- The Enterprise runs into a being which once visited Earth and influenced the Mayan culture.
- When an alien probe self-destructs after scanning Earth, the Enterprise backtracks its trail. An alien ship comes along, encases the Enterprise in a force globe, and transports McCoy, Scott, Kirk and Ensign Walking Bear inside where they meet Kukulkan, an ancient winged serpent. He once visited and influenced Earth but now returns in a high snit over having been forgotten.—statmanjeff
- When an alien probe self-destructs after scanning Earth (the probe sent out a signal into deep space before self-destructing), the Enterprise backtracks its trail of disrupted matter left by its highly advanced propulsion systems. The trail has not intercepted any inhabited star systems. An alien ship comes along on the same trajectory as the probe (the alien ship is twice the size of the Enterprise, and has an immense energy shield surrounding it. The alien ship is composed of crystalline ceramic), encases the Enterprise in a force globe (which is flexible enough to absorb any force. The Enterprise cannot escape, and their phasers are absorbed by the force globe). The alien ship attacks the Enterprise, but stops when the helmsman Walking Bear recognizes the ship as Kukulkan. The ship transports McCoy, Scott, Kirk and helmsman Ensign Walking Bear (James Doohan) inside the alien ship, where they meet Kukulkan (James Doohan), an ancient, winged serpent.
Kukulkan once visited and influenced Earth but now returns in a high snit over having been forgotten. He spared the Enterprise because Walking Bear instantly recognized the ship's outer form to be that of Kukulkan. Kukulkan is a God, and a legend in Mayan and Aztec legends and Walking Bear knows of it as he is a Comanche.
On his ship, Kukulkan creates an entire city and asks the team to figure out its meaning, and only then he would appear before them. The team quickly figures that most of the objects in the city are seen in Egyptian, Mayan and Aztec buildings on Earth. Kirk surmises that Kukulkan visited many civilizations on Earth and told them to build a city. The whole is a gigantic riddle. But each of them failed and only build a part of the city, and never figured out its purpose. Kukulkan had promised to return if they found out its meaning, he would return. But since they never completed the city itself, they never figured it out.
Kirk with his crew figure out that the central pyramid is an energy amplification device, powered by the sun, directed to it by 4 figures at the 4 corners of the pyramid. This was the signaling system to Kukulkan. His design is fulfilled, and he appears in front of Kirk and his crew. Kukulkan says he is a God, but mankind forgot about what he taught them and says he has the right to interfere in their lives. Kirk objects and says Kukulkan has no rights over anyone in the Galaxy. Kukulkan says that he only helps as his own race perished before many species discovered fire, and now he tries to help them to reach maturity. But when he sent his probe to Earth, he saw only warriors, which meant that Earth had forgotten all of his teachings. Kukulkan says that all the creatures he has domesticated live peacefully in the worlds he created for them, except Earth.
Kirk objects again to the fact that Kukulkan expects everyone to be dependent on him for all eternity. Kukulkan is angry and attacks them. Meanwhile Spock gets the Enterprise to break free of the force globe (The force globe was flexible only in one direction. Spock pushes and pulls against it at the same time, so that it becomes rigid and shatters under a burst of warp power) and attacks Kukulkan's ship, disabling its central power source. One of Kukulkan's captive species gets free of its cage and attacks it. Kirk takes a hypo needle from McCoy and brings it under control, putting his own life in danger to save Kukulkan. Kukulkan finally accepts Kirk as his equal and allows him to go away, agreeing that humans have grown up and no longer need him as their God. Kukulkan returns Kirk, McCoy, Scott and Walking Bear to their ship and retreats from Earth
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