"The Cloud Minders"
A plant plague on Merak II requires the mineral zenite from Federation member world Ardana. Will the High Advisor of floating city Stratos help?
I'm five, so I giggle when they keep saying 'The HIGH Advisor' of Stratos.
The classic image of Stratos the Cloud City was a lovely painting, and the CG version is better still.
Troglyte miners are forced to toil for zenite on the surface, while the Ardana elite lounge around the clouds being elite.
The miners with their totally tubular shades lay a smack down on the landing party until High Advisor Plasus shows up to make apology for his disgruntled wage slaves.
Spock calls the city "The finest example of sustained antigravity elevation I've ever seen." Seconds later he meets Plasus' daughter Droxine and is forced to repeat himself while staring at her bikini.
Spock has the inequitable situation figured out instantly and spends his time pursuing Droxine, flirting with ten-dollar words, and uncharacteristically spilling rather a lot of beans about the supposedly unspeakable Vulcan mating cycle. It's a conversation that strongly implies that while all Vulcans MUST mate every seven years, they CAN mate whenever they damn well... deem it... logical.
The hypocrisy of Ardana's government, claiming total non-violence but practicing ray torture on labour dissidents, is quickly exposed. McCoy's examinations reveal Troglytes are mentally impeded by the gas emitted from unrefined zenite- Kirk offers filter masks but Plasus forbids it. Kirk therefore brings one to imprisoned Troglyte leader Vanna. She takes him hostage to dig the mines.
Vanna considers the hostage Captain more valuable than "their mortaes and thongs".
I don't know what that first thing is, but I'm sure those dirty Troglytes would look fetching in thongs!
Kirk, to prove digging zenite makes one stupid and violent, traps Vanna, Plasus and himself in a cave with dwindling oxygen until they all begin to fight... stupidly. VICTORY!
That's all for now, drive safely, mind that cloud.
No comments:
Post a Comment