In the original Star Trek “Khan” episode, Kirk fights Khan near the end of the show. He unscrews and pulls some sort of cylindrical device from a console and beats Khan with it. What is it supposed to be? There are several of them that fit into holes in the console. Has this ever been explained, or was it just some prop the set designers made that had no explanation? Just curious…
Just something to hit him with. Convenient and never explained that I recall.
They are anti-matter belaying pins.
I believe it was a Khancussion inducer.
A stem bolt.
A self-sealing stem bolt.
Filled with latinum.
I believe, technically, it was a GNDN.
Although I guess you might call it a GNBK? (goes nowhere, bonks khan)
It’s the first thing I remember seeing on Star Trek; I was 5 at the time and up past my bedtime.
I always assumed it was made to represent a nearby tool; it was the engine room after all. The props department couldn’t find anything usable in the Mission: Impossible trash bin this time. (It may have been filmed before thay started doing this)
Now it looks like a vacuum cleaner hose.
“Kirk hit Khan”
What is that, Uzbecki or something?
-FrL-
The same prop appears in other episodes. I believe some of the miners are carrying them in Devil in the Dark.
I always figured it for a futuristic belaying pin, too. The message is that it doesn’t matter how strong you are; a good steel rod in the gut will stop anyone. Average humans with tools will beat superior but empty-handed humans every time.
Its an imanimate object… gets all the press.
Is it made of carbon?
When I was a kid I thought they were control rods for a reactor. However, in the book “We Almost Lost Detroit” they found the guy’s body hanging from the ceiling. I, too, vote for anti-matter belaying pins.
I’ve read this six times now. Do the three sentences of your post all relate somehow to the same topic?
At one time I thought Kirk hit him with a control rod from a nuclear reactor. However, I learned from reading a book entitled, “We Almost Lost Detroit” about an accident in a military reactor that removing a control rod from a reactor can have horrendous results. Therefore, I have changed my mind and believe that Kahn was struck, as astro suggested in an earlier post, with an anti matter belaying pin.
Better? 
Pulling out nuclear reactor control rods makes people hang from the ceiling?
You’re certain this was “We Almost Lost Detroit” and not “Spider-Man” you were reading?
For that matter, if Spider-Man had been hit with a radioactive belaying pin, would he have become Spider Band-Man?
A link to the book.
Apparently the control rod was jammed. It was to be moved only an inch or so, but when it came loose, it came all the way out and blew through the guy’s goin and carried him to a catwalk near the ceiling. The bodies had to be removed in relays so that resucers wouldn’t receive a fatal dose. The widow’s couldn’t keep the wedding rings.
The widow’s what couldn’t keep the wedding rings?
If he were prepared, Hell yeah!
The widow’s aposthrophes couldn’t keep their jewelry.
It was tragic.
I once got caught a flying control rod in the aposthrophes. Went straight through my goin, too. My jewelry was gone before I even hit the ceiling.
Then I drank spiked eggnog on Christmas Eve and posted incomprehensible messages to the internet all next morning.
And it turned out that Detroit had been sitting on the bathroom sink the whole time.