Okay okay okay. So I’ve seen Star Trek: First Contact about a hundred times and I can’t believe I never noticed this.
So first contact with the Vulcans happens, right? The Vulcan ship lands…
Ooh look an alien. Pointy ears!
He offers what we as Star Trek fans recognize as the traditional Vulcan greeting.
Zefram Cochrane tries to copy…
Haha he can’t do it.
So he of course offers what he knows to be a traditional greeting, namely a handshake.
And ah yes, what a wonderful moment. Two cultures are exchanging greetings, learning about each other. It’s awesome.
Until you remember that Vulcans kiss with their hands.
So basically, this Vulcan offered a nice polite “how do you do” and Zefram Cochrane offered smoochies.
I really hope this came up in conversation later.
The Vulcans did a Kirk on the whole human race.
LET ME JUST STOP YOU ALL FOR A SECOND.
The person above was right, Vulcan’s kiss with their hands. But typically, the way they kiss only involves their index and middle finger being pressed against another person’s. That is a kiss.
In, “The Search for Spock,” you see that in the Vulcan culture, just running your fingers against someone else’s can be considered sex (the scene is super strange, but it’s heavily implied, forgive me if I’m wrong).
So, going on that thought, this isn’t just a kiss.
This is like, a make-out session, or at least a long, passionate kiss.
I just, I just can’t get over it because:
1. There are are other Vulcan’s watching these guys, but the Vulcan in front just fucking accepts the kiss.
2. This takes a second right? Like, Zefram can’t do the Vulcan salute so he offers his hand and this Vulcan just gives him this face like, “oh, um, alright? I guess I shouldn’t refuse.” And he just ACCEPTS IT.
The best thing over all is, after they connect, this Vulcan just gives this guy bedroom eyes. It’s like he’s thinking, “well, bold of you sir, bold. Such a strong grip. Perhaps we can do this again in private.”
I just…
THIS GUY.
I love the beat after the human sticks out his hand. Where the Vulcan looks down and realizes what he’s expected to do and just internally goes “Humans are fucking WILD” and fucking goes for it, full on macks on the first human he’s ever met.
Okay, but let’s also consider that Spock’s dad was a famous ambassador. Who also famously married an alien and had the hybrid baby that was Spock.
Let’s be real. Given the differing touch standards of other species (and humanity is by no means the first alien race that the Vulcans have met), it’s almost 100% guaranteed that in Vulcan society, you want your Captain Kirks i.e. your bold and kinky types to be your First Contact ambassadors. Because they are the ones who, when the brand new alien they’ve just met tries to make out with them, just roll with it and avoid kicking things off with a diplomatic incident.
Now also consider this - Vulcans had as much of a hand in shaping the Federation as humans did. While humans ultimately took prominence in the ‘exploration’ side of things, and Vulcans dominated more of the R&D end, a lot of Starfleet’s protocols were heavily influenced by them both.
So it seems extremely likely that the reason why early Starfleet captains especially were pretty wild, is because it was intentional. The Vulcans took one look at someone like Jim Kirk and were just like ‘yup, captain material, fast track him to some kind of ambassadorial position if you can but otherwise at least make sure he’s on the ship that does a lot of First Contact stuff’ and the humans were just like ‘??? well?? okay???’
i realize i’m maybe like, the Nichest of markets here, but i really really really desperately want to watch further adventures of Diana Prince, Curator of Antiquities™
…like, imagine the interdepartmental meetings
Diana: we have recently acquired several exquisite pieces of very early minoan kamares ware. i feel a refresh of the gallery might encourage our visitors to–
some marketing dipshit: look, we can’t get people in the door for pottery. we need another big show, like can you get a vermeer or–
Diana of Themiscrya, Amazon, God-Killer, Daughter of Hippolyta: pottery is important
some marketing dipshit, lightly pissing himself: i agree
THIS but also I just wanted to add that although logic dictates that Diana has to move around bc of the whole immortal thing I’m so enamored with the idea of “Mlle. Prince Has Always Been At the Louvre” in which everyone who works there just thinks it’s too gauche to bring up that she should be 95.
oh my God, yes, headcanon 100000000% accepted
“non, emil. never again ask why her file system uses the pre-war numbering. you are new here. we do not speak of this.”
I read this book, a hard sci fi novel in high school. Fucked if I can remember the title but the basic premise was that there was a brain-nanite thing that you could inhale and it would change things. Also the Aliens enclosed the whole solar system in some sort of shield. Nothing in, nothing out.
There was a woman who was part of an experiment in probability. Her brain-mod would allow her to not only predict, but alter the ‘up’ or ‘down’ spin of some sort of ion or another that was completely random.
But think about it. Humans are against ALL ODDS the craziest, most intelligent, cruelest, most compassionate, gentlest, harshest beings. There’s no predicting a human because we don’t actually follow the universal laws of probability. To attempt to graph our behavior patterns in a sane quantifiable manner leaves you a little nuts. We perservere, survive. We have NO CHILL when it comes to some things, and are extremely lax about others. We can’t really be predicted, because we’re always altering our realities.
Even our greatest heroes face ‘impossible’ odds and survive. Especially, even. A human is at their shining best when the entire universe is in a point of flux. When choices become the most important things we have. We stare into the blackness between the stars and wonder. Hope. Dream. Wish. We change energy with a thought. We reach out and touch not just things but people, hearts, minds.
Aliens just watch us and are either baffled, indulgent, or terrified. We’re tiny beings in the grand scheme. Numerous but fragile. Perfectly adapted to hostile environs. We have taken aggressive adaptation to the point of modifying our bodies for our environments synthetically. We can take a situation from ‘we’re all gonna die’ to ‘holy shit we lived’ with just one flash of genius. We can stare into the face of danger and smile. We live for those life or death adrenaline scenarios. Some of us have made entire careers out of being batshit crazy.
Humans warp probability.
It’s technically classed as a psi ability in some alien lexicons, but one that’s passive. There’s various grades of it too. Captain Kirk, for instance, is like ‘Let’s make some noise’ and they all survive. Han Solo says ‘Never tell me the odds!”. Arthur Dent reaches into a bag and produces the question that fits the answer. River Tam turns the tide of battle with a mental flip of a switch. Samantha Carter again and again builds doorways between stars, sometimes with nothing more than her wits and the equivalent of a paperclip and tinfoil. Jane Foster survives longer than anyone else ever has with the literal force of chaos flowing through her veins. If she wasn’t human, she’d never have lived long enough to save her world.
These are all people who are extraordinary, who through their sheer humanity have built new futures.
Aliens can’t quanitfy us because we’re chaos in motion. Rogue physics, the edges of cosmic constants. Variables with no fixed value. We make choices, and reach out and touch other beings, and we take logic and probability and the most likely outcome of things and twist them into new shapes. It’s more than just creative thinking, high-stakes adaptation, or even empathy.
A human can literally even the odds.
That’s why alien crews like keeping humans around. We’re crazy and unpredictable and able to survive just about anything. We’re loyal for the most part, to love or money or Crew. Once a human decides that you’re theirs, they will literally warp the universal constants for their crew.
That’s our alien superpower, I think.
I was listening to some guy (can’t remember his name now!) on the radio the other day who was talking about how we don’t fully understand the human consciousness. Humans control their environment without even realizing what they are doing in most cases.
.Some interesting watching you might like: What the bleep do we know? A documentary about human consciousness. Will legit blow your mind.
Look, this is my litmus test: I pretend I am the original Earl of Sandwich. I have asked for non-bread foods to be brought to me inside bread, that I might more easily consume them one-handed while gambling.
This does not enable my wretched regency habits. This is not what I asked for. I do not deign to grace it with the name of my house.
This is the most important addition to the sandwich discourse I have ever read.
THIS IS THE BEST LITMUS TEST FOR SANDWICH-OR-NOT I HAVE SEEN.
A sandwich isn’t just a base concept but a function. Goddamn that’s a brilliant test.
By this test, is pizza a sandwich?
If the answer is no because it’s not encased in bread, then what about a calzone?
By this logic, any calzone of a small enough size to be held in one hand with a sturdy enough crust not to drip would in fact qualify as a sandwich, which makes me mildly uncomfortable.
