Treknicalities

Jim Kirk can be murder on computers when he wants to be. We’ve compiled a short list of examples of computers that Kirk has outwitted in one way or another.

1. Landru. In Return Of The Archons, A computer calling itself Landru (after its creator), equates society to “The Body” and, in the process of protecting “The Body”, it stops society from developing at all. Kirk convinces Landru that it is, in fact, harming “The Body” and Landru self-destructs while looking for a hole in Kirk’s logic.
2. Norman. In I, Mudd, the crew is being held captive by a society of androids who want to study humans. Kirk discovers the android named Norman controls all the other androids and destroys Norman with a dazzling display of circular logic:
   

   Kirk: Everything Harry Mud says is a lie. He is incapable of telling the truth.
   Mudd: Listen to me, Norman. I’m lying.
   Norman: If you are lying, then you are telling the truth, but you are incapable of telling the truth, so you are lying. But if you are lying, then you are telling the truth, but you are incapable of telling the truth, so you are lying. But if you are lying, then you are telling the truth, but you are incapable of telling the truth, so you are lying. But if you are lying, then you are telling the truth, but you are incapable of telling the truth, so you are lying.

   At this point, smoke starts coming out of poor Norman’s ears and then he shuts down.

3. Nomad. In The Changeling, We meet Nomad, an earth probe that was launched in the late 20th century and crashed on a desolate planet. While on this planet, Nomad encountered another damaged probe and the two combined themselves to make one very powerful machine whose purpose was to seek out perfect lifeforms and destroy anything that didn’t fit the probe’s definition of Perfect. Kirk convinces Nomad that it made a mistake when it thought he was its creator, it made another mistake when it didn’t notice the first mistake, and it made a third mistake when it didn’t commit suicide after making the first two mistakes. Nomad is convinced enough that it destroys itself, waiting only just long enough to be beamed into deep space first.
4. M-5. The electronic star of The Ultimate Computer went a little overboard in protecting itself during some simulations and, when Kirk convinced it that it had committed murder it shut down all its defenses and allowed itself to be disconnected.
5. The Doomsday Machine was left over from a long-ago war in another galaxy. It entered our galaxy, still running it’s “destroy everything in sight” program when Kirk put an overloaded impulse engine down its throat.

• Honorable Mention: The Enterprise‘s main computer in the Animated episode, The Practical Joker. After traveling through a strange magnetic cloud, the ship’s computer becomes sentient and starts playing practical  jokes on the crew – from having the laundry print “Kirk is a Jerk” on the back of Kirk’s uniform shirts to trapping  crew members on the ship’s recreation deck. Kirk makes it clear that the idea of travelling back through that cloud terrifies him and the computer obligingly takes the ship back through the cloud, thus undoing the effect that passing through the magnetic cloud had the first time.

Given Kirk’s history with computers, it’s amazing that StarFleet is willing to trust him with something as valuable as a starship. Especially once you consider the fate of the original Enterprise at the end of The Search For Spock.

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