Fixing Star Trek

[Cause boy does it need it, if that fugly new ship is any indication!]

This last weekend I visited my Nautilus! co-author in Connecticut; among other things, we watched Star Trek Beyond, which inevitably meant further late-night conversations on where the heck did our favorite child-hood shows go wrong??

Nautilus! in fact began one night as we discussed the utter disappointment of Star Trek: Voyager, what an utter waste of a fascinating premise that was. Stranding a Federation starship on the far-side of the galaxy, in a 24th-century odyssey that wiped the slate clean of all burdensome mythology to spread forth a fresh new cosmos to encounter?  What a dynamite set-up!  They would have to try to mess it up!

Yet mess it up they did: if the hackneyed writing, wooden acting, and one-dimensional stereotypes masquerading as diversity (I'm looking square at you Chakotay!) weren't bad enough, the show was somehow even more subject to the mythology than ever!  What's the point of flying to "Where No Man Has Gone Before" if you're just going to complain about home??  Star Trek: Voyager was like every middle-aged tourist you've ever heard of; as Edward Fischer once wrote:

"Several million of them get up enough nerve each year to leave home in body, but the landscape of their mind never alters. They are annoyed with anything unfamiliar--be it a brand of coffee, the plumbing, or cultural patterns. They want the whole universe paved just like the streets they live on. They walk through castles and museums and cathedrals and are bored. If they were aware of their sagging spirits as they are their aching feet, it would be a hopeful sign. The sense of awe is dried up in them and they seldom show wonder, unless you want to count the many times a day they say, 'I wonder how far away the bus is parked?'"  Star Trek: Voyager was the bland-American-tourist of the Trek franchise, so fixated on getting home that they forgot to actually enjoy the wondrous cosmos.

This utter creative failure was not only frustrating but baffling, considering how it debuted just after The Next Generation had wrapped up its critically acclaimed run, Deep Space Nine was still crescendoing, the TOS movies had finished on a high note, and First Contact appeared to be the beginning of a cracker-jack TNG film series.  In 1996, on its 30th anniversary, the Star Trek franchise appeared unstoppable.

But Voyager turned out to be no aberration, but the start of a long, excruciating, down-ward slide.  It was followed by Star Trek: Enterprise, a prequel series which only doubled down on the lazy writing, wooden acting, and utter lack of awe and wonder to be exploring the cosmos, but perhaps most egregious of all, spent more time setting up the mythology than actually exploring outer space--you know, the whole original point of the series.  When Enterprise was unceremoniously cancelled in 2005, no one shed a tear, save for the fact that for the first time in nearly 20 years, there was no new Trek on TV.

Upon consideration of the failures of Voyager and Enterprise, I think I can better articulate where I think the franchise went wrong: in TOS, TNG, and DS9, the Federation, Starfleet, the whole mythology, is but a means to an end (viz: the exploration of the cosmos), not an end unto itself.  That is, the show's mythology served the story-telling, not the story-telling the mythology.  

Kirk regularly ignored orders when they got in his way (arguably his most defining characteristic), Picard more than once had to speechify against Admirals who failed to live up to his high ideals, and DS9 was all about the deconstruction of Federation self-righteousness. That is, the Federation was great when it helped fulfill their ideals, but was swiftly ignored when it didn't; on a more meta level, the show was at its best when it had the same relationship with its own convoluted mythology: an aide when it helped tell a cool story, but wisely ignored when it didn't.

But beginning subtly with Voyager, and greatly exasperated by Enterprise, the Federation (and by corralary the mythology) became more important than the sheer joie de vivre of exploring the cosmos. Voyager became so fixated on getting home that all else became subordinated to it; they were no longer looking outward but looking back, quite literally; that, in retrospect, may be why a premise intended to free then from prior mythology only tied them all the more burdensomely to it. Enterprise in turn became so preoccupied with establishing the mythology that they plumb forgot why we ever cared about it in the first place. 

In both cases, decent acting and writing took a backseat to conforming to the Federation mythos, when the priorities should have been reversed. The reboot films, likewise, have been so needlessly preoccupied with reestablishing the original mythology that they've steadfastly ignored what this mythology is even supposed to be doing (i.e. encountering the sublime vastness of the cosmos).


And now I learn that CBS this Fall is at last debuting a new Trek series, Star Trek: Discovery.  Initially I was cautiously optimistic, especially when I read about how director Nicholas Meyers of Star Trek II and VI (e.g. the best ones) was being brought on board; the sub-title Discovery also seems to indicate that this iteration would actually remember what the whole point of Trek was supposed to be (though the fact that it will be shortened to STD betrays a fundamental lack of foresight on their part).  But then I learn that this will also be another prequel, that it "[T]akes events mentioned in previous iterations of Trek but never full explored"--that is, yet another Trek show far too enamored with its own mythology. 

Now, I could be completely wrong, the new show could be great (though the fact that it will only debut on CBS's newfangled subscription streaming service is hardly a rousing endorsement), I would sincerely love to be delightfully surprised.  But I deeply dread that, despite having 10 years to clear out the cobwebs, Discovery is about to repeat the same mistakes as the last two shows.  Show-runner Bryan Fuller may promise openly gay characters and a lead who is not the Captain and what-not, but these are but superficial novelties; in reality, nothing has changed.

But it's easy to complain--the real question is, how could it be fixed?  Well fortunately, David Harris and I are Star Trek nerds, and so by definition we have opinions!  Oh boy, do we have opinions!

But our opinions are rooted in a firm diagnosis: Trek lost its way when its mythology ceased being a means to an end (the joy of exploring outer space) and became a means to an end.  He and I, thus, came up with two contrasting yet I believe complimentary visions for fixing the show's relationship with its own mythology.

David's solution is, intriguingly, to lean into the mythology all the harder.  The ridiculous reboot films, remember, kick off the new time-line with the 24th century destruction of Romulus (Trek's Soviet Union stand-in) by a supernova, which created a blackhole that sent a Romulan mining ship 100 years back in time to wreck havoc upon Kirk's era.  The 2009 reboot movie became about how Kirk gets the crew together to defeat this hyper-advanced menace.  But what the heck was the fall-out of what, in essence, was the destruction of the Soviet Union back in the 24th century?  

David W. Harris proposes Star Trek: Nautilus, a show which would follow a Federation star-ship, the USS Nautilus, on its mission to aide the former Romulan Empire, which, with the loss of its capital, has fragmented into several warring regional powers.  One said fragment has established a bona fide democratic Romulan Republic, and opened formal relations with the Federation.  

The Nautilus would act as an aide to the young Republic, operate as a peace-broker between competing Romulan powers, make contact with the many subjugated worlds recently liberated from Romulan rule, and, most importantly, explore this secretive former-empire.  New and fresh possibilities for Trek's twin-missions of humanitarian-aide and deep-space exploration would be opened up.  

There could even be an over-arching narrative: what caused the supernova that destroyed Romulus in the first place?  What new threat is emerging from deep space, which the Romulans encountered first but could next threaten the Federation?  This premise has the added virtue, I believe, of completely upsetting the balance of power in the Trekverse--abandoning the status quo, in other words--thus forcing the franchise to expend far less time and energy on setting up the mythology, and more instead on using the now-disrupted mythology to generate new story-telling.  The shift might be subtle, but nonetheless essential: the mythology would once again be used in favor of fleshing out the premise, and not vice-versa.

My solution would be, as I said, contrasting yet ultimately complimentary: I would take the wasted premise from Voyager but tweak it.  For if the inherent vice of Voyager was that they became so fixated on getting home that they forgot to explore the cosmos, then I would make sure that my Federation starship ends up stranded on the far-side of the galaxy on purpose (perhaps taking advantage of the unstable wormhole from TNG's "The Price").  They would be sent on a 5-year mission of exploration, to document whatever potential threats may be coming the Federation's way as they make their way back home.

I would entitle it Homerically Star Trek: Odyssey, so as to keep constantly foregrounded in the imaginations of both the writers and the viewers that this show is supposed to be an epic, one wherein they are explicitly to encounter super-powered beings that exceed imagination.  For once, the Trekverse's manifold god-like beings would make perfect sense.  This would not be like Voyager, wherein they prance about as the most advanced starship in 100 light-years, boringly white-man-burdening their way through the Delta quadrant; but rather it would feature the Federation's most advanced warship, the USS Odyssey, constantly finding itself vastly out-matched by gods, super-beings, and dyson spheres--and being the better for it!

Adding nuance to the mission: It has now been over 15 years since DS9 finished the Dominion War, which means that the new senior brass in Starfleet are scarred war-veterans still dealing with lingering PTSD.  (The show could perhaps proffer greater resonance in our post-9/11 world increasingly populated with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans).  This show would have a much-needed redemption arc, then, as a starship manned by scarred and suspicious officers learns to regain their sense of wonder and child-like awe as they encounter the sublimity of the cosmos--they would remember why they joined Starfleet in the first place.  

It would be the same arc as Admiral Kirk's in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn--i.e. the best one. It would begin as a mission to help save the Federation, but transform into a mission to save their own souls--which in turn would still save the Federation, as they help remind humanity, upon their return, of why we ever looked to the stars to begin with.  The Odyssey crew would learn both humility and self-reliance, their own utter puniness and great significance.  (This would likewise be a meta-redemption of the Franchise itself, as the show re-learns what the whole franchise was ever supposed to be about).  

Of course this is all purely speculative: absolutely no one has ever asked either me or David to save Star Trek from itself.  What I hope this proverbial message-in-a-bottle has demonstrated, however, is that the recurrent mistake that the franchise has made since 1996 is to presuppose the Trekverse mythology was what was the most interesting part of the show, when in reality it was the fact that it was a Star Trek--a Trek through the Stars!  That's why any of us ever tuned in!  If the franchise is to be resuscitated, it must remember that first--and make new series accordingly.