The Trouble With Tribbles

The Trouble With Tribbles is a classic Star Trek episode about a conflict between the Federation and the Klingons. The Federation wants to claim Sherman's Planet, with the aid of a grain hybrid called quadratriticale, and a Federation official uses (or abuses) a high priority distress call to get Starfleet security on the wheat, stored in a space station. Meanwhile, a trader is selling tribbles: cute, little furry animals whose trilling has "a tranquilizing effect on the human nervous system."

A Klingon ship arrives to claim shore leave rights. Uhuru brings a free sample tribble back to the ship, and it spawns over a dozen more by the next day, the same size as itself. McCoy brings one to the lab to find out "what makes it tick", and it spawns 10 more.

The trouble starts when a Klingon soldier uses an encounter with tribbles (which shriek when near a Klingon) to profess his dislike of Earthers who "remind him of Regulan bloodworms." The drunken soldier twits Chekov and Scott by insulting the Enterprise's captain; Scott tells Chekov to ignore the "opinions" of the Klingon until he says the Enterprise should be "hauled off as garbage". The Scott comes up swinging, and the slugfest continues until 5 security guards arrive. Kirk treats the incident mildly: he cancels shore leave for both ships and confines Scott and the other involved crew to quarters.

It would be unfair to the reader to give away the rest of the story, but the idea for tribbles is reminiscent of the Martian flat cats of The Rolling Stones, a science fiction story by Robert Heinlein.