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story identification - Simulated wars with real casualties


I'm trying to find a specific episode of an old sci-fi show I watched decades ago. It involved two planets that were originally at war with each other, but the wars became too costly, and both planets agreed to do simulated war, where imaginary missiles would detonate (in a simulator) over real towns.


The inhabitants of the town were then "registered", and then had a day to say their goodbyes and then go into a room that vaporized them, sending the kill count to the other planet to make sure both sides were honoring the rules of the "war". The protagonist "saves the day" by damaging the simulator, causing the two planets to think the other side reneged on the war pact, and actually resumes a real war with real weapons.



Answer



This is a Star Trek: Original Series episode:


A Taste of Armageddon




In the episode, the crew of the USS Enterprise visits a planet whose people fight a computer-simulated war against a neighboring planet. Although the war is fought via computer simulation, the citizens of each planet have to submit to real executions inside "disintegration booths" to meet the casualty counts of the simulated attacks. The crew of the Enterprise is caught in the middle and are told to submit themselves voluntarily for execution after being "killed" in an "enemy attack".



http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5v2nwg


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