"Her belly may be full, but her spirit will be empty."

If we dig too deep here we may get into some kind of POW reversal thing that I don't want to touch, but seriously, is there a better summation of the McCain/Palin "This hard evidence proves X, Y, and Z; therefore, NOT X, Y, and Z is the truth!" stance?

The reference is to a relatively famous and powerful two-part episode of The Next Generation, where through a series of events Picard finds himself chained up and being interrogated by a Cardassian, Gul Madred. One of Madred's favorite tactics is to shine four lights on Picard, ask Picard how many lights there are, and torture him when he responds "four". "No, there are FIVE," Madred insists. He explains that he will stop hurting Picard if only Picard will admit that there are five lights. Although he is rescued before breaking in front of Madred, Picard later tells Troi on the ship that he actually began to believe that there were five lights at his weakest moment.

This time around, I think most Americans can plainly see those four lights, and we're going to hold on to that knowledge come November no matter how many times they tell us otherwise. Well, I dare to hope, anyway.

This just in: Obama camp understands IDIC; McCain camp for archaic ideals of manifest destiny

According to gossip sites P6 and Gawker, "Leonard Nimoy was at a recent Barack Obama event when the candidate spotted him in the crowd and acknowledged Mr. Spock with the Vulcan hand signal."

In my opinion, this is great news because the onus is now completely on McCain and Palin to prove they are viable players on the interstellar politics field, and they will probably fall flat on their faces. Here are a few examples illustrating their inability to keep up with their Democratic competitors which I've culled from interview transcripts and recent articles about Palin:

"COURIC: I'm just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples of alien leaders who don't think you're a total jag?

PALIN: I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to you."

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"PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Qo'noS as Gowron rears his head and comes into the outer space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border."

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"The comments came during Palin's visit to a tube grubs restaurant on Ferenginar on Saturday night, when a voter asked if she supported a cross-border attack on Bajor.

'If that's what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should,' Palin responded, in comments that contradict McCain's long-standing position of consulting with the Bajoran provisional government before carrying out attacks on terrorists within its borders."

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"MCCAIN: Senator Obama twice said in debates he would sit down with the Crystalline Entity, the Xindi Council, and the Founders without precondition. Without precondition. Here is the Crystallinstiltsts [mispronunciation], Crystalline Entity, who is, the Crystalline Entity, which is now in this sector, talking about the extermination of the world of Betazed, of wiping Betazed off the star charts, and we're going to sit down, without precondition, across the table, to legitimize and give a propaganda platform to an entity that is espousing the extermination of the people of Betazed, and therefore then giving it more credence in the galaxy arena and therefore saying, it's probably been doing the right thing, because you will sit down across the table from it and that will legitimize its illegal behavior.

OBAMA: Senator McCain mentioned Admiral Nechayev, who's one of his advisers, who, along with five recent UFP secretaries of state, just said that we should meet with the Crystalline Entity -- guess what -- without precondition. This is one of your own advisers.

Now, understand what this means 'without preconditions.' It doesn't mean that you invite them over for tea one day. What it means is that we don't do what we've been doing, which is to say, 'Until you agree to do exactly what we say, we won't have direct contacts with you.'"

an introduction to the star trek universe

Before I get into the discussions I want to have here about various aspects of Star Trek, I'd like to give a general explanation and timeline of the franchise as a kind of primer or framework for those of you who are not fans, or have watched on a very casual level only.

It is generally accepted that the Star Trek franchise is comprised of 6 series, 10 (soon to be 11) films, and countless books and fan-written stories in varying degrees of aligning-with-canon-ness. The Star Trek canon is basically the established truths about the Star Trek universe as has been shown in the more "official" works, and a lot of people also include widely accepted truths based on well-known but less official works (you can read about all the complexities and debates on the page I've linked there). It tells the story of officers and people in Starfleet, an explorational military force that is part of a UN-like organization called the United Federation of Planets with Earth at its center.

A list of the series:

Star Trek, the original series (TOS), aired 1966-69

Star Trek, the animated series (TAS), aired 1973-74

Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), aired 1987-1994

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9), aired 1993-1999

Star Trek: Voyager (VOY), aired 1995-2001

Enterprise/Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT), aired 2001-2005

Obviously it would take approximately twenty zillion years to say everything I'd want to say about all of these series, and if you want to read more in-depth about them you can take a look at those links. I'll just say a few things here about each series and attempt to keep my longwindedness under as many wraps as possible.

The original series was, obviously, the first Star Trek series, taking place in the 23rd century. It featured Kirk and Spock and is the source of most of the pop culture references that the average American knows, like "Beam me up, Scotty!" (which, interestingly, was never actually said in the series). For its time, it really stretched the boundaries of acceptable television, which eventually resulted in its poor ratings (pre-syndication), time slot changes, and cancellation. Creator Gene Roddenberry wanted to make a show that intensely appealed and connected to a smaller audience, rather than the formula for most television of the day, which was to make a show that appealed superficially to a mass audience. Star Trek posited an inherently good human nature, which could be brought to the forefront in the case of elimination of external issues like poverty, discrimination, war, and disease for humans on Earth. Of course, it came from an American imperialistic point of view, but we don't have to get into that right now since this isn't one of my undergrad papers.

Although the three main characters were still white men (though one was admittedly an alien), the rest of the regular cast was comprised of both men and women from multiple ethnic backgrounds, including a Russian character at the height of the Cold War, which was considered completely wild at the time. In fact, the second-in-command in the pilot episode was originally a woman, but the network found that to be a completely "unbelievable" idea and nixed it. (The actress was instead re-cast as the Chief Medical Officer's nurse assistant.) Looking at these things today, it's easy to think "seriously?? they had TWO women on the bridge and one was basically the switchboard operator, the other a secretary?". I would never say that it isn't incredibly important to examine the countless ways gender and racial stereotypes are reinforced in the show, but again, comparatively, it was very progressive for a television show of its time, and was able to explore contemporary hot button topics most other shows would never even acknowledge.

The animated series was the shortest-lived of them all, but important for a few reasons. One thing to note is that it was largely the fan-driven campaign to bring Star Trek back after the original series' cancellation that led to this series, and later the first Star Trek film, to be created. This historically active and precedent-setting fan base is one of the biggest things that sets Star Trek apart from most other television phenomena of our time, and I'm sure I'll talk a ton about it later on. In addition, the animated series was able to explore many concepts that would have been astronomically out of the original series' budget, such as non-humanoid main characters and technologies that would have required difficult, expensive and time-consuming special effects in a live-action setting of the day; many of these technologies ended up being precursors to similar things being adopted on later series. Lastly, TAS was honored by the only "Best Series" Emmy ever won by anything related to Star Trek.

The Next Generation began airing in the wake of multiple major successes in the releases of the first four Star Trek feature films featuring the original series cast. It had an all-new cast, a new, larger ship, and took place about a hundred years into the future of the original series. It is arguably the most successful Star Trek series, being the only sequel series to really be in the public consciousness (thanks in large part to the infinitely wise decision of casting Patrick Stewart as the captain), having aired for 7 seasons, and setting the stage for a public embrace (or at least acknowledgement) of 6 more films (with yet another currently on the way!), and of 3 more live-action series to run for a total of 18 more seasons. It took the concepts introduced in the original series and expanded them, using new special effects technologies and just a pinch more flexibility in contemporary television standards. It became a cleaner, more politically correct version of Star Trek, promoting diplomacy and cool, levelheaded decisionmaking. The show also focused on the entire main cast (although not equitably) instead of just three main characters, giving it a chance to dig deeper and incorporate more complexities as the series went on, and shift to more dramatic, long-running plot lines rather than a strictly episodic nature.



Deep Space Nine was a spinoff series based on a few episodes of The Next Generation, and was the first completely different Star Trek series. It is still the only one of the six not to have been based on a starship, but instead, on a space station near an anomaly known as a wormhole. The series broke the mold in a myriad of other ways, too; it had the first African-American captain, the first multi-jurisdictional collaborative crew (which was comprised both of Starfleet officers and members of the militia of the nearby planet Bajor), the first large number of recurring complex secondary characters, and the first main female characters not assigned to "traditional" female roles among the crew.
But beyond even any of that, Deep Space Nine may be best known for its infinitely more complex, multi-episode story arcs and the darker direction that its themes and stories took. Whereas most Star Trek up to that point had always cast its characters in a good light almost to a fault, Deep Space Nine characters were shown as being much more imperfect and flawed. Episodes did not always have happy endings, and the long-running Dominion War story lent a very tense, difficult to stomach edge to the show, with the Federation having to sometimes compromise its morality and deal with the effects of war in a very real way. But I will talk a lot more about this in future entries, as Deep Space Nine is my favorite series and the one that spurred me to write this background information post in the first place.

Voyager, which was aired concurrently with Deep Space Nine for 5 of each of the series' 7 years, was the first series to feature a female captain as a main character. It took Star Trek back to the starship exploration of previous series, but took place in the far-off reaches of the galaxy; the ship was completely alone with no allies, and had to build alliances and begin their potentially lifelong journey home with naught but themselves while trying to adhere to their Federation roots. It also went back to a more episodic and positive nature, in contrast to DS9. While Voyager introduced many interesting new ideas, species, technologies and plots to the Star Trek universe, it also began to show the effects of such long-running consecutive Star Trek production with some quickly and poorly written scripts and recycled plot devices. Still, I think the fact that it lasted for so long speaks to the fans' overall enjoyment of the show and happiness with the new, more feminist-friendly post-TNG Star Trek.

Enterprise was the only post- 9/11 Star Trek. It was a prequel, taking place before Kirk and Spock were even born and before the Federation had even been formed. The producers had to work (or attempt to work) within the constraints of established canon, while also having the most advanced film production equipment on any Star Trek show to date, but having to show a level of technology that was supposed to have pre-dated the 1960s Star Trek. It was a challenge, to be sure, and ended up being pretty hit-or-miss with its episodes. The series went back to the original series' format of mainly focusing on the three main characters, with the other main characters ending up looking like window dressing most of the time. While this was what it was in TOS, many fans (myself included) felt that they could have figured out by now, 5 series later, that this wasn't really a good choice for the show. In fact, many poor choices resulted in overall fan dissatisfaction with Enterprise, and it was cancelled after only 4 seasons.

To be fair, there were a few interesting story arcs, including a 9/11 allegory where a chunk of Florida was destroyed and a crew member lost a sister; new, innovative species were introduced, and established species that weren't very well known were explored more thoroughly; there were a few nods to fans in the form of indulgent episodes harkening back to some favorite old story lines from other series. Overall, though, Enterprise was the last hurrah from an exhausted industry that'd been cranking out Star Trek for almost 20 years straight, and by and large it fell flat. Plus, remember what I said about post-TNG Star Trek female-friendliness? Erase all of that once you get to this series. I'm sure I'll talk about that more in the future because I could go on and on right now, and I love talking about my issues and disappointment with this series.

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So there you have it: a long post introducing you to the Star Trek world which, even after I've spent hours writing it, makes me realize that I'm barely scratching the surface. Still, I hope that this will serve as reference material to help you, if you aren't already a fan, understand what I'm talking about later on in here. Next time I start a post, maybe I'll actually get to the part that I originally set out to write about!

the first duty

i'll start this with an incredibly simple, possibly obvious, and simultaneously gigantic statement: i love star trek. in one form or another, it has been a part of my life since i was born; but really, it predates my conception. it's written into my genes. there is pretty much no way i could have escaped it growing up, my mother having been an active fan since she was a teenager. watching old episodes and movies on VHS at lunchtime on the weekends, gathering the family around the television each week for new installments of then-new spinoff series, conversations about plots and characters, reading books, and even traveling to conventions came (and still comes) as normally to us as breathing. this was not to the detriment of other so-called important childhood activities, but in addition to them; my brother and i rode bikes, had adventures in the woods behind our house with neighbors, raised money for scout troops, and played organized sports as much as the next kid, if not more. i'm not exactly sure why i feel compelled to mention this, other than perhaps to break the stereotypical notion that as science fiction fans we were shut-ins that did nothing but keep our faces glued to the glowing television screen all day every day.

this geekdom was a huge source of shame for me in my adolescence, as you can well imagine. once i realized that liking science fiction was considered extremely uncool, especially for a girl (my gender precluded me from even being accepted by the male nerd squad of the grade) i shut up into myself like a clam. my most famous story in this vein is of the time in sixth grade when i read a star trek book for a book report, and the written version was just fine. unfortunately, we were also being trained in the art of public speaking, and so had to give an oral version of the report in front of the entire class. when my turn came, i pretended that i had forgotten the name of the book, the names of the characters, and anything in the plot that could even vaguely remind one of star trek. my teacher took pity on me with a completely undeserved C-, probably realizing where the problem had come in, but that fandom shame haunted me throughout the rest of my public school days. even through high school, as i grew into a punk scene that purported to accept folks of all types, i felt i had to maintain a façade of percieved complete and utter Coolness.

it wasn't until i started college that it dawned on me to not only accept, but embrace my love for science fiction instead of pushing it away. i discovered that lots of people, including some of my closest friends, liked star trek too, and most of those who didn't like it either didn't give a hoot that i enjoyed it or thought well of me for it. i wasn't as alone as i had made myself feel, and besides that, i realized i probably didn't need people in my life who judged me harshly based on my interest in it, anyway. (that sentiment may seem fairly obvious, but it's one thing to say it/write it/look at it as a 22 year old, and quite another to truly DISCOVER and FEEL and BELIEVE it as a teenager.)

as i made my way through a communications and media studies undergraduate major, i was lucky to have amazing professors who encouraged my writing many papers about many different aspects of star trek and science fiction, culminating in a senior independent study about how female viewers interact with, and female representation in, deep space nine. this is probably trite, but i felt complete. to be able to accept my whole self in such a way was, and is, deeply satisfying in a way i never knew growing up.

hmm, i started writing this as a prologue to talking about something else related to star trek that i was reading about today, but i guess it got pretty long, so i'll save that for another post. i know you're holding your breath, i'm sorry!