Never Trust Your Ex
Old girlfriends take on Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
Module BI-44T: NEVER TRUST YOUR EX
Have you spent more time planning this voyage than you have considering the character flaws of your past significant others? Let’s be realistic. Planning a voyage is more enjoyable than thinking about how your Ex might pose a potential galactic threat.
So, let’s say you had the where-withal to wander the stars foot-loose and fancy-free. You may not be aware of it, but there are ex-lovers who follow you to the stars though you were wise enough to leave the cretins at home. Case in point, in this example from Space history, one of Kirk’s old flames, the infamous Dr. Janice Lester, not only followed him but stole his body through some kind of funky “life-energy transfer” process. Of course, the technology was alien since most of the really bad ones are.
And remember that name, not only because she was a truly frightening human, but because basic Earth and Space history is part of your training. All space-faring travelers know at least some Earth history. Aliens know more, but they’re not quizzed on it.
Now getting back to Dr. Lester, she was a little too shrill when impersonating Kirk and gave herself away when shouting, “Mutiny! MUTINY!”
It took a while, but the crew began to have suspicions. “Doctor, I’ve seen the captain feverish, sick, drunk, delirious, terrified, overjoyed, boiling mad. But up to now, I have never seen him red-faced with hysteria,” Scotty astutely stated.
Now I’m paraphrasing here to make the point, “Kill him! Kill him!” Lester shouted again, several times, using Kirk’s body. “Somebody kill him!”
“That doesn’t sound like the Captain,” somebody else astutely stated.
This trainer kept wondering what crimes against humanity did he commit against her to enrage her enough to follow him light years across space to body-jack him. I never did buy the official line that she was a career-frustrated individual mourning her gender class. In any case, let this object lesson teach us that if you can’t treat old flames well, at least make sure that they can never ever find you in whatever quadrant you may be.
But what if, despite all your good intentions and diligence you run into one of them on some god- forsaken berthold-irradiated planet and the individual gets you hopped up on alien weed. Alas, that was Spock’s fate. His old girlfriend treated him to an overdose of a psychedelic called Spores. He was happy and high for a few days, but Kirk sobered him up with some sage advice and a few jabs to the jawline. Moral of the story? Avoid old lovers in space like the plague.
Still not convinced? Let’s try this example. Lover-boy, Dr. Leonard McCoy, was mooning over a woman from his past, Nancy Crater, during a trip on planet M-113, and she turned out to be a salt-sucking monster that had gotten rid of Nancy for him a long time ago. Nancy’s husband, a seemingly incompetent fellow named, Dr. Robert Crater, was worse. Something was apparently wrong with his mind because he became consistently incoherent when discussing his wife of some years. “It needs love, as much as it needs salt.” Definitely, some sort of dissociative disorder from which I hope none of you are suffering. That would make rejecting your former lover in space difficult for you and quite possibly deadly.
Speaking of human beings absolutely without this disorder, the eternally rational Lieutenant Uhura, was approached by the salt beast as a very handsome man who spoke in her native language quite fluently. Before they could begin the human mating ritual that would make it her ex-lover of Christmas-future, she was kindly interrupted by the bridge. Uhura, like Spock, was mercifully brought down from her high which ultimately saved her life. Which reminds me, don’t do drugs in space, but that’s another module.
Now, if you believe you may become lonely from a lack of like-kind loving companionship, by all means bring four or five others with you, but observe them as if your life depended on it, because it probably will.
Now I know what you’re thinking. There are always exceptions. Yes, there are, but that’s why they’re called exceptions because the rule still applies.
Now McCoy finally swept the sleep out of his eyes when he woke to find Spock striking Nancy repeatedly, which confused him. “Nancy? My Nancy?” When Kirk started to scream, McCoy’s eyes were opened and he saw the creature in its true form. He jerked and pulled the phaser trigger from the shock that he almost slept with a creature that looked surprisingly like a hairy Gorn.
When the creature transformed back into Nancy, it made another play for McCoy. “Leonard? Leonard, it’s me,” but before he could lose his moral fortitude and turn back into the galactic equivalent of a gutless wonder, he fired repeatedly until it was dead, dead, dead.
As you can see, the final object lesson of this learning module is that your old flame or some other kind of significant other may not just act like one, but may truly be a beast. So, it bears repeating: Never trust your Ex.
References:
Roddenberry, Gene. Singer, Arthur H. “Turnabout Intruder.” Star Trek. National Broadcasting Company. 3 June 1969. Television.
Butler, Nathan. Fontana, D. C. “This Side of Paradise.” Star Trek. National Broadcasting Company. 2 March 1967. Television.
Johnson, George Clayton. “The Man Trap.” Star Trek. National Broadcasting Company. 8 Sept. 1966. Television.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Turnabout_Intruder_(episode)
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/This_Side_of_Paradise_(episode)
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Man_Trap_(episode)
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What’s your favorite Star Trek Ex episode?
