A Small Talent for War

Last updated
"A Small Talent for War"
The Twilight Zone segment
A Small Talent for War.jpg
Scene from "A Small Talent for War"
Episode no.Season 1
Episode 15b
Directed by Claudia Weill
Written by
Original air dateJanuary 24, 1986 (1986-01-24)
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
 Previous
"Monsters!"
Next 
"A Matter of Minutes"
List of episodes

"A Small Talent for War" is the second segment of the fifteenth episode of the first season of the television series The Twilight Zone . [1] In this segment, an advanced alien race claims to have created human beings and proposes to wipe them out unless they change their ways. [2]

Contents

Plot

The scene is set with the United Nations Security Council bickering between nations over how to respond to the appearance of an extraterrestrial vessel near the council building.

An ambassador from an alien race then appears to them and claims that his race seeded life on Earth millions of years earlier. He tells them that his race is displeased with humanity's "small talent for war," as they have failed to produce the potential that the aliens had nurtured, and his fleet will destroy all life on Earth. The Security Council pleads for and is granted a 24-hour reprieve to prove humanity's worth.

The Security Council and the General Assembly negotiate an accord for lasting global peace and present it to the alien ambassador. He is amused at the peace accord and explains that his race was, in fact, seeking a greater talent for war, as they had genetically seeded thousands of planets to breed warriors to fight for them across the galaxy. They perceived humanity's conflicts as erratic and clumsy, weapons as crude and primitive, and longing for peace as a fatal flaw. As the ambassador calls down his fleet to destroy Earth, he praises the Security Council for the amusing day, commenting that while war is their goal, good humor is an even more difficult talent to master. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Time Enough at Last</span> 8th episode of the 1st season of The Twilight Zone

"Time Enough at Last" is the eighth episode of the American anthology series The Twilight Zone, first airing on November 20, 1959. The episode was adapted from a short story by Lynn Venable, which appeared in the January 1953 edition of If: Worlds of Science Fiction.

In the Star Trek universe, the Dominion is an interstellar state and military superpower from the Gamma Quadrant, composed of hundreds of dominated alien species. The Dominion is commanded by The Founders, a race of shapeshifters, responsible for both the creation of the Dominion and all strategic decisions undertaken through its history. The Dominion is administered by the Vorta, clones specifically genetically engineered by the Founders to act as field commanders, administrators, scientists and diplomats. The Jem'Hadar, also engineered by the Founders, are the military arm of the Dominion and one of the most powerful military forces in the galaxy during the Dominion's height.

Silurian (<i>Doctor Who</i>) Fictional race from the television series Doctor Who

The Silurians are a race of reptilian humanoids in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, who first appeared in Doctor Who in the 1970 serial Doctor Who and the Silurians, and were created by Malcolm Hulke. The first Silurians introduced are depicted as prehistoric and scientifically advanced sentient humanoids who predate the dawn of man; in their backstory, the Silurians went into self-induced hibernation to survive what they predicted to be a large atmospheric upheaval caused by the Earth capturing the Moon.

The concept of self-replicating spacecraft, as envisioned by mathematician John von Neumann, has been described by futurists and has been discussed across a wide breadth of hard science fiction novels and stories. Self-replicating probes are sometimes referred to as von Neumann probes. Self-replicating spacecraft would in some ways either mimic or echo the features of living organisms or viruses.

To Serve Man (<i>The Twilight Zone</i>) 24th episode of the 3rd season of The Twilight Zone

"To Serve Man" is the 24th episode of the third season of the anthology series The Twilight Zone, and the 89th overall. It originally aired on March 2, 1962, on CBS. Based on Damon Knight's 1950 short story of the same title, the episode was written by Rod Serling and directed by Richard L. Bare. It is considered one of the best episodes from the series, particularly for its final twist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ice Warrior</span> Fictional alien from Doctor Who

The Ice Warriors are a fictional extraterrestrial race of reptilian humanoids in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. They were originally created by Brian Hayles, first appearing in the 1967 serial The Ice Warriors where they encountered the Second Doctor and his companions Jamie and Victoria. In Doctor Who, the Ice Warriors originated on Mars, which within the series narrative is a dying world. Their early appearances depict the Ice Warriors as attempting to conquer the Earth and escape their planet as early as Earth's Ice Age. A frozen group are discovered by an Earth scientific team, one of whom, Walters, dubs them 'Ice Warriors' in their first appearance. Despite this not being the name of their species, an Ice Lord later refers to his soldiers as Ice Warriors in the 1974 serial The Monster of Peladon. Similarly there is a fleeting reference to themselves as such in The Curse of Peladon. Although originally appearing as villains, subsequent appearances have depicted Ice Warriors that have eschewed violence and even ally themselves with the Doctor. They have also been featured in flashback and cameo appearances, in addition to appearing frequently in spin-off media such as novels and audio releases.

"Treehouse of Horror II" is the seventh episode of the third season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 31, 1991. It is the second annual Treehouse of Horror episode, consisting of three self-contained segments, told as dreams of Lisa, Bart and Homer and is the only Treehouse of Horror episode to date where each segment name is not stated inside the episode. In the first segment, which was inspired by W. W. Jacobs's short story The Monkey's Paw and The Twilight Zone episode "A Small Talent for War", Homer buys a Monkey's Paw that has the power to grant wishes, although all the wishes backfire. In the second part, which parodies the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life", Bart is omnipotent, and turns Homer into a jack-in-the-box, resulting in the two spending more time together. In the final segment, Mr. Burns attempts to use Homer's brain to power a giant robotic laborer.

The Worldwar series is the fan name given to a series of eight alternate history science fiction novels by Harry Turtledove. Its premise is an alien invasion of Earth during World War II, and includes Turtledove's Worldwar tetralogy, as well as the Colonization trilogy, and the novel Homeward Bound. The series' time span ranges from 1942 to 2031. The early series was nominated for a Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 1996.

<i>Babylon 5: In the Beginning</i> 1998 American TV series or program

Babylon 5: In the Beginning is a 1998 American made-for-television film set in the Babylon 5 fictional universe. It was written by J. Michael Straczynski and directed by Michael Vejar. The film originally aired on January 4, 1998 on the TNT cable network, a couple of weeks before the fifth season of the series began.

"Black Leather Jackets" is episode 138 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. In this episode, three aliens disguised as young men in leather jackets encounter a kink in their plan to exterminate humankind when one of them falls in love with a human girl.

<i>Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends</i> TV series or program

Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths & Legends is an animated television series that originally aired as part of BKN's cartoon programing block. The show's premise was that aliens had been living among humans for ages, and were the origins of many of the creatures humans know from myth, folklore and legends, including vampires and werewolves. The show was produced in part of BKN's drive to reinvent itself as a children's block and company in general.

The comic book stories published by Marvel Comics since the 1940s have featured several noteworthy concepts besides its fictional characters, such as unique places and artifacts. There follows a list of those features.

<i>Fantastic Four 2099</i>

Fantastic Four 2099 was a comic book series published by Marvel Comics, featuring the adventures of the Fantastic Four in the alternate future of Marvel 2099 (Earth-928). It ran for eight issues in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saga of a Star World</span> 1st and 3rd episodes of the 1st season of Battlestar Galactica

"Saga of a Star World" is the pilot for the American science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica which was produced in 1978 by Glen A. Larson. A re-edit of the episode was released theatrically as Battlestar Galactica in Canada before the television series aired in the United States, in order to help recoup its high production costs. Later, the standalone film edit was also released in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient astronauts in popular culture</span>

Ancient astronauts have been addressed frequently in science fiction and horror fiction. Occurrences in the genres include:

"A Day in Beaumont" is the first segment of the twenty-fourth episode of the first season of the television series The Twilight Zone. In this segment, a couple spends an entire day trying to convince the people of a small town that aliens have landed nearby.

<i>Deaths End</i> 2010 science fiction novel by Liu Cixin

Death's End is a science fiction novel by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin. It is the third novel in the trilogy titled Remembrance of Earth's Past, following the Hugo Award-winning novel The Three-Body Problem and its sequel, The Dark Forest. The original Chinese version was published in 2010. Ken Liu translated the English edition in 2016. It was a finalist for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel and winner of the 2017 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.

References

  1. Larry, Sheldon; Norton, Bill; Weill, Claudia (1986-01-24), Monsters!/A Small Talent for War/A Matter of Minutes, The Twilight Zone, retrieved 2022-11-29
  2. Leunig, Maximilian (2022-10-27). "The 10 Best Twilight Zone Episodes — Across All 4 Versions". Collider. Archived from the original on 2022-11-07. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
  3. SunsetCast Media System (2009-04-15), 1986-01-24 - Rv1 S01 E15b - A Small Talent For War , retrieved 2022-11-29