"Vibrations in Time" was a 15-page Star Trek: The Original Series comic strip. It was the 24th weekly story arc in the UK comic strips series, published in five installments in TV21 Weekly in 1971. This was the last of six stories drawn by Vicente Alcázar and Carlos Pino. In this story, a temporal disruption sent the USS Enterprise into the past.
Description[]
- Teaser, September 11, 1971
- The starship Enterprise passed through a strange time warp and found itself eight hundred years in the past, in orbit above the planet Zeltok. Knowing from historical records that the planet was shortly doomed to explode, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and two crewmen went down to see if Zelkot was inhabited…
Summary[]
During the night shift, the USS Enterprise travels through an astral storm that knocks out the crew and sends the starship a great distance through space. As the ship approaches a planet known to have self-destructed, they are stunned to discover that they have time traveled. The planet will be dead in two weeks, so Kirk takes a landing party with him aboard the Galileo to explore the world.
After narrowly avoiding gigantic ants and walking through an abandoned humanoid city, the crew spots a herd of gorillas that are beckoning them. Kirk lands the shuttlecraft near a fortress and meets Karn, the last surviving Zeltok humanoid. Armies of intelligent Zeltok ants had destroyed his people's civilization, but the sentient gorillas had protected him, and he intends to die in their company. Kirk tells him about the planet's impending destruction and offers to take him to safety. Karn prefers to stay with the gorillas. As the ants begin an assault on the fortress, missiles from the shuttle repel some of the ants, though the onslaught seems to be unstoppable. Karn steals a phaser and insists that the Galileo leave without him.
The shuttle returns to the Enterprise. As the starship leaves orbit, it is caught in another astral storm, which returns it to the 2260s. The transit erases the crew's memories of their travel into the past, leaving only a minor mystery: a missing phaser.
References[]
Characters[]
- Karn • James T. Kirk • Sankey • Montgomery Scott • Spock • Nyota Uhura • Joe Wells • ant-monsters • gorilla-creatures
Starships and vehicles[]
Locations[]
- Perseant Alpha system • Zeltok
- Referenced only
- Earth
Races and cultures[]
- Human • Vulcan • Zeltok • Zeltok ant • Zeltok gorilla
States and organizations[]
Science and technology[]
Ranks and titles[]
- captain • chief engineer • crewman • Federation Starfleet ranks (2260s) • rank • sentry • skipper • Starfleet ranks
Other references[]
- 15th century • assignment patch • astral storm • atmosphere • beard • boulder • bridge • city • duty shift • gorilla • gravity • holocaust • hour • humanoid • mile • minute • orbit • quarters • Starfleet uniform • Starfleet uniform (2265-2270) • time warp • universe • year
Appendices[]
Related media[]
- TOS comic: "The Ageless One" – A similar vibration effect brought the Enterprise forward into the 33rd century.
- TOS comic: "The Crucial Element" – Crucial III similarly self-destructed shortly after it was visited by the Enterprise.
- TOS comic: "To Swiftly Go..." – An Enterprise landing party encountered giant ants and humanoids on Kwettir.
- TOS episode & Star Trek 9 novelization: Obsession – Kirk regretted a moment he froze during a crisis aboard the USS Farragut.
Background[]
- This story was not printed with a title, but it was given one ("Vibrations in Time") for its reprinting in the omnibus The Classic UK Comics, Volume 2. Each segment began on the cover and continued onto two interior pages of TV21 Weekly magazine.
- This was the final story arc printed in TV21 Weekly magazine. IPC Publications merged the weekly with another comic strip anthology called Valiant, and the combined entity was relaunched as Valiant and TV21 in October 1971. The UK comic strips series continued in the new magazine with a different creative team.
- Galileo (NCC-1701/1) made its third of four appearances in the UK comic strips series. It also appeared in "The Mimicking Menace" by Gold Key Comics.
Images[]
Chronology[]
- 1465
- The USS Enterprise arrived 800 years and two weeks into the past.
- 2265
- After time travel, the Enterprise crew had no memory or evidence of their adventure, except that a phaser was missing.
Connections[]
Timeline[]
| Published Order | ||
|---|---|---|
| Previous comic: Prison Break |
TOS comics (UK comic strips) | Next comic: The Aging World |
| Chronological Order | ||
| Previous adventure: Nova-Thirteen |
Memory Beta Chronology | Next adventure: The Zodian Sacrifice |
| Previous comic: Nova-Thirteen |
Voyages of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), Year One | Next comic: The Zodian Sacrifice |
Production history[]
- 4 September 1971: Pages 4-6 published in TV21 Weekly #102.
- 11 September 1971: Pages 7-9 published in TV21 Weekly #103.
- 18 September 1971: Pages 10-12 published in TV21 Weekly #104.
- 25 September 1971: Pages 13-15 published in TV21 Weekly #105.
- December 2016
- Reprinted in the omnibus The Classic UK Comics, Volume 2. (IDW Publishing)
- 1 February 2018
- Reprinted in the omnibus Graphic Novel Collection, Volume 29. (Eaglemoss Collections)
External link[]
- Vibrations in Time article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.