Balance of Terror
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- This article is about an episode of Star Trek. See "Balance of terror" for the Cold War policy.
"Balance of Terror" is a first season episode of the Star Trek: The Original Series. It was first aired on December 15, 1966. It is episode #9, and was written by Paul Schneider and directed by Vincent McEveety.
It was the first episode of Star Trek to feature the reoccurring alien race of the Romulans. The captain of the Romulan ship is played by Mark Lenard, who would later play Spock's father, Sarek.
The episode has been described as a 1950s submarine movie in space, specifically The Enemy Below (1957).
Quick Overview: The crew of the Enterprise face off with the Romulans, in a test of power.
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On stardate 1709.1, the starship USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk is sent to pursue an alien ship that has destroyed a number of Federation outposts, the latest being #4 near the Romulan neutral zone. It is feared that after a century of non-contact the antagonistic Romulans, who the Federation has never seen in the flesh, have rebuilt their forces for another round of warfare.
Captain Kirk arrives in the Neutral Zone and discovers that a lone ship, identified as a Romulan Bird of Prey, has a surprising ability, it can attain invisibility with a cloaking device.
It is detected that this cloak is not perfect, and the Enterprise manages to track the ship, which appears to be returning home after what has been a test of military strength. The Enterprise also taps into the Romulans' internal security camera feed and makes another astonishing discovery: the Romulans are, in all appearance, identical to the Vulcans.
One of the Enterprise's bridge staff, Lieutenant Stiles, has long held a personal grudge against the Romulans for family reasons left pending from the last war. Stiles begins to associate the Vulcan Mr. Spock, a fellow officer, with his grievances.
During a briefing over the Romulan ship's capabilities, Mr. Spock surprises everyone when he counsels the captain to attack the intruders as a demonstration of strength. While Spock is not positive, he thinks it likely that Romulans are an ancestral off-shoot of the Vulcans. Such an ancient schism would have occurred during an age of savage warfare, before the Vulcan philosophy of logic as introduced by the great Surak, took hold. If these are a people who rejected Surak, then they will imply weakness from their foes if not confronted.
A mutual game of cat-and-mouse between the two ships ensues, with each ship having unique advantages over the other. The Romulan ship has far greater stealth than the Enterprise and is armed with plasma torpedoes of immense destructive power, however, the Enterprise is much faster and more maneuverable than its opponent. The Romulan's torpedoes prove much less effective against an evasive target than they were against stationary asteroid bases, and require so much power to fire that the ship must decloak to do so. While cloaked, however, the Enterprise is unable to target the Romulan ship effectively itself.
As this conflict proceeds, the activities of both the Enterprise crew and the Romulan ship's captain, reveal the Romulan to be a thoughtful and well-developed adversary. The battle becomes as much a personal battle of wits between the two captains as a battle between starships, with each attempting to understand the other's psychology.
Finally, it seems to the Romulans that they have the upper hand. They should make for home but they can't resist a finishing shot. When the Romulan ship becomes visible one last time to launch a torpedo, the Enterprise manages to disable it with its phasers, but not before suffering an equipment failure which leaves the weapons system crucially off-line and the bigoted Lieutenant Stiles incapacitated at his post. Ironically it is Mr. Spock who rescues both the ship and Stiles.
Kirk hails the crippled Bird of Prey and at last communicates directly with his Romulan counterpart, offering to take on survivors. The Romulan captain responds that he has "one last duty to perform" and triggers his ship's self-destruct, preventing its crew and technology from falling into Federation hands.
Trivia
The relatives that Lieutenant Stiles mentions killed in the Earth-Romulan war would have served in Starfleet during the exact same time frame as the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise. The actual Earth-Romulan war, however, is never depicted in the later series since Enterprise was cancelled in its fourth season before the Romulan threat to Earth could be fuly developed.
The Enterprise's phasers, in this episode, were used on a proximity setting. As a result, the ship fired exploding flare like bursts that acted very much like depth charges. At the time this episode was written, phasers were the only known armament on the Enterprise and served as the all purpose weapon. Photon torpedoes were introduced in season two and this proximity phaser setting was never seen again.