Pike Going *Back* to the Talosians

[Emperor Norton]

I have a certain degree of bother with the morality of Pike returning to the Talosians. The Talosians embody a trope of TOS of aliens not meaning to be evil. Unlike something like the Horta, it is not a case where they are actually asserting their sentient rights in the only way they can. The Talosians are bad guys, but they simply have their own logic to excuse themselves. They are demonstrated to have no more respect for sentient life than a master for a pet. And even less than that, as they engage in horrific mental torture to subjugate their prisoners. They are not simply masters, but abusive masters. And their intent is to create a breed of docile slaves to do their labor for them, and to reclaim the surface as a perpetual servant class. These implications are brought up in "The Cage" by the characters themselves. Pike's offspring would be slaves, met with the same evil abuse that he himself was met with, and destined to be slaves. And that would be their fate from birth through childhood, into adulthood and death.

These are what the Talosians are, and a smile at the end of the episode does not excuse it. And yet, Pike returns to those people. I don't think our other stalwart heroes would have done the same. Even in a deteriorating vegetable state, I think someone like Kirk and company would have chosen death before that. The morality of Star Trek, and I believe even in "The Cage", very often asserts that idea that the fate of death is preferable to what the alternative would be. Pike and Vina are not going to have children at that point, but it is the questionable morality of going off with these people regardless. So for all those reasons, Pike going back to Talos to live out his life has bothered me. That said, I wondered what others thought of that, and the morality involved in that decision?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm sure a lot of it had to do with making whatever use they could out of the footage they had.

But also, it's either living in the illusions of the Talosians or life as an utter vegetable. I'd pick death, but since the episode wasn't about euthanasia, I pick the former.

And I'm not sure Pike is capable of having kids, what with the massive radiation damage and all. I don't really buy Vina being able to carry a child in her true state, either.

 

[Zycho32]

Given the options of remaining locked in your hopelessly broken body and having the illusion of otherwise while in 'captivity', it's very easy to chose death over the captivity.

At first.

Shoot, Pike is absolutely against the notion of going back to Talos in The Menagerie- he had to be abducted by Spock, if you'll recall. But time in this case is a lot like water eroding rock- one's resolve will inevitably crumble. And the closer he got to Talos, the more he saw the prior 'adventure'(however much of a torture it had to have been at the time)... it makes a certain sense that someone would start to give in to the allure of illusion versus reality. Even Pike. Not like any of us could turn away from such an offer if we were physically broken to a point beyond Stephen Hawking.

Of course, this is taking the episode at face value and ignoring the Behind-the-Scenes story behind the episode's creation, but that's often the norm when debating TV Episodes and Movies no matter which ones they are.

 

[Timo]

I find it hard to believe there ever was an element of choice involved in the adventure. Spock dragged the resisting Pike to his starship by force (easily done as Pike was an utter invalid); beyond that point, everybody on the starship was in the tight grip of the Talosians, seeing illusions left, right and center, hearing things, and (as described in "The Cage") doing things they'd never willingly do and being utterly unaware of this.

The only one who might have had the opportunity to exercise free will was Spock - he already initiated his dastardly plan before reaching Starbase 11, which is the outer limit of the mind control powers of the Talosians as far as the rest of the episode is concerned. But it would be quite arbitrary to nail that limit at SB 11 specifically. For all we know, Spock was already the puppet of the Talosians when "deciding" to forge the communications records and divert the starship to SB 11.

Certainly we should put zero weight on the "apparent willingness" of Pike to take Vina's hand and climb the rock ramp to the Elevator to Hell. Beautiful smiles were part and parcel of all those things Vina absolutely hated doing in "The Cage", after all.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnnybear]

I think the inhabitants of Talos IV had given up on their original idea of creating a race of slaves from the children of the crews of the crashed spaceships and the like and Spock knew this! They offered Pike an illusional life where he could be happy and free to walk about and they promised to look after his crumpled body!
JB

 

[Maurice]

But is Pike all "no" because he doesn't want to go or because he knows what will happen to Spock?

 

[Emperor Norton]

I think the inhabitants of Talos IV had given up on their original idea of creating a race of slaves from the children of the crews of the crashed spaceships and the like and Spock knew this! They offered Pike an illusional life where he could be happy and free to walk about and they promised to look after his crumpled body!
JB

Nonetheless, its like a retired James Bond living at a Spectre beach resort because they promise to be nice to him.

 

[Commishsleer]

Nonetheless, its like a retired James Bond living at a Spectre beach resort because they promise to be nice to him.

No I think the Talosians wanted to make it up to Pike.
I don't think they could do much worse to Pike than the radiation did.

 

[Timo]

It's pretty much a case of Spectre giving Bond a pension and a penthouse after they reveal they already control the world and every head of state is their puppet. Would Bond really feel bad about it after the Queen sent him a message reassuring him that everything is as it should be, MI8½ is now running the drugs and protection racket smoothly across the entire island, and Prime Minister Blofeld has given a formal pardon to all double-zeroes?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Farscape One]

But is Pike all "no" because he doesn't want to go or because he knows what will happen to Spock?

I always interpreted it as Pike knowing what the consequences for Spock would be, especially given what we know of Pike... a man who cares deeply for fellow Starfleet officers, which is the reason why he got crippled in the first. He strikes me as one who would rather live like an invalid than put someone else in potential danger just to ease his conditions of living.

 

[ChasFink]

I always interpreted it as Pike knowing what the consequences for Spock would be, especially given what we know of Pike... a man who cares deeply for fellow Starfleet officers, which is the reason why he got crippled in the first. He strikes me as one who would rather live like an invalid than put someone else in potential danger just to ease his conditions of living.

I agree with this as explanation for Pike's initial refusal.

As to the Talosians' morality: The big surprise at the end of "The Cage" (and included in "The Menagerie") is that the Talosians were truly shocked at how much humans hated captivity - that's why they stopped fighting Pike's resistance. This implies that either all the other races they keep in their menagerie are content to live in comfortable captivity, or they didn't have enough information to realize that this distaste for being locked up is common among beings of human level intelligence. At the end of "The Cage" they really stopped being the bad guys, and the ban on contact with them strikes me as political overkill. So by the time of events in "The Menagerie", they are both repentant and caring.

 

[Timo]

Or then invincible and uncaring. Faking benevolence was their forte in "The Cage" already, be it through their puppets or as the wounded party and the compassionate helpers of poor Vina.

In the end it doesn't matter much. It's not as if either Pike or Kirk could have said no - and it's not even a matter of Talosian mind control. Kirk simply was fed pure propaganda without a way to verify its basis in fact, and Pike had no voice.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnnybear]

The Talosians may have felt Pike's pain and discomfort across the stars and wanted to make amends for their previous behaviour!
JB

 

[GNDN18]

KIRK: Don't quote rules to me. I'm talking about loyalty and sacrifice. One man who's died for us, another who has deep emotional problems.

This is the heart of Star Trek: sacrifice and loyalty; ultimately, this theme makes “The Menagerie Parts I and II” superior to the source material. Spock’s willingness to sacrifice himself for his former commander is powerful and perfectly logical. So, too, is Kirk’s perplexity at the seemingly illogical behavior of his first officer. It is flagrantly emotional, but that’s what makes Star Trek more than mere space opera.

The contrition shown by the Talosians is manifestly genuine. To think that they were simply faking their compassion is cynical and not at all consistent with what was shown on the screen.

 

[johnnybear]

As Spock stated in the episode, they care for Captain Pike and want to help him!
JB

 

[ZapBrannigan]

As Spock stated in the episode, they care for Captain Pike and want to help him!

That was Roddenberry's intended story, but if it were really happening, Spock would have no business believing the Talosians. They could be trying to lure a starship through the quarantine so they can capture it using their mind control tricks.

If Spock had waited a few weeks, Pike could have been taken to Omicron Ceti III and given a nice blast of healing spores from a big white flower. First he gets totally disabled by delta rays, and then he misses out on the spores by a matter of a few weeks due to Spock being so helpful. Pike is a very unlucky guy. It seems to me that Kirk got all the luck for both of them, and Pike got none.

 

[Ronald Held]

Talosians can convince you of anything they choose. Maybe they really care for Pike, but who really knows?

 

[Herbert]

Pike's offspring would be slaves, met with the same evil abuse that he himself was met with, and destined to be slaves. And that would be their fate from birth through childhood, into adulthood and death.

Given his physical condition and being bound to that chair, what makes you think he would be capable of procreating? As I recall, he's being kept alive by that chair. Take him out of it and he's dead. I don't think he'd even have time to....ahem....take the enterprise out of spacedock, as it were.

 

[Timo]

Even if the Talosians knew how to milk Pike for his contribution to the slave race, they would have no womb to bring that race to term. Vina might be too badly damaged (or perhaps Vina never survived the crash in the first place and was 100% illusory all along), but in any case she would be too old to be a mother in any conventional fashion. It's "adult crewman" plus 18 years plus 11 years by the time of "The Menagerie", after all.

If the slave race thing ever was a Talosian goal, and they felt Pike was crucial for that, they'd have to do it ex utero, in vitro, perhaps they way every other alien abductor in Trek and elsewhere does it (with blood samples containing that precious dee-en-ay).

The Talosians may have had completely different goals, of course. Or they may truly have adapted their plans after discovering that humans had slave rebellion built into their genes. But if they did want human children out of human parents, then "The Menagerie" would still give them what they wanted. Forget Pike, whom they'd dump in the nearest crevasse once he was out of view. They would simply command fifty of Kirk's finest, of both genders, to beam down and begin a life of servitude. Nobody would ever notice anything amiss...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Redfern]

A friend of mine, Xaa, who was in a devilishly cynical mood one day suggested something that would rationalize every inconsistency, every element of bad science, every instance of weak character development across the entire freakin' franchise...

It's ALL illusion!

No, I don't mean, "It's only a show, I really should just relax," to quote the MST3K mantra.

No, I mean every event depicted in every episode, every series, every book, every comic, etc from the moment Pike and the rescue team beamed upon Talos IV has been illusions generated by the Talosians. They never escaped. They were all captured! The telepathic couch potatoes merely planted the "lie" that only Pike was caught and the others brought the "ship's power" (the BFG) to try blasting him out. The notion that strong emeotions could block their powers? A deception by the aliens themselves, simply in order to give Pike false hope, thus upping the "drama". The rest of the crew were fooled into beaming down.and that was pretty much that. Elsewhere, the Enterprise would be listed as "lost".

Kirk's adventures? He may have really been some sad lil' ensign on the lower decks working with the waste reclamation systems before the Enterprise reached the Talos system. But, having a strongly developed "Walter Mitty" complex, the Talosians found him found him a prime candidate for their entertainment. Really, how likely would one ship have experienced so many wild encounters in so short a time and come out (relatively) untouched? Nope, Wimpy ol' Jimmy Kirk merely saw himself as the kind of captain no one could ever really be.

Spock? Nah, he only wished he could be as logical and stoic as "Number One". So, the Talosians played upon that desire, tossing in various emotional obstacles just to keep it "interesting".

Characters from later (or "in universe" even earlier) series? They were really the crew we never actually saw but were on the ship. Or, some of them may have been the offspring the Talosians wanted to breed. Chris Pine's version of Kirk may have been the Talosians calling upon "older material" and "rewriting" it a bit for a new generation of slaves.

The bogus science presented in each series or technical achievements that were inconsistent? Hey, the Talosians may be power telepaths, but don't know everything. Or, they simply didn't care that it didn't make sense as they were screwing with the crew's minds anyway.

Yup, Star Trek was actually a horribly failed mission, the tale of a ship captured by bored aliens and its crew deceived for cheap thrills.

As I said, Xaa was feeling quite devilishly cynical that day.