Guest Post: Star Trek and the Frontier of Bad Decisions

By Karina Fabian

Space, the final frontier.

These are the voyages of the USS Enterprise. It’s mission: to seek out new life and new civilizations; to hide really bad tactical and strategic decisions behind enlightened philosophic*; to boldly go where… did we really have to go there?

*spelled intentionally

Having led with that, let me explain that I am a die-hard Star Trek fan. My husband and I almost met at a Star Con because he saw my award-winning poem about Klingon eating habits, and our fandom directly led to a friend introducing us years later. Some of my first published writings were fanfic. (For the kiddies, this was before Paramont got snippy about copyrights, and “slash” was something you hid from the children instead of teaching in schools.) I was over the moon when Next Generation first aired.

Fast forward four kids, five series and a world gone insane later. I still love Star Trek. I love the characters. I love the aliens. I love DS9. But – wow! Some of the decisions the command crew makes! I cringe, but more often than not, my husband and I yell at the TV.

About three years ago, I started a web series that is a Star Trek/science fiction parody: Space Traipse: Hold My Beer. Inspired by a Tumbr thread where it’s decided that humans run the Federation because we’re the only species nuts enough to do things like throw a warp drive at a star just to see what happens, it was my escape from the stress of my life. It’s also an opportunity to apply some common sense while still having room for plenty of nonsense – like throwing a couple of warp cores into a star to see what happens. (Answer: You can change the laws of physics!)

With the pandemic, we’ve been binge-watching Next Gen, and it has officially earned its place at the very bottom of my list of favorite Star Treks (Except Discovery Season 1 where they weren’t in the mirror universe). I’m not going to get into the politics of it, aside from saying that any liberal who claims that we never addressed sexuality issue X or identity issue Y needs to go back and watch. Instead, let’s talk stupid decisions:

There’s a stun setting for a reason: How many injuries, ship takeovers, and hostage situations could they have resolved by stunning first and asking questions later? My security chief, Enigo LaFuentes, has a philosophy: Headaches Save Lives. Klingon with a bat’leth? Stun him. Hostage situation? Stun them both. Ask a stupid question in a safety briefing? That headache will teach you better.

Guess which ship has the highest redshirt survival rate in HuFleet?

Prime Directive vs. Common Sense: We know this is practically a joke, a trope to add drama, but the bad decision making behind the Prime Directive is painful. Probably the best (worst) example of Prime Directive Stupidity is “Homeward,” where Worf’s foster brother sneaks an entire village onto the holodeck because – get this – their entire planet is going to be destroyed but the Federation won’t do anything because it will interfere with the natural progression of the species.

The whole planet. Gone. No survivors.

But they have the right to develop naturally!

…

Yeah, okay. So, Sorvino does the courageous thing and tries to save the one village and get them transplanted to an otherwise empty planet. Backed against a corner, Picard lets Worf pose as a seer and lead them on a Holodeck Trek to their new village which “is so far away even the stars are different.” And now, he’s part of the recorded history. Because just knocking them all out with anestesin gas , dropping them off and letting them credit “the gods” isn’t on the table.

Speaking of histories… Worf lets the historian run off unaccompanied, and he ends up wandering around the ship totally freaked out. They can’t wipe is memory so instead of knocking him out – Headaches save lives! – and letting him attribute it to a hallucination or vision, they tell him everything.

Everything.

Then they tell him he can stay, he can hide the truth, or he can be considered insane. Because making up some kind of lie about having a vision would interfere with the natural development of his people.

So he kills himself. And Jean Luc Archeologist Picard is sad because he wanted him to stay and tell him about his people – you know, the ones Picard was ready to let die in a planetwide disaster to preserve their way of life.

Okay, I get a little spun at the hypocrisy, which seems to be the general theme when the Prime Directive is part of the plot. Let’s move on…

That’s odd, but I won’t mention it: How many crises – how many! – could have been averted if someone had just reported their strange symptoms to Sickbay (looking at you, Counselor Troi), or called for a sensor sweep when they heard that strange noise twice? In the Space Traipse universe, there’s a race called the Actuaries that made a systemic study of the most likely scenarios that lead to a starship disaster. Two of the major indicators is someone saying, ”Never mind. It’s stupid,” or “It must be my imagination.”

The fact that people still love these shows and watch them again and again despite obvious common sense flaws says a lot for how the stories and characters can reach our hearts. However, imagine how much better these shows would be at getting their point across if the viewer wasn’t screaming, “stun him!” or rolling their eyes at a long-winded justification for a bad decision when viable alternatives exist. To quote my “favorite” TOS episode “Brain, brain! What is brain?”

We have brains. So do our characters. It’s more fun when they use them.

If anyone is interested in reading the adventures of the HMB Impulsive, you can check out the first-draft, proofing-is-for-the-weak versions on my website or get the more polished but equally fun story collections from Amazon.

Thanks, Karina! And by the way, speaking of the Prime Directive in particular, may I suggest you also read my own thoughts?