If you're Pike, will you accept your fate for the sake of those children and Spock?

[Brainsucker]

I choose NO. I'll retired from Starfleet. Who care about those children fate. They're stranger to me anyway. Plus, Spock already spoken to Uhura that by becoming a Starfleet officer, they have to accept that their survivibility is low to begin with. There are already a lot of death in Starfleet even without my intervention. Look at episode 9; where all crew in a ship were massacred by Gorn. So no. I'm not willing to become a sacrificial lamb for other.

Why not the choice number 2? It simply because this fate require sacrifice. The choice number 2 will result something else that unknown to me (Pike). Who will become the next sacrificial lamb when those children, Spock, nor me will take? Maybe the people of Federation, in a massive war with Klingon / Romulan? Maybe a bigger disaster that will occur randomly? Or maybe another someone who dear to me? Plus, there is no guarantee that my fate (Pike) will change. there is around 50% chance that the accident happen, and I will become a sacrifice at the end.

Oh btw, please tell me the reason why you choose your choice? You may want to become the hero of shining armor who willing to sacrifice to other, but please write the reason in here. But please see the Pike's fate as yours. Not just Pike's fate. There is no right or wrong choice in here. As everyone are entitled with their own fate. It is okay to become a noble hero, but it is also okay to become a selfish person, too. As it is your very fate that in play here.

 

[bookworm8571]

No way in hell. I’d write those letters and use my knowledge of how my command style screwed things up to alter the timeline so Spock is saved and the Romulan War is averted. I still don’t accept that Pike’s fate is written in stone. I think there are enough timeline alterations already to make this an alternate reality.

 

[Mudd]

Sure, I'd accept it.

I'm going to die. So are you.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The uniform.

Pike has somehow survived V'Ger without Spock, run around Genesis and Earth has probably just been destroyed by the Whale Probe.

 

[shipfisher]

Christopher Pike could do nothing else but sacrifice himself. It's simply who he is.

 

[dupersuper]

I'd certainly like to think I'd be able to choose kids lives over mine, though in this specific example I'd question why I couldn't warn the kids then retire and leave the ship to Kirk. This "any time you try to save yourself Spock dies in your place" nonsense reeks of Star Trek's longstanding misunderstanding of evolution: they tend to ascribe intentionality to natural forces.

 

[Jayson1]

I warn Starfleet not to send the cadets into the room and then abduct Spock and travel back in time where the two of us will live together in alternate universe. Stuck in a past of this different universe but both still alive Meanwhile the universe I left should go on fine without both of us.

 

[Brainsucker]

I'd certainly like to think I'd be able to choose kids lives over mine, though in this specific example I'd question why I couldn't warn the kids then retire and leave the ship to Kirk. This "any time you try to save yourself Spock dies in your place" nonsense reeks of Star Trek's longstanding misunderstanding of evolution: they tend to ascribe intentionality to natural forces.

Well, maybe there is another alternative. If you try hard enough, you can save those kids and Spock, and yourself. But to sacrifice another soul instead.

 

[Brainsucker]

The uniform.

Pike has somehow survived V'Ger without Spock, run around Genesis and Earth has probably just been destroyed by the Whale Probe.

But think about that. The fate of Universe can't depend entirely on a single person. Even if Spock does not exist, there can be another person who can save the Earth from the Whale Probe.

 

[dupersuper]

Well, maybe there is another alternative. If you try hard enough, you can save those kids and Spock, and yourself. But to sacrifice another soul instead.

Why?

 

[Brainsucker]

Why?

Because the fate seems want some sacrifice. The original Pike fate is that Pike got burned / cripple after he saved several cadets in a deadly accident. Then when he gave the children letters, the fate get Spock as the alternative sacrifice. So If Pike wants to save himself, the children, and Spock, the fate will take another sacrifice.

So the choice is very tough indeed. If Pike resigned, the children will be killed in the accident. If he accepts his fate, two children will died, Pike will cripple, while another children saved. But if he save himself and the children, Spock will died instead. If he push forward to save himself, the children, and Spock, the fate will take another soul as the sacrifice. The problem is, that we don't know who it is.

 

[Mudd]

I'd certainly like to think I'd be able to choose kids lives over mine, though in this specific example I'd question why I couldn't warn the kids then retire and leave the ship to Kirk. This "any time you try to save yourself Spock dies in your place" nonsense reeks of Star Trek's longstanding misunderstanding of evolution: they tend to ascribe intentionality to natural forces.

It's not a "misunderstanding" of anything, it's a narrative stance. Trek has always engaged with a lot of dubious metaphors and - for lack of a better term - spiritual beliefs, entirely for storytelling and thematic purposes. Right now, we're brushing up against the related ideas of fate and hubris.

Star Trek is not an attempt to accurately model or mirror reality. It's a collection of stories.

 

[fireproof78]

This "any time you try to save yourself Spock dies in your place" nonsense reeks of Star Trek's longstanding misunderstanding of evolution: they tend to ascribe intentionality to natural forces.

Not sure what evolution has to do with this story. Pike makes a choice and sticks with it despite knowing the costs because his values are core to who he is. The choices are not born out of any sort of evolutionary process; it's literally a character choice and one he has to make peace with even though it is entirely consistent with his values. And would have done it regardless. And, more interestingly enough, prior to the time crystal Pike was regarded as heroic for trying to save the cadets. Now, he's regarded as nonsensical for knowing his fate and willing to do it anyway.

But think about that. The fate of Universe can't depend entirely on a single person. Even if Spock does not exist, there can be another person who can save the Earth from the Whale Probe.

In stories it absolutely can.

 

[BillJ]

No. Not even a little bit. That simply isn't how most people are wired.

As far as Spock being the "key to saving everything", I like this just as little as I liked it when the Voyager novels did it with Janeway. There would be other humans and other species to take up the slack.

 

[dupersuper]

Because the fate seems want some sacrifice.

So the same lame supernatural trope I was complaining about...

 

[Mudd]

So the same lame supernatural trope I was complaining about...

If you don't like this kind of thing, skiffy stories are really the worst thing you can read or watch. Oh, the Grand Old Men used to like to go on about the rational underpinnings of everything that makes "science fiction" a genre, but at bottom it was flattery - of themselves and of the kids who read the stuff voraciously and want to feel that it's somehow Important.

Rod Serling made a TV career out of just this kind of storytelling. He remains the least "lame" writer to undertake writing fantasy for the medium.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

It’s not just the kids and Spock. Future Pike mentioned millions of others with the caveat that the war is still ongoing.

We all die someday. Why not die on a day that makes a difference? I voted ‘yes’.

 

[Search4]

Warn outpost 4 and heck all the rest. Have Starfleet work on better sensors. Pike should stop pussyfooting around. He has great knowledge. Use it.

Have 10 starships repositioned near the Neutral Zone. Warn the kids. Move yourself away and the kids away from the radiation leak. Make sure Spock is 1000 light years away from the Romulan incursion.

How about wear a radiation vest during the leak?

etc. Fooey on predestination.

 

[Mudd]

Warn outpost 4 and heck all the rest. Have Starfleet work on better sensors. Pike should stop pussyfooting around. He has great knowledge. Use it.

Have 10 starships repositioned near the Neutral Zone. Warn the kids. Move yourself away and the kids away from the radiation leak. Make sure Spock is 1000 light years away from the Romulan incursion.

How about wear a radiation vest during the leak?

etc. Fooey on predestination.

It wouldn't work, because this is a atory.

 

[Ovation]

This “issue” is no different than the problem of writing a character who is alleged more knowledgeable than everyone else by a wide margin. Can’t actually be done without using a character “flaw” as a crutch. Unless the author is literally the “most knowledgeable person in the world” the character cannot be more knowledgeable than the author. So when the inevitable moment occurs in the story where the actual most knowledgeable person would know something but, for storytelling purposes, that person cannot know it, some reason will be necessary to explain away the problem. Too emotional in the moment. Head injury temporarily interfering with the ability to access the knowledge. Something else. Doesn’t really matter.

Stories are necessarily “predestined” as they are planned. Fictions can mimic reality to a point but they are NOT equal to reality. They are not subject to unexpected externalities in the manner such externalities affect the real world. Trek, in all its iterations, is not immune from this situation.

In reality, we cannot know our “fate” ten days out, let alone ten years. But in this story, Pike does know. That’s already far outside the bounds of reality and it is a deliberate construct. Whether the character ultimately gets a different outcome is also “fated”. Either way, “fate” is unavoidable in deliberately constructed fiction.