#captain batel

Enterprise crew dancing to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham!

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS 3x02: "Wedding Bell Blues"

How I Would Have Written Marie Batel and Batel/Pike

This thought exercise follows the overall story SNW created but works to improve upon it and give Marie a better arc both on her own and romantically with Chris. Ready? Let’s go:

Season 1:

Strange New Worlds

We keep the premiere the way it is—grumpy Marie annoyed with Chris, feeling like she can’t get through to him, pushing him to confide in her and him refusing. Marie wants more from Chris than he’s willing to give, and that works for them for now. 

A Quality of Mercy

Instead of saying she misses Chris’ beard (his depression beard, y’all), Marie praises Chris for being clean-shaven and back at work. We keep the part that irrevocably turned me against her character—Marie arresting Una while apologizing to Chris—because now that’s going to be important for Marie’s character arc.

Season 2:

Ad Astra Per Aspera

Most of this episode would stay the same, especially because we’re going to hone in on a canon interaction as the essence of Marie and Chris separately and together:

BATEL: Don't be a child, Chris. I know you think I betrayed you. PIKE: Una should be on my bridge right now doing her job, not sitting in some jail cell. BATEL: I don't write the code, and my job ... our job ... PIKE: Oh, our job. BATEL: Is to uphold it, regardless. Una broke the law. PIKE: And what if the law is wrong?

Now, I don’t like that Marie calls Chris a child there, but this concept of Marie seeing her job as enforcing the law, not examining the law, is going to be key going forward. The only other change to this episode is to remove Marie from the transporter room scene at the end. I feel her presence there was unearned and, frankly, nonsensical as Una ordered everyone to their stations and Marie went off with the rest of the Enterprise crew when Marie … doesn’t have a station onboard and (if we’re being technical) shouldn’t be taking orders from another ship’s first officer.

Among the Lotus Eaters

(In an impressive display of willpower, I will restrain myself to trying to fix only the Marie and Chris aspects of this episode in a total rewrite to get to the goal of solidifying the Batel/Pike relationship.)

We start in the same place as we did in canon, Chris’ quarters, only now Chris and Marie are separately getting dressed after some intimacy. Chris happily muses aloud, “It’s incredible. Every time I think we’re not going to get back together, we end up like this.” And Marie gets pissed. “Why wouldn’t we get back together?” she demands. Chris explains how Marie arrested his first officer without warning him, then was hypocritical during the trial. Marie gets really mad and reiterates what she said two episodes before about it being her job to uphold the codes, not question the codes, and how the hell was she hypocritical? Chris gets angry at this point and calls Marie out for protecting him when she thought he was guilty of collusion by actively preventing him from taking the stand so he couldn’t potentially implicate himself. Marie falters at this accusation, and says whether to report Chris to the authorities had her up at night, she had no clear proof, only a strong suspicion, and Chris is choosing to think the worst of her by calling her hypocritical when what the hell morals does he stand for that are better than her codes? With that, Marie storms out and a necklace she had been fastening to be under her uniform shirt slides out and is accidentally left behind (to serve as a talisman for Chris later).

Next, in the scene where canon has Una call Chris out for inability to commit, we undo that generic bullshit and have Una call Chris out for not wanting a relationship with someone who tries to do the right thing in a different way than he does because Chris wants to be “the Boy Scout” and feel like the most moral person in a room. Chris weakly protests, and Una points out that she often doesn’t agree with Marie, either … but when Una was getting put into the brig on Marie’s ship, security officers attempted to say anti-Illyrian slurs and otherwise demean Una. “Captain Batel cited codes and regulations and directives at those officers, and she demanded that they treat me with the same dignity as any other prisoner. She took me aside, Chris, and she promised me that I would get a plea deal or a fair trial, that she wouldn’t just let Starfleet sweep me under the rug or out the door. I think she means well, even if it doesn’t always come out that way. And with your dating history, I think someone who means well could be good for you. No tricks. No lies. No games. And the look on her face when your name comes up proves she really cares about you. Maybe just … see where that goes?” And Chris holds Marie’s necklace as he thinks through his complicated feelings and attraction for Marie.

Cut to the end scene in Chris’ quarters. Marie is back for her necklace and Chris says that even when he didn’t have his memory, he knew her necklace signified something unfinished. And Chris wants to do something about that, wants to understand Marie better. Marie replies that she knows she can come off as a rule follower. But following the rules got her into the academy. Following the rules led her ship to be the only one on the front lines of the Klingon War to not lose a single crewmember. And maybe following the rules led her to this moment with a man who knows when the follow the rules and when to question them—something Marie has been thinking about and would like to maybe figure out for herself, with Chris’ help, if he’ll give her back her lucky necklace please. “Uh, why is this your lucky necklace?” Chris asks. And Marie answers: “It brought you home and brought us together—again—so I figure it must be a lucky necklace, right?” And we see that Una was correct about the look on Marie’s face of truly caring for Chris, and Chris sees it, too, and Chris says Marie can have the necklace back but would she also like to maybe not go back to her ship right away so they can spend more time together? Marie says she thinks it’s within the rules to spend a little more time together before she has to go. Cue the sexy smiles and mutual looks of true care for each other. 

Subspace Rhapsody

We keep the song where Chris confesses he freaks out and lies to Marie when they disagree and that their disagreements make him want to hide. (Note: I don’t like the idea of Chris behaving that way, but I can definitely buy that a guy who grew up arguing with his dad might want to avoid arguments in his love life.) What we change is the last scene so Marie doesn’t put up with Chris lying to her anymore. Instead, Marie apologizes for pushing so hard about the vacations and admits that she knew Chris was somewhat uncomfortable, but Marie felt like it would be worth going through some initial discomfort because it’s important for couples to take vacations together. Chris is both touched and bothered by this. “Couples should take vacations together. Another rule to follow?” he asks gently. Marie bristles a bit but owns up to it: “I guess. Maybe not a good one … and I can stop trying to follow it. But the most important rule is honesty, and you should have told me the truth instead of wanting to hide when we disagree.” And Chris owns up, too: “You’re right. And I’m sorry. I’m going to be honest with you from now on. Which means … which means telling you about my fate.” Marie is confused, of course, so Chris explains: “The details are still classified, but in … in, uh, not-so-many years from now, there’s going to be an accident. I’ll live, but I’ll be badly injured. I won’t be … I won’t be able to do things for myself. If you want to walk away from that, I understand.” But, while she’s visibly surprised and upset for Chris to have future suffering, Marie does the opposite of walk away. Marie steps over and hugs Chris. Tightly. Chris’ shoulders relax and Marie’s hand cradles the back of his head and there’s this palpable sense of love and comfort and understanding. Thus, the episode completes its exploration of three romantic relationships with La’an/Kirk stopping before it can start, Chapel/Spock falling apart after an intense beginning, and Batel/Pike becoming deeper, with more love and trust and mutual care.

Hegemony

We start with the same video call, but Marie doesn’t seem at all surprised (and she’s not on the planet to distribute vaccines, she’s there to help set up a legal system). Marie is comfortable with Chris’ attention and he’s comfortable calling her. The call cuts out with the Gorn attack on Marie’s location, though, and her ship sends out a Code 710, which states that no Starfleet or Federation starship should approach. Then, contact with the ship is lost. 

Chris decides, with the support of his senior staff, to go in anyway. 

“Do you think she would want you to break the rules on a Code 710?” Una asks Chris, to which he replies seriously but aware that Marie might be mad at him (or Marie might be dead), “I think she’s learning to question some rules. Maybe.”

Soon after, when Chris reunites with Marie, she’s justifiably upset that he arrived despite orders, and she’s also relieved to see him. (“Hey,” Chris says gently in response to Marie’s complaint that he’s there despite the Code 710 she knows her crew would issue under the circumstances, “Regulation 208, Paragraph 2: A captain can override the orders of other officers.” “You could use that regulation to justify doing almost anything,” Marie lovingly protests, to which Chris replies, “Well, the real reason is I was worried about you. But I figured a regulation might help.”)

And, when Chris tells Marie that her ship is destroyed and her crew dead, Marie—again, justifiably—freaks out.

“No,” she says, aware Chris is telling her the truth but also slamming into denial for one of her worst nightmares as a captain. “I know we lost communications, but … but I talked with Lieutenant Averies just this morning about their ideas for a new legal framework for the Chin'toka system. And Ensign Voubia is pregnant, almost ready for maternity leave. She asked me if I wanted to feel the baby kick before I left the bridge to beam down here. I said next time, and now you’re telling me there isn’t going to be a next time? You’re telling me my entire crew is dead? No, no, no. We followed every procedure, every code and protocol and regulation. This can’t be happening.”

But, of course, it is happening, and Marie is a good captain who cares about her crew even as everything she has ever believed in wasn’t enough to save them. 

Chris, meanwhile, has to grapple with the new reality that Marie is infected with Gorn eggs, which means his expectation that she would be the alive and able-bodied one has just been upended, and Chris is in a position he didn’t want of possibly outliving her. Had Chris taken comfort in the idea that he wouldn’t lose Marie when he was set to lose so much in terms of his own health and choices? Marie says (a touch bitterly and tinged with grief) that a captain should have gone down with her ship, so whatever time she now has with Chris is beyond what she should have gotten anyway.

So, when Marie sees Christine alive in the transporter room, Marie’s hope leaps that more crew members survived. But Christine explains that no one else made it out. And when Marie says to put her out (kill her) if Christine and Joseph can’t get the Gorn eggs out, Marie’s order comes from a place of an officer who has painfully lost her ship and crew and isn’t so sure she wants to go on without them. And Chris, who has always struggled with death and had been counting on Marie living even as his own health would decline, is set on breaking the rule Marie just put down because, to him, the higher moral purpose isn’t following the rules, it’s saving her life. 

Season 3

I haven’t seen this season, so I can’t go episode by episode. However, I know the broad strokes of what happened, and I’ve aimed to put my basic concepts in chronological order:

Upon awakening with life-saving Illyrian blood in her veins, Marie is angry that Chris and his crew not only didn’t follow her medical order for herself, but they also broke the Starfleet medical directive about not mixing human and Illyrian blood. Marie wants to report them all to Starfleet, even though that would mean Marie’s certain death, because rules are rules (and a grief-stricken Marie still isn’t so sure about living when her crew all died).

Marie and Chris have an argument. A good, productive argument in which he accuses her of clinging to rules as a security blanket, but her crew died even though they followed the rules and she’s alive because Chris and his crew broke the rules. And Marie being alive is good, something to celebrate, not something to feel badly about. Chris also says that Marie thinks she’s so morally superior because she follows rules, but the real morality is knowing when to listen to that voice inside that talks about the essentials: duty and life and love. Aaand, that’s the first time he’s said he loves her. Marie is a bit emotionally wrecked by her larger circumstances, and she says she doesn’t know what she believes anymore about the rules … but she does love him and has for a long time.

Marie, like anyone trying something new, becomes a bit of a wild toddler as she tests her new relationship to rules. She wants breakfast for dinner. She hangs Chris’ model sailing ship from the ceiling because it’s fun to watch a ship meant to be in water float through the air. She increases the gravity in Chris’ quarters to put more weight on her bones to help strengthen them, even though both Christine and Joseph say that‘s now how the science works. Marie also has her serious times, though. She sits with Una, and Marie says, “It’s not lost on me that the codes I was trying to enforce that would have kicked you out of Starfleet would have resulted in me being dead right now. Which, honestly, sometimes, doesn’t sound so bad. But other times … more and more of the time … I’m grateful for what you did to save my life … and I’m sorry for my part in a process that world have removed you from this ship and this crew.” And Una replies with heartfelt thanks and adds, “I know I broke the rules. And I see how some people could think what I did was wrong. Most of the time, I think it was worth it. But living with uncertainty … fighting to figure out our own right answers … maybe that’s part of what makes us alive?” Marie has a think on that—and decides to accept the nuance of not reporting the Enterprise crewmembers who broke the medical directive against mixing human and Illyrian blood because the directive, Marie reasons, like so many rules that discriminate against Illyrians, is a rule worth questioning, not simply following.

Meanwhile, Chris and Christine and Joseph are debating the morality of their decision to override Marie’s medical order. Joseph says a new cure not known by the patient at the time of the patient’s medical order has to count for something. “Something,” Christine agrees, “but not everything.” And these three, too, sit with nuance and uncertainty.

When Marie attacks Ensign Gamble, she puts herself in the brig for what she did. Because that’s a sensible rule, and Marie still does believe in following sensible rules. 

Chris, meanwhile, is trying to figure out how to be a caregiver without being overbearing, and he talks about this with Joseph. How will Chris feel when he’s the one dependent on others? Is it normal to sometimes become irritated and upset at the situation even when you love someone so, so much? Should Chris be all right with his girlfriend in the brig and not kind of enjoy having his quarters to himself again?

Marie needs advice, too, and during a checkup/blood transfusion once she’s out of the brig, Marie turns to Christine. How does Christine handle the switch to long distance with Roger after being together for a few months? Does Christine feel guilty that Christine doesn’t want to work with Roger even though Christine loves him and would miss him to be apart? “I do want to work with Roger one day,” Christine says, seeing through the questions to the truth of the concern, “but I’m not a captain of a starship dating a captain of a starship.” Marie nods, accepting the tacit advice, then later talks to Chris about how much she’ll miss seeing him every day and how much it bothers her that they’ll have limited time together before his accident, but Marie can’t put her life on hold and she wants to go back to work as soon as she’s medically cleared. Chris worries that this means Marie will feel as if she’s putting her life on hold again when he has his accident, but she says just the opposite—she’ll be there for him the way he’s been there for her, always.

When Vulcan-Chris is kind of a jerk to Marie (remember, I’m trying to fix this relationship, not the entire show), Marie doesn’t hold a grudge because holding a grudge against Chris when he wasn’t fully himself would be a dumb rule. Was she fully herself when she attacked Ensign Gamble, though? How do rules work when they bend? Marie is trying to figure this out and she feels like she’s almost got it.

Marie is picked up by another ship to go back to work, and she leaves behind her lucky necklace for Chris with a note saying she loves him and will see him soon.