I don't believe for a moment that the creature could communicate. Not in English, not in Swahili, not in body language. All it ever does is give people what they want.
They want an argument from McCoy, just like they want promises of sex from tall dark strangers. They get the argument, providing all the sides of it themselves, just like they provide the looks and lines of their sex fantasies. And, just as Kirk so self-unconsciously puts it, they win the argument!
To assume anything else would be to assume both that the creature is capable of incredible feats (such as knowing Swahili, a feat Uhura explicitly declares incredible in the context), and that its insane actions of self-destruction are guided by a conversational intelligence. And assuming things that make it more difficult to understand or accept what is going on doesn't seem worth the while - let alone assuming two such things in a row.
That the creature is essentially mindless goes without saying. Is it mad with grief or just a lower life form? No matter, really. The end result is the same: everything it does decreases its odds of survival, from initially projecting multiple images to one and the same set of people, to ultimately killing its beneficiaries at the least opportune moments. A Shakespearean character, perhaps, but one no less deserving of swift disposal...
Timo Saloniemi
They want an argument from McCoy, just like they want promises of sex from tall dark strangers. They get the argument, providing all the sides of it themselves, just like they provide the looks and lines of their sex fantasies. And, just as Kirk so self-unconsciously puts it, they win the argument!
To assume anything else would be to assume both that the creature is capable of incredible feats (such as knowing Swahili, a feat Uhura explicitly declares incredible in the context), and that its insane actions of self-destruction are guided by a conversational intelligence. And assuming things that make it more difficult to understand or accept what is going on doesn't seem worth the while - let alone assuming two such things in a row.
That the creature is essentially mindless goes without saying. Is it mad with grief or just a lower life form? No matter, really. The end result is the same: everything it does decreases its odds of survival, from initially projecting multiple images to one and the same set of people, to ultimately killing its beneficiaries at the least opportune moments. A Shakespearean character, perhaps, but one no less deserving of swift disposal...
Timo Saloniemi
