STAR TREK?

James T KIrk and Mr. "You couldn't pronounce it" Spock

As an adult I am not a devoted fan of any Star Trek variant. I have, however, watched it enough to wonder about some things. Everybody knows about the red shirt (jumper if your in the UK) and the affect one has on your life expectancy. You would think that the Federation would put a moratorium on red clothing of any kind and investigate the underlying causes of casualties amongst those who wear them. Apparently they don't, and people continue donning them and dying in droves.

Captain Kirk, feeling really relieved he's wearing gold

In Gene Roddenberry's view of the future everybody is happy and content with what they have. I suppose the premise is that once you have free access to everything you won't want for anything. While this appears to work in theory, one must remember that for extremely wealthy people this is SOP.  That doesn't prevent them from accumulating more. Apparently a Bugatti Veyron does not fill that car shaped void in your soul. Hell, a whole building full of automobiles doesn't seem enough. Same with any other material object. I'm pretty sure that far into future there will still be wealthy people with fleets of luxury star ships, perhaps one for each day of the month.

Jay Leno's Garage, part of it at least.

Roddenberry also envisions wars or mass killing among the citizens of the Federation will be a thing of the past. That's reserved for humanoids with bumpy foreheads and pointy ears. You will be able to shoot them all day long. Except, of course, those Vulcans. Not sure why. Maybe because there are no bumps or their ears are less pointy.

Klingons, perhaps hoping they can cling on to their careers

Out of all the peoples in the known galaxy only humans will think to come up with a federation. This may be because we are the only folks with a United Nations. Every other planet only has one race each. They've always been united as a nation. They really have no choice. I guess this is because natural selection doesn't work the same on every world and they all have just one of each kind of creature. On Vulcan, for instance, there is only one kind of intelligent being and they're all the same color, race and religion. Same for birds, reptiles, insects, etc. Genetics on that planet appears less robust, perhaps stagnant. This is a good thing, less competition over resources. Each creature has full dominance in its particular niche.

Planet Vulcan, tourist mecca extrodinaire

Since humans were the first ones to come up with the idea, everyone in the galaxy will sit down someday and say "Hey, let's start this Federation those Earth people were clever enough to think up. We will probably need a place for a headquarters somewhere. Hmmm, let's find an obscure planet way out on a remote arm of the Milky Way" The Earth delegate is standing in the crowd jumping up with their hand raised repeatedly shouting "Pick me!" as if it was a Catholic grade school. The alien races select him, perfectly willing to travel to a totally inconvenient location far from the center of the galaxy where most of them live in relatively close proximity.

Earth is in there somewhere

They also decide that this headquarters should be in sunny San Francisco, which by miracle survived the nuclear war that nearly exterminated mankind. The war also leaves the Golden Gate bridge intact, still standing after four centuries. Being metal it is also highly radioactive, like the amusement rides near Chernobyl. Thousands of years in the future that bridge will be safe to use, but 400 years hence it will be utterly useless for anything more than a walkway for lead suited pedestrians. In all likelihood most people will choose to fly over the bay rather than risk their lives crossing an ancient and rusting, radioactive suspension bridge.

Having a wonderful time, wish you were here

Zephram Cochrane, who's parents had a penchant for odd biblical sounding names, survives the war that ended all wars, at least on earth. Rather than rebuilding civilization, or even a decent shelter for he and his companions, he convinces them all that constructing a new type of space craft with hand tools will be a lot more necessary and interesting than scavenging for food or anything else fundamental to survival. He then mounts the fruit of their hard labor on a ballistic missile. One that, fortunately, never got launched towards the enemy. Not sure how he gets it up there. Perhaps it was built in place, forty feet or so above the base of the launch vehicle. He and his companions obviously overcome that challenge.

For Sale, Previously owned missile, call for price

Cochran then takes it upon himself to board the untested vehicle with two people who haven't even been born yet and launch it into space. Surprise! It works on the first try. Fortune continues to smile upon him. As he cranks up his newly invented hand built untested drive that warps space time, a passing ship full of slightly green people with pointy ears detects the feeble pulses of his warp drive. Since they are joyriding through space in some forsaken backwater of the galaxy with nothing in particular to do they head toward it. Perhaps they hope to find a convenience store full of snacks and soft drinks.

Damn!!! It actually works!!!

I'd be willing to bet that all the while they are whispering prayers that their craft doesn't crash somewhere in New Mexico, which is probably known throughout civilized space as a kind of galactic Bermuda Triangle. Spaceships fly over it and suddenly their systems fail. They must tumble into some sort of vortex because they are never heard from again. Unbeknownst to the alien folks back home, the wreckage and corpses of the crew are swept up and stored in hangars near Groom Lake in Nevada, aka Area 51. Any survivors end up in IDE detention camps with all the other illegal aliens.

Zephram's Folly

Anyway, back to the Vulcans. Much to their surprise and probable disappointment, instead of a convenience store they locate a ragtag group of humans living in tents. As it happens, it also works out for Cochran, who hadn't quite thought things thru and has no way to get down to earth. I suppose the Vulcans scoop up his fragile little spacecraft as they approach our planet. Cochran, his fellow humans, Vulcans and apparently a few crew members from Star Trek: Next Generation (who are there of course to stop the Borg from stopping Cochrane) all have a good ol' time and the entire galaxy is better for it.

Oh Christ! Is this New Mexico?

To make a very long blog post short, beyond this point everybody has "The adventure of a lifetime". The human race scatters out across known space, bringing peace and prosperity to all corners. There are a succession of starships named Enterprise almost as long as the list of ships christened with the same name for hundreds of years in the past. The earth folks do this on a quite a regular basis, perhaps to ease the production budget on the props, as well as the decals used on the model kits sold in hobby shops. Many ships are named for vessels in the past, although I don't think I've heard the name "Bonhomme Richard" bandied about much. Given that it sailed with the United States Navy in 1765 and is almost completely unknown as a Navy carrier built in 1944 and a amphibious assault ship in 1998 she's been long forgotten. Of course that's a lot of letters to splay across that saucer part of a Federation starship. Might take one huge semi-circular stencil to apply.

USS BONHOMME RICHARD, 1944

Names like "Constitution" are still used, and even though space craft are made from metal there is no mention of "Old Ironsides". Probably because her hull is fabricated from some exotic alloy, such as transparent aluminum. Wouldn't make a very inspiring nick name. Like "Enterprise" there are various other famous WWII aircraft carriers invoked such as "Lexington", "Hornet" and "Essex". No "Franklin D. Roosevelt" though. The Republicans probably shot that idea down before any Democrats could even say "Aye". No "Ronald Reagan" or "Gerald Ford" either...Maybe the future will be non-partisan. Probably not.

Whole bunch O' Enterprise

All is well, of course, aside from a few minor skirmishes with the Romulans, Klingons, those guys that Scott Bakula fought, and the Borg,until we come to the new movie series. The entire universe gets rebooted through some bizarre circumstance which triggers all our heroes to travel down a parallel timeline, the Kelvin or some such.  Now, all the aging actors can be replaced with fresh young faces that appeal to entirely new audience. Its a miracle, breathing new life into a very long and jaded story and a few movies that were a total waste of screen time. There are new adventures, new plot lines, new special effects and undoubtedly larger profit shares for all involved.

Despite all that's happened, some people insist on wearing red

To tell the truth, I personally feel the new movies far superior to anything before. They are more lighthearted, not as serious as their predecessors. Fun to watch. No overacting for one. Shatner's Shakespearean training works in Othello, but on planet Whatchamicallit, not so much. The new Spock is actually someone I might like to know. All of them are. You want to have a beer with these guys, regardless of what planet they're from or your on.

As I understand it the rebooted or re-imagined or refinanced Star Trek is in a bit of a pickle right now. The old directors don't seem to want the job and new directors cannot be chosen from a list of several. To top it all off, nobody can agree on a clear vision of where the Star Trek universe is going. They have no vision of its future or words to that effect. Could it be that we've come to the end. Perhaps Star Trek will cease to "Live long and prosper"

I guess I'll just have to keep on watching scifi from the '50s.