Star Trek: Living In the Lower Decks

image from CBS Interactive

I once wrote about the Star Trek franchise being an optimistic, hopeful view of humanity's future (was that five years ago already? Happy 55th Anniversary then):

It spoke of the future: At a time humanity was threatened with nuclear war, environmental disaster, or worse, Trek suggested we would outgrow our worst demons and answer to the better angels of our nature, that we would achieve space flight and do so in ways that would let us explore the cosmos. That we would meet races like Vulcans and Klingons and myriad others, and that despite the differences we could blend, co-exist, share our wonder of the universe.

Star Trek is a reflection of the whole Earth: that we are a diverse species as humans, clinging to this small blue/green rock covered with air and water, facing daily challenges to survive but still looking upward and outward, dreaming up warp drives and seeking out exoplanets that might share other lifeforms. The drive to improve ourselves and improve our futures...

So that being said, another thing that science fiction geeks like to do with beloved franchises is to pull the thing apart, nitpick the errors and inaccuracies, what the literary academics like to call Deconstruction of an entire 'Verse of beliefs...

...and then put it all back together again with a sly awareness that we still enjoy the damn thing.

In the past five years or so, our entertainment media empires have exploded with content - movies, television shows, crossover materials - to fill the expansive and still-growing streaming capabilities that the Internet and high-quality video have reached this 21st Century (It's 2021, people!). Among them is/was/not sure of their current status Paramount Studios and/or the CBS network competing against the likes of Disney-Plus, which currently sits on so many franchises - Marvel, LucasFilm (Star Wars), Pixar, Disney's own empire - that Paramount/CBS had to hit back with one of the biggest franchises they own with Trek.

As a result, in the past three years they've come out with a new series ST: Discovery, followed up by a sequel/rebirth of Next Generation with the series Picard, and soon to include a reboot/prequel of the Original Series involving Captain Pike, Number One, and Spock called Strange New Worlds.

Into THAT mix of new content came an animated series fitting into the Original Timeline (yes, this is a problem with multiverses now) just after the Dominion War (ST:DS9 and ST:Voyager, also the movie ST: Nemesis) but before Picard's series. Thing is, this animated show was getting put together by people who worked Rick and Morty, a show that went out of its way to Deconstruct other shows and genres in a sometimes vicious (almost sadistic) fashion.

Star Trek: Lower Decks does indeed Deconstruct a lot of the known tropes for both science fiction and Star Trek itself... and yet for all of the gore, body horror, high-pitched screaming, and psychological trauma (not the audience, I'm talking about the in-show characters) the show is actually doing a good job of showing WHY the Trek Universe works the way it does... and why it's not a bad thing for humanity in the long run.

And it's actually a good show. Lemme get into that a little more.

The thing about space is that it's big, really big, and in that vastness of space there's millions of stars and hundreds of thousands of planets. A space that big requires a big Starfleet to explore and patrol it, meaning hundreds if not thousands of starships to trek it.

While the major shows of the Trek 'Verse either involved the crews that oversaw epic adventures (the Enterprise) or dealt with galactic crises (Deep Space Nine) or survived insane journeys (USS Voyager), there are still a lot of minor, almost common tasks that the rest of the Fleet works on. As the opening quote to Lower Decks notes:

First Contact is a delicate, high-stakes operation of diplomacy. One must be ready for anything when humanity is interacting with an alien race for the first time...

That is where the Enterprise gets involved. Alas...

But we don't do that. Our specialty is Second Contact. Still pretty important. We get all the paperwork signed, make sure we're spelling the name of the planet right, get to know all the good places to eat...

And the "we" in that opening narration is the crew of the USS Cerritos, a California-class starship that's not as glamorous as the Enterprise (the flagship of the entire Federation) or battle-tested as the Defiant, or even as quirky and durable as Voyager. Cerritos is part of one big happy Starfleet Bureaucracy, keeping up with the aftermaths of major battles and contacts and scientific findings that the major league starships resolve on a weekly basis.

The ship itself is part of a class that's easily interchangeable, one of a hundred named after small towns and cities in the state of California (a nod to the human-centric (actually American-centric) nature of Starfleet in spite of the hundreds of humanoids that make up the crews). The Cerritos is also not exactly in the best of shape, more like a 3-star hotel where the Enterprise would be a 5-star luxury resort.

And as the show highlights with most episodes, the Cerritos doesn't get any of the glamour gigs, dealing with supply runs, taxi services, minor planetary disputes, and finding out how bad the drinks are at the local Klingon coffee shop on Rigel VII. This ship is kind of like the lower deck of the Federation fleet itself.

What we get then is a show about the mundane, day-to-day activities of a large-scale employer that just happens to be a quasi-military exploration fleet that basically involves cleaning out holodecks of bio-refuse (oh yeah, the Internet of the Future is still for porn), daily maintenance checks of those sliding doors that don't magically open when they're supposed to open when you're ready to leave a room, and signing off on timesheets for the midnight shift in the astronavigation lab who really all goofed off in the bowling alley on Deck 10 instead.

You know, all the stuff that the important cast members don't have time to do because they're fighting the Borg or engaging in espionage against the Romulans or dating plasma ghosts from 19th Century Ireland. (Yes, that reference gets made in this show)

So we're stuck with the "lower deck" ensigns of Starfleet, such as Brad Boimler, an energetic newcomer out of Starfleet Academy who's a little too eager for promotion and too naïve to realize how dangerous the galaxy out there can get. Desperate for promotion, he's one of those extras you see on the bridge handing PADDs (the Tablets of the 24th Century) to another extra to make it seem like people are working.

He's been teamed up with Beckett Mariner, older and more experienced, who ought to be an officer by now except for her reckless disregard for regulations and diplomacy. Where Boimler wants to step up, Mariner wants to step out, and seems only to be in Starfleet because there's nothing else out there that gives her the opportunities to "explore new worlds" and "kick ass."

Filling in the Engineering side of things is Rutherford, a human who suffered an injury before all this and received cybernetic implants to help him function. He's the tech nerd of the group, more interested in making sure those sliding doors open properly rather than worry about a zombie infection or a bridge officer turning into a god.

Making this a four-team ensemble is Tendi, the token alien crewmember that provides the diversity of Trek philosophy (IDIC). She's actually from the "sexy alien" category: The green-skinned Orion women who add that allure of seduction and intrigue to the Trek 'Verse... Except Tendi is the sweetest, shyest, and least sex-obsessed crew member on the Cerritos (she was a little shocked to see Mariner's naked Olympic holodeck program).

It's through their viewpoint we witness the goings-on of a regular Starfleet cruise: The weekly crises resolved with the right application of technobabble; the quick fights over Prime Directive/Non-Interference quandaries that are resolved through insane troll logic; and the reality that Starfleet operates on a kind of repetitive ennui that requires a healthy balance of holodeck fantasizing and a lack of micromanaging in the workplace.

What makes Lower Decks work as a series is that its efforts at Deconstruction are not meant as dark or dispirited mocking, but a kind of deliberate examination of "what would it really be like for the day-to-day operations of Starfleet, away from the dashing heroics of the original show and its spiritual successors?"

One episode for example focused on "Scotty Time," a Trope about how Trek engineers would inflate their deadlines for repair jobs that would get finished earlier and make them look like miracle workers. In the Lower Decks, it's become a dirty little secret to have your projects use "Buffer Time" on the calendars so that you'd have time to juggle that project with other hobbies beneficial to the ship - or better still fix any emergencies that crop up while you're working on the main task. When the Cerritos' Captain Freeman finds out what "Buffer Time" means, she's enraged because she thinks the crew is deliberately slacking off work (and hurting her chances at promotion), and then sets immediate deadlines for projects to make her crew work faster. Instead, because the deadlines are too swift, too arbitrary, and too inflexible to allow responses to emergencies, the Cerritos turns into a chaotic mess. "Buffer Time" had been happening for so long, no one could remember how much time was needed to calibrate a sensor array.

By the show's own logic, Buffer Time was a necessity: it allowed the crew (employees) to work at a pace they inherently knew could let them function while allowing enough time to handle the crazy space stuff along with it.

Another episode delved into those nightmarish episodes that would happen where a crewmember or guest-star would suffer an accident that would cripple them... or infect them with an exotic incurable disease... or turn them into salamanders (oh, yeah, THAT was when I quit watching Voyager, ye Gods. Why can't we go to Warp 10?! It'll turn us into newts!!! (We got better. SHH!!))

When Boimler gets phased improperly during a transporter upgrade test, he's assigned to a transport ship under Division 14 to take him to a "retirement" spa called The Farm for treatment. These "accidents" to crew members have been so common that Starfleet did develop a protocol for handling it. While the episode careens into a crisis when the other passengers are convinced - because they've been en route for months - that there is no Farm, the matter is resolved when the transport finally arrives to an exotic, Risa-like planet that does take care of the injured personnel as they were promised.

Mixed into all of this is a critique of the serial storytelling of the early Trek series, how weekly escapades and epic movies would ignore the ramifications of those events down the line. As television narratives evolved in the past 20 years to allow for continuity - for novel-styled story arcs that ensured a coherent, developed history would emerge from what we watched - what were stand-alone episodes for TOS and TNG now seem antiquated, and leaving behind issues that the "lower deck" crews like the Cerritos would have to clean up after.

In this, the animated series' Deconstruction is more deliberate, and raises legitimate issues regarding the idealism of Star Trek's philosophy. The contradictions of "exploration and discovery" behind Starfleet curtailed by a Prime Directive that insists on non-interference with "lesser" yet sentient races. The sporadic threats of one-off villains like Pakleds coming back years later as serious threats. And the abuse of flare lighting in holodeck movies, okay, the emotional conflicts of allowing family members (Mariner is secretly Freeman's rebellious daughter for much of Season One) serve on the same ship.

But I come to praise Lower Decks, not to bury it. Underneath the snarky witticisms, gag replays of Trek's less-noble plot points, and obvious physical humor, there is some legitimate character development AND 'Verse development for a complex, overwhelming universe as Star Trek's entire franchise. For all the craziness the ensigns go through, you see how the excitement and challenges of space travel keep them going, even in the vastness of bureaucratic inertia where they work. That for all the eldritch horror (and repetitive cleaning chores), there is still Hope that humanity (that may seem a bit speciest, but it's the only way we can define the nature of Starfleet itself) will prevail.

It gives me hope that somewhere down the line they can plot out a decent crossover moment with Dr. Who and Star Wars and DC Comics and Marvel Comics and... and... YES, I KEEP HOPING FOR A MASSIVE CROSSOVER, DAMMIT. IT'S IN MY BLOOD!

In the meantime, Season Two is streaming... somewhere. CBS Access or some such. BINGE IT while you're buried alive. BIIIINNNNNGGGGEEEEE IIITTTT!!!!!!!

Labor Day Weekend 2015 Accountability

(cross-posted with my political blog)

Did I spell accountability correctly...?  I never do...

Anyway, this weekend I'm gonna use the Three-Day-Novel time period (I did not apply for it, 'cause I need to save up the $50 fee for Star Wars toys!) to pound out a trashy urban fantasy novel.

It should be easy.  Like so:

1) Urban setting AKA The City: New York City by default.  Nearly EVERY city in a U.S. fantasy story is based on New York City.  Los Angeles only if sunlight, surf, or film-making is part of the narrative.  San Francisco if you want quirky hippie Wiccans.  Washington DC if you want everything blown up to serve your political ideology.  If you use Atlanta or St. Louis or Houston or Tampa, what is your problem?  And the capitol of the state of Montana does not count as an urban setting, sorry residents of the state of Montana...

2) Protagonist(s): Sexy vampire.  There's ALWAYS a sexy vampire.  His/her morality will be just off by enough to make him/her excitingly dangerous, yet human enough to enjoy having great sex with.

3) Narrator: A third-person or first-person tale-teller who gets wrapped up in the crazy event who stands in as the Everyman naive newcomer to the Masquerade (aka the Magic World hidden from the Mundane World).  Kinky make-out session with the Sexy Vampire is mandatory: it all depends on if you open with it or draw the story out for UST fuel to the end of the novel.

4) Sword: There should at least be one sword, so it can be wielded by the Sexy Vampire for the book cover.

5) Monsters: Dumb ones.  Easy to kill, and inhuman to allow for a massacre of them without any moral quandaries.  Mooks with swords instead of plasma rifles.

6) Quirky Secondary Characters: they're not as sexy as the vampire but by their wacky habits allows the writer to diversify and show off character-building skills, and these characters can appeal to the readers and turn into spin-off lead figures for later works.

7) MacGuffin: A reason or object the sexy vampire is set against a particular villain.  It needs to be satisfyingly unique to stand out as a doom-worthy artifact or deadly secret that could end the sexy vampire's lifestyle/friendship with his/her equals.

8) Potential victims: the innocent crowds of people in a packed city who ARE NOT AWARE OF THE MASQUERADE and thus need protecting "from themselves!"  This includes the local law enforcement, who would usually have the manpower and firepower to handle most situations in the first place if properly informed.

9) Dead Friend Walking: an ally of the Sexy Vampire or narrator who's a firm friend indeed, and is thus doomed to die in order to make the conflict "personal" and to highlight just how serious the crisis is.

10) A Betrayer: Sometimes it's the Dead Friend Walking who either willingly or by magic force turns against the Sexy Vampire/Narrator.  If it's a complete stranger, it has to be someone directly tied to the MacGuffin to make it meaningful.

11) A Fancy Nightclub That's Way Too Exotic With The Interior Design: Think how Hollywood movies spend a sh-tload of money on cool-looking sets, creating a night club full of lights, chrome handlebars, plush leather sofas, stocked bars, mirrors everywhere (even for vampires - they can use the mirrors to spot Normals), incredibly cute Normals dancing the night away, and a spot where Sexy Vampire and Narrator can make out in public and still not get caught doing it.

12) Overpowered Villain With One Obvious Weakness: His (sometimes Her) Pride.  And that the Artifact-As-MacGuffin can be turned into a stabby weapon shoved into his head for maximum gory deathiness.

13) A Catch Phrase: "Bite me" is too obvious, but what the hell.

I plan on having 18,000 words done by Monday. :)

Update Monday: I got about 7000 words.  I bit off more than I could chew thinking I could get 18,000 words done.  :/  On the other hand, I'm going through a solid revision of the last project "Body Armor Blues" and am lining up a cover artist to self-publish by the end of the month...

Heroes, Robb Stark's Fall, and Who Will Win The Game of Thrones

NO SPOILERS: You've either read the books and know what happened, you've seen the episode and know what happened, you've seen the Twitter response and know what happened, etc.

As I've posted on my political blog, there was a bit of a bother among Game of Thrones watchers during the Red Wedding scene, the key turning point in George RR Martin's fantasy epic.

I've seen the Twitter explode over a major television episode before, but not like this where the fandom was seemingly "OMG How could they do this?"  And one of the tweets caught my eye: someone arguing that Robb Stark - one of the key victims of the massacre - was meant to be the hero of the story, the avenger of his fallen father, etc.

But the thing is if you pay attention to any of the High Fantasy tropes, even when Deconstructed, you might notice that Robb Stark was never meant to be the hero of the story.

I found a wonderful blog covering the Song of Ice And Fire series in more detail, and the blogger Shamus concurs about Robb not being the hero:

Robb was one of the best hopes for restoring order to Westeros and saving many of the characters I love. But Martin knew that Robb wasn't the person that needed to do these things. He’s not one of the heroes of this series. He was always a secondary character. His success would have felt like a betrayal to the structure of the story. Instead, Martin used Robb’s character as best he could. He sacrificed Robb in spectacular fashion, and that sacrifice advanced the plot of these books tremendously. Everything changed.

Robb was what's known as the Decoy Protagonist, someone set up early in an epic story to make people think he's the hero who will save the day... only to fall at the machinations of the major villain(s), making it seem as though our likable characters will never see any justice or victory at the end of the struggle.

Robb Stark is being set up as the decoy right off the bat: eldest son of a martyred lord (the fallen Good Father archetype) who rises up against the wrongful king (the bastard Joffrey and his Lannister family) who killed his father.  He wins battles early on through sheer luck, using his youth to attack and escape in ways the more practiced, older opponents can't conceive.  He marries out of love and personal honor than for politics (which is the first big clue readers and viewers should learn is a BAD IDEA in fantasy novels based on pre-Enlightenment values of marriage).  He's got the looks of a king, the ideals of a just ruler, the aspirations of a messiah/savior figure.  Everybody just looooooves Robb Stark.  If this were fanfiction, he'd be a Marty Stu.

Except, as the blogger Shamus noted, Robb Stark was never a Point-of-View character in Martin's narrative.

Martin's writing style for this series has an interesting take: rather than go by a singular character's POV (either First or Third), he's sharing that duties across 31 major characters, any of whom could be the hero (and some already clearly the villains... and some already dead and awaiting zombie status).  We never see the tale told from Robb Stark's perspective: the closest we get is his mother Catelyn, and she's a rather unforgiving sort (half of her actions lead to the disasters befalling her family, and before she too dies at the Red Wedding she'd regretted some of them) even in her POV telling.  We see things happen to Robb, with actions and characters elsewhere affected by and affecting him.

Mixed into all this is The Hero's Journey, the Jungian/Campbellian method of storytelling that lends itself best to High Fantasy (and pulp fantasy) literature.  In most respects, Robb doesn't fit the cycle at all: his call to adventure is more an act of vengeance against the family that betrayed his.  While it falls into the narrative of Seeking Justice (SEE the legend/myth of Horus), Robb is not out for any Enlightenment nor is he setting the natural balance of the world back in place (i.e., the return of the Rightful, Once-Promised King).  In some respects he doesn't fulfill the Prophecy.

That all said, you can see why Robb Stark was doomed, much in the same way Boromir was doomed, much in the same way 80 percent of Sean Bean's characters are doomed (okay, I kid, by the by that clip's NSFW), etc.  It just wasn't going to be Robb to save the world/fulfill the Hero's Quest.

...That said, WHO WILL?

Since I'm not Martin, I can't say for certain where his story is going to finish up (two novels remain), and of the surviving characters with POV power there's a good number who could qualify.  Except for the fact that we've already seen a handful of POV characters die, meaning it's not the body armor expected to protect said character(s) to even make it to the final chapter.

The obvious choice of being the Hero is Daenerys Targaryen.  A bit of a gender flip but she qualifies: the prophecy of the Prince Who Was Promised fits her (birth under the right stars, her childhood, her travels, her proving her mystical dragon power).  As the last known member of her royal family, it's her throne by blood-right.  She's undergone various journeys of self-discovery (the Hero's Journey) that has unlocked more magick to her, has suffered setbacks but survived.

By sheer volume of POV chapters, Tyrion Lannister (also the most popular character yet) could by that designation be the most likely candidate of being the Hero.  The unliked and unloved member of a powerful, corrupt family, the one member with any recognizable decency as a human being, quick with words, adept at politics, victimized not by his actions but by a world that can't handle a dwarf as lord or hero...  It would again be a twist on the concept of Hero (you were perhaps expecting someone 6'4" with broad shoulders, a gleaming sword and amusing comedic sidekick?) to have him end up surviving the whole mess and uniting the kingdoms under a peaceful rule.

Another candidate is Jon Snow, bastard son (as generally believed) of the Fallen Good Father figure of Eddard Stark.  Treated coolly by his adoptive mother Catelyn, Jon is nonetheless on great terms with the Stark family.  Jon accepts a Call to Adventure by volunteering to do his service as Night Watch on the Wall (a key stronghold against wildlings and the zombie-like Others), and undergoes many unnerving quests and tests of character.  It was Jon who insisted on the children adopting a set of orphaned direwolves (mystic animal guardians associated to the Stark crest).  With Robb as the decoy hero now fallen, Jon now fits the bill as the heroic heir of House Stark.  Given no one really knows who his mother is, that Eddard refused to reveal the secret, that Eddard was present at his sister's mysterious death, said sister having been abducted/raped(?) by the Targaryen heir... there's a very reasonable fan theory that Jon may be the Prince Who Was Promised.  (note: there is a slight problem with this as Jon is getting stabbed to death at the end of the latest novel.  He could, of course, survive the ordeal... something a Hero does in the Campbellian cycle).

An interesting possibility is Bran Stark.  He's endured a near-death experience, made a cripple, gained the ability to warg (use his vision to tap into his joined direwolf and even into other people), has prophetic dreams of his father and a mysterious three-eyed crow.  He's enduring a painful journey into exile with most everyone thinking he (and his surviving youngest brother) is dead.  He's demonstrated some decent leadership skill for someone his age.  He's more akin to Luke Skywalker than most of the other characters (save for Dany, whose mystically tied to her dragons), which is why I like him as a candidate.

That's what I've got as the candidates to win the Game of Thrones.  Best of all possible worlds: Jon and Daenerys marry as co-rulers, with Tyrion as the wise Hand with Bran as the court wizard.

I just hope to the Seven-named God it's not Littlefinger...