Real Life in Star Trek, Bem part 1
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.
Bem
In old science-fiction, the acronym B.E.M. refers to the old, bland trope of the bug-eyed monster style of alien design.
Captainâs log, stardate 7403.6. The Enterprise is on a series of exploratory and contact missions. Traveling with us as an independent observer is a member of a recently contacted alien species, Honorary Commander Ari bn Bem. Heâs from the planet Pandro in the Garo VII system. We have taken up orbit around Delta Theta III, a newly discovered class M planet. A previous scouting mission has reported possible aboriginal life forms here, and the Enterprise is to investigate and report.
Pandro might be a reference to movie producer Pandro S. Berman, who worked from the late 1920s to 1965. Garo, assuming thatâs the intended spelling, could refer to any number of things originating from almost anywhere in the world. It could also be a combination of the prefix pan- and the prefix andro-, to suggest Bemâs physical nature as a colony creature.
Delta Theta, meanwhile, is another nonsensical star name.
Oh, and since this episode doesnât have much of a cultural aspect to it, I may as well use the space point out that the Bem character strikes me as extremely problematic. The first name Ari, the bn prefix for whatever Bemâs last name represents, Pandronian self-proclaimed superiority, the characterâs status as a perpetual outsider who canât manage the basics of society, and questions about his loyalty and lack of courage strike me as strongly anti-Semitic. I assume that itâs an accident: Episode writer David Gerrold is Jewish, after all, and has fought to use Star Trek to support progressive causes. But it still definitely doesnât line up well.
KIRK: Sensors report several groupings of aborigines. They may be dangerous. So I want all of us to avoid any unnecessary risks. But these monitoring devices have to be planted. Lieutenant Uhura will be tracking us throughout. Now, if thereâs any trouble of any kind, beam up immediately. Donât try to be a hero.
The âmonitoring devicesâ bit seems to imply that someone in the Federation actively spies on pre-technological cultures.
UHURA: Contact the landing party.
Itâs maybe notable that Uhura is in command, for this scene.
KIRK: I am Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the starship Enterprise. This is my first officer, Mister Spock and honorary Commander Ari bn Bem of the planet Pandro.
Kirk has a middle name, namedâdirectly or notâfor the second Roman emperor.
KIRK: There are times, Mister Spock, when I think I should have been a librarian.
SPOCK: The job of librarian would be no less challenging, Captain, but it would undoubtedly be a lot less dangerous.
Not to nitpick, but Iâd like to point out that, the times weâve seen libraries, such as The Lights of Zetar and All Our Yesterdays, they didnât seem like particularly safe placesâŚ
SCOTT: I think he said âmaybeâ. Well, that convinces me. Ready a security squad. Weâre going down there. Issue phaser rifles.
It certainly didnât take long for Scott to plan a massacre of a primitive society.
KIRK: It is necessary. Not only for them, but for us as well.
Weâve seen evidence of this behavior before, in episodes like The Menagerie, where the Federation encounters a more powerful civilization and places it under absolute quarantine. Contrast this with their behavior on encountering less developed civilizations, where itâs fine to interact with and even spy on them.
Foster Adaptation
We find the adaptation for this episode as Star Trek Log Nine. The final four books of the series only cover one episode apiece. This book also wasnât available on the Internet Archive, so I bought what was billed as a ratty copy of this one, and the succeeding book for The Slaver Weapon.
This version of events, interestingly, follows directly from the events of The Eye of the Beholder, starting out by dropping off the team we met there.
With all the shipâs operations functioning smoothly, he was able to lean back and relax slightly. The small portable reader screen set into the left-hand chair arm was playing back the half-legendary story of how one Matthew Jeffries first conceived of the Constitution Class vessels, of which the Enterprise was but one of many now.
The half of the legend thatâs true is Walter Matthew Jefferies, set designer on Star Trek. In later installments of the franchise, the narrow maintenance tunnels in the ship are referred to as âJefferies Tubesâ in his honor. The term was apparently in use during the filming of the original series, but never made it to an episode.
This might be the first reference to the Enterprise being a âConstitution Class vessel,â too. We might hazard a guess that the Constitution is the âNCC-1700â ship listed on the screen in Court Martial, but the name hasnât been used in a script, to my knowledge.
Also, Iâm going to assume that this is just sloppy editing on Fosterâs part, but itâs possible that he really did intend for a world where portable electronics are built into chair arms, thereby rendering them less portable.
Conclusions
If Iâm not mistaken, this episode gives us Kirkâs middle name. We also learn that Matt Jefferies has transcended the bounds of our reality to have also designed the real Starfleet ships that we see.
The Bad
This episode tells us that part of exploring the universe is actively monitoring and spying on pre-industrial societies. Itâs important enough that someone tasks the Enterprise with planting the devices, even sending oversight to see how the job is accomplished. These societies are also considered somewhat disposable, to the point that an officer can order sending armed troops into a city without that order triggering an inquiry or other attempt to stop it.
By contrast, if a novel society has more power than the Federation, then the Federationâs goal is to isolate them from the rest of the universe. The implied politics seem to be that the Federation needs to be seen as the most powerful organization in the galaxy.
Next
Next up, weâll soldier on with the adaptation of this episode and visit Pandro, in a story that Iâll call Tam Paupa.
Credits: The header image is untitled by an uncredited PxHere photographer, made available under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication.
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Tags: scifi startrek closereading