Sigma Iotians post 'Piece of the Action'

[Will_Carter]

I can't be the first one to want to talk about this, or the fact getting a copy of the comic sequel 'A piece of the reaction' is kinda... Not worth it? I'm not spending a hundred bucks plus shipping.

I know the general plot has the iotians both develop thanks to the left behind communicator and take on some starfleet aesthetics, but still have that mob mentality (both because The Book gives a more detailed societal structuring and while imitative, they are their own people.) So, if I remember right, it was a three powers/syndicates structure of Gold Shirts, Blue Shirts, and Red Shirts.

I like that in 'Reaction' they had developed to the extent of having orbital facilities but not interstellar craft (I forget if the comic mentioned anything other than orbital so maybe not even in system craft beyond their world.) So that gives thema clear 'they were able to develop based off of this, but they weren't able to make the leap into FTL.'

How else might the iotians have developed? This is all headcanon anyway so feel free to ignore the trek comics. After all star trek is canonically a multiverse web.

Simi but not related? I kinda liked the prodigy episode 'the world's a stage' but hated it wasn't a revisit... but can understand given aimed at kids?

 

[NCC-73515]

There was an earlier sequel comic with Oxmyx as well, part of the Kirk trial arc. You can get all of them on the Complete Collection DVD, 500+ comics from 1967-2002 or so.

 

[Will_Carter]

There was an earlier sequel comic with Oxmyx as well, part of the Kirk trial arc. You can get all of them on the Complete Collection DVD, 500+ comics from 1967-2002 or so.

looking at the summery it looks like 'kill all the lawyers' and 'a piece of the reaction' are mutually exclusive as 'Kill all the lawyers' claims they didn't touch the communicator' where 'piece of the reaction' shows a drastic shift and emulation of federation aesthetics with some limited imitation of federation technology.

 

[Phoenix219]

when i was like... in elementary school, i tried my hand at fanfic, where the TNG crew finds them as a fully functioning Star Fleet society with the mob as their klingon empire / terrorist faction. i remember the computer, an 8086 XT clone with 4 color monocrhome and a word processor called Electric Desk....


Somewhere over the years, I've heard the suggestion that they are a species of very involved LARPers, who quite excitedly took to the new game from The Book, and were even more excited to move on to The Device.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

My assumption has always been that what happened next on Sigma Iotia is that Kirk drove back and picked up McCoy's communicator. If it was that big of a deal, if it broke the Prime Directive by potentially influencing their development, it would be extremely negligent to leave it there.

It's hard for me to guess what influence the crew had on Iotian culture, because it was the crew that started imitating the Iotians. Kirk was wearing a suit, talking like a mobster and making deals; he gave them nothing to be inspired by that they didn't already have. In fact, I'm actually glad we got Trials and Tribble-ations and All the World's a Stage instead of a proper follow up, as it means I can carry on imagining that Kirk succeeded and repaired some of the damage the book did to their culture without messing things up any further.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I have trouble imagining getting a full "Mock Starfleet" from just a communicator. They might get a few fashion tips from the uniforms they saw. Krako might picked some design ideas from the transporter room. Now once the Feds started dropping by to pick up their cut, more cultural contamination could occur. Then snowball from there. But I'd hope the Feds would be more careful than McCoy and would follow Kirk's lead and use "Iotian" style when interacting.

Maybe of one you Treknical types can clue me in on how much tech would be in a communicator beyond well, that for communicating. If I left a walkie talkie with the Founding Fathers, would say Franklin and Jefferson be able to create machine guns and internal combustion engines?

 

[Phoenix219]

I have trouble imagining getting a full "Mock Starfleet" from just a communicator. They might get a few fashion tips from the uniforms they saw. Krako might picked some design ideas from the transporter room. Now once the Feds started dropping by to pick up their cut, more cultural contamination could occur. Then snowball from there. But I'd hope the Feds would be more careful than McCoy and would follow Kirk's lead and use "Iotian" style when interacting.

Maybe of one you Treknical types can clue me in on how much tech would be in a communicator beyond well, that for communicating. If left a walkie talkie with the Founding Fathers would say Franklin and Jefferson be able to create machine guns and internal combustion engines?

thats the type of thing that makes sense, but would have probably been glossed over in an old episode, and then been argument fodder for decades Lol.

 

[Will_Carter]

I have trouble imagining getting a full "Mock Starfleet" from just a communicator.

That one guy did get taken aboard ship when Scotty 'iced' him. So they had a surface level contact with a few things. However you are correct. You wouldn't get a whole lot out of that minimal contact. Enough for surface level similarities but nothing approaching culture.

 

[Will_Carter]

My assumption has always been that what happened next on Sigma Iotia is that Kirk drove back and picked up McCoy's communicator. If it was that big of a deal, if it broke the Prime Directive by potentially influencing their development, it would be extremely negligent to leave it there.

If nothing else that second contact would have clued the Iotians in on being part of a larger galactic community where they need to be organized in a damned hurry because they are drastically outgunned.

Apologies for the double post.

 

[Phoenix219]

I have trouble imagining getting a full "Mock Starfleet" from just a communicator. They might get a few fashion tips from the uniforms they saw. Krako might picked some design ideas from the transporter room. Now once the Feds started dropping by to pick up their cut, more cultural contamination could occur. Then snowball from there. But I'd hope the Feds would be more careful than McCoy and would follow Kirk's lead and use "Iotian" style when interacting.

Maybe of one you Treknical types can clue me in on how much tech would be in a communicator beyond well, that for communicating. If I left a walkie talkie with the Founding Fathers, would say Franklin and Jefferson be able to create machine guns and internal combustion engines?

well..... who knows what type of basic knowledge is stored in the communicator in case of emergency? maybe even hidden in a defunct OS somewhere.... just because its a sturdy physical walky talky doesn't mean there isn't an in depth piece of technology inside it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

well..... who knows what type of basic knowledge is stored in the communicator in case of emergency? maybe even hidden in a defunct OS somewhere.... just because its a sturdy physical walky talky doesn't mean there isn't an in depth piece of technology inside it.

Maybe if it was a tricorder.

 

[Will_Carter]

Maybe if it was a tricorder.

Bones clearly said communicator.

What could Krako have possibly learned from his brief visit to the Enterprise outside of basic uniform designs, overal arcitecture motifs, and that it's clearly millitary of some sort?

Bela and the other Bosses would have learned from Kirk:
That Starfleet is Big enough that their whole planet's operations would be 'peanuts.'
That Starfleet has ships that can, from orbit, just... casually render entire swathes of people non-issues.
That they have the ability to instantly take people from one place to another
That their comunicators run on frequencies that they don't have access to
Their handheld weapons are also powerful and run on energy as opposed to chemically shoving bullets about
That aliens exist (Spock didn't hide his ears, they can tell he is not Human) and are by all appearances peers and equals rather than subserviant.

 

[Phoenix219]

Maybe if it was a tricorder.

that would have been a much more engaging piece of technology to leave behind, for sure.

but - right now, our cell phones and tablets and devides are all differetn sizes and functions, but all run off the same basic starting point - maybe tricorder and communicator DO share some tech. the communicator is able to communicate to a ship in orbit, which is no small feat. is there a universal translator built in? if so, thats even more knowledge and tech. just saying, an explanation CAN be fabricated, if that storyline was insisted upon.


I still wish Enterprise had shown the Tri-corder being invented for the first time, by combining 3 separate devices they had been lugging around up to that point.

 

[Nerys Myk]

that would have been a much more engaging piece of technology to leave behind, for sure.

but - right now, our cell phones and tablets and devides are all differetn sizes and functions, but all run off the same basic starting point - maybe tricorder and communicator DO share some tech. the communicator is able to communicate to a ship in orbit, which is no small feat. is there a universal translator built in? if so, thats even more knowledge and tech. just saying, an explanation CAN be fabricated, if that storyline was insisted upon.


I still wish Enterprise had shown the Tri-corder being invented for the first time, by combining 3 separate devices they had been lugging around up to that point.

We see what communicators can do in TOS. They aren’t smartphones. TOS missed the boat on that one. Tricorders are probably closer to smartphones than a communicators.

Not sure about them being translators. Pretty sure we see Kirk and company chatting with aliens with no communicators present.

 

[somebuddyX]

They thought about going back there for the 30th Anniversary with the planet as a commentary on Trek fandom but someone pointed out there was the possibility that could be read as mocking the fandom, so they nixed it.
“It seemed like a pretty fun idea,” comments Behr. “All these people dressed up in Star Trek uniforms, living by the code of the Federation. But then we started to get paranoid, especially René, who said that he thought it could sound like were making fun of the fans.” While Behr notes that this was never anyone’s intention, he admits that once Echevarria placed the thought in their minds, the story line quickly died.

Star Trek – A Piece of the Action (Review)

Original gangsters…

them0vieblog.com

Also Michael Piller wanted to go there in 1990!

Revealed: Michael Piller Pitched Star Trek: TNG Sequel To TOS Episode “A Piece Of The Action”

Newly released memo from 1990 reveals the TNG showrunner 'dared' Rick Berman to do a sequel to a classic TOS episode.

trekmovie.com

Here's another thread from 2007:

TNG Sequel to 'A Piece of the Action'?

I heard that David Gerrold wrote one. In it, Picard and crew visit Sigma Iotia II from "A Piece of the Action", only because of McCoy's communicator being left behind, the planet is now a culture of TOS Starfleet (everyone wears Starfleet uniforms, all planetary communications are on Starfleet...

www.trekbbs.com

There was never a prequel concept, I assume, but Enterprise had the ECS Horizon and Mayweather's quarters had a copy of the book, but with the wrong name.

Also "The Communicator" is basically a serious look at what happened at the end of the episode.

 

[Will_Carter]

Here's another thread from 2007

I keep forgetting just how Old this place is.

 

[BK613]

Also Michael Piller wanted to go there in 1990!

As the thread you pointed to mentions, Lora Johnson's Worlds of the Federation had already gone there. Published in 1989, it showed a humanoid in a Starfleet uniform for its illustration of an Iotian.

 

[Will_Carter]

Published in 1989, it showed a humanoid in a Starfleet uniform for its illustration of an Iotian.

HMMM....

Interesting!

 

[Shawnster]

We see what communicators can do in TOS.

If you extrapolate from ENT, then the communicator also includes a universal translator.

From "Friday's Child" we see the communicator can be a crude sonic weapon. It can at least cause a rockslide.

Did we see the communicator transmit across subspace? "Mudd's Women" depicts a very long rang since Mudd talks to the miners before the Enterprise entered orbit.

MCCOY: But in all the confusion I
KIRK: Tell me.
MCCOY: I think I left it in Bela's office.
KIRK: You left it?
MCCOY: Somewhere. I'm not certain.
KIRK: You're not certain of what?
MCCOY: I left my communicator.
KIRK: In Bela's office?
SPOCK: Captain. If the Iotians, who are very bright and imitative people, should take that communicator apart
KIRK: They will, they will. And they'll find out how the transtator works.
SPOCK: The transtator is the basis for every important piece of equipment that we have.
KIRK: Everything.

So, it's not just the communicator, but a particular component inside the communicator that is cause for concern. The transtator is a basic component in many (everything) Federation devices. Sounds like leaving behind a microprocessor.

Everything we have now has a computer in it. I'm sure even the simplest Federation device is more complex than what we have now.

 

[Will_Carter]

So, it's not just the communicator, but a particular component inside the communicator that is cause for concern. The transtator is a basic component in many (everything) Federation devices. Sounds like leaving behind a microprocessor.

I'm going to paraphrase Terminator 2 here.
'We couldn't replicate it but that we could study it and knew it existed lead us into wild directions we would have never considered.'