Beyond The Farthest Star
- The ship is getting sucked into a gravity well, unable to break free. Just as they are about to fall into the star, Sulu manages to execute a complicated manoeuvre, using the hypergravity to put them into safe orbit instead. The time he had to execute this? Thirty seconds.
- The sheer size and beauty of the alien ship. Even Spock is clearly impressed. The doctor puts it best:"A thousand cathedrals all thrown together and then they added star-drive," whispered an awed McCoy. "Tossed all together and lit like a Christmas tree."
- Kirk playing The Determinator in resisting the Eldritch Abomination hijacker. The entity makes all consoles, including the Helm, red hot to thwart an attempt to get rid of it, but Kirk manages to keep his grip on the helm and control the ship, even when it turns its Agony Beam on for extra measure. After the crisis is averted, McCoy checks his hands and see they are burned so badly that you can see the bones of his palm.
- Spock rigging up a static shield in a matter of minutes to prevent the entity from gaining control of the Navigation Console. Even Scotty is impressed by the MacGyvering.
- When Scotty ends up pinned between a nearly closed huge hatch-cover and the floor, random Red Shirts rig up a rescue plan. Clearly, you don't need a name to be Badass.
- Also props to Scotty for his Black Comedy while literally millimeters away from being sliced in half.
- Kirk plans to use a slingshot manoeuver to get them away from the Hijacking entity's range, but with the entity in question possessing the ship, they daren't use the Navigation Computer to run the necessary calculations, as it will tip off the creature. Spock (who has barely recovered from the entity's Agony Beam) manages to compute it in his head - while working with Scotty to repair the Auxillary controls.Spock: My mind and hands can operate on different projects at the same time.
- Unlike Kirk and Spock, the rest of the crew have no clue what the plan is, but no one doubts that there is a plan, and plays along with the entity to give the Command Team time.
- Kirk's increasingly Crazy Enough to Work attempts to stall the Eldritch Abomination - one of which involves taking off his life support belt and using it to short out the Helm Console so that the entity (currently possessing Enterprise) wouldn't be able to break free from orbit.
Yesteryear
- The justifiably elaborate protections arranged around the Time Planet are awesome in themselves. Then there is the fact that the two Federations and three Empires have jointly arranged the defenses, and if any of the five try to mess with it, they'd find themselves at war with the other four in a No Holds Barred Beat Down. Yeah, the thing is so past the Godzilla Threshold that even Klingons and Romulans are willing to play Enemy Mine to prevent any unauthorised access to it.
- Ee-Chiya. Just Ee-Chiya. The aging sehlat (somewhat like a cross between a lion and a giant panda) not only follows his young master across the desert in an ardent trek it's really not built for, but battles one of the dreaded le-matyas to save him. Of course, a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome ensues, for I-Chiya is genuinely too old to stand much of a chance, but he buys enough time for future Spock to catch up and deal with the predator.
- Not to mention, even when dying of le-matya venom, the sehlat shows little sign of exhaustion or pain, till his master is in a comparatively safe place. A Vulcan pet indeed.
- Adult Spock taking down a le-matya single handedly, unarmed. For reference, a le-matya is something like a gigantic mountain lion with armored skin. Not to mention venomous claws.
- Seven year old Spock is no slouch either in the badass department. He manages to make a high speed trek across the desert, with the night approaching, to bring help to his pet (eluding a carnivorous plant, among other things). When future Spock (posing as cousin Selek) offers to go for help instead,Young Spock: No. He is my pet. It is my duty. No one else can do this for me.
- Then, when it turns out that it is too late to save the sehlat and the healer suggests putting him down, the seven year old boy makes a decision which a teenager or even an adult would find difficult. And he does so with perfect Vulcan control, something which he had been struggling considerably to gain.Young Spock: Release him. It is fitting he dies as he lived — with peace and dignity.
One Of Our Planets Is Missing
- Sulu managing to stay at the helm - and perform perfectly - with a broken leg, temporarily splinted. It's not only Vulcans and starship captains who can play The Stoic.
- Bob Wesley's performance as the governor of the doomed planet - the guy is faced with the fact that he and most of the people under his protection are going to end up devoured by an Eldritch Abomination and there is nothing he can do about it. As Kirk remarks to himself, that's the sort of situation that can break a man - except Wesley is not the sort of man who breaks.
- The people of Mantilles deserve considerable credit too. Once the direness of the situation is clear, even the most belligerent elements of the population calm down and assist the best they can in evacuating the children to safety. Not a small thing to do when faced with nearing and very messy death.
- The Enterprise crew's refusal to give up the situation as lost, no matter how impossible hope for Mantilles seems. The impossible is their business.Kirk: We're going to find a solution—and no one on Mantilles is going to die.
- Scotty's Crazy Enough to Work plan to recharge the Antimatter engines - cut and beam aboard a few pieces from the antimatter villi of the creature currently trying to digest the ship. By the way, if the antimatter pieces come into contact with the matter of the ship or its people for even a nanosecond, they're finished. But he's sure he can rig up a force field...Kirk:(after listening to Scotty's plan and mentally translating the Techno Babble): Mr. Scott, this idea qualifies you for incarceration as a mental case. You realize that, don't you?
Scotty: Yes sir!
Kirk: You've been under tremendous pressure lately and it's affected your thinking. Obviously you've been operating with several circuits loose.
Scotty: Yes sir. And thank you sir.
Kirk: Let's try the goddamn thing. - Spock mind-melding with the entity, going deep enough into the meld to basically switch bodies with it, on the chance that he can persuade the entity to back off. Despite the risk that mental contact with a being that powerful could well destroy his own mind. And it works.
