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.

[Buggman]

Tuvoc? Hell, he was one of the better characters on Voy . . .

I'm trying to decide about Enterprise. The PC seeps in from time to time, but in the case of Cogenitor, I couldn't really condemn Archer for his reaction. There is no Federation, he has no asylum strategy, and he was facing pissing off a clearly technologically-superior species. As much as I appreciated Trip taking the heart-felt morally high ground, I also winced at the fact that he hadn't thought the situation through--no shame to the writers, since they had Trip acting completely in character. The fact is that he should never have started teaching the Cogenitor without a strategy for removing it from its current situation.

Frankly, the fact that you can have this sort of discusion about ENT puts it heads-and-shoulders above TNG, which always stacked the deck by giving its characters the superior technology and a clear moral choice in every case. That increases by a factor of ten with VOY (Seven was the only good thing to happen to that show after its first season).

On the other hand, the thing that convinces me that Bragman and Berma have lost any sort of creativity is the fact that the Borg are making their appearance next week. *shudder*

[patriciaruth]

that was Wesley Crusher.

Correct. I'm a TOS Trekker, not a TNG fan.

[Krafty123]

But TNG was good all the way through... And Voyager's pre-Borg seasons weren't as bad as DS9's pre-dominion invasion seasons.

[Bobby777]

"yeah, that Green Woman blowed up REAL GOOD!"

[Bobby777]

check your FReepmail ...

[Krafty123]

Really? TNG had Q & the Borg!

[patriciaruth]

Will Riker?

Yes, that may be the name he was confusing with Crusher, but Riker was the X0 (Number 1?), and so why would anyone have been upset with him giving orders?

When Riker got fat and grew a beard, I gave up on the show. I like having at least one cute man around.

[Green Knight]

They are? Unbelievable! You know, I used to be a HUGE Borg fan during TNG. I nearly dropped a brick when they made an appearance on Voyager.

And then they showed up again.

And again.

And again.

And with each appearance the Borg got more and more incompetent. Apparently, in Voyager, the Borg don't adapt and become more lethal in the next encounter. Nope, in Voyager they De-evolve and become stupider and weaker. Like this one ep where they had Voyager go up against a Borg cube and hold its own for a while. A Borg cube which, btw, was MORE powerful than the one at Wolf 359, which destroyed 40 Federation ships single-handed! Yet this cube, which is more powerful than the Wolf 359 one, can't handle ONE small Federation ship?

Voyager COMPLETELY and UTTERLY ruined the Borg for me. I can't stand them, anymore. So obviously, I'm less than thrilled at the news that they'll be making an appearance on Enterprise. Seems Berman & Bragga are intent on ruining Star Trek once and for all.

[patriciaruth]

Really loved many of the SG-1 shows when it was on Showtime.

Remember the one where they got caught in a timewarp in the Stargate Command and kept recycling through the same 24 hours?

That was a scream.

[patriciaruth]

And oooh! the Replicators!!

As scary as the first Borg.

[Green Knight]

TNG was good most of the way through, with the exception of the 1st season. The 1st season had more bad than good, possibly because that was the most liberal of all the seasons (I don't think it's a coincidence).

And yeah, the first couple of season of Voyager were better than the first season or two of DS9. But see the post above for what I think of what Voyager did to the Borg. That's just one example of how Voyager took something good and beat it into the ground.

DS9 started weak, but it got better and kept getting better (Unlike Voyager, which started good, and then turned to utter garbage). By the time it ended, it was positively EPIC! No Star Trek series has ever done something like what DS9 did. I can't speak for anyone else, but personally, I LIKE tv shows with sweeping story arcs (Like 24 and Babylon 5). I also liked their portrayal of war in the 24th century (Towards the end, they even had an Earth city in flames from an attack by the Breen), and the 24th century humans on DS9 were a lot more realistic than the ones on TNG or VOY. In DS9, the world of the Federation wasn't this bright shining utopia. It had its dark side. Like Section 31. In one episode with Sloane, they essentially had the head of the Romulan Intelligence Service (Tal'shiar?) working for them! That's like having the head of the KGB on the CIA payroll during the Cold War. How awesome is that? And of course, there was Sisco tricking the Romulans into the war with the Dominion, with the Federation's approval. DS9 was the closest Star Trek got to showing the Federation operating as a realistic government, rather than some utopian fantasy. You gotta give them points for that, at least. Oh, and for the Defiant. The Federation actually building a full-fledged warship, rather than an exploration ship with guns.

[FirstTomato]

Wesley Crusher......"the boy"

He generally grates on my nerves but there were a couple of great episodes centered around him, like The Dauphin. Here's some of my favorite quotes from that episode, where Guinan and Riker are trying to teach Wes about how to woo Salia.

"Riker: "Now, the first words out of your mouth are the most important. You may want to start with something like this here." [To Guinan] "You are the most beautiful woman in the galaxy." [To Wesley] "But that might not work."
Guinan: "Yes! Yes, it would."
-- "The Dauphin", Stardate 42568.8


Riker: "You don't know how long I've wanted to tell you that."
Guinan: "But you were afraid."
Riker: "Yes."
Guinan: "Of me?"
Riker: "Of us. Of what we might become."
-- "The Dauphin", Stardate 42568.8


Riker: "Or that you might think it was a lie."
Guinan: "Maybe I do think it's a lie."
Riker: "Then you think I'm not sincere."
Guinan: "I din't say that. There's nothing wrong with a lie. It's like knocking at the door."
Riker: "Then you're inviting me in?"
Guinan: "I'm not sending you away."
Riker: "That's more than I expected."
Guinan: "Is it as much as you hoped?"
Riker: "To hope is to recognize the possibility. I had only dreams."
Guinan: "Dreams can be dangerous."
Riker: "Not these dreams. I dream of a galaxy where your eyes are the stars, and the universe worships the night."
Guinan: "Careful! Putting me on a pedestal so high, you might not be able to reach me."
Riker: "Then I'll learn how to fly. You are the heart of my day, and the soul of my night."
-- "The Dauphin", Stardate 42568.8


Guinan: "Shut up kid."
-- "The Dauphin", Stardate 42568.8


Guinan: "Now, tell me more about...my eyes?"
-- "The Dauphin", Stardate 42568.8

http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/st-tng/episodes/quotes/136.html

[Tin-Legions]

The show is/was about an ideal or better future. It has some of the same idealism that many of us who post on FR show. Respect for others, individual freedoms to do as you like, ect....We know this universe can only exist in fantasy land because the basic premise of Star Trek is that everyone is honest and hard working. REality is only about 30% of people are that way-the rest are free-riders and downright lazy and shiftless.

I have often noticed the lack of conservative values and have been greatly frustrated by the foolish actions of CPT's Picard and Janeway. In reality, those two would be fired for rank incompetence (how many times would you give a command to a person who consistently had his ship and crew blown out from under him?). Only in fantasy land can you get blasted for three or four minutes with photon torpedos and still talk your way out of danger using leftist diplomatic ideals.

Still, the idea of space exploration, human endeavor and even the basic ideals of Star Trek are fairly good ones. Id rather kids watch Star Trek than MTV or any of the mindless cartoons that are now on TV.

[Green Knight]

Yeah, that episode was a hoot! :)

I liked this last season on Sci-Fi, though. To get it back on-topic, the season finale had some bearing on Star Trek. Dr. Jackson, who ascended, was a part of a group of beings who pretty much adhere to the Prime Directive, I.E. No interference with primitive cultures. But even the liberal Daniel Jackson took that rule and shoved it up Anubis' clymer! (Well, he tried to, but he got stripped of his powers just as he was about to blast him to Kingdom Come)

[x]

Kirk was an individual who took responsibility into his own hands -- a hero. His successors were colorless organization men and women who acted strictly according to the book and showed no initiative. They made much less compelling television. Kirk was a sheriff in the Wild West, and they were suburban shopping mall cops. But from their point of view, Kirk's way would result first in acrimony and chaos, and then in universal homogenization as Kirk reshaped the universe according to his own lights. Kirk would not have sent the refugee back, and he would have been right, but one can understand why a heavily organized world would fear Kirks and want to weed them out. One major problem with organizations like the Union or the Federation, though, is that all their efforts to preserve unique cultures fail because there's no escaping the sterile grip of organizations and procedures.

[Bobby777]

wow ... how refreshing ... you hit the nail on the head ... bravo ... and a bow to you for telling it like it is ...

this is the only award I can give you ... from a couple centuries in the future I guess ... hehe ...

[Paul C. Jesup]

When I stated that, I was thinking about the episode where one of Kirk's ex's forcibly swaps bodies with him.

[patriciaruth]

Daniel Jackson really drove my husband nuts. He really cheered when he died. He hates the episodes where he comes back to give mealy mouthed PC speeches. Me, I'm more tolerant of him.

[Bobby777]

that's the last episode I believe ... "Turnabout Intruder" ... Shatner did a great job with that one ... you can tell he's playing a little tongue-in-cheek on a few shots ... hilarious ...

Spock, McCoy and Scotty plan to overthrow the soul-switched fake captain ... cool!

[patriciaruth]

Yes, ?Janet? wanted to be a Starship Captain, and women are hopelessly unable to perform that noble function, so she was rejected and it drove her nuts.

That was the most sexist of all the Star Trek shows, although Uhura's uniforms (and the blonde in the first year, a definite favorite with my brother and his male friends) maintained a consistency in that area. Libs were every bit as sexist as conservatives, perhaps more so in some ways, during those years.