#batel/pike

[curator-on-ao3]

With all due respect to the Pike x Batel fans out there, I think she's the most boring Pike recurring love interest. We get to know Una because she's a main character character and while I don't ship Pike x Vina, I do think she at least has an interesting backstory. But Marie? All we know about her is that she's a captain and Pike's girlfriend whereas Una, Vina, Spock, etc. are bit more fleshed out and therefore more fun for Pike to ship with.

I hear what you’re saying, anon, but I want to remind you of something you already know: different people ship differently.

The few Pike x Batel shippers I’ve seen (and I’m applying the “shipping” concept generously) have fallen into three main, sometimes overlapping categories:

people who will ship pretty much any canon ship

people who identify with Pike and/or with Batel

people who ship them based on the shipper’s headcanons (of Batel and/or reasons why Pike treats her so poorly).

Particularly in terms of headcanons, I can see why someone would want to ship Pike with a character the shipper can somewhat invent. For example, we know Batel wanted that promotion. We don’t know why. Is she ambitious? Tired of space travel and wanting a post at a more static location? Connected to a place and/or people near where the commodore posting would be and wanting to spend time there or with them? The opposite of ambitious and perceives flag officer work as less demanding than captaincy? Frustrated with flag officers and wanting to fix them? Admiring of flag officers and wanting to emulate them? Wanting access to different kinds of cases as an attorney? Does she have a mentor influencing her choices? A Starfleet family legacy? A first officer she can’t stand and wants to get away from or a first officer ready for captaincy whom she wants to help by opening up a captain’s seat? How would Pike figure or not figure into … any of this?

To some shippers, exploring potential character dynamics with a huge range of options is attractive.

These choices also can help shippers who want the canon to make sense. And if that means, for example, giving Batel emotional trauma from the Klingon War that causes her to stay with a partner she knows is lying to her, then that’s the shipper’s choice. It’s not canon (just about any headcanon I’ve seen has been better than the canon for this pairing), but it is shipping.

So, as of this break between seasons two and three, while I’m not interested in exploring this ship (and actually have disgust toward it for many, many, many deeply personal reasons that don’t have to do with Star Trek), we all come at fandom with our own wants and needs and desires. I respect that this pairing doesn’t work for you or for me, but people should ship what they like and hopefully have fun doing so.

Hugs to you if they’re welcome, anon, and I’m glad you’re enjoying digging into established characterization for your style of shipping. ❤️

[evviejo]

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS // S2E2 Ad Astra Per Aspera I knew it meant we must endure hardship to get to the stars. But I like to think that it also means that the stars could deliver us from anything. That in the mystery and vastness of space, we might not just satisfy our curiosity, our need for exploration, but that in it, we might each also find... salvation.

[sevnofnines]

STRANGE NEW WOLRDS 2.10 Hegemony

[startrekuniverse]

STRANGE NEW WORLDS

[dearemma]

[laanswife]

Gif from @telumendils

When I watched the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Melanie Scrofano appeared, I was like: "Who is this beautiful woman on my screen?". Then I searched on the Internet and saw in her philology the series Wynonna Earp, which I had already heard of so I decided to stop and watch it at another time.

This month I decided to start watching and I've already watched 3 entire seasons (I watched the first one in just one day), because, what the hell, this series is incredible and it doesn't get the recognition it deserves.

Ps.: Now I live and breathe this character, because she's a bitch with a badass gun and gorgeous hair.

Gif from @dreamlonelywolf

[whatelsecanwedonow]

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS S02E10 | Hegemony

[elen-aranel]

In the snw pilot, Batel left before she finished eating the pancakes Pike made for her while she slept.

I don’t want to fall into the trap of disliking a female character just because, and I don’t particularly ship Pike with anyone else, but…

She’s left without eating his food since then, and I feel like cooking is how he expresses his love for people. For me there’s significance in her turning that down.

I’m uncomfortable, and I think Pike is subconsciously too, about him deepening a relationship when he knows and has been willing to talk about his future with others on the crew. Even if he probably shouldn’t have according to what I understand from discovery. I wonder if that’s behind his repeated pulling back then feeling guilty.

But aside from that, they just don’t seem to match. Him wanting to camp, her wanting room service. Yes, she understands what being a Captain is, but I would hope most people in the fleet understand that a captain can’t put them first.

I think I could like Batel as a character. But I don’t think she and Pike are right for each other.

I’m kind of anxious that they’re building up to killing her off in the gorn war or something so I wanted to ramble about this first

[myenterpriseisparked]

Strange New Worlds: Pike and Batel are starting to more seriously date.

Me: Oh really?? Then what's Captain Batel's first name, huh? C'mon, what's her name? Just tell me her name.

[aenslem]

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS 2.10 "HEGEMONY"

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

Re: many of the various about the Gorn or listing SNW's handling of the Gorn as one of its major problems.

Perception not matching reality, what is/is not a monster is a huge theme throughout SNW.

Ghost of Illyria – Those light monsters didn’t murder the Illyrians, they are the Illyrians and were trying to save Pike and Spock all along. Everyone (except Una ofc) learns a lesson that Illyrians can’t be lumped in with the Augments and need greater understanding Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach – Turns out that nice lovely civilization is literally torturing children. The terrorists are actually trying to save those children. The Serene Squall – Surprise the counselor is a pirate Ad Astra Per Aspera – Continues with the Illyrians deserve understanding theme. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow – That helpful reporter is actually a Romulan. Even notorious tyrant and mass murderer Khan Noonien Singh was once a scared child. Lost in Translation – Starfleet is the monster, accidentally torturing and killing a life form they didn't know existed. Under the Clock of War – Turns out the lovely ship’s doctor is actually the Butcher of J’Gal and capable of murdering someone in cold blood. War can make a monster of anyone.

Yet so many people seem to think they’re not going to pull something similar with the Gorn? Even though the show has taken time to establish that the Gorn are intelligent and have a religion?

The thing about the Gorn is that people have died - La’an’s family, Hemmer, some other members of the Enterprise crew, nearly the entire crew of the Cayuga, multiple colonies - and possibly Marie will be added to that list before the two-parter is done. That creates an environment where it’s understandable that the SNW characters would not want to have their perception that the Gorn are monsters challenged, because the harm they have caused is so personal.

It creates a really interesting conflict for the crew, because how do you find understanding, how to you fight the will for revenge, when there’s been so much pain?

I could be wrong about this being the route the SNW writers are going down, but I’m really excited to see if they do.

Posting this as a response to several earlier confessions.

[phantomstatistician]

Fandom: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Character: Christopher Pike

Sample Size: 768 stories

Source: AO3

[trek-daily]

[startrekuniverse]

STRANGE NEW WORLDS

➢ Pike x Batel

[dearemma]

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS 2.10. Hegemony

[defconprime]