Apollo and "the one"

[KelisThePoet]

So, I just taught "Who Mourns for Adonais" in my sci fi class, today.

I was surprised (though perhaps I shouldn't have been), by the level of interest in Kirk's line: "Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate."

Curious what those here make of this line.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Perhaps Kirk is a Christian and is expressing his own belief.

And/or he's just trying to piss Apollo off.

 

[Kor]

I vaguely remember some explanation in later fandom and/or fanon that "The One" was the proper name of some particular philosophy (possibly humanistic) that humans of the 23rd century subscribed to. But an American audience of the 1960s would have understood the line as referring to monotheism of the Judeo-Christian type. No doubt it was included to acquiesce to network censors and their desires to not alienate certain segments of the viewing audience.

Kor

 

[KelisThePoet]

No doubt it was included to acquiesce to network censors and their desires to not alienate certain segments of the viewing audience.

That's how I've always interpreted it. A smokescreen for the genuinely atheist sentiment of the episode, really.

he's just trying to piss Apollo off.

I like this one.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Maybe Kirk just thought Apollo looked silly in a mini-skirt.

 

[Greg Cox]

I always suspected that that line was added to appease the network, but that's just a hunch.

Thought it stood out like a sore thumb.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Dated AF.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I always assumed that the line in "Adonais" reflected the popular sentiment of the time, which is that Greek and Roman gods were myths but the Judeo-Christian God was truly God, a sentiment that I never had any reason to suppose that the writer disagreed with.

What would Gene Roddenberry have thought of the line? The same Gene Roddenberry who went out of his way to put Christ on the Roman planet in "Bread and Circuses"? That gave me no reason to suppose he'd've had any problem with it.

I wonder what @Harvey has to say about the origin of the line in "Adonais"?

 

[Harvey]

I haven't seen any evidence that the line was needed to appease NBC. I suspect that's fan and/or Roddenberry driven invention. But I also haven't analyzed all the drafts to determine when it was added. A project for the future, perhaps.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Thank you, @Harvey.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Uhura's line in "Bread and Circuses" about the son of God is another case where Star Trek bowed to the popular expectations of its era. And didn't Roddenberry later claim he was away that week, and would never have approved it?

There was an episode of XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS whose plot kind of undermined or denied the presence of God in a biblical story that the heroes wandered into, but at the very end they threw in this indication that God was there all along. Lucy Lawless was later quoted saying (roughly), "There had to be that nod to greater America." I haven't seen the show since the 1990s and don't recall what ep it was.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

And didn't Roddenberry later claim he was away that week, and would never have approved it?

Roddenberry *might* have claimed it, but the truth of it seems super-unlikely. Other sources, like this one [http://senensky.com/bread-and-circuses/] cited at Memory alpha [http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Bread_and_Circuses_(episode)], have Roddenberry making last-minute revisions to make the Christ reveal work better. People () with specific behind-the-scenes knowledge can no doubt comment with greater authority than I, but I'm calling bullshit.

In the first season, the science lab Christmas party reference in "Dagger of the Mind" was in there, and there was a marriage scene aboard ship in "Balance of Terror" when Kirk talked about their "many beliefs." This Enterprise crew was not conceived of as atheists.

 

[Harvey]

The short version? Roddenberry’s claims about the end of “Bread and Circuses” are bullshit.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Apollo, Trelane, and Sargon were literally just waiting for anybody to come along. What if it had been the Space Hippies instead of the Enterprise?

- They would be a match made in heaven for Apollo, who would need only to beat down Dr. Severin's dictator ego. The other Hippies would love Apollo: they want to humbly follow an imposing leader, and they want to get back to nature. Jackpot! It's actually tragic that this didn't happen, because Apollo and the Hippies would have lived happily ever after. Tons of sex. Tons.

- Trelane would have found the Hippies infuriating. Trying to use them as playthings would be like herding cats. Cats who don't even care enough to be amusingly angry about being held on Gothos. He sends them on their way-- two days tops.

- If the Aurora had run into Sargon's planet, the results would be the same as for the Enterprise, because the only real struggle was between Sargon and Henoch. It would be almost the same episode of Star Trek, but with no Kirk and Spock.

 

[Phaser Two]

The short version? Roddenberry’s claims about the end of “Bread and Circuses” are bullshit.

Look; I'm going to need you to be more concise here.

 

[Greg Cox]

There was an episode of XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS whose plot kind of undermined or denied the presence of God in a biblical story that the heroes wandered into, but at the very end they threw in this indication that God was there all along. Lucy Lawless was later quoted saying (roughly), "There had to be that nod to greater America." I haven't seen the show since the 1990s and don't recall what ep it was.

Probably "Altared States," which was a thinly-disguised riff on Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac. As I recall, the God-like voice telling the Abraham character to sacrifice his son turned out to a hoax perpetuated by a bad guy for some reason. And he would have gotten away with it too, if not for that meddling Warrior Princess!

That was also the episode, by the way, where I realized that the writers were deliberately milking the lesbian "subtext" for all it was worth. "Okay, they're absolutely teasing us on purpose now."

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Probably "Altared States," which was a thinly-disguised riff on Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac. As I recall, the God-like voice telling the Abraham character to sacrifice his son turned out to a hoax perpetuated by a bad guy for some reason. And he would have gotten away with it too, if not for that meddling Warrior Princess!

That must have been it. Nice Scooby reference.

That was also the episode, by the way, where I realized that the writers were deliberately milking the lesbian "subtext" for all it was worth. "Okay, they're absolutely teasing us on purpose now."

They did the right thing. Now I want to see the series again.

 

[KelisThePoet]

I don't see the dialogue about the Son of God at the end of "Bread and Circuses" as an endorsement of Christian belief. If anything just the opposite. This planet, with a parallel evolution to Earth's, had a Caesar and a Christ, which suggests that Christ is a historically determined role played by multiple people on multiple worlds, rather than the one and only Son of God. Granted, the "Son" worship of the Roman planet is portrayed as socially beneficial, but not necessarily theologically genuine.

And Christmas, like many other holidays with religious origins, has already become as much a cultural celebration as a religious one and might be further secularized in the future (as other holidays like Halloween already have been), so I don't see a Christmas celebration as being very telling about what the crew believes.

Maybe the crew of the Enterprise aren't a group of doctrinaire atheists, each and everyone, but I do think a strong strain of atheism and secularism runs through their thinking. There's certainly no evidence that they're a particularly religious bunch.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Taken together, it's all unambiguously a validation of the religious aspect of American culture that was contemporaneous to when the episodes were aired.

There's certainly no evidence that they're a particularly religious bunch.

No evidence? Well, I've already offered some in Kirk's assertion that his crew hold "many beliefs."

Here's more from "Balance of Terror": Kirk reassures Angela, after she's been kneeling at the alter in the chapel in what could fairly be interpreted as prayerful sorrow, that "We both have to know that there was a reason" for the death of Tomlinson. What sort of reason do you think Kirk was talking about there?

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

I don't see the dialogue about the Son of God at the end of "Bread and Circuses" as an endorsement of Christian belief. If anything just the opposite.

David Gerrold certainly saw it that way in his early 70s book on Star Trek; IIRC he was infuriated by the ending of that episode.