The Hero

A thirty-man exploration crew on a newly landed ship adapts the vessel into comforts and diversions to combat monotony, appropriating native furnishings and improvising beverages. Doctors conduct linguistic and behavioral studies of an unusually nonviolent, deteriorated native society while officers admonish the men against fraternizing. With poker, psychoanalytic readings, petty thefts, and sanctioned liberties, the crew grows increasingly restless and preoccupied with the planet's alluring women, revealing tensions between scientific obligation, military order, and the crew's desire for entertainment and release.