Real Life in Star Trek, The Undiscovered Country
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.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Weâll start right off, here, with the detail that they have dedicated the film to creator Gene Roddenberry, who died a bit more than a month prior to the release.
I mean, sure, I could talk about Cliff Eidelman score combining ideas from Holstâs The Planets suite and Stravinskyâs The Firebird/ĐаŃ-ĐżŃиŃа ballet. Or I could talk about this being my favorite of the films, despite it not feeling like the series. But those are mostly just asides.
Stardate 9521.6, Captainâs log, U.S.S. Excelsior, Hikaru Sulu commanding. After three years, Iâve concluded my first assignment as master of this vessel, cataloging gaseous planetary anomalies in the Beta Quadrant. Weâre heading home under full impulse power. I am pleased to report that ship and crew have functioned well.
Sulu finally has a full name on screen, after years of it floating around the novels and comic books.
Otherwise, after all the excitement around the Excelsior as the new variety of ship that Starfleet thought could easily recapture the escaping Enterprise in The Search for Spock, it seems surprising that Starfleet would assign Sulu the task of making lists for three years, rather than anythingâŚwell, Enterprise-like.
SULU: According to this weâve completed our exploration of the entire sector.
The Excelsior is apparently designed to take shock waves better than previous ships, because Sulu doesnât think anything of drinking tea out of dainty-looking china.
Much like The Search for Spock, the bridge crew appears to mostly be white people, a couple of aliens, and now Sulu. We also see crew sleeping in bunk-beds in a communal space.
VALTANE: Negative, sir. The subspace shock wave originated at bearing three-two-three, mark seven-five. Location. Itâs Praxis, sir. Itâs a Klingon moon.
A praxis is the process of applying abstract education to a concrete or practical purpose to synthesize the two, basically the Greek word for and root of âpractice.â Well, itâs that unless youâre a theater theorist, in which case itâs any action taken by a character, whichâŚsounds like an unnecessary term, but Iâve admittedly never studied theater as such.
SULU: Praxis is their key energy production facility. Send to Klingon High Command. âThis is Excelsior, a Federation starship. We have monitored a large explosion in your sector. Do you require assistance?â
RAND: Aye sir.
We have the âmysteriousâ return of Janice Randâthis time credited as Excelsior Communications Officer, somehowâsomewhat appropriate on a narrative level, since the show introduced us to Sulu through his friendship with Rand in The Man Trap.
Oh, and especially given the geopolitical situation over the last couple of months in Ukraine, I should probably mention that this Praxis incidentâs sketchy and contradictory information largely models how we watched the Chernobyl disasterâthe anniversary of which is on Tuesday, by the way, if youâre reading this shortly after I publish itâunfold from the United States, more than five years before this filmâs release. Likewise, Ukraine seceded from the Soviet Union a few days before Star Trek VIâs opening night, and the Soviet Union would formally disband by the end of the year a few weeks later, creating the modern Russian Federation.
The analogy isnât perfect, of course, but it definitely informs the script and the audience recognized it.
KERLA: This is Brigadier Kerla, speaking for the High Command. There has been an incident on Praxis. However, everything is under control. We have no need for assistance. Obey treaty stipulations, and remain outside the Neutral Zone. This transmission ends now.
I canât quite make out all the lettering on the Excelsior plaque next to the screen, but it looks to state the name/number of the ship, that Starfleet constructed it in San Francisco, and so forth, with the motto âNo matter where you go, there you are,â quoting The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
KIRK: What are we doing here?
MCCOY: Maybe theyâre throwing us a retirement party.
SCOTT: That suits me. I just bought a boat.
UHURA: This had better be good. Iâm supposed to be chairing a seminar at the Academy.
This gives us some idea of what retirement looks like in Starfleet. And it seems odd that they all retire at about the same time, given that DeForest Kelley and James Doohan are both more than a decade older than William Shatner.
C-IN-C: As you were. To break this information down succinctly, the Klingon Empire has roughly fifty years of life left to it. For full details, Iâm turning this briefing over to the Federation Special Envoy.
Starfleetâs Commander-in-Chief (âBillâ) wears a Starfleet uniform, suggesting that Starfleet isnât entirely beholden to the civilian government, as the military is in countries like the United States, where the C-in-C is the President.
Also, Starfleet monitors the Klingons to a degree that they feel confident that they can predict the end of the Empire.
SPOCK: Good morning. Two months ago a Federation starship monitored an explosion on the Klingon moon Praxis. We believe it was caused by over-mining and insufficient safety precautions. The moonâs decimation means a deadly pollution of their ozone. They will have depleted their supply of oxygen in approximately fifty Earth years.
Spock apparently moonlights as the special envoy to the Klingon Empire. In this role, he has enough pull to convince the Klingons that Kirk is trustworthy, despite the bad blood between them from the last few movies.
The ozone layer absorbs ultraviolet radiation, depletion of Earthâs ozone layer had similarly been a major issue at the time. To my knowledge, the ozone layer doesnât protect the oxygen supply, but that doesnât make it less dangerous.
SPOCK: Due to their enormous military budget, the Klingon economy does not have the resources with which to combat this catastrophe. Last month, at the behest of the Vulcan Ambassador I opened a dialogue with Gorkon, Chancellor of the Klingon High Council. He proposes to commence negotiations at once.
Imagine that, a superpower with a military budget so large, that it forces politicians to cut back on social programs that help the population.
CARTWRIGHT: Negotiations for what?
SPOCK: The dismantling of our space stations and starbases along the Neutral Zone, an end to almost seventy years of unremitting hostility, which the Klingons can no longer afford.
A few issues seem worth pointing out, here.
First, the Federation and Klingon Empire have had problems for seventy years, longer than the crew has probably livedâŚthough all the talk about retirement could plausibly mean that this takes place later than twenty-five years after the original series began. Regardless, âalmost seventy yearsâ happens to also resemble the lifespan of the Soviet Union.
Then, we donât see much ambition in this goal. Rather than dismantle the Neutral Zone, the Federation will stop monitoring it. In fact, it sounds like the ânegotiationsâ are for the Federation to scramble, while the KlingonsâŚdo what they planned to do otherwise?
That leads to this seeming like Starfleetâs admission that the Federation has been the aggressor in the relationship. Specifically, they identify Klingon militarism (circularly) as a result of securing their border with a hostile power that sometimes violates that border.
Granted, itâs not as erratic as suggesting that itâs perfectly reasonable for the Klingons to invade a neutral power to prevent the Federation from defending it from their invasionâto pick a wild example that âahemâ nobody would ever suggestâbut it still seems like an issue that would have improved on the objections that weâll hear as the scene continues.
MILITARY AIDE: Bill, are we talking about mothballing the Starfleet?
C-IN-C: Well, Iâm sure that our exploration and scientific programs would be unaffected, Captain, butâŚ
The phrasing sounds like Starfleetâs primary mission revolves around defense, most of that dedicated to the Klingons. Without the Klingon threat, the remaining organization shrinks to the point where its leaders consider Starfleet gone.
CARTWRIGHT: I must protest. To offer the Klingons safe haven within Federation space is suicide. Klingons would become the alien trash of the galaxy. And if we dismantle the fleet, weâd be defenseless before an aggressive species with a foothold on our territory. The opportunity here is to bring them to their knees. Then weâll be in a far better position to dictate terms.
Many in the Federation consider Klingons âtrashâ and a kind of invasive species. Admiral Cartwright and Kirk both echo the sentiments that the better solution includes destroying the Klingon government.
KIRK: The Klingons have never been trustworthy. Iâm forced to agree with Admiral Cartwright. This is a terrifying idea.
We see another missed opportunity, as Kirk doesnât seem to have any specific ideas as to what the Klingons might do to breach that trust. The franchise never really presents the Klingons as a large-scale threat, except sometimes politicallyâthe only reference to weapons of mass destruction, for example, has been to The Wrath of Khanâs Genesis device, so the Federation probably doesnât fear annihilation from separatists or hard-linersâand now they have a disaster to deal with.
SPOCK: I have personally vouched for you in this matter, Captain.
KIRK: YouâŚhave personallyâŚvouchedâŚ?
While this started as Kirk getting railroaded into a mission that he doesnât believe in, he now mostly seems offended to discover that Spock has more clout with the Federation government than he does.
CARTWRIGHT: I donât know whether to congratulate you or not, Jim.
MCCOY: I wouldnât.
It remains a mystery why McCoy has stayed in and been allowed to stay in Starfleet. On many occasions, the franchise has taken pains to show us that the doctor hates technology, aliens, exploration, diplomacy, and most missions that superiors assign him. Cases like this, which have the potential to save millions of lives or more, he dismisses out of hand, though The Voyage Home made it fairly clearâwith similar snide comments about how he felt the mission was beneath himâthat saving large populations isnât his problem. The Motion Picture even seemed to suggest that he found a contented life back on Earth. And surely, Starfleet could find other doctors to serve on the Enterprise, even though McCoy probably drove Chapel away, explaining why we havenât seen her wander through any films since The Motion PictureâŚ
KIRK: We volunteered?
SPOCK: Thereâs an old Vulcan proverb. âOnly Nixon could go to China.â
Only Nixon could go to Chinaâa reference to Nixonâs regressive politics allowing him to frame his meeting with Mao Zedong as expanding the interests of the United Statesâhas somehow become a Vulcan expression. Of course, itâs possible that Spock says this as a joke or translates an actual Vulcan aphorism to an Earth reference, but I prefer to imagine that the Vulcans have fictionalized Nixon into a Vulcan legend, much as the Christopher Columbus celebrated in the United States bears almost no resemblance to the historical figure.
VALERIS: Valeris, sir. We were told that you needed a helmsman, so I volunteered.
If you recognize Valeris, itâs not because the early drafts of the script brought Saavik back for this mission, but rather because Kim Cattrall has gained far more prominence since the 1990s.
Since they planned the production as the final adventure with the original crewâThe Next Generationâs fifth season had its holiday hiatus, at this pointâweâll see more than a few actors better known than the usual fare for these films.
More relevant to our project, Valeris has gained some fame as the first Vulcan to graduate the Academy at the top of her class. Weâve seen a few Vulcans in Starfleet since the original seriesâThe Motion Picture suggests that Vulcans are even commonplace in the organization, that Kirk can request âa Vulcan science officerââand they seem to have some status, yet Valeris is the first to graduate at the top of her class. What do we make of this? They probably donât slack off, and weâve seen several indications that Vulcans cultivate a strong competitive streak in kids. This sounds like the academy has biased instructors, though itâs also possible that Vulcans havenât generally gone to the academy.
KIRK: You must be very proud.
VALERIS: I donât believe so, sir.
MCCOY: Sheâs a Vulcan all right.
It didnât take long at all to get us to McCoy making a racist comment.
Captainâs log, stardate 9522.6. Iâve never trusted Klingons, and I never will. I can never forgive them for the death of my boy. To me our mission to escort the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council to a peace summitâŚis problematic, at best. Spock says this could be an historic occasion, and Iâd like to believe him. But how on earth can history get past people like me?
Kirk keeps a framed, black and white photograph of David. His quarters are also decorated with what look like ink drawings of nautical scenes.
And as weâve seen hinted at before, Kirk dictates his logs aloud. Interestingly, this log entry has the feel of a therapy session, where Kirk openly points out that he personally feels like a massive obstacle to peace.
SPOCK: Itâs a depiction from ancient Earth mythology. The Expulsion from Paradise.
VALERIS: Why keep it in your quarters?
SPOCK: To be a reminder to me that all things end.
I canât identify the specific paintingânot that I can claim anything like expertise in artâthough this continues Spock detailed knowledge of Christianity. That Valeris doesnât recognize the painting or story suggests that Vulcans donât generally share Spockâs interest.
SPOCK: Logic, logic, logic. Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end. This will be my final voyage on board this vessel as a member of her crew. Nature abhors a vacuum. I intend you to replace me.
Spock has begun to dismiss logic as a solution to problems and wants younger Vulcans like Valeris to understand that, which is uncharacteristically humble, from the person who spent years trying to prove that his life has no room for anything more than logic. I suppose that this could stem from learning from Sybok in The Final Frontier, though it could also represent sour grapes on Spockâs part for failing Kolinahr tests in The Motion Picture.
GORKON: This is Kronos One. I am Chancellor Gorkon.
You might recognize Gorkon not merely as David Warner, but as ambassador St. John Talbot, just last week in The Final Frontier.
KIRK: Weâll make arrangements to have you beamed aboard at nineteen thirty hours.
The clock above the Enterprise main viewscreenâand similar clocks above eye-level around the bridgeâappears to use a standard (for today) twenty-four-hour clock, with sixty seconds per minute.
I wonât do anything with it, but some might want to take note that those clocks run through the next few scenes, making it possibleâlikely intentionally soâto build a timeline of the nightâs events.
VALERIS: Captain, there is a supply of Romulan ale aboard. It might make the evening pass moreâŚsmoothly?
Valeris recommends serving Romulan ale to smooth the dinner with the Klingons over, suggesting that the Federation still has a culture believing that inhibitions make people unfriendly.
Also, it doesnât raise suspicions that the Enterprise randomly traffics contraband, suggesting that it happens enough to not feel notable to anyone.
CHEKOV: Guess who is coming to dinnerâŚ
Of course, this is a standard phrase. However, especially with the racial connotations that weâll get to shortlyânot to mention it being contemporary with the original seriesâwe probably need to assume that this is at least partly a reference to Guess Whoâs Coming to Dinner (1967), starring Spencer Tracy, Sydney Poitier, and Katherine Hepburn.
GORKON: Gentlemen, this is my daughter Azetbur, my military advisor Brigadier Kerla, and this is General Chang my chief of staff.
As long as weâre introducing everybody, you probably recognize Chang as Christopher Plummer, who has been inâŚbasically everything, and passed away last year.
CHANG: Iâve always wanted to meet you, Captain.
KIRK: Iâm not sure how to take that.
KERLA: Sincere admiration, KirkâŚ
CHANG: âŚfrom one warrior to another.
General Chang claims to admire Kirk, possibly to get under his skin, but it reminds us that people have some awareness of Kirk outside the Federation.
CREWMAN #1: They all look alike.
CREWMAN #2: What about that smell? You know only the top of the line models can even talk, andâŚ
The peon officers in the transporter roomâthe eventual assassinsârefer to the Klingons as smelling, âall looking alike,â and lacking intelligence. Later, Uhura and Chekhov whine about their manners at dinner, as if youâd expect anyone from another planet to have similar dinner rituals. Regardless, though, these all echo trite racist comments, some of which we brought up in The Voyage Home.
GORKON: I offer a toast. The undiscovered country, the future.
I just mentioned the manners issue, but Changâs inability to figure out the napkin or silverware without watching the others raises the question of how the crew failed to provide guests with a familiar option. Even if we assume outright maliceâthat, like the Romulan ale, someone wanted this to provoke hostile reactionsâyouâd at least expect an apology from Spock, or his asking if anyone would prefer an alternative.
SPOCK: Hamlet, act three, scene one.
GORKON: You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.
Like Nixon has somehow found himselfâand Chinaâadopted by Vulcan culture, the Klingons somehow claim Shakespeare for themselves. This seems odder. Weâve seen hints in the past that many think of the Vulcans as a âsubject raceâ to humanity and hypothesized why this might be so. However, it seems more difficult to imagine the scenario where Federation culture has so thoroughly insinuated itself into the Klingon Empire (or vice versa, I suppose) that both cultures believe that the same writer wrote the same places on two separate planets.
I donât believe that thereâs any direct quote, here, but we can find some resemblance to a scene in Pimpernel Smithâwhich, if you have the opportunity, definitely watchâwhere a Nazi general refers to Shakespeare as âour great German poet.â In turn, that takes inspiration from actual Germans attempting to claim Shakespeare, so we could also assume that the Klingons (or humans, since we do know that Star Trekâs version of history isnât ours) spout propaganda when making claims about Shakespeareâs origins.
What Iâm saying is that Iâd definitely watch the spinoff about nerdy Klingons stranded on Earth in the Elizabethan era, trying to make a living through theater. Itâd have to be better than Lower Decks writers wishing that they could write for the thirty-fifth season of The Next Generation instead, for exampleâŚ
More loosely, this scene also marks the first serious use the fancy new Klingon language by Marc Okrand, which became an industry of its own based on its showing, here. In turn, that led to an ugly lawsuit a few years ago, which I discussed for other reasons with Whom Gods Destroy.
KERLA: Captain Kirk, I thought Romulan ale was illegal.
KIRK: One of the advantages of being a thousand light years from Federation headquarters.
In some episodesâI canât find the reference, at the moment, but Iâll fill one in after posting this, if I find itâweâve gotten the impression that security and shipping focuses most of its attention on the âcoreâ of the Federation, essentially following the money. This seems to suggest that we can say the same for general law enforcement.
CHANG: Tell me, Captain Kirk, would you be willing to give up Starfleet?
Kirkâs tension, here, seems bizarre, since he has an easy answer in that heâs three months away from retirement. Regardless of how the talks end, Kirk will give up Starfleet in at least one concrete sense.
CHANG: Come now, Captain, thereâs no need to mince words. In space, all warriors are cold warriors.
I canât find an earlier reference for âall warriors are cold warriorsââobviously referencing the Cold War, while also referring to the coldness of spaceâbut it hints that few people think that hostile attitudes will end along with the hostilities.
AZETBUR: InalienâŚIf only you could hear yourselves? Human rights. Why the very name is racist. The Federation is no more than a Homo sapiens-only club.
Azetbur identifies Klingons as âaliens,â and suggests that the term applies to anybody who doesnât have some pure human lineage. This also gives some indication of how outsiders see the Federation, a human project that steamrolls over the rest of the galaxy.
KERLA: In any case, we know where this is leading. The annihilation of our culture.
This continues to echo the idea that the goal of the Federationârepresented partly by Cartwright at the start of the filmâincludes destroying Klingon culture. Later, we see hints that the Klingons fear becoming slaves to the Federation.
CHANG: âTo be, or not to be,â that is the question which preoccupies our people, Captain Kirk. We need breathing room.
KIRK: Earth, Hitler, 1938.
Kirk connects Changâs âwe need breathing roomâ with Hitler, most likely the Lebensraum, a plan of settler colonialism in Europe.
GORKON: You donât trust me, do you? I donât blame you. If there is to be a brave new world, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it. Captain Spock.
Gorkon rightly points out that, after seventy years of hostilities, their contemporaries will resist the transition, echoing Kirkâs log.
Given the context, we also canât let this go by without pointing out Mirandaâs speech in Shakespeareâs The Tempest, Act V, Scene I: âO wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, / That has such people inât.â This passage previously came up with Is There in Truth No Beauty? where Spockâunder the control of the Medusanâslightly misquotes it.
CHANG: Well, most kind. âParting is such sweet sorrow,â hmm, Captain? âHave we not heard the chimes at midnight?â
I think that we can all agree that âdrunken Shakespeare quote guy with an eye patchâ is always the worst party guest. Just pick one gimmick, manâŚ
In any case, the former quote comes from The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II, Julietâs line near the end. The latter comes from Falstaffâs line addressing Robert Shallow, in Second Part of King Henry IV, Act III, Scene II.
Captainâs log. The Enterprise hosted Chancellor Gorkon and company to dinner last night. Our manners werenât exactly Emily Post. Note to the galley. Romulan ale no longer to be served at diplomatic functions.
Emily Post was a socialite known for her writing on manners, such as Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home in 1922.
KERLA: Weâve lost gravity.
At least on the Klingon ship, artificial gravity acts like some sort of energy field. And they have an auxiliary gravity system.
GORKON: Find Chang!
Phasers now punch holes in their targets.
Klingons bleed a bright magenta. This is almost certainly intended to maintain a PG rating, but the coloration could also imply specific blood chemistry, such as a chemical like hemerythrin carrying oxygen, rather than hemoglobin.
SPOCK: Perhaps youâre right.
Spock places the single most conspicuous tracking device on Kirkâs shoulder that was probably possible within the budget, but somehow, nobody notices it. Kirk eventually does, and somehow nobody ever takes his uniform jacket from him.
MCCOY: Jim, I donât even know his anatomy. His wounds are not closing.
McCoy doesnât know Klingon anatomyâor at least claims not to, since heâs made that claim for many other non-human peersâand his tool to close wounds doesnât work. Something like CPR basically does work, though.
CHANG: Under article number one hundred and eighty-four of your Interstellar Law, Iâm placing you under arrest. You are charged with assassinating the Chancellor of the High Council.
Assuming that âInterstellar Lawâ resembles modern âinternational law,â it probably comes primarily from treaties, which fits the possibility of more than 184 articles of such law available. And I assume that article must say something like âdo not assassinate heads of stateââŚ
FEDERATION PRESIDENT: I have ordered a full-scale investigation. In the meantimeâŚ
We saw a presumably alien character with an appearance similar to the Presidentâwhose window notably faces the Eiffel Tower, giving us a location for the Federationâs capitalâsuggesting that they represent an alien race. This scene also confirms that the Federation President is not Starfleetâs Commander-in-Chief.
VALERIS: Four hundred years ago on the planet Earth, workers who felt their livelihood threatened by automation, flung their wooden shoes, called âsabotsâ into the machines to stop them. Hence, the word âsabotage.â
This story apparently never actually happened, though it seems close. Rather than using the sabots to damage equipment, workers would use the noisy wooden soles to disrupt processes, among other labor actions. In Valerisâs defense, she got it closer than Spock usually does when he cites historyâŚ
The trial starts out in the Klingon language, with translations supplied to Kirk and McCoy, echoing a trial scene from 1961âs Judgment at Nuremberg, with a sprawling cast that included Judy Garland, the aforementioned Spencer Tracy, and William Shatner as the judgeâs aide.
COLONEL WORF: Or perhaps they merely wore Starfleet uniforms.
Do I need to mention that the actor playing Kirk and McCoyâs legal defense Colonel Worf is Michael Dorn? Weâll start seeing his namesakeâplayed by the same actor in the same makeup, of courseâregularly, in a few weeks.
CHANG: Doctor McCoy, would you be so good as to tell me your current medical status?
MCCOY: Aside from a touch of arthritis, Iâd say pretty good.
CHANG: You have a singular wit, Doctor.
McCoyâs joke lands reasonably well among the Klingons, despite the language barrier, indicating that thereâs a shared sense of humor between the two cultures.
MCCOY: I didnât have the medical knowledge I needed for Klingon anatomy.
Iâve brought this sort of thing up in the past, particularly with Vulcans, but given the stakes of this mission and the number of things that could go wrongâŚwhy didnât McCoy bother to study Klingon anatomy on the trip?
MCCOY: My God, man, I tried to save him! I tried to save him. I was desperate to save him! He was the last best hope in the universe for peace.
McCoy refers to Gorkon as âthe last, best hope in the universe for peace,â broadly referencing Abraham Lincolnâs 1862 State of the Union address, talking about the United States as âthe last best hope of Earth.â Ronald Reagan echoed this by referring to liberty as âthis last, best hope of man on Earthâ in his 1982 State of the Union address. Maybe interestingly to some readers, the phrase âlast, best hope for peaceââitself a nod to Lincolnâwould soon describe the primary location in competing franchise Babylon 5 for its first couple of years of opening credits.
CHANG: There we have it, citizens. We have finally established the particulars of the crime. And now we come to the architect of this tragic affair. James Tiberius Kirk. What would your favorite author say, Captain? âLet us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kingsâ? Tell us your sad story, Kirk. Tell us that you planned to take revenge for the death of your son.
While Kirk mentioned it in Bem and the adaptation for The Motion Picture, Paramount has often felt uncomfortable considering either of those as âofficialâ parts of Star Trek history. That made this the first ârealâ mention of Kirkâs middle name, despite most fans knowing it for more than fifteen years.
Oh, and the quote is from King Richard the Second, Act III, Scene II, part of a long speech by Richard.
KIRK (recorded): Iâve never trusted Klingons and I never will. Iâve never been able to forgive them for the death of my boy.
The logs arenât just dictated; theyâre outright recorded, with General Chang acquiring and playing a copy at the trial. While we could argue that Valeris recorded it separately, Kirk doesnât seem at all surprised that the log could have become available, so her proximity probably just meant that she knew what to copy.
CHANG: On the contrary, Captain Kirkâs views and motives are, indeed, at the very heart of the matter. This officerâs record shows him to be an insubordinate, unprincipled, career-minded opportunist with a history of violating the chain of command whenever it suited him.
Kirkâs record of insubordination is well-known. Oddly, Chang doesnât mention Kirk setting up an entire crew of Klingons (except one) to die, despite that making a significant part of The Voyage Homeâs framing sequence. Theyâve demanded his extradition for that, and now that they have him, they ignore it.
CHANG: Indeed the record shows that Captain Kirk once held the rank of Admiral and that Admiral Kirk was broken for taking matters into his own hands in defiance of regulations and the law. Do you deny you were demoted for these charges, Captain? Donât wait for the translation. Answer me now!
Changâs âdonât wait for the translationâ line refers to Adlai Stevenson IIâs presentation to the United Nations Security Council during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when he made the same demand of Soviet representative Valerian Zorin. Itâs taken far less seriously than this, despite their debating the presence of nuclear missiles.
COLONEL WORF: I wish to note, for the record, that the evidence against my client is entirely circumstantial. I beg the court to consider this when pronouncing its sentence.
I just want to quickly point out that, for all the rhetoric that weâve heard about the Klingonsâ unfairness, their legal system sounds suspiciously like our own. Even sentencing these two to hard labor recalls the various times that someone has said that execution or labor camps might be outcomes of Federation courts.
SPOCK: An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminate the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
This line paraphrases The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet, where Sherlock Holmes says that âIt is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.â
This leads to three possibilities. The first, keeping with other running jokes in the film, suggests that Vulcans may have appropriated the Sherlock Holmes franchise, along with Nixon. If not, then Spockâs human ancestry would refer to his mother Amanda (seen most recently in The Voyage Home) who could claim descent from Arthur Conan Doyle orâsince we know that Star Trekâs version of history doesnât always follow oursâa ârealâ Sherlock Holmes.
KLINGON COMMANDANT: This is the gulag Rura Penthe. There is no stockade, no guard tower, no electronic frontier. Only a magnetic shield prevents beaming. Punishment means exile from prison to the surface. On the surface, nothing can survive. Work well, and you will be treated well. Work badly, and you will die.
The judge sentences Kirk to death, but commutes it in exchange for a life sentence working a dilithium mine, which the Enterprise officers interpret as a death sentence.
The GULag (ĐНаĚвнОо ŃĐżŃавНоĚнио НагоŃĐľĚĐš or ĐĐŁĐаг) was the Soviet agency that coordinated forced labor, though the English-speaking world has tended to use the term âgulagâ to refer to any Soviet-style labor camp.
The Commandantâs speech borrows liberally from a similar announcement delivered by Col. Saitoâplayed by Sessue Hayakawa, who you might recognize from my post on Asian representation in mediaâas he tasks the British prisoners to building The Bridge on the River Kwaiâs namesake, now part of the Thai-Burma Railway. I donât have the familiarity with the novel to say if it derives from the text.
MARTIA: He wants your obedience to the Brotherhood of Aliens.
You might not recognize Martiaâeven though you probably should, and the ad campaigns for this film tried to make her appearance a big dealâbut sheâs Somali-born supermodel Iman.
SPOCK: Any progress?
The Enterprise galley has a crew that appears to cook with something like induction ranges. Similarly, officers in waiter-like uniforms set the tables. Weâve had hints that the Federation automates some aspects of cooking, but clearly not much.
SPOCK: Iâm having the refuse searched. If my surmise is correct, those boots will cling to the killersâ necks like a pair of Tiberian bats. They could not make their escape without them, nor can they simply throw them out a window for all to see. Those boots are here, somewhere.
The Tiber has been Romeâs primary source of water, though is notâas far as I can tellâknown for its neck-clinging bats, suggesting that a colony exists with a similar name. When referring to flying creatures, necks, and wrongdoing, though, we probably need to refer to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which I discussed for The Albatross.
VALERIS: A lie?
SPOCK: An error.
Spock and Valeris repeat the game from Spock and Saavik in The Wrath of Khan, questioning whether something is a lie to redefine and justify it. Like that incident, this completely misses the point. Spock repeats a lie given to him by a report. He doesnât make any âerror,â as he suggests.
Donât get me wrong, here. We have no way to spin this as honest. However, even if we accept that Vulcans (or Spock) canât or wonât lie, he has encouraged or ordered a lie, then directed someone to repeat it. Dishonest Spock hasnât done anything that fits the strict definition of lying. Given the emergency, it reminds me of the distinction made with Shabbos goyim (׊×ת ×××), where Judiasmâdepending on community interpretations and traditionsâgenerally forbids certain actions on the Sabbath, such as starting fires.
However, two emergency circumstances exist. Life-threatening problems override any restrictions. Between the dayâs routine and possible death, though, most rabbis advise hiring someone to drive or operate electronics when necessary, and that person plays the part of the Shabbos goy. This appears to fit the category, where nobodyâs life is immediately at stake, but Spock has an emergency, and so he might see it as legitimate to direct others to lie for him, if this represents a cultural prohibition at all.
KIRK: Weâre not finished.
MCCOY: Speak for yourself. One day, one nightâŚKobayashi Maru.
McCoy uses the Kobayashi Maru as a term for his own death, whichâgiven that heâs making a reference to a fictional ship in a military simulationâseems out of place for casual conversation about impending doom. Has word of the test leaked out to the public?
This represents a class of enormous problems with fictional worlds: It doesnât actually make any sense for Starfleet to repeat names on the test, because that gives away the requirements of the test, once word spreads. However, the fans think of it as âthe Kobayashi Maru test,â so writers have the characters think of it that way, to avoid confusion.
As a resultâas I mentioned when discussing The Wrath of Khanâyou have a generation of fans who tried to imagine what sort of alien craft this fictional-in-a-fiction ship might be, rather than listening to Japanese fans.
KIRK: No more Neutral Zone. I was used to hating Klingons. It never even occurred to me to take Gorkon at his word. Spock was right.
MCCOY: Try not to be too hard on yourself. We all felt exactly the same.
Even looking at retirement and opposed to the future, Kirk feels introspective enough to put his finger on where he has failed his ideals and what he needs to do better. McCoy, by contrast, doesnât care. Based on comments that McCoy has made about non-humans throughout the series, he probably doesnât want to lose the atmosphere of bigotry.
KIRK: Candidate for what?
âŚ
MCCOY: What is it with you, anyway?
McCoy also decided that he needed to âslut-shameâ his boss. LovelyâŚ
EXCELSIOR COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Sorry to wake you, sir.
As mentioned, the more-or-less final film in the series received more star-power than usual, Christian Slater probably being the biggest name to American audiences at the time, and conveniently the son of the casting director. Of course, this probably seems like far less of an event today, when crowd scenes seem to always get populated with either celebrity friends of the director or computer-generated nobodies.
SPOCK: Now we expand our search to include uniforms.
CHEKOV: All uniforms?
The search strongly suggests that the crew issues and maintains individual uniforms, rather than creating them on demand.
CHEKOV: Perhaps you know Russian epic of Cinderella? If shoe fits, wear it!
Chekov is so proud of identifying Cinderella as a Russian epicâreminding us that âRussians inventedâ cultural appropriation, at least in this franchise, starting in Who Mourns for Adonais?âthat he fails to look at crewman Daxâs feet.
MCCOY: What kind of creature is this? Last night you two wereâŚ
KIRK: Donât remind me.
Hereâs an unpleasant transphobic-coded joke with Martiaâs shape-changing, to go with McCoy slut-shaming Kirk earlier. The second such joke, actually, if you include his musing about where she keeps her genitals.
KIRK: No! Bones, Iâm wearing a viridium patch on my back. Spock slapped it there just before we went on Gorkonâs ship.
I canât find a prior reference to âviridium,â though it can be the genitive plural forms of the Latin adjective viridisâgreen or youthfulâand appears to be a trade-name for Phenazopyridine.
CHEKOV: We must respond personally. A universal translator would be recognized.
Chekov points out that they canât use the universal translator, leading to the comic relief scene of the entire bridge digging through old paper dictionaries, apparently the only Klingon translations that they can access. This raises a variety of questions, like why the Enterprise apparently has a library of paper books without anybody digitizing the information, but weâll skip them, since there could be technical reasons.
MCCOY: Would you mind explaining that little trick you do?
McCoy has a short memory, given the number of shape-shifters that the Enterprise has encountered.
KIRK: I canât believe I kissed you.
MARTIA: Must have been your lifelong ambition.
IâŚguess that Kirk has some sort of interstellar reputation as a ladiesâ man, despite the fact that, time and again, weâve seen that heâs comically awful at seducing women.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Now hear this. Now hear this. Court Recorder to sick bay. Code Blue, urgent! Statements to be taken at once from Yeomen Burke and Samno. Repeat. Court Recorder to sick bay. Code Blue, urgent! Statements to be taken. Repeat. Statements to be taken from Yeomen Burke and Samno.
Like the Excelsior, the Enterprise apparently also has communal bunks for most of the lower-level crew. Also, the assassins got names. I wonât bother to update their quoted dialogue, since I donât know (or care) which is which.
SPOCK: You have to shoot. If you are logical, you have to shoot.
Itâs possibly not important, but this is the fourth time that this magenta colorâspecifically, the light bathing Valerisâs faceâhas dominated the screen in this film. The credits began and ended with this color, and Klingon blood has a similar hue.
VALERIS: I do not remember.
SPOCK: A lie?
VALERIS: A choice.
Spock forces Valeris to participate in a mind meld to get the names of the conspirators, terrifying the officers. The Romulan ambassador is in on it, which seems peculiar.
Also, Vulcans apparently still havenât figured out what lies are. Maybe thatâs the problem, that their initial exposure to the word lie included some confounding definition, instead of âan intentionally false statement.â
KIRK: The night is young. You said it yourself. It was logical. Peace is worth a few personal risks. Youâre a great one for logic. Iâm a great one for rushing in where angels fear to tread. Weâre both extremists. Reality is probably somewhere in between us. I couldnât get past the death of my son.
The line âfools rush in where angels fear to treadâ comes from Alexander Popeâs An Essay on Criticism.
KIRK: Do you want to know something? Everybodyâs human.
SPOCK: I find that remarkâŚinsulting.
I pointed out the similar comment at the end of The Wrath of Khan, and itâs true here, too: That is insulting, full-stop. The most charitable reading is that Kirk thinks that humans are superior to everyone else, and that heâs allowing Spock access to that group.
FEDERATION PRESIDENT: Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing.
This sounds familiar, but I canât find an earlier reference to this phrasing, though it bears some vague resemblance to the David Humeâs Is-Ought Problem, suggesting that we canât make moral evaluations without moral information.
UHURA: Nothing, Captain. If sheâs here, sheâs rigged for silent running.
I have to assume that this line exists almost exclusively to make the point that they produced this scene to resemble a submarine battle in a war film.
CHANG: Oh now, be honest, Captain. Warrior to warrior, you do prefer it this way, donât you? As it was meant to be. No peace in our time. âOnce more unto the breach, dear friends.â
Given the theme and historical references, odds are good that they meant Changâs line to at least evoke Neville Chamberlainâs peace for our time speech, whichâŚdidnât age well. It and other similar speeches tend to refer to Da pacem, Domine, the start of a hymn.
By contrast, âonce more unto the breach, my friendsâ comes from The Life of King Henry V, Act III, Scene I, technically the entire scene.
AZETBUR: Many speculated about my fatherâs motives. There were those who said he was an idealist, others said he had no choice. If Praxis had not exploded, then quite possibly his idealism would not have found expression. We are a proud race. We are here because we want to go on being proud.
The attempted assassination of the Federation president appears to reference The Manchurian Candidate, though its plot about a brainwashed American soldier sent home as an assassin doesnât seem relevant to the plot here.
Also, we donât get a clear look at him or any hint that anything is odd, but in deleted scenesâhinted at by the Klingon assassinâs red bloodâwe find that heâs actually a human named Colonel West. While Westâs name evokes Oliver North and his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal, youâll probably recognize the actor (if you saw his face) as RenĂŠ Auberjonois. Auberjonois worked with Christopher Plummer on Big River and had a massive career in theater, but people my age recognize him primarily from Benson and Star Trek fans primarily know him from seven years on Deep Space Nine, for more than two years at the time.
My point is that the cameo that we donât even see has a lot of baggage. This probably marks the first time in this series of posts that I wish there were easier access to the extended cuts.
CHANG: Tickle us, do we not laugh? Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us, shall we not revenge?
This line comes directly from The Merchant of Venice, spoken by Shylock as part of his monologue in Act III, Scene I, describing the persecution of Jewish people despite their humanity.
FEDERATION PRESIDENT: The proposed agenda is as follows. The total evacuation of Kronos has been calculated within the fifty Earth year time span. Phase one, preparation for evacuationâŚ
It only just now occurs to me that the film basically smuggles in the idea that the destruction of Praxis destroys the Klingon home-world and capital. They never named the planet that Praxis orbits until now, and the only other mention of the name is the Chancellorâs ship, Kronos One, whichâdespite the differenceâsuggests a similarity to Air Force One and the other âOneâ (Army, Navy, and Marine) call-signs used when transporting the President of the United States.
CHANG: Ah, the gameâs afoot, eh? âOur revels now are ended,â Kirk! âCry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.â
âŚ
CHANG: âI am constant as the Northern Star.â
While most people recognize it from the Sherlock Holmes stories, âthe gameâs afootâ comes from the opposite end of the The Life of King Henry V, Act III, Scene I speech mentioned above. âOur revels now are endedâ is Prosperoâs line in The Tempest, Act IV, Scene I. âCry havocâŚâ comes from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, the end of Antonyâs speech in Act III, near the end of Scene I. âI am constant as the Northern Starâ is Caesarâs line earlier in the scene.
MCCOY: Iâd give real money if heâd shut up.
We have another reference to money, of course, butâŚwho decided that the entire crew needed to listen to Chang quote Shakespeare all night?
KIRK: Itâs about the future, Madam Chancellor. Some people think the future means the end of history. But we havenât run out of history just yet. Your father called the future âthe undiscovered country.â People can be very frightened of change.
The end of history generally refers to humanity reaching some final stage of cultural development. Probably most directly influential, Francis Fukuyama 1989 essay The End of History?âexpanded into a book published the year after this filmâargued that the fall of the Soviet Union meant that liberal democracy could spread around the world and become the final human government.
AZETBUR: Youâve restored my fatherâs faith.
KIRK: And youâve restored my sonâs.
All the attendees at the conference appear to applaud, butâin an interesting visual detailâeach species appears to applaud slightly differently.
UHURA: Captain, I have orders from Starfleet Command. Weâre to put back into Spacedock immediatelyâŚto be decommissioned.
Starfleet has the Enterprise slated for decommission, despite only being in service for a few years. Remember, this shipâs first mission happened during The Final Frontier, the previous film.
SPOCK: If I were human, I believe my response would be âGo to Hell!â If I were humanâŚ
Does Spock not consider himself human at all? Actually, since Genesis ârebuiltâ him, is he at all human? Does he consider humanity to be a culture to voluntarily identify with or not? I love the line and the delivery, but it seems odd, since his motherâas we discuss aboveâis human.
CHEKOV: Course heading, Captain?
KIRK: Second star to the right, and straight on âtil morning.
This paraphrases Chapter III (Come away, Come away!) of J.M. Barrieâs Peter and Wendy, the original being Peter Pan explaining how to get to where he lives as: âSecond to the right,â said Peter, âand then straight on till morning.â
Captainâs log, U.S.S. Enterprise, stardate 9529.1. This is the final cruise of the Starship Enterprise under my command. This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no manâwhere no oneâhas gone before.
I canât speak for anybody else, but it intrigues me that Kirkâs shift from âno manâ to âno oneâ seems to stem from race, rather than gender. That is, the incident with the Klingons has forced him to look at how he thinks of Starfleet, and he seems to have come to the same conclusion as Azetbur, wishing that it were something other than a Homo sapiens-only club.
Anyway, thatâother than the fancy signatures over the final music cueâwraps the film. And like the previous movies, looking back, itâs hard not to imagine these two hours serialized across a season of television; unlike the suggestion for the other movies, Star Trek VI began filming after Twin Peaks had aired, so a serialized genre comedic-drama wouldnât be out of the question at all. For example, Valeris is interesting enough, but isnât really a sufficiently realized character for her betrayal to have much emotional impact. Likewise, except in the âteaser,â we get basically no time with Sulu and the Excelsior or even the Klingons.
Conclusions
This film tells us far more about the Klingons than the Federation, but we certainly get some insight, such as some of the Federation governmentâs structure.
Retirement doesnât appear to have changed, with parties and stereotypical purchases of vehicles used for recreation. Food still seems mostly prepared manually, and uniforms likewise see manual treatment.
The Good
While he has some missteps, Kirk continues to care about his emotional state and the damage it might cause, examining where he needs to do better. Similarly, Spock seems to have given up on trying to prove himself, partially sublimating that energy into mentoring younger colleagues.
The Federation abides by some form of Interstellar Law, which goes on for white some time before banning assassinations.
The Bad
Both the Klingons and high-ranking Starfleet officers characterize Starfleet as primarily military, and the aggressor in conflicts with the Klingons. It appears to operate without civilian oversight, with the commander-in-chief seeming to serve exclusively as an officer, unrelated to the Federation leadership. Starfleet also monitors Klingon worlds to a degree that they predict the fall of the empire as fact, and the end of hostilities with the Klingons appears to mark the end of that military action. In addition, at least the majority of the human population has never seen a galaxy without Federation-Klingon conflicts.
Nobody seems particularly concerned that the Klingons have spent the previous three films calling for Kirkâs head. Spock recommends him as a quasi-ambassador, and everything about killing a shipâs crew and seizing the vessel seems forgotten.
Despite the new power imbalance, Starfleetâs position seems to not grasp the problem, imagining an immediate future where the Federation no longer needs any defense, with no interest in providing aid.
We see pervasive racism, here. Cartwright characterizes the Klingons as an invasive species and âtrash.â Kirk smears them as untrustworthy. We hear both hints and offensive comments pointing to bias against Vulcans. The diplomatic dinner plan doesnât seem to include the Klingons. The crew at all levels has stereotypically racist comments. McCoy doesnât bother to learn the anatomy of non-humans who he might need to care for. Quite a bit of anti-Klingon rhetoric proves false without comment. Kirk insists that everybody is human, as if thatâs a compliment. Even Klingon language gets treated as something obscure. Maybe compounding these sorts of issues, the Federation still has the idea that reducing inhibitions with drugs improves relationships.
The Federation has a miserable reputation, thought to be a human-dominated, racist, and militaristic society, desperate to crush other cultures.
Itâs still acceptable for McCoy to openly dismiss his assignments. McCoy also seems to think that itâs his responsibility to stick his nose into everybodyâs sexual habits.
We get the sense that Starfleet ships routinely carry contraband, and it sounds like Federation law enforcement doesnât bother enforcing laws further away from the government centers.
Gender suddenly seems of critical importance to people in distinctly transphobic ways, with multiple discussions about genitals not being what they seem.
The Weird
Kirk seems highly offended that Spockâs word carries more weight with Starfleet and the Federation than his does. Itâs enough that it derails his concerns about the mission.
Vulcans and Klingons both appear to claim significant parts of Earth history. Spock also continues his interest in Christianity, keeping religious paintings as existential reminders. The Klingons also seem to share a sense of humor with humans.
Despite stardates seeming pervasive in prior films, the Enterprise has reverted to a twenty-four hour clock for on-ship time.
In contrast to the original Enterprise, which lasted for decades before Starfleet decommissioned it, they plan to decommission the Enterprise-A after just a few years, basically the length of time between this film and its predecessor.
Next
Next up, we see the final adventure with the original cast and try to half-heartedly build some mythic resonance, in Star Trek: GenerationsâŚat least until we fast-forward to the future.
Credits: The header image is Horseshoe Crab by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service â Northeast Region, released into the public domain as a work of the United States government. Horseshoe crabs probably inspired the modern look of Klingons and have a bluish bloodâbased on hemocyaninâwhich companies brutally harvest for applications in medical testing.
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