# Star Trek-A Piece of the Action
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 13, 2002, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492 "2002-12-13T13:31:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/21 "2002-12-13T19:32:43Z")
If they had the idea of holodecks back then, this would just be another one of those lame holodeck episodes and there would be no discussion about why those aliens decided to mimic humans.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/22 "2002-12-13T21:04:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Eonwe \*
> \*\*After a cop spots Spock’s ears:
>
> [paraphrase]
> _… he had a tragic accident as a child involving a rice picker…_
>
> [/paraphrase]
>
> Also, the game of Fizbin. I love that scene. \*\*
My inate geekery compels me to point out the rice-picker bit is from another episode: “City on the Edge of Forever”.
I always wanted to see a sequel in which we see some spacefaring Iotion tourists walking around Deep Space Nine wearing old-style Trek uniforms like Kirk, Spock, etc. They’d be considered the costume-wearing geeks of the 24th century.
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/23 "2002-12-13T21:21:00Z")
You all should remember, the creators of _TOS_ did not have a huge budget like later shows. They had to reuse old, leftover sets at times. Gene was quite the insider and had a line on all sorts of things. So, he often planned story ideas around what was available to him. D C Fontana was the writer of choice for most of those types of shows. David P. Harmon wrote this one.
You gotta see [this](http://www.cs.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/nph-spock). Click on the Spock.
> [@](#):
>
> **Without followers, evil cannot spread.**
>
> _And The Children Shall Lead_ stardate 5029.5.
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### Author:  [@AmbushBug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmbushBug)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/24 "2002-12-13T22:12:02Z")
> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by CalMeacham \*
> \*\* Can you imagine human beings so completely copying an alien culture? I could uy taking on some aspects of an alien culture, or sometimes sort of “role playing” in it, but not completely burying my own culture._\*
[This](http://www.kli.org/) is a beginning.
When you say “alien” culture, I know you mean “other-worldly”. But how is it any different from an american Japanophile outfitting his home with “traditional” paper walls, removing shoes on entering, and occasionally donning elaborate Japanese clothing?
Or participants in SCA and/or RenFaire events?
Sure, this is all play-acting - but there’s some point where one culture is influenced (some would say “destroyed”) by another in many ways. Such as the effects of “Western” culture on “Asian” cultures.
AmbushBug
[sub]now i’m wondering if this culture-adoption thing extends to computer desktop themes[/sub]
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### Author:  [@TheeGrumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheeGrumpy)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/25 "2002-12-13T22:42:21Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by AmbushBug \*
> \*\*…how is it any different from an american Japanophile outfitting his home with “traditional” paper walls, removing shoes on entering, and occasionally donning elaborate Japanese clothing?
Ironically, I was planning on citing the same example – in reverse! I haven’t yet had the pleasure of visiting Japan, but my impression is that it is an alien (to me) culture that has adopted, and in some ways modified, US or Western idioms. Baseball, to name just one instance.
So I don’t find the Iotians’ imitative nature unprecedented.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/26 "2002-12-13T23:25:28Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Exapno Mapcase \*
> \*\*I remember a Fantastic Four comic in which they travel to a Skrull world in which everybody was dressed up as 20’s Earth gangsters because they liked the culture so much they had adopted it. This may have been early enough to precede the Star Trek. OTOH, I don’t remember the STar Trek episode at all.
>
> The Hoka stories were a collaboration of Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson, and they were indeed wonderful. \*\*
Piece of the Action was a second season show, so I doubt the Fantastic Four comic came before it.
I love this show also, especially the Fizzbin game and Kirk trying to drive a car with a stick shift.
At the end Kirk worries that the people on this planet would come looking for a “piece of our action.” I wish we could have seen that.
“Who’s interfering, we’re just taking over.”
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/27 "2002-12-13T23:48:55Z")
There are lots of great lines in that episode; while brandishing a .45, Kirk says, “But that ain’t, ya’ know, suttle.”
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### Author:  [@Tars\_Tarkas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tars_Tarkas)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/28 "2002-12-13T23:50:34Z")
The mobsters should return and fight the Nazi’s from that other planet.
“It’s Capone vs. Hitler in the battle of the century…the 24th Century!”
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### Author:  [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2002, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/29 "2002-12-14T01:27:11Z")
Rightly adjudged one of the ten best episodes of _Star Trek_ at the time of the 20th(?) anniversary.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2002, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/30 "2002-12-16T20:34:26Z")
I did some research and found that the Skrull gangster world was in Fantastic Four # 91, which was after Star Trek.
In the research I also came across the [G-Men](http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/gmenmicr.htm). Evidently, this is an idea that will not die.
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### Author:  [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2002, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/31 "2002-12-16T21:02:59Z")
My favorite episode!
I have to agree I’ve seen people dress up like caharacters from fictional movies and shows because they ar enamoured with them.
I Ran a version of Star Trek the Role playing game in which the characters from the later Movies era ran into Iotians running an extortion racket with underdeveloped pre warp planets. Essentially they found the transtator combined it with teh technology they found in a crashed Orion Freightor developed their own warp vessels. Since the Feds never showed up to collect they decided to expand their Syndicate under Jojo Krako who rubbed out Oykmx in a coup/hit.
It was pretty funny, especially the failed attempts for the gangsters to go undercover and act like federation citizens.
I had phaser tommy guns and all the mob movie trappings including a moment when the characters overhear that the boss has ordered them to go to the mattresses against the Feds.
I miss playing that game.
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### Author:  [@elf6c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elf6c)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2002, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/32 "2002-12-16T21:07:18Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \*
> \*\*This episode of ST has always annoyed me, and so has the subclass of SF to which it belongs. The idea that a group of aliens would love some aspect of human culture enough to completely _live_ it has never been convincing to me. Can you imagine human beings so completely copying an alien culture? I could uy taking on some aspects of an alien culture, or sometimes sort of “role playing” in it, but not completely burying my own culture.
>
> \*\*
How about the “cargo cults” of the WWII South Pacific?
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2002, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-a-piece-of-the-action/142492/33 "2002-12-16T21:44:29Z")
I was going to sugget cargo cults, but I think they built the planes to attract the gods to bring them more presents.
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