Countdown to Culmetsweek 2019, mod's favorite scenes #5
The scenes we have focused on so far in these countdown posts have all been from the first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery. But today I would like to talk about a Culmets scene that has taken place in the grey zone of almost-canon-except-when-the-show-contradicts-it. I’m speaking, of course, about the Star Trek: Discovery Annual and the look it gave us at Paul’s background and how him and Hugh met.
While “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” (the best episode in season 1, don’t @ me) first hinted at their meeting and getting together, the Annual added in some more details about that event. The scene I like most in this comic is not the depiction of their first meeting in the café/bar, but the second time we see them interact at the shuttle port, just as they’re both getting ready to leave Alpha Centauri. All in all, it’s only a few panels in an already fairly short comic (if you’re wondering if I’d like to read a whole graphic novel about Paul and Hugh’s backstories, you would be correct), but they still reveal several things about Paul and Hugh. I especially like that we get to see Paul be confident and absolutely determined to get what he wants. Which in the case of this scene is Hugh’s contact info. After all, when Hugh tells Paul that he is “…headed back to [his] posting. Very, very far from Deneva. So it’s very unlikely we’ll ever have to argue about music again”, Paul, not missing a beat, answers, “Unless I was so irritated that I insisted you tell me how to contact you in the future so that we can continue arguing.”
This is the Paul Stamets we know and love. The best thing about this scene being included in the comic, I think, is that it creates a deliberate contrast between Paul Stamets, the scientist, who is not interested in anything outside of his work and Paul Stamets the man, who simply cannot let Hugh walk away. In both his science and his private life, Paul is confident and ready to push forward and it’s delightful to see that. Hugh clearly thinks so, too, given that he concludes this exchange by saying “I’m looking forward to it.”
Now, as I’ve said, I wish the comic was longer, but the fact that it leaves out so much of Hugh and Paul’s early long-distance-relationship also means that we fans get to fill that in (at least for now), making up our own stories about what happened after this little scene of Paul and Hugh full on flirting on Alpha Centauri. And if that isn’t another reason to love it, I don’t know what is.
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