#for different reasons (captain & vulcan) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

foone · 8 months

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you know what'd be a fun idea for a trek fanshow? Star Trek: Mission Logs. You just put a couple people in starfleet uniforms, and have them read off summaries of episodes in an increasingly incredulous tone. Like Drunk History: Star Trek Edition.

"so the captain says that while on the way to the inauguration ceremony, they diverted course to Vulcan as their first officer needed SO MUCH to fuck that he was a week from death, but then when they got there, he got stood up, and then fought the captain TO DEATH but he was ok?"

"so it turns out when they disappeared during the battle with the borg, they went back in time and found out that the first use of warp drive had been undone, so they had to personally help Cochrane rebuild his ship, and they were there for first contact!?"

I say "drunk history" because I imagine the people at the starfleet HQ have to drink heavily to handle the kind of reports they keep getting in from starfleet captains.

"So after a miserable first contact, the commander, doctor, first officer, and science officer disappeared, and their security officer found that the boardgame the barkeep was playing had pieces that represented them? and they were somehow mystically imprisoned inside the game!"

"so the captain says that they detected a ship trapped inside a black hole (!?) and when they tried to rescue the ship, they got damaged and then discovered they were that ship, trapped inside without realizing. Fortunately they found the crack in the event horizon and escaped." (the lieutenant then passes out after finishing the entire bottle of Bolian vodka)

"So while they were on a vital mission to locate the aliens who had blown up florida and were planning to destroy the entire planet, they found a... Cowboy Planet!?" Everyone yells "COWBOY PLANET!" and takes a shot.

"So while testing a weapons upgrade, a crewmember's case of flu was accidentally turned into an infectious de-evolutionary mutagen, causing the crewmember to turn into a spider, and the rest of the crew to undergo similar changes." "stop, stop, STOP! you made that one up, admit it!" "no, really! Their counselor turned into a frog." "ok, now I'm just not going to believe anything you say."

"so a former captain of the ship was visiting when they tried to rescue a ship flying directly into a supernova, but got 'pulled in'!? and ended up in a REVERSE TIME UNIVERSE? naturally, everyone quickly de-aged to children, and the elderly former captain had to take command" "Spelk, you're not even trying this time, that's not even remotely plausible"

"So it turns out that the terrorist who took over the paradise planet was the first officer's (half-)brother, and he uses his magic hypnosis to cause the crew to mutiny and join his mission to travel to the middle of the galaxy... and find god!?" "Did... did they find god?" "oh yeah! turns out he was evil. Don't worry, the first officer blew him up using a klingon warbird." "he blew up god?" "yeah!"

"So this is a little different, it's not a mission log... it's a repair log." "That doesn't sound like it'd be very weird..." "Oh, just you wait. So, they had to get refueled because all their dilithium had been stolen." "Stolen?" "Yes. By a man from AN ANTIMATTER DIMENSION" "So a man in an antimatter dimension discovered there were two dimensions, and his matter counterpart went insane and obsessed with killing the anti-matter version of him, but meeting outside the dimensional corridor would destroy both universes" "both... universes? So if the captain didn't stop these guys, everyone in our entire universe and some other one would be gone?" "YEP!" "did he stop them? well, I guess he did, since we're still here" "oh yeah. trapped 'em in the dimensional corridor forever." "so they're just out there in some weird in-between-the-universes place, just fighting, for all time? and that's the only reason we haven't blown up?" "YEP!" "and this all came out in the logs... because they put in for repairs?" "yeah. to replace the stolen dilithium" "are you sure the captain wasn't really into dabo or kotra and wagered the dilithium crystals on a "sure thing" that didn't pan out?"

"So this one is a report of some people (with pictures!) who don't exist." "They don't exist?" "Nope! never did. They weren't born." "So, we have pictures of them, because?" "Well, the ship crashed, and the stranded crew had kids... then they uncrashed." "uncrashed?" "yeah! so it turns out when they approached the planet, they got thrown a couple centuries back in time, and met their descendants. then when they tried to leave, the ship would crash, restarting the loop. but it didn't." "it didn't?" "yeah, one of the crew was secretly in love with another officer, but she wasn't going to survive the crash, so despite the crew attempting to recreate the crash to continue the existence of their past-future-descendants, he sabotaged the ship into not crashing" "wait, into not crashing? he did sabotage to make everything... work perfectly?" "yeah! they were trying to crash, remember? So they inadvertently didn't crash, undoing the existence of all of their descendants, so they never existed. But here's their pictures!"

"ooh, I found a really weird one! It's not a mission report, medical file, or even another repair log" "So what is it? Another weird artifact?" "no no no, I sent those off to the SCP division. This is a SPY REPORT! About a dead Romulan!" "So this report is on a spy saying that the Romulans had gotten access to some secret information about the then-upcoming Intrepid-class starships. Very minimal info, but this was found in a Romulan database when the ship was just undergoing initial design stages" "Here's the weird part: The database file with the information on the Intrepid was timestamped 2351, but Starfleet didn't even start initial design work on the Intrepid until 2364!" "So they used time travel? to get... basic information on one single starship class?" "Kinda? See, there's a P.S. on the spy file, added later when it was declassified. The leaked info in the Romulan database was discovered in 2371, but the file was updated in 2378, with an explanation." "and?" "Remember when the U.S.S. Voyager was lost?" "oh yeah, they turned out to have just been stuck on the other side of the galaxy, right?" "Yeah! And while they were there, they found a microscopic wormhole, and successfully used it to communicate back with the Romulans... but discovered it was a TIME WORMHOLE" "oh, so they were talking to the Romulans back in 2351?" "Yep! They figured that out and then decided not to transport through the wormhole, as they would have gotten home 20 years before they left, but they sent some messages back to be delivered later. They didn't come through" "why not?" "well... turns out the romulan guy (Telek R'Mor) died before Voyager ever launched, so he never got a chance to deliver the messages. but he DID inform the Tal Shiar about some design elements of the Intrepid class, years before it was launched" "that must have confused them" "yes... the report is basically just two spy agencies completely confused about what to do about the intelligence they had, and confused about why they had it"

"ok ok ok, enough artifacts, mission logs, spy reports, medical reports, repair logs, how about a really weird one: A SENSOR REPORT!" "why is that one weird?" "well, look at the timestamp. Both of them." "so one timestamp is 2372, and the other is... negative 16 billion?" "yep! This one is a scan of the big bang. And slightly before it." "... before?" "Yeah! They did a scan, and then THE BIG BANG HAPPENED, and then fortunately they got out of there before the universe fully existed, as that would exceed the ship's safety tolerances" "so... why were they at the big bang?" "well... you know the farpoint encounter, and that godly being the USS Enterprise ran into?" "oh god (uh, no pun intended)... but yeah, vaguely" "WELL it turns out there was another one of those godly beings who was suicidal and imprisoned in a comet, and-" "wait wait wait. there was a god trapped in a comet?" "yes. apparently they're infinitely powerful but weak to comets. ANYWAY. he was suicidal and trying to hide" "hide? WHAT DOES A GOD HAVE TO HIDE FROM?" "well he was hiding from the other god! the one at farpoint! that one was the one who imprisoned him. because he was suicidal." "so the god was in the comet, and the other god put him there, and someone let him out? and then he hid?" "yes! and where does a god hide?" "at the big bang?" "slightly before, but yes! and he took the ship along with him, so that's how they were able to scan the big bang. because of getting involved in a weird game of hide-and-seek between a suicidal god and a jailer-god" "so what happened? how did they get out of the whole god-war thing?" "well... usual stuff. they put the god on trial to see if he could be allowed to die, but compromised on making him human and a crew member" "so they had a former god on their crew?" "briefly. then he died." "he died? after settling for human?" "yeah, it turned out the jailer-god changed his mind and decided to rebel against god-society and started by giving the former-god some deadly poison to let him finally die, like he wanted" "well, at least that seems to have ended... well?"

"oh no, there's a follow up! see, it seems the dead god thing lead to a god-civil-war and it seems that caused a bunch of supernovae in 2373." "wait... supernovae? plural? like, outshined-the-entire-galaxy SUPERNOVAE? that must have killed billions, or trillions!" "yep! it was a massive disaster and caused a real crisis in astronomy because we had no idea why it was happening, but it suddenly stopped, thankfully. But yes, it was started because the crew accidentally freed a suicidal god from a comet." "oh god..." "literally!"

"don't worry, though... that's not the weird bit" "HOW IS THAT NOT THE WEIRD BIT?" "OK I PROMISE I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP... but after the first supernovae of the 2373 Calamity, it turns out the captain (of the ship that killed the god) discovered another god... in her bed" "her... bed?" "Yeah! it turns out the other god wanted to have a child. with her." "... that's weird but what does this have to do with the supernovae?" "he wanted to end the war, and figured the best way to do it was to get her pregnant with a god-baby"

"NOPE! That's it! I'm out. that's not real. you're making it up. We don't live in a universe where one captain caused death across the universe by sparking a god-war and then only ending it by having a baby with a god. I'm out. I have a Warp Dynamics test to study for anyway."

"wait! wait! I didn't even tell you about the time she turned into a lizard and had babies with her pilot" "NO! I DON'T CARE HOW MANY WEIRD THINGS YOU MAKE UP, THERE ARE NO LIZARD BABIES"

"no, I swear, it really happened! Look, they went infinitely fast and occupied every point in the universe!" "THAT'S NOT HOW SPEED WORKS" "it is! and it turns out going everywhere at once infinitely fast turns you into a lizard!" "*sigh* Are there any reports on unhearing that?"

I imagine they sometimes decide to go HARD MODE on the report readings, where they have to put aside all the ones with "Voyager" on them. They're just too easy.

"So I've got two reports here, and I want you to pick between them. One is the second weirdest transporter visitor log, and the other is a report on why a science officer is 30 years old... except his head, which is 495 years old!" "I'm going to cut you off there, because I know your tricks: those are both the same incident." "Yep! You got me. Am I really that predictable?" "You are. Also, second weirdest transporter visitor log? You phrased that very specifically..." "I wanted to rule out all the transporter accidents and strange misuses of the transporter, and focus solely on WHO was transported. This was the second weirdest person." "I'm not going to take the obvious bait and ask who it was... but I will ask: who is the weirdest?" "Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln. President of the United States, a predecessor to the unified Earth government... he died in 1865." "WHY WAS HE TRANSPORTED? Who was time traveling back to the 1860s? and if they were in the 1860s, why were they beaming up Presidents?" "HARDMODE: No time travel! He was transported out of open space in 2269, because he had been recreated by the local mineral beings on their lava-planet" "why... why did the lava aliens recreate a 19th century Earth president?" "To study GOOD AND EVIL!" "Like you do, I guess?" "Yeah... anyway, the recreated Lincoln got killed by a spear, thrown by either Genghis Khan or Kahless the Unforgettable" "THE FOUNDER OF THE KLINGON EMPIRE?" "Yeah! he got recreated too. And teamed up with Genghis." "No. no no no no no you made this up" "It's real! Check it out, there's a message here to the diplomatic department, asking for the proper protocol to accept a 19th century US president abort a quasi-military vessel. And there's a video clip! Hit play on that..."

"Man, video quality was terrible back in 2269" "Yeah, they were using analog tapes back then. Don't ask why. Retrotechnology studies are so complicated even without timetravel messing everything up. So yeah, apparently the answer is 'dress uniforms, security guys, whistle'" "oh yeah. You can't welcome a 19th century Earth president on board without a whistle. Where's your sense of ceremony!?"

"So I really have to go, my Intermediate Klingoneese class starts in like 5 minutes, but just tell me one thing: Who was the 2nd weirdest transporter visitor on the logs?" "Oh! Samuel Clemens." "Who?" "Mark Twain! Earth author, wrote Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn?" "What? How?" "Yeah, a crew found a time portal that went back to 1893, while trying to figure out why the head of one of their crewmembers was in a cave on earth, and accidentally sent him forward to 2368, and beamed him aboard." "Did they wipe his memory afterwards or something?" "NOPE!" "So the 19th century Earth author Mark Twain, who I'm now remembering wrote a novel about time travel, didn't he?" "yep!" "So he wrote about time travel and HAD PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH IT?" "Yeah! thanks to snake aliens, eating humans in the past"

"Yeah I'm gonna go ask my teacher how they say 'You deserve to die for your lies' on Qo'noS" "I think it's... Hegh nep qotlh SoH? maybe 'urmang instead of nep?" "I'M OUT, petaQ!"

(a transcript of a twitter thread I made from back in July 2020)

#star trek #star trek voyager #star trek the next generation #star trek deep space 9 #star trek enterprise

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stra-tek · 1 year

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Random spoilerific reasons to read Star Trek novels, with little to no context:

Ro/Quark is a thing

A Jem'Hadar joins DS9, tries to fit in but eventually snaps and tries to kill everybody

You learn the origins and final fate of the Borg

A thinly-veiled Dr. House clone joins the Voyager crew

Geordi briefly has 2 girlfriends at once (due to different writers not co-ordinating enough, but still)

There's a TOS book that's a musical

There are YA stories about Jake and Nog making mischief on DS9

YA stories about Worf, Geordi, Picard, Beverly, Kirk, Spock and McCoy at SFA

YA series about the Kelvinverse gang (including Gaila!) as cadets, taking on a drug problem at SFA and a very unique Borg scout in San Francisco

We very briefly meet the people who are to Q what the Q are to humanity

Janeway/Chakotay is a thing

Kirk's first mission in command of the Enterprise! Erm, at least twice.

Kirk was married between TOS and TMP

Her name was Lori

In the future, you have yearly marriage contracts that you either update or you don't and I think that's amazing

Trip didn't die! He faked his death to join Section 31 and go undercover as a Romulan

It's not great, tbh

The ENT books get better after the Romulan wars though, it's proper founding of the Federation stuff

We meet Jack Crusher (erm, the OG) when 4 timelines start overlapping and he's a bit unhinged

Teenage Kirk stole a car and his choice was go to jail or join Starfleet

What happened when Voyager got home? Seven broke up with Chakotay like 30 pages in

Kirk gets cloned, and his clone becomes the sub of an evil invincible super genius and its all very gay

George Kirk was Robert April's first officer on the first ever mission of the unnamed starship with the Naval Construction Contract 1701

Robert is a hard-core pacifist and has to turn command over to George whenever it's time to fire weapons

Data becomes fully human for a couple of days and it's really sweet

They never say "wristwatch" or "phone", it's always "wrist chrono" or "personal comm"

There are gays but they don't say that word because it's the 1990's and Rick Berman runs the franchise

Spock has a son in the past with Zarabeth

Everyone in the post-Nemesis era does spy missions all the time non stop, as if Starfleet has abandoned exploring the cosmos for doing Space Mission: Impossible

Bashir does it better than anyone else, he takes on Section 31 from the inside

Remember Control? It's from the novels, except the novels do it SO MUCH BETTER.

Remember how we never found out who Future Guy was? We do.

It's very underwhelming, nobody we know

We find out how the Romulans and Vulcans split

Surak was a Vulcan internet blogger

A Borg Cube eats Pluto

Janeway dies

Janeway gets better

At least one TOS book features a wizard

There's a Star Trek TOS/Here Come the Brides crossover novel

It had cameos from The Doctor (as in, Who), Han Solo, Starbuck and others

Whole book series about Section 31

Whole book series about the Department of Temporal Investigations

One time they do the Bill and Ted thing to escape confinement and it works

Wanna know how Riker and Troi met?

Wanna know what Picard got up to on the Stargazer?

Andorians have 4 sexes and it's very complicated

Data comes back from the dead as Data 2.0, and it was fresh and exciting because it happened long before ST: Picard did it twice.

Lal comes back too and we get father/daughter android stuff! They have a home and everything but keep having to save the universe

One time Mirror Seven is led around on a leash naked on Terok Nor

Geordi becomes captain of the USS Challenger, decides it's not for him because plot, and goes back to engineering on the Enterprise

Kirk is shot on the bridge and dies

Kirk gets better

They watch 3D holos of old Doctor Who episodes in the Enterprise rec room

The Enterprise also has an AI named Moira, which was Zora long before Zora

The TOS crew get together for one last mission. About three times.

There's a Perry Mason book except it's about Kirk's lawyer from that TOS episode

Data 2.0 owns and runs a massive gambling empire on Orion

Spock keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era

Scotty keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era

Bones keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era

You're on Tumblr so you already know about Killing Time

There's a guy named McKenzie Calhoun and he's a total badass and captains a ship of weirdos and misfits

Kirk comes back from the dead, saves the galaxy repeatedly, has an intersex child (who identifies as male) with a Romulan/Klingon hybrid

Kirk beats up Worf

Kirk's child has superpowers

Kirk's child saves the galaxy at age 6

The Kirk stuff is 100% ignored in the other novels

About 50% of the novels are ignored in the other 50%, and the ones that are meant to be in direct continuity with each other aren't always quite

Just like the TV shows and movies, then

Lwaxana Troi meets Q, and it goes as well as you'd expect

Someone tells Data, yes you idiot you had emotions all along and he's like, oh shit you're right

McCoy is left in command of the Enterprise as a joke by Kirk, who is then immediately kidnapped

Ro Laren is captain of Deep Space Nine

Picard/Beverly is a thing, they get married and have a child named Rene. No running away and raising your kid in secret here

Riker and Troi are married, serve on the Titan together with a bunch of adorable weirdos and have a daughter named Tasha

You get to watch all the 24th century characters die horribly in the end along with their entire universe. Holy fuck it's a bleak horror show. Personally, I love it. But if that's not your cup of tea I'd skip the Coda trilogy

#star trek #star trek novels #star trek novelverse #star trek books #kirk #spock #picard #riker #troi #star trek tos #star trek tng #ds9 #Voyager #enterprise #add your own

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writingsfromstarfleet · 6 months

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[AOS] Spock - The Other Kirk

♫ - Spring Day - BTS

A/N: Hello! I think I've written something similar before, honestly I don't remember, but if anyone is still reading these or is still here, enjoy! Hugs! x

for @lovinghufflepuffgirl <3

fem! pronouns (she/her) :)

Growing up, Iowa was life in the fast lane, and things were always constantly moving. The Kirk's were a well-known family, whether it was for your father, Lieutenant George Kirk, and his work in Starfleet, or it was your brother, Jim Kirk, and his truanting and general misbehaviour. America was entirely different to space, and you quickly found that out on your first assignment in Starfleet.

Life on the Enterprise was definitely different to normal life. There were people of different races, species, genders; you name it, it was here. All beings from outer space worked together towards one common goal and it was a close community aboard the ship. You yourself, were human. From Riverside, Iowa on Earth, you were the sister of the Captain, and that didn't really make life too simple.

Despite the difference, your brother stuck up for you no matter what, whether it was earth or the academy, it didn't matter. You were his pride and joy, and he would protect you with his life.

By nature, your brother Jim was loud, obnoxious and confident. There never really was anything he wouldn't do, the man had confidence built from steel. You guessed that's what came from being the Captain. You were the polar opposite of him. Quiet as a whole, you kept your books and studies to yourself, always picking a small, closed off corner of the mess hall to sit in. Most people talked to you in relation to your brother, never really anything else. But, you weren't too offended.

There was always someone a little different, though; Spock.

Your brothers first officer, Spock was always by his side, or on the bridge as acting captain. But, on the semi-rare occasion he wasn't, Spock tended to join you in the corner without much being said between you. In a way, you quite enjoyed it. It was a mutual understanding; you knew he didn't always favour talking, and so a simple smile and a nod of acknowledgement before you both delved back to your datapads and meals, was enough.

This pattern developed over time, and you found yourself sat with him more and more. Conversations started to naturally come between you, and before long, you were learning more and more about him, as he was you. One day, was different, it was still the same old routine, but the conversation was different.

"Good evening, Y/N," Spock started, placing his pad and drink down on the table. "How are you doing?"

"Hi Spock, I'm doing well, thank you, I'm a little stressed out over this, but other than that, it's good." Spock saw your face, brows furrowed but still trying to maintain your usual polite smile. "How are you?"

"I am well, thank you. Perhaps I can help you with that."

Spock spun his pad round and sat down next to you for the first time. Usually, he was less personal and more formal, tending to always sit across from you. But this time, Spock chose the seat next to you instead. You suddenly felt nervous, though you had no real reason to be. Spock took your pad from you, fingers brushing delicately across your own for a second. Though it was only that second, the feeling lingered for a while. Spock stared at you for a moment, and quickly diverted his eyes down. If you hadn't known any better, you'd say his cheeks went a little red.

"What is it you need help with?" he asked, voice low.

"I just don't understand any of it, I'm trying my best but I can't make sense of what feels like a thousand pages of writing."

Spock sat with you for nearly two hours, explaining and writing and helping you where he could. It felt like he had been there all night, and as he spoke and talked you through everything paragraph by paragraph, eventually, it started to sink in and you began to understand. Even being Vulcan, Spock could not hide the pride on his face and a small smile after you explained the study back to him.

"Well done, Y/N, I am impressed." His voice was different, and it sounded happy. His tone and smile told you that.

"You're smiling, you must be proud," you laughed out, and quickly got nervous again. "I, uh, didn't mean it like that if I offended you or-"

"Do not worry, I am proud. You have managed to learn something you did not know. That is an achievement and you should be proud too."

"I couldn't have done it without you, thank you," you replied, not really too sure where to look. You became sheepish, something you had not been much around Spock for quite some time. Whether it was the closeness, or the care from him, you weren't sure.

"It has been an enjoyable two hours, I would like to do this again sometime," Spock seemed a little cautious, taking a breath before continuing. "Perhaps, without the studying."

He took you aback a little, before it fully clicked he was asking you on a date.

"I would quite like that, Spock."

The day came to a close as he walked you back to your room before bidding you a goodnight.

The morning came and you were up bright and early for your shift. As you finished getting dressed and tied your hair up, your comms system rang out.

"Lieutenant Y/N to the Captain's ready room."

With confusion and slight concern, you made your way to Jim's room with haste, not wanting to upset him in case he was in a bad mood or you had done something wrong. Reaching the room, you didn't even have to knock before the door swung open. You stepped inside, and your brother sat with a face like thunder.

"Captain? Or Jim today?" you asked, in the same joking manner as usual.

"Spock?" he replied.

"Weird choice of name, but who am I to judge?" you replied, shrugging.

"Not funny."

"Never claimed to be, you've always been the clown. What's up with you?"

Jim raised an eyebrow, very clearly unimpressed.

"When were you going to tell me you were dating my first officer?"

You couldn't help but laugh. "What? I'm not dating Spock, relax. We just eat together and we're going on a date later this week, but I would love to know who told you that, because they found out before I did and that's one hell of a talent."

"Y/N, seriously. Have you thought about this?" You furrowed your brow, nodding him to elaborate. "This is Spock, he's a Vulcan, which means emotions are not his specialist subject."

"You'd be surprised, Jim. Why do you care so much anyway? He's your XO, you trust him don't you? He wouldn't hurt me, if that's what you're worried about. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't try this out and I won't go this weekend."

Jim stared at you, trying to summon any semblance of an answer for that, but realised he didn't actually have a legitimate reason to stop you. He did trust Spock, and he would trust Spock to keep you safe like he does, and to care for you. There was nothing really he could do to stop this, nor was there any reason he could see.

Sighing, he shook his head. "You're right. I just worry for you, you know? You're all I got, and-"

You cut him off with a hug. His grip tightened and you buried yourself into his shoulder. Pulling back, you smiled at him.

"Don't worry, I love you too. I won't get myself killed, but if I do, he's all yours."

Jim laughed, and you joined in, grabbing your drink and heading towards the door.

"Plus, it was Spock or Bones, so take your pick where you want."

"Y/N!"

With that, you closed the door over a little, laughing to yourself. From around the corner, you saw Spock, who raised his brow.

"Spock and Bones? What about us?"

You shrugged. "Nothing important, but if you go in there I'm sure you'll find out."

Spock cocked his head in curiosity, and you smiled.

"You look adorable like that, by the way." You leaned in and kissed his cheek, and swore you saw that blush red on his cheeks. "See you later."

As you walked away, Spock stood for a second, and touched his cheek where you left that kiss, and very faintly from behind the door came a voice that snapped him out of it.

"What the hell!"

#star trek #star trek x reader #star trek imagine #star trek aos #kelvin timeline #spock #spock x reader #spock imagine #x reader #imagine

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t0ast-ghost · 1 month

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So the thing is I wasn’t going to comment on the sixth episode. I just got home from a hella good play and I’m tired so I relax with Star Trek but holy shit

What IS that

With that HELLO and welcome to my first thoughts on the sixth episode (The Enemy Within) of the original Star Trek series

Here we go:

- that is a fucking dog

- IS THAT BLOOD?!? On Star Trek???

- so he got transporter cloned.. WHY IS HIS FACE LIKE THAT THO

- I like the fact it’s told a bit in retrospect, like it starts off with the star date and saying that at the time they didn’t know he got cloned

- MCCOY! His friendliness and then the “I have no sympathy for clumsiness” bro wha

- DONT YELL AT MCCOY

- McCoy not knowing what to do about Jim so he goes to Spock lol

- what the fuck is that fuckin thing, it’s rabid man.

- anytime someone is holding the creature there is literally no reason for them to be holding it. Like Kirk is just holding it and then HANDS IT TO SPOCK.. WHY IS THIS NORMAL NOW

- so do people casually just sit on tables here? First we had McCoy, now Spock. Is it just science/medical officers?

- Vulcan nerve pinch for the win

- POV your boyfriends are deeply concerned for your wellbeing (side note: bones looks so soft in the first pic. He cares so much)

- “you have a point, Spock.” “Yes. Always, doctor” STOP FLIRTING

- “If I seem insensitive to what you are going through, you must understand it’s the way I am.” HE SAYS THIS WITH ALL THE CARE IN THE DAMN WORLD. Spock is the most emotional character I have ever seen

- uh oh the circuits

- nooo Sulu! Do they not have better cold protection?

- YEAH I HOPE YOU’RE IN PAIN FUCKER

- so I think what they’re trying to promote is the idea that there’s the kind and indecisive side and the animalistic “sinful” side that has all the impulses and power to make decisions and together they work so that the former side can calm the latter to be more… civilized?

- “god forbid I have to agree with Spock” they’re married and you cannot convince me otherwise

- was that dog okay? Like it was really fuckin angry at something

- HES DEAD JIM MOMENT! WE HAVE A HES DEAD JIM MOMENT

- “for once I agree with you, doctor” THEY ARE MARRIED

- Spock is so riled up rn (every time he shows emotion I’m commenting on it because I think he is so so emotional but then his whole thing is he isn’t)

- SPOCK YOUR LOGIC ISNT LOGICING (having a human half and Vulcan half I think is a bit different than literally being split into two people, but what do I know)

- they are literally the angel and devil on his shoulder, but married, and also in love with him

- what no no bring Sulu back. That was such a good delivery of lines I am so

- this episode shows the power imbalance between Kirk and Janice and that messaging could be more powerful if they really wanted. Like showing how Janice felt forced to say she was okay with it and wouldn’t tell anyone because it was the captain I feel was a big step to take in the 60s (because it was rarely if ever talked about especially on tv) but it still wasn’t enough and was treated horribly in the end. They brush off her experience and also let Kirk be near her which is not okay. I know they wouldn’t but I wish they’d actually addressed the fact that Kirk can pretty much get away with anything and the crew wouldn’t/couldn’t stop him unless they deem it truly necessary (which would be way to far)

- I think the Kirk stuff could be more impactful

- some of those close ups on Kirk are crazy

- Bones is so damn worried about him in the transporter room

- SPOCK IS STRESSED AND HE HESITATES

- “the imposters back where he belongs, forget him” but isn’t the thing is that he is you? Like he’s still there and apart of you, Kirk

Okay, that’s episode six. I don’t have much more to say about this episode.

Ep 1

All other episodes

#Star Trek #star trek the original series #star trek tos #star trek kirk #tos kirk #captain james kirk #star trek spock #tos spock #spock #star trek mccoy #tos mccoy #leonard bones mccoy #star trek sulu #tos sulu #hikaru sulu #yeoman janice rand #janice rand #television t0ast talks

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comdrspock · 1 year

Text

True Blue

It wasn’t unheard of for Amanda to receive a message from her son Spock, though he was most often stationed far away in a different quadrant of the galaxy. He did his best to stay in touch in spite of his often unpredictable schedule, and she appreciated his efforts a great deal. Sometimes, however, she selfishly wished he would do a poorer job. It was one thing to be aware of how dangerous his Starfleet career could be and quite another to hear a detailed account of his most recent brush with death. That Spock always recounted these adventures as drily and matter-of-factly as possible was, if anything, worse for Amanda’s nerves than learning the gory details.

This call was out of the ordinary in part because it had nothing to do with any of Spock’s most recent missions. He inquired about her experiences as a human woman on Vulcan and even, to her great surprise, about her courtship with his father. The two of them usually danced around the subject of Sarek, with whom Spock had barely been on speaking terms since he left Vulcan to attend Starfleet Academy years ago. Though he posed them with his usual impersonal, academic curiosity, the questions themselves raised Amanda’s suspicions.

She knew, of course, about the fractured engagement between Spock and T’Pring. Arranging a marriage for her son at such a tender age had always made her uncomfortable, but as in so many things in her marriage, she hadn’t protested Sarek’s insistence on following his tradition. As the human wife of a very stubborn Vulcan man, she had to pick her battles. She and Sarek had been away on a diplomatic mission and therefore unable to return home for what should have been Spock’s wedding, which was probably for the best. Her husband had been furious at what he perceived to be an insult to his house and his son. Only time and distance had cooled his head.

At the time, she’d been hurt for Spock, too—who could ask for a better husband than her son? But her romantic heart had whispered that now he was free.

She hadn’t thought much about the matter since then. When she did hear from Spock about his work, he mentioned his close colleagues only in passing, so that she knew the captain’s name, but no one else’s. He had certainly never talked about any women. Yet now...now, she wondered. Why these questions, and why now?

“Spock,” she asked, wishing she could reach across the unfathomable distance that separated them and touch his dear face, “is there a reason you’re asking me all this?”

Though she had no telepathic abilities and though he’d carefully trained in all those Vulcan mental disciplines, Amanda knew him better than almost anyone in the galaxy. She’d given birth to this boy, raised him, and knew his tells. As she watched him glance away from the screen and watched the corner of his mouth twitch, she had to keep herself from laughing out loud.

He looked back at the screen and, after a moment’s silence, he said, “You will certainly be the first to know if there is, Mother.”

When the call ended, Amanda was on cloud nine. Her head was full of thoughts of weddings and grandchildren and a thousand questions about the woman who had brought that softness into Spock’s face. Amanda loved her already, whoever she was, whatever she looked like, whichever position she held aboard the Enterprise.

* * *

Spock felt better after talking to his mother. He was more sure of himself and of his plans and more confident about asking Christine to bind herself to a him despite his alien ways. After all, if his mother could live with Sarek on Vulcan with few qualms, surely it was logical to think that Christine could find contentment with him on a starship or even a colony somewhere. Though their future after this mission was still hazy, he doubted that either of them would leave Starfleet, and he had no intention of returning to Vulcan permanently with or without a human wife.

He now had to consider a proposal and balancing Christine’s human expectations with his own more reserved nature. They had discussed the ways in which Vulcan marriage went beyond the human notion of matrimony only briefly. His mother had reassured him that she found her own mental bond with Sarek, while it had taken some “getting used to,” wonderful. He only hoped that Christine, medical professional that she was, would not be intimidated by the idea.

But this morning there were other matters at hand. The Enterprise had picked up a message from a nearby Class M planet that had, it seemed, very recently developed the technology necessary to contact potential life beyond their planet. Their society was reminiscent of that on Earth several centuries earlier, and the captain assembled a small landing party that included Spock, Uhura, and one of the ship’s anthropologists to beam down.

“Their energy clearly comes from a non-renewable and toxic source such as coal, captain,” Spock remarked with distaste as soon as they materialized on the surface. The acrid smell of smog that hung in the air made his tricorder readings completely unnecessary to back up that particular observation.

@multirptrash

#this silly title comes from my equally silly spockstine playlist lol #*tb #i was thinking a small landing party goes down (maybe uhura can be there?) and when they meet korby she's the one who's like D:#'chris you need to come down here...' bc spock will certainly be emotionally shutting down oop.#but you can take it wherever you want from here! it doesn't have to be exactly like that #dee 💙

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light-miracles · 2 years

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Wait, what's going on with Neil Gaiman rn???

Joined Amazon's "if they don't like Rings of Power they're racist" campaign.

Which it's not true. Amazon massacred the lore and the worldbuilding, but since they're having CWs Batwoman (1,8 millions in the first episode last time I checked. Those are CWs Batwoman numbers) levels of rating they need to get Twitter to talk about them I guess.

Got into discourse over Lenny Henry's hobbit (the dude who said "WE are the ones telling the story now" when the critics about the show not following Tolkien's work started). Then got into Twitter fights with some fans who reminded him he had previously said "it was wrong to alienate the fans with changes in the story" (not with arguments, but directly mocking them) and then for some reason Elon Musk got involved (I don't like Elon Musk, I'm very wary about him, but how on earth is the billionaire saying "This show destroyed Tolkien's worldbuilding" but the writer is saying "you're either racist or never read Tolkien" if you critic this???)

They insist and insist and insist it's racism. It's not. It's the lack of beards in female dwarves. It's the elves not being the ethereal angelic beings they're supposed to be. It's Galadriel being a Captain Marvel with vulcan ears. It's Elrond, heir of at least 3 different elven kings, being treated as a nobody. It's Celeborn not even being in the show because fuck Galadriel's husband who cares about him hahahaha????

It's the fact that Lord of the Rings' fans are not only fans of the Middle Earth, elves, dwarves and hobbits. We're fans of the man behind it. JRR Tolkien and his wonderful life and his love for trees and his wife and his children and languages and who told nazis to fuck off and then reminded England they wouldn't be better than them if they kept attacking the surviving germans after the war was over. We are fans of TOLKIEN.

And Amazon has said again and again Tolkien was just not important enough to respect his vision on his own creation. Gaslighting about how much "he'd love it". The same dude who rejected a movie project because a tower had an extra stair he hadn't put in his book.

And that's what happening with Neil and honestly???? NEVER follow your favorite writers in Twitter.

#Anti rings of power #Neil gaiman

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jennelikejennay · 1 month

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I'm writing another AOS fic (WHY?!) and that means it's time for another

✨ plot hole rant ✨

To me, the part of the first movie that makes the least sense is Pike going over to the Narada. For so many reasons.

1. If Nero wanted a random Starfleet captain in order to get information on Earth's defenses, he wouldn't have shot up every ship that showed up in Vulcan's orbit. He'd have destroyed all but one, and then demanded or just captured the captain of that ship. He didn't know the Enterprise was going to be warping in five minutes later! He would naturally think that was the whole fleet.

2. If he did, Pike would have no reason to agree. First, he wrote his dissertation on this, he knows that's what Robau did and that Robau got killed and it didn't save the Kelvin. Just a general rule of thumb, if your enemy really wants something, don't give it to them. It was the ONE thing they could have denied Nero, and he gives it up.

3. Okay, so let's say it was absolutely necessary to provide cover for Kirk and Sulu's space jump. That still doesn't mean he actually has to give himself up when he gets there. He could have rammed, self destructed, come out shooting, anything else.

4. It's also incredibly stupid to have single factor authentication on your entire planetary defense grid, and then go ahead and store the password inside the head of EVERY captain. Some captains are chumps! They get captured sometimes! This is not a secure place to keep the data which ten billion lives rely on! It would make more sense to require human confirmation at the very least. A dude who can look out the window and go "yeah I see that you look like the Enterprise, as well as having the right 1000-digit transponder codes for today" before taking the shields down.

5. If you DID have a system like that, it would become that more vital not to give up your captain to anyone, for any reason. Captains are taught to resist torture, but nothing's perfect. This is cyanide-pill-in-your-cheek level hot information. For Pike to give himself up, knowing he's got the key to Earth's defenses in his mind, is incredibly irresponsible. Especially given he can SEE this guy is actively drilling holes in a different planet.

6. Also it does really make you wonder what Vulcan's planetary defenses are like. Even if they were dumb enough to have it all running on a single password, Vulcans can resist the mind sifter so I'd bet on them over a Ceti eel or whatever. Plus if there were an encounter like that, that would have given them time to send a subspace message like DON'T WARP OVER HERE WITH YOUR SHIELDS DOWN or something, just a thought. But really I don't think it occurred to the writers that planets other than Earth have defenses, because the movie does not treat Vulcan like a real planet. Vulcans are pacifists who carry a big stick, they'd have defenses.

This has been my rant for the day. I just can't believe the Earth defenses have less robust security than I need to log into zoom. Really, a freaking miracle nobody blew it up before.

#star trek #star trek 2009 #me being pedantic and crabby as usual #feel free to argue with me and make this movie make sense

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fanfic-phoenix · 2 months

Text

A Whole Lifetime

Rating: Gen

Word Count: 1538

Read on AO3

Perhaps, like Jim, Spock felt an inability to connect. A barrier between himself and the rest of the galaxy. Different barriers, yes - the barrier of rank, the barrier of emotion - but barriers all the same. The impossibility of meeting someone, anyone, who might understand them well enough to…

To what?

All that, and Jim’s mind was fixed on one crucial point. When I feel friendship for you, I am ashamed.

***

No longer infected, Jim and Spock are forced to discuss what came to light in the briefing room.

I’ve spent a whole lifetime learning to hide my feelings.

-Spock, The Naked Time

“Three days to live again,” Jim said, as he and Spock entered the lift down to their respective quarters. Doctor’s… suggestion. A step down from an order, which had to go on the record, but Bones had no compunctions about making them into orders if the captain dared resist them.

The suggestion was that all those expected by the virus go to bed. Sulu had gone down immediately; he and Spock had resisted a little longer, though Bones had glared.

Perhaps he wouldn’t have glared so fiercely if he’d known the conversation they were avoiding.

“It sounds… It feels impossible,” he finished.

“It will be an interesting report for Starfleet Command,” Spock said, his voice as deep and measured as it ever was. “I look forward to reading your take on it.”

There was no hint in him of the tearful man Jim had encountered earlier.

My God! Tears! Even now, it was, quite frankly, unbelievable. Spock had always seemed… above such things. And now, Jim knew that he wasn’t. That even if that heart of his bled green, it could bleed all the same.

“Mr Spock,” he began, then faltered. “That is… Spock, I…”

“Captain?”

“If…” Jim cleared his throat, frustrated. He was James T. Kirk. He was no coward. “If you wanted to go to Vulcan, to see your parents… Well. You have plenty of leave time accumulated, and I have no reason to deny it.”

The silence rang like a death knell. The tips of Spock’s ears flushed slightly green - a delicate olive shade - in embarrassment, or perhaps in shame. Jim regretted opening his mouth, and he was about to apologise before Spock finally spoke.

“You have my thanks, Captain.” His dark brown eyes flicked to the ceiling, away from Jim. “And my request that, if you intend to continue this conversation, we retire to my quarters.”

Jim blinked. He’d expected dismissal, total retreat, and instead received only the suggestion that they change to a more suitable venue - an entirely reasonable request, of course. And an invitation to Spock’s quarters! Jim wasn’t sure any being aboard ship could claim to have had the same. The Vulcan was famously unsociable; several months into the friendship, and Jim had only succeeded in tempting him to chess in the rec room. They hadn’t even shared a meal, yet; Spock apparently preferred to eat alone.

“Most agreeable, Mr Spock,” he said, and followed him to his room.

It was not the room he had expected his first officer to have.

He’d expected something rather sparse, ascetic. Instead, the wash of red and green was almost luxurious. Thick curtains surrounded Spock’s bed - and Jim would be damned if those blankets were standard issue. Vulcan art adorned the walls, alongside Spock’s lyre, and even a few weapons, shining sharp in a way suggesting they were polished regularly.

“We were once a culture of warriors,” Spock said, following his gaze. “It is the opinion of some on Vulcan that employment in Starfleet represents a return to those primitive ways.”

“And so you embrace it,” Jim said, with no small amount of admiration. To take an insult and turn it into interior design… If nothing else, it demonstrated a sense of humour that Spock had little opportunity to exercise - at least in front of his captain.

A hint of a smile appeared at the corner of Spock’s lips - or perhaps Jim imagined it. “And so I embrace it.”

Jim smiled back and, for a moment, they could almost forget the awkwardness that had brought them here in the first place.

Almost.

“I must apologise, Captain, for my earlier loss of control.” Spock’s smile, if it had ever existed, was entirely gone.

“Apology accepted, Mr Spock,” Jim said, “though I’m of the firm opinion that none was necessary. No one could resist that infection - I don’t hold you responsible.”

“It was undignified.”

“No more so than striking one’s first officer. Or… Confessing attraction to members of the crew.”

“Yeoman Rand,” said Spock, very quiet. After a moment, he added delicately, “Sir, Starfleet regulations do not directly forbid-”

“No, Spock.” Jim smiled weakly. “I’m not really… It would never be anything long term. And I can’t have anything short term with someone on the Enterprise. I wouldn’t want that.”

“I see.”

“It was… Representative of a larger issue.”

“In that case,” said Spock, finally taking a seat and gesturing Jim to another, “I confess that my distress regarding my mother was also indicative of… wider difficulties.”

For a moment, they sat in silence. Even in the stillness, Jim’s mind whirled. Dare he ask? Was it… selfish? To ask? Here Spock was, confessing to… difficulties. Perhaps - perhaps - the same difficulties that Jim himself experienced.

To what?

All that, and Jim’s mind was fixed on one crucial point. When I feel friendship for you, I am ashamed.

“Ask,” said Spock. If Jim hadn’t known better, he might have suspected Spock of reading his mind. But Vulcans were touch telepaths, and they were not touching. And besides, Spock would never breach his trust, in that way or any other. They…

Strange to think of it, but they hadn’t known each other all that long. Yet Jim was as certain of Spock’s loyalty as he was of Bones’.

“You are ashamed of friendship.” It was hardly a question, but Spock seemed unoffended.

“I am shamed by the depths of my… feelings.” He seemed reluctant to own that such feelings existed when not under the influence of the virus that they had now never contracted. “I have known you less than a year, yet I have allowed you to know me better than any other being. I owe you my loyalty, the loyalty of an officer to his captain, but even if you were not my captain, I believe you would have it. It is foolish, rushed, and I have allowed it to happen. That is why I am ashamed.”

“At least you aren’t alone in it,” Jim said, shell-shocked to the point he hardly knew what to say. “You know me better than any being aboard this ship, and the crew aboard this ship knows me better than anyone in the galaxy. Only Bones comes close to beating you, and even then… There is a burden of command which he cannot share.”

Silence fell again, silence that neither of them knew how to break.

It suddenly struck Jim how… lonely his life had been, that the man who knew him best was a Vulcan he’d met only months before. He’d known it, of course, but never been made to confront it so… so terribly.

And how lonely Spock must be to find himself in the same boat. Lonelier, even. At least Jim had a people, a species, behind him; Spock was one of a kind, and separate from both sides of his heritage because of it.

The air felt thick. It should have been sudden, yet it wasn’t.

Their eyes met in perfect understanding. One desperately lonely man and one desperately lonely Vulcan, bound by duty and by logic to remain that way. Whatever else they might become, they would always be that.

And yet the air was so thick.

“I won’t,” said Jim. “I was telling the truth. The captain cannot notice. He is not allowed to notice.”

“There is no official regulation, especially when ranks are close,” said Spock. “However, if you do not wish to notice, then I will ensure there is nothing to notice.”

And he would, wouldn’t he? That damned Vulcan loyalty - if Jim said the word, Spock would bury anything he was asked to.

But he didn’t say the word, and Spock appeared before him, kneeling, smiling very slightly at him. He placed his hands on Jim’s thighs.

“If it goes to hell,” he said hoarsely, “I lose the best first officer in the fleet. I won’t risk that.”

Those wonderful hands danced towards Jim’s hips, and Jim let them.

“If it ‘goes to hell’, as you say,” Spock murmured, and he must have known what it’d do to Jim to hear him curse, he had to have known, “do you not think that, of any man aboard this ship, I am capable of compartmentalising?”

Jim had one more argument, one more excuse, and no desire to play it. He bent his head, and Spock raised his, and they came together in something like a crash, something like a fall, something that didn’t fit quite right and yet fit perfectly. Spock’s lips were plush and pliant and slightly…

“Lip gloss?” Jim asked, smiling.

Spock raised an eyebrow and kissed him again, and Jim noted that that was not an answer, but let it slide.

If it goes to hell, Jim hadn’t said, I lose my closest friend.

But Spock’s fingers painted patterns on Jim’s skin, and the thought faded into nothingness.

#phoenix_rose #star trek: the original series #jim kirk #spock #post-episode s1 e4: The Naked Time #spirk #jim kirk/spock #first kiss #getting together

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the-derpy-duck · 4 months

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Hikaru Sulu and Pavol Chekov: The greatest fictional friendship you have never seen.

The original Star Trek series was known and remembered for being rather progressive and had a major impact on popular culture. The idea of a mirror dimension that has all the characters but evil came from Star Trek, many characters get referenced in different media, and a lot of fanfiction as we know it today started with the Star Trek fandom. The main reoccurring cast in the first season of Star Trek was Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy or “Bones”, Mr. Scot or “Scotty”, Mr. Sulu, and Mrs. Uhura along with a few other background characters that were not as prevalent. In the second season Star Trek decided to add another guy to the cast, Mr. Chekov. He was mostly just there to be Russian and a reason for teen girls to watch the show. However, I believe that is a boring way to see a character. If a character speaks, or even makes an on-screen appearance, then there is subtext that can be read into. This can most easily be applied to the main trio.

Spock is a half-Human half-Vulcan who comes from a world that is highly built around logic and suppressing emotions. He never really ends up fitting into one singular category to the more ignorant people around him and is subject to many bigoted comments from both humans and Vulcans, in varying degrees of subtilty. In some cases, it is difficult to tell if a comment was meant to be directed at Spock and if it was malicious. Spock does not often react to these comments regardless and it is typically Kirk who would confront the person. McCoy is very opposite to Spock; he is a doctor and a part of being in the medical field is having empathy. Although McCoy does make jokes at Spock’s expense there is a clear difference between when McCoy, Spock’s friend, antagonizes him and when some random guy does. McCoy is often at odds with Spock because he is so deeply rooted in empathy and caring for others which often leads to, and is also rooted in, emotions. Vulcans aren’t supposed to feel strong emotions, which Spock clearly does for both McCoy and Krik. In the episode “Naked Time” he directly states that he feels strong emotions for Kirk, in “Amok Time” he asks Kirk to go with him as a companion to witness a culturally significant ceremony in Vulcan culture (McCoy is also asked and they both go). Spock is the “brain” of the trio, McCoy is the “heart”, and Kirk is the result of two equally unstable and stubborn people refusing to stop bickering. Many, much better, essays have been written about this, what I wish to discuss is the implied friendship between Mr. Sulu and Mr. Chekov.

For the entirety of season one, Chekov does not exist. If one were to watch the show and take everything at face value, then he is a shallow, one dimensional, stereotype of a Russian put in a show made during a time when America did not like Russians. This, however, is not fun and is not technically true. Chekov has a more laid back and joking personality. The main joke he makes is that everything is made in Russia. It is important to keep in mind the political climate of the time this show was made in. Chekov is making a joke, the things he claims to originate in his home country are obviously not Russian, the main question is if the joke is being actively made by Chekov in the narrative, as in the he is telling a joke to someone else in the story canonically, or if the joke is just that Chekov thinks or is claiming things aren’t Russian to be Russian. If it is the former, then it adds to his character in a way that isn’t just throwing more ‘Russia’ onto the guy who’s main thing is being Russian. If it is the latter, then it adds more ‘Russia’ to the guy who’s main thing is being Russian. Every person who consumes a thing will come out of it with a slightly different reading. We can get a central theme and idea, but we have different ways of coming to the conclusion. We read a word in a different tone, completely changing the sentence, we focus on different characters and read relationships differently. The best thing about art is that there is no wrong way to read and enjoy it. I personally like Chekov. I see him as being a more sarcastic character who is, more often than not, mocking the viewer for laughing at a stereotype. Even if this not what he is, it is what a lot of the “made in Russia” jokes came off to me as. I also love the “made in Georgia” joke so I am biased towards a guy who would make a similar joke. But him saying that he “was the Tzar of all the Russians” when told that a man standing Infront of him (who had just grown multiple feet in height) was the god Apollo. He sheepishly apologizes to the captain for this comment, which made me think that he tended to say things without thinking because he was either personally insulted or just thought it would be funny. I also just thought that it was a bit cute. Chekov also obviously loves women (same) and is obviously loyal to Captain Krik, in “I, Mudd” he automatically dislikes Mudd because he is being held captive by him (with the rest of the crew) and because I think he has some level of loyalty to Kirk and the rest of the crew. He also dislikes physicals but that should be discussed later in this essay. One can also infer based on a comment made by Bones in “Who Mourns for Adonais?” where Chekov starts listing animals that can generate energy/electricity without any harm to themselves. Bones tells him to stop, and Chekov says that Kirk would need all the information. Bones then remarks that “Spock is contaminating this boy”. Which could also just mean that Chekov transferred to the Enterprise. It could also mean that Chekov trained under or spent time with Spock. It could mean both, it doesn’t fully matter but I think it’s fun to think about. This gives the impression of a character that likes to make jokes but cares about and is good at his job. Another thing about Chekov is that he makes what would ber historical references, especially Russian ones. In the episode “I, Mudd” he either called Mudd a former Surf or a former owner of a Surf. This would add to the ‘Chekov spent time with Spock” narrative as Spock studies history, but this doesn’t matter that much. He is a bit young, impulsive, and very naevi, but also very passionate in the field he works in. Regardless of how good or real these conclusions I’ve come to are, it is still a semi-reasonable way to read and interpret the text.

Sulu was a part of the cast sense the first season. He played a notable role in the episode “The Naked Time” where he was one of the first people to be affected by the virus that caused people to lose their inhibitions. Interestingly enough, Sulu became afflicted after his friend, who had originally contracted the virus and was the one who brought it back to the ship, had a mental breakdown and attempted to kill himself using a knife. He was apparently in a friend group with this character who existed to die, and Riley. They (Sulu and Riley) attempted to restrain their friend but ultimately failed. Sulu spent the rest of the episode fencing. The idea. that watching their friend die was never really considered as a possibility for Riley or Sulu’s strange actions. They are both noted to be acting out of character and that would have been a viable explanation. It isn’t why they are acting this way, but it is an interesting idea. He is mentioned to have been a good spacecraft fighter by Spock, but when they are attacked in season two, the first time, he is not present. The other time they are attacked they choose to retreat. Sulu has a more mellowed out personality compared to the more neurotic people who surround him. He enjoys fencing and is skilled in it, as stated before he was a fighter pilot. He cares about the rest of the crew members and is generally seen as trustworthy by those around him. What we saw in “Mirror Mirror” also supports the idea that Sulu is a good guy, mainly because in the Mirror verse, he is not. From my understanding, the Mirror realm is where everything is the same, but the main characters were evil. This implies either a lot of things happening in the Mirror realm that led to people having vastly different morals or that the individual personalities and goals of the characters are swapped or moved around slightly. Realistically both probably occurred. Mirror Sulu is shown to be a bad person, he harasses women and torchers people who are below him in rank, although they did attempt to murder him. The characters, even when they are fully aware of how the people act in this world, are horrified and shocked over these actions. The normal Sulu would not take these actions, plus he’s gay. Although that doesn't mean that he would harass a woman. Regardless, those just weren’t things that Sulu would do, which was why he was the one doing them in the Mirror realm.

So why are these two friends? Well, a lot of their friendship is my own very liberal interpretation of the text. They interact as they are both helmsmen and sit next to each other when they have the same shift. Despite this, when Chekov is a major character in an episode, Sulu is typically either a minor character in the episode or not there at all and vice versa. In some episodes they also don’t have a lot of time to interact because they individually wouldn’t have a lot of time on screen individually. However, they do interact. One of the more well-known scenes the two share is from the episode “The Deadly Years”, where Chekov is forced to have a lot of physicals done on him and he is complaining about it to Sulu. He makes the remark “If I live long enough, I’m going to run out of samples to give” and Sulu responds with “You’ll live”. Chekov states that he will but he won’t enjoy it. They have a lot of chemistry in this short interaction, and it is one of the main things that convinced me that they are friends. The two would naturally spend a lot of time together because they work similar jobs. Although they wouldn’t always be on the same shift it is not unreasonable to assume that they would work together at least once or twice a week. It is also not unreasonable to assume that Krik or Spock would put people who get along with each other on the same shifts, it would make logical sense because it would lead to less infighting over irrelevant issues, and it would keep moral up. Unless two people distracted each other I don’t see why Kirk would purposely sperate people from their friends. Furthermore, both Kirk and Spock would be well aware of how important it is for people to care about each other.

Having people who you care about and who care about you would make space travel and any type of work much more enjoyable, easy, and safe. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy obviously care about each other and regardless of how it is interpreted Kirk and Spock clearly love each other. A lot of what motivates people is interpersonal relationships, and it would make sense to put people who like working together, together. That unnecessary tangent aside, it has been proven that just being around a person more can increase affection towards that person. People like and trust those who they are familiar with more than the people who they are not, even if both people are strangers. Obviously, this can also work in reverse if one is annoyed with a certain person but that’s beside the point. We like things that we are familiar with, and that extends to people. So, it would not be unreasonable to assume that Chekov and Sulu would have built up some sort of repour with each other over the course of the second season of the show. Chekov also openly complains to Sulu in an incredibly casual way, and Sulu responds similarly. Although they both are generally seen as friendly, in this particular scene it is taken to a much higher level than would be normal. The two personalities aren’t necessarily contradictory or opposites, but they are clearly different. Chekov is younger, impulsive, and much more unprofessional. However most of the time when he does interact with people of higher ranks he is professional. He will make an occasional joke, but it isn’t a constant thing. Sulu, although not as professional as say, Spock, takes his work seriously and won’t make jokes during debriefings. If the two were to be put in more situations together they could easily work well together and balance the other one out. It is not hard to imagine the two running into trouble on the enterprise that get increasingly more ridiculous.

All of that is hypothetical, which is my main problem. I have made up most of this friendship in my head and I have spent an unreasonable amount of time thinking about this thing that is not real. I often find myself liking random background characters for little to no reason apart from them having one line that I thought was funny or a few scenes that I thought were interesting. The main reason why I like Generation One Bumblebee was because it was mentioned in an episode that he was “late again”. It didn’t add anything to the story or further the plot, but it did give a small amount of character to Bumblebee and gave some insight into how the characters interact with each other. The normal length of a Star Trek episode for TOS is 50 minutes, which gives a lot of time for the characters to interact and have these small moments. The scene of Chekov complaining about all the medical tests served to show his youth in a sense. His complaints were likely meant to come off as childish and overdramatic. I am assuming that they weren’t drawing enough blood to fill one of those blood donation bags but he had done at least three physicals and two of those were back-to-back, so his complaints probably were somewhat reasonable. When Scotty was left in charge of the Enterprise during the events of ‘Friday’s Child’, Chekov makes a “thing that was definitely not made in Russia was made in Russia” joke. When Sulu and Scotty look confused, Chekov just smiles and Sulu also smiles, whereas Scotty just looks a bit annoyed with the comment. They also have a small conversation in “Amok Time” when Sulu asks what Chekov thinks about the current traveling situation. Chekov responds with a joke. The two also complain about how indecisive the commanders are being about where they are traveling. These scenes that show them making jokes together as they work make me think that they would spend time with each other outside of when they were required to work together. They make jokes with each other and don’t really get annoyed the way that the others do. In the epiosode where the enterprise is given a supercomputer that could very well replace them it is implied that both Chekov and Sulu dislike it. When Kirk tells Chekov to plot a course back to a star base Sulu is very happy and the two joke a bit and are smiling. There is also another episode where the two are very physically close to each other. I believe that Sulu was helping Chekov track something. Although two characters being physically close to each other does not automatically mean that the characters are close friends, it does say something about their relationship. They both feel comfortable enough to be working closely on a high stress project. In fact, it almost seems to make them calmer. This could also have just represented Sulu’s anxiety around the current situation, but it could also imply that the two are friends.

But what is the actual appeal to the idea of their friendship? For me, the idea that two background characters who get enough screen time to not be completely obscure but not enough screen time to be considered a main character could have a friendship that just existed without being connected to a main character is cool. 50 minutes is a lot of time for the characters to just interact and any filler that has Chekov and Sulu together only strengthens my belief that they are best friends. If both of them are included in the episode, stay on the ship, and have at least a supporting role in the A or B plot then they will probably exchange funny looks or have a short conversation. Chekov, as a character, was meant to fill three main rolls, he needed to be Russian, he needed to be the appeal for teenage girls, and he was typically the comic relief character that was also the almost redshirt. Sulu also is sometimes placed in the ‘almost red shirt’ category. The audience knows and cares about him but he isn’t a main character. The writers will not kill off Spock, Kirk, or Bones. Scotty and Uhura also have a good amount of plot armor. Sulu and Chekov both have plot armor, but they aren’t integral to the ship functioning. There is more than one navigator and helmsman. They can be replaced, and they work in shifts. The main thing that separates them from a sacrificial security guard or science officer is that they have had their names for more than one episode. They are reoccurring background characters that the audience cares for, but they are not unkillable. Will they die? Probably not and it definitely wouldn’t be in the same way that your average red shirt would, but they could. The main way the writers can establish a thing as a threat or something we as the audience should be worried about is by having one of these ‘almost red shirts’ be impacted by it. They won’t die but they will be mind controlled or put in harm’s way.

They are in no position of power and just have to deal with the consequences of the commanders’ actions in a way that is different from the actual people in power. Kirk goes to a planet and discovers that someone has contracted a disease, Spock, McCoy, and Kirk would be in charge of actually fixing the situation, but characters like Sulu and Chekov don’t actively work on solving the problem. In “Amok Time” they are shown to be changing the courses when Kirk goes back and forth on the Vulcan issue, but they aren’t the ones who are actually deciding what they should do. Kirk will ask Chekov a question about a navigation specific problem, but Chekov isn’t the one in charge of if or not they will go through with the plan; he is just there to give advice. They are both annoyed by how indecisive Captain Kirk was being in ‘Amok Time’ and although they will complain amongst themselves, they will never take their grievances to him directly. Nor will Kirk ask what they think about the situation because they are not the people who would know or care that much about the issue. This makes them resemble coworkers who are friends who must deal with their boss’s antics. We don’t focus on the people who do everyday jobs on the Enterprise because that is boring when compared to the adventures that Captain Kirk and Spock would go on. We still watch people do their everyday job, but what makes it interesting and fun is the setting and characters. For a show like “The Office” to work the characters need to be funny or entertaining. The main reason why people watch TV is because they want to escape from the monotony and stress of day-to-day life. If “The Office” was just about people working a typical office job, then it wouldn’t have as large of an audience because it would be boring. We wouldn’t want to have a boss like whoever the boss is in The Office (I’ve watched one episode of the office I don’t know how bad the guy is but from the clips I’ve seen all of these characters seem like the type you’d want to avoid having to spend long periods of time with) or be put in life threatening situations, but these are fake. They didn’t happen in real life and a lot of the absurdity is funny because of that. It would be much more interesting to watch the main three, and that’s why the show is heavily focused on them. However, the idea of Chekov and Sulu is funny. It may not be enough to fill a 50-minute block of TV or even a 22-minute one, but it does make for potentially humorous situations. These stories and situations would not have a large impact on anything, but the idea that they happen or could happen makes the world feel more real and a bit more fun. Although they might not interact a lot in the original show the movies do present evidnce that they are friends. When the crew is given shore leave, Chekov and Sulu spend that time together. They get lost in Yellowstone together and the idea of them being friends is much closer to cannon than it ever was in the original show. The argument was never if or not they were friends, it was why this hypothetical relationship was good and entertaining. I personally find both characters endearing and I think that they would be friends based off of how they interact in the text. Their general personalities also serve to complement each other, Sulu is much more laid back and thoughtful whereas Chekov is impulsive and doesn’t really take things seriously, his inexperience is obvious, and he is easily startled. Sulu has been on the Enterprise much longer than Chekov and he is more used to the universe constantly trying to kill them.

Ultimately, both Chekov and Sulu are background characters in a show from the 60s’. What they did, their thoughts and feelings on certain matters, and individual thoughts do not matter to the narrative. They serve to fill up the world and make it seem less empty and less like the writers couldn’t be bothered to make characters to fill the roles that they fill. The conversations that they have are mostly just filler and have little substance. That, however, is a boring explanation and much less fun. It is fun to imagine these characters being friends, it’s fun to overanalyze everything that they say and do, and it’s fun to make up your own little stories for characters you enjoy. A shallow character or a shallow story can still have an impact on people because they can add depth to it. Star Trek is neither a shallow story nor does it only have shallow characters, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still fun to make stuff up. The world of Star Trek is a sandbox world, there is an unlimited number of stories a person can tell. Star Trek is one of the earliest series that had fan works that were actively labeled as such and it’s not hard to see why. Many characters are charming and have a lot of chemistry with each other. The show generates creativity and wants the viewer to think. And I did that. I thought 4k poorly worded words into existence that you managed to read. Good job!

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bumblingbabooshka · 10 months

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Too many posts about how Chakotay would accept and follow Janeway no matter what she did for a man who was five seconds from starting a mutiny* against her in Equinox. He was 100% correct for almost doing that too but to me that means he would not be down with Janeway just doing whatever and has a strong sense of morality which is similar to but obviously not the same as Janeway’s and isn’t overridden by his affection for her.

After Chakotay sees that Janeway’s willing to torture and potentially kill even one person for her sense of justice he strongly opposes her and seems ready to back up that objection with action if necessary. *There’s a vague indication at the end of the episode that to mutiny against her would be “crossing a line” and so he wouldn’t have done it but One) I personally feel that’s something easy to say after the crisis has been averted and there’s no longer any need for action. “I wouldn’t have done it” is easy when push is no longer coming to shove and you don’t want to think about whether or not you would have. “I wouldn’t have done it” - does Janeway say this to herself about the slaughter of the Equinox crew? Two) I still can’t imagine that Chakotay would have been happy, even if he hadn’t mutinied against her - he still would have strongly opposed her and did oppose her enough to be confined to his quarters. and Three) This to me just reads as a ‘return to status quo’ easy line put in there to assure the audience that their relationship is unchanged when in reality I think such a large event would have to change their relationship in some way. Some lines require crossing. If someone you follow is doing something you consider morally wrong do you prize your loyalty to them over your own moral code? I believe it’s a very strong character choice that Chakotay’s answer seems to be ‘no.’ Until the very end of the episode it seems that there’s a limit to a ‘difference of opinion’ and he wouldn’t just let Janeway do something he considers evil unopposed because she’s the captain or he likes her. To say at the very end ‘Oh, he wouldn’t have ever gone against Janeway after all’ seems (to me) both disingenuous and weak from character writing standpoint.

In contrast, Tuvok also sees that Janeway has become obsessed with the idea of enacting revenge on the Equinox’s crew as he’s present for the ‘negotiation’ with the aliens in which Janeway literally promises the aliens that they can murder every last member of the ship.

Tuvok’s answer is clear as we next see him on the bridge at his security post, actively helping Janeway with her plan despite knowing that, if successful, it’ll lead to the deaths of everyone on board. This is very interesting to me as he acknowledges that her behavior is irrational and as he doesn’t experience emotions and does temporarily oppose Janeway it isn’t as if he’s motivated by revenge or thinks this is a good plan/thing to do. However, I think his reasoning has something to do with the fact that he has so much trust in her. When she says “I know what I’m doing, Tuvok.” he believes her and is willing to follow along with her plan even if he personally might not like it. It’s a shame we don’t get more of Tuvok’s reasoning in this episode. He doesn’t have any more meaningful lines after this so we never really know why he doesn’t fight harder against Janeway but if I were to guess I’d guess it has something to do with what he says to Seven in Year of Hell.

His trust in Janeway is absolute and he implies that he’d follow her and consider it the right thing to do even if he knew that her logic was flawed. That, to me, is also very interesting for a Vulcan. Early on in the series Janeway tells Tuvok that he’s her moral compass, that she relies on him as both a friend and advisor - that she values him highly for his logic and depends on their relationship as Captain of the ship and as Janeway the person. She does this after bringing Tuvok a moral quandary which Tuvok attempts to ‘solve’ by making the difficult choice she can’t due to her ethical standards.

Tuvok in this case knows that Janeway’s ‘highest priority’ is getting the crew home and that Janeway can’t accomplish this goal because she doesn’t want to break the law. However, Tuvok solves this by breaking the law for her. He acknowledges that Janeway won’t like this and says he’s prepared to lose his job and go to prison for it once they return to Federation space but to him it’s the logical choice and even at the very end of their conversation he upholds his decision as logical (as does Janeway, tempering it by pointing out how ‘logical’ reasoning is as prone to variance and the justification of wrong actions as ‘emotional’ reasoning.)

I can’t help but wonder if this experience changed Tuvok since I can’t recall him ever really going against the Captain again and this sort of behavior/reasoning seems to be...not against his later stance of “The Captain is always right.” but more nuanced. He still thinks Janeway is ‘in the right’ and acts expressly so that Janeway can keep being ‘in the right’ while still fulfilling her goals. Equinox has a Maquis rebel, once considered a terrorist and now considered a dear friend, your first officer (banished from your sight) telling you that you’re doing the wrong thing, you’re hurting people out of a sense of vengeance, he doesn’t even recognize you anymore. “I won’t let you do this,” he shouts through the vents. “You can’t do this!” Meanwhile your security officer, moral compass and friend of twenty years and counting is standing at the ready, pointing his finger at the sacrificial wolf-turned-lamb (an optical illusion, it changes depending on where you stand) that wronged you. “Right there,” he’s saying though he objected to this once as well and kept silent thereafter. “There’s the heart.” I don’t know. I don’t have any grand conclusion to this, I just thought it was interesting! Chakotay-Janeway-Tuvok morality play, when?

#Tuvok #Chakotay #st voyager #'this isn't about rules and regulations - it's about right and wrong' being something both Janeway and Chakotay think in Equinox #but to vastly different outcomes #contrasted by Tuvok's 'the captain is always right'#I want them all to duke it out philosophy style #Kathryn Janeway #Tuvok is the captain always right or do you always CONSIDER her to be right? (two different things)

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foone · 1 year

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Janeway & Tuvok's friendship is great because it's an example of an absolute ride-or-die friendship with less than zero romantic elements. There's not even a HINT that either of them have thought about it for even a second.

and they're even of compatible orientations! We don't know about bisexuality, but Tuvok is married to a woman. Janeway had a fiancé! And both of them are out of the picture at the moment. There's no reason why they couldn't be interested in each other. They certainly have known each other long enough and are close enough. But nope! Not at all! I've seen gay man/lesbian friends with way more romantic undertones and ship-teasing than them. You get more potential romance vibes off asexual robots and their orientation-incompatible friends.

And it's not even that Tuvok is a Vulcan, either! We've had other Vulcans, and they've not been like this. They can have romantic interests, they can have vibes, they can flirt, in their own Vulcan way.

And Janeway isn't sexless either. Sure, it's not exactly common... She's the captain. Married to the ship and all that, the metaphorical mother to her crew, it doesn't leave a lot of time for romance. But it happens. She's had time for a relationship or two, even if it ends badly or her partner isn't, technically, you know... A living person?

Janeway and Tuvok are just the closest friends a man and woman can be without any romance whatsoever and they're both entirely happy with that. They will always be there for each other, no matter what happens, and it's not romantic in the slightest. It's like they're siblings... And it's beautiful.

And it just makes whatever Kirk and Spock have going on all the more suspicious. We know what Human/Vulcan Captain/Officer "more than friendship" looks like, thanks to Janeway/Tuvok, and what you've got going on is DEFINITELY SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

How long have ya'll been married, Kirk? I'd ask Spock but the man has the Ni'var Grand Championship Trophy in the sport of Lying-About-Your-Family from the last 5 competitions and at this point barely anyone is interested in challenging him for next year. There's just no point.

#star trek voyager #Star trek #Kirk/Spock

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councilman-horsemeat · 3 months

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The Greatest Star Trek Characters, Ranked

I was recently reading a few articles ranking the various Star Trek characters and got really infuriated. I started punching my solid wood table until my fists were blooded and filled with splinter. Kirk, Spock, Picard- who gives a shit? There was no flavor, no spice to these lists. After taking a long walk and eating some meal, I decided I oughta make my own. Here it goes; In no particular order, so they're not actually ranked at all.

Sylvia Tilly Star Trek: Discovery is full of people whose lives have sucked, in a way which reflects their outlook on life. Some are hardened, some burdened, some both. Sylvia Tilly offers a delightful contrast to these characters. I’m not through the first season of Discovery yet, but I hope she and Michael Burnham become best friends forever.

Mobar (Fake Tuvok) Part of a criminal group that travels the Delta quadrant scamming various strangers through various schemes. Mobar and his friend Dala ended up acting as Tuvok and Janeway, fooling hapless aliens into joining the “Federation”, which meant little more than handing over their starships or cargo. Mobar ended up getting WAY into character, oftentimes chastising his fellow criminals for not adhering to Starfleet protocols. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to make him not a criminal, and in the end he went down like a chump. RIP to a legend. I don’t think he died but whatever.

Dax (Jadzia, Ezri and Curzon/Odo) Jadzia Dax, our first true look into what trill really are. The fusion of Jadzia and Dax created a woman with wisdom far beyond her years, enough to make her approach life in a very confident, laid-back way. This, along with her highly analytical mind and charm, would have made her a perfect ship’s captain. Gone too soon.

On the other hand, I really liked Ezri Dax too. I’m conflicted, because seeing what it’s like for an unprepared, naive trill to be joined (despite never training to) was really interesting, and I even wish we got more than just the one season with her- but I also wish Jadzia could have been around for the finale.

When they were temporarily joined in a trill ritual, Curzon brought a certain down-in-the-dirt, slob attitude to the usually uptight Odo. I really liked him. He could have been less of a pervert.

Bearded Geordi LaForge Beautiful. Majestic. Just a touch of rogueish charm. Too bad he only had it for two episodes and like some movies or whatever.

Mirror Sarek I understand WHY he has a goatee. They needed to make him visually distinct from normal Sarek and it’s an homage to mirror Spock from way back when. The problem is that the homage only works if you didn’t already think mirror Spock’s goatee is funny as hell. They also call him the prophet for some reason. All in all a weird guy, which means I like him.

Neelix He brought a genuine heart of gold to the crew of the voyager when they needed it the most. A rock, a true friend and a shoulder to lean on. His friendship with Tuvok allowed him to occasionally bring out a different side of the indomitable vulcan. I also liked that his eye color randomly changed with no in-show explanation.

T’pring Spock’s almost-wife T’pring probably has the quickest turnaround from “WTF why is she so needlessly brutal” to “she’s a genius and she’s so logical” of any Star Trek character. She will always have my respect.

Sela It’s just really funny to me that she had all that buildup on top of already being the return of a written-off main character’s actor. And then like, nothing happened.

Kai Winn Opaka There’s something so incredibly about Louise Fletcher’s performance as Kai Winn in the later seasons that I sometimes have a hard time putting into words. She just captures the self-righteous, holier-than-thou, but also absolutely desparate character in such a captivating way- while also maintaining this underlying confidence and power.

“Klingon Chef” Deep Space Nine’s resident Klingon chef/opera singer showed a side of Klingon culture we don’t often see - the civilian side. He truly made the most of his few appearances, and I will always love him for it.

Seven of Nine (Possessed) Maybe it’s because of Seven’s usually stoic, reserved demeanour, but seeing Jeri Ryan take on the exaggerated personalities of a Klingon warrior, a Ferengi DaiMon, and the EMH of the USS Voyager amongst others, was one hell of a lot of fun. Enough fun to end up on this list! Unfortunately, not enough for that Oscar nom. Next time!

Dr. Michael Dingo Dingo’s brief stint as nurse aboard the Enterprise-D established him as little more than a grumpy old man, but he really shone after his promotion to main cast member and CMO of the USS Pioneer. His usual snarky personality being torn down upon meeting his long-believed-to-be-dead wife went down as one of my favorite moments in all of Star Trek. His refusal to poison the crew on behalf of his madly sick captain gave me goosebumps.

Lwaxana Troi She started out as no more than “Deanna Troi’s Annoying Mom” but evolved into so much more across her many appearances. Absolutely wonderfully played by Majel Barrett, the writers explore many facets of sorrow, motherhood, and what it means to grow old. I also believe that she should have ended up with Odo instead of Nerys, but whatev.

Falow The leader of the Wadi, a gamma quadrant species that value various types of games above all else. He and his entourage visit Deep Space Nine and end up throwing the main cast INTO a highly-advanced video game where they think they’ll actually die, but it’s actually just a game. What I like most is that he truly looks like the Most Advanced Gamer. If I was a highly advanced space-gamer this is what I would want to look like.

Riker Picard’s number one actually features on a lot of these lists. They usually list his loyalty or how cool he is or whatever. I’m mostly interested in his absolutely off-the-charts adventurous spirit. He was the first starfleet officer to serve aboard a klingon ship and was GLAD to eat gagh. When he learned that a trill symbiont needed a new host he practically jumped at the chance, despite the fact that no human had ever hosted a trill symbiont before. And he had absolutely no shame in wearing his slutty outfit in ‘Angel One’. There’s many similarities between Riker and Kirk, but Kirk would never have worn it so proudly.

Horny/drunk-ish Picard Patrick Stewart’s performance as a pseudo-drunk and very horny Jean-Luc Picard in The Naked Now has seared itself into my mind forever. It’s like he’s screaming, but also whispering, and sort of putting on an accent? Deciding just how to portray the usually stoic captain so completely out of his element must have been quite the challenge, and Patrick Stewart ended up making some very inspired choices.

Alyssa Ogawa She may not have done much more than help out in medbay every now and then, but the conversations between her and Crusher were the first to show that the main crew actually DO have friends outside the “inner circle”. Does that truly earn her a spot on a list of the greatest Star Trek characters of all time? Probably not but I don’t really care and neither should you.

Grand Nagus Zek Every time he got more screentime I remembered how much I loved his dumbass voice. His shrill bleating is hilarious, and every time he shows up I can’t wait to find out what his latest scheme is. His behavior towards women is regrettable, but that’s true for a lot of Star Trek men and unlike most of them, Zek actually sort-of changes.

Ishka And who is Zek without Rom and Quark’s moogie Ishka? Despite the usual underestimatable Ferengi personality traits, I genuinely believe Ishka could have one of the highest power levels in all of Star Trek canon. Women not even having the right to wear clothes has been a part of Ferengi culture for centuries and she managed to turn it around COMPLETELY in a handful of years. If she put her mind to it, I genuinely believe she could have brokered peace between the Cardassians and Bajorans, and that’s on the prophets.

Jae Yeah, I got a bit of a crush on this frankly random Enterprise-D crewmember. I think she’s friends with Picard? She sat next to him at a poetry reading once. I’m not sure if she even had any speaking lines.

#Star Trek #Deep Space Nine #Voyager #TNG #VOY #DS9 #iprixtwt

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beauty-grace-outer-space · 7 months

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I found this random little ficlet I had been working on literally years ago, and I don't know where to take it from here, so have it as is:

“Shit, shit, shit-- son of a bitch--” Len huffed as he eased himself down onto the biobed with the help of Spock’s arm around his waist, held low so as not to aggravate his aching side.

Jim, rushing to the nearest cabinet and rummaging through it for supplies, called over his shoulder indignantly, “Bones! There’s a lady present!”

“And that lady,” Uhura shot back, “knows how to curse in 37 different dialects, Kirk. So unless you’re suddenly claiming innocent ears--”

“Touché.”

“Captain,” Spock chimed in, “the doctor appears to be in a fair amount of pain. Should we not--”

“The doctor,” Len panted, “can damn well hear you, thank you very much!”

Spock looked momentarily chagrined before continuing, “Forgive me, doctor, I only wished--”

“Lay off, Bones. He’s just trying to help,” Jim said, still rifling in the cabinet for some binding.

“Some supplies would help,” Len growled. “A functional medbay would help. But no--” he drawled out the word. “We get stuck in the middle of an electrical interference right as I go and break my damn ribs.”

Jim smiled ruefully over his shoulder, “Sorry, Bones. I know it sucks, but we’ll do the best we can until Scotty gets things functional again. Luckily for you, I have experience with wrapping ribs--”

“If you can ever find the bandages,” Uhura cut in.

“Hey,” Jim cried, affronted, “I’m doing the best I can here!”

“Captain, perhaps I might be able to assist--”

“I’ve got it, Spock, you just… keep him from getting any grumpier.”

“I ain’t grumpy,” Len corrected. “I’m injured, you corn fed brat.”

“And pain makes you grumpy. Good to know,” Jim replied easily, crying out in triumph as his hand closed around the roll of bandages at last.

Len snorted as Jim made his way over with the bandages, rolling his eyes. “Experience wrapping ribs… yeah, holding the end while I do the wrapping maybe. You’ve broken ribs five times, kid, and I’ve treated you each and every time.”

“Six,” Jim corrected with a smug grin, as he placed the roll on the end of the bed. “I’ve broken my ribs six times-- that you know of.”

“Bruised is not broken,” Len countered.

Jim shrugged. “Potato, po-tah-to”

“Absolutely not the same thing!” Len scoffed, before Uhura ended their squabbling by throwing her hands into the air.

“Enough! For the love of-- Spock, grab those scissors, will you?”

“Certainly,” replied the Vulcan, retrieving a pair of silver scissors from a nearby workbench and handing them to her. She made quick work of cutting away Len’s shirt to avoid having to pull it off over his head, stretching his ribs and causing more pain for himself.

Jim, having been usurped from his previously self appointed duty of wrapping the bandages as Uhura’s nimble fingers made quick work of it, sat in a nearby chair, straddling it backwards and resting his chin on his hands with a soft chuckle.

“You would break your ribs in the shower, Bones.”

Len met his eye with a glare, trying desperately not to move as his torso was bound.

“You broke yours falling down the stairs because you were carrying too many books your second year at academy. Don’t even talk to me about dumb reasons.”

Uhura paused in her ministrations, biting her lip against a laugh so she didn’t jar his ribs; Spock raised a brow in Jim’s direction.

“All in the pursuit of knowledge, Bones,” Jim replied flatly, his expression never changing.

“All in the pursuit of that girl you got partnered with in your strategies class,” Len shot back.

Jim waggled his brows with a lewd smile. “All in the pursuit of knowledge, Bones,” he repeated.

“Carnal knowledge does not count, Kirk,” Uhura interjected, though it did nothing to dampen the smug smirk on Jim’s face.

Len scowled at him with a disapproving scoff, wincing as his ribs protested the push of air. “You’re a child.”

“Ok, grandpa,” Jim replied with a shit eating grin. "I hate you," Len deadpanned. "You sure are a sweet talker, Bones." Jim was barely suppressing a laugh now. "I'm gonna tell everyone here how you broke your ribs the third time." Jim paled, eyes widening dramatically. "You wouldn't." "Try me." "Doctor patient confidentiality!" Jim whispered dramatically. "Did you see any forms to sign at--" "Ok, ok!" Jim cried, waving his hands and a desperate attempt to keep him from continuing. "Point taken!" It was a silent for a few long moments as Uhura tied off the bandages before she innocently said, "Was that the time you slipped off the pier because you were distracted by--" "How do you know about that?" Jim groaned in disbelief. Uhura shrugged. "Gaila talks." At this point, Jim was so flustered he couldn't even form words. He opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, half started consonants escaping every so often before he finally settled on: "This is insubordination!" To which Spock replied, "Captain, if it were against regulation to mention any time you have been injured I fear no one aboard would ever dare speak again." Len wasn't quick enough to bite back the bark of laughter that comment prompted. He wheezed painfully and clutched at his side, biting back his chuckles in vain. "Ow." "That's what you get," Jim crowed, smirking. "Alright, children," Uhura grumbled, waving her hands dismissively. "Get out of here before I strangle you all." "Spock," Jim whined. "She's threatening a senior officer. Two, in fact!" Spock pointedly looked away. "I heard no such threats, Captain. My apologies." "You can't kick me out of my own medbay," Len pointed out, rising carefully to his feet.

Uhura merely arched a brow at that remark.

"C'mon, Bones," Jim sighed, grasping his elbow carefully. "Let's go before she breaks your other ribs." "If you think for a single second I'm traipsing through this tin can without a shirt, you've got another thing coming," Len grumbled, even as he let Jim lead him away. "I ain't you." They bickered all the way back to his quarters, where Len was situated on the couch and Jim set about cleaning up the damp spots still on the bathroom floor from where he had slipped earlier. "So," Len asked after a long moment of silence. "Six times that I know of, huh?" "Yup," Jim called, still out of sight. Len heard him shuffling about as he laid towels down to catch the small puddles of water. "Gonna tell me about those other times?" He asked cautiously. "Mmm," Jim hummed. "Maybe. Someday." Len sighed. "Do I want to know?" "Probably not." Len could hear the smirk in his voice. Running a hand over his face he groaned, "You're exhausting." "Nah," Jim droned, rounding the doorframe and leaning against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're just exhausted." "You can say that again." The pain had dulled some, but the sudden adrenaline and residual crash had really taken it out of him. Jim was beside him, then, helping him to turn horizontal on the couch and shoving pillows behind him to allow him to recline partially upright, keeping the pressure off his ribcage. It was odd, being on the other side of things for a change. "Get some rest, Bones," Jim said quietly once he was situated. "If at all possible, you're off duty until we get the osteo-regenerators up and running again. Captain's orders." Bones saluted lazily. "Aye aye, Captain." Sounded good to him.

#ficlet #star trek #star trek aos #star trek 2009 #jim kirk #spock #uhura #bones #leonard mccoy #bones breaks his ribs #broken bones #shenanigans

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your-name-is-jim · 2 years

Text

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

This became a pretty long post, sorry.

I noticed something that I haven't seen before in Kirk/Spock analysis, so I'd like to talk about it. As I said other times, I'm aware that Star Trek fans in over half a century have probably already written everything about the most popular ship, but that's not going to stop me from adding my own words. :)

What I want to talk about is in the episode Whom Gods Destroy. I feel like this episode is pretty underrated among K/S shippers. Nowadays, it might be because of this part:

"Kirk and Spock call each other brothers, this episode tries to no-homo them!"

Short answer: No, it doesn't.

Long answer: This is not what I actually want to focus on, but I understand that it's important, so I'll try to give an explanation. When we watch TOS, we always need to remember when it was made. I know it's not easy (trust me, I made that mistake too), but unfortunately we can't forget that, in the '60s, homosexuality was still considered a mental illness (if not worse, depending on the people/country), and portraying it in a positive way in a mainstream American show was NOT an option. At the time, it wasn't uncommon for queer people to call each other "brothers/sisters" as a socially acceptable way to say "we love each other", "we're each other's most important person", "we have something special that is different from friendship".

Does it mean Kirk and Spock say "brothers" when they mean "lovers"? Not necessarily, of course, but we need to remember that, unlike contemporary shows where two men can actually claim to be brothers to mean "we're close but not gay", in the past it could have meant "we're close and maybe also gay". I'm not saying it's canon, but the interpretation is valid.

As you can see, Garth strongly disagrees with Kirk and Spock when they say they're brothers. :D Unfortunately, it's from the wrong reason: he's claiming that they only have a captain-first officer relationship, without feelings involved. And the episode definitely wants us to think that he's wrong! Kirk and Spock love each other! They have very special feelings for each other, feelings that the word "friendship" wouldn't completely convey. I choose to interpret their "brotherhood" in that positive way, also keeping in mind that Spock does say Kirk is speaking "somewhat figuratively", so he's aware they're not actual adopted siblings. :)

Of course, I can't forget to add what every K/S fan knows: if we consider Roddenberry's novel canon (or at least canonically relevant to a degree), Vulcans use the same word, t'hy'la, to say "friend", "brother", "lover" or a combination of at least two of them. That just makes everything easy! Every time Kirk and Spock call each other "friends" or "brothers" in canon, we can just assume they mean t'hy'la. Checkmate! :D

Okay, back to Whom Gods Destroy. If that episode isn't as "no homo" as we initially thought, what makes it so good for K/S shippers to the point that I'm writing a long post about it? Well, a couple of things. The first one happens before the "brothers" speech, and it's this:

In context, Marta claims to write poetry, so she recites one of "her" poems… which is very obviously Shakespeare. Star Trek writers chose one of the most famous English sonnets of all time on purpose, and it's clear because they made 100% sure every single person watching the episode wouldn't miss it:

So, okay, she didn't write it. We got it. It's Star Trek and its Shakespeare references, nothing new.

Is that all? Hm, I'm not sure. Because Shakespeare's sonnet 18 might be extremely famous, but it's not the only famous poem Shakespeare wrote. And even if it was, since the characters were going to point out that "hey that's Shakespeare" anyway, why did Star Trek writers chose that sonnet specifically? Why did they choose one of the sonnets Shakespeare wrote for another man, to express his beauty? To express his love for him?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

They could have chosen one of the sonnets Shakespeare wrote for a woman. There are a lot more! But no, Marta quotes a love poem by a man for another man, and the camera shows us this:

Just two bros, sitting together, listening to Shakespeare's words about a young man's beauty 'cause they're not gay.

Now… I know, I know. Even nowadays, Shakespeare is too famous to be universally accepted as queer. There's always going to be academics who think "those sonnets were platonic!"; at the time Star Trek was made, I wouldn't be surprised if almost everyone thought "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?" was about either platonic love or love for a woman (the latter used to be a theory too, but it was proved wrong). On the other hand, the queer reading has also been discussed for centuries, and supported by famous academics too, like Oscar Wilde. So even in this case, we can't really know what Star Trek writers had in mind. Did they just pick the most popular sonnet without thinking too hard? Did they try to add gay subtext to the scene? Well, it certainly looks gay to me. :)

And now, the best part! What, you thought it was over? Nope, I said I was going to talk about "a couple of things", and Shakespeare was just the first one. Because if you think that his sonnet was probably not meant to be gay in context, and after that Kirk and Spock call each other brothers, and that's also not gay in your opinion… well, maybe we can add a little more fuel to the potential gay subtext.

So, what is Marta doing here? Quoting poetry again.

Right after their conversation about brotherhood and the loyalty of a crew, Garth gets mad at Spock ("Remove this animal!"); Garth's men bring Spock away, and Garth asks Kirk the password to get to the Enterprise. He tells Kirk that he'll make him beg for death. That's when Marta suddenly starts reciting another poem. This time, though, there's a big difference from the first one: the audience can tell it's probably another reference because of her previous behavior, but it's hard to recognize. It's not Shakespeare. It's not even the most popular poem by that author, and she's also quoting it a little wrong.

This is a subtle reference. The average Star Trek fan doesn't know what it is. I also didn't. So, of course, I got curious, and this is what I found:

A. E. Housman, English poet (1859 – 1936)

XIX.

In midnights of November, When Dead Man’s Fair is nigh, And danger in the valley, And anger in the sky,

Around the huddling homesteads The leafless timber roars, And the dead call the dying And finger at the doors.

Oh, yonder faltering fingers Are hands I used to hold; Their false companion drowses And leaves them in the cold.

Oh, to the bed of ocean, To Africk and to Ind, I will arise and follow Along the rainy wind.

The night goes out and under With all its train forlorn; Hues in the east assemble And cocks crow up the morn.

The living are the living And dead the dead will stay, And I will sort with comrades That face the beam of day.

Alfred Edward Housman is another English poet, but very different from William Shakespeare: he lived just a few decades before Star Trek was made. Why choosing him? Maybe because he wrote a lot about men dying during a war, and it's relevant because Garth killed a lot of people and wants to bring war to the galaxy. We will probably never know, but after a little research, I realized that Housman is definitely an interesting-- no, a fascinating choice.

As I said before, the poem Marta recites doesn't look like one of Housman's most popular works, and it's hard to find something specific about it online. It doesn't even have a title, that "XIX" simply means that it's the 19th poem in the volume it's part of. So what is so fascinating about it? Well…

The title of the volume is "Last Poems". I didn't use Wikipedia as my only source, but in this case, I think it can explain context better than me:

OH.

So the poem Marta is quoting in front of Kirk, the poem she wants to know if Kirk likes, is not just a poem about death: it's part of a volume a man wrote for the man he was in love with.

Wait, again? There are two poems in this episode, and both of them are by male authors who wrote them for the man they loved? That doesn't really look like a coincidence anymore.

It's subtle, for sure, especially the second one. The average person watching the episode probably doesn't recognize Housman, doesn't know anything about his life. The average person in front of their TV sees Marta trying to seduce Kirk right after "her" poem, so everything looks heterosexual, right?

Yeah, that's what it looks like. But it's the surface, nothing more.

Because unlike Shakespeare, I didn't find discourse about Housman's sexual orientation: there were probably rumors about his homosexuality when he was alive as well, and after his death, it wasn't really a mystery. A Housman reader, even in the 60s, probably knew.

So, yes, this episode has two poems. Two poets that in different times wrote for a man they loved. Could it be that Whom Gods Destroy is also, at least partially, about love between two men? Well, I basically already said it when I talked about the "brothers" conversation, but let's think about it again. Except for the last few minutes, Kirk and Spock are the only two characters from the main cast on that planet. There's another man, Dr. Cory, who knows Kirk. Kirk seems to care about him… but not enough to risk something while the doctor is tortured in front of his eyes. Also, Dr. Cory isn't present when Marta quotes the poems. The first time, Kirk and Spock are together, and the second time happens not long after this scene:

They try to make Kirk like the girl, but does he really care?

Nope, he just wants Spock back.

They are "brothers (somewhat figuratively)" who trust each other deeply, and even if their enemies try to distract Kirk, it's obvious what he really wants.

It's him and Spock. Spock and… him?

Hmm...

Okay, that's better. :D

At this point of the series, they're so close that Kirk doesn't even consider the possibility that Spock might not recognize him immediately.

Luckily, none of them dies and their feelings are mutual, so they can be happier than Housman. Maybe they'll read his poems together. Or Shakespeare, that's always an option.

[Pictures from s3 e14 - Whom Gods Destroy]

#spirk #k/s #kirk x spock #star trek tos #star trek the original series #spock #james t. kirk #tos spirk #william shakespeare #a e housman #I'm sorry I wrote so much #well no I'm not really sorry but thank you for reading until the end #my gifs

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