Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Indulging in my spones and inevitably fics will bring up Tarsus IV and it’s really really important that people realise that Conscience of the king deliberately wrote into Kirk’s backstory that he is a Holocaust survivor.
I’m not dropping the H word for drama here, the ep itself very deliberately brings you to this path. There is clear mirroring of the uncertainty surrounding Hitler’s fate - not only the uncertainty, but the exact way Kodos’ body was discovered (burned to the point where no positive ID could be made), and the fucked up application of his own personal eugenics to select those who should die - McCoy even says “He wasn’t the first” and don’t even try to pretend you don’t EXPLICITLY know to whom is he is referring here.
Then there is the greater meta context of the episode - this was written in the 60′s, when Wiesenthal et al were making headlines as they were actively hunting and bringing nazi party members to justice for their crimes. Then there is fact that Tarsus IV was “Twenty years ago” - what happened twenty years before the sixties, kids?
The ep is written, as the best of Trek is, to hold a slightly obscured mirror up to society and social issues of the time. It deals with survivor’s guilt after an atrocity, the desire for vengeance, crimes so great they cannot - and should not - be forgiven, and even in the face of mounting evidence Kirk tries desperately to hold to a higher ground, to be certain, absolutely certain, not only because “This is a man’s life” but because he will also have to face the decades old personal trauma he thought buried that is once more made flesh. And this is very much a struggle many real-life Holocaust survivors went through in the time period - for a very long time their suffering was propagandised and trumpeted, while the survivors themselves were shamefully left behind and pushed by society to hide that part of their past.
They took James T Kirk, the star of the show, fearless hero of the Federation, commander of the Federation flagship and they made him a Holocaust survivor.
In case you forgot - the most memorable line in all of Star Trek 2009:
Spock is abandoned, dropped onto a freezing planet alone by Nero who wanted Spock to have a front row seat to watch his home planet destroyed by Nero.
Left alone to die. Ashamed. Heartbroken. Remorseful, eaten with guilt. He tried to save Romulus and was too late. And now Nero made Spock pay the ultimate price. His planet and its billions of Vulcan (and others) inhabitants destroyed, dead. All those katras. All that knowledge and research and history, Flora and Fauna, dead - imploded and gone forever.
And then out of nowhere, Spock sees a young Jim in this alternative universe. (Which had a million details not come to pass already, would never have happened.)
AndSpock’s very first thought?That Jim Kirk would of course search for and find him. Like Spock believed that Jim would know through their bond that Spock was in danger and needed finding.
That means Spock thought his bond with Jim would be real even in this universe, with this Jim.
That is knowing someone else from the inside out. T'hy'la? Friend, brother. Whether lovers or not. This kind of faith in another person goes beyond anything else and defies labeling and logic.
