The entire mission is to seek out new life and new civilizations and establish relations with them! Countless times you’ve put your entire crew second to that mission, and yet here you are face to face with a 3 million year old intelligent being made of magnetic energy that has absorbed all the knowledge of other long dead civilizations, pleading with you for just some company, and you give it the cold shoulder. Heartbreaking.
The next episode, Yesteryear, had Spock going back in time to save himself as a child, which is apparently the only reason he’s alive at all (🙄) and I’m just like ‘Where’s Michael?’
The Guardian of Forever is fucking with us.
I like that explanation.