Darkness and Brightness

[MAGolding]

Yesterday, Sept. 16, 2019, I watched "Catspaw" and then I thought about a possible relationship between another Star Trek episode and a science fiction novel I hadn't thought about for years.

The novel was a Leigh Brackett novel set on Mars and involving political intrigue and conflict between various groups of human like Martians, colonists from Earth, and an Earth corportation seeking to control Mars.

I believe it was Shadow Over Mars, also known as The Nemesis From Terra, (1944, 1951, 1961).

Like much of Brackett's work, the novel is set on Mars, where tension is building between rebellious Martians and humans in the thrall of the Company. At the beginning of the novel, the protagonist Rick Urquhart is attempting to evade the Company when he encounters a Martian, who makes a prophecy that he will ultimately rule the planet. He is forced to kill her in self-defense but the company soon catches up with him and sends him back to labor in the mines.

However, he is able to escape and meets Martian-rights activist Mayo McCall. He is captured by the Martians and made to atone for his murder but after a failed rebellion, Rick becomes their greatest hope for success and the stakes are raised when Company operative Jaffa Storm kidnaps Mayo. To discover his fate and rescue Mayo, Rick sets out to the Martian North Pole, home of the mysterious "Thinkers".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Over_Mars

Anyway, one of the groups in the story is a Martian kingdom that is said to have ruled half of Mars for many thousands of years. The king is a boy, age unspecified, described as "dark and bright and beautiful", a phrase I considered a bit odd.

John II Komnenos or Comnenus, was Emperor of the Romans from 1118 to 1143.

The Latin historian William of Tyre described John as short and unusually ugly, with eyes, hair and complexion so dark he was known as 'the Moor'.[3] Yet despite his physical appearance, John was known as Kaloïōannēs, "John the Good" or "John the Beautiful"; the epithet referred to his character.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_II_Komnenos

So possibly the "dark and bright" description of the boy king referred to the dark and light sides of his personality, and the "beautiful" referred to his overall "beautiful" personalty. Or maybe "dark and bright and beautiful" referred to his appearance.

Maybe the Martians all had green (or red) skin and hair (I don't remember) and the king had bright green (or red) skin and dark green (or red) hair or vice versa.

Maybe the king looked like some Caucasian Earthlings, with pale skin and dark brown or black hair.

And not all Earthlings with blond hair are Caucasians with European ancestry. Blonde and light hair is found in some dark skinned Australian Aborigines and Pacific Islanders. So the king could have had dark skin and light hair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blond#Prevalence

So the other day I happened to think of the Cheron natives in "Let This Be Your Last Battle" and I wondered if the Martian boy king and at least some other Martians might, like the Cheron natives, have had patterns of dark and bright coloration.

One could imagine many possible patterns of dark and bright coloration those Martians could have had. But I can't help thinking that most of those patterns would be rather goofy looking by Earth standards.