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Episode Title: "THE ULTIMATE COMPUTER"
Production Number: 53
Original Air Date: 03-08-68
Stardates: 4729.4
Synopsis:
The U.S.S. Enterprise is called to a space station to participate in a war games exercise, overseen by Commodore Robert Wesley, with the Enterprise crew replaced with Dr. Richard Daystrom's M-5 Multitronic Unit, a new experimental computer complex that will control all functions aboard a starship.
During the test run with the M-5 computer in control of the Enterprise, the computer attacks and destroys the Woden, an old automated ore freighter with no crew. The M-5 surrounds itself with a force field and draws power directly from the warp engines; Dr. Daystrom and the Enterprise are unable to deactivate the computer, which was designed to think creatively like a man using Daystrom's own brain engrams.
When the M-5 attacks the four other starships participating in the war games, Starfleet orders them to destroy the Enterprise. Captain Kirk convinces the M-5 that it has committed murder, and the computer realizes that it must destroy itself. Dr. Richard Daystrom suffers a nervous breakdown after the failure of his computer, and he must be institutionalized.
Factoid: Spock holds an A-7 Computer Expert classification.
Factoid: At the age of 24, Dr. Richard Daystrom made a breakthrough in duotronics, which won him the Nobel and Zee-Magnees prizes. Daystrom designed most of the computer systems used aboard the Enterprise.
Factoid: Alpha Carinae Two is a Class-M planet -- whose oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere is suitable for human life support. The planet has two major land masses, a number of islands, and life form readings.
Dr. McCoy: "I may be just a ship's doctor, but I make a Finagle's Folly that's known from here to Orion.
Guest Characters: *Dr. Richard Daystrom, *Commodore Robert Wesley
Alien Races:
Starships: *U.S.S. Excalibur, *U.S.S. Potemkin, *U.S.S. Hood, *U.S.S. Lexington, *Freighter Woden destroyed
KEY: [brackets]=illusions *star=first appearance
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