Star Trek in the Park

Star Trek: The next generation

With the success of Star Trek it seems inevitable that a next generation reboot is next. Here is what it might look like.

Robots, emotions and science fiction

Robots have been a part of science fiction almost since the beginning. You can even make the argument that Frankenstein’s monster is in some ways a robot and that story helped set up one of the most important uses for robots in science fiction, as a way to examine humans and human emotions more carefully and they have been foils for human emotion ever since.
One early example is the 1938 story Helen O’loy by Lester del Rey. What this story does that is brilliant is that it isn’t the robot in the story that is having trouble with the emotions, the reader simply assumes it is because of a general prejudice towards robots. This story is dated some as the idea of a wife being largely a servant exists but she is also the emotional core of the story and helps us examine human emotion not because she doesn’t have them but because of our own assumptions.
More famous is Isaac Asimov’s “Bicentennial Man”. This is almost certainly the influence for Data on Star Trek. The robot in “Bicentennial Man” is more of an accident than Data and it takes him longer to discover what he wants but the ideas are similar. He has to fight for his freedom, fight for his rights and eventually has to fight to be declared a man.
Both of these characters allow us to examine human emotions in a unique way because we have characters who don’t take them for granted. Having a typical character speak of these emotions the way the robots do would be odd. We all know what the emotions are yet never discuss them in clinical terms while this is the only way a robot can really understand them. This leads to the question that if emotion is programmed into someone are they real and how can we say that emotions like a parents love for a child aren’t in some way programmed in?
More recently the Cylons have been used in large part this way. Slaves to humanity they rise up to become their own race but they have learned the lessons of humanity too well and they seek revenge. As the Cylons become characters on the show rather than enemies we begin to examine their motivations and ideas in a way that would be difficult with humans. We get arguments about turning off their free will, and why they feel the emotions they have that gives us new dimensions and in the end it seems that the humans realize that they really aren’t different. They have the ability to make choices and that makes them as human as anyone.
Emotions are tricky when writing. The authors desire to examine why people feel the way they do is confronted by the desire to make people act and think naturally and robots are an excellent way to allow for both.

The Kobayashi Maru

The Kobayashi Maru test is one of the major plot points of the new Star Trek movie, a connection to The Wrath of Kahn that is brilliant as well as giving them a way to use the Klingons in the show without actually using them.

But is The Kobayashi Maru a test that anyone would ever use? Can you truely imagine a organization teaching its people to fight by putting them in an unwinnable situation?

When I was a kid and first saw it I remember thinking that it was a stupid idea and that Kirk’s solution to cheat was the only possible solution, but as I have gotten over I have learned to understand that there really are no win situations in life. There are times when there are only bad choices, and by making them understand that it might be useful.

There is a second reason that impassable tests should be given, not just to military officers but to students. Humility. There are far to many children who graduate high school, and even a few who graduate college who have never truly been tested in the sense of being pushed past their limit. In fact I suspect that many people can be pushed beyond their limit is in military boot camp.

Now comes the issue of cheating. Kirk’s solution to the no-win situation is cheating. This is examined in two Star Trek movies now and it can be argued as a elegent solution. If you are given a situation where there are two outcomes both of which are unaccetble and a third which is unattanable without cheating but far preferable then cheat.

Yet as you look more carefully I see the results of the newest movie being the likely outcome. That is being brought up on charges for cheating. This brings up a third question about Kirk, is it so important for him to win at this simulation that everyone fails that he is willing to risk his career or did he know that he would get away with it?

There was of course no punishment for failing The Kobayashi Maru so what was it that drove Kirk to such lengths to pass the test? Is it simply his inability to accept defeat, or a ego that was never put into check by the test because he cheated?

This is one of the small things about this in the new movie that bothered me. Though he had cheated and he knew that he could win the test being so seemingly uninterested in the test in the new movie made it seem as if he didn’t care all that much about Star Fleet or the test. Cheating should have been a big deal to him even if the test wasn’t.

Klingons should never use white in decoration

Star Trek : Review

I was skeptical at the concept of remaking Star Trek. It’s not that I don’t see the cheese of the original Star Trek, it’s just that there has been so much that rebooting it seems difficult without simply ignoring it all.

This movie did a really good job of making Star Trek feel new while keeping the characters and feel close to the original.

Beyond the actors who played the parts the most notable difference in this story was the technology. The first thing I noticed was that the transporters didn’t work all that well in comparison to the transporters in the show. it takes considerably longer, you can’t move, and they are blocked most of the time.  I understand this, transporters are great for getting the characters into places that are interesting but it drops the tension once they are there if you know they can be beamed out any time.

The ships themselves felt much more real in that you felt you knew where things were. The engines actually looked and felt like engines, the shuttle bay felt like part of the ship and it all simply felt real.

Third was the weapons. The changes in the phasers were great. They really felt like they were better than a handgun you could get now rather than worse.

All of the characters felt pretty much right on and they really gave them all a chance to do something useful, in fact in many ways Kirk was the least useful of the characters in large parts of the movie. I would have to watch again but I don’t think he actually won a fight in the entire movie.

I love the style they tell the story in. You don’t know what is going on early in the movie though you can guess at it and that truely helps especially through the early part of the movie that could have been slow as they went through Starfleet Academy.

The only major weakness I saw was that I wasn’t all that impressed by the villain. He did his job and did it well but the reason he was doing it was a little bit of a stretch for me.

I truly enjoyed this movie and as someone who likes Star Trek and was worried that this wasn’t going to be Star Trek but some other show crammed into a Star Trek uniform I can say that it really is Star Trek. Yet at the same time there is no reason that someone who has never really cared for Star Trek can’t go to this movie and see a perfectly reasonable movie with a good story and plenty of action without needing to know or care about Star Trek.

Star Wars Vs Star Trek

Star Trek/Star Wars meet

Science Fiction examines Religion

One of the most important aspects of Science Fiction is its ability to present us with ideas that are typically difficult for people to discuss or to help break us away from our preconceived ideas and think about things in a new way. The most difficult and important of these ideas are religion and the different ways that the science fiction franchises deal with religion are an excellent way of examining some of the different ways that people look at religion.

The Agnostic/Atheist

Humans in Star Trek almost never have a religion yet that general ignoring of religion among the humans of the show never stopped them from exploring religious ideas. The Agnostic humans are almost always meeting with “gods” from the original series with Greek gods and a god trapped in the center of the galaxy through the next generation where they met the devil, aliens from alternate dimensions who claimed to be god, and Q.

But most of the discussion of God was in Deep Space 9. It was here that the agnostic had to deal directly with something that he couldn’t fully understand, and at the same time deal with being a religious leader. The final battle even came down to a battle between gods.

In the end the agnostic is still an agnostic, or possibly even an atheist but he has learned to accept and even embrace the beliefs of others and more than anything that is the message of Star Trek.

The Unknowable God

The god of Battlestar Galactica is not an agnostic god. He interferes directly with the characters but the idea of worshiping him is difficult. Even the name of god evidently bothers it. Yet the ideas of destiny and belief are examined well in Battlestar Galactica.

And the question of destiny is one that is unavoidable when talking about God. If God is all knowing then how can we have free will? Battlestar Galactica falls on the side of free will, implying that God has been working to bring about solutions but allowing humans to fail.

Sadly the more important point that the God in Battlestar Galactica brought out is the danger of having an active God in any plot. Deus Ex Machinca(god from the machine) is one of the worst ways to end a story. Having the solution to everything be God did it, isn’t satisfying or good writing.

The Mystic

There is no real hint that anyone in the Star Wars movies really believes in god, yet these six movies are about a religious order and this disconnect from God allows us to look at the ideas without the debate.

The chief religious idea of Star Wars is that there is a force outside of us. Something that connects all living things and allows for a priesthood who can perform miracles.  One of the important aspects of this mysticism is that it is unexplained. This is something that just is.

This idea that there is something greater than us is the universal center of all religion. We may disagree on what that force is or what it wants of us but the core of religion is its existance and Star Wars has that core.

The Enlightenment

Star Gate, though it is almost exclusively about religion, deals with it very little. The Egyptian gods are safe because very few people on earth belive in Ra and they don’t watch science fiction TV series. but it does examine one aspect of religion very carefully in later episodes through the character Daniel Jackson.

That idea is that of enlightenment. The idea of ascendancy through some type of moral or physical purity is as idea of great importance to religion and yet even through this enlightenment we soon find that they are imperfect. Even those with true godlike power can make mistakes and be corrupted like the Ori.

Another important concept in the idea of ascendancy in Star Gate is the idea that people are unable to archive it on their own. Humans, at least in their current form, are not ready to become truly enlightened beings.

The Inclusion

There is an episode of Babylon 5 where every alien race is showing off their religion. This puts the commander of Babylon 5 in a tight spot because the idea of choosing a single religion from Earth is basically offensive.

In the end the solution of bringing representatives from all of earths religions could be considered avoiding the problem but only if you don’t understand the point he was making.

The religion of the humans in Babylon 5 had at least for that moment moved beyond a petty argument over who was right(not to be confused with enlightened debate which is good and healthy) to the uplifting of the ideas of diversity and love as the true religion of humanity and that idea wasn’t lost throughout the series in which humans, who were far from the most advanced or powerful of the races became important more because of their ability to unite people than anything else.

Star Trek: Ideas for New Series

As the date of the new Star Trek movie draws nearer and I begin to get to see the trailers the desire for new Star Trek begins to grow and I suspect that if this movie does well Paramount will take that as a sign that it might be time for another Star Trek TV series.

The fear I have of this is that because the movie is set in the original series time that they will decided they need to continue in that timeline. I think Enterprise already established how difficult it is to do a prequel in a series with hundreds of hours of history that you have to adhere to, so I decided to write down a few of the series that I would like to see.

Idea one: Star Trek: Trans-warp

Set a few years after Voyagers return the federation has built its first ship designed from the ground up to use trans-warp. This is the most advanced ship in the federation and because it can go so many times faster than any other ship it is often far out of range of any other star fleet vessels.

One of the key features of this advanced ship is the full integration of holodeck technology. Thanks to advancements in holodeck technology nearly all nonessential systems in the ship are built using holodeck technology allowing for the inside of the ship to be reconfigured for unique situations as well as encouraging the use of holographic crewmen.

In most ways this show would be most similar to Star Trek the Next generation, but thanks to trans-warp technology the crew would be able to make contact with species from the Gama and delta quadrant allowing for connections to all the modern series.

Star Trek:Renegades

One of the major problems in telling stories in Star Trek is that all the conflict is from outside of the ship. Even on voyager when they had a crew made up from two enemy ships everyone got alone. The answer to this seems to be to move outside of the realm of Star Fleet.

A merchant vessel that operates on the edge of federation law seems perfect. these are people like Harry Mudd. Self serving, but smart, interested more than anything on staying outside of the grip of the federation.

The key advantage of this type of show, beyond having characters on the ship who don’t like each other is that you could know everyone on the crew. One of the things that most disappointed me about enterprise was that they had too big of a crew. The show would have been better if there had only been 10 people on the enterprise and every one was a main character.

With a ship that is falling apart and a crew that is on the edge of the law we could explore the darker edges of the Federation, while still having people who at least on occasion are good people.

Star Trek: The not a series series.

There are a great many things that people would love to see in Star Trek, but that wouldn’t carry a full series. The idea of this not a series series it to have a miniseries and one shot episodes each one in a differnt part of the federation.

This would require truly skilled writers, but the possibilities would be great. You could have a four episode arch on the Klingon home world with no humans in site and the next week be on Risa where William Riker and Wesley Crusher have started a private detective agency.(It’s called Risa Nights and I stole the idea from Make it So).

Well written this type of a show, even with different actors and story lines each week could tell a grander scale ongoing story of the federation. Perhaps a war which is brewing, and each week some element of that story is explored.

In addition this makes guest stars easier than in any other Star Trek. If Brent Spiner is free for a week no need to come up with some contrived plot to put him on, just write an episode about B4 becoming Data.

With this you could even tell the history of the federation. Rather than having a entire series dedicated to these characters you could do an episode about the founding of Star Fleet.

The major downfall of course will be that this type of series could be spotty. Even the twilight zone which was the best of this style of series had week episodes and that was without the Star Trek writers.

Star Trek: New Frontier

If you haven’t read anything by Peter David you’re missing out. He is one of my favorite authors and he spends considerable time writing Star Trek novels based around the ship Excalibur and its crew.

The advantage of making this into a series is three fold. You have numerous stories already written with interesting characters. This allows for less of the first season troubles that most Star Trek series face.

Second you have a built in audience. These books have been coming out for quite some time so there is a built in understanding and excitement about this idea.

Third, you have a really good writer who understands and loves and understands Star Trek in Peter David and the any star trek show could only be improved by having him involved.