Real Life in Star Trek, The Apple
Disclaimer
This is a discussion of a non-âFree as in Freedomâ popular culture franchise property with references to a part of that franchise behind a paywall. My discussion and conclusions are free, but nothing about the discussion or conclusions implies any attack on the ownership of the properties. All the big names are trademarks of the owners and so forth and everything here should be well within the bounds of Fair Use.
PreviouslyâŠ
The project was outlined in this post, for those falling into this from somewhere else. In short, this is an attempt to use the details presented in Star Trek to assemble a view of what life looks like in the Federation.
This is neither recap nor review; those have both been done to death over fifty-plus years. It is a catalog of information we learn from each episode, though, so expect everything to be a potential âspoiler,â if thatâs an irrational fear you have.
Rather than list every post in the series here, you can easily find them all on the startrek tag page.
The Apple
This episode has some hidden depths that I wasnât expecting. Not profound depths, mind you, butâŠdepths, regardless.
KIRK: Well, the last scout ship reported some pretty strange sensor readings. Starfleet wants it investigated and the inhabitants contacted. We do what weâre told.
Kirk just following orders is a bizarre addition to his character at this point in the series. In most cases where orders have come up, the reality has been closer to Kirk just doing whatever he thinks is right and Starfleet amending their orders to suit him. Weâve seen that behavior in The Menagerie, Part 2, Balance of Terror, and Amok Time, whereas this is the first time I believe that Kirk has suggested that the Enterprise only does what itâs told.
CHEKOV: Of course, Doctor. The Garden of Eden was just outside Moscow. A very nice place. It must have made Adam and Eve very sad to leave.
Chekovâs petty nationalism is decent comic relief, but itâs still pretty deep-seated nationalism that we havenât seen from anyone else. Uhuraâs primary language is Swahili, as weâve seen in The Man Trap and The Changeling. Itâs apocryphal, but we learned in The Corbomite Maneuver that Suluâs childhood was plagued with post-war bigotry. Scott has his distinctive Scottish accent. But other than Kevin âTake Me Home Again, Kathleenâ Riley from The Naked Timeâs quasi-drunken ramblings about Ireland, only Chekov seems to feel that he needs to get people to acknowledge the importance of his homeland. This may suggest that Russia (in whatever form it might take in this distant future) isnât a part of the Federation.
The other aspect of this line, of course, is that Chekov treats Adam and Eve as genuine historical figures, rather than allegorical characters.
Captainâs log, stardate 3715.3. While making a routine exploration of the unexplored Gamma Trianguli VI, one of my men has been killed by a poisonous plant.
Triangulum is probably the most boring constellation, because its entire deal is that it looks like a triangleâŠeven though any three stars will also look like a triangle, because thatâs the actual definition of a triangle. In any case, Îł Tri is roughly 120 light years from Earth. Its claim to fame is that the star seems to spin fast enough that it would be noticeably non-spherical.
Note that the planet is âunexplored,â despite being ordered to make contact with the inhabitants. The idea that the native cultureâs knowledge of their home doesnât matter until âcivilizationâ makes a map is central to colonialism through the early twentieth centuryâŠand likely only ended because we ran out of places where someone could be the first White person to see the place.
LANDON: All this beauty, and now Mister Hendorff dead, somebody watching us. Itâs frightening.
CHEKOV: If you insist on worrying, worry about me. Iâve been wanting to get you in a place like this for a long time.
KIRK: Mister Chekov, Yeoman Landon. I know you find each other fascinating, but weâre not here to conduct a field experiment in human biology.
In addition to his weird nationalistic tendencies, Chekov is less worried about a dangerous environment and a dead colleague than he is about getting a date. Kirk, by contrast, manages to split the difference between insisting on professionalism and being nice to the people heâs responsible for.
SPOCK: Interesting. Extremely low specific gravity, some uraninite, hornblende, quartz. Fragile, good cleavage. An analysis should prove interesting.
Uraninite, hornblende, and (more obviously) quartz are all conventional kinds of rock. I assume that the presence of uranitite means that the nearby stars are old enough to be depositing heavier elements when they go nova, but that pushes the limits of my current astronomical knowledge.
MCCOY: Some of the thorns like those that killed Hendorff. See the stuff on the end? Itâs like saponin, only itâs a thousand times stronger.
McCoy refers to saponin, which are common soap-like plant toxins. Generally, itâs not particularly toxic and more of a deterrent to eating than an actual poison, but at a thousand times the strength, it certainly would be dangerous.
MCCOY: I filled him with enough masiform D to make the whole crew turn handsprings, and heâs not responding. Got to get him back to the ship, Jim.
âMasiform Dâ appears original to the episode andâperhaps more interestingly to usâsounds suspiciously like a brand name.
MCCOY: If your blood were red instead of green, you wouldnât have an upset stomach.
Even granting that Spock insulted McCoyâs work first, itâs still far over the line to dismiss his suffering as an unavoidable biological feature thatâs still somehow Spockâs fault. Thereâs precedent for this behavior in our own world andâŠwell, Iâll come back to this, because thereâs another line that hits much harder.
KIRK: Trying to get yourself killed. Do you know how much Starfleet has invested in you?
SPOCK: One hundred twenty-two thousand, two hundredâŠ
We last heard mention of Starfleetâs investment in its people in Errand of Mercy, whereas this episode attempts to quantify it. The adaptation might put this number into context, or it might be on a different scale. Itâs hard to say. But it confirms what weâve seen time and again in the series: The Federation uses money and wasting that money is considered irresponsible.
KIRK: Mallory! Marple, stand back! Watch it! The rocks! Kaplan. Hendorff. I know Kaplanâs family. Now Mallory.
MCCOY: Jim, you couldnât have stopped any of this.
KIRK: His father helped me get into the Academy.
Itâs obviously not universal, but generally speaking, helping someone get into a school means having sufficient respect within the institution to ask for a marginal candidate to be given extra consideration. Itâs not considered outright corrupt, because the largely legitimate argument can be made that insiders can have a better sense of who will be a good match for the institution than tests would show.
However, even if itâs nothing so extreme, it still suggests that the Academy isnât entirely objective in its selections. Even if Mallory took less of an active role in the admission process, weâre still left with a painfully current scenario where people with better connections have an easier time.
KIRK: I also have the option to disregard those orders if I consider them overly hazardous. This isnât that important a mission, Spock. Not worth the lives of three of my men. I drop my guard for a minute, because I like the smell of growing things, and now three men are dead. And the shipâs in trouble.
SPOCK: No one has ever stated that Starfleet duty was particularly safe. Youâve followed the correct and logical course, done everything a commander could do. Self-recriminationsâ
This shines a new light on the âwe do what weâre toldâ line back at the start of the episode, suggesting that Kirk may have been warned about the danger and chose to hide behind his orders to get some time outside.
Meanwhile, Spock wants to be clear that the dead people are nobody important, and they all knew what they were signing up for.
Spock, incidentally, reaches out to grab Akutaâs antennae without any consideration for his consent until he pulls away, which is shockingly similar to the experiences that Black peopleâparticularly Black womenâhave shared about people stupidly trying to touch their hair .
AKUTA: Ah, yes. The holding, the touching. Vaal has forbidden this.
MCCOY: Well, there goes paradise.
Notably, the last time McCoy had something personal to share on a planetâs surface, it was also about his libido, back in Shore Leave. It isnât any more charming, here, where heâs arguably implying sex tourism.
SAYANA: I am Sayana. You have a name?
SPOCK: Yes. Spock. I am Spock.
SAYANA: Spock?
SPOCK: I fail to see what they find so amusing.
Spock is sensitive about the name thatâaccording to This Side of Paradiseâis just a nonsense syllable for humans to pronounce.
SPOCK: Doctor, you insist on applying human standards to non-human cultures. I remind you that humans are only a tiny minority in this galaxy.
That series sounds much more expensive to produce. I bring that up because, so far, the overwhelming majority of aliens that weâve met arenât just humanoid, but could easily pass for human, if they were walking down a city street. Really, excluding the occasional energy being, the Horta is definitely not humanoid and the Gorn may or may not be, depending on how close to human âhumanoidâ is supposed to be.
MCCOY: There are certain absolutes, Mister Spock, and one of them is the right of humanoids to a free and unchained environment, the right to have conditions which permit growth.
SPOCK: Another is their right to choose a system which seems to work for them.
Sort of like Pike brings up in The Menagerie, slavery is badâŠbut only for humans. He sounds fine with other kinds of aliens getting enslaved. By contrast, true to his personal brand, Spock is fine with slavery.
Donât forget that The Devil in the Dark ended with a âdealâ where the Horta works for the miners with their compensation being that the miners would opt not to murder them. So this isnât out of left field or theoretical.
SCOTT: Scotty, sir. We have a reading on the power source Mister Spock requested. When we first monitored, it was generating alternating cycles totaling one hundred to the twentieth power Waltham units.
The only Waltham of significance I can find is the city in Massachusetts. Of possible interest besides the mystery units, however, it Scottâs approach to scientific notation, which is traditionally either a single digit number (plus fraction) times ten raised to whatever exponent is required or a number less than one thousand times ten raised to an exponent thatâs a multiple of three, since thatâs how we group orders of magnitude. Scott does neither, giving us powers of one hundred, rather than 1040 or 10 x 1039.
KIRK: Theyâd need a replacement. Opinion, Mister Spock?
SPOCK: I see no alternative.
LANDON: But these people, I mean, if they donât know anything about. What I mean is, they donât seem to have any naturalâŠerrr. I mean, how is it, done?
KIRK: Mister Spock? Youâre the science officer, why donât you explain it to the young lady?
SPOCK: Well, I believe itâs safe, (cough) safe to assume that they would receive the necessary instructions.
Just to be clear, with Kirk trying to goad Spock into talking about sex against his will, everybody in the landing party is now either dead or should be fired for violating even the most lenient harassment guidelines.
CHEKOV: Martha, I donât know. But if we do have to stay here, would it be so very bad?
Chekov and Landon are quick to embrace the idea of leaving Federation society.
KIRK: Bones was right. These people arenât living, theyâre existing. They donât create, they donât produce, they donât even think. They exist to service a machine.
SPOCK: If we do what it seems we must, in my opinion it will be in direct violation of the non-interference directive.
KIRK: These are people, not robots. They should have the opportunity of choice. We owe it to them to interfere.
SPOCK: Starfleet Command may think otherwise.
Weâve seen Starfleetâs non-interference rule before, but itâs Starfleet and not the Federation, so doesnât really matter, here. I will, however, point out that Kirkâs orders were to contact the civilization, which sounds like interference. And Kirk also sees less of an ethical quandary with upending a society than he did with leaving the planet when the first person died.
MCCOY: Second degree burns. Not serious, but Iâll bet they smart.
SPOCK: Doctor, you have an unsurpassed talent for understatement.
So, hereâs the other half of that line above about Spockâs pain being unavoidable because of his biology, but also his fault, McCoy dismissing the pain of a second degree burn, which currently takes about two months to heal. In the fleeting glimpses we get of the wound, it appears that the flesh on Spockâs back has been completely charred.
Itâs hard to say what the writers were thinking, especially since this is played for comedy. However, itâs strongly reminiscent of how doctors will downplay a Black patientâs pain, even in chronic cases, and we seem to raise children to do the same.
SoâŠitâs not that funny. But this theme and the incident of Spock trying to touch Akutaâs antennae hints that some viewers were expected to see the racism, rather than some sort of accidental inclusion.
SPOCK: The good doctor was concerned that the Vaalians achieved true human stature. I submit there is no cause for worry. Theyâve taken the first step. Theyâve learned to kill.
Please donât make me dig through all the episodes where Spock was quick to recommend murder as a solution to their minor problems. Heâs been there since The Man Trap. So the idea that he wants to push killing off onto human nature is laughable.
KIRK: Youâll learn to care for yourselves, with our help.
Notice how similar this ending is to Miri, where itâs just taken for granted that the Federation will take control and paternally guide the âsavagesâ into eventually governing themselves.
KIRK: Well, thatâs a good object lesson, Mister Spock. Itâs an example of what can happen when a machine becomes too efficient, does too much work for you.
I meanâŠSpock was on Vaalâs side, so I donât think heâs going to learn the lesson that Kirk wants him to learn.
We still have some religious references to squeeze out, before we close out the episode, though.
SPOCK: Captain, you are aware of the biblical story of Genesis.
KIRK: Yes, of course Iâm 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.
Again, youâll note the implication that Adam and Eve are considered as fundamentally historical figures, here. But itâs also a big stretch to suggest that Vaalâs followers really learned anything or were expelled from a paradise. Kirk blew up the robot cult leader that demanded to be fed and thereâs a pretty good chance the fruit trees grow on their own.
One thing that might be relevant that I didnât mention before is that Kirk refers to the people as possibly living longer due to their simpler diet. This implies that Federation diets are not simple and likely not healthy. So, the Federation take-over could easily be more dangerous than just leaving these people to their own devices.
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?
SPOCK: I am not aware of anyone who fits that description, Captain.
KIRK: No, Mister Spock. I didnât think you would be.
Itâs not particularly important, so I wonât run down the references, but this is another incident where weâre given the impression that Spock looks extremely alien, even though what we see really looks no more exotic than Leonard Nimoy in a bad haircut.
Blish Adaptation
This adaptation comes from Star Trek 6, so it mostly just alters the dialogue slightly and trims out some back-and-forth conversation. The only serious bit of information I spotted thatâs new is referring to Akuta speaking âInterstellar,â presumably the name of a lingua franca that isnât English.
Scott also has a stronger Scottish accent and Spock attempts to itemize the money Starfleet has invested in himâtraining and paycheckârather than just announcing the total. His estimate for training is 15,800 units of currency per year.
Conclusions
As mentioned, we get more information out of this episode than I would have expected, but itâs still not much.
One interesting detail is that we get two data points on the Federationâs currency. In the episode, Spock approximates Starfleetâs investment in his career as approximately 122,200, presumably total. In the adaptation, he gives a figure of 15,800 per year in training. If we assume that heâs talking about the Academy and that the Academy is based on the United States Naval Academy as has been suggested in the past, it would be a four-year degree program, which would be a total of 63,200, leaving 59,000.
From The Menagerie, we get the impression that Spock has been in Starfleet for somewhere between thirteen and eighteen years. If we pick the lower numberâwhich would mean that the adventure on Talos IV is one of Spockâs first missionsâthat would give us Spockâs average salary throughout his career at a bit more than 4,500 per year or around 375 per month.
The United States Armed Forces has the Navyâs pay rates for 1967 posted. A Lieutenant Commander is an O-3, and with Spockâs estimated experience would have gotten $757.80 per month, and that hypothetically similar officer would have started thirteen years earlier on the nearest chart to 1954 as an O-1 (Ensign) with no experience at $222.30, so the Federationâs money is (maybe unsurprisingly) probably fairly close to 1967 dollars with a similar rate of inflation. Specifically, either the units of currency are worth a bit more than a dollar, Starfleet doesnât pay as well as the Navy, or they underpay the alien guy.
Parallel to the money situation, we also get our first hint of a commercial economy in what sounds like a name-brand drug, Masiform D.
Itâs not really part of this project, but from a continuity standpoint, this is another in the string of cultures that are effectively run by a computer. Thereâs also some similarity in the Enterpriseâs situation between this episode and Who Mourns for Adonais?, caught in a tractor beam and needing to distract a machineâs âfeederâ while sapping the machineâs energy.
The Good
I didnât notice anything that showed the culture in a good light that wasnât quickly undermined, like Kirk demanding professionalism from Chekov and Landon, then abandoning all pretense at professionalism, himself.
The Bad
Kirk basically falls apart in this episode. He conceals his motivations behind orders, fails to protect the officers who serve with him, sees protecting his crew as some ethical dilemma while happily uprooting an alien civilization, and even bullies someone who directly reports to him (Spock) in front of their colleagues.
In fact, as mentioned above, almost the entire landing party is either treated as disposableâexcept for a moment where Kirk mourns them before entirely forgetting about themâis inappropriately fixated on sex and/or repeatedly bullying Spock. Spock himself is technically a minor outlier, as a survivor who doesnât bully himself, but he is completely dismissive of the lives of several of his colleagues in his attempt to make his boss feel better, then advocates in favor of slavery.
Chekov not only thinks that a deadly mission is a great time for a date with a colleague, but also spouts more Russian propaganda, which suggests that Russians probably arenât considered a part of the Federation.
Speaking of the Federation, it shows its colonialist colors in this episode, both in identifying a populated planet as âunexploredâ and in Kirkâs assumption that Vaalâs followers need Federation experts to give them a worthwhile civilization. The recurring discussions of how slavery is bad, but really only when itâs humans who are the slaves, because humans are somehow special in our need to grow, also fits that colonialist mentality.
Likewise, McCoy seems to expose a serious racism problem in not only demeaning Spock as an individual and acting like his poor treatment is Spockâs fault for being the wrong race, but also in ignoring Spockâs pain from a second-degree burn. Spockâs sensitivity about his name is also strongly suggestive of a history of racially motivated harassment.
Somewhere between the overt racism and colonialism lies Spock attempting to touch Akuta without his consent.
We also get some more hints of corruption in Kirkâs story of Malloryâs father helping him get into the academy. As mentioned, this may not be outright corruption, but the fact that Kirk needed help and that the help was only available due to his connections paints a picture of at least an unequal society and that academic admissions arenât purely based on metrics.
Finally, we get a hint that a typical Federation diet includes sufficient complex (presumably âprocessedâ) foods that theyâre considered less healthy than they should be. Similarly, it doesnât reflect well on the Federation that Landon and Chekov nearly jump at the chance to leave the Federationâs society to settle in the middle of nowhere with what amounts to a cult.
The Weird
We continue the lack of clarity on religion. In past episodes, Biblical stories have been treated as ranging from fairy tales to literal truths, with this episode seeming to come down on the side of literal truth.
Weâre also told, for the first time, that despite what weâve seen in the series, humans represent only âa tiny minorityâ of local intelligent life.
Much like the intermixing of Imperial and metric units that weâve seen before, Scott also has a unique way of expressing large numbers thatâs inconsistent with just about any other scheme.
Next
Next week, an actor confuses Captain Ahab for Captain Queeg while fighting the scariest roll of aluminum foil around inâŠThe Doomsday Machine.
Credits: The header image is based on Sculpture of a lion, BĂ Táș„m Pagoda, Hanoi (1115), Vietnam National Museum of Fine Arts, Hanoi, Vietnam - 20131030 by the SMU Constitutional and Administrative Law Wikipedia Project, made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Unported License. The Fall of Man, Adam and Eve is the 1629 painting by Peter Paul Reubens, old enough to long be in the public domain.
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Tags: scifi startrek closereading