Who cares for Adonais, explained

Important takeaways

• Star Trek
  dug into gods vs aliens with Apollo, disguised as a Greek god.
• TOS
  episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?” sees Apollo as an alien, but accepts that he was understood as a god by the ancient Greeks.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks
  introducing the demigod Ensign Olly.

Since it premiered, Star Trek have tackled complex subjects and asked questions that make their fans think differently about the world. Although Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek's the creator, was not a religious man, he and the other minds behind The Original Series (TOS) saw the narrative power of asking questions about spirituality and even the existence of gods or a single God.

They tackled this topic in depth in the second season of TOS with the episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?” This episode became famous, or maybe infamous, for the scene where a giant, green, floating hand grabs the Enterprise and tries to crush it. The disembodied hand belonged to none other than Apollo, the Greek god Apollo, god of light and purity.

The time Kirk met a god

As the giant green hand held the Enterprise in a literal death grip, a vision of a giant head appeared, crowned with bay leaves, and his voice echoed through the Enterprise. The giant head called the crew their 'beloved children' and welcomed them down to their planet, their 'home'.

Captain Kirk took a landing party down to the surface of the planet, which was known as Pollux IV. When he, Lt. Scotty, Dr. McCoy, Ensign Chekov, and Lieutenant Palamas arrived and were greeted by a handsome man wearing a gold crown, a draped gold garment, and golden sandals. His aesthetics were reminiscent of the ancient Greeks, as was the architecture of the planet. He introduced himself as Apollo.

The members of the landing party, of course, did not believe that he was the Greek god. In fact, Dr. McCoy's tricorder scans showed him to be basically human, although he had an extra organ in his chest that McCoy couldn't explain. Angered by their doubt, Apollo transformed into a giant version of himself and flourished:

Welcome to Olympus, Captain Kirk!

Apollo demanded their worship and devotion, just as the ancient Greeks gave him. He spoke of that time period in exact detail, and his personality was consistent with the depictions of Apollo in the Greek myths. When the crew refused to worship him, he shot them with lightning bolts, a power Apollo was known to have as the son of Zeus.

Was Apollo really a god?

Although the members of the landing party could not explain Apollo's supernatural abilities, they still did not believe that he was actually an ancient Greek god. Then Kirk asked one of the most interesting questions Star Trek franchise has ever tackled — what if the beings that humans understood as “gods” were actually aliens?

He suggested that if they accepted Apollo's story, which describes how he and the rest of the Greek Pantheon were visitors to Earth thousands of years ago, then it was logical that the people of the time would have interpreted these alien visitors as gods. After all, they had supernatural powers that the Greeks had never seen, and they had no concept of life beyond Earth. How else could they interpret alien visitors, if not as gods?

The landing party concluded that although Apollo was clearly not a god, he was indeed the being known to the ancient Greeks as the god of light and purity, Apollo. After some investigation, they discovered that Apollo could channel energy from any energy source through his body to create the “lightning bolts” he shot from his fingers.

Star Trek took on this concept of aliens being worshiped as gods several times throughout the franchise. The TOS cast brought up this topic again Star Trek V: The Final Frontier when they discovered an alien who presented himself as the Judeo-Christian version of God. In it The next generation episode “Who Watches the Watchers”, Captain Picard visited a pre-warp society that discovered a Starfleet observation post on their planet and began worshiping Starfleet officers as gods.

Of course, the deepest and most nuanced exploration took place in “god-aliens”. Deep Space Nine with the “wormhole aliens/Prophets”. In the very first episode of DS9Commander Benjamin Sisko discovered that the Bajoran “gods”, the Prophets, were actually non-corporeal aliens living inside a stable wormhole in space outside Bajor's orbit.

Spoilers for Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, episode 6 to come.

Star Trek: Lower Decks' Demigod

The latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks“Of Gods and Angles,” introduces a new character named Ensign Olly. The first thing people notice when they see her is her laurel crown, identical to the one worn by the creature Apollo, whom Captain Kirk met over a century earlier. It turns out that she is related to Apollo. Zeus is her grandfather, and like her family members, Ensign Olly can channel electricity from any source around her through her body and direct it at a target.

Unfortunately, Ensign Olly doesn't have as much control over his electrical powers as Apollo did. She continues to channel energy from the ship and create energy surges that destroy everything she works with, which is not a great skill for an engineer. Because of this, Olly has already been kicked off several ships by the time she arrives at Cerritos.

Lieutenant Mariner takes on the role of Olly's mentor and helps her figure out how to use her powers for good. Seeing Mariner, the eternal rebel, as a mentor is another nod to how far the Lower Deckers have come since the show began.

It is unclear whether Ensign Olly will appear in any of the remaining episodes of Lower deckbut her presence in this episode canonizes the first demigod in Starfleet. Although, as Captain Freeman points out, Starfleet does not condone the use of the term demigod.

Sources: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Lower Decks