Wrestling With Shadows

work

1.  (noun): Anything planned to happen, or a “rationalized lie”. The opposite of shoot.

2.  (verb): To methodically attack a single body part over the course of a match or an entire angle, setting up an appropriate finisher.

3.  (verb): To deceive or manipulate an audience in order to elicit a desired response.

"It took me a long time to reconcile myself to the idea that almost all my thoughts weren’t real, weren’t true – or, at least, weren’t mine.

All the things I “believed” were things I thought sounded good, admirable, respectable, courageous. They weren’t my things, however – I had stolen them. Most of them I had taken from books. Having “understood” them, abstractly, I presumed I had a right to them – presumed that I could adopt them, as if they were mine: presumed that they were me. My head was stuffed full of the ideas of others; stuffed full of arguments I could not logically refute. I did not know then that an irrefutable argument is not necessarily true, nor that the right to identify with certain ideas had to be earned.

I read something by Carl Jung, at about this point, that helped me understand what I was experiencing. It was Jung who formulated the concept of persona: the mask that “feigned individuality.” Adoption of such a mask, according to Jung, allowed each of us – and those around us – to believe that we were authentic. Jung said:

“When we analyse the persona we strip off the mask, and discover that what seemed to be individual is at bottom collective; in other words, that the persona was only a mask of the collective psyche. 

Fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be. He takes a name, earns a title, exercises a function, he is this or that. In a certain sense all this is real, yet in relation to the essential individuality of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a compromise formation, in making which others often have a greater share than he. 

The persona is a semblance, a two-dimensional reality, to give it a nickname.”

Despite my verbal facility, I was not real. 

I found this painful to admit."

Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadow

The Man of Strength hero archetype is further characterised by their tendency to be arrogant, supremely overconfident oafs who are punished and forced to learn to think by submission through trial by ordeal :

• Thor is total oaf who Loki constantly makes a complete fool of.

• Heracles is forcibly humbled by being tricked into being responsible for the deaths of his wife, his children and his best friend, Abderis.

• Samson : Worst Priest EVER....

So there *is* a wrestling connection to the Montreal Screwjob with the finishing submission-Hold — in the documentary, Brett Hart (The Man) maintains that Brett ‘Hitman’ Hart (The Character) never submitted in his final bout against Bad Guy Wrestler Shawn Michaels, which is True.

[Corridor]

(Troi rings the bell of 08-1402 and Timothy opens the door. He's wearing a jumper with a gold body section like a starfleet uniform) 

TROI: Hello, Timothy. Are you ready to go? 

TIMOTHY: Yes, Counsellor. I am ready. 

TROI: How are you feeling? 

TIMOTHY: I am functioning within established parameters. 

TROI: Established parameters? You sound like Data. 

TIMOTHY: I am an android. 

TROI: I see. Well, let's go for our walk, shall we? 

TIMOTHY: That would be acceptable.

[Ten Forward]

TROI: So, what would you like? 

TIMOTHY: Androids do not need to eat or drink. (spots a dessert being carried by a waiter) However, sometimes we like to taste things. A Tamarin frost, please. Would you like anything, Counsellor? 

TROI: No, I'm fine, thank you. 

TIMOTHY: As you wish. 

TROI: So you're no longer a human? 

TIMOTHY: I'm an android. 

TROI: When did this happen? 

TIMOTHY: I've always been an android. 

TROI: What's it like being an android? 

TIMOTHY: I am designed to exceed human capacity, both mentally and physically. But I do not experience emotions. 

TROI: You don't? No emotion at all? 

TIMOTHY: That is correct.

[Ready room]

(Data is included in the meeting) 

PICARD: An android? 

TROI: I know it sounds unusual, but it is understandable. Technically, it's called enantiodromia. Conversion into the opposite. Timothy went from human to machine, from being emotional to being emotionless. But the underlying trauma is still there. He's just found a new way to suppress it. 

PICARD: Counsellor, how long will this behaviour last? 

TROI: As long as he needs it to. Timothy is rebuilding his identity as best he can. The android persona is just one step along the way. As soon as he feels stronger and more sure of himself, it should drop away naturally. 

PICARD: I assume this is not a time to confront him about what happened to his ship. 

TROI: Not yet. The best thing we can do right now is to let Timothy take us where he wants to go. We should support the process and even encourage it. 

PICARD: Data, I would like you to make Timothy the best android he can possibly be.

[Timothy's quarters]

(Data checks his appearance in the mirror, then tries to brush Timothy's hair to match his own) 

DATA: Timothy, your head movements are counterproductive. Can you be still? 

TIMOTHY: But you do it. 

DATA: The servo mechanisms in my neck are designed to approximate human movements. I did not realize the effect was so distracting. 

TIMOTHY: I like it. Data, are there any other androids in Starfleet? 

DATA: No. I am the only one. 

TIMOTHY: How come you're not Captain? 

DATA: My service experience does not yet warrant such a position. 

TIMOTHY: Data, what's the scariest thing that ever happened to you? 

DATA: Fear is a quality that I do not possess. 

TIMOTHY: Because it's an emotion? 

DATA: Correct. 

TIMOTHY: But what if you had a nightmare? 

DATA: I have never had a nightmare. I do not require sleep. Timothy, are you having disturbing dreams? 

TIMOTHY: I do not require sleep. 

DATA: Is that satisfactory? (the hair) 

TIMOTHY: It's perfect.

[Sickbay]

CRUSHER: 

Transfer circuits are functioning properly. 

TIMOTHY: Within established parameters? 

CRUSHER: 

Absolutely. Input processing, pattern recognition, all within established parameters. 

DATA + TIMOTHY: 

Thank you, Doctor.

[Data's quarters]

(They are both painting - Data is doing a traditional pastoral landscape whilst Timothy's image is, well, angry) 

TIMOTHY: 

I ran out of red ochre. 

DATA: 

You may use mine. 

TIMOTHY: 

Thank you.

(yawns) 

DATA: 

Perhaps you should return to your quarters. 

TIMOTHY: 

I'm fine. 

The servo mechanisms in my mouth are designed to approximate human movements. 

(Data tries a yawn) 

TIMOTHY: 

That is not bad. 

DATA: 

Thank you. 

(re painting) 

It is very expressive. 

TIMOTHY: 

Thank you. 

DATA: 

Is your painting representative of something? 

TIMOTHY: 

It's just a painting. 

DATA: 

Timothy, you understand that you may speak with me about anything you wish? Any subject? 

TIMOTHY: 

I understand. 

DATA: 

At times, I too find it difficult to share my thoughts with others.

 I am not always confident that I am expressing myself in a manner which humans can comprehend. 

But do I know that —

(Data sees that Timothy has fallen asleep and carries him to the couch)

The Windmills of Reality Fight Back

“In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, who used to saddle the hack as well as handle the bill-hook. The age of this gentleman of ours was bordering on fifty; he was of a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a very early riser and a great sportsman. They will have it his surname was Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among the authors who write on the subject), although from reasonable conjectures it seems plain that he was called Quexana. This, however, is of but little importance to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a hair's breadth from the truth in the telling of it. 

You must know, then, that the above-named gentleman whenever he was at leisure (which was mostly all the year round) gave himself up to reading books of chivalry with such ardour and avidity that he almost entirely neglected the pursuit of his field-sports, and even the management of his property; and to such a pitch did his eagerness and infatuation go that he sold many an acre of tillageland to buy books of chivalry to read, and brought home as many of them as he could get. But of all there were none he liked so well as those of the famous Feliciano de Silva's composition, for their lucidity of style and complicated conceits were as pearls in his sight, particularly when in his reading he came upon courtships and cartels, where he often found passages like "the reason of the unreason with which my reason is afflicted so weakens my reason that with reason I murmur at your beauty;" or again, "the high heavens, that of your divinity divinely fortify you with the stars, render you deserving of the desert your greatness deserves." Over conceits of this sort the poor gentleman lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand them and worm the meaning out of them; what Aristotle himself could not have made out or extracted had he come to life again for that special purpose. He was not at all easy about the wounds which Don Belianis gave and took, because it seemed to him that, great as were the surgeons who had cured him, he must have had his face and body covered all over with seams and scars. He commended, however, the author's way of ending his book with the promise of that interminable adventure, and many a time was he tempted to take up his pen and finish it properly as is there proposed, which no doubt he would have done, and made a successful piece of work of it too, had not greater and more absorbing thoughts prevented him. 

Many an argument did he have with the curate of his village (a learned man, and a graduate of Siguenza) as to which had been the better knight, Palmerin of England or Amadis of Gaul. Master Nicholas, the village barber, however, used to say that neither of them came up to the Knight of Phoebus, and that if there was any that could compare with him it was Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of Gaul, because he had a spirit that was equal to every occasion, and was no finikin knight, nor lachrymose like his brother, while in the matter of valour he was not a whit behind him. 

In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits. His fancy grew full of what he used to read about in his books, enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of impossible nonsense; and it so possessed his mind that the whole fabric of invention and fancy he read of was true, that to him no history in the world had more reality in it. He used to say the Cid Ruy Diaz was a very good knight, but that he was not to be compared with the Knight of the Burning Sword who with one back-stroke cut in half two fierce and monstrous giants. He thought more of Bernardo del Carpio because at Roncesvalles he slew Roland in spite of enchantments, availing himself of the artifice of Hercules when he strangled Antaeus the son of Terra in his arms. He approved highly of the giant Morgante, because, although of the giant breed which is always arrogant and ill-conditioned, he alone was affable and well-bred. But above all he admired Reinaldos of Montalban, especially when he saw him sallying forth from his castle and robbing everyone he met, and when beyond the seas he stole that image of Mahomet which, as his history says, was entirely of gold. To have a bout of kicking at that traitor of a Ganelon he would have given his housekeeper, and his niece into the bargain. In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame. Already the poor man saw himself crowned by the might of his arm Emperor of Trebizond at least; and so, led away by the intense enjoyment he found in these pleasant fancies, he set himself forthwith to put his scheme into execution. The first thing he did was to clean up some armour that had belonged to his great-grandfather, and had been for ages lying forgotten in a corner eaten with rust and covered with mildew. He scoured and polished it as best he could, but he perceived one great defect in it, that it had no closed helmet, nothing but a simple morion. This deficiency, however, his ingenuity supplied, for he contrived a kind of half-helmet of pasteboard which, fitted on to the morion, looked like a whole one. It is true that, in order to see if it was strong and fit to stand a cut, he drew his sword and gave it a couple of slashes, the first of which undid in an instant what had taken him a week to do. The ease with which he had knocked it to pieces disconcerted him somewhat, and to guard against that danger he set to work again, fixing bars of iron on the inside until he was satisfied with its strength; and then, not caring to try any more experiments with it, he passed it and adopted it as a helmet of the most perfect construction. 

He next proceeded to inspect his hack, which, with more quartos than a real and more blemishes than the steed of Gonela, that "tantum pellis et ossa fuit," surpassed in his eyes the Bucephalus of Alexander or the Babieca of the Cid. Four days were spent in thinking what name to give him, because (as he said to himself) it was not right that a horse belonging to a knight so famous, and one with such merits of his own, should be without some distinctive name, and he strove to adapt it so as to indicate what he had been before belonging to a knight-errant, and what he then was; for it was only reasonable that, his master taking a new character, he should take a new name, and that it should be a distinguished and full-sounding one, befitting the new order and calling he was about to follow. 

And so, after having composed, struck out, rejected, added to, unmade, and remade a multitude of names out of his memory and fancy, he decided upon calling him Rocinante, a name, to his thinking, lofty, sonorous, and significant of his condition as a hack before he became what he now was, the first and foremost of all the hacks in the world. 

Having got a name for his horse so much to his taste, he was anxious to get one for himself, and he was eight days more pondering over this point, till at last he made up his mind to call himself "Don Quixote," whence, as has been already said, the authors of this veracious history have inferred that his name must have been beyond a doubt Quixada, and not Quesada as others would have it. Recollecting, however, that the valiant Amadis was not content to call himself curtly Amadis and nothing more, but added the name of his kingdom and country to make it famous, and called himself Amadis of Gaul, he, like a good knight, resolved to add on the name of his, and to style himself Don Quixote of La Mancha, whereby, he considered, he described accurately his origin and country, and did honour to it in taking his surname from it. 

So then, his armour being furbished, his morion turned into a helmet, his hack christened, and he himself confirmed, he came to the conclusion that nothing more was needed now but to look out for a lady to be in love with; for a knight-errant without love was like a tree without leaves or fruit, or a body without a soul. As he said to himself, "If, for my sins, or by my good fortune, I come across some giant hereabouts, a common occurrence with knights-errant, and overthrow him in one onslaught, or cleave him asunder to the waist, or, in short, vanquish and subdue him, will it not be well to have some one I may send him to as a present, that he may come in and fall on his knees before my sweet lady, and in a humble, submissive voice say, 'I am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the island of Malindrania, vanquished in single combat by the never sufficiently extolled knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded me to present myself before your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me at your pleasure'?" Oh, how our good gentleman enjoyed the delivery of this speech, especially when he had thought of some one to call his Lady! There was, so the story goes, in a village near his own a very good-looking farm-girl with whom he had been at one time in love, though, so far as is known, she never knew it nor gave a thought to the matter. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, and upon her he thought fit to confer the title of Lady of his Thoughts; and after some search for a name which should not be out of harmony with her own, and should suggest and indicate that of a princess and great lady, he decided upon calling her Dulcinea del Toboso—she being of El Toboso—a name, to his mind, musical, uncommon, and significant, like all those he had already bestowed upon himself and the things belonging to him.

ENEMY IMAGE

"It is from Schmitt that 

Samuel Huntington got his idea that 

An Enemy Image is absolutely necessary 

for the cohesion of any society. 

In reality, however, it is primarily an oligarchical society which 

requires an enemy image, 

because that society is based on 

an irrational principle 

of domination 

which cannot stand the scrutiny 

it would receive in peacetime. 

George Orwell understood this aspect well

when he suggested in 1984 that 

The Endless War among Oceania, 

Eurasia,and Eastasia was really 

A War waged by each of these states 

against its own population, 

 for the purpose of perpetuating 

a hierarchical society. 

The key concept dates back 

at least to Ibn Khaldun, 

the 13th century father of Sociology, 

who noted that The Arabs only 

stopped fighting each other when 

it was necessary to unite against 

An Outside Enemy.

from

CARL SCHMITT: POISON GAS ON GERMAN CITIES 

Leo Strauss was the product of three main intellectual and political influences. 

First among these was the proto-Nazi Friedrich Nietzsche, who was designated by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg as one of the four precursors of Hitlerism (the others were the operatic composer Richard Wagner, the anti-Semitic LaGarde, and the racist Houston Stewart Chamberlain). 

A second was the card-carrying Nazi Martin Heidegger, who praised Hitler in his inaugural speech as rector of the University of Freiburg. 

Finally, there is the card-carrying Nazi Carl Schmitt, the main legal theorist of the Third Reich. 

Schmitt’s ideas have directly contributed to the shattering of the US political consensus under the Bush regime. For Schmitt, politics comes down to the distinction between friend and foe. Starting from this extremely meager reduction of human motivation, he goes on to equate politics with warfare: if there is no warfare or conflict, then politics is dead, and life is no longer worth living. Schmitt therefore wants politics to be the monopoly of a strong state, and he does not like the idea that the state or the government could be influenced by the citizens. Schmitt’s thought is thus revealed as authoritarian, dictatorial, fascistic. It is from Schmitt that Samuel Huntington got his idea that an enemy image is absolutely necessary for the cohesion of any society. In reality, however, it is primarily an oligarchical society which requires an enemy image, because that society is based on an irrational principle of domination which cannot stand the scrutiny it would receive in peacetime. George Orwell understood this aspect well when he suggested in 1984 that the endless war among Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia was really a war waged by each of these states against its own population, for the purpose of perpetuating a hierarchical society. The key concept dates back at least to Ibn Khaldun, the 13th century father of sociology, who noted that the Arabs only stopped fighting each other when it was necessary to unite against an outside enemy. 

The card-carrying Nazi Schmitt was also a bitter opponent, not just of the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, but of international law and international treaties in general. Like his neocon descendants of today, he was an ardent unilateralist. Here are some of Schmitt’s typical comments about international law: “We are talking again about basic rights, about the basic rights of peoples and of states, and especially about the basic rights of those states who have, mindful of their own race, gotten themselves into the proper domestic order. Such a state is the national socialist state, which has led the German people back to an awareness of itself and its race. We proceed from the most self-evident of all basic rights, the right to one’s own existence. This is an inalienable, eternal basic right, in which the right to self-determination, self-defense, and to the means of self-defense is included. . . . From our solid standpoint we can see through that world of legalistic argumentation and that huge apparatus of treaties and pacts, and assign this tower of Babel to its rightful place in the history of international law.” 

Schmitt was the author of Article 48 of the 1919 Constitution of the Weimar Republic, which was the clause that allowed the Reich President to declare an emergency or state of siege and thereafter rule by decree. Schmitt’s activity during the 1920s was largely devoted to agitating in favor of the dissolution or marginalization of the Reichstag (parliament) and the institution of a dictatorship of the President of the Reich. One of Schmitt’s favorite sayings was that sovereignty meant the ability to declare a state of emergency. If you can find what organ of government has the ability to call out the state of siege, suspend the legislature, and impose martial law, Schmitt reasoned, you have found the place where sovereignty is actually located. 

For Schmitt, the concept of emergency rule is a totally lawless realm; under it, the ruling authority can do literally anything it wants, without regard to law, separation of powers, constitutional freedoms, equity, or anything else. In one of his essays Schmitt approvingly quotes a speech by the Reich Justice Minister Schiffer to the Reichstag on March 3, 1920, in which Schiffer points out that under Article 48, the Reich President can attack “German cities with poison gas, if that is, in the concrete case, the necessary measure for the re-establishment of law and order.” (Schmitt, Die Diktatur, 201) Schmitt was adamant that the emergency provisions of the Weimar constitution were theoretically and practically unlimited, and could be used to justify the greatest imaginable atrocities. We see here a tradition of thought, alive in the Schmittian-Straussian neocons of today, which would have no trouble in accommodating a crime on the scope of 9/ 11. 

In July, 1932 the Nazis and their allies carried out a cold coup against the minority Social Democratic caretaker government in Prussia, the largest political subdivision of Germany. The pro-Nazi government in Prussia then became the springboard for Hitler’s seizure of power via a legal coup in January 1933. Carl Schmitt was the lawyer for the coup forces in the German supreme court in Leipzig. (The parallels of this action to the Schwarzenegger/ Warren Buffet oligarchical coup in California in 2003 are more than suggestive, since California is the largest US political subdivision in the same way that Prussia was in Germany.) Schmitt also provided legal services for Hitler’s seizure of power in January, 1933. 

Carl Schmitt wrote articles for the gutter-level anti-Semitic tabloid Der Stürmer, edited by Julius Streicher. In 1934, when Hitler massacred the brown-shirted SA leader Ernst Röhm and his faction for supporting a second revolution against the financiers, industrialists, and the army, Schmitt quickly emerged as one of Hitler’s most shameless apologists. In his scurrilous pamphlet, “Der Führer Schützt das Recht” (“ The Führer defends the law”), Schmitt endorsed the Byzantine theory according to which law is a successful act of strength by the stronger party against the weaker. Schmitt wrote that the primary task of the Führer was “to distinguish friend from enemy . . . The Führer takes the warnings of German history seriously. That gives him the right and the power to found a new state and a new order. . . . The Führer protects the law from the worst abuse, when he–in the moment of danger–through the power of his leadership as supreme judge, directly creates law. His role as supreme judge flows from his role as supreme leader. Anyone who wants to separate one of these from the other is trying to unhinge the state with the help of the justice system. . . . the Führer himself determines the content and scope of a crime.” (Schmitt 200) 

This opens the door to every arbitrary outrage under color of law. While these ideas, so dear to today’s ruling neocons, have been applied to Abu Ghraib, it is also clear that they are equally applicable to 9/ 11.

Time Suit, Go!

Mason Lang: 

“I remember looking at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia when I was a little kid. 

That's what I love about illusions; they're right up there in front of you but somehow you don't see them... until suddenly you do... and I saw that I lived in a world where the symbol was more important than the reality. 

Where the menu was supposed to taste better than the meal. 

They're bombing planet Hollywood... those terrorists know exactly where the power lies. 

None of it's real. 

Kennedy was a good man. 

Nixon was a bad man. 

Is that true or is that just what we've been told is true? 

Half of the stars in Hollywood are gay pretending to be straight... 

(Walt Disney) was a shit. 

The moon landings happened in a studio. 

The America I thought I lived in was a trick; I'd only ever really seen it on TV, in comic books and movies... especially movies. 

The Rosicrucians who built this country wouldn't know where they were if you brought them here, would they? 

Not until you showed them Independence Day. 

That night when I pissed down over Manhattan, I saw time. I saw time itself... 

America has been in a declared state of national emergency since March 9th, 1933, giving the president powers to suspend freedom of speech and take control away from all communications media at any time. 

Who cares? Bruce Willis is here to save us all. The more I looked, the less real America became. 

And the less real it became, the stronger it got. 

Planet Hollywood.

One of their agents said to me... "however things turn out, you'll be working for us." 

That's what I was hoping he'd say. 

When they discover that the liquid processors in the decoy time suit work, they'll have to call me. 

I'll have to give them all my technology. 

They haven't quite figured out how to fight the wars of the 21st century yet... too bad. 

My homeopathic processors will be standard military issue by 2005. 

I've already installed trapdoor access into all of those systems. 

By 2012 I'll have control of the entire western military industrial complex.“

TIMELINES

KIRK: (to Spock Prime) 

Your coming back in time, changing History -- it's cheating.

SPOCK PRIME: 

A trick I learned from an old friend. 

(he does the salute) 

Live long and prosper.

History became Legend, Legend became Myth

Much That Once Was, is lost

And some things that should not have been forgotten, were lost.

For none now live who REMEMBER it.

AMY:
I killed someone. Madame Kovarian, in cold blood.

RIVER:
In an aborted timeline, 

in a World That Never Was.

AMY: 
Yeah, but I can remember it, so it happened, so I did it. 
What does that make me now...?

"How does it work? Off the central timeline we just left.

Events of importance often cause divergent “tributaries” to branch off the main timestream.

But what’s astounding is there’s far more to it than that.

On occasion, these tributaries return—sometimes feeding back into the central timeline, other times overlapping it briefly before charting an entirely new course.

An old friend is suddenly recalled after years of being forgotten.

A scrap of history becomes misremembered, even reinvented in the common wisdom.

There are hazards to Hypertime, of course.... 
Artifacts carried into differing hypertimelines dangerously break down the barriers between kingdoms...but you’ll learn more about that in the months and years to come."

“Some would have you believe that time is a House of Cards, and that if you remove one card, the house collapses.

The physics of time, however, allow for another possibility: remove that same card, and the house rebuilds itself— but never to its original form"

[Enterprise Bridge]

SPOCK: 

Have you confirmed that Nero is headed for Earth?

UHURA: 

Their trajectory suggests no other destination, Captain.

SPOCK: 

Thank you, Lieutenant.

(Kirk is seated in The Captain's Chair)

KIRK: 

Earth may be his next stop, but we have to assume every Federation planet's a target.

SPOCK: 

Out of The Chair.

CHEKOV: 

Well, if the Federation is a target, why didn't they destroy us?

SULU: 

Why would they? Why waste the weapons? 

You know... we obviously weren't a threat.

SPOCK: 

That is not it. He said he wanted me to see something. 

The destruction of my home planet.

MCCOY: 

How the hell did they do that, by the way? 

Where did the Romulans get that kind of weaponry?

SPOCK: 

The engineering comprehension necessary to artificially create a black hole may suggest an answer. 

Such technology could theoretically be manipulated to create a tunnel through space-time.

MCCOY: 

Dammit man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist.

Are you actually suggesting they're from The Future?!

SPOCK: 

If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, 

however improbable, must be The Truth.

MCCOY: 
How poetic.

KIRK: 
Then, what would an angry, future Romulan want with Captain Pike?

SULU: 
As Captain, he does know details of Starfleet's defenses.

KIRK: 
What we need to do is catch up to that ship. 
Disable it, take it over, and get Pike back.

SPOCK: 
We are technologically outmatched in every way. 
A rescue attempt would be illogical.

CHEKOV: 
Nero's ship would have to drop out of warp for us to overtake him.

KIRK: 
Then, what about assigning engineering crews to try and boost our warp gear?

SPOCK: 
Remaining power and crew are being used to repair radiation leaks on the lower decks...

KIRK: 
Okay, alright. There's got to be some way...

SPOCK: 
...we must gather with the rest of Starfleet, to balance the terms of the next engagement.

KIRK: 

There won't be a next engagement. 

By the time we've gathered, it'll be too late. 

But you say he's from The Future, knows what's going to happen, then the logical thing is to be unpredictable.

SPOCK: 

You are assuming that Nero knows how events are predicted to unfold. 

 

To the contrary, Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party.

UHURA: 
An alternate reality?

SPOCK: 
Precisely. Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted, our destinies have changed. 

 

Mr. Sulu, plot a course to the Laurentian system warp factor three.

KIRK: 
Spock, don't do that. 
Running back to the rest of the fleet for a, a, a confab is a massive waste of time...

SPOCK: 
...orders issued by Captain Pike when he left...

KIRK: 
He also ordered us to go back and get him. 
Spock, you are captain now! You have to be...

SPOCK: 
I am aware of my responsibilities, Mister...

KIRK: 
Every second we waste, Nero's getting closer to his next target.

SPOCK: 
That is correct and why I am instructing you to accept the fact that I alone...

KIRK: 
I will not allow us to go backwards...

MCCOY: 
Jim!

KIRK: 
...instead of hunting Nero down!

 

SPOCK: 
Security. Escort him out.

(two security officers grab Kirk and he starts to fight them off)

SECURITY OFFICER: 
Hey!

MCCOY: 
No, Jim!

(Spock stops the fight with a Vulcan nerve pinch)

SPOCK: 
Get him off this ship.

(Kirk is shot out of the Enterprise in an escape pod, into Delta Vega)

(Kirk's nearly eaten by the monster when the elder Spock shows up with a torch, scaring away the monster)

SPOCK PRIME: 
James T. Kirk.

KIRK: 
Excuse me?

SPOCK PRIME: 
How did you find me?

 

KIRK: 
How do you know my name?

 

SPOCK PRIME: 
I have been, and always shall be, your friend.

KIRK: 
Wha... oh, look... uh, I don't know you.

SPOCK PRIME: 
I am Spock.

SPOCK:

Father?

SPOCK PRIME:

I am Not Our Father. 
There are so few Vulcans left, we cannot afford to ignore each other.

SPOCK:

Then why did you send Kirk aboard, when you alone could have explained the truth?

SPOCK PRIME:

Because, you needed each other.

I could not deprive you of the revelation of all that you could accomplish together.

Of a friendship, that would define you both, in ways you cannot yet realize.

SPOCK:

How did you persuade him to keep your secret?

SPOCK PRIME:

He inferred that universe-ending paradoxes would ensue should he break his promise.

SPOCK:

You lied?

SPOCK PRIME:

Oh, I... I implied.

SPOCK:

A gamble.

SPOCK PRIME:

An Act of Faith.

One I hope that you will repeat in the future at Starfleet.

SPOCK:

In the face of extinction, it is only logical I resign my Starfleet commission and help rebuild our race.

SPOCK PRIME:

And yet, you CAN be in two places at once.

I urge you to remain in Starfleet.

I have already located a suitable planet on which to establish a Vulcan colony.

Spock, in this case, do yourself a favor -

 

Put Aside Logic. 

Do What Feels Right.

Since my customary farewell would appear oddly self-serving, I shall simply say : Good Luck.

Han + Leia

Han Solo :

We had a responsibility beyond The Cause.

We had a Baby.

We were so consumed by our principles, that we abandoned our Most Fundamental Duty.

Princess-General Leia Organa, 

Founding Mother of The New Republic

Senator for New Aalderaan : 

We were doing our duty.

Mimi Lurie: 

The struggle doesn't end just because you got tired of it. 

Nick Sloan: 

I didn't get tired of it. 

I grew up. 

Mimi Lurie: 

Well, we promised each other we weren't going to do that. 

Nick Sloan: 

Yeah, but it happened.

I am not the one fooling myself, it was over!

It wasn't... over.

It's still not over.

Every single thing we said then, is true today.

And every single day, it's getting worse.

That's not the point.

Oh, it's exactly the point, Nick!

I won't give myself up to a system I despise.

I won't give up my freedom and accept their version of what life is supposed to be.

Mimi, how free are you? Really?

Well, I'm not in jail.

I don't expect you to understand.

They have you.

Oh, like hell.

A system that protects the super-rich, and the super, super, super-rich,

And fucks over everyone else, and the planet to boot.

Mimi... Mimi, would you just stop?

Everyone who's given up and given in, they're living at the expense of what they once believed.

It's so sad!

You understood this, I'm sorry you've forgotten.

I wish I had forgotten!

Because my problem is

I can't stop remembering.

So if you've built a wall so high, more power to you, you're stronger than I am.

I'm will turn myself in... the day the politicians and corporations turn themselves in for all they've done.

That's the day I'll hand myself in.

Scout's fuckin' honor.

Stop hiding behind your fucking revolutionary rant.

Oh, don't turn it on me.

You know what I see?

I see the same person.

I see it, kid.

I see it in your eyes.

You can hide from everyone else in the world, and be somebody else, but not with me.

What are your memories, Mi?

The ones you can't run away from.

Hey!

We had a responsibility beyond The Cause.

We had a Baby.

We were so consumed by our principles, that we abandoned our most fundamental duty.

We were doing our duty, Nick.

We made a plan, that if anything ever went wrong....

Never should have carried out that plan.

...we would know exactly what we had to do.

We both agreed.

We were wrong.

We had no choice.

We should have known that we were wrong.

We both accepted it, and we both had to live with it.

It wasn't a dream... it was a possibility, we could have made a reality.

We could make them stop.

Yeah, we could change things, if we could make a difference.

I still believe in that possibility.

Is that all you believe?