Bread and Circuses (Star Trek: The Original Series) entertainment. In the episode, Captain Kirk and his companions are forced to fight in gladiatorial games on a planet resembling the Roman Empire, but possessing mid-20th century Earth technology. The Federation starship USS "Enterprise" is on routine patrol when it finds wreckage of the SS "Beagle". The "Beagle" was under the command of Captain R. M. Merik (William Smithers), whom Captain Kirk (William Shatner) knew during his academy days. First Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) traces the path of debris back to a planet in the previously unexplored system 892. The "Enterprise" picks up a 20th-century-style television news broadcast, reporting in
Lords of the Starship the Starship" was "a bad and disappointing book on its own terms." Brian Stableford characterized it as an "earnestly stylish stud[y] of terminal cultural decadence". Lords of the Starship Lords of the Starship is a 1967 science fiction novel by American author Mark S. Geston. His debut work, it was written while he was a sophomore at Kenyon College. It was originally published in paperback by Ace Books, then reprinted for the British market in hardcover by Michael Joseph in 1971 and in paperback by Sphere Books a year later. Gregg Press published an archival edition in 1978 (a facsimile