This is funnier when you get to “Amok Time” & realize that yes he’s been engaged and no, he probably wouldn’t recognize her voice & so his expression here is not “I’ve been sassed” its “why the fuck is that relevant”
i will never be over the fact that during first contact a human offered their hand to a vulcan and the vulcan was just like “wow humans are fucking wild” and took it
Humanity’s first contact with Vulcans was some guy going “I’m down to fuck.”
Vulcans’ first contact with Humans was an emphatic “Sure.”
“sir…these…these humans…they greet each other by…” *glances around before furtively whispering* “by clasping hands…”
*prolonged silence* “oh my…”
“sir…sir how will we make first contact with them? surely we…we cannot refuse this handclasping ritual, they will take it as an insult, but what vulcan would agree to such a distasteful and uncomfortable ritual??”
*several pensive moments later* “contact the vulcan high command and tell them to send us kuvak. i once saw that crazy son of a bitch arm wrestle a klingon, he’ll put his hands on anything”
Elsewhere, w/ kuvak: “….my day has come.”
The vulcan who made first contact with humans is named Solkar guys. Y’all just be makin’ up names for characters that already have names.
Bonus: here’s a screencap of Solkar doing the “my body is ready” pose right before he shakes Zefram Cochrane’s hand:
IDK where the version of this post went with the reminder that Solkar is Spock’s not-so-distant ancestor, but he is.
what she means: the beastie boys band canonically exists in the star trek reboot universe and jim kirk canonically enjoys the song “sabotage” (if nothing else from their discography). however, theres a conflict here since the song “intergalactic” (by the same band) references star trek and more specifically spock not once, but twice, with the lyrics “like a pinch on the neck of mr spock” and “super educated im smarter than spock”. if the beastie boys exist in the rebootverse, does “intergalactic” exist also? and if so, are the aforementioned lyrics simply omitted or transformed into a seperate in-universe scifi reference to maintain the song’s theme?
Alternately, since in the same movie Spock time travels, there is a possibility that Spock went back in time met The Beastie Boys, and they just happened to think he was amazing.
I started thinking about it before Amok Time aired.
In the summer of ‘67, watching the reruns of the first season, I very clearly remember a growing sense of, “They really love each other.” I did not jump to “they are in a romantic/sexual relationship,” but I was increasingly aware that there was love and devotion between them. I wrote a speculative essay about their platonic love in our summer fan club newsletter, which I remember being well-received.
With the start of Season 2, our whole fan club (and often others) watched the show together, at the house of the one person we knew with a color TV. The show was on Friday nights, so we would start the weekends by piling into her living room and watching “in living color” for the first time. Afterwords we would stay and discuss.
When Amok Time aired, we definitely had a lot to talk about. I am pretty sure no one suggested that they were gay – that would have been quite a scandalous suggestion at that time; and I don’t think I thought it myself. But we did have quite a discussion about how much Jim was willing to sacrifice for Spock, Spock’s reaction to seeing Jim alive, and what did Spock mean by “having not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting…?”
Did Spock … want Jim?
Two camps formed: one believing that Spock was in love with Jim and was pining for him, the other believing no way! that’s ridiculous!
Single copies of “Spock pines for Jim” stories started appearing and being circulated hand-to-hand. Two other women and I were doing most of the writing in my circle of fan friends, and because distribution was so difficult, we started having Thursday night gatherings. Anyone could come and we would read the latest installments in our Spock-loves-Jim stories out loud to the group.
Sometime between the second and third season, my primary writing mentor – an established, published sci-fi writer who was much older than me – told me in private conversation that she thought their love was mutual, quite possibly physical, and that she thought their relationship was worth exploring in writing.
She and I each started working on long pieces exploring the Kirk/Spock relationship, and it was the first time I had seriously entertained the idea that their love was also physical. That was a very secret project. We only ever shared our work with each other for comment / revision, and never mentioned it to anyone else at the time.
The first time I realized that the K/S relationship – which was called “The Premise” in those days – was being explored by other writers and even artists was in the summer of ‘69. Star Trek had been cancelled and I went to another state to meet with a handful of people who were forming a fan network to try to get Star Trek back on air. While there, a fellow fan showed me a set of drawings, all very tame by today’s standards, that depicted a physical relationship between Jim and Spock. I remember how shocked I was — not by the subject matter, but by the fact that someone had dared depict it.
Slash stayed very much underground until late 1974, when the first published K/S story used very coded language to suggest a love relationship between them.
Additional history note, for people who aren’t aware of it: In 1973, homosexuality was removed from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder) as a mental illness. Before that time, it was officially listed as, and treated as, a psychiatric disorder, like schizophrenia: a condition that requires treatment, with the goal of removing it, or minimizing its effects if that wasn’t possible.
How happy someone was with it wasn’t important – it was considered a disease. Anyone who was happy being gay was considered to ill to realize how damaged they were.
Claiming that Kirk and Spock might have those feelings for each other was a hard clash against mainstream psychology. It was a very controversial opinion, because it meant not only looking at the series and saying, “I’m seeing a relationship that I’m pretty sure the writers didn’t consciously intend,” but also, “oh, and the entire AMA and the combined wisdom of its doctors are clueless about how human relationships work.”
Believing that two people of the same sex could have a healthy, loving relationship was an act of defiance all on its own.
This is so fantastic to know. Thank you for that insight into fandom history
What if, and hear me out, in stead of constantly telling Star Trek stories about science vessels that are “reconfigured to be vessels of war”, we tried telling a Star Trek story about a science vessel that is a vessel of science?
What about a war vessel that was reconfigured to be a vessel of science? Those are wayyyyyyyy more common in real life.
“What the hell is this place?” “Map says this used to be the ship’s armory. This is where they kept their warheads.” “This is where we’re keeping the busted LCMS stuff.” “We…we really can just get new ones.” “But what we NEEEEEED them for parts?” “Uh.” “Start putting the LC pumps here. Don’t tell the captain.”
Or a ship that they use to explore particularly dense plasma nebulae because it has a thick hull and reinforced shielding to withstand Jem’Hadar attacks or the like.
“Are those quantum torpedoes!?”
“Negative. Well, affirmative. Well, they were quantum and they are torpedoes, but they have been retrofitted for probe deployment.”
“What happened to the payloads?”
“They have been repurposed for experimental generation of SUSY particles from vacuum.”
THIS SOUNDS LIKE IT WOULD BE SO NEAT 😀
The thing that gets me about this proposal is that it’s basically canon that Federation vessels are absurdly overpowered compared to just about anything else in space, to the point that a Federation science vessel can tangle with multiple dedicated warships from just about any other faction and reasonably expect to come out on top. Like, they’re packing “sampling lasers” that can drill holes through planets.
If that’s what you get when a science vessel guns up, what on Earth does it look like when you go the other way? We’re talking about a continuum of force where “enough directed energy to crack a planet in half” is your baseline.
(Of course, the reasonable answer is “they take out all the big guns when they convert it to a science vessel, because trying to repurpose planet-cracking firepower for research purposes is deranged”, but where’s the fun in that?)
just moving along like everyone else 