There are not a lot of analogies between the united states senate and star trek, but the one good one is a doozy. the crew finds itself on the planet eminiar which has been at war with the planet vendikar for so long they found a more efficient way to fight. vendikar has just dropped an atomic bomb killing half a million people but the crew noticed no damages to any eminiar city. turns out the actual weapons are inside a simulation. the computer simply calculates how many would have died if there had been an actual bomb and that number of residents dutifully walk into suicide booths to be execute but fortunately no buildings are damaged. apparently there are republicans on the planet. the episode ends with william shatner destroying the computers and explaining that war needs to be horrific to motivate nations to stop it. destruction, death, disease, horror. in our third story same goes for the filibuster.