Star Trek and History

328 Pages·2013·3.27 MB·English

by  Nancy Reagin

Contents
Acknowledgments
A Timeline of Stardates
Star Trek Series and Movie Titles
Introduction
Part One: Characters [Are] Welcome:
Backstories
Chapter 1: Riding Posse on the Final Frontier
Western Culture Lassos Eastern Hearts?
Noble Savages in the Neutral Zone
The Federation’s Manifest Destiny
JFK, JTK, and the Final New Frontier
Chapter 2: More Than “Just Uhura”
“Changing the Way People See Us”
“The Next Einstein Might Have a Black Face”
“Be Careful What You Wish For”
“Was I Not One of Your Top Students?”
Chapter 3: The Compassionate Country Doctor and Cold-
Blooded Biomedicine
The Country Doctor and Biomedical Science at the Crossroads
Dr. Bones McCoy: Marcus Welby in Space
Bones and Spock at the Heart of the Matter
Chapter 4: Who Is Q?
Testing Humanity and the Frankenstein Complex
The Shifting Faces of Q
It’s a Hell of a Life, Jean-Luc
The Coyote Parallel
Part Two: Kirk and Spock Take on Earth History
Chapter 5: The Final Reflection?
“We Need No Urging to Hate Humans”
Too Klingon to Be Human
Hell Hath No Fury . . .
Foreign Engagements
“What Hope Is There for the Empire?”
Chapter 6: Vietnam, Star Trek, and the Real Future
Vietnam Genesis, Cosmic Exodus
Wars for Peace?
The Enterprise Changes Course!
Chapter 7: You’re Doing It Wrong
Gangsters in Space
The Accidental Time Travelers
The Historian’s Folly
The Rise of the Nazis
Explaining the Holocaust
The Rome That Never Fell
Back from the Future
Doing It Wrong
Chapter 8: If This Is the (Final) Frontier, Where Are the
Natives?
No One Here but Us Noble Savages
A Cartoon but Not a Caricature
You Can Tell by Their Outfits
Boldly Going . . . a Step Backward
Does Out of Sight Mean Out of Mind?
Who Mourns for Chakotay and His Imaginary Tribe?
A Mixed Grade for a Mixed Legacy
Chapter 9: Terrorizing Space
One Man’s Terrorist Is Another Man’s George Washington
“They’re Terrorists, Dammit”: So Let’s Negotiate with Them
The Terrorists among Us
The Xindi as al-Qaeda
Chapter 10: To Boldly Go When No One Has Gone
Before (or After)
The Directive
Time Travel: Possibilities and Paradoxes
The Observation Effect, Butterflies, and Further Causality
Paradoxes
Violating the Temporal Prime Directive versus Preserving the
Timeline
Conclusions and Continuums
Part Three: Future Culture
Chapter 11: Shakespeare (and the Rest of the Great
Books) in the Original Klingon
A Fondness for Antiques
“You Do Have Books in the Twenty-fourth Century?”
I Wrote It Again Yesterday
“Actually, I Never Read It”
Dammit Jim, I’m a Doctor, Not a Literary Historian!
Chapter 12: Information Technology in Star Trek
I Can Has Internet?
Techies for Trekkies
The Android with a Billion Apps (or: Why Don’t I Have Cool
Stuff Like That?)
Jean-Luc Picard Has Joined Faceborg
Chapter 13: History on the Holodeck
The Big Goodbye
A Fistful of Datas
Elementary, My Dear Data
A New Life-Form Rides the Orient Express
Behaving Badly on the Holodeck
Edutainment of the Future
Chapter 14: Why Star Trek’s Cartography Is So Stellar,
or How the Borg Mapped/Changed Everything
Lines, Logs, and a Frenchman Named Picard
A History of Star Trek’s Cartography
Über-mapping the Unimatrix: The Borg Shift
It’s All Over: The Map
Chapter 15: Who’s the Devil?
Live and Let Live
What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us
Intervening to Right Past Wrongs
The Enterprise’s Evolving Environmental Mission
Part Four: Other Races Have Histories Too, You
Know
Chapter 16: Nothing Unreal Exists
“Vulcan Is Not My Idea of Fun”: Life on a Desert Planet
Is Biology Destiny?: The Nature of Vulcan Difference
“Vulcans. Deep Down, You’re All Just a Bunch of
Hypochondriacs”: The Dreaded Vulcan Sex Drive
“My Mind to Your Mind . . . My Thoughts to Your Thoughts . .
.”
The Animalistic Past: Ancient Vulcan and the Rise of Surak
The Time of Awakening
Relationships with the Galactic Community
Reformation
The Federation and Beyond
Logic Is the Cement of Our Civilization: Vulcan “Humanism”
Logic Is the Beginning of Wisdom, Not the End
Chapter 17: Alien Babes and Alternate Universes
I Am the Goddess of Empathy: The Women of The Next
Generation
Warrior Women
A Commanding Woman
To Boldly Go . . . or Not
New Civilizations, Old Patterns
Chapter 18: Klingons
The Savage Race of Klingons
The Medieval Mirror
Kahless the Unforgettable and Karolus Magnus
“Even Half Drunk, Klingons Are among the Best Warriors in the
Galaxy”
Chapter 19: Nazis, Cardassians, and Other Villains in the
Final Frontier
Nazis in the Star Trek Canon
The History of the Cardassian Empire
The Nazis of Star Trek
Cardassians Aren’t Always Nazis; Sometimes They’re Soviets
The Place of Cardassians in Star Trek History
Negotiating the Legacy of Star Trek and Its Fans
Starfleet Academy Instructors
Index: Databanks
Wiley Pop Culture and History Series
Series Editor: Nancy R. Reagin
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Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved Cover Design:
Wendy Mount
Cover Photograph: © Stocktrek images/Getty Images