(by Collin R. Skocik)
Deep under the surface of a dead planet is a vault filled with receptacles containing the consciousness of the last handful of survivors of a powerful race of humanoids that wiped themselves out five hundred thousand years ago. Most of the receptacles have lost their energy, but three remain—Sargon, the leader of his people, his wife Thalassa, and Henoch, one of their enemies. They wish to inhabit the bodies of Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Ann Mulhall in order to build android bodies in which to move their minds.
There’s a sense of bigness to this episode, of importance, in contact with such advanced beings. Sargon’s people once wandered the galaxy seeding new worlds, which Spock says “would tend to explain certain aspects of Vulcan prehistory.” Kirk promises Scotty they could develop starships “with engines the size of walnuts.” But McCoy is leery of trusting such advanced beings, and Kirk gives credence to his concerns, because the risks are indeed great. And although Sargon is benevolent, indeed things go haywire once the aliens are on board and ensconced in the bodies of Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Mulhall.
Among other things, this episode addresses one of the problems of immortality—the sadness of all that is left behind. There’s a powerful moment when Sargon and Thalassa remember a day they sat beside a silver lake. I’m only 42 and that scene evokes for me a powerful nostalgia for the days my wife and I were dating. There was a magic to those days, a simplicity, a depth of feeling, and a hope for the future that’s all gone now. What would it be like if we were to live half a million years? Now, don’t get me wrong—I want to live forever (presuming there’s a world worth living in, which is looking pretty unlikely these days…), but the immensity of time is frightening. Entropy will rob us, in time, of everything. Nothing lasts forever.
William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy get to stretch their acting legs playing entirely different characters than Kirk and Spock. Even guest star Diana Muldaur creates two distinct characters in Dr. Ann Mulhall and Thalassa. Sargon is a very old and supremely wise being, and Shatner carries himself with even more poise and confidence than he does as Kirk. Nimoy is downright scary as the wicked Henoch, with his constant mischievous smile and condescending laugh.
Scotty is skeptical of the “glop of jelly” that will be used in the construction of the androids. “You’ll need microgears and some sort of pulley that does what a muscle does,” he tells Thalassa. She replies, “That would be highly inefficient.” As technology advances, things that seem commonsense in one era are primitive in another. People as recently as the 1960s would no doubt be astonished, and more than a little skeptical, that we all carry in our pockets computers far more powerful than the computers that once took up entire buildings.
With all the body-swapping going on, the last act of this episode gets a little confusing. It took me several viewings to finally really follow it all. Nurse Chapel gets to house Spock’s consciousness for a short time, and is pleased that “we shared consciousness together.” This must be embarrassing for Spock, but surely is a memory Chapel will always cherish. She must know things about Spock no one would ever guess.
But the question I have is, what exactly is being transferred? The transfer of a person’s memories onto a computer of some sort is an old and viable concept, and one which I hope is achievable in my lifetime. But that would be like copying files from your computer to an external hard drive. I see no way that would empty the original brain. Kirk’s body should be housing both Sargon and Kirk. Memories are stored in physical structures in the brain. Or does the new mind delete the old memories?
Sargon says that the final cataclysm that wiped out his people occurred when “our minds became so powerful we dared think of ourselves as gods.” That talk makes me think of Gary Mitchell. I wonder if, for whatever reason, it was Sargon’s people who placed the barrier at the rim of the galaxy.
Kirk delivers one of his most eloquent speeches, outlining his personal view of the mission of the Enterprise: “They used to say if man could fly, he’d have wings. But he did fly. He discovered he had to. Do you wish that the first Apollo mission hadn’t reached the Moon, or that we hadn’t gone on to Mars and then to the nearest star? That’s like saying you wish that you still operated with scalpels and sewed your patients up with catgut like your great-great-great-great-grandfather used to. I’m in command. I could order this. But I’m not because, Dr. McCoy is right in pointing out the enormous danger potential in any contact with life and intelligence as fantastically advanced as this. But I must point out that the possibilities, the potential for knowledge and advancement is equally great. Risk. Risk is our business. That’s what the starship is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her.” It’s inspiring. It’s something to bear in mind next time NASA has an accident that takes the lives of a crew.
Diana Muldaur appeared for a full season of Star Trek: The Next Generation as Dr. Katherine Pulaski—adding some much-needed conflict and drama to that series.
(Collin R. Skocik is a fan of the Star Trek franchise and has written synopses of all 79 episodes of Star Trek’s original series and the first six Star Trek films.)
Principled Thoughts 