Season 1 Episode 24 ('A Taste of Armageddon')

I have to be up in a few hours, so I don't have time for my usual ramble. This episode has the Enterprise couriering a diplomat to a planet, in order to open diplomatic relations with the civilization centered there, so that a treaty-port can be opened.

The basic premise is pretty similar to actual historical situations; they just Trekified the opening of Japan, kind of. Yay, gunboat diplomacy! Then they threw a further twist in there by having the Japan-analogue be five centuries into an endless interplanetary war governed by computers. The computers determine the number of casualties their virtual attacks would have had, if they'd been real, and then the citizens of the two warring planets who are deemed casualties by the computers report to suicide stations and off themselves.

Which was a fun concept. The moral of the story ends up being that nice, controlled, clean 'virtual wars' are way worse than real wars, because they can go on indefinitely and are not offensive enough to make peace desirable.

All in all, decent plot, fun scenery/set-design, decent actors in the guest-star spots, and a good time.

Random trivia: This is the second episode I've watched without drinking. I feel a bit guilty about that.