beginning. The mystery resided in the human residents participating in a festival of madness and anarchy, orchestrated by some supreme being called Landru. You’ve guessed it, Landru is later revealed to be a computer capable of hypnotizing and manipulating people. But what pulls us in initially is the intriguing behavior of the local population.
Episode Highlight: I, Mudd
If I were to rank the characters introduced in these episodes, my #1 would definitely be Harry Mudd, the con artist and smuggler mentioned in the title. And for him to become the emperor of an android planet is gold! Props to the actor, Roger C. Camel, for giving us a delightful performance.
Traditionally, the first arc is the setting of the story ahead, and all episodes were quick to draw us in with an introductory conflict that hides the true enemy in one way or another. The common themes and big reveals are left for Act II.
Act II: The villainous machines
In the first act, many of the robots and computers introduced had something weird about them, initially attributed to their eccentric behavior and strange occurrences. It is in the second act that their villainous nature started to show.
We basically have two sets of situations. There are episodes where something feels odd in the presence of presumed harmless robot characters. In others, we have the machines misbehave, presenting themselves as an immediate threat.
Overall, this is where the plot of these episodes starts to converge. We have a machine’s plan to dominate, exterminate, or “save” (at their own accord) humankind.
The androids in What little girls are made of? act subserviently, but hints of human traits (namely annoyance or love) make their behavior eerie. The ones in I, Mudd are too eager to please. Why? Why are they willing to accept orders from humans? The computer program M-5 suspicious behavior after being granted command of the USS Enterprise in The Ultimate Computer also raises some concerned eyebrows.
Episode Highlight: What little girls are made of?
It was not only a simple suspicion that something vile was happening with Korby’s team. The unauthorized replica of Captain Kirk was a walking red flag. And the easily manipulated doppelganger was an indication that it and Kirk were not to be considered the same, contrary to Korby’s beliefs.
In the other episodes, the machines’ villainous descent was not so subtle. We could immediately notice that Landru was a menace in The Return of the Archons. Same with Nomad, the malfunctioning satellite aboard the USS Enterprise, who wiped Uhura’s memory and killed Scotty in The Changeling.
At this point, I noticed a motif in these episodes. The initial questions posed in Act I had developed into a quest for freedom, in the most American sense of the word. In general, Americans take pride in their understanding of freedom—a concept geared toward individual liberty to them.
Shifting the character’s motivation to focus on the preservation of freedom simplified the plot, dissolving the philosophical questions posed by the introduction of intelligent machines into a more tangible threat. It made sense. Considering the time constraint of the episodes, there would be no time to explore these other questions.
On the other hand, this simplification reinforces the message that deep questions are all, deep down, related to a quest for freedom, which is quite limiting in potential, I must say.
The most telling of American culture was definitely The Return of the Archons. The androids offer everything the crew wanted if they stayed behind on the planet. When their intention of studying human behavior becomes clear, the perception of a human emperor surrounded by subservient robots shifted; Mudd is no longer an emperor, but a spoiled test subject.
It raises the question: with all our needs met, could we endure being constantly observed to act as study subjects to robots? It is a fascinating question by itself, with several ethical ramifications. What troubles Captain Kirk, though, is the possibility of his crew being seduced by the offer and choosing to stay planet-bound, supposedly losing their freedom. Fascinating.
Episode Highlight: The Ultimate Computer
The Ultimate Computer has the most complex version of Captain Kirk. In the previous episodes, he is always portrayed as self-assured and a fast thinker. He never wavered, not even in face of the death of his crewmates. However, in this episode the philosophical questions had room to breathe. Kirk, when faced with M-5’s superiority in commanding the ship, doubts himself and mulls over his own worth as a leader of the USS Enterprise. I was pleasantly surprised by the introspection. Props to the episode’s writer, Dorothy C. Fontana.
Act III: It’s only logical
No matter how we got here. Act III begins with imminent danger that could cost many lives!
What I enjoyed the most about Kirk’s method of defeating machines is that it is a non-violent one. He literally talked himself out of danger.
His strategy is based on an Asimovian robot concept. Machines are logical beings who get distraught when faced with paradoxes and confusion when witnessing illogical action. Irrationality is their Kryptonite.
Their demise comes in two forms: either a victory through circular reasoning, in which Kirk convinced the machines to self-destroy; or their hardware could not handle the amount of computing to make sense of an unreasonable situation, causing a structural failure.
The underlying message that pure rationality is fragile is invigorating. In our society, those more in tune with their emotional side are often seen as weak, and portraying emotions and irrationality as humanity’s weapons subverts this perception.
There are no escaping paradoxes and inconsistencies in the real world. So, to be human is to deal with these complex situations, to try to comprehend seemingly senseless acts. As Mr. Spock said, “Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.”
Episode Highlight: The Changeling
To be fair, not all the machines in these episodes were the ideal of rational beings. Nomad, the probe they met in the episode The Changeling, was malfunctioning. At one point in its history, Nomad, an Earth satellite, merged with an alien probe carrying conflicting orders. The result was an all-powerful probe wandering around to find new habitable planets and disinfect them, i.e., to exterminate any life form.
It is insightful to look at this Asimovian ideal of an intelligent machine in hindsight, compared to an anthropomorphized version of Artificial Intelligence we have today. Modern AI is prone to fall into logical loops and are very unashamed of it. They also have no qualms in confidently saying something wrong and promptly apologizing for it when caught in their lie.
Captain Kirk would not be have been able to defeat Chat GPT.
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Phew, what a marathon!
It was fun watching this beloved series six decades after it first came out. Because I wanted to write a blog post about them, I watched them with critical eyes. Of course it had dated elements, but I had fun with those too. My husband was most amused by the number of young ladies wanting to kiss Captain Kirk out of nowhere, lol.
Have you watched these episodes? Do you think I hit bullseye, or did I miss the point? Let me know in the comments.
See you next post,
Ra.
Carla Ra is a scientist by day, sci-fi writer by night.
You can check out her anthology ARTIFICIAL REBELLION here.
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