The Great Chronological Run-Through

[rfmcdpei]

Was the lesson of "Arena" casually tossed aside?

We don't get the sense that the Gorn necessarily are moral superiors. The Federation may have established a colony in their space unknowing of the Gorn presence, true, but the Gorn also reacted to the Federation colony by engaging in a wholesale massacre of the colonists. Neither side comes off well.

I don't know how I reacted to hearing of Cestus III on Deep Space Nine. I imagine that I might have been pleased, happy to learn that a planet that first appeared as host to a ruined colony on a frontier set to erupt into war had progressed to the point where its inhabitants had the leisure to revive baseball. Things clearly got better.

 

[TheAlmanac]

Right. It'd be kind of like writing a near-future story that casually claimed that Vietnam was under French rule. It's a thoughtless, throwaway mention of something that's either historically ignorant or disturbingly revanchist in its implications.

Sorry, Christopher, but this is just a bizarre statement to me. Throwaway comments to build a future history are a key feature of science fiction, especially Star Trek, which posited a war perpetrated by selectively bred supermen only 30 years in the future! Or that 50 years in the future, there'd be 52 states, or that 35 years in the future, Northern Ireland would be reclaimed from Great Britain-- all events that are a good deal less probable than this one, based on our knowledge.

A hundred years have passed since "Arena," and we literally know nothing canonically about the status of the Gorn after 2267. For all we know by 2370, they're Federation members and all the other baseball players on Kasidy's brother's team are Gorn.

I'm with Stevil2001 on this one. It's like complaining that references to Puerto Rico on The West Wing didn't take enough time to consider the Spanish-American War.

(I don't want to speak for him, but I'll also add that plenty of Stevil2001's academic work has involved the study of colonialism in works of fiction, so I'm sure he would take stock of any negative colonialist implications if he felt there were any.)

 

[Christopher]

I don't know how I reacted to hearing of Cestus III on Deep Space Nine. I imagine that I might have been pleased, happy to learn that a planet that first appeared as host to a ruined colony on a frontier set to erupt into war had progressed to the point where its inhabitants had the leisure to revive baseball. Things clearly got better.

Except that's a rather human-centric viewpoint, which is exactly the problem. From the Gorn's perspective, Cestus III was their world and it was wrong for humans to be there in the first place. Again, the whole point of "Arena" is that the kneejerk human-centric perspective needs to be questioned. The brave human settlers in their frontier fort may not be the good guys. The hideous, snarling crocodile men may in fact be intelligent, civilized beings who merely thought they were defending their home turf from invaders. Humans turning every world they find into a cozy American-style suburb with its own baseball team is not automatically a good thing.

So Cestus III becoming just that kind of nice tame colony is an unthinking embrace of the very same ethnocentric notion of manifest destiny that "Arena" deconstructed. If they'd actually said it was a joint human-Gorn colony, or a Gorn-governed world that human emigrants had assimilated into, that would've shown progress. But everything about it -- the focus on the American pastime of baseball, the fact that the team was actually named the "Pioneers" -- was about celebrating the very myth of American manifest destiny that "Arena" problematized. It's just completely tone-deaf to the thematic and allegorical point of the episode it's referencing.

 

[Stevil2001]

^ I can see your perspective on this, but I guess it never occurred to me to take it this way; I always saw the reference to Cestus III not as establishing that the Federation had "won" in the intervening century, but understanding had won. And that was the premise of "Arena."

Also I think we should admit that a Gorn baseball team would be awesome.

 

[Christopher]

^ I can see your perspective on this, but I guess it never occurred to me to take it this way; I always saw the reference to Cestus III not as establishing that the Federation had "won" in the intervening century, but understanding had won. And that was the premise of "Arena."

But it still seems ethnocentric and self-serving to assume that "understanding" means that the Federation gets to succeed in the very colonialist expansion that it wrongly undertook in the first place. It's like they were rewarded for their mistake rather than being penalized for it. That's a very selfish approach to "understanding."

 

[Stevil2001]

I don't think "Arena" is as one-sidedly pro-Gorn/anti-Federation as you're portraying it. The Gorn killed a bunch of civilians in a very sophisticated trap without saying anything about their preexisting claim-- they were not blameless, put-upon "natives" in a colonial encounter; they were also colonizers. Kirk learned something about the Gorn in "Arena," but I daresay the Gorn learned something about the Federation, too.

 

[Christopher]

^Even so, the outcome implied in DS9 is too unthinkingly one-sided in the Federation's favor, and I still say that's tone-deaf and misses the point of "Arena." For a mere throwaway Easter egg, it should've been a different planet.

 

[LordJuss]

It's not about how likely or unlikely it is, though; it's about the implication. All the statements you describe are relatively inoffensive (except potentially for the Irish unification, but it's at least to a degree anti-colonial and pro-self-determination).

Interestingly this statement was considered sufficiently provocative for 'The High Ground' to be skipped when TNG was broadcast in the UK and Ireland. Despite being made in 1990, the episode wasn't shown terrestrially until 2007.

LJ.

 

[Paris]

It's not about how likely or unlikely it is, though; it's about the implication. All the statements you describe are relatively inoffensive (except potentially for the Irish unification, but it's at least to a degree anti-colonial and pro-self-determination).

Interestingly this statement was considered sufficiently provocative for 'The High Ground' to be skipped when TNG was broadcast in the UK and Ireland. Despite being made in 1990, the episode wasn't shown terrestrially until 2007.

LJ.

No Shit! That's nuts

 

[Deranged Nasat]

A very interesting discussion. In terms of possible implications in-universe, the Federation does have an undeniably expansionist mindset, the Humans in particular. Not a violent one, but the case can certainly be made that it's often a somewhat thoughtless one, perhaps all the more so because they have no hostile intention and so can't perceive themselves in terms of an overbearing force. A small outpost of Humans, from a Human perspective, looks vulnerable and harmless - a few dozen farmers, and those alien brutes slaughtered them! To a people like the Gorn, that's potentially the vanguard of a great swarm of aliens; depending on where you're standing, the same people or the same actions can read very differently. The Federation, I think, has both very good intentions (for the most part) and a very aggressively expansionist approach to interstellar exploration, and that combination gives them, perhaps, a bit of a blind spot.

A hundred years later and Cestus is a Human world revitalizing old Human sports traditions? Well, why not, the Gorn gave it to us! Everything's fine!

And back on Gornar factions of the Gorn grumble and whisper. Where do we make a stand?

In Arena, Kirk and co clearly understood the Federation's mistake, and acknowledge the Gorn as an unintentionally wronged party, and it would seem, then, that they logically grasp the implications of the incident - that in this region, at least (remembering that the settlement of Cestus III is part of the general Taurus Reach colonization push, conducted with unusual haste), the Federation and its member states aren't taking the time to investigate the surrounding area, and are making claims without more than a cursory examination of the region. The problem, I think, is that the Federation is a big, diverse and often fast-paced society, whereas players like the Gorn are smaller and slower. The Federation bounces back at a speed that might not be healthy. The Federation as a whole has got a lot of momentum in "boldly going", after all, and it's certainly noteworthy - and possibly rather problematic - that while the Federation wouldn't knowingly invade Gorn territory, it will eagerly take advantage of the ceding of Cestus - and if some of Bacco's later comments are considered, all but put the Gorn out of mind. Culturally speaking, the idea of Cestus as a Gorn world was quite quickly done away with, to the implied extent that the Gorn weren't even a part of the new Cestian worldview, other than as non-talkative neighbours. So a certain degree of "shoving aside" and quasi-colonialist mentality is still very much implied.

To Humans, the dispute is settled - "jolly good of the Gorn to be gracious and let us have the planet, I guess they know they were wrong to kill those people, I'm glad they're reasonable" - but to a conservative, ancient, cautious cultural mindset like the Hegemony's, the ease and speed with which the Humans claimed Cestus even after it was ceded might well be a very sore spot. "Mammalian hordes, encroaching thoughtlessly on the Gorn domain! They wrong us, and then when we are gracious and make concessions, they brush our generosity aside and go right back to expanding and multiplying along our border!". Resentment might well be justified - and we'll see that some elements of the Warrior Caste never accept the ceding of Cestus and surrounding systems, to the point that they'll eventually overthrow the Political Caste (or whatever it's called) to take action. Again, this unfolds on a Gorn timescale - a hundred years for that sentiment to build to boiling point, a timeframe in which the very idea that Cestus III was ever a holding of the Gorn seems to have been removed from the Federation civilian's consciousness.

I think a case can very easily be made that the Federation is rather insensitive at times, if only as a consequence of its size and the pace of its progression. By the time the insult to the Gorn has faded, here comes another wave of chattering Humans who feel that they owe the Gorn nothing (and from their perspective, it's entirely reasonable that they don't), and impose all over again.

Indeed, we'll see that this is a reasonably common complaint among the powers given to slow growth or consolidation over rapid expansion: certain Romulan governments, the Tzenkethi, the Tholians, most definitely the Gorn - all will call the Federation out on its expansionism and its hunger for new territory and new member worlds. I think a very strong case can be made that the novels do make an effort to detail what the Federation's gung-ho expansion across the galaxy looks like to some of its neighbours, and why it can cause problems.

It will be a long time until this project gets there, but how many in the Federation really understand the Typhon Pact's paranoia?

(On the subject of Gorn claims, I've decided that my STO Gorn commander is secretly supporting the cause of renewed Gorn independence (in the STO extrapolation, the Gorn have become a part of the Klingon Empire). I take care never to accept duty assignments that involve suppressing Gorn revolts, for instance ).

 

[Markonian]

Also I think we should admit that a Gorn baseball team would be awesome.

In Star Trek Online: The Needs of the Many, a political dispute between the Klingon Empire and the Gorn Hegemony is to be settled by a baseball game. Yates is surprised to meet velociraptors rather than the "Arena"-style caste.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Also I think we should admit that a Gorn baseball team would be awesome.

In Star Trek Online: The Needs of the Many, a political dispute between the Klingon Empire and the Gorn Hegemony is to be settled by a baseball game. Yates is surprised to meet velociraptors rather than the "Arena"-style caste.

Jurassic Park Velociraptor, of course, rather than the real deal. Unless the Gorn in question are supposed to be 50 centimetres tall and covered in feathers.

Of course, the game itself does seem to agree with the novels in terms of the physical diversity of Gorn castes, since there's a considerable variety of Gorn appearances, from slim and bug-eyed to hulking and armoured.

 

[Christopher]

If you think about it, the Gorn of "Arena" is more a crocodile-man than a dinosaur-man.

 

[KRAD]

Good timing on this discussion, as my rewatch of "Arena" just went live this afternoon........

 

[Deranged Nasat]

"The Alternative Factor"

This one is a perfect example of an episode with repercussions for the wider setting that should logically follow but are never shown; inevitable due to the nature of the series, but this one is particularly egregious. This episode saw a galaxy-wide moment of complete disorientation. This is really problematic, because it means that unlike most of the other episodes in the "bizarre and incoherent" category this one can’t stay squatting shamefully in its own corner of the setting never influencing anything else. This one should be influencing everything. Why is there not mass excitement and panic over this? Starfleet has indeed responded with great alarm, sending code factor one transmissions and preparing for imminent invasion. Being level-headed is part of what Starfleet Command is required to be; I can only imagine how everyone else is responding. This is an unusually tense time, we should remember. The Klingons and the Federation are on the verge of war; the Romulans have returned and are probing the Federation defences; the Taurus Reach is a powder keg. An occurrence like this could set off something dangerous.

(If Starfleet can pinpoint the centre of the effect, others can - why isn't a Klingon armada en route right now? For that matter, since this happened everywhere in the galaxy, why isn't, say, a Voth city ship bearing down on the place? Oh, and Starfleet is pulling all of its forces away from the region - I bet the press had a field day with that one.

STARFLEET BRAVELY RETREATS ACROSS HORIZON.

POTENTIAL INVASION? WE'RE OUT OF HERE, SAYS STARFLEET.

WHEN KLINGONS ATTACK, WILL STARFLEET "TACTICALLY WITHDRAW"?)

This effect, albeit in lesser form, occurred everywhere? Well, then many thousands of people are dead. People would have lost control of their aircars and motor vehicles (on planets that still use them); people would have stumbled and fell in their disorientation, people on the operating table were lost. Some planets could have experienced major localized disasters. "This highly volatile material must be transferred into the container with utmost...HOLY UZAVEH, THE HORROR!" That’s only the immediate consequences. All manner of social and political repercussions should stem from this, various political and religious movements should be fuelled by it in the months and years to come. People of all walks of life should be discussing and referencing this for years, incorporating it into their philosophies and personal approach to The Big Questions. The episodes and even the books will make essentially no reference to it, but from this point on I’m keeping the events of this one in the back of my mind when considering everything else that’s happening. Anywhere. Whether you’re a member of the Klingon High Council or a farmer on Denn, this affected you – and not everyone would have any idea of what the answer is, because Kirk's report wouldn't reach the farmer on Denn, or indeed anyone on that Voth city ship.

For smaller scale confusion, Lazarus finds what I can only assume is the spare Engineering, kept in a neat little cupboard off to the side. I don't know why Lieutenant Masters is banished here, she seems more competent and dedicated than at least 80% of the crew we've encountered thus far.

We'll eventually have another "galaxy-wide non-existence problem centred on the planet where the Enterprise is" in Q and A, but that one will be fun and not mind-numbingly boring. And that one makes absurdity the point. I can only assume that They would destroy Lazarus' universe instantaneously, and with great relish.

Shore Leave Planet and Trip Meets A Princess at least had some small moments where they weren't a chore to watch. This one is the worst instalment so far. But like I said, for purposes of this project I'm going to have to consider its repercussions quite a bit going forward.

Next Time: I seem to have "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" up next - plus relevant excerpt of Forgotten History, to contextualise it.

 

[ryan123450]

I like the idea of taking this episode seriously and following its potential repercussions. I toss this episode out of my personal continuity though, andsince I've only seen it once, I can't even remember most of it.

I really look forward to seeing Forgotten History broken up as you go along so we can see the grand sweep of the story and its context.

 

[Christopher]

The thing about "The Alternative Factor" is that it contradicts what TOS had already established. "The Naked Time" had previously revealed that the Enterprise was powered by a matter-antimatter reaction. TAF, conversely, treated antimatter as a novelty, a theoretical substance only found in a parallel universe, and not behaving anything like the real deal, in that macroscopic objects or persons made of matter and antimatter could interact harmlessly unless they were identical, in which case they would annihilate two entire universes. It also claims that the Enterprise is powered by dilithium crystals -- a retconned name for the lithium crystals of "Mudd's Women," which were established as merely channeling the ship's power rather than producing it. Every subsequent Trek production has ignored TAF's version and gone with the earlier interpretation: antimatter powers the ship, dilithium channels it.

There's also the fact that the episode just doesn't make any sense within itself. It's contradictory in its treatment of the dimensional rift; sometimes it causes the whole universe to blink out and can only be accessed from the planet, while at other times the two Lazaruses can swap places aboard the Enterprise without anyone noticing.

Given that nothing from this episode -- beyond the term "dilithium" itself -- has ever been referenced in any subsequent Trek production, and given that its version of antimatter and dilithium's function have been contradicted consistently ever since, I think we can safely count this episode as unofficially apocryphal, an episode so awful that the producers themselves quietly swept it under the rug -- much like Voyager's "Threshold" decades later.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I do agree with the two of you, that this one can (and should) be thrown onto the refuse pile and is essentially impossible to justify (and I'm actually glad that none of the novels have really ever referenced it) but I'm going to soldier through all the same and keep the "momentary galaxy-wide non-existence" thing in mind just to see if anything further down the line can be contextualized by it, for good or for ill .

The alternative is that this is entirely in continuity, but only as a surreal dream Kirk had one night after a particularly potent piece of Kreetassan cheese. That interpretation doesn't have quite the same promise for later insight and/or mischief, though....

 

[Christopher]

I must grudgingly admit that we reference this wreck of an episode every time we mention dilithium. We can't even take refuge in airdate order, since it's the only time this season that the term was used. I checked the Script Search site, and it's rather interesting to find that, counting "Mudd's Women," dilithium or lithium crystals were referenced in only seven episodes -- the other five being "Mirror, Mirror," "Journey to Babel," "Elaan of Troyius," "The Paradise Syndrome," and "Day of the Dove." Whereas they were mentioned in five TAS episodes, a much higher percentage of the whole.

Even though I consider the episode apocryphal, I did reference its mini-engineering set in Forgotten History. I treated it as a portion of the larger engineering complex seen in "Once Upon a Planet" and maybe one or two other TAS episodes. I think I used it as some kind of relay for ship's power.

But TAF is the only episode with a time-travel theme that I never referenced in my DTI books -- not because I consider it apocryphal, but because the idea of Lazarus as a time traveler is such an ill-developed throwaway element of the story that I'd simply forgotten about it. The idea of one person relentlessly chasing an enemy through time sounds as if it could've been very interesting, but it's just a few sentences that never get any follow-through.

There's one Strange New Worlds 10 story, "Reborn," that brings back Lazarus -- the only time that's ever been done in a professional tie-in as far as I know. Charlene Masters appears in Greg Cox's No Time Like the Past. And I suppose the episode must have been referenced somewhere in the Crucible trilogy, since it referenced every TOS and TAS episode.

 

[Idran]

It makes me wonder if the episode might've been recoverable without all the trouble that swirled around its filming; keeping the romance subplot with Masters so they wouldn't have to stretch to fill time with nothing, not having the chaos of Barrymore's flaking out that forced them to rush in filming and made Brown's performance so harried. Would it at least be watchable without all the mess around it?