#tarsus

[tprings-hair]

what happened on tarsus iv?

this is my attempt at creating a definitive list of information on what kirk experienced on tarsus iv for fic writers and other fans who want to know wtf is up with kirk's backstory.

(I have a longer, more general post on tos kirk's backstory here.)

"Kodos the Executioner, summary. Governor of Tarsus Four twenty Earth years ago. Invoked martial law. Slaughtered fifty percent of population Earth colony, that planet. Burned body found when Earth forces arrived. No positive identification. Case closed."

let's start with this quote from spock, detailing the information he found on their ship's computer.

first of all: at its core, this episode is tos's take on the nazis who escaped capture. adolf eichmann was only found in 1960, and would certainly have been in the public memory as a high profile nazi who managed to make a new life under an assumed name. he was not the only one to have escaped capture, and I don't think I need to explain which conspiracy theory the circumstances of kodos's faked death call to mind.

this episode was an exploration of what form cruelty and authoritarianism might take in star trek's universe, with a huge amount of influence from shakespeare's work. the two together make up this central dilemma: is it kodos? might kirk be condemning an innocent man? if it is kodos, does kirk have the right to act as judge, jury, and executioner? is it possible for someone who carried out terrible acts to live a new life somewhere else, and not have the violence follow?

SPOCK: According to our library banks, it started on the Earth colony of Tarsus IV, when the food supply was attacked by an exotic fungus and largely destroyed. There were over eight thousand colonists and virtually no food. And that was when Governor Kodos seized full power and declared emergency martial law.

MCCOY: I've heard of it.

SPOCK: You may not have heard it all. Kodos began to separate the colonists. Some would live, be rationed whatever food was left. The remainder would be immediately put to death. Apparently he had his own theories of eugenics.

MCCOY: Unfortunately, he wasn't the first.

SPOCK: Perhaps not. But he was certainly among the most ruthless, to decide arbitrarily who would survive and who would not, using his own personal standards, and then to implement his decision without mercy. Children watching their parents die. Whole families destroyed. Over four thousand people. They died quickly, without pain, but they died. Relief arrived, but too late to prevent the executions. And Kodos? There never was a positive identification of his body.

the thing is, this introduces a number of inconsistencies. it could easily be chalked up to confusion between multiple drafts of the script, but if you want to look deeper and see where the information comes from, you'll notice the two survivors have very different stories than the official starfleet record.

specifically, spock says that they died quickly and painlessly, and though he is sure that karidian is kodos, he does not seem to treat him as a legitimate threat to anyone's safety. we don't know if kodos ever directly killed anyone, or if he only gave the orders. but kirk and leighton seem to agree on the violence: leighton refers to his own injury as "the bloody thing (kodos) did", and kirk recalls kodos "blasting" others out of existence. it's possible kirk was saying it to confuse kodos, so kodos might say "that's not how it happened" and give himself away. it's also possible that leighton sustained his injury at a different time than the massacre. it seems likeliest to me in any case that the information on the ship's computer is not the entire truth.

which also means you can headcanon whatever you want and nobody can tell you definitively that you're wrong. be free with your tarsus iv headcanons.

exploring the tarsus iv lore (or lack of it) has led me to this sort of consensus in the fandom that kirk was looking after a group of children. I think it's a very cool way of exploring how central it is to his character that he has to be in control, protecting people, and fighting back, and I've read and enjoyed some absolutely fantastic fics with that premise. even william shatner seems to agree. in his novel collision course (which gives kirk and spock a sort of alternate first meeting as teenagers and gives some great insights into how shatner viewed kirk's backstory), kirk ().

the ship's computer specifies the number of survivors later in the episode as nine, and lists them as

Kirk, J., Leighton, T., Moulton, E., Riley, K., Eames, D.

before kirk cuts it off. once leighton dies, the last two surviving are kirk and riley.

the novelization by james blish names a couple more characters, and in order of age: Leighton, T., Molson, E., Kirk, J., Wiegand, R., Eames, S., and Daiken, R., which was what they called the role of kevin riley initially. he is specified as being five years old at the time, and kirk is not a child or teen but a midshipman.

and collision course names still more characters. edith zaglada, an eight year old girl who kirk saw killed. donny, tay, and billy are named as other survivors. this novel doesn't get into kodos's motivations or kirk's circumstances, but it gives us two new characters, griffyn and matthew, who are teenagers employed by kodos as bounty hunters for escapees of the initial massacre. starfleet arrives just as edith is shot and griffyn is trying to convince matthew to shoot kirk. we don't really know if kirk knew any of the other survivors, but he mentions edith's name specifically a few times as a death that affected him a lot. it's heartbreaking to watch city on the edge of forever with that in mind. I also can't find a source for anyone calling him JT, but collision course does call him jimmy during the flashback chapters.

crucially, the novel isn't technically canon. so you can have your gang of children led by JT, or you can have jimmy stick with a couple of people, or you could do something totally your own. none of these are wrong! do whatever your heart desires.

if you want some practical details, there's a great post here by @spirk-trek and pt 1, pt 2, and pt 3 of a great post by @pywren. I may make my own tarsus iv headcanon post if anyone is interested, and if I do I'll link it here.

[shut-up-danny-kun]

[spirk-erkel01]

Okay. So I have plenty of feelings when it comes to James T Kirk having lived through Tarsus IV and all that comes with it.

But here I am watching the Animated Series (because I haven’t seen it in years) and season 1, episode 3 involves a planet that is being destroyed by a cloud that has completely engulfed it.

They talk about warning the planet when they realize that the cloud may actually be a life form eating the planet- and it comes out that they do know who the current leader of the planet is.

We see a face-to-face call between Jim and this leader. The man talks about how even if he had enough ships to evacuate every person on the planet, there wouldn’t be enough time to do it.

Jim asks ��How are you going to choose?”. And this man- without hesitation says “There is no choice Jim. We’ll save the children.”

And I just. That’s the right answer. I mean, obviously they’ll need a few adults to watch the children/to pilot the ships/to provide medical care/etc. but that is the answer.

And though I am sure that Jim was grateful to hear it and knows that he did the right thing to warn them and that this man is doing the right this as well— I can’t help but think that at some point, probably once the danger has passed and his crew is no longer at risk, that Jim will have some big feelings about this. How unfair it is that he and every other citizen of that colony- but especially the children, had to deal with Kodos when they could have had someone like this man.

I want to clarify that this isn’t jealousy in the sense of ‘I want what this person has’ or ‘I should have this over them’ but more if an ‘oh. I have now seen that this outcome is possible in this circumstance- that there are good people when things get tough. Why wasn’t that possible for me? Why couldn’t there have been a better person making decisions that impacted me? Why did it have to be a bad guy when it was me?”

But yes. I absolutely believe that after everyone is safe and the reports are done that Jim is going to check back in with any remaining survivors of Tarsus. And I think he’s going to keep tabs on these evacuated children. Maybe for the rest of his life he’ll keep checking in on them. Because he knows a little bit of what it’s like. (As long as they aren’t able to save the planet— full disclosure I am still in the middle of the episode.)

[ironicandpunny]

Recently been obsessed with the idea of Jim being just a little chubby. Jim, always finishing his food, always saying yes to dessert, always agreeing to cafe and meal arrangements, and gaining a little weight cause of those habits, and he loves it. Loves his body, loves the way his thighs touch and his arms jiggle, all because of Tarsus IV. All because he can remember a time where he could easily count all of his ribs, where even just staying awake was a struggle, cause he had no energy, cause he hadn’t eaten in days.

That’s just me though

[pinazee]

Do you think part of the reason Sam is so resentful of Jim is because he was there on Tarsus IV and during the great divide Kodos decided Jim was worth saving but he wasn’t, but the reason jim is a witness and not sam is because Jim told them he was Sam and took his place so now Sam has both inadequacy issues and survivors guilt (and daddy issues because of all the attention it brought jim later)?

[purrsly]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63998536

Jim Kirk would never be hungry again, but for Spock, the vulcan commander on his bridge-

He was starving.

Categories: Gen, M/M

Words: 1,407

Chapters 1/1 [Completed]

Rating: T

[major-comet]

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?

[gaytricorder]

Hi! Sorry if this is too specific, but seconding the novel question except what I'm looking for is:

1. Bones! Preferably NOT a straight Bones, at that, though any is good.

2. Uhura my beloved *heart eyes* Literally anything with her as protagonist.

3. Spock and his relationship with Vulcan. Also any trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming Spock.

4. Jim being KIND and NOT A DICK. Jim being a total nerd and a teacher's pet and a total softie because I love him he's my sunshine. But also, Jim and Tarsus. Getting "over" Tarsus, his relationship with the other survivors, struggling with food on his day to day life, and having a beautiful support network that has his back.

I already have Doctor's Order on my to-read list, and I absolutely get it if all of this is too specific, but. yeah.

Anyways thank you for running this blog!

1. the only books i can think of are doctor’s orders and the romulan way. i’ll be honest, i’m not a big spones shipper and i’m really not up to snuff on tos books where he may be not-so-straight. i’m sorry!

2. uhura’s song you’d probably like:

3. these books delve into vulcan lore and spock’s upbringing as a vulcan:

i’m not really sure on any trans, non-binary, or gender non-conforming spock books. now mind you, i may have read tos books where he was what you’re looking for but i cannot remember. maybe someone could offer some recs in the comments if they know of some?

4. these books offer a more in-depth experience of what happened on tarsus:

i have not read collision course but i remember looking up tos books where jim’s experience on tarsus was expanded upon a bit more and found collision course

also: here’s the covers of doctor’s orders and the romulan way which are the only two mccoy-centric books i can recall:

kirk and spock are my favorite characters so i will admit i gravitate more towards books where they are the main focus

[woman-of-many-fandoms]

I've seen a few post floating around so I'm wondering what the general consensus is

[twofielder]

Coin of the Day #268 (1/27/2025)

Cool reverse and mislabeled as 21mm instead of 34mm, it was a good deal…

Roman Province - Cilicia

AE34 - 15.76g

Caracalla 198-217 AD

Tarsus Mint

Obverse AYT KAI M AYP CEYPHOC ANTΩNEINOC CEB Π Π

Head of Caracalla left, laureate, from behind, star below

Reverse ANTΩNINIANHC CEYH AΔP MHTP TAPCOY A M K Γ B

Sandan standing right on horned lion, quiver over shoulder, raising hand and holding crown

RPC V 84737

[cdr2002]

I love Mirror Kirk tarsus headcanons give them to me it’s fascinating to think about what happened differently

[jim-kirk-headcanons]

(tw tarsus IV)

when jim was evacuated from tarsus IV a little after his fourteenth birthday, he was in a bad way. malnourished, traumatised, scared. for months after while he recovered, he would hide away from the world, and didn’t really know how to talk about what he’d experienced despite having regular therapy sessions and good support. in the first few weeks he would hide underneath weighted blankets because the pressure made him feel safe, and even now it’s still a habit - whenever he’s upset or dysregulated he’ll want pressure around his body to try and regain that sense of safety

[thestalkerbunny]

A Brief break from Goretober because I've been listening to a lot of MLP Creepypastas so I gotta make my OWN horror Horse.

His name is Perfect Pin; he's a monster, in his own way. He has a fascination with preserving and mounting specimens-as his ass tattoo has decreeded. But he's moved on from simply bugs and small animals. He's moved on to Pegasi because he thinks their biology is nifty and should be preserved for future viewing. His day job is a entomologist at a collage, managing their archives. It helps fund the rent on his very special house with it's very special gallery basement situation he has.

The Changling is his partner in crime. His name is Tarsus. Tarsus is one of the royal grubs from the previous Hive. Which means he emerged first, literally ate the competition and the second he pupated with legs he had the choice-fight the Alpha Queen or get the fuck out. The latter was chosen. He met Perfect Pin and they've had a nauseating symbiosis ever since. While Perfect Pin kidnaps people and begins the long process to preserve them and pin them to his gallery wall-Tarsus acts as the middle man, taking disguise of a 'poor victim like them who has to work under Perfect Pin and doesn't want to do this or else he'll get hurtings again' and then feeding off the essentially Stockholm feelings of people thinking he's one of them and worthy of trust and comradery. Then he goes up stairs, kicks back and watches 12 hours of trash T.V. after such a filling meal from a 20 minute interaction.

He is also Perfect Pin's literal partner. Are they gonna make a fucked up colony together? Maybe. Are they gonna keep sticking people on to a wall and preserving them like insane taxidermists? Absolutely. Will they get found out? Can't get caught if the cops can't find a body.

[azraetmoii]

Tarsus'ta binlerce yıl önce yedi katlı yer altında yaşayan yılanlar varmış. Maran adı verilen bu yılanlar, akıllı, şefkatli; barış içinde yaşarlarmış. Maranların kraliçesine Şahmaran denirmiş. Şahmaran genç ve güzel bir kadınmış. Efsaneye göre, Şahmaranı gören ilk insan Cemşab'mış. Cemşab geçimi için odun satan fakir bir ailenin oğluymuş. Bir gün Cemşab ve arkadaşları bal dolu bir mağara keşfetmişler. Balı çıkarmak için Cemşab'ı aşağıya indiren arkadaşları paylarına daha çok bal düşmesi için onu orada bırakıp kaçmışlar. Cemşab mağarada bir delik görmüş ve buradan ışık sızdığını farketmiş. Cebindeki bıçak ile deliği büyütünce, ömründe görmediği kadar güzel bir bahçe görmüş. Bu bahçede eşi benzeri olmayan çiçekler, havuz ve pek çok yılan görmüş. Uzun yıllar burada yaşamış ve Şahmaran'ın güvenini kazanmış.

Yıllar sonra, ailesini çok özlediğini söyleyip gitmek için yalvarmış. Bunun üzerine Şahmaran kendisini salıvereceğini, ancak yerini kimseye söylemeyeceğine dair söz vermesini istemiş. Şahmaran'a söz verip ailesine kavuşan Cemşab uzun yıllar verdiği sözde durarak Şahmaran'ın yerini kimseye söylememiş. Bir gün ülkenin padişahı hastalanmış. Ülkenin veziri hastalığın çaresinin Şahmaran'ın etini yemek olduğunu söylemiş ve her yere haber salınmış. Cemşab kuyunun yerini söylemeye zorlanmış. Cemşab mecbur kalıp kuyunun yerini gösterince Şahmaran bulunup dışarı çıkarılmış. Şahmaran Cemşab'a; "Beni toprak çanakta kaynatıp suyumu Vezire içir, etimi de Padişaha yedir" demiş. Böylece vezir ölmüş padişah da iyileşip Cemşab'ı veziri yapmış.

Efsaneye göre Şahmaran'ın öldürüldüğünü yılanlar o günden beri bilmemektedirler. Tarsus'un, Şahmaran'ın öldürüldüğünü öğrenen yılanlar tarafından bir gün istila edileceği rivayet edilir.

[trek-tracks]

Think I should suggest that this company buy ad time on new episodes of Strange New Worlds?

...or TOS reruns?

HT to Exx for the original picture

[woman-of-many-fandoms]

So I've obviously read ff stories about Tarsus IV and I've read stories of Jim having an eating disorder of some sort as a plot point but what I'd be really curious about is how he would handle being around someone with an ED. Someone who eats a lot and vomits or someone who doesn't eat at all.

I know someone could argue EDs can be easily treating in the future ST world but assuming that's not a thing.

Just my hyper fixation of the day.