Sunday 05 February 2012

Rockabye Baby, Or Die

“Rockabye Baby, Or Die” is an episode outline written by science fiction author George Clayton Johnson, completed on August 2, 1966. Johnson previously wrote the Star Trek episode that would be the series’ aired premiere, “The Man Trap”. “Rockabye Baby, Or Die” featured an alien entity entering the Enterprise computers to growing to adulthood while considering Kirk as father-figure. Producer Gene L. Coon never took a liking to the story however, and it was never produced.

Story

The Enterprise is on its way to the planet Minerva to pick up two criminals, both hopelessly insane, for transport to an asylum world. As they approach the planet, a strange light-globe approaches the ship on collision course. Nothing that Kirk demands can stop it, and it collides with the ship. The intercom comes on, and everyone on the ship can hear the sound of a baby crying.

A search of the ship reveals no child, and Spock is the one who comes up with the answer—the ship itself is the child! The light-force was some kind of entity that has now become lodged within the Enterprise’s circuits. It is growing, becoming—what? Spock is pleased with this new marvel, but Uhura is far from happy, because all of her channels are filled with the sound of a baby crying. The “baby” is starting to grow, and very quickly. Doors open and close, the turbolifts move by themselves, switches open—the creature is learning how to walk, figuratively speaking. It is becoming self-aware, but the crying is getting on everyone’s nerves. Uhura suggests that they treat the ship as if it were a real baby, and promptly sings the entity to sleep. Spock and Scott track down the alienness within the ship’s computer, and discover that it is located in the core itself. They cannot isolate the “baby” without cutting off their own life-support systems and power.

As they approach Minerva, the growing child awakens. It can “see” the planet’s sun, and considers it to be “pretty”. It takes over the navigation of the ship, and starts to move towards the pretty light. Unless Kirk can regain control of the ship, the baby will “crawl” right into the sun. Kirk orders the controls that connect the computer to the engine physically severed. Even as a work team does this the wiring seals itself. The ship then starts to disobey commands—the baby is having a tantrum! The heat form the sun is rising, and the crew is beginning to collapse as the cooling systems start to overheat. Kirk now orders the outer hull to be electrified, and sends a surge of power through it. The baby cries, and veers off from the sun. Kirk continues until the child realizes that if it heads for the sun, it hurts, and it stops the flight in that direction.

Spock tells Kirk that he would appear to be the “father” of the child, and the growing intelligence begins to ask questions of Spock. It keeps asking “why?” like a growing child. But it does not allow Kirk to get to Minerva. Kirk and McCoy prepare to beam down, but the child will not allow Kirk off the ship; it is scared of being left alone by its “father”. Kirk is helpless, and tries to explain to the ship that he must go. He promises that he will be back very soon, and the baby mentally wipes its tears and allows Kirk to beam down, being very brave. On the planet, Kirk and McCoy are given custody of the two killers, Nolan Russell and Ray Francis. The inhabitants of Minerva look something like bipedal crocodiles, and the two insane killers had attempted to wipe them out. They were restrained by the other humans on the planet, but were injured some. McCoy stays to treat them, and Kirk beams back up with Russell and Francis.

They are placed in the brig, where they are startled to hear a child’s voice asking them why they are locked up. Taking their chance, both men lie like crazy, trying to convince the child that they are the victims of the Minervans, who have lied to Kirk and fooled him. The baby believes them, and promptly lets them go. The killers overpower a crewman and take his phaser. In their warped (no pun intended) minds, they plan their revenge on Captain Kirk. They find him in the transporter room and Russell is about to kill him when Francis realizes that Kirk is far more valuable alive than dead. They can use him to force the Enterprise to take them to some other world where they can escape. On the bridge, Spock has no option but to obey their commands to save Kirk’s life.

The baby realizes that it has been fooled, but cannot do anything to help, because Russell and Francis will kill Kirk if it tries to help. On the other hand, it realizes that all of this is its fault, and it must do something. It takes over the helm, and starts to plunge the Enterprise back towards the sun. It tells the criminals that if they do not surrender, it will burn up the ship—and them along with it!

They try everything they can think of to stop the ship, but to no avail. It is quite adamant. The heat gets to be too much until all but Spock are fainting. The maniacs finally surrender, but then the ship discovers it has approached too close to the sun, and cannot pull free of its gravitational pull! The ship feels guilty for what it has done, but Kirk is convinced that there must be something that it can do.

The ship burns every circuit down, adding all of its power to the effort to escape. It finally drags free of the tremendous gravity field and escapes to space again. But the effort has weakened it, and it has just enough energy to spare to ask Kirk if it did well. “I’m proud of you,” Kirk replies. The child then departs the ship, and Spock is convinced that the entity is dead. But on Minerva, McCoy is delivering the child of one of the humans that the killers injured. The baby begins to cry—in the same tones the ship had been using!

 

N. Ottens
21 November 2008