I remember liking Duane’s approach whereby all the different sophont species were collectively referred to as the various “humanities”, iirc — the idea that being human had literally nothing to do with one’s biological species. One could take that as linguistic imperialism, but presumably in this case the various languages would all use a species-equivalent word literally translating as the vulcanities, the hortanities, etc. (Unless I’m massively misremembering, which is possible; it’s been decades.)
Star Trek The Motion Picture 45th Anniversary Book Club
- Thread starter Tallguy
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There is a section where Sarek wonders at the idea of living among another species who call themselves "Human Beings" rather than his own kind. Which makes a kind of sense if you figure the basic meaning of the untranslated term. (Maybe it doesn't make any sense at all. When we meet another species we'll see how it works out.)
I don't always read the "historical" chapters of Spock's World but I always read the Sarek chapter.
"Human" derives from the same root as "humus," soil or earth, so it literally means "Earthling" in a way. (It originally meant a mortal resident of the Earth as opposed to a divine resident of Heaven, or else tied into the mythic idea of humans being formed from clay/dust and returning to it upon death.) But one assumes many species would call their world the equivalent of "earth/soil."
But not every language derives its word for humans the same way. The Chinese and Japanese words for "human" just mean "person," basically.
This was pretty much how I took it.
And this was even before Kirk told Spock "Everybody's human!"
I'd had this thought before, too.
If other species have different creation stories than man being made from the dust of the Earth, for instance. I wonder if a new language formed by an evolution-believing people would call humans something that would reflect that, for instance.
Well, now I had to look that up, and the English word "person" comes from the Greek for face or mask, which itself eventually goes back to literally meaning "the eyes/sight opposite to one's own."
I did not mean to suggest the Chinese/Japanese word has the same derivation.
One thing that's largely forgotten is that the plural of "person" is "persons," not "people," which is a collective term for an entire population, nation, or race (e.g. "the American people"). In modern times, "people" has come to be used so routinely as the plural of "person" that the fact that they come from entirely unrelated roots has been forgotten.
So does Vejur.
And really, while we're at it, the Japanese word for "person" is hito, which is derived from "one," I guess as in an individual. But its kanji is 人, which is also the first kanji in ningen, "human" (人間). And apparently hito does mean "human" in scientific usage, but is written in katakana in that context.
I loved getting a look inside V'ger's head. Poor Decker! It must've sucked for Ilia to suddenly turn back into a probe in the middle of sex!
Regarding language, many Native American tribal nation names (Hopi, Dine, etc.) mean "the people."
Regarding language, many Native American tribal nation names (Hopi, Dine, etc.) mean "the people."
This is a terrific book! Read it in 2 weeks.
Sounds like my last date. :\
Chapter Twenty-Five - Spock's Aftermath
The scene of Kirk going after Spock has a lot more involvement from the crew. And we get a message from Decker (by way of Ilia) that Spock is being returned to them. (Decker calls Kirk "Jim" for the first time here. the first time Riker called Picard "Jean-Luc it was not well received.)
I also don't see why Ilia is supposedly a perfect reproduction right down to her memories yet even the most cursory medical scan shows her to be made of clunky micropumps and molecule sized chips. Advanced, sure, but still obviously a "machine". The replicants in Blade Runner and Alien are more elegant.
The scene of Kirk going after Spock has a lot more involvement from the crew. And we get a message from Decker (by way of Ilia) that Spock is being returned to them. (Decker calls Kirk "Jim" for the first time here. the first time Riker called Picard "Jean-Luc it was not well received.)
Shades of TNG!
This might have been deep when I was in fifth grade. Now it's just kind of obvious. That's why I have a little trouble seeing Vejur making this wild distinction.
I also don't see why Ilia is supposedly a perfect reproduction right down to her memories yet even the most cursory medical scan shows her to be made of clunky micropumps and molecule sized chips. Advanced, sure, but still obviously a "machine". The replicants in Blade Runner and Alien are more elegant.
In the movie Spock seems closer to making peace with himself. (Wise originally cut the scene with the tears on the bridge because he felt it repeated this scene. When seeing the film Nimoy disagreed. It's back in the Director's Edition.) Here he feels more overwhelmed than ever. In the film his friendship with Kirk is an acknowledgement. A victory even. Here it's a lifeline.
I'd hardly call that cursory. She's entirely convincing on a macroscopic level, and it takes a detailed cellular scan to determine that she's made of extremely tiny machines that duplicate the function of individual cells. Keep in mind that when this movie came out, the word "nanotechnology" was only 5 years old and the concept was still quite obscure, not becoming known to the general public until 1986 (although Richard Feynman had proposed the seed of the idea in 1959). The idea of an automaton constructed so finely that it could mimic a living thing down to the cellular level was quite futuristic for the day.
I mean, really, she's more advanced than Data, who was initially intended by the developers of TNG to be as convincingly pseudo-biological as the Ilia Probe but was then retconned to be more crudely mechanical inside, with detachable hard surfaces and blinky lights and whatnot.
As for replicants, they're not really machines at all, but synthetic biological organisms, like the "robota" in Capek's R.U.R. were intended to be. And I wouldn't say Ash is more sophisticated; his innards are blatantly, visibly artificial on a macroscopic level, no medical scan required. They're just really gooey.
But that's the whole point. V'Ger is not trying to fool organic beings into thinking Ilia is one of them. V'Ger does not consider organic beings to be life. To V'Ger, only machines have worth. So he scanned these weird icky little carbon units, modeled their crude inefficient processes based on biological molecules, and created a machine that could do the exact same things, but better.
“Human beings are really neat! They are made of carbon meat! You’ve been eating human beings!”
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I’ve been lurking for AGES since I last posted. But I just wanted to chime in and say that I’m really enjoying this thread, to the point that I started listening to the audiobook on my commute to kinda follow along.
—g
Spock calls Vejur barren in his head and somehow Kirk hears it. 
A pretty important moment in Spock's arc.
A pretty important moment in Spock's arc.
Just as Spock sometimes can do stuff just because he's Spock, there are things Tarzan can do just because he's Tarzan!
Years ago I had a book called Tarzan Alive! (I believe) by Philip Jose Farmer. The idea of the book was that Tarzan was real person, who was actually still alive at the time the book was written (1960s or early 1970s). Farmer claimed to have met this person. In the book Farmer gave a detailed explanation of how it was that Tarzan knew things like how to write his name, or what it was that he had in fact written and that Burroughs had simplified for the books. Among other claims that Farmer made, he said that sometimes Burroughs changed details in the books, in part to throw off track people who were trying to find out who the "real" Tarzan was. Unfortunately, I got rid of the book years ago.
(That's all pretty off-topic I know, but Trek fans have been known to come up with equally elaborate and implausible ways of explaining the mysteries of our own favorite fictional universe!)
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