Roger Zelazny is in my Head

In his story “The Great Slow Kings”, Roger Zelazny tells of Drax and Dran who rule the planet Glan.  One day, after long debate, these two kings send their sole remaining subject, the robot Zindrome, off in the only functioning spaceship of a once-mighty fleet.  The robot’s mission: to find new subjects for the kings to rule.  In due course, Zindrome returns with two warm-blooded beings.  Although the creatures are sedated, the kings see them as blurs.  When the aliens awaken, they vanish from the kings’ sight.


Zindrome is sent off to retrieve more subjects, and he returns before Drax and Dran have decided upon how they will rule their future kingdom.  It appears that Zindrome returned to the creatures’ world only to find its inhabitants had progressed to the nuclear era, and in a terrible war, annihilated their species.  However, many years have passed on Glan in Zindrome’s absence, and due to geological shifts, the palace is buried under layers of rock.  The warm-blooded subjects released earlier have multiplied and spread all over Glan, but their descendants are unaware of the kings’ existence.  The kings listen with outrage as Zindrome reports that these creatures have learned to forge weapons and are killing each other.  So the kings decide to issue a proclamation that will both alert their subjects to their presence and end all future violence.  Unfortunately, before Drax and Dran can determine the proper structure and wording of this document, their subjects also develop nuclear weapons and destroy themselves.


In regards to this blog, two competing forces battle inside my head.  One is called Production, the other, Perfection.  One argues for daily output, the other, for original ideas, optimum structure, and precise wording.  One wants to publish new material every day, the other argues that what I post should be substantive.  Eventual entries represent a compromise forced upon these adversaries.  While I feel reasonably proud of most of what I’ve published, I yearn to become more prolific.


Thus Zelazny’s Drax and Dran don’t only live on Glan, they reside in my head, and fight for dominance in each of yours.  They may argue over different issues for each individual, but one will always represent action, the other, inaction.  Listen too closely to one, and you can produce much of little consequence; give undue credence to the other, and you only delay action on the issues that matter the most to you.  Likewise, Drax and Dran battle on in our community structures: in our churches, clubs, and committees, and yes, even in our government.  How we learn to compromise those competing voices at all levels determine not only whether we accomplish our personal goals, but the nature of the world that we will deliver to the next generation. 


Leave it to Roger Zelazny to pry open my skull and understand what he sees there.


“The Great Slow Kings,” along with poetry and other short stories from his early writing career, can be found in The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume One: Threshold.  The book is available from Nesfa Press.


Related Dragon Cache entries
Deliberations and Decisions
A Defining Moment
Controlled By Chaos

Where Church and State are One: Part 3

Growing up as a Protestant in America, I saw churches as mere buildings, places where believers (the true church) gathered to worship.  After spending several years in Anglican-style churches, I can now appreciate how some believers make their “gathering-places” into sacred spaces by filling them with artwork that both instructs and inspires.  But visiting a church that is the “official church of the state” is still a new experience for me.

Westminster Abbey as a fish might see it.

Nor did I appreciate, at first, how unique Westminster Abbey is.  Unlike other churches and cathedrals, it is classified as a royal peculiar and therefore under the direct oversight of the Sovereign rather than a church leader such as a bishop.  How this affects its daily operation, and whether priests there are more constrained in what they can preach, I do not know.  But one thing is certain.  Without a doubt, it is the most secular church I have ever visited.


As I mentioned earlier, statues of national leaders tower above worshipers in at least one area, and statesmen, military leaders, and people of science are buried there.  The latter category even includes Charles Darwin, whose teachings many believers regard as anathema.  Nor is official remembrance limited to those who contributed to the state in a pragmatic, quantifiable manner: literary giants such as Charles Dickens, John Milton, and Jane Austen are memorialized in the Abbey’s Poet’s Corner.


Most Church of England cathedrals and churches either charge admission, or have signs and docents stressing their desperate financial need.  Whether Westminster Abbey is cash-poor, or a rich source of income for the crown, I cannot say.  I was surprised to discover that key scenes from movies that inspired me to visit her, such as “Johnny English” and “The King’s Speech,” were filmed elsewhere.  But having seen what a popular destination this is, I can understand why the Queen would not wish to turn away tourists who traveled across borders, time zones, or oceans to visit this uniquely secular-and-sacred place.


Having glimpsed some of her delights, I yearn to explore Westminster Abbey further.  While it might prove difficult to enjoy any area of it in solitude or undisturbed reflection, I can imagine spending hours happily delving into the wealth of history on offer.  But at the equivalent of twenty-five dollars for admission (more for a guided tour), with so many other must-visit sites and lower-cost museums in London, and with my time in this bustling city so terribly, terribly short, I fear that such a pleasure will have to wait for another visit.

My Unworthy Tribute to Westminster Abbey


Guarded by priests, and
Ruled by a queen;
Adorned in splendor, yet
“No photography, please!”


Peculiar and religious,
Expensive yet free;
Everyone should visit,
Westminster Abbey.

Where Church and State are One: Part 2

So I did my best to give in to this spirit of invitation, and tried to allow the following readings and musical numbers to carry me along.  I joined the handful who knelt during the prayers, grasping the back of the occupied chair before me, and holding the front of my own chair so it did not skid into the legs of the worshiper seated behind me.  I watched as the first reader, a priest, was led up to the lectern by one of his younger colleagues who had so effectively directed the laity earlier.  This young man carried a baton or scepter, which he used now to wordlessly direct his older comrade toward the lectern, then waited behind to direct the older priest back when his reading was completed.  The second reader, directed up after more songs and prayers, was not a priest, but the Honorary Consul for Kiribati, a nation made up of atolls and an island straddling the equator in the Pacific Ocean.  While the priest had read from Proverbs, the diplomat read from Romans, where the apostle Paul speaks of enduring despite the thorn in the flesh which constantly threatens to curtain his ministry.  Of the two, the latter had a softer, more pleasing voice that could easily lull one into sleep (or compliance?) if one were not careful.  And for one existing on but an hour of sleep at this point, I found myself grateful that his scripture reading did not extend into a sermon.


All too soon the service drew to a conclusion, and the last responsive reading came from Philippians, a favorite passage of mine in which Paul exhorts us to rejoice always, to cast off all worry and allow God to handle our cares.  If we do this, Paul promises us that God will fill us with a peace that we can never fully understand, but is greater than any state of calmness that we on our own (or with the aid of a pharmaceutical firm) could ever manufacture.  It is a wonderful promise, and my tired mind welcomed it as the perfect way to end a service amid such earthly grandeur and distraction.


During the service, we sat on the Queen’s side, and faced toward a side door, the walkway to which was lined with imposing statues.  As the crowd followed the priests’ instructions, and was herded toward this exit, I was able to study these marble statues more closely.  From reading the inscriptions carved into the pillars upon which these larger-than-life figures stood, I realized that these were edifices to politicians, not to priests.  Lay people who had led England through turbulent times, not to saints beloved for their charitable works, the miracles they performed, nor revered for their holiness.  The most recognizable among them was Winston Churchill, who shepherded the people of this island nation through the terrors of The Blitz and World War II, a historic personage renowned in all corners of the world for his vision and strength of will.  But still a secular hero, not a man of the cloth who has dedicated himself to a life of austerity, holiness, and leading others toward God.  This state church, necessarily a fusion of the present world with the eternal kingdom, is wholly different from that which I am used to.  It serves as a fitting reminder that the purpose of my visit to England is to understand how the people here live in comparison to that of my own, and thus stamped a fitting coda upon my first visit to the many sites London has to offer.


Where Church and State are One will conclude with the next post

Where State and Church Are One: Part 1

It seems unconscionable that one should begin exploring a world-famous destination like London in a state of exhaustion.  Yet, due to the nine-hour time-change, and the dearth of sleep on our first intercontinental flight (with chairs that could not recline!), my wife and I arrived in Heathrow Airport, navigated Customs and the London Underground (also known as The Tube), and arrived at our hotel in mid-afternoon.  After dropping our luggage, we fell onto our bed for an hour of shut-eye.  Thus somewhat refreshed, and with a will to explore, we embarked upon our first “day” in London.


Our first site of interest was Westminster Abbey.  While it has become known as the wedding-site of choice for British royals, it also serves as the place where British kings and queens are crowned.  In the finale of one of my favorite movies, the spy-spoof Johnny English, the title character attempts to prevent the Archbishop of Canterbury from bestowing kingship upon a French businessman intent upon turning the whole of England into one vast prison.  Johnny does this in a rather (shall we say?) unorthodox manner which causes the Archbishop no end of embarrassment, and in the process, he ends up being crowned instead.  But I had journeyed here neither to embarrass the clergy nor to become the next sovereign of the United Kingdom.  I simply wished to worship there, and take in a sense of the place. 


We joined the throng, and were herded in by the priests, who directed the laity onward past statues, wall plaques, impressive architecture, and a myriad of other distractions, with shouts of “Hurry up!  Keep moving!  This way please!”  Those who carried their cameras and cell phones, so eager to retain a lasting memory of this centuries-old site received more specific instructions.  “Put those away!  No photographs!”  And, in one case, “We’ve had this conversation before sir, haven’t we?  You’ll need to delete those photos.  Now.”  The priests repeatedly reminded us we had gotten in without paying admission because we were attending a religious service, and stressed that the service would last an entire hour.  But they performed their traffic-management roles efficiently: eventually all the laity was settled in comfortable chairs arranged in narrowly-spaced rows, and the service was able to begin. 


While it is difficult to still one’s mind and compose one’s soul for worship under such circumstances, the introductory musical number, sung by the visiting Abbey Gale College Chamber Choir from Chester, fell like a gentle flurry of snowfalls upon my weary brow.  Their voices floated toward the ceiling five stories above before cascading down upon us.  I imagined myself standing in the country lane of a rural English village, bundled up in a thick, woolly jacket, while snow drifted down around me, each flake small and dry, individual and unique, whirling and gliding upon unseen air currents.  This sonic resonance swept me along, suggesting that if I would just let down my walls of reserve, then perhaps I could really relax, and then my soul might be able to truly worship. 


Where Church and State are One will continue with the next post

A Quiet Man in the Star Wars Universe

Growing up on his parents’ moisture farm, Cliegg Lars dreamed of a better life.  Tattooine might be a poor world located in the Outer Rim, but it lay along several busy hyperspace routes.  Somehow, he scraped together enough money to buy passage aboard a starship and traveled to the Core world of Ator, where he made a new life for himself and fell in love with a woman called Aika.  In time, she gave him a son, Owen. 


Worlds such as Ator, located in the galactic core, are centers of industry, finance, and culture.  There are opportunities for those who can adapt to the fast pace of life there, who can contribute to society’s constant demand for invention and innovation.  The winners in such a society enjoy a lifestyle vastly superior to that available on a poor colony world.  But every day, starships arrive in each major city, unloading immigrants eager to demonstrate their capabilities.  Their eyes are focused upon society’s biggest prizes.  Inevitably, some will never find better than menial employment, and thus be forced into the ever-growing slums. 


How long Cliegg lived on Ator, and how high he rose in that society, we do not know.  Sadly, his wife died, and in Aika’s absence, his heart called him back to Tattooine.  He returned to make peace with his parents, aid them in working the farm, and instill in his son his work ethic and a renewed belief in the importance of family. 


Perhaps it was her smile, or a simple act of kindness, that first attracted him.  Or perhaps it was something more.  Shmi Skywalker also suffered the deep pain inflicted by a loved one’s absence.  Years ago, her son had been taken away by a Jedi master, and she had not seen him since.  Whatever drew him to care for her, he realized he could no longer keep her as his slave.  He had dug into his meager profits to secure her services: he needed her help in working the farm.  Yet when he freed her, she agreed to not only share his workload, but also his hopes and dreams. 


Moisture farmers are not alone in their constant struggle for life on this arid world.  Humans and aliens ply their trades in the planet’s dust-ridden towns, or aid the Hutts in their export of minerals and illegal goods.  Jawas scavenge among the dunes for scrap, and sell what they can repair or cobble together. And a primitive tribal peoples, the dreaded Tuskin Raiders, prey on the weak.  One day, Cliegg returned home to learn that his wife had been taken in an unprovoked attack. 


He and his neighbors rode out every day to fight the Tuskin Raiders and to win back the abducted.  But of the thirty who rode out, only four returned, and of them, Cliegg was gravely wounded.  He could no longer hope to free his wife.  With the loss of one leg, he found himself confined to a power chair.


The sudden appearance of her son Anakin gave Cliegg reason to hope.  But despite his Jedi skills, Shmi died in the Tuskin Raider camp.  At her funeral, Cliegg could only stare at her grave and proclaim her the most loving companion a man could ever have.  Denied of the advanced medical treatments and prosthetics available on Core worlds such as Ator, Cliegg died shortly thereafter, apparently from his injuries, but also, one suspects, from a broken heart.


With the increasing pace of life, and the demands it consequently places upon us, it is easy to focus upon those who live lives of excitement and glamour.  Yet there are so many like Cliegg Lars, people who might once have pursued dreams of greatness, but now spend each day working to secure a better future for their families. They are not acclaimed for bringing happiness and meaning to an otherwise empty life.  They are not heralded for instilling their family values and personal ethics in their children. 


Perhaps they are the ones truly worthy of being remembered. 

A Journey into English Fiction: Part 2

Why I listened to her sweet whisperings I still do not know, but something in me found English Fiction desirable, and made me yearn for more.  Initially, this occurred through the imported programs shown on public television stations, and what episodes in other areas friends and relatives could share with me via videotapes.  There was something distinctly different and unique about British entertainment that I found at least as entertaining as its American counterparts.  I might have enjoyed comedies like "Family Ties" and "Home Improvement," but I also came to love "The Good Life" (or "Good Neighbors") and "To The Manor Born."  For all the flash, action, and great characters of shows like "Magnum P.I." and "Miami Vice," I also found the style and clue-detection of Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot to my liking.  And then there was Doctor Who, that timelord who could travel anywhere in space or time, and even bring himself back to life (albeit with a new face and personality) when his old body died.  How could a starship captain, even ones so great as James T. Kirk or Jean Luc Picard, compete with that?


Gradually, a love of such entertainment made me yearn to visit the country in which it was made, in order to learn what everyday life was like there.  I yearned to immerse myself in the culture that had given birth such enthralling characters, vivid settings, and world-threatening (even universe-threatening) situations.  But international travel is expensive, and the preparations for it much more laborious than that for destinations closer to home.  So for many years, I contented myself with the movies and TV programs I could watch, and the novels of English authors whom I admired.


Time has a knack of preparing the individual in ways which, on a daily basis, are not immediately apparent.  And so, one day I awakened to the realization that not only was I able to visit England, but that delay would only bring lessened capability to cope with the many differences I would find there.  The time to go was now: delay made little sense, and would only remove me further from that which had initially attracted me to visit this foreign country.  And so here I am, my bags stowed above my head and between my feet, writing these words in a small, black journal atop a wobbly plastic tray, and watching white, puffy clouds pass below the wing of an airplane.  Into my little notebook I plan to record some of what I learn and see and do, and plan to share some of those experiences with you when I return home, interspersing those blog entries with other topics I hope you will find interesting and enjoyable. 


But for now, I travel East, not only to connect with the land of my ancestors, not just to visit historic and interesting sites, but to better understand the places and the outlook of those who created such memorable characters such as Alec and Zoe Calender from the TV show "May to December," the Inspectors Morse and Lewis and Sergeant Hathaway inspired by the novels of Colin Dexter, and of course, those great rivals Miss Elizabeth Mapp and Mrs. Emmeline Lucas, immortalized in the Mapp and Lucia novels of E.F. Benson.


My arrival in Heathrow is but a few hours away, yet seems so unreal.  Despite all the preparations, my stomach is twisted in knots.  What will I find in England, and will it be to my liking?  Fear clings to anticipation; dread is mixed with yearning.  But the time for turning back has passed.  The path ahead is uncertain, unknown.  I find a measure of strength in the dogged determination of Captain Christopher Pike, and his willingness to still venture to alien worlds, even after the deaths of his crew on Rigel 7 and his imprisonment on Talos 4.  For one thing is certain.  Whether I am ready or not....


England, here I come!

A Journey into English Fiction: Part 1

As an American, I grew up hating England.  All right, perhaps that is an overstatement.  After all, I have never been especially motivated by hatred, and to be sure, for a long time I didn’t understand England.  But certainly much of what I learned about England, while I was growing up, was negative. 


My history textbooks told me that many of the Britons who had settled America did so because they were persecuted back home.  So they fled, braving the many perils of a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to settle here.  They could bring little with them, and consequently their lives were hard: many of the settlers died of illnesses, exposure, or exhaustion.  Once the survivors built homes for themselves and cities in which they could finally make their lives a little easier, redcoats arrived demanding that the poor settlers pay onerous taxes to England or face imprisonment, even death.  This oppression grew so terrible that eventually the settlers were forced to band together and make war against their former homeland, all so they could live out their lives to preserve the liberties that are every person’s due.


Nor did the fiction of my youth inspire much love for England.  The TV channels played little in the way of enjoyable British shows, and of the books I remember reading, while some may have been written by British authors, none inspired me with a love for their country.  I remember Dickens’ miserly scrooge, stories of orphans and poor families eking out an existence in a cold and harsh London, and novels about European countries constantly torn apart by the ravages of war.  Movies portrayed kings who beheaded their wives, who fought against the Church, and who continually conspired against their neighboring kings in order to increase their own power. 


With High School and College, increased knowledge brought greater understanding.  I came to understand that the various wrongs committed throughout time, regardless of the country in which they occurred, are driven by the foibles of human nature.  There are no superior races or countries, only ordinary individuals who may strive to achieve greatness by significantly benefiting the lives of those around them.  But still, I possessed no idea of what England was like, nor why I should visit it to find out.  And why should I have?  America is a vast nation, comprised of more states and cities and regions of extraordinary natural beauty than most of its citizens can hope to visit in a lifetime.  What could England possibly offer me that could compete with the greatness of America?


It wasn’t until after college and marriage, and immersing myself in creating the future pattern of my existence, that English Fiction began to seduce me. 


To read the remainder of this blog entry, check out tomorrow’s post: A Journey into English Fiction: Part 2.

The Curiosity Factor

In life, there are the curiosities and the mainstays.  The restaurants we occasionally visit versus our favorites, the friends we check in with every few months versus those we regularly hang out with, even the websites or blogs that are clicked on now and then versus those we read daily.  Often, we may not understand why one remains a mere curiosity while another ascends to become a favorite.  We just know that the latter somehow bonds more fully with us, adds more value to our lives, and as a result helps us better connect with the world around us.

In the case of Star Trek, we know why The Cage is a curiosity: we never had a chance to make it a mainstay.  Passed over by network executives, and given a mandate to make key crew changes, the revised Star Trek that Gene Roddenberry gave us, and with which we subsequently fell in love, concerned an Enterprise captained by James T. Kirk, and with the exception of Mr. Spock, an entirely different crew.  We may have seen excerpts from The Cage in the two episodes of The Menagerie, but most of us never saw The Cage until a decade or more after it was made.  Would we have fallen in love with Pike and company the way we did with his successors?  Sadly, we will never know, as we were never fed a steady diet of stories about them.  We never got to see the crew visit other worlds.  We never watched how Pike dealt with other crises.  We never saw Number One, Dr. Phil, and Pike’s yeoman develop as the series progressed.

Plot is character, and character is plot, as I believe the great author Stephen King once said.  While we can never know what other trials Pike and his crew would have faced, we do know that this original crew had great characters.  Captain Christopher Pike, having rediscovered his love of command, surely would have faced future dangers with dogged determination, and perhaps even good humor.  Number One would have kept the Enterprise running smoothly for Pike, and not weighed him (and us) down with tiresome complaints or unnecessarily dialogue.  Dr. Phil would have continued to dispense moral insights with his medicine, but probably without McCoy’s constant need to needle Mr. Spock for attempting to honor his Vulcan values.  And as for Mr. Spock...well, thankfully, at least we got to see how he developed.

Jews and Christians have their Apocrypha, investors have the commodities market, politicians even have their consciences (We hope!).  In fiction, we all have our curiosities, stories we may not fully understand nor utilize every day of our lives, but nonetheless influence us on an occasional basis.  Given its single-story status, The Cage can never be anything more than a curiosity.  Yet, after reflecting upon the story in so many (perhaps too many?) blog entries, I know I will walk more boldly into my own future, bolstered by how Captain Christopher Pike, the various members of his crew, and the Talosians have rubbed off on me.  I have come to realize what a wonderful curiosity I have found in the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage. 

Thank you, Gene Roddenberry, for creating such a fascinating story.

Dr. Phil’s Prescription for Captain Christopher Pike

In the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage, Captain Christopher Pike has escaped from Talos 4 and returned to the bridge of the Enterprise.  But as he strides toward the command chair, Dr. Phil says, “Hold on a minute.”

Before they traveled to Talos 4, Pike had called the doctor to his quarters, where the captain had asked him to confirm the rightness of his decision on the bridge to continue onward to the Vega Colony.  When Dr. Phil asked Pike to consider a rest leave, the captain confessed that he was contemplating retirement.  Pike claimed he was tired of command: he wished for a life of few responsibilities.  He mused about returning home, or becoming a simple trader.  As Chief Medical Officer, it is Dr. Phil’s duty to periodically assess his captain’s fitness to command.  So when Pike returns, Dr. Phil asks himself: Is Pike ready to command the Enterprise? Has he recovered mentally and emotionally from the losses suffered back on Rigel 7? 

Pike assures the doctor he feels fine, and Dr. Phil is forced to admit that the captain looks one hundred percent better.  Pike says, “You recommended a rest, a change of pace, didn’t you?  I’ve even been home.  Does that make you happy?”  While imprisonment wasn’t what Dr. Phil had in mind, he understands how the Talosians could use their power of illusion to make Pike believe he had returned to Earth.  Dr. Phil is not yet convinced that Pike is ready to command, but he lets Pike retake his chair, while the doctor finds an inconspicuous place on the bridge to observe him further. 

When the yeoman asks, “Who would have been Eve?” Pike allows Number One to handle the situation.  A mere glance from Pike is sufficient to refocus a curious bridge officer on his duties.  But the mention of Eve suggests that Pike faced more than simple confinement.  Does such a weighty Biblical symbol represent the tip of an emotional iceberg against which Pike may later run aground?  Dr. Phil approaches and asks, “Eve as in Adam?”  Pike’s response is a rebuff: “As in all ship’s doctors are dirty old men.”  Dr. Phil smiles and squeezes Pike’s shoulder.  This is not the same man who earlier felt the need to explain his decisions to his bridge officers, who sought the ship’s doctor for confirmation of his orders, and who shrunk from the everyday challenges of life aboard a starship.  Pike sits in his command chair, facing the forward viewscreen, cajoling Number One for the bridge crew’s slack discipline.  Dr. Phil is content to leave the bridge, knowing Pike is ready to chart his (and the ship’s) course into the future.

When our friends’ lives are in turmoil, we naturally want to help them through their difficulties.  This is as it should be: we may not be in authority over them, as Dr. Phil is, but we are nonetheless duty-bound to assist in any way we can.  Often, a simple suggestion as to how to get their lives back on track is all a friend needs from us.  Then we must stand aside and watch, and hope that they either follow our advise or find their own solution.  Biting back all the accumulated wisdom one would love to offer is never easy.  But it is necessary, not only to preserve the relationship, but for our friends’ mental and emotional health. 

At least, that’s Dr. Phil’s Prescription for Captain Christopher Pike.

The Illusion of Another’s Ability to Change

In the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage, Captain Christopher Pike has escaped the Talosians.  In the transporter room, his yeoman and Number One are surprised not to see Vena.  Number One might guess at her advanced age, but neither have reason to suspect how badly she was injured in the crash, nor how the Talosians’ well-intentioned efforts at reconstructive surgery have left her handicapped and disfigured.  When Number One asks if Vena will beam up, Pike simply tells her “No.”  His refusal to explain leaves both women mystified as to why the person who attracted Pike most has remained on Talos 4.  Number One puts on her game face and follows the Captain out, but the yeoman lingers, wondering what transpired after she beamed up.

On the bridge, while Number One retakes the position of responsibility that she has earned, the yeoman chooses to linger nearby, despite the captain’s dislike of such unnecessary crew (particularly women!) on the bridge.  At one point, he nearly runs into her, and when he starts to reprimand her, she hands him the report he periodically requests.  She uses this justification for her proximity to ask, “Captain, I was just wondering...who would have been Eve?”  Number One’s head whips around.  With steel in her eyes, she snaps, “You’ve delivered your report.”  The yeoman hurries away; she will still attend to Pike’s personal needs.  Number One remains unrivaled on the bridge, where she can best demonstrate to Pike how essential she is. 

Despite their many differences, both women stake out their territory with regard to Pike.  Vena may have left the field of battle, but each hopes that if she just keeps on fighting, one day Captain Pike will return her love.

Whether we look to another for romance or simple friendship, it’s likely that, at some point in our lives, we will delude ourselves into thinking that another who ignores or spurns us may one day reverse course and return our obvious affection.  We are the sum of our experiences and choices.  We can no more change ourselves into someone another will respect or love than we can change the weather.  Why then do we hope that another will change to suit our desires?  Anyone who views us as having little value for their lives at present is unlikely to value us more in the future.  While endurance is always admirable, enduring does not necessarily equate with succeeding, winning, or obtaining.  It is our illusion of another’s ability to change that we forget this. 

Thus sustained on false hope, we fail to perceive those around us who are willing and capable of respecting and/or loving us.  The one we wish to change feels put upon; our hope for their imminent transformation stresses what little relationship we currently have with them.  We lose too, suffering each day with disappointment that the change we desire has not yet occurred.  And then there are those who might crave our love or friendship, whom we cannot currently perceive  Their lives are impoverished by our absence.

This is not a dilemma created by an alien race with superior mental powers.  This is the all-too-human tragedy of unrequited love.