Many are familiar with Jehovah’s Witnesses and other brands of zealous door to door evangelism. Aside from their recruitment practices, Jehovah’s Witnesses are most well known for their refusal to accept blood transfusions. Their beliefs interpret that ‘life’, or the soul, is in the blood. Modern blood transfusions have saved numerous lives, but are they also doing more than just replacing a lost body fluid? There are eerie anicdotal reports of transplant patients also recieving the talents, interests, culinary tastes, and even memories of their donors (Pearsall et al., 2000). This phenomenon was especially well studied in heart transplants. It would appear that a feeling in one’s heart is more than just a metaphor. Our bodies are a complex soup of proteins, dormant and expressed genes, cellular components, and other moving parts we are only beginning to understand. The transplant recipients were not simply recieving an organ, but also any biochemical imprint its last owner imparted onto it. If such a curious and subtle change could occur with the transfer of just one organ, what affect could occupying a whole new body bestow on an unprepared psyche?
A shapeshifting alien morphs its way onto the Enterprise when Kirk and crew beam aboard who they think is the missing Federation philanthropist Carter Winston. The alien is secretly working for the Romulans, and it impersonates the captain to lure the Enterprise into the neutral zone. Its species also adopts the memories and personality traits of the people it impersonates, a useful adaptation in creating a convincing doppelganger, but an unfortunate liability if the host body happens to conflict with its mission. Alas, Carter Winston was a good man, whose personality and moral character survived within the alien clone. It saves the Enterprise from the Romulan attack by becoming a deflector shield around the ship. Although the alien was arrested, Kirk says the court will take its final actions into account, but whose actions were they? Does the alien, whose original intentions were to destroy the Enterprise, get to take credit for a morality that it did not work to build? Is the alien just an amalgamation of so many other people previously absorbed? In the end, the shapeshifter’s final choice emerged above all the noise of its past selves…at least it was a good one.
Pearsall, P., Schwartz, G. E., & Russek, L. G. (2000). “Changes in heart transplant recipients that parallel the personalities of their donors”. Integrative Medicine, 2(2-3), 65-72.
Hopeless Trekkie 