I've always wondered, if taken to Omicron Ceti III, would the mutilated Captain Pike in time be healed by exposure to the spores?
This Side of Paradise and Pike
- Thread starter Control Voice
- Start date
Doesn't it?
MCCOY: Sandoval's medical record, four years ago when the expedition left Earth. He registered scar tissue on his lungs from lobar pneumonia suffered when he was a child. No major operations, but there was an appendectomy. Received all required inoculations, et cetera.
KIRK: What's so strange about that?
MCCOY: Nothing, but I examined that man no more than two hours ago. You know what his readings were? Perfect, perfect, and perfect. Just like everyone else I've examined here.
KIRK: Instrument malfunction?
MCCOY: No. I thought of that and tested it on myself. It accurately recorded my lack of tonsils and those two broken ribs I had once. It did not record the scar tissue on Sandoval's lungs, but it did record a healthy appendix where one was supposedly removed.
So, scar tissue was repaired and a missing appendix restored. Perhaps Pike could have been restored to health and vitality.
Too bad he had agreed to stay on Talos before this was discovered about Omicron Ceti
Maybe Spock could give him a mind meld to calm his mind beforehand.
I've long said that Christopher Pike (TOS) was one of the guys fate crapped on. He suffered the most catastrophic injuries possible, with your mind still intact, and then he missed out on the healing magic of the Omicron spores.
When they were passing out the luck, Kirk got his own share, plus Pike's, and the twelve crew who died in WNMHGB. He had more lives than a cat.
When they were passing out the luck, Kirk got his own share, plus Pike's, and the twelve crew who died in WNMHGB. He had more lives than a cat.
Oh ok, I just skimmed the MA article on the planet and its radiation
There was a scene in the script and the Blish novelization, cut from the final episode, clarifying that the spores were somewhat sentient, telepathic parasites. They didn't just heal people, they controlled their minds, made them placid and passive so the spores could possess them without resistance. It was basically a subtle form of slavery, which is why Kirk was so opposed to it. It wouldn't have been any better than being imprisoned by the Talosians -- worse, because it would've required surrendering free will.
Even aside from that, I would assume that the spores' healing properties aren't magic and unlimited. They might be able to heal scar tissue and regrow an appendix, but something as severe as Pike's injuries, which even the best 23rd-century medicine couldn't cure, might have been beyond the spores as well.
Even aside from that, I would assume that the spores' healing properties aren't magic and unlimited. They might be able to heal scar tissue and regrow an appendix, but something as severe as Pike's injuries, which even the best 23rd-century medicine couldn't cure, might have been beyond the spores as well.
Unless it requires surrendering his freedom to mind-controlling parasites. Some prices are not worth paying, which was the point of most of TOS's episodes about deceptive paradises, though the deletion of the explanation about the spores makes it weaker in "This Side."
Of course, choosing to go back to live among his former captors/zookeepers doesn't seem much better, but it seemed that it was a more voluntary arrangement that time, with the Talosians offering to take care of him and Spock and Pike agreeing.
That's if the spores were mind controlling parasites.
Which was the intent. The episode makes less sense if they were just some harmless natural phenomenon whose worst effect is leaving people relaxed and cheerful while healing all their medical problems. They have to be a malevolent force that's worth fighting against, or else Kirk's resistance to them seems arbitrary.
Besides, I think it's evident in the episode even without that clarifying scene. 429 Enterprise crewmembers under the spores' influence all mutinied and abandoned their posts. If they had free will, if they were truly still able to think for themselves and were just pleasantly stoned, I can't believe that every single one of them would have abandoned their sworn duty. The uniformity of their responses suggests that they were all under the influence of something else.
Did anyone test it? If not, how do you know it wouldn't work?
Like most of Star Trek's "magic solutions" it is forgotten after the credits roll. Otherwise, the Federation would just have fleets of ships full of ailing incurables beaming down, getting healed and then pissing them all off to free them from the spores. But there are lots of reasons why they didn't do it, most importantly Talos IV was still off limits. Just because punishment for contacting the Talosians was suspended once doesn't mean Spock had a lifetime pass to call them up.
This question is an oldie. I think Allan Asherman posed it in one of his revisions of The Star Trek Compendium in the episode commentary (it's not in the first edition, the only one I have at this point). Either I saw it there or one of the 80's fan magazines.
This question is an oldie. I think Allan Asherman posed it in one of his revisions of The Star Trek Compendium in the episode commentary (it's not in the first edition, the only one I have at this point). Either I saw it there or one of the 80's fan magazines.
Again, that only seems like a valid possibility because the lines about them being sentient parasites were cut. Because those lines are in the Blish adaptation, I always used to assume they were in the episode and was surprised when I saw people postulating your idea (or maybe it was you in some earlier thread). I just took it for granted that it was understood the spores were mind-controlling, that it was basically an organic analogy of Borg assimilation.
I just checked -- both of the first two Compendium editions contain the same text stating that the spores were a communal intelligence in the original draft, and that they were revealed at the end as benevolent entities that hadn't intended harm. It also says that in the original version, they were able to resurrect the dead. So they probably could've cured Pike if that had been the case.
It doesn't seem like he would have to stay on the planet, and someone can just piss him off when it's time to go home.
When you leave, does your body go back to its old, unhealed self after a while, or was it ever actually healed at all? Was their healing really a spore delusion that "this place is good, stay here and live healthy and happy"?
It wasn't a delusion, because Bones's tricorder confirmed it, and he wasn't sporified yet when he took the scans.
I'm sure that when you leave, whatever was healed remains healed; why wouldn't it? If you take your car into the shop for repairs, the repairs don't vanish once you leave the shop. But your car isn't immune from future damage either. Anyone who left the planet would be in perfect health at the moment they left, but of course, normal wear and tear would take their toll thereafter.
Similar threads
