The Squire of Gothos

Spock orders Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy, along with Lt. DeSalle and geophysicist Karl Jaeger, to form a landing party and conduct a search.

They also come across what appears to be a medieval castle, within which they find Captain Kirk and Lt. Sulu, immobilized, along with a humanoid being who identifies himself as "General Trelane, retired", and invites everyone to stay as his guests on his world, which he calls Gothos; he also explains that his hobby is studying Earth history and still [wrongly] believes Earth is engaging in world conquest.

Spock, meanwhile, manages to locate the landing party in a minute zone of breathable atmosphere, and beams everyone, except Trelane, back to the ship by locking onto every detectable lifeform in the area.

Kirk's patience begins to wear thin, especially when Trelane dances with Yeoman Ross and changes her standard red uniform into an 18th-century ball gown.

To test this theory, Kirk provokes Trelane into a duel, and during the fight, he destroys the mirror and damages some strange machinery inside.

On the planet, Kirk finds Trelane seated on a courtroom bench, dressed in the white wig and robes reminiscent of an English circuit judge.

Writer Paul Schneider was inspired by seeing children play war, and originally intended the episode to be an antiwar statement.

[1] Upon meeting Yeoman Ross, Trelane slightly misquotes Christopher Marlowe's 16th-century play Doctor Faustus: "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Trelane mentions Napoleon (1769–1821), the Alexander Hamilton duel from 1804, and a Richard Strauss composition from 1880, and this has been interpreted as suggesting the episode was set in the 28th century at the earliest.

When they arrive, Kirk and crew are confronted by Trelane, who now dresses and acts like a World War I German Fokker pilot and is revealed to have captured the missing ships using his powers so he can force them to participate in dogfights.

After a battle with Trelane in his aircraft, Kirk and his crew are forced to once again match wits with the childish Baron in their hopes to rescue the ships.