Card of the Week: Two of Blades

According to wisdom, it is better to bend a little than to break.  But if you start to compromise yourself or your morals for the people around you, it may be time to change the people around you.

The Two of Blades represents a tenuous compromise, either as part of a larger hard-won peace, or just a temporary respite from struggle.  A fragile stalemate may be the first step toward a more stable balance of power, but there is still work to be done.  Mixed signals and conflicting ideas must be addressed and reconciled, often through difficult communication or negotiation.

Inverted, this card fears that duplicity may break a peace that was laboriously earned.  Keep a wary eye out for hidden ulterior motives or divided loyalties in others, but also in yourself.

In “Whom Gods Destroy”, the Enterprise brings a new medicine to the planet Elba II, the location of a Federation asylum for the incurably and criminally insane.  Its inmates have taken over, led by former Fleet Captain Garth of Izar.  He uses Antosian shape-shifting skills to impersonate the asylum director Donald Cory, then Captain Kirk, but is blocked from leaving by his lack of knowledge of Kirk’s private chess-move security codes.  Garth attempts to force Kirk to reveal his codes, first by torturing Cory, then Kirk, then by impersonating Spock, then by taking the life of a fellow inmate.  Kirk still refuses.  The real Spock escapes his inmate guards to find Garth impersonating Kirk, and must determine which is the impostor before subduing him.  Garth and the others eventually begin their treatments with the new medication.