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rfmcdonaldI really like Star Trek, but I've too much of a memory for the minutiae of the universe to believe that the worldbuilding procedures are at all coherent. I've no idea how the Federation's economy works. Based on what we've seen in the television shows and the movies, I certainly have no reason no tto believe that the Federation is anything but a collection of pleasant worlds kept in a state of artificial scarcity despite advanced technologies by a self-selected benevolent elite. Star Trek's problems go more deeply still, down to the basic field of characters' motivations.
Take Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The premise of this movie lay in the recognition, by the 23rd centurym that humpback whales were an intelligent species. Unfortunately, during the 21st century the humpback whales were hunted to extinction, their bodies transformed into fertilizer and dog food, so that by the time that the whale probe came around in 2286, all that was left of the species were the ancient audio archives of their song. Naturally, Kirk and friends had to travel back to a time predating the whales' extinction, in order to bring back some living whales to take some good sense to the seventy-five-kilometre long probe, and wacky hijinks ensued.
Let's leave aside the thorny question of cetacean intelligence, already raised here and debated with a reasonable amount of fire. I'm inclined to agree with Temple Grandin that different non-human specis have different sorts of intelligence, different specializations in different areas, and that defining animal consciousnesses entirely by their similarity to the human ideal mind is silly. Why did Kirk imagine that, oh yes, the humpbacks are going to help the species that would end up committing genocide against them? I can just imagine how Spock's mindmeld went.
- What? Why are they attacking us? Yes, we've been out of contact ever since the transmitter broke, but the last we heard everything was going well. They're destroying the oceans? Why aren't they listening to us?
- Um, yes. About that.
It's terribly convenient for everyone that humpbacks are so profoundly benevolent as to forgive humanity their genocides and not, say, travel to the future and beg the whale probe to wreak holy vengeance against the hairy bipeds for their crimes against the World-Ocean and its guardians. Isn't it?
The only positive thing that I can say about Star Trek IV's worldbuilding is that the sentient cetacean species that homo sapiens sapiens exterminated were humpback whales. If the whale probe was communicating, instead, with the orcas, I'd fear even for the humans at Alpha Centauri.
Take Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The premise of this movie lay in the recognition, by the 23rd centurym that humpback whales were an intelligent species. Unfortunately, during the 21st century the humpback whales were hunted to extinction, their bodies transformed into fertilizer and dog food, so that by the time that the whale probe came around in 2286, all that was left of the species were the ancient audio archives of their song. Naturally, Kirk and friends had to travel back to a time predating the whales' extinction, in order to bring back some living whales to take some good sense to the seventy-five-kilometre long probe, and wacky hijinks ensued.
Let's leave aside the thorny question of cetacean intelligence, already raised here and debated with a reasonable amount of fire. I'm inclined to agree with Temple Grandin that different non-human specis have different sorts of intelligence, different specializations in different areas, and that defining animal consciousnesses entirely by their similarity to the human ideal mind is silly. Why did Kirk imagine that, oh yes, the humpbacks are going to help the species that would end up committing genocide against them? I can just imagine how Spock's mindmeld went.
- What? Why are they attacking us? Yes, we've been out of contact ever since the transmitter broke, but the last we heard everything was going well. They're destroying the oceans? Why aren't they listening to us?
- Um, yes. About that.
It's terribly convenient for everyone that humpbacks are so profoundly benevolent as to forgive humanity their genocides and not, say, travel to the future and beg the whale probe to wreak holy vengeance against the hairy bipeds for their crimes against the World-Ocean and its guardians. Isn't it?
The only positive thing that I can say about Star Trek IV's worldbuilding is that the sentient cetacean species that homo sapiens sapiens exterminated were humpback whales. If the whale probe was communicating, instead, with the orcas, I'd fear even for the humans at Alpha Centauri.
