Newsweek: Star Trek Lives

[Bounty]

The new Trek movie will make the cover of Newsweek this week, with a (long and thus not fully posted here) article about Star Trek, where it came from, and what makes it relevant. The first half is a basic history lesson of Trek fandom, but the second part has some interesting points about Trek's relevance today.

We’re All Trekkies Now

'Star Trek' is way cool. How'd that happen? Because the geeks have inherited the earth, and the White House.

...

It's the Spock plot strands that give the new "Trek" its best shot at once again commanding the zeitgeist. Spock's cool, analytical nature feels more fascinating and topical than ever now that we've put a sort of Vulcan in the White House. All through the election campaign, columnists compared President Obama's unflappably logical demeanor and prominent ears with Mr. Spock's. But as Spock's complicated racial backstory is spun out in detail in the new "Trek"—right back into childhood—the Obama parallels keep deepening. Like Obama, Spock is the product of a mixed marriage (actually, an interstellar mixed marriage), and he suffers blunt manifestations of prejudice as a result. As played by Zachary Quinto, the young Spock loves his human mother, but longs to assimilate completely into his Vulcan father Sarek's ways, eschewing messy emotions the way all Vulcans do. Young Spock is constantly being told by Vulcans and humans alike that he's either seething with inappropriate emotions—indeed, he takes Kirk by the throat at one point—or that he's not emotional enough and shouldn't be so repressed. Obama may or may not be a fan—the White House says he isn't, but Trekkies have claimed him as one of their breed ever since he said, "I grew up on 'Star Trek'—I believe in the final frontier," at a campaign stop last year. If he does check out the new movie, I can imagine he might feel a special empathy for Spock's position, given the chattering class's insistence that he needs to show more emotion, too.

There's one more intriguing allegorical overtone to the new "Trek," perhaps completely accidental. With the willfully hegemonic Bush administration now gone, the tenets of Roddenberry's fictional universe feel very much in step with current events. Whether you're happy about it or not, the Obama foreign policy, at least for now, emphasizes cross-cultural exchange and eschews imperialistic swagger. That sounds very much in sync with the Federation's Prime Directive, which stipulates that humanity should observe but never interfere with alien cultures (no Iraq-style invasions, in other words).

[Covenant]

It's unfortunate they bring up the Prime Directive again, especially as a model of the more enlightened foreign policy. We used to exercise the Prime Directive here in America, when we'd read about but never intend to become embroiled in world affairs. Unfortunately, choosing not to help your fellow humans out of a belief that any interference is negative... well, that's silly talk. It's silly talk that shouldn't have gotten dug into TNG, let alone the Enterprise and Voyager mutants that define it now. The original series' opinion towards developing civilization was one of "We're the Federation, we can help you better yourselves."

[Stofsk]

The prime directive as it was originally conceived was an enlightened foreign policy. It was there to prevent the exploitation of low-technological pre-warp cultures who were deemed particularly sensitive or susceptible to outside influence. Most of the time the PD had already been violated by some other ship or crew's actions, and Kirk and co were there to fix it up. Tyree's planet is an example of a culture that was better off before the Klingons came and gave a rival village primitive guns to use against Tyree's people. Kirk had to intervene because to do nothing would have likely resulted in Tyree being killed and his people becoming enslaved; Captain Tracey betrayed not only Starfleet but his own crew to sell phasers to the Cohms because he thought they had the secret to immortality; his actions resulted in the slaughter of thousands of Yangs as well as the deaths of everyone onboard his ship; the Sigma Iotians were heavily influenced by the carelessness of the previous expedition who left behind a tome on the 1930's gangsters etc.

The planet at the start of Mirror, Mirror had dilithium that a warp civilisation would value, but the PD prevents Kirk from just waltzing in and taking what he wants. How is this a bad thing? The PD is also not set in stone in TOS the way it is in TNG+; Enterprise was en route to the Eminar/Vendikar system to engage in a bit of gunboat diplomacy to a culture that was advanced, but pre-warp (at least the impression I had was one of pre-warp), and in Errand of Mercy Kirk and Spock negotiated with the Organians to try and get basing rights on their planet for Starfleet in exchange for medical and educational advancements. This was before anyone realised that the Organians were super-powerful god-beings; at one point Spock remarks that the evidence he has seen suggests that the Organians are an 'arrested culture', which seemed to imply that the Federation should step in.

Just because B&B bollocksed it up later doesn't mean the prime directive was a stupid or misguided policy.

[Patrick Degan]

Captain Tracey betrayed not only Starfleet but his own crew to sell phasers to the Cohms because he thought they had the secret to immortality

Actually, the Exeter crew were already dying while Tracey was arranging some sort of legitimate exchange deal with the Cohms. His betrayal of the Prime Directive comes after he actively intervenes in the war with the Yangs. The captain who actually sold out his own crew just for a bit of power as a political henchman on the Roman Empire planet was R.M. Merrick, a Starfleet washout. Had them all sent to the arena to die in gladitorial games.

[Coyote]

The Federation probably also wanted some sort of law to hold people like John Gill responsible for contaminations like in "Patterns of Force", where he moved in and became the "Fuhrer" and created what was supposed to be a efficient government based on Nazism.

[Samuel]

The Federation probably also wanted some sort of law to hold people like John Gill responsible for contaminations like in "Patterns of Force", where he moved in and became the "Fuhrer" and created what was supposed to be a efficient government based on Nazism.

I think they can try him for incompetance as a historian and crimes against a humanity. They don't need to add any more charges to it.

[Covenant]

Just because B&B bollocksed it up later doesn't mean the prime directive was a stupid or misguided policy.

You know, I'll agree with that. I think most people associate the Prime Directive with the kind of lashing it got in TNG, VOY and most awfully ENT, but as a principle in the Original Series, I have no issue with it's presentation.

[Stofsk]

Just because B&B bollocksed it up later doesn't mean the prime directive was a stupid or misguided policy.

You know, I'll agree with that. I think most people associate the Prime Directive with the kind of lashing it got in TNG, VOY and most awfully ENT, but as a principle in the Original Series, I have no issue with it's presentation.

It's like a brainbug. It started off fairly reasonable IMO, but the worm grew to the point where it became something monstrous, and you end up with that infamous Enterprise episode. It didn't help that at times it seemed like the writers on Star Trek became schizophrenic. One week they're wringing their hands over the PD, the next they're happily meddling in the affairs of some other culture.

BTW, thanks Patrick for pointing that out to me. I thought Tracey betrayed his crew to die onboard Exeter, but when I read your post I also remembered how shocked he was when Spock's and McCoy's discovery showed that no fountain of youth existed on the planet. Effectively his crew died for nothing. The guy was still a swine though (I think that episode was really, really cool - I liked the idea of a morally bankrupt Starfleet Captain needing to be 'taken down' by Kirk - except for right at the end when that awful twist was revealed. Oh god, why? I felt it was a terrific episode up until that moment).

[General Zod]

The guy was still a swine though (I think that episode was really, really cool - I liked the idea of a morally bankrupt Starfleet Captain needing to be 'taken down' by Kirk - except for right at the end when that awful twist was revealed. Oh god, why? I felt it was a terrific episode up until that moment).

You mean the twist with the Bible and American flag being worshipped as part of a primitive alien civilization's culture?

[Uraniun235]

The Omega Glory was inspired by a trip to Washington D.C. that Gene Roddenberry made, where he was so incredibly moved by all of the monuments and history of Washington that he wanted to write a whole story about the Constitution, or something like that.