Happy Birthday Star Trek

Today is the day: Star Trek’s 50^th birthday. To some it may seem strange to be celebrating the 50^th birthday of a television series, but Star Trek was never just a television series. Star Trek has always been about the future, and what humanity can accomplish when we move past racism and discrimination. Star Trek, at its barest roots, provides one thing: hope. Growing up I watched Star Trek and I saw a world where the colour of your skin didn’t matter. I saw a world where your gender did not define you. And I saw a world where your sexuality was just that, yours. That is the world I have always wanted to live in, and that is the world that I want to strive to create.

                On a segue that’s a terrible transition; there is a lot of pop culture that I like. I like Star Wars, I like superhero stuff, I like Firefly, but there is very few things in pop culture that I love. In fact, I can only think of two: Star Trek and Mass Effect. And to be very honest, I love Mass Effect because of how much it reminds me of Star Trek. I like Star Wars because it’s exciting, but that’s all it is. The plots are simple, the dialogue basic, and the morals in it are quite literally black and white. Star Trek makes you think. It makes you look at your own morals and ethics and question things you never thought you would have to question. And, as I said before, Star Trek gives people hope.

                I could talk about the real world, physical changes that Star Trek has given us: from laptops and tablets to cellphones to the space shuttle; but I want to look at the other, less noticeable impacts it has had. Star Trek created a sense of wonder in multiple generations that led so many people to pursue science as their career paths. The inventor of the modern cellphone did so because he wanted a communicator like Captain Kirk’s! But for the young children watching it for the first time in the 60’s, there was something much more important that it showed: people of different cultures and skin colours working together. At the height of the cold war there was a Russian officer, at the height of racial tensions in the States there was a Black officer who happened to be a woman. These things did not go unnoticed! Nichelle Nichols, the actress who played Uhura, was considering leaving the show at one point, and was convinced to stay on the show by none other than Martin Luther King Jr. Nichelle had been offered a role on Broadway and was considering leaving the show. She says this of Dr. King’s visit:

“I was a singer on stage long before I was an actress, and Broadway was always a dream to me. I was ready to leave Star Trek and pursue what I’d always wanted to do.

“Dr. Martin Luther King, quite some time after I’d first met him, approached me and said something along the lines of ‘Nichelle, whether you like it or not, you have become an symbol. If you leave, they can replace you with a blonde haired white girl, and it will be like you were never there. What you’ve accomplished, for all of us, will only be real if you stay.’ That got me thinking about how it would look for fans of color around the country if they saw me leave. I saw that this was bigger than just me.”

What Star Trek did in the 60s was groundbreaking, and cast members are often asked what Gene Roddenberry was trying to accomplish with his diverse cast, but he wasn’t really trying to accomplish anything. The multicultural cast was just a reflection of the world that he believed in, and he wanted everyone to see it.

                Actress Whoopi Goldberg grew up in the 60’s and she recalls the first time she saw Star Trek: "Well, when I was nine years old Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!' I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be."

                Stories like this are so common in the Star Trek community. You hear stories of people who were bullied because they were smart, but held onto hope because Star Trek showed them that intelligent people are the ones who save the day; you hear about people who grew up without friends, but Star Trek showed them a future where everyone was accepted so they held on. There’s a quote from Futurama that rings true for almost every fan: “... it taught me so much. Like, how you should accept people, whether they be black, white, Klingon or even female... But most importantly, when I had no friends, it made me feel like maybe I did.”

                There is a reason that Star Trek resonates so strongly even after 50 years. There is a reason why Star Trek is still important. Most pop culture isn’t actually important, sure it can give a glimpse into what life was like in a certain time period, but it is rarely truly important. Star Wars, while entertaining and good, is not important in a significant, cultural way. Star Trek is. It is rare that one can watch a television series from the 60s fifty years later and still get inspired by the future it portrays. Star Trek is especially important now when most science fictions show a bleak and desolate future where humanity is struggling to survive: there is no hope in that. But Star Trek continues to provide that hope. Even in its darkest moments, even when its characters made decisions that were wrong, it still provided hope.

                My entire sense of justice and what is right and wrong comes from Star Trek. It showed me why racism is both wrong and pathetic. It showed me why hate hurts everyone involved. And it showed me that helping someone is never wrong. Star Trek taught me to be true to myself, and it taught me that society should accept me for whom I am, and not force me into something else.

                People sometimes find it odd how emotional I can get when seeing the Enterprise on the screen. Every time the Enterprise is shown for the first time in a film I get emotional; my heart starts racing and tears form in the corners of my eyes, and the people around me can probably feel my love for that ship radiate off of me. You see, seeing the Enterprise fly across a television screen is one of my oldest, fondest, and most significant memories. We often forget our memories from when we were toddlers because they aren’t significant—we may remember the lessons we learned, but we rarely remember how we learned them—but seeing the Enterprise for the first time has never left me. I remember crying when the Enterprise was shown in space for the first time in Star Trek 09, feeling emotionally drained for days afterwards, and seeing it floating there every time I closed my eyes. It may seem odd or pathetic to you that I get so emotional other a fictional ship, but seeing it reminds of the first time when I was watching my dad’s favourite show with him, it reminds of me of every lesson I learned from the franchise, and it reminds me of who I want to be.

                I love Star Trek. I love each of the series and the films. The first real adult novel I ever bought and read was Star Trek Voyager #18: Battle Lines. The first video game I ever finished was Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force (great game). The first graphic novel I ever read was Star Trek The Next Generation: The Gorn Crisis.

                To me, and many others, Star Trek not just a science fiction franchise, but the reason we haven’t given up. I believe in the world that Star Trek portrays. I believe in Star Trek.

                Here’s to the next fifty years, and to a ship called Enterprise. We have many more adventures to come, and I think Kirk said it best: “This is the final cruise of the Starship Enterprise under my command. This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man - where no one - has gone before.”

The greatest influence in my life

                Arguably the most important science fiction franchise in history turns 50 this year. Sorry Star Wars, but you wouldn’t exist if Star Trek hadn’t paved the way with its clearly superior writing and acting. Now, I’m a fan of many sci-fi franchises: Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, and those are just the ones with ‘star’ in the title. Yet, if I had to choose just one franchise to watch, read, and write about for the rest of my life, the choice would be startlingly easy: Star Trek. I learned so much from it, so many of my morals, my ideas about right and wrong, they come from Star Trek. My understandings of justice and acceptance, my ability to hold onto hope! My belief that things can get better, they all come from Star Trek.

                Star Trek debuted in the sixties. In a time of international tensions, and race riots, it portrayed a future where humanity was united. Where the country of your birth and the colour of your skin didn’t matter. At the height of the Cold War, it had a Russian officer working alongside American officers. At the height of the racial divide in the States, it had a black woman as an officer working alongside and in harmony with white people. For these reasons alone, it was ground breaking. Like all good science fiction, the stories the series told held up a mirror to society. Science fiction has the benefit of critiquing everything in a way that people don’t notice on the surface. Through episodes dealing with xenophobic aliens, it critiqued the Cold War. Through episodes dealing with alien races, it critiqued the racial divide in America.

                Star Trek portrayed a universe where people were always given a chance to prove themselves. A universe where people were judged only for their actions, not their appearance. It taught me that this is how people should act. I grew up watching a world where skin colour didn’t affect how you should look at people, and through that I became a person who doesn’t judge others by that. I’m sure my parents had a little to do with that, but this is about Star Trek, not them.

                Deep Space Nine taught me that the world isn’t in black and white. It taught me that morals weren’t black and white, and that if something was the right thing to do for one group of people it wasn’t necessarily the right thing for other groups. Through characters like Dr Bashir, who through no fault of his own was an illegal eugenic, I learned that I could accept myself for who I was. Through Kira I learned that being religious was okay, but that I shouldn’t blindly follow it if something felt wrong. Through Sisko I learned that leadership and respect is earned through actions, and not just because of status. It taught me that even good people will do bad things if they believe it’s the right thing to do. And in the end, it taught me that victories of any sort only come through sacrifice.

                The Old testament in the bible has some interesting thoughts on justice, including that the sins of the fathers can be passed on to future generations. Star Trek showed me that this was wrong. It allowed me to see that no one should be tied to the wrong doings of their families or of their people. The most obvious example that springs to mind is when Jadiza Dax was put on trial for the supposed actions of Curzon Dax. The accusers argued that because Jadiza was the new host of the Dax symbiont, she should be held accountable for the actions of Curzon. Odo once said that “The law? Commander, laws change, depending on who's making them - Cardassians one day, Federation the next. But justice is justice,” which took me a while to fully grasp. It’s something that I get now. Everywhere in the world, there are unjust laws: from the gun laws in the States, to some of the laws involving First Nations in Canada. Are the people affected by those laws receiving justice? No, they aren’t, and because of Star Trek, I learned to truly appreciate the fact that laws do not always equal justice.

                Star Trek was a world that I wanted to live in. A world where everyone was accepted, and for a time, I felt like I could live in that world. I truly embraced my inner trekkie. Then I moved and got teased and bullied for it, so I hid it. I still loved Star Trek, but it became something I enjoyed in secret. The irony is apparent to me now, but it was necessary at the time. I always found it so odd that Star Wars was something people could love openly, but Star Trek wasn’t. It was because Star Trek was always something that made you think, and thinking was something nerdy. Because Star Trek was smart, it wasn’t “cool”. The real world was so biased and base, that people weren’t even being accepted because they liked things that required thought. But Star Trek gave me hope that this would change, so I held onto that hope, and I continued to love Star Trek. The Vulcan philosophy of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations gave me the belief that anything is possible, because there is literally an infinite amount of choices that we can make. I watched all the series, I read the books, I played the games.

                Then I fell away from it for a bit. The real world got too dark and depressing, and I didn’t want things that made me think, so I fell into a world of bright colours and flashing lights to distract myself. The lessons I learned from Star Trek were still there, but I distanced myself from the franchise. I still watched the movies, but I didn’t read the books anymore. I quit watching the TV series. I was denying myself of something that was literally part of me. But outside of my parents, Star Trek was the biggest influence on my life. I grew up with it. I was molded by it. And yet I denied myself of it. I don’t know why, other than I thought people would judge me by it. But Star Trek taught me to be true to myself. To not hide who I am.

                And I’m a trekkie. Star Trek is possibly the most important science fiction franchise ever made. It has made real world changes: from technological advances, to how we view others. It has influenced the lives of countless people through its portrayal of humanity and a better world. Even Martin Luther King Jr believed that it was important. I will argue forever that is a better franchise than Star Wars in every aspect (except in money making), and we all know that Star Wars wouldn’t even exist if Star Trek hadn’t paved the way. For Star Trek’s 50^th birthday, they have added the their first canonically gay main character, who just happens to be a person of colour, and they’ve announced the return of Star Trek to television.

                I, for one, am excited, and will definitely be going to watch Star Trek Beyond next weekend; even if I have to drive to another city to see it (our theatre here is terrible). In case you didn’t pick it up, Deep Space Nine is my favourite series. Followed by the Original, then The Next Generation. Wrath of Khan is my favourite film, followed by First Contact, then The Undiscovered Country.

                Qapla’ and Live Long and Prosper.

                That’s right, I snuck some Klingon in.