Christopher, when will you be releasing the annotations for this book?
Spoilers ENT: Rise of the Federation: Uncertain Logic by C. L. Bennett Review Thread
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2/3 through now and no improvement.
If nothing drastic happens quality-wise I don't really see this getting a higher rating than Below Average from me. None of the plots are really doing it for me and Christopher's real world allusions have no subtelty at all...
That's kind of iffy at the moment, since my ISP seems to have stopped hosting websites altogether without bothering to notify me beforehand. At the moment, I have no site. If I don't find some alternative home soon, I'll probably post the annotations on my blog. In fact, I'm looking into the possibility of adapting most of my site content to my blog, but I'm not sure yet if that's the best option.
Deranged Nasat, thank you for your thoughts on Vulcans and imperialism. I think yours is a really well-developed thesis; I'm only going to respond to a couple of parts, though, to keep from completely derailing the thread, and to keep things focused.
Well, here's my thing: It often seems to me that people will have what they think is a motivation for a social practice, but that this masks the real motivation for something, sometimes even from themselves.
Now, granted, this is my ideological bias coming into play here. But for instance--someone may think they believe that women should be submissive to their husbands and that men should be the heads of families because this is what the Bible teaches. (And of course, loaded into those assertions are unconscious assumptions of compulsory heterosexuality.) But the real reason they believe in sexism is that this system provides economic benefits to men--allowing them to dominate families and social structures, and to monopolize wealth. Someone may think that they hate African-Americans because of some imaginary evidence of white superiority. But they actually believe in racism because racism provides economic benefits to white people, plundering various forms of wealth from African-Americans and redistributing it to whites in various manners, and because indoctrination into racism divides working-class whites from blacks and prevents both from rising up against wealthy elites.
Another really good example is the taboo against teenage pregnancy. In the American Northeast, it has become much stronger, a source of extreme shame and perceived moral failing on the part of those who become pregnant at so young an age; in the American South, it is far more common and far less shamed, in spite of the increased religiosity of the South vs. the Northeast, and in spite of the fact that the states of the Northeast generally have a more well-developed social safety net to help people in those situations. Why? Well, states in the Northeast tend to be more prosperous, and teenaged pregnancy threatens families' economic stability. The economic motive may not be stated outright, but it's there, and it creates a moral system to justify it.
So ultimately -- I'm just skeptical of the idea that Vulcan neoimperialism would have been maintained if it didn't provide substantive economic benefits to Vulcan, and of the idea that their primary motivations would be their obsession with order and structure. I don't deny that those motivations exist, but I suspect that they would have developed in order to justify the economic benefits, rather than the economic benefits being a nice bonus.
I think we should talk about this more in the Great Chronological Run-Through when you get to "Journey to Babel!"
Ah, fair catch, then.
Yeah. And because of that, I suspect that any attempt Trip makes to leave Section 31 is ultimately going to be far more costly than he could imagine.
Gracias for the info!
Yeah, I was basically structuring my review like a post in the Chronological Run-Through thread.
As Christopher noted, Vega and Rigel were both added at the same time, at the end of 2164. I arbitrarily numbered Rigel as #7 and Vega as #8, but I don't think the books have established it one way or the other.
D'oh! I forgot all about that part. Thanks for catching that.
It is kind of a nice coincidence, though, when even some truly disparate sources agree with one-another!
(Didn't you allude to the DTI's vault on Eris as having a glowing blue box stored there...?
)
Aaaah, okay, that makes sense. So, in other words, the Administrator of the Vulcan High Command would be like the Commander of the Federation Starfleet? That makes sense.
Another possibility is that the Vulcan head of state is called Administrator, and the Vulcan head of government is the First Minister, and that T'Pau temporarily held both offices.
Well, I can't speak for your creative intent, obviously. But if I am just a reader looking at this without having access to your thoughts, I would be looking at the following things:
So, if I'm just looking at the text itself, my inclination would be to interpret the office of Federation President as being distinct from the office of Federation Council President, and thus to interpret al-Rashid's office as being distinct from, but also as having evolved from, Vanderbilt's office. To me, the office of Federation President is clearly descended from Vanderbilt's office, but they do look separate.
Again, I can't speak for your creative intent. But that is how I would interpret the text by itself.
Love it! Did you see Elba's performance in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom? It was truly brilliant and inspirational. I can totally see him as a great early Federation President.
Well, as much as people sometimes give you crap for wanting to take things that don't make sense and justifying them, I think it was a decision that worked really well here. You managed to give V'Las an interesting personality and backstory and justify T'Pol's use of the name "Romulan" and reconcile this with TrekLit's Rihannsu concept and give us vital insight into Vulcan's recent history, all in one fell swoop.
Fair enough, and I had completely forgotten about the 2168 date for the Azure Nebula!
Fascinating!
Ah, fair point--the description of Vanot coloration went over my head, because I didn't realize Ndiaye was an African surname and forgot about Sangupta being described as pale. I remember the bit where Zeheri remarks that Travis has a typical Vanot complexion, but I just took that to mean that brown skin was common. I definitely missed what you were trying to say about the most common Vanot complexions -- although, in my defense, Kyle MacLachlan kept coming to mind primarily because he's so good at playing a charismatic megalomaniac on Agents of SHIELD.
I stand corrected.
Fair enough. I just really like these guys.
Gotcha. Yeah, they both reminded me of the "Birther" movement--especially the way no mountain of evidence for the authenticity of the real Kir'Shara could convince some people of its legitimacy. The same way no mountain of evidence about President Obama's birth certificate can convince some people that it's real. (I can only presume that these people believe that no birth certificates issued by the State of Hawaii are legitimate...)
I think it worked great. Not every story has to be hard on the characters, and Tower I felt worked just fine--but it was definitely time to bring on the pain in Uncertain Logic.
Indeed, a good allegory would draw upon other parallels, too, since no two social systems are identical. In the case of the Cardassians--yeah, sometimes they are Nazis, but I often find that their dialogue, their syntax, their cultural sensibilities, the dry senses of humor--they remind me of English culture. I suppose this is at least in part informed by Andrew J. Robinson's use of what sounded to me like a Mid-Atlantic accent while playing Garak. But suffice it to say that all those Britishisms Una McCormack uses in her writings work just fine for me when it's the Cardassians she's writing for.
ETA:
It is interesting to note that the entire mission to find the source of the Ware and dismantle their entire system, while providing aid to those worlds hurt by the Ware and by the dismantling of the Ware system, might by Picard's time be considered one massive, massive Prime Directive violation. Is it possible this mission might not turn out so well, that we might see the origin of why there came to be such an extreme interpretation of the noninterference principle of Federation foreign policy?
Well, here's my thing: It often seems to me that people will have what they think is a motivation for a social practice, but that this masks the real motivation for something, sometimes even from themselves.
Now, granted, this is my ideological bias coming into play here. But for instance--someone may think they believe that women should be submissive to their husbands and that men should be the heads of families because this is what the Bible teaches. (And of course, loaded into those assertions are unconscious assumptions of compulsory heterosexuality.) But the real reason they believe in sexism is that this system provides economic benefits to men--allowing them to dominate families and social structures, and to monopolize wealth. Someone may think that they hate African-Americans because of some imaginary evidence of white superiority. But they actually believe in racism because racism provides economic benefits to white people, plundering various forms of wealth from African-Americans and redistributing it to whites in various manners, and because indoctrination into racism divides working-class whites from blacks and prevents both from rising up against wealthy elites.
Another really good example is the taboo against teenage pregnancy. In the American Northeast, it has become much stronger, a source of extreme shame and perceived moral failing on the part of those who become pregnant at so young an age; in the American South, it is far more common and far less shamed, in spite of the increased religiosity of the South vs. the Northeast, and in spite of the fact that the states of the Northeast generally have a more well-developed social safety net to help people in those situations. Why? Well, states in the Northeast tend to be more prosperous, and teenaged pregnancy threatens families' economic stability. The economic motive may not be stated outright, but it's there, and it creates a moral system to justify it.
So ultimately -- I'm just skeptical of the idea that Vulcan neoimperialism would have been maintained if it didn't provide substantive economic benefits to Vulcan, and of the idea that their primary motivations would be their obsession with order and structure. I don't deny that those motivations exist, but I suspect that they would have developed in order to justify the economic benefits, rather than the economic benefits being a nice bonus.
I think we should talk about this more in the Great Chronological Run-Through when you get to "Journey to Babel!"
Ah, fair catch, then.
Yeah. And because of that, I suspect that any attempt Trip makes to leave Section 31 is ultimately going to be far more costly than he could imagine.
When do you suppose we might get a Rise of the Federation book that focuses on the Tellarites? They're the one founding culture (with the possible exception of the Humans on Alpha Centauri and Mars) who've gotten the least amount of attention! We don't even know who their head of state or government, or what their legislature is. Has any ST story ever been set on Tellar? Inquiring minds want to know!
Other than a short visit in one of the SCE stories and an equally short sojourn in Doors Into Chaos, I don't think so. SCE in general has established that the planet is quite soggy, with lots of precipitation (not quite on Ferenginar levels, but it explains the lush green appearance of the planet from orbit), and higher gravity than Earth (which makes sense, given the stockiness of Tellarites). During the Gateways Crisis a quad (not a marriage quad) of Andorians cross over to Tellar and steal back the colAndor Scrolls. All we see of the planet is a museum. The SCE team on da Vinci is then overseeing some repairs on Tellar following the crisis' resolution, at the beginning of Here There Be Monsters. They leave almost immediately.
Gracias for the info!
As for the Tellarite leader, Bart Faulwell claims that the title used is almost unpronounceable, but that would be the original Tellarite, so who knows what it translates to? I once again propose: Big Cheese of Tellar.
Two minor notes, Sci (and also, this post to me helps to make up for Uncertain Logic having to be skipped in Nasat's thread.
Yeah, I was basically structuring my review like a post in the Chronological Run-Through thread.
As Christopher noted, Vega and Rigel were both added at the same time, at the end of 2164. I arbitrarily numbered Rigel as #7 and Vega as #8, but I don't think the books have established it one way or the other.
D'oh! I forgot all about that part. Thanks for catching that.
The full English title of the Dhei/Deltan head of government is the Prime Minister of the Deltan (Dhei) Union. This is consistent with IDW's 2012 miniseries Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who—Assimilation², the Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover comic set (mostly) in 2368, and during the Doctor's eleventh life while he was traveling with Rory Williams and Amy Pond (but also featuring sequences set during Kirk's command of the Enterprise in the 2260s and the Doctor's fourth life). Issue #1 featured a combined Borg/Cybermen fleet attacking Delta IV (Dhei), whereupon the Prime Minister of Delta IV ordered a planetary evacuation. Though I think it is probably safe to say that Assimilation² is still out of continuity with the Pocketverse.
This is a coincidence. I initially outlined the Delta subplot in mid-2012 as part of my initial notes for ROTF Book 1; I ended up having to delay it twice due to the shorter length of Books 1 & 2. And I used the title "prime minister" for the Deltan chief executive in those earliest notes. The Trek/Who crossover had recently come out at that point, but I had not yet read it. I'm not sure whether I got the PM title from some earlier source, but it definitely wasn't that one.
It is kind of a nice coincidence, though, when even some truly disparate sources agree with one-another!
(Didn't you allude to the DTI's vault on Eris as having a glowing blue box stored there...?
)Aaaah, okay, that makes sense. So, in other words, the Administrator of the Vulcan High Command would be like the Commander of the Federation Starfleet? That makes sense.
Another possibility is that the Vulcan head of state is called Administrator, and the Vulcan head of government is the First Minister, and that T'Pau temporarily held both offices.
Well, I can't speak for your creative intent, obviously. But if I am just a reader looking at this without having access to your thoughts, I would be looking at the following things:
- The names of the offices held by Vanderbilt and al-Rashid are different. President of the Council of the United Federation of Planets vs. President of the United Federation of Planets. Being the president of a legislature is different from being the president of the state. Just like the President of the United States in Congress Assembled, under the Articles of Confederation, was a different office from the President of the United States of America under the Constitution.
- The means of selection are different. Vanderbilt was chosen by the Federation Council; al-Rashid and his successor are chosen by popular election.
- The terms of office are different. Vanderbilt served from around early 2162 (A Choice of Futures refers to the Council as having decided to establish the post of Federation Council President roughly six months after the UFP was founded in August 2161) to January 2165--roughly three years. Al-Rashid in Tower of Babel was established to have been elected for a four-year term, which matches the four-year terms established in Articles of the Federation. (To be fair, Bacco's re-election in 2385, established in The Fall: Revelations and Dust, does not match a four-year term, but it is possible that the length of Federation Presidential terms are set by statute rather than by the Constitution.)
- The nature of their relationships with the Council may be different. Yes, the Federation President in Articles is established to serve as the presiding officer of full Council sessions when on-planet (and to have the option, but not be required, to preside over sub-council sessions). But the office is still treated as a separate branch-- in addition to being elected separately, the Federation President may veto Acts of Council, for instance (A Time for Peace, Zero Sum Game). Whereas A Choice of Futures had dialogue in which characters established that the Federation Council President was an office expected to act on behalf of the Council when it could not be in session--a very different status than being a distinct branch of government that may conflict with the Council.
- We also know from The Fall: Peaceable Kingdoms that there exists the office of Speaker of the Council of the United Federation of Planets--an office that would seem redundant if the Federation President were officially the Federation Council President.
So, if I'm just looking at the text itself, my inclination would be to interpret the office of Federation President as being distinct from the office of Federation Council President, and thus to interpret al-Rashid's office as being distinct from, but also as having evolved from, Vanderbilt's office. To me, the office of Federation President is clearly descended from Vanderbilt's office, but they do look separate.
Again, I can't speak for your creative intent. But that is how I would interpret the text by itself.
And if you ask me, he bears a striking resemblance to Idris Elba...
Love it! Did you see Elba's performance in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom? It was truly brilliant and inspirational. I can totally see him as a great early Federation President.
Well, as much as people sometimes give you crap for wanting to take things that don't make sense and justifying them, I think it was a decision that worked really well here. You managed to give V'Las an interesting personality and backstory and justify T'Pol's use of the name "Romulan" and reconcile this with TrekLit's Rihannsu concept and give us vital insight into Vulcan's recent history, all in one fell swoop.
Fair enough, and I had completely forgotten about the 2168 date for the Azure Nebula!
Fascinating!
Ah, fair point--the description of Vanot coloration went over my head, because I didn't realize Ndiaye was an African surname and forgot about Sangupta being described as pale. I remember the bit where Zeheri remarks that Travis has a typical Vanot complexion, but I just took that to mean that brown skin was common. I definitely missed what you were trying to say about the most common Vanot complexions -- although, in my defense, Kyle MacLachlan kept coming to mind primarily because he's so good at playing a charismatic megalomaniac on Agents of SHIELD.
I stand corrected.
Fair enough. I just really like these guys.
Gotcha. Yeah, they both reminded me of the "Birther" movement--especially the way no mountain of evidence for the authenticity of the real Kir'Shara could convince some people of its legitimacy. The same way no mountain of evidence about President Obama's birth certificate can convince some people that it's real. (I can only presume that these people believe that no birth certificates issued by the State of Hawaii are legitimate...)
I think it worked great. Not every story has to be hard on the characters, and Tower I felt worked just fine--but it was definitely time to bring on the pain in Uncertain Logic.
Indeed, a good allegory would draw upon other parallels, too, since no two social systems are identical. In the case of the Cardassians--yeah, sometimes they are Nazis, but I often find that their dialogue, their syntax, their cultural sensibilities, the dry senses of humor--they remind me of English culture. I suppose this is at least in part informed by Andrew J. Robinson's use of what sounded to me like a Mid-Atlantic accent while playing Garak. But suffice it to say that all those Britishisms Una McCormack uses in her writings work just fine for me when it's the Cardassians she's writing for.
ETA:
It is interesting to note that the entire mission to find the source of the Ware and dismantle their entire system, while providing aid to those worlds hurt by the Ware and by the dismantling of the Ware system, might by Picard's time be considered one massive, massive Prime Directive violation. Is it possible this mission might not turn out so well, that we might see the origin of why there came to be such an extreme interpretation of the noninterference principle of Federation foreign policy?
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I think it'll have to be later than timeline-wise; we know from SCE:Aftermath that the Prime Directive doesn't get solidified until in or after the late 22nd century. This might end up as a foreshadowing of future events in that direction, but if there is some singular event that could be pointed to as the origin of the Prime Directive, it's probably still at least two or three decades to come.
Even aside from appearance, I'm surprised that Vabion reminded you of Cal, since in my mind they're profoundly different characters. Cal is unstable, emotional, needy, and fiery-tempered. Vabion is cool, intellectual, disciplined, and supremely self-assured, the kind of man who'd never allow himself the weakness of a display of temper. The reason I chose Lance Reddick as my mental model for him is because of Reddick's vocal performance as Ra's al Ghul in episodes of Beware the Batman that were airing around the time I wrote Vabion's first scenes. His controlled, haughty delivery in that role influenced Vabion's character.
His accent as Garak doesn't sound any different to me from his normal accent. His delivery is a bit more arch and upper-class than usual, but the vowels and consonants aren't any different. Garak's voice was basically Robinson's impression of Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo in The Man from UNCLE. Vaughn and Robinson are both natives of New York City.
I'll just say that I'm taking full advantage of the opportunity to write about a Starfleet that isn't yet bound by the Prime Directive, and to explore both the opportunities and hazards thereof.
Ah, thank you for that tidbit. I'm afraid I didn't read the majority of the SCE series.
It's not that Vabion reminds me of Cal, as that I could see in MacLachlan's performance as Cal a certain presence, an ability to convey charismatic megalomania--and charismatic megalomaniac is how I think of Vabion. Add to this the fact that I've recently seen the first two episodes of Twin Peaks, in which MacLachlan plays an eccentric but very controlled, disciplined FBI Special Agent, and MacLaclan just got stuck in my mind for Vabion.
It's completely subjective, of course, but it really had more to do with the kind of presence MacLachlan brings than with the particularities of the Cal character.
I'm afraid I never saw Beware the Batman. Note to self: Look it up...
Well--mind you, I'm not enough of an expert on these things to speak with any certainty, but, to me, his accent as Garak sounds like it's Mid-Atlantic. The Mid-Atlantic accent was very commonly taught in American theatre until the post-World War II era, and is still sometimes taught; it's entirely possible that Robinson, who IIRC was coming up in the American theatre industry in the 1960s, might have been taught that accent, and so might have used it, or aspects of it, for Garak's style of speech.
I've never seen The Man From UNCLE, so I can't comment on that part.
Once again, conversation here has inspired me to try and articulate my way of viewing things, to a degree that I rarely would elsewhere. So thank you for providing that stimulus. I've been trying to find a way to word this that will not seem to meander all over the place and off topic, and so I apologise for the inevitable semi-derailment.
The easy thing to say is, yes, that I second (or third) the note of satisfaction that Sci has given an evaluation post on this book as he has so many in my chronology thread. These are always appreciated, Sci.
Oh, I very much agree. Very much. But in that agreement is the crux of my dissatisfaction with your answer. I mean, we can suffice it to say that I don't agree with some of your examples up there - indeed, I disagree entirely with your analysis in at least one, to the extent that I would suggest that people's own sunken motivations are allowing them to discard sounder branches and boughs of thought in favour of well-worn and socially beneficial tracks that conform to the tribalist pattern. And in doing so, ironically, they maintain what I would categorize as injustice (or, at least, social realities detrimental to sapient dignity) because to challenge the ideological models would threaten the social structure to which one is indebted - and thus would be detrimental to one's ambitions. The social brain knows what it needs to do in order to preserve the societal model it's a part of. From my point of view, and simply speaking personal opinion here, believing in such a view of society and the attendant implications is not compatible with stated and indeed demonstrated positions elsewhere. Nor is it, to me, internally consistent. And this is where I strongly agree with you.
I essentially agree that true motivation is below the surface, and often invisible. One should never take the mask at face value. One should not identify motive on the level of the assumed belief, the stated objective, the spoken plea to morals or principles, for these are not the motivation, and failure to understand a person's motives can lead to your chasing shadows, or becoming disappointed or ultimately in conflict with them. Sometimes, indeed very often, those stated details are accurate and presented in good faith - I'm not saying everyone lies all the time. (Or maybe I'm saying that it's all true - especially the lies). I'm not saying you don't trust people. But often, as you examine the catalogue of your interactions with them, there will be discrepancies. Leaving aside the incredibly important fact that such discrepancies might be the result of your own perceptual grid distorting your perspective, and on top of this that you cannot assume that you know their real motive when they don't, you must then try to build a consistent model of their motivations. Keeping in mind your own susceptibilities, you can make the attempt to genuinely understand them, and that's the key to ensuring that they cannot disappoint you, and thus anger you.
The motivation lies in the instinctual hardwiring. In most people - the vast majority in my experience, and I'm talking 999 out of 1000, at least - that is a tribal model. Group affiliation and individual status within that group are the twin poles by which behaviour is judged in any situation wherein basic survival needs are sufficiently met. It used to anger and frustrate me when I'd face the contradictions of people - I won't say "hypocrisy" because that is a loaded word that I don't think should be tossed around, particularly when conscious intent is often, I believe, lacking. But eventually I reasoned that all people, unless truly, honestly insane (and that state of being is of course very rare), are in fact consistent. If there is contradiction between their statement of identity, intent, principles, etc. and their behaviour, attitude or perspective on an adjacent issue, then it is a foolish and arrogant mistake to assume that they were being inconsistent. It's not their fault you failed to look beyond the mask and attempt to understand them. If what they say, do, believe, follow, etc., does not match what you have on the card in front of you - then the definition on your card is wrong.
People exist within a political framework and they share a worldview in terms of certain perceptual grids, the structures put in place by a combination of neurology and the input of others (input that takes hold all the swifter for those inclined to conform to what they observe or are fed, as most social animals are). It enables easier navigating and, all-importantly, easier tracking of status within the social order, because the grid can be shared and all external matters or stimuli can be related to points on that grid, allowing a cohesive response from all community members. Thus, people view the world in terms of that perceptual grid. At initial response to stimuli, this means that things only tend to register in certain ways; they reach the person through the grid and are automatically shaped by it. On the level of decision making - analysis of incoming data, I suppose we could say - there is a strong psychological need to maintain and strengthen the grid, as it is the ward against chaos, the means by which one knows that they have status and position within a group structure, and their psychology requires this. Anything that can be interpreted in terms that confirm or sustain that grid, that reinforce the assumptions on which it relies, will be made prominent and worthy of attention, and this will in turn reinforce the supposed validity of the grid. Conversely, anything that might be seen to conflict with the grid, and challenge the assumptions that inform the worldview, is either twisted / contextualized / interpreted in a way that actually reinforces the grid (or at least fits comfortably enough within it), or is downplayed if not discarded. On occasion, it is violently rejected. Once a belief system is in place, then reality can be understood only in terms of that filter, so long as it remains in place; indeed, the filter is supposed to in fact be reality. The assumptions will always look reasonable, for they are seen to - obviously - match up with reality. If you place a blue film over your eyes, the world appears blue.
Most humans - and I imagine for the purposes of these Trek discussions most humanoids, since they share so much else - are tribalist. They naturally locate themselves within smallish group structures, their motives being almost paradoxical. On the one hand they seek security through conformity, through knowing they are one with the group, and they modify their behaviour and thinking to match those around them. Paradoxically, they desire individual status and thus jostle for position and recognition. This is the basis of all tribal politics.
Tribalists are dependent on their grids. They tend not to appreciate anything that disagrees with their notion that the world is blue, so to speak. Sometimes they attack it. Often they just discard it as not worth causing a conflict over - most people prefer allies to foes. But if it openly threatens the integrity of the ideological grid - and thus, on the level of basic motive, the security of the individual in question - it's treated as illegitimate. As, often, is the one bringing this alternative forward. Tribalists do not mourn the refuse they discard. If it couldn't incorporate and, one way or another, serve the system - reinforce the worldview that serves to provide the desired security, status and promise of needs met that group membership brings (and plenty of opportunities for signalling and posturing, too, which is where their desires and impulses turn when survival is no longer an immediately pressing concern. Classic tribal behaviour - they fight and squabble for status, but comes the outsider and they are back to back) - then good riddance to it. Challenges are only tolerated if they don't challenge at all. Which is why I'd claim that the bulk of any society is conservative and reactionary, and those who proclaim themselves progressive usually are not. Instead they are the Meya Rejals of the setting, reinforcing the system with a few tweaks in place, unwilling to truly threaten the very system that they manipulated and rode into positions that benefit them. You stir the pot, oh yes, but you don't break the pot or scoop all the broth into a new pot.
What this reduces to then, is that, yes, people often believe they're doing things for one reason - often quite sincerely - when really they're driven by other motives entirely. And I would note that the Vulcan drive to order and control is indeed, in my view, based in deeper motives than mere philosophy, but these, I'd argue, are not motives of economic gain. They're motives of survival and of social/political navigation, and those are more powerful, as they're required to be met before said economic gain becomes a concern. I could easily see Vulcans prioritising their zealous moral justifications over wealth (though again, I'm sure any wealth that did result made the whole thing even more comfortable to them!)
Again, I must ask pardon for taking this into personal philosophy, and at such length, but I feel that this will best explain where I'm coming from and help contextualise a lot of my thinking, which I rarely explain too well.
I think that the moral and religious motives cannot be understated in this case. The Vulcan identity is built around denying the baser, survival-orientated instincts that dominated them for so long. They are a society in perpetual war against their perception of their core natures, to the extent that their views can be, ironically, very illogical - Christopher's various musings on how Vulcans deny many healthy and logical impulses come to mind here, e.g. shying away from the neurological truths that emotion informs reason. Vulcans are at war with their base instincts. And therefore are defined around them; they drive the Vulcans' preoccupation with restraint and repression, order and structure. Denying something so determinedly is as good as embracing it; there's not much of a distinction, either way it rules you.
As for the High Command and its behaviours being based in Surakian teachings and moral justifications (and thus, in my model, fuelled by the base instincts in eternal opposition/grappling interface with the perceptual grid they employ), and not by economic gain, well, I think that is most helpfully explained in terms of my view of Surak VS others attempting to live by his ideas.
Let me try and articulate this.
Again, your own description of reality up-thread demonstrates the truth of what you say - after all, one's own societal and economic system is dependent on certain ideological positions and received truths being in ascendance and certain left unquestioned, leading a worldview to follow certain paths while leaving others untaken and unexplored, no matter the benefit or even necessity of doing so. Society must be defined along certain lines that avoid the pitfalls of awareness or dissent that might threaten and challenge the tribal structure and thus the security of the individuals who are found among it.
I've made a little diagram of how I believe (this is my own ponderings and perceptions only, of course) the tribal model of identification works compared to what I'd label as my model. The green is the community, the yellow a tentative alliance, the dots individual people, the lines linking the dots allegiance and identification.
Most people affiliate with structured groups - religious, political, ideological. Often they'll even equate the group with their personal identity. It's not "my theistic beliefs are Christian", it's "I'm a Christian". These groups are of many sizes, but politics will always reduce them down to the instinctively "correct" size when not united against a shared outsider. The result, of course, is layered shells of affiliated identity, with the self right at the middle.
The tribal model and the instinctive urge to "run" it in the brain (or is the brain structured so that this is the only model it can comfortably run?) is, I'd say, why people generally don't do well in situations where they don't know people and there aren't implicit physical consequences - YouTube comments, etc. People talk about "anonymity" on the internet as a catalyst for aggressive or "anti-social" behaviours, but I think it's simply because they've entered a social arena with strangers; that is, people who they have no affiliation or allegiance with, and thus minimal or non-existent sense of community. Plus, of course, no-one can hit them. As with hens or fighting fish, there exists a societal balance, partially hierarchal. Upset that balance by introducing new members and there is conflict until the new social order can be established. People in these situations have been thrust into a setting absent an inherent community - and to the tribalist instinct there is no community absent political or familial allegiance; community is a limited sphere of those one is in league with, linked by kinship or mutual obligation as defined through and on a shared perceptual grid. They must jostle to establish a sense of where they stand, or maybe they're uncomfortable and so given to gaining security through posturing. They are creatures of order plunged into chaos, and they must 'retune' themselves to plug back into order or have the new reality filter correctly through their grid or grids, depending on how fused those grids are.
The system I would call my instinctive wiring has no inherent sense of political allegiance. The emotional urge to belonging and societal acceptance is of course present - indeed, likely unusually strong - but other people are considered more like drops in an ocean than assets of a particular group (which nonetheless has them in its clutches like some soulless monster). One might say people like me are the opposite of the norm - beings of chaos who are immersed in order. (As I've said before, I was always the most well behaved child in class. Show me a rule and I'd follow it happily and with earnest commitment. The only difficulty I ever caused was my wilful streak, because on those generally rare occasions that I didn't accept a rule system, I'd just go my own way and not follow it. Not rebel or make a fuss, of course, just do my own thing. Most people are outwardly rebellious but inwardly conformist; people like me, I maintain, are outwardly conformist and inwardly individual). There is no legitimacy to tribal politics because there is no tribe. Error; does not compute. There is no inherent sense of being part of a structured group. There's the emotional sense of connection - which covers pretty much everyone, though obviously is more powerful by far with some - and there is the legal and moral framework that is established, negotiated and happily submitted to, but there is no sense of inherent allegiance. Indeed, groups are the bad guys, for they warp the community like gravity wells in the fabric of space time. Caught between the rules and tribal self-betterment, the tribalist goes with the latter, seeing rules as a framework to "catch out" others and limit the competition. Rules are for the rival, not for you. The needs of the community, which consists of individuals, will not be met when tribal group identification and affiliation - and the various social structures that are inherent there, including certain general categories of issues that you brought up above - occur.
To get back at last to the topic at hand, I've often thought that Surak - particularly as depicted in Duane's works, which inform much of the novels' sense of who Surak was, I think, was likely the Vulcan equivalent of this. He's wired differently. Of course warfare and conflict wasn't logical. It couldn't be a part of correct cthia. Does not compute. He was simply ludicrous and arrogant enough to say "no, everyone else's way isn't as good; my way is better for everyone", because he decided that would serve them all best if they agreed to it. Eventually they did.
Christopher actually came close to this in Orion's Hounds, in which Troi wondered briefly if Surak was autistic.
Absent direct referral to his writings, or his disciples, etc., I can see how gradually his ideas, now running as software within a different form of hardware, so to speak, would end up being taken down different paths. Doesn't mean they weren't adhered to loyally by most (V'Las and some of the truly exploitative being exceptions of course), simply that it was perhaps inevitable that Surak's ideas, applied by Vulcans operating on a tribal model, would take the form that the High Command emerged onto our screens as.
As a final point on this topic (), there's also the possibility of projection. Which is to say, the mental system that works on the basis of political manoeuvring will perhaps tend to evaluate any and all motives in line with that means of thinking.
The easy thing to say is, yes, that I second (or third) the note of satisfaction that Sci has given an evaluation post on this book as he has so many in my chronology thread. These are always appreciated, Sci.
Oh, I very much agree. Very much. But in that agreement is the crux of my dissatisfaction with your answer. I mean, we can suffice it to say that I don't agree with some of your examples up there - indeed, I disagree entirely with your analysis in at least one, to the extent that I would suggest that people's own sunken motivations are allowing them to discard sounder branches and boughs of thought in favour of well-worn and socially beneficial tracks that conform to the tribalist pattern. And in doing so, ironically, they maintain what I would categorize as injustice (or, at least, social realities detrimental to sapient dignity) because to challenge the ideological models would threaten the social structure to which one is indebted - and thus would be detrimental to one's ambitions. The social brain knows what it needs to do in order to preserve the societal model it's a part of. From my point of view, and simply speaking personal opinion here, believing in such a view of society and the attendant implications is not compatible with stated and indeed demonstrated positions elsewhere. Nor is it, to me, internally consistent. And this is where I strongly agree with you.
I essentially agree that true motivation is below the surface, and often invisible. One should never take the mask at face value. One should not identify motive on the level of the assumed belief, the stated objective, the spoken plea to morals or principles, for these are not the motivation, and failure to understand a person's motives can lead to your chasing shadows, or becoming disappointed or ultimately in conflict with them. Sometimes, indeed very often, those stated details are accurate and presented in good faith - I'm not saying everyone lies all the time. (Or maybe I'm saying that it's all true - especially the lies). I'm not saying you don't trust people. But often, as you examine the catalogue of your interactions with them, there will be discrepancies. Leaving aside the incredibly important fact that such discrepancies might be the result of your own perceptual grid distorting your perspective, and on top of this that you cannot assume that you know their real motive when they don't, you must then try to build a consistent model of their motivations. Keeping in mind your own susceptibilities, you can make the attempt to genuinely understand them, and that's the key to ensuring that they cannot disappoint you, and thus anger you.
The motivation lies in the instinctual hardwiring. In most people - the vast majority in my experience, and I'm talking 999 out of 1000, at least - that is a tribal model. Group affiliation and individual status within that group are the twin poles by which behaviour is judged in any situation wherein basic survival needs are sufficiently met. It used to anger and frustrate me when I'd face the contradictions of people - I won't say "hypocrisy" because that is a loaded word that I don't think should be tossed around, particularly when conscious intent is often, I believe, lacking. But eventually I reasoned that all people, unless truly, honestly insane (and that state of being is of course very rare), are in fact consistent. If there is contradiction between their statement of identity, intent, principles, etc. and their behaviour, attitude or perspective on an adjacent issue, then it is a foolish and arrogant mistake to assume that they were being inconsistent. It's not their fault you failed to look beyond the mask and attempt to understand them. If what they say, do, believe, follow, etc., does not match what you have on the card in front of you - then the definition on your card is wrong.
People exist within a political framework and they share a worldview in terms of certain perceptual grids, the structures put in place by a combination of neurology and the input of others (input that takes hold all the swifter for those inclined to conform to what they observe or are fed, as most social animals are). It enables easier navigating and, all-importantly, easier tracking of status within the social order, because the grid can be shared and all external matters or stimuli can be related to points on that grid, allowing a cohesive response from all community members. Thus, people view the world in terms of that perceptual grid. At initial response to stimuli, this means that things only tend to register in certain ways; they reach the person through the grid and are automatically shaped by it. On the level of decision making - analysis of incoming data, I suppose we could say - there is a strong psychological need to maintain and strengthen the grid, as it is the ward against chaos, the means by which one knows that they have status and position within a group structure, and their psychology requires this. Anything that can be interpreted in terms that confirm or sustain that grid, that reinforce the assumptions on which it relies, will be made prominent and worthy of attention, and this will in turn reinforce the supposed validity of the grid. Conversely, anything that might be seen to conflict with the grid, and challenge the assumptions that inform the worldview, is either twisted / contextualized / interpreted in a way that actually reinforces the grid (or at least fits comfortably enough within it), or is downplayed if not discarded. On occasion, it is violently rejected. Once a belief system is in place, then reality can be understood only in terms of that filter, so long as it remains in place; indeed, the filter is supposed to in fact be reality. The assumptions will always look reasonable, for they are seen to - obviously - match up with reality. If you place a blue film over your eyes, the world appears blue.
Most humans - and I imagine for the purposes of these Trek discussions most humanoids, since they share so much else - are tribalist. They naturally locate themselves within smallish group structures, their motives being almost paradoxical. On the one hand they seek security through conformity, through knowing they are one with the group, and they modify their behaviour and thinking to match those around them. Paradoxically, they desire individual status and thus jostle for position and recognition. This is the basis of all tribal politics.
Tribalists are dependent on their grids. They tend not to appreciate anything that disagrees with their notion that the world is blue, so to speak. Sometimes they attack it. Often they just discard it as not worth causing a conflict over - most people prefer allies to foes. But if it openly threatens the integrity of the ideological grid - and thus, on the level of basic motive, the security of the individual in question - it's treated as illegitimate. As, often, is the one bringing this alternative forward. Tribalists do not mourn the refuse they discard. If it couldn't incorporate and, one way or another, serve the system - reinforce the worldview that serves to provide the desired security, status and promise of needs met that group membership brings (and plenty of opportunities for signalling and posturing, too, which is where their desires and impulses turn when survival is no longer an immediately pressing concern. Classic tribal behaviour - they fight and squabble for status, but comes the outsider and they are back to back) - then good riddance to it. Challenges are only tolerated if they don't challenge at all. Which is why I'd claim that the bulk of any society is conservative and reactionary, and those who proclaim themselves progressive usually are not. Instead they are the Meya Rejals of the setting, reinforcing the system with a few tweaks in place, unwilling to truly threaten the very system that they manipulated and rode into positions that benefit them. You stir the pot, oh yes, but you don't break the pot or scoop all the broth into a new pot.
What this reduces to then, is that, yes, people often believe they're doing things for one reason - often quite sincerely - when really they're driven by other motives entirely. And I would note that the Vulcan drive to order and control is indeed, in my view, based in deeper motives than mere philosophy, but these, I'd argue, are not motives of economic gain. They're motives of survival and of social/political navigation, and those are more powerful, as they're required to be met before said economic gain becomes a concern. I could easily see Vulcans prioritising their zealous moral justifications over wealth (though again, I'm sure any wealth that did result made the whole thing even more comfortable to them!)
Again, I must ask pardon for taking this into personal philosophy, and at such length, but I feel that this will best explain where I'm coming from and help contextualise a lot of my thinking, which I rarely explain too well.
I think that the moral and religious motives cannot be understated in this case. The Vulcan identity is built around denying the baser, survival-orientated instincts that dominated them for so long. They are a society in perpetual war against their perception of their core natures, to the extent that their views can be, ironically, very illogical - Christopher's various musings on how Vulcans deny many healthy and logical impulses come to mind here, e.g. shying away from the neurological truths that emotion informs reason. Vulcans are at war with their base instincts. And therefore are defined around them; they drive the Vulcans' preoccupation with restraint and repression, order and structure. Denying something so determinedly is as good as embracing it; there's not much of a distinction, either way it rules you.
As for the High Command and its behaviours being based in Surakian teachings and moral justifications (and thus, in my model, fuelled by the base instincts in eternal opposition/grappling interface with the perceptual grid they employ), and not by economic gain, well, I think that is most helpfully explained in terms of my view of Surak VS others attempting to live by his ideas.
Let me try and articulate this.
Again, your own description of reality up-thread demonstrates the truth of what you say - after all, one's own societal and economic system is dependent on certain ideological positions and received truths being in ascendance and certain left unquestioned, leading a worldview to follow certain paths while leaving others untaken and unexplored, no matter the benefit or even necessity of doing so. Society must be defined along certain lines that avoid the pitfalls of awareness or dissent that might threaten and challenge the tribal structure and thus the security of the individuals who are found among it.
I've made a little diagram of how I believe (this is my own ponderings and perceptions only, of course) the tribal model of identification works compared to what I'd label as my model. The green is the community, the yellow a tentative alliance, the dots individual people, the lines linking the dots allegiance and identification.
Most people affiliate with structured groups - religious, political, ideological. Often they'll even equate the group with their personal identity. It's not "my theistic beliefs are Christian", it's "I'm a Christian". These groups are of many sizes, but politics will always reduce them down to the instinctively "correct" size when not united against a shared outsider. The result, of course, is layered shells of affiliated identity, with the self right at the middle.
The tribal model and the instinctive urge to "run" it in the brain (or is the brain structured so that this is the only model it can comfortably run?) is, I'd say, why people generally don't do well in situations where they don't know people and there aren't implicit physical consequences - YouTube comments, etc. People talk about "anonymity" on the internet as a catalyst for aggressive or "anti-social" behaviours, but I think it's simply because they've entered a social arena with strangers; that is, people who they have no affiliation or allegiance with, and thus minimal or non-existent sense of community. Plus, of course, no-one can hit them. As with hens or fighting fish, there exists a societal balance, partially hierarchal. Upset that balance by introducing new members and there is conflict until the new social order can be established. People in these situations have been thrust into a setting absent an inherent community - and to the tribalist instinct there is no community absent political or familial allegiance; community is a limited sphere of those one is in league with, linked by kinship or mutual obligation as defined through and on a shared perceptual grid. They must jostle to establish a sense of where they stand, or maybe they're uncomfortable and so given to gaining security through posturing. They are creatures of order plunged into chaos, and they must 'retune' themselves to plug back into order or have the new reality filter correctly through their grid or grids, depending on how fused those grids are.
The system I would call my instinctive wiring has no inherent sense of political allegiance. The emotional urge to belonging and societal acceptance is of course present - indeed, likely unusually strong - but other people are considered more like drops in an ocean than assets of a particular group (which nonetheless has them in its clutches like some soulless monster). One might say people like me are the opposite of the norm - beings of chaos who are immersed in order. (As I've said before, I was always the most well behaved child in class. Show me a rule and I'd follow it happily and with earnest commitment. The only difficulty I ever caused was my wilful streak, because on those generally rare occasions that I didn't accept a rule system, I'd just go my own way and not follow it. Not rebel or make a fuss, of course, just do my own thing. Most people are outwardly rebellious but inwardly conformist; people like me, I maintain, are outwardly conformist and inwardly individual). There is no legitimacy to tribal politics because there is no tribe. Error; does not compute. There is no inherent sense of being part of a structured group. There's the emotional sense of connection - which covers pretty much everyone, though obviously is more powerful by far with some - and there is the legal and moral framework that is established, negotiated and happily submitted to, but there is no sense of inherent allegiance. Indeed, groups are the bad guys, for they warp the community like gravity wells in the fabric of space time. Caught between the rules and tribal self-betterment, the tribalist goes with the latter, seeing rules as a framework to "catch out" others and limit the competition. Rules are for the rival, not for you. The needs of the community, which consists of individuals, will not be met when tribal group identification and affiliation - and the various social structures that are inherent there, including certain general categories of issues that you brought up above - occur.
To get back at last to the topic at hand, I've often thought that Surak - particularly as depicted in Duane's works, which inform much of the novels' sense of who Surak was, I think, was likely the Vulcan equivalent of this. He's wired differently. Of course warfare and conflict wasn't logical. It couldn't be a part of correct cthia. Does not compute. He was simply ludicrous and arrogant enough to say "no, everyone else's way isn't as good; my way is better for everyone", because he decided that would serve them all best if they agreed to it. Eventually they did.
Christopher actually came close to this in Orion's Hounds, in which Troi wondered briefly if Surak was autistic.
Absent direct referral to his writings, or his disciples, etc., I can see how gradually his ideas, now running as software within a different form of hardware, so to speak, would end up being taken down different paths. Doesn't mean they weren't adhered to loyally by most (V'Las and some of the truly exploitative being exceptions of course), simply that it was perhaps inevitable that Surak's ideas, applied by Vulcans operating on a tribal model, would take the form that the High Command emerged onto our screens as.
As a final point on this topic (
), there's also the possibility of projection. Which is to say, the mental system that works on the basis of political manoeuvring will perhaps tend to evaluate any and all motives in line with that means of thinking.
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I would argue against it--not everything needs to be online in a Web 2.0 form, for one thing, and I'm reminded of the precedent set by Dayton Ward, who talked about doing the same thing with his previous homepage only to have his annotations just disappear.
Either way, I'm sorry to hear your ISP pulled that move in the first place.
I would argue against it--not everything needs to be online in a Web 2.0 form, for one thing, and I'm reminded of the precedent set by Dayton Ward, who talked about doing the same thing with his previous homepage only to have his annotations just disappear.
Either way, I'm sorry to hear your ISP pulled that move in the first place.
Argue against which? Getting a new page, or moving my stuff to my blog?
To Nasat's musings: I, for one, have never felt the need to define myself by affiliation with a group, and have tended to be puzzled by people who do. Perhaps it's because I was always a social outsider in my youth. I wasn't taught to define my identity by what clique I associated with, and indeed I tended to be treated rather badly by those who did belong to cliques and who reinforced their sense of group identity by aggressively reminding me of my exclusion from their groups. I define myself as me, as an individual rather than a component of a group. I guess to some extent I define myself as a Bennett, though that's more the case in recent years as I've reconnected with my larger family; my father tended to be more of a loner, and I think I got that from him. Certainly I have attributes and attitudes in common with other people, like Trekkies and writers and Cincinnatians, but while those associations carry meaning to me, I don't consider any of them to be the overriding definition of who I am.
Certainly there is a strong tendency for people to think "tribally" and define themselves by group affiliations, but I'd caution against overestimating how universal that tendency is. Human behavior tends to have a great deal of diversity; any trait is going to fall along a spectrum, in this case ranging from total identification with a group to total individuality. It may be that there are a lot of people who aren't inclined to think tribally, but they're harder to notice than the ones who do, because the tribalists form larger and more vocal groups and tend to either subsume or marginalize everyone else.
I certainly understand your point. You're right, of course, to note that I need to be cautious. I'm generalizing and reducing here, trying to fit the entire world and everyone in it into a model in my head. My head isn't quite big enough for that; there's going to be some shrinkage. It would be in error for me to start taking this model of things I've constructed too seriously. Indeed, I believe I fall into that trap too often; it is a weakness of mine.
But then I'm just another person trying to make sense of the world and everyone in it and directed by my "programming", of course. In that, we're all alike.
Anyway, very sorry to have bogged down the thread in, er, "musings" is the right word I suppose.
Moving stuff to your blog.I would argue against it--not everything needs to be online in a Web 2.0 form, for one thing, and I'm reminded of the precedent set by Dayton Ward, who talked about doing the same thing with his previous homepage only to have his annotations just disappear.
Either way, I'm sorry to hear your ISP pulled that move in the first place.
Argue against which? Getting a new page, or moving my stuff to my blog?
I find it a big turnoff when I see what are essentially static pages relying on WordPress or some other blog-based infrastructure...as I said, not everything posted online fits naturally into that format, and I'd argue that standalone annotations are an example of that.
^ Although so much of the web is based on wordpress, now? The journal I work for does, and the host of templates available make it possible to usevery fresh wordpress-templates.
I just bought the book.
But I'm going to have to wait to read it after I watch Enterprise. I just finished TNG, and I'm getting to the end of DS9 Season 2. (Watching TNG, DS9, and VOY chronologically so it will take me a while. I've never seen DS9, VOY or ENT all the way through, so no spoilers please.)
Meanwhile, Christopher (and Star Trek) has my support...
But I'm going to have to wait to read it after I watch Enterprise. I just finished TNG, and I'm getting to the end of DS9 Season 2. (Watching TNG, DS9, and VOY chronologically so it will take me a while. I've never seen DS9, VOY or ENT all the way through, so no spoilers please.)
Meanwhile, Christopher (and Star Trek) has my support...
Yeah, and I can't stand it. :/ It gives much of the Web a bland sort of sameness that didn't exist before the advent of WordPress.
It's not as if the only options are a WordPress template and the worst of GeoCities layouts...
Not only would I recommend Christopher find a new "traditional" space for his homepage and his Uncertain Logic annotations, but I'd even suggest taking his oldest annotations (the ones which were previously on one page) and giving each of those sets its own page.
I've always done novel annotations on separate pages, as well as the notes for most of my original short fiction. The only combined annotation pages I have are the one for my Star Trek short fiction and the one for my Hub stories (though since those stories to date are now combined into one volume, that's technically no longer the case there). I also had one big page each for non-spoiler info about my Trek Fiction, Original Fiction, and Marvel Fiction. I'd actually been thinking about splitting the Trek Fiction page into smaller units.
So where do you suggest I find a new hosting space? I've been looking into website creation software and hosts, and I've found some candidates called Weebly and Wix and something else, but I've never heard of them before. (The coincidence is that I was already thinking of revamping my site, since apparently it wasn't mobile-friendly and thus wasn't being prioritized on Google searches.)
It's basically a question of how much time you're willing and able to spend to learn the ropes, and on maintenance. The option that offers the highest degree of long-term stability and control is to sign up for a bare hosting account at a well-known hoster and upload files (or install software) on your own. Far easier of course is to make an account with some sort of CMS service (be that WordPress or others like it) and live within its abstraction, but these services can go out of business, and it can be really inconvenient to get your data out when they shut down.
A middle ground can be that many hosting services do offer facilities to easily install applications into the hosting location, including various blog and wiki software - I have a feeling that something like a MediaWiki (the software used by Wikipedia and Memory Alpha) or MoinMoin (similar) installation only editable by you would probably be up your alley in terms of letting you focus on content and structure. Neal Stephenson used to run a wiki for his literary worlds (albeit crowd-editable) and many other authors do as well.
I used to run a Star Trek RPG with a bunch of friends when I was younger and we used a MediaWiki installation to document our fork of the universe, and that worked pretty well.
A middle ground can be that many hosting services do offer facilities to easily install applications into the hosting location, including various blog and wiki software - I have a feeling that something like a MediaWiki (the software used by Wikipedia and Memory Alpha) or MoinMoin (similar) installation only editable by you would probably be up your alley in terms of letting you focus on content and structure. Neal Stephenson used to run a wiki for his literary worlds (albeit crowd-editable) and many other authors do as well.
I used to run a Star Trek RPG with a bunch of friends when I was younger and we used a MediaWiki installation to document our fork of the universe, and that worked pretty well.
Ohh, this is starting to sound complicated. I am not a techie.
I have no expertise in crafting websites, but what about copying your annotations to publicly viewable Google Docs and linking the pages to your blog, Christopher?
^See, this is how not a techie I am. I have no idea what you just said. What is a Google Doc?