What's Going On Here

When I first started this blog, I created a very simple "About" page. Since then My Year Of Star Trek has grown and evolved. I'm heading into my sixth month so I thought I'd create a Captain's Vlog to better explain what's going on here. Enjoy:

If you, like me, don't like watching stuff like this online and would rather just read it, or if you don't (for some reason) want to stare at my face for five minutes, I will try to post a transcript of this tomorrow as an addendum to this post. 

PS- Enjoy my shout out to Buckaroo Banzai.

PPS- I know the thumbnail of this video features me making a totally weirdo face. Yes, I make that face all the time. 

A Case Of The Olds

When I was a little kid and I ended up in a game of house, do you know who I inevitably played? The grandpa. When I played The Princess Bride, I was Miracle Max. My favorite picture book as a child was literally called, "A Little Old Man." I'm the kid who screams at other kids to stop playing their music so loud, to get off her lawn, and who really, really appreciates fig newtons.

I mention all of this because I think a lot about a DS9 character who is frequently referred to as, "Old Man." Jadzia carries a symbiont named Dax who used to live inside a cranky old bastard named Curzon. Sisko had a great fondness for his cantankerous mentor and still does--even though that old bastard now kind of lives inside Jadzia. It sounds a little confusing but when Jadzia Dax strides confidently in and out of scenes, playing tonga with the Ferengi, appreciating beauty in all genders/species, and lecturing her old mentee about honor or loyalty or whatever, it seems totally natural.

I feel like I'd be a great trill. In fact, if I weren't completely sure about the fact that I (sadly) don't live in the Star Trek universe, I'd check to make sure I didn't have some super old guy's discarded symbiont in my gut. My symbiont probably wouldn't be as cool as Dax though. My symbiont would just mumble a lot about the price of gas and then adjust his suspenders (which I have and wear often) then refuse to go outside because it's too crowded/sunny (which I do) and then announce that he's off to take a nap. (Don't judge. Naps are awesome.) Actually, I guess I'd be a really crappy trill. I'd totally be turned down for The Joining. And that'd be ok with me since I really just want to sit inside and plow through a sack of Werther's anyway.

Sick Day

Today I felt pretty awful. It started out great but took a bad turn and then all of the sudden it was 9pm. I did manage to watch four episodes of DS9. They were all super awesome and hopefully I'll write about at least one of them tomorrow--maybe Blood Oath.

Until then, enjoy the following photos:

Awesome right? A friend happened to see these guys in a claw machine and was kind enough to send them to me. If I'd been be-bopping around the Walmart and spotted not one, but TWO Star Trek plush toys I'm pretty sure I would've blown all my junk food money playing the claw machine. You know how it is--you go out with a sack of quarters and a hankering for dill pickle potato chips and you come back with nothing but disgust at your own pitiful claw machine skills. Either way, just knowing that somewhere out there this is happening. These guys are probably still just sitting there, shouting at each other from underneath Betty Boops and Teletubbies or whatever. Just knowing that this is going on makes me feel better.

BFFs: Jake & Nog

Today I watched The Alternate, Armageddon Game, Whispers, and Paradise. My favorite of these is the Obrien-centric "Whispers" which is intriguing from the start, mysterious all the way through, and surprising at the end. Because it's such a great surprise, I'd rather not ruit in for you here. Instead, go watch it and enjoy this little tribute picture I made of Jake and Nog. These two haven't had much going on the last few episodes but for whatever reason, I just really wanted to do a piece about them and since it's Sunday and I mostly just worked on illustration stuff, this was a nice break.

DS9: Doomed To Fail

I'm terribly sorry about the fallback in posts this week. I didn't write the day that I was in the ER and spent yesterday recovering. I did, however, watch lots of DS9. Actually, in the last two days, I watched several episodes of DS9 and three of them were about doomed relationships: Melora, Rules of Acquisition, and Second Sight. If you've not seen these episodes and you don't want them totally ruined for you, skip over this one and come back to it after you've had your heart broken three times in four episodes.

#1: Melora
Melora is an Elaysian from a planet with very low gravity. Because of DS9's comparatively high gravity, she needs the assistance of a wheel chair and/or exo-skeleton to move about the station. Bashir gets the googly eyes over her and even comes up with a series of treatments that allow Melora to function in the high gravity environment. Eventually though, Melora realizes that if she continues the treatments she won't be able to return to her home world for extended periods of time without confusing her neuromuscular system. This makes no sense to me since it seems like once the treatments have effectively become permanent, she ought to be able to function in a low gravity environment just as well as any our astronauts function on the space station but whatever. Dax draws such a charming comparison between Melora and the Little Mermaid that it doesn't bother me.

Wish I could be... part of your world. 

What does bother me is that fact that somehow Bashir has gone his entire life without experiencing low gravity! Dude, you are literally living in a space station! What's going on!? How do they not have rooms that are just designed for low gravity (like Melora's) where you can go fly around all day and do awesome David Bowie covers to beam back to Earth? Anyway, once Melora doesn't want to be Bashir's science project anymore we never see her again.

#2: Rules of Acquisition
Ok, basically we've got a Yentl thing going on here. This Ferengi chick named Pel is fed up with women not being allowed to read or write or wear clothes. She gets herself some sweet, synthetic lobes and heads out into space to make her fortune. Pretty soon she meets Quark and falls in love. Quark doesn't know Pel is a lady but he respects his new pal for his smarts and rare loyalty. See? Just like Yentl. I told you.

Rule of Acquisition #21:
Never place friendship above profit.

Anyway, as much as Quark digs Pel, he can't abide by her break with convention and neither can the Grand Nagus. Things don't end well but Pel makes a pretty clean break and gets on a boat headed for the United States  books passage on an Andorian freighter which will take her into the Gamma Quadrant, where she can lead a life of freedom and dignity as a woman.

#3: Second Sight
Well this one's pretty heartbreaking from the get-go. Basically, Sisko realizes that he almost forgot that it's the fourth anniversary of his wife's death so he takes a somber walk around the station where he meets a beautiful woman named Fenna. They hit it off and he starts forgetting how crazy depressed he is just when she disappears. This happens a few more times and Sisko even wonders if maybe he's starting to lose it. Finally, he and Dax figure out that Fenna is a psychic projection of Nadell, the unhappy wife of a terraforming scientist they're hosting. Once that comes out, we can all gather that Sisko and Fenna (who doesn't even really exist) can't ride off into the wormhole together. Sisko says goodbye to Nadell completely ignorant of the fact that she will go on to have a happy life as the director of Global Dynamics in a little town called Eureka.

Don't cry, Fenna. Eureka is awesome. 

A Visit To Sickbay

I have a slight medical problem. Sometimes I drop like a stone and no one really knows exactly why. Sometimes it's caused by pain or heat or maybe I haven't eaten in a while or maybe I'm freaking out over something like a too-crowded room. Anyway, once it starts, it's a runaway train. I can feel my body turn hot and cold at the same time and then it's like I go through a tunnel where my senses just shut off. Yesterday, I was sitting in a restaurant sipping a coke when I felt it starting. Usually, if I catch it early, eating or drinking something with sugar will curb it but not this time. I told Scott, "I think I'm going to pass out." I remember reaching for the drink, my hand missing it several times, and then I woke up on the floor.

A little while later, I was in the ER. Nurses swarmed around me and I was hooked up to a lot of machines that go ping. Hours passed. "This is Star Trek," I said, and my husband seemed a little worried that I might be losing it again. I clarified that what I meant was that back in the TOS days, they were still dreaming of much of the technology we had seen over the course of our stay in the ER. I held up the simple clip on my finger that gave us a constant readout of my heart rate. "Like this thing," I said.

Many of the sickbay instruments regularly used in Star Trek have become a reality. The hypospray, the tricorder, a handheld ultrasound, and bionic eyes that work much like Geordi's visor have all been developed. Back when Bones first ripped the sleeve off of Kirk's uniform to fix him up in "The Naked Time" all this stuff was just a good idea. Now it's real.

That's why, when I watch Star Trek and see devices that can instantly graft skin or bones back together, food replicators that mean no one has to go hungry, and seamless universal translators that make it easier for everyone on this planet to talk to everyone else, I feel optimistic. People out there are working on that. Maybe someday I'll be writing posts from a handheld, tablet-like device that instantly transmits my work to thousands of people all over the world--oh, wait.

DS9: In The Hands Of The Prophets

My sixth-grade science teacher, on the first day of class, announced that she would not be teaching evolution or the big bang theory, as she believed in neither. She was a Christian, she said, and that entitled her to choose what she wanted to teach and what she wanted to leave out. I remember exactly where I was sitting in the classroom. I remember the old tables with old graffiti gouged into it.  I remember the fact that there was no air conditioning and that in Kentucky in August, the heat was intense. And yet, as my teacher proudly uttered the statement that she planned to intentionally neglect a large part of our curriculum, a new heat, oppressive and uncomfortable, crept over my body. As a young, curious student, I was confused. I was disappointed. I was angry. 

I thought a lot about that day as I watched "In The Hands Of The Prophets." In the episode, Keiko is teaching her small, rag-tag group of students about the wormhole next to which their station is perched when in comes Vedek Winn. The Vedek (a religious authority and holy figure among the Bajoran people) insists that Keiko ought to be teaching the children about how the wormhole is actually a Celestial Temple and that the aliens within are actually holy prophets. Keiko disagrees. She insists that she's just trying to teach plain, hard, provable science. The story goes back and forth between the two with both Siskos stuck in the middle and a heap of Bajorans pulling their kids out of school over religious differences. 

I find that I can't watch this episode without becoming incensed. And, of course, that was the intent. Contentious stories like this one make us angry or afraid or sad; they make us talk; they make us want to take action. Star Trek has always challenged oppressive societal norms. It has always asked us questions about ourselves, our world, our future. Roddenberry's vision of the future is one in which we celebrate not only our differences but also our ability to overcome. And, to overcome, a culture must progress. And to progress, we must rely on science, whatever our beliefs may be. We may respect one another's beliefs, we may choose to learn about them or even adopt them, but we also have the right to a legitimately rigorous, fact-based, secular education. Children have the right to be taught by individuals who express excitement and can present scientifically literate lessons about the universe and all its wonders. The woman who denounced not only two of the most widely-accepted theories in science but also two elements of the Kentucky sixth-grade science curriculum had no place standing in that classroom.

That year I went to our small town's tiny library on my own and checked out everything I could find about evolution and natural selection. I wrote an essay called, "Arguing For Evolution" and (though normally an honor-roll student) I got a D-. In spite of the poor grade, my scientific curiosity wasn't stifled and I think I owe at least part of that to Roddenberry's future, to spending my evenings watching as yet impossible feats of science on TV, to Star Trek. Unfortunately there are still plenty of Vedek Winns out there in classrooms denouncing the very subject they've been hired to teach and shutting down budding curiosity before it ever has a chance.