Hadramawt Plateau dry river basin in southern Saudi Arabia
Always thot this was an interesting solution to the problem.
“Kirk to Enterprise…Kirk to Enterprise…Kirk to Enterprise”
C’mon! I have the frakkin Verizon network!!
“I am conducting an experiment…”
Look at that smirk!
Ohhhh tra-la-la!
Droxine annoys the frak outta me…literally.
Sooo, Spock is checking on Droxine and Droxine is thinking about Spock?
I think Plasus has been hitting the zienite on the side. He’s a moron.
Look at Shatner’s hand on the phaser. It’s the subtle things. I don’t care what anyone says. Shatner is a great actor.
“diplomatic balls” ??? eh???
What are those symbols on Vanna’s mini-skirt? They look like a Zeppelin album.
That was my second guess. 
It would just be embarrassing for a starship captain to get killed by an old man in a gossamer robe.
Yeah. Them also.
C’mon. Easily handled by one Judo chop!
Vanna looks like a gang-banger, sportin’ her colors.
I gotta get me some zenite gas!!!
Can’t wait to see this princess working the mines.
“Ooh! I broke a nail!” :eek:
More like Patty Hearst and the SLA!!
Planning on creating your own slave race of morons?
Shhhh! I work with her husband.
More from Gerrold:
In my original version, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Uhura were captured by the Mannies when their shuttlecraft was shot down by a missile. (The Enterprise desperately needed dilithium crystals. This planet was one of the Federation’s biggest suppliers, and Kirk’s concern was to restore the flow of crystals. He didn’t care who worked the mines, just that the supply was not interrupted. The shuttlecraft was necessary because I felt that the crystals might be too dense for the transporter.) In the process of the story, Kirk realizes that unless living conditions for the Mannies are improved, the situation can never be stabilized.
Because Uhura has been injured in the shuttlecraft crash, McCoy starts treating her in a Mannie hospital. But he is so appalled at the condition of the other patients there, especially the children suffering from high-pressure disease, that he begins treating them as well. Meanwhile, Kirk and Spock have convinced their captors to let them go up to the sky city and try to negotiate a settlement to the local crisis.
The story focused primarily on the lack of communication between the skymen and the Mannies. Kirk’s resolution of the problem was to force the two sides into negotiation. He opened the channels of communication with a phaser in his hand. “You –sit there! You –sit there! Now, talk!” And that’s all he does. He doesn’t solve the problem himself, he merely provides the tools whereby the combatants can seek their own solutions, a far more moral procedure.
In the end, as the Enterprise breaks orbit, Kirk remarks on this, as if inaugurating the problem-solving procedure is the same as solving the problem. He pats himself on the back and says, “We’ve got them talking. It’s just a matter of time until they find the right direction.” And McCoy who is standing right next to him, looks at him and says, “Yes, but how many children will die in the meantime?”
This answer was not a facile one; the viewer was meant to be left as uneasy as Kirk.
– But in the telecast version, the whole problem was caused by Zenite gas in the mines, and “if we can just get them troglytes to all wear gas masks, then they’ll be happy little darkies and they’ll pick all the cotton we need…”
Somehow, I think it lost something in the translation."