I Am Once Again Thinking About How In The Naked Time, Spock Has An Emotional Breakdown After Contracting

Adam, Spock, and Eve -- an Analysis on The Apple from TOS

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it”, in a promised vow Adam and Eve swore to allow themselves to remain blissfully unaware of the nature of sin or face divine punishment for eating the apple that would give them this knowledge. Star Trek season 2 episode 5, "The Apple", captivates viewers with its exploration of these themes of autonomy and the consequences of blind obedience in the face of authority; or so the episode tries to sell. I would argue that it does tackle these topics in an interesting manner, though not how the writers initially intended. The crew of the Starship Enterprise continually demean the autonomy and personhood of the people of Vaal, denying them the freedom of choice and posit themselves as white-knighted heroes who would fix the unjust systems of Gamma Trianguli Six. However, the landing party fails to acknowledge that they have been here for less than a day, and their understanding of the culture of this small part of the planet is flawed. Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay, American Sci-Fi and the Other tackles these themes, highlighting how limits in our perspective leads to the alienation and dehumanization of people and practices we do not understand, which results in a denial of their autonomy.

Le Guin outlines 4 forms of alienation that have become popular in contemporary Science Fiction – the sexual alien, the social alien, the cultural alien, and the racial alien. Though each comes from a similar vein of popularized ignorance, their manifestations vary greatly in Sci-Fi. The sexual alien in The Apple takes the form of the narrative treatment of female characters like Yeoman Martha Landon. Landon’s 14 lines throughout the hour long episode quickly characterize her as a character whose femininity undercuts her competence as an officer of the Starship Enterprise. Chekov and Landon share a brief, intimate encounter early in the episode,

MARTHA: All this beauty, and now Mister Hendorff dead, somebody watching us. It's frightening.

CHEKOV: Martha, if you insist on worrying, worry about me. I've been wanting to get you in a place like this for a long time.

The conversation gets interrupted by Kirk returning and asking them to not “conduct a field experiment in human biology”. Landon is one of the only characters regularly referred to by her first name rather than her title. While this could be attributed to her low rank as a red shirt, the four other redshirt officers are still often only referred to by their last names as a sign of respect.

"KIRK: Mallory! Marple, stand back! Watch it! The rocks! (kneeling by the body) Kaplan. Hendorff. I know Kaplan's family. Now Mallory.”

Yeomen in The Original Series are often almost exclusively young women, with a notable exception being the season 1 episode The Cage, where the male Yeoman is killed to show the competency of the villain of the week. Their role is to dutifully fulfill the petty orders given by their captain, such as light administrative work or ensuring the wellbeing of the captain and his surrounding male officers. These female Yeomen are often treated by the narrative to have the sole imperative goal to be “an object of desire for the surrounding men.” This is seen especially in The Apple, when Landon voices her concerns for the Starship she is told to be quiet and sit down by Kirk, or silenced by Chekov’s seductions. Her views, questions, concerns, and opinions are constantly used as punchlines for men, as though she’s too stupid to understand the complexities of what is going on around her.

“MARTHA: But these people, I mean, if they don't know anything about. What I mean is, they don't seem to have any natural– er. I mean, how is it, done?

KIRK: Mister Spock? You're the science officer. Why don't you explain it to the young lady.”

She is alienated from the rest of the cast for being a woman, and as Yeomen often are, the women of Starfleet “are also assigned a sexed identity in their professional lives, based on their supposedly “innate” qualities” of “modesty, sweetness, fear, shyness, compassion, [and] languor.”

The social alien is one that focuses on class and hierarchy, specifically, on the lower ranks of it. This form of alienation has many reflections throughout the episode – from Kirk’s treatment of Scotty as they struggle to pull the Enterprise from the tractor beam, to the Vaalian’s role of feeding Vaal. Those who are not leading men are treated as “masses, existing for one purpose: to be led by their superiors.” Those in the Starfleet are under threat of losing their jobs – their financial security and role on the ship – if they do not listen to their superiors. The Vaalians, however, must actively choose to listen to Vaal for their instructions. There is no threat of violence as they do not know what it means to kill, nor incentive for greed as they are already provided everything they need for a happy and healthy life. As the Vaalians go to feed Vaal – their sole role in exchange for eternal life and long lasting prosperity – Spock notes that in his view, this is “a splendid example of reciprocity”. 

This point of view, however, is heavily contested by Captain Kirk and Chief Medical Officer McCoy, and is a prime example of the alienation of the Vaalians and S'Chn T'Gai Spock as Racial and Cultural Aliens. Multiple times throughout the show, Spock’s vulcan lineage has placed him in an uncomfortable position in relation to Starfleet.

“MCCOY: Negative. Did you know this is the first time in a week I've had time for a drop of the true? Would you care for a drink, Mister Spock?

SPOCK: My father's race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol.

MCCOY: Now I know why they were conquered.”

Many of his conversations with McCoy end with a quip from McCoy about how vulcan biology is inferior to human biology, how their culture is strange and alien to him. He complains about how Spock has green blood, and a heart closer to his abdomen than his chest, even after Spock nearly died protecting them from the deadly flora of Gamma Trianguli Six. McCoy also overdoses Spock, in a blind attempt to get him to wake up from the poisoning. While these could be read as light-hearted quips to maintain the lighthearted tone of the series in face of the Hamlet-ian deaths of the redshirts, McCoy’s refusal to learn about vulcans speaks to a larger theme throughout the episode of doxastic ignorance about other people and cultures.  

The Vaalians are repeatedly noted to be happy and healthy, as explained by McCoy, as he cannot tell if they have been around for “twenty years, or twenty thousand years”... “add to that a simple diet, a perfectly controlled temperature, no natural enemies, apparently no vices, no replacements needed”. Their only natural exchange for this is the gifting of some excess fruit to Vaal each day. McCoy takes issue with this manner of living, and that the Starship must intervene, stating that their society is stagnant, and needs something to strive for. However, Spock states in the episode that the Vaalians, as any other group of people, reserve the right to choose a system that works for them. This argument continues throughout the episode, and exemplifies their alienation of the Vaal due to their ignorance, as the human crew of the Starship attempt to overthrow the system of Vaal. They eventually settle on a final course of action, with the Starship trapped in Gamma Trianguli Six’s atmosphere – to kill Vaal. This response could be predicted by LeGuin’s explanation that “[t]he only good alien is a dead alien”, especially in the context of racial and cultural alienation. The Starship landing party alienates and subverts the autonomy of an alien community because their ignorance leads them to believe they are superior . Le Guin’s essay outlines precisely in each area how this episode creates divides in its cast, both between the Starship Enterprise and Vaalians, but within the Starship as well. At the end of the episode, Spock, McCoy, and Kirk ruminate on the consequences of killing a being who was providing for an entire community of people, and the starship leaving that community with nothing but their own wits.

SPOCK: Captain, I'm not at all certain we did the correct thing on Gamma Trianguli Six.

MCCOY: We put those people back on a normal course of social evolution. I see nothing wrong in that.

KIRK: Well, that's a good object lesson, Mister Spock. It's an example of what can happen when a machine becomes too efficient, does too much work for you.

SPOCK: Captain, you are aware of the biblical story of Genesis.

KIRK: Yes, of course I'm aware of it. Adam and Eve tasted the apple and as a result were driven out of paradise.

SPOCK: Precisely, Captain, and in a manner of speaking, we have given the people of Vaal the apple, the knowledge of good and evil if you will, as a result of which they too have been driven out of paradise.

KIRK: Doctor, do I understand him correctly? Are you casting me in the role of Satan?

SPOCK: Not at all, Captain.

KIRK: Is there anyone on this ship who even remotely looks like Satan?

(McCoy and Kirk walk around Spock. McCoy is gazing intently at Spock’s pointed ears.)

SPOCK: I am not aware of anyone who fits that description, Captain.

KIRK: No, Mister Spock. I didn't think you would be.

This is not to say all of Star Trek treats its nonhuman, lower class, and female characters with this lack of respect throughout the entire series, but The Apple speaks deeply to both Le Guin’s thoughts on Alienation and Patriarchal White Supremacy, and Star Trek’s need to appeal to the larger American audience in its messaging. Landon’s alienation stems from her role in patriarchal systems that would create a divide between her and the leading male cast; The Vaalian and Spock’s alienation is due to being foreign to a capitalist system that pushes for constant productivity, and being denied agency by those who believe their own views are the ‘correct’ ones. Considering the episode was released in America during the Cold War, it’s not hard to infer that this episode was cautioning Americans against communism. However, it treats everyone who isn’t coded as a Red Blooded American Man as mindless and abused, in need of a push in the right direction. This episode tries to speak for a better, more unified divine future – to take people from a corrupted garden and give them true Eden – but it regresses directly back into idealizing colonization in its efforts to homogenize any culture it can touch.

Works Cited under the cut

Boquet, Damien, et al. “Editorial: Emotions and the Concept of Gender.” Clio. Women, Gender, History, no. 47, 2018, pp. 16. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26934334. Accessed 10 Apr. 2024.

Hulshult, Rachel. “Star Trek: What Is a Yeoman & Why Did They Disappear from Starfleet?” ScreenRant, 4 Aug. 2023, screenrant.com/star-trek-yeoman-rank-disappear-why-explained/.

Le Guin, Ursula K. “American SF and the Other.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, 1975, pp. 208–10. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4238969. Accessed 10 Apr. 2024.

Pevney, Joseph. Star Trek. 13 Oct. 1967, episode 31. TV Series Episode. The Apple.

Trivers, Barry. Star Trek. 8 Dec. 1966, episode 13. TV Series Episode. The Conscience of the King.

Vatican. “The Book of Genesis.” Www.vatican.va, www.vatican.va/archive/bible/genesis/documents/bible_genesis_en.html. Genesis 2:15.

Bones is spirk's no. 1 shipper

Star Trek: The Original Series S01E29 "Operation: Annihilate!"

I must sleep. Sleep is the mind-healer. Sleep is the big-life that brings total ability to fucking do anything. I will face my bed. I will permit the blankie to pass over me and snores to pass through me. And when sleep has gone past I will turn the outer eye to greet the new morning. When the sleep has gone there will be everything. Energy and will to live will remain.

The way Neil Josten switched into Nathaniel in order to process and handle the abuse and trauma of being found by his father's people and the reality of his looming death will never not fuck me up, he literally said I can't handle this but maybe the Butcher's son could. And then. And then!! The way those two versions of himself coalesce into Neil Abram Josten (legally recognised) after Nathan is dead and the truth is out? The Neil Josten we see in The Sunshine Court has all of the attachments of Neil Josten, the slow unraveling of family and care but all of the hard edges of Nathaniel, unflinching from the reality of the world he lives in and the decisions he has to make to keep his life. Nathaniel would never have stuck around long enough to care about Jean Moreau and call a hit out on his abuser. Neil would never have trusted those resources available to him (or potentially the trail it could leave) in order to deal with the problem in one brutal but efficient move. But Neil Abram Josten reforged could, would and did.

In "what are little girls made of", Christine is certain she knows her fiancé, but Spock knows he's not talking to Jim immediately. While his memories are being transferred to the Jim-android, he repeats "mind your own business mr Spock, I'm sick of your half-breed interference, do you hear?" And when the android repeats that, that's all Spock needs to be certain he's not talking to jim.

Who wrote this script? It's too perfect to be an accident. They're in love your honor

when the fandom is like six people and we’ve all reblogged the same posts from each other a bunch of times already… what else is there to do but kiss on the mouth

What made WH so scandalous at the time?

Many things!

—There were a lot of implied or outright stated “ugly realities” in the novel. Heathcliff is brought to the Earnshaw household as an “orphan” (who we can now interpret as being possibly a person of color, though I don’t know how much Emily intended that—it’s something some readers may also have interpreted from the language she used). He has no real reason to be there being Mr. Earnshaw just picking him up. Why did he pick him up? Is he a bastard? And if that’s the case, did you just read a book about two half siblings being in love?

Even if you don’t, the fact that Heathcliff and Cathy do grow up together and spend all their time together while falling in love suggests a lot of potential intimacy, which extends beyond her marriage to Linton. The book may not say that they FUCK behind Linton’s back, but Cathy and Heathcliff remain IN LOVE behind his back. Or like, basically in front of him. These types of raw emotional issues were not something people on high necessarily wanted the masses reading about.

—Both leads suck! Cathy is a selfish brat who really doesn’t care about stepping on Linton’s heart, and she really fucks with Heathcliff’s head as well. She doesn’t suddenly become a better person through marriage, and even after she has her baby, she seems kinda like a shithead as she’s dying. I love her.

Heathcliff is much worse, obviously. Beats his wife to the point that she flees his house, abuses his sons both biological and surrogate. It was pretty shocking at the time.

—Even if sex is not on the page (exactly—there are definite allusions to Isabella and Heathcliff’s sex life and Isabella being physically attracted to his wild coarseness) it’s a really carnal book. Linton is mild and relates to civilized society, something Cathy does love and knows she should love. Heathcliff relates to the nature she adores and grew up rolling around in. She can’t shake him. He’s very tangible; you get the idea that they grew up cuddled together and constantly holding hands and just being obsessed with one another. His expression of his love for her is very violent—when she dies, he smashes his head against a tree until it bleeds. These things read as very erotic, and would’ve read as more so in an era when you didn’t have sex on the page. And these are, again, two horrible people who never marry and hey! Could be brother and sister for all we know, lmao.

—Heathcliff is an orphan of the lower class who happens to be taken in by a well off family. He nonetheless raises himself to be a wealthy man, and in many ways much of his anger seems fueled by a resentment towards the upper class, in part because it took what he wanted (Cathy). He not only has a child with an upper class woman, but takes revenge by forcing another upper class woman to marry his son, claiming her father’s line. A lower class protagonist rising and essentially unleashing his wrath on the upper class was very threatening and suggests a level of sympathy with this upward mobility.

—It’s a very spooky book. Cathy’s ghost appears at Heathcliff’s window. Heathcliff digs up Cathy’s corpse… why? Uh, who knows….? Heathcliff explicitly begs Cathy to haunt him after she dies because he’d rather have her dead and with him as like, a shade, than dead and at peace. Heathcliff is often described in these demonic terms, which gives you a sense both of people being afraid of him because he is lower class and rich, and because he offers a kind of earthy carnality than doesn’t belong in their society.

Anyway, these are some of the reasons! It’s a gorgeous book, and one of my all time favorites.

I could literally KILL for an Aziracrow edit with "Like real people do" by Hozier

Call OG Star Trek corny all you want. Because yeah. But it's also like-

"Here is a rock slug. It is literally different from Earth life on the molecular level. It is killing people. It's obviously played by a stagehand wearing a rug. Except it's not an it. It's a she. She's a mother, and she's lived here far longer than man has lived on her native planet. She lives alone with eggs that haven't hatched, which the miners thing are just worthless rocks. Her mission is one of love as well as vengeance. She feels anger and pain and joy. She doesn't have a voice but she can be felt. Through understanding her, both her species and mankind can benefit. Through understanding, we can achieve peace."

So, First Light wasn’t the first (ha) song from Unreal Unearth to grab me, but a couple days ago it hit me like a truck and I have so many thoughts?

As an album closer, First Light is the exhale, the emergence from hell, but I think it’s also sorta about Hozier, or the narrator rather, romanticizing the mundane? Like, these lines:

One bright morning changes all things Soft and easy as your breathing, you wake Your eyes open at first a thousand miles away But turning shoot a silver bullet point-blank range And I can scarce believe what I'm believing in Could this be how every day begins?

The narrator wakes up in bed with his new lover. At first they’re groggy, then they see him, and BOOM, that look, the one of recognition/love that completely pierces him to the soul, that makes him question if this is real, if this can last

The sky set to burst The gold and the rust The colour erupts You filling my cup The sun coming up

… it’s just the sunrise. Pretty colors on the horizon, and his lover pouring him a cup of coffee. Such an ordinary act, a commonplace moment, yet it means so much more.

Like I lived my whole life Before the first light Like I lived my whole life Before the first light

And yet that’s enough, to overwhelm him with this sense of change, of this new version of himself, of new joy so intense it obliterates all that came before…

One bright morning goes so easy Darkness always finds you either way It creeps into the corners as the moment fades A voice your body jumps to calling out your name But after this I'm never gonna be the same And I am never going back again

That morning, that moment, is lovely, but it’s ephemeral. Darkness can and does return, it always will. But his lover calls his name, and he can’t help but respond to it, and be changed by it, this new self he shares with a lover, the new self he will become even if it ends.

The only way is forward, and that’s the beauty and tragedy of it all. It happens to almost everyone, at some point or other, and it’s so normal but it matters so much.