Real Life in Star Trek, Charlie X
- Real Life in Star Trek, Blish Supplement from Jan 30, 2020, 5:24pm
Disclaimer
This is a discussion of a non-āFree as in Freedomā popular culture franchise property with references to a part of that franchise behind a paywall. My discussion and conclusions are free, but nothing about the discussion or conclusions implies any attack on the ownership of the properties. All the big names are trademarks of the owners and so forth and everything here should be well within the bounds of Fair Use.
Previouslyā¦
The project was outlined in this post, for those falling into this from somewhere else. In short, this is an attempt to use the details presented in Star Trek to assemble a view of what life looks like in (what will eventually be called) the Federation.
This is neither recap nor review; those have both been done to death over fifty-plus years. It is a catalog of information we learn from each episode, though, so expect everything to be a potential āspoiler,ā if thatās an irrational fear you have.
Last time, we took a look at The Man Trap.
Charlie X
At the top of the show, weāre introduced to the cargo vessel Antares. The crew wears uniforms similar to Enterprise, but not quite, with a sort of high-collared sweater. Weāll revisit these uniforms in the next episode, which might provide some minor insight.
There seems to be some evidence that there arenāt many large colonies.
CHARLIE: How many humans like me on this ship?
RAMART: Like a whole city in space, Charlie. Over four hundred in the crew of a starship, arenāt there, Captain?
KIRK: Four hundred and twenty eight, to be exact.
Itās possible that the phrasing was entirely for the benefit of easing Charlie in from his isolation, and I suppose that there are some definitions for which the Enterprise would qualify (Broad Top City is about the same size as the ship and British cities exist at the whim of the Crown, regardless of population), but many people in typical cities work at companies, go to schools, or attend events with many more people. Typically, definitions for cities assume a minimum population of a hundred thousand residents, with a handful of regions going as low as fifteen hundred. I canāt find definitions that dip lower than that, though.
However, a looser definition would make sense if the colonies are still sparsely populated, where the largest settlement many humans have seen could well be only a few hundred people. While the article is unclear and doesnāt link to sources, it appears that thereās math backing a minimum population of 160 colonists to survive with some stability for more than a couple of centuries, so the idea of smaller cities on newer colony worlds doesnāt seem out of the question.
We have a rare instance of etiquette, simple as it might be.
RAMART: You see. Weād like to keep Charlie with us, but with his closest living relatives on Colony Five and your vessel going that way, whyā
CHARLIE: Iād like to see your ship now. All of it. The people and everything.
KIRK: You keep interrupting, Mister Evans. Thatās considered wrong.
CHARLIE: Iām sorry.
Again, this could be to make it easier for Charlie to adjust, but thereās a level of formality and detachment to āinterrupting is considered wrongā that isnāt in evidence in 2020 and probably wasnāt in evidence in 1966.
Also, note that Charlieās family is from āColony Five,ā which weāll later hear referred to as āColony Alpha Five.ā Similar to the definition of city above, āA5ā hints at an early settlement. If Charlieās original ship left from there fourteen years prior, though, itās likely an older colony, in a position to launch explorers further out from there.
Itās not worth quoting, but near the end of the episode, weāll discover that Colony Fiveās head of state is a governor, which may imply a lack of political autonomy. The governor certainly makes time to talk to ship captains.
Meanwhile, Kirkās attempt at hospitality isnāt massively revealing, but has some information, at least.
Is there anything we can do for you, Captain? Medical supplies, provisions? ⦠We have a large supply of entertainment tapes, gentlemen⦠This must be a space first. A transport ship that doesnāt need anything? ⦠Not even Saurian brandy?
Transport sounds like a barely-profitable operation, with Kirk starting out assuming that theyāre low on necessities. But by the same token, once he knows the basics are covered, he jumps right to leisure: booze (āSaurian brandy,ā implying some relationship with lizards) and ārecreation tapes.ā
Meanwhile, in the quest for equalityā¦
CHARLIE: Are you a girl? Is that a girl?
KIRK: Thatās a girl.
Rand visibly bristles at being asked if sheās a girl, suggesting that either answer would offend her. Or perhaps its the part where Charlie and Kirk refers to her as āthat,ā as if sheās an inanimate object.
An odd aspect is that, unlike the Antares, the Enterprise seems to have a supply of luxury goods, perfume, in this case.
CHARLIE: I brought you a present.
RAND: Oh, thank you. I really appreciate it, but, but I have to go. Iām on duty.
CHARLIE: Do you like that kind?
RAND: Yes, I, itās my favorite. Where did you get it? They donāt have any in the shipās stores.
CHARLIE: Itās a present.
At least in the present day, āshipās storesā include supplies and equipment needed for the journey. This is something different, since there isnāt really any scheme where perfume would be classified as āsupplies,ā nor are supplies things that an officer would buy. And Rand isnāt surprised that Charlie managed to find perfume available for purchase. Sheās surprised that itās the specific kind that she likes, which she knows isnāt available.
Also, perhaps noteworthy to some, Charlieās phrasing is āI bought you a present.ā While weāre later given enough evidence to figure out that Charlie is creating this gift, the fact that Janice accepts the idea that a civilian purchased perfume aboard the ship suggests that this sort of thing would be routine.
We next discover that education and the organization of information are potentially odd. Though thereās a lot going on in this conversation, so it runs a bit long, even skipping a couple of lines irrelevant to our purposes.
KIRK: Heās working out a training program for Charlie Evans. Earth history, his own background, that sort of thing. Iād like you to give him the necessary medical orientation on the problems of, um, oh, adolescence.
MCCOY: Well, donāt you think itād be better for a strong father image like you? He already looks up to you.
ā¦
KIRK: Do you believe the legend, Mister Spock, that Thasians still exist on that planet in some form?
SPOCK: Charlieās very existence proves in fact there must be some intelligent form of life on Thasus. He could not possibly have survived alone. The shipās food concentrates would have been exhausted in a year or so.
ā¦
SPOCK: Probes of Thasus indicate very little edible plant life.
MCCOY: And probes have been known to be wrong, Spock.
ā¦
MCCOY: And he needs a guide and he needs a father image, Jim.
KIRK: Hmm. Iāll depend on your astute abilities to supply him with that, or find him one.
The first oddity, here, is that both Kirk and Spock have agreed that Earth history should be central to education, a world that Charlie wasnāt born on and probably wonāt be returning to.
Similarly, all three of our leads feel the need to have someone explain adolescence to a boy whoās at least seventeen years old (lost for fourteen years and his ship launched when he was three), meaning that heās on the tail end of adolescence and very likely puberty. McCoy thinks that the latter training should come from a father figure, indicating that this is still considered a sensitive or impolite topic of discussions. And thatās especially odd in Charlieās case, given how itās been established that he learned on his own and clearly doesnāt have much shame or inhibition.
Speaking of McCoy, this is another round of dismissing the evidence gathered by technology. While we donāt know what sort of āprobesā are being discussed, here, someone found Charlie and may have been on the surface of Thasus. The doctor, however, claims that probes might be wrong about the lack of available vegetation and have a history of bad results.
Along similar lines, it appears that the entire crew is only aware of legends involving Thasus. The word is ālegendā and not āstory,ā suggesting itās very old and possibly passed on to humanity (and Vulcans) from outside sources. This also seems notable in that the visitors to Thasus who rescued Charlie arenāt relevant.
Uhura, meanwhile, isā¦still a problem.
Oh, on the starship Enterprise, thereās someone whoās in Satanās guise, whose devil ears and devil eyes could rip your heart from you. At first, his look could hypnotize and then his touch would barbarize. His alien love could victimize and rip your heart from you. And thatās why, female astronauts, oh, very female astronauts wait terrified and overwrought to find what he will do. Oh, girls in space, be wary, be wary, be wary. Girls in space, be wary. We know not what heāll do.
Just like last week, this sounds a lot like racism and sexual harassment. Unlike the previous episode, however, here Spock seems to be genuinely enjoying the interaction and theatrically feigning irritation in contrast to Charlieās dramatic overreaction.
That doesnāt diminish the worry, of course. In fact, if we assume that Spock is in on some joke and if we take the words literally, the lyrics to Uhuraās song might be a rather serious allegation against Spockās behavior.
The whole scene is interesting in the staging and incidental comments, unrelated to this possible conflict. It strongly suggests that the crew has come to expect someone from their own ranks to step up to entertain them. And at least a few members of the crew are highly talented in the arts, Spock and Uhura readily improvising, here.
Strangely, though, we again see the crew ignore outright bizarre behavior. Uhura loses her voice and Spockās instrument breaks while people are still watching them, to absolutely no reaction even as they motion that something is wrong. Certainly, nobody moves to help them or even ask if Uhura needs anything.
And speaking of odd behaviorā¦
KIRK: On Earth, today, itās Thanksgiving. If the crew has to eat synthetic meat loaf, I want it to look like turkey.
Itās Thanksgiving during this episode, āon Earth.ā Kirkās insistence on turkeys strongly suggests American Thanksgiving. Since we know that the crew includes officers who donāt consider themselves American (see the discussion around Swahili in The Man Trap), that would seem to mean that the United States is the dominant culture on at least Earth and possibly across the colonies. Recall that weāve already seen some evidence of this in Craterās talk of the extinctions of the passenger pigeon and the āEarth buffaloā that wouldnāt be well-known outside of the United States.
The presence of a galley and chef (played by Gene Roddenberry) also appears to mean that food is still most economically prepared by hand. The meat loaf mix isnāt being extruded into pans to be automatically baked, for example.
Also, āsynthetic meat loafā implies something sensible, of course, which is that the Enterprise isnāt carting around animal carcasses as provisions. Itās unclear whether this synthetic product is a cultured meat product, some vegetable- or fungus-based meat replacement, or some nutritive chemical concoction mixed into a meat-flavored filler. Any of those possibilities would have been believable science-fiction at the time and the first two are commercially available today; interestingly, most work today is focused on beef (with pork on the horizon), with turkey rarely mentioned.
The statement of Thanksgiving is probably the most notable aspect, here, in that itās (deliberately or accidentally) denying Relativity. Despite the vast distance and high speeds clearly traveled, time on the ship is easily synchronized with time on Earth, at least to within a few hours. Of course, The Man Trap ended with a command to Sulu for āwarp one,ā which may resolve that problem in a hand-wavy way, otherwise a distance of many light years makes the date on Earth irrelevant.
And then things get uncomfortable.
CHARLIE: Well, in the corridor I sawā¦When Janice, when Yeoman Rand wasā¦I did that to her. She didnāt like it. She said youād explain it to me.
KIRK: Me. I see. Well, um, er, there are things you can do with a lady, er, Charlie, that you er. Thereās no right way to hit a woman. I mean, man to man is one thing, but, er, man and woman, er, itās, er, itās, er. Well itās, er, another thing. Do you understand?
Kirk is mostly bemused that Charlie slapped Rand, uncomfortable, but doesnāt act like this is much of a problem, just āanother thing,ā as if itās something he wouldnāt personally do, but also wouldnāt stop someone else from doing. Given upcoming developments in the story, this could either be because he doesnāt realize itās an issue until Rand brings it to his attention or because heās trying to be very patient with a kid he believes grew up without supervision.
Somehow, ādonāt hit peopleā is never considered as a viable way to handle the problem. There are plenty of people of the same gender who would appreciate not being slapped in public, too, after all.
Soon after, Kirkās log mentions something called āYou-Spah Headquarters.ā
Captainās Log, star date 1535.8. UESPA headquarters notified of the mysterious loss of science probe vessel Antares.
I know from later sources that this is the UESPA and what that means, but jumping ahead isnāt the right approach to this project. Regardless, they appear to be the administration responsible for the Enterprise. Oddly, though, the Antares is now a āscience probe vessel,ā and still later a āsurvey ship,ā rather than the mere cargo vessel it was earlier in the episode. Itās not impossible that, due to the expense of manufacture, ships need to serve multiple purposes. But it could also be an artifact of over-editing the script.
We get a decent look at three-dimensional chess after that. Spock is allegedly an expert and prodding Kirk on being distracted, but canāt see where heās directly exposed in the next move, which seemsā¦not impossible, but definitely odd. There is also a three-dimensional checkerboard, with two-by-two platforms on posts, down the table. At Spockās elbow, there also appears to be a deck of round playing cards.
For reference, the checkers board appears to be a contemporary real-world game called Space Checkers, while the round cards have apparently existed since at least the 1920s, possibly starting with a Chicago company called Arrow and their Discus line.
A quick web search suggests that itās pretty easy to find both vintage and new decks, with at least one company in a position to manufacture custom card decks.
Back to awkwardness, this time more critically.
RAND: Itās not that. Captain, Iāve seen the look before, and if something isnāt done, sooner or later Iām going to have to hurt him. Tell him to leave me alone, and that wouldnāt be good for him right now. You see, Iām his first crush, his first love, and his firstā
Rand refers to Charlieās self-entitled obsessiveness as a look sheās seen before, but is worried about hurting him. This strongly implies that this is not only (still) not a rare problem for women in this future, but a problem where women are (still) raised to believe the resulting pain is their responsibility, rather than the fault of the creep whoās causing trouble and making demands.
To his credit, once the issue has been raised, Kirk shows a very enlightened attitude towards women, explaining consent and self-entitlement to Charlie in no uncertain terms. The exchange runs long, but is worth reading in full, given how thoroughly it interrogates the dynamic.
KIRK: Er, no. No, no. Sit down. Charlie, being seventeen is more than how many years youāve lived. Itās a whole other thing. Doctor McCoy could probably explain the biological conditions. Well, letās, letās use a specific. Yeoman Rand is a woman.
CHARLIE: Oh, I wonāt hit her like that anymore.
KIRK: No, thereās more to it than that.
CHARLIE: Everything I do or say is wrong. Iām in the way, I donāt know the rules, and when I learn something and try to do it, suddenly Iām wrong!
KIRK: Now wait, wait.
CHARLIE: I donāt know what I am or what Iām supposed to be, or even who. I donāt know why I hurt so much inside all the time.
KIRK: Youāll live, believe me. Thereās nothing wrong with you that hasnāt gone wrong with every other human male since the model first came up.
CHARLIE: What if you care for someone? What do you do?
KIRK: You go slow. You be gentle. I mean, itās not a one-way street, you know, how you feel and thatās all. Itās how the girl feels, too. Donāt press, Charlie. If the girl feels anything for you at all, youāll know it. Do you understand?
CHARLIE: You donāt think Janice. You. She could love me!
KIRK: Sheās not the girl, Charlie. The years are wrong, for one thing, and there are other things.
CHARLIE: She can.
KIRK: No, Charlie.
CHARLIE: She is.
KIRK: No.
CHARLIE: But if I did what you said! If I was gentle!
KIRK: Charlie, there are a million things in this universe you can have and there are a million things you canāt have. Itās no fun facing that, but thatās the way things are.
CHARLIE: Then what am I going to do?
KIRK: Hang on tight and survive. Everybody does.
CHARLIE: You donāt.
KIRK: Everybody, Charlie. Me, too.
CHARLIE: Iām trying, but I donāt know how.
This is particularly interesting, given how weāve seen Kirk make one extremely sexist suggestion in each of the two episodes so farāthe crack about McCoy bringing flowers and his not seeing much of a threat in Charlie putting his hand on Janice. Yet, here he is laying it out that we all need to learn that our desires arenāt law and that you only want a partner whoās as enthusiastic about being with you as you are with them.
The pair then stops off in the probably-never-seen-again gymnasium, which includes some sort of gymnastics-on-the-run, a staff-based combat art, a behind-the-head pull-up, and something like (given the era it was filmed) judo.
We then return, briefly, to indirect issues of history and technology.
SPOCK: Thasians have been referred to in our records as having the power to transmute objects or render substances invisible. It has generally been regarded as legend, but Charlie does seems to possess this same power.
KIRK: What are chances that Charlieās not an Earthling, that heās a Thasian?
MCCOY: No, I donāt think so, not unless theyāre exactly like Earthlings. The development of his fingers and toes exactly matches the present development of manās on Earth.
This brief exchange has a couple of interesting elements. The first returns to the idea that the records kept about Thasus are referred to as legend, with no reference to the humans that visited the planet recently. Again, it feels like the records must be very old and coming from another civilization (that is, not human or Vulcan surveys). This also seems to imply that the reports are just text or some other after-the-fact narrative of the events, like Kirkās log entries, rather than video.
Also of note, here, McCoy distinguishes Earthlings by the structure of our fingers. There doesnāt seem to be any indication as to whether an āEarthlingā or āon Earthā refers to any human or some part of humanity more closely tied to Earth. That is, Charlie has probably never been to Earth, and so wouldnāt be an Earthling by most senses of the term, but the context says McCoy puts him in that category.
The term āEarthlingā also seems like it implies that people in this universe havenāt given much thought, yet, to animal cognition. In hindsightāand pardon my selective skipping aheadāwe basically know this to be the case from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, where failing to recognize other animals as intelligent comes very close to getting the Earth destroyed, but weāre getting ahead of ourselves.
Speaking of animalsā¦
KIRK: Mister Spock, you getting any readings on your instruments?
SPOCK: Yes, sir. Thereās aāTyger, tyger, burning bright in the forest of the night.
KIRK: Mister Spock.
SPOCK: Iām trying toāSaturn rings around my head, down a road thatās Martian red.
ā¦
SPOCK: Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered, weak and weary.
This is somewhat interesting in that it gives a window into culture. Charlie forces Spock to recite the opening lines of William Blakeās The Tyger and Edgar Allen Poeās The Raven.
The line in the middle seems original to the episode, rather than being a nineteenth-century classic. It is, however, clearly from Earthās tradition, given the references to Saturn and Mars. And based on the other two selections, is probably the opening line to a poem named The (Some kind of animal).
(The name of the eponymous animal of each poem has five letters, two syllables, fourth letter is an āeā, each a different kind of vertebrate? I propose unknown poem must be The Viper, one of the few other animals whose common name matches the profileā¦)
And rolling into the endā¦
KIRK: With training, we can teach him to live in our society. If he can be taught not to use his power
THASIAN: We gave him the power so he could live. He will use it, always, and he would destroy you and your kind, or you would be forced to destroy him to save yourselves.
KIRK: Is there nothing you can do?
THASIAN: We offer him life, and we will take care of him. Come, Charles.
In nearly the final exchange, Kirk expresses the belief that Charlie can be taught to refuse to use his power and that this suppression would be healthy. Contrast this with his reaction to the creature posing as Nancy Crater, who killed far fewer people for more legitimate reasons and was significantly more social, in The Man Trap.
The Thasian is sure that itās not only impossible (or undesirable), but trying would result not only in deaths, but potentially genocide.
Commentary
Briefly editorializing, itās worth noting that, if you ignore Charlieās alleged motivation of being raised by people he canāt touch (an obvious metaphor for uninvolved parents) resulting in his emotional isolation, the late, great D.C. Fontana has basically written a story about alt-right and incel narratives, from the whiny self-pitying to the violent outbursts that are blamed on other people āforcingā them to behave badly, by not giving them whatever they want. Charlie has the same self-entitlement issues and blames everybody else for his actions.
For one very clear example in the above-quoted dialogue, compare Charlieās āI donāt know the rules, and when I learn something and try to do it, suddenly Iām wrong!ā with the many men who feel victimized by the #MeToo Movement claiming that āthe rulesā somehow changed on them, as if harassment was ever acceptable. Similarly, compare āI donāt know why I hurt so much inside all the timeā with the media focus on the shame and (mild) inconvenience abusers claim to face, instead of the pain their victims feel.
Charlie even goes through what could equate to two mass shootings, one the destruction of the Antares (admittedly more analogous to a bomb threat) and the other storming through the Enterprise corridors indiscriminately using his powers against the crew. And characteristically, Charlieās self-imposed weakness is a powerful man whoās kind to him, but refuses to give his approval without reason.
If only telling them to grow up was as effective or if Thasians could cart some of these jerks away.
But more importantlyāand probably related to Fontana being the writerāthe first person to recognize the danger is a woman, Rand, not because of some pseudo-mystical sense, but because she has met young men like this before. And perhaps hitting a little bit too close to home, nobody listens to her, because the young man somehow deserves the benefit of the doubt, while she doesnāt.
This is where the Thasian pronouncement, the core social satire of the episode, hits so uncomfortably close to home in 2020:
ā¦he would destroy you and your kind, or you would be forced to destroy him to save yourselves
When faced with people so Hell-bent on destruction because they feel like their privilege is both deserved and insufficient, society needs to deal with that problem. We donāt have any omnipotent energy beings willing to scoop them up and hide them on another planet. Even the nearest real-world analogue to that, imprisonment, has been known for at least a hundred years to be both cruel and counterproductive. And yet, because they are led to echo chambers reinforcing their beliefs, they also tend not to listen to reason.
Iāll start digging into issues related to all this on this blog at some point, largely as part of my long-term plan to recycle and consolidate a lot of the content Iāve written on Quora. I wish that I could say I have actual answers.
Conclusions
So, have we learned anything (beyond the sort of abuse D.C. Fontana probably endured in her life), this week? Sort of.
Very broadly, we know that thereās a merchant economy of some sort, at least aboard the ship, and that there are large sections of the star map that modern space-farers seem to have inherited from somebody that arenāt always believed to be are accurate. In many cases, the claims are dismissed as mere legend.
The Good
Starting out with the discovered highlightsā¦
A fair number of the officers are multi-talented, or at least have consuming hobbies. For example:
- Spock and Uhura are accomplished musicians.
- Kirk and Spock both play chess regularly.
We also have at least one cultural artifact from the then-future, a fragments of a poem probably as famous as William Blake or Edgar Allan Poe.
The Bad
Not everything is solid, however.
Weāre still seeing evidence of pervasive sexism. Even Kirk, clearly trying to be an ally to Rand, is just as clear that he hasnāt the foggiest idea what the problem is until sheās explicit with him. He doesnāt experience it, himself, and so he mostly just takes it as normal when it happens to people around him.
Also again, the crew is wildly apathetic. Maybe Iāve been lucky, but I canāt imagine a situation where even a disliked colleague could be in sudden, visible distress and not receive any help. Spock even socializes with the captain, so youād expect at least some self-serving brown-noser to try to play the hero.
And the third recurring theme is that at least McCoyāand possibly other people, given that McCoy seems somewhat important, implying some official supportādoesnāt trust technology to report the facts. In this case, he happens to be right, too, since the assorted probes theyāre talking about completely missed the Thasians, which should indeed cause all readings to be met with skepticism.
Related to this, the most trustworthy way a doctor has to determine the species of a humanoid patient isā¦measuring the patientās fingers. DNA, the arrangement of internal organs, blood chemistry, and so on can all apparently be deceptive, whereas a few bones would be impossible to fake in the future.
And lastly, we have a seemingly-omnipotent beingāthe Thasianāasserting that having normal humans mix with humans who have special powers (i.e., Charlie) will inevitably result in one side exterminating the other, no matter how well-behaved everybody wants to be. We could write this off as the Thasian projecting his civilizationās own history onto humanity, maybe, but letās recall how quick (as mentioned) the Enterprise crew was to hunt and kill the shape-shifter, even while that alien was begging them for help controlling her abilities so that she could stop killing.
The Weird
Probably by a wide margin, the strangest suggestion in this script is that time aboard the ship seems to be synchronized across the galaxy. Even traveling at distances where it would take a radio signal decades to get any message across, Kirk still knows what the date is. One might assume that this is an effect of much-faster-than-light travel and communications, though a more mundane explanation could just be that the computer takes travel time and speed into account to tally up the equivalent time back on Earth, leaving the crew to face the twin paradox when they ultimately return home.
We also have some indications that food production still requires a fair amount of effort, requiring human labor instead of automated processes, and that actual meat isnāt generally available aboard ships.
Next
Coming up on the docket, we have Where No Man Has Gone Before, the second of Star Trekās three pilots (the third being The Man Trap, which we looked at last time, and the first we wonāt be seeing for a few weeks, yet, and not in its original form), where our heroes are menaced by a creepy misogynistās ego running out of controlā¦again. See you then!
Credits: The header image is an Artistās impression of the exterior view of a Bernal sphere space habitat design by Rick Guidice, due to its resemblance to a cargo ship and in the public domain as a work of NASA.
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