The Principles Behind Star Trek
(note: The author of this essay is unknown by me but
deserves recognition.  If you know their identity,
please let me know so that proper attribution can be
given.)
        There is a certain set of themes that make Star
Trek unique and make it much more interesting than
standard space adventure. But it seems to me that
those themes are being lost sight of more and more
with so much Star Trek product coming out; and with
still another series being planned, that process
threatens to accelerate. Fewer and fewer writers are
able to clearly use the themes that make Star Trek
what it is to tell a compelling story. More and more,
writers will throw in an obligatory bow to the idea of
diversity or brief reluctance to use violence, then go
on to write their standard adventure. Star Trek
writers, both professional and fan, in order to keep
Star Trek alive and interesting should be trying to
expand its themes, keep them growing, and keep them
meaningful to its audience.
        In order to do this, its necessary to articulate
those themes and be conscious of them. "Q" is a
scholarly term meaning "source," from the German word
_Quelle_. Some Biblical scholars use the term to
describe an ancient text they believe was used as the
source of the New Testament's wisdom. They are
attempting to rebuild the Q by extracting the basic
wisdom from the anecdotes told by the writers of the
Gospels. This essay, similarly, is my attempt to
extract the essential ideas of Star Trek from the
stories as they have been told. In my view, to the
extent that a story embodies these ideas, it's Star
Trek, and to the extent that it doesn't, it's just
standard, boring space opera. So I offer these ideas
to the electronic wind, in hopes that they may
influence some writers and improve the quality of Trek
writing.
        Kobayashi Maru: Life is a no-win scenario. Death is
inevitable. How you face that fact is a test of
character. Your character is revealed in the passion
and tenacity with which you fight to ensure survival,
doing what you have to do to turn certain death into a
fighting chance for life. The more hopeless your
situation appears, the more passion is called for, to
the very last moment, to the final extremity. The
primary mission of Starfleet, according to Commodore
Decker, is "to preserve life." In Star Trek, the
protagonists continually discover that the more danger
they are in the more precious they find life to be,
and they draw from this the resolve to find new
resources to fight with, to pull another rabbit out of
the hat. They order their lives and their careers to
hold on to that insight, to prepare to experience it
again, and to pass it on. This is what gives Starfleet
its unique character, and makes Star Trek protagonists
different from other action heroes. The Picard
Maneuver from "The Battle," LaForge in "Arsenal Of
Freedom," Riker in "A Matter Of Honor," Data in "Best
Of Both Worlds II," Ltc. Daren in "Lessons," and Kirk
in "The Corbomite Maneuver," "The Deadly Years," and
ST:TMP exemplify this.
        In "Gambit," when the buccaneer captain gives the
order to destroy a  Starfleet science outpost, Picard
has a plan ready to save them. When it falls through,
he has another one to fall back on, and another still
when that one fails. This was a KM test, and Picard's
response was a classic example of how to handle one.
But eventually ingenuity has to fail, and then what?
The only way to prevail at that point is to take the
game to a higher level, a new dimension, where the
countdown timer is reset; and for that you have to
rely on friends, working in the background, giving you
new options you didn't know you had. That's the
pattern that makes Star Trek drama so much more
exhilarating than ordinary science fiction. At the
final moment, the Enterprise dives out of the sky to
drive the buccaneers away. A deus ex machina? No, an
expression of what Star Trek is all about. These ideas
are illustrated in "The Best of Both Worlds," "The
Emissary," "Peak Performance," and in STII and III.
        Enterprise: More than a ship, an idea. In one
episode Picard questions to Troi the wisdom of having
families and children on board. After all, he argues,
the Enterprise is liable to be ordered into the
Neutral Zone on a moment's notice, or any number of
other dangerous missions. Troi responds by saying that
you're fooling yourself if you think you can guarantee
your children's safety by leaving them on Earth. The
best thing you can do for them is let them come along
and witness the human adventure.
        Safety and danger, like everything else in the
universe, are yin and yang, opposites which
interpenetrate. It's a fundamental mistake to think
you can find lasting safety by building walls and
hiding behind them. Danger will find its way through,
around, under, or sprout up right in your midst. One
of the novels, in explaining the divergent history of
the alternate-dimensional crew depicted in "Mirror,
Mirror," postulated the start of the divergence at the
point when the people of the alternate earth decided
not to explore space, resolving to remain instead in
the relative safety and comfort of their home planet.
But their strategy of burying their heads in the sand
backfired, as it had to, as eventually the Romulans
discovered this defenseless Earth and quickly absorbed
it into their empire, starting humans down the path of
terror and cruelty. There is no safety in refusing to
face risk.
        Conversely, when faced with real peril, the only
way to survive it is to realize that the key to safety
lies at the heart of the danger, and you must find a
way to plunge into it as deeply as you can. This is
enterprise, Star Trek's key concept. If you've
accepted the obligation to fight for life, you need to
build yourself an extraordinary conveyance to carry
you into the vortex of extraordinary threats. This is
the universal constant that allows us to imagine that
men in the 24th Century will still be compelled to go
into space long after there are no more worries about
material wants or military competition; not "natural
curiosity," or "the need to see what's over the next
hill," or even testosterone or any of the other
mealymouthed reasons that are always given, but a
mature understanding of the way the universe works and
of what we owe our children.
        Hence, "The Immunity Syndrome," "The Doomsday
Machine," "Return To Tomorrow," "Obsession," "Spectre
Of The Gun," "Time Squared," "Best Of Both Worlds,"
"Redemption," "A Matter Of Time," and practically
every other episode to some degree. The single most
thrilling moment of the old series to me when I was a
kid was Spock hitting that fuel jettison switch in
"The Galileo Seven." He realized that playing it safe
was playing it dead, that when it came right down to
it he had to hurl himself and his charges that last
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 * OLX 2.1 TD * "It never happened!" - Yar
--- Maximus/2 3.01
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