The Needs of the Many II
A Star Trek 2009 Fanfic
Written By: Commander Cody CC-2224
Summary: This work of fanfiction literature that you are about to read so happens to be the next part of a series of philosophical discussions that concern the humanitarian aspect on beginning stage of the Fable III video game. As usual, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are the main cast of this philosophical drama. The story takes place after the events of the first Star Trek 2009 fanfic The Needs of the Many.
Starfleet Academy, San Francisco
After the events of the Star Trek movie…
Spock was snoozing on the living room couch, fast asleep. From the front of the mahogany-colored Lexington leather love couch where he was sleeping, the HDTV television could be seen left flickering with the latest hyper-animated consumer commercial advertising a brand-new Toyota hybrid Prius model. His shoeless legs were crossed against the left-hand side of the sofa, and his Starfleet-issued boots lay rested beside the couch's left-hand side. Cradled in both his hands was a custom-made Xbox 360 Elite gaming console with a custom-Fable-III theme style.
His eyelids fluttered by a slight, emanating a strong presence of a deep, dreamlike sleep he was in the middle of experiencing. His lips twitched, as if muttering something inaudible in his sleep; a sleep that allowed him to live out his dream experience as a tangible reality.
In his deep slumber he stumbled upon the world of a dream that was so strangely familiar to the video game of Fable III. That place was the Throne Room of the Royal Palace of Brightwall, which was twice the size of the Enterprise Bridge. The overtone was eighteenth-century in origin, with its fairly garish displays of furnishings and ornate rugs. However, its scant furnishings made the room look quite empty. Its high ceiling gave this room an atmosphere of formality and human distancing. And it was in this room that all matters, both state and personal, were settled here.
Spock found himself in the place of the male Hero he played a mere few hours ago. However, in the place where he would usually spot the female character Elise, he witnessed Commander Uhura. Also present in the scene was the character's older brother Logan, seated on the tall, lightly cushioned throne at the back of the room, near the ornate stained-glass windows.
It was at this moment that the character Logan gave Spock the very difficult choice of either having Uhura executed, or having the ringleaders of some protest executed.
Spock remembered the time when he and Uhura made love to each other while in the main turbolift of the Enterprise. He could hear a voice that sounded more like his father. It said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few", to which Spock replied quietly to himself in a state of great tension, "Or the one." With that in mind, told Uhura that he would have to sacrifice his life for the ringleaders. However, Uhura strongly protested. But Spock saw no way out of this situation; he simply could not have his cake and eat it, too.
90 Minutes Earlier…
Spock was in front of the HDTV television, playing the beginning part of the video game Fable III. He managed to start in-game at the point when the Hero and his childhood sweetheart Elise were going to stage their own little protest against Logan concerning his unjust and ruthless response with the ringleaders of the protesters assembled at the Brightwall palace.
Logan reacted by giving the Hero the very difficult choice of either sacrifice Elise's life for the lives of the ringleaders, or having the ringleaders executed as the price of sparing Elise.
"I'm protecting the interests of the people," Logan said to Walter Beck. "Do not question me again." He then turned to his Elite Guards. "You will shoot to kill. Start with the ringleaders, and if necessary, continue with the crowd."
"This is wrong!" Walter tried to admonish the king. "You can't do this!"
Logan reacted rather violently to this royal advisor's forceful admonition by having him clubbed.
"Never tell me what I can't do," Logan warned him sternly.
It was at this point that young Capt. James T. Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy stepped into the living room. It was also at this point that McCoy did something unexpected for Kirk.
From peering through the keyhole, it was clear that both Elise and the Hero were quite appalled at Logan's treatment of Walter Beck. "We have to do something," said Elise.
"You always have to do something!" said Kirk sarcastically to the character on television. Whether his sarcasm due to the fact that much of the Fable dialogue was, from his point of view, simplistic and juvenile, the fact remained that Kirk would have to put up with cliché sayings like "We have to do something."
McCoy made a prediction that when it came to making decisions that would be very difficult for humans if applicable to reality, Spock would naturally go for the logical choice; sacrifice the needs of the few…or the one…for the many.
"I'm going to bet the bottom of a twenty-dollar bill that Spock here will simply go for logical," he declared.
"But Bones, because Spock is only half-human and half-Vulcan, Spock would have to go through some pretty intense psychological conflict when faced with a such a difficult decision like this," Kirk contended. He even went a little farther. "In fact, Spock may just be inclined to make a human decision of choosing Elise's life for the lives of the ringleaders."
"Well, knowing Spock, I think there's a high likelihood that Spock will go for the logical choice. Don't you remember his stint in Fable II?"
"Yeah," Kirk remembered. "But perhaps this time, Spock may act differently, perhaps due to the fact that he lost his mother on Vulcan…you know, when Nero destroyed the goddamn planet. I'm going to bet that due to some inner emotional conflicts he may be experiencing, he might be swayed to choose Elise over the ringleaders."
"You're on, Captain," said McCoy, giving his friend a knock of each other's fists.
By that time the scene passed where the Hero and Elise were sent to the throne room.
"Today you have disappointed me," said the Logan character. "I am betrayed by my own blood." To Elise, he said viciously, "And a filthy spy."
"How utterly unimaginative," commented McCoy rather sarcastically.
"Punishment must be apportioned where it belongs," Logan continued.
"Punish me then," said the Hero.
"You are no longer a child," said Logan. "And it's time I stopped treating you as one. You wished to save the traitors who have gathered outside the castle this morning? Very well. You shall have your chance to save them."
The camera then panned sharply to the ringleaders brought before Logan.
"Here stand the leaders of the violent mob," declared Logan. "I will give you a choice. Who will be punished? These strangers…or this girl. The sentence will be death."
"What?" cried the Hero, horrified.
"No…this can't be…," said Elise, quite shocked.
"You are the prince," Logan said to the hero, quite curtly. "Decide."
"Your Majesty!" exclaimed Walter, attempting to intervene on the Hero's behalf. "Logan. Please…"
"I am giving you the power over life and death," Logan said to the Hero.
The Hero thought for a moment. "No. I won't do this," he protested.
Logan decided to make this choice all the more too difficult. "If you can't choose, I will," he declared. "They will all be executed."
"SonuvaBITCH!" exclaimed McCoy in front of the hi-def television. "How cruel can he get?"
"It's a royalty's worst nightmare," commented Kirk.
"So tell me," said Logan to the Hero. "What are you willing to sacrifice to do the right thing?"
"More like whom," said McCoy.
"My answer would be nothing," said Kirk. "I'd fight back."
McCoy made a hand gesture that seemed to indicate "shrugging his right hand. "Yeah, Captain," he said rather sarcastically. "But considering that at this point you're pretty damn powerless to fight back against this twerp…"
"Much of the time in reality, some people cannot simply have their cake and eat it, too," put in Spock coolly. "Though I think this game's parameters allow you to have this…'acceptable' break from reality."
By that point, Kirk and McCoy had missed out on what Elise had said, seconds before the choice prompt appeared on the hi-def television screen.
"Did we miss anything?" asked Kirk.
"You missed the part where Elise was saying that she and the Hero character cannot simply let the ringleaders receive execution," Spock answered in a coolly controlled manner. "And I think he persuades the Hero character to have her executed rather than the ringleaders."
Naturally Spock made the logical choice.
"Thank you…thank you…" said the lady ringleader rather gratefully. Kirk could only make a straight face at that one.
"It's all right," said Elise. "You know what you had to do." Turning to the ringleaders, she said to them, "Never forget what he's done." And to the Hero, she uttered her last words with great conviction. "And that I love you…"
"Take the girl away," commanded Logan in a rather imperious manner that strongly indicated that he really couldn't care less about Elise's fate. "Kill her now." It was then Elise got taken away from the Hero.
McCoy proffered his left hand, indicating that Kirk should pay the bet. Kirk had to pay McCoy his twenty dollars in cash, which was in the form of a twenty-dollar bill. Kirk slapped the bill right in the palm of McCoy' left hand amidst the Hero and Elise expressing their profound grief and Logan arbitrarily exercising his power as King.
"I will never forgive you for this!" cried the Hero to his older brother.
"Good!" said Logan. "Then you will never forget it."
Kirk began to protest this difficult decision. In fact, he even asks the question, "Spock, what if Uhura was in that girl's place?"
And Spock started recalling the time when he and Uhura made out (kissed) in the main turbolift when they were on board the Enterprise.
Kirk and McCoy left the room in utter disinterest, if not in utter disgust, leaving Spock to contend with his logical choice made coldly and without much thought in the Fable III game. Spock was left utterly perplexed and disturbed over the choice of sacrifice he had to make regarding sparing the character Elise's life or leaving her to a doomed fate.
To drown his personal woes, he decided to let his mind wander over commercials. Using the Wi-Fi remote, he switched on the HDTV to a random channel. The very first thing to flash onto life on the TV screen was a cereal commercial, specifically a brand of cereal called Fruit Bran.
The commercials gradually reached their pinnacle of boredom that Spock found himself irresistible to drift off into slumber. By the time he dozed off, the Toyota Prius commercial was playing on the screen.
Spock forced himself to dream the same dream, and this time he was back in that dream. He was in the same situation that he was in regarding him and Uhura in Logan's Throne Room. If choice was left up to him, Spock would then be the one to determine the course of his and other people's destinies. And he was determined to step up the plate first.
But he was held back. And Spock could not help but ponder the situation, if only for a moment. Much of the time, his Vulcan upbringing was reinforced with the notion of considering the collective good before his own self; or rather, considering the needs of many people before the individual few. To deviate from this philosophy long upheld by his ancestors could strip away his Vulcan identity.
But Spock managed to bring into remembrance a famous line from an ancient 21st century science fiction film called Serenity. At the beginning of the film, the main protagonist, Captain Malcolm Reynolds rendered any development of sympathy for Simon Tam's sister, River, impossible by his attitude of "me and mine". I look out for me and mine, Spock recalled Captain Reynolds speaking. That don't concern you 'less I conjure it does.
And if there was one thing to personally live for in his life, that would have him keep on living, it was Uhura herself. So in a feat unexpected of a Vulcan in most circumstances, Spock made the choice to disregard logic and do a very human thing. He allows for the ringleaders to be executed and Uhura's life to be spared.
"Spock, no! You can't do this!" cried Uhura. "It should have been me!"
"The dark-skinned woman lives," said Logan coldly. "Kill the rest of those filthy rebels now."
Spock had Uhura now. But the guilt feeling of consigning the three ringleaders to their doom would never leave him. But at least he did have someone to really live for…and have him keep on living.
The Present Time…
Spock woke up abruptly from his dream. He shot glances around the room; there was no one in sight. The only thing that caught his attention in the room itself was the television, which was still blaring commercials of new automobiles other than the all-new Toyota Prius on the screen.
Energized with his brand-new notion of individuality over collectivism, he decided to apply this new principle to the Fable III game. So he switched the TV channel to the X-Box 360 Elite, popped the game disc into the gaming consoles trey and shut the tray, allowing the game to initialize from the disc.
Spock went through the motions of the game's beginning part of the story, until he came to the part where the Hero had to make the choice of sacrificing his beloved Elise or the ringleaders of the protest. This time he chose Elise over the ringleaders.
By the time Spock already chose Elise as his candidate for earthly salvation, Kirk and McCoy stepped into the living room to check on Spock.
"It should be me!" cried Elise. "Don't do this! It should be me!"
"The girl lives," said Logan. "Kill the rest now."
Sure enough, it was Spock's manner of godlike judgment over Elise and the ringleaders that stole the attention of Kirk and McCoy.
"Bones…are you seeing this?" asked Kirk in a rather surprised manner.
"See what?" asked McCoy.
"Spock just did a very illogical thing!" Kirk exclaimed in reply.
McCoy turned his head to the HDTV screen. Sure enough, Spock selected the Elise character. "Sweet Jesus!" he exclaimed in surprise as well that seemed to hint of sarcasm. "You're right, Captain! More like human, to be exact!"
But Spock was left with some lingering doubt about his choice of Elise over the ringleaders. And McCoy was beginning to admit that Sock could be just as human and self-centered as he could possibly be, aside from deviating from Vulcan logic.
"I probably wouldn't give a damn," said Kirk. "I'm aware those ringleaders may have innocence on their side, but…I barely know those people, and the gratitude received by those folk will eventually lose its novelty.
So will having Elise," added Spock rather insightfully in a manner that seemed to reflect doubt and anguish in his Vulcan face.
"Yeah," agreed McCoy. "But throughout life you eventually start having this annoying gap in your life, fueled by the fact that…Elise is absent."
"But if you received the gratitude of the townsfolk, would there also have to be an option of having…as many women as you could possibly imagine?" asked Spock.
"You mean…sort of like having seventy-two virgins in heaven?" asked Kirk. "Or like Mormon men having many wives?" In jest, he referenced the Muslim belief that all faithful Muslim men would be granted the privilege of having the pleasurable company of seventy-two beautiful virgins in the afterlife, and he referenced the system of institutionalized polygamy among Mormons practiced long before they had to give it up.
"You really have difficulty appreciating what it's like to love only one woman that you know and knows you," McCoy criticized personally to Kirk.
"Why are you telling me that?" retorted Kirk. "Tell that to Spock. Your criticism is far more applicable to Spock's question than my editorial allusion to a belief system…possibly said in jest."
"I'm telling that to you, Captain, because you, of all people, should be expected to show some measure of respect to the concept of a man taking only one woman to be his wife…or mate…or however, you homo-sapiens wish to call it."
"And there can be some serious disadvantages to acquiring more than one female mate," added Spock. "It would be impossible to give your full and undivided attention to your partner for life. In the case of the male, the female partners will be forever contesting for the affections of their one male partner."
"Spock, you couldn't have said it any better," agreed McCoy.
"I agree," Kirk had to agree as well. He wanted to concur with McCoy and at the same time bring the Fable-III-related discussion to an end. "Now that you've finally acquired Elise…granted, at the price of the three now-executed ringleaders, it's about time you and Elise proclaim your marriage vows, set off on your honeymoon, and start screwing around. Comprendo?"
"I'm afraid that part will take long in coming in the game, I'm afraid, Captain," Spock informed Kirk.
"No doubt it'll be the same for reality as well," added McCoy. "C'mon, Captain. Let's see if we can acquire for ourselves a couple o' sandwiches from the Subways Shoppe."
"Good thinking!" exclaimed Kirk, giving McCoy a sharp pat on the back. "What do you say to the good ol' Italian meatball?"
"With the cheese bread? I'd love it!" replied Bones. "Maybe at Subs there'll be plenty of good-lookin' women you can ogle over, Captain, but I really kinda doubt it."
"I'll be too hungry to even care, Bones," said Kirk.
As both Kirk and McCoy herded out of the living room, Kirk turned his head back at Spock. "Happy honeymoon with Elise!" Kirk called out, waving his right hand.
"Your mockery of my situation will be noted in my personal log," replied Spock, still glued to the television.
Kirk and McCoy were strolling down the hallway. "'Happy honeymoon?'" McCoy couldn't help asking curiously.
"Yeah," Kirk replied rather casually.
"Is that supposed to be a joke?" asked McCoy.
"Yeah, Bones," said Kirk. "Didn't you realize that at first?"
McCoy simply shrugged his shoulders in response.
Another Vulcan bites the dust of human essence, Kirk finally thought to himself about Spock's strangely human choice.
THE END
For some of you readers who may be wondering whether Serenity is a real film, yes, it is. It was directed by Joss Whedon and released in 2005, and the film is supposed to follow his Firefly TV series, which aired from September to December of 2002. The reference to Serenity was necessary for this fanfic work because it gave Spock a philosophical reference from which he could base his decision concerning of Commander Uhura over the ringleaders in his Fable-III-dream, and in his actual gameplay circumstances.
Wondering about the meatball sandwich in this fanfic? That's my personal favorite sandwich from Subways! That's why I put in in there…
Anyway, I haven't actually played Fable III, but I thought this fanfic would celebrate the release of the game itself. I had to watch brief video clips from YouTube showing both versions of the Hero's choice between Elise or the three Ringleaders.
Also, the Author would greatly appreciate reviews. Your opinions on the matter will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed reading this work of literature!