History Recap / StarTrekS3E16TheMarkOfGideon

* MakeanExampleOfThem: Partly inverted, since the message isn’t about punishment, but about salvation.

* [[WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove What Is This Thing You Call Pain?]]: Odona is morbidly curious about pain and sickness, having never felt it before.

* TheXOfY: The Mark Of Gideon

* AMillionIsAStatistic: Kirk refuses the let dying the person he contamined himself, but he lets this person spreading the disease to deliberately killing a lot of people.

* OutOfCharacterMoment: Perhaps George F. Slavin and Stanley Adams didn’t need to know TheKirk himself survived to a [[Recap/StarTrekS1E13TheConscienceOfTheKing similar massacre]], but they should have known [[TakeAThirdOption he doesn’t so easily accept no-win scenarios]].

* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: Instead of using the negociations with the Federation to prepare a colonization plan, the government of Gideon decide to use the negociator's germs.

* MakeanExampleofThem: Partly inverted, since the message isn’t about punishment, but about salvation.

* DramaticallyMissingthePoint: Instead of using the negociations with the Federation to prepare a colonization plan, the government of Gideon decide to use the negociator's microbes.

* DeathbedLoveConfession: Odona makes one to Kirk. Her passions cool when she realize she's not going to die after all, but has the potential to make many others sick so people can get to dying so everyone can be happy.

Tropes for this episode include:

* IllGirl: Odona seeks to become one and succeeds. [[IGotBetter She got better.]]

* InnerMonologue: Instead of the usual CaptainsLog, we her Kirk's reverberating thoughts about what may have happened to his crew. And why does his arm hurt?

* TemptingFate: When Spock decides he will look for Kirk by himself (asking another crew member to accompany him would just get him in further trouble with Starfleet) he announces "I will not be long." Scotty points out that Kirk said the same thing. Wonder if he's seen {{Scream}}?

* DistractedByTheSexy: Kirk is going mad with worry until Odona comes along. One germ swapping kiss followed by an of scene lay, and he's back to worrying about them.

* [[WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove What Is This Thing You Call Pain?]]: Odana is morbidly curious about pain and sickness, having never felt it before.

* AbusiveParent: Subversion. Hatin is quite willing to make his daughter suffer and die from meningitis. However, she volunteered to do this for [[HeroicSacrifice the good of the many.]]
* AssInAmbassador: Hatin is quite good at prolonging a crisis and insulting Scotty while he's at it.

* DepopulationBomb: Kirk is kidnapped by a vastly overpopulated planet who wants to use germs in his blood to drop a Depopulation Bomb on ''themselves''. This scheme involves a large amount of FridgeLogic, when one wonders where they found the space to construct a full-scale replica of the interior of the ''Enterprise''. And how they got the specs for the ''Enterprise''. And why they bothered to build it at all when they could have just knocked Kirk and taken some of his blood right after he beamed down without bothering to trick him. And...

* DepopulationBomb: Kirk is kidnapped by a vastly overpopulated planet who wants to use germs in his blood to drop a Depopulation Bomb on ''themselves''. This scheme involves a large amount of FridgeLogic, when one wonders where they found the space to construct a full-scale replica of the interior of the ''Enterprise''.

The planet of Gideon has refused anything to do with the United Federation of Planets until recently. The council has agreed to allow a delegation of one...one Captain James T. Kirk. Kirk has himself beamed down to the planet only to find himself beamed aboard his own starship, sans crew. Where is everybody? Kirk searches everywhere, hails everyone he can think of. His voice over the intercom reverberates off the walls of empty rooms. Kirk searches until he finds a rather dippy blonde in sparkly blue and purple PJ's dancing by herself in the corridors. Oh, Donna! No, actually her name is Odona. She's not sure where she's from, just that it was so crowded it made a [[TheWho Who]] concert look tranquil. It isn't long before Kirk is BoldlyComing. (You can bet they didn't go into that room to play Parcheesi!) Spock, meanwhile, is playing bureaucratic ping-pong for permission to search for the missing captain.

* NightmareFuel: First, Kirk must cope with the AdultFear that the people he is responsible seem to have disappeared without a trace. And then those mysterious green faces out in space accompanied by a creepy ScareChord. 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 ComicCon!

WeWillHaveEuthanasiaInTheFuture: An extremely overpopulated world is trying to set up a voluntary suicide system, starting by infecting the leader's daughter with a disease.

* DepopulationBomb: Kirk is kidnapped by a vastly overpopulated planet who wants to use germs in his blood to drop a Depopulation Bomb on ''themselves''. This scheme involves a large amount of FridgeLogic, when one wonders where they found the space to construct a full-scale replica of the interior of the ''Enterprise''.