Notes to "What Trouble With Tribbles?" The movie chay' qay' yIHmey? is the Klingon point of view of the events taking place on Space Station K-7, as described in the Original Series episode "The Trouble With Tribbles". Since that story was embellished by the events portrayed in the Deep Space 9 episode "Trials and Tribblations", this movie makes a few nods in that direction, too. For those who don't recall or haven't seen those episodes, here's a brief synopsis of both (Warning! Spoilers ahead!):       The background to the story is the Organian Peace Treaty, imposed on the Federation and the Klingon Empire to resolve a dispute over the ownership of Sherman's Planet. Under the terms of the Treaty, both governments will be allowed to develop the planet; after a time, the Organians will decide which faction made the best use of it, and award full ownership accordingly. Captain Kirk and the Enterprise have been summoned by the Federation Agriculture Minister to Space Station K-7, near Sherman's Planet, to guard a shipment of seed grain (a new hybrid, quadrotriticale) intended for the colonists there.       Klingon Captain Koloth and his crew have been on patrol in the region for 5 months, and evidently come to K-7 simply for shore leave. Whether they knew Kirk was already there, or about the grain, is unknown. At any rate, Koloth assures Kirk that his intentions are peaceful, and Kirk reluctantly allows the Klingons to spend shore leave at K-7, but only in groups of 12 at a time.       Meanwhile, in the future, the crew of Deep Space 9 has gone to Cardassia to pick up one of the Bajoran Orbs of the Prophets and return it to Bajor. They also bring along a Federation passenger, who was marooned on Cardassia. On the way back, the passenger somehow activates the Orb, propelling the crew and their ship back in time and across space to the old K-7 space station, to the same time that Kirk and Koloth are present. The passenger then escapes.       After some research, Odo discovers that the passenger was actually a Klingon spy, who had been present on the station at this time in the past. He was thwarted in his mission by Kirk, and became a shunned outcast from Klingon society. Evidently, his older self has returned to the past to prevent Kirk from defeating his original mission. The Deep Space 9 crew divides up to search for him: Sisko and Dax go to the Enterprise, and O'Brien, Bashir, Odo and Worf go to K-7.       While all this was going on, a space trader named Cyrano Jones had brought strange furry creatures called tribbles to the station, and is selling them to the Enterprise crew. These little creatures turn out to be voracious eaters and incredibly prolific breeders, able to infiltrate anywhere on the ship or station, and both are soon overrun with them. Even so, humans love them, because they purr when petted. However, there is something about Klingons that tribbles don't like and they scream in the presence of a Klingon. Klingons have no fondness for tribbles, either. At one point, Worf notes that the Klingons have hunted down and exterminated every tribble in the galaxy.       For a brief time, all is peaceful on the station. Odo and company stake out the bar to look for their man. While there, they get a look at "old-style" Klingons, who of course do not have Worf's ridged forehead. Worf refuses to reveal the reason why the Klingon appearance changed so radically. Soon, a fight breaks out in the bar between the Klingons and the Enterprise crew. O'Brien and Bashir get drawn into it, but Odo locates their passenger on tricorder, and he and Worf leave the bar.       The tribbles in the mean time have been getting into every corner of the Enterprise, eating all the supplies and reproducing at an alarming rate. Kirk suddenly realizes that the grain stored on the station is at risk. He beams over with Spock and some others, and opens the cargo bays, only to find that tribbles have gotten into the bays and eaten all the grain. They pour out of the bay onto Kirk and the floor. The Agriculture Minister is furious, and intends to hold Kirk responsible for the loss of Sherman's Planet to the Klingons. But then McCoy realizes that the tribbles are all dead, and takes some of them away for analysis.       While this was going on, Odo and Worf had captured their fugitive passenger, who eventually revealed that he had hidden a bomb, disguised as a tribble, in the very cargo bay that Kirk was standing under. The bomb would go off, Kirk would be killed before he could thwart the passenger's mission, and the passenger's younger self would now be a hero, and could return to Kronos. Sisko and Dax beam into the cargo bay, and are looking for the tribble-bomb at the same moment that Kirk is below them, covered in dead tribbles. Eventually they find the bomb and beam it off the station, where it explodes harmlessly. Their role in the story basically over, the Deep Space 9 people return to the future (their present) along with the Klingon spy (in his old version).       Back at K-7, Kirk and the other Federation people are gathered in the Stationmaster's office to try to figure out what happened to the tribbles. Koloth arrives at this moment to protest Kirk's treatment of his crew, and to demand a formal apology (which may give the Klingons a superior bargaining position in regard to Sherman's Planet). Suddenly, McCoy returns to announce that the grain had been poisoned, and would have killed all the Sherman colonists, if it hadn't killed the tribbles first. Then they discover that the Agriculture Minister's aide is really a Klingon in disguise, by the reaction of the remaining live tribbles to him. His mission (as his young self) was to poison the grain and sabotage the Sherman's Planet colony, but now Kirk has discovered that plot, due to the death of the tribbles. The spy is arrested, Kirk is exonerated of wrong and treated as the hero. Far from apologizing to Koloth, he orders him and his ship to leave the area immediately.       Eventually another shipment of quadrotriticale is found to send to Sherman's Planet. Cyrano Jones is given the punishment of finding all the remaining tribbles on K-7 and disposing of them, a task that Spock estimates will take 17 years. Back on the Enterprise, Kirk is surprised to find the ship free of tribbles. It turns out that, moments before the Klingon ship went to warp, Mr. Scott beamed all the Enterprise's tribbles into the Klingon ship's engine room. All have a hearty laugh at the Klingons' expense.       I doubt that Koloth (which is evidently the name of the Captain of the Cold Revenge from this series!) knew anything about the grain or the saboteur sent to destroy it. I liked the notion that the Klingons and the "Earthers" (as the Klingons called them) had separate agendas on K-7, that only occasionally intersected. Koloth behaved with honor, only to be kicked off the station at the end simply because Kirk, again the hero, now felt he could arbitrarily exercise his power, so I also liked finding a way to turn Scotty's "harmless" prank into something of benefit to the Empire. Finally, I really enjoyed how the DS9 episode inserted the new characters and plot embellishments into the old story, and was pleased to be able to do the same from another perspective.       In the Deep Space 9 episode "Trials and Tribblations", Dax and Major Kira refer to Koloth's ship as the I.K.S Groth. I can only surmise that "Groth" was the official registry name of Koloth's ship, while "Cold Revenge" was his affectionate nickname for it. A Real World Note "Trouble With Tribbles" was one of the first Original Series episodes to depict Klingons. It is amusing to hear how every member of the cast pronounces "Klingon" differently, a standard pronounciation not yet established. Although he is not referred to by name in the episode, the brown-haired Klingon who accompanies Koloth and who starts the fight with Mr. Scott in the bar on K-7 was called "Korax" in the script. The episode doesn't refer to his rank or function, but I had made this character the Science Officer in the first episode, "Unexpected Enemy".       The producers of Star Trek had in mind to make Koloth a recurring character, Kirk's on-going nemesis in that region of space, and to pose the Koloth-Korax pairing as the inverse of the Kirk-Spock team. Unfortunately, the next time they did a Klingon episode, William Campbell, who played Koloth, was not available, and so they cast Michael Ansara as Kang, and evidently gave up on the idea of a single recurring adversary.

© 2005, Terrence Donnelly