The Terratin Incident

TAS Season 1 Episode 11
Air Date: November 17th, 1973

Plot

The Enterprise enters detects a strange transmission that is mostly background radiation with a pattern detected in it, twice. The pattern made out the word Terratin. They trace it to a system with a planet that is in the final days of it's existance about to be overwhelmed by volcanoes and explosions. When they approach the planet they are hit with some kind of radiation that causes the crew to shrink.

They discover that all organic life will shrink, but not their mass, just their size. The space between the atoms is getting closer but the atoms are staying the same size. Spock estimates that they will shrink to about 1/16th of an inch, which is too small to be able to operate the controls of the enterprise.

Once Kirk is around 6 inches tall, he decides to beam down to the planet to see if he can stop whatever is causing it. With the Enterprise programmed to auto beam him back in 10 minutes he beams down. It turns out the transporter was able to restore him to his regular size, but when he transports back to the Enterprise, everyone is already shrunk, but some of the bridge crew are missing.

Turns out there is a city on the planet of humans that were shrunk from the same radiation and they lured the Enterprise there to rescue them. They waited until they were small enough otherwise they were worried that they would not rescue them. Kirk beams the crew back and transports the city to the Enterprise, taking them away from the planet before it is encased in lava.

Quotes

"The whole ship has apparently expanded." - Kirk

"An equally good possibility is that ship's personnel have contracted. And maybe continuing to shrink." - Spock

"People of the Enterprise, we have no way to pay the debt we owe. But this at least comes from a meeting of all our numbers. We name you honorary Terratins now, and for all time to come." - Mendant

"We came rather close to making it more than honorary." - Spock

"Yes, I'd say just about a sixteenth of an inch close." - Kirk