Rant About Star Trek: Enterprise That Does Probably Not Belong Here

Reve BM, Editorial, rant | March 13, 2001 | Reve BM

[ReveBM]

Okay, let me first off say that I am a big fan of the newest Star Trek series, Enterprise. I thought that the last series, Voyager, had gotten tired and had too many episodes revolving around the masturbatory holodeck. And, don't even get me started on the series before that, Deep Space 9, with its "angry pissed-off black man in space" theme.

The new Enterprise series has a freshness about it not seen in my opinion since the original series of 1967-69, what with the swashbuckling Captain Kirk. A good slice of the new series' appeal for me is its handsome, rugged, all-American Captain, Jonathan Archer.

One particular episode, though, rubbed me the wrong way. If you've watched the series you may remember the pivotal episode where they visit the "Great Plume of Agasoria", a stellar object that has religious significance for many alien peoples. Smack in the middle of this episode, the alien doctor pointedly asks Captain Archer whether he has a faith (I don't remember the exact wording, he may have used religion or some other wording).

Captain Archer's response: "I try to keep an open mind".

Let's step back a bit and realize that in the Star Trek universe at this point Earth is just emerging from a hard 100+ years of recovering from nuclear war. If there were ever a time for people to turn to God, perhaps it would have been in the aftermath of that holocaust. However, not so for the boys at Star Fleet.

Perhaps in the Star Trek future, people who are religious do not go into space, staying on their farms (as shown in the first episode of the series) or perhaps forming small communities on spacefaring cargo ships (as shown in another episode). However, religious people don't seem to go into Star Fleet, to my knowledge. It's fine and understandable to run across aliens who are committed religiously, particularly the Vulcans, but I have yet in my memory to run across a significant Star Trek character who is committed to Christianity. You might think I'm harping on Christianity in particular, but it's not only a major and still-growing religion in our world today, but it's the dominant religion in the United States, which fields a large portion of visible Star Fleet personnel, perhaps due to the San Francisco location of its training center (or perhaps many other people in the world died during nuclear war)?

Wait, I get it, maybe religious people are somehow screened out during Star Fleet Academy, perhaps for unacceptable views they might have on one or another topic.

Let's also not forget that in the future, at least according to Star Trek, there is no capitalism at some point. The description of how this happens and in what century is vague, but I vividly remember more than one Star Trek Captain saying that in the future they don't use money anymore, just look to expand their "human potential". Thank God for the Ferengi.

Star Trek is written by writers and reflects their view of what the future will be like. They obviously seem to assume that Christianity and capitalism will die out over the generations. This reflects the fondness of liberals in particular to enter our schools and inculcate our young people so that they don't have unacceptable, politically incorrect views among the future generations, whether regarding homosexuality or some other topic.

It would have been extremely refreshing to have had Captain Archer at LEAST say "Yes, I have a faith, but it's very personal to me" and leave it at that.

Whether Christianity could survive the discovery of intelligent life on other planets is a topic for another day. I have read some science fiction suggesting it could. Others may disagree.

Have a nice day!

[clamper1797]

Not only is the "counselor" not there (Thank God) but Capt Archer makes the decisions and the major commands without help from a Riker like 2nd. Command by committee is not a real good idea ... remember how the camel was designed

[clamper1797]

Not only is the "counselor" not there (Thank God) but Capt Archer makes the decisions and the major commands without help from a Riker like 2nd. Command by committee is not a real good idea ... remember how the camel was designed

[Robert_Paulson2]

they can only procreate every seven years....
they can practice recreational sex at will....

every seven years it becomes a biological imperative...

[Arthalion]

Replicators are like free energy -- they are simply too dangerous to an economy to allow to exist.

Yes and no. Capitalism is good for us today simply because there isn't an alternative. We exist in a world today where various people control various limited resources (natural or produced) and they exchange those resources with others who are in need of them. There are three possible ways to do this: Barter, in which you directly exchange goods with another, but which fails when you need goods from another and he doesn't want yours. Communism, which takes resources from all and distributes them, but which fails because it removes the incentive to produce. Capitalism, which is essentially barter with a recognized third party exchange medium (currency), but which fails when you don't have any of that medium. The free world has decided that capitalism is the superior choice, because it's downside can be overcome with hard work, and because it imparts few restrictions on the rights of those involved with it.

The Star Trek universe turns the whole situation on its ear...they aren't capitalist, socialist or communist. The basic tenets of the economy, that there are limited goods to be exchanged, has been eliminated by the invention of unlimited production capacity (through robotics), unlimited energy (through antimatter reactors), unlimited resources (through replicators), and unlimited land (through planetary colonization enabled by high speed spaceflight). There are very few limited resources remaining to be traded, so all three common forms of exchange basically pass into history. This isn't neccesarily a bad thing...everyone can own a home, everyone will have unlimited food, and everyone can do what they want with their lives. Unlike communism, the Star Trek universe doesn't take away from others to create a utopian environment, it exists in an environment devoid of want.

Think about it this way: If you had $50 billion dollars sitting in the bank, what would you be doing right now? What would you be doing tomorrow? Next week? Whatever you answer, it basically boils down to "Whatever I want to do", whether that's working or sunning on a beach in Bora Bora. In the Trek universe, mankind has reached the point where everyone can make that choice. It may seem like a foreign concept to most people used to our current economic situation, but it really wouldn't be a bad thing IMO.

[altura]

There were some REALLY good DS9 episodes, one about the reality of war ... and I loved the baseball one.

[Sofa King]

I used to love Star Trek: TNG when I was younger, but now that I've grown up I've noticed that it seems a bit hair-brained at times.

[altura]

That episode was so irritating, I almost stopped watching.

[Sofa King]

What about services? Robotics can't do everything. And no form of energy is completely free. Physics allows no such convenience.

[altura]

Yeah, at least the Ferengi were decently capitalistic and acquisitive.

[Sofa King]

In my experience, "keeping an open mind" seems to mean "beleive whatever I tell you and don't dare challenge my logic"

[altura]

It's better not to know too much about actors. Sometimes it just ruins their movies and tv shows for you.

Basically, I don't care what their little minds come up with if they don't decide to ram it down our throats.

There are a few I just can't watch.

[Windcatcher]

I swore off Star Trek during Voyager when I finally decided I'd had enough of the leftist messages the series kept pushing:

- Janeway's self-hating dementia that continually caused her to endanger her ship for some new underprivileged alien she encountered. Typical bleeding-heart liberalism.

- I defy anyone to find any reference to capitalism that doesn't present it in the most unfavorable light possible. They even created a race (the Ferengi) to embody the worst characteristics of capitalism.

- The abolition of money is of course well-known. So, let me see...the Federation's economy is therefore 100% communist where the government rations out everything, right? And of course this is always presented in glowing terms...

- The people who made the series stubbornly put forward the view that violence was never, ever acceptable, even when one was in danger. How many times have we heard the phrase: "you're the only ones in the sector". To me this is a subtle message to leave onself as thinly defended as possible. This only changed when B5 started cleaning their clocks and they were forced to make DS9 take a more agressive stance.

- Religion? I think the best way to categorize religion in Trek is ABH (Anything But Human). Or, to not put too fine a point on it, ABC (Anything But Christianity). Apparently humans aren't allowed to be religious in the Trek universe, and Christianity went extinct with all our other "agressive tendencies". They wouldn't be putting forth that "opiate of the masses" message, would they, no, of course not (or are they merely anti-Christian and pro-some-other-religion?)

I used to be a Trek junkie, but as far as I'm concerned the Trek franchise is nothing more then Das Kapital repackaged for today's generation, and I consider the people who produce the series domestic enemies in the truest sense of the phrase.

[Arthalion]

What about services? Robotics can't do everything

Certainly there would still be service jobs, but capitalism itself would eliminate many of them, and convert the rest to unpaid positions done by people who enjoy the jobs. Before you write that off as perposterous, hear me out: MANY people, including myself, like to work and would continue working even if they didn't have to simply out of ethics. These people, freed from the production sectors of the economy by their eradication, would flood the service sector and drive its wages through the floor...and eventually to extinction. In a world where there is unlimited food and housing, I doubt most people would even care about this loss (what would you need money for if nearly everything is free?). The only people who would work are those who WANT to work simply to be doing something, so money wouldn't be their biggest concern anyway.

Robotics can take care of the jobs that nobody wants.

I do concur on the energy thing though. We know that the ST universe generates its energy in antimatter based reactors, but they never have described in detail exactly how they're supposed to work (eg. does the dilithium generate the antimatter, or does it simply react with it?)

If I remember correctly, only Dilithium/Trilithium and Latinum cannot be systhesized...hence the extreme value given to their mining operations by the various species in the different shows.

[hellinahandcart]

Wow. How'd this old thread get active again?

I still agree with myself two years later (and with both of you today). ;D

[Junior]

That sounds all well and good -- until you realize it's the government that controls everything. One can't simply "have a house;" one has to go to the government to give you the house. No one appears to own any form of personal transportation, which means the government controls the movements of the people.

The people of the Federation may be free of want, but they are not truly free.

[Arthalion]

True, BUT: Many of the problems of modern government stem from the bureaucracy that has grown out of the welfare state. The imposition of the technologies in the Star Trek universe would put an end to that. Today, most liberals vote that way because they want the government to give them something...medicine, homes, money, cars, food, you name it. Just as the unlimited resources in the ST universe would take out capitalism, I believe that it would take out socialism as well. If the people all live in warm houses, have full bellies, decent educations, and plenty of time to do whatever they want, what could the liberals possibly offer people that they wouldn't already have?

Without the need for handouts, the liberal state would fall, government would shrink, and elections would once again be decided by issues that really mattered. Corruption would virtually vanish (seriously, what the heck do you bribe people with in a world without want?), and a more responsive form of government should emerge. As long as the government is transparent, respects freedoms, and is responsive to the voters, I don't really see the problem with allowing it to control community resources. Look at it this way: Are you any less free because your city government controls your water and sewer service? Were the settlers any less free 150 years ago when the feds dictated that land claims had to be registered with the government to be legal? Are we any less free because the government owns the roads in front of our homes?

While you could argue yes to each of these, most people would agree that the control of shared resources by the community is a good thing.

[Junior]

Corruption would virtually vanish (seriously, what the heck do you bribe people with in a world without want?)...

Ah, but corruption hasn't disappeared in the ST universe. Indeed, a couple of episodes dealt with people doing underhanded things for profit (as Picard sneered). And, there must be something wrong with the "perfect" Federation, as there is at least one rebel, or at least expatriate, movement by TNG times.

You probably have already seen these pages, but I found them edifying:

The Economics of Star Trek

The Philosophy of Star Trek

[MarkL]

Just a guess, but in a future with "no money," something that might be seen is a world of two types of people. One group who is "institutionalized," being given everything that they need to survive, and living on their own somewhere, contributing nothing to society, and those who do want to do something with their lives, who do things like joining Star Fleet.

Actually, the first group sounds a lot like those who would live their lives in a holodeck!

Mark

[MarkL]

And it pisses me off that no one is showing reruns of DS9.

I think that Spike TV is now showing them!

Mark

[LauraJean]

spike is now showing DS9, I had great hopes for Enterprise but they have to do better with their plotlines. I didn't see the episode with the ''open mind'' remark but that line is so lame. An open mind should not be confused with an empty mind.