In the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage, Captain Christopher Pike has escaped his cell, and the Talosians have allowed him to leave their planet. But Vena refuses to return with him to the Enterprise, and after Number One and Pike’s yeoman beam up, she shows him why. Slowly, her body begins to change, until she is revealed to be a scarred, misshapen woman. “This is the female’s true appearance,” the Talosian says. Pike is shocked, perhaps even repulsed.
“They found me in the wreckage, dying,” Vena tells him. “They rebuilt me. Everything works. But they had never seen a human before. They had no guide for putting me back together.” Then, despite this strange affirmation of fitness, she turns from him to slowly hobble toward the underground elevator. Her real body does not possess the vitality, strength, and ease of movement that her illusory appearance led him to believe. She might run, dance, or do anything she wished in the Talosian-generated dream, or even within an underground cell, but clearly she could not survive the demands of the planet’s harsh, barren surface. She is too old and feeble to have children, or to farm.
“It was necessary to convince you her desire to stay was a genuine one,” The Talosian tells Pike.”
“You’ll give her back her illusion of beauty?” he asks.
The Talosian leader, smiling wide, says, “And more.”
Then Vena’s youthful appearance returns, and she holds hands with an illusion of Pike. Youthful-Vena and illusory-Pike hurry off toward the elevator in the blasted-apart rocky knoll. Never has the Talosian leader’s smile been so wide. “She has her illusion, and you have reality,” he tells Pike. “May you both find your way as pleasant.”
At last we can understand the Talosians. Their leader is not acting as if he has seen his fondest dreams crumble before his eyes. He is not devastated that a new Talosian race will not return life to their barren world. Instead, he is overjoyed that Vena, the woman they saved from death and have cared for these past eighteen years, is no longer lonely. Nor is Vena’s spirit crushed. She smiles at him and the Talosian before pulling her image of Pike back to her underground home. The Talosians have enough knowledge of Pike’s psyche and experience to sustain this illusion of a real, vibrant Pike. Her “wisdom” or willingness to accept illusion as fact will enable her to live out her final years happy, content, and fulfilled.
We’ve been taught that when facts disprove belief, that belief must give way. Perhaps it is not shattered, but it must reshape itself, rebuild itself so it does not diametrically oppose our current understanding of reality. Why then does belief so often seem more important to us than fact? Creationists refuse to believe in evolution, despite the latter’s better grounding in scientists’ findings. Widows and widowers pen letters to their deceased spouses, and find themselves talking with them during quiet moments, telling them of their current lives, and pledging their continuing love. Fiction seems to fill a similar need. People look to great stories to help them better understand their role in society. They model themselves upon their beloved protagonists. They might ask themselves: “If Captain Pike (or Mister Spock, or Number One) were here, how would he (or she) handle this situation?
Belief versus Reality. Fictional role models versus present-day or historical heroes. Does it matter which we identify with? Or, as the Talosian leader suggests, might both be equally valid, provided they help us navigate the pitfalls of daily life?
“They found me in the wreckage, dying,” Vena tells him. “They rebuilt me. Everything works. But they had never seen a human before. They had no guide for putting me back together.” Then, despite this strange affirmation of fitness, she turns from him to slowly hobble toward the underground elevator. Her real body does not possess the vitality, strength, and ease of movement that her illusory appearance led him to believe. She might run, dance, or do anything she wished in the Talosian-generated dream, or even within an underground cell, but clearly she could not survive the demands of the planet’s harsh, barren surface. She is too old and feeble to have children, or to farm.
“It was necessary to convince you her desire to stay was a genuine one,” The Talosian tells Pike.”
“You’ll give her back her illusion of beauty?” he asks.
The Talosian leader, smiling wide, says, “And more.”
Then Vena’s youthful appearance returns, and she holds hands with an illusion of Pike. Youthful-Vena and illusory-Pike hurry off toward the elevator in the blasted-apart rocky knoll. Never has the Talosian leader’s smile been so wide. “She has her illusion, and you have reality,” he tells Pike. “May you both find your way as pleasant.”
At last we can understand the Talosians. Their leader is not acting as if he has seen his fondest dreams crumble before his eyes. He is not devastated that a new Talosian race will not return life to their barren world. Instead, he is overjoyed that Vena, the woman they saved from death and have cared for these past eighteen years, is no longer lonely. Nor is Vena’s spirit crushed. She smiles at him and the Talosian before pulling her image of Pike back to her underground home. The Talosians have enough knowledge of Pike’s psyche and experience to sustain this illusion of a real, vibrant Pike. Her “wisdom” or willingness to accept illusion as fact will enable her to live out her final years happy, content, and fulfilled.
We’ve been taught that when facts disprove belief, that belief must give way. Perhaps it is not shattered, but it must reshape itself, rebuild itself so it does not diametrically oppose our current understanding of reality. Why then does belief so often seem more important to us than fact? Creationists refuse to believe in evolution, despite the latter’s better grounding in scientists’ findings. Widows and widowers pen letters to their deceased spouses, and find themselves talking with them during quiet moments, telling them of their current lives, and pledging their continuing love. Fiction seems to fill a similar need. People look to great stories to help them better understand their role in society. They model themselves upon their beloved protagonists. They might ask themselves: “If Captain Pike (or Mister Spock, or Number One) were here, how would he (or she) handle this situation?
Belief versus Reality. Fictional role models versus present-day or historical heroes. Does it matter which we identify with? Or, as the Talosian leader suggests, might both be equally valid, provided they help us navigate the pitfalls of daily life?
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