#'squire none of this makes any goddamn sense' good it shouldn't

[squireofgeekdom]

also speaking of being weird and feral about star trek i went to check the menagerie transcript for something ... and also i’ve had two memory alpha pages open for weeks... anyway i’m still feral about this episode so if you want to witness me being Very Unhinged and speculating flagrantly on the (im)probable occurrence of makeouts and sucking of dicks on alien planets and/or in starfleet storage closets and alternate timelines and somehow just a weird unnecessary incoherent rambling contrarian... here you go

so the menagerie takes place towards the start of year 3 of the enterprise’s 5 year mission, so spock’s been serving with kirk as captain for three years. 

- for reference, year 3 of spock’s service on the enterprise with pike as captain was around the events of s2 of discovery (spock started serving on the enterprise in 2254 -- the same year as the events of the cage on talos iv -- and the events of season 2 of discovery are in 2257) so kirk in year 3 is like ‘my first officer would never lie (except would he? maybe?)’ and pike in year 3 is like ‘my science officer would never murder people and your video evidence is wrong, im taking my ship on the run about it’ step. the fuck. up. kirk. 

okay okay so what was i actually checking in the transcript was this

MENDEZ: You ever met Chris Pike?

KIRK: When he was promoted to Fleet Captain.

MENDEZ: About your age. Big, handsome man, vital, active.

KIRK: I took over the Enterprise from him. Spock served with him for several years.

SPOCK: Eleven years, four months, five days.

okay, so a lot of things about this

first of all, pike’s age makes no damn sense. from his wiki:

“Pike was said to be "about [Kirk's] age" as of 2267 in "The Menagerie, Part I", which suggested a birth date around the late 2220s or early 2230s, however, it was later indicated in Star Trek: Discovery that he was already in the Academy by the early 2220s.A biography of Pike was included on the Star Trek movie app. According to that source, he was born in 2205, to Charles and Willa Pike, and spent part of his childhood living on the planet Elysium.“

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ nope. not gonna even try there. 

timelines are good when i like them and they’re funny otherwise im just not going to try

second of all, mendez’s third thing on pike is ‘handsome’ like. okay. good that we got your take on that. incredible

third, I know spock knowing how long he served under pike down to the day is a ‘spock is very precise guy with facts and figures’ but also. im emotional about it. e l e v e n  y e a r s and he knows it down to the day. 

okay okay so the actual point here is ‘You ever met Chris Pike?’ ‘When he was promoted to Fleet Captain.’ 

so kirk is basically implying that he only met Pike at his promotion ceremony. which. I think snw should happily ignore off the cuff one lines in s2 and beyond if it lets them tell fun stories, which i think it will. but I also think it’s entirely fair to say that kirk is just semi-bullshitting / giving the short instance of the most recent time he met pike, just based on the moment after

When he’s in the room with pike, mendez refers to him as captain pike when introducing the others (and spock also refers to him as captain pike) 

kirk, however, immediately refers to him as chris. which - yes, kirk refers to mendez by his first name, jose, even though he’s his superior officer, and mendez refers to him as jim, but the vibe i get from that is that they know each other prior to this, and not just meeting at a formal promotion. kirk doesn’t normally go around immediately first naming officers - and he refers to him as captain pike when talking to others, but this is a personal interaction. 

KIRK: Chris, if there's anything I can do for you. 

that’s right off the bat. I would take that as the implication that they know each other better than just having met at a promotional meeting. And that’s consistent with the rest of the episode, where he tends to be taking pike seriously and consistently asking for his input, and also using his first name when he’s talking directly to him, but usually not when he’s talking to others, which is an interesting distinction

(sidenote ‘MENDEZ: He went in bringing out all those kids that were still alive.’ I take that as pike not bing in the site of the engineering failure, but *going in* and I have some feelings about that)

what was i saying? oh yeah anyway 1) kirk indicates he’s met pike in passing 2) he actually knows pike personally and is being weird about saying that and then 3) they’ve definitely made out 

could they just have a good working friendship? yeah! of course! we love that here! but hey a) i told yall there was flagrant speculation about makeouts and b) listen i know it’s an alternate future timeline but at the end of the s1 finale, out of Several Normal Sitting Places kirk chooses to perch on the *footstool* like he’s right about to jump on pike’s lap at the first opportunity and im i just?? supposed to?? Ignore that? here?? in my unhinged ramblings about a star trek episode that contains the footage of another, horny star trek episode? absolutely not

anyway the rest of the episode

“MENDEZ: You have something to report, Miss Piper?

PIPER: Oh, yes, sir. I'm afraid our investigation turned up very little, Commodore. There is, of course, Mister Spock's years of service with Captain Pike. Indications of his extreme loyalty to this former commander.”

hey im very fine and normal about this being the thing that comes up in, yknow, a brief investigation into what’s going on. what the hell is in the files that that’s the conclusion you draw from looking at it for a few minutes. cool cool cool i hope the snw writers are continuing to have Fun with That 

(thank you, personally, from the bottom of my heart for every moment of utter Ride Or Die these two have in discovery and snw)

Anyway anyway anyway

i’ve already mentioned the absolutely unhinged part of this episode that is showing the entirety of the cage in all its horny glory 

just

you know

the cage 

the telepathic talosians, who want to breed a servile race of humans, tapping into the subconscious of chris pike to try to create illusory scenarios to get him to fuck vina and then keep fucking her forthwith. and failing but, just. yknow. extended illustration of kinks and preferences.

perfectly normal thing to show at a starfleet hearing. definitely. definitely a normal thing to spock to pull up as evidence that has to be shown. checks out. sure that happens at lots of starfleet hearings.

yes obviously they just wanted to show their unaired pilot but hey sensible doylist explanations isnt what you’re here for youre here for unhinged nonsense

so was this the talosian’s idea? yes. obviously. they live for drama. they accepted that they weren’t going to be able to rebuild their society by breeding a new servile race and just decided fuck it, we’re going to make popcorn and watch the most messy drama we can. these are the people who had spock and michael ‘pay’ for fixing spock’s brain with painful dramatic childhood memory. 

they were definitely like ‘yes let’s not show a short simplified version to illustrate the nature of our technology and that pike knows us, let’s make sure we show the horny version’

and spock was like ‘yeah okay this is a fine thing to show onscreen for me, captain pike aka the guy it happened to, my current captain kirk, an illusion of a starfleet commodore, and some poor starfleet ensign transcribing the hearing who’s having a weird fuckin day. this is a perfect delaying tactic to make sure we get to talos iv’ 

there’s no way this isn’t weird but it’s slightly -slightly- less weird if you assume that most of the people watching this have seen pike in a more *cough* intimate context than just trying to have sex with him

yeah im saying they’ve both fucked pike prior to this point and im also saying that hey, putting on a viewing of the kink tape is, yknow, a logical thing to do if you’re intending to encourage all of you fuck again when you’re on the surface of the holographic fuck planet

thank you for coming to my unhinged ted talk. welcome the talos iv fuckparty into your hearts.