commentary by D.G. Littleford
originally published in Antares 11, April 2003

As I was viewing the episodes of the first season of Enterprise, I began thinking a lot about where the Star Trek franchise has gone and what it has become. I found myself contemplating more and more what was appealing to me about the original Star Trek. While I will admit that all of the series have managed to produce at least a number of fairly interesting and high quality science fiction or adventure episodes, I have been struck by the fact that the later incarnations have become in many respects "the mirror universe" of their predecessor, as it were, in at least a couple of its themes.

One of the recurring themes in original Trek was duty, responsibility, and self-sacrifice, found in the stories "The Alternative Factor," "Who Mourns For Adonais?," "The Empath," "Elaan of Troyius" and the second movie Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

Few things on television have touched me as deeply as did Spock’s speech to Leila about personal duty at the end of "This Side of Paradise." In response to Leila’s plea for him to return to their spore-induced paradise with her, Spock explains in probably some of the most eloquent writing in Star Trek that he has a responsibility to his ship and to "that man on the bridge," a responsibility that had to take precedence over any personal desires. "I am what I am," he gently declares. "And if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else’s."

Contrast that point of view with Commander Tucker’s speech to T’Pol in Enterprise’s "Breaking the Ice". His advice is that she should disregard the obligations she believes she has to her fiancé, to her family, and to her people and just do whatever she wants to do. T’Pol doesn’t even go home to confront and deal with the situation through the laws and customs of her people. She ignores it altogether. Hardly a courageous or inspiring message for our time.

In "The City on the Edge of Forever," Kirk allows the woman he loves to die in order to set the timeline right, so that millions would not die who did not die before. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, we are admonished to have faith that the universe will unfold as it is meant to.

On the other hand, in Voyager’s series finale, "Endgame", Admiral Janeway says to screw the timeline and all that is supposed to be in order to save Seven of Nine and a handful of her crew. True, in Star Trek IV, Kirk and company changed the timeline by going back to the twentieth century and bringing forward two extinct humpback whales. In the latter case, however, the story served to explore the issue of species extinction and the temporal infraction was in the service of saving nothing less than Earth itself, in sharp contrast to the relatively self-serving use of time manipulation in Voyager’s "Endgame".

Another common theme in the original Star Trek was man versus machine, explored in such episodes as "Return of the Archons," "The Apple," "The Changeling," "The Ultimate Computer," "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" and "I, Mudd." An indirect message of these episodes was the inherent worth of Humans (and their fellow organic humanoids) and in crucial respects, Humanity’s superiority to the machine.

In "Court Martial," you had Samuel T. Cogley’s impassioned plea for Kirk’s right to confront his accuser, the computer on board the Enterprise. "In the name of Humanity fading in the shadow of the machine," Cogley plead for the court members to not allow the machine to be elevated above the rights of mankind.

Star Trek: The Next Generation first explored the possibility of rights for sentient machines through the popular android character Data in such episodes as "The Measure of a Man," "The Offspring," and "The Quality of Life." But it was in Voyager that this idea was taken to extreme. In the character of the Doctor, we were given a hologram-computer program that was not only raised to the level of a man, but also elevated to a degree of rights above and beyond any of those of his shipmates. As the series progressed, we observed the Doctor fighting for hologram as well as artistic rights and being granted many of the privileges of a regular crewman, while at the same time being given no more than slaps on the wrist in spite of repeated betrayals of his captain and crew.

Over the years, through Data, the EMH doctor, and the freed Borg, Seven of Nine, we were given the subliminal message of the inherent superior efficiency of the sentient machine. In "Renaissance Man," the Doctor comes to the conclusion that he is a superior being, without substantial contradiction. And although Seven of Nine was ostensibly trying to reclaim her Humanity, it was by virtue of her residual cyborg enhancements that the ship was all too often saved.

As Voyager stories focused more and more on the part-cyborg woman and the hologram computer-man, the unspoken message became that while Human traits are admirable and desirable, they are too good to be explored through the merely Human anymore. I couldn’t help wondering whether twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth century Star Trek humanoids would eventually fall under the benevolent rule of a super-computer, like Landru.

While Deep Space Nine had many well-written and interesting episodes, I found that it also became only indirectly about Humanity. Of its regular characters, only Miles O’Brien was wholly and naturally Human. Captain Sisko, we learned, was actually half-Wormhole Alien, and Doctor Bashir was a genetically enhanced superman like Khan. All the other regular characters were aliens.

In the latest incarnation, the prequel Enterprise, we have returned to an exploration of Humanity through a largely Human cast. However, we are now told that Terrans couldn’t do it alone, couldn’t get out into space and begin colonizing and developing its warp technologies by virtue of its own resources and wits. As Captain John Archer whines in the pilot "Broken Bow," the Vulcans held their space program back when they wouldn’t give Earth the technology the Humans wanted. We find an Earth society that has become dependent and simpering. A Third World nation of the galaxy. The days of heroic Humans who came face to face with the laws of physics, or more advanced aliens, or powerful machines, and through ingenuity, grit, and silent prayer found ways to circumvent them all is over.