Kirk & Spock are grouped with Lincoln (yes, that Lincoln) & Surak (basically as important to Vulcans as Lincoln to America) to do battle against the four greatest tyrants known to man (the Earth-born species). This is done by a species known as the Excalbians who do not understand the human theories of Good & Evil.
The six historical figures encountered exist due to a transmutation of six Excalbian life-forms, who not only took on the physical embodiments of those figures but also what could be calculated of their personalities from scans of the ship’s memory banks and also the thoughts of Kirk and Spock.
Basically, Excalbians test people. They abduct them and use their thoughts to create a battle of Good & Evil based on those people’s philosophies and watch how it unfolds. So, what I’m wondering is if they’re able to become beings of another species — to the point of believing they have always been whatever being they are portraying — why can’t they bring some of those memories back to their original selves to understand disparate philosophies?
As it stands they’re the greatest Method actors the universe will ever know, but due to the nature of their performance they only ever get to perform once because chances are they’re going to die. So, they’re Method actors killed by Shakespeare’s “all the world’s a stage” metaphor. I’m not sure where this post is going anymore, but I’m going to have to do something with all the thoughts I’m thinking in a future project.