this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
112 points (98.3% liked)

TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name

3799 readers
1098 users here now

/c/TenFoward: Your home-away-from-home for all things Star Trek!

Re-route power to the shields, emit a tachyon pulse through the deflector, and post all the nonsense you want. Within reason of course.

~ 1. No bigotry. This is a Star Trek community. Remember that diversity and coexistence are Star Trek values. Any post/comments that are racist, anti-LGBT, or generally "othering" of a group will result in removal/ban.

~ 2. Keep it civil. Disagreements will happen both on lore and preferences. That's okay! Just don't let it make you forget that the person you are talking to is also a person.

~ 3. Use spoiler tags. This applies to any episodes that have dropped within 3 months prior of your posting. After that it's free game.

~ 4. Keep it Trek related. This one is kind of a gimme but keep as on topic as possible.

~ 5. Keep posts to a limit. We all love Star Trek stuff but 3-4 posts in an hour is plenty enough.

~ 6. Try to not repost. Mistakes happen, we get it! But try to not repost anything from within the past 1-2 months.

~ 7. No General AI Art. Posts of simple AI art do not 'inspire jamaharon'

~ 8. No Political Upheaval. Political commentary is allowed, but please keep discussions civil. Read here for our community's expectations.

Fun will now commence.


Sister Communities:

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Want your community to be added to the sidebar? Just ask one of our mods!


Honorary Badbitch:

@[email protected] for realizing that the line used to be "want to be added to the sidebar?" and capitalized on it. Congratulations and welcome to the sidebar. Stamets is both ashamed and proud.


Creator Resources:

Looking for a Star Trek screencap? (TrekCore)

Looking for the right Star Trek typeface/font for your meme? (Thank you @kellyaster for putting this together!)


founded 10 months ago
MODERATORS
 

Think about all of the things he has seen, all of the worlds he has explored, all of the green women he has slept with, and when he is faced with death, it shocks even him, to the extent that all he can say is, "Oh, my." I'm not sure how popular this scene is among the Star Trek Zeitgeist, but I imagine it's probably hated. I, however, love it. Feel free to tell me how I'm wrong in the comments.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FlyingSquid 27 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I won't say you're wrong to love something, but I do disagree with you. Kirk deserved more poetic last words because he spoke with eloquence. He has also been faced with death more than once before that, he just ended up surviving. It felt like a wasted opportunity to me. They didn't have to give him a long monologue or anything, just something a little more pithy than "oh, my."

This is the man who said things like:

You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown – only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.

Without freedom of choice there is no creativity. The body dies.

Death. Destruction. Disease. Horror. That’s what war is all about. That’s what makes it a thing to be avoided.

And, most applicable to this situation:

How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life.

I don't think he dealt with death as he dealt with life.

[–] chemical_cutthroat 31 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I don't disagree with you, but I think Kirk was probably the most "human" of the Star Fleet Captains. Sure, he was larger than life in some respects, but he was very grounded and his character flaws were all human traits. Giving him a human reaction to death suited him well, I think. Sure, we all want Shatner to ham it up and give us some spoken word space poetry, but Kirk was human through and through, and I think his final words reflected that.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Exactly this .... I think it just displays how no matter how special, significant, intelligent, capable or strong we may think we are or we think any one us can be .. when death arrives, none of us know what our final words will be. Sure there is the possibility of being in bed after a long sickness, being fully aware and knowing your time has come and you get some time to think of what to say ... or you're bleeding out and you know you have five more minutes ... but for the majority of us when the time comes, we'll be so frightened, scared and so shocked that it is all happening that we will not be capable of saying anything else other than ... 'oh my'

It's like what La'an explained to Captain Pike in the first episode of Strange New Worlds ...

La'an Noonien-Singh : Yes. Because right up until the last moment, they... couldn't imagine dying.

[–] model_tar_gz 2 points 9 months ago

Shut the fuck up… let me die in peace.

[–] FlyingSquid 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I was not expecting a flowery speech. I think there's a happy medium between 'space poetry' and "oh my."

I mean this wouldn't be the best line either, but I would prefer something like, "now I'm off on a new adventure..."

[–] ummthatguy 13 points 9 months ago

Kinda like John Leguizamo in Land of the Dead, after he'd been bitten and shrugs off shooting himself.

[–] chemical_cutthroat 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] FlyingSquid 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That would actually work pretty well, considering-

Another line from Peter Pan.

[–] steakmeout 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That line is in the film to imply the ship and crew would never age - that for the fans the original show would be timeless. It’s not so much a measure of hope, it’s more a wink and nod to the audience.

Peter Pan and his crew in Neverland never age, they remain perpetual children.

[–] FlyingSquid 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But this would give a similar message... Kirk's adventures will never end.

[–] steakmeout 1 points 9 months ago

They do end. That’s the point.

[–] steakmeout 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You don’t think there’s eloquence in a man overwhelmed by seeing the beauty of the journey into afterlife enough that he uses his last breath to express loving wonder?

I think you’re missing the point of the man if you think he should give a speech as he exits stage left - you turn him into a melodramatic buffoon, like the caricature over actor who takes minutes to die delivering a soliloquy in death.

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 9 months ago

As I said below, I think there is a happy medium between a speech and just two words.

[–] Lemming421 7 points 9 months ago

I don’t think he dealt with death as he dealt with life.

He gave up the chance of being in effectively heaven to give his life saving a planet and an entire civilisation that would never even know he existed.

Starfleet to the end.