Changes: The World Beneath the Waves

Revision as of 20:33, 16 February 2020

Kirk plunges into a watery world of hostile mutants! — "The World Beneath the Waves" was a comic book story published by Gold Key Comics in February 1977, the 43rd issue of their TOS series. It was the 15th comic written by Arnold Drake and the fifth drawn by Alden McWilliams. In this story, Leonard McCoy's estranged daughter Barbara McCoy joined the USS Enterprise crew to explore an underwater civilization.

Publisher's description

Teaser: The strange water world was threatened from within – threatened by its own genes! The king's answer was, kill the rebels at birth! Thus the strangest of all civil wars was brewing as the crew of the Enterprise prepared to visit...The World Beneath The Waves.

Summary

Captain's log, stardate 19:26.03:

Priority 2-A message from Starship Command HQ has interrupted previous schedule...

The Enterprise was diverted to pick up a technical advisor and a new assignment. At the coordinates, a small craft landed on the hangar deck, and Barbara McCoy disembarked. Her father Leonard greeted her with a hug. James T. Kirk asked why she would be needed on a mission when the ship already had three xenobiologists aboard. She mentioned having written a paper on adaptability to severe climate change, and had prepared a mission briefing which would explain.

In Barbara's quarters, Leonard was enthusiastic to get to know Barbara. But his daughter was reticent, sniping at him not having done so in the past and not looking to bond. Leonard remarked she had a bitter streak. Overhearing from the doorway, Kirk stepped into the room to address the concerns. He said that in the brief time he'd known her, he'd become fond of her, but no family tension would be allowed to interfere with the smooth operation of the ship. She acknowledged the order with a salute. Kirk suggested he and Leonard review the mission briefing. Outside, Leonard lamented that if he hadn't been "out here chasing glory," Leonard might still have a family. Kirk reminded him of duty handbook paragraph 28, sub-paragraph G that “the long and disorienting tours of SF duty recommend no long-term relationships.”

A virtual-reality briefing on Bwuja showed that seven thousand years ago, radioactive debris from an ancient supernova incinerated the planet's surface, completely destroying the cities of the Bwujans and boiling the tops of the oceans. Having seen the storm approach for several centuries, a small portion of Bwujan civilization with gill transplants managed to survive in deep trenches below the sea. Over time, the surface cooled and gill mutations gave the Bwujans natural water-breathing ability. Radiation had since subsided on the surface. The Enterprise was assigned to study the underwater society as it was today, having gone through the fastest natural adaptation on record.

Scott visited Barbara, telling her that Leonard was a decent man. But Barbara said the job of his daughter was vacant.

Kirk, Spock, Leonard and Barbara beamed to the surface in diving gear. They ingested comp-ox capsules, which provided enough oxygen to breath for 24 hours. Swimming down one mile, they were met by a trio of Bwujans riding large, purple, domesticated Bwujan porpoises. They led the landing party to an undersea city and an audience with King Raan XIV and Queen Saya, who spoke via telepathy, which Barbara saw as another mutative adaptation to undersea life. She said they came to be friends and learn from them, but Raan called them air breathers from another world, condemned them as part of air-breathing ancestors who "made the gods angry and destroyed our surface land," and said they would be tried and executed in two days.

Captain's log, stardate 30:21.4:

Captives of the underwater world we had come to study, our march to imprisonment is interrupted by a sombre sight.

En route to their cell, they saw a funeral procession, a baby casket with two pall bearers and six family members. Once in the cell, water was pumped out and they were in an air chamber. Hearing tapping from a wall, they phasered a hole and tunneled into another room containing air-breathing Bwujans, people who had been born without gills. One of them, Lojo, said one out of many thousands was born without gills. Publicly, they appeared to be killed, but Raan secretly sent them to the air-filled caverns. Some tried to climb to the surface, but mutated beasts called agaaras killed them. Lojo said Raan and Saya had lost their own child prematurely, and Saya couldn't bear another.

As the landing party followed the route of the climbers, they encountered an agaara, which charged and grabbed Barbara. Leonard saved her life by distracting the creature with phaser fire. It dropped her and chased him. Although it resisted the phaser beams, it eventually broke it apart before it could kill him.

Finally they reached the surface. There they found a young boy, who brought the landing party inside a cave to meet his parents, former climbers now living on the surface. Tako, the boy's father, said 58 people lived on the surface, 14 of whom had been born there. They didn't try to help air-breathers below for fear Raan would have them all killed.

Spock suddenly cried out, and outside Kirk found Spock held at knife-point by Raan, who had followed them. Lamenting his own compassion, Raan accused the air-babies of building the world his priests warned of, air-breathers who would threaten his undersea world. He declared that the surface king had to die, and, dragging Spock into the cave with him, he discovered their king was Doro, a child. His raised his knife anyway, but Saya appeared and stopped him. Doro was actually their own child. Saya had given birth to an air breather, but fearing that Raan would kill the child, Saya lied about its death and instead left it on the surface. Tako said they'd found the baby on the shore and raised it as their leader.

Realizing Doro could have been with them all along if Raan had been honest with Saya, Raan decided the child should live in the air caves near them. But Tako's wife proposed an alternative. She showed them her second child, who was a water-breather. Raan had an air-breathing child, and Tako had a water-breathing child. Following her logic, Spock suggested that the two families exchange children so both could live in their natural environments, and they all agreed.

Back on the ship, Leonard and Barbara seemed to have mended their differences. Spock observed that the forced child separations on Bwuja must have affected the McCoys.

References

Characters

Amu • Doro • James T. Kirk • Lojo • Barbara McCoy • Leonard McCoy • Raan XIV • Saya • Montgomery Scott • Spock • Tako • Tako's wife • Nyota Uhura
Referenced only: Devil • Rudyard Kipling • Jocelyn Treadway (?)

Starships and vehicles

USS Enterprise (Constitution-class heavy cruiser) • shuttle • submarines

Locations

Bwuja
Referenced only: Earth (Sahara)

Science and technology

A-bomb • airlock • comp-ox capsule • dagger • depthometer • engine room • helmet • harpoon • lingua-disc • mechanical gill • menta-pix • phaser • radiation • sensor • spacesuit • supernova • telescope • tool belt • transplant • transporter • xeno-biologist

Lifeforms

agaara • butterfly • Bwujan porpoise • lizard • jellyfish • monkey • porpoise • seahorse • squid

Other references

19th century • 20th century • air • atom • beam • boulder • carnival • cave • cell • century • cigar • civil war • communication • coordinates • day • duties handbook • execution • fire • firing squad • funeral • gene • history • hour • hyperspace • light speed • marriage • minute • mutation • obdurium • ocean • oxygen • paper • plant • prison cell • pyramids • quarters • second • sector • skeleton • star • starship • stone • supernova • superstition • telepathy • tomb • transporter room • tree • water • year

Timeline

Chronology

The story took place at least three weeks after the events of TOS comic: "Furlough to Fury", unless Barbara McCoy had already started training for the Bwujan mission during the events of that story.

Appendices

Connections

Published Order
Previous comic: World Against Time	TOS (Gold Key	Next comic: Prince Traitor
Previous story: World Against Time	Stories by: Arnold Drake	Next story: Prince Traitor
Chronological Order
Previous adventure: Furlough to Fury	Memory Beta Chronology	Next adventure: Prince Traitor

Background

Spock quoted, "Ours is not to reason why," which he attributed to Rudyard Kipling. The quote was actually from "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Tennyson: "Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die." Kipling's poem about the brigade does not contain the verse. Kirk made the same quote 19 issues earlier, in "The Trial of Captain Kirk", and correctly attributed it to Tennyson, to which Spock had replied, "a perceptive gentleman." (The Charge of the Light Brigade article at the Poetry Foundation websiteand The Last of the Light Brigade article at the Kipling Society website)
The landing party dove 2,600 feet (792.48 meters) before encountering the first Bwujans, then traveled further down before entering the city. Comp-ox capsules might have compensated for all their breathing needs, but additional uncited medical assistance would be needed for this dive. The pressure at that depth would be a crushing 78 atmospheres, and nitrogen narcosis would be a risk when entering the air-filled caverns and making the half-mile climb back to the surface. (Pressure at depth calculator at the Blue Robotics website and Deep_diving article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.).
Raan assessed that the visitors were air breathers from another world, although there appeared to be no way he could have known that. The Bwujans appeared human, and thanks to the comp-ox capsules the landing party would appear to be breathing water, and could just as easily have been mistaken for Bwujans from another city. Perhaps the landing party identified themselves a few moments before, not shown in the story. Or Raan jumped to conclusions because the visitors were neither telepathic nor radioactive, and their necks were covered by clothing, suggesting no gills.
The stardate in the second log jumped ahead more than a year. That span of dates was inconsistent with their usage in TOS.
Nyota Uhura was only seen from the back in one panel at the communications station when the priority message arrived from Starfleet.

Barbara McCoy

Dr. Barbara McCoy was introduced three issues earlier, in "Furlough to Fury". In that story, she suggested to Kirk that she might one day do offworld studies for Urey University, and if so they might meet again, planting the seed for her reappearance in this story.
Barbara was presented a little differently in her prior appearance. She had black hair and, while also estranged, seemed much less bitter about her father. She was a civilian doctor, an assistant professor of xenozoology at Urey University. In this story, she wore a Starfleet uniform with lieutenant stripes. Given her background, temporary Starfleet service may have been the method through which her civilian offworld studies were arranged.
In the previous story, as one might expect of a xenobiologist, Barbara was extremely comfortable around large, alien animal life. She allowed herself to be suspended by the tentacle of a Rykunian octopus while feeding it. She cultivated a delicacy for, and fed, a mammoth bear-like vrell, which hugged her, and she later put herself in harm's way for the animal. She said she took care of dozens of animals. In this story, though, she shrieked in terror at the sight of the large agaara, yelling "look at that – thing!" The behavior seemed inconsistent. It had to have been an instinctive reaction to a deadly threat from an unknown lifeform, as opposed to the familiarity of animals in her lab.

Images

Production history

February 1977: First published by Gold Key Comics
2004 June: Printed in the omnibus The Key Collection, Volume 5 (Checker Book Publishing Group)
September 2008: Included on The Complete Comic Book Collection DVD (Graphic Imaging Technologies)
27 September 2018: Reprinted in Graphic Novel Collection #46 (Eaglemoss)

Translations

1978: Dutch: In the omnibus Ruimteschip Enterprise Classics Strip-Paperback #2 (De Vrijbuiter)
1978: German: As "Welt unter den Wogen" in the omnibus Raumschiff Enterprise Comic Taschenbuch #2 (Condor)
1980: German: As "Welt unter den Wogen" in some editions of Condor Superheiden #1: Star Trek Jahrbuch (Condor-Verlag)
2007: Italian: As "Il mondo al di sotto del mare" in the omnibus The Gold Key Collection, Volume 10 (Free Books)

External links

The World Beneath the Waves article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
Best of Gold Key #42-61 article at The Mugato's Blog.

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-''Kirk plunges into a watery world of hostile mutants!'' — '''The World Beneath the Waves''' was a [[comic book]] story published by [[Gold Key Comics]] in {{srcdate|1977|February}}, the 43rd issue of their ''[[TOS]]'' series. It was the 15th comic written by [[Arnold Drake]] and the fifth drawn by [[Alden McWilliams]]. In this story, [[Leonard McCoy]]'s estranged daughter [[Barbara McCoy]] joined the {{uSS|Enterprise|NCC-1701}} crew to explore an underwater [[civilization]].
+''Kirk plunges into a watery world of hostile mutants!'' — "'''The World Beneath the Waves"''' was a [[comic book]] story published by [[Gold Key Comics]] in {{srcdate|1977|February}}, the 43rd issue of their ''[[TOS]]'' series. It was the 15th comic written by [[Arnold Drake]] and the fifth drawn by [[Alden McWilliams]]. In this story, [[Leonard McCoy]]'s estranged daughter [[Barbara McCoy]] joined the {{uSS|Enterprise|NCC-1701}} crew to explore an underwater [[civilization]].
 ==Publisher's description==
@@ Line 81: / Line 81: @@
 ===Other references===
-:[[19th century]] • [[20th century]] • [[atmosphere|air]] • [[atom]] • [[beaem]] • [[rock|boulder]] • [[carnival]] • [[cave]] • [[cell]] • [[century]] • [[cigar]] • [[civil war]] • [[communication]] • [[coordinates]] • [[day]] • [[duties handbook]] • [[execution]] • [[fire]] • [[firing squad]] • [[funeral]] • [[gene]] • [[history]] • [[hour]] • [[warp speed|hyperspace]] • [[light speed]] • [[marriage]] • [[minute]] • [[mutation]] • [[obdurium]] • [[ocean]] • [[oxygen]] • [[paper]] • [[plant]] • [[prison|prison cell]] • [[pyramid]]s • [[quarters]] • [[second]] • [[sector]] • [[skeleton]] • [[star]] • [[starship]] • [[stone]] • [[supernova]] • [[superstition]] • [[telepathy]] • [[tomb]] • [[transporter room]] • [[tree]] • [[water]] • [[year]]
+:[[19th century]] • [[20th century]] • [[atmosphere|air]] • [[atom]] • [[beam]] • [[rock|boulder]] • [[carnival]] • [[cave]] • [[cell]] • [[century]] • [[cigar]] • [[civil war]] • [[communication]] • [[coordinates]] • [[day]] • [[duties handbook]] • [[execution]] • [[fire]] • [[firing squad]] • [[funeral]] • [[gene]] • [[history]] • [[hour]] • [[warp speed|hyperspace]] • [[light speed]] • [[marriage]] • [[minute]] • [[mutation]] • [[obdurium]] • [[ocean]] • [[oxygen]] • [[paper]] • [[plant]] • [[prison|prison cell]] • [[pyramid]]s • [[quarters]] • [[second]] • [[sector]] • [[skeleton]] • [[star]] • [[starship]] • [[stone]] • [[supernova]] • [[superstition]] • [[telepathy]] • [[tomb]] • [[transporter room]] • [[tree]] • [[water]] • [[year]]
 ==Timeline==

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