Card of the Week: King of Cups

What is a man, but that lofty spirit, that sense of enterprise, that devotion to something that cannot be sensed, cannot be realised but only dreamed, the highest reality!

The King of Cups outwardly exudes an aloof charm and ease of leadership, with a seemingly natural balance of authority and compassion.  His energy and intensity may be genuine, or a facade to prevent inner currents of affection and intuition from appearing as signs of weakness.  He can be a good friend and confidant, as long as your interests are not at cross purposes to his.

Inverted, this King is more of a rogue, behaving with assertion to counter inner insecurity, displaying an apparent coldness to mask hidden sentimentality, or acting trustworthy as part of a swindle.

In “I, Mudd” a newly-arrived crewmember, Norman, hijacks the Enterprise for a four-day journey into uncharted space, then reveals himself to be an android.  They arrive at a planet inhabited by two hundred thousand androids, and one human: the con man Harcourt Fenton Mudd.  The androids had once served an ancient Andromedan civilization, now long gone.  When Mudd had arrived unplanned, the androids had chosen to serve Mudd as their new leader, trapping him there.  Mudd had sent Norman to bring back a starship back so that the androids could serve its crew instead.  When it becomes clear that the androids will still not let Mudd leave, he joins the Enterprise crew in confounding the android leader Norman into freeing them.  Kirk, however, still leaves Mudd on the planet, with five hundred android replicas of his ex-wife.