Why no women captains?
- Thread starter uniderth
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If I remember right, Pike turns around and Colt almost bumps into him. That's what prompted the comment. So I think it can be quite easily understood that what he meant is, "I'm not used to having THAT woman on the bridge." His former Yeoman would have been used to his movements and patterns and known where to stand.
Instead he mis-speaks and drops the "that". He then realizes that he mis-spoke, but instead of going into along correction, he just says "you're different, of course." What he means by that is, "I didn't mean to say I'm not used to women on the bridge, since clearly you're here."
Instead he mis-speaks and drops the "that". He then realizes that he mis-spoke, but instead of going into along correction, he just says "you're different, of course." What he means by that is, "I didn't mean to say I'm not used to women on the bridge, since clearly you're here."
It's hard not to take "You're different, of course" as alluding to the sexual subtext, meaning "I'm not distracted by your sexuality." 
I think it's just as well that scene was cut out in "The Menagerie". I think they realized that scene didn't work even in 1966. If "The Cage" hadn't been released on video and added to the syndication package, it would've just been considered a Deleted Scene.
Plus Number One isn't the only woman on the bridge. He means I'm not used to having an attractive woman working so close to me. It's the kind of fun Freudian slip that they started out with before layering on the Captain / Yeoman thing with a shovel. You get the same level of friction in Corbomite Manoeuvre that Bones sees right through in a heartbeat. I wish that's where they'd kept it for longer.
It's hard not to take "You're different, of course" as alluding to the sexual subtext, meaning "I'm not distracted by your sexuality."
An older read of that is that "Una" is a robot.
Nowdays I got so-much transrights stuff in my head, that it seems like Pike is saying that he's not bothered by transwomen like he is by cis women... Which is grounds for a court martial?
Picard was uncomfortable around children, maybe Pike was uncomfortable around woman and not just on the bridge. Vina's efforts to get him interested weren't working, why not?
Watching a dancing girl/stripper made him bolt to his feet and all but run.
Later when the Talosian is discribing Number One and Colt as potential sexual partners, Pike is angry at the Talosians, but is he also disgusted by the very throught of having sex with a woman?
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If his happily ever after wasn't hand in hand with Vina at the end of the Menagerie, that's not a bad argument for a gay Starfleet Captain. 
Being ordered to have sex, like you're an animal, isn't nice.
Being ordered to have sex, like you're an animal, isn't nice.
Pike being gleefully lead back underground to his waiting cage.
The chair, and communicating in Morse code is a worse cage.
Although if it's 15 years later, and the only reason that they were so gentle with Pike is that Vina wanted a boyfriend, and maybe a baby, so she would have been pretty close to being "over that sh&t".
Really though, no one knew how to maintain the chair. Just because Pike couldn't see it, it's still going to need recharging, and the grit cleaned out of it's wheels. He had to be fed, nursed, cleaned and...
Pike would have been dead in 2 weeks.
Nobody knows how much of "The Menagerie" is what actually happened and how much is Talosian Illusions. Apparently an Illusion rode a shuttlecraft and then the Enterprise all the way from Starbase 11 to Talos IV, so the Talosian illusion power apparently reaches all the way to Starbase 11. A lot of people have complained about how limited Piek was in his wheelchair compared to what modern medicine can do. Possibly Pike was never crippled in a space disaster. Possibly Pike was always perfectly healthy and had the illusion of being disabled. So nobody knows.
In "The Cage" the events of the voyage to Talos IV are not presented as a transmission from Talos IV giving a possibly false version about the first trip of the Enteprise to talos IV. They are shown as actually happening (except for the scenes which are shown in the story to be Talosian illlusions)..So events depicted in "The Cage" probably actually happened in any ficitnal universe which includes "The cage" as well as "The Menagerie",
Actually it is said 4 times in "The Menagerie" including at least twice by precise Spock, that the Talos IV experience was 13 years ago, which means between 13.0 and 14.0 years.
As for Vina's possible reproduction when Pike returns in "The Menagerie":
In the replay of 13 years ago in the first scene on Pike's bridge.
So a radio beam, travelling at the speed of light, would take approximately 18 years to reach the position of the Enterprise from Talos IV. Talos IV should be approximately 18 light years from the position of the Enterprise.
And again it is said that the disappearance of the Columbia was 18 years earlier.
And when Vina says that Colt and Number One would not be good mates for PIke:
So that's a third statement that the Columbia was lost 18 years earlier.
If the retirement age of 75 from "the Counter-Clock Incident", and if the age of adulthood is 18 or 21, Vina should have been listed as between the minimum adult age of 18 or 21 and the maximum age of 75 when she joined the crew.
How long did the voyage of the Columbia last before it crashed on Talos IV?
At the "survivor's camp", where Vina impersonates a much younger person:
Nobody said anything about children never being born on space voyages before the time barrier was broken. Possibly everyone knows that couples sometimes had children on the long voyages that were normal before the time barrier was broken.
Since Vina was not actually 18 years old, she might have aged months or years or decades during the voyage of the Columbia.
Ignoring how much Vina could have aged on a long space voyage, making someone 18 (or 21) to 75 years old 18 years older makes them 36 (or 39) to 93 years old. The glimpse of the "real" appearance of Vina shown to Pike indicates she might be at about a decade or two older than her minimum age range, or about 46 to 59.
So by the time of "the Menagerie" 13 years later Vina should be about 49 (or 52) to 106, and going by her allegedly "true" appearance of about 46 to 59 in "The Cage", about 59 to 72 by the time of "the Menagerie". Thus Vina could have been too old to have children by the time of the Cage", let alone by the time of "The Menagerie". What if anything Vina, Pike or the Talosians could do about that is unknown.
And note this dialog from the scene where the captured Pike first meets the Talosians:
So at least one, and maybe both, of the two radio messages received by the Enterprise were not sent by the Columbia crew.. Did the Talosians send an actual physical radio signal, or did they create an illusion in the minds of the Enterprise crew that they received a radio signal?
If the Talosians can create illusions on a starship at a distance of 18 light years, every thing seen happening on the Enterprise could be part of a Talosian illusion, and we could not know if anything seen in "The Cage" really happened.
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It's freaky. Doubt would drive most people insane. Vina was tough.
Although women as old as seventy have given birth with medical intervention now so in three hundred years time that would be simple. That said, she could have been impregnated with a clone or using genetic material from one of the deceased adult males. All they really needed was some of Pike's sperm and an illusion of him to play the role of the father.
After the first message didn't convince Pike to go to Talos four, a second follow up message convenantly arrives that does. I say both were illusions.
No, she admitted they broke her.
But would the Talosans have possessed that interventian? Vina would need actual advanced medical care, not just another illusion.
I'd never consider this, dark.
Vina broke eventually but if you listen to her narrative, she tried hard to resist and she stayed sane. I still think that shows a resilience, even in defeat.
She was batshit crazy and Kirk knew it would be a waste of time trying to contradict her.
Really, as in-universe explanation this is the best one, because every other one I'm reading here is incredibly convoluted. Occam's razor and everything else.
Try to imagine if a psycho ex-girlfriend of yours yells at you (with crazy eyes) something like "YOUR WORLD OF BUS DRIVERS DOESN'T ADMIT WOMEN!!!!". Would you really try to argue with her by saying something like "No, look you're wrong, a good percentage of bus drivers are female and it is a quite inclusive job wich ..." or rather you would answer "Err, yes yes, you're right, it's exactly like you say, ok? Please?"
Try to imagine if a psycho ex-girlfriend of yours yells at you (with crazy eyes) something like "YOUR WORLD OF BUS DRIVERS DOESN'T ADMIT WOMEN!!!!". Would you really try to argue with her by saying something like "No, look you're wrong, a good percentage of bus drivers are female and it is a quite inclusive job wich ..." or rather you would answer "Err, yes yes, you're right, it's exactly like you say, ok? Please?"
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especially given that she was right.
She was a woman in an episode of TOS. They were NEVER right.
The Star Trek Original Series Woman Paradox!
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