Equals

In music, repetition legitimizes; in Star Trek, Spock legitimizes.

(Full disclosure, I've watched many Adam Neely videos but haven't actually watched the one above.)

Spock has been deployed again and again when Star Trek has "pushed the envelope". When JJ Abrams wanted to launch a new Star Trek film franchise, he brought in Leonard Nimoy to have Spock pass the torch. When Alex Kurtzman wanted to launch a new serialized streaming Star Trek series, he wrote it about Spock's sister (with Spock's father appearing from the first episode), and brought in Spock himself in the second season.

And when they needed to make the big swing for the fences and literally do a Star Trek episode where everyone is singing as if in a musical, who is the very first character to sing? Yes, of course, it's Spock.

The first Very Short Trek episode, "Skin A Cat", continues this trend. In this, Paramount's first officially non-canon official production (and debatably their silliest slice of Star Trek yet), the only character voiced by their "normal" actor is -- yes, you guessed it -- Mr. Spock.

Whenever the in-universe era permits, Spock is consistently invoked whenever Star Trek breaks new ground.

We can even extend this analysis retroactively all the way back to the beginning: when Star Trek was "rebooted" for the very first time -- after "The Cage" was rejected, and the premise reworked into "Where No Man Has Gone Before" -- only Mr. Spock and the Starship Enterprise herself were carried through into the new version, creating a lineage that indelibly legitimizes "The Cage" as Star Trek, even in spite of massive changes otherwise.

(And indeed, the Starships Enterprise play a similar legitimizing role across the franchise -- if an Enterprise appears, it's Star Trek.)

So, here is the question for us: why does Spock enjoy this particular ability to reify something into being Star Trek? Why is it he -- not Kirk, not McCoy -- that gets called on when the showrunners want to "bulk up" on their Star Trek bona fides? Why is it that, if Spock does it, it's Star Trek?

To be clear, I'm not looking to debate whether this is the best Trek film. Rather, I'm asking why so many people see it as such.

I enjoy TWoK well enough, and certainly it is a good film overall. But consider: it is much more militaristic than any Trek before and more than most Trek since, and relatively violent compared to TOS; there is no exploration of strange new worlds; tonally, it is quite different from most Trek stories. (To be clear, I'm not suggesting that these qualities are required for a "good" Trek film -- I'm just noting a few obvious ways that TWoK is unusual.)

In terms of TOS episodes, TWoK is probably most like a combination of "The City On The Edge Of Forever" and "Balance of Terror" -- which, to be fair, are beloved classic episodes, in part because they are somewhat exceptional compared to the rest of the series. So perhaps that gives us some clue as to why the film is so beloved.

In general, TWoK is ultimately about mortality. For all that the film professes to be about Khan, he really is just an Act of God (in the natural disaster sense), creating an unstoppable force that Kirk must humble himself against. The film is really about Kirk learning to confront death -- heightened by the contrast of the new life of Genesis and in his newly-rediscovered son. And that is something that the film did which was new: able to plumb the depths of Kirk's emotional journey at greater length thanks to the larger screen and the longer format.

But, again... it's a great film, but I don't know that it's obvious to me that Kirk learning to deal with the no-win scenario particularly epitomizes what "Star Trek" is (whatever the hell Star Trek actually "is"). In that respect, The Voyage Home seems like the most obvious candidate -- whatever Star Trek "is", to me TVH "feels" more like it than does The Wrath of Khan.

So, why has TWoK earned such a place of acclaim?

(PS: I could write a similar post about First Contact, whose popularity also confuses me.)

To elaborate on my criteria: these should be episodes that can work with a minimum number of sets, no special effect and modest-to-minimal practical effects, and amateur though dedicated actors.

Two examples come to mind.

The first is TNG’s “Measure of a Man”. This episode is almost entirely dialogue and takes place in large part in a single conference room. You could probably do a pretty straightforward 1:1 rendering of this episode on stage.

The second is DIS’s “Species Ten-C”, in which the crew make first contact with the titular species and determine how to communicate. This would require more creativity on the part of the production, but given that the 10-C communicate using light, I imagine that even an amateur production could do something compelling with practical effects.

I’ll admit that I am biased: I think I tend to prefer episodes that meet these criteria. I like my Trek talky and tend to have a soft spot for sappy and hammy episodes. But what intrigues me further about these stories is their ability to pass into cultural myth. I’m not saying that these are the only episodes that could transcend Trek and move into the cultural fabric of the era (think of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader), but they seem like they might have the best shot.

What do you think?

I’m not talking about stuff like O’Brien’s hollow rank pip, I’m talking about stuff like “Why make Chakotay a lt. commander rather than a full commander?”

It seems like there was at least some forethought put into who has what rank, but it’s not clear to me how much thought, nor how much meaning was supposed to be baked in to those decisions.

For example, Dr Crusher was a full commander from Day 1, matched only by Riker on the main cast. Was that supposed to signify the authority afforded to the CMO? Was it supposed to be blatant enough for the audience to “get” it?

One of the most prominent examples is Sisko starting his series as a commander. Again — was that supposed to signify that he was more junior, a younger officer?

Behind the scenes, I wonder if we can trace a waxing and waning military influence in the writers room over the years. I know Roddenberry served, and I think some of the early TNG writers did as well. But I feel like that became less common in later series? (But I don’t know for sure.)

I think it’s striking that rank is significantly downplayed on DSC, except for Burnham and potentially Saru.

For example, the Federation's founding members (Tellarites, Andorians, Vulcans, Humans) were the subject of fan theories and "fanon" for many years before the ENT writers made it official. One of the interesting (and fun) aspects of this recent wave of series has been seeing the writers increasingly add nods to fan theories and pieces of fanon lore over the years. What are some good examples of this?

And relatedly: what's a fan theory, or piece of fanon, that you suspect the current writers believe, even if they haven't explicitly stated it on-screen?

Back in the day on TrekBBS (alas, I cannot find the original post), someone pointed out that Odo shapeshifts less and less often as the series goes on. It was never a super frequent thing, but it occurred more often in the earlier seasons, but, even accounting for his time as a solid in Season 5, he seems to shapeshift less and less in later seasons.

What reasons (in-universe and real-world) might there be for this? Was it just a budget thing? Were the writers using it as a "trick" (writing crutch) earlier on? Are we supposed to believe that Odo is trying to assimilate, or reject his Changeling heritage?

It is one of the most dire aspects of Star Trek Picard: a long-running ban (under "galactic treaty") that eliminates not only research into synthetic life, but appears to ban synthetic lifeforms themselves.

And, candidly, I don't think it's an element of the story that is plainly justified on first read. It appears incredibly -- to the point of being implausibly -- reactionary, to an extent that we haven't seen from the Federation before. It also stretches credulity that a single event -- no matter how catastrophic -- could lead to such a long-lasting draconian policy. For it to be believable, we really need to assume that the Federation already was morally corrupt and weak-willed in a way that makes it in turn seem hard to believe that people of good character like Picard could hold the Federation in such high esteem. (Of course, there is ample evidence that the Federation, or at least Starfleet, has been immoral in this area for quite some time.) This is worsened, of course, by the sudden turnaround at the season's end wherein the ban is lifted, with apparently very little effort.

It's a weakness of storytelling in PIC S1. But, when we start to layer in stories from other series, a new picture emerges.

Let's work backwards. From PIC, we know what happens in 2385:

2385: in the Attack on Mars, rogue synths surreptitiously hijacked by the Romulan anti-AI extremist group known as the “Zhat Vash” lead a devastating attack on Mars, destroying the colonies, the Utopia Planitia shipyards, and the Romulan Rescue armada. Romulan involvement remains unknown for years after.

2385: a political crisis erupts following the Attack on Mars, with at least fourteen Federation members threatening secession. Starfleet chooses to abandon the evacuation mission, and Admiral Picard resigns in protest. Soon thereafter, a wide-ranging interstellar treaty – signed by so many powers that it was sometimes described as a “galactic treaty” – bans research, construction, and even the mere presence of synthetic lifeforms. Dr. Bruce Maddox flees the Federation shortly after and settles on Coppelius with Altan Soong.

Prior to that, PRO tells us about 2382-2384ish:

2382 (speculative): the Protostar launches under the command of Captain Chakotay, an experimental vessel equipped with a new propulsion technology called “proto-warp”, on a mission to return to the Delta Quadrant.

(PRO seems intentionally vague on the exact timing of this launch; potentially it could be placed as far back as 2378, or even maybe as late as 2384.)

2383 (speculative): Construction of the Romulan Rescue armada at Utopia Planitia is underway.

(The timing of the fleet construction is vague, but I argue it needs to be early enough such that the attack in 2385 creates a setback too large to recover from. As I recall, PIC is a little unclear on whether it would have been feasible to rebuild the fleet in time after the attack. But for there to be such severe political blowback, I think the project needed to have been underway for at least a couple of years.)

2383: following temporal displacement, the Protostar is discovered and commandeered by Dal R’El and his crew.

2384: the Dauntless, under the command of Vice Admiral Janeway and equipped with a (limited) quantum slipstream drive, embarks on a search for Captain Chakotay and the Protostar.

2384: the Battle of the Living Construct wreaks a heavy toll on the gathered Starfleet armada, which includes the starships Defiant, Centaur, Sovereign, and possibly Enterprise, as a viral AI hijacks starships via communication transmission and pits them against one another. The crew of the Protostar destroy the ship to terminate the signal and end the battle.

2384: full production of the Protostar class commences

There are two things to highlight here. First, this now marks the second instance of a destructive AI within as many years. It's unclear from PRO's finale how many ships are destroyed, but it is eerily reminiscent of the Attack on Mars a year later.

Second, the early 2380s saw the release of not one but two experimental FTL technologies, to say nothing of the use of sentient holograms as crew members. And yet none of that seems present by PIC S3 -- perhaps an illustration of the profound impact of the destruction of Utopia Planitia (and the all-but-certain brain drain as thousands of Starfleet designers perished).

Finally, we come to LDS' contribution to the tale of the early 2380s:

2381: the Battle of the Texas Trio, in which three autonomous Texas-class starships go rogue due to the malfunction of the AI known as “Badgey”. Before being stopped by a fleet of California-class starships, the “Texas Trio” carried out a devastating attack with significant loss of life, including that of Vice Admiral Buenamigo, who led the development of the Texas class.

That marks three rogue AI catastrophes in four years, with consecutively higher costs each time, culminating in what appears to be the destruction of an entire generation of technology development and Starfleet researchers, whose loss still appears apparent fifteen years later.

The Synth Ban wasn't just a reaction to the Attack on Mars -- it was a reaction to half a decade of AI disasters. No doubt the Ban was encouraged both explicitly and implicitly by Romulan (and Zhat Vash) elements, and even within this broader context, the Ban is still an overreaction. But the Attack on Mars "struck while the iron was hot", at a time when the Federation populace would be more anti-AI than at any point in history.

As a topic for a separate post, but the more I look at the pre-2385 vs post-2385 stories, the more stark a shift I see, and the more potential for potent storytelling becomes apparent. The Attack on Mars and the Romulan Supernova became a generation-defining event: the 9/11 of its time, separating the 90s-esque optimism of TNG, LDS, and PRO, from the 2000s-2010s-esque troubled times of the Synth Ban and PIC.

Of course, it doesn't literally have to be the orchid -- although it's thought-provoking to consider that angle. (An orchid suddenly gets super-evolved with the ability to speak and walk -- damn straight it's gonna want to live and would happily lie to do it.) But the point to consider is the source of various claims that are made about the situation.

Critically, Tuvix claims that he speaks for both Neelix and Tuvok -- that both of them are present and both of them are happy being merged.

But that's actually a somewhat bold claim, especially the second point. Given what we know of Tuvok and Neelix, it seems hard to imagine either of them voluntarily signing up for this -- certainly given their mild personal animosity, but also because we really have no evidence to suggest that either of them feel "incomplete". Like, Tuvok really doesn't seem that interested in becoming more in touch with his emotions; Neelix is a little more debatable, but even he doesn't really seem like he is longing to be more logical or serve in Starfleet.

So Tuvix is making at least one implausible claim; that claim is important because, if it were accurate, then yes, Janeway's decision goes against the wishes of Tuvok, Neelix, and Tuvix, which would be bad.

For the sake of argument, imagine then that Tuvix is actually neither Tuvok nor Neelix, but is the orchid, with access to Tuvok and Neelix's memories, knowledge, and personality -- and maybe even holding mental versions of their persons as silent captives. The orchid would have incentive to lie, and would have all the means at its disposal to engage in a convincing deception.

In that scenario (and certainly if Janeway discovered this to be true), it seems pretty straightforward that deintegrating Tuvix is the right thing to do: Tuvok and Neelix are being held captive with no ability to advocate for themselves. The orchid, while surely benefiting from the situation, does not have the right to usurp the autonomy of Tuvok and Neelix.

It is, of course, unknowable whether the orchid was in fact holding Neelix and Tuvok hostage. But even if we set aside the orchid, and take the more conventional interpretation that Tuvix is a composite individual arising from the transporter combination of Tuvok and Neelix, I think the above argument still holds.

Tuvix is not Tuvok nor Neelix -- that much is clear externally as well as by his own account. Tuvix (who is not Tuvok nor Neelix) claims to speak for both Tuvok and Neelix and makes an assertion that would seem out of character for both individuals. Tuvix makes claims that blatantly serve his self-interest. Tuvix advocates action that benefits him, and which has an unknowable impact on Tuvok and Neelix but either way denies them their autonomous existence.

Whether "Tuvix" is a malicious masquerading hyper-evolved orchid, or a genuine composite individual speaking from his unique perspective, it doesn't really matter. There is no usable evidence of consent from either Tuvok or Neelix, and there are ample reasons to believe that they would not consent to this situation. Janeway has no way of knowing that Tuvok and Neelix aren't both screaming inside of Tuvix, demanding to be freed -- a scenario that does seem likelier true than not.

Tuvix's death is a tragedy, as was his birth.

It's a brief mention in PIC S3. As the crew approaches the restored Enterprise-D at the Fleet Museum, La Forge makes a stray comment, to the effect of:

...and obviously we can't use the Enterprise-E

at which point, everyone turns to Worf, who insists with indignation,

That was not my fault.

There's a beat as everyone makes a face and gives each other a knowing look, and then... that's it.

It's clearly meant to be a wink and a nod from the writers: "Yes, we know you want to know what happened to the E, and no, we aren't going to tell you."

Even the behind-the-scenes materials are mum on the topic. The Star Trek: Picard Logs, posted on Instagram, mention both an incident at Kriilar Prime that apparently led to Worf's departure, as well as a subsequent classified mission after which the ship was taken out of service. (To me, this seems at odds with what is shown on-screen: it's obvious that Worf had something to do with the E's demise, and it's also obvious that the story is common knowledge -- even known to Crusher, who has been "out of the loop" for 20 years. So I think neither of the Logs' stories are satisfactory explanations.)

But, as I just alluded to, there are a few things we can infer about what happened to the E.

First, there's no way it was destroyed and no way it resulted in any loss of life. For one, La Forge's tone is too glib for that -- there's no way he would describe the destruction of a starship in those terms. But more importantly, there's no way that Worf would shirk responsibility for such a thing.

Second, we know it's something unusual, memorable, and (in my opinion) decidedly unclassified. And, I would argue, it seems like it's something... funny. Or perhaps whimsical or ironic or otherwise something that it's polite to strike a glib tone regarding.

Finally, I would suggest that, whatever it was, it happened around 2384. We get a brief sighting of the E in the battle of the end of Prodigy's first season (though it's a little unclear whether it was actually supposed to be the Enterprise or the Sovereign) so we know it's active at least until then. But it seems unlikely that any loss of a starship after the Attack on Mars in 2385 would be considered a laughable matter. What's more, we need the -E to be out of service early enough for the -F to have a reasonable career before being decommissioned in 2401. Assuming that a loss of a starship in the wake of the Romulan Supernova would also not be a laughing matter, that would push an -F launch date perhaps as late as 2389, which seems like an implausibly short service tenure. Retiring the -E in '84 gives some flexibility for when to launch the -F and still give it a long enough service life.

So, what do you think? What are some scenarios that could satisfy the clues we've been given? (I'll put a couple of my ideas in the comments!)

One of the fascinating things about this "third generation" of Star Trek (starting either with Star Trek 2009 or with Discovery) is the way the Star Trek universe has started to knit itself closer together by referencing existing backstory. For example, Discovery wholeheartedly embraced the idea that Andorians and Tellarites are key Federation members and should therefore be highly visible in Starfleet, building on lore originally implied in TOS, largely ignored by TNG, DS9, and VGR, and re-embraced by ENT. Prodigy, for its part, leaned very heavily on VGR for its worldbuilding source material.

This has also produced some interesting quiet exclusions from recent stories -- not to suggest they've been "decanonized" or anything like that, but clearly have been deprioritized. The Tholians come to mind as a ready example of this. Like the Gorn, they debuted in TOS, received stray mentions in DS9, before making an on-screen return in ENT. I wonder if the SNW writers considered using the Tholians but balked at a villain that had such different atmospheric requirements, and all the consequences that entails in terms of dramatic presentation. The Denobulans also seem to fall into a similar bucket; outside of a pair of appearances in PRO, they have received nary a mention since ENT.

Then of course we have the lengthy list of "one-off" civilizations, including the likes of

-the Sheliak
-the Husnock
-the Tzenkethi
-the Jarada
-the Miradorn

And in terms of "underexplored corners", I've only been focusing on the civilizations, but there are any number of other corners we could poke into. The Department of Temporal Investigations, the Corps of Engineers, the Federation Council, the Lunar Colonies... the Trekverse is littered with these little crumbs all over the place -- tiny seeds of ideas that suggest opportunities for imagination.

For my part, I would love to learn more about the Sheliak. For one thing, they seem like they would benefit from the advances in CGI over the last 30 years. But I like that they seem equally matched to the Federation in terms of strength, and that their hyperfocus on legal compliance gives them a generally underused "hat" to wear in the Trekverse. They have some similarity to Vulcans, but taken to an extreme, and layered in with real disdain for "lower life forms" that I think would make for a fascinating "adversary" -- I'd love to see Captain Pike or Captain Seven in a verbal jousting match with a Sheliak commander.

What is an underexplored corner of Trek lore that you think merits exploration?

Numerically speaking, the vast majority of Ferengi we see on screen are sporting what have sometimes been called “headskirts”. Virtually every Ferengi we see on-screen — from the marauder crewmen in Next Generation to Quark’s waiters to various Ferengi businessmen seen in the background — is wearing one. Rom and Nog even wear color-coordinated versions of them once they join the Bajoran militia and Starfleet, respectively.

However, there are a few conspicuous exceptions to this otherwise apparently universal practice, most notably among them being Quark, the only Ferengi character billed as a series lead. This is particularly jarring, as Quark otherwise frames himself as the most Ferengi Ferengi around.

From a real-world perspective, I suspect that the headskirts were originally created to avoid creating a full head prosthetic for guest actors. Once the character of Quark was created, the cost of a reusable full head prosthetic would have been less prohibitive.

In universe, after reviewing which Ferengi are shown with and without headskirts, I believe I have a theory that fits what we’re shown on-screen, and gives us some grounds to infer a few extra bits about certain characters.

First, I propose that the “default” practice for Ferengi is to wear a headskirt. That would explain why we see them worn so frequently. However, I suggest that it is an option to abstain from a headskirt — under certain conditions.

Fundamentally, I propose that the absence of a headskirt indicates that a Ferengi believes he is a “top dog” — in that he has no one above him who could be considered his “boss.” However, I also suggest that there is some subjectivity and risk in this. (Note that “top dog” is not a coincidental choice of words on my part: the Ferengi logo is said to have been drawn to describe the “dog eat dog eat dog” mentality of a capitalist society.)

Zek and Gint are the clearest examples of this: as Grand Nagus, they are the pinnacle “top dog.”

Quark would also fit this criterion: Odo, Kira and Sisko aside, there basically is no one whom Quark answers to (unlike his waiters, who answer to him). Rom and Nog do not fit this criterion, for a few different reasons. Nog is a child at the series start before starting essentially an apprenticeship on his way to joining Starfleet; and obviously once he joins Starfleet, he continues to have those who outrank him. Rom answers to his brother before joining the station’s maintenance crew, at which point he ultimately answers to O’Brien.

There are several other Ferengi who do not wear headskirts, and it definitely is not a clean and tidy division between the bosses and the workers. However, that is where some subjectivity comes in. Rather than being a hard-and-fast rule, the absence (or presence) of a headskirt may be an assertion: “I’m a top dog and I dare you to say otherwise.” It then turns to one’s peers to decide if the claim is justified; if you make the claim but then don’t have the status to back it up, then you lose credibility and standing. So removing one’s headskirt is not without its risk.

Who else have we seen without headskirts?

Galia: as an arms merchant who can purchase his own moon, he would likely be seen as a “deserving top dog” — perfectly reasonable for him to abandon the headskirt.

Brunt: an FCA liquidator, his bare head takes on some new significance in this framework. The FCA is described as “answering to no one” — if that is true, then Brunt’s bare head would serve to reinforce that idea to all those misfortunate enough to cross his path. It’s also possible that liquidators are supposed to answer to someone — a manager or the like — but that Brunt goes bald anyway, just to flaunt his de facto latitude.

Nilva: as the chairman of a large Ferengi company, he likewise probably enjoys “deserving top dog” status.

Reyga: a Ferengi scientist and a bit of a maverick; we might interpret his bare head as indicating some level of rejection of Ferengi norms; if my proposed framework is true, then it is a louder act of protest than we would otherwise realize

Prak: though I doubt this was an intentional choice on the part of the showrunners (I suspect his bare head is the result of extra prosthetics being available from the concurrent production of DS9), Prak does give us an interesting example of someone who perhaps is “too big for his britches” — it is rare to see a DaiMon without a headskirt (presumably because they must answer to some sort of Ferengi admiral), but it’s easy to imagine a DaiMon who is cocky enough to flaunt their bare head — and is probably ridiculed by all his underlings for it. (Recall how Starfleet Captain Styles in The Search For Spock has been mocked for his swagger stick.)

There are several Ferengi whom we might expect to go bare under this framework who still wear the headskirt. Chief among these is Lek, who by his own admission works alone. Lek probably could justify “top dog” status if he wanted to. But the default is to wear a headskirt: to go bare is to make an active statement, and thereby draw attention to oneself. I imagine there are more than a few Ferengi who could justify their own “top dog” status but who would rather keep a lower profile (Rule of Acquisition 168: “Whisper your way to success”).

~ ~ ~

What do you think? Are there any good counter-examples to this? (I admit, I did not check the appearance of every Ferengi in every episode. So it’s possible that I missed someone!) Is this consistent with other things we’ve seen in Ferengi society? Are there any other possible explanations for the pattern of skirted vs bare heads?

Narrated by the plain and simple tailor himself.