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January 30 - February 24, 2022
Where others saw nothing but functional straight lines and circles, Kirk saw Pegasus in flight—the skin gleaming white, the dorsal connector evoking the neck of a horse with head held high, the nacelle struts angled like wings poised for a forceful downstroke.
“Listen, McCoy, I’m getting tired of your ‘old country doctor’ routine. You’re a Starfleet-trained medical officer working in the most advanced hospital in the Federation, not some . . . some frontier-town sawbones!”
The captain had come to appreciate the doctor’s plain-talking, brutally honest manner—as well as the deep reservoir of compassion and integrity that drove it—and had realized that, if he were to take McCoy’s advice to get out more and establish a social life, he could think of far worse choices for a friend than McCoy himself. Indeed, the doctor proved a charming and stalwart companion—a conversationalist of an affably cynical bent, a good judge of music and food, and an even better connoisseur of potable intoxicants, with a seemingly inexhaustible stash of high-grade Saurian brandy.
Jim Kirk was many things, but he was never a Boy Scout. —Dr. Carol Marcus
A great terraformer needs the green thumb of a gardener, the eye of a painter, and the soul of a poet. And of course it doesn’t hurt to be a raging egomaniac. —Gideon Seyetik
“Diplomacy by combat is their custom, Bones. We don’t have to agree with it. And if I have to stand here and take a beating to win this treaty . . . well, I can handle it. I’ve been through worse.” “Maybe,” McCoy grumbled. “But did you have to agree to do it stark naked?” Kirk grinned. “That’s part of the custom too. Don’t worry, you’re a doctor.”
“You have demonstrated your people’s strength to me, physician, and in a way I never anticipated. Such fearlessness, such passion and rage—all in the name of healing. You are a fighter, but in the name of compassion. This is what your Federation claims to be, but I did not understand what it meant until now. Perhaps what your captain said to us before was true—that your people’s real power lies not in what you conquer, but in what you build. Both your technology and your alliances.”
Is it always going to come down to a war between the Prime Directive and my conscience?” He resisted the thought. “No. I believe in the Prime Directive. It’s not just an arbitrary rule, but a check on human arrogance. It reminds us to trust that other civilizations are intelligent and capable enough to solve their own problems . . . better qualified to understand their own needs than outsiders are. It’s about recognizing that the Federation’s superior technology does not equal superior wisdom or intellectual capacity.”
“Heed the benefit of my experience, young science officer. The thing you need to understand about James Tiberius Kirk is that he is a man of intense passions. Everything he does is the result of passion—the passion to explore, the passion to achieve and learn, the passion to help others and make a positive difference in the galaxy. Even that rigorous command discipline and emotional control you admire so much are the result of Jim’s passion, his need, to be the best captain he can be.”
“We like to tell ourselves we’re enlightened. That we’re more peaceful, more open-minded than the other civilizations out there.” Kirk shook his head. “What gets me is that, to the Agni, we acted just like all the others. Is that what we’ve become? So overprotective of what we have that we’ve become fearful of outsiders? In defending the physical borders of the Federation, have we forgotten what we were really fighting to protect?”
That was what drove refugees all over the galaxy—that hope of finding a welcoming community, a place to belong. And yet, so often, they were seen as a threat and a burden by those who took their own belonging for granted. So often, they were hounded and ostracized. And yet they kept looking, kept hoping.
If the Prime Directive was about respecting a people’s self-determination, then it felt wrong to use it to justify a lie, a cover-up that would deny them the right to make informed choices.
Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny. —Spock
