Would you have a link about that?
“Arena” is one of the most anthologized science fiction stories ever (the internet speculative database has over fifty publications). It’s in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame (the first volume), which IIRC is still in print.
A quick search shows where you can get it online, but you have to register or something.:
http://www.manybooks.net/titles/brownfother08Arena.html
http://www.bookglutton.com/reader/unbound?group_id=0&id=4085&view=ub#href(title.xml#!0p:0)
DON’T just read the synopsis – the story’s really very good, and worthwhile reading in its entirety without being “spoilered”.
Actually, this site seems to have the story directly:
Thanks!
I’d make Richard Matheson rewrite his script for “The Enemy Within” to include a rational reason the Enterprise couldn’t beam Sulu and the landing party some blankets, or a few phasers to warm some rocks. Or even a fuzzy sweater. Fuzzy sweaters are already evil, so what damage would transporting them do?
They would probably rematerialize as flannel jammies with feet. The landing oarty would die of laughter looking at Sulu garbed in such a manner.
More balls? I’d go with the Mirror-Mirrorverse version right from the pilot. The Federation is The Empire!
Skald,
You said murder twice.
Lots of good ideas above. I think I’d have more examples of what would really happen when you fire on a starship. Especially after you’ve already wiped out a colony or something similar. The Federation would really have to play for keeps.
He likes murder. 
The Treaty of Hedylemarr requires me to obliquely refer to *Blazing Saddles *in all threads.
ditto!
I’d make it a lot more like Babylon 5, i.e.: No post-scarcity Roddentopia. Just because we have interstellar travel and shit does not mean humanity has outgrown political conflict or labor unrest or hate or fear or greed.
That’s Hedlylemarr.
With 14 seasons, we can revisit some places we only saw once. We can “watch Miri grow.” We can see “Leonard James Akaar” grow into a young man.
Bullshit!
TOS wasn’t post-scarcity. People had to work, particularly in the colony worlds.
Thread Winner!
Well, I did go out of my way to provoke the joke.
The shortest distance between two jokers is a straight line.
Yeah, right. :rolleyes:
Besides, you can’t win your own thread.
Wait a second. Fourteen years? That takes us past the first movie. Did you do that on purpose?
Ilia probably fits the character of this thread if we get to her before her oath of celibacy. She’s basically a female version of Kirk, if not worse. A promiscuous woman in a position like hers? That would be pretty edgy.
I didn’t say I won the thread. I implied, and am now saying, that I wrote murder twice to get someone to make a Blazing Saddles reference. I was beginning to worry that I’d wasted electrons.