freaky-federation

[freaky-federation]

In the recent past, women were told by society that they could have a fulfilling relationship or a career, but not both. There’s been a push to “have it all!” more recently, of course, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about how James T. Kirk occupies the unique position of a male character who had to choose one or the other. There are few male characters other than him who are genuinely and unabashedly hopeless romantics who want to settle down but aren’t allowed to by the narrative. And if you view The Search for Spock as a romantic drama, then Kirk also kind of fulfills the typical female character trope of “learning that romantic love is actually more important than a career.”

As you can see, Captain James T. Kirk’s arc mirrors many female romance protagonists, and he is therefore, textually, wife material. In this essay, I will—

[freaky-federation]

R.I.P. James Darren 😭

[freaky-federation]

This dialogue cure my soul a little bit.

Just want you guys to know that.

[freaky-federation]

When Data learns about a new human custom he's like "wow life is such a rich tapestry I'm so pleased to participate in this social ritual with you and deepen our friendship (◡‿◡✿)", and when Odo learns about a new human custom he's like:

[freaky-federation]

ds9 crew: “guys we gotta stop the evil bad guys from the wormhole”

quark subplot:

[freaky-federation]

[freaky-federation]

Star Trek DS9 Q Blooper

Sisko[Avery Brooks]: Bring them back Q! Now!

Q[John De Lancie]: Or what? What! You'll ravish me!? No, it's not ravish I'm sorry...

Sisko[Avery Brooks]: I might.

[freaky-federation]

sci fi is about one thing and one thing only.....actors throwing themselves around a room to simulate the ship being hit

[freaky-federation]

STAR TREK - S3E10 Plato's Stepchildren

[freaky-federation]

happy pride to this fucking thing susanna thompson does with her mouth

happy pride to this visible saliva that avery brooks decided to leave in the final cut of rejoined

[freaky-federation]

people who are like "how dare they retcon Spock having a sister" are so weak. have you seen the show? Spock said "one of my ancestors married a human female" and it wasn't until a year later his best friends found out he was talking about his fucking parents, and even then he only reluctantly let it slip because they were in the room

[freaky-federation]

i've never watched the search for spock but i get the gist

[freaky-federation]

[freaky-federation]

Because she was an intentionally mysterious woman initially only seen in a single episode, and before she got an on-air backstory in the recent streaming series, Star Trek supplementary material developed contradictory information on who - or what - Number One, the female first executive officer of the Enterprise, was. To my count, she has four different, completely incompatible backstories in the comics and novels, and this is absolutely unique in Star Trek, which usually keeps it consistent.

Peter David, in his New Frontier novels, identified Number One as a long lived immortal human mutant (like Flint from the original series) named “Morgan Primus” who was an early genius in cybernetics and artificial intelligence, which is why the Enterprise computer has her voice. One of the names Morgan Primus assumed to hide her immortality was Morgan Lefler, and one of her daughters was Robin Lefler, Wesley Crusher’s love interest from the Next Generation Series played by Ashley Judd. Robin Lefler did not inherit her mutant ability to heal all injuries.

Alternatively, the DC Star Trek Comics of the early 1980s said that Number One was from an obscure planet of peaceful, open, friendly telepaths who resemble humans exactly, and that she was present at first contact with Starfleet. They explained that her blunt, direct, undiplomatic manner is due to her being from a telepathic culture that values total honesty. This would make her the first telepath on the Enterprise, with Spock and Arex coming later. Her planet was created before the Next Generation, but her species being a peaceful, open, telepathic race resembling Mediterranean humans who are not well known or commonly encountered in the original series era….well, that certainly sounds an awful lot like Betazoids to me. If this backstory is true, she may have been the first Betazoid seen on screen, in much the same way fans generally believe Trelane was either Q or a member of the Q Continuum.

D.C. Fontana’s only Star Trek novel, “Vulcan’s Glory,” was one of the earliest attempts to give the character a backstory, and was the most consequential long term. The first novel set in the era of the first Star Trek pilot with Captain Pike and a young Spock, "Vulcan's Glory" identified Number One as being an Illyrian, a race of human-like beings who specialize in species wide breeding programs and genetic improvement. This genetic superiority is why she was cool, intellectual, aloof, and a bit arrogant. Her nickname “Number One” came from the fact she was the supreme product of the hyper-competitive Illyrian system, and won at everything from academics to athletics. According to DC Fontana, her actual Illyrian name is impossible to pronounce, so when dealing with humans, she assumed the human name “Una Chin-Riley.” Una of course, being “Number One” in Greek.

As DC Fontana is such an important figure in Star Trek history and only actually wrote one Star Trek novel in her life, many future materials used the backstory established in “Vulcan’s Glory,” like the David Stern Pike-era novels of the 2010s....but more importantly, the Discovery and Strange New Worlds series, which canonized the “Una Chin-Reilly” name by using it on screen (I remember gasping when Pike called her Una in a Discovery episode, meaning they were going with the Fontana backstory, a detail that may not have been significant to the casual viewer). Since DC Fontana wrote “Vulcan’s Glory” in the 80s, a lot more information was learned about the role of genetic engineering in the Federation, however, and interesting things were done in that series to bring her in line with everything we’ve learned since in Deep Space 9 and Enterprise about augmentation and the society wide prejudice against it. For example, they established that the fact Number One was Illyrian was not public knowledge, but that she pretended to be human her entire life.

The one person who didn’t see fit to give her a backstory or even a real name was John "Johnny Redbeard" Byrne in his comic series about the Cage era Enterprise, who thought the mystery of the character was the most interesting thing about her, and he was deliberately cagey about any details. To Johnny Redbeard, she was just “Number One.” There was a running joke that every time someone says her actual name, or when we see her personnel file, it was blurred out, or somebody’s thumb was over it, and so on. It was rather like the running joke where Mr. Burns never remembers Homer Simpson's name. Johnny Redbeard loves mystery men and women who don't talk about their past, since that was the characterization he famously gave to Wolverine in his X-Men comics.

The one detail of Number One's past that is clear is that Number One in Byrne's comics is competent, mysterious, and has mystique, certainly, but she is completely human, without any powers. Byrne always got exasperated that his X-Men co-creator Chris Claremont added fantastical and far out details to the background of X-Men characters (like how Nightcrawler's girlfriend Amanda turned out to be a sorceress) because he felt "some people should just be allowed to be normal." Byrne always said his original idea for Wolverine's "true" backstory was that he was a Vietnam veteran in intelligence who volunteered for bionic experiments that wiped his memory, and disliked the idea he was immortal, and vetoed the very, very early Dave Cockrum idea Wolverine was an actual mutated wolverine who achieved sentience and a human shape (which early X-Men comics hint at). Byrne was reportedly enraged that they gave Moira MacTaggart a mutant power, as he saw her as just being a scrappy Scottish housekeeper.

Johnny Redbeard didn’t give Number One a past (other than to show she was on the Enterprise's shakedown cruise with Robert April as a rookie officer), but he did give her a future, as he showed an older Number One as a starship commander in the Kirk era (aging gracefully with a white tuft like Tongolele), and later, a flag officer in the Motion Picture era.

To what extent are these backstories compatible? Well, with what we currently know about Number One, that she hid her true species and status to avoid prejudice, it could be that some of the other versions were tall tales she spread to obscure her true origins. The John Byrne idea she served as an Ensign with Robert April in the Enterprise's very first mission hasn't been confirmed, but hasn't been denied, either. The Peter David "Morgan Primus" backstory is completely incompatible, but perhaps there are some elements to it that are true, like the idea that the early part of her career involved working as a computer engineer in artificial intelligence, which is why the computer has her voice.

[freaky-federation]

With the knowledge that Vulcan has regularly high winds & subsequent sandstorms I propose a type of guy: midwestern dads watching tornadoes but for Vulcans. Somebody's uncle Sovar standing outside with his hands on his hips watching a massive cloud roll closer. Unconcerned because this happens, like, every couple of weeks. He's like "this one is large, is it not" yes it is go back inside Sovar

[freaky-federation]

amok time

[freaky-federation]

"Captain, we must uphold the temporal prime directive."