Mad Genius — Star Trek Style
Who Would Own The Title? A Rundown
Our Mad Genius series has been rolling along for a while now. Somehow, we managed to overlook the vast universe of Star Trek and its array of potential Mad Geniuses. In a universe of teleporters, holodecks, and space probes turned alien-gods — someone has to qualify, right?
“Bones”
As a Corsair, I am tempted to stop right here. Ship’s Doctor, nickname of Bones, and a great catch-phrase — all a powerful mad genius argument make. Dr McCoy has plenty of great traits that clearly put him high for consideration. Only this race has some astounding contestants and sadly “Bones” resume feels a bit thin compared to the others.
He is a little more emotional, only rarely the hero, and often seems to prefer complaining to actually fixing an issue. Plus how innovative is a guy who refuses to be a moon shuttle or escalator when asked?
Mr. Scott
Scotty: Do you mind a little advice? Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is to give them only what they need, not what they want.
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Yeah, well, I told the Captain I’d have this analysis done in an hour.
Scotty: How long will it really take?
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: An hour!
Scotty: Oh, you didn’t tell him how long it would *really* take, did ya?
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Well, of course I did.
Scotty: Oh, laddie. You’ve got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.
With a secret like that, Scotty easily qualifies as a Mad Genius. He may not be a Doctor or the Science officer, but you know we value an Engineer far more. He also needs to be some sort of genius to have survived so long in the infamous “red shirt” uniform. Or maybe he is just a lucky liar?
Mr Spock
The Enterprise’s Science Officer and second in command is logical, profound, and emotionally controlled. That certainly doesn’t exclude him from being a “mad” genius in our book. It could be argued that his half-human nature helps him perfect that label.
Spock is also keen to learn, a trait that was never emphasized in any of his fellow crew mates. Is Spock’s nature too logical? Is his propensity to support and follow a drag on the label of Mad Genius as well? You never got much sense that Spock had any real agenda of his own. Does a mad genius need an agenda?
Captain Kirk
I don’t think it is very debatable whether Jim is a little “mad”. He is a leader, a rules changer, an innovator, and a pragmatist. All are strong qualities for any mad genius and Captain.
It is the genius component where Kirk has his struggles… don’t we all? But Kirk perhaps more so than others… Kirk is not an ideal student. His long story arc had little maturity or evolution (of the intellectual sense). Kirk’s story is one of a man realizing who he is… not so much what he could be. Does that make him less of a genius?
So who is the greater Mad Genius? Wait … we have more data…
Data
We never said we were sticking to the original series or movies. Next Generation’s Science Officer deserves to be in this debate. Learning, evolving, with a computer for a brain and a love of behavioral analysis — Data has just as strong of an argument as anyone. Does an android qualify? We think so.
One final candidate…
Khan!
A villain so good… er mad they used him repeatedly in the series and multiple ‘generations’ of movies. It is hard to argue that he is not THE mad genius of the Star Trek Universe. Except that he always loses…
But when a single Mad Genius is pitted against a solid handful, does that really surprise anyone? Does it disqualify him? Perhaps they were just able to exploit the cracks in his Mad Genius credentials. Maybe, to borrow a line from a totally different movie:
You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.
Our goal was to start the debate, not end it. We think we found six solid choices. We think we made some solid points. But who did we miss? What arguments would you offer? Use the comments below to make your case and thanks for reading!
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