Name: Spock, Messiah!
Authors: Theodore R. Cogswell and Charles A. Spano Jr.
Publication Date: 11/1976
Publisher: Bantam Books
Page Number: 182
Historian’s Note:
After the book Spock Must Die and before the episode More Tribbles More Trouble
Cast of Characters: Captain James T. Kirk Commander
Spock Dr. Leonard H. McCoy
AKA “Bones” Lieutenant
Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”
Lieutenant Commander Pulaski Lieutenant Commander Helman Lieutenant Commander Dobshansky Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Lieutenant Kyle Lieutenant Leslie Dr. Joseph M'Benga Lieutenant Vitali Lieutenant Rogers Lieutenant Peters Lieutenant Dawson Nurse Christine Chapel Ensign Pavel Chekov Ensign Sara George Ensign Shaffer Chag
Gara Ker Kaseme Greth
Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: Kyros
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise
is exploring a new planet with a civilization that I would say is on the cusp
of an industrial revolution but I am not sure.
What makes this mission unique is they will be testing out this new
equipment called: telescan cephalic implants. These implants link the user up with a native
member of the planet. How they select
the native profiles and link their implants to them is never explained. Nevertheless, the one with the implant links
with a native, who is referred to as their ‘dop.’ Once impacted they implantee has access to
their dop’s mind and memories. Now this
strikes me as criminally invasive breach of privacy, but it is part of this
story. Almost right away these devices start
to cause problems, particularly Ensign Sara George whose ‘dop’ is a
stripper/hooker and the young officer finds herself trying to seduce people
particularly Mr. Spock.
A problem develops as it is discovered that radiation from a distant star is entering the solar system. Kirk recalls all the landing parties back to the ship. Spock however is still missing. Eventually a crewman finds a message written by Spock. When Kirk reads the message and it is clear that Spock has gone off the deep end. It appears that the local ‘dop’ that Spock is connected to is some sort of religious fanatic named Chag Gara, who calls himself “the Messiah.” Instead of Spock being able to access his mind Gara’s madness has allowed him to take over Spock’s. Spock is now going to carry out the mission of the Messiah. Now the planet’s atmosphere provides shielding from the radiation. The Enterprise could leave and then collect Spock later. However, Spock when he was last on the ship stole the dilithium crystals. Now they can barely maintain orbit and will die either by radiation poisoning or by crashing into the planet.
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| The Enterprise may fall to its doom!! |
Kirk investigates how this could
happen to Spock and ultimately finds it was Ensign George who was also really
affect by her lady-of-the-night dop, concluded that Spock needed this jolt of
emotion. Normally, Ensign George is very
Vulcan-like but her dop made her super sexy so she thought Spock would like a
taste. Kirk concludes that like Spock,
George can’t be held responsible for her own actions. However, he and Dr. McCoy now feel she can
control it.
The landing party of Kirk, McCoy, Chekov, and George beam down to the planet. George tries to seduce her way to Char Gara but Spock has already arrived to remove his dop from potential Starfleet hands. It turns out that the Enterprise can easily replicate this culture’s currency. As such, they quickly use it to establish some corruptions for the sake of preserving the Prime Directive. (Yes, that doesn’t make that much sense but I think what they are trying to do is minimize the cultural damage. Some corruption won’t alter the culture while a crazy Spock establishing a theocracy will.)
 |
| Sneaking around trying to save Spock |
Having missed their earlier chance,
they need to find a way to get close to the crazy Spock hybrid. The landing party runs into a disgraced
healer named Ker Kaseme, who apparently lost his job for some “me too” reasons.
The landing party befriends him and as
such they use their resources to restore him to his place as community healer
so they can use his contacts to try and get a hold of Spock. This almost works as the now no-longer-disgraced
healer gets them close to “the Messiah.”
However, “the Messiah” manages to do some verbal arm twisting and has
Sulu fly the Enterprise out over sky allowing him to tell the people of
“the miracle.” Surrounded by adoring
crowds the landing party is now endangered and must try to save themselves and
pass on returning Spock to the ship.
Fortunately, Scotty beams them up in time. They lick their wounds and McCoy orders Kirk to bed. All the landing party, but Ensign George, switch dops and are now skilled sailors called Beshwa. In addition to being sailors the Beshwa are different from most others in Kyrosian society in terms of dress and culture and that makes it easier for them to be “strange” around other people. They beam back down and the purchase a boat to help them sail where they need to go. This lasts only a short while until they are captured by a group of raiders working for the Messiah. The group was ordered to kill any outsider they find, but the landing party avoids this by McCoy convincing their leader, named Tram Bir that he can save his son, a young man named Alt. Alt is grateful for McCoy saving his life, and realizing his father’s ways quickly performs a ceremony to make them blood brothers. Now as members of the tribe they can’t be harmed. Nevertheless, one named Greth tried to rape Sara George and Chekov intervenes. They now have to fight a duel that results in Chekov being killed. McCoy is able to revive him making Greth into a fool.
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| Spock now dangerous |
Tram Bir is taking his tribe to
meet the Messiah but George can’t come because she is a woman. This is when Ensign George taps into her
drop, puts on the Orion Slave girl music from “The Cage,” and performs an
erotic strip tease to bring the house down.
Kirk convinces Tram Bir to introduce her to the Messiah.
They arrive in the area of the
Messiah and it is arranged for young sexy Ensign to dance for him. George plans to use a nullifier to break the
connection between Spock and Char Gara.
This fails as the Messiah was onto them. Now captured Kirk must deal with the crazy
Spock, who is wearing a mask following the Kyrosian custom. If Kirk were talking to a computer, he could have talked him into suicide, however crazy Spock isn’t a computer but instead
he is Spock’s intelligence under control of a zealot. So, the landing party is
sentenced to be burned to death.
Just before sentence is to be
carried out the real Spock comes to the rescue.
It turns out that the device they were testing backfired. Instead of Spock
being able to use Gara’s brain it went the other way around. Spock was so overwhelmed by Gara’s madness
that he became immobilized. So instead
of Gara’s brain controlling Spock’s body he was now the dop and Gara could now
use his knowledge and intelligence. George found him when she escaped Gara and
slapped the nullifier on this wrist making him go free. Spock was then able to end the revolution and
expose the Messiah as a fraud. They had back to the ship and the adventure was
over.
Additional thoughts: Of all the Star Trek characters
Spock is probably the one who has had his head messed with the most. He gets infected by spores, has his body taken over by evil aliens, has his brain stolen, duplicated by aliens, had his existence erased, split in two, and had to go do his childhood rite of passage as an adult. Why can’t we just let Spock
be Spock?
Okay these telescan cephalic implants are really weird not to mention evasive. I mean don’t the locals have any rights to not have their brains invaded by space aliens. Why would Starfleet ever think this was okay? Spock and Char Gara may have done everyone a favor with this adventure. Having a Starfleet officer almost allow a crazy local to take over the planet is clearly not in the Prime Directive’s best interest. We can successfully say that this experiment was a total failure.
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| Getting his mind taken over is just one of those things that happens to Spock |
One of the things I liked about
this book is how they demonstrated different shifts or “watches.” It is always
good to remember that the Enterprise is a starship with over four
hundred crew members. There is more to the crew than just the main cast. Yes, I understand why a show needs to focus
on its cast but it’s always good to see the books take advantage of their
medium. Also, Spock’s assistant chief
science officer was the highest ranking one we have seen, a lieutenant
commander. In fact, there were quite a
few lieutenant commanders in this book.
I did think that was odd. I would normally expect for such officers to
be heading their own departments on another starship instead of serving as
deputies here. Maybe these are new
promotions and they are all awaiting new assignments.
I do have a problem in this book
with the authors at times not seeming to understand the characters and their
relationships with one another. There is
a scene where Scotty objects to Sulu being left in command. Why?
He has been left in command many times in the past, and is considered to be somewhat good at it. Maybe Scotty is
concerned about all these other lieutenant commanders getting shafted? However, it doesn’t follow his normal
behavior. There was one bit of
characterization I did enjoy was, after Scotty rescued them with transporting
them back to the ship, before they return Dr. McCoy forces Captain Kirk to take
a nap. The best part is Kirk actually
complies. I suppose he must have been
tired.
I did like the references to the
book Spock Must Die. Granted it wasn’t my favorite story but I like the
idea of all Star Trek authors reading each other’s material so a consistent
narrative in terms of continuity can be backed up. However, considering how
messed up that previous book left the state of the Klingon Empire, maybe it
should be unmentioned until unless they find away to explain how the ending
came undone.
So, I am the only one who objected
to our fearless crew reinstalling a disgraced healer who probably lost job for
cause? I mean I realize they are in a desperate situation but really show some
respect for local government. I also did
not like when they misspelled “dilithium” as “trilithium” unless the authors
are trying to claim the Enterprise upgraded.
Now for my last point. It is no secret that Star Trek as a franchise
likes to sexualize its characters, especially *but not all* the female
characters. The franchise’s sexualized
characters are James Kirk from the classic series, Deanna Troi from The Next
Generation, Seven of Nine from Voyager, T’Pol of Enterprise,
and Chris Pike in Strange New Worlds.
Sexualizing its characters is just as much a part of Star Trek as
exploring strange new worlds, having epic space battles, and deep social
commentary from the point of view of an alien analogy. This doesn’t bother me; in fact, I rather
like it most of the time. However,
Ensign Sara George is the kinkiest character surpassing even the famous Yeoman
Barrows from “Shore Leave,” and it goes way too far. I think the authors had to have a crush on a
girl in their chemistry class in college or high school who the based the
science chick on. She is almost
Vulcan-like until she gets the stripper dop.
The only woman on the landing party and her only job is to arouse people
with her dances that go down to the fully nude.
Again, its too much anyone who told me they were offended by this book I
wouldn’t blame them. 
Not the kinkest character is Trek anymore!
Should it be canon: I don’t know. I guess it depends. I don’t really like the
book, but I don’t like “The Paradise Syndrome” and “Turnabout Intruder.” Those last two are clearly canon. The book is a nice self-contained story in
the spirt of the classic series. Even
the introduction of the telescan cephalic implants doesn’t hurt anything
because Starfleet clearly would have labeled it a failure after this
experiment. Kind of like the psycho-tricorder from “The Wolf in the Fold.” It
does however connect with Spock Must Die that does have some standing
continuity issues.
Cover Art: The cover is rather interesting. In the front you have Spock with his arms
crossed standing in front of an image of planet that has both the USS
Enterprise in orbit and a red haze surrounding it. I think the red haze is
supposed to represent the radiation cloud that is coming for the planet in the
story.
Final Grade: Final Grade 2 of 5
