In the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage, a space ship crashes on Talos 4. Amid the wreckage, the Talosians find one survivor of the scientific survey team, an Earth woman named Vena. The Talosians once traveled the galaxy and brought back specimens of intelligent species; they repair Vena’s injuries and place her among their collection.
The Talosians ceased to build, create, and travel because they found experiencing the dreams of their specimens more fulfilling. Using their advanced mental powers, they similarly invade Vena’s mind, forcing her to relive moments from her past or dreams born of repressed wishes. At first she fights their efforts, but they keep battering down her defenses and punish her for disobedience. Eighteen years after her arrival, the Talosians lure the Enterprise to Talos 4 and kidnap Captain Christopher Pike.
The surface of Talos 4 lies barren, long ago devastated by a war that drove the survivors underground, where they developed their mental powers. The Talosians wish to make it habitable again, but their numbers are too few, and their populace addicted to vicariously living out the dreams of their specimens. So they make a deal with Vena, who long ago submitted to their control. If she can convince Pike to become another willing human specimen, and get him to love her, then they will make the couple the Adam and Eve of a new race of Talosians.
Yet Vena, in giving into the Talosians, seems to have lost whatever capacity for judgment she once possessed. She fails to understand what motivates Pike. She goes along with the Talosians when they force him to relive his fight with a Kaylar warrior, as if he were a brute who would revel in killing a foe or protecting a helpless damsel. Instead of finding arguments that might sway him, or inspiring him with the nobility of making a barren world habitable once more, she tries for pity and sympathy during a dream-picnic. When this fails, she acts out his most erotic dream, as if Pike would give up command of his starship for a life of great sex.
When the Talosians realize that Vena may not be the tool to win Pike over, they trick two women from the Enterprise into beaming into his cell. Vena, feeling betrayed, pleads with the Talosians to let her finish. She then seeks to defend her perceived territory, inferring that descendants of Pike’s yeoman would lack intelligence, and Number One’s would be little more than computers. But arguments that belittle members of his crew will sway Pike no more than her “Resistance is futile” message, and the capture of two more of his crew only make him more determined to resist the Talosians. Vena huddles in a corner of the cage, knowing she has failed to win over Pike and thus, her only hope for future happiness.
It would be wrong to be overly harsh with Vena. After all, how many of us could keep fighting the Talosians year after lonely year? But in ceding control of her mind, by agreeing to spend each day living out dreams, she has grown incapable of making the judgments which real-life events require. In continually envisioning a future according to her wishes, she forgets that reality does not allow us to win every battle, and that those victories we win will not come easily.
By all means, dream about the better future you would build for yourself, and don’t give into those who proclaim your dreams unrealistic. Just make sure that you constantly find ways to tie in what you achieve each day with the future you ultimately hope to craft for yourself. Otherwise your dreams are destined to crash at your feet, just as they do, not only for the Talosians, but also for poor Vena.
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