Trek's guiding metaphor and the failure of the TNG era

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-01-24 06:15pm

One thing I've noticed in watching all the TNG-era Trek series and comparing them to TOS is how the former seem all to have been written with no regard to the original guiding metaphor on which TOS was formed.

Capt. James T. Kirk (and his conceptual predecessors Robert April and Christopher Pike) was essentially created as "Horatio Hornblower in space". By examining the original conceptual base for Star Trek, it is quite clear that the metaphor for the series was not Wagon Train but rather the Age of Sail. The Enterprise was meant to be depicted as performing her mission far from home base, with contact with Starfleet Command a rarity and with Earth itself an even more rare event. Message traffic was slower than the travel capabilities of the starship, which means that by necessity Capt. Kirk had to be granted a great deal of autonomy in command and in his dealings with alien civilisations to the point where he is empowered to act as an ambassador-without-portfolio in key diplomatic situations. The ship would have to be as self-sufficent as possible; free for as long a period from the necessities of resupply, refueling, and repair as was feasible. The Enterprise's mission was both exploratory and military by nature, being that only starships were capable of such deep-ranging voyages and acted as the knowledge-gathering instrument of the Federation as well as its defensive/power-projection force. With rival powers more or less on a technological par with the Federation, this meant that most instances of actual conflict between the powers usually devolved upon single-ship actions or combats between squadron-sized forces of 3-12 ships.

This was exactly the state of naval affairs as existed during the Age of Sail. Captains in the British Royal or United States navies conducted exploratory as well as military missions, were empowered to conduct diplomacy, and by necessity performed their missions without any contact with the Admiralty for months at a stretch. Ships carried their own repair parts on-board, or could "live off the land" by gathering food, fresh water, and raw materials to fashion spars, rope, and tools from any island within sailing range. Large fleet-to-fleet actions were comparatively rare on the high seas, and single ship combats were extant between vessels of rival powers even during states of peace. It was also often the practise in that period that the ship's captain led landing parties and boarding actions, leading his crew from the front of action.

From this perspective, it is easy to see where much of TOS makes sense from its own internal logic which is based upon the Age of Sail metaphor. With slow communcations and distances of months even at FTL between the zone of patrol/exploration and any frontier sector-base, the autonomy of Capt. Kirk and the Enterprise is quite plausible.

By contrast, TNG and DS9 have severe problems in this area. By constantly depicting easy, realtime communication between the Enterprise (or the station) with Starfleet Command and/or Earth, and transits back to Earth within a matter of days or weeks (and thus being horribly inconsistent with the warp velocity scales), the entire Age of Sail metaphor upon which Star Trek depends for its plausibility fails. It makes no sense for the Captain to be risked on landing party missions or to waste a ship of the line on exploratory missions at all. Diplomats can be transported to various planets as easily as sending a ship of the line, so diplomatic missions make little sense either and the Captain's function as a diplomat is redundant. The presence of children and families on starships makes absolutely no sense, since not only are they useless baggage and a hinderance to the ship's mission, but because it is, in the TNG world, quite feasible for crewmembers to have regular subspace contact with their families or for the ships to be sent out on 90-120 day patrols and for there to be a rotation between Blue and Gold crews to alleviate the burden of seperation. The result was that the writers ended up scripting a "lone" starship Enterprise in a galaxy which was much closer to contemporary Earth rather than the Age of Sail, and thus the depiction of the ship's mission was not believable.

V'ger tried to solve this problem to an extent, but that series' other problems were its downfall. As for DS9, again —if regular, constant communication and traffic with Earth and the rest of the Federation, or the Klingons or the Romulans or the Ferengi or the Cardassians, is part of the series backdrop the "lone frontier outpost" concept necessarily fails and much of the writing based upon that mismatched concept is rendered implausible as a result.

From all this, it is easy to see another source of Star Trek's degeneration; its severance from the original guiding metphor and the resultant implausibilities in its depiction of the starship, its mission, and the conduct of Starfleet and the Federation. The Final Frontier became a backwater, and increasingly all that was left was either artifical danger stories or character soap-operas on a ship whose mission ceased to be exploratory in any sense and became rather one of patrolling the outmarches of a bloated empire.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2004-01-24 07:26pm

Hmmm... very interesting and insightful theory. Now that I think about it, the differences in communication and travel speeds DOES severely detract from the realism of the later series. Even "Enterprise" is allegedly able to contact Earth from the Xindi nebula/abyss/whatever (I say allegedly since I haven't seen the episode), and that does severely cut down on the understandability of the series.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-01-24 07:33pm

Very well written. I think TNG's advanced technology could have worked, if the Enterprise-D had actually been doing what she was supposedly designed for; deep space exploration. As it was, the writers wrote themselves into a corner by keeping the Enterprise-D on patrol around old enemies when they should have been sending it out deeper into the frontier.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-01-24 10:56pm

Uraniun235 wrote:Very well written. I think TNG's advanced technology could have worked, if the Enterprise-D had actually been doing what she was supposedly designed for; deep space exploration. As it was, the writers wrote themselves into a corner by keeping the Enterprise-D on patrol around old enemies when they should have been sending it out deeper into the frontier.

The sheer volume of space within the AQ/BQ sphere of influence would require centuries of exploration and charting as it was, and it could have been reasonable to have the technology of the TNG-era not much more advanced than that of TOS (and this is alluded to in "Relics"). But having the Enterprise-D pushing out 2000 LY beyond the frontiers of Known Space would have given TNG a large playground for encountering both new races and incredibly ancient ones as well as the odd foray or two against established enemies, and having the ship out of easy communication with Starfleet and Earth would have maintained the whole Age of Sail metaphor —which could have been expanded upon with regards to the crew. Take Wesley Crusher. Instead of the dweeb-boy wunderkind we all came to know and hate, he could have been established much more properly as Mr. Midshipman Crusher (and perhaps later Acting Lt. Crusher), serving his time of active field training in preparation to becoming an officer. Instead of children, you have midshipman cadets; all of whom like Mr. Crusher are in training and gaining valuable field experience aboard the Enterprise while also undergoing an Academy-approved and intensive study programme conducted by more senior officers as part of their duties. You have more enlisted crewmen and a company of marines as ship's security.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-01-25 12:56am

I always felt that TNG suffered somewhat in it's premise, to seek out new life and civilisations etc. The principle reason (for me, that is) is because they would do it in one episode, then the following episode they would be on patrol to keep away those pesky Romulans, then they'll be visiting the Klingon Homeworld, then meeting up with Data's dad etc. Then they would do some more exploring. Then the cycle repeats itself. Were the writers schizophrenic or something? It's like they had problems with the premise themselves and couldn't decide what kind of show they'll write about.

DS9 was worse, because the premise of the show changed so many times suring the 7-year course. In the first 2 seasons it was about preparing Bajor into admittance to the Federation, then it became in season 3 "The First Line of Defence against the Bad Guys" with the introduction of the Dominion, then in season 4 the Dominion were completely forgotten so the Klingons could be the bad guys, then in season 5 this changed and suddenly the Klingons were the good guys again. In seasons 6 and 7 we are treated to the most embarassing war to be put on the small screen. And by the end of the show, is Bajor a member of the Federation? Hell, no! Why the fuck bother with all this shit if you're not going to even remain consistent with your own fucking premise?

The shows could have worked, if not for the fucking writers.

I should point out that I don't mind a ST that depicts "modern" style stories, rather than "age of sail" - as long as they remain consistent with it. I mean, if you're going to write a show about exploration, fucking explore the shit already! If you want a show that has a patrol ship or outpost keeping the backwater frontier of a bloated empire safe from those pesky aliens, write about that. The horrible mismatching the occurs in TNG and DS9 are self-evident and certainly weakened the show considerably. There are some episodes of DS9 that had the Defiant conducting exploration, for fuck's sake.

Is it so much to ask for the writers to observe a little consistency?

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-01-25 01:09am

The best part of DS9 were the big space battles. They make the show worth watching even if the other elements are not so good.

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2004-01-25 01:15am

I like it.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-01-25 01:24am

evilcat4000 wrote:The best part of DS9 were the big space battles. They make the show worth watching even if the other elements are not so good.

Yeah, but how unsatisfying was it to see that Dominion battlefleet get erased by the gods? It kinda makes the last hour or so of storytelling obsolete. ("Favour the Bold" and "Sacrifice of Angels") Or the defence network get totalled by a treknobabble solution? (season 6 "cliffhanger") I could go on, but those two were the most offensive to my eyes.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2004-01-25 05:24am

Funny thing, I thought when Enterprise first started they'd get back to the part of TOS that made it seem like they were all alone, a long way from Earth/help. I think they did a few episodes that way but then they started getting help from the Vulcans and then the next thing we know they're in contact with Earth "no problem" because of the communications relays they put out.

They really should have made up their minds as to whether they wanted to do "the age of sail" thing or whether they wanted to have all the interaction with known alien species, which was something they could have done stayting with the post DS9, VGR time frame.