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Star Trek

Star Trek is perhaps the show that changed forever the general public's view of what science-fiction should be. In other types of drama, the writer was always expected to explain of the antagonist: "This is why he is the way he is, this is why he is doing this." Up until Star Trek first premiered in the 1960s, however, when it came to science-fiction, whenever a monster was used in the story the writer would say, "Aha! Let's use one that comes down from another planet and attacks and kills everybody!"--to which no one ever asked why.

The best example of that "why" in Star Trek was in the episode "The Devil in the Dark", where miners discover silicon nodules, destroy them in the belief that they are just odd geologic formations, and are killed by a creature. In the end the surviving miners discover that the creature--silicon-based herself--is a mother who, trying to protect her eggs, fought back in the only way she knew how.

I think the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry, put the show's overall message best when he said in 1977:

"If there's one thing we've noticed about Star Trek fans, whether they're six years old or eighty, they are very young-minded people. And young-minded people have an interest in the future, where we're going, what wonderful things we can achieve, and what terrible problems might face us if we don't plan for it. There's never been a time in history that I know of when youth has been confronted with so much pessimism about their own future. A kid of twelve or a man of twenty doesn't have to be a great student to recognize that inside of ten or twenty years Guatemala's going to have the H-bomb too, and Patagonia, and large cartels, and maybe wealthy private individuals. He doesn't have to be terribly well-read or have a terribly high I.Q. to see that if science continues inventing all of these things, literally hundreds of things are going to come along which can destroy us. And as a result, Star Trek came along and said, 'Hey, we made it!' It's a program that said there is basic intelligence and goodness and decency in the human animal that will triumph over these things."

My interest lies not just in the show itself; I also go to conventions, sometimes in full Bajoran regalia. My next appearance will be at Toronto Trek in July 2000 at the Regal Constellation Hotel in Toronto.

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