Does Star Trek Even Make Sense?

Sierra Times ^ | May 1, 2003 | J. Neil Schulman

[J. Neil Schulman]

Does Star Trek Even Make Sense?

by J. Neil Schulman

Let’s get this out of the way. I’m a Trekkie.

I’ve been watching Star Trek since it hit the air in 1966. I know every episode of the original series by heart. I watched the Star Trek animated series. I’ve seen all ten of the theatrical Star Trek films, and the spin-off TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and now the latest Star Trek series, Enterprise.

Carrying a press card from the tabloid newspaper, The Star I covered the first major Star Trek convention held in New York City, where I met all the original series’ bridge crew except William Shatner.

At a later convention I fondly recall reclining on a bed at a room party, next to, and chatting with, Nichelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant Uhura.

I even spent a half hour on the phone, sometime in the mid-70’s before Star Trek: The Motion Picture revived his career, chatting with Star Trek’s creator, Gene Roddenberry. Believe it or not, he was so unbothered by fans at that time that his home phone number was publicly listed.

I’ve gone to the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas several times, and bought my daughter a Tribble.

The point to this is that I feel well-qualified to discuss the ins and outs of the Star Trek universe.

The new series, Enterprise, takes place earlier in the story time-line that the rest of the TV series, before the formation of the Federation, on the maiden voyage of the first Starfleet vessel with a warp-drive fast enough to get anywhere interesting. It’s also before Starfleet’s “Prime Directive” has been passed into law, making it a crime for Starfleet to interfere with the “natural” cultural development of another species – or does that just apply to species that haven’t yet developed warp drive? And does the Prime Directive apply to anyone not in Starfleet? The different Star Trek series keep contradicting each other on these points.

I can see what Gene Roddenberry was thinking when he thought up the Prime Directive. It had something to do with avoiding that bugaboo of the anti-American left, “cultural imperialism.” I don’t recall that Roddenberry ever tried to stop Star Trek from imperializing cultures around the world with American values, so maybe he did think this idea only applied to extra-terrestrials.

But for the life of me, I can’t figure out what the heck the darned Prime Directive means in the first place.

Star Trek episodes throughout the years have made a point of extending human rights to intelligent rocks (the Horta on the original series episode “The Devil in the Dark”); self-aware robots (“Data,” a regular on Star Trek: The Next Generation), and self-aware computer programs (“The Doctor,” on Star Trek: Voyager).

Now, on a new episode of Enterprise, “Cogenitor,” Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) upbraids his chief engineer, Charles "Trip" Tucker III (Connor Trineer), for teaching a third-gender sex-slave from a newly encountered species how to read and awakening in it enough of a desire for freedom to ask the Captain for political asylum.

This newly encountered species isn’t rocks. They are almost human. They look human, eat human food (although they find it unfragrant), and one of their females even wants to have sex with a human male on a first date. That’s human enough for me.

Trip demonstrates that the alien third-sex “cogenitor” (Becky Walhstrom) -- treated like a useful fertilization machine by its own culture, not even given the status of having its own name -- has superior cognitive abilities. It learns how to read complex material in a single day, understands human movies at first viewing, and outplays Trip, an experienced player at a game of skill, on its first try.

Captain Archer, concerned with maintaining diplomatic relations with a technologically advanced, and therefore useful future trading partner, more than the messy business of opposing slavery, hands the refugee back to his/her/its shipmates, where the raised-consciousness Cogenitor promptly commits suicide.

The episode ends with the Captain laying a guilt trip on Trip.

Never mind that Captain Archer is the real guilty party for denying the slave asylum, using 21^st century multicultural relativism as his justification.

Probably one of Archer’s ancestors also had practice papering over the brutal crimes of other “equally valid” cultures by working as a producer for CNN.

Wonderful message Star Trek sends out. Rocks, robots, and computer programs can have the protection of human rights, but not third-sex alien slaves. I’m sure this policy will make perfect sense to whatever extraterrestrials we humans actually encounter in the future.

The point is that the morality and politics of Star Trek verges on incoherence. In other words, it’s typical of the sort of writing you’d expect from current-day American liberal TV writers. It appears to be written for the sole purpose of allowing one character each episode to spew moral outrage at another character, and which character gets tagged outrageous and which one outraged is pretty well unpredictable. There are no discernible, consistent, overriding principles to help us, just the outrage du jour.

It’s enough to make Spock weep.

Copyright © 2003 by J. Neil Schulman. All rights reserved.

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In addition to having written for The Twilight Zone, J. Neil Schulman is author of the Prometheus-award-winning science-fiction novels, The Rainbow Cadenza, and Alongside Night. His newest novel is the comic theological fantasy, Escape from Heaven.

[Skywalk]

I agree with your DS9 assessment. Because of the relative weakness of the first couple seasons I didn't get INTO Deep Space Nine like I should have. I loved how the Jem Hadar were shown ramming the retreating Galaxy class ship, that's when you knew the Dominion was going to be a major player in the show from then on. ANd such a great enemy, and the surprises were not finished!

Watching some of the Deep Space Nine episodes, I feel like I'm watching many shows that are superior to TNG. Don't get me wrong, few things compare to Darmok, "There are four lights!" and the Borg episodes, but even some of the non-military episodes of DS9 are quite good.

I liked the one where Odo confronts his role in the execution of three innocent Bajorans, and the one where Tony Todd plays Sisko's son as an older man, still trying to bring his father back. Even the episode where Worf joins the Essentialists on Risa was a good one.

This is to say nothing of the Dominion War-heavy episodes that are not only pure action, but showed THREE-DIMENSIONAL characters. I really enjoyed O'Brien, Bashir, Jake, Quark, Odo and Cpt. Sisko in a way that was impossible with the Voyager or current Enterprise cast.

[stands2reason]

Sounds like an anti-Bush rant....

[Dat]

I agree with you. Some of the episodes were flakey but all of the ones you mention were intriguing. I also liked the Ferengi ones, they treated them in a more sympathetic way than the next generation. Some of the story lines were very clever.

[Green Knight]

Where're these re-runs on? I'd love to rewatch DS9, but unfortunately, as far as I know it's not airing anywhere. TNN's supposed to start airing it, though. Just wish I knew when. Hope it's sometime soon.

Anyway, I was reading one of those articles that I had linked to, here, and I found some of the points in them interesting. Namely...

1) Each alien race has exactly one religion.
2) Each alien race has exactly one government.

It also pointed out how the Klingon Empire was nothing but Klingons, the Romulan Empire nothing but Romulans, etc (One big reason why I liked the Dominion. It was like the dark mirror of the Federation. A nation consisting of multiple races, though they were divided into a racial hierarchy). Which brings me to a point I'd like to make. Namely what I'd love to see in a Sci-Fi show.

A vision of the future in which each nation is based on an IDEOLOGY, not what member of a race you are. And each nation will be composed of varying numbers of different races (And of course, each race will be varied. No more "This race has one culture and one religion" deals).

So you'll have your Socialist nation, like the Federation, which'll have its human members, as well as various other races, living in their socialistic and atheistic bliss. Then you'll have the Constitutional Republic, with its religious population (Whether they be Human Christians, Jews, and Muslims, or aliens believing in their own gods, or what have you. Or how about a combination? Have your human believers in Keh'less and your Klingon believers in Jesus Christ, etc). Then have your monarchies, with a dictator imposing his rule not just on members of his own race but on members of alien races.

That, IMO, would be a lot more interesting universe than what most Sci-Fi shows have to offer.

[Green Knight]

The moment the Odyssey got blown to hell by the Dominion was the moment DS9 got kicked into high gear. What made it an especially shocking scene was that the Odyssey was a Galaxy-Class Starship. In other words, had that been Picard and the Enterprise, instead, then the Enterprise would have been absolutely wiped out. I don't think that was a coincidence on their part, or that the actor they hired to play the Captain looked a lot like Patrick Stewart. They probably wanted you to think of the Enterprise, and how easily they would've died had that been them.

But yeah, DS9, disregarding the fairly average first couple of seasons, was extremely well-done. The Jake Sisko ep with Tony Todd is ALSO a favorite of mine.

That's not taking away from TNG, which had some great eps (And like DS9 it too had a weak start, although my two favorite first season eps, "Conspiracy" and "The Neutral Zone", are soon to air on TNN), but DS9 had some fantastic eps, too. And unlike TNG, it had the whole Dominion War thing threading through it. That epic scale is something that TNG was lacking in.

I agree with you about the 3-dimensional characters, too. Picard would've NEVER conned the Romulans into the war the way Sisko did, no matter how necessary. Even Nog, who I didn't like most of the time, was a good character. Like when he was recovering after having his leg shot off in battle and a new one grown for him. In that one just out of anger he beat up his best friend, then he hid out in the Holodeck for a couple weeks, refusing to return to the real world. That one was good.

But as I said, my favorite thing about DS9 was the world they portrayed. Despite the limitations of the Star Trek universe, they still managed to portray a fairly realistic world. Nothing was black and white, and the Federation wasn't the unassailable utopia presented up til then. I also, btw, greatly enjoyed the whole Maquis subplot, especially with Edison, who I thought was a great character. To bad the Maquis got wiped out by the Dominion. :( Otherwise, they might've founded their OWN nation apart from the Federation. THAT would've been interesting.

[lentulusgracchus]

I disagree with that statement. While watching repeats of DS9 late nights, I've been able to appreciate what the show became at about the third season or so--the most consistently good Star Trek besides the old cast.

I concur, DS9 in its last two seasons was consistently the best of the four series, better I think than even the first series, even giving charity points for the differences in SFX capabilities.

There was one episode of TNG that came up to that level of interest and plausibility, and that was (I forget the title) the time-loop episode involving a collision in space, that began each loop in the middle of a command-staff poker game. (For bonus points, can you name the guest actor who portrayed the commander of the other starship involved in the collision?)

Overall, though, DS9 was consistently the best and most satisfying, and the final scenes of the last episode were really special, as Robert della Santina, Michael Westmore, and all the other behind-the-scenes people showed up at Vic's as holographic extras, in a scene that was actually the wrap party for the series. That was an extremely well-done show, and I have it on tape.

By contrast, I find Voyager positively estrogen-soaked (early PR fluff mentioned Jeri Taylor's demasculinizing role approvingly), and the male characters shallow and wan by comparison with their TNG and DS9 counterparts. Chakotay practically oozes Cathy Guisewite's Irving, and for all that he has manly and culturally validating tattoos, he seems at times like a charley-boy, a self-centered woman's idea of what a manly man should be, instead of the real thing. The real thing, about six episodes in, would have said something like, "Hey, Kate -- you may swing a big axe around here, and you might have scored high on your orienteering survival course, but I think you don't know what you're doing out here and you're gonna get yourself killed and everyone else. Drop me off at the next Class 'M' planet with warp technology, I'm outtahere!"

The show tries to sell the idea that Janeway's command philosophy, which is too soft, too big-sisterish, and too reliant on the knowledge and expertise of others, would be a winner in an extreme situation. Not likely in real life. A better model for a starship captain would be a submarine captain, who has to be basically omnicompetent and omniscient about the systems aboard his boat: he has to be omniscient, in order to garner the crew's confidence and consent to be commanded by his expertise. Patrick Stewart came a lot closer to embodying that command-skill set.

[Skywalk]

The DS9 reruns I watch appear at 12 midnight on Q13 Fox here in Seattle.

I imagine that if you check Startrek.com, you can find the times that they run in your area. That's how I located Deep Space Nine in Maryland and got back into it.

And I completely agree about a diverse array of options. Why should we believe that there'll be ONE world government?! LOL No rebels, no dissent? Interesting that humans are no longer humans once the Federation is founded.

[Skywalk]

Yes, Kelsey Grammer was the commander of the...oh I can't remember the name of the ship now. Yes, that was a good episode.

[Green Knight]

Just checked my local listings. Plenty of TNG, some of TOS, and the occasional Voyager, but no hide nor hair of DS9. What a shame. :(

And yeah, I always thought that was dumb. The invention of Warp Drive solves all of the worlds problems? So having the ability to move really fast is the solution to hatred, disease, hunger, and war? Pfft.

Anyway, if I had my way on the shape of the next show after Enterprise (Which, considering the steady decline of ratings, may be the first Star Trek seris since the original to be cancelled), this is what I'd do with Star Trek (What can I say? I'm bored and have nothing better to do. Feel free to ignore the rest of this post if you don't really care about what I'd do):

I'd set it about 200+ years after TNG/DS9/Voy. During that time, religious faith sees a revival on Earth. That faith is at first frowned upon and denigrated by Federation authorities, and then an active attempt to stamp it out begins (Not violent, but through other means. Like the EU trying to make reading parts of the Bible in church a Hate Crime. I can see the Federation trying to outlaw Freedom of Religion in the name of "tolerance"). One thing leads to another and eventually you have violence and open revolt, which ends with the populace throwing out the Federation. They then set up a Constitutional Republic with a capitalist system, and make Jerusalem the capital of their nation (The vast majority of these folks would be Christians, Jews, and Muslims, so it seems obvious what the choice for a capitol would be. Besides, I think it's a more colorful choice than San Francisco or Geneva). You'd see the return of private business, currency, private property, as well as personal civilian vehicles and news outlets separate from the government (The Federation news services being, like all things in the Federation, state-run.

The Federation tries to contain the separatists, but other worlds wanting to be free of the pervasive Federation control joins them. Not just Federation worlds but worlds from other races and states as well. Like Klingon worlds, which have populations composed of the more honorable devotees of Kah'less (Like Worf and Martok), rather than the more bloodthirsty ones, as well as Klingons who don't follow Kah'less at all, but other religions as well (Like the aformention Christian Klingon. How interesting would such a character be? Very, IMO). Or Ferengi worlds packed full of more ethical Ferengi businessmen, where the Ferengi there appreciate the separatists now open markets (As opposed to the Federations' non-economy).

The Romulan Empire still exists, but much like the Soviets with the Berlin Wall, they're doing everything they can to keep their people IN. So like Cuban refugees, Earth is constantly getting an influx of Romulans who want to live in a free land (They go there rather than the Federation, cause the Federation is just the nice version of the Romulan Empire, but just as totalitarian).

The Klingon Empire, after the flight of the honorable Klingons, is now fully in the control of the bloodthirsty and dishonorable ones like Duras. So say hello again to the Evil Klingon Empire, but with a twist. It now includes races other than the Klingons, including humans from outlying colony worlds conquered by the Klingons (Worlds which, like the Maquis worlds, the Federation gave up in the name of "peace"), all of whom are represented in the Klingon military. They're also forced to adopt the worship of Kah'less, or more specifically, the new Klingon Empire's bloody version of Kah'less, or face imprisonment or death.

As for the Federation, it's as Marxist as ever, it's new capital on Vulcan. It's still as controlling as ever, but the shine is definitely off of it, now. It's now seen for the controlling state that it is. The only difference between it and the Romulans and Klingons is that they try to be nice about things, and don't hold their people hostage at gunpoint (They're trying to contain the separatists and keep them from expanding, but they're not yet at the point of keeping a world within the Federation through military means. At least not yet...). Nevermind that many of its citizens are still sedate and willing to let the Federation make all their decisions for them, while they're busy taking vacations to Riza or screwing around in a Holosuite, so there's really no need to control the population at gunpoint.

But anyway, that's pretty much what I'd do with Star Trek if given the opportunity. Of course, I just pulled this out of my butt, so I can probably come up with better given more time. But generally speaking, that's what I'd like.

[Skywalk]

Good ideas, GK!! Of course, even in 200 years that damn time travel is so frequent and easy that we've got Temporal Cold Wars a-brewing and Temporal Police.

In all honesty, it will probably take another franchise to make such an interesting universe.

[Skywalk]

In fairness to Trek, I think much of the genetic determinism, one religion/government for one race elements are the writers being unimaginative. I recall a DS9 episode where Kira is teaching Ziyal the difference between Cardassian, Federation and Klingon rifles. Imagine the real world equivalent? You'd have to be talking for hours about FN, AK, Glock and Springfield to say nothing of characteristics of each nation when it comes to weaponsmithy.

That does not excuse its Marxist-fascism or its inconsistencies and contradictions but does shed light on why SOME of it seems more simplistic than need be.

[Quick1]

William Stryker is the "bad guy" in X-Men 2.

Great movie, btw.

[Quick1]

You better have at least watched Cogenitor, then. The actor who played G'Kar was in it. :)

[Smedley]

Old Star Trek had it right: When they got shore leave, it was all about finding sex and drinking yourself into a stupor like REAL sailors do. I saw none of that in TNG.

Not to mention nailing a hot, spandex-clad babe every episode or two, and having the women crewmwmbers parade around in mini-skirts.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

No, that was Wesley Crusher. 32 posted on 05/02/2003 12:16 AM PDT by Green Knight

Wesley... "wesley"... mmm... ahh, yes!!

Wasn't he the idealistic young lad who suffered a tragic (and unimaginably painful) death by explosive decompression in the hard vacuum of empty Space after being inadvertantly (and unheroically) expelled from a defective air-lock?

No, wait, I could be mistaken... perhaps that was just the overwhelming Vote for his character's eventual fate at every single Star Trek TNG convention.

[Quick1]

USS Bozeman, I believe. Don't ask me how I remembered that.

[Oberon]

You better have at least watched Cogenitor, then. The actor who played G'Kar was in it. :)

Nope... I have mostly turned off the TV, aside from the occasional rented video. I did catch Andreas Katsulis in The Fugitive with T.L. Jones and Harrison Ford.

While G'Kar was my favorite character on B5, I considered him the best of an excellent group. Who could forget Peter Jurasik as Londo Mollari: "Great Maker!" Or Vir? Or Garibaldi? Or Ambassador Kosh: "The avalanche has already begun -- it is too late for the pebbles to vote." The excellence of the drama was due primarily to its being character-driven.

[Green Knight]

I could've sworn I had seen that episode in which Wesley died the way you described.

And then I realized that that was actually a re-occuring dream I had throughout the first couple of seasons when he was a cast member, and not an actual episode. DAMN!

[Liberal Classic]

I won't spoil it for you. :) When it was picked up by cable, I wasn't able to watch season five. When the producers found out that they weren't on broadcast television, they decided to wrap most of the plot up by the end of season four. This means that the fifth season are all falling action or post-conclusion, and I don't think they were as good as the first four season. I'm going to buy them on DVD but I'm stopping at season four.

[Liberal Classic]

Unfortunately, all that would never happen in the Star Trek universe because it doesn't meet with the sensibilities of the producers. You might try fleshing it out and sending a manuscript to the publishers of the spinoff books.

I don't believe the Federation would leave without a fight, so you might have a hundred year period of civil war in which the Federation becomes more authoritarian and brutal. After the Vulcans take control of the Federation they move idealogically towards their Romulan cousins, and attempt to bolster the failing Romulan Empire opposition from the Klingon (now converted to Islam just for fun) and Earthers. In the end the war is Klingon, Earth and a few remote colonies against the Romulans and the Federation.