"Revolt on Dak-Alpha" was a 21-page Star Trek: The Original Series comic strip published in 1970. It was the 17th story arc in the UK comic strips series, released in seven parts within issues of TV21 Weekly.
Description
- Teaser, 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 Alphans on the Federation colony Dak-Alpha is reportedly suppressed, and Governor LeBrun asks Starfleet to pick up imprisoned rebel leaders before they can make any more trouble. Admiral Nivens dispatches the Enterprise, and the next day Captain James T. Kirk, Spock, Hikaru Sulu, Hopkins and a crewman lands the Galileo at the designated coordinates, strangely in an arid wilderness. Above a rise, they discover massively tall statues of themselves. A door opens in the foot of Kirk's statue, and when they hear LeBrun call them up, they ride a turbolift to the Kirk statue's head. There, they are confronted by rebels, who hold LeBrun hostage and seize 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 plans to transfer an invasion force to the Enterprise, and the huge statues will become monuments honoring the deaths of the landing party members. The Kirk statue is lowered into a huge underground military hangar, and the landing party subjected to energy fields that will kill them, but leave their bodies animated as zombie slaves. Although LeBrun short-circuits the equipment at the cost of his life, the crew rise and obey commands. When Montgomery Scott lands a second shuttle nearby with an armed rescue squad, rebels engage them, then allow Scott to "rescue" Kirk's team.
Both shuttles return to the shuttle bay. As the rebel leader watches on video, Kirk, Spock, and Sulu assemble the crew, then throw anesthesia gas grenades at them. The three wear gas masks as they make their way back to the hangar deck. They send five shuttles down by remote and fly back together in the sixth shuttle. The three are taken below ground to die, while the six shuttles are flown back by armed rebel troops.
The soldiers expect to find the ship littered with corpses, but instead are 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 are captured, but a few flee in the Einstein. Meanwhile, Kirk, Spock and Sulu sabotage the main generators of the rebel base. Aboard the Galileo, Pavel Chekov witnesses scores of rebels flee as their base explodes. All are to be rounded up for a trip aboard the Enterprise.
References
Characters
- Pavel Chekov • Hopkins • James T. Kirk • LeBrun • Nivens • Montgomery Scott • Spock • Hikaru Sulu • Nyota Uhura • unnamed Dak-Alphans • unnamed USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel
Starships and vehicles
- Einstein • USS Enterprise (Constitution-class heavy cruiser) • NCC-1701/3 • NCC-1701/4 • Galileo (II) (class F shuttlecraft) • unnamed Federation shuttlecraft • tanks
Locations
Races and cultures
States and organizations
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
Appendices
Related media
- TOS movie: The Final Frontier, TOS episodes: "Space Seed", "By Any Other Name", TOS comic: "Planet of Rejects" – Other stories in which the Enterprise is commandeered by armed militants.
- TOS comic: "The Cosmic Cavemen" – In 2266, a stone sculpture of Spock is worshipped as the deity Unruho on Neesan.
- TOS comic: "Tomorrow or Yesterday" – In 2273, 24,000-year-old stone statues of Kirk, Spock and McCoy are discovered on Andrea IV.
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 establishes a colony on a previously inhabited world, with Humans in charge of a government over native Dak-Alphans who resemble the people of India. Rather than respecting the rights of the indigenous population, Federation authorities respond to an uprising with military force. (British Raj article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)
- 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 is unexplained how statues of Sulu and Hopkins can 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 comments that the Enterprise is not equipped as an active combat vehicle. However, in several previous stories in the UK comic strips series, Kirk uses the Enterprise as an active combat vehicle, particularly in "The Third Party" and "The Eagles Have Landed".
Images
Connections
Timeline
- 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 TOS comic: "Mister Chekov".
| Published Order | ||
|---|---|---|
| Previous comic: Under the Sea |
TOS comics (UK comic strips) | Next comic: Where Giants Tread |
| Chronological Order | ||
| Previous adventure: Spectre of the Zond |
Memory Beta Chronology | Next adventure: Spheres of War |
| Previous comic: Spectre of the Zond |
Voyages of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), Year Two | Next comic: Spheres of War |
Production history
- This story was serialized over seven weekly issues:
- 31 October: Pages 1-3 published in TV21 Weekly #58.
- 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.
- 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, Volume 20. (Eaglemoss Collections)
External link
- Revolt on Dak-Alpha article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
