Friday, March 07, 2008
The Way Out is the Way In: Encounter at Farpoint
by William S. Kowinski
In the Star Trek saga, we see a bright future: of humanity in control of itself and its technology, at peace on earth and engaged in ethical, peaceful exploration of the universe. This is Gene Roddenberry’s so-called optimistic vision of the future.
But what is easy to forget is that the journey between here and there includes a global war that devastates the planet and a post-apocalyptic aftermath that sends humanity back into a new Dark Age. And according to Star Trek chronology, it’s all coming up pretty soon in our future.
Though this particular Star Trek future was referred to in the original series, it was given its fullest and boldest treatment in the first episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the two hours known as “Encounter at Farpoint.”
Not much attention has ever been paid to how harsh this vision is, or how boldly Roddenberry states his view of his present, and where it is heading. But if we are to understand how profound the ultimate Star Trek vision is, we have to understand the immediate future we are hurling towards, according to this saga.
Because the Star Trek vision isn’t of an inevitably better future. It is of a future that requires us to change—a better future that begins when we consciously become better ourselves. This first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation stakes out the territory this series will explore: what a better humanity might look like, what its challenges might be, and how these exemplars of that humanity meet those challenges.
[text continues after illustrations]
by William S. Kowinski
In the Star Trek saga, we see a bright future: of humanity in control of itself and its technology, at peace on earth and engaged in ethical, peaceful exploration of the universe. This is Gene Roddenberry’s so-called optimistic vision of the future.
But what is easy to forget is that the journey between here and there includes a global war that devastates the planet and a post-apocalyptic aftermath that sends humanity back into a new Dark Age. And according to Star Trek chronology, it’s all coming up pretty soon in our future.
Though this particular Star Trek future was referred to in the original series, it was given its fullest and boldest treatment in the first episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the two hours known as “Encounter at Farpoint.”
Not much attention has ever been paid to how harsh this vision is, or how boldly Roddenberry states his view of his present, and where it is heading. But if we are to understand how profound the ultimate Star Trek vision is, we have to understand the immediate future we are hurling towards, according to this saga.
Because the Star Trek vision isn’t of an inevitably better future. It is of a future that requires us to change—a better future that begins when we consciously become better ourselves. This first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation stakes out the territory this series will explore: what a better humanity might look like, what its challenges might be, and how these exemplars of that humanity meet those challenges.
[text continues after illustrations]
But first a few observations about the episode itself. Viewing it from today’s perspective, it almost seems more an episode of the original series than of the Next Generation, which is only natural. Not only was it written by Gene Roddenberry and Dorothy Fontana—who wrote or supervised many TOS stories—but it had to fulfill expectations very similar to those for the first Trek movie: it had to be different, but not too different—it had to be reassuring as well as wondrous; it had to feel like Star Trek—and it had to be bigger, more contemporary.
So the first few minutes gave us an updated version of the old beginning (a new voice intoning the same ritual introduction, though now it’s a “continuing” mission, going where “no one” has gone before) and a theme we’d basically heard as the theme of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And most importantly, our first glimpses of the newer, bigger 24th century starship Enterprise.
“Farpoint” seems padded, partly to show off some visual effects that there hadn’t been budget to do in the original series, and partly because the length of the episode kept changing, finally from 90 minutes to a two hours. And there were character moments and lingering shots of the new crew members, to help get us acquainted.
It was also awkward in ways you might expect the first story to be—the actors and writers hadn’t quite found the characters, the world of the series was a little shaky (like all those uniform styles we never saw again). But the acting of the main characters in this drama—namely Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard, and John De Lancie as Q, was superior. Whenever they are on the screen, we’re in good hands.
And there was one undeniably magical moment—when DeForest Kelley playing the aged Dr. McCoy talks to Data, and gives this new Enterprise his blessing. “It’s a new ship, but it’s got the right name. You remember that, hear? You treat her like a lady, and she’ll always bring you home.”
But this is not a review—it is an exploration of what this story says about its central concerns: the human future, both between our present and theirs, and how humanity has changed by the 24th century, to make a still imperfect future, but one worth hoping for.
That was the promise of the Next Generation as a series, and though the reviews of Farpoint at the time were a bit mixed—some gruff, some gushing—a couple of comments emphasize this (as quoted by the Reeves-Stevens in their TNG 10th anniversary book, The Continuing Mission). Don Merrill in TV Guide wrote that like the best of the original series, the episode carried “a message of hope, a belief that mankind is growing—and maturing.” And Paula Dietz wrote in the New York Times that on the evidence of Farpoint, TNG had “the power to make us see ourselves in a new way.”
Farpoint is also one of Gene Roddenberry’s clearest and most forthright statements on contemporary society, and the Star Trek future. Though Dorothy Fontana wrote the basic story of Farpoint Station itself, GR created and wrote the Q sequences (which were needed to fill out the story to the two hour length the studio wanted.) Of course when it comes to specific moments, who knows who is the most responsible for creating them. But in general, the scenes I will describe seem to reflect GR's view of present day humanity.
For in “Farpoint,” just as in the first story in every Star Trek series, humanity is questioned and tested by a more advanced life form, and we have to answer for ourselves.
So the first few minutes gave us an updated version of the old beginning (a new voice intoning the same ritual introduction, though now it’s a “continuing” mission, going where “no one” has gone before) and a theme we’d basically heard as the theme of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And most importantly, our first glimpses of the newer, bigger 24th century starship Enterprise.
“Farpoint” seems padded, partly to show off some visual effects that there hadn’t been budget to do in the original series, and partly because the length of the episode kept changing, finally from 90 minutes to a two hours. And there were character moments and lingering shots of the new crew members, to help get us acquainted.
It was also awkward in ways you might expect the first story to be—the actors and writers hadn’t quite found the characters, the world of the series was a little shaky (like all those uniform styles we never saw again). But the acting of the main characters in this drama—namely Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard, and John De Lancie as Q, was superior. Whenever they are on the screen, we’re in good hands.
And there was one undeniably magical moment—when DeForest Kelley playing the aged Dr. McCoy talks to Data, and gives this new Enterprise his blessing. “It’s a new ship, but it’s got the right name. You remember that, hear? You treat her like a lady, and she’ll always bring you home.”
But this is not a review—it is an exploration of what this story says about its central concerns: the human future, both between our present and theirs, and how humanity has changed by the 24th century, to make a still imperfect future, but one worth hoping for.
That was the promise of the Next Generation as a series, and though the reviews of Farpoint at the time were a bit mixed—some gruff, some gushing—a couple of comments emphasize this (as quoted by the Reeves-Stevens in their TNG 10th anniversary book, The Continuing Mission). Don Merrill in TV Guide wrote that like the best of the original series, the episode carried “a message of hope, a belief that mankind is growing—and maturing.” And Paula Dietz wrote in the New York Times that on the evidence of Farpoint, TNG had “the power to make us see ourselves in a new way.”
Farpoint is also one of Gene Roddenberry’s clearest and most forthright statements on contemporary society, and the Star Trek future. Though Dorothy Fontana wrote the basic story of Farpoint Station itself, GR created and wrote the Q sequences (which were needed to fill out the story to the two hour length the studio wanted.) Of course when it comes to specific moments, who knows who is the most responsible for creating them. But in general, the scenes I will describe seem to reflect GR's view of present day humanity.
For in “Farpoint,” just as in the first story in every Star Trek series, humanity is questioned and tested by a more advanced life form, and we have to answer for ourselves.
The Enterprise has barely begun its mission to investigate the mysteries of Farpoint Station when it confronts a barrier that looks like a steel mesh fence in space-- a “solid object” “or an incredibly powerful force field.”
The Enterprise stops, and in a flash of light a strange being appears, dressed as an Elizabethan ship’s captain, with armor and ruffles and a cocked hat with a feather: it is Q (“We call ourselves the Q, or thou mayst call me that…”)
Q tells Picard that “thy kind has infiltrated the galaxy too far already” and they are “directed to return to your own solar system. Go back whence thou came’st.”
When an ensign attempts to draw a phaser on Q, he blasts him with frigid air and essentially deep-freezes him. Picard shows Q the phaser (which today looks a lot like an Ipod) and says it was set on stun. “He would not have injured you.” Q replies slyly, “ Knowing humans as thou dus’t, Captain, would thou be captured helpless by them?”
In a minute or so, Q is going to figure out he’s misjudged the historical period this Enterprise is in, but the choice of the era defined by Q’s clothes may not have been arbitrary. At roughly the time of sea captains dressed in what Q was wearing, seafarers were exploring the globe, and conducting scientific and navigational research—but they were doing more than that. Sailing ships from various nations were competing for trade routes, and fighting each other. They were the representatives of not only nations but business compacts, and so they were seeking products and land in new places. They were often the first wave of military conquest.
For example, Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas, but he began the colonization of Native Americans immediately, and and took some as slaves back to Europe. The conquests of the Americas also began with missionaries attempting to convert Natives to Christian and European ways, though always as subservient. The conquest and colonization by European nations over the next several hundred years usually began with heavily armed ships, eventually carrying heavily armed soldiers. They sought the wealth of these lands, forcing native populations to mine precious metals and grow foodstuffs, and later to supply raw materials for the industrial revolution. They soon began shipping their captives elsewhere as slaves.
Entire continents were transformed by the European “explorers,” with transformations of the natural and cultural landscape, and human death tolls in the millions, as entire peoples were enslaved and exterminated. And this all began with the mariners, the ship captains and their scientists, those who Buckminster Fuller called the Great Pirates.
For centuries, these were the models of “explorers”—they were also invaders, conquerors, enslavers. These were the primary reason for the Prime Directive, which is less about "non-interference" than non-conquest, anti-empire.
The Enterprise stops, and in a flash of light a strange being appears, dressed as an Elizabethan ship’s captain, with armor and ruffles and a cocked hat with a feather: it is Q (“We call ourselves the Q, or thou mayst call me that…”)
Q tells Picard that “thy kind has infiltrated the galaxy too far already” and they are “directed to return to your own solar system. Go back whence thou came’st.”
When an ensign attempts to draw a phaser on Q, he blasts him with frigid air and essentially deep-freezes him. Picard shows Q the phaser (which today looks a lot like an Ipod) and says it was set on stun. “He would not have injured you.” Q replies slyly, “ Knowing humans as thou dus’t, Captain, would thou be captured helpless by them?”
In a minute or so, Q is going to figure out he’s misjudged the historical period this Enterprise is in, but the choice of the era defined by Q’s clothes may not have been arbitrary. At roughly the time of sea captains dressed in what Q was wearing, seafarers were exploring the globe, and conducting scientific and navigational research—but they were doing more than that. Sailing ships from various nations were competing for trade routes, and fighting each other. They were the representatives of not only nations but business compacts, and so they were seeking products and land in new places. They were often the first wave of military conquest.
For example, Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas, but he began the colonization of Native Americans immediately, and and took some as slaves back to Europe. The conquests of the Americas also began with missionaries attempting to convert Natives to Christian and European ways, though always as subservient. The conquest and colonization by European nations over the next several hundred years usually began with heavily armed ships, eventually carrying heavily armed soldiers. They sought the wealth of these lands, forcing native populations to mine precious metals and grow foodstuffs, and later to supply raw materials for the industrial revolution. They soon began shipping their captives elsewhere as slaves.
Entire continents were transformed by the European “explorers,” with transformations of the natural and cultural landscape, and human death tolls in the millions, as entire peoples were enslaved and exterminated. And this all began with the mariners, the ship captains and their scientists, those who Buckminster Fuller called the Great Pirates.
For centuries, these were the models of “explorers”—they were also invaders, conquerors, enslavers. These were the primary reason for the Prime Directive, which is less about "non-interference" than non-conquest, anti-empire.
But Q realizes that he’s not communicating as one ship’s captain to another in quite the way he thought he would. “Thy little centuries go by so rapidly, Captain. Perhaps thou will’st better understand this…”
A flash of light and Q disappears, then reappears in the uniform of a 1950s-60s U.S. Marine Captain. He holds a lit cigarette in his hand. Picard looks at him quizzically. “Actually the issue at stake is patriotism,” he says, in a flat midwestern accent. You must return to your world and put an end to the Commies. All it takes are a few good men.”
I want to pause here and emphasize what an important moment this is. Having Q appear this way and say those lines would never in a million years have been allowed on the original series Star Trek in the 1960s, though Gene Roddenberry would probably have wanted to do it. (He probably would have wanted to do it as well in his previous series about the contemporary military, The Lieutenant.)
I can’t help seeing this as the kind of statement GR had wanted to make then, and was finally making now. This really was going to be a “next generation” Star Trek.
This Marine was uttering the standard line of the 1950s. To question this kind of assertion then meant being pilloried as unpatriotic, and perhaps hauled before the McCarthy committee. To show it as evidence of human immaturity might have gotten you blacklisted, and you wouldn’t work in TV again for decades, or perhaps forever.
But exposing such assertions as primitive nonsense was exactly what GR was about to do, through the attitude and words of Captain Picard. Picard looks at Q with disbelief and disgust. “What,” he almost whispers. “That kind of nonsense is centuries behind us.”
Nonsense? It was pretty much the American Way in the 1950s and 60s, which may have been hundreds of years from Picard’s but only 20 years or so in the past of the real world when this episode was made. And in many ways it was still the official view, for these were the Reagan 1980s, and Communism in Russia and China were considered the enemy in a life or death struggle in all ways—politically, economically and philosophically.
“But you can’t deny that you’re still a dangerous, savage child race,” Q says.
“Most certainly I deny it, “Picard says in return. “I agree we still were, when humans wore costumes like that, 400 years ago.”
Picard’s voice drips with disdain, especially over the words “costumes like that.” It’s a richly ironic moment: when contemporaries dress up like Star Trek characters, they wear “costumes,” though within the world of the series, these costumes are Starfleet uniforms. And what Q is wearing was called a uniform in its day in the real world (and it’s not very different from the uniforms of today), while Picard regards it as the costume of a “savage child race”--- as much a ridiculous pretence as the Elizabethan ruffles and feathered hat.
This is truly “subversive” stuff. But it’s only getting started.
A flash of light and Q disappears, then reappears in the uniform of a 1950s-60s U.S. Marine Captain. He holds a lit cigarette in his hand. Picard looks at him quizzically. “Actually the issue at stake is patriotism,” he says, in a flat midwestern accent. You must return to your world and put an end to the Commies. All it takes are a few good men.”
I want to pause here and emphasize what an important moment this is. Having Q appear this way and say those lines would never in a million years have been allowed on the original series Star Trek in the 1960s, though Gene Roddenberry would probably have wanted to do it. (He probably would have wanted to do it as well in his previous series about the contemporary military, The Lieutenant.)
I can’t help seeing this as the kind of statement GR had wanted to make then, and was finally making now. This really was going to be a “next generation” Star Trek.
This Marine was uttering the standard line of the 1950s. To question this kind of assertion then meant being pilloried as unpatriotic, and perhaps hauled before the McCarthy committee. To show it as evidence of human immaturity might have gotten you blacklisted, and you wouldn’t work in TV again for decades, or perhaps forever.
But exposing such assertions as primitive nonsense was exactly what GR was about to do, through the attitude and words of Captain Picard. Picard looks at Q with disbelief and disgust. “What,” he almost whispers. “That kind of nonsense is centuries behind us.”
Nonsense? It was pretty much the American Way in the 1950s and 60s, which may have been hundreds of years from Picard’s but only 20 years or so in the past of the real world when this episode was made. And in many ways it was still the official view, for these were the Reagan 1980s, and Communism in Russia and China were considered the enemy in a life or death struggle in all ways—politically, economically and philosophically.
“But you can’t deny that you’re still a dangerous, savage child race,” Q says.
“Most certainly I deny it, “Picard says in return. “I agree we still were, when humans wore costumes like that, 400 years ago.”
Picard’s voice drips with disdain, especially over the words “costumes like that.” It’s a richly ironic moment: when contemporaries dress up like Star Trek characters, they wear “costumes,” though within the world of the series, these costumes are Starfleet uniforms. And what Q is wearing was called a uniform in its day in the real world (and it’s not very different from the uniforms of today), while Picard regards it as the costume of a “savage child race”--- as much a ridiculous pretence as the Elizabethan ruffles and feathered hat.
This is truly “subversive” stuff. But it’s only getting started.
Q then sums up much of human history in two sentences. Referring back to Picard mentioning “400 years ago,” Q says: “At which time you slaughtered millions in silly arguments about how to divide the resources of your little world. And four hundred years before that you were murdering each other in quarrels over tribal god-images. Since then, there are no indications that humans will ever change…”
What’s especially interesting to me now is that, 20 years after these words were written and said and recorded, they are again incendiary. The “quarrels over tribal god-images” describes much of the content of the Old Testament, for example. Quarrels over religion bathed the human world in blood for the centuries after Christ, as well: the Inquisition, the Crusades, various and sundry wars, as well as the announced justification for slaughtering the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Australia…everywhere European explorers went. And the various peoples of Asia who became Russians, Japanese and Chinese and so on, they did it, too.
These words question the slaughters, but they also ridicule the reasons. Humans killed each other by the millions over resources they eventually would divide, mostly by other means. They slaughtered each other over religions, and the slaughter settled nothing. Now most of those religions co-exist, often even in the same countries, cities and communities.
Picard obviously agrees with Q that this behavior was that of a savage child race—but he insists that it belongs only to the past. Q laughs at him.
“But even when we—“ and here Picard can barely suppress his disgust—“wore costumes like that (meaning the 1960s Marine uniform) “we’d already started to make rapid progress.”
Progress: it is the faith of our civilization, particularly in America, and in a sense it is the faith of Star Trek. Progress means getting better, and to many it is the result of a kind of natural selection—for many, the very definition in fact of evolution. It is the natural consequence of scientific and technological discovery, and especially it is the natural consequence of capitalism. Science leads to technologies and other changes that innovators develop and select because they are profitable, and the free market decides on the best changes for society. That’s progress, and in America in the 1950s, it was officially our most important product. (General Electric’s slogan in the 50s was just that: Progress is our most important product.)
But the idea of progress as nothing more than better technology is about to get challenged, as is a definition of evolution that’s just another way of saying “to the victor goes the spoils.”
For now it’s Q’s turn to display disdain. “Oh yeah?” he says. “You want to review your rapid progress?”
And with another flash of light, Q is about to explore, not the future’s interpretation of our past and present, but of the future between our time and Picard’s (or even Kirk’s or Archer’s.) In other words, our immediate future.
Another flash of light and Q returns, this time in an outfit that looks futuristic at the same time as it looks like a throwback to the suits of armor of medieval times. It’s a tunic and hood, pants and boots that cover everything but a man’s face.
“Rapid progress,” he sneers, looking and sounding stoned. “To where humans learned to control their military with drugs.” Out of a device on his chest he pulls a tube and takes a sniff. “Oh, better,” he says.
And then Q takes his observation into the Star Trek future. “And later, when finally reaching deep space, humans of course found enemies to fight out there, too. And to broaden those struggles you found allies for still more murdering… It’s the same old story, all over again.”
It is a devastating indictment of humanity, that includes much of what we’ve seen on Star Trek: the United Federation of Planets, warring with the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire, and eventually the Cardassians and the Dominion, to name a few.
But then GR gives us the other side of the argument as well. (As British playwright Tom Stoppard once said, “I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself.”) Gene Roddenberry could articulate Q’s position eloquently, but he could also create Picard’s defense.
“No, the same old story is the one we’re meeting now,” Picard says sternly—“self-righteous life forms who are eager, not to learn, but to prosecute and judge anything they can’t understand or can’t tolerate.” It is in fact no real defense, and in tone and substance is itself pretty self-righteous. But it does state Picard’s position that there’s more to humanity and its history than Q’s description. And it also gives Q an idea of how to proceed.
“Prosecute and judge! Suppose it turns out we know you humans only too well,” he chides Picard.
“We’ve no fear of what the true facts about us will reveal,” Picard says with quiet confidence and a hint of defiance.
Q is delighted, says he has preparations to make but when he returns, “we will proceed exactly as you suggest.” Then another flash and Q disappears, leaving a puzzled Picard.
What’s especially interesting to me now is that, 20 years after these words were written and said and recorded, they are again incendiary. The “quarrels over tribal god-images” describes much of the content of the Old Testament, for example. Quarrels over religion bathed the human world in blood for the centuries after Christ, as well: the Inquisition, the Crusades, various and sundry wars, as well as the announced justification for slaughtering the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Australia…everywhere European explorers went. And the various peoples of Asia who became Russians, Japanese and Chinese and so on, they did it, too.
These words question the slaughters, but they also ridicule the reasons. Humans killed each other by the millions over resources they eventually would divide, mostly by other means. They slaughtered each other over religions, and the slaughter settled nothing. Now most of those religions co-exist, often even in the same countries, cities and communities.
Picard obviously agrees with Q that this behavior was that of a savage child race—but he insists that it belongs only to the past. Q laughs at him.
“But even when we—“ and here Picard can barely suppress his disgust—“wore costumes like that (meaning the 1960s Marine uniform) “we’d already started to make rapid progress.”
Progress: it is the faith of our civilization, particularly in America, and in a sense it is the faith of Star Trek. Progress means getting better, and to many it is the result of a kind of natural selection—for many, the very definition in fact of evolution. It is the natural consequence of scientific and technological discovery, and especially it is the natural consequence of capitalism. Science leads to technologies and other changes that innovators develop and select because they are profitable, and the free market decides on the best changes for society. That’s progress, and in America in the 1950s, it was officially our most important product. (General Electric’s slogan in the 50s was just that: Progress is our most important product.)
But the idea of progress as nothing more than better technology is about to get challenged, as is a definition of evolution that’s just another way of saying “to the victor goes the spoils.”
For now it’s Q’s turn to display disdain. “Oh yeah?” he says. “You want to review your rapid progress?”
And with another flash of light, Q is about to explore, not the future’s interpretation of our past and present, but of the future between our time and Picard’s (or even Kirk’s or Archer’s.) In other words, our immediate future.
Another flash of light and Q returns, this time in an outfit that looks futuristic at the same time as it looks like a throwback to the suits of armor of medieval times. It’s a tunic and hood, pants and boots that cover everything but a man’s face.
“Rapid progress,” he sneers, looking and sounding stoned. “To where humans learned to control their military with drugs.” Out of a device on his chest he pulls a tube and takes a sniff. “Oh, better,” he says.
And then Q takes his observation into the Star Trek future. “And later, when finally reaching deep space, humans of course found enemies to fight out there, too. And to broaden those struggles you found allies for still more murdering… It’s the same old story, all over again.”
It is a devastating indictment of humanity, that includes much of what we’ve seen on Star Trek: the United Federation of Planets, warring with the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire, and eventually the Cardassians and the Dominion, to name a few.
But then GR gives us the other side of the argument as well. (As British playwright Tom Stoppard once said, “I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself.”) Gene Roddenberry could articulate Q’s position eloquently, but he could also create Picard’s defense.
“No, the same old story is the one we’re meeting now,” Picard says sternly—“self-righteous life forms who are eager, not to learn, but to prosecute and judge anything they can’t understand or can’t tolerate.” It is in fact no real defense, and in tone and substance is itself pretty self-righteous. But it does state Picard’s position that there’s more to humanity and its history than Q’s description. And it also gives Q an idea of how to proceed.
“Prosecute and judge! Suppose it turns out we know you humans only too well,” he chides Picard.
“We’ve no fear of what the true facts about us will reveal,” Picard says with quiet confidence and a hint of defiance.
Q is delighted, says he has preparations to make but when he returns, “we will proceed exactly as you suggest.” Then another flash and Q disappears, leaving a puzzled Picard.
After a section in which the Enterprise at first tries to escape but then, realizing it is impossible, Picard detaches the saucer section and sends the bulk of the crew and the families aboard to safety, while from the battle bridge he prepares to surrender the Enterprise.
But the core of the bridge crew—which at this time is Picard, Data, Troi and Tasha Yar-- is taken away in that Q-style flash of light to what Picard recognizes as the “mid 21st century—the post-atomic horror.”
That there is a World War III with nuclear weapons is mentioned in the original series as occurring in 2053—which in our world is just a little farther in our future than the debut of Star Trek on television was in our past.
This moment in Farpoint is the first time in all of Star Trek that we actually see some part of that war’s effects. But Star Trek as a TV show, a saga about the future, or even as a phenomenon, cannot be understood without considering what the threat of nuclear war meant in the years leading up to its creation, as well as throughout the years of its existence.
The threat of nuclear war to human civilization was forecast and dramatized in science fiction even before there was a working atomic bomb. For all the secrecy about it, stories began to appear in the sci-fi pulps as early as 1941, months before the U.S. got into World War II and more than four years before the first A-bomb was tested in New Mexico. One story published in Astounding magazine in 1944 led to the author being visited by the FBI, interested in how he knew so much.
Many of these stories dramatized the destruction and ultimate doom of humanity caused by atomic warfare, which was widely believed by scientists and military experts. It was so widespread that immediately after World War II ended, there was close to a consensus that the Bomb should be controlled by treaty or an international organization. Even General Omar Bradley (who later nevertheless became an advocate for the H-Bomb) referred to humanity as “nuclear giants and ethical infants.”
Nuclear doomsday became such a persistent theme by a year or two after the war that (according to James Gunn in his history of sci-fi pulps, Alternate Worlds) that stories about the post-atomic horror were “almost impossible to place in a science-fiction magazine” because there were so many. But, he added, such stories were also becoming impossible to avoid in mainstream magazines.
The writers of these stories included many of the major science fiction writers, beginning with Robert Heinlein who wrote that 1941 story (under another name.) Poul Anderson wrote one apocalyptic fiction after another, with titles like Un-Man, Cold Victory and After Doomsday. As Anderson emphasized in his non-fiction book, Thermonuclear War (1961), these times were “the most dangerous in the history of mankind.”
“Astounding after the war was a very black magazine,” science fiction chronicler Brian Aldiss writes of the premier sci-fi pulp. “Many stories were of Earth destroyed, culture doomed, humanity dying, and of the horrific effects of radiation, which brought mutation or insidious death.” He cites titles like “Dawn of Nothing,” “And Then There Were None,” “There Is No Defence” (by Theodore Sturgeon.) So pervasive were these themes over the next decades that even in a science fiction novel for juvenile readers (Return From Luna by D.S. Halacy), a teenager’s adventures with an expedition on the moon turned suddenly somber when nuclear war erupts on Earth.
But by the 1950s and the start of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union, the official view in America was that nuclear war could be prepared for, and to fear or especially oppose nuclear weapons was unpatriotic. So nuclear fear was driven underground, into the collective subconscious, and emerged at first mostly in monster movies, beginning with “Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” in 1953 (based loosely on a Ray Bradbury story) and the original Japanese Godzilla film, “Gojira” in 1954. Both movies were about monsters awakened by atomic bombs. (This is much more explicit in the original “Gojira,” now restored and available on DVD.)
But probably the breakthrough film was “Them!” in 1954, starring several future television stars: James Arness (“Gunsmoke”), Fess Parker (“Davy Crockett”—in fact, Walt Disney first spotted him in this film) and James Whitmore (“The Law and Mr. Jones.”) There was even a bit part for a very young Leonard Nimoy. This riveting tale of ants transformed into mutant giants by nuclear tests in the New Mexico desert remained the best American movie of its kind, but it opened the floodgates to giant grasshoppers, preying mantises, crabs, etc.—all reanimated or created by nuclear explosions or radiation.
There were also the alien invasion (War of the Worlds, 1953) and subversion (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1955) from outer space movies, that were also psychological stand-ins for the Cold War fears of helplessness before enemies armed with nuclear weapons, and to some extent for nuclear fear itself.
Gradually the fear got more literal on the silver screen. In the midst of the monsters there were human mutations. The best movie of this kind was “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” directed by Jack Arnold from a story by Richard Matheson (who would later write for Star Trek.) Then came the movies that attempted to realistically portray some aspect of nuclear war (“On the Beach” in 1959 was the best and most popular) and of its bleak aftermath (“The World, The Flesh and the Devil” in 1959, “Panic in the Year Zero” in 1962, and others.) Television treated the topic occasionally, especially in several stories in the original Twilight Zone series.
But the core of the bridge crew—which at this time is Picard, Data, Troi and Tasha Yar-- is taken away in that Q-style flash of light to what Picard recognizes as the “mid 21st century—the post-atomic horror.”
That there is a World War III with nuclear weapons is mentioned in the original series as occurring in 2053—which in our world is just a little farther in our future than the debut of Star Trek on television was in our past.
This moment in Farpoint is the first time in all of Star Trek that we actually see some part of that war’s effects. But Star Trek as a TV show, a saga about the future, or even as a phenomenon, cannot be understood without considering what the threat of nuclear war meant in the years leading up to its creation, as well as throughout the years of its existence.
The threat of nuclear war to human civilization was forecast and dramatized in science fiction even before there was a working atomic bomb. For all the secrecy about it, stories began to appear in the sci-fi pulps as early as 1941, months before the U.S. got into World War II and more than four years before the first A-bomb was tested in New Mexico. One story published in Astounding magazine in 1944 led to the author being visited by the FBI, interested in how he knew so much.
Many of these stories dramatized the destruction and ultimate doom of humanity caused by atomic warfare, which was widely believed by scientists and military experts. It was so widespread that immediately after World War II ended, there was close to a consensus that the Bomb should be controlled by treaty or an international organization. Even General Omar Bradley (who later nevertheless became an advocate for the H-Bomb) referred to humanity as “nuclear giants and ethical infants.”
Nuclear doomsday became such a persistent theme by a year or two after the war that (according to James Gunn in his history of sci-fi pulps, Alternate Worlds) that stories about the post-atomic horror were “almost impossible to place in a science-fiction magazine” because there were so many. But, he added, such stories were also becoming impossible to avoid in mainstream magazines.
The writers of these stories included many of the major science fiction writers, beginning with Robert Heinlein who wrote that 1941 story (under another name.) Poul Anderson wrote one apocalyptic fiction after another, with titles like Un-Man, Cold Victory and After Doomsday. As Anderson emphasized in his non-fiction book, Thermonuclear War (1961), these times were “the most dangerous in the history of mankind.”
“Astounding after the war was a very black magazine,” science fiction chronicler Brian Aldiss writes of the premier sci-fi pulp. “Many stories were of Earth destroyed, culture doomed, humanity dying, and of the horrific effects of radiation, which brought mutation or insidious death.” He cites titles like “Dawn of Nothing,” “And Then There Were None,” “There Is No Defence” (by Theodore Sturgeon.) So pervasive were these themes over the next decades that even in a science fiction novel for juvenile readers (Return From Luna by D.S. Halacy), a teenager’s adventures with an expedition on the moon turned suddenly somber when nuclear war erupts on Earth.
But by the 1950s and the start of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union, the official view in America was that nuclear war could be prepared for, and to fear or especially oppose nuclear weapons was unpatriotic. So nuclear fear was driven underground, into the collective subconscious, and emerged at first mostly in monster movies, beginning with “Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” in 1953 (based loosely on a Ray Bradbury story) and the original Japanese Godzilla film, “Gojira” in 1954. Both movies were about monsters awakened by atomic bombs. (This is much more explicit in the original “Gojira,” now restored and available on DVD.)
But probably the breakthrough film was “Them!” in 1954, starring several future television stars: James Arness (“Gunsmoke”), Fess Parker (“Davy Crockett”—in fact, Walt Disney first spotted him in this film) and James Whitmore (“The Law and Mr. Jones.”) There was even a bit part for a very young Leonard Nimoy. This riveting tale of ants transformed into mutant giants by nuclear tests in the New Mexico desert remained the best American movie of its kind, but it opened the floodgates to giant grasshoppers, preying mantises, crabs, etc.—all reanimated or created by nuclear explosions or radiation.
There were also the alien invasion (War of the Worlds, 1953) and subversion (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1955) from outer space movies, that were also psychological stand-ins for the Cold War fears of helplessness before enemies armed with nuclear weapons, and to some extent for nuclear fear itself.
Gradually the fear got more literal on the silver screen. In the midst of the monsters there were human mutations. The best movie of this kind was “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” directed by Jack Arnold from a story by Richard Matheson (who would later write for Star Trek.) Then came the movies that attempted to realistically portray some aspect of nuclear war (“On the Beach” in 1959 was the best and most popular) and of its bleak aftermath (“The World, The Flesh and the Devil” in 1959, “Panic in the Year Zero” in 1962, and others.) Television treated the topic occasionally, especially in several stories in the original Twilight Zone series.
All of this—plus non-fiction books, articles and TV documentaries about hydrogen bombs and guided missiles, the arms race and radiation—along with elements in the real world from the duck & cover drills in schools of the 50s to the fallout shelters of the early 60s-- all added up to a pretty pervasive view that the earth was doomed. It was not an unreasonable fear, either. Any moment of any day could bring the beginning of massive death and destruction from a thermonuclear exchange. Much of human civilization could be destroyed in hours and days.
Every international crisis brought the threat to mind—especially the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world really seemed to be on the brink of thermonuclear war. But more than anything it was a mood—that much of the world could die in little more than an instant, at any moment—that permeated everyday life in the early 1960s.
Nuclear destruction wasn’t the only kind of apocalypse people worried about. By the late 60s, environmental destruction, pollution and overpopulation were becoming doomsday concerns. Vietnam brought new turmoil. But nuclear war was still pretty high on the list. In 1966, Star Trek's first season, the U.S. alone had some 32,000 thermonuclear bombs--enough to destroy humankind and much of the Earth many times over.
That’s how it was when Star Trek began. My favorite summary of what Star Trek meant in this historical context came from a 2004 interview I did with Michael Malotte, Commander of Starfleet (or president of the non-profit organization, the International Star Trek Fan Association, Inc.)
"I think the biggest appeal of Star Trek is that back in the 60s, when Gene did this," Malotte said, "most science fiction was about people who weren't on earth because they were escaping it, it was so overpopulated and polluted that people couldn't live on it, or it was a charred cinder because we'd screwed ourselves over. Gene's Star Trek was really the first science fiction of its time to show a future where we actually learn from our mistakes. We bettered ourselves and we banded together, and we headed out for the stars. "
Every international crisis brought the threat to mind—especially the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world really seemed to be on the brink of thermonuclear war. But more than anything it was a mood—that much of the world could die in little more than an instant, at any moment—that permeated everyday life in the early 1960s.
Nuclear destruction wasn’t the only kind of apocalypse people worried about. By the late 60s, environmental destruction, pollution and overpopulation were becoming doomsday concerns. Vietnam brought new turmoil. But nuclear war was still pretty high on the list. In 1966, Star Trek's first season, the U.S. alone had some 32,000 thermonuclear bombs--enough to destroy humankind and much of the Earth many times over.
That’s how it was when Star Trek began. My favorite summary of what Star Trek meant in this historical context came from a 2004 interview I did with Michael Malotte, Commander of Starfleet (or president of the non-profit organization, the International Star Trek Fan Association, Inc.)
"I think the biggest appeal of Star Trek is that back in the 60s, when Gene did this," Malotte said, "most science fiction was about people who weren't on earth because they were escaping it, it was so overpopulated and polluted that people couldn't live on it, or it was a charred cinder because we'd screwed ourselves over. Gene's Star Trek was really the first science fiction of its time to show a future where we actually learn from our mistakes. We bettered ourselves and we banded together, and we headed out for the stars. "
Yet even after the original series left the air, the threat of nuclear war remained. The U.S. and the Soviet Union together had some 65,000 nuclear weapons in the 1980s.
The nuclear threat was very much alive in public consciousness in 1987, when “Fairpoint” was made. Renewed concern that a new arms race of nuclear weapons was getting out of control led to the international “nuclear freeze” movement (to freeze the number of nukes in both the U.S. and Soviet Union) in the early 1980s. A new theory of atmospheric effects of nuclear war—the blocking of sunlight leading to a fatal “nuclear winter” was also proposed in 1982 and popularized by Carl Sagan. Then in 1983, a film depicting the effects of nuclear war on one Midwestern city was broadcast on American television over several nights and seen by millions—“The Day After,” directed by Nicholas Meyer (director of Star Trek II and VI .)
“Testament,” another powerful film made that year about a family after a nuclear exchange, was shown on PBS in 1984. A docudrama about the effect of nuclear war on England, called “Threads” was broadcast on the BBC around the same time. (Perhaps the most horrific of these films was made for British TV in 1965 by Peter Watkin, but “The War Game” was seen only in theatrical release, and won the 1966 Academy Award for documentary feature. I saw it that year on a double bill with “Dr. Strangelove”—an unforgettable experience.) And each of these films came with a warning: that the actual effects of a nuclear war would likely be much worse than those depicted.
While there was perhaps not the same pervasive sense of inevitable doom in the late 1980s as there was in earlier decades, the awareness of the dangers of nuclear war—both of its consequences and its imminent possibility—was high. This is in a sense the emotional background of “Farpoint.”
The nuclear threat was very much alive in public consciousness in 1987, when “Fairpoint” was made. Renewed concern that a new arms race of nuclear weapons was getting out of control led to the international “nuclear freeze” movement (to freeze the number of nukes in both the U.S. and Soviet Union) in the early 1980s. A new theory of atmospheric effects of nuclear war—the blocking of sunlight leading to a fatal “nuclear winter” was also proposed in 1982 and popularized by Carl Sagan. Then in 1983, a film depicting the effects of nuclear war on one Midwestern city was broadcast on American television over several nights and seen by millions—“The Day After,” directed by Nicholas Meyer (director of Star Trek II and VI .)
“Testament,” another powerful film made that year about a family after a nuclear exchange, was shown on PBS in 1984. A docudrama about the effect of nuclear war on England, called “Threads” was broadcast on the BBC around the same time. (Perhaps the most horrific of these films was made for British TV in 1965 by Peter Watkin, but “The War Game” was seen only in theatrical release, and won the 1966 Academy Award for documentary feature. I saw it that year on a double bill with “Dr. Strangelove”—an unforgettable experience.) And each of these films came with a warning: that the actual effects of a nuclear war would likely be much worse than those depicted.
While there was perhaps not the same pervasive sense of inevitable doom in the late 1980s as there was in earlier decades, the awareness of the dangers of nuclear war—both of its consequences and its imminent possibility—was high. This is in a sense the emotional background of “Farpoint.”
The story continues… Picard, Data, Troi and Yar find themselves in a raucous scene. Before them is a rabble dressed in mismatched rags, people of various races, some looking deformed, dirty and ill-nourished. They seem to be out of the distant past, except for the presence of automatic weapons and a soldier in the same hooded uniform that Q wore to demonstrate the soldier controlled with the use of drugs. It is a rabble gathered for spectacle, and as we soon see, the spectacle they prefer is fighting and bloodshed.
Fighting and bloodshed in fact was common entertainment, not only in the Dark Ages but in more recent centuries, when public hangings were entertainment spectacles. Ironically, the kind of entertainment found on the cable channel Spike—the one showing Next Generation reruns—is often a slightly tamer version.
Now our friends from the 24th century Enterprise hear themselves called “prisoners,” and they are told to stand for the entrance of the judge. Picard orders the others to refuse and remain seated.
“This is not an illusion, or a dream,” Troi warns.
“But these courts belong in the past,” Picard says, still disdainful.
“I don’t understand either,” Troi says. “But this is real.”
Real in the story—but how realistic? The imagery of nuclear apocalypse and the “post-atomic horror” had already become fixed and familiar by the time “Farpoint” was made, and this scene reflects similar portraits in other films and TV shows.
The idea of a landscape of ruin and privation where civilization has reverted to a kind of Dark Ages stage, ruled by violent warlords, goes back at least to the 1936 British movie, Things To Come. That film begins with what looks like a documentary about the London blitz, but at the time it was made it was science-fiction: years before German bombs and then V-1 and V-2 missiles rained down. Years before a European city and its civilians had been bombed at all.
The fictional war in that movie continues for decades, and results in plague and the total breakdown of civilization. (Though atomic bombs aren’t mentioned, the story was by H.G. Wells, who was the first to forecast an atomic war in a 1914 fiction—so far ahead of its time that it was from this novel that the atomic bomb got its name.) In Things to Come, a war lord called the Boss rules the broken town and devastated landscape. (The third part of the movie—the part it’s most famous for—depicts a kind of utopian future.)
This kind of societal breakdown became standard in post-apocalyptic fictions. For example, in The Road Warrior (1981) and its sequel, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), then later in the backstory for the Terminator films, and especially in the 1997 film of “The Postman,” based loosely on David Brin’s 1985 apocalyptic novel.
How “realistic” this might be no one can known, for it depends on how extensive the atomic war is, and on its unknown effects. Jonathan Schell’s famed 1982 book, The Fate of the Earth (based on a series of magazine articles the year before) examined the research on thermonuclear war from the first atomic explosions in 1945 to the arsenals of missiles and hydrogen bombs to 1980, and came to the conclusion that others had before: a major nuclear exchange could destroy human civilization and even result in human extinction.
By such measures, the “Road Warrior” view of the post-atomic landscape was hopelessly optimistic.
However, a war which resulted in more limited use of nuclear weapons might leave some remnants of civilization. This is actually more believable now than it was in 1987, before the fall of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War. Though the remaining 26,000 nuclear bombs possessed by the U.S. and Russia were (and are) still quite enough to end humankind, the world was in a different situation by 1996, when Star Trek: First Contact quantified World War III for the first time in Trek lore. Looking down on the post-World War III Earth of 2063, Commander Will Riker observed, “Most of the major cities were destroyed; only a few governments left. Six hundred million dead.”
Six hundred million is a very large number, but it is not so large as the total casualties possible from the kind of Mutual Assured Destruction thermonuclear exchange that was talked about in the Cold War era. It suggests more limited warfare, perhaps during an ongoing global crisis—for instance, a Climate Crisis.
The notion that industrial pollution was creating atmospheric changes that could change earth’s climate enough to threaten life as we know it on the planet’s surface was just breaking into mainstream consciousness in 1987, though that awareness and concern would grow quickly over the next few years—especially after several very hot summers in the U.S. What was first called “the Greenhouse Effect” (later, global warming and the Climate Crisis) had been a concern of scientists for decades—and once again, of science fiction writers. The playwright Arthur Miller wrote in the 1960s that he heard about it from Arthur C. Clarke.
Today scientists tell us that effects from past greenhouse gas pollution are already being felt, and will probably get worse into the near future. If we continue to pollute our atmosphere in this way, we may well change the climate so severely and irrevocably that human civilization as a whole is threatened, and even life as we know it on our planet.
Today we understand that one of the dangers of even the more limited Climate Crisis is that certain of its effects in some places—droughts and water shortages, food shortages, diseases, land that becomes inundated by rising seawater—could lead to wars. (Among those who believe this are the authors of a Pentagon study.) With so many nations now with nuclear weapons, such wars could escalate, and eventually become global.
Some of the latest information being assessed and put together suggests that the effects of the Climate Crisis could become severe enough in the mid 21st century that warfare could result. The fall of the Soviet Union therefore did not end the possibility of a World War III in which nuclear weapons are used.
Fighting and bloodshed in fact was common entertainment, not only in the Dark Ages but in more recent centuries, when public hangings were entertainment spectacles. Ironically, the kind of entertainment found on the cable channel Spike—the one showing Next Generation reruns—is often a slightly tamer version.
Now our friends from the 24th century Enterprise hear themselves called “prisoners,” and they are told to stand for the entrance of the judge. Picard orders the others to refuse and remain seated.
“This is not an illusion, or a dream,” Troi warns.
“But these courts belong in the past,” Picard says, still disdainful.
“I don’t understand either,” Troi says. “But this is real.”
Real in the story—but how realistic? The imagery of nuclear apocalypse and the “post-atomic horror” had already become fixed and familiar by the time “Farpoint” was made, and this scene reflects similar portraits in other films and TV shows.
The idea of a landscape of ruin and privation where civilization has reverted to a kind of Dark Ages stage, ruled by violent warlords, goes back at least to the 1936 British movie, Things To Come. That film begins with what looks like a documentary about the London blitz, but at the time it was made it was science-fiction: years before German bombs and then V-1 and V-2 missiles rained down. Years before a European city and its civilians had been bombed at all.
The fictional war in that movie continues for decades, and results in plague and the total breakdown of civilization. (Though atomic bombs aren’t mentioned, the story was by H.G. Wells, who was the first to forecast an atomic war in a 1914 fiction—so far ahead of its time that it was from this novel that the atomic bomb got its name.) In Things to Come, a war lord called the Boss rules the broken town and devastated landscape. (The third part of the movie—the part it’s most famous for—depicts a kind of utopian future.)
This kind of societal breakdown became standard in post-apocalyptic fictions. For example, in The Road Warrior (1981) and its sequel, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), then later in the backstory for the Terminator films, and especially in the 1997 film of “The Postman,” based loosely on David Brin’s 1985 apocalyptic novel.
How “realistic” this might be no one can known, for it depends on how extensive the atomic war is, and on its unknown effects. Jonathan Schell’s famed 1982 book, The Fate of the Earth (based on a series of magazine articles the year before) examined the research on thermonuclear war from the first atomic explosions in 1945 to the arsenals of missiles and hydrogen bombs to 1980, and came to the conclusion that others had before: a major nuclear exchange could destroy human civilization and even result in human extinction.
By such measures, the “Road Warrior” view of the post-atomic landscape was hopelessly optimistic.
However, a war which resulted in more limited use of nuclear weapons might leave some remnants of civilization. This is actually more believable now than it was in 1987, before the fall of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War. Though the remaining 26,000 nuclear bombs possessed by the U.S. and Russia were (and are) still quite enough to end humankind, the world was in a different situation by 1996, when Star Trek: First Contact quantified World War III for the first time in Trek lore. Looking down on the post-World War III Earth of 2063, Commander Will Riker observed, “Most of the major cities were destroyed; only a few governments left. Six hundred million dead.”
Six hundred million is a very large number, but it is not so large as the total casualties possible from the kind of Mutual Assured Destruction thermonuclear exchange that was talked about in the Cold War era. It suggests more limited warfare, perhaps during an ongoing global crisis—for instance, a Climate Crisis.
The notion that industrial pollution was creating atmospheric changes that could change earth’s climate enough to threaten life as we know it on the planet’s surface was just breaking into mainstream consciousness in 1987, though that awareness and concern would grow quickly over the next few years—especially after several very hot summers in the U.S. What was first called “the Greenhouse Effect” (later, global warming and the Climate Crisis) had been a concern of scientists for decades—and once again, of science fiction writers. The playwright Arthur Miller wrote in the 1960s that he heard about it from Arthur C. Clarke.
Today scientists tell us that effects from past greenhouse gas pollution are already being felt, and will probably get worse into the near future. If we continue to pollute our atmosphere in this way, we may well change the climate so severely and irrevocably that human civilization as a whole is threatened, and even life as we know it on our planet.
Today we understand that one of the dangers of even the more limited Climate Crisis is that certain of its effects in some places—droughts and water shortages, food shortages, diseases, land that becomes inundated by rising seawater—could lead to wars. (Among those who believe this are the authors of a Pentagon study.) With so many nations now with nuclear weapons, such wars could escalate, and eventually become global.
Some of the latest information being assessed and put together suggests that the effects of the Climate Crisis could become severe enough in the mid 21st century that warfare could result. The fall of the Soviet Union therefore did not end the possibility of a World War III in which nuclear weapons are used.
The judge, of course, turns out to be Q, clad in 21st century robes of cardinal red that suggest the ecclesiastical garb of the medieval Church. (An historical fact: the birds we know as cardinals were named after the red vestments of Catholic cardinals, and not the other way around.)
After the judge’s dramatic entrance, meant to dazzle the impressionable common folk with the appearance of magic, a soldier tries to force the Enterprise bridge crew to stand by firing a machine gun at their feet. (Like all such ‘”techno-primitive” portraits of the future, modern technology appears along with aspects of a more primitive past.) But instead he inspires the ire of security officer Tasha Yar, who disarms him with a few kung fu moves, much to the delight of the crowd that evidently wants a show of primitive violence.
The Judge rules the downed soldier “out of order,” and he has time only to use his drug inhaler and smile before another soldier machine guns him to death. The crowd laughs and applauds. Yar is shocked.
The trial begins. The crew is to answer for the “multiple and grievous savageries of the species.” Data objects, stating that in 2036, the New United Nations declared that no citizen could be put on trial for crimes of their race or forbearers. But Q tells him this is a court of 2079, by which time “more rapid progress” (using Picard’s words against him again) had caused all such “United Earth nonsense to be abolished.” The objection is denied. So here we have the sense of a world that tried to come together in the 2030s, but ultimately fell into decades of war and chaos.
Tasha has another outburst, this time verbal, saying that there were courts like this on her world, that she was saved from it by Starfleet, and that the people here should “get down on their knees to what Star Fleet is…” It’s an interesting turn of phrase, as if the ideals of Starfleet should be worshipped. This doesn’t sit well with Q, who turns his instant-freeze effect on her, to the audible delight of the crowd.
“You barbarians!” Troi cries. As if this wasn’t already obvious. “You’ve got a lot to learn about humans,” Picard spits out, “ if you think you can torture us or frighten us into silence.”
Picard suggests that Q is having second thoughts about a fair trial, fearing he will lose. Q says this is “a merciful court” and unfreezes Yar, to the distinct displeasure of the crowd, this barbaric rabble of 21st century humans.
An interchange between Picard and Q reveals that by 2079, these courts had no lawyers (they were killed) and trials were based on the principle of “guilty until proven innocent.” This is further evidence of a deteriorated civilization, a dangerous step backward that we nevertheless have seen as policy in our own times (in Cambodia under the Kymer Rouge and other places, including Guantanamo Bay) and in practice, arguably here in America as well. Innocent until proven guilty is a barely comprehended principle and a very vulnerable practice, as many who have served on a jury will know. It is in many ways the acid test of civilization. So it is most appropriate that it is seen here as part of this moral as well as physical post-atomic horror.
Yet the rules of this court that Q uses aren’t his rules: they belong to the human world of 2079, as they once belong to the human world of past centuries. This rule of guilty until proven innocent is itself evidence in the indictment of humanity as “greviously savage,” the charge that Q now insists Picard answer.
Picard demands specific charges, and Q agrees to an “accounting of human ugliness.” A pad with the charges are handed to Picard, who reads them and hands them back. “I see no charges against us,” he says.
He’s going back to the principle Data stated, and in fact going back on defending humanity. Q in a rage further encouraged by the need for a dramatic moment before the commercial, tells his soldiers to fire on the crew if they answer with any word other than “guilty.”
So instead of getting a philosophical debate on the meaning of the human past, we get Picard pleading “guilty—provisionally.” Picard finally cries out that there is evidence to support the court’s contention that humans “have been savage. I say therefore, test us. Test whether this is presently true of humans.”
Q likes this idea (despite Picard’s misuse of the word “presently.” Although by the 24th century, the linguistic barbarians may have won the current contest to redefine the word that means “soon,” as meaning “currently.”)
Q accepts the idea that the crew will represent “what humanity has become,” and says that the current mission of the Enterprise will serve. “This Farpoint Station will be an excellent test.”
The crew finds itself back on the battle bridge, on course for Farpoint, as if they had never left and no time had elapsed.
After the judge’s dramatic entrance, meant to dazzle the impressionable common folk with the appearance of magic, a soldier tries to force the Enterprise bridge crew to stand by firing a machine gun at their feet. (Like all such ‘”techno-primitive” portraits of the future, modern technology appears along with aspects of a more primitive past.) But instead he inspires the ire of security officer Tasha Yar, who disarms him with a few kung fu moves, much to the delight of the crowd that evidently wants a show of primitive violence.
The Judge rules the downed soldier “out of order,” and he has time only to use his drug inhaler and smile before another soldier machine guns him to death. The crowd laughs and applauds. Yar is shocked.
The trial begins. The crew is to answer for the “multiple and grievous savageries of the species.” Data objects, stating that in 2036, the New United Nations declared that no citizen could be put on trial for crimes of their race or forbearers. But Q tells him this is a court of 2079, by which time “more rapid progress” (using Picard’s words against him again) had caused all such “United Earth nonsense to be abolished.” The objection is denied. So here we have the sense of a world that tried to come together in the 2030s, but ultimately fell into decades of war and chaos.
Tasha has another outburst, this time verbal, saying that there were courts like this on her world, that she was saved from it by Starfleet, and that the people here should “get down on their knees to what Star Fleet is…” It’s an interesting turn of phrase, as if the ideals of Starfleet should be worshipped. This doesn’t sit well with Q, who turns his instant-freeze effect on her, to the audible delight of the crowd.
“You barbarians!” Troi cries. As if this wasn’t already obvious. “You’ve got a lot to learn about humans,” Picard spits out, “ if you think you can torture us or frighten us into silence.”
Picard suggests that Q is having second thoughts about a fair trial, fearing he will lose. Q says this is “a merciful court” and unfreezes Yar, to the distinct displeasure of the crowd, this barbaric rabble of 21st century humans.
An interchange between Picard and Q reveals that by 2079, these courts had no lawyers (they were killed) and trials were based on the principle of “guilty until proven innocent.” This is further evidence of a deteriorated civilization, a dangerous step backward that we nevertheless have seen as policy in our own times (in Cambodia under the Kymer Rouge and other places, including Guantanamo Bay) and in practice, arguably here in America as well. Innocent until proven guilty is a barely comprehended principle and a very vulnerable practice, as many who have served on a jury will know. It is in many ways the acid test of civilization. So it is most appropriate that it is seen here as part of this moral as well as physical post-atomic horror.
Yet the rules of this court that Q uses aren’t his rules: they belong to the human world of 2079, as they once belong to the human world of past centuries. This rule of guilty until proven innocent is itself evidence in the indictment of humanity as “greviously savage,” the charge that Q now insists Picard answer.
Picard demands specific charges, and Q agrees to an “accounting of human ugliness.” A pad with the charges are handed to Picard, who reads them and hands them back. “I see no charges against us,” he says.
He’s going back to the principle Data stated, and in fact going back on defending humanity. Q in a rage further encouraged by the need for a dramatic moment before the commercial, tells his soldiers to fire on the crew if they answer with any word other than “guilty.”
So instead of getting a philosophical debate on the meaning of the human past, we get Picard pleading “guilty—provisionally.” Picard finally cries out that there is evidence to support the court’s contention that humans “have been savage. I say therefore, test us. Test whether this is presently true of humans.”
Q likes this idea (despite Picard’s misuse of the word “presently.” Although by the 24th century, the linguistic barbarians may have won the current contest to redefine the word that means “soon,” as meaning “currently.”)
Q accepts the idea that the crew will represent “what humanity has become,” and says that the current mission of the Enterprise will serve. “This Farpoint Station will be an excellent test.”
The crew finds itself back on the battle bridge, on course for Farpoint, as if they had never left and no time had elapsed.
That ends the first hour. The second hour begins by introducing four new characters—Commander Riker, Doctor Beverly Crusher and her son, Wesley, and Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge—as well as Groppler Zorn of the Farpoint Station planet, and a hint at its mystery and Zorn’s deception.
On the planet Deneb IV, Riker asks Groppler Zorn of the Bandi people how its Farpoint Station could be constructed to meet Starfleet needs so perfectly. Zorn is vague, and offers Riker an “earth delicacy”: a bowl of fruit. Riker wants an apple but doesn’t see one, but as soon as he says so, a bowl of apples appears. Zorn tries to pretend it was there but Riker hadn’t noticed it. After Riker leaves, Zorn threatens some unseen being for producing the apples and risking suspicion. The planet is petitioning for an alliance with the Federation.
Eventually Riker boards the Enterprise, and watches excerpts of the first hour as a way to bring him and TV viewers up to speed. Riker and Picard meet, Picard assigns Riker the task of manually completing the reattachment of the saucer section, they talk again, the famous and still moving scene with DeForrest Kelly. A little later we see the holodeck for the first time. Some moments prefigure and foreshadow events in later episodes, and one moment (Riker coming upon Data trying to whistle) will be recalled in this crew’s final feature film a decade later.
But Q reappears to remind Picard (and us) of the trial. Riker wants to know what they’re going to do, if Q is watching their every move. Picard says we’ll do what we would normally do. “If we’re going to be damned,” Picard says, “then let’s be damned for what we really are.”
(This followed Picard sending a message in French to another vessel—seeing this again now, I can detect Patrick Stewart injecting a little Frenchness into the character: a particular French kind of arrogance, supercilious intellectualism but also rationalism, and a certain compactness and rigidity of movement that looks a bit French as well, if one can judge by Truffaut movies.)
Now Counsellor Troi enters the story more forcefully. (Having seen Marina Sirtis looking spectacular playing her over the years, it’s hard to believe how unattractive she looks in this episode. Her hair is unflattering, her uniform not much better, and she’s generally whiny. Denise Crosby on the other hand looks terrific.)
After Troi and Riker meet—and we learn in a cringe-worthy moment of their past affection---they go with Picard to the surface, where Troi explains she is half-Betazoid (and so not completely telepathic), and can sense only strong feelings in others. Then she promptly senses some—a big wave of pain and loneliness, which causes Groppler Zorn (who has twice insisted “we ourselves have nothing to hide, of course”) to lose his temper. He threatens an alliance with the Ferengi, new and as yet unseen Star Trek aliens.
The mystery is focused when Riker, Data, Georgi, Troi and Tasha are in tunnels below the Farpoint Station. Georgdi can’t identify the materials the tunnel is made of, and Troi gets another wave of pain and despair, but can’t identify its origin, except that it comes from “ no life form anything like ours.”
On the planet Deneb IV, Riker asks Groppler Zorn of the Bandi people how its Farpoint Station could be constructed to meet Starfleet needs so perfectly. Zorn is vague, and offers Riker an “earth delicacy”: a bowl of fruit. Riker wants an apple but doesn’t see one, but as soon as he says so, a bowl of apples appears. Zorn tries to pretend it was there but Riker hadn’t noticed it. After Riker leaves, Zorn threatens some unseen being for producing the apples and risking suspicion. The planet is petitioning for an alliance with the Federation.
Eventually Riker boards the Enterprise, and watches excerpts of the first hour as a way to bring him and TV viewers up to speed. Riker and Picard meet, Picard assigns Riker the task of manually completing the reattachment of the saucer section, they talk again, the famous and still moving scene with DeForrest Kelly. A little later we see the holodeck for the first time. Some moments prefigure and foreshadow events in later episodes, and one moment (Riker coming upon Data trying to whistle) will be recalled in this crew’s final feature film a decade later.
But Q reappears to remind Picard (and us) of the trial. Riker wants to know what they’re going to do, if Q is watching their every move. Picard says we’ll do what we would normally do. “If we’re going to be damned,” Picard says, “then let’s be damned for what we really are.”
(This followed Picard sending a message in French to another vessel—seeing this again now, I can detect Patrick Stewart injecting a little Frenchness into the character: a particular French kind of arrogance, supercilious intellectualism but also rationalism, and a certain compactness and rigidity of movement that looks a bit French as well, if one can judge by Truffaut movies.)
Now Counsellor Troi enters the story more forcefully. (Having seen Marina Sirtis looking spectacular playing her over the years, it’s hard to believe how unattractive she looks in this episode. Her hair is unflattering, her uniform not much better, and she’s generally whiny. Denise Crosby on the other hand looks terrific.)
After Troi and Riker meet—and we learn in a cringe-worthy moment of their past affection---they go with Picard to the surface, where Troi explains she is half-Betazoid (and so not completely telepathic), and can sense only strong feelings in others. Then she promptly senses some—a big wave of pain and loneliness, which causes Groppler Zorn (who has twice insisted “we ourselves have nothing to hide, of course”) to lose his temper. He threatens an alliance with the Ferengi, new and as yet unseen Star Trek aliens.
The mystery is focused when Riker, Data, Georgi, Troi and Tasha are in tunnels below the Farpoint Station. Georgdi can’t identify the materials the tunnel is made of, and Troi gets another wave of pain and despair, but can’t identify its origin, except that it comes from “ no life form anything like ours.”
Another apparently interpolated scene follows, of Beverly Crusher re-meeting Picard (it’s been established only that Picard brought her husband’s body home to her) and Wesley Crusher’s first visit to the Enterprise bridge. This scene still does work, however (even if the grownup Wil Wheaton doesn’t think so), for Wesley’s wide-eyed circuit and the camera taking his point of view. Wesley is meant to be partly our representative on the Enterprise (and GR’s projection of himself as a boy into the future he is creating, as well as the character that will grow with the series.)
Like every visitor aboard any starship on the Paramount lot, Wesley is invited to sit in the Captain’s chair. But the precocious Wesley catches an incoming perimeter alert, and the child-phobic Picard throws him and his mother off the bridge. But now there’s another mystery—a totally alien ship is approaching.
It is a huge, blank white saucer—measuring twelve times the volume of the Enteprise—and does not answer hails. After scanning the Enterprise, it begins firing on the surface, but the Enterprise notes that it is not hitting Farpoint Station itself, just the nearby Bandi city. This interests Picard, and he orders Riker to “kidnap” Zorn and bring him to the Enterprise. Picard believes he’s been hiding something, and though Zorn denied it, he must know who is attacking his city, and why.
But Picard wonders whether he should defend the city below. Troi tells him that the Prime Directive may not apply because they are in diplomatic negotiations with the inhabitants. Picard orders that phasers be locked on the ship, and then Q as the judge appears, dripping with righteous contempt. “Typical, so typical. Savage lifeforms don’t follow even their own rules.”
Back from commercial, Picard orders Q off the bridge. Q expresses interest in the phaser order, but Picard insists he wasn’t going to fire, that it was a “routine safety precaution.” Q eggs him on. He tells him that the meaning of the alien ships is as “plain as the nose on your ugly primate faces.” He suggests a truly civilized race would be seeing to the casualties on the surface, but Crusher’s medical teams are already preparing to beam down. Picard says Starfleet officers are trained to help, but that Q knew people were going to be killed on the planet, and did nothing to stop it. This paradox of godlike knowledge and power will recur in the series, as it did in the original series and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Then Picard tries to place the Enterprise between the alien vessel and the planet but suddenly the Enterprise is helpless to move. Riker finds Zorn cowering, but he disappears—apparently transported by and to the alien vessel. Q is still on the bridge when Riker returns, and it is Q who suggests an away team visit the alien vessel. Picard insists that Q not interfere, and he leaves. Riker asks Picard an interesting question—what will you do if Q condemns us, regardless of the evidence? I will do my duty, Picard answers. “To the bitter end?” Riker asks. “I find nothing bitter about that,” Picard replies. This is another early key to Picard’s character.
But then in the midst of this crisis he visits Dr. Crusher in sick bay (who had just said she was preparing teams to go to the surface) to apologize for his insensitivity. A decent character and foreshadowing moment, but badly placed in the story.
Like every visitor aboard any starship on the Paramount lot, Wesley is invited to sit in the Captain’s chair. But the precocious Wesley catches an incoming perimeter alert, and the child-phobic Picard throws him and his mother off the bridge. But now there’s another mystery—a totally alien ship is approaching.
It is a huge, blank white saucer—measuring twelve times the volume of the Enteprise—and does not answer hails. After scanning the Enterprise, it begins firing on the surface, but the Enterprise notes that it is not hitting Farpoint Station itself, just the nearby Bandi city. This interests Picard, and he orders Riker to “kidnap” Zorn and bring him to the Enterprise. Picard believes he’s been hiding something, and though Zorn denied it, he must know who is attacking his city, and why.
But Picard wonders whether he should defend the city below. Troi tells him that the Prime Directive may not apply because they are in diplomatic negotiations with the inhabitants. Picard orders that phasers be locked on the ship, and then Q as the judge appears, dripping with righteous contempt. “Typical, so typical. Savage lifeforms don’t follow even their own rules.”
Back from commercial, Picard orders Q off the bridge. Q expresses interest in the phaser order, but Picard insists he wasn’t going to fire, that it was a “routine safety precaution.” Q eggs him on. He tells him that the meaning of the alien ships is as “plain as the nose on your ugly primate faces.” He suggests a truly civilized race would be seeing to the casualties on the surface, but Crusher’s medical teams are already preparing to beam down. Picard says Starfleet officers are trained to help, but that Q knew people were going to be killed on the planet, and did nothing to stop it. This paradox of godlike knowledge and power will recur in the series, as it did in the original series and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Then Picard tries to place the Enterprise between the alien vessel and the planet but suddenly the Enterprise is helpless to move. Riker finds Zorn cowering, but he disappears—apparently transported by and to the alien vessel. Q is still on the bridge when Riker returns, and it is Q who suggests an away team visit the alien vessel. Picard insists that Q not interfere, and he leaves. Riker asks Picard an interesting question—what will you do if Q condemns us, regardless of the evidence? I will do my duty, Picard answers. “To the bitter end?” Riker asks. “I find nothing bitter about that,” Picard replies. This is another early key to Picard’s character.
But then in the midst of this crisis he visits Dr. Crusher in sick bay (who had just said she was preparing teams to go to the surface) to apologize for his insensitivity. A decent character and foreshadowing moment, but badly placed in the story.
The away team on the alien vessel finds ship corridors very similar to the tunnels below Farpoint Station, but no sound of engines, no sign of a crew. Troi senses anger and hate (forecasting that with a nice Elvis-style lip curl.) They find Zorn being tortured within a force field, and break it. Troi realizes she’s been sensing just one alien.
Q appears on the Enterprise bridge again, this time in Starfleet uniform. He seems to prevent the away team from being beamed back, until Picard pleads with him and promises he’ll do anything he asks. The team appears with Zorn, but Troi says their return wasn’t Q’s doing—it was the alien ship.
Q, perhaps realizing they’re starting to understand, urges Picard to fire on the alien. Troi tells Picard the vessel is somehow alive. Q tells Picard to fire on it while he still has the chance, and Picard refuses. Zorn objects--“that thing was killing my people.” “Is there a reason?” Picard asks.
“It’s an unknown, Captain,” Q says. “Isn’t that enough?” “If you’d earned that uniform you’re wearing, you’d know the unknown is what brings us out here,” Picard says. “Wasted effort, considering human intelligence, ” Q says. “Let’s test that,” Picard offers.
Picard has figured out that the lifeform in orbit was firing because of a companion below, and Zorn admits that.
Picard orders that phasers be rigged to disperse an energy beam. Both Picard and Riker realize something else, for which we as viewers have been prepared by the interpolated holodeck scene. Riker had marveled that everything in the holodeck looked so real, and Data told him a lot of it was real—that like transporters, it converted energy to patterned matter. Now Riker and Picard realize that these creatures have that ability to fashion matter from energy, which solves the mystery of how Farpoint Station could have been so perfectly constructed.
Then comes one of the more visually and conceptually lovely sequences in Star Trek, as the alien ship reveals itself as a being—not unlike some of the bioluminescent creatures now being found in the depths of earth oceans, with a saucer-like body and long tendrils.
The crew figures out that Zorn had captured a creature like this one, and it was in captive despair below, while this one was angry. But it is Picard who realizes that this creature is attacking those who captured its mate. He has the energy beam aimed at Farpoint Station, and says that if he’s right, there won’t be a station anymore. “Lucky guess,” Q says, becoming more like the character we’ll meet in future episodes.
The energy allows the creature on the surface to become its real form and to escape, floating up to be with its mate. Troi reports a feeling of “great joy and gratitude.” She says it’s wonderful, and indeed it is a wonderful moment.
Picard turns with contempt back to Q, who he accuses of manipulating other lifeforms for his own amusement. Q says they weren’t that amusing, and when Picard orders him to leave, he says he will because it suits him, but he won’t promise not to visit them again.
The crew looks troubled—they have after all faced a power so much greater that they are essentially helpless, and have escaped by the skin of their teeth this time. Only Picard looks confident.
Then the members of the bridge crew are at their stations, about to go off to the next mission, the traditional original series ending. It is possibly the only moment many remember from the episode, when after professing that other missions will be much more interesting than this one, Picard says: “Let’s see what’s out there. Engage.”
Q appears on the Enterprise bridge again, this time in Starfleet uniform. He seems to prevent the away team from being beamed back, until Picard pleads with him and promises he’ll do anything he asks. The team appears with Zorn, but Troi says their return wasn’t Q’s doing—it was the alien ship.
Q, perhaps realizing they’re starting to understand, urges Picard to fire on the alien. Troi tells Picard the vessel is somehow alive. Q tells Picard to fire on it while he still has the chance, and Picard refuses. Zorn objects--“that thing was killing my people.” “Is there a reason?” Picard asks.
“It’s an unknown, Captain,” Q says. “Isn’t that enough?” “If you’d earned that uniform you’re wearing, you’d know the unknown is what brings us out here,” Picard says. “Wasted effort, considering human intelligence, ” Q says. “Let’s test that,” Picard offers.
Picard has figured out that the lifeform in orbit was firing because of a companion below, and Zorn admits that.
Picard orders that phasers be rigged to disperse an energy beam. Both Picard and Riker realize something else, for which we as viewers have been prepared by the interpolated holodeck scene. Riker had marveled that everything in the holodeck looked so real, and Data told him a lot of it was real—that like transporters, it converted energy to patterned matter. Now Riker and Picard realize that these creatures have that ability to fashion matter from energy, which solves the mystery of how Farpoint Station could have been so perfectly constructed.
Then comes one of the more visually and conceptually lovely sequences in Star Trek, as the alien ship reveals itself as a being—not unlike some of the bioluminescent creatures now being found in the depths of earth oceans, with a saucer-like body and long tendrils.
The crew figures out that Zorn had captured a creature like this one, and it was in captive despair below, while this one was angry. But it is Picard who realizes that this creature is attacking those who captured its mate. He has the energy beam aimed at Farpoint Station, and says that if he’s right, there won’t be a station anymore. “Lucky guess,” Q says, becoming more like the character we’ll meet in future episodes.
The energy allows the creature on the surface to become its real form and to escape, floating up to be with its mate. Troi reports a feeling of “great joy and gratitude.” She says it’s wonderful, and indeed it is a wonderful moment.
Picard turns with contempt back to Q, who he accuses of manipulating other lifeforms for his own amusement. Q says they weren’t that amusing, and when Picard orders him to leave, he says he will because it suits him, but he won’t promise not to visit them again.
The crew looks troubled—they have after all faced a power so much greater that they are essentially helpless, and have escaped by the skin of their teeth this time. Only Picard looks confident.
Then the members of the bridge crew are at their stations, about to go off to the next mission, the traditional original series ending. It is possibly the only moment many remember from the episode, when after professing that other missions will be much more interesting than this one, Picard says: “Let’s see what’s out there. Engage.”
Humans in the clutches of much more powerful beings is an often repeated situation in Star Trek, and it speaks to eternal questions of fate and the human predicament as well as ideas arising from the nature of each particular confrontation. But one function, especially in these introductory episodes of Star Trek series, is to judge human progress and that human condition.
Q accuses humanity of being a dangerous child race, scientific giants perhaps, but ethical infants. At first he seems to see them as the Great Pirates, extending their so-called exploration to invading and attempting the conquest of space. He then appeals to their small-minded concerns on Earth (“You must return to your world and put an end to the Commies.”) Though Picard tries to accuse him of being self-righteous and toying with them (which is certainly familiar from original series stories), he makes his point clear through his devastating re-creation of the 21st century.
So what is different about humanity four hundred years in the future from this 21st century Dark Age? That will be a theme that TNG explores for the next seven years. But here we see one key aspect. When the Enterprise is confronted with a huge space vessel, entirely unknown, Q expects their reactions to be led by fear. This time, by fear of the unknown. “It's unknown. Isn’t that enough?” Q asks, while urging Picard to fire on the ship in orbit. Picard answers: “If you’d earned that uniform you’re wearing, you’d know the unknown is what brings us out here.” So this is a key change, a sea-change as well, in human attitude: they don’t fear the unknown, but seek it out.
Why they seek it out is a question for another day, but Star Trek fans already know it isn’t greed or the desire to conquer. Still, that intent isn’t necessary to start a war or to cause destruction. All that’s needed is disproportionate fear of the unknown, of difference—a fear that may seem rational, but is not. Fear that can be nurtured by those who wish to take advantage of it. Fear that is giving into an impulse that in other circumstances has value, but in many circumstances leads only to tragedy, and perhaps even to another Dark Age.
Q derides what he calls “human intelligence,” but while Picard does exercise creative intelligence in figuring out the mystery of Farpoint Station (as well as some amazing intuition granted to him by the writers), the intelligence that's necessary is more than rational thinking. It is also imagination, the kind involved in empathy. It is emotional and psychological intelligence, all of which will be explored in the Next Generation.
This story, like others in Star Trek past and (in 1987) in its future, sees the beauty of humanity in its middle state, between more powerful beings like Q and less “advanced” planets the crew will encounter, or in our terms, between angels and animals, between pure spirit and the mostly physical. And more than that, in the human adventure of grappling with these contradictions, of growing and yet remaining grounded.
Reconciling and harmonizing all these human aspects—body and spirit, mind and heart—is the work of the soul, according to many philosophers of the subject. It is also the work of the soul of Star Trek, which also reconciles and synthesizes time and the timeless, the past and the present, in an imagined universe called the future.
There is another sense of what soul means: the defining essence, where the ideal and the real must combine in how life is lived. The particular nature of the Star Trek future urges us to change in particular ways now. GR’s 21st century is a cautionary tale—of what could happen if we don’t change, or don’t change fast enough.
Star Trek’s 23rd and 24th centuries don’t show perfect people in utopia, but they do show humans thinking, feeling and acting in different ways—including some that are no longer so different. In 1966, a multi-ethnic crew with an African woman officer on the bridge was so very different that it inspired a generation. But analogous situations today already look like that bridge.
The differences from our past attitudes, behavior and thinking in Star Trek are there because without these changes, humanity can’t get to any future where there’s a peaceful, vibrant Earth, and we band together and head out to the stars (literally or metaphorically)—not as conquerors, but as explorers. But before we can go out, we must go in. Then we can grow up, and no longer be a savage child race (or an adolescent one, as GR sometimes said we are.) Then we can explore what it is to be human, further along in fulfilling our best potential.
And what about our future? We return to our first observation: that in “Farpoint,” our immediate future is shown to be pretty bleak, and not very “optimistic.” But I’ve never agreed that Star Trek’s view of the future is optimistic. I regard it as “hopeful,” and there’s a difference.
In a general sense, we’re hearing a lot these days about the difference between hope and optimism, particularly in Barack Obama’s campaign for President, which has captured the imagination of so many. "Hope is not wide-eyed optimism,” he said in one of his speeches. “Hope is believing and then working and fighting for things."
In Star Trek, the difference to me is this: optimism might imply that we are going to have a brighter future. Hope implies that we can, but it is by no means a sure thing. Humanity will have to change in profound ways -- to make that future possible. Star Trek suggests ways in which we can change. It models a future in which we have changed in particular ways, and dramatizes or explains those changes. That to me is the basic message of Star Trek: its very soul.
Q accuses humanity of being a dangerous child race, scientific giants perhaps, but ethical infants. At first he seems to see them as the Great Pirates, extending their so-called exploration to invading and attempting the conquest of space. He then appeals to their small-minded concerns on Earth (“You must return to your world and put an end to the Commies.”) Though Picard tries to accuse him of being self-righteous and toying with them (which is certainly familiar from original series stories), he makes his point clear through his devastating re-creation of the 21st century.
So what is different about humanity four hundred years in the future from this 21st century Dark Age? That will be a theme that TNG explores for the next seven years. But here we see one key aspect. When the Enterprise is confronted with a huge space vessel, entirely unknown, Q expects their reactions to be led by fear. This time, by fear of the unknown. “It's unknown. Isn’t that enough?” Q asks, while urging Picard to fire on the ship in orbit. Picard answers: “If you’d earned that uniform you’re wearing, you’d know the unknown is what brings us out here.” So this is a key change, a sea-change as well, in human attitude: they don’t fear the unknown, but seek it out.
Why they seek it out is a question for another day, but Star Trek fans already know it isn’t greed or the desire to conquer. Still, that intent isn’t necessary to start a war or to cause destruction. All that’s needed is disproportionate fear of the unknown, of difference—a fear that may seem rational, but is not. Fear that can be nurtured by those who wish to take advantage of it. Fear that is giving into an impulse that in other circumstances has value, but in many circumstances leads only to tragedy, and perhaps even to another Dark Age.
Q derides what he calls “human intelligence,” but while Picard does exercise creative intelligence in figuring out the mystery of Farpoint Station (as well as some amazing intuition granted to him by the writers), the intelligence that's necessary is more than rational thinking. It is also imagination, the kind involved in empathy. It is emotional and psychological intelligence, all of which will be explored in the Next Generation.
This story, like others in Star Trek past and (in 1987) in its future, sees the beauty of humanity in its middle state, between more powerful beings like Q and less “advanced” planets the crew will encounter, or in our terms, between angels and animals, between pure spirit and the mostly physical. And more than that, in the human adventure of grappling with these contradictions, of growing and yet remaining grounded.
Reconciling and harmonizing all these human aspects—body and spirit, mind and heart—is the work of the soul, according to many philosophers of the subject. It is also the work of the soul of Star Trek, which also reconciles and synthesizes time and the timeless, the past and the present, in an imagined universe called the future.
There is another sense of what soul means: the defining essence, where the ideal and the real must combine in how life is lived. The particular nature of the Star Trek future urges us to change in particular ways now. GR’s 21st century is a cautionary tale—of what could happen if we don’t change, or don’t change fast enough.
Star Trek’s 23rd and 24th centuries don’t show perfect people in utopia, but they do show humans thinking, feeling and acting in different ways—including some that are no longer so different. In 1966, a multi-ethnic crew with an African woman officer on the bridge was so very different that it inspired a generation. But analogous situations today already look like that bridge.
The differences from our past attitudes, behavior and thinking in Star Trek are there because without these changes, humanity can’t get to any future where there’s a peaceful, vibrant Earth, and we band together and head out to the stars (literally or metaphorically)—not as conquerors, but as explorers. But before we can go out, we must go in. Then we can grow up, and no longer be a savage child race (or an adolescent one, as GR sometimes said we are.) Then we can explore what it is to be human, further along in fulfilling our best potential.
And what about our future? We return to our first observation: that in “Farpoint,” our immediate future is shown to be pretty bleak, and not very “optimistic.” But I’ve never agreed that Star Trek’s view of the future is optimistic. I regard it as “hopeful,” and there’s a difference.
In a general sense, we’re hearing a lot these days about the difference between hope and optimism, particularly in Barack Obama’s campaign for President, which has captured the imagination of so many. "Hope is not wide-eyed optimism,” he said in one of his speeches. “Hope is believing and then working and fighting for things."
In Star Trek, the difference to me is this: optimism might imply that we are going to have a brighter future. Hope implies that we can, but it is by no means a sure thing. Humanity will have to change in profound ways -- to make that future possible. Star Trek suggests ways in which we can change. It models a future in which we have changed in particular ways, and dramatizes or explains those changes. That to me is the basic message of Star Trek: its very soul.
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