The Ambergris Element

TAS Season 1 Episode 13
Air Date: December 1st, 2019

Plot

The Enterprise is sent to a aqua planet Argo to investigate the rising water levels that seem to be a parallel to another inhabited planet that is years behind. The goal is to find out what would happen to a planet in this scenario. They take a shuttle designed for water transport and are attacked by a sea creature. Kirk and Spock and the shuttle go missing and are found five days later, but with gills and webbed feet and fingers and no memories of what happened.

They return to the water to figure out what happened as they can no longer breath air. They find a civilization under water that refer to the human's as air breathers. They discover that the Aquans were once air breathers but as their planet transformed to oceans they adapted their genetics to breath under water and over the years their children were only able to breath under water.

They investigate ancient ruins and McCoy finds the research that lets him turn Kirk and Spock back to air breathers. They help the Aquans deal with the earthquakes they were experiencing and even showed them how to become air breathers should they choose to return to the land.

Quotes

"I can't command a ship from inside an aquarium." - Kirk

"It is quite possible, captain, that they find us grotesque and ugly and many people fear beings different from themselves." - Spock