Card of the Week: King of Rods

Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “Great ambition is the passion of a great character.  Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts.  All depends on the principles which direct them.”

The King of Rods is ambition personified, charismatic and conquering.  You, or someone you know, may want to dominate every situation with arrogance and aggressiveness, looking for ways to establish a leadership role.  In public, he is a grand crusader and overachiever, expecting to be rewarded for his accomplishments.  In private, insecurities may lead him to seek servitude and adulation.

Inverted, this King’s arrogance may be his udoing, leading him toward becoming overly autocratic and dictatorial.  Asserting strength without wisdom is bullying, not leadership.

In “Space Seed” the Enterprise encounters a derelict ship, the centuries-old freighter SS Botany Bay, containing dozens of humans in hibernation chambers.  A survivor is brought to the Enterprise’s sickbay, where examinations show that his body is physically more powerful than most.  Kirk speculates that he may be a product of genetic engineering, from the Eugenics Wars period of Earth’s past.  Spock points out that superior ability breeds superior ambition.  Khan Noonien Singh proves them both right when he revives his remaining crew and takes over the Enterprise.  Once a ruler of more than a quarter of Earth, Khan now aspires to rule the universe.  But his crew doesn’t get far when Kirk floods most of the Enterprise with neural gas.  Kirk uses his authority to deliver them instead to Ceti Alpha V, a savage planet for Khan and his followers to tame.