Revolt on Dak-Alpha

"Revolt on Dak-Alpha" was a 21-page Star Trek: The Original Series comic strip published in. It was the 17th story arc in the UK comic strips series, released in seven parts within issues of TV21 Weekly.

Publisher's description

 * Teaser summary, November 14, 1970:
 * Believing a revolt on the planet Dak-Alpha had been put down by the space Federation governor, LeBrun, Captain Kirk took a party from Enterprise to ferry prisoners to Earth. The whole thing was a trap, and Kirk and his men found themselves at gunpoint within one of five massive statues.

Summary
A revolt by native s on the Federation colony Dak-Alpha was reportedly suppressed, and Governor LeBrun asked Starfleet to pick up imprisoned rebel leaders before they could make any more trouble. Admiral Nivens dispatched the Enterprise, and the next day Captain James T. Kirk, Spock, Hikaru Sulu, Hopkins and a crewmen landed Galileo at the designated coordinates, strangely in an arid wilderness. Above a rise, they discovered massively tall statues of themselves. A door opened in the foot of Kirk's statue, and when they heard LeBrun call them up, they rode a turbolift to the Kirk statue's head. There, they were confronted by rebels, who held LeBrun hostage and seized their phaser rifles.

Because LeBrun disabled all spacecraft on the planet, the rebel leader had been forced to lure a starship to Dak-Alpha. He planned to transfer an invasion force to the Enterprise, and the huge statues would become monuments honoring the deaths of the landing party members. The Kirk statue was lowered into a huge underground military hangar, and the landing party subjected to energy fields that would kill them, but leave their bodies animated as zombie slaves. Although LeBrun short-circuited the equipment at the cost of his life, the crew rose and obeyed commands. When Montgomery Scott landed a second shuttle nearby with an armed rescue squad, rebels engaged them, then allowed Scott to "rescue" Kirk's team.

Both shuttles returned to the shuttle bay. As the rebel leader watched on video, Kirk, Spock, and Sulu assembled the crew, then threw anesthesia gas grenades at them. The three wore gas masks as they made their way back to the hangar deck. They sent five shuttles down by remote and flew back together in the sixth shuttle. The three were taken below ground to die, while the six shuttles were flown back by armed rebel troops.

The soldiers expected to find the ship littered with corpses, but instead were confronted by squads of security officers. Kirk's team had actually survived exposure to the zombie weapon and managed to alert the crew before gassing them. Most of the invading rebels were captured, but a few fled in Einstein. Meanwhile, Kirk, Spock and Sulu sabotaged the main generators of the rebel base. Aboard Galileo, Pavel Chekov witnessed scores of rebels flee as their base exploded. All were to be rounded up for a trip aboard the Enterprise.

Characters

 * Pavel Chekov • Hopkins • James T. Kirk • LeBrun • Nivens • Montgomery Scott • Spock • Hikaru Sulu • Nyota Uhura • unnamed Alphans (Zak-Alpha) • unnamed USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel

Starships and vehicles

 * Einstein • USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) ( heavy cruiser) • NCC-1701/3 • NCC-1701/4 • Galileo (class F shuttlecraft) • unnamed Federation shuttlecraft • tanks

Locations

 * Dak-Alpha • Central City

Earth • Jupiter • Kalakon

Races and cultures

 * Alphan (Zak-Alpha) • Human • Vulcan

States and organizations

 * Federation

Science and technology

 * airlock • cannon • communications • communicator • force field • gas grenade • generator • liquidation chamber • rifle • turbolift • viewscreen • weapon

Ranks and titles

 * admiral • captain • chief engineer • colonel • crewman • ensign • Federation Starfleet ranks (2260s) • general • governor • officer • rank • rebel • skipper • soldier • Starfleet ranks

Other references

 * 21st century • assignment patch • brig • city • civilization • colony • day • desert • dog • firing squad • galaxy • gas • helmet • hostage • parking orbit • planet • prison • quarters • rebellion • second • sector • security • shuttle bay • space • star • Starfleet uniform • Starfleet uniform (2265-2270) • statue • uniform • ventilation system • video • zombie

Background

 * The story was not printed with a title, but it was given one ("Revolt on Dak-Alpha") for its reprinting in the omnibus The Classic UK Comics, Volume 1.
 * Artists Harold Johns and Ron Turner drew separate halves of the story, with their distinct styles resulting in differing interpretations of the rebel leader.
 * The writer presented the Federation as analogous to the British Empire during its reign over India. In this story, the Federation established a colony on a previously-inhabited world, with Humans in charge of a government over native s who resembled the people of India. Rather than respecting the rights of the indigenous population, Federation authorities responded to an uprising with military force.
 * One might assume that Kirk and Spock would visit Dak-Alpha, which gave the rebels one day to build 100-foot statues of them. However, it was unexplained how statues of Sulu and Hopkins could be built in the brief time it took for them to be chosen for the mission, fly to the surface, disembark and climb up a slope. Since most of the statues were in different poses in the October 31, 1970 strip than in the November 7, 1970 strip, perhaps they were made of more malleable material than the rigid Kirk statue.
 * Kirk commented that the Enterprise was not equipped as an active combat vehicle. However, in several previous stories in the UK comic strips series, Kirk used the Enterprise as an active combat vehicle, particularly in "The Third Party" and "The Eagles Have Landed".

Related stories

 * ,, – Other stories in which the Enterprise was commandeered by armed militants.
 * – In 2266, a stone sculpture of Spock was worshipped as the deity Unruho on Neesan.
 * – In 2273, 24,000-year-old stone statues of Kirk, Spock and McCoy were discovered on Andrea IV.

Production history

 * Pavel Chekov was aboard, but not necessarily acting as one of the regular bridge crew, which places this story after his arrival aboard the Enterprise in February 2267.


 * This story was serialized over seven weekly issues:


 * October 1970:
 * 31 October: Pages 1-3 published in TV21 Weekly #58.
 * November 1970:
 * 7 November: Pages 4-6 published in TV21 Weekly #59.
 * 14 November: Pages 7-9 published in TV21 Weekly #60.
 * 21 November: Pages 10-12 published in TV21 Weekly #61.
 * 28 November: Pages 13-15 published in TV21 Weekly #62.
 * December 1970:
 * 5 December: Pages 16-18 published in TV21 Weekly #63.
 * 12 December: Pages 19-21 published in TV21 Weekly #64.
 * April 2016 : Reprinted in the omnibus The Classic UK Comics, Volume 1 (IDW Publishing)
 * 28 September 2017 : Reprinted in the omnibus Graphic Novel Collection #20 (Eaglemoss)