What happened to civilization at the New Orleans convention center?
Thursday, September 22, 2005
You’d Do the Same For Me
Further Reflections on Star Trek and New Orleans
by William S. Kowinski
Thousands crowded in the sealed darkness of a gleaming domed enclosure, confined with little food or water, trapped in an extreme nightmare of violence, death, heat and excrement. Families marooned on baking slivers of interstate highway, or waving frantically from rooftops at blind helicopters passing by on fathomless missions. All surrounded by roiling waters of spilled oil, toxic chemicals, sewage, and decaying human remains.
Then even as rescue began, two- mile lines of ambulances waited to bring patients into the only working medical facility, in the passenger concourse of the New Orleans airport. There, as Dr. Mehmet Oz reported on a harrowing hour of Oprah, those who were too ill to be helped were moved to the makeshift morgue while still alive.
This cannot be America, everyone was saying. This cannot even be...civilization.
This was perhaps the most sobering of many shocking realizations. Beyond political responsibilities and human failings, beyond the truth or illusion of national self-image, even beyond the physical suffering and material deprivations, there was the sense that civilization itself had broken down.
If it had, whose fault would it be? The people who were improvising survival under unimaginable duress, some of whom interpreted the absence of rescuers and resources as attempts to ignore or even kill them? Or those who failed in their designated tasks as the representatives of civilization? Or perhaps even those who set the terms of this civilization?
When civilization breaks down, it's often said that we revert to a more primitive self, the implication being that savagery is our natural state. This is a view of humanity shared by some religions and certain interpreters of Darwinian evolution-two groups that don't believe much in each other, and who might be scandalized to think they share anything at all.
It's a curious paradox, that the nature of humanity and the nature of human civilization are considered so radically different, one hostile to the other. It is a view that supports and is supported by authoritarian rule: the king and court, those of noble blood, and the hierarchy of the church. Only they can define and enforce civilization; the rest is the savage mob.
Is human nature savage? It's a question that Star Trek addressed in many ways. We think of Captain Kirk, an authority figure and an anarchic troublemaker at the same time, who gloried in the human struggle, and yet also knew that part of the struggle was to bring instincts and consciousness into balance.
The Enterprise came up against aliens who were vastly more powerful than humans, and aliens who were much more primitive. At the far ends of this opposites were the advanced "energy beings"(spirits without bodies) and the primitive beings who were only physical, with undeveloped mental powers and apparently primitive spirituality. Humanity was a middle state, always struggling to keep the spirit and the body in balance. That balancing without denying the different parts results in a kind of harmony, music, a dance, which some believe defines what we mean by soul: that which harmonizes body and spirit, thought and emotion.
Star Trek had its own working definition of humanity, a statement of the soul in action, which was in its way a working definition of civilization.
continued after photo
Further Reflections on Star Trek and New Orleans
by William S. Kowinski
Thousands crowded in the sealed darkness of a gleaming domed enclosure, confined with little food or water, trapped in an extreme nightmare of violence, death, heat and excrement. Families marooned on baking slivers of interstate highway, or waving frantically from rooftops at blind helicopters passing by on fathomless missions. All surrounded by roiling waters of spilled oil, toxic chemicals, sewage, and decaying human remains.
Then even as rescue began, two- mile lines of ambulances waited to bring patients into the only working medical facility, in the passenger concourse of the New Orleans airport. There, as Dr. Mehmet Oz reported on a harrowing hour of Oprah, those who were too ill to be helped were moved to the makeshift morgue while still alive.
This cannot be America, everyone was saying. This cannot even be...civilization.
This was perhaps the most sobering of many shocking realizations. Beyond political responsibilities and human failings, beyond the truth or illusion of national self-image, even beyond the physical suffering and material deprivations, there was the sense that civilization itself had broken down.
If it had, whose fault would it be? The people who were improvising survival under unimaginable duress, some of whom interpreted the absence of rescuers and resources as attempts to ignore or even kill them? Or those who failed in their designated tasks as the representatives of civilization? Or perhaps even those who set the terms of this civilization?
When civilization breaks down, it's often said that we revert to a more primitive self, the implication being that savagery is our natural state. This is a view of humanity shared by some religions and certain interpreters of Darwinian evolution-two groups that don't believe much in each other, and who might be scandalized to think they share anything at all.
It's a curious paradox, that the nature of humanity and the nature of human civilization are considered so radically different, one hostile to the other. It is a view that supports and is supported by authoritarian rule: the king and court, those of noble blood, and the hierarchy of the church. Only they can define and enforce civilization; the rest is the savage mob.
Is human nature savage? It's a question that Star Trek addressed in many ways. We think of Captain Kirk, an authority figure and an anarchic troublemaker at the same time, who gloried in the human struggle, and yet also knew that part of the struggle was to bring instincts and consciousness into balance.
The Enterprise came up against aliens who were vastly more powerful than humans, and aliens who were much more primitive. At the far ends of this opposites were the advanced "energy beings"(spirits without bodies) and the primitive beings who were only physical, with undeveloped mental powers and apparently primitive spirituality. Humanity was a middle state, always struggling to keep the spirit and the body in balance. That balancing without denying the different parts results in a kind of harmony, music, a dance, which some believe defines what we mean by soul: that which harmonizes body and spirit, thought and emotion.
Star Trek had its own working definition of humanity, a statement of the soul in action, which was in its way a working definition of civilization.
continued after photo
The Cost of Soul
There's a phrase that's become very important to me. Although it's a common phrase, it struck me forcefully some years ago when someone said it to me. I've been thinking about it in connection with what's happened in New Orleans and the Katrina zone this past month, and not just the awful parts.
Because it's become important to me, I notice it when I hear others say it. In real life (right after 9/11, for instance) and in Star Trek.
The circumstances for me weren't very dramatic. I was in a booth at a neighborhood coffee bar, absorbed in reading and writing. I knocked a pen on the floor but kept reading for a minute. When I looked up, a man was handing the pen to me. He was a custodian for this place but he appeared to have been just passing by. I looked up at him, surprised, and thanked him. He was a black man, perhaps in his sixties. He just nodded and said quietly, "You'd do the same for me."
I think it was the way he said it, with a casual gravity, as though it was something he said regularly, but it also had the quality and weight of a personal mantra of some importance.
It wasn't the first time I'd heard it, of course, but this time it struck me immediately. And the more I thought about it, the more it's come to mean.
Now I see that it sums up entire philosophies and puts many book-length ethical treatises to shame. "You'd do the same for me" is nothing less than the basis of civil behavior, from courtesy to heroism. It is the basis of civilization, the impulse and ethic that speaks for the human soul.
It's a phrase of some importance in Star Trek, in at least two widely separated moments which nevertheless have a lot in common.
The first is towards the end of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Kirk and his crew have defied Starfleet, seen Kirk's son killed and the Enterprise destroyed, in their quest to rescue Spock from death, to literally put his soul back into his body. This has been accomplished, but the revived Spock is not yet whole, not yet "human."
Kirk has already faced Sarek, Spock's father. "Kirk, I thank you," Sarek says. "What you have done---"
"What I have done I had to do," Kirk says.
"But at what cost? Your ship, your son---"
"If I hadn't tried, the cost would have been my soul."
These were the stakes in this endeavor. Not the survival of earth or the population of some other planet, but one man's soul, the Captain's soul, and therefore, it was humanity defining itself through the hero.
Now Kirk faces Spock for the first time. He, too, asks why. "My father says you came back for me."
Kirk responds with a quick, almost throwaway phrase, yet Kirk is telling Spock something he once knew, what he once did (that got him killed in the first place), and who he once was. "You'd do the same for me," he says.
At that moment, it may not be true---Spock is not yet himself. Kirk is telling him who his friend Spock essentially is, who they are.
"You'd do the same for me" is a standard, and it is also a bargain, a contract. I felt this in my little encounter in the coffee bar. By saying it to me, that man was stating both his own moral standard and his faith that others share it in the delicate informal system of day-to-day civilization. In the simplicity of this statement, in its simple assumptions, he was educating me and challenging me to rise to this standard. It is in some ways an ultimate equality, and a testament of faith in human possibility and the human heart.
There's a phrase that's become very important to me. Although it's a common phrase, it struck me forcefully some years ago when someone said it to me. I've been thinking about it in connection with what's happened in New Orleans and the Katrina zone this past month, and not just the awful parts.
Because it's become important to me, I notice it when I hear others say it. In real life (right after 9/11, for instance) and in Star Trek.
The circumstances for me weren't very dramatic. I was in a booth at a neighborhood coffee bar, absorbed in reading and writing. I knocked a pen on the floor but kept reading for a minute. When I looked up, a man was handing the pen to me. He was a custodian for this place but he appeared to have been just passing by. I looked up at him, surprised, and thanked him. He was a black man, perhaps in his sixties. He just nodded and said quietly, "You'd do the same for me."
I think it was the way he said it, with a casual gravity, as though it was something he said regularly, but it also had the quality and weight of a personal mantra of some importance.
It wasn't the first time I'd heard it, of course, but this time it struck me immediately. And the more I thought about it, the more it's come to mean.
Now I see that it sums up entire philosophies and puts many book-length ethical treatises to shame. "You'd do the same for me" is nothing less than the basis of civil behavior, from courtesy to heroism. It is the basis of civilization, the impulse and ethic that speaks for the human soul.
It's a phrase of some importance in Star Trek, in at least two widely separated moments which nevertheless have a lot in common.
The first is towards the end of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Kirk and his crew have defied Starfleet, seen Kirk's son killed and the Enterprise destroyed, in their quest to rescue Spock from death, to literally put his soul back into his body. This has been accomplished, but the revived Spock is not yet whole, not yet "human."
Kirk has already faced Sarek, Spock's father. "Kirk, I thank you," Sarek says. "What you have done---"
"What I have done I had to do," Kirk says.
"But at what cost? Your ship, your son---"
"If I hadn't tried, the cost would have been my soul."
These were the stakes in this endeavor. Not the survival of earth or the population of some other planet, but one man's soul, the Captain's soul, and therefore, it was humanity defining itself through the hero.
Now Kirk faces Spock for the first time. He, too, asks why. "My father says you came back for me."
Kirk responds with a quick, almost throwaway phrase, yet Kirk is telling Spock something he once knew, what he once did (that got him killed in the first place), and who he once was. "You'd do the same for me," he says.
At that moment, it may not be true---Spock is not yet himself. Kirk is telling him who his friend Spock essentially is, who they are.
"You'd do the same for me" is a standard, and it is also a bargain, a contract. I felt this in my little encounter in the coffee bar. By saying it to me, that man was stating both his own moral standard and his faith that others share it in the delicate informal system of day-to-day civilization. In the simplicity of this statement, in its simple assumptions, he was educating me and challenging me to rise to this standard. It is in some ways an ultimate equality, and a testament of faith in human possibility and the human heart.
Q and You: the Social Contract
It arises in Star Trek again in the third season of The Next Generation, in the episode Deja Q. The immortal and omnipotent being Q has been stripped of his powers for tormenting other life forms, and one of those life forms pursues him aboard the Enterprise. At one point these tiny creatures have Q in a kind of energy field, and Data pulls him out of it, and is damaged in the process.
Like Spock, Q had been taken out of himself. He was in that state now, but unlike Spock, Q acted with the petulance rather than the innocence of a child. That drove the humor of the piece, but things aren't funny to Q while Data's existence is in question. "Data may have sacrificed himself for me. Why? Why would he risk his life for mine?"
"That is his special nature," Captain Picard replies. "He has learned the lessons of humanity well."
For Data, an android who has only his programming and intelligence to work with, this self-sacrificing behavior is the product of ethical thinking, translated into direct action. But Q is temporarily human, and he begins to reason ethically by engaging his imagination and his emotions.
"I ask myself if I would have done the same for him," Q says. "And I am forced to realize the answer is 'no.' I feel...I feel ashamed."
Of course, Q goes on to perform a selfless act, to sacrifice himself so that the Enterprise is spared, and is rewarded for it by having his powers returned. Immediately afterwards, he seems to revert to the same old Q---but in future stories, he's different. He helps Picard give up his regrets for his wild youth, and he helps Picard again when the Continuum tests humanity again in the series finale, "All Good Things."
Q is ashamed because he understands the essential human standard: that he should have been willing to do the same for Data.
Some see this as an attitude contrary to nature, that comes only with belief in a higher being, or only when punishment would result had he failed to act correctly. But humans as members of the animal "kingdom" are social animals. Our genes are not always so selfish. Our existence is so profoundly dependent on our group (family, tribe, culture, society) that the welfare of the whole is emotionally important.
Whether as part of this feeling or independently, we also have the ability to identify with others, to put ourselves in another's place, to have empathy. There are other feelings as well---feelings of tenderness based on a sense of beauty, for example---that contribute to what we call compassion (which means a passion or feeling for everything.)
It turns out that these sorts of feelings and behaviors are present in other animals as well as humans---it's just that, prejudiced by their theories to the contrary, human researchers failed to look for it. Animal societies are quite complex, yet science has insisted on experimenting with isolated individuals.
Yet "you'd do the same for me" is not exactly a statement of selflessness. While it reflects an ethic based on empathy and compassion, it doesn't require it. It combines a feeling of human kinship with a utilitarian deduction: we can't guarantee we will be helped in time of trouble, but if we support an ethic of helping others by our actions, our chances will be better.
It arises in Star Trek again in the third season of The Next Generation, in the episode Deja Q. The immortal and omnipotent being Q has been stripped of his powers for tormenting other life forms, and one of those life forms pursues him aboard the Enterprise. At one point these tiny creatures have Q in a kind of energy field, and Data pulls him out of it, and is damaged in the process.
Like Spock, Q had been taken out of himself. He was in that state now, but unlike Spock, Q acted with the petulance rather than the innocence of a child. That drove the humor of the piece, but things aren't funny to Q while Data's existence is in question. "Data may have sacrificed himself for me. Why? Why would he risk his life for mine?"
"That is his special nature," Captain Picard replies. "He has learned the lessons of humanity well."
For Data, an android who has only his programming and intelligence to work with, this self-sacrificing behavior is the product of ethical thinking, translated into direct action. But Q is temporarily human, and he begins to reason ethically by engaging his imagination and his emotions.
"I ask myself if I would have done the same for him," Q says. "And I am forced to realize the answer is 'no.' I feel...I feel ashamed."
Of course, Q goes on to perform a selfless act, to sacrifice himself so that the Enterprise is spared, and is rewarded for it by having his powers returned. Immediately afterwards, he seems to revert to the same old Q---but in future stories, he's different. He helps Picard give up his regrets for his wild youth, and he helps Picard again when the Continuum tests humanity again in the series finale, "All Good Things."
Q is ashamed because he understands the essential human standard: that he should have been willing to do the same for Data.
Some see this as an attitude contrary to nature, that comes only with belief in a higher being, or only when punishment would result had he failed to act correctly. But humans as members of the animal "kingdom" are social animals. Our genes are not always so selfish. Our existence is so profoundly dependent on our group (family, tribe, culture, society) that the welfare of the whole is emotionally important.
Whether as part of this feeling or independently, we also have the ability to identify with others, to put ourselves in another's place, to have empathy. There are other feelings as well---feelings of tenderness based on a sense of beauty, for example---that contribute to what we call compassion (which means a passion or feeling for everything.)
It turns out that these sorts of feelings and behaviors are present in other animals as well as humans---it's just that, prejudiced by their theories to the contrary, human researchers failed to look for it. Animal societies are quite complex, yet science has insisted on experimenting with isolated individuals.
Yet "you'd do the same for me" is not exactly a statement of selflessness. While it reflects an ethic based on empathy and compassion, it doesn't require it. It combines a feeling of human kinship with a utilitarian deduction: we can't guarantee we will be helped in time of trouble, but if we support an ethic of helping others by our actions, our chances will be better.
Expanding "We" Means More Help for "Me"
In a complex society, individual freedoms and opportunities depend on a shared sense that in the final analysis, we're all in this together. "You'd do the same for me" is the basic bargain of civilization, the confirmation of the faith in each other and in our institutions necessary to make it all work.
Civilization may be nothing more and nothing less than a society's commitment to particular values, reflected in its philosophies, institutions and actions, continually renewed and extended. It is finally expressed and confirmed by individual citizens and their associations.
The world saw our civilization break down in the Katrina zone, and we saw that, contrary to recent rhetoric, the failure of government can be catastrophic. But civilization reasserted itself, based on a principal civic value, which can't be expressed any better than in the phrase, "you'd do the same for me."
It turned out that people from all over the world were frantic to help the suffering strangers in New Orleans. They risked their lives rescuing people, they opened their homes to strangers. They sacrificed for others, as they worried about what might happen to them if disaster struck their city.
It is the basis for heroism, as in Star Trek, or as spoken by fireman in the aftermath of 9/11, explaining why he was starting a 24-hour shift digging through the rubble of the World Trade Center to search for fellow firefighters buried there. They were his brothers, he said, and "they'd do the same for me."
But in more modest, everyday ways it's the basis of hospitality and sharing in time of trouble that characterize traditional cultures all over the world. It is more subtle than the Golden Rule, for it carries expectation as well as personal responsibility. "You'd do the same for me" is a challenge in the form of a statement of faith.
We are challenged today in several ways by the ramifications of Katrina. As yet another horrific hurricane moved towards land, and cities with other dangers were reevaluating their preparations, the Mayor of San Francisco (vulnerable to an inevitable future earthquake) said that the lesson of Katrina was that we are all on our own.
Certainly we must all prepare to sustain ourselves in such circumstances, and certainly we have learned that the enormity of some disasters as well as the laxity of some officials, we can't trust entirely government or anyone else to come to our rescue. But surely the message of Katrina is also that we are all in this together. We will survive only if we help each other, not just in disasters that have happened, but in anticipating and preparing for them.
There is another, perhaps tougher lesson that some draw from what happened in New Orleans. Economist Paul Krugman reflected on the role of race in the disaster and in America generally. "Consider this: in the United States, unlike any other advanced country, many people fail to receive basic health care because they can't afford it. Lack of health insurance kills many more Americans each year than Katrina and 9/11 combined."
Why is that? What isn't access to health care a major political issue? "...one reason is that it isn't yet a crisis among middle-class, white Americans (although it's getting there.) Instead, the worst effects are falling on the poor and black..."
So why do Europeans extend universal healthcare to everyone in their country, and Americans do not? Krugman writes: "And who can honestly deny that race is a major reason America treats its poor more harshly than any other advanced country? To put it crudely: a middle-class European, thinking about the poor, says to himself, "There but for the grace of God go I." A middle-class American is all too likely to think, perhaps without admitting it to himself, "Why should I be taxed to support those people?"
The thrust of Krugman's column is simply that somewhere behind the consciousness of white America, the "we" in "we're all in this together" doesn't include people of color. This is the basic problem of the alien that is central to Star Trek. We define ourselves in contrast to those who aren't us. We're constituted to be aware of anything that might be a threat, which includes any change in our environment, from a sudden movement or an unfamiliar sound to a stranger. They all engage instinctual reactions that are glandular before they are conscious. Difference excites---sometimes in a good way, but often in fear.
But humans have consciousness as well as instincts. We learn and even educate our reactions. Not long ago, racial prejudice was expected to disappear when everybody becomes middle class; that is, in ways important to Americans now, everybody would be basically the same. To a certain extent, this has happened, and various races are excepted according to their income and conformity to the upper middle class standards. But considering black people and poor people as “them” seems still present.
Yet even within white America there is much more knowledge and appreciation of others for their beauty, intelligence and style---and an appreciation of how much we have in common, yet how much richer we are by being different.
As humans, besides being afraid of difference we also crave it. We have learned to value the different ways of approaching the world represented in different cultures, just as we value the different skills and perspectives of individuals. This is another impulse that's become a social one, a basis for society: we like to have some idea of what might happen and alternatives to cope with any threats, or to take advantage of any opportunities. This is a human survival strategy.
We're back at the practical benefits of diversity, and the fundamental identity of our species, even of life itself. We share so much with so many. The basis of being able to live long and prosper together is "you'd do the same for me." Our heroes can take it to the limit with the ultimate self-sacrifice. But the rest of us can be courteous and thoughtful, look for what we have in common and provide the help we can when it's needed. There are plenty of real threats to deal with or avoid without inventing and creating dangers, or creating unnecessary us/them situations. We especially must be on guard against being manipulated into false us/them perspectives that really benefit a small group that's trying to accrue power and profit.
Sooner or later we come to understand that by expanding a sense of "we," we are multiplying the number of people who might help us when we need it, because they know we'd do the same for them. It's quite practical, and as things become more complex and perhaps more dire, it becomes more necessary.
In the Star Trek 22nd century, the "us" has expanded to include all humanity on earth, and in the 23rd century the "us" is expanding to include alien species. In our time, we can't go on pretending to share the identity of a country, a species and especially a civilization unless and until we expand our concept of "us" or "we" to match our reality. It's especially meaningful to me because those word were etched into my soul by hearing them from a black man. "You'd do the same for me" is our faith in civilization and each other. It's a faith we ought to spread, and not limit to the Star Trek future.
In a complex society, individual freedoms and opportunities depend on a shared sense that in the final analysis, we're all in this together. "You'd do the same for me" is the basic bargain of civilization, the confirmation of the faith in each other and in our institutions necessary to make it all work.
Civilization may be nothing more and nothing less than a society's commitment to particular values, reflected in its philosophies, institutions and actions, continually renewed and extended. It is finally expressed and confirmed by individual citizens and their associations.
The world saw our civilization break down in the Katrina zone, and we saw that, contrary to recent rhetoric, the failure of government can be catastrophic. But civilization reasserted itself, based on a principal civic value, which can't be expressed any better than in the phrase, "you'd do the same for me."
It turned out that people from all over the world were frantic to help the suffering strangers in New Orleans. They risked their lives rescuing people, they opened their homes to strangers. They sacrificed for others, as they worried about what might happen to them if disaster struck their city.
It is the basis for heroism, as in Star Trek, or as spoken by fireman in the aftermath of 9/11, explaining why he was starting a 24-hour shift digging through the rubble of the World Trade Center to search for fellow firefighters buried there. They were his brothers, he said, and "they'd do the same for me."
But in more modest, everyday ways it's the basis of hospitality and sharing in time of trouble that characterize traditional cultures all over the world. It is more subtle than the Golden Rule, for it carries expectation as well as personal responsibility. "You'd do the same for me" is a challenge in the form of a statement of faith.
We are challenged today in several ways by the ramifications of Katrina. As yet another horrific hurricane moved towards land, and cities with other dangers were reevaluating their preparations, the Mayor of San Francisco (vulnerable to an inevitable future earthquake) said that the lesson of Katrina was that we are all on our own.
Certainly we must all prepare to sustain ourselves in such circumstances, and certainly we have learned that the enormity of some disasters as well as the laxity of some officials, we can't trust entirely government or anyone else to come to our rescue. But surely the message of Katrina is also that we are all in this together. We will survive only if we help each other, not just in disasters that have happened, but in anticipating and preparing for them.
There is another, perhaps tougher lesson that some draw from what happened in New Orleans. Economist Paul Krugman reflected on the role of race in the disaster and in America generally. "Consider this: in the United States, unlike any other advanced country, many people fail to receive basic health care because they can't afford it. Lack of health insurance kills many more Americans each year than Katrina and 9/11 combined."
Why is that? What isn't access to health care a major political issue? "...one reason is that it isn't yet a crisis among middle-class, white Americans (although it's getting there.) Instead, the worst effects are falling on the poor and black..."
So why do Europeans extend universal healthcare to everyone in their country, and Americans do not? Krugman writes: "And who can honestly deny that race is a major reason America treats its poor more harshly than any other advanced country? To put it crudely: a middle-class European, thinking about the poor, says to himself, "There but for the grace of God go I." A middle-class American is all too likely to think, perhaps without admitting it to himself, "Why should I be taxed to support those people?"
The thrust of Krugman's column is simply that somewhere behind the consciousness of white America, the "we" in "we're all in this together" doesn't include people of color. This is the basic problem of the alien that is central to Star Trek. We define ourselves in contrast to those who aren't us. We're constituted to be aware of anything that might be a threat, which includes any change in our environment, from a sudden movement or an unfamiliar sound to a stranger. They all engage instinctual reactions that are glandular before they are conscious. Difference excites---sometimes in a good way, but often in fear.
But humans have consciousness as well as instincts. We learn and even educate our reactions. Not long ago, racial prejudice was expected to disappear when everybody becomes middle class; that is, in ways important to Americans now, everybody would be basically the same. To a certain extent, this has happened, and various races are excepted according to their income and conformity to the upper middle class standards. But considering black people and poor people as “them” seems still present.
Yet even within white America there is much more knowledge and appreciation of others for their beauty, intelligence and style---and an appreciation of how much we have in common, yet how much richer we are by being different.
As humans, besides being afraid of difference we also crave it. We have learned to value the different ways of approaching the world represented in different cultures, just as we value the different skills and perspectives of individuals. This is another impulse that's become a social one, a basis for society: we like to have some idea of what might happen and alternatives to cope with any threats, or to take advantage of any opportunities. This is a human survival strategy.
We're back at the practical benefits of diversity, and the fundamental identity of our species, even of life itself. We share so much with so many. The basis of being able to live long and prosper together is "you'd do the same for me." Our heroes can take it to the limit with the ultimate self-sacrifice. But the rest of us can be courteous and thoughtful, look for what we have in common and provide the help we can when it's needed. There are plenty of real threats to deal with or avoid without inventing and creating dangers, or creating unnecessary us/them situations. We especially must be on guard against being manipulated into false us/them perspectives that really benefit a small group that's trying to accrue power and profit.
Sooner or later we come to understand that by expanding a sense of "we," we are multiplying the number of people who might help us when we need it, because they know we'd do the same for them. It's quite practical, and as things become more complex and perhaps more dire, it becomes more necessary.
In the Star Trek 22nd century, the "us" has expanded to include all humanity on earth, and in the 23rd century the "us" is expanding to include alien species. In our time, we can't go on pretending to share the identity of a country, a species and especially a civilization unless and until we expand our concept of "us" or "we" to match our reality. It's especially meaningful to me because those word were etched into my soul by hearing them from a black man. "You'd do the same for me" is our faith in civilization and each other. It's a faith we ought to spread, and not limit to the Star Trek future.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Thursday, September 15, 2005
R.I.P. Robert Wise
Legendary film director Robert Wise died on September 14, a few days after celebrating his ninety-first birthday. Wise directed "West Side Story," "The Sound of Music," and edited "Citizen Kane." He directed the science fiction classic, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and of course, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."
When Wise was able to complete TMP for the Special Edition DVD, with new effects, sound mix and a new edit of the movie, it finally lived up to its potential as another classic. I've said it before, but I'll repeat: a special theatrical release would be a fitting way to celebrate Star Trek's 40th anniversary.
The Los Angeles Times obituary of Robert Wise can be found here.
Legendary film director Robert Wise died on September 14, a few days after celebrating his ninety-first birthday. Wise directed "West Side Story," "The Sound of Music," and edited "Citizen Kane." He directed the science fiction classic, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and of course, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."
When Wise was able to complete TMP for the Special Edition DVD, with new effects, sound mix and a new edit of the movie, it finally lived up to its potential as another classic. I've said it before, but I'll repeat: a special theatrical release would be a fitting way to celebrate Star Trek's 40th anniversary.
The Los Angeles Times obituary of Robert Wise can be found here.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Star Trek: Dramatic Conclusions
by William S. Kowinski
Previously on Soul of Star Trek: When we watch Star Trek, we experience all aspects of it simultaneously. But when we try to explain what Star Trek essentially is, we can try to define each element, so we can appreciate what that element contributes to the whole.
In this mini-series about the soul of Star Trek, we began with a statement about its nature and its importance: that Star Trek is the best known contemporary vision of the future.
We considered the importance of views and visions of the future, particularly in the industrial age and in recent American history, and then specifically in the years when the original Star Trek series was being created and became popular. Why did Star Trek succeed as a vision of the future, when so many other visions didn't?
We looked for our first set of answers in terms of structure. We looked at Star Trek as a more complete vision of the future because it employs the fullness, humanity and complexity of story. Star Trek brings us into its future by telling stories of adventure. We looked at Star Trek as mythology, and saw that allegory was a tool for relating the future to the present.
So as we proceed to other structural elements and descriptions---Star Trek as drama, as television, and as science fiction---we enrich each new element with what we carry with us from earlier explorations. How is this vision of the future expressed? As story. What kind of story? Adventure, extended and raised to a mythology of the future, employing allegory as a way of giving us a perspective on our present and simultaneously portraying a possible future we'd like to live in.
But in a very real way, for the minutes we are watching, we are living in the Star Trek future. How does that happen? Why do we want to live there, and return there, and make that future our own?
And now, the conclusion...
by William S. Kowinski
Previously on Soul of Star Trek: When we watch Star Trek, we experience all aspects of it simultaneously. But when we try to explain what Star Trek essentially is, we can try to define each element, so we can appreciate what that element contributes to the whole.
In this mini-series about the soul of Star Trek, we began with a statement about its nature and its importance: that Star Trek is the best known contemporary vision of the future.
We considered the importance of views and visions of the future, particularly in the industrial age and in recent American history, and then specifically in the years when the original Star Trek series was being created and became popular. Why did Star Trek succeed as a vision of the future, when so many other visions didn't?
We looked for our first set of answers in terms of structure. We looked at Star Trek as a more complete vision of the future because it employs the fullness, humanity and complexity of story. Star Trek brings us into its future by telling stories of adventure. We looked at Star Trek as mythology, and saw that allegory was a tool for relating the future to the present.
So as we proceed to other structural elements and descriptions---Star Trek as drama, as television, and as science fiction---we enrich each new element with what we carry with us from earlier explorations. How is this vision of the future expressed? As story. What kind of story? Adventure, extended and raised to a mythology of the future, employing allegory as a way of giving us a perspective on our present and simultaneously portraying a possible future we'd like to live in.
But in a very real way, for the minutes we are watching, we are living in the Star Trek future. How does that happen? Why do we want to live there, and return there, and make that future our own?
And now, the conclusion...
The Star Trek West
Whatever visions Gene Roddenberry had of depicting a future, or of using allegory to comment on contemporary issues, he was first faced with a problem he knew very well. He had to come up with a premise for a very specific form of storytelling: the television drama series.
When GR was working on his proposal for Star Trek in early 1964, the television drama series was still young, but had established itself as pretty much what it is today.
Network television was only in its second decade then. It had begun by copying, borrowing and stealing formats (as well as characters, shows and stars) from radio, motion pictures and theatre, especially Vaudeville comedy.
Soap operas, comedies and adventure dramas were imported from radio. Drama consisted of plays that were written or adapted for the limitations of set and camera, and performed live. At first the movie studios would contribute only old cartoons and adventure serials, but eventually dramatic films of decent quality were regular features on network and local station schedules.
In the middle 1950s, there were anthology shows of mini-movie dramas, usually built around minor movie stars like Loretta Young or Dick Powell, but these series could also include comedy and even musical stories. Eventually television drama would define itself simply as not being comedy or musical.
As television technology got better, the measure of quality became how "real" the show looked. (In some sense, this meant how much TV looked like the movies, but since TV was also starting to broadcast news and actual events, it did begin to develop its own style of presenting "reality.")
Probably the breakthrough in the drama series was the so-called "adult western," which was the most popular primetime format in the late 1950s and early 1960s: Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wagon Train; and the series GR wrote for the most--Have Gun, Will Travel. They were "adult" because they paid attention to character as well as shootouts, saloon brawls and long chases on horseback. Adults could identify with these characters: they had relationships and problems; they argued, worried and made mistakes. But of course, they were still larger than life heroes.
The stories were more believable, and more nuanced than good guys in white hats and bad guys in black. In other words, they were more like quality movie westerns-- more "High Noon" and "The Virginian" than Roy Rogers. This was really a new approach for TV westerns---even though we now think of early westerns like "The Lone Ranger" and "The Cisco Kid" as Saturday morning kid's shows, they had been on network evening schedules, even shown in prime time.
The adult westerns helped establish the format of one-hour filmed drama: continuing characters within a single premise, and usually set in one definite time and place. The characters and stories were now not very far from those in movies (which emptied out movie theatres for awhile) but it would soon become evident that the television drama series had some peculiar characteristics that made the form unique, not only in their time but in the history of drama.
Though Star Trek would exemplify some of these characteristics---and even help reveal the peculiar power of the TV drama series---this was not yet on the list of GR's concerns in 1964. At the proposal stage, he had to satisfy the new conventions of the format. Yet he was also going to do something daring---he was going to propose a new genre for the drama series to explore.
Whatever visions Gene Roddenberry had of depicting a future, or of using allegory to comment on contemporary issues, he was first faced with a problem he knew very well. He had to come up with a premise for a very specific form of storytelling: the television drama series.
When GR was working on his proposal for Star Trek in early 1964, the television drama series was still young, but had established itself as pretty much what it is today.
Network television was only in its second decade then. It had begun by copying, borrowing and stealing formats (as well as characters, shows and stars) from radio, motion pictures and theatre, especially Vaudeville comedy.
Soap operas, comedies and adventure dramas were imported from radio. Drama consisted of plays that were written or adapted for the limitations of set and camera, and performed live. At first the movie studios would contribute only old cartoons and adventure serials, but eventually dramatic films of decent quality were regular features on network and local station schedules.
In the middle 1950s, there were anthology shows of mini-movie dramas, usually built around minor movie stars like Loretta Young or Dick Powell, but these series could also include comedy and even musical stories. Eventually television drama would define itself simply as not being comedy or musical.
As television technology got better, the measure of quality became how "real" the show looked. (In some sense, this meant how much TV looked like the movies, but since TV was also starting to broadcast news and actual events, it did begin to develop its own style of presenting "reality.")
Probably the breakthrough in the drama series was the so-called "adult western," which was the most popular primetime format in the late 1950s and early 1960s: Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wagon Train; and the series GR wrote for the most--Have Gun, Will Travel. They were "adult" because they paid attention to character as well as shootouts, saloon brawls and long chases on horseback. Adults could identify with these characters: they had relationships and problems; they argued, worried and made mistakes. But of course, they were still larger than life heroes.
The stories were more believable, and more nuanced than good guys in white hats and bad guys in black. In other words, they were more like quality movie westerns-- more "High Noon" and "The Virginian" than Roy Rogers. This was really a new approach for TV westerns---even though we now think of early westerns like "The Lone Ranger" and "The Cisco Kid" as Saturday morning kid's shows, they had been on network evening schedules, even shown in prime time.
The adult westerns helped establish the format of one-hour filmed drama: continuing characters within a single premise, and usually set in one definite time and place. The characters and stories were now not very far from those in movies (which emptied out movie theatres for awhile) but it would soon become evident that the television drama series had some peculiar characteristics that made the form unique, not only in their time but in the history of drama.
Though Star Trek would exemplify some of these characteristics---and even help reveal the peculiar power of the TV drama series---this was not yet on the list of GR's concerns in 1964. At the proposal stage, he had to satisfy the new conventions of the format. Yet he was also going to do something daring---he was going to propose a new genre for the drama series to explore.
The Next Big Thing
By the early 60s, the stranglehold adult westerns had on network schedules was loosening. There were popular police and detective, doctor and lawyer shows set in contemporary times. GR tried his hand at a lawyer show, with a pilot starring DeForest Kelley. So did William Shatner---apart from guest appearances on the popular series, "The Defenders," he starred as a crusading assistant district attorney in "For the People," which lasted several months on CBS in 1965.
GR did get a series of his own on the air, "The Lieutenant," a contemporary drama set on a Marine base (GR had used his military as well as his police experience in earlier shows he'd written for, such as syndicated series' on West Point and Annapolis.) But he found the "realism" of these shows was limited. Censorship and timidity kept stories within safe bounds, along with language and sexuality.
Though contemporary realistic dramas were successful, nothing had quite replaced the westerns. Some producers tried to find a premise for bringing a contemporary sense to exotic locales in a different time by adapting a genre in a different past. (Shatner was set to star in a series about Alexander the Great.)
GR had already figured out that he needed some distance from contemporary realism to get away with the kind of stories he wanted to tell. He'd seen stories dealing with moral issues in Saturday morning adventures for young audiences, and even contemporary political issues in the British-made series' like Robin Hood, which dealt with anti-Semitism as well as injustice towards the poor. It was no coincidence that these imports often were written by American screenwriters in exile, victims of the Hollywood Blacklist, which helped limit critical comment and social consciousness in TV and film.
But while other producers and writers were looking to the past for their premises, GR looked to the future. Science fiction could become the new western. And the future offered even better opportunities for dealing with meaningful contemporary issues, because you weren't tied to any sort of historical fact. To a certain degree, you could invent things about the past in a western. But in science fiction, you could invent an entire future.
GR had already tried his hand at science fiction stories for television, and he knew what he was up against. The overwhelming conventional view was that science fiction was too incredible; it was not realistic, it was crude, a little crazy, and only for kids. It was not believable, and could not therefore be television drama.
But GR thought he could make it credible and dramatic. He thought he could sell it, too. After all, there were some network executives looking for the New Western, just like fashion mavens today are looking for the New Black. There were so many possibilities---the universe is the limit. Even the conventions of movie and early television science fiction showed potential, at least in terms of pictures. You could invent a future that was great to look at, and with the networks interested in using color in prime time...
So why not make the idea completely explicit? Sell the future as a naval adventure on the new ocean of space (as JFK called it), with rockets instead of sailing ships. But really sell it as a western, except even better. They're out there where the skies are really not cloudy all day--- at the ultimate frontier---no, make that the final frontier...A Wagon Train to the Stars.
Eventually Desilu and then NBC bought it. And then the real problems began.
As a producer, GR had to face the reality of creating a future from scratch. Not the ideas, exactly. From the reading and watching he'd done before, and from reading and watching he did once he was really going to be doing this series, GR along with his collaborators could pick and choose, tweak and refine or turn completely around many concepts that science fiction writers and dramatists had put in print or on film or on the air, doubtless having adapted the ideas of earlier writers and dramatists. That's how storytelling works. It's how everything works.
By the early 60s, the stranglehold adult westerns had on network schedules was loosening. There were popular police and detective, doctor and lawyer shows set in contemporary times. GR tried his hand at a lawyer show, with a pilot starring DeForest Kelley. So did William Shatner---apart from guest appearances on the popular series, "The Defenders," he starred as a crusading assistant district attorney in "For the People," which lasted several months on CBS in 1965.
GR did get a series of his own on the air, "The Lieutenant," a contemporary drama set on a Marine base (GR had used his military as well as his police experience in earlier shows he'd written for, such as syndicated series' on West Point and Annapolis.) But he found the "realism" of these shows was limited. Censorship and timidity kept stories within safe bounds, along with language and sexuality.
Though contemporary realistic dramas were successful, nothing had quite replaced the westerns. Some producers tried to find a premise for bringing a contemporary sense to exotic locales in a different time by adapting a genre in a different past. (Shatner was set to star in a series about Alexander the Great.)
GR had already figured out that he needed some distance from contemporary realism to get away with the kind of stories he wanted to tell. He'd seen stories dealing with moral issues in Saturday morning adventures for young audiences, and even contemporary political issues in the British-made series' like Robin Hood, which dealt with anti-Semitism as well as injustice towards the poor. It was no coincidence that these imports often were written by American screenwriters in exile, victims of the Hollywood Blacklist, which helped limit critical comment and social consciousness in TV and film.
But while other producers and writers were looking to the past for their premises, GR looked to the future. Science fiction could become the new western. And the future offered even better opportunities for dealing with meaningful contemporary issues, because you weren't tied to any sort of historical fact. To a certain degree, you could invent things about the past in a western. But in science fiction, you could invent an entire future.
GR had already tried his hand at science fiction stories for television, and he knew what he was up against. The overwhelming conventional view was that science fiction was too incredible; it was not realistic, it was crude, a little crazy, and only for kids. It was not believable, and could not therefore be television drama.
But GR thought he could make it credible and dramatic. He thought he could sell it, too. After all, there were some network executives looking for the New Western, just like fashion mavens today are looking for the New Black. There were so many possibilities---the universe is the limit. Even the conventions of movie and early television science fiction showed potential, at least in terms of pictures. You could invent a future that was great to look at, and with the networks interested in using color in prime time...
So why not make the idea completely explicit? Sell the future as a naval adventure on the new ocean of space (as JFK called it), with rockets instead of sailing ships. But really sell it as a western, except even better. They're out there where the skies are really not cloudy all day--- at the ultimate frontier---no, make that the final frontier...A Wagon Train to the Stars.
Eventually Desilu and then NBC bought it. And then the real problems began.
As a producer, GR had to face the reality of creating a future from scratch. Not the ideas, exactly. From the reading and watching he'd done before, and from reading and watching he did once he was really going to be doing this series, GR along with his collaborators could pick and choose, tweak and refine or turn completely around many concepts that science fiction writers and dramatists had put in print or on film or on the air, doubtless having adapted the ideas of earlier writers and dramatists. That's how storytelling works. It's how everything works.
Believing in the Enterprise
Still, GR was not just making story---he was making drama. Drama is from a Greek word that means "action." In our terms, it basically means action you can see and hear. It means action that imitates the look and sound of the reality it is pretending to be, according to the conventions of the medium.
You believe (or suspend your disbelief) in the reality of a city street, for instance, according to the medium. If it's a stage play, an obviously fake streetlamp, a few facades of buildings will be enough---you know the reality is only suggested. If it's a TV show, there has to be more detail. If it's a movie, even more detail. A TV show might get away with a realistic looking street with a few buildings and some people, but no real sense there is a city around it. A movie has to give you the sense that the street is a real street in a real city, fully functioning and populated, with streets that lead to other streets, to the rest of the world.
A television series exists in a particular world, but that world has to be complete within itself. A series set in contemporary times just has to select from what exists: the kinds of clothes, tables, forks, lamps, cars, telephones and toothbrushes that are sold in one store or another. Westerns and other historical dramas can raid museums, old photographs and traditional conceptions to make their worlds.
But the future has to be invented, and built pretty much from scratch. Wherever the idea came from to take this really seriously, as an opportunity to build a plausible future, GR gave it life with a stubborn and ultimately creative consistency.
It makes sense on lots of levels to really think it through, and keep it consistent. First, it helps to counter one of the big objections to science fiction-that it's all fanciful and can't be taken seriously. For the fact that the clothes, tables, forks, lamps and communicators of the future don't yet exist is in a dramatic sense irrelevant. By creating those things, you create that future, and you have to create them, because this is drama. You have real people as actors, playing characters who need ways to keep warm and dry, and ways to ingest nourishment, get around and communicate. Once you build and show your future, and it works for those characters, that future becomes real.
From watching and reading science fiction, Roddenberry said years later, he had figured out what he would do if he ever got the chance to write it. "I'm going to try to make it as scientifically accurate as possible and write [these scripts] the way we wrote the old Playhouse 90." He wanted to treat the fantastic as if it were real, hoping that the double message of a wondrous reality would act like a magnet for the eyes and hearts of viewers.
For example, the space ship. "My feeling was that if you didn't believe in the spaceship," Roddenberry said,"---if you didn't believe you were in a vehicle traveling through space, a vehicle that made sense, whose layout and design made sense...then you wouldn't believe in the series."
For scientific accuracy, the Trek team consulted with scientists at RAND and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, involving technical matters at high and rarified levels, such as whether faster-than-light travel was possible, and if so, what principles might be involved in powering a craft through the immense distances between the stars.
But Roddenberry and other armed services veterans could bring their own experience with large ships and large aircraft in World War II to the concept of a large starship and crew. The Trek team thought carefully about how many people would be aboard, where they would sleep and how they would eat. They thought about how the bridge would work best, and who would be on it. Where would the ideal place for the captain to be?
All of this was fairly deep thinking for science fiction on film. But this was not a single movie, nor a before-the-feature movie serial or one-time television drama. This was a network dramatic series, and Roddenberry had been writing for those long enough to understand their basic requirements.
This basis of workable, recognizable reality that made sense had to extend to the people aboard the ship. The Trek team thought about the kind of people who would make it to the most important vessel in a future fleet. Roddenberry remembered the rigors of flight school in World War II-the many who washed out at each step in the process. Some anomalies of behavior were inevitable, but certain kinds of excesses or deficiencies just weren't credible-you wouldn't get to serve on a starship if you had them. So while certain character flaws might make dramatic conflict easier, relying on them might sink the sense of reality.
To further establish that sense of familiarity and continuity with the present, Roddenberry wanted to give the starship a name with a pedigree: first it was the Yorktown, and then the Enterprise. The various other naval analogies would further ground the series in reality, and besides personal experiences of the veterans on the team, Roddenberry had several years researching leadership and training while writing for the West Point TV series.
Some of the future technology could be extrapolated from the most advanced ideas of today. Roddenberry looked at instruments at North American's Advanced Space Research Center to get ideas, not only of what the Enterprise instruments might look like, but what they wouldn't be like, what would be obsolete. There would be some sort of "computer," which barely existed in the mid 1960s. What would computers be like-what would they do-- in 400 years?
Sometimes the answer would lie partly in science and partly in behavior: what would people in the future want their technology to do? In considering what a 23rd century sick bay would look like, you might start by thinking about what current technology medicine would want to improve. Assuming advanced ability to monitor an array of physical functions, what would be the most efficient way to do that, for both the patient and the physicians? The answer was the bio-bed with its clearly visible electronic monitors of heartrate and other basic functions., which didn't wait until the 23rd century to become a hospital commonplace.
That Star Trek took such pains to extrapolate from existing science and especially from the speculations at the far edge of certain sciences, is probably a factor in its longevity, as well as partially accounting for its fans among scientists, engineers and the technologically inclined.
Scientific plausibility is a slightly different thing, and here the instincts of a science fiction fan, as GR had been since childhood, combine with the prejudices of the age. The science fiction fan is interested in the science as part of the adventure. But the network executives and perhaps the skeptical viewer are more reassured than excited by scientific plausibility. Science has changed reality so thoroughly and so often, that anything that seems "scientific" is granted a certain (perhaps grudging) suspension of disbelief.
The basics of the Star Trek universe were created according to need and opportunity. Some were brilliant ideas that happened to work very well within the TV budget, and some---like the transporter, which negated the need for expensive shots of the spaceship landing on a different planet every week---were actually economical.
While GR got interested in what future technology might be, he also approached the future as a storyteller. So the future technology had to be plausible, even if no one really knew if it was possible, or how it could actually work. It's the difference between Dick Tracy's wrist radio, which was plausible even in the 1940s, and his invisible airplane, which wasn't.
It is this application of the imagination of a storyteller as well as a scientific imagination that made H.G. Wells' visions of the future much more wondrous and (as it turned out) much more accurate than that of so-called experts. It's the same combination that GR infused in Star Trek.
Plausible technology used consistently (warp ten is always warp ten, phasers do what it is established that they do) adds up to a believable future. The rule applies beyond technology, to the other elements of a complete future.
Thinking about the future that way wasn't just smart, it was almost mandatory. Because this is drama-a future that has to be shown, and the characters have to been seen living in it. Because this is television drama ---and it has to be the same future next week and the week after.
But at a certain point, or maybe it just happened gradually, GR must have realized that in creating a universe for his TV series, he was creating a future. Making it a better future only made sense---since it seemed clear that unless humanity improved, it was going to destroy itself and any future with it. But it was also an opportunity, to create a future worth living in.
Creating a universe for Star Trek’s stories turned out so well, that it became the basis for the evolving mythology of the future, which is Star Trek, and all that Star Trek has influenced in how people envision the future.
"Gene [Roddenberry] created a totally new universe," said Gene Coon who joined Star Trek as a writer and producer midway through the first year, and who himself came up with important elaborations on that universe. " He invented a starship, which works, by the way, and is a logical progression from what we know today. He created customs, morals, modes of speaking, a complete technology. We have a very rigid technology on the show. We know how fast we can go. We know what we use for fuel. We know what our weapons will do...He didn't create a show, he created a universe, and it works..."
Star Trek eventually became so well known for its self-consistent universe--- not only with technology but planets and societies, interplanetary institutions with their laws, rules and directives, alien races with histories and mythologies and even languages---that fans debate the fine points of violations, decry lack of "continuity," and speak like ecclesiastical scholars of what is "canon" law and what is not.
Still, GR was not just making story---he was making drama. Drama is from a Greek word that means "action." In our terms, it basically means action you can see and hear. It means action that imitates the look and sound of the reality it is pretending to be, according to the conventions of the medium.
You believe (or suspend your disbelief) in the reality of a city street, for instance, according to the medium. If it's a stage play, an obviously fake streetlamp, a few facades of buildings will be enough---you know the reality is only suggested. If it's a TV show, there has to be more detail. If it's a movie, even more detail. A TV show might get away with a realistic looking street with a few buildings and some people, but no real sense there is a city around it. A movie has to give you the sense that the street is a real street in a real city, fully functioning and populated, with streets that lead to other streets, to the rest of the world.
A television series exists in a particular world, but that world has to be complete within itself. A series set in contemporary times just has to select from what exists: the kinds of clothes, tables, forks, lamps, cars, telephones and toothbrushes that are sold in one store or another. Westerns and other historical dramas can raid museums, old photographs and traditional conceptions to make their worlds.
But the future has to be invented, and built pretty much from scratch. Wherever the idea came from to take this really seriously, as an opportunity to build a plausible future, GR gave it life with a stubborn and ultimately creative consistency.
It makes sense on lots of levels to really think it through, and keep it consistent. First, it helps to counter one of the big objections to science fiction-that it's all fanciful and can't be taken seriously. For the fact that the clothes, tables, forks, lamps and communicators of the future don't yet exist is in a dramatic sense irrelevant. By creating those things, you create that future, and you have to create them, because this is drama. You have real people as actors, playing characters who need ways to keep warm and dry, and ways to ingest nourishment, get around and communicate. Once you build and show your future, and it works for those characters, that future becomes real.
From watching and reading science fiction, Roddenberry said years later, he had figured out what he would do if he ever got the chance to write it. "I'm going to try to make it as scientifically accurate as possible and write [these scripts] the way we wrote the old Playhouse 90." He wanted to treat the fantastic as if it were real, hoping that the double message of a wondrous reality would act like a magnet for the eyes and hearts of viewers.
For example, the space ship. "My feeling was that if you didn't believe in the spaceship," Roddenberry said,"---if you didn't believe you were in a vehicle traveling through space, a vehicle that made sense, whose layout and design made sense...then you wouldn't believe in the series."
For scientific accuracy, the Trek team consulted with scientists at RAND and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, involving technical matters at high and rarified levels, such as whether faster-than-light travel was possible, and if so, what principles might be involved in powering a craft through the immense distances between the stars.
But Roddenberry and other armed services veterans could bring their own experience with large ships and large aircraft in World War II to the concept of a large starship and crew. The Trek team thought carefully about how many people would be aboard, where they would sleep and how they would eat. They thought about how the bridge would work best, and who would be on it. Where would the ideal place for the captain to be?
All of this was fairly deep thinking for science fiction on film. But this was not a single movie, nor a before-the-feature movie serial or one-time television drama. This was a network dramatic series, and Roddenberry had been writing for those long enough to understand their basic requirements.
This basis of workable, recognizable reality that made sense had to extend to the people aboard the ship. The Trek team thought about the kind of people who would make it to the most important vessel in a future fleet. Roddenberry remembered the rigors of flight school in World War II-the many who washed out at each step in the process. Some anomalies of behavior were inevitable, but certain kinds of excesses or deficiencies just weren't credible-you wouldn't get to serve on a starship if you had them. So while certain character flaws might make dramatic conflict easier, relying on them might sink the sense of reality.
To further establish that sense of familiarity and continuity with the present, Roddenberry wanted to give the starship a name with a pedigree: first it was the Yorktown, and then the Enterprise. The various other naval analogies would further ground the series in reality, and besides personal experiences of the veterans on the team, Roddenberry had several years researching leadership and training while writing for the West Point TV series.
Some of the future technology could be extrapolated from the most advanced ideas of today. Roddenberry looked at instruments at North American's Advanced Space Research Center to get ideas, not only of what the Enterprise instruments might look like, but what they wouldn't be like, what would be obsolete. There would be some sort of "computer," which barely existed in the mid 1960s. What would computers be like-what would they do-- in 400 years?
Sometimes the answer would lie partly in science and partly in behavior: what would people in the future want their technology to do? In considering what a 23rd century sick bay would look like, you might start by thinking about what current technology medicine would want to improve. Assuming advanced ability to monitor an array of physical functions, what would be the most efficient way to do that, for both the patient and the physicians? The answer was the bio-bed with its clearly visible electronic monitors of heartrate and other basic functions., which didn't wait until the 23rd century to become a hospital commonplace.
That Star Trek took such pains to extrapolate from existing science and especially from the speculations at the far edge of certain sciences, is probably a factor in its longevity, as well as partially accounting for its fans among scientists, engineers and the technologically inclined.
Scientific plausibility is a slightly different thing, and here the instincts of a science fiction fan, as GR had been since childhood, combine with the prejudices of the age. The science fiction fan is interested in the science as part of the adventure. But the network executives and perhaps the skeptical viewer are more reassured than excited by scientific plausibility. Science has changed reality so thoroughly and so often, that anything that seems "scientific" is granted a certain (perhaps grudging) suspension of disbelief.
The basics of the Star Trek universe were created according to need and opportunity. Some were brilliant ideas that happened to work very well within the TV budget, and some---like the transporter, which negated the need for expensive shots of the spaceship landing on a different planet every week---were actually economical.
While GR got interested in what future technology might be, he also approached the future as a storyteller. So the future technology had to be plausible, even if no one really knew if it was possible, or how it could actually work. It's the difference between Dick Tracy's wrist radio, which was plausible even in the 1940s, and his invisible airplane, which wasn't.
It is this application of the imagination of a storyteller as well as a scientific imagination that made H.G. Wells' visions of the future much more wondrous and (as it turned out) much more accurate than that of so-called experts. It's the same combination that GR infused in Star Trek.
Plausible technology used consistently (warp ten is always warp ten, phasers do what it is established that they do) adds up to a believable future. The rule applies beyond technology, to the other elements of a complete future.
Thinking about the future that way wasn't just smart, it was almost mandatory. Because this is drama-a future that has to be shown, and the characters have to been seen living in it. Because this is television drama ---and it has to be the same future next week and the week after.
But at a certain point, or maybe it just happened gradually, GR must have realized that in creating a universe for his TV series, he was creating a future. Making it a better future only made sense---since it seemed clear that unless humanity improved, it was going to destroy itself and any future with it. But it was also an opportunity, to create a future worth living in.
Creating a universe for Star Trek’s stories turned out so well, that it became the basis for the evolving mythology of the future, which is Star Trek, and all that Star Trek has influenced in how people envision the future.
"Gene [Roddenberry] created a totally new universe," said Gene Coon who joined Star Trek as a writer and producer midway through the first year, and who himself came up with important elaborations on that universe. " He invented a starship, which works, by the way, and is a logical progression from what we know today. He created customs, morals, modes of speaking, a complete technology. We have a very rigid technology on the show. We know how fast we can go. We know what we use for fuel. We know what our weapons will do...He didn't create a show, he created a universe, and it works..."
Star Trek eventually became so well known for its self-consistent universe--- not only with technology but planets and societies, interplanetary institutions with their laws, rules and directives, alien races with histories and mythologies and even languages---that fans debate the fine points of violations, decry lack of "continuity," and speak like ecclesiastical scholars of what is "canon" law and what is not.
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