Man, just being half Vulcan is super useful. This week:
- Spock is able to control his mind’s reaction to the pain induced by a neural parasite;
- Spock has a second pair of eyelids (usually about as useful as a human’s appendix) that keep him from being permanently blinded by an experimental treatment for the neural parasite; and,
- Spock’s fancy ears allow him to overhear McCoy tell Kirk he thinks Spock is the best 1st officer in the fleet.
Yet what I find particularly interesting is the use of sunlight to kill neural parasites that use pain to control their victims. I find this to be not unlike how sunshine (or machines which can mimic sunlight) is sometimes prescribed as treatment for depression.
Sonnet 15
What peace is there for him to gain
who had for vision but a dream
of some dear fate with all too vane
a circumstance to catch the gleam?
As in his eyes the clouds unfurled,
the wilderness of all the world
did swallow whole his journey bold:
no hope of comfort’s hand to hold,
no stars to guide his wandering
til in those clouds — which might have blocked
the view of doors all saints have knocked —
there came glad prisms watering.
When eyes are opened thus to light,
such joy is there with double sight.