Post by magicmuggle01 on Oct 3, 2018 11:05:28 GMT
While investigating a distress call from Talos IV, Captain Christopher Pike of the starship Enterprise is captured and tested by beings who can project powerfully realistic illusions. (Abandoned pilot).
Summary
The year is 2254 – eleven years before Captain Kirk's five-year mission commanding the USS Enterprise.
Two weeks after a battle on Rigel VII that left seven crewmembers injured and took the life of three Enterprise crewmen, including Captain Christopher Pike's yeoman, the ship encounters a space distortion on a collision course, according to helmsman José Tyler. It turns out to be an old radio distress signal, "keyed to cause interference and attract attention." The crew says it was sent eighteen years earlier from the Talos star group, but first officer Number One notes they have no Earth colonies or vessels that far out. Pike declines to investigate without any indication of survivors but proceeds to the Vega colony to care for the crew's own injuries.
Pike calls the Enterprise's chief medical officer, Dr. Boyce, to his quarters but Boyce instead fixes Pike a martini to induce Pike to talk about the battle on Rigel VII. Pike has been thinking of resigning, burdened with making lethal decisions, but Boyce counsels against it. The science officer Spock interrupts on the intercom that a follow-up message from Talos IV indicates there are eleven survivors. Pike returns to the bridge and orders the ship to Talos, at "time warp, factor seven." He encounters a comely young woman, J.M. Colt. The ship's first officer, a woman named Number One, says Colt is the captain's replacement yeoman. Pike expresses discomfort with "a woman on the bridge," assuring Number One that she is an exception, as she's "different, of course."
Pike leads a landing party to the surface of Talos IV and finds the makeshift campsite of a disheveled group of male scientists from the crashed survey ship SS Columbia. The scientists identify themselves as an expedition of the American Continent Institute and Lieutenant Jose Tyler describes technological advances while they have been marooned, particularly in the time barrier being broken. A beautiful young woman approaches them. She is Vina, born almost as the group crash-landed on the planet. Vina strangely tells Pike he is a "prime specimen" – as three aliens with huge, pulsating heads watch the landing party through a viewing screen.
Boyce provides his medical report to Pike and reports that the survivors are in good health, "almost too good." The scientist Theodore Haskins offers to show Pike their "secret," and Vina leads him away from the others. Vina suddenly vanishes, along with the scientists and their camp. Talosians render Pike unconscious and abduct him through a doorway in the rock. The landing party fires laser pistols at the door to no avail and Spock advises the ship via his communicator that this "is all some sort of trap. We've lost the captain. Do you read?"
Pike wakes up without his jacket, communicator, and laser, inside an underground cell with a transparent wall, through which he sees several creatures of different species in nearby cells. Several Talosians arrive and make callous scientific observations about him, which he perceives not through sound but telepathy. They note that Pike is more adaptable to his new surroundings and prepare to begin "the experiment."
Pike and Vina enjoy an illusory picnic outside Mojave
The Talosians intend to make Pike experience illusions based on his memories, in order to interest him in Vina. The first illusion returns Pike to Rigel VII, with the new task of saving Vina. Pike is not interested in participating, telling Vina he is "not an animal performing for its supper," but he is interested in learning the parameters of the illusions and of his captivity. Nevertheless, he manages to survive the illusory attack from the Kalar and is returned, with Vina, to his cell.
He learns from Vina that the Talosians have severely weakened their world and themselves by reliance on their telepathic powers. They want Captain Pike and Vina as breeding stock for a new, stronger race to repopulate the barren surface of the planet. The Talosians punish Vina for revealing this information to Pike.
The Talosians provide him with a vial of liquid nourishment and insist that he consume it, even offering to make it appear as any food he wishes. Pike proposes to starve himself instead, which results in the Keeper punishing him with an illusion of being surrounded by scorching flame and threatens to punish him more severely for continued disobedience. Pike appears to relent by consuming the liquid, but then displays another outburst of attempting to break through the containment, unexpectedly startling the Keeper. Pike realizes that the Keeper was unable to read his mind during his outburst of anger and tries to inquire more as to why this is. The Keeper, still unable to probe Pike's mind, attempts then to distract Pike by changing the subject to Vina. Pike relents again, and the Keeper reveals that Vina was the sole survivor of the Columbia crash and confirms what she inadvertently revealed previously – that Pike and Vina were being kept to propagate Humanity and repopulate Talos IV. The conversation ends with Pike demanding that the Talosians punish him instead of her, since he is the one being uncooperative, which the Keeper regards as an excellent development in their relationship.
Vina appears as an Orion slave girl
The next illusion is a pleasant picnic just outside Pike's hometown of Mojave, with Vina attempting to entice Pike with the familiar setting, but with Pike still resisting, knowing that all of it is just a mere illusion. Vina then realizes that scenarios with which Pike is already familiar have not been successful in enticing him to cooperate, and surmises that he might be more easily swayed by a forbidden fantasy. The Talosians next tempt Pike by making Vina appear as a dancing Orion slave girl.
The Enterprise landing party and Vina
The Enterprise tries without success to channel the starship's power to the surface to blast a way to Pike. Then Spock locates the Talosians' power generator and prepares a landing party. However, only the females (Number One and Yeoman Colt) are the only ones transported, as the Talosians seek to give Pike a choice of mates; and their weapons and communicators appear not to work. Vina resents the competition; Number One says records indicate Vina cannot be as young as she appears.
As the rescue attempts have failed, Spock orders the Enterprise to leave orbit, but the Talosians immobilize it and scan its records, convincing Spock that the ship's utility to the Talosians is at an end and that they will now "swat... this fly."
Pike determines that any strong emotions keep the Talosians from controlling his mind and uses this to his advantage. While Pike feigns sleep, the Talosian magistrate tries to recover the female officers' lasers from the cage. Pike seizes the magistrate and ignores the illusions. He reasons that the malfunction of the lasers was itself an illusion and uses the laser pistol to compel the magistrate to stop deceiving him. He now sees that they had blasted away the wall of the cage on their first attempt.
He escapes with the women to the surface and sees that the blasting operation on the door had also succeeded, despite an illusion made to appear otherwise. But the communicators still don't work, and the Talosian says that the original goal was to put the group on the surface. Pike offers himself as a captive for the freedom of the others and the Enterprise, but Number One begins a "force-chamber" overload of her laser pistol, intending to destroy herself and her shipmates to thwart the Talosians' plans. She tells the Talosian magistrate that it is wrong to create a whole race of Humans to live as slaves.
The magistrate's aides arrive, presenting the summary of the ship's records. The records have shown that Humans possess a "unique hatred of captivity," even when pleasant, making them too dangerous for the Talosians' needs. The magistrate does not apologize for the imposition but concedes that they will now become extinct. Pike asks if commerce or cooperation might not restore the planet, but the magistrate replies that Humans would learn the Talosians' power of illusion and destroy themselves, just as the Talosians did. The crew members are free to go, but Vina says she cannot join them. After the others transport aboard, the Talosians show Pike Vina's true appearance: underneath the Talosian illusions, she is badly deformed from the crash of the Columbia. They were able to make it so that she could remain alive, but could not restore her appearance. The Talosians agree to take care of Vina and they provide her with an illusory Captain Pike to keep her company.
Pike returns to the bridge, reassuring Dr. Boyce that he is completely refreshed for work, and waving off a query from Yeoman Colt about whom he would have chosen as a mate, as well as accusing the doctor of being a "dirty old man" for inquiring into the meaning of Colt's remark. The Enterprise departs.
Memorable quotes
"Check the circuit."
"All operating, sir."
"It can't be the screen then."
- Spock and Tyler, speaking the first lines in Star Trek history
"Records show the Talos star group has never been explored. Solar system similar to Earth; eleven planets. Number four seems to be...class M. Oxygen atmosphere."
"Then they could still be alive even after eighteen years."
"If they survived the crash."
- Spock, Number One and Pike
Pike and Boyce
"Sometimes a man'll tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor."
- Boyce, offering Pike a martini
"Chris, you set standards for yourself no one could meet. You treat everyone on board like a Human being except yourself."
- Boyce, explaining Pike's work exhaustion
"I'm tired of deciding which mission is too risky and which isn't. And who's going on the landing party and who doesn't. And who lives. And who dies."
- Pike, hinting at his retirement to Boyce
"A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on, and licks it. Or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away."
- Boyce, advising Pike against retirement
"We both get the same two kinds of customers. The living and the dying."
- Boyce to Pike, as doctor and bartender
"It's just that I can't get used to having a woman on the bridge."
(Number One looks surprised)
"No offense, lieutenant. You're different, of course."
- Pike to Number One, about Colt
"You appear to be healthy and intelligent, captain. Prime specimen."
- Vina's first observations of Captain Pike
"There's a way out of any cage, and I'll find it!"
- Pike to the Talosians, on his captivity
"But they found it's a trap. Like a narcotic. Because when dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating."
- Vina, on why the Talosians developed their mental powers
"I'm a woman as real and as Human as you are. We're like Adam and Eve."
- Vina, convincing Pike that she is not an illusion
"No, please! Don't punish me!"
- Vina, about to be punished for revealing the truth that she and Pike are meant to breed (and finally proving that she's for real)
"You overlook the unpleasant alternative of punishment."
- The Keeper, outlining the consequences for disobedience
"You either live life – bruises, skinned knees and all – or you turn your back on it and start dying."
- Pike, understanding Boyce's advice
"But we're not here. Neither of us. We're in a menagerie, a cage!"
- Pike to Vina, in the picnic fantasy
"A curious species. They have fantasies they hide even from themselves."
- The Keeper, watching the picnic fantasy
"A person's strongest dreams are about what he can't do."
- Vina, before becoming an Orion woman
"Can you believe it? Actually like being taken advantage of!"
- One of Pike's guests, describing the nature of Orion slave girls
"The women!"
- Spock, after Number One and Colt disappear
"Since you resist the present specimen, you now have a selection. Each of these two new specimens has qualities in her favor."
- The Keeper, referring to Number One and Colt
"Although she seems to lack emotion, this is largely a pretense. She often has fantasies involving you."
- The Keeper to Pike, about Number One
"The factors in her favor are youth and strength, plus unusually strong female drives."
- The Keeper, about Colt
"Wrong thinking is punishable. Right thinking will be as quickly rewarded. You will find it an effective combination."
- The Keeper, after Pike suffers pain
"With the female of your choice, you will now begin carefully guided lives."
"Start by burying you?"
"That is your choice."
- The Keeper and Pike
"It's wrong to create a race of Humans to keep as slaves."
- Number One, just before preparing to kill the Humans and the Keeper
"The customs and history of your race show a unique hatred of captivity. Even when it's pleasant and benevolent, you prefer death. This makes you too violent and dangerous a species for our needs."
- The Keeper, before releasing Pike, Number One and Colt
"No other specimen has shown your adaptability. You were our last hope."
- The Keeper, explaining why Pike's inability to cooperate would lead to the extinction of the Talosians
"She has an illusion and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant."
- The Keeper, after restoring Vina's beauty (as well as creating an illusory Christopher Pike to keep her company)
"Who would have been Eve?"
"Yeoman!"
- Colt and Number One referring to whom Pike would have chosen
"Eve? As in Adam?"
"As in all ship's doctors are dirty old men."
- Boyce and Pike, before the Enterprise leaves Talos IV
"What are we running here, a cadet ship, Number One? Are we ready or not?"
"All decks show ready, sir."
"Engage!"
- Pike and Number One, as the Enterprise prepares to leave Talos IV
Summary
The year is 2254 – eleven years before Captain Kirk's five-year mission commanding the USS Enterprise.
Two weeks after a battle on Rigel VII that left seven crewmembers injured and took the life of three Enterprise crewmen, including Captain Christopher Pike's yeoman, the ship encounters a space distortion on a collision course, according to helmsman José Tyler. It turns out to be an old radio distress signal, "keyed to cause interference and attract attention." The crew says it was sent eighteen years earlier from the Talos star group, but first officer Number One notes they have no Earth colonies or vessels that far out. Pike declines to investigate without any indication of survivors but proceeds to the Vega colony to care for the crew's own injuries.
Pike calls the Enterprise's chief medical officer, Dr. Boyce, to his quarters but Boyce instead fixes Pike a martini to induce Pike to talk about the battle on Rigel VII. Pike has been thinking of resigning, burdened with making lethal decisions, but Boyce counsels against it. The science officer Spock interrupts on the intercom that a follow-up message from Talos IV indicates there are eleven survivors. Pike returns to the bridge and orders the ship to Talos, at "time warp, factor seven." He encounters a comely young woman, J.M. Colt. The ship's first officer, a woman named Number One, says Colt is the captain's replacement yeoman. Pike expresses discomfort with "a woman on the bridge," assuring Number One that she is an exception, as she's "different, of course."
Pike leads a landing party to the surface of Talos IV and finds the makeshift campsite of a disheveled group of male scientists from the crashed survey ship SS Columbia. The scientists identify themselves as an expedition of the American Continent Institute and Lieutenant Jose Tyler describes technological advances while they have been marooned, particularly in the time barrier being broken. A beautiful young woman approaches them. She is Vina, born almost as the group crash-landed on the planet. Vina strangely tells Pike he is a "prime specimen" – as three aliens with huge, pulsating heads watch the landing party through a viewing screen.
Boyce provides his medical report to Pike and reports that the survivors are in good health, "almost too good." The scientist Theodore Haskins offers to show Pike their "secret," and Vina leads him away from the others. Vina suddenly vanishes, along with the scientists and their camp. Talosians render Pike unconscious and abduct him through a doorway in the rock. The landing party fires laser pistols at the door to no avail and Spock advises the ship via his communicator that this "is all some sort of trap. We've lost the captain. Do you read?"
Pike wakes up without his jacket, communicator, and laser, inside an underground cell with a transparent wall, through which he sees several creatures of different species in nearby cells. Several Talosians arrive and make callous scientific observations about him, which he perceives not through sound but telepathy. They note that Pike is more adaptable to his new surroundings and prepare to begin "the experiment."
Pike and Vina enjoy an illusory picnic outside Mojave
The Talosians intend to make Pike experience illusions based on his memories, in order to interest him in Vina. The first illusion returns Pike to Rigel VII, with the new task of saving Vina. Pike is not interested in participating, telling Vina he is "not an animal performing for its supper," but he is interested in learning the parameters of the illusions and of his captivity. Nevertheless, he manages to survive the illusory attack from the Kalar and is returned, with Vina, to his cell.
He learns from Vina that the Talosians have severely weakened their world and themselves by reliance on their telepathic powers. They want Captain Pike and Vina as breeding stock for a new, stronger race to repopulate the barren surface of the planet. The Talosians punish Vina for revealing this information to Pike.
The Talosians provide him with a vial of liquid nourishment and insist that he consume it, even offering to make it appear as any food he wishes. Pike proposes to starve himself instead, which results in the Keeper punishing him with an illusion of being surrounded by scorching flame and threatens to punish him more severely for continued disobedience. Pike appears to relent by consuming the liquid, but then displays another outburst of attempting to break through the containment, unexpectedly startling the Keeper. Pike realizes that the Keeper was unable to read his mind during his outburst of anger and tries to inquire more as to why this is. The Keeper, still unable to probe Pike's mind, attempts then to distract Pike by changing the subject to Vina. Pike relents again, and the Keeper reveals that Vina was the sole survivor of the Columbia crash and confirms what she inadvertently revealed previously – that Pike and Vina were being kept to propagate Humanity and repopulate Talos IV. The conversation ends with Pike demanding that the Talosians punish him instead of her, since he is the one being uncooperative, which the Keeper regards as an excellent development in their relationship.
Vina appears as an Orion slave girl
The next illusion is a pleasant picnic just outside Pike's hometown of Mojave, with Vina attempting to entice Pike with the familiar setting, but with Pike still resisting, knowing that all of it is just a mere illusion. Vina then realizes that scenarios with which Pike is already familiar have not been successful in enticing him to cooperate, and surmises that he might be more easily swayed by a forbidden fantasy. The Talosians next tempt Pike by making Vina appear as a dancing Orion slave girl.
The Enterprise landing party and Vina
The Enterprise tries without success to channel the starship's power to the surface to blast a way to Pike. Then Spock locates the Talosians' power generator and prepares a landing party. However, only the females (Number One and Yeoman Colt) are the only ones transported, as the Talosians seek to give Pike a choice of mates; and their weapons and communicators appear not to work. Vina resents the competition; Number One says records indicate Vina cannot be as young as she appears.
As the rescue attempts have failed, Spock orders the Enterprise to leave orbit, but the Talosians immobilize it and scan its records, convincing Spock that the ship's utility to the Talosians is at an end and that they will now "swat... this fly."
Pike determines that any strong emotions keep the Talosians from controlling his mind and uses this to his advantage. While Pike feigns sleep, the Talosian magistrate tries to recover the female officers' lasers from the cage. Pike seizes the magistrate and ignores the illusions. He reasons that the malfunction of the lasers was itself an illusion and uses the laser pistol to compel the magistrate to stop deceiving him. He now sees that they had blasted away the wall of the cage on their first attempt.
He escapes with the women to the surface and sees that the blasting operation on the door had also succeeded, despite an illusion made to appear otherwise. But the communicators still don't work, and the Talosian says that the original goal was to put the group on the surface. Pike offers himself as a captive for the freedom of the others and the Enterprise, but Number One begins a "force-chamber" overload of her laser pistol, intending to destroy herself and her shipmates to thwart the Talosians' plans. She tells the Talosian magistrate that it is wrong to create a whole race of Humans to live as slaves.
The magistrate's aides arrive, presenting the summary of the ship's records. The records have shown that Humans possess a "unique hatred of captivity," even when pleasant, making them too dangerous for the Talosians' needs. The magistrate does not apologize for the imposition but concedes that they will now become extinct. Pike asks if commerce or cooperation might not restore the planet, but the magistrate replies that Humans would learn the Talosians' power of illusion and destroy themselves, just as the Talosians did. The crew members are free to go, but Vina says she cannot join them. After the others transport aboard, the Talosians show Pike Vina's true appearance: underneath the Talosian illusions, she is badly deformed from the crash of the Columbia. They were able to make it so that she could remain alive, but could not restore her appearance. The Talosians agree to take care of Vina and they provide her with an illusory Captain Pike to keep her company.
Pike returns to the bridge, reassuring Dr. Boyce that he is completely refreshed for work, and waving off a query from Yeoman Colt about whom he would have chosen as a mate, as well as accusing the doctor of being a "dirty old man" for inquiring into the meaning of Colt's remark. The Enterprise departs.
Memorable quotes
"Check the circuit."
"All operating, sir."
"It can't be the screen then."
- Spock and Tyler, speaking the first lines in Star Trek history
"Records show the Talos star group has never been explored. Solar system similar to Earth; eleven planets. Number four seems to be...class M. Oxygen atmosphere."
"Then they could still be alive even after eighteen years."
"If they survived the crash."
- Spock, Number One and Pike
Pike and Boyce
"Sometimes a man'll tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor."
- Boyce, offering Pike a martini
"Chris, you set standards for yourself no one could meet. You treat everyone on board like a Human being except yourself."
- Boyce, explaining Pike's work exhaustion
"I'm tired of deciding which mission is too risky and which isn't. And who's going on the landing party and who doesn't. And who lives. And who dies."
- Pike, hinting at his retirement to Boyce
"A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on, and licks it. Or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away."
- Boyce, advising Pike against retirement
"We both get the same two kinds of customers. The living and the dying."
- Boyce to Pike, as doctor and bartender
"It's just that I can't get used to having a woman on the bridge."
(Number One looks surprised)
"No offense, lieutenant. You're different, of course."
- Pike to Number One, about Colt
"You appear to be healthy and intelligent, captain. Prime specimen."
- Vina's first observations of Captain Pike
"There's a way out of any cage, and I'll find it!"
- Pike to the Talosians, on his captivity
"But they found it's a trap. Like a narcotic. Because when dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating."
- Vina, on why the Talosians developed their mental powers
"I'm a woman as real and as Human as you are. We're like Adam and Eve."
- Vina, convincing Pike that she is not an illusion
"No, please! Don't punish me!"
- Vina, about to be punished for revealing the truth that she and Pike are meant to breed (and finally proving that she's for real)
"You overlook the unpleasant alternative of punishment."
- The Keeper, outlining the consequences for disobedience
"You either live life – bruises, skinned knees and all – or you turn your back on it and start dying."
- Pike, understanding Boyce's advice
"But we're not here. Neither of us. We're in a menagerie, a cage!"
- Pike to Vina, in the picnic fantasy
"A curious species. They have fantasies they hide even from themselves."
- The Keeper, watching the picnic fantasy
"A person's strongest dreams are about what he can't do."
- Vina, before becoming an Orion woman
"Can you believe it? Actually like being taken advantage of!"
- One of Pike's guests, describing the nature of Orion slave girls
"The women!"
- Spock, after Number One and Colt disappear
"Since you resist the present specimen, you now have a selection. Each of these two new specimens has qualities in her favor."
- The Keeper, referring to Number One and Colt
"Although she seems to lack emotion, this is largely a pretense. She often has fantasies involving you."
- The Keeper to Pike, about Number One
"The factors in her favor are youth and strength, plus unusually strong female drives."
- The Keeper, about Colt
"Wrong thinking is punishable. Right thinking will be as quickly rewarded. You will find it an effective combination."
- The Keeper, after Pike suffers pain
"With the female of your choice, you will now begin carefully guided lives."
"Start by burying you?"
"That is your choice."
- The Keeper and Pike
"It's wrong to create a race of Humans to keep as slaves."
- Number One, just before preparing to kill the Humans and the Keeper
"The customs and history of your race show a unique hatred of captivity. Even when it's pleasant and benevolent, you prefer death. This makes you too violent and dangerous a species for our needs."
- The Keeper, before releasing Pike, Number One and Colt
"No other specimen has shown your adaptability. You were our last hope."
- The Keeper, explaining why Pike's inability to cooperate would lead to the extinction of the Talosians
"She has an illusion and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant."
- The Keeper, after restoring Vina's beauty (as well as creating an illusory Christopher Pike to keep her company)
"Who would have been Eve?"
"Yeoman!"
- Colt and Number One referring to whom Pike would have chosen
"Eve? As in Adam?"
"As in all ship's doctors are dirty old men."
- Boyce and Pike, before the Enterprise leaves Talos IV
"What are we running here, a cadet ship, Number One? Are we ready or not?"
"All decks show ready, sir."
"Engage!"
- Pike and Number One, as the Enterprise prepares to leave Talos IV
