Professor: Adventures
Professor at the Diner III
It seems there is a light. It is not garish. It is bright and white and somehow comforting. I look at it fully. There is an angel in the diner. I have heard about these beings from a planet many galaxies and light years away who travel through time and space, often appearing when all seems lost. The angel is a ChrX. When I see it fully, I see that the comfort overlies unconditional love. It is in this brilliant and wonderful light that I see beside me alf1, emanating the darkness that has engulfed me. The moment I recognize the play is the moment alf1’s grin fails as alf1 disappears into a pinpoint that is swallowed by light. I feel dazed. I feel better. I feel overfull. I have been saved by ChrX.
Star Trek: Like a Fairy Tale
Star Trek: Discovery, Season 3, Episode 6 revises a common version of “Red Riding Hood”. Captain Saru orders Commander Burnham to stay on the path: to be ready to jump to Argeth if necessary in order to help the new Federation of which the Discovery crew now is an accepted part. Commander Burnham, accompanied by Caption Georgiou, deviates from the path by going on an unsanctioned mission to Hunhau to retrieve a third black box in Book’s possession. The black box might provide an answer about the cause of the Burn.
Entry into Hunhau, Osyraa’s territory, is guarded by Osyraa’s nephew Tolor, a bully—or wolf—of whom Captain Georgiou is unafraid. Captain Georgiou dominates her conversation with Tolor—one of her rhetorical strategies to gain power–and becomes a hunter: a greater and more effective bully. She invokes the power of sight just like the wolf in “Red Riding Hood” by stating that Tolor’s boss, Osyraa, is watching him watching her. He then clears Captain Georgiou to land and states, “But I’ve got my eyes on you”. Captain Georgiou replies, “I don’t care about your eyes unless they were dangling from my belt”. With this remark, Captain Georgiou dismisses the power of sight demonstrated by Tolor. First, her invocation of Osyraa reduces his power. Then, because she refuses to recognize his power, he loses it. Furthermore, she indicates that to recognize—or care about—his power is to cut it off: to rip away sight from him entirely and to claim it as her own. In fact, that is what happens at Hunhau. Captain Georgiou and Commander Burnham, under the guise of hunting for original tech in the salvage yard, rescue Book, who had been captured, as well as Ryn the Andorian and all of the other males forced into labor by Osyraa, thus disabling part of Osyraa’s operation. Captain Georgiou recognizes that bullies “crumble like a cookie when they meet a bigger one”. To affect sight, then, the hunter does not consume but cuts to disable—the crumbling of the cookie to pieces. Star Trek: Discovery, Season 3, Episode 8, it becomes apparent that the wolf must be permanently disabled. Since Tolor failed his aunt Osyraa by losing Ryn, she feeds him to a tranceworm. Tolor does not become mesmerized—his sight is not fixed, or controlled. As a result, his death is painful. By feeding Tolor to the tranceworm, Osyraa cuts his sight with finality. One wolf reaches his end, but Osyraa and her Emerald Chain remain a threat.
In Episode 6, Captain Georgiou, Commander Burnham, and Book all make it back to Starfleet—or home—with the basket of goods—or the black box. Captain Georgiou and Commander Burnham as hunters and Osyraa as the head wolf undermine the traditional gender role of the male as hero and the female as victim, but because they are destructive and consume or end life, they also all are wolves with two in disguise.
Indigo Fall 