At San Diego Comic Con, we learned that Sonequa Martin-Green’s character, Michael
Burnham, is Sarek’s adoptive daughter. The second I heard the news, all I could
think was, “Let the hate begin.” And boy, did it ever.
I understand the disappointment,
particularly with fan fic writers who invested a lot of time and effort into
crafting stories that fit neatly into canon. Amazing how one sound bite can
bulldoze right through decades of widely accepted fanon, huh?
Let’s be real, those little behind the
scenes moments are almost the entire point of fan fiction: some of us like
something so much, we like to imagine all the things the writers didn’t tell us, but now Michael
Burnham has come along like a square peg in a round hole, rendering countless
stories AU that previously adhered perfectly to canon. Some of mine included.
But fanon isn’t canon. One might say,
“How come we’re just hearing about this now?”
Surely Spock would have mentioned having an adoptive sister? But would he? Would he though?
No one had any idea he was engaged to
T’Pring until the Enterprise showed
up to Vulcan on Spock’s impromptu wedding day in the TOS episode, “Amok Time.” What was it he said when Lieutenant Uhura
asked who the lovely woman on the viewscreen was?
If you watch closely enough and get
creative with your interpretation, I swear Christine Chapel mouths the word,
“bullshit.”
And no one knew that Spock had a
strained relationship with his father until that time dear old Sarek hopped on Enterprise for the Coridan admission
debate in the TOS episode, “Journey
to Babel.” Kirk urged Spock to go down to the planet and visit his family
before they left orbit, and what was Spock’s reply?
I can’t think of a better example of
where Spock made Kirk look like a total asshole.
And then there’s the fact that Kirk had
known Spock for decades before
finding out he had a half-brother named Sybok in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
You would think Kirk would be used to Spock family bombshells by now.
So if anything, the idea that Spock had
a secret adoptive sister actually feels more
in keeping with canon than going against it. Given the weight of the evidence,
I wouldn’t be all that shocked to discover he had three step mothers and a whole nest of secret love
children drifting around out there.
The other thing is, as viewers, we tend
to get into the habit of thinking that if a character doesn’t specifically
address something on screen in front of other characters, other characters are
in the dark along with the viewers. Like if a character didn’t explicitly announce some detail about their personal life to the world, not only did it never happen, it never could have happened. And that’s just silly. Think about this: Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew spent
five years together on that mission, and we only got to view a little less than
66 hours of it. So imagine all the conversations in the mess hall we as viewers
missed out on. Not only that, many of those details would be fairly trivial anyway.
Going back and adding to canon is not the same thing as destroying
canon. Star Trek, particularly The Original Series, was always more
focused on exploring the galaxy and meeting new civilizations – its primary purpose wasn’t to flesh out complicated life stories for each of the main
characters. When you think about it, there’s so much we don’t know about Sarek, Amanda, or Spock’s upbringing.
Almost everything we do know about
this family comes from two episodes – “Journey to Babel” in The Original Series and “Yesteryear” in The Animated Series.
I think because we spent more than five
decades without any concrete ideas of how Sarek and Amanda met, what Spock’s
formative years were really like, or how their family dynamics worked, we just
filled in the blanks for ourselves. But fifty years is a long time for the lines between canon and fanon to start getting blurred.
So I’m actually tickled pink at the
thought that Spock had an adoptive sister, not furious that they’re corrupting
more than fifty years of canon. It would be tampering with canon to claim that Starship
Troopers is actually some kind of prequel to Kirk and the starship Enterprise. That would be destroying canon, but writing in a sister for Spock where one previously didn’t exist isn’t quite the same thing.
Would you like to know more?
The writers of the show are just doing
what we as fan fic writers do all the time – filling in the gaps. You’re
definitely allowed to feel however you want to feel about it. And I do understand a lot of the dismay and shock. It really sucks to pour your
heart and soul into something, polishing it for months or even years until it’s
perfect, and then have Michael Burnham thrown into the mix and it almost feels like a bad Photoshop
job over your favorite family portrait, ruining your origins fics for Sarek/Amanda or Spuhura or
Spirk or Spones or Spotty? (Is that actually what the Spock/Scotty ship is
called?). It’s perfectly acceptable to say
that Michael Burnham’s existence has ruined your perception of canon, but I don’t think it should be confused with
ruining actual canon.
During the Comic Con panel, producer Alex Kurtzman insisted they have a good canon explanation for why Spock never mentions Michael. He was quoted as saying, “We’re aware [of the situation]. You’ll see where it’s going, but we are staying consistent with canon.” So I’m inclined to keep an open mind and see where they take it before dismissing it outright for being “too ludicrous.” Weirder things have actually happened within the Trek universe, so try not to let this revelation get you down.
Considering the fact that Spock’s family has to be literally in the same room as him before he even mentions they existent, having adopted sibs he just never talked about is the most canon compliant thing they could have possibly added.
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