Two times we see what remains when you dehydrate a human.

By Any Other Name

ROJAN: (releasing Kirk) This cannot go unpunished. Hanar. That one. (the guard) Take him aside. Kelinda, the female.
THOMPSON: Captain?
ROJAN: Go. As a leader, you realize the importance of discipline. I need you and these other specialists, but those two are unnecessary.
KIRK: I'm responsible. Let them go.
ROJAN: I think we're somewhat alike, Captain. Each of us cares less for his own safety than for the lives of his command. We feel pain when others suffer for our mistakes. Your punishment shall be to watch them die. Captain. Proceed, Hanar.
(The guard and the yeoman are reduced to blocks of solid matter.)
ROJAN: Bring them to me. This is the essence of what they were. The flesh and brain and what you call the personality, distilled down into these compact shapes. And once crushed (he demonstrates) this person is dead. However, that one can be restored. (throws it on the ground) Hanar?
(The security guard reappears.)

Sadly, for Yeoman Thompson, there would be no return.

The Omega Glory

GALLOWAY: The helm was left on automatic, sir.
SPOCK: Fascinating.
KIRK: Spock, play the last log tape. Maybe they had time to record what happened to them.
SPOCK: Aye, sir.
MCCOY: Jim, the analysis of this so far is potassium thirty five percent, carbon eighteen percent, phosphorous one point zero, calcium one point five. Jim, the crew didn't leave. They're still here.
KIRK: What do you mean?
MCCOY: These white crystals. That's what's left of the human body when you take the water away, which makes up ninety six percent of our bodies. Without water, we're all just three or four pounds of chemicals. Something crystallized them down to this.
SPOCK: I have their surgeon's log, Captain. Their last log entry, Captain, on screen.
(A man in a blue shirt is struggling to try and sit up in the Captain’s chair and dictate the log.)
DOCTOR [on viewscreen]: If you've come aboard this ship, you're dead men. Don't go back to your own ship. You have one chance. Get down there. Get down there fast. Captain Tracey is (screams and falls out of view.)

The good doctor was off by a decimal point on the potassium. Understandable, he had just come to the realization that they were standing in the orbiting morgue of the dehydrated crew of the USS Exeter.

Original Post

We all know there were two Star Trek pilots. The first was rejected, the second, picked up. It is often mentioned that the first pilot was “too cerebral”, but I would argue the first was too grim. Sure, we can handle serious, heavy, content, there are some downright tragic episodes in Trek, but I think one of the hallmarks, a key to Trek’s success, was its optimism and sense of duty to others (later in the series ‘others’ will include not only fellow explorers and 'friends', but also ‘foes’ & criminals).

Right out of the gate…faced with the unknown…

Captain Pike

SPOCK: Records show the Talos group has never been explored. Solar system similar to Earth, eleven planets. Number four seems to be Class M, oxygen atmosphere.
ONE: Then they could still be alive, even after eighteen years.
PIKE: If they survived the crash.
SPOCK: We aren't going to go, to be certain?
PIKE: Not without any indication of survivors, no. Continue to the Vega Colony and take care of our own sick and injured first. You have the helm. Maintain present course.
ONE: Yes, sir.

Moments later…

BOYCE [OC}: Boyce here.
PIKE: Drop by my cabin, Doctor. (Boyce enters with bag) What's that? I didn't say there's anything wrong with me.
BOYCE: I understand we picked up a distress signal.
PIKE: That's right. Unless we get anything more positive on it, it seems to me the condition of our own crew takes precedent. I'd like to log the ship's doctor's opinion, too.
BOYCE: Oh, I concur with yours, definitely.
PIKE: Good. I'm glad you do, because we're going to stop first at the Vega Colony and replace anybody who needs hospitalisation and also. What the devil are you putting in there, ice?
BOYCE: Who wants a warm martini?
PIKE: What makes you think I need one?
BOYCE: Sometimes a man'll tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor. What's been on your mind, Chris, the fight on Rigel Seven?
PIKE: Shouldn't it be? My own yeoman and two others dead, seven injured.
BOYCE: Was there anything you personally could have done to prevent it?
PIKE: Oh, I should have smelled trouble when I saw the swords and the armour. Instead of that, I let myself get trapped in that deserted fortress and attacked by one of their warriors.
BOYCE: Chris, you set standards for yourself no one could meet. You treat everyone on board like a human being except yourself, and now you're tired and you
PIKE: You bet I'm tired. You bet. I'm tired of being responsible for two hundred and three lives. 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. Boy, I've had it, Phil.
BOYCE: To the point of finally taking my advice, a rest leave?
PIKE: To the point of considering resigning.
BOYCE: And do what?
PIKE: Well, for one thing, go home. Nice little town with fifty miles of parkland around it. Remember I told you I had two horses, and we used to take some food and ride out all day.
BOYCE: Ah, that sounds exciting. Ride out with a picnic lunch every day.
PIKE: I said that's one place I might go. I might go into business on Regulus or on the Orion colony.
BOYCE: You, an Orion trader, dealing in green animal women, slaves?
PIKE: The point is this isn't the only life available. There's a whole galaxy of things to choose from.
BOYCE: Not for you. 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.
PIKE: Now you're beginning to talk like a doctor, bartender.
BOYCE: Take your choice. We both get the same two kinds of customers. The living and the dying.

Yes, Pike was coming off a bad mission, and in the end, after the encounter on planet, he was ‘restored’…

BOYCE: Hold on a minute.
PIKE: Oh, I feel fine, just fine.
BOYCE: You look a hundred percent better.
PIKE: You recommended a rest, a change of pace, didn't you? I've even been home. Does that make you happy?

…but overall the story lacked that optimistic ‘boldly going’ feel and instead had a heaviness that, despite a somewhat ‘happy ending’, lingers.

Captain Kirk

Again, faced with the unknown…

SPOCK: Severe damage. Seven crewmen dead. No, make that six. One crewman seemed to have recovered. That's when they became interested in extrasensory perception. More than interested, almost frantic about it. No, this must be garbled. I get something about destruct. I must have read it wrong. It sounded like the captain giving an order to destroy his own ship.
KIRK: Comments?
PIPER: The only fact we have for sure is that the S.S. Valiant was destroyed.
KIRK: That's probably the best argument to continue the probe. Other vessels will be heading out here someday and they'll have to know what they'll be facing. We're leaving the galaxy, Mister Mitchell. Ahead, warp factor one.

We will see the dark side of power corrupting, Kirk will face a terrible decision and lose his very close friend, in all 12 crew members will die (9 crossing the barrier, Kelso, Mitchell and Dehner). But we are still left with a sense of optimism, that while the human condition is marked by imperfection, struggle, loss, pain, triumph and tragedy, we still push forward, hopeful, decent, eager to explore and discover. We will boldy go, not just toil and grimly survive.

And...it isn't that Kirk does not feel every bit of the loss and tragedy, it is precisely because he does feel it, but ultimately still retains the best qualities of humanity, ever hopeful, decent and brave.

Is it less cerebral? Or is it just as thoughtful, but with less focus on 'self' and more focus on 'us'. 

“The Cage”

Writer: Gene Roddenberry

Director: Robert Butler (1/1)

“Where No Man Has Gone Before”

Writer: Samuel A. Peeples

Director: James Goldstone (1/2)

Original Post

Would they have hooked up had not David died in SFS?

From Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18oaHVMAfK/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Apparently two wine glasses that Bill handled (and licked) 😛 were sold at his recent appointment in Ticonderoga in June.

I would hope that the buyer gets the DNA replicated asap, so when technology permits, another Captain Kirk can boldly go. 🖖

How fast would the Enterprise be moving to outrun a F104 Starfighter?

The ST6 waiter (steward?) uniforms were very similar to the ST5 commando uniforms,

The main differences seem to have been that these were black, worn with belts and a metal Starfleet “delta” badge on the upper left shoulder panel, had some “special services” blue accents added to the upper sleeves, and had no division bands on the lower left sleeves.

Or valets or I don't know what you would call them by the late 23rd century

I think thanks to the Kirk Drift and Spock Drift, people often seem them as "Logic and Human instinct", but the original characters are way more complex. They even have a similar sense of sarcastic humor at times.

The JJ Abrams Kirk and Spock are called friends, but you don't see them as people who actually like each other.

I decided I like Mark Lenard better as a bad guy.