Synopsis: Searching on a small planet for a drug to cure an epidemic on the Enterprise, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy meet a gifted and very old man.
In “Requiem for Methuselah” we meet Mr. Flint, a brilliant immortal individual trying to create his ideal mate. As he is brilliant, he wants her to be as well, and as Flint is immortal, he creates her as an android – Rayna Kapec. But he does not let her know she is an android. When we first see Rayna, she is beautiful and Logos incarnate, yet she does not seem to have been able to integrate her inner Eros into her psyche.
When Captain James T. Kirk and the others arrive, Rayna, had never seen any other males except Flint and she is intrigued. Flint notices that Rayna’s Eros drive is being activated and he acts to force this unconscious drive to the surface, by initiating a love affair between Kirk and Rayna. But forcing the unconscious and conscious ego to confront one another is a tricky business, in humans at least, and we see here in androids as well. The defense mechanisms of Rayna’s artificially perfect ego conscious fought against the conflicting emotions she was feeling for Kirk and Flint. Rayna simply shut down. This mirrors what occurred to the female replicant, Lorisa, in “That Which Survives,” when Kirk stated that the computer on that planetoid had made the replicant too perfect because it included her emotions when it could not absorb the conflicts the feelings brought into her artificial ego conscious.
Among other things “Requiem for Methuselah” seems to illustrate that it is necessary for us to let some unconscious emotions penetrate our ego defenses to be more human, and that this is what makes us unique and different from artificial intelligences.
Original post created 29 March 2021
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