Review

Culture

Film & TV

Leading

8 August 2025

6 min read

Great storytelling elevates this Star Trek hero to messiah status

Before Captain Kirk, came a compelling commander

Giles Gough

Giles Gough is a writer and creative who hosts the God in Film podcast.

The other captain.

Last month saw the release of the third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the prequel series that follows the crew of the USS Enterprise before one James T. Kirk took the captain’s chair. Not only does the show have the heady mix of fun and serious subject matter, it also has something quite rare for Star Trek; a messiah figure.

Ever since its first airing in 1966, Star Trek has presented a utopian view of the future. The show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry created a world where humanity had grown up and had moved past its petty squabbles. In Roddenberry’s twenty-third century, prejudices around race, class or sex were non-existent. There were, however, some groups that could not get a look in. One topic that got very little representation was sexuality, the other was religion.

Representation of differing sexualities would become something that Star Trek would eventually excel at depicting. Religion, however, has not fared quite so well. Star Trek’s staunchly secular universe is clearly a reflection of Gene’s views. What is interesting though, is the way that in a franchise so resistant to even the idea of God, is how concepts related to him seem to seep into the storytelling. The use of a Messiah figure, specifically a character who sacrifices their life to save others is hardly new in Star Trek. At least two captains come to mind. But there is something particularly novel about Captain Christopher Pike.

For those who are in need of a bit of trivia, Pike, not Kirk, was the first captain of the Enterprise to be depicted. In an unaired pilot, Captain Pike is portrayed by matinee idol, Jeffrey Hunter. This captain is seasoned, world weary, and very serious. Perhaps a little too serious as the network at the time didn’t like the show in that form. They did however, take the unconventional step of ordering a second pilot, which was lighter, and more colourful in tone. Reports differ wildly as to whether Hunter quit or was fired, but one way or another, he did not return to reprise the role of Captain Pike when the show went to series. Instead, the character of Pike was replaced with James T. Kirk, played by a young William Shatner.

This then presented the show with a problem. The production company had an entire episode’s worth of footage costing $645,000 (around $6.5m today) that was unusable in its current state. The novel solution to this problem was to write a framing story where Spock mysteriously commandeers the Enterprise and kidnaps now Fleet Captain Pike. When Spock turns himself in for court martial, he presents video footage in his defence. Footage which just so happens to be selected shots from the unaired pilot. There was just one problem with this. Jeffrey Hunter was unavailable for filming, so they had to cast another actor in the role. As the episodes would show Jeffrey Hunter’s Pike on screen, it would make the recasting look obvious. So actor Sean Kenney was slathered in burns makeup, put in a restrictive wheelchair and only able to communicate through a series of beeps, with Roddenberry writing in an explanation of how Captain Pike had been seriously injured in an explosion on a ship saving some cadets, and was now suffering from ‘locked in syndrome’.

When Star Trek: Discovery’s second season came around, they chose to include characters such as Captain Pike (now played by Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck) to serve as a backdoor pilot for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Rather than steering clear of the convoluted backstory, they leaned into it, having a confident, able-bodied Pike receive a premonition of his own terrible fate. He is told at the time that he can escape if he gives up, but if he goes ahead in completing the mission, it will seal his fate. In that moment, Pike rallies himself by saying:

“You’re a Starfleet Captain, you believe in service, sacrifice, compassion and love. No, I'm not going to abandon the things that make me who I am because the future…it contains an ending I hadn't foreseen for myself”.

Discovery simply had too much plot in it to resolve Pike’s story satisfactorily, so when Strange New Worlds launched, it gave Pike the chance to fully unpack his trauma.

The first episode of Strange New Worlds sees Captain Pike considering retirement from Starfleet. After all you can’t have an accident in space if you never go on a spaceship right? However, he’s drawn back into captaining the Enterprise in order to rescue his first officer, Una, who is trapped on a primitive planet. After saving her, Pike resumes command of the Enterprise. Una is aware of Pike’s vision of the future, and is desperate to dissuade him of walking into a situation that will leave him so disfigured. At which point, Pike tells her he knows the names of all the cadets he saves on that day. “Stay the course, save their lives” he tells her.

In the season one finale of the show, Pike meets a young boy, Maat, who is eager to join Starfleet, and Pike realises he is one of the cadets that he is unable to save. He is about to write a letter to the boy, trying to tell him about his future, when a future version of himself arrives. Throughout the course of the episode, Pike learns that if he avoids his fate and stays in command of the Enterprise, he will inadvertently start a war with the Romulans that will result in Spock’s death. “Every time we change the path, he dies” his future self tells him. This furthers Pike’s resolve to stay the course.

When viewed through this particular lens, Captain Pike’s story in Strange New Worlds is in effect, one long extended Garden of Gethsemane scene. In both cases we see a man, fully aware of the impact his sacrifice will have for the future, but at the same time, still feeling nervous, scared, and wanting to reject the bad hand he’s been dealt. But in both cases, both Jesus and Captain Pike recommit themselves to their mission and their fate. There are no shortage of heroes in sci-fi/fantasy, who sacrifice themselves in the heat of the moment. But a character who has multiple chances for escape, one who has time to consider the torturous weight of his own destiny, and still decides to go through with it? This elevates the character from a simple ‘hero’ to a ‘messiah figure’.

As a result of this, watching Strange New Worlds has now taken on an experience similar to watching The Chosen, the multi-season show centred around Jesus and his disciples. Both shows have an effortlessly charismatic central character who leads those around them with grace and humility, and the more you fall in love with these characters, the more you’re reminded that something absolutely horrendous is going to happen to them. Whilst we know it must happen, it still makes us anxious at the thought of going through it.

Over thirty years since Gene Roddenberry’s death, it’s hard to tell what he would have thought about the evolution of one of the first characters he wrote for Star Trek. On the one hand he might have rejected it out of hand for its parallels with the story of Jesus, a religion he disdained. Or he might just love it for what it is; really, really good storytelling.

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Explainer

Comment

Economics

Leading

Politics

Wisdom

8 May 2025

5 min read

When someone makes a claim, ask yourself these questions

How stories, statistics, and studies exploit our biases.

Alex Edmans

Alex is a professor of finance, and an expert in the use and misuse of data and evidence.

A member of an audience makes a point while gesturing.

On the other hand...

Antenna on Unsplash.

“Check the facts.”

“Examine the evidence.”

“Correlation is not causation.”

We’ve heard these phrases enough times that they should be in our DNA. If true, misinformation would never get out of the starting block. But countless examples abound of misinformation spreading like wildfire.

This is because our internal, often subconscious, biases cause us to accept incorrect statements at face value. Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman refers to our rational, slow thought process – which has mastered the above three phrases – as System 2, and our impulsive, fast thought process – distorted by our biases – as System 1. In the cold light of day, we know that we shouldn’t take claims at face value, but when our System 1 is in overdrive, the red mist of anger clouds our vision.

Confirmation bias

One culprit is confirmation bias – the temptation to accept evidence uncritically if it confirms what we’d like to be true, and to reject a claim out of hand if it clashes with our worldview. Importantly, these biases can be subtle; they’re not limited to topics such as immigration or gun control where emotions run high. It’s widely claimed that breastfeeding increases child IQ, even though correlation is not causation because parental factors drive both. But, because many of us would trust natural breastmilk over the artificial formula of a giant corporation, we lap this claim up.

Confirmation bias is hard to shake. In a study, three neuroscientists took students with liberal political views and hooked them up to a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. The researchers read out statements the participants previously said they agreed with, then gave contradictory evidence and measured the students’ brain activity. There was no effect when non-political claims were challenged, but countering political positions triggered their amygdala. That’s the same part of the brain that’s activated when a tiger attacks you, inducing a ‘fight-or-flight’ response. The amygdala drives our System 1, and drowns out the prefrontal cortex which operates our System 2.

Confirmation bias looms large for issues where we have a pre-existing opinion. But for many topics, we have no prior view. If there’s nothing to confirm, there’s no confirmation bias, so we’d hope we can approach these issues with a clear head.

Black-and-white thinking

Unfortunately, another bias can kick in: black-and-white thinking. This bias means that we view the world in binary terms. Something is either always good or always bad, with no shades of grey.

To pen a bestseller, Atkins didn’t need to be right. He just needed to be extreme.

The bestselling weight-loss book in history, Dr Atkins’ New Diet Revolution, benefited from this bias. Before Atkins, people may not have had strong views on whether carbs were good or bad. But as long as they think it has to be one or the other, with no middle ground, they’ll latch onto a one-way recommendation. That’s what the Atkins diet did. It had one rule: Avoid all carbs. Not just refined sugar, not just simple carbs, but all carbs. You can decide whether to eat something by looking at the “Carbohydrate” line on the nutrition label, without worrying whether the carbs are complex or simple, natural or processed. This simple rule played into black-and-white thinking and made it easy to follow.

To pen a bestseller, Atkins didn’t need to be right. He just needed to be extreme.

Overcoming Our biases

So, what do we do about it? The first step is to recognize our own biases. If a statement sparks our emotions and we’re raring to share or trash it, or if it’s extreme and gives a one-size-fit-all prescription, we need to proceed with caution.

The second step is to ask questions, particularly if it’s a claim we’re eager to accept. One is to “consider the opposite”. If a study had reached the opposite conclusion, what holes would you poke in it? Then, ask yourself whether these concerns still apply even though it gives you the results you want.

Take the plethora of studies claiming that sustainability improves company performance. What if a paper had found that sustainability worsens performance? Sustainability supporters would throw up a host of objections. First, how did the researchers actually measure sustainability? Was it a company’s sustainability claims rather than its actual delivery? Second, how large a sample did they analyse? If it was a handful of firms over just one year, the underperformance could be due to randomness; there’s not enough data to draw strong conclusions. Third, is it causation or just correlation? Perhaps high sustainability doesn’t cause low performance, but something else, such as heavy regulation, drives both. Now that you’ve opened your eyes to potential problems, ask yourselves if they plague the study you’re eager to trumpet.

A second question is to “consider the authors”. Think about who wrote the study and what their incentives are to make the claim that they did. Many reports are produced by organizations whose goal is advocacy rather than scientific inquiry. Ask “would the authors have published the paper if it had found the opposite result?” — if not, they may have cherry-picked their data or methodology.

In addition to bias, another key attribute is the authors’ expertise in conducting scientific research. Leading CEOs and investors have substantial experience, and there’s nobody more qualified to write an account of the companies they’ve run or the investments they’ve made. However, some move beyond telling war stories to proclaiming a universal set of rules for success – but without scientific research we don’t know whether these principles work in general. A simple question is “If the same study was written by the same authors, with the same credentials, but found the opposite results, would you still believe it?”

Today, anyone can make a claim, start a conspiracy theory or post a statistic. If people want it to be true it will go viral. But we have the tools to combat it. We know how to show discernment, ask questions and conduct due diligence if we don’t like a finding. The trick is to tame our biases and exercise the same scrutiny when we see something we’re raring to accept.

This article is adapted from May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases – and What We Can Do About It
(Penguin Random House, 2024)
Reproduced by kind permission of the author.

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