Arena

[Fixer]

Mythbusters actually did a video on that one. Apparently bamboo isn't a great material for a blunderbuss.

*handwave* It's space bamboo.

[Archanubis]

Mythbusters actually did a video on that one. Apparently bamboo isn't a great material for a blunderbuss.

*handwave* It's space bamboo.

They also stated that the black powder Kirk could have cooked up, provided he knew the correct ratio, wouldn't have been strong enough to launch much of anything, let alone propel diamonds at the needed speed to penetrate reptilian skin.

To say nothing that, even if he could create industrial-strength black powder, the damn bamboo cannon would have been as hazardous to the operator as it would be to the target (as it is, it does blow Kirk on his ass). I think there were some non-canon books that pretty much said the same thing: that a number of cadets had injured themselves trying to replicate the bamboo cannon.

[Mickey_Rat15]

One other thing I appreciate about this episode is that it's one of the few instances where the weaponry in Trek actually feels somewhat advanced. There's a nice sense of distance in both the Gorn ambush and the ship to ship combat scenes, and of course some powerful weaponry that never seems to show up in the other series.

I actually had a hearty laugh because of that detail. This outpost is supposedly not a military one, yet it is run by Starfleet, has bunker-like structures, an armory and in that armory you not only just find weaponry, but an actual mortar that can apparently blow a hill up. Take note of how the r̶e̶d̶s̶h̶i̶r̶t̶ blueshirt points out, that the hill is 1200 yards away, about a kilometer or 0.68 milles and considers that "a little bit close". A regular grenade fired from a mortar similar to the one used in the episode in reality, lobs a grenade that has a lethal radius of about 50m. As someone on a video on YouTube once poignantly remarked, "so this can only be considered a small tactical nuke". Not military my ass. The Gorn had very good reason to shoot first and ask questions later.

I believe the mortar shells are supposed to be man portable versions of photon torpedoes. In other words, they are are small antimatter bombs. So...yeah.

The Gorn fight does lookmsilly but I remember watching this as a kid and getting the vibe of relentlessness from the Gorn. You can run but he is just going to keep coming at you.

The Gorn may have a gripe against the Federation here, but there was no colony of Gorn that the Federation colonists massacred, Kirk was facing an hostile unknown with fresh blood on their hands which refused to make their intent or the nature of their greivance known.

[Mickey_Rat15]

And yet nobody's mentioned Kirk's homemade Canon. For me, that was always the most memorable part of the episode, for better or worse.

That cannon (more like a big blunderbuss) is amazing if you know nothing, awful if you have any kind of clue about the practicalities or science involved.

The realities of it aside, I have always enjoyed Spock's color commentary on what Kirk is doing building that thing.

[pilight]

It was the surface mineral deposits that broke my immersion.

It's easy to explain that. Kirk and the Gorn aren't actually on a planet. They're in a holodeck. The program is designed so that the minerals are on the surface to potentially be used as Kirk did.

[cdrood]

One thing that's worth noting is you can actually see some first season progression with Kirk in regards to "monster of the week" episodes and also how he views his ship.

While "The Man Trap" played lip service to preserving the last of its species, they still ended up killing it. Had it not "invaded" Kirk's beloved Enterprise, they might have been satisfied to simply leave it on the planet with Crater and provide it the salt it needed.

Here, Kirk comes to the conclusion to spare the Gorn once he realizes mistakes were made on both sides. Would he have been so bloodthirsty if the Enterprise hadn't been lured to Cestus 3 and attacked? If they'd simply arrived in the aftermath would he have reacted in a less overtly hostile manner?

Next we come to "The Devil In The Dark". Here Kirk's ship is never in danger and he's willing to see things from the Horta's viewpoint. He's willing to kill it at first, but that seems more about carrying out his orders most efficiently. There's nothing personal, even after one of his crew is killed. It's true the hunt gave Kirk plenty of "alone time" to assess the situation and come to his conclusions about the eggs, but he's still far more willing to come to a peaceful and non-lethal solution that he was in the previous episodes.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

On the other hand, we see Kirk in Errand of Mercy really takes some convincing to make peace with the Klingons, and at first he's resentful at it being forced on him. So there are some subtle changes, but I think Kirk has a pretty consistent approach.

And really, his approach makes a lot more sense to me than what Picard uses sometimes. How Picard deals with the Crystalline Entity, for example, has always ticked me off. Kirk isn't going to murder something because it's different, and he's willing to try to understand it, but he will always put his ship and the people he's sworn to protect first. In Silicon Avatar, it really comes across as if Picard is risking his crew and multiple planets for the sake of his curiosity.

[animalia]

But we are comparing mammals to alien reptiles - maybe we need to compare to reptiles. They generally can burst some movement when needed unless cold though.

This. Seriously Reptiles can generate huge bursts of speed when warm but they have horrible stamina. It's because of this that you can see Otters killing decent-sized Alligators by getting in their blind spots and wearing them down.

[PapaPalpatine]

Based on what Myth busters had to say about this episode, Kirk would've been better off making a fragmentary grenade rather than a cannon; light that sucker and toss it at the Gorn. In their test, using it as a cannon killed both of them.

[Fianna]

And really, his approach makes a lot more sense to me than what Picard uses sometimes. How Picard deals with the Crystalline Entity, for example, has always ticked me off. Kirk isn't going to murder something because it's different, and he's willing to try to understand it, but he will always put his ship and the people he's sworn to protect first. In Silicon Avatar, it really comes across as if Picard is risking his crew and multiple planets for the sake of his curiosity.

Well, they are supposed to be scientists. Satisfying curiosity is what the profession's all about.