Card of the Week: King of Coins

With great power comes great responsibility.  This modern saying has been noted for centuries.  Moliere added, “It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.”

The King of Coins is nominally someone of power and regard, one who has made a career of responsibility and reliability.  He may be successful in business or finance, or in physical material matters.  Even when he may take certain actions that seem initially inexplicable, they are usually motivated by his underlying desire for longer-term security and stability.

Inverted, this card suggests a corruption of purpose, someone capable of using deception, betrayal, or even outright atrocity to reach a goal.  The ends do not always justify the means.

In “The Conscience of the King” the Enterprise is diverted to Planet Q by Dr. Thomas Leighton, who believes that the touring Shakespearean actor Anton Karidian is in reality former Tarsus IV Governor Kodos “the Executioner.”  Leighton, Kirk and Enterprise crewman Lt. Riley are the last survivors who had witnessed Kodos put thousands of colonists to death twenty years earlier, ostensibly to save other colonists during a famine.  Other witnesses had died over the years, somehow always when the Karadian Company of Players was nearby.  When Leighton is found dead, Kirk arranges to use the Enterprise to transport the troupe to their next tour stop on Benecia.  After failed attempts at killing Riley and Kirk, Kirk confronts Karidian, but both are shocked to learn that his daughter Lenore has been the one killing off the remaining Kodos witnesses.