In the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage, Captain Christopher Pike has been kidnapped by the Talosians. In the illusions forced upon him, he protects Vena from a Kaylar warrior, picnics with her back home on Earth, and experiences the carefree life of a trader in Green Animal Women Slaves. Yet no matter how compelling the illusions, Pike never forgets that his body is trapped in a cell. And when Number One organizes a team to rescue him, the aliens take command of the Enterprise transporter and beam Number One and Pike’s yeoman into his cell to join him in his imprisonment.
When the Talosian leader opens a secreted panel and reaches into the cell to remove the women’s discarded phasers, Pike discards his facade of sleep and hauls the alien into his cell. After seeming to transform into two ferocious creatures, the Talosian threatens to destroy the Enterprise. Vena warns Pike that, through their power of illusion, the aliens can make the crew unwittingly destroy their own vessel. Pike shoots each phaser at the viewing window of the cell, seemingly to no effect. Then he points one at the Talosian’s head and offers to test his belief that the weapons really work on the leader’s head. To Pike’s satisfaction, a hole appears in the viewing window.
At the beginning of the story, Pike is so weary of responsibility that he is contemplating retirement. But when he awakens in his cell, the walls surrounding him (and the Talosians watching him through the viewing window) fill him with an anger that never begins to dissipate until the alien allows him to see the escape route his phaser has created. Those trapped in the cell with Pike are also transformed. Number One subsumes her emotions even more than normal, and shifts into situation-assessment mode. Like Vena, his Yeoman dares to hope the unthinkable: that a trapped Pike might look to her for love and support. And the leader of a seemingly-peaceful race threatens to murder two hundred members of another intelligent species.
The sight of the damaged viewing window likewise effects them. Order and hierarchy return. Pike hauls his prisoner from the cell. Number One, Pike’s second-in-command, assumes her position of primacy, followed by his yeoman. Vena, who holds no rank in the Enterprise crew, walks out last, knowing the odds that Pike will choose to make a life with her on Talos 4 have decreased dramatically.
We want to believe that we determine our own destinies, yet we are told that our capabilities and life-choices are influenced by our environment (in addition to our genetic make-up). We may not be trapped in a cage, but our futures seem to be perpetually limited by such factors as job and family commitments, peer pressure and cultural expectations, our incomes and expenses, the homes and neighborhoods we live in, as well as the significant choices we have made up until this moment.
What bonds currently trap you? What walls seem to surround you? What might you achieve, if only you could perceive a hidden escape route? And, most important of all, do such questions amount to little more than pointless speculation, or might attempting to answer them benefit your life in some tangible way?
When the Talosian leader opens a secreted panel and reaches into the cell to remove the women’s discarded phasers, Pike discards his facade of sleep and hauls the alien into his cell. After seeming to transform into two ferocious creatures, the Talosian threatens to destroy the Enterprise. Vena warns Pike that, through their power of illusion, the aliens can make the crew unwittingly destroy their own vessel. Pike shoots each phaser at the viewing window of the cell, seemingly to no effect. Then he points one at the Talosian’s head and offers to test his belief that the weapons really work on the leader’s head. To Pike’s satisfaction, a hole appears in the viewing window.
At the beginning of the story, Pike is so weary of responsibility that he is contemplating retirement. But when he awakens in his cell, the walls surrounding him (and the Talosians watching him through the viewing window) fill him with an anger that never begins to dissipate until the alien allows him to see the escape route his phaser has created. Those trapped in the cell with Pike are also transformed. Number One subsumes her emotions even more than normal, and shifts into situation-assessment mode. Like Vena, his Yeoman dares to hope the unthinkable: that a trapped Pike might look to her for love and support. And the leader of a seemingly-peaceful race threatens to murder two hundred members of another intelligent species.
The sight of the damaged viewing window likewise effects them. Order and hierarchy return. Pike hauls his prisoner from the cell. Number One, Pike’s second-in-command, assumes her position of primacy, followed by his yeoman. Vena, who holds no rank in the Enterprise crew, walks out last, knowing the odds that Pike will choose to make a life with her on Talos 4 have decreased dramatically.
We want to believe that we determine our own destinies, yet we are told that our capabilities and life-choices are influenced by our environment (in addition to our genetic make-up). We may not be trapped in a cage, but our futures seem to be perpetually limited by such factors as job and family commitments, peer pressure and cultural expectations, our incomes and expenses, the homes and neighborhoods we live in, as well as the significant choices we have made up until this moment.
What bonds currently trap you? What walls seem to surround you? What might you achieve, if only you could perceive a hidden escape route? And, most important of all, do such questions amount to little more than pointless speculation, or might attempting to answer them benefit your life in some tangible way?
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