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Recap / Star Trek S2 E25 "Bread and Circuses"

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Original air date: March 15, 1968

After coming across the wreckage of the S. S. Beagle , Kirk, Spock and Bones beam down to the surface of the nearest planet. This planet is a class M planet remarkably like Earth down to the land/water ratio. Atmosphere and radio signals hint a technological advancement equal to 20th century Earth. They beam down to a part of the wilderness close to city limits, thinking it deserted when they're taken captive by slaves on the run. After Kirk impresses them with his communicator, they take him in and tell him about the Empire. Apparently, they get very angry when slaves worship a different god. Kirk and company gather the runaway slaves to be "sun" worshipers. It seems the civilization on this planet is a reflection of a modern day Earth where Rome never fell.

When Kirk and company are captured and taken to the city, they find out what happened to the crew of the Beagle . Merik was convinced by a local not to spread knowledge of their people, and was offered a life of luxury as First Citizen in return for selling out his entire crew to fight in the gladiator pits.

The Fan Nickname for this episode is "The One with the Space Romans ".

Tropes and Circuses:

• 30-Second Blackout : Scotty causes one to help Kirk and company escape.
• Affably Evil : Proconsul Claudius Marcus. While he's shown to be annoyed by Kirk's defiance, he never takes it personally, even arranging for a night of pleasure for Kirk with his personal slave girl before his execution the following day. On thinking that Kirk has persuaded the girl to steal back his communicator, Marcus says he won't punish her for that , and he will see that Kirk and his friends are given a swift execution.
• Aliens Speaking English : The fact that the locals speak English with 20th Century Earth idioms is noted. Though that doesn't explain why Latin isn't the dominant language instead. It's pretty much just there to make the sun/son homophone work.
• Alternate Universe : Though only in the "What if Rome never fell?" sense. Instead of an alternate history Earth, we have a planet so similar to Earth it somehow evolved a Roman Empire, a Christian-like religion, and the Madsen submachine gun.
• Ancient Rome : This planet's hat.
• Spock claims that about six million people died in WWI and eleven million in WWII. Low-end estimates place the number of dead in the first at about fifteen million, and of the second at an astounding seventy million, with the Soviet Union and China each losing far more than eleven million by themselves. The lowest estimate for Soviet deaths is nearly double eleven million.
• Kirk, Bones and Spock all spell out what the Prime Directive is, even though they presumably know what that is.
• Scotty also spells out what Condition Green is for his Log.
• Bones is about to be killed in the arena, so Spock disables his opponent and comes to his rescue.
• Kirk is about to be executed on live television when Flavius charges in with a sword and Scotty kills the power.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor : The sequence with the televised gladiator game show gets in a good few jabs at network television and the pursuit of ratings. This episode was made when Star Trek was facing cancellation at the end of the season, and the show's makers were not feeling charitable toward the network.
• Blood Sport : Barbarians (i.e., people not of this planet) and slaves fight to the death in gladiator pits. It's treated like Monday Night Football .
• Bread and Circuses : Look at the title.
• Bronson Canyon and Caves : Bronson Canyon is the place where Kirk and Co encounter the rebel slaves.
• Covert Distress Code : Kirk tells Scotty "Condition Green, everything's fine." However, "Condition Green" is their code for "I'm in trouble, but don't do anything to help." Scotty has to figure out a way to help Kirk without breaking the Prime Directive. He does.
• Cut the Juice : Scotty has Enterprise overload the power grid as a show of force . Cue the lights going out in the studio giving Kirk a chance to escape.
• Deadpan Snarker : When an armed man points at Spock's pointed ears and says "What do you call those?" He calmly replies "I call them ears." When asked if he's trying to be funny, he flatly replies, "Never."
• Defiant to the End : Merik's last move is to throw Kirk his communicator.
• Discretion Shot : When Kirk and co. are watching a televised gladiatorial combat, the losing gladiator falls to the ground and out of shot just before he's stabbed, so the death blow is not visible. Stands out because of the conflict between the priorities of the real TV network and the in-universe TV network, which would have insisted the camera follow the falling gladiator so the audience isn't deprived of the money shot. While he does fall out of shot, we then cut away to Uhura flinching in horror, so presumably there was an In-Universe close-up of the killing. Uhura also loses the television signal just as Harrison is about to be stabbed.
• Does This Remind You of Anything? : Claudius Marcus, proconsul of the slave-owning Roman Empire, has a Southern accent.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You : Spock to the gladiator he's fighting, who unlike Flavius is seriously trying to kill his opponent. Spock isn't bluffing either—on seeing Bones is about to get killed, he takes down the gladiator easily so he can rush to defend his colleague.
• Repressive, but Efficient : Though the Pax Romana is apparently worldwide and has lasted for many centuries, and slaves are treated well enough that it's not worth their while to rebel (provided they're not exposed to subversive religions preaching freedom and equality).
• Enforced Plug : While looking through a magazine, Kirk notices an advertisement for the Jupiter 8 automobile. Later the gladiator contest Name The Winner is brought to the audience "by Jupiter 8 dealers from coast to coast!"
• A Father to His Men : Averted with Merik, who betrayed his own men to save his own life. Those who failed to adapt to Roman society ended up in the arena—the last of them is shown being killed just as the Enterprise arrives.
• Famous, Famous, Fictional : Spock: Situations quite familiar to the 6,000,000 who died in your First World War , the 11,000,000 who died in your Second , the 37,000,000 who died in your Third ...
• Before Kirk beams down he has a discussion over how the M-class planet is exactly like Earth in some ways, but different in others.
• Proconsul Marcus notes that one of the communicators has gone missing, and muses that maybe Kirk persuaded Drusilla to steal it for him . Turns out Merik has it instead.
• Forced to Watch : Kirk is handcuffed and forced to watch Spock and Bones (along with Flavius) fight to the death. He annoys the proconsul by refusing to yield and pretending he's not bothered by any of this. Merik turns out to be more affected as it brings back memories of his own men dying.
• Flynning : To the point where, during the arena fight, Bones is able to look away from his opponent and hold a conversation with Spock, while his opponent stands there carefully hitting his shield. Justified in that: A) The fight is broadcast for entertainment, and B) his opponent had befriended them earlier and doesn't want to harm them.
• Gilligan Cut : Just as Bones and Spock find something to agree about — their concern for their captain — we cut to Captain Kirk eating Grapes of Luxury with a Beautiful Slave Girl .
• Gladiator Games : The games are televised as entertainment, with well-known contestants featured in magazines. At one point Flavius isn't fighting hard enough and he's threatened with "We'll do a special on you!"
• God Guise : Lampshaded by Bones when he jokes that he'd like to screw the Prime Directive, beam down to a planet and claim to be the Archangel Gabriel.
• Grudging "Thank You" : Spock tells Bones to hurry up with what he's trying to say while he looks for a means to escape their cell. "I'm trying to thank you, you pointy eared hobgoblin!" Bones blurts out.
• Happiness in Slavery : Previous slave revolts were crushed, but conditions for slaves have improved over the centuries (including medical benefits and pensions) so that slavery has become an institution .
• Heel–Face Turn : Merik eventually decides to aid Kirk, redeeming himself, though he has little time to enjoy it.
• Heroic Sacrifice : Flavius rushes in to save Kirk from execution at the last minute. He's killed for it, but the attempt is just what Kirk needed to escape (helped by Scotty's blackout of the city) - at the end, McCoy notes that Kirk mentioned his sacrifice in the captain's log .
• Hilarious Outtakes : Including one of the guards doing a Prat Fall as he rushes into the room, and William Shatner being abducted on-set by Ted Cassidy as a practical joke.
• Hit Me, Dammit! : Flavius is trying to avoid killing Bones and getting whipped for his trouble. Flavius: At least defend yourself! McCoy: I am defending myself! Flavius: Not like that, you fool! Hold your weapon higher!
• Claudius Marcus has a touch of this; because he respects Kirk's courage , he feels obliged to give Kirk a proper death, to the point that when his guards have Kirk's team surrounded at gunpoint, he insists they use their swords instead of just gunning them all down on the spot (though at the same time, using their guns would cause more deaths than just their targets; the soldiers are in each other's line-of-fire, Claudius included) .
• Marcus also knows that while the Enterprise has the power to rescue their men by force or lay waste to the entire planet, they won't do so because they've sworn to uphold the Prime Directive .
• I Have Your Wife : Kirk is told if he doesn't do as Merik did, Bones and Spock will be forced to fight to the death in the gladiator pits. Even threatened with this and with guns to his head, Kirk still refuses. Claudius Marcus is impressed by this show of character. Merik is rightfully ashamed.
• Inexplicable Cultural Ties : The Hand Wave we get is something called Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Development.
• Involuntary Battle to the Death : What could possess a man to battle another man to the death? Whips! Massive whips!
• Killed Mid-Sentence : Merik: Starship, lock in on this. Three to beam— (gasps as a Reveal Shot shows that the Proconsul has just stabbed him)
• Laugh Track : In the televised gladiatorial combats, the crowd's cheers and boos are mechanically produced. Bones even looks around in confusion when he hears the canned boos.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal : After Kirk impresses Claudius Marcus with his courage and integrity, Claudius Marcus can't help repeatedly mentioning how much better that makes him than Merik, who betrayed his oath and his crew to survive. Having his nose rubbed in his failings inspires Merik to help Kirk, at the cost of his own life.
• Mr. Fanservice : Just look at the damn picture.
• No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine : Claudius Marcus invites Kirk and company to eat with him, before he forces him into a Sadistic Choice at gun point.
• No Sense of Personal Space : Marcus is very happy taunting Kirk when the latter is handcuffed and trying to pretend Spock and Bones fighting other gladiators doesn't bother him.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy : While they do have a Sexy Discretion Shot later, Kirk initially shows little interest with Drusilla and her telling him she's his slave.
• Not So Stoic : Bones says the reason Spock is Not Afraid to Die is because he would no longer have to worry about losing his emotional control. Spock's lack of a snappy comeback implies he's hit a nerve. However when Bones goes on to say he wouldn't know what to do with a genuine feeling, Spock just gives a sardonic, "Really?" and Bones admits that he's worried about Kirk too.
• No Such Thing as Space Jesus : A subversion in the literal sense, as the planet is implied to have had an actual Jesus. ( If that's his name. He's called the Son of God, and Kirk calls him Christ note  Christ is a title meaning "an anointed one" and implying he's a descendant of King David , but we never hear his real name.) Beyond that, what exactly their version of him did, other than emphasize a commitment to total peace and a philosophy of love and brotherhood, doesn't get much coverage.
• The Oathbreaker : Kirk condemns Merik as one because he sold out his entire crew just to save his own life and gain luxuries. Merik doesn't deny a word of this, as he's long-resigned himself to it, although later Kirk's display of character helps bring him out of that... enough that at the end, his last act is to help them escape at the cost of his own life.
• Opponent Instruction : Spock and McCoy get forced into the arena to convince Kirk to submit to the villains' plans. Despite preferring a pacifistic approach, Spock keeps his opponent at bay easily, but McCoy, not being a Combat Medic , can barely manage. His opponent, a fairly Nice Guy who doesn't actually want to hurt him, starts trying to coach him during the match. Flavius: At least defend yourself! McCoy: [waving his arms in frustration and leaving himself vulnerable] I am defending myself!
• Playing Sick : They try the old faking sick trick. It works okay, despite Kirk not warning McCoy in advance that he was going to be the sick one, but they're quickly recaptured by another set of guards.
• Prime Directive : Unfortunately Merik has told Proconsul Marcus about it, so he knows Kirk can't just beam down a hundred men with phasers to blast him out. Scotty however has no problem with Loophole Abuse ; he decides to Cut the Juice as an Intimidation Demonstration , giving Kirk a chance to escape.
• Redemption Equals Death : In the end, Merik decides to help Kirk, Spock and McCoy escape, and is immediately killed for it by Claudius Marcus.
• Reluctant Warrior : Spock and McCoy are thrown into a death match against gladiator-style warriors on a new planet. While the alien opponent is coming at him with a sword, Spock constantly plays defensive, choosing to dodge the blows while insisting that he "does not want to injure" him, leading to the watching crowd concluding that "the pointy-eared barbarian" is about to get killed. However, when he notices that the much less action-oriented McCoy is in danger, Spock deals with his opponent in the space of a second and darts over to save his frenemy.
• Sarcasm Mode : McCoy while in the arena. Spock: Do you need some help, Doctor? McCoy: Whatever gave you that idea?
• Schizo Tech : Gladiator fights with swords are broadcast on television.
• Sexy Discretion Shot : Kirk makes smoochy face with Drusilla the Sex Slave . Pan up to chandelier. Pan down to Kirk sleeping alone. A line that was cut had Kirk drinking wine and saying "good," eating something and saying "excellent," and then — "And you?" and Drusilla says "Superb, I'm told."
• Shoot Out the Lock : After Spock fails to get through the carbon-steel bars of the prison cell with his Vulcan strength, Kirk shoots out the lock with a submachine gun. Kirk: Obsolete but effective.
• Scotty decides to kill the power as a show of force, as per The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) .
• Snark-to-Snark Combat : Spock and Bones are at it again! Even in the heat of combat, they manage to snark each other.
• Space Romans : The whole planet.
• Stern Sun Worshippers : The crew of the Enterprise are extremely surprised to find that the "Children of the Sun" are a peace-loving, egalitarian movement that is persecuted by the Roman Empire government. They discuss that most sun-cults are the exact opposite. The episode closes with the reveal that they are not worshippers of the sun , but rather son (of God), i.e., Jesus.
• Stock Footage : Stock footage shots of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco are used to depict the Roman capital. Given the use of Roman architecture in Western civilisation to portray power and authority, it works well.
• Sword and Gun : The Proconsul's Praetorian Guard are each armed with a gladius and a Madsen M-50 submachine gun. When they find themselves in a potential crossfire, they resort to their swords instead.
• Teleportation Rescue : Averted at first; having been warned about teleporters by Merik, Marcus marches in his guards to hold Kirk at gunpoint before allowing him to complete his transmission to Scotty. Merik later makes the call on Kirk's behalf, and by the time the guards pick up their submachine guns (having put them aside earlier) they're already beaming out.
• Think Nothing of It : Spock's reaction to Bones' Grudging "Thank You" .
• Thwarted Escape : Kirk tells Maximus to let the First Consul know that his old friend "Jim Kirk" is in prison. Unfortunately it works too well; when they later overpower the guards, they rush out into the corridor and find the First Consul and Proconsul waiting for them, along with all their bodyguards.
• Unusual Ears : Which gets Spock pegged as a 'barbarian'.
• Villain Ball : Claudius Marcus and Merik take Kirk and company aside and Explain to them that the crew of the Beagle were stranded in the planet after the ship broke up. Merik made arrangements with Marcus to integrate himself and a few willing members of his crew into Roman society, while keeping the secret of aliens from the general populace. The rest of the crew was executed in gladiatorial games, but that's the local culture and the solution is in line with the prime directive, if cruel. It kind of sucks that the planet practices slavery, but Kirk's mission is fulfilled and Marcus broadly agrees with the prime directive and had no interest getting his hands on alien tech. Then, Marcus demands that the Enterprise crew beam down so that they can be killed in gladiatorial games. Why? Because it would make great sport!
• Vitriolic Best Buds : Spock and McCoy, as usual. It gets lampshaded when Flavius, after seeing them argue, asks Kirk if they're enemies, and Kirk replies that even they don't know for sure.
• We Come In Peace : Flavius first instinct is to kill these uniformed strangers. Septimus: Keep always in your mind, Flavius, that our way is peace. McCoy: For which we are grateful, for we are men of peace ourselves.
• What Happened to the Mouse? ?: Merik said some of his crew were able to adapt to Roman society, but doesn't specify how. Did Kirk just leave them there, without checking to see for himself what their statuses were? There may have been some that wanted to get home, but were now trapped and did what they had to to survive.
• Whip of Dominance : Anyone who tries to get out of the gladiatorial combat gets whipped back into action.
• Star Trek S2 E24 "The Ultimate Computer"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
• Star Trek S2 E26 "Assignment: Earth"

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Midnite Reviews

Detailed analysis of classic sci-fi movies and tv shows, star trek episode 54: bread and circuses.

Technical Specs

Director: Ralph Senensky

Writers: Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon

Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, William Smithers, Logan Ramsey, Ian Wolfe, William Bramley, Rhodes Reason, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, Bart Larue, Jack Perkins, Max Kleven, and Lois Jewell

Composer: None (Stock Music)

Air Date: 3/15/1968

Stardate: 4040.7

Production #: 60343

On a related note, whereas Captain Tracey from “The Omega Glory” went completely mad after enduring tremendous suffering and personal loss, Captain Merik never presents a compelling justification for compromising his principles, nor does he appear mentally unhinged despite being forced to sacrifice his crew in the gladiatorial games of planet 892-IV. As a result, audiences may have difficulty accepting his abrupt transformation into a heroic figure starting in the final act.

Concluding Comments

“Bread and Circuses” makes for a fascinating study on how the world could have turned out had the Roman government lasted into the 1960s. Likewise, a powerful exchange between McCoy and Spock may interest fans of the latter character and his ongoing struggle to maintain an emotionally detached facade.

Overall Quality: 8/10

If you enjoyed this post, please click the follow button or enter your email address in the subscription box to stay tuned for more updates.

This is a shortened version of a paper originally published as "Les combats de gladiateurs dans la fiction speculative: Star Trek et Hunger Games " in L'Antiquité gréco-latine dans l'imaginaire contemporain: Fantasy, Science-Fiction, Fantastique , M. Bost-Fiévet and S. Provini (eds.), Paris: Classiques Garnier 2014, 321-338.

• Introduction
• How To Tell You're In a Gladiatorial Combat
• Why Evoke Gladiatorial Combat?
• Gladiatorial Combat in The Hunger Games
• Works Discussed

Introduction [ contents ]

Gladiators and gladiatorial combat are among the most recognisable elements of "ancient Rome" in modern popular culture, second only to the orgy as a marker of " Romanness" [ 1 ]. Instances of gladiatorial combat in speculative fiction, therefore, invite readers or viewers to compare the worlds created in fiction with ancient Rome. The precise nature of this interaction varies according to the specifics of the story, but it is particularly affected by whether the audience's attention is drawn to the Roman comparison explicitly through dialogue, names, or other clear markers of Rome, or whether the relationship is implicit, i.e., it is left unspoken, and the audience are allowed to make the connection themselves. This essay will explore how and why gladiatorial combat is used in speculative fiction, with particular emphasis on references to ancient Rome in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy.

How To Tell You're In a Gladiatorial Combat [ contents ]

There a number of different types of forced combat in speculative fiction—characters may be forced to box or joust, they may be forced into service in an army, forced to go on a suicide mission, or forced to fight a duel to the death with their best friend for complicated alien purposes. Gladiatorial combat is a particular form of forced combat and invites parallels between the characters and the environment depicted and ancient Rome. The characters forced to fight in such situations can be either male or female (see for example Furey 1994: 368-380), as, indeed, they could be in ancient Rome [ 2 ]. There are five chief indications that a specific form of forced combat is gladiatorial.

1. The participants are slaves who are forced to fight. In the Roman world, some gladiators were volunteers, but most were slaves who were forced to fight by their masters (leaving aside the separate category of criminals sentenced to death in the arena; see Kyle 2001: 89). This is the most important marker of a Roman-style gladiatorial combat as opposed to other forms of combat for entertainment purposes. Because such combat is usually designed to provide some commentary on slavery as an institution, although free volunteer fighters may feature in the story, the focus will be on those forced to fight, either as condemned criminals, slaves, or both. In George R. R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons (2011), for example, although the fighters in the newly re-opened fighting pits of Meereen are supposed to be volunteers, the reader knows (as the autocratic ruling character Daenerys Targaryen does not) that at least two of the participants have been sold into chattel slavery and are appearing against their will (Martin 2011: 694).

2. Combat takes place in front of a large crowd for the purposes of entertainment. The element of entertainment is essential, both for establishing the "Roman" nature of the combat and for the thematic issues commonly addressed through the use of this trope, particularly in film and television (in which the viewer watches with the intradiegetic audience).

3. Fights are at least potentially to the death. In the ancient Roman world, we do not know how many combats were potentially to the death (depending on whether the crowd spared the loser) and gladiators were expensive commodities, so it is possible, indeed likely, that some fights had a different designated end-point (see Wiedemann 1995: 120). However, in speculative fiction (and in historical fiction set in the Roman period) such fights are virtually unheard of. To increase the tension and the dramatic potential of the fight, it must always be a fight to the death, though both participants may walk away if the audience grant them their lives, often by cheering or raising their thumbs [ 3 ].

4. Combat will take place in front of an autocratic ruler of some kind as well as the general audience, and this ruler will ultimately have the power to spare or execute survivors. Although, historically, Roman gladiatorial combat developed during the Republican period when Rome was a democracy, in the popular imagination it is associated almost entirely with emperors and absolute dictatorship [ 4 ]. This is partly due to the popularity of films such as Quo Vadis (dir. Mervyn LeRoy, 1951) and Gladiator (dir. Ridley Scott, 2000), which depict the arena as a tool of the emperor, whose violent whims can be satisfied via this public institution [ 5 ]. It is also partly the result of the political commentary of much Western speculative fiction, in which democracy is held up as the best form of government, at the same time as adding emphasis to the work's commentary on slavery. Just as Roman Republican or anti-imperialist writers often referred to kingship as slavery and those who lived under a monarchy as enslaved (see for example Cicero, Philippics , 2.86), writers of speculative fiction use gladiatorial combat to criticise slavery and enslavement of all kinds, from personal chattel slavery to the slavery of a population living under a tyrannical dictator.

5. The autocratic leader will have the ultimate power of life and death over the gladiators, but will be influenced by the watching crowd, and will be afraid to go against their wishes. The audience at a gladiatorial show are not just watching the gladiators, but the leader as well, and an autocratic leader who displeases them will fear the anger of the mob, who are ultimately the more powerful collective presence (reinforcing the idea that democracy is ultimately more powerful than dictatorship). The gladiator protagonist will often appeal to the mob over the autocrat (who usually wants them to die for one reason or another) and the interplay between the desires of the mob and of the leader is often the driving force behind events in the story.

In addition to these five essential elements of gladiatorial combat, there are other ways of likening the imaginative combat to Roman gladiators. Popular "visual" cues—whether achieved through image or description—include searing heat and sand covering the floor of the arena, which is often a round pit-like area with the audience watching from above, emulating a Roman amphitheatre in a Mediterranean summer. A perennial favourite is the retiarius , the gladiator who uses a net and trident against a helmeted, sword-wielding opponent (see Versnel 1998: 231). The retiarius is popular because it is so distinctly Roman and sets the combat apart from a duel between opponents with matching weapons or other forms of violence-as-entertainment, like jousting. Fighting as a retiarius also requires the gladiator to be nimble and clever, as well as strong, so the retiarius may be used when the writer or director wants to emphasise that a character has intelligence and quick wits as well as brute strength (as opposed to, for example, Steven DeKnight's television series Spartacus: Blood and Sand (2010), in which retiarii are rarely seen despite the prevalence of gladiatorial combat, because the series tends to emphasise brute strength over cunning). Retiarii are also useful because they do not wear helmets, making them easily recognisable—Juvenal reports as particularly shocking a member of the Gracchi family who shuns swords (a more proper weapon for a Roman, not that there is any justification, as far as Juvenal is concerned, for a noble fighting as a gladiator) and fights with trident and net, and lifts his bare face to the crowd (Juvenal, Satires , 8.200-203; see also Kyle 2001: 18). Retiarii are popular in historical stories set in Rome; it is Draba the retiarius who refuses to kill Kirk Douglas' Spartacus and whose death incites the rebellion in Kubrick's film ( Spartacus , dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1960), while the unfortunate Cassius in British sitcom Plebs is a "net-man" (in Season 1 episode "The Gladiator").

Retiarii are even more popular in gladiatorial combat in speculative fiction, because they provide a visual marker to alert the reader or audience to the fact that they are watching a Roman-style gladiatorial combat. The image of a man (or woman) in light armour wielding a trident (or in some cases a long spear) is visually arresting and enticingly alien. In speculative fiction, the image of the retiarius will often be played with and mixed up while remaining recognisably retiarius -like; in Maggie Furey's Aurian (1994), for example, the titular heroine faces a pair of opponents, one of whom has a spear while the other attacks her from the other side with the net (Furey 1994: 370-372). In Star Trek Season 2 episode "Bread and Circuses" (1968), the second pair of fighters we see on the televised gladiatorial fights shown on a planet on which the Roman Empire never fell includes a retiarius -style fighter wearing a helmet.

Why Evoke Gladiatorial Combat? [ contents ]

There are, then, certain ways of indicating to your audience or reader that you want them to be thinking about Roman gladiatorial combat and seeing the forced combat inflicted upon your protagonists as parallel to it or derived from it. But why? There are a number of different points writers of speculative fiction might want to make or issues they want to raise for which gladiatorial combat is especially useful. Sometimes the combat may provide a useful and potentially amusing parallel to a real-world sport or sports fans, the story may explore issues of consent and/or the violence inflicted upon the body of a slave by a master, or the author may have a wider point they want to make about war, violence, or the inherent evils of slavery. An added potential goal, and one especially important to the use of gladiatorial combat in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series (2008-2010), is that of suggesting a level of audience complicity in the suffering inflicted upon the protagonists.

Gladiatorial combat is often presented as analogous to sport and spectators to sports fans, both in historical dramas set in Rome (such as Plebs , which draws clear visual and narrative parallels between fans of gladiatorial combat and British sports fans and team supporters through its use of "team" colours and the contrast between a socially awkward lead character unfamiliar with the sport and another character with specialist knowledge) and in speculative fiction [ 6 ]. Star Trek: Voyager 's Season 6 episode "Tsunkatse" (2000) in particular draws overt links between the loosely gladiatorial "sport" of Tsunkatse (which features enslaved, forced participants and televised entertainment for the masses, but lacks an autocratic dictator and features a combination of fights to the death and lesser, "green" fights) and real martial sports, especially boxing. World Wrestling Federation star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson guest stars and the episode depicts Chakotay (established in Season 5's "The Fight" [1999] as a keen amateur boxer) and Torres (shown enjoying increasingly dangerous sporting activities in Season 5's "Extreme Risk" [1998]) enjoying the show before they find out it features forced participation. "Bread and Circuses" also refers to gladiatorial bouts as sport and equates the shows to sports coverage on television, while in The Hunger Games , Katniss notes with disgust that the Capitol forces the Districts to treat the Games like a "sporting event" (Collins 2008: 22). These comparisons encourage the audience to consider how far it is appropriate to go for sport, whether it is acceptable willingly to put oneself at risk and whether it is appropriate to watch someone do so in the knowledge that they may be seriously injured or killed.

However, because gladiatorial combat is usually forced, depictions of specifically gladiatorial combat tend to focus more on the violence visited upon the body of the gladiator and the audience's enjoyment, not of a dangerous activity with the potential for violence, but of guaranteed slaughter. For example, Peter Watkins' 1969 film The Gladiators , which features a mostly male cast forced to take part in deadly televised "Games" while a group of generals of various nationalities watch, starts by comparing the Games to sports, with the participants believing that the purpose of the Games is to prevent war by diverting humankind's violent and competitive energies into these Games. However, Watkins' target is rather broader. The film is clearly at least partly an anti-war statement, with its imagery of complacent, sometimes sleeping generals displaying a total lack of emotion or compassion as they send men to their deaths, walking among white crosses that emulate the First World War graveyards of northern France while their men shoot from trenches, depicting war as a game played by generals [ 7 ]. Watkins is also keen to depict a world in which not only are the Games used to subjugate the participants and force them to play by the rules of "the system," but the television audience are similarly subjugated and taught the same lesson through their viewing of the Games (see Cook 2009: 105-108). His Games are a metaphor for society in general, and the impossibility of true political or social reform, such is the power of "the system." As in the film version of The Hunger Games (dir. Gary Ross, 2012), in which Cato, the last tribute to die, realises that he is "dead anyway" and "always was," having been trained for the Games for his whole life, Watkins' revolutionary B-3, although he is tragically unable to realise it for himself, is forced to confront the fact that no matter how hard he fights it, he remains inextricably part of "the system."

Works which draw implicit, rather than explicit, parallels between ancient Rome and their imagined worlds often appropriate gladiatorial-style combat as the ultimate illustration of the inherent evil of slavery as an institution. One of the distinguishing features of chattel slavery, and especially of ancient chattel slavery, is that the owner of the human property that is the slave has the right to do anything they want with their slave, up to and including killing them (an extension of the "rights" of the victor in war, the process by which many came into chattel slavery in the ancient world; see Bradley and Cartledge 2011: 1-2). Killing or damaging another person's slave might be punished in the same way as theft of or wilful damage to another person's property, but chattel slaves themselves had no rights over their own bodies at all [ 8 ]. Gladiatorial combat offers the most extreme possible example of the lack of power a slave holds over their own body, and of the potential cruelty of slave-masters to slaves, as not only are slaves forced to suffer and die against their will, they do so for the entertainment of their masters, living or dying on their masters' whims.

Star Trek Season 2 episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion" (1968) makes this parallel clear when it combines gladiatorial-style violence with the violent physical assault of a black, female crewmember in the same episode [ 9 ]. While Kirk, Uhura, and Chekov are being held prisoner, it is strongly implied that Uhura is raped (offscreen) by one of the alien gladiators. Uhura as a character—denied an official first name until J. J. Abrams' 2009 film Star Trek confirmed the name Nyota, commonly used by fans and tie-in books—being the only female regular character following the departure of Grace Lee Whitney's Janice Rand, tends to be a cipher for whatever "woman" or "female" needs to stand for in a particular episode. She is constant representation of the Other—and of course, as a black woman, in episodes that deal with slavery she is doubly Othered as both female and black. In "The Gamesters of Triskelion," Uhura represents vulnerability and complete enslavement. Chekov also attracts the sexual attention of his "drill thrall" (trainer) but his story is played for laughs, his drill thrall unattractive and Chekov merely discomfited, not threatened. Uhura, however, suffers due to her complete lack of control over her own body throughout the episode. The ever-masculine Kirk, meanwhile, plots against their masters by seducing his own drill thrall (who is, of course, beautiful) thus asserting the free (white, American) male's authority over his own body and refusal to submit to slavery. Women are depicted as more vulnerable, both physically and emotionally, and incapable of breaking their shackles without strong masculine guidance.

While works which draw more explicit parallels between their created worlds and ancient Rome may also use the gladiatorial setting to comment on slavery, this is often not their main aim. The phrase "Bread and Circuses," used in the title of Star Trek 's second gladiatorial episode in Season 2 and quoted in Mockingjay (Collins 2010: 260), comes from Juvenal's tenth Satire , in which the satirist laments the fact that the Roman people have given up all interest in taking an active part in politics, as they did under the Republic, for the sake of "bread and circuses," free food and entertainment (Juvenal, Satires , 10.81) [ 10 ]. Political commentary is often one of the aims of these stories, as it was in The Gladiators . Whereas works that emphasise gladiators as slaves view the gladiators themselves as symbolic of the oppressed people, Juvenal complains that the audience are voluntarily participating in their own disenfranchisement, losing all interest in anything beyond satisfying their own desires—the basic desires of the id, as Freud might put it. Both "Bread and Circuses" and The Hunger Games carry an element of Juvenal's political complaint, condemning an audience that watches other people suffer without trying to do anything about it; Katniss is eventually forced to participate in a revolution against the oppressive regime while Kirk leaves twentieth-century Rome comfortable in the knowledge that the followers of the Son will do the job credited to them in 1950s and 1960s ancient world epic films and gradually bring down the evil Roman Empire. In these works, the reader or audience are asked, not to sympathise with a character suffering under an oppressive regime, but to see themselves as part of the audience who, by their apathy, are holding up the oppressive regime, as for example when Katniss compares her failure to help the girl who becomes an Avox with watching the Games (Collins 2008: 104).

Gladiatorial Combat in The Hunger Games [ contents ]

The Hunger Games is a trilogy that asks readers to view its Games as Roman-style gladiatorial games. The series hits on all the five essential aspects of the trope—our heroes, though not chattel slaves, are forced to fight to the death and are watched by a large audience and a political dictator. At the end of the first novel, the audience determine their fate, as Seneca Crane knows without needing to ask that his audience will be deeply upset and his Games a disaster if he allows both the final two Tributes to kill themselves (though he underestimates Snow's desire to see them dead, as he discovers later).

However, there are some notable differences between the combat represented in The Hunger Games and Roman gladiatorial combat. Unlike either the majority of reality television programmes or the Roman games, the audience of the Hunger Games have no direct ability to determine the winner. Instead, rich viewers can sponsor their favourites so that they will receive extra help in the arena that will increase their chances of winning. The Hunger Games arena, despite the use of the term "arena" and the use of Roman names for all characters from the Capitol, actually bears limited resemblance to an ancient arena, and the nature of the Games is substantially different from the usual gladiatorial set-up [ 11 ]. This is an arena where the technique employed by one nervous gladiator in Monty Python's Life of Brian (dir. Terry Jones, 1979), of running away until his pursuer dies of a cardiac arrest leaving him the de facto winner, might actually work (this is the technique employed by Rue, Foxface, and to an extent Katniss herself, as well as Haymitch in his Games, as we find out in Catching Fire ; Collins 2009: 237-243).

Despite these differences, there are numerous allusions to Rome and the Roman Empire throughout the trilogy [ 12 ]. These become more frequent and more pointed as the series goes on, with the appearance of Finnick the retiarius in Catching Fire (his unique specialism of using a trident and homemade net justified by his origins in a District focused on fishing; Collins 2009: 251) and culminating in a overt quotation of the famous "bread and circuses" line in Mockingjay . Plutarch Heavensbee quotes "Panem et Circenses" to Katniss, the narrative explicitly drawing attention to the parallel with their country's name, Panem. He explains that these words were "written in a language called Latin in a place called Rome" by a writer who was trying to explain that "in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power" (Collins 2010: 260-261). When the Districts stop supplying the food and start supplying some entertainment, Plutarch explains, the Capitol is in trouble. Even Katniss' identity as the Mockingjay, the symbol of the revolution, is linked to entertainment and the need to replace the Games with something produced by the Districts in order for the Districts to gain control, implying once again that there is no escaping the system, and building up to Katniss' realisation that President Coin is as much her enemy as President Snow [ 13 ]. Although clear and direct references to Rome have been scattered throughout the trilogy—characters with well-known names like "Caesar" Flickerman ensuring that most readers should pick up on them—this is the first direct reference in-story to Rome, the only time ancient Rome is explicitly evoked and the reader directed, rather than encouraged, to see the parallels between the Hunger Games and gladiatorial combat [ 14 ]. The parallel forces the audience to wonder how far they themselves are in thrall to anyone who provides them with food and/or entertainment.

However, in works which explicitly draw attention to the Roman parallel, there is often another target, even more central than political commentary—mass entertainment, particularly television. By making them compare their own viewing patterns and their treatment of the people on screen with a Roman audience watching a gladiatorial combat, the audience is forced to reconsider the way they watch television. The aim is to shock the viewer into re-evaluating their viewing by comparing the audience's habits with those of people who watch others die for their own entertainment, and so the Roman analogy must be made explicit.

The Hunger Games is far from the only version of this story. The essential premise of "Bread and Circuses" is, what if the Roman Empire never fell? And the answer is, gladiatorial combat would be the most popular show on television. The tension between the political power of the autocrat and the power of the people is, as so often in these stories, a driving force behind the episode, but here the people's power is manifested in the form of television ratings. The desperate need for television producers to get good ratings to avoid cancellation, a constant problem for Star Trek in its original run, is directly reflected in First Citizen Claudius' need to provide thrilling entertainment to keep the ratings up. These Games exist to fulfil the television audience's desire for bloodshed.

"Bread and Circuses," as well as The Gladiators , is one of many television episodes and films, culminating in The Truman Show (dir. Peter Weir, 1998) and Edtv (dir. Ron Howard, 1999), that featured a form of "reality television" before Big Brother inspired the reality TV boom of the early twenty-first century. For The Hunger Games , a direct product of the early twenty-first century fashion for "reality" television (author Suzanne Collins was inspired to write the story while channel-hopping), the comparison is even more important and just as explicit. A frequent criticism of "reality" television is that it exploits vulnerable people for the entertainment of others [ 15 ]. Collins deliberately draws on this aspect of early twenty-first century "reality" television in the novels, noting that, "there's also the voyeuristic thrill, watching people being humiliated or brought to tears or suffering physically. And that's what I find very disturbing. There's this potential for desensitizing the audience so that when they see real tragedy playing out on the news, it doesn't have the impact it should" [ 16 ].

The connection between The Hunger Games ' gladiatorial combat and the implicit complicity of the viewing audience in what's happening is made even more explicit in the film version. In the novels, it is implied that the population in the Districts are forced to watch the Games, just as they are forced to attend the Reaping; the Games are "forcing [tributes] to kill one another while we watch," electricity in District 12 is only guaranteed during the Games or when government announcements constituting mandatory viewing are made, school is cancelled when the Games start to draw to a close, and there are screens in the square where those without a working television can view them (Collins 2008: 19, 22, 98, 340). At the beginning of the film, however, Gale insists that there could be no Games if everyone simply stopped watching. An important character in the second and third stories, Gale has almost nothing to do in the first, but Ross gives him a presence by showing him refusing to watch the opening day of the Games, and later by showing him drawn in despite himself while standing in a house with others who are watching—clearly unwilling to watch and there because he has to be, but unable to look away from his love interest kissing another boy. Partly, this is intended to give Gale something to do, to ensure that the audience still care about him by the time they reach the second film, in which he plays a bigger role ( The Hunger Games : Catching Fire , dir. Francis Lawrence, 2013), but the choice to make his refusal to watch the Games central to his role is significant.

This comparison drives home two connected points. On the one hand, it makes the viewing audience responsible for the suffering of the participants and asks them to question the extent of their responsibility. It also asks the audience to think about what exactly they are being entertained by and what enjoyment they are getting out of it. Gladiatorial games are not the only way to explore the darker side of what we as human beings find entertaining; in horror film The Cabin in the Woods (dir. Drew Goddard, 2011), for example, the audience are asked to reflect on the ethics of enjoying watching young people die in a variety of horrible ways by contrasting the experience of the protagonists with the men and women betting on them in the control room, while at the same time offering up just such a spectacle for the audience's enjoyment. (This is a similar set-up to the presentation of orgies in ancient world epics, which demand that the audience negatively judge the participants for their decadence at the same time as enjoying the lavishness and sexuality on display, "the excitement and allure of luxury and the safety of morality all rolled into one package," as Raucci puts it; Raucci 2013: 144). Gladiatorial combat offers the strongest, most effective way to force the audience to question their voyeuristic enjoyment of the spectacle because, although no one has actually died, within the story and the audience's willing suspension of disbelief, the deaths are real and the intradiegetic audience are actually watching people die. This is what makes Maximus' cry of "Are you not entertained?" in Gladiator especially powerful—he is speaking to the intradiegetic audience who are watching him kill, but the message gets out to the cinema audience as well.

Conclusion [ contents ]

Gladiatorial combat can be used in a variety of ways to express the author's feelings on several different issues, including race relations, slavery, and issues of consent. It is when writers want to emphasise one particular aspect of gladiatorial Games—the Games as entertainment for the masses, the suffering involved ultimately caused by the audience and their lack of compassion for those who provide their entertainment—that the connection with ancient Rome is deliberately emphasised. The writers are, essentially, saying to the audience, "You are no better than an ancient Roman." Just as Rome has so often stood for humankind's seedier desires, portrayed as a hotbed of sin and depravity, here Rome stands for the ultimate result of a culture that demands to be entertained at whatever cost, forcing the audience to question how far they expect artists to go for their own viewing pleasure.

Endnotes [ contents ]

•  On orgies in Roman-themed film and television, see Raucci 2013: 143. [ return ]
•  On female gladiators in ancient Rome, see McCullough 2008. In many ways, a female protagonist is more useful in this context; as Tolmie puts it, "literary heroines remain at their best when rising above external conditions that are against them in gender-based ways" and throwing a woman into a male-dominated arena is one way of doing this (Tolmie 2006: 148). [ return ]
•  It is unclear whether, in ancient Rome, the crowd raised or lowered their thumbs to indicate whether someone should live or die—Juvenal refers to "turning" thumbs to indicate a fighter should die (Juvenal, Satires , 3.36) and most references to the gesture, whether within the context of gladiatorial combat or not, are similarly unclear. Pliny refers to turning one's thumb down as a gesture of approval ( Natural History , 28.25) so there is a possibility that, in antiquity, the crowd turned their thumbs down to indicate life and up to indicate death, but in popular culture, up always indicates life and down, death, because this matches the modern gestures of thumbs up (positive) and thumbs down (negative). See further Corbeill 1997: 18-19. [ return ]
•  On the origins of gladiatorial combat, see Wiedemann 1995: 31-35. [ return ]
•  On the use of the arena by the emperor in Gladiator , see Cyrino 2005: 240, 247-248. [ return ]
•  See further Cyrino 2005: 244-247 on the relationship between gladiatorial combat in Gladiator and U.S. sports television. [ return ]
•  There are clear parallels here with the musical Oh! What a Lovely War and the songs from the musical, especially "They Were Only Playing Leapfrog," made into a film in the same year (dir. Richard Attenborough, 1969). [ return ]
•  Aeschines 1.17 and Demosthenes 21.48-49 refer to the fact that slaves in Classical Athens were protected by law against acts of hubris, but this was designed to prevent free men from committing such acts, rather than being designed to protect the slaves. As Pomeroy et al. point out, a slave would be unlikely to have a citizen relative able to prosecute a case on their behalf in any case; Pomeroy et al. 1999: 345. [ return ]
•  In "The Gamesters of Triskelion," Captain Kirk, Lieutenant Uhura and Enisgn Chekov are forced to fight a collection of alien opponents, not for the entertainment of the mob, but for a small collection of masters (who are eventually revealed to exist as brains in a plastic dome, having "evolved beyond" humanoid form). In a sense, this is another iteration of the oft-used theme of god-like aliens who use the Enterprise crew as their playthings (see for example "Charlie X," "The Squire of Gothos," and the Classically-themed "Who Mourns for Adonais?"). However, the forced fighting in "The Gamesters of Triskelion" is marked out by the specifically combative nature of the activity the crew are forced to undertake. We also know we are watching a Roman-style gladiatorial contest, despite the absence of the usually-essential large crowd, because although the classic retiarius with net and trident does not appear, several of the crew's alien opponents wield long spears and one uses a net accompanied by a whip. [ return ]
•  On Juvenal's political commentary in his use of the famous phrase, see Keane 2006: 36-37. [ return ]
•  The title of Star Trek Season 1 episode "Arena" similarly appears to imply a Roman theme, but the primary purpose of Kirk's forced duel with Gorn is to teach both leaders a lesson and dissuade them from returning to that part of space, rather than entertainment. [ return ]
•  See further Makins "Refiguring the Roman Empire in the Hunger Games trilogy," forthcoming. On Collins' use of Roman names, see Périer 2014: 58. [ return ]
•  Bartlett draws attention to the extended styling and preparation—which he terms "rebranding"—that Katniss undergoes before entering the arena in The Hunger Games , linking the relative importance of likability over the actual ability to kill others or survive in the wild to the central metaphor of the Hunger Games as reality television, in which talent often takes a backseat or is not required (Bartlett 2012: 10). As the series progresses, Katniss' popularity with the television audience becomes more and more important until, by Mockingjay , it is virtually her sole purpose within the narrative or even as a character, and far more important to the revolution than her martial skills. [ return ]
•  On the significance of Plutarch's better knowledge of ancient Rome compared to Katniss, see Makins 2014: 347-348. [ return ]
•  See for example Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell's assertion that all viewers of reality talent show Britain's Got Talent were, to some degree, responsible for 2009 runner-up Susan Boyle's subsequent psychiatric problems; article accessed 02/16/2015. [ return ]
•   Q&A at scholastic.com , accessed 02/16/2015. [ return ]

Works discussed [ contents ]

Bartlett, M., 2012. "Appetite for Spectacle: Violence and Entertainment in The Hunger Games ," in Screen Education , Vol. 66, 8-17.

Bradley, K. and P. Cartledge, 2011. "Introduction," in K. Bradley and P. Cartledge (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Slavery Volume 1: The Ancient Mediterranean , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-3.

Collins, S., 2008. The Hunger Games . London: Scholastic.

Collins, S., 2009. Catching Fire . London: Scholastic.

Collins, S., 2010. Mockingjay . London: Scholastic.

Cook, J. R., 2009. "Gaming the System: Peter Watkins' The Gladiators and Punishment Park ," in Science Fiction Film and Television , Vol. 2, No. 1, 105-114.

Corbeill, A., 1997. "Thumbs in Ancient Rome: Pollex as Index," in Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome , Vol. 42, 1-21.

Cyrino, M. S., 2005. Big Screen Rome . Malden, Oxford and Victoria: Blackwell.

Furey, M., 1994. Aurian . London: Random House.

Keane, C., 2006. Figuring Genre in Roman Satire . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kyle, D. G., 2001. Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome . London and New York: Routledge.

Makins, M., 2014. "'Written in a language called Latin about a place called Rome.' Réception de l'Antiquité et résistance dans la trilogie Hunger Games ," in L'Antiquité gréco-latine dans l'imaginaire contemporain: Fantasy, Science-Fiction, Fantastique , M. Bost-Fiévet and S. Provini (eds.), Paris: Classiques Garnier, 339-358.

Makins, M., (forthcoming). "Refiguring the Roman Empire in the Hunger Games trilogy," in B. M. Rogers and B. E. Stevens (eds.), Classical Traditions in Science Fiction , Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Martin, G. R. R., 2011. A Dance with Dragons . London: HarperCollins.

McCullough, A., 2008. "Female Gladiators in Imperial Rome: Literary Context and Historical Fact," in The Classical World , Vol. 101, No. 2, 197-209.

Périer, I., 2014. "Un retour de l'épique," in L'Antiquité gréco-latine dans l'imaginaire contemporain: Fantasy, Science-Fiction, Fantastique , M. Bost-Fiévet and S. Provini (eds.), Paris: Classiques Garnier, 51-64.

Pomeroy, S., S. M. Burstein, W. Donlan and J. Tolbert Roberts, 1999. Ancient Greece: A Political, Social and Cultural History . New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Raucci, S., 2013. "The Order of Orgies: Sex and the Cinematic Roman," in M. S. Cyrino (ed.), Screening Love and Sex in the Ancient World , New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 143-156.

Tolmie, J., 2006. "Medievalism and the Fantasy Heroine," in Journal of Gender Studies , Vol. 15, No. 2, 145-158.

Versnel, H., 1998. Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion, Volume I: Ter Unus. Isis, Dionysos, Hermes. Three Studies in Henotheism . Leiden: Brill.

Wiedemann, T., 1995. Emperors and Gladiators . London: Routledge.

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Civilizations Based On Earth History In Star Trek: TOS

• Encounters in Star Trek often mirror Earth civilizations; from Roman spectaculars to Nazi influences, the show draws parallels to history.
• TOS writers reused sets and props for alien worlds to reflect Hodgkin's Law; Earth-type planets develop similar civilizations.
• Star Trek explores ethical and political themes; from the Vietnam War analogy on Neural to the totalitarianism on Ekos, each planet's tale has a lesson.

Space, proclaims Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise , is the final frontier, an undiscovered place full of groundbreaking discoveries just waiting to be made. While the heroes of Star Trek: The Original Series do meet a variety of strange alien lifeforms during their voyages, other encounters hit far closer to home.

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TOS was not afraid to reuse props and sets from other productions when crafting alien worlds. Indeed, Star Trek 's writers even devised an explanation for this practice: Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development, referenced in several episodes, states that all Earth-type planets are likely to display similar civilizational arcs. From modern-day Romans to a gangster planet, Kirk gets a taste of home, no matter how far out he explores.

Before The Planet Was Called "Miri," It Was Referred To As "Earth Two"

• "Miri" (Season 1, Episode 8)

Bearing an uncanny resemblance to Earth, the planet Miri is beset by a deadly virus when the Enterprise makes contact. As a result of a science experiment gone wrong, the adult population has died out, leaving the planet under the control of its infant inhabitants. Kirk and his crew soon find themselves not only at the mercy of the children but also suffering from the effects of the planet's disease. However, Dr. McCoy is able to cure the virus, laying the foundations for Miri's return to normality.

Indeed, Miri is so similar to Earth that the planet was not named in the episode's initial script, instead being referred to as "Earth Two." Subsequent Star Trek novels seized on this connection, with one suggesting that Miri was Earth itself, albeit from a different timeline, and another stating that the planet was one of several Earth duplicates created by the ancient Preservers.

Sigma Iotia II

Home to a 1920s gangster civilization.

• "A Piece Of The Action" (Season 2, Episode 17)

Season 2's "A Piece of the Action" sees the Enterprise travel to Sigma Iotia II, a planet located in the Beta Quadrant. Kirk and his colleagues discover that the planet's natives are living like 1920s gangsters from Earth, and they soon determine the cause of this deviation. A century prior, another Federation starship visited the planet, forever altering the course of Iotian history. The ship, Horizon, soon departed, but it left behind an item that changed everything.

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The primitive Iotians based their society on a book discarded by Horizon, namely Chicago Mobs of the Twenties . This served as a civilizational handbook, trapping the developing culture in a gangland quagmire. However, Kirk's intervention puts the planet back on the right path.

Offers A Moral Vietnam War Story

• "A Private Little War" (Season 2, Episode 19)

While The Original Series showed an interest in re-purposing ancient history to generate plots, the show didn't shy away from addressing more contemporary themes. In "A Private Little War," the Enterprise becomes involved in a proxy war on the planet Neural. The Klingon Empire is backing one faction on the planet by providing it with advanced weapons; Kirk must intervene to restore balance to the primitive planet.

While Neural lacks the reused sets and props that so often characterize a TOS parallel Earth episode, it serves as the basis for a clear parable about the Vietnam War. This engagement with allegory elevates the story above others in the sub-genre, as it draws on real-world politics rather than simple aesthetics.

Draws Inspiration From Greek Mythology

• "Elaan Of Troyius" (Season 3, Episode 13)

While little is clear about the planet Elas, the circumstances surrounding it and the neighboring world of Troyius are deeply rooted in Earth mythology. Troyius and Elas, both located in the Tellun system, are at war; only a diplomatic marriage between Elaan, an Elasian, and the ruler of Troyius has any hope of ending the conflict.

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While the Enterprise is assigned to assist with the marriage plans, the hotblooded nature of the Elasians complicates matters. They are a proud warrior race, recalling Earth civilizations like the Spartans, while the episode's title is a space-age twist on Helen of Troy, a figure from Ancient Greek poetry. However, the female Elasians have something that no human has ever possessed: tears that act as a powerful love potion. The Elasians may be rooted in classical antiquity , but they are not entirely derivative.

Reminiscent Of Nazi Germany

• "Patterns Of Force" (Season 2, Episode 21)

Seen in the "Patterns of Force" episode, the planet Ekos is modeled on the Nazi Germany of Earth's twentieth century . Originally a lawless pre-warp world, intervention by a Federation historian transformed the planet by introducing the Ekosians to the principles of National Socialism, somewhat naively believing that this would create an ordered society without any drawbacks.

By the time of the Enterprise's visit to Ekos, the planet has adopted a variety of Nazi iconography and practices. Thankfully, Kirk and Spock are able to remedy the situation on Ekos, hopefully ushering in a less genocidal system of government for the planet's population.

Showcases A Technologically Superior Ancient Rome

• "Bread And Circuses" (Season 2, Episode 25)

"Bread and Circuses" not only finds a way to incorporate the fashions of Ancient Rome into Star Trek 's future but also skewers contemporary network TV production with its televised gladiator battles. The episode features the Enterprise investigating 892-IV, a planet where Roman practices coexist with twentieth-century technology.

The Roman-style society on 892-IV is notable in that Kirk's intervention fails to significantly alter it. Rather than overthrowing the cruel model of government, Kirk and his fellow officers are only able to escape. However, a transmission detected by Uhura suggests the presence of a Christianity-adjacent movement on the planet. The Enterprise's crew concludes that, since the Rome of 892-IV so closely mirrors their own, it too will fall given time.

A Civilization That Adopts The Worst Aspects Of Humanity

• "Plato's Stepchildren" (Season 3, Episode 10)

Today, "Plato's Stepchildren" is best remembered for featuring what is widely (but incorrectly) referred to as television's first interracial kiss. However, the episode is also notable for how it reuses imagery from Ancient Greece in order to create the world of Platonius. This is understandable, as the alien Platonians admit to being heavily inspired by the teachings of Plato and Socrates .

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Unfortunately, Platonius and its citizens reproduce many of the worst features of Earth's history. They are cruel and petty, choosing to use their telekinetic powers to abuse those whom they consider inferior. Indeed, the Platonian's treatment of Kirk and his crew resulted in the British Broadcasting Corporation's refusal to air the episode on the grounds that it contained sadistic themes. Platonius may be modeled on Earth, but few of humanity's virtues are on display there.

A Civilization That Shares An Almost Identical History To Earth

• "The Omega Glory" (Season 2, Episode 23)

While "The Omega Glory" is widely regarded as being one of the worst episodes of The Original Series , it does introduce the notable world of Omega IV. The Enterprise's visit to the planet uncovers a conflict between the Kohms and the Yangs, a war that is being interfered in by a stranded Starfleet captain.

It is revealed, somewhat implausibly, that Omega IV experienced a nearly parallel history to Earth, although the Cold War on Omega IV escalated into a full-blown conflict. The United States Constitution was also written independently on the planet in what must be Star Trek 's biggest-ever coincidence. With contrivances like these, it's a mercy that "The Omega Glory" was not chosen as Star Trek 's second pilot, although Gene Roddenberry did consider the idea.

Created by Gene Roddenberry

First Film Star Trek: The Motion Picture

First TV Show Star Trek: The Original Series

Creation Year 1966

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‘star trek: discovery’s dr. kovich is pretty useless as a doctor but we like having him onboard.

Paging Dr. Kovich. Dr. Kovich. Earth’s healthcare system is getting a little dicey , and the Doctor from Doctor Who is not actually a medical professional. I don’t know where else to turn. So like the rest of the cast of Star Trek: Discovery : I turn my eyes to space.

Dr. Kovich, who are you?

Dr. Kovich was a government official from the 32nd century. He loves Earth stuff! His doctorate was actually in cognitive science. Robots. Synthetic intelligence. That sort of thing. He’s like a … robot therapist?

We first meet Dr. Kovich as he is interrogating the time-traveling Philippa Georgiou upon her arrival at the Human Federation (not to be confused with the Human League, a band from the 80’s). His Roman Empire was the Terran (meaning “Earth”) Empire as he was fascinated by what he saw as the Terran Empire’s driving maxim behind doing anything: “Because we feel like it.”

Kovich also expressed genuine interest in Philippa’s time-traveling shenanigans (because who wouldn’t?). He later helped advise an actual medical doctor, Dr. Hugh Culber, who was trying to treat Philippa’s weird time travel-related disease. His answer, like a real Earth doctor, was basically “I have no idea.”

Despite his apparent lack of knowledge about anything relevant in the present, Dr. Kovich began to work as a consultant for Starfleet Academy. Doing what? Team building exercises. Like some sort of glorified HR department head. He also “helped” Hugh Culber once again during the Dark Matter Anomaly saga. You know, the super destructive gravitational anomaly that suddenly appeared in the Milky Way. His advice to Hugh was essentially “IDK try to get some sleep”. Thanks, Doc. The only thing this guy was ever good for was figuring out what was up with Zora, the AI of the USS Discovery . Turns out the ship’s computer had developed consciousness, and he reasoned that the newly self-christened “Zora” was a brand new sort of synthetic lifeform. Damn, Doc. I could have told you that.

Who plays Dr. Kovich?

The generally useless Dr. Kovich’s only saving grace is that he is played by super cool film director David Cronenberg. You know, the guy who does those gross body horror movies like Videodrome and The Fly . He’s the only reason that the Discovery keeps this guy around. For morale. Being in the presence of a star director playing a doctor is good for something.

(Featured Image: CBS)

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• April 6, 2024 | ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Showrunner Explains Why They Reopened A TNG Mystery To Start Season 5
• April 5, 2024 | Roddenberry Archive Expands With Virtual Tours Of Deep Space 9 Station And The USS Discovery
• April 5, 2024 | Podcast: All Access Reviews The First Two Episodes Of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5
• April 4, 2024 | Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Embraces Second Chances In “Under The Twin Moons”
• April 4, 2024 | Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Returns With New Vitality And A Lore-Fueled Quest In “Red Directive”

Watch The ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5 Premiere For Free On YouTube In USA

| April 4, 2024 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 19 comments so far

As they do for each new season for all of their shows, Paramount+ has made the entire season 5 premiere of Star Trek: Discovery available online for free. Except this time the did it on the same day as the premiere on Paramount+. You can watch episode 501 (titled “Red Directive”) below via YouTube.

Watch “Red Directive”

The episode will be available to stream on YouTube (in the USA) for free for one week.

Episode 2 ( “Under The Twin Moons” ) was also released today, exclusively on Paramount+ .

Check back later for TrekMovie’s recap/reviews of both episodes.

Season preview

Here is a preview of what’s coming for the rest of the 10-episode final season of Discovery .

The fifth and final season of  Discovery  debuts with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on  Paramount+  in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria.  Discovery  will also premiere on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuts on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.

Find more stories on the  Star Trek Universe .

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It was awesome! Love that this season is a kinda sequel to TNGs The Chase. So many great Easter eggs. Loved the Soong type android… and the Roman ship… and did anyone else notice the tribble in the hall of Disco? Such fun.

You’re spoiling a lot here. Please don’t be this specific.

You can watch it for free, so spoilers are fine. If you are worried about them, why are you here? I’m here to hear a discussion on the episode.

The season preview shown at the end of the first episode had a quick shot of what looked like a constitution class starship. I’m actually excited to see how this season plays out.

Legacy ships.

Silly me for giving Discovery credit for being the only show not to rely on nostalgia-bait.

Any excuse to trot out the same tired complaint, huh?

When Trek stops troting out the same, tired nostalgia-bait, I’ll stop complaining. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

For the love of God what exactly is wrong with building off previous canon from within a franchise? It’s not that they are playing off general interest nostalgia like pogo sticks and oldies music. And you know what? I love nostalga? Life is to short and painful at times. Let us be serviced

In 50 years people will look back at all of Star Trek as Nostalgic. So does it really matter in the long run?

You’re absolutely right.

PUSH THE FRANCHISE *FORWARD* AND BUILD NEW CANON AND LORE THAT PEOPLE IN 50 YEARS WILL BE NOSTALGIC ABOUT.

You have GOT to stop gatekeeping the right way to handle references in this franchise and dictating an end to pulling anything from previous canon.

I keep telling you this is not a normal franchise – it has 58 years of stories it can interconnect with and reference and build from. That’s a rare privilege for the writers and the fans, long term or no. There is no precedent for our situation beyond Doctor Who and Star Wars, really, and I’d say by telling stories that span 1000 years of continuity, Star Trek has done better than Star Wars which until Dawn of the Jedi has been hyper focused on a small sliver of time and space.

OMG did you see what register number that was??? #nospoilers

Calm down. It was in a preview for the season, and it was a blink and you’ll miss it shot.

I saw that too. And it reminds me that (I can talk about spoilers of this ep now right?)

The Progenitors or the idea of them did not originate on TNG’s the Chase. They were a theory of Spock as to why so many species across the galaxy are humanoid and that an ancient race must have populated several worlds across the Galaxy.

Why is the old guy in the ep keep referring to the Projenitors of a 1000’s of year old secret? The very notion that they are responsible for humanity makes them millions if not billions years old.

I took that as it’s the secret of their existence that a thousand years old- not the race themselves.

Ahhh gotcha.

Has anyone ever noticed that The female Progenitor not only looks like a changeling but is also played by Salome Jens? HMMMM…..

I’ve always noticed that… and always hoped that it was just a coincidence. “The Chase” was strong enough on its own without Changeling conspiracy theories throw in.

Plus, the Changelings only adopted their “solid faces” to mimic Odo’s poor shifting abilities and make him feel more comfortable with his own people.

1 hr 25 min

Terran Empire

• View history

The Terran Empire was a repressive interstellar government dominated by the Terrans from Earth , locally named Terra by the 23rd century, in the mirror universe . The Empire ruled by terror, its Imperial Starfleet acting as its iron fist. In the Imperial Starfleet, officers often promoted themselves by killing superiors that did not follow the rules of the Empire. Torture was a common form of interrogation and discipline. ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly "; TOS : " Mirror, Mirror ")

• 1.1 Religion
• 2.1 Early history
• 2.2 21st century
• 2.3 22nd century
• 2.4 23rd and 24th centuries
• 3 Subjugated races
• 4.1 Background information
• 4.2 Apocrypha
• 4.3 See also
• 4.4 External link

Culture [ ]

Going by rebellion sources, the culture of the Empire was fascistic , described as oppressive, racist and xenophobic , predicated on an unconditional hatred and rejection of anything and everything "other". Michael Burnham summarized this information by identifying the Empire as the antithesis of the United Federation of Planets in every way. ( DIS : " Despite Yourself ")

Humans of the prime universe could be violent, but violence was so ingrained in Terran culture that it self-propagated as an evolutionary survival mechanism, resulting in a strength that Michael Burnham described as "painted rust" – a facade hiding mutual fear between target and potential killer. From what she had heard of the Terran Empire, Katrina Cornwell came to the conclusion that, on the basis that prime universe Humans would be unaccustomed to the barbarism commonplace on Terran starships, the prime universe's Gabriel Lorca could not have survived his trip to the mirror universe. ( DIS : " Despite Yourself ", " The War Without, The War Within ")

Philippa Georgiou claimed that the only motivation Terrans had for any given action was revenge . ( DIS : " Die Trying ")

Religion [ ]

During a debrief at Starfleet Headquarters in the 32nd century , the former Terran emperor , Philippa Georgiou , revealed that an alternate First Contact Day was celebrated in the Terran Empire as a Holy Day, commemorating Zefram Cochrane 's successful repulse of the first wave of a Vulcan invasion and the acquisition of Vulcan technology which was used to establish the Empire as a space-faring power. ( DIS : " Die Trying ") She also claimed that an emperor's victims became their servants in the afterlife. ( DIS : " Terra Firma, Part 1 ")

History [ ]

Early history [ ].

In 2155 , Commander Jonathan Archer stated that the Empire had existed for "centuries". ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ") One of the Empire's early outer space conquests was a landing on Terra's moon , Luna , where it planted its flag. ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ", " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II " opening credits ) Millennia ago, Terrans abandoned ideals such as freedom, equality and co-operation as they found them to be, in Georgiou's words, "destructive ideals that fuel rebellions". ( DIS : " Vaulting Ambition ")

21st century [ ]

Humanity's first contact with an alien species in the mirror universe began exactly as it did in the traditional universe. Upon detecting Zefram Cochrane 's warp signature , the Vulcan scout ship T'Plana-Hath landed in Bozeman , Montana , to make first contact with Humanity. Instead of welcoming the Vulcans in a spirit of friendship and understanding, the mirror Cochrane killed the first Vulcan to set foot on Terran soil with a shotgun , as the he and his fellow Terrans boarded and ransacked the Vulcan ship after killing the first officer also. According to mirror Archer, the Vulcan first contact was considered a prelude to invasion.

Instead of the Vulcans gradually releasing technology to Terra over time, the Terran Empire applied the stolen Vulcan technology to a policy of aggressive interstellar expansion. Because of this, the Empire was able to engage in technological research and development considerably earlier than its United Earth counterpart in the prime universe. ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ")

22nd century [ ]

By the 2150s , the Terran Empire had already conquered the Vulcans , Denobulans , Andorians , Aenar , Orions , and Tellarites and had launched attacks against the Klingons , Rigelians , and Xindi . The flagship of the Empire, the ISS Enterprise , under the command of Captain Maximilian Forrest , had a much more racially-diverse crew than its prime-universe counterpart, with numerous Vulcans and Tellarites serving as crew members.

Due to the rapid initial expansion made possible by the captured Vulcan technology, the Empire's hold on its territories was initially weak. By 2155 , some of the worlds conquered by the Terrans were beginning to rebel against Terran rule, leading to a long-running conflict , and after a disastrous defeat at Tau Ceti , the Empire came to the brink of collapse. Propaganda , however, conveyed the message that things were going in the Empire's favor and that the war would be over soon.

In that year, the USS Defiant , a Federation ship launched in the 23rd century of a parallel universe , was reported in Tholian space. The first officer of the ISS Enterprise , Commander Archer, reviewed this report and proposed a bold surgical strike at an asteroid base at which the Tholians were keeping the Defiant . Archer's proposal was quickly rejected by Forrest, causing Archer to mutiny against his captain and take control of Enterprise to retrieve the Defiant so its technology could be utilized against the rebellion. Enterprise traveled to the base and dispatched a boarding party to gain all information they could about the ship, and destroy it to prevent the Tholians from being able to use it. Unfortunately, during the retrieval operation, the Tholians attacked Enterprise and destroyed it, stranding the boarding party aboard the Defiant . ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ")

The truth about interphasic space and the origin of the Defiant remained classified for "Emperor's Eyes Only" into the mid-23rd century.

Following the destruction of the ISS Enterprise and the death of Captain Forrest, Commander Archer and his away team commandeered the USS Defiant . They proceeded to destroy the Tholian hangar in which the ship was being held and rescued a number of former Enterprise crewmembers , including Hoshi Sato , after apparent consideration of leaving their comrades stranded. Archer made a rendezvous with the ISS Avenger , the flagship of Admiral Black . Archer vaporized the admiral and took command of both vessels.

However, this coincided with Commander T'Pol and Crewman Soval leading the other non-Human crewmembers on board the Avenger in a mutiny aboard the ship. They attacked the Defiant in hopes of destroying it but the mutiny itself was destroyed after Commander Charles Tucker III reinitialized power systems that Phlox had attempted to disable. Commander Archer, acting as captain, then set a direct course for Terra, where he intended to declare himself Emperor of the Terran Empire. However, Hoshi Sato poisoned him with the assistance of his bodyguard , Travis Mayweather . The two then took control of the Defiant , and upon arriving at Terra, Sato declared herself Empress . ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II ")

At some point between 2155 and the 2250s, the symbol of the Empire appears to have been altered. The earlier symbol closely resembled that of the United Earth government, depicting all of Terra's continents, though replacing a laurel of peace with an aggressive sword. However, by the mid- 23rd century , the symbol, while remaining essentially the same, had a mirrored globe and what seemed to be an inverted delta in the background. ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II "; DIS : " Despite Yourself ")

23rd and 24th centuries [ ]

Terran emblem in 2256

By the mid- 23rd century , the Terran Empire had conquered much of known space. However, it continued to be resisted by an alliance of non-Human species, including Vulcans , Andorians , and Klingons . Furthermore Gabriel Lorca of the ISS Buran attempted a failed coup against Emperor Philippa Georgiou . By 2256 or 2257 Starfleet engaged a rebel fleet at Porathia . ( DIS : " Despite Yourself ")

The same year, the Imperial Intelligence located the headquarters of the resistance on Harlak , which was destroyed by the ISS Charon . ( DIS : " The Wolf Inside ")

In 2257, Lorca was able to resume his coup against Georgiou, having escaped the mirror universe and manipulated his way back with a Federation starship, the USS Discovery . For a while, the coup was successful, but Discovery had been informed that Lorca was Terran by the prime Michael Burnham , who Lorca had become obsessed with due to his relationship with the mirror Burnham , and Discovery defeated Lorca. However, although Lorca was killed, not only was Georgiou deposed, but the Charon had been destroyed, and she had been brought to the prime universe, resulting in a power vacuum. ( DIS : " Vaulting Ambition ", " What's Past Is Prologue ", " The War Without, The War Within ")

Not long after this, the symbol was changed yet again, returning to its delta-less version and, this time, depicting only the continents of Terra's western hemisphere.

Eventually, the power vacuum was filled. The Empire encountered a Gorlan uprising, to which the ISS Enterprise , captained by James T. Kirk , responded with the destruction of the rebels' home planet. Other feats of Captain Kirk by 2264 included the execution of five thousand colonists on Vega IX and the annihilation of all remaining inhabitants of Talos IV . In 2267, the Empire coveted the dilithium reserves of the Halkan homeworld and Kirk interceded to demand mining rights on behalf of the Empire.

Emblem worn by a Terran slave

In that year, crewmembers of the ISS Enterprise , including Captain Kirk, accidentally switched places with their prime universe counterparts of the USS Enterprise , who in the same time were transported aboard the mirror version of the Enterprise . Kirk believed that the mirror Spock would one day become captain of the ISS Enterprise , and before returning to his own reality, he planted a seed of doubt about the inevitability of the Empire and whether violence was the only logical answer. Spock promised to consider Kirk's words, after realizing the Empire would only last about 240 years before being overthrown. ( TOS : " Mirror, Mirror ")

As Kirk predicted, the mirror Spock later eventually rose to become Commander-in-Chief of the Empire. He began instituting major reforms that were very popular, turning the Empire into a more peaceful and less aggressive power. However, Spock's reforms left the Empire unprepared to defend itself against the emerging threat of a united Klingon-Cardassian Alliance , which managed to conquer the entire Terran Empire, turning the Terrans themselves into a slave race. The Bajorans , a people conquered by the Empire, came to be a powerful voice in this Alliance. ( DS9 : " Crossover ")

Subjugated races [ ]

Appendices [ ], background information [ ].

Robert Hewitt Wolfe decided to give the Terran Empire some formidable enemies. " Empires aren't usually brutal unless there's a reason. There are usually external or internal pressures that cause them to be that way, " he commented. " So I just thought that if the parallel Earth was that brutal, there had to be a reason. And the reason was that the barbarians (the Klingons and the Cardassians ) were at the gate. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. ? ))

Wolfe based the Terran Empire's predicament on historical precedents. He further elaborated, " My analogy was to the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was as brutal and as nasty as it was because all around it, it had very aggressive barbarians that it was afraid of. The Chinese had the same thing, the Mongols were always there. So if you suddenly make the Romans nice guys, or the Chinese nice guys, well that's great and everything, but then the Mongols come across and it's all over. So that was kind of the idea. " ( citation needed • edit )

In the first draft script of DS9 : " Through the Looking Glass ", Benjamin Sisko described the Terran Empire as "corrupt, brutal, and doomed to collapse in any case." Mirror O'Brien, however, longed for the days when the Empire still existed and, later in the same script, Rom suggested reestablishing the Empire once the Terran Rebellion succeeded, with Sisko as the head of the Empire. Sisko himself, though, was against that idea, commenting, " The Terran Empire was every bit as corrupt as the Alliance. " The Empire wasn't referenced at all in the final draft script of "Through the Looking Glass". ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion - A Series Guide and Script Library ; [3] )

After the premiere of DIS : " Vaulting Ambition ", screenwriter Jordon Nardino answered fan's questions through his Twitter feed. On the topic of the Terran Empire's relation to ancient Rome, Nardino stated that, " Lots of discussion in the room about the origins of the Terran Empire. In terms of canon, as always, it's what's on screen and nothing more. Unanswered questions leave avenues for future seasons / iterations of Trek to explore. I do not know if MU's "point of departure" is a specific incident, or the entire history of the MU somehow darkly mirrors ours. Canon locks us into an origin no later than the 20th century. Georgiou's "millenia" could be construed as hyperbole. But I firmly do not believe the Terrans are merely a continuation of the Roman Empire. MU earth history should roughly (but darkly) mirror our history as much as possible. I think Rome never falling would diverge too much. Leaders with imperial pretensions have adopted the styles and titles of the Romans since… well… the minute Rome "fell"! Napoleon took the title Augustus. So it's natural the Terrans looked back to Rome too. " ( 'After Trek' Gives Details On Georgiou's Meal, Mirror Stamets, Terran Empire History And More ; [4] )

On the topic of Terran history and the meaning behind mirror Philippa Georgiou 's elaborate title, Nardino stated:

" All Hail her most Imperial Majesty, Mother of the Fatherland, Overlord of Vulcan, Dominus of Kronos, Regina Andor, All Hail Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius. " But what's it mean??!? When we began digging into the Terrans last year, I had just read a newer history of Rome and was excited to use it as inspiration. ( SPQR by Mary Beard, check it out.) Here's some of the titles Roman Emperors used: [LINK ] So into her titles: – Father of the Fatherland is easy, we turned that into Mother of the Fatherland (even tho we de-gendered Emperor, it felt right) – Overlord of Vulcan : an early conquest of the Terrans, they see themselves as their protectors. It's paternalistic / delusional. – Dominus of Kronos : Terrans are very proud of conquering Qo'noS. Dominus is a harsher title the Emperor at the time took as a result (and Georgiou kept for herself). "We OWN them." Qo'noS mispronounced out of cultural chauvinism. – Regina Andor : Andoria is a jewel in the Terran crowd. Subjugated warrior race. Early Terran conquest, pre-Sato. The title was created to celebrate this achievement. Now as for Georgiou's many names… "Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius" Philipa Georgiou: her given name and her family name, just like Prime. Augustus: the Terrans see themselves as inheritors of the Roman Empire so their Emperors take the title of its first Emperor. ( 'After Trek' Gives Details On Georgiou's Meal, Mirror Stamets, Terran Empire History And More ; [5] )

Additionally, Nardino considered that Centaurius was the first system colonized by the Terrans owing to its proximity to Sol, thus resulting in the then-ruling Emperor taking its title in tribute. ( 'After Trek' Gives Details On Georgiou's Meal, Mirror Stamets, Terran Empire History And More ; [6] )

Apocrypha [ ]

In the game Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force , part of the story involves going through a scavenger base composed of many species' ships. One of these ships is an Imperial Starfleet vessel, apparently dating back to the 23rd century. It is populated by Humans, who behave typically for the mirror universe. How it came to be in Voyager 's canon dimension is unknown.

The novel The Sorrows of Empire depicts Spock becoming Emperor of the Terran Empire in 2277 and reforming the Empire into a democratic society, only to be overthrown and killed by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance in 2295. At the same time, he engineers events leading to the formation of the Alliance, believing that their conquest of the former Empire will ultimately lead to their downfall and the establishment of a Federation-style republic in the future (which occurs in the follow-up novel Rise Like Lions ).

In the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Dark Mirror – written and published before DS9's televised visits to the Mirror Universe – the Terran Empire (called the United Empire of Planets) is depicted as still existing in the 24th century, with Spock's reforms having been cut short by his death , speculated by Captain Jean-Luc Picard to be the result of his assassination after he pushed the Empire too far, too quickly. The crew of the mirror Enterprise -D are assigned a new mission to devise a means of bringing a ship from the prime universe into the mirror universe and then return after replacing its crew, the Empire having run out of territory that it can easily conquer in its own universe, but the Enterprise crew of the prime universe manage to sabotage their efforts and devise a method of detecting future incursions.

In the computer game Star Trek Online , by 2409, the Terran Rebellion has succeeded in overthrowing the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance and restored the Terran Empire to its former status as a major power in the quadrant . The Terran Empire of the 25th century has also returned to the old ways, having engaged in a series of hostile incursions into the prime universe. The Empire attempts to invade that universe using a trans-dimensional portal in the Badlands , and later allies with the Temporal Liberation Front. Imperial ships have markings similar to those used in the 22nd century, albeit red instead of yellow. The Emperor in the 25th century is revealed in the episode "The Eye of the Storm" (released in September 2022) to be the mirror counterpart of Wesley Crusher , who seeks to combine his powers from the Traveler with those of "the Other" (the mirror counterpart of V'ger ) to become a god and destroy all of existence. After he is defeated, he is replaced by Leeta , who up to that point had commanded the ISS Enterprise -F.

The mirror universe novella Saturn's Children identifies Andorians, Bolians , Tellarites, and Denobulans as part of the rebellion. Whereas the success of the Terran Rebellion has led to the reinstatement of the Terran Empire in Star Trek Online , in the novels, the democratic Commonwealth is established.

See also [ ]

• Mirror universe people
• Mirror universe casualties
• Mirror universe history
• Starfleet ranks
• Terran Rebellion
• Starfleet uniform

External link [ ]

• Terran Empire at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• 3 USS Antares (32nd century)

Anthony Hopkins Ushers in an Age of Gladiators in First 'Those About to Die' Trailer

Roland Emmerich's epic sword-and-sandal series will debut on Peacock in time for the Summer Olympics in July.

The Big Picture

• Explore a corrupt world of gladiatorial combat in Ancient Rome in sword-and-sandal series Those About to Die on Peacock.
• Emmerich's passion project stars Anthony Hopkins and promises high danger and excitement as gladiators clash, blood flows, and political intrigue unfolds.
• Dive into the seedy underbelly of entertainment, political maneuvering, and Roman dynasties using the Coliseum to further their own ends.

As WWE WrestleMania XL comes to a close, it's time to enter a new ring of combat. Independence Day director Roland Emmerich 's sword-and-sandal series Those About to Die debuted a new teaser during the event that introduces the complex and corrupt world of gladiatorial combat in Ancient Rome with a little help from Roman emperor Vespasian , played by two-time Academy Award winner Sir Anthony Hopkins . Fittingly, all 10 episodes of the series are set to release on Peacock on Thursday, July 18, just over a week before the Summer Olympic Games in Paris begin on July 26.

Developed by Robert Rodat and directed by Emmerich and Marco Kreuzpaintner , Those About to Die explores the seedy underbelly of gladiatorial competition , where entertainment for the masses, political maneuvering, and Roman dynasties all intertwine. The outward goal is to give the audience the blood and sport they crave through any means necessary. Beneath the spectacle, however, all sorts of characters from throughout the Empire use the Coliseum as a venue to further their own ends. The series promises high danger and excitement as gladiators clash and blood flows in this world of corruption and death, all as the struggle to succeed the aging emperor rages on.

The teaser is narrated by Hopkins, who sets the stage for the bloodsport to come. As flashes of warriors with swords, shields, and bows go past, he recounts how the battles in the arena are just as much a part of the history of war as clashes on the field and verbal spars and subterfuge behind closed doors. While it sounds as if he's addressing the people of Rome for the games begin, his words also reflect the political intrigue going on behind the scenes. There will be no shortage of action in Emmerich and Rodat's series, however, as a final shot shows horses and chariots storming through the arena while warriors fight with fury and grace .

'Those About to Die' Was a Passion Project for Emmerich

In addition to Hopkins, Those About to Die features an expansive cast including Iwan Rheon, Sara Martins, Tom Hughes, Jojo Macari, Moe Hashim, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Rupert Penry-Jones, Gabriella Pession, Dimitri Leonidas, Emilio Sakraya, David Wurawa, Pepe Barroso, Gonçalo Almeida, Eneko Sagardoy , and Romana Maggiora Vergano . Emmerich's latest foray into television pulls from the 1958 non-fiction novel of the same name by Daniel Mannix and pulls the director back down to Earth after 2022 saw the release of his sci-fi disaster film Moonfall . The idea of creating a Roman Empire epic has stuck with him for some time, however. In a previous interview with Collider's Steve Weintraub , Emmerich revealed he had his sights set on helming Gladiator until he found that Ridley Scott had already beaten him to the punch.

Those About to Die finally gives him the chance to explore his vision for the sword and sandal genre. Emmerich shared in an official statement both his deep interest in the Roman Empire and his appreciation for Mannix's novel that encouraged him to create the series:

"I have always been fascinated by the history of the Roman Empire. So much still seems relevant for our society today - from the entanglement of politics and sports to the disciplines of the competitions, which haven’t changed much either over the last 2000 years. The most electrifying spectacles for the masses still involve two men in an arena, beating each other up, and the chariots of today are called race cars whose drivers still crash and often pay with their lives. When my partners Gianni Nunnari and Harald Kloser put Daniel Mannix’s Those About to Die on my reading list, I was immediately hooked. My goal was to create a show that explores a side of Rome never told before - the dirty business of entertaining the masses, giving the mob what they want most... blood and sport. Let the games begin."

Those About to Die premieres all ten episodes on Peacock on Thursday, July 18 . Check out the first teaser below.

Star Trek (TV Series)

Bread and circuses (1968), leonard nimoy: mister spock.

• Quotes (15)

Quotes 

Dr. McCoy : You know why you're not afraid to die, Spock? You're more afraid of living. Each day you stay alive is just one more day you might slip, and let your Human half peek out. That's it, isn't it? Insecurity. Why, you wouldn't know what to do with a genuine, warm, decent feeling.

Spock : Really, Doctor?

Dr. McCoy : [after a pause]  I know. I'm worried about Jim, too.

Flavius : What do you call those?

Spock : I call them 'ears'.

Flavius : Trying to be funny?

Spock : Never.

[Kirk, Spock and McCoy are on an Earth-like planet] 

Spock : Fascinating. This atmosphere is remarkably similar to your twentieth century. Moderately industrialized pollution, containing substantial amounts of carbon monoxide, and partially consumed hydrocarbons.

Dr. McCoy : The word was smog.

Spock : Yes, I believe that was the term. I had no idea you were that much of a historian, Doctor.

Dr. McCoy : I am not, Mister Spock. I was simply trying to stop you from giving us a whole lecture on the subject.

[last lines] 

Spock : [referring to Flavius]  I wish we could've examined that belief of his more closely. It seems illogical for a sun worshiper to develop a philosophy of total brotherhood. Sun worship is usually a primitive superstition religion.

Uhura : I'm afraid you have it all wrong, Mister Spock, all of you. I've been monitoring some of their old-style radio waves, the empire spokesman trying to ridicule their religion. But he couldn't. Don't you understand? It's not the sun up in the sky. It's the Son of God.

Capt. Kirk : Caesar - and Christ. They had them both. And the word is spreading... only now.

Dr. McCoy : A philosophy of total love and total brotherhood.

Spock : It will replace their imperial Rome; but it will happen in their twentieth century.

Capt. Kirk : Wouldn't it be something to watch, to be a part of? To see it happen all over again? Mister Chekov, take us out of orbit. Ahead warp factor one.

Chekov : Aye, sir.

Mr. Spock : Even more fascinating. Slavery evolving into an institution, with guaranteed medical payments, old-age pensions.

Dr. McCoy : Quite logical, I'd say, Mister Spock. Just as it's logical that, uh... 20th-century Rome would use television to show its gladiator contest, or name a new car the Jupiter VIII.

Mr. Spock : Doctor, if I were able to show emotion, your new infatuation with that term would begin to annoy me.

Dr. McCoy : What term? 'Logic'? Medical men are trained in logic, Mr. Spock.

Mr. Spock : Really, Doctor? I had no idea they were trained. Watching you, I assumed it was trial and error.

[Spock and Dr. McCoy are locked in a prison cell] 

Dr. McCoy : Spock, er... I know we've, er, had our disagreements. Er, maybe they're jokes, I don't know; as Jim says, we're not often sure ourselves sometimes. But, er... what I'm trying to say is...

Spock : Doctor, I am seeking a means of escape. Will you please be brief?

Dr. McCoy : Well, what I'm trying to say is, you saved my life in the arena.

Spock : Yes, that's quite true.

Dr. McCoy : [indignantly]  I'm trying to thank you, you pointed-eared hobgoblin!

Spock : Oh, yes, you Humans have that emotional need to express gratitude. "You're welcome", I believe, is the correct response.

Dr. McCoy : Once, just once, I'd like to be able to land someplace and say "Behold, I am the Archangel Gabriel."

Spock : I fail to see the humor in that situation, Doctor.

Dr. McCoy : Naturally. You could hardly claim to be an angel with those pointed ears, Mr. Spock. But say you landed someplace with a pitchfork...

Dr. McCoy : Odd that these people should worship the 'sun'.

Spock : Why, Doctor?

Dr. McCoy : Because, my dear Mister Spock, it is illogical. Rome had no sun worshipers. Why should they parallel Rome in every way except one?

Spock : I find the checks and balances of this civilization quite illuminating.

Dr. McCoy : Next he'll be telling us he prefers it over Earth history.

Spock : They do seem to have escaped the carnage of your first three world wars, Doctor.

Dr. McCoy : They have slavery, gladiatorial games, despotism.

Spock : Situations quite familiar to the six million who died in your first world war, the eleven million who died in your second, the thirty-seven million who died in your third. Shall I go on?

Claudius Marcus : Interesting...

[the Enterprise is scanning Planet 892-IV] 

Uhura : Captain? Both amplitude and frequency modulation being used. I think I can pick up something visual - some news broadcast using a system I... think they once called video.

Mr. Spock : 'Television' was the colloquial term.

Uhura : [Kirk and Spock are assessing Planet 892-IV]  Captain, both amplitude and frequency modulation being used. I think I can pick up something visual. It's a news broadcast using a system I think they once called video.

Mr. Spock : "Television" was the colloquial term.

Capt. Kirk : Put it on the screen.

Uhura : Aye.

Announcer : [static clears]  ... Today, police rounded up still another group of dissidents. Authorities are as yet unable to explain these fresh outbreaks of treasonable disobedience by well-treated, well-protected, intelligent slaves. Now turning to the world of sports, and bringing you the taped results of the arena games last night: The first heat involved amateurs. They're petty thieves from the city prison - conducted, however, with traditional weapons, it provided some amusement...

[one contestant kills the other] 

Announcer : ...for a few moments. In the second heat, a slightly more professional display, in the spirit of our splendid past, when gladiator Claudius Marcus killed the last of the Barbarians, William B. Harrison, in an excellent example of...

[the picture fades] 

Uhura : Transmission lost, sir. Shall I try to get it back?

Capt. Kirk : [Spock returns to his scanner]  Slaves and gladiators... What are we seeing, a 20th-Century Rome?

Mr. Spock : Captain, the one described as the barbarian is also listed here: Flight Officer William B. Harrison, of the S.S. Beagle. At least there WERE some survivors down there.

Claudius Marcus : Now, Captain, what are you going to order your men to do?

Capt. Kirk : If I brought down a hundred of them armed with phasers...

Claudius Marcus : ...you could probably defeat the combined armies of our entire empire - and violate your oath regarding non-interference with other societies. I believe you all swear you'll die, before you'd violate that directive. Am I right?

Spock : Quite correct.

Dr. McCoy : Must you always be so blasted honest?

[Spock and McCoy are each fighting a Roman in the arena] 

Spock : You need any help, Doctor?

Dr. McCoy : Whatever gave you that idea?

Achilles : Fight, you pointed-ear freak!

Dr. McCoy : You tell him, buster. Of all the completely... ridiculous... illogical questions I ever heard in my life!

Dr. McCoy : [upon being released from their cell by Kirk]  What happened, Jim?

Spock : What did they do to you, Captain?

Capt. Kirk : [reflecting on his night with the slave Drusilla]  They... threw me a few curves...

Spock : [Speaking to his opponent in the arena]  I do not want to injure you!

[Spock clobbers the opponent's head with his shield] 

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Screen Rant

Historians try to predict gladiator 2's plot based on real events.

A pair of historians join forces to decipher whether real-world events could provide the basis for Ridley Scott's return to Rome in Gladiator 2.

• Gladiator 2 may explore real historical events from the Severan dynasty, providing a more accurate depiction of Ancient Rome.
• Ridley Scott's views on historical accuracy raise doubts about the faithful representation in the sequel.
• The casting of Joseph Quinn as Caracalla hints at potential flashbacks and a deeper dive into Roman history.

Though the first movie was largely fictitious, a pair of historians share their predictions on which real-world events will be in Gladiator 2 's story. The sequel to Ridley Scott's 2000 historical epic features an all-star cast that includes Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Parcal, May Calamawy, and Joseph Quinn, while Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi are set to reprise their roles of Lucilla and Roman Senator Grachus. Gladiator 2 is currently slated to release in theaters on November 22.

While Gladiator 2 's story is shrouded in mystery, History Hit has united archaeologists Dr. Simon Elliott and Tristan Hughes to investigate whether the past could inform the plot of the movie.

Using the age of Mescal's older Lucius Verus during the Severan dynasty of Emperors from 193 to 235, of which Quinn's Emperor Caracalla belongs to, and the campaigns of predecessor Septimius Severus could point to a North Africa or North Britain settings. Both historians also used the dynasty to speculate about potential flashbacks to before Caracella's reign through the Severan dynasty's rise to power, including the pivotal Battle of Lugdunnun.

Does Historical Accuracy Matter To Ridley Scott Movies?

Gladiator 2 seems guaranteed to be more faithful to historical Rome compared to earlier sequel premises that featured an immortal and resurrected Maximus (Russell Crowe) in battles between Christianity's rise and Pagan deities that would leave the former gladiator living until the modern day. However, the original film's story sets up mixed expectations for whether the sequel will accurately depict history. While certain societal concepts, dynamics, and conflicts were faithful to the past, Maximus and other characters' characterizations, and the power structures of Rome failed to live up to their real-world counterparts.

Gladiator True Story & Historical Accuracy: How Much Really Happened

Furthermore, Scott's own contentious views on whether historical accuracy should take priority over the spectacle of cinema may suggest that Gladiator 2 may not be the faithful visit to Ancient Rome viewers may desire. Once promotion for Scott's exploration of pivotal French leader Napoleon Bonaparte in 2023's Napoleon received criticism from historians for how it depicted his campaigns, the director responded by stating " Get a life ", explaining that exaggerated or fabricated events were used to emphasize the effect he sees the figures as leaving. This has resulted in skepticism over Scott's approach to history from some viewers.

While discussions around historical accuracy may come second to Scott's vision for Gladiator 2 , History Hit 's discussion is nevertheless a fascinating discussion of a little-known period of the Roman era. With Quinn's casting as Caracalla confirmed, the two experts' speculation does hold some weight as the character would be alive following the 15-year time gap between each movie. As such, as viewers eagerly await their first official glimpse of Gladiator 2 , many may be inspired to dive into history to uncover more of what the era could offer Mescal's older Lucius.

Gladiator is available to stream on Paramount+.

Source: History Hit

Gladiator 2

Gladiator 2 is the follow-up to Ridley Scott's award-winning film Gladiator from 2000. Scott returns to direct the sequel, with Paul Mescal staring as Lucius, alongside Denzel Washington and Barry Keoghan as the villain Emperor Geta. Gladiator 2 had been stuck in development hell for years before a script written by David Scarpa finally moved forward.