Star Trek: The Original Series loves putting Captain Kirk in no-win ethical scenarios, and season 2’s “The Apple” is one of the clearest examples. On Gamma Trianguli VI, Kirk destroyed a god‑like computer worshipped by the natives, reshaping their entire culture in a single mission.
On the surface, it is exactly what the Prime Directive is supposed to prevent. Once you look at what Vaal was doing to the Vaalians, and to the USS Enterprise, Kirk’s choice stopped looking like reckless interference and started looking like the only moral option.
“The Apple” opened with the Enterprise investigating an Eden-like planet that had somehow held a perfect, stable climate for millennia. The humanoid inhabitants, the Feeders of Vaal, lived under the watchful “care” of Vaal, an ancient computer buried beneath a serpent-headed temple.
They did not age, they did not fall ill, and they did not reproduce; their entire existence revolved around performing rituals and feeding Vaal with energy-rich rocks. It looked like paradise from orbit, but on the ground the landing party quickly discovered that the planet’s beauty was lethally weaponized.
Exploding rocks, poisoned plants, and lightning strikes all acted as extensions of Vaal’s will, killing redshirts and targeting intruders. (Continued...)