As Next Generation left the airways in 1994, Deep Space Nine continued to explore the Maquis-Federation struggle. One significant episode, “For the Cause,” explores the feelings of disaffected Starfleet officers who side with the Maquis. Starfleet security officer Michael Eddington arrives onboard Deep Space Nine to protect a Federation shipment of replicators to the Cardassians from possible theft by the Maquis. Eddington then informs Commander Sisko that he believes his girlfriend, Kasidy Yates, is a Maquis smuggler. Sisko is encouraged to follow Kasidy to catch her meeting with the Maquis, but he quickly discovers that he had been lured away from the station as part of a ruse by Eddington to allow him to steal the replicators from Deep Space Nine and take them to the Maquis. Eddington later contacts Sisko, urging him to leave the Maquis alone, but Sisko pledges to find Eddington and to make sure he spends the rest of his life in a penal colony.
Deep Space Nine writers again present an ambivalent view of the Maquis by having a Starfleet officer betray Starfleet values and duties. They also use two prominent characters, Worf and Miles O’Brien, to explore contradictory opinions of these renegades. Worf contends that the Maquis are little more than terrorists and criminals who lack honor, while O’Brien suggests that “they are just fighting for something they believe in” (DS9, “For the Cause”). Eddington, however, shifts the blame to Starfleet and the Federation after Sisko angrily announces that he will hunt him down:
I know you. I was like you once, but then I opened my eyes. Open your eyes, Captain. Why is the Federation so obsessed with the Maquis? We’ve never harmed you. And yet we’re constantly arrested and charged with terrorism. Starships chase us through the Badlands and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed. Why? Because we’ve left the Federation, and that’s the one thing you can’t accept. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation. Hell, you even want the Cardassians to join. You’re only sending them replicators because one day they can take their “rightful place” on the Federation Council. You know in some ways you’re even worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You’re more insidious. You assimilate people and they don’t even know it. (DS9, “For the Cause”)
In this brief speech, Eddington argues that from the Maquis’ perspective, the Federation is as much the enemy as the Cardassians. Portraying the Federation as akin to the Cardassians or the Borg only complicates Star Trek’s depiction of terrorism. The writers of this episode have said that it was in fact inspired by the initial reaction of Americans to the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City: “For the first few days after the event, everyone was so sure that it was foreign terrorists. Anyone who appeared Middle Eastern suddenly was under suspicion for no reason at all.”4 When the public learned that it was not a Middle Eastern terrorist but a white American named Timothy McVeigh, writer Mark Gehred-O’Connell wondered what might happen if a terrorist attack took place on Deep Space Nine. He said that “in a situation like that, who would they immediately suspect? What if it turned out to be the last person in the world to come to mind? I just wanted to play with that idea. And it ended up being a story where Kasidy Yates turns out to be the number-one suspect.”5
Timothy McVeigh, the domestic terrorist who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City, harbored strong antigovernment sentiments and turned to terrorism to punish the federal government’s actions at Ruby Ridge and Waco. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing marked the height of the right-wing militia antigovernment movement, as many Americans who may have shared similar antipathy toward the federal government subsequently rejected militia groups’ use of violence and terrorism. Star Trek’s exploration of terrorism also slowly subsided with the last story on the Maquis broadcast in 1997, in which Eddington is killed defending his fellow Maquis from a Jem’Hadar attack as part of the Dominion War. Even Sisko eventually admits to Lt. Dax that Eddington was not a traitor but was loyal to his cause until his death.
While the Maquis story line disappeared from Deep Space Nine, it was central to Voyager.6 In the 1995 premiere episode, Kathryn Janeway commands Voyager’s mission to capture a Maquis ship when a displacement beam hurtles the two ships into the Delta Quadrant. Now seventy thousand light years from home, the two crews must merge into one and work together if they wish to return home. Janeway, for example, remains captain, but she appoints the Maquis leader Chakotay as the ship’s first officer. The primary story line during the show’s first year was the crew’s struggle to overcome mutual feelings of distrust and betrayal. Unlike the more pessimistic Deep Space Nine, Voyager holds onto the promise that terrorists like the Maquis can be reintegrated into Starfleet, perhaps reflecting the hope that right-wing militias could likewise successfully rejoin mainstream America.
By the late 1990s, terrorism as a story line receded from the Star Trek franchise. However, in September 2001, just as the latest series, Enterprise, began broadcasting, Americans faced the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history. With the first season mapped out and an American public still reeling from the 9/11 attacks, Enterprise producers largely steered clear of plotlines dealing with terrorist attacks.7 In the final episode of season two, however, a probe from an unknown alien source unleashes a devastating assault on Earth, killing millions, including Chief Engineer Charles “Trip” Tucker’s younger sister. After Captain Archer learns that the probe that attacked Earth was sent by the Xindi, a distant species who believe humans will destroy their home world in the future, he and the crew decide to go find the Xindi in a mysterious region called the Delphic Expanse in order to stop them from developing a more powerful weapon that threatens to destroy Earth. “The Expanse” marked the beginning of yearlong story arc that would focus on the Enterprise’s efforts to thwart any future Xindi attack.
The Xindi as al-Qaeda
The Xindi story line was clearly informed by 9/11, when “alien terrorists” staged an unprovoked attack on the United States, producing much death and devastation. Reflecting the anger and desire for vengeance that many Americans expressed in the wake of 9/11, Tucker and Archer talk about what they will do if they find the Xindi. In some ways channeling the views of the Bush administration, Tucker observes that he hopes that the Enterprise crew will not be stopped by “that non-interference crap T’Pol’s always shoving down our throats.” Archer agrees that they will do “whatever it takes” to spare Earth from annihilation by the Xindi (ENT, “The Expanse”).
The Xindi attack and the crew’s reaction are not the only parallels to post-9/11 terrorism. For example, the remainder of the Xindi probe that attacked Earth lands in Central Asia, not so coincidentally the heart of al-Qaeda and Afghanistan. Likewise, rather than have the Enterprise remain near Earth to protect it, Archer takes the battle to the Xindi homeland, just as the U.S. government took the war to Afghanistan in its global war on terrorism. Even the Delphic Expanse is described as a dangerous region of space where many Vulcan ships have gone missing. The Vulcan ambassador Soval adds that the region is also rumored to hold several hostile alien species and unexplainable phenomena and that in some areas of the expanse, even the laws of physics do not apply. This depiction of the Delphic Expanse in many ways mirrors descriptions of Afghanistan as a mysterious and dangerous region that is home to hostile ethnic groups, and where powerful groups, like the British and the Soviet Union, seemed to have lost their way and struggled to survive.8
By the end of season three the Enterprise had successfully destroyed the Xindi weapon and eliminated the threat to Earth. Terrorism remained a popular theme in Enterprise’s final season, although it was often as the backdrop to Vulcan internal political struggles or as the xenophobic terrorism of Earth isolationists who wished to undermine the formation of the Coalition of Planets, the predecessor to the Federation.9
For nearly two decades the more recent Star Trek television series explored important social, political, and cultural issues, ranging from race and gender to religion and AIDS. As terrorism engulfed Amer
ican society, Star Trek likewise addressed this issue in ways that reflected the fluctuating attitudes and experiences of the American public. In doing so, Star Trek not only incorporated terrorism into the history of the fictional Star Trek future but also allowed us to reexamine our own recent history. In short, it clearly went where no one had gone before.
Notes
1. Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages (New York: Little, Brown, 1995), 191.
2. Chris Gregory, Star Trek: Parallel Narratives (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 175.
3. The comparison between the Maquis and right-wing paramilitary groups included having the colonists live in impoverished or isolated settlements. The Maquis championed the poverty and isolation of the colonists, as did many American paramilitary groups, which celebrated their survivalist skills by living in often primitive conditions and separated from mainstream society.
4. Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (New York: Pocket Books, 2000), 339.
5. Ibid.
6. Gregory, Star Trek: Parallel Narratives, 176.
7. The one exception was the episode “Desert Crossing,” broadcast at the end of the show’s first season, in which Captain Archer and Commander Tucker are invited to a planet where they are asked to help an oppressed group of people who the planet’s government leader claims are terrorists. In the end Archer avoids intervening in the dispute, but he tells T’Pol that he believes the accused “terrorists,” cause is just (ENT, “Desert Crossing”).
8. While in this episode Captain Archer compares the Expanse to the Bermuda Triangle, many viewers saw a striking parallel to the American invasion of Afghanistan. See, for example, http://catpewk.diaryland.com/03091815.html and http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/enterprise-3.
9. See the Vulcan Syrannite conflict in Enterprise, “The Forge,” “Awakening,” and “Kir’Shara.” Xenophobic terrorism was the subject of the Enterprise episodes “Demons” and “Terra Prime.”
Chapter 10
To Boldly Go When No One Has Gone Before (or After)
Star Trek’s Timelines
Karma Waltonen
Riker: Someone once said, “Don’t try to be a great man. Just be a man, and let history make its own judgment.”
Cochrane: That’s rhetorical nonsense. Who said that?
Riker: You did, ten years from now.
—Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
The Directive
Although Starfleet has made a commitment not to interfere with other cultures or with history, the characters in Star Trek routinely find themselves in situations where they must disturb both. Breaking Starfleet rules is, after all, some of the most fun a captain can have. The decisions of our heroes are, without fail, the “right” thing to do within the viewpoint of the show and its audience. The results of the intrusion are shown only in their immediate effect, and we do not have to see the paperwork involved in justifying the interference to commanders.1
The Prime Directive is clear:
As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Starfleet personnel may interfere with the normal and healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes introducing superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely. Starfleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship, unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation.2
However, the application of the Directive is far from clear. We often see captains violating it to save their crew, although this is explicitly forbidden.
Captain Jonathan Archer may be forgiven for his violations because the Directive doesn’t exist in his time: “Someday, my people are gonna come up with some sort of a doctrine, something that says what we can and can’t do out here, should and shouldn’t do. But until someone tells me that they’ve drafted that . . . directive, I’m gonna have to remind myself every day that we didn’t come out here to play God” (ENT, “Dear Doctor”). He and James Kirk also seem immune to the charges of violating the Temporal Prime Directive, which forbids the interference with historical events, requires maintenance of the timeline, and cautions people with knowledge of the future from disclosing it, because this Directive doesn’t seem fixed until Voyager’s time.
Some fans claim that the Temporal Prime Directive wasn’t created until the twenty-ninth century, after Starfleet developed technology making time travel “practical” and formed the Department of Temporal Investigations (DTI) to police it. Nevertheless, Voyager’s crew cites it routinely, and the DTI investigates Deep Space Nine crewmembers. Paradoxical interventions by DTI agent Daniels enforce compliance with the Temporal Directive on Archer and his crew, even though most of Archer’s Starfleet does not believe in time travel, since the Vulcan scientists of Archer’s period have declared it impossible.
Time Travel: Possibilities and Paradoxes
“I hate temporal mechanics.”
—present and future O’Brien, DS9, “Visionary”
“In the event of a wormhole sending us back in time, do not kill your parents. If you are traveling with small children, help them not to kill you before not killing your own parents.”
—Bender, Futurama, “Neutopia”
While the position of the series is clearly that time travel is possible, some of our twenty-first-century scientists maintain the twenty-second-century Vulcan position.
As William J. Devlin, in “Some Paradoxes of Time Travel in The Terminator and 12 Monkeys” reminds us, there are three views of temporal influence or interventions. Eternalists believe that the past, the present, and the future are fixed and unchangeable. People traveling through time in this scenario are “fated” to do so; their journeys to the past preserve the past as it was “supposed” to be.3 Possibilists believe that the past and the present cannot be changed, but the future can. Devlin argues that the two films he discusses are both possibilist, since the past and the present are not changed by time travelers—the time travelers were always part of the story—although the future is alterable. Finally, there are presentists, who believe that only the present is set and that it is possible both to change the past and to affect the future.4
Star Trek’s view of time travel is presentist.5 There would be no need for the DTI if it weren’t possible to change the past and future. Nevertheless, both captains and writers apply the directives inconsistently, and metaphysical assumptions about time travel are equally variable. A few episodes seem to represent, at least for a moment, the other two viewpoints. For example, in some episodes, the past is not altered by travel, or the time traveler was always implicit in the historical record, yet such episodes do not invalidate the presentist assumption that changing the past or future is possible.
For example, a transporter malfunction strands several Deep Space Nine crewmembers in 2024 in “Past Tense.” They inadvertently alter history enough to have to put it right. Thus, Sisko becomes the historical hero he had read about. The audience sees Starfleet disappear and reappear, indicating that the past was changed although history stays the same. We might compare this to “Little Green Men” on Deep Space Nine, in which an accident causes the Ferengi to become the history we know—the Roswell crash that resulted in the capture of aliens from outer space. Since we do not see the “future” repercussions from the past, we might assume that they were always “meant” to be the Roswell aliens. Yet the episode reinforces presentism when Nog sees Sisko’s heroic picture in an Earth encyclopedia (an allusion to “Past Tense”).
An ever-present practical and ethical problem for time travel stories, especially presentist ones, is the Grandfather Paradox. The Grandfather Paradox is this: if someone travels b
ack in time and kills his own grandfather, then he would never have been born, and thus he could not have traveled in the first place.
Yet David Lewis in “The Paradoxes of Time-Travel” argues that this paradox does not exist. He posits the following explanation of what would happen if “Tim” traveled back in time with the intention of killing his grandfather:
Either the events of 1921 timelessly do include Tim’s killing of Grandfather, or else they timelessly don’t. We may be tempted to speak of the “original” 1921 that lies in Tim’s personal past, many years before his birth, in which Grandfather lived; and of the “new” 1921 in which Tim now finds himself waiting in ambush to kill Grandfather. But if we do speak so, we merely confer two names on one thing. The events of 1921 are doubly located in Tim’s (extended) personal time, like the trestle on the railway, but the “original” 1921 and the “new” 1921 are one and the same. If Tim did not kill Grandfather in the “original” 1921, then if he does kill Grandfather in the “new” 1921, he must both kill and not kill Grandfather in 1921—in the one and only 1921, which is both the “new” and the “original” 1921. It is logically impossible that Tim should change the past by killing Grandfather in 1921. So Tim cannot kill Grandfather.6
This explanation of the paradox would seem to be against the presentist position, but Lewis goes on to say that one can have both 1921s if one accepts “branching time.”7
One way to explain a presentist system is through multiple universes and quantum theory.8 David Deutsch and Michael Lockwood in “The Quantum Physics of Time Travel” support this view: “Quantum mechanics can resolve the paradoxes of time travel. . . . Rather than predicting with certainty what we shall observe, it predicts all possible outcomes of an observation.”9 Star Trek clearly shows a mirror universe. The existence of multiverses is explicit in some episodes, like Next Generation’s “Parallels.” However, although theorists posit that changes to a timeline might result in the further splintering of the multiverse, this particular causal effect of time travel is not explicitly explained in earlier incarnations of Star Trek. When the timeline is altered in later versions, as in the 2009 movie Star Trek, two parallel realities can be created: one with Vulcan and one without.
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