No stardate given: The Cerritos crew takes AGIMUS into custody, an "evil computer" that caused a war of a hundred years by manipulating the society on an alien planet. Mariner's task is to transfer this computer to the Daystrom Institute. Boimler is assigned to join her much to his chagrin, as he was preparing for a mission to wrangle giant centipedes on Dansk. In the meantime, the Cerritos has been contacted by Queen Paolana of the Hysperians, whose royal flagship Monaveen needs the engineering expertise of her son, Chief Engineer Andarithio Billups. In order to join Starfleet, Billups abdicated the Hysperian throne, but he would aically become king once he lost his virginity. This is why Paolana has repeatedly tried to trick him into having sex in the past. On the way to the Daystrom Institute, the shuttle gets into a gravimetric shear and crashes on a planet. AGIMUS repeatedly offers his service to replicate food and to send a distress call, but Mariner and Boimler resist the temptation to hand any control to the manipulative computer. However, as AGIMUS replays a scene in which Mariner asks Ransom to reassign Boimler, the angry ensign agrees to collaborate with the computer. Boimler plugs the computer's battery into a crashed alien ship. On the Monaveen, Billups and Rutherford find the problem with the ship's engine. It is a faulty resonator, which puzzles Billups because the first scan should already have revealed it. Suddenly, an explosion rocks the royal ship. The Queen and Rutherford are reported dead. Now Billups is ready to perform the "Royal Copulation". Tendi is devastated, but when she manages to locate Rutherford's implant on the Monaveen, she finds him at a feast. Queen Paolana faked her death to get her son on the throne. But Rutherford averts the pending intercourse and hence ensures that Billups can stay on the Cerritos. As AGIMUS prepares to take over the crashed ship and other evil plans, it turns out that Boimler didn't plug him into any vital systems. But the ensign used his battery to power the emergency transmitter and call for help. AGIMUS ends up in a storage at the Daystrom Institute, with many other computers of his kind.

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