Damn...

Adam, Spock, and Eve -- an Analysis on The Apple from TOS

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it”, in a promised vow Adam and Eve swore to allow themselves to remain blissfully unaware of the nature of sin or face divine punishment for eating the apple that would give them this knowledge. Star Trek season 2 episode 5, "The Apple", captivates viewers with its exploration of these themes of autonomy and the consequences of blind obedience in the face of authority; or so the episode tries to sell. I would argue that it does tackle these topics in an interesting manner, though not how the writers initially intended. The crew of the Starship Enterprise continually demean the autonomy and personhood of the people of Vaal, denying them the freedom of choice and posit themselves as white-knighted heroes who would fix the unjust systems of Gamma Trianguli Six. However, the landing party fails to acknowledge that they have been here for less than a day, and their understanding of the culture of this small part of the planet is flawed. Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay, American Sci-Fi and the Other tackles these themes, highlighting how limits in our perspective leads to the alienation and dehumanization of people and practices we do not understand, which results in a denial of their autonomy.

Le Guin outlines 4 forms of alienation that have become popular in contemporary Science Fiction – the sexual alien, the social alien, the cultural alien, and the racial alien. Though each comes from a similar vein of popularized ignorance, their manifestations vary greatly in Sci-Fi. The sexual alien in The Apple takes the form of the narrative treatment of female characters like Yeoman Martha Landon. Landon’s 14 lines throughout the hour long episode quickly characterize her as a character whose femininity undercuts her competence as an officer of the Starship Enterprise. Chekov and Landon share a brief, intimate encounter early in the episode,

MARTHA: All this beauty, and now Mister Hendorff dead, somebody watching us. It's frightening.

CHEKOV: Martha, if you insist on worrying, worry about me. I've been wanting to get you in a place like this for a long time.

The conversation gets interrupted by Kirk returning and asking them to not “conduct a field experiment in human biology”. Landon is one of the only characters regularly referred to by her first name rather than her title. While this could be attributed to her low rank as a red shirt, the four other redshirt officers are still often only referred to by their last names as a sign of respect.

"KIRK: Mallory! Marple, stand back! Watch it! The rocks! (kneeling by the body) Kaplan. Hendorff. I know Kaplan's family. Now Mallory.”

Yeomen in The Original Series are often almost exclusively young women, with a notable exception being the season 1 episode The Cage, where the male Yeoman is killed to show the competency of the villain of the week. Their role is to dutifully fulfill the petty orders given by their captain, such as light administrative work or ensuring the wellbeing of the captain and his surrounding male officers. These female Yeomen are often treated by the narrative to have the sole imperative goal to be “an object of desire for the surrounding men.” This is seen especially in The Apple, when Landon voices her concerns for the Starship she is told to be quiet and sit down by Kirk, or silenced by Chekov’s seductions. Her views, questions, concerns, and opinions are constantly used as punchlines for men, as though she’s too stupid to understand the complexities of what is going on around her.

“MARTHA: But these people, I mean, if they don't know anything about. What I mean is, they don't seem to have any natural– er. I mean, how is it, done?

KIRK: Mister Spock? You're the science officer. Why don't you explain it to the young lady.”

She is alienated from the rest of the cast for being a woman, and as Yeomen often are, the women of Starfleet “are also assigned a sexed identity in their professional lives, based on their supposedly “innate” qualities” of “modesty, sweetness, fear, shyness, compassion, [and] languor.”

The social alien is one that focuses on class and hierarchy, specifically, on the lower ranks of it. This form of alienation has many reflections throughout the episode – from Kirk’s treatment of Scotty as they struggle to pull the Enterprise from the tractor beam, to the Vaalian’s role of feeding Vaal. Those who are not leading men are treated as “masses, existing for one purpose: to be led by their superiors.” Those in the Starfleet are under threat of losing their jobs – their financial security and role on the ship – if they do not listen to their superiors. The Vaalians, however, must actively choose to listen to Vaal for their instructions. There is no threat of violence as they do not know what it means to kill, nor incentive for greed as they are already provided everything they need for a happy and healthy life. As the Vaalians go to feed Vaal – their sole role in exchange for eternal life and long lasting prosperity – Spock notes that in his view, this is “a splendid example of reciprocity”. 

This point of view, however, is heavily contested by Captain Kirk and Chief Medical Officer McCoy, and is a prime example of the alienation of the Vaalians and S'Chn T'Gai Spock as Racial and Cultural Aliens. Multiple times throughout the show, Spock’s vulcan lineage has placed him in an uncomfortable position in relation to Starfleet.

“MCCOY: Negative. Did you know this is the first time in a week I've had time for a drop of the true? Would you care for a drink, Mister Spock?

SPOCK: My father's race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol.

MCCOY: Now I know why they were conquered.”

Many of his conversations with McCoy end with a quip from McCoy about how vulcan biology is inferior to human biology, how their culture is strange and alien to him. He complains about how Spock has green blood, and a heart closer to his abdomen than his chest, even after Spock nearly died protecting them from the deadly flora of Gamma Trianguli Six. McCoy also overdoses Spock, in a blind attempt to get him to wake up from the poisoning. While these could be read as light-hearted quips to maintain the lighthearted tone of the series in face of the Hamlet-ian deaths of the redshirts, McCoy’s refusal to learn about vulcans speaks to a larger theme throughout the episode of doxastic ignorance about other people and cultures.  

The Vaalians are repeatedly noted to be happy and healthy, as explained by McCoy, as he cannot tell if they have been around for “twenty years, or twenty thousand years”... “add to that a simple diet, a perfectly controlled temperature, no natural enemies, apparently no vices, no replacements needed”. Their only natural exchange for this is the gifting of some excess fruit to Vaal each day. McCoy takes issue with this manner of living, and that the Starship must intervene, stating that their society is stagnant, and needs something to strive for. However, Spock states in the episode that the Vaalians, as any other group of people, reserve the right to choose a system that works for them. This argument continues throughout the episode, and exemplifies their alienation of the Vaal due to their ignorance, as the human crew of the Starship attempt to overthrow the system of Vaal. They eventually settle on a final course of action, with the Starship trapped in Gamma Trianguli Six’s atmosphere – to kill Vaal. This response could be predicted by LeGuin’s explanation that “[t]he only good alien is a dead alien”, especially in the context of racial and cultural alienation. The Starship landing party alienates and subverts the autonomy of an alien community because their ignorance leads them to believe they are superior . Le Guin’s essay outlines precisely in each area how this episode creates divides in its cast, both between the Starship Enterprise and Vaalians, but within the Starship as well. At the end of the episode, Spock, McCoy, and Kirk ruminate on the consequences of killing a being who was providing for an entire community of people, and the starship leaving that community with nothing but their own wits.

SPOCK: Captain, I'm not at all certain we did the correct thing on Gamma Trianguli Six.

MCCOY: We put those people back on a normal course of social evolution. I see nothing wrong in that.

KIRK: Well, that's a good object lesson, Mister Spock. It's an example of what can happen when a machine becomes too efficient, does too much work for you.

SPOCK: Captain, you are aware of the biblical story of Genesis.

KIRK: Yes, of course I'm aware of it. Adam and Eve tasted the apple and as a result were driven out of paradise.

SPOCK: Precisely, Captain, and in a manner of speaking, we have given the people of Vaal the apple, the knowledge of good and evil if you will, as a result of which they too have been driven out of paradise.

KIRK: Doctor, do I understand him correctly? Are you casting me in the role of Satan?

SPOCK: Not at all, Captain.

KIRK: Is there anyone on this ship who even remotely looks like Satan?

(McCoy and Kirk walk around Spock. McCoy is gazing intently at Spock’s pointed ears.)

SPOCK: I am not aware of anyone who fits that description, Captain.

KIRK: No, Mister Spock. I didn't think you would be.

This is not to say all of Star Trek treats its nonhuman, lower class, and female characters with this lack of respect throughout the entire series, but The Apple speaks deeply to both Le Guin’s thoughts on Alienation and Patriarchal White Supremacy, and Star Trek’s need to appeal to the larger American audience in its messaging. Landon’s alienation stems from her role in patriarchal systems that would create a divide between her and the leading male cast; The Vaalian and Spock’s alienation is due to being foreign to a capitalist system that pushes for constant productivity, and being denied agency by those who believe their own views are the ‘correct’ ones. Considering the episode was released in America during the Cold War, it’s not hard to infer that this episode was cautioning Americans against communism. However, it treats everyone who isn’t coded as a Red Blooded American Man as mindless and abused, in need of a push in the right direction. This episode tries to speak for a better, more unified divine future – to take people from a corrupted garden and give them true Eden – but it regresses directly back into idealizing colonization in its efforts to homogenize any culture it can touch.

Works Cited under the cut

Boquet, Damien, et al. “Editorial: Emotions and the Concept of Gender.” Clio. Women, Gender, History, no. 47, 2018, pp. 16. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26934334. Accessed 10 Apr. 2024.

Hulshult, Rachel. “Star Trek: What Is a Yeoman & Why Did They Disappear from Starfleet?” ScreenRant, 4 Aug. 2023, screenrant.com/star-trek-yeoman-rank-disappear-why-explained/.

Le Guin, Ursula K. “American SF and the Other.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, 1975, pp. 208–10. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4238969. Accessed 10 Apr. 2024.

Pevney, Joseph. Star Trek. 13 Oct. 1967, episode 31. TV Series Episode. The Apple.

Trivers, Barry. Star Trek. 8 Dec. 1966, episode 13. TV Series Episode. The Conscience of the King.

Vatican. “The Book of Genesis.” Www.vatican.va, www.vatican.va/archive/bible/genesis/documents/bible_genesis_en.html. Genesis 2:15.

thinking about tarsus and the mirror universe, and wondering in what ways the events may or may not have differed between the two. how can an already nightmarish situation have been twisted even worse - and what kind of effect would that have on young james?

our jim likely came out of tarsus with an even deeper sense of compassion for his fellow man - kindness forged in fire. he’s been through such hardship and pain that all he wants to do is alleviate that in others - his idea of “let me help” perhaps being even more romantic than “i love you” being cultivated there

and what the mirror image of that must be. any sense of trust or heart mirror!kirk may have possessed as a child completely shattered - kindness quite literally starved away. he’s been through such hardship and pain, so why should everyone else get off easy?

AU where Neil never joined the Foxes, but ended up an Exites employee. He plays short one-on-one games with players who want to test their new racquets, and has inadvertently honed his skill against so many different types of players with different expertise. Andrew's group goes to get Kevin some new equipment, and Neil knows better than to play well against him. But Kevin forgets himself and gets a little too excited about testing out a new racquet, whipping the ball at Neil so fast that Neil instinctively slams it back hard enough to light up the goal on the opposite side of the court. Kevin is slack-jawed that some random retail worker scored against him so quickly and so easily and shuts down for a minute while his brain reboots. From a distance Neil swears he hears someone mutter "Interesting". Then Kevin's brain is back online and starts begging him to try out for their team. Neil realizes their is one thing worse than being recognized by Kevin Day and dragged back to his father: not being recognized by Kevin Day and trying to convince the grown ass man to get up off the floor and stop clinging to his legs and holy shit jackass, can you pretend to have some dignity??

hey hold on a sec. we talk about what baltimore was like for kevin, neil, andrew, but can we talk about wymack for a second. Can we just.

the year before the twins and nicky signed at psu, two of wymack's foxes, ian and kirk, died in a car crash.

the next year, kevin day broke his hand and went to wymack, the only person he thought would keep him safe.

the year after that, seth gordon, the only surving member of wymack's original lineup, overdosed after he was so nearly clean, and it almost destroyed allison.

months later, andrew was attacked in columbia and committed to easthaven. aaron killed someone. andrew was gone and the others came back shattered.

then neil claims to go home for the holidays, they don't hear from him all of christmas break, and on new years, neil calls him and asks wymack to pick him up from the airport. he's there instantly and god, he looks half-dead. neil sees the 4 tattoo and tries to cut it off his face. all he can say is that he didn't sign to the ravens.

then there's the blood in the locker room. wymack can't push away the feeling that something's getting closer, something is coming to hurt his foxes and there's nothing he can do to stop it.

then. the game at binghamton. neil looks on edge but wymack doesn't ask what's wrong. neil and andrew are above his paygrade. then the riot. he can't see any of his kids in the crush. he finally pulls them all out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight–

neil's gone. neil's gone and they can't find him. andrew can't find him. neil got taken by someone. what was that like for david wymack? did it feel too familiar? did he look at his kids and think not again, i didn't lose another one again. does it ever scare him. does it terrify him. when aaron came back from the police station in columbia, twenty four hours in holding and he couldn't look wymack in the eye, did he think what if i can't save these kids? when andrew was lying in a hospital bed, too drugged to react, did he think what if i can't give them their second chance? when neil grabbed that knife, when he fell to pieces on wymack's kitchen floor, when he came back to them in baltimore, bloody and broken, did wymack think why am i always too late?

Come with me down this rabbit hole if you will. The moment we the readers find out about how much Andrew cares is the moment he says "I hate you". Because of this one "throw away" line in the first book "I don't care about exy enough to hate it".

I personally think this is the exact moment HE relieved he was in love with Neil. Because he realized he does care, he cares so much it hurts. And he hates that, he hates his feelings, he hates the fact that Neil makes him feel- makes him care.

And so he hates Neil, because he loves him, because he wants him. Because he cares for him.

aftg is eating up my brain so badly, I have a constant stream of ideas and I’m shit at actually writing them but I need to get them out of my system bc it’s suffocating, so:

• an au where king and sir turn out to be shapeshifters so andreil magically acquire two spoiled kids

• andreil saying to each other ‘IU’ instead of ‘I hate you’ or ‘I love you’ or anything else. they use it in every kind of situation bc it’s the testament of how much they feel about each other and that’s more important to them than anything else. they’re fighting? IU (I hate you, I’m scared for you, I’m scared of how much power you have over me, I still want you to stay) they’re having sex? IU (I trust you, I love you, I’m going to take care of you, I’ll make you feel good) they’re breaking down? IU (I’ve got you, I’m here, I’m going to stay, I’m going to help best I can)

• a fic where neil dies in baltimore and we see the aftermath told from his perspective as a ghost: introspection, character study, cannibalism, polaroids, inspired by strangers by ethel cain:

• neil taking great pleasure in buying andrew expensive things and seeing him use them, not out of possessiveness but bc he truly just wants andrew to be happy and taken care of. and andrew learning to accept those gifts bc neil never wants anything in return, not even gratitude

• neil getting drugged at eden’s by some stranger and proceeding to glue himself to andrew’s side. the next day andrew is frustrated by that show of trust and he asks how neil could know that it wasn’t him doing the drugging. to which neil replies that he didn’t know that, but he knew that andrew wouldn’t drug him or let anyone touch him without a good reason. so it was okay, he just needed to trust andrew’s judgement and stick by him. and then andrew realising just how much faith neil has in him and having a breakdown about it

• after neil’s bad days, andrew spoons neil and keeps his hand wrapped around neil’s throat while they’re sleeping. it makes neil feel safe and grounded and makes andrew drunk on trust and control (bonus scene: foxes witnessing this one day and completely failing at understanding their dynamic)

• neil getting into a habit of spitting after his time at the nest bc riko used to spit into his mouth and make him swallow it as a power play. whenever neil remembers it the thought of any spit in his mouth, even his own, makes him sick. so he spits

• whenever aaron is on the edge of relapsing instead of telling anyone he just trails after andrew 24/7 bc he knows his brother won’t let him destroy his life

• tlou au where andrew is traveling the world in search of his twin brother and he’s hired to transport neil somewhere. meanwhile, they fall in love with each other and they find out andrew was supposed to deliver neil into his father’s hands (andrew promised neil safety and he refuses to break his promise so this becomes the first job andrew ever failed)

• andreil breaking up and neil desperately trying to prove to himself that he can move on so he takes the page from andrew’s books and starts sleeping around, but he only succeeds in hurting himself and feeling miserable (they get back in the end bc I need them to be happy)

• OH MY GOD HORNY KANDREIL CLASSICAL MUSIC AU!! kevin (and neil?) playing violin and drew being freakishly good at playing every instrument he ever touches but especially the piano. kev giving a performance and andreil sitting in the first row, neil getting a hard on bc kevin looks so good in his suit, with slightly greying hair combed back and passion burning in his eyes. andrew discretely edging him on, palming neil’s dick through the fancy suit’s material and keeping eye contact with kevin the whole time

AND SO MUCH MORE AAAAAA. this is insufferable, I’m writing fics in my head to fall asleep and then I’m waking up literally quoting aftg (genuinely happened last week, I felt like a lunatic) and then I’m going to uni and I spend every lecture thinking about how I can use my degree to better write about those stupid murderous college athletes. what kind of crack did you put in this series, nora?????

I will never be over Andrew's "You are a pipe dream" because it's so beautifully tragic.

Imagine you're Andrew and one day this suspicious guy who can't hold his tongue shows up. And nothing about him makes sense, but what makes the least sense is the fact that he treats Andrew like he matters.

He treats Andrew, a guy who everyone, including his family, sees as a monster, like he isn't one. Like he deserves to be understood and taken care of.

And the fact is so unbelievable to Andrew that he could only explain it as some elaborate hallucination caused by his happy pills. Neil was just too wonderful to be real. Good things like that just don't happen to Andrew.

In "what are little girls made of", Christine is certain she knows her fiancé, but Spock knows he's not talking to Jim immediately. While his memories are being transferred to the Jim-android, he repeats "mind your own business mr Spock, I'm sick of your half-breed interference, do you hear?" And when the android repeats that, that's all Spock needs to be certain he's not talking to jim.

Who wrote this script? It's too perfect to be an accident. They're in love your honor

remember when Jim introduced Spock to his own parents lmao we stan a legend

You know what else drives me crazy about The Naked Time? This exchange:

It isn't just because of Spock saying, "Jim, when I feel friendship for you, I am ashamed" or "Understand, Jim. I've spent a whole lifetime learning to hide my feelings." Although, that absolutely is part of it, the fact that Spock is locked into his regret over not telling his mother he loved her and his shame at realizing that, despite all his work to adhere to Vulcan principles, he still feels love. It's that gap between duty versus desire, between expectations versus wants, and what remains in spite of the pressure. (I realize his words parallel a love confession in any other context, between any heterosexual couple, and that fandom looks to his shame as a confirmation of internalized homophobia, but the biggest issue for Spock is that love, sorrow, shame--all powerful emotions--still exist for him. He is not a Vulcan if he feels these emotions and gives into them. He is only a half-Vulcan and half-Human, caught between worlds and the judgments and expectations of two very different societies.)

It's because Kirk changes his phrasing of "We've got to risk a full-power start!" to, "We've got to risk implosion!" Implosion, like many words, holds multiple meanings. The intended meaning is "a violent collapsing inwards," the opposite of explosion. But implosion can mean integration, a coming together towards a single center point. We've got to risk coming together. We've got to risk integration. And Spock responds, "It's never been done." They repeat these lines twice. Repetition is a device to call attention in writing. Why have Kirk say they have to risk a full-power start twice before only to change it to implosion and repeat it twice? The two phrases mean something different, but it's important enough to bear repeating. (One could argue it is sloppy writing, or perhaps a case of actors failing to remember their lines, but what are the odds it was either of those, especially with someone as thoughtful as Leonard Nimoy. Either a writer is a professional who understands the power of words, or everything is somehow coincidental, holds no actual meaning, and writers don't think carefully about word choice and meaning, especially in an era where nuance can make or break a story on the screen.)

In the 1960s, during the time of the Hays Code, of course, two men couldn't be together as a couple on TV or in film, not even in space, in a time set centuries beyond our present. But damn if the dialogue can not hint at it, dance around it in plain sight. Again, Kirk and Spock's relationship must exist in the margins, between the lines, encased in nuance and multiple meanings, because to use explicitly clear phrasing would mean it all gets cut.

Hence, this bit of dialogue. The slaps become Spock catching Kirk's hand and holding it steady--direct sustained contact, a coming together, implosion. Spock is torn between regret and shame and love, while Kirk shouts about the ship being destroyed and ending the lives of the crew, their shared duty to the ship. The dialogue is Spock's turmoil writ large--do what must be done, accept two separate halves becoming a whole (is it Spock's two halves or Kirk and Spock? I'll leave that up to you), or remain apart and give into despair. But Kirk tells him their only chance is to risk implosion, to come together, and they have to take that chance.