It feels a bit of a different story take away than a lot of the "paradise is a lie" stories Trek would often tell.
General Trek Questions and Observations
- Thread starter The Old Mixer
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Many paradise stories either feature a fatal catch (bliss at a high price, such as someone else's life, or the loss of free will) or as nice as the paradise is, there's a real life you have to go back to that either needs to be lived/dealt with or isn't that bad.
If your current existence is terrible and torturous, on the other hand, an escape to a healthy body, however illusory, and a rich full life is much preferable to ending one's life or living it out in pain and idleness.
If your current existence is terrible and torturous, on the other hand, an escape to a healthy body, however illusory, and a rich full life is much preferable to ending one's life or living it out in pain and idleness.
Saw this on Facebook.
Only makes me even more determined to go down the Pulaski and McCoy road with "not gonna use this thing unless ABSOLUTELY necessary".
Depends what he does with it. There's the example above from the comics. Former poster Garamet (Margaret Wander Bonanno) wrote Burning Dreams about formative events in Pike's life, including a coda where Ambassador Spock is summoned to Talos and sees that Pike and Vina helped (in more ways than physical) revitalise Talosian culture.
Even if he never does anything to help the Talosians, though, in his situation the illusion is the better option. The traditional Trek I-can’t-stay-here-this-isn’t-real situations always depend on getting back out to reality to do something, be productive, etc. But we’re presented with a situation for Pike where that isn’t possible — it’s either the illusion of health and pleasure, or an existence of unending horror, helplessness and pain with no compensating accomplishment or making-a-difference. In that situation, forcing Pike to experience “reality” if he doesn’t have to would just be pointlessly cruel.
(Granted, it’s an illusion he knows the Talosians are always watching, with no privacy, forever, and sure, that’s got a horror to it too. But better that and a life of romance with Susan Oliver than being stuck unmoving and silent in a wheelchair.)
The Discovery episode with Vina takes place after The Cage so if they keep going with SNW at some point in the future Spock will take Pike to Talos IV
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They'll have to continue Strange New Worlds for quite a while for Pike to return to Talos IV.
2254 - The Cage, Pike meets Vina.
2255
2256 - Battle of the Binary Stars
2257 - Pike sees Vina again on Discovery
2258
2259 - Strange New Worlds season 1 and 2
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266 - Strange New Worlds season 15 and 16
2267 - Spock takes Pike to Talos IV
2254 - The Cage, Pike meets Vina.
2255
2256 - Battle of the Binary Stars
2257 - Pike sees Vina again on Discovery
2258
2259 - Strange New Worlds season 1 and 2
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266 - Strange New Worlds season 15 and 16
2267 - Spock takes Pike to Talos IV
Oh OK that's a lot of time ........ Oopsie on my part.
BTW I love that episode of Discovery they even hinted at it a few episodes before
I 100% concur.
Let them, who cares.
I'd rather see Pike be "Fully Functional" or at least have a minor injury.
Worst case scenario, I can see him suffering the same way that Edward Elric did in FMA (FullMetal Alchemist).
Losing his Left Leg & Right Arm by barely sliding past the blast door, but having 2x of his limbs squashed & severed from his body.
But he manages to save the cadets but now has to deal with Cyborg Prosthetics to replace the limbs he lost for the rest of his life.
It's a small price to pay w/o having to mess with the Timeline too much.
He saves the future and doesn't change it too much.
He retires quietly as a very important High Ranking Admiral.
And they create the "Christopher Pike Medal of Valor" to be named after him, especially given all that he scarificed, even knowing what is at stake if he changes the timeline.
Yeah, but The Menagerie is great.
To be fair, there's nothing stopping them from doing a time jump to reach any year they want.
Watching The Royale, and in this episode it's stated in 2037 there was a manned attempt to leave the solar system.
Why is scifi always so optimistic about timelines? In Babylon 5 aren't we also supposed to have a Mars colony by now?
Why is scifi always so optimistic about timelines? In Babylon 5 aren't we also supposed to have a Mars colony by now?
I don't know in general, but in Trek I suppose the problem began when TOS was (implicitly or explicitly) situated in the 23rd century. That's no problem in itself, until you have to create a backstory with some sensible progression. And since it was also established that humans had been starfaring for at least a century by that point, probably longer (Romulan War) you don't have that much wriggle room left.
All this could have been avoided had they simply posited Star Trek to take place at some unspecified point in the 'distant future'.
Or the franchise simply doesn't take place in our timeline. Close in some things, different in many others.
Probably because space travel has been pushed hard for years leading up to it. My friends and I would discuss Mars missions and how to do it based upon lunar missions.
I prefer optimism, if a bit overly so. To borrow from "Night Court" quote: "Even the fool knows you can't touch the stars but that doesn't stop the wise man from trying."
I read something long ago that gave this advice: if you are wanting to mention a future historical date for a science fiction story, you should pick a date then add 100 years to it.
Video a few days ago about William Shatner
I asked ChatGPT to draw what TOS era Borg (and a Borg cube) might look like if Gene Roddenberry had decided to have the Borg on TOS. I was impressed with what it came up with.
Borg cube:
Borg drone (I don't know why it actually says "Star Trek" on his chest but when I asked for it to draw me a TOS Borg drone I typed in "
draw a borg drone if the borg had shown up in star trek: the original series (as opposed to star trek: the next generation borg). make it look like it was something the budget of a 60s sci fi show could afford":
In actual ST canon, I can imagine that early Borg cubes and drones looked a lot like these pictures.
Borg cube:
Borg drone (I don't know why it actually says "Star Trek" on his chest but when I asked for it to draw me a TOS Borg drone I typed in "
draw a borg drone if the borg had shown up in star trek: the original series (as opposed to star trek: the next generation borg). make it look like it was something the budget of a 60s sci fi show could afford":
In actual ST canon, I can imagine that early Borg cubes and drones looked a lot like these pictures.
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