As others have noted, this episode was the inspiration for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, involving the powerful Vejur entity. But the movie had a much more satisfying resolution, and was sort of an "improved" version of this episode.
Basically, the Enterprise encounters an immensely powerful space probe that originated on Earth (Nomad), was subsequently altered by contact with a much more powerful alien probe, and now seeks to "sterilize" all "imperfections", which include "biological units". In other words, it threatens to wipe out all biological life, and it has the power to do it. The only thing that saves the Enterprise, at first, is that the machine mistakenly thinks Kirk is its creator, solely because of damage to its databanks and the similarity of Kirk's name to that of the true creator, "Roykirk", from centuries ago on Earth, and the machine somewhat inexplicably chooses to obey instructions from its perceived creator.
The episode did have some impressive dramatic moments, like the demonstrations of Nomad's power-- able to fire warp 15 energy bolts supposedly containing the power of 90 photon torpedos (which really should have obliterated the Enterprise with one shot, rather than taking five!); able to increase engine efficiency of the Enterprise to reach at least warp 11; able to absorb a direct hit with a photon torpedo, with no damage whatsoever; able to restore a recently killed crewman (Scotty).
The immense power of the being, and the fact that it is inevitably going to discover that Kirk is an "imperfect biological entity" and wipe out all humankind, creates an interesting enough dilemma for the crew to solve, but the resolution was really pretty silly. Kirk basically "outwits" the "perfect" and almost inconceivably sophisticated Nomad by pointing out that Nomad erred in concluding he was its creator; therefore, Nomad must 'sterilize' itself.
This sort of pat and convenient ending was hardly a plausible one, for many reasons. First, it was hardly believable that Nomad would have made the initial mistake that Kirk was its creator. Even if it had the name "James Kirk" in its damaged databanks for some reason instead of the correct name "Roykirk", it seems doubtful that a computer that advanced would have just assumed, without more information, that this was the same man who was its creator. More importantly, wouldn't it have long ago realized that it was created by the "inferior" biological units anyway? So even meeting its creator should hardly have impressed it; unless it had some residual programming that 'required' that it obey its creator-- in which case it shouldn't have mattered if it knew whether Kirk was biological or not! (and Kirk could have just ordered it to destroy itself, while it was under the illusion that Kirk was its creator). Finally, even if Nomad didn't already know that Kirk was a "mere biological unit", it was so advanced and powerful that it should have detected that fact right away upon encountering him without needing Kirk to "slip up" later and spill the beans.
There really could be no 'happy' resolution here, in that Nomad had nothing left but an odd cold malevolence: the mission to 'sterilize' all imperfection, including all biological life. The silly ending in which Kirk "out-logics" the supreme computer was basically a necessary "cop out" to get out of an impossible situation.
In The Motion Picture, the result is much more satisfying. There, Vejur is not as malevolent as Nomad, but instead seeks to seek out and acquire all knowledge in the universe, a pretty lofty goal. Vejur is portrayed as a 'child' that yearns to know its 'roots', to learn how it was created, which leads it to trace its origins to Earth's systems and seek out its creator there. When the truth is revealed to it, the creature embraces this fact and merges with the descendants of its creator (in that case, Decker and Ilja). Certainly a much more satisfactory resolution.
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