YMMV / Star Trek S3 E16 "The Mark of Gideon"

• Fridge Logic:
  • Why don't the overcrowded people just colonize some other planets?
    • This is addressed in The Mote in God's Eye, in which another species is up against the same problem. Ultimately this just kicks the problem a little further down the line - not so very long on the reasonable assumption that population grows exponentially - and leads to a still bigger nightmare in which there are huge numbers of sardine-can worlds instead of just the one.
    • The problem is that with all the mystery illnesses we see killing off Red Shirts in the various Trek series — and the fact that one of the main problems with Gideon is they have no infectious disease — colonizing another world would likely have done the same thing as Kirk's blood: Bring them into contact with an illness that can introduce death into the population.
  • If the planet is so overpopulated that it's literally impossible to find a space that's not crowded with people, where did they find the space to construct a full-scale replica of the interior of the Enterprise?
    • Presumably the same way the Council Chamber only had three people in it — the powerful people took as much space as they needed and forced everyone else to cram into whatever was left.
  • How did they get the specs for the Enterprise?
  • Why did they bother to build it at all when they could have just knocked Kirk out and taken some of his blood right after he beamed down without bothering to trick him?
• Inferred Holocaust: They barely try to hide this. Odona returns to Gideon, carrying the disease she is now immune to, ready to start a massive pandemic, fully sponsored by the government. And condoned by Captain Kirk, no less. Let's hope they keep control of it while they still have it...
  • In theory anyway, the Federation wouldn't have a choice, since interference would be prohibited by the Prime Directive.
• Nightmare Fuel: First, Kirk must cope with the fear that the people he is responsible for seem to have disappeared without a trace. And then those mysterious green faces out in space accompanied by a creepy Scare Chord. So many of them scraping up against the hull of the Enterprise, and in the vacuum of space no less! Captain Kirk hasn't had this many people rush a vehicle he was in since Shatner drove to Comic Con!