Explanation of who mourns Adanais

Key conclusions

• Star Trek
  delved into Gods vs. Aliens with Apollo disguised as a Greek god.
• TOS
  episode “Who Mourns for Adanais?” regards Apollo as an alien, but admits that the ancient Greeks understood him as a god.
• Star Trek: The Lower Decks
  represents the demigod Ensign Oli.

Since the premiere Star Trek dealt with complex topics and asked questions that make his fans think about the world in a different way. Although Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek creator, was not a religious person, he and other minds behind The Original Series (TOS) saw the power of storytelling in raising questions about spirituality and even the existence of gods or one God.

They covered this topic in depth in the second season TOS with the episode “Who Mourns for Adanais?” This episode became famous, or perhaps infamous, for the scene where a giant green floating hand grabs the Enterprise and tries to crush it. This disembodied hand belonged to none other than Apollo, 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 crowned with laurel leaves appeared and his voice echoed throughout the Enterprise. Calling the crew his “beloved children”, the giant head welcomed them to his planet, their “home”.

Captain Kirk led the landing party to the surface of the planet, which was known as Pollux IV. When he, Lt. Scotty, Dr. McCoy, Ensign Chekhov, and Lt. Palomas arrived, they were greeted by a magnificent man wearing a golden laurel crown, draped golden robes, and golden sandals. Its aesthetics were reminiscent of the ancient Greeks, as was architecture on the planet. He introduced himself as Apollo.

Of course, the landing party didn't actually believe it was a Greek god. In fact, Dr. McCoy's tricorder scan showed him to be basically human, although he had one extra organ in his chest that McCoy couldn't explain. Angered by their doubts, Apollo transformed into a giant version of himself and thundered:

Welcome to Olympus, Captain Kirk!

Apollo demanded their worship and devotion, just as the ancient Greeks had given him. He spoke in detail about that time period, and his personality really matched the portrayal of Apollo in the Greek myths. When the crew refused to bow to him, he shot them with lightning bolts, a power Apollo was known to possess as the son of Zeus.

Was Apollo really a God?

Although the landing party members could not explain Apollo's supernatural abilities, they still did not believe that he was really an ancient Greek god. Kirk then asked one of the most interesting questions Star Trek franchise ever tackled – what if the beings people think of as “gods” were actually aliens?

He suggested that if they accept the story of Apollo, which details how he and the rest of the Greek pantheon were visitors to Earth thousands of years ago, then it is logical that the people of that time considered these alien visitors to be gods. After all, they possessed supernatural powers that the Greeks had never seen, and had no idea of ​​life outside of Earth. How else could they interpret the alien visitors if not as gods?

Desant concluded that although Apollo was clearly not a god, he was indeed a being known to the ancient Greeks as the god of light and purity, Apollo. After some research, they discover that Apollo is able to channel energy from any energy source through his body, creating “lightning bolts” that he shoots from his fingers.

Star Trek took on this concept of worshiping aliens as gods several more times throughout the franchise. The TOS the cast again addressed this theme in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier when they discovered an alien who presented himself as a Judeo-Christian version of God. In Art The next generation In the episode “Who's Watching the Watchers”, Captain Picard visited a pre-warp society that discovered a Starfleet observation post on their planet and began worshiping Starfleet officers as gods.

Undoubtedly, the most profound and subtle study of “alien gods” took place in Deep space nine with “Wormhole Aliens/Prophets”. In the very first episode DS9Commander Benjamin Sisko discovered that the Bajoran “gods”, the Prophets, were actually disembodied aliens living inside a stable wormhole in space outside Bajor's orbit.

Spoilers for Star Trek: The Lower Decks season 5, episode 6 is ahead.

Star Trek: The Lower Decks A demigod

The last episode Star Trek: The Lower DecksOf Gods and Angles introduces a new character named Ensign Ollie. The first thing people notice when they see her is her laurel crown, which is identical to the one worn by a being named Apollo that Captain Kirk met over a century ago. It turns out that she is connected with Apollo. Zeus is her grandfather, and like members of her family, Warrant Officer Ollie can channel electricity from any source around her through her body and direct it at a target.

Unfortunately, Ensign Ollie doesn't have as much control over his electrical capabilities as Apollo. She continues to channel energy from the ship and create energy surges that destroy everything she's working on, which is not a great skill for an engineer. Because of this, Ollie had already been kicked off several ships by the time she arrived on Cerritos.

Lt. Marine, herself destroyed, takes on the role of Ollie's mentor and helps her figure out how to use her powers for good. Seeing Mariner, the eternal rebel, as a mentor is another sign of how far the Lower Decks have come since the show began.

It is not yet clear if Warrant Officer Ollie will appear in any of the remaining episodes Lower decksbut her presence in this episode canonizes the first demigod in Starfleet. Although, as Captain Freeman points out, Starfleet doesn't justify using the term demigod.

Sources: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Lower Decks