Title: The Ultimate Computer
Airdate: 3/8/1968
Plot Summary
In The Ultimate Computer, the Enterprise is rudely recalled to a starbase by Commodore Wesley to participate in a special wargames. The crew will mostly be removed except for 20 total. The rest of the ship will be controlled by a new computer called the M5, invented by Doctor Richard Daystrom, the father of the current computers that have been a leap in technology. The M5 may be a bigger leap but what good is space travel if so few can participate?
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk is none too happy about this idea. He obeys orders but he doesn’t like it. He gets a disturbance in the Force the minute he lays eyes on the computer. He has to do a lot of soul-searching at first to see if he’s petty about losing his job to mechanization. He really takes it hard when the M5 calls him “non-essential personnel” for a landing party. This is hammered home when Wesley calls him Captain Dunsel, “dunsel” being a term for a part that has no useful purpose. Pretty shitty of Wesley.
Logical
Spock holds an A7 computer classification. He seems all in on the idea, at first. But he begins to doubt fairly quickly as he understands that a computer can only spit out solutions to the data that is inputted. It cannot make judgments. He confirms this when he says “Computers make efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them.”
He’s Dead Jim
Bones doesn’t like it, he sees that he might not be needed in the future. However, he does give Kirk some helpful advice.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu just relays what the helm is doing, thanks to the M5.
Nuclear Wessels
Chekov does “man” the navigation station, but mostly to tell us what the M5 is doing with a frustrated expression.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura tries in vain to communicate to the other ships but the M5 prevents it.
My Wee Bairns
Scotty installs the M5 and does his best to cut it off in the Jeffrey’s tube.
Canon Maker
“All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.” Kirk would repeat this again in Star Trek V.
Decks 4 and 6 are living quarters on the Enterprise.
Bones starts a tradition of bringing Kirk some strong drinks when he’s down and needs cheering up. He’ll do so again in Star Trek II.
Commodore Wesley uses the same captain’s chair that mirror Kirk used in that universe. Intriguing!
Kirk once again talks a computer into committing suicide. Daystrom tried but only Kirk can do that.
And finally, this introduces the aforementioned Daystrom. While his role in this episode was a little tragic, it’s clear in the Trek universe he was still held in high regard for his work on the duotronic computer at the very least. In The Next Generation era, the Daystrom Institute would become a highly regarded research and learning facility. Lots of new tech would come out of there.
There was also a Daystrom award for various scientific achievements, I assume it replaced the Nobel prize. (And given how that organization has set fire to its reputation, this can’t come too soon.)
Canon Breaker
Nothing really breaks canon. In fact, a lot of new lore is created here.
Man It Feels Bad To Be A Red Shirt
Not a security guy, but an engineering ensign is snuffed out by M5 as he tries to disconnect it. I got to admit, this is a fairly good effect given the time period of special effects. It’s also quite shocking. He just goes up in a puff of smoke.
Technobabble
The M5 is a multitronic unit. Up until now, computers were duotronic and were the standard until The Next Generation era where they were replaced by isolinear chips.
I Know That Guy:
In The Ultimate Computer, Daystrom is played by William Marshall, with a booming voice and immense presence but shows such vulnerability and concern. He does a great job. Of course, he would be known as Blacula and the King of Cartoons on Pee Wee’s Playhouse. While I have nothing against those roles, he carries such gravitas in his tall frame and deep voice, he could’ve played Vader and done the voice.
Barry Russo plays Commodore Robert Wesley.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
I mentioned in the previous episode, The Omega Glory, that one of its failings is it was trying to juggle too many ideas and never really bringing any satisfactory conclusion to any of them. But where that episode failed, The Ultimate Computer succeeds spectacularly.
We have the idea of being replaced by automation. We have a computer that goes haywire, takes over the ship, and murders people. We have the idea of peaking at too early of an age and left trying to exceed past glories.
First off is the idea of a machine being able to do what man does but better. Here it’s balanced nicely. Trek is more than willing to say that obviously computers and technology are necessary. But Spock pinpoints the balance nicely. Are these tools for man or are man tools for the machine? That’s the dividing line and where machines must always be subservient to man. (We’ll discuss Data at another time. ) We cannot just put our entire lives into automation.
There’s also the problem that I think AI has already demonstrated, a computer cannot make moral judgments, only logical ones. I think this started Spock on his journey towards realizing, by Star Trek VI, that logic was the beginning of wisdom, not the end. It’s the compulsion, the desire, and the wisdom to show restraint that makes man what he is. A screwdriver, a car, or a computer cannot differentiate or even really understand these sorts of things.
But automation and machines do have the habit of replacing work men used to do. This also tackles that idea. At what point is the replacement worse than the work? Surely there is a case to be made that the more tools to do the harder labor that have been invented, it has freed men to do other things. Philosophy, art, music, making cool sci-fi shows people love… all these things couldn’t be done if we stopped improving technology and spent all our time just getting food and surviving. It’s finding the dividing line that’s the trick.
Kirk hammers that point home regarding restraint by correctly guessing Wesley would not fire on a defenseless Enterprise. This type of intuition born of human interaction over the course of a life is something a computer cannot do.
Where I think this excels is demonstrating that replacing labor is fine, but replacing purpose is so damaging to the human race, that you might as well murder it. Indeed, M5 killing the crews of the other ships is an excellent metaphor for what it would do to the human race if it did what Daystrom wanted, stop humans from exploring space simply because they might die.
Finally, you have Daystrom and the idea of peaking in your twenties. I imagine this is some of the same issues athletes go through. It’s a nice touch to the whole thing.
I do question why Daystrom was so opposed to men dying in space. I mean, sure, in general, who isn’t? But he’s so motivated by it, that it would’ve been nice to have some past incident in his life to explain it all. It would also make his mental breakdown at murdering people, the very thing he was trying to prevent, even more powerful.
But that’s a nitpick. The Ultimate Computer has a lot to say and it does it very well.
