Stardate 3451.9: Contact with the Maluriuan system is lost, and it turns out that all life in that system has been wiped out, a population of four billion. Soon the Enterprise comes under attack too. Only when Kirk sends a hailing, the attacker, a small space probe, stands down and agrees to be beamed aboard. The probe named "Nomad" calls the human crew "primitive" but is of the opinion that Kirk created it. Spock looks up that Nomad was built by a scientist named Jackson Roykirk and was launched from Earth on a mission to seek out new lifeforms in the early 21st century. The probe was declared lost, but obviously survived with damaged memory banks, so it now mistakes "Kirk" for "Roykirk". In the meantime Nomad enters the bridge and erases Uhura's memory when it attempts to read her mind. It kills Scott, who comes to help her, but later successfully "repairs" the "Unit Scott". In a mind-meld Spock finds out that the damaged Nomad actually encountered a powerful alien probe called Tan Ru, built to sterilize soil samples, and somehow merged with it, and it gave itself the new programming to "sterilize imperfect lifeforms". The probe escapes from the holding cell, kills the security personnel and heads for the engine room where it boosts the power of the engines until Kirk tells Nomad to stop it. Kirk reveals to Nomad that he himself, the alleged "Creator", is a primitive lifeform too, which Spock labels as a "foolish mistake". But then Kirk goes even one step further and accuses Nomad of being flawed, for the probe mistook him for its creator. Using antigrav units, Kirk and Spock carry the probe to the transporter room and beam it into deep space, where Nomad carries out its mission to "sterilize imperfection" and destroys itself.

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