Mourner of Adonais, description

Key Takeaways

• star trek
  A battle between gods and aliens unfolds with Apollo disguised as a Greek god.
• TOS
  The episode “Who Mourns Adonais?” Although Apollo is seen as an alien, we accept that the ancient Greeks understood him as a god.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks
  Introducing the demi-god, Ensign Oli.

Since the premiere, star trek It tackles complex topics and asks questions that make fans think differently about the world. Although Gene Roddenberry star trek The Creator was not a religious man, and he and others behind him Original Series (TOS) I saw the power of the narrative to question spirituality and even the existence of God or a single god.

They covered this topic in depth in the second season. TOS The episode “Who Mourns Adonais?” This episode became famous for the scene where a giant floating green hand grabs the Enterprise and tries to destroy it. The disembodied hand belonged to the Greek god Apollo, the god of light and purity.

The time Kirk met God

As a giant green hand held the Enterprise in a literal death grip, a vision of a giant head adorned with laurel leaves appeared and his voice echoed throughout the Enterprise. The giant head called the crew his “beloved children” and welcomed them down to his planet, their “home.”

Captain Kirk took a landing party to the surface of a planet known as Pollux IV. When he, Lieutenant Scotty, Dr. McCoy, Ensign Chekov, and Lieutenant Palamas arrived, they were greeted by a handsome man wearing gold laurel wreaths, gold robes with insignia, and gold sandals. His aesthetic was reminiscent of the ancient Greeks, as was his architecture on Earth. He introduced himself as Apollo.

Of course, the members of the landing force did not actually believe that he was a Greek god. In fact, Dr. McCoy's triple coder scans showed that he was basically human. But there was one more organ in his chest that McCoy couldn't explain. Apollo, enraged by their suspicions, transformed into his gigantic form and exploded.

Welcome to Olympus, Captain Kirk!

Apollo demanded their worship and devotion just as the ancient Greeks gave him. He spoke about the period in great detail, and his personality matched the description of Apollo from Greek mythology. When the sailors refused to worship him, he shot them with lightning, a power Apollo was known to have as the son of Zeus.

Was Apollo really a god?

Although the landing party could not explain Apollo's supernatural abilities, they still did not believe that he was actually an ancient Greek god. Kirk then posed one of the most interesting questions. star trek The franchise has dealt with this before. What if the beings we humans understand as “gods” are actually aliens?

He suggested that if they accepted Apollo's story and detailed how he and the rest of the Greek pantheon visited Earth thousands of years ago, it was logical that people at the time would have interpreted these alien visitors as gods. After all, they possessed supernatural powers the Greeks had never seen before and had no concept of life beyond Earth. How can we interpret alien visitors if they are not gods?

The landing force concluded that Apollo was in fact Apollo, a being known to the ancient Greeks as the god of light and purity, although he was clearly not a god. After some research, they discovered that Apollo was able to channel energy from any energy source through his body, creating “lightning” that he shot from his fingers.

star trek Throughout the franchise, the concept of aliens being worshiped as gods has been taken on several times. that TOS The cast revisits this topic. Star Trek V: The Last Frontier When they discover an alien who presents himself as a Judeo-Christian version of God. at next generation In the episode “Who Watches the Watchers”, Captain Picard discovered a Starfleet observation outpost on the planet and visited a pre-warp society that began worshiping Starfleet officers as gods.

Of course, the deepest and most nuanced exploration of “neo-alien” deep space nine With “wormhole alien/prophet”. In the first episode of DS9Commander Benjamin Sisko discovers that the Bajoran “gods”, The Prophets, are actually immaterial aliens living inside a stable wormhole in space outside Bajor's orbit.

spoiler Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5, Episode 6 is approaching.

'Star Trek: Lower Dex' demigod

Latest episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks“Of Gods and Angles” introduces a new character named Ensign Olly. The first thing people notice when they see her is her laurel wreath, the same one worn by a being named Apollo whom Captain Kirk met a century ago. It turns out she was related to Apollo. Zeus is her grandfather, and like her family, Ensign Olly can channel electricity from any nearby source through his body and deliver it to his target.

Unfortunately, Ensign Ollie cannot control his power as well as Apollo. She continues to channel energy away from the ship and creates energy surges that destroy whatever she's working on, which is not a great skill for an engineer. Because of this, Olly has already been kicked off several ships by the time he gets to Cerritos.

Lieutenant Mariner is a former loser who takes on the role of Olly's mentor, helping Olly figure out how to use his powers for good. Seeing the eternal rebel Mariner as a mentor is another nod to how far Lower Deckers has come since the show began.

It's unclear whether Ensign Olly will appear in the remaining episodes. lower deckBut her presence in this episode canonizes Starfleet's first demigod. But as Captain Freeman points out, Starfleet does not condone the use of the term demigod.

source: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Lower Dex