Automated updates: 2024-09-12
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John Colagioia
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I'm rebooting a decade-old software project that you've almost certainly never heard of. I'd like to invite everybody along on that journey.
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## Quick Background
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2024-09-12-cause-effect.md
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2024-09-12-cause-effect.md
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---
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layout: post
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title: Real Life in Star Trek, Cause and Effect
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date: 2024-09-12 17:29:14-0400
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categories:
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tags: [sci-fi, star-trek, close-reading]
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summary: <i class="far fa-hand-spock"></i> The outside world in Star Trek
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thumbnail: /blog/assets/SpaceX-Falcon9-CRS7-Explosion-19236222595.png
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offset: -40%
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teaser: For this episode, we need to talk about professionalism, anti-intellectualism, sexism, status, and (not much) more.
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spell: Riker Troi Worf Ro Laren Ogawa LAFORGE stardate Typhon Starfleet ccs vertazine Grammer Frasier unprofessionalism Seeley
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proofed: true
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---
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* Ignore for ToC
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{:toc}
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## Disclaimer
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In these posts, we discuss a non-"Free as in Freedom" popular culture franchise property, including occasional references to part of that franchise behind a paywall. My discussion and conclusions carry a Free Culture license, but nothing about the discussion or conclusions should imply any attack on the ownership of the properties. All the big names serve as trademarks of the owners, and so forth, and everything here relies on sitting squarely within the bounds of [Fair Use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use), as criticism that uses tiny parts of each show to extrapolate the world that the characters live in.
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## Previously...
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I initially outlined the project [in this post]({% post_url 2020-01-02-trek-00 %}), for those falling into this from somewhere else. In short, we attempt to use the details presented in *Star Trek* to assemble a view of what life looks like in the Federation. This "phase" of the project changes from previous posts, however. **The Next Generation** takes place long after the original series, so we shouldn't expect similar politics and socialization. Maybe more importantly, I enjoy the series less.
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In plain language, you shouldn't read this expecting a recap or review of an episode. Many people have done both endlessly over nearly sixty years. You *will* find a catalog of information that we learn from each episode, though, so expect everything to potentially "spoil" a story, if you happen to have that [irrational fear](https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/aug/17/spoilers-enhance-enjoyment-psychologists).
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Rather than list every post in the series here, you can quickly find them all on [the *Star Trek* tag page](/blog/tag/star-trek/).
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## Cause and Effect
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The nature of this episode means that we *probably* won't get much out of it, but we'll give it a shot anyway, as always.
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I will note here, rather than try to find a line worth quoting, that this episode inexplicably includes Ro Laren and Nurse Ogawa---last seen in [*Conundrum*]({% post_url 2024-08-15-conundrum %}) and [*Ethics*]({% post_url 2024-08-29-ethics %}), respectively---only to waste them.
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> Captain's log, stardate 45652.1. The *Enterprise* has entered an area of space known as the Typhon Expanse. We're the first Starfleet vessel to chart this unexplored region.
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Kids, when you have the option to visit anywhere named after [Typhon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhon), the most monstrous of monsters in Greek mythology, politely decline. No good will come from that trip. They almost certainly named the place after a deadly creature for a legitimate reason, you realize...
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> **RIKER**: Sometimes I wonder if he's stacking the deck.
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Wait, in [*Ethics*]({% post_url 2024-08-29-ethics %}), they strongly implied that La Forge and Troi both cheat to some extent while playing, even if only accidentally due to the structure of the game and their "abilities." If they also have even joking questions about Data cheating, that accounts for *half* of their little clique---seven regular members of the main cast, minus Picard, who has horses to ride, I guess---so why keep playing the same game? It never serves a thematic role in an episode, so we can't blame the writers for specifically needing poker, and surely somewhere in the Federation, somebody has a game more resistant to cheating in these specific ways.
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Also, for people who talk about how much they love exploring, they seem awfully reluctant to get to work where they explicitly have that on today's agenda, monster-named region aside. For example, we find out that La Forge has needed to work around the clock to prepare for the project, which makes it sound like he could use some help from his best friend and his boss, rather than poker stories.
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> **DATA**: Ten. Seven. No help there. A pair of ladies for the Doctor. The dealer receives a nine. Doctor? May I remind you since you show the highest hand, you control the next bet.
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Ah, we have the "Data lectures a colleague on something inconsequential" trope. It particularly irritates me because---beyond the sexism---it camouflages the entire point of her hesitation
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> **RIKER**: I guess it's better to be lucky than good.
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Oh, please act more condescending to your valued colleague, for the "fun" camaraderie...
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> **CRUSHER**: I'll give you twenty ccs of vertazine. That should clear up the dizziness. But finding time to relax is up to you.
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Again, this doesn't really conform to any generic drug stems, implying a brand.
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Skipping through scenes with no dialogue, I need to point out that it seems incredibly reckless to allow people to have fragile glassware in their quarters.
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> **LAFORGE**: Maybe it's a problem with the comm system.
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Honestly, they keep trying to play up the fact that Crusher has vague memories, but honestly, the fact that they treat her implausible admission so seriously, instead of questioning her psychological health as they've done in episodes such as [*Remember Me*]({% post_url 2023-12-07-remember-me %}), should tell us immediately that something has gone wrong...
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> **CRUSHER**: We've had this discussion before, and I know I've given you this examination. Let's check the medical logs. You've been treated several times for headaches related to your visor, but I read no mention of dizziness.
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He has recurring headaches because of that thing, and they all treat it as normal, you notice, dealing the occasional symptoms and leaving the underlying problem.
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> **CRUSHER**: Forget the bet. Just deal. Ten, seven, queen.
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>
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> **WORF**: Nine. Jack. Four.
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>
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> **RIKER**: Deuce. Six.
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See? Look how much more engaged this gotten them. They should play *this* game every week instead of poker...
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> **DATA**: I have a hypothesis that may explain that, Captain. I have analyzed the recording Doctor Crusher made. Most of it is quite ordinary. One hundred fifty discussions about ship operations, two hundred, fifty-two conversations of a personal nature, five couples engaged in romantic encounters.
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Thank goodness that they don't have any impending deadline coming up, like a---oh, right, the destruction of the ship in a few minutes...
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Really, though, Data really has no business announcing the number of people on the *Enterprise* "engaged in romantic encounters." Even if they didn't have a crisis on the horizon, that information has no value to the crew unless he planned to field questions about who and what the encounters involved.
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> **LAFORGE**: It's a good idea. I'll have the computer run a pattern matching algorithm based on the number three.
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Yes, you go look for every three and triple in the library. It shouldn't take long...
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> **RIKER**: On screen. How do you think we handled this before?
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...Poorly?
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Like I said, I don't have much to do in this episode.
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> **DATA**: The tractor beam will not be successful. I am decompressing the main shuttle-bay.
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It shows how deeply they care about rank and status that Data couldn't think of a more concise clue. Related, doesn't Data also have three little bits on his collar? Does he assume that they had the bandwidth for him to send 2½ to represent his rank of Lieutenant Commander, in the alternate case?
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Also, not to completely nitpick---and I suppose that I could have brought this up at the start---but why wouldn't they use *both* techniques? Moving out of the way while deflecting the path of the other ship seems far more likely to work in total.
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Completely unrelated, this feels like the most *polite* time loop in fiction. Not only does it accumulate evidence of past runs through the path for participants to find, but it only resets if people die, presumably so that they have a chance to save themselves. Of all episodes, this feels like one that definitely should have ended with an omnipotent-but-lonely energy creature announcing "oh, my bad," before vanishing into the ether.
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> **WORF**: Captain, we are being hailed by the other vessel. The computer identifies it as the USS *Bozeman*, a Federation starship, *Soyuz* class.
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>
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> **LAFORGE**: *Soyuz* class? They haven't been in service in over eighty years.
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One imagines that the ship refers to the [Montana city](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozeman,_Montana), which will go on, four years after this episode, to (at least in theory) provide the setting for **First Contact**, which we'll probably cover...eventually.
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The ship class almost certainly refers to the [Soyuz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_%28spacecraft%29)---Союз, Russian for "union," which you might recognize in context of the Союз Советских Социалистических Республик/Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or CCCP---class of (once Soviet and now Russian) spacecraft in continuous use since 1966. They generally carry a crew of three.
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I can't help but note that we recently talked about [*Power Play*]({% post_url 2024-08-22-power-play %}), another episode where the crew needs to deal with a class of ship not seen in many decades.
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> **BATESON**: This is Captain Morgan Bateson of the Federation Starship *Bozeman*. Can we render assistance?
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You'll probably recognize Bateson as [Kelsey Grammer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelsey_Grammer), known almost entirely for his role as Frasier Crane on [**Cheers**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheers) and [Frasier's own spinoff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frasier), despite a long career. The latter had a revival, recently, which I ignored, because Grammar doesn't come off as the sort of person I want to support, if you scroll down to *Politics* and *Legal Issues*. I mean, I also didn't watch much of the original **Frasier**'s run, but I might've given the revival a chance for a lot of other performers...
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For the purposes of this show, however, I'd like to point out how strange Bateson's question sounds, because I can't think of a single time that Picard has found a strange ship and jumped to offer help.
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> **BATESON**: Of course I do. It's twenty-two seventy-eight.
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Because the film makes a fairly big deal about taking place more than three centuries after the launch of *Voyager 6*, that presumably places it sometime after 2277---three centuries after [*Voyager 1*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_program) launches---making the *Bozeman*'s disappearance roughly contemporary or earlier, hence the other-movie uniforms.
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## Conclusions
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As mentioned, we don't get much out of this, unless you dislike the design of the *Enterprise*-D as much as I do and get a tiny thrill out of watching them repeatedly blow it up, or needed some minor historical details. Seriously, Picard couldn't even bother to tell us about his book.
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### The Bad
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We continue to see a streak of unprofessionalism and anti-intellectualism, as our role models head off to play poker instead of helping their colleagues working "around the clock" to prepare for an important upcoming project. Data also thinks nothing of talking about the personal discussions that he has overheard around the ship, even when he has extremely high priority information to deliver.
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Plenty of sexism also gets thrown around, particularly at Crusher, who seems to have come to expect worse. And we similarly see La Forge's medical complaints routinely dismissed as a problem for him to deal with in his visor.
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Status seems disproportionately important to people, in that the clearest message they can think to send involves a person's rank.
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### The Weird
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People don't seem to trust each other, possibly with good reason, but continue to engage in recreational activities that rely on that trust.
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## Next
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Come back in a week, when Wesley's obsessive people-pleasing, gosh, turns out to cause problems, in *The First Duty*.
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#### <i class="far fa-hand-spock"></i>
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* * *
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**Credits**: The header image is [SpaceX Falcon9 CRS7 Explosion (19236222595)](https://www.flickr.com/photos/mseeley1/19236222595/) by [Michael Seeley](https://www.flickr.com/people/76093456@N04), made available under the terms of the [Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) license.
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