Is Star Trek’s Leonard McCoy A Man Of Two Souls?

Or two consciousnesses, anyway.

In the Star Trek episode Conscience Of The King, Doctor Leonard McCoy delivers a highly unusual line in during some of the daily banter between him and Commander Spock.

When offered a drink by McCoy, Spock states that his father’s race were “spared the dubious benefits of alcohol", a statement to which McCoy gives a strange response.

“Now I know why they were conquered” He replies, but in the history of the planet Vulcan, not once has there ever been a conqueror, (as stated later by Spock in The Immunity Syndrome.)

At least… Not in our universe.

In the mirror universe, the Terran Empire technically conquered the Vulcanians, but there was no logical way for McCoy to know this yet — the Enterprise crew’s accidental materialisation in the mirror universe did not occur until the next season.

Internet speculation has brought up the possibility of a conqueror in Vulcan’s distant past — but if that were the case, then why would McCoy seemingly be the only one with this knowledge? Had there truly been a previous conqueror, why was Spock not contradicted by someone when stating otherwise? Better yet, why would he state such a thing in the first place if it were untrue? It is rather difficult to believe that McCoy would have knowledge of Spock’s people that Spock would not.

Another possibility brought up by online speculators is that McCoy’s bizarre statement can be explained as a grammatical error.

Their implication is that the “they” McCoy was referring to in his sentence was in fact a reference to the previously mentioned dubious benefits of alcohol, and not a reference to the Vulcan race, an error on the writer’s part.

This is possible but not very probable. Scripts are never edited just once, and such errors are rarely left in.

This brings me to a new idea — and a rather chilling possibility.

Could the Leonard McCoy of our universe and the Leonard McCoy of the mirror universe…share a consciousness?

Before you discount this as making virtually no sense, allow me to explain in more detail.

In Netflix’s mind-bending series The OA, the crossing of multiple dimensions is a recurring theme, but only in the second season (spoilers ahead) are the intricate details of the characters’ multiple selves in relation to their regular counterparts explored.

They are different, but not very different, much like the Enterprise crew’s mirrorverse counterparts.

However, when the originals would travel to another dimension, they could choose to suppress their other selves’ consciousnesses, or allow them to flow simultaneously alongside their regular consciousnesses.

Now — what if, just what if something about our good doctor caused his consciousness to fuse with his mirror self’s consciousness?

Mirror Leonard McCoy is incredibly similar to the McCoy of our universe, the unexplained murder of his father aside. What if the reason for that similarity was a shared consciousness?

Is it possible for McCoy, who has technically remained free of corruption in the mirror universe…to share a consciousness with his regular self?

If this is so, and let us assume for a moment that it is, it would have to be subconscious, for he had no visible knowledge of the mirror universe upon entering it, only horror.

There is, however, another possibility at play here. If Leonard’s knowledge of this shared consciousness was not subconscious, then he must have known for a period of time, and suppressed it due to the horrors of the mirror universe. His brain would have become unable to tolerate the truth of the situation, and protected him by blocking out the memories trickling in from his other self’s consciousness, even suppressing that consciousness entirely.

However small details might still remain, details such as the Terran Empire’s conquering of the Vulcanians. Such facts would simply “make sense” to him, and there would be no logical need to delve deeper, as he would consider them facts, unless someone were to discredit them, something which no one has yet done.

Stepping into the mirror universe would trigger something in him, on a small scale at least, and it quickly became apparent that that something was his relation to Spock.

Personally I am a firm believer in the existence of a relationship between Leonard McCoy and Spock, even in the regular universe, something backed up by multiple different scenarios and exchanges between them. That is a story for another day, but I will be using parts of it to explain my next point.

Bear with me here if you have a different opinion on this relationship.

Now, said relationship between McCoy and Spock in our universe is seemingly fraught with hesitation, despite the clarity behind it shining through at times. They care deeply for each other, but it appears that neither of them will openly admit this affection or allow it to take precedence for very long. There are subtle and not-so subtle interactions, there is longing and occasionally physical proof (the subtle Vulcan kiss given exchanged between them in The Empath, the way they had mysteriously swapped uniform shirts in Star Trek: The Motion Picture..), but there is seemingly also fear of public declaration.

The relationship between them in the mirror universe, however, is clearly a much more intimate one. Mirror Spock’s touches are less hesitant than his counterpart’s, and there appears, in return, to be complete compliance to them on Mirror McCoy’s part.

Our McCoy did not attempt to banter with Mirror Spock, nor did he protest to being manhandled and forced back against the sickbay wall. He did not try to fight the mind meld, nor did he fight Spock’s firm grip or protest to being led back to the transporter room at the conclusion of Mirror, Mirror.

He showed clear submission throughout.

Assuming that the above theory is correct, then this behaviour would be a case of Mirror McCoy’s consciousness overwhelming that of his regular self and whatever caused this other consciousness to take control would most likely have been the aftereffects of shock at being thrust into a completely different world.

But what do you, dear reader, think? Am I simply reading too much into a simple grammatical error or is there more to this whole situation than meets the eye?