The Vulcan Vault

This looks like a bad 1980′s music video…

First you get this type of tension…

Then you get the smiles.

Then it becomes a possibility:

Then you get the saddest episode ever:

And in Year of Hell…

I freaking love them…

And my favorite blooper ever:

Kes Fashion Project

6. Pan (Cold Fire, Lifesigns, Resolutions, Remember, Warlord, Before and After, Fury)

This outfit is the most drab of any Kes wears in color, shape, and textile – but it is firmly within her ‘Tinker Bell’ aesthetic and incredibly interesting in context. Cold Fire, Warlord, Before and After, and Fury are significant episodes within Kes’s arc on the series and all deal with ‘what if’ scenarios. It’s especially interesting that facsimiles of this look appear on the very young Kes in Before and After and the younger Kes in Fury (bottom two screencaps). Both those looks are ostensibly different from the tunic-dress she wears in the other five episodes and the promotional photos at the top, but they are close enough to be considered variations on the same – as are the appearances of “Kes” in those two scenes. Both are Kes and are also not exactly Kes, and both are a younger and more innocent Kes fighting to return a present Kes to equilibrium. The same logic covers the added vest she wears in Warlord.

In the staged promo photos she somehow resembles a space-stewardess, a rural student in a school uniform, and Peter Pan all at once – while also still looking like Kes. In the caps she blends in with Voyager’s backgrounds more than she does in her brighter choices, which is also interesting in the context of these episodes. For example in Cold Fire Kes is given the opportunity to leave while in Resolutions she (and the rest of the crew) lose Janeway and Chakotay, the parental figures of their surrogate family. What then does Voyager represent for Kes? Freedom, exploration, family, belonging, innocence lost and found – these are themes that recur in both Kes-centric stories and Kes’s roles within others’ stories such as helping the Doctor explore love and attraction in Lifesigns. In these varied ways Kes is a space-stewardess, a rural student in a school uniform, and Peter Pan all at once, as well as much more and always herself. 

It’s time for a giveaway! The Vulcan script items in my shop are a collaboration with anifanatical at trekkietreasures - check out her amazing jewelry- and we are doing a Vulcan Script Giveaway! Her giveaway can be found here. (Make sure you reblog her post to be eligible for her prizes.)

There will be TWO winners selected. The first winner has their pick of any TWO Vulcan Script items in my shop; the second winner has their pick of any ONE Vulcan Script item.

To enter you are allowed ONE REBLOG and ONE LIKE per day. Each note gets you one entry and I’ll use a random number generator to pick the winner. (I’m not responsible for any tumblr fuckary i.e. lost reblog’s or likes.)

You do not have to follow me to enter- however, if you like Star Trek enough to use one of these bags, I’d say you have a good chance of liking my blog.

The giveaway will close on Sunday July 5th at 9PM PST  Sunday July 12th at 9PM PST! The winner will be tagged in a post and I’ll also send an ask, so be sure yours is open. The winners will have 24 hours to respond to the message. If I don’t receive a response within 24 hours, I will select another recipient.

SO so so sorry about this. I hope it don’t cause too much confusion. To make if up to you all, I’ll add one more winner to the giveaway:

Janeway posts coffee, dogs, space phenomenon and every once in a while a drunk post that Tuvok deletes immediately but Tom always reblogs first.

Chakotay posts Quotes of the Day, mindfulness tips, pictures of nature and photos of himself with old Maquis friends.

Tuvok claims to not have one but secretly follows everyone from a tumblr called “ask Voyager’s Senior Staff” that answers asks for the Bridge crew and memes. He can also hack into everyone else’s, as necessary.

B’Elanna changes her username every 90 days or so, routinely deletes posts or her entire blog on a whim, has been accused of being a Social Justice Warrior despite at least 80% of her posts being about robotics and engineering.

Tom posts gifs from 20th century TV shows, cars, and shuttlecraft races. And he’s the meme king.

Harry posts performances of Jazz musicians, pictures of Earth, and things he knows the others like tagged with their usernames.

The Doctor posts daily health tips and weekly articles on disgusting medical issues that could happen to the crew if they DON’T COME IN FOR THEIR DAMN VISIT. Also political statements about being alive.

Neelix posts candid photos of the crew, fairy tales from various cultures, recipes, and images of Kes that walk the line between cute and creepy. He also reblogs all of Chakotay’s quotes and The Doctor’s tips.

Kes posts photos of all the interesting species they’ve encountered as well as flowers and plants. Also kittens and kitten equivalents.

Seven doesn’t understand so she just posts her official logs. Janeway tries to explain so she starts posting coffee, dogs, space phenomenon. Janeway sighs and tells her “Seven, NO, things YOU like” so then Seven posts pictures of Janeway. She also posts about Janeway’s service record, which Tuvok promptly deletes starting a war of tumblr attrition because Seven doesn’t like her things being tampered with, even by Tuvok. Eventually he explains to her why her posts are inappropriate and while she disagrees, she stops out of respect for authority. 

I guess I should have added more context to that “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” post, but it never occurred to me that it would be reblogged by anyone who wasn’t familiar with the episode/scene, let alone that it would spark any debate. (I’ve had this blog for three months; I’m still not used to Tumblr.)

The scene is part of an episode where the Enterprise accidentally time travels back to the 1960s (as you do) and (for reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture) beams aboard a bewildered US Air Force pilot from the same period. Their guest, Captain Christopher, is walking with Captain Kirk when they see a female crewmember (an unnamed character) who exchanges “good morning”s with Kirk as they pass.

Christopher stops mid-step and stares after her. He is gobsmacked because it’s the late 1960s, and in his world, in his time, women were not a part of air and space programs or military service (with exceptions, of course, and not to diminish the many contributions of women to space exploration and the armed forces). To see a woman strolling the halls of a highly advanced spaceship, casually exchanging greetings with its captain, is astonishing to him.

I made a post about this scene because of the way Kirk responds: he takes Christopher by the arm, steers him away from the woman, and explains in two words that the person Christopher has seen is not just “a woman”—she is a crewman. Not a secretary, not a wife, but a member of the ship’s crew.

(I think it’s worth noting that in Starfleet, “crewman” is actually the lowest enlisted rank, the equivalent of a private or an airman, although it could also be a generic term referring to any member of the ship’s crew. For a guy from the 1960s, the idea of a female “airman” would have been unthinkable.)

Moreover, to a casual television viewer in 1967, this would have expressed succinctly Star Trek’s vision of the future, a future in which women and men served and explored side by side as equals.

(It also serves as a reminder that Jim Kirk is not the skirt-chasing, womanizing, misogynist stereotype people make him out to be.)

This episode was written by DC Fontana, one of the few female staff writers in Hollywood at the time. She was 27 years old when this episode first aired.