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Photo Essay 1/4
You may have noticed I've taken to the original Star Trek series and, in turn, Kirk and Spock, with some enthusiasm. Besides being fantastically improbable and inventing practically every convention of the AU genre, the show is really about the characters. Whatever you believe is the extent of it, those two have something special. This photo essay was strung together from having seen an odd smattering of episodes, done a smidge of research, and my own imagination. It didn't take much - as any good picture, they mostly spoke for themselves.
These are authentic, unaltered screencaptures or official promotional stills, and any text that appears in them is, with a single obvious exception, actual dialogue within the context of the scene pictured.
NOTE: I've done my best to reduce the size and quality while preserving the integrity of the images - none of them are over 60K - but there are still around twenty per post.
Meet James T. Kirk:
Besides intergalactic playboy, among his many accomplishments Kirk has the distinction of being Captain of the starship USS Enterprise, the youngest of the galactic Starfleet ever to achieve that rank. His methods are unconventional, he's often a bit brazen, but even beyond obeying the Prime Directive, the crew are loyal to him completely. Except when under the influence of alien flower spores, which incite all kinds of strange behavior, but that's getting a little too off-track for right now.
This is Commander Spock:
Err, he's usually dressed a bit more conservatively in a blue standard-issue Starfleet uniform. When he's not preferring the flowing robes of his native people.
Now, do not be fooled! While this:
...would have you believe Spock is the adopted lovechild of Kirk and some vaguely comely, eminently forgettable crew member, he is in fact the son of a Vulcan diplomat named Sarek and a human woman, a schoolteacher named Amanda Grayson:
Spock was raised as a Vulcan, a race that values logic above all things. He likes to remind the mere humans aboard the Enterprise of the fact that he is exclusively motivated by it, and his decisions are therefore devoid of the traditional human flaws in thinking brought on by emotion. Put it this way - participating in a drinking game that includes Spock saying variations of the word would have even the most seasoned veteran on his ass before the half-hour mark.
With me so far?
Excellent! Onward. To that end:
Spock serves as Science Officer and...
First Officer to the Captain aboard the Enterprise. And sometimes, he plays the harp:
Cookies to whomever gets the bastardized reference.
Anyhow, the reasoning behind their official pairing was that a successful partnership could be achieved with Spock's firmly rational and Kirk's considerably emotional styles of thinking:
While neither of them being too egotistical to appreciate the other's methodology:
And as a twist, they play chess, at which Spock has never beaten Kirk.
To be fair, Kirk has also been the only cadet ever to solve the unsolvable Kobayashi Maru training scenario, and given that Kirk and crew are the first to return from the five-year mission with their starship relatively intact, their pairing was a decision that proved legendary. But beyond mere coworkers, Kirk and Spock became best friends. Hey, the stats on meeting 'em in the workplace are pretty high, no? Anyway.
But while they may be an excellent tag team:
Able to puzzle out the most difficult situations:
Sometimes communicating with merely a look:
Despite rumors and one particularly memorable, though uncredited, illustration circulating aboard the ship:
It wasn't exactly love at first sight.
As a half-Vulcan raised to worship reason who has worked about as long to vanquish the part of himself that he regularly deems "highly illogical," I'm not sure he's capable, much less willing to allow himself to do such a thing as fall in love at first sight. He has a tendency to belittle others for expressing emotion or factoring it into decisions. But while they yell and demand and criticize this, Kirk likes to catch Spock in his moments of hypocrisy:
Spock, in turn, does unamused like a professional. They also have their disagreements:
...and tète-à-tètes:
Continued...
These are authentic, unaltered screencaptures or official promotional stills, and any text that appears in them is, with a single obvious exception, actual dialogue within the context of the scene pictured.
NOTE: I've done my best to reduce the size and quality while preserving the integrity of the images - none of them are over 60K - but there are still around twenty per post.
Love and Logic Aboard the Starship Enterprise I
Meet James T. Kirk:
Besides intergalactic playboy, among his many accomplishments Kirk has the distinction of being Captain of the starship USS Enterprise, the youngest of the galactic Starfleet ever to achieve that rank. His methods are unconventional, he's often a bit brazen, but even beyond obeying the Prime Directive, the crew are loyal to him completely. Except when under the influence of alien flower spores, which incite all kinds of strange behavior, but that's getting a little too off-track for right now.
This is Commander Spock:
Err, he's usually dressed a bit more conservatively in a blue standard-issue Starfleet uniform. When he's not preferring the flowing robes of his native people.
Now, do not be fooled! While this:
...would have you believe Spock is the adopted lovechild of Kirk and some vaguely comely, eminently forgettable crew member, he is in fact the son of a Vulcan diplomat named Sarek and a human woman, a schoolteacher named Amanda Grayson:
Spock was raised as a Vulcan, a race that values logic above all things. He likes to remind the mere humans aboard the Enterprise of the fact that he is exclusively motivated by it, and his decisions are therefore devoid of the traditional human flaws in thinking brought on by emotion. Put it this way - participating in a drinking game that includes Spock saying variations of the word would have even the most seasoned veteran on his ass before the half-hour mark.
With me so far?
Excellent! Onward. To that end:
Spock serves as Science Officer and...
First Officer to the Captain aboard the Enterprise. And sometimes, he plays the harp:
Cookies to whomever gets the bastardized reference.
Anyhow, the reasoning behind their official pairing was that a successful partnership could be achieved with Spock's firmly rational and Kirk's considerably emotional styles of thinking:
While neither of them being too egotistical to appreciate the other's methodology:
And as a twist, they play chess, at which Spock has never beaten Kirk.
To be fair, Kirk has also been the only cadet ever to solve the unsolvable Kobayashi Maru training scenario, and given that Kirk and crew are the first to return from the five-year mission with their starship relatively intact, their pairing was a decision that proved legendary. But beyond mere coworkers, Kirk and Spock became best friends. Hey, the stats on meeting 'em in the workplace are pretty high, no? Anyway.
But while they may be an excellent tag team:
Able to puzzle out the most difficult situations:
Sometimes communicating with merely a look:
Despite rumors and one particularly memorable, though uncredited, illustration circulating aboard the ship:
It wasn't exactly love at first sight.
As a half-Vulcan raised to worship reason who has worked about as long to vanquish the part of himself that he regularly deems "highly illogical," I'm not sure he's capable, much less willing to allow himself to do such a thing as fall in love at first sight. He has a tendency to belittle others for expressing emotion or factoring it into decisions. But while they yell and demand and criticize this, Kirk likes to catch Spock in his moments of hypocrisy:
Spock, in turn, does unamused like a professional. They also have their disagreements:
...and tète-à-tètes:
Continued...