By 
Title: The Slaver Weapon
Airdate: 12/8/1973
Plot Summary
While carrying an ancient Slaver stasis box to a star base, Spock, Uhura, and Sulu get an indication that there is another nearby. Upon investigating, they are taken prisoner by the Kzinti – a cat-like race who hate humans after losing several wars to them. The Kzinti have an empty Slaver box, which is the only way to find another stasis box. They manage to open the Enterprise crew’s box and find old meat, a strange hologram statue, and…a mysterious gun-like device. The item can shift its form. Spock and Sulu manage to escape but are recaptured when they trigger a matter-destruct sequence. An energy-draining setting almost lets Uhura escape. The Kzinti eventually stumble upon a setting that activates a sentient computer. When they are unable to provide the proper passwords it nonetheless provides them with another setting when they request the matter conversion form. But it’s a self-destruct setting: the computer believes the Kzinti to be Slaver enemies and gives them the means to destroy themselves.
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk is absent this episode.
Logical
Spock blames himself for getting captured by the Kzinti and for once I agree. How hard would it have been to scan the planet before landing for life forms? The Kzinti are clearly behind the Federation in technology, they shouldn’t have been able to hide.
But once there, he’s pretty much on top of things. Using the Kzinti’s lack of knowledge on human females, their distaste of vegetables, knowing how to handle the Kzinti telepath, and so-forth.
He’s Dead, Jim
Bones is absent as well.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu gets a lot of do this time. When the Kzinti try to read his mind, he keeps thinking about eating a carrot which makes the carnivores ill. He also tests the slaver weapon itself, setting off a minor nuclear bomb cloud at one point.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura is miffed at Spock telling her to act quiet and stupid like Kzinti females. Typical, he tries to use her as intelligence as a surprise and she takes it as an insult. She also used to be a great runner in her youth. The current version of Uhura would dispute that claim. Fatso.
She gets captured a couple of times but so do the others so not really her fault. She, Spock, and Sulu correctly deduce the weapon’s intent when it decides to self-destruct.
My Wee Bairns
Nope. No Scotty either.
Three Arms Are Better Than Two, Ya Fuzzy Face
Arex and M’Ress are also absent.
Getting Animated
The Kizinti are introduced to the Trek universe, however I cannot recall them in any other show. Might’ve had a cheeky reference someplace but that’s about it. The Slavers are a different issue. Apparently the slaver boxes are time stasis boxes. Whatever you put in sits outside of time to emerge billions of years later as if no time as progressed inside the box.
So we have that this race ruled the galaxy billions of years ago. They left these boxes which contain stuff. One contained the secret of artificial gravity, which Starfleet uses. Another has a grenade with the pin pulled. Not sure about this for canon but damn if the grenade isn’t the longest troll ever done.
Sulu mentions that the Kzinti fought 4 wars with humans, the last one being 200 years ago. That would put it at Zefram Cochrane’s time plus 3 more before that? I’m gonna call that a canon breaker.
Technobabble
The Slaver weapon has a setting that absorbs energy, which turns off the lights and police web. It does not turn off the life support belts for the crew. How considerate.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
I believe this is the first time ever we only centered on three crew members with Kirk and the Enterprise being completely absent from this episode. The Slaver Weapon was pretty darn good. Part of it might have been because it was written by Larry Niven, most known for the Ringworld series.
The idea that the galaxy was ruled by a race of lizard people over a billion years ago was interesting. That would predate the Ikonians who we’ll discover in TNG. I wonder if the idea for them was inspired by this episode.
We also get to see the Kzinti. They are apparently quite a bit behind the Federation in terms of technology but can’t seem to learn when to quit. This particular weapon they found might’ve been just what they needed but fortunately the weapon itself had other ideas.
I appreciated they didn’t pull any punches on this one. The Kzinti were all killed and fairly brutally all things considered.
Spock should’ve been on the lookout for a trap and dresses down himself in his log for failing to do so. It’s a nice touch, he’s not infallible. We also get a lot more time with just Sulu and Uhura working with Spock to get out of trap, deducing what the weapon might be, and so on. It was a much more meaty role than either of them ever had on the original series. It’s a shame the original series got cancelled, one wonders how much more they might have started focusing on the rest of the crew if they had.
The story is well done, it doesn’t rely on any crutch like bringing in the Enterprise at the last minute, and I was genuinely interested on how they were going to get out of this. Bonus points for the nasty ending for the Kzinti.
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