Sheesh, lots of concepts, and most not presented very well. This episode rates low with many Trek fans, as it ends up as a ham-handed paean to the concepts of liberty and posterity. These are lofty concepts to aspire to, but, much like "Miri" in the 1st season, the ideas exist within an unbelievable framework, even if it is a sf show. The story doesn't even bother to present a duplicate Earth here, as in "Miri"; this Omega-4 is some other planet in another part of the galaxy which also had Yankees & Communists, the American Flag, the U.S.Constitution and (probably) Declaration of Independence, written in the exact same words. Some sf writers need to distinguish between other planets and other dimensions - this should have been some parallel dimension Earth tale or altered Earth history. However, it's a pretty exciting action episode and has, for me, one of the best villains of the original show.
Whereas losing his crew in "The Doomsday Machine" drove Commodore Decker over the deep end, here Capt. Tracey (his ship is the Exeter) seems to have become more ruthless, more harsh. If ever there was a dark version of Capt. Kirk, an anti-Kirk, if you will, or an ultimate example of a starship captain gone bad, it's Tracey. He's like Kirk's evil older brother - taller, tougher, and possessed of the same indomitable will - geared towards non-Starfleet-like goals, including casual murder and even attempted genocide. He's somewhat obsessed about immortality for some reason and the economic gain from same, a throwback to yesteryear goals (this idea is revisited a century later in "Star Trek Insurrection" with the TNG crew); maybe he joined Starfleet with such goals in the back of his mind and hid his dark side from his peers all these past years. This is idle speculation and I suppose it's another weakness of the story that his backstory is never explained.
Most of the episode, until the last couple of scenes, is quite gritty and brutal, what with the elements of bacteriological war and further tension of a village under siege by an army of savages. Kirk and Tracey seem to fight it out in nearly half the episode. But, it's worth a chuckle to Trekkers hearing Kirk's voice-over about how a Starfleet captain should give up his life before violating the Prime Directive. We remember Kirk's approach towards this non-interference directive on past missions - "A Taste of Armageddon" anyone? How about "The Apple"? Uh, "Return of the Archons"? Gee, it gets worse: lets even things out in "A Private Little War"; stop the war in "Patterns of Force." What's Kirk talking about? To top things off, Kirk interferes with things at the very end of this episode, capping off Tracey's transgressions with his little instruction on how to read an important document. Spock hints to him he should have kept his mouth shut and Kirk just shrugs him off. Only one arrest per episode.
