History Recap / StarTrekS1E10TheCorbomiteManeuver

* WeComeInPeaceShootToKill: Though advocated by Bailey, not Captain Kirk who'd prefer to leave peacefully, and only fires when the buoy endangers his ship.

* WeComeInPeaceShootToKill: Though advocated by Bailey, not Captain Kirk.

* RedAlert: Spock sounds a General Alert when the vessel keeps moving to block their path. Kirk is angry because Bones doesn't call his attention to the alert until his examination is over.

* BottleEpisode: As the first proper (non-pilot) episode, almost all of it is spent on the Enterprise bridge getting to know the main charcters, both old (Spock's infamously stoic new personality; George Takei as helmsman rather than a bit part) and new (DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, and Grace Lee Whitney make their debut).

* BrandishmentBluff: This is Kirk's cunning plan: "This is the Captain of the ''Enterprise''. Our respect for other life forms requires that we give you this... warning. One critical item of information that has never been incorporated into the memory banks of any Earth ship. Since the early years of space exploration, Earth vessels have had incorporated into them a substance known as... corbomite. It is a material and a device which prevents attack on us. If any destructive energy touches our vessel, a reverse reaction of equal strength is created, destroying... the attacker. It may interest you to know that since the initial use of corbomite more than two of our centuries ago, no attacking vessel has survived the attempt. Death has... little meaning to us. If it has none to you then attack us now. We grow annoyed at your foolishness."

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfMass: The ''Enterprise'' encounters a mysterious cube, which Sulu says is 107 metres on each side and masses just under 11,000 metric tonnes. Scotty says it must be solid metal, leaving him wondering how it could be powered and how it moves around. But the quoted measurements give a density of about 9 kilograms per cubic metre, significantly less than styrofoam--implying the cube is almost certainly hollow (they may have been aiming for 9 tonnes per cubic metre, which is between the densities of iron and lead, and dropped a factor of a thousand somewhere).

* MustHaveCaffeine: Who cares if the ship's 'bout to blow up? Kirk needs that coffee, dammit!

* LargeHam: The fake Balok's voice, portrayed by [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0144252/ Ted Cassidy]].

* IResembleThatRemark: Kirk berates [=McCoy=] for not telling him about an alert. After Kirk leaves, [=McCoy=] says to himself, "If I jumped every time a light came on around here, I'd end up talking to myself."

** During the attempt to break free of the tractor beam, Spock raises his voice rather emotionally.

** Inverted -- Kirk claims that Bones always says "a little suffering is good for the soul". Bones flatly denies it, and he never finds occasion to say it or anything similar in any subsequent episode or movie. (This is given a ContinuityNod in [[Film/StarTrek the reboot film]], where Bones ''does'' say it -- of course, that's a different Bones.)

An ordinary day on the ''Enterprise''. Kirk is taking a required physical, so Spock has the chair. Suddenly, they run into what looks like the [[AppleMacintosh Apple Spinning Beach Ball of Doom]] that they just can't seem to escape. When evasive maneuvers fail, Spock calls for a red alert. Navigator Bailey, who's struggling to deal with all this, suddenly becomes a little trigger happy until Kirk reminds him who's in charge. Kirk tells Bailey to plot a spiral course at increasing speeds to get away from this NegativeSpaceWedgie. When it starts emitting radiation, Kirk orders to open fire, destroying the object.

* RedShirt: [https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--pHWCDLhu--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/1823nsyfv2fxdjpg.jpg He was a Red Shirt on TOS]]... and lived. He is: Advertising/TheMostInterestingManInTheWorld.

* RedShirt: [[http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/8/81/Engineer_corridor_corbomite_maneuver.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110529113251&path-prefix=en He was a Red Shirt on TOS]]... and lived. He is: Advertising/TheMostInterestingManInTheWorld.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfMass: The ''Enterprise'' encounters a mysterious cube, which Sulu says is 107 metres on each side and masses just under 11,000 metric tonnes. Scotty says it must be solid metal, leaving him wondering how it could be powered and how it moves around. But the quoted measurements give a density of about 9 kilograms per cubic metre, significantly less than Styrofoam -- implying the cube is almost certainly hollow (they may have been aiming for 9 tonnes per cubic metre, which is between the densities of iron and lead, and dropped a factor of a thousand somewhere).

* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: This is the first non-pilot episode of ''Star Trek''. Introduced are Uhura, Yeoman Rand, and Dr. Leonard "Bones" [=McCoy=] (as a SecondEpisodeSubstitute for Dr. Mark Piper); it is not, however, the second episode aired, as the pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was held back until later in the first season.

* SeeTheWhitesOfTheirEyes: The cube initially stops over 1500 metres from the ''Enterprise'', although on-screen they appear nose to nose with each other. Later the cube gets closer than 51 metres before phasers destroy it. (That's closer than half the cube's size.)