Mind Candy

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

In yet another example of seemingly-inexplicable backwardness, medical prosthetics in the Federation appear to be relatively primitive compared to their pre-war peak; the motorized wheelchair and life-support system used by Captain Christopher Pike, with its rudimentary flashing-light communications system, appears noticeably inferior to devices seen on pre-war medical dramas. This, despite Dr. McCoy’s description of 20th-century medicine as crude and barbaric.

  The horrible scarring on Captain Pike’s face also seems inconsistent with the cosmetic surgery available on pre-war make-over shows, but we must acknowledge that refusing skin repair may have been a deliberate choice on his part, rather than an indication that such surgery is unavailable.

  There is other Federation technology that is noticeably different from its pre-war equivalent, such as the communicator’s limited functionality compared to a reasonably-advanced cell-phone, but that does not indicate anything actually lost. The communicators may have been designed to emphasize ruggedness and efficient use of its power supply, at the cost of frivolous extras.

  Still, even allowing for any reasonable differences in emphasis, it’s plain that despite possessing warp drive, transporters, replicators, phasers, and innumerable other advances on the technology of the 20th or early 21st century, the Federation had lost several basic safety devices and some medical technology. How could this happen?

  Let us consider for a moment another field of technology in which the Federation is, if no worse than pre-war humanity, not noticeably advanced. I refer to biotechnology and genetic engineering. Yes, the Federation can produce high-yielding grains such as quadrotriticale, but they do little or no experimentation with the human genome. Why? Because such research is banned, absolutely forbidden. It’s not that they don’t know it’s possible, it’s that they won’t allow it. Why? Because the Eugenics Wars, in which genetically-engineered superhumans led by Khan Noonian Singh attempted to conquer Earth, devastated vast areas and slaughtered millions. This led—understandably, to anyone who has studied humans—to widespread distrust of genetic engineering.

  Not long after the wars, humanity discovered warp drive and began encountering other civilizations.

  This is where I found my insight, which I believe rather remarkable, as my Category Thirteen Self-Congratulation indicates. Human beings launched themselves out into the galaxy and confronted dozens of alien civilizations, many of them far more advanced than their own, immediately after defeating a budding culture of artificial beings more genetically advanced than themselves. They emphatically did not want to repeat that experience, but realistically, they surely knew they might find themselves in conflict with some of these older, more advanced cultures. They needed to find some way to build themselves up quickly, before this potential threat became real.

  They did not want to rely too heavily on technological assistance; they knew that could fail them.

  They did not trust artificial intelligences; their culture had a long tradition of stories about robots and computers rebelling against their creators.

  They could not improve themselves through genetic manipulation; the Eugenics Wars had shown them how easily that could go wrong.

  That left the humans of the immediate post-war period no option but to somehow accelerate the natural evolution of the species, adapting it to survive in the harsh rough-and-tumble of interstellar existence. They had, in the two centuries prior to the wars, come to a reasonable understanding of natural selection as the chief mechanism of evolution, and they saw what had to be done. They had to increase selection pressure on their own species, and force themselves to become tougher, stronger, smarter, faster, more fit, without using any artificial methods, but simply by allowing their own species to be culled by their environment.

  Surely, this is not something a sane and healthy culture could ever do—but humans were not a sane and healthy culture at that point. They had just come through the massive trauma of a world-wrecking war, followed almost immediately by contact with various alien species; they were in shock, a species-wide state of post-traumatic stress. So they did something that seems almost incredible when we look at the risk-averse pre-war culture—they outlawed safety equipment, and applied the same suppression methods to the entire field of safety engineering that they had applied to genetic engineering.

  It’s the only sensible explanation.

  The result is the USS Enterprise we see—no seat-belts, no circuit breakers, no fail-safes, no redundant systems, no emergency heat, no emergency oxygen, no back-ups, no spacesuit lockers on every deck, no back-up transporter. Only one doctor has been provided for more than 400 crew-members. The obvious possibility of using the transporter for medical purposes or to replace lost members of the crew from the recording in the signal buffer is never considered. Initial contacts and surface exploration are regularly carried out by unprotected crew members, rather than by robots or tele-operated probes—in fact, the senior officers, the most valuable members of the crew, are frequently and pointlessly risked in landing parties. Safety has not just been compromised, it’s been actively avoided.

  But the crew has been taught to fight hand-to-hand, has been trained to jury-rig the most sophisticated equipment should it be damaged, has memorized everything from political documents to the exact proportions for making effective gunpowder.

  Why? Because these people are being tested. Only the fittest are to survive—only those who can save themselves from any threat without the aid of prepared safety equipment.

  I believe that this, the core of my work, is inarguable. Somewhat more speculative is my hypothesis that red shirts are used to indicate those crew members not considered prime breeding stock, and who may therefore be risked freely in dangerous situations.

  Speaking of breeding stock, it is clear that Captain Kirk sees it as his duty to do his best to spread his genes throughout the galaxy. He never misses an opportunity to make the acquaintance of an attractive female of his own species, or any species sufficiently similar. In this, he is simply doing his part as an example of the best the human race has to offer.

  Consider also the Federation’s Prime Directive: non-interference. This is obviously a defensive measure, designed to avoid bringing humanity’s existence to the attention of any species that might become a potential threat, and to avoid giving any such species technology that might later be turned against the Federation.

  Consider also that although this is a multi-species alliance, we see a ship crewed by hundreds of humans and one Vulcan half-breed. Obviously, the other species in the Federation do not share the human obsession with forcing natural selection, and prefer not to serve on these human-built deathtraps. Spock’s presence is not as readily explained, but perhaps he is testing the viability of human-Vulcan hybrids—should he survive and flourish, then further interspecies pairings would be encouraged. A berth in a Vulcan vessel, which presumably would have seat-belts and circuit breakers, would be insufficiently challenging.

  But one might ask—if humanity is sufficiently convinced of the inevitability of all-out interstellar war that they have suppressed the very concept of safety engineering, then why are they part of a grand alliance at all, and not cowering in xenophobic terror in their own little empire?

  Because they are not stupid. Their alliance is less vulnerable than a humans-only empire would be. Common sense dictates that any species that can be brought into peaceful cooperation should be—the old proverb, shared by many species, that the best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend, is the very basis of the Federation, and of the human attempts at making every contact as peaceful as possible. By cooperating with the Vulcans, Andorians, and others, they hope to remove any possible threat those species might pose. It’s not some utopian dream of peaceful cooperation that has prompted the Federation, but the perceived need for defense—the Federation serves the same purpose as a street gang.

  That may seem unkind, but observe that while the Federation speaks of equality and justice, what we actua
lly see of it is often harsh and unfair—brutal prison colonies using agonizing brainwashing techniques, mining colonies on unbelievably inhospitable planets, and so on. These are presumably designed to weed out the unfit as surely as does service in StarFleet.

  And while preaching equality, the Federation does not allow human females to serve as starship captains. Is this because females of sufficient merit for the post are too valuable as breeding stock back on Earth? We see women serving on starships, true, but these are women who have not yet proven themselves, often wearing the red attire of the genetically expendable; women who distinguish themselves sufficiently that an equivalent male would receive a command are presumably shipped back to Earth to begin procreating.

  But then why preach equality and justice? Surely any reasonably intelligent human must recognize the stark facts of the evolutionary struggle.

  But no, they preach equality and community because the point of the exercise is to strengthen humanity enough that it can survive confrontations with hostile civilizations, and that means that the entire species must be united and cooperative, ready to stand together against any external foe. Presumably human beings who have successfully reproduced do live lives of comfort, in a just and fair society.

  But those who have not yet produced offspring are deliberately put at risk, and subjected to the harshest possible conditions.

  Thus we see that the Enterprise’s five-year mission is a survival test for its crew, a part of humanity’s drive to improve its gene pool without the use of genetic engineering—but then note that in the chronicles of that mission we see another species that probably uses even less safety equipment than humans.

  I refer, of course, to the Klingons.

  It’s immediately obvious why Kirk hates the Klingons; these are exactly the sort of beings that humans expect to fight eventually in a genocidal war, that they have been preparing since first contact to fight.

  And for their part, the Klingons see the Federation as a threat. The two are natural enemies because they are so very much alike in many ways, competing for the same evolutionary niche. They have, in fact, resorted to many of the same methods of toughening up their respective species to meet the challenge of a hostile galaxy. Both have foregone basic safety equipment, and sent their young males out on long, potentially-suicidal voyages of exploration.

  The Klingons, however, have chosen a warrior society, where they compete against one another as well as against the environment, an option the humans deliberately avoided, and one reason for the intensity of their conflict may well be the fear on each side that the other’s method may be more effective as a survival strategy. Neither is willing to risk all-out war until certain of a clear advantage; a narrow victory would be fatal, as other powers (such as the Romulans) would surely descend like vultures upon the weakened survivor. Only a quick, decisive victory would be worth having—and thus the all-out war never happens, and in the end the Klingon warrior culture proves less fit, causing the accidental destruction of their homeworld’s moon and bringing down the Empire as a serious power.

  Notice that we have a glimpse of an alternate reality in which humanity chose the internal-competition route, with promotion by assassination, and that that culture does not appear to be as successful as the cooperation-based version.

  Let us not be deceived by the pretense of gentleness in the Federation; the Klingons mistook that pretense for weakness, and wound up as little more than vassals to the humans. As Captain Kirk says when putting an end to the war between Eminiar and Vendikar, humans acknowledge that they are killers—they simply choose when, where, and how the killing will be done. These humans are people who deliberately send their young adults out into space without safety equipment and with reckless rules of engagement, in full expectation that loss of life will be heavy—but that those who return alive to breed will be the strong, the fit, the crafty, people who can survive being flung from a chair, who are not fazed by sparking, flaming instrument panels, who can talk a balky computer into suicide, who can walk unafraid and unprotected onto the open surface of an alien planet and come home unscathed.

  Determiner Quarg, I hope you will see that my conclusions are required by the evidence—the elimination of safety equipment can only be a deliberate choice, and it must surely be motivated by a determination to accelerate natural selection.

  I am but a xenopsychologist; it is up to you to determine how to deal with humans, now that I have given you my best understanding of their motivation.

  I would advise you, though, not to anger them.

  I’m in Love with My Car: Automotive Symbolism on “Veronica Mars”

  Originally published in Neptune Noir

  Neptune, California—a coastal town somewhere not too far from San Diego. It’s fairly typical of southern California in many ways, deliberately so. It’s got its share of the very wealthy—movie stars, software millionaires—but most of the town isn’t so fortunate. If you work your way down to the bottom of the social ladder you’ll find the Hispanic families who supply the wealthy with maids and gardeners.

  In Veronica’s voice-over introduction in the pilot episode of “Veronica Mars,” she tells us Neptune has no middle class—just the wealthy and the people who clean their homes and tend their gardens. This isn’t literally true, by any means, as we see plenty of schoolteachers, mechanics, and the like, but it’s uncomfortably close.

  Perhaps as a result, the people of Neptune, including the students at Neptune High, take social status very seriously. They’re always alert to the markers that indicate who’s better than who—the clothes they wear, the accents in their speech, their manners, the cars they drive…

  Oh, yeah. Definitely the cars they drive. In Neptune, what you drive tells the world who you are. And someone at the show clearly put a lot of thought into who drives what.

  Once upon a time, if they showed cars at all, TV shows would typically give every character a fairly generic vehicle; often, every car on a given show would come from a single manufacturer, who provided them free as part of an advertising deal. The closing credits would include a line like, “Vehicles courtesy of Ford Motor Company,” and every character would drive a different model of new Ford.

  This is far less common than it used to be; I’m not sure any scripted shows still do it, though reality shows do. I’m very glad that the producers of “Veronica Mars” didn’t try it, though, because the vehicles here add significant flavor to the show, and tell the viewer something about the characters.

  Everyone on “Veronica Mars” drives—which is hardly surprising in modern America, but if you think about it, it’s far from universal on TV shows. Does anyone on, say, “How I Met Your Mother” own a car? Can you identify the make of a single character’s vehicle (excluding Dr. House’s motorcycle) on “House,” even though it’s set well out in the New Jersey suburbs? Buffy Summers didn’t have a car, the sisters on “Charmed” teleported everywhere, the doctors on “Grey’s Anatomy” apparently drive but we almost never see the vehicles. Cars are far less visible in TV Land than in the real world.

  When cars do appear, especially if they’re important story elements, they tend to be so eccentric as to almost be characters in their own right—Batman’s Batmobile, the General Lee on “The Dukes of Hazzard,” or even Giles’ battered 1963 Citroën on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” You can find fan websites devoted to these vehicles, just as if they were characters.

  In the most extreme cases, the cars are characters, like KITT on “Knight Rider” or the 1928 Porter on “My Mother the Car.”

  But on “Veronica Mars” that’s not the case. The cars are cars, all recognizable as real-world vehicles, neither ignored nor elevated to iconic status. They’re not exaggerated, but they’re important. There are as many scenes in the high school parking lot as there are in class, as many scenes in cars as in homes. Everyone owns a car, and everyone cares about his car. Each one fits the character’s personality and circumstances.

 
; For example, Veronica herself drives a Chrysler LeBaron convertible, an American classic “fun” car, a car that represents the stereotypical laid-back California lifestyle—wind in the hair, sun on the face. It’s not a sports car; she’s not into speed and power for its own sake. It’s not an import; she’s an all-American girl. Nothing too expensive; she’s not an Oh-niner, not one of the rich kids. It’s black and white, not anything too flashy. A good car, representing the good life—but it’s a 1998 model, not anything recent, because not only was her family never really rich, but that good life all went away when Lilly Kane was murdered. Veronica’s car is a leftover, a relic, a reminder of what she used to have.

  It’s also convenient for the writers to have her driving a convertible, of course; she can hop in and out as the script demands, or keep the top up when needed. She even has a blue cover she can pull over it when she needs privacy.

  What she doesn’t have is a cute name for her car, or any special gadgets or modifications. It’s not a character. It’s a LeBaron. She calls it “my car,” or at least once, “the LeBaron.”

  Name another TV show where the protagonist refers to his or her car by model. I can’t think of one. But I can think of plenty of people in the real world who do exactly that.

  The other major characters are also all appropriately wheeled. Duncan Kane, being the rich but quiet sort that he is, drives a new gray Mercedes M-Class SUV, redolent of power, quality, and class.

  Logan Echolls drives an SUV as well, but it’s much flashier—a bright yellow Nissan Xterra, advertised as a fun car. Hardly in the same price range as Duncan’s Mercedes, but newer and more costly than Veronica’s LeBaron and able to hold all his buddies.

  Why SUVs? The traditional expensive toy for rich Californians is a sports car, of course, not an SUV—the sort of sports car that Aaron Echolls, that walking collection of unfortunate Hollywood cliches, drives. Aaron of course drives a high-end sports car, specifically an Aston-Martin; the only surprise is that it’s cream-colored, rather than cherry red, and that we never see him with a blonde in the passenger seat showing off her cleavage. Aaron plays the part of the movie star to the hilt, and loves it.