Theresa Brown
November 30, 2011
LIT 285 Dr. Sexson
Final Paper
The myth of Star Trek
“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise her five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”These words start the opening sequence for every episode of the original series of Star Trek. There is a surprising amount of mythology in Star Trek. There is even one specific episode in the original series where the crew of the Enterprise finds Apollo.
The episode in question, “Who Mourns for Adonis?” premiered on September 22, 1967. The episode begins with the Enterprise being captured by an energy field that appears much like a large green hand extending from the planet they are surveying. They then talk to the image of Apollo’s head, who greats them warmly enough at first, comparing the crew of the Enterprise to Agamemnon, Hector, and Odysseus, but not telling them who he is. Kirk’s defiance angers Apollo who threatens to crush the ship. Kirk relents to Apollo to save the ship; he’s allowed to bring down a landing party. Apollo requests only that Spock be left behind because “… he’s much like Pan, and Pan bored me.” Kirk, Scotty, Chekhov, McCoy, and Caroline (the archeology and anthropology/ancient civilizations officer) form the away party. Apollo states who he is after Kirk asked how he knew about Hector and Odysseus. Apollo informs them that the Greek gods were an intrepid band of travelers who had been to Earth 5,000 years ago (Star Trek is set in the 23rd century). Apollo wants the crew of the Enterprise to worship him as the ancient Greeks did. He also disables all of the technological “toys” so the landing party can’t leave. Caroline gives a basic background of Apollo after he disappears following a demonstration of his powers.
Kirk comes to the conclusion that it is possible for Apollo to be who he says he is. If Apollo is right about the Greek gods being travelers, and they came to earth they could easily be taken as gods by the ancient Greeks. Dr. McCoy found that Apollo was essentially human with minor variances and an extra organ in his chest. Chekhov compares Apollo to the electric eel of earth, in that he can channel energy through his own body without coming to harm. Apollo returns and takes Caroline away; he tells her that gods need love and admiration like people need food. She asked him what happened to the other gods. He said that they could not survive being simply memories, and that they stretched themselves so thin that eventually “only the wind remained”. Apollo had remained because he had faith that mankind would return to them someday. Apollo returned to the rest of the landing party without Caroline which caused Scotty to become infuriated (he really likes Caroline). Scotty tries to attack Apollo, who repels that, and chokes Kirk when Kirk began to argue over their treatment. After Apollo attacks Kirk, he disappears again. Chekhov notices that Apollo looked either pained or tired as he disappeared, Chekhov tells Kirk this when he recovers from being choked. The landing party plans to overwork Apollo to try to free the ship.
Caroline is with Apollo when he returns. She intervenes when the rest of the landing party tries to implement their plan. Kirk formulates another plan and talks with Caroline alone after the incident. He tells her that the only thing that she really has is the rest of humanity, and that she must remember that and spurn Apollo in order to regain their freedom. Kirk sees being forced to stay on the planet and worship Apollo as a form of slavery. Caroline returns to Apollo and spurns him by saying that she had only been studying him the entire time. The Enterprise has managed to make some holes in the energy field that holds the ship in place, so that they can destroy the temple which is the source of Apollo’s power for his “tricks”. After it is destroyed, Apollo states that he would have cherished the crew like a father would his children and wonders aloud if worship and obedience were too much to ask of them. Kirk states that mankind has outgrown the gods, and that what Apollo asked was something that mankind could no longer give him. Apollo then calls to the other Greek gods and says that they were right (specifically mentioning Athena right there) in saying that there is no more room for the gods. Then he too fades away like the other gods. The episode ends with Kirk musing “I wonder if it would have hurt us to gather just a few laurel leaves.”
This is the episode specifically related to Greek mythology, but there were many episodes that covered mythological points. In the season two premiere “Amok Time” Spock must return to his home planet of Vulcan in order to take a wife or die. There is a special ceremony performed similar to a wedding. The kun-ut-kal-ifee is the name of the Vulcan ritual, which means marriage or challenge. It isn’t stated in the episode, but it is generally accepted that Vulcans are mentally bonded to their future mate when they are seven (it’s stated in the episode that they are children, but not a specific age), and that this link will draw them together at the appropriate time to kun-ut-kal-ifee. The woman then gets the option of getting out of the arraigned marriage by issuing the kal-ifee, or challenge. Then she must choose a champion to fight against the Vulcan she is bonded to. She can choose any male present. She then belongs to the winner of the kal-ifee. It is stated that the ritual of the kun-ut-kal-ifee has been handed down “from the time of the beginning.” Spock becomes so engulfed in his need to mate that he fights, and believes he kills, Kirk in the kal-ifee. This need also weakens Spock to some extent, and nearly caused him to die.
There are several other episodes that show mythology quite well. “Bread and Circuses” shows a parallel Earth where Rome never fell and the cars are named after the gods. “Plato’s Stepchildren” shows a planet of psychics who have based their society on the writings of Plato. “Miri” shows a planet whose people tried to find immortality but ended up killing everyone who was an adult. The children did live amazingly long lives, but eventually they too would go through puberty and thus die. “Elaan of Troyus” is an episode where the leader of one planet must be married to the leader of another planet in the same solar system. She seems almost Amazonian, but she really represents Helen in the story of the Trojan War. “The Way to Eden” shows a group of people who want to return to the lifestyle of Eden, and to Eden itself. However, when they find it, the surface is so acidic that everyone who remained on it died of burns. “The Naked Time” has a strange version of Dionysus run amok on the Enterprise. This time he takes the form of a virus that has nearly the same effect as alcohol, and is spread through physical contact.
There is an episode in Star Trek: the Next Generation that involves a people who speak solely in metaphor. The problem with this is that their metaphors are based on their own epic poem, which the crew of the Enterprise-D has no reference point for. Captain Picard does manage to learn enough of the story to determine that “Darmok and Jalad at Tonagra” is meant as cooperation between people. By cooperating with the other captain, a new word is created in their language for cooperation between different species.
The Star Trek movies also have a lot of mythology in them. Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan has Spock make the ultimate sacrifice for the ship. We resurrect him in Star Trek III: the Search for Spock. We learn at the beginning of The Search for Spock, that Vulcans actually can transfer their katra, or the essence of their beings (the soul), into another person. That person is to climb a mountain on Vulcan where they have their religious center, and the priestess will return the katra to the ancestors of the deceased Vulcan. If this is not done in a timely fashion the katra could drive the carrier crazy. Star Trek V: the Final Frontier has a crazy Vulcan (Sybok, Spock’s half-brother) take over the Enterprise and try to find God, and heaven. He tries to emotionally subjugate all of the crew by “taking away their pain”. This works well until he tries to do this with Spock by showing him the scene of his own birth and how their father (Sarek) considered Spock to be “so human.” Spock indicated that he had already come to terms with that assessment from Sarek. Star Trek Generations involves a dimension called “The Nexus” which gave you everything that you most desired. However, none of it was truly real and only created a loop where time would not move forward. This creates the illusion of a paradise, but is in fact not a paradise at all.
It has been stated that when a technology is shown that is beyond the audience’s comprehension it will appear to be magic. Star Trek takes this one step further and states that to a primitive culture advanced technology like that will appear to be the power of the gods. The wielders of these powers will therefore be held as gods in the minds of the people. Kirk indicates that in general people have embraced a monotheistic culture when he tells Apollo that the world is fine with just the one god. There are various implications about how live came to be in the universe. There is an episode, “Return to Tomorrow” where they find three consciousnesses held in orbs. These were once people of a species who committed global genocide. They once had had a great civilization that had spread its seed out throughout the galaxy. They wonder if humans are one of their colonies. Kirk indicates that humans appeared to have spawned without outside help. Spock however, says that the Vulcans might be one of those colonies.
After Caroline stops Apollo from killing Kirk, he takes her away and tells her that mankind thinks it has progressed, but it has simply forgotten all the things that gave life meaning. We have lost touch with our mythology, is essentially what he is saying. We can regain our touch with mythology by recognizing how it appears in our daily lives. Kirk could easily be compared to Zeus, both by the fact that he leads, and the fact that he gets with all the women, all the time. Spock could be compared to Athena as he is the fountain of knowledge on the show, though Apollo compares him to Pan and others compare him to the devil. Dr. McCoy would have to be Aeschylus, because he is determined to heal as many people as he can.
Works Cited
Star Trek: the Original Series. ©2011 CBS Studios. Series originally created by Gene Roddenberry
Star Trek: the Next Generation. © 2011 CBS Studios. Series originally created by Gene Roddenberry
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