Real Life in Star Trek, The Slaver Weapon, part 2
For those who celebrate, I hope you are having or have had a happy Thanksgiving, today. đŚ
Disclaimer
This is a discussion of a non-âFree as in Freedomâ 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.
PreviouslyâŚ
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 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 âspoiler,â if thatâs an irrational fear you have.
Rather than list every post in the series here, you can easily find them all on the startrek tag page.
Killkenny Caitians
As I mentioned last week, Iâm covering the individual stories in Fosterâs final Star Trek Log books as if they were meant as separate episodes. This relaxes my schedule, makes it easier to identify the sources of cultural features in the series summary post, and doesnât overwhelm the posts.
Of course, Killkenny Caitians isnât Fosterâs title for the storyâhe doesnât name them beyond using The Slaver Weapon title for the whole bookâbut to have something to call it when it comes time to write up what weâve learned watching The Animated Series, I went with a riff on the story of the Killkenny cats.
In short, the storyâoccurring concurrent with the main story of The Slaver Weapon, back on the Enterpriseâis that the Caitin officers aboard the ship report feeling ill, vanish, then attempt to take over the ship. Kirk and the remaining crew race to figure out whatâs wrong and how to stop them.
Foster Adaptation
We find this story in Star Trek Log Ten, its chapters alternating with those covering the main story.
The opening chapter is about Uhuraâs family, which I wonât quote, because itâs too information-dense to make me comfortable calling it Fair Use. So, in summary: Her parents are Kenyan farmers near Kitui. She has a brotherâDavidâwhoâs a doctor at a local hospital. She grew up with the training of a Maasai warrior, a culture whose traditions have become gender-neutral and make use of simulated lions in hunting, with Uhuraâs grandfather having noted the centuries of progress to get them to that point.
We then get back to the Enterprise.
âCaptain Kirk,â said the man in the diplomatic attire, âI am Joseph Laigner, personal envoy and ambassador plenipotentiary to the systems of Briamos. I suggest a moment to familiarize yourself with the basic details of Briamos as supplied to all Starfleet vessels.
There doesnât seem to be any prior reference in the âBriamosâ name, though there seem to be plenty of people named Brian or Brianna Amos who use that as their online handles.
âAlmost. If this is a ruse, itâs an elaborate one. Just one question,â she went on rapidly. âWho won the Federation tridimensional hockey championship three years ago in the double-overtime final game, and who was named most valuable player?â
âŚ
âIâm dead serious, Captain,â she replied. âThat information isnât likely to be in an enemyâs computer banks.â
âŚ
âThatâs not necessary, Mr. Spock.â The helmsman put himself on the pickup. âThe Eridani Gryfalcons,â he said. âMost valuable player was center-forward-up Shawn Ge-Yrmis.â
A semi-significant sport in the Federation is âtridimensional hockey,â whichâmuch like baseball was considered in the United States during the world warsâis presumed to be considered trivial among enemy nations.
One team that has seen some success is the âGryfalcons,â presumably a portmanteau of gryphon/griffin and falcon. This implies that teams are named for things that would be recognizable to humans, and that there are more teams than simple names, so that teams have been given combination names. On the other hand, it could have also been a typo for Gryfalcons, a large, Arctic breed of falcon.
Then, thereâs the fact that their âhome spaceâ refers to Eridanus, suggesting that professional sports teams base themselves in star clusters, as opposed to planets or solar systems. Eridanus itself has been mentioned three times. In the adaptations for Balance of Terror and Amok Time, we were told that 40 Eridani is the solar system where we find the planet Vulcan. In Wolf in the Fold, weâre told about an unsolved string of murders that fit the profile of Jack the Ripper.
âOur expedition isnât large or permanent enough to qualify for outpost status,â she explained. âThatâs why weâre not listed in your computer. Iâm in charge of Federation Archaeological Expedition Four-Six-Two, investigating the remnants of a dead civilization on Gruyakinâs ninth planet.â
I wasnât even going to mention Gruyakin, since I canât find a reference to it that doesnât lead back to this episode. But the important bit, here, is that expeditions arenât recorded until they reach a certain size or put down roots.
âIt doesnât sound like a headache, Jim. I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. Iâll check our Caitian references. The important thing is to find her. If sheâs lying unconscious in a corridor somewhereâŚLetâs hope sheâs just sitting somewhere in a daze.â
This is surprising concern and apparent expertise from McCoy about a non-human member of the crew being ill. However, youâll note that he effectively prolongs the crisis by avoiding telling the Captain what could be wrong. A few paragraphs later, though, he also dismisses the missing member of the crew as âprobably not serious.â So, I guess that his concern was only temporary.
âObviously, weâre dealing with a Caitian racial malady, then,â Kirk announced. âBut what? Some kind of disease, maybe, but how could they all be affected so fast? None was near the others when they were stricken. How could a disease be communicated so quickly throughout the ship? Unless Caitians are subject to periodic attacks of madness. But Iâve never heard of anything like that affecting them.â
Itâs difficult to overstate how racist this is, assuming that three missing members of the crewâtwo more are listed in passingâgo missing and are of the same species, that either theyâre vulnerable to some undetected disease or theyâre all just mentally disabled. As it turns out, MâRess does attack a colleague trying to help her, but Kirk doesnât know about that, at this point, so the fact that he raises these possibilities rather than imagining an attack or emergency cultural observance seems telling. In fact, speaking of the attack, her victim whines to Kirk and McCoy about how his life was in so much danger, before Kirk points out that he didnât fight her off and obviously survived. Then, he grudgingly admits that she backed off.
âThatâs right, two more. From different decks. One thinks he was attacked by Lieutenant Mâress. The other identifies his attacker as Ensign Mâviore.â
While weâre talking about anti-Caitian racism, I might as well add the line where we find out that some members of the crew canât distinguish between the three Caitian officers onboard.
âMaybe so, Jim, but Iâm going to bring something of my own along. Itâs more powerful than a phaser, but no more lethal. Keâeloveen. Itâs a general tranquilizer that can be adjusted specifically for several different kinds of mammalian metabolism. It wonât take long to concoct a batch gauged specifically for Caitian physiology.â
Thatâs definitely a brand name and not generic. Notably, it hints at an explanation that Iâve suggested might be in previous posts, that the âdrugsâ are actually recipes, which local doctors presumably license and fabricate.
It was as silent as a Klingon consulate on Federation Day.
I havenât spent any time at consulates, so I donât know if thatâs a sensible simile, but the Federation apparently does have a holiday celebrating itself.
âApparently,â McCoy continued, âthe pheraligen is programmed into their diets in innocuous-tasting supplements, Jim. Theyâre so used to receiving it without having to think about it, they didnât realize what was happening to them. Since the regiment is in no way treatment for a disorder, I didnât know about it. Programming it becomes the responsibility of the science life-support section, not medical.â
Again, pheraligen isnât a generic drug name. More importantly, though, youâll notice the casual way that McCoy explains how the Federationâboth Starfleet and random worldsâslip drugs into the food supply, explicitly to keep the population docile without their knowledge. Youâll notice that itâs not even considered a medical issue, where you would presumably have some form of informed consent.
The engineer looked embarrassed. âFrom a costume ball I went to, Captain, several years ago. I went dressed as a Fiorellian and a real female Fiorellian mistook me for a male of her species. To complicate matters, she was costumed as a human female. So it was doubly disconcertinâ.â
Hereâs Scottâafter volunteering to dress up as a cat in order to knock out a female colleague, I might add, which definitely seems on brandâtalking about that party he went to, where everybody was dressed in the interstellar equivalent of blackface. Also, ever the misogynist, he isnât aware of a more concise term for âa human female,â such as woman.
Conclusions
Itâs not really related to anything else that happens, but we get a general sense of what the (apparently overlapping) Swahili/Kenyan/Maasai culture looks like in the future, suggesting that society has gone to great pains to use advanced technology to simulate the trappings of ancient rituals.
We also get a sense of the importance of sports to Federation culture, particularly something called tridimensional hockey. Teams appear to be based out of groupings of stars, given portmanteau names.
We also hear about Federation Day, implied to be a significant holiday.
The Bad
Expeditions and settlements arenât registered until they have a foothold on their planets, strongly implying that theyâre effectively expected to die.
McCoy completely fumbles his job, here. While he voices some concern for MâRess early in the story, that dries up quickly, and he canât be bothered to tell Kirk what the problem might be, and doesnât even find what should be obvious research until itâs dramatically appropriate.
Similarly, Kirk immediately leaps to a conclusion that Caitians might just be crazy or especially susceptible to disease. There seems to be a systemic problem, too, since an injured member of the crew exaggerates the danger posed by the Caitians, until Kirk presses him on it. Another member of the crew canât tell the few Caitian colleagues apart.
We continue to get the impression that Federation medicine relies entirely on brand-name drugs, with the twist that they are manufactured by local doctors. More importantly, we find out that the Federation routinely drugs food supplies to keep people docile without their knowledge. Doing do is not considered a medical issue.
At least in some parts of the Federation, itâs considered normal to go to costume parties dressed like a person of another species.
Next
Next week, we finish The Slaver Weaponâs adaptation, by following the stasis box to Briamos. Foster doesnât name his story, so Iâll call it The Thorny Point of Bare Distress.
Credits: The header image is Untitled by an uncredited PxHere photographer, released under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Tags: scifi startrek closereading