Star Trek Ruminations

One of the hallmarks of the bridge on the original Enterprise was the view screen with a strip of blinking lights underneath it. I don’t know if anyone really knows what those lights were supposed to do, or even if they have a specific name—they just pulsed in perfect time, like some kind of Starfleet metronome. This design/technology was carried forward on ships for a century or more, all the way up to the Enterprise-E . More recently we saw evidence that this design even predates Kirk’s era. In the series Enterprise , the NX-01 has it’s own strip of blinking lights below the main view screen. But we have to look back even farther to approach the origin of these blinkies. The next time you watch First Contact , look at the overhead console in Zefram Chocrane’s warp ship. Although he doesn’t have a view screen as such, his cockpit was outfitted with a small strip of these blinking lights. So, from Cochrane’s day forward the ubiquitous blinking view screen lights have been as strongly...

As discussed in part one , the Voyager episode “Nemesis” features a unique glimpse of an alien language. But the main theme of the episode is about hatred and prejudice and how these feelings can be evoked in any of us. Unbeknownst to Chakotay, the Vori have subjected him to an elaborate system of conditioning and propaganda to teach him to hate their “nemesis”, the beast-like Kradin. Yet, to oversimplify the outcome of the episode, the Kradin turn out to be the “good guys” who help Voyager rescue Chakotay and, the Vori turn out to be the “bad guys”—guilty of the very atrocities they have been accusing the Kradin of. Of course, the truth of the situation is still open for debate. The Kradin may not be completely pure and innocent. Likewise, the Vori may not be guilty of every crime the Kradin accuse them of. But the episode is not about coming away with an objective analysis of the Vori-Kradin conflict. It is about the processes that teaches us to prejudge and hate a group of people. ...

The fourth season episode of Voyager , “Nemesis”, begins with a routine shuttle-crash opening. But thereafter it introduces some innovative—albeit somewhat manipulative—storytelling. First, consider the matter of language. The Star Trek universe depends upon the existence of the universal translator. For the most part it has to function flawlessly and invisibly so as not to bog down the drama of a given episode. On a few occasions, however, we are given some hint that communication between alien cultures is not as effortless as it usually seems—that languages are not just different sets of vocabulary but different ways of thinking. “Nemesis” is one of those episodes. This episode features a human-like race called the Vori that take in Chakotay after he crash lands in their war zone. The writers succeed in making the Vori immediately comprehensible in English, but with just enough variation in the way they express themselves to convey the idea of a different language and thought patter...