Upon gaining the upper hand, Kirk could not bring himself to kill the Gorn captain. Instead, he extended an offer of mercy, saving the lives of the Gorn captain and his crew. Kirk mused, "Maybe you thought you were protecting yourself, when you attacked the outpost." Kirk's mercy is based around the conjecture that the Gorn were defending themselves.
When the Gorn showed up in
Strange New Worlds, that conjecture was no longer possible. These Gorn were a highly intelligent sentient species capable of hunting down prey, and they viewed the Starfleet crew as prey. In both "
Memento Mori" and "
All Those Who Wander," members of Pike's
Enterprise were hunted and killed due to the feeding and mating habits of the Gorn.
Kirk had no way of knowing whether the Gorn were telling the truth about "defending" their territory. But with the additional information that
Strange New Worlds presented about the Gorn, it is entirely possible that the Gorn were hunting the outpost. How does that change Kirk's decision to be merciful?
Arguably, the depiction of the Gorn in
Strange New Worlds makes Kirk's act of mercy all the more powerful. With the full knowledge of the brutal way that Gorn rip their prey apart and the vicious death the Gorn eggs cause when exploding out of an unsuspecting person's body, the Metrons' comments to Captain Kirk ring even more true — "You surprise me, Captain. By sparing your helpless enemy who surely would have destroyed you."
The Metrons argued the Gorn would never have shown the same mercy that Kirk did; "Memento Mori" and "All Who Wander" reaffirmed that notion. We can look back at the Gorn in "Arena" and wonder whether Kirk's death would have been simple; whether he would have made a delicious meal, or whether his body could have served as host for the Gorn hatchlings. Perhaps the Gorn in the current series had full bellies and simply wanted to extract vengeance and leave. But there is little doubt that mercy would have ever been an option had the Gorn won.
