Star Trek (TV Series)

The Ultimate Computer (1968)

William Marshall: Daystrom

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Quotes 

• Dr. Richard Daystrom : M-5 is ready to take control of the ship.

  Captain James T. Kirk : Total control?

  Dr. Richard Daystrom : That is what it was designed for, Captain.

  Captain James T. Kirk : There are certain things men must do to remain men. Your computer would take that away.

  Dr. Richard Daystrom : There are other things a man like you might do. Or perhaps you object to the possible loss of the prestige and the ceremony accorded a starship captain. A computer can do your job and without all that.

  Captain James T. Kirk : You'll have to prove that to me, Doctor.

• Dr. Richard Daystrom : It takes four hundred thirty people to man a starship. With this, you don't need anyone. One machine can do all those things they send men out to do now. Men no longer need die in space, or on some alien world. Men can live, and go on to achieve greater things than fact-finding and dying for galactic space, which is neither ours to give or to take. Can't understand. We don't want to destroy life, we want to save it.

• Captain James T. Kirk : The M-5 must be destroyed.

  Dr. Richard Daystrom : [distressed]  Destroyed, Kirk? No. We're invincible. Look what we've done: your mighty starships - four toys to be crushed as we choose!

• Dr. Richard Daystrom : [talking to the M-5]  We will survive! Nothing can hurt you. I gave you that. You are great, I am great... Twenty years of groping, to prove the things I'd done before were not accidents... seminars and lectures to rows of fools who couldn't begin to understand my systems! Colleagues - colleagues laughing behind my back at the Boy Wonder, and becoming famous building on my work. Building on my work!

• Captain James T. Kirk : [after M-5 has disintegrated a crew member]  That wasn't a minor difficulty. That wasn't a robot. That thing murdered one of my crewmen and now you tell me you can't turn it off?

  Dr. Richard Daystrom : It wasn't a deliberate act. M-5's analysis told it it needed a new power source. The ensign... simply got in the way.

  Captain James T. Kirk : And how long will it be before all of us simply get in the way?