Just sort of thinking about San Francisco housing prices. And every time I think of San Francisco, I also think of George Takei saying "San Francisco, I was born there," in one of the Trek movies. It's clear his character Hikaru Sulu, really digs on the city. Other characters from the movie have ties to SF; James Kirk has an apartment there (at the opening of the first movie, he's working a desk job at Star Fleet Command in SF) and others no doubt have good memories off off-duty time at Star Fleet Academy (also in SF.)
So I get to thinking of a darker trek world where our beloved protagonists are members of a ruling elite, able to travel between the stars only because of the toil and suffering of untold under-workers you never see on camera. This is clearly not what Gene Roddenberry was originally thinking the future would be like, of course, but modern times seem much less optimistic than the late 60's. So just for fun, I'm thinking of the "Occupy Star Fleet" world. It's not as bloodthirsty as the mirror universe, but perpetuates the "haves vs have nots" Roddenberry originally wanted to say we escaped.
Who are the characters in such a world? I'm not going to sully the image of the canonical bridge crew by having them go all mirror-universe on the poors. That would be vaguely insulting to the characters (and the actors who portray them.) Instead, I'm creating new characters who are members of an exploited class; a class that lives outside the mindset of Star Fleet personnel. It's not that the classic Trek folk are actively putting these people down, it's just they don't even know they exist.
The first character is Tamiko Tenno (or 天皇 民子 for my kanji reading friends.) She's sort of a modern-day Antigone, who kicks off the story when a sequence of events brings her loyalty to her family in conflict with the power of the state. Depending on whom you listen to, the name "Tamiko" implies a "popular" origin while "Tenno" is the appellation applied to emperors in Japan, so she's setup for class conflict already. The first story I'm working out introduces Tamiko-san and is more or less just a re-telling of the Antigone myth (hey. great artists just know what to steal.) Also, go read about Antigone on the WikiPedia if you're unfamiliar with it.
But what's a great leading character without a perfidious antagonist? I mean sure, the whole story is setup to have "man vs. society" and "man vs. his social nature" type conflict, but a good antagonist will be a great personification of the hidden social forces that serve to betray the ideals of individual agency in the Star Trek universe. Tamiko-san will battle "Shift Supervisor Creon" in the first story, but after his demise we'll find he was a servant of a higher, darker authority.
Our eternal antagonist is a sort of reversed Queen of Pentacles, she takes delight in the subdued personal wealth of the Trek universe, but her primary conceit is more akin to that of Omelas: the elevation of humanity's elite justifies the invention of a wretched class. Unlike the traditional interpretation of the Queen of Pentacles being a character of worldly finery, in our story her finery is ideological. She never waivers from the path of "furthering the cause of humanity," even if she is losing her own humanity in the process. Our antagonist is clearly a "true believer," and we all know how dangerous attachment to dogmatic ideals can be.
Anyway... this is just an update of some of the things I'm thinking about and working on this weekend. More updates as they become available.
So I get to thinking of a darker trek world where our beloved protagonists are members of a ruling elite, able to travel between the stars only because of the toil and suffering of untold under-workers you never see on camera. This is clearly not what Gene Roddenberry was originally thinking the future would be like, of course, but modern times seem much less optimistic than the late 60's. So just for fun, I'm thinking of the "Occupy Star Fleet" world. It's not as bloodthirsty as the mirror universe, but perpetuates the "haves vs have nots" Roddenberry originally wanted to say we escaped.
Who are the characters in such a world? I'm not going to sully the image of the canonical bridge crew by having them go all mirror-universe on the poors. That would be vaguely insulting to the characters (and the actors who portray them.) Instead, I'm creating new characters who are members of an exploited class; a class that lives outside the mindset of Star Fleet personnel. It's not that the classic Trek folk are actively putting these people down, it's just they don't even know they exist.
The first character is Tamiko Tenno (or 天皇 民子 for my kanji reading friends.) She's sort of a modern-day Antigone, who kicks off the story when a sequence of events brings her loyalty to her family in conflict with the power of the state. Depending on whom you listen to, the name "Tamiko" implies a "popular" origin while "Tenno" is the appellation applied to emperors in Japan, so she's setup for class conflict already. The first story I'm working out introduces Tamiko-san and is more or less just a re-telling of the Antigone myth (hey. great artists just know what to steal.) Also, go read about Antigone on the WikiPedia if you're unfamiliar with it.
But what's a great leading character without a perfidious antagonist? I mean sure, the whole story is setup to have "man vs. society" and "man vs. his social nature" type conflict, but a good antagonist will be a great personification of the hidden social forces that serve to betray the ideals of individual agency in the Star Trek universe. Tamiko-san will battle "Shift Supervisor Creon" in the first story, but after his demise we'll find he was a servant of a higher, darker authority.
Our eternal antagonist is a sort of reversed Queen of Pentacles, she takes delight in the subdued personal wealth of the Trek universe, but her primary conceit is more akin to that of Omelas: the elevation of humanity's elite justifies the invention of a wretched class. Unlike the traditional interpretation of the Queen of Pentacles being a character of worldly finery, in our story her finery is ideological. She never waivers from the path of "furthering the cause of humanity," even if she is losing her own humanity in the process. Our antagonist is clearly a "true believer," and we all know how dangerous attachment to dogmatic ideals can be.
Anyway... this is just an update of some of the things I'm thinking about and working on this weekend. More updates as they become available.
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