One of the defining traits of Star Trek as
a franchise is that it leans toward the utopian
rather than the dystopian.
And one of the most noticeable ways it does
this through its depiction of advanced technology.
Since the very beginning, Star Trek has shown
us that technological innovation is not something
to be feared, but something to be embraced.
The world in which Star Trek takes place would
not exist without warp drive, transporters,
phasers, matter-antimatter reactors, replicators,
and numerous other devices that today, over
fifty years after Star Trek debuted, we can
still only dream about.
Technological advancement is what clears the
path to the future, says Star Trek.
Usually.
See, that is the overriding message of the
franchise.
But then, every once in a while, there’ll
be an episode, or a movie, or a character,
or a group of characters, that seems to be
sending the opposite message.
And when I’m watching one of those episodes,
or movies, or other things I just said, I
can’t help but ask myself:
Does Star Trek Actually Want Us to Fear Technology?
So, like I said, generally speaking, Star
Trek’s attitude toward advancing technology
is quite optimistic.
In many episodes of the TNG-era shows, the
central crisis is solved simply by the heroes
finding new, creative ways to operate their
technology.
Geordi will reroute power to the shields at
a crucial moment, or B’Elanna will release
warp particles into the surrounding area to
reveal a hidden escape route, or Miles will
. . . kick the . . . thing — okay, that’s
not the best example I could’ve picked.
You get the idea.
It’s not always dramatically satisfying
— the profusion of technobabble does tend
to muffle the impact of certain episodes — but
the larger message being served is clear:
technology saves the day.
However, that’s not always the case.
Sometimes, technology is presented not as
a savior but as a threat — perhaps even
an existential threat.
Part of this is due, I think, not to any decision
by the writers and producers of Star Trek
to present a more nuanced depiction of the
role of technology in our lives, but simply
to the fact that Star Trek is, primarily,
a weekly TV series, and weekly TV series need
stories to tell, and “technology run amok”
is as sturdy a sci-fi premise as there is.
And, I mean, really, if you’re contracted
to produce between twenty-five and thirty
hours of original TV every year, are you gonna
let a philosophical commitment to positively
depicting technology stop you from doing a
“Captain Kirk vs. the Evil Computer” story?
And, once you do it, are you gonna let that
same philosophy stop you from doing it again?
And again?
And again — hold up, that one’s mine.
Heh heh.
Classic Trek’s “Kirk vs. Computer” episodes
are the earliest examples of Star Trek explicitly
trying to elicit fear of technology from us
in the audience.
Those shows aren’t anti-technology — after
all, the heroes live on a spaceship, move
from the ship to the surfaces of planets via
teleportation, and use their computers constantly
— but they do suggest that we should be
keeping an eye on our machines, just in case.
There’s also the guest character of Samuel
Cogley, Kirk’s attorney in “Court Martial,”
whose righteous indignation in the face of
advancing technology is his defining trait.
And there’s the recurring idea that paradise
is a place without advanced technology of
any kind, as seen in episodes like, oh, “This
Side of Paradise,” or “The Paradise Syndrome.”
This concept reappears a few times in the
TNG era, notably in the film Star Trek: Insurrection,
where the Ba’ku are presented as having
an ideal society that is apparently completely
free of advanced technology or complex machinery.
The heroes at the centers of those episodes
— Spock in “This Side of Paradise,”
Kirk in “The Paradise Syndrome,” and Picard
in “Insurrection” — all long to stay
in these places without computers or replicators
or transporters, but in the end they return
to life aboard their starships.
And this is supposed to make us sad — at
least a little bit.
Not too sad.
Because, I mean, we don’t really want them
to leave their ships.
That would mean they wouldn’t be on the
show any more!
And anyway, why the hell should they get to
be happy?
Hell, in the very first episode of Star Trek
ever produced, the original pilot, “The
Cage,” one of Captain Pike’s fantasies,
created for him by the Talosians, is to be
off the Enterprise and out in the country
with his horse.
Granted, that’s not necessarily Pike wanting
to escape technology, specifically — he
wants to escape the burden of being in command
— however, I can’t help but notice that
the place he longs to escape to doesn’t
seem to have any starships or transporters
around.
We also had the occasional complaint from
Dr. McCoy about how he didn’t trust the
transporter, and when he returned to duty
during Star Trek: The Motion Picture he griped
to Kirk that the new sickbay was “like a
goddamn computer center,” but these are
presented more as quirks of McCoy’s character
rather than take-home messages for the viewer.
While Classic Trek had its episodes dealing
with the perils of technology, this didn’t
really become a prominent recurring theme
in the franchise until Star Trek: The Next
Generation, the show which is generally regarded
— rightly so, I think — as the most optimistic
and utopian of the bunch.
Because, as bright and reassuring as TNG was,
when it decided to go dark, it went all-in.
And there is no better example of the grimmer
side of TNG, or of Star Trek warning us of
the potential dangers of technology, than
the most enduring and inimitable villains
of the TNG era: the Borg.
The Borg aren’t just the most prominent
example of Star Trek taking a bleak view of
technology — they’re also the least subtle.
Look at them: they’re literally half-human
(er, humanoid), half-machine.
They’re one of the most alien of all Star
Trek species, and never more so than during
their very first appearance in the franchise,
the episode “Q Who” from TNG’s second
season.
In this episode, Q catapults the Enterprise
into a distant section of the galaxy to teach
a lesson to Picard, who rubbed Q the wrong
way with his “to boldly go where no one
has gone before” bullshit.
The previously confident Picard finds himself
facing an enemy he doesn’t understand — perhaps
isn’t capable of understanding — and doesn’t
know how to defeat.
The Borg when we first meet them are unsettling
in a few ways.
First, their ship is just a big cube.
No obvious weaponry or propulsion systems,
no lights, no identifying marks.
Worf can’t detect any of the usual systems
they’d expect to find on a starship.
Data can’t even read lifesigns.
It’s just a big ass cube, sitting there
in space.
Inscrutable.
Immovable.
Second, the Borg don’t operate as individuals
but as a single collective consciousness.
When the Borg Cube hails the Enterprise for
the first time, it’s not one Borg but the
combined voice of the entire cube that speaks,
flatly informing Picard that his ship’s
defensive capabilities won’t be enough to
withstand them and warning him not to resist.
Third, when Riker leads an away team over
to the Borg ship, the Borg they encounter
don’t even acknowledge them.
There are intruders on their ship!
And the Borg don’t even care!
Why should they?
What are these dipshits gonna do?
Guinan told you to turn around and head back
like half an hour ago!
Why are you still here?!
The Borg are such a serious threat that at
the end of this episode, our heroes don’t
defeat them — they just barely manage to
escape, thanks to Q, who takes pity on Picard
after Picard admits that, okay, yes, maybe
he’s in a little over his head this time.
The Borg represent more than just the dangers
of advanced technology — for instance, their
total lack of individuality is a pretty obvious
counterpoint to one of the most fundamental
principles cherished by Star Trek protagonists,
that the rights of the individual — to speak
freely, to be themselves, to live free from
oppression — are of the utmost importance.
But, it’s no coincidence that their lack
of individuality is a direct result of the
technology that has come to dominate their
existence.
More than any other group of characters in
the franchise, the Borg represent the bleak
future that awaits us if, to paraphrase Albert
Einstein, our technology exceeds our humanity.
They’re Star Trek’s version of, say, the
Machines in the Matrix trilogy, or Skynet
in the Terminator franchise.
Actually, no, they’re not, because the Machines
and Skynet only ever managed to take over
Earth, whereas the Borg control vast regions
of space spanning much of an entire quadrant
of the galaxy.
Am I really supposed to be scared of a computer
network with some remote control robots compared
to that?
I don’t think so.
Get in the game, Skynet.
(Please don’t.)
The Borg are sometimes described as Star Trek’s
answer to zombies.
That’s not an entirely unfair comparison
— Borg drones, like zombies, are easy to
handle on their own, but can be nearly unstoppable
in large numbers; Borg and zombies are both
driven by a need to consume us in some way.
And both the Borg and zombies present us with
the horrific consequences of the loss of self.
But, while the loss of self of zombies is
due to their mindlessness, the Borg lose their
individuality for precisely the opposite reason:
they are not mindless, but single-minded.
They represent the fear that, as technology
allows us to grow more and more connected
to one another, we will lose ourselves as
individuals — the part will be subsumed
by the whole.
The fact that the Borg were introduced in
1989, when the world wide web didn’t even
exist yet, speaks to how deeply rooted this
insecurity is, particularly for us Americans,
who have been furiously masturbating to the
thought of what rugged individualists we are
for the last 250 years.
When the Borg are defeated for the first time,
in the second part of “The Best of Both
Worlds,” it’s not more powerful weapons
or more advanced technology that spells their
downfall, but the re-emergence of the personality
of Jean-Luc Picard, who has been assimilated
by the Borg to serve as a spokesperson for
— why am I telling you this?
You know this?
It’s Captain Picard who somehow manages
to reach out to Data and tell him how to stop
the Borg cube that is on its way to attack
Earth.
In Star Trek: First Contact, once again it’s
one of our heroes reasserting their individuality
that allows the good guys to triumph.
This time, it’s Data, who rejects the Borg
Queen’s offer of companionship in order
to rescue Picard and stop the Borg from assimilating
the Earth of the past.
Before releasing the corrosive gas that eventually
kills her, he even throws “resistance is
futile” back in her face, because Data has
emotions now, and he knows that killing alone
won’t satisfy him — he’s gotta twist
the knife a little.
So human.
Anyway, the Borg are definitely Exhibit A
for Star Trek’s less-than-optimistic outlook
on technology and its potential effect on
our lives, but they’re not the only example.
In fact, they’re not the only example to
be closely associated with TNG.
The Borg are an outside threat, but there’s
something else that routinely endangers the
lives of our heroes, and it’s right there
on the ship.
Yeah.
The holodeck!
I did a whole video about the holodeck awhile
back, so I won’t get too deep into it here.
But, since we’re talking about the times
when Star Trek has explored the dark side
of technology, it’s at least worth mentioning
that the holodeck, among the most awesome
and wondrous of all Star Trek technology,
is constantly suffering dangerous malfunctions
and trying to murder the crew.
And even when the holodeck seems to be working
properly, we’re shown that it has a dark
side, like when we meet Lt. Barclay, holo-addict,
who would rather live in his chosen fantasy
than face life in the real world.
The holodeck and the Borg represent technology
itself as a threat to us.
There are other examples of this from throughout
the franchise — in Voyager’s “Future’s
End” two-parter, the main villain is Henry
Starling, who has pilfered a time-ship from
the 29th century to introduce advanced technology
to the 20th century before its time; in Deep
Space Nine’s “The Quickening,” Dr. Bashir
is working to cure a disease on a blighted
planet when he realizes the radiation from
his electronic medical equipment is actually
worsening his patients’ symptoms; in Star
Trek II, Dr. McCoy declares that the Genesis
device, intended to bring life to lifeless
planets, if misused could result in “universal
armageddon.”
And the Big Bad of Star Trek: Discovery’s
second season turns out to be Control, an
A.I. created by Starfleet to use as a threat
assessment tool that eventually decides, ya
know what, I’m just gonna kill everybody.
Those rogue A.I.’s, man.
There’s just no talking to them.
But there’s another danger related to advanced
technology that Star Trek has drawn our attention
to time and time again.
It’s not an existential threat; more of
a moral one.
And we get a hint of it in another great episode
from TNG’s second season: “The Measure
of a Man.”
This is the episode where Commander Bruce
Maddox (version 1) attempts to transfer Data
from the Enterprise to his robot dissection
lab so he can take Data apart and figure out
how to make more of him.
Captain Picard challenges this transfer request,
arguing that Data is not the property of Starfleet
but an individual with rights that must be
respected.
Picard worries that he won’t be able to
mount a strong enough defense, and that Data
will be compelled to undergo Maddox’s dangerous
procedure.
The turning point comes when Picard talks
things over with Guinan, who ponders what
it would be like should Maddox succeed in
replicating Data and building an army of androids,
a whole race of people to do the dirty, dangerous
jobs nobody else wants to do.
Expendable.
Disposable.
“You’re talking about slavery,” says
Picard.
And Guinan’s like, “I think that’s a
little harsh.”
And Picard says, “But that’s what you
meant.
Right?
Slavery?
If they can ignore Data’s rights this time,
they can create a whole race of other androids
and ignore their rights, too?
Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m not saying I’m not.
But I’m not saying I am.”
“Why are you — god — being so cryptic?
Slavery!
That’s obviously what you mean!”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Anyway, that’s totally what she means, and
Picard uses it, and he wins and Data gets
to tell Maddox to go swim in some plasma coolant!
Ask the Borg Queen what it’s like, ya hump!
It’s Data’s favorite way to murder.
Actually, I’m wrong — catch him on the
wrong day, and he’ll snap your neck soon
as look at you.
You never know when our favorite gentle, inquisitive
android will turn into a merciless killing
machine.
Have I wandered off-topic while also remaining
on-topic?
How is that even possible?
Data may have won his personal liberty in
“The Measure of a Man,” but the idea of
people being willing to ignore the personhood
of artificial intelligence when it’s convenient
comes up again and again in subsequent episodes.
In TNG’s sixth season episode “The Quality
of Life,” Data suspects that maintenance
robots called exocomps are developing sentience,
and decides that it is therefore unethical
to force them to risk themselves performing
dangerous tasks.
In Star Trek: Voyager’s “Author, Author,”
from that show’s seventh season, the ship’s
holographic Doctor goes through something
similar to Data’s experience in “The Measure
of a Man,” petitioning a Federation court
to recognize his rights as an artist after
a publisher releases his holonovel without
permission.
Though the Doctor wins, his victory is extremely
narrow — he is granted only the right to
control the distribution of his work, not
fully recognized legal personhood.
And the episode ends with a scene of hundreds
of holograms just like the Doctor working
in a Federation mine, secretly passing around
bootlegs of the Doctor’s novel.
So, apparently that thing Guinan was afraid
was going to happen with androids wound up
happening with holograms.
Oh!
And also with androids, eventually.
As we see in season one of Star Trek: Picard.
There’s been some confusion among fans as
to how the synths depicted working at Starfleet
facilities during flashbacks in Star Trek:
Picard make sense, given the events of “The
Measure of a Man,” which seemed to set a
precedent that would prevent something like
that from ever happening.
I think the key distinction is that, unlike
Data, the worker synths that we see working
at Utopia Planitia are not actually sentient.
They’re like robots on assembly lines.
Only more sophisticated.
And they look like people.
With faces.
Some folks who didn’t like the Picard series
treat the existence of the synths as a mistake
on the part of the writers, or an intentional
thumbing of their noses at established canon.
But I think it was a very deliberate choice
by the creators of the series, and it’s
a choice that allows them to tell a story
very much in line with “The Measure of a
Man,” “The Quality of Life,” and “Author,
Author.”
In the season finale of the Picard series,
the heroes fight to prevent the coming of
a powerful and malevolent form of artificial
intelligence, a synthetic organism that is
coming to wipe out all organic life in the
galaxy in order to preserve the existence
of artificial life.
And while this super scary tentacled robot
monster is certainly another example of Star
Trek showing us a darker view of technology,
the larger point of the series isn’t that
technology itself is a threat to us, but rather
that, if we aren’t careful, we can wind
up using our technology as an excuse to indulge
our darkest impulses.
The Romulans in Star Trek: Picard are so afraid
of the coming A.I. apocalypse that they ban
the development of all synthetic life within
their empire and secretly manipulate the Federation
to do the same thing.
Then, they very nearly destroy an entire colony
of androids (created by Bruce Maddox (version
2) and Alton Soong) in order to prevent them
from summoning the killer robot sky octopus.
And the Federation is far from innocent here
— not only do they ban synths after the
Romulan-orchestrated attack on Utopia Planitia,
that attack is only possible in the first
place because Starfleet went ahead and built
itself an army of disposable people anyway,
skating on the technicality that they aren’t
cognitively sophisticated enough to qualify
as sentient.
“Almost-but-not-quite violating our most
cherished ideals!
That’s the Starfleet way!”
The threat to organic life posed by the metal
squid from the portal of death is catastrophic,
but the series makes it pretty clear that
the androids on Coppelius only summon it because
they feel their survival depends on it.
Because from their perspective, the killer
super A.I. isn’t the threat — we are.
The Federation created an army of androids,
and when some of those androids turned on
it, the Federation responded by outlawing
them, by literally making it illegal for them
to exist.
So, what else were they supposed to do?
Maybe attempting to trigger a trans-dimensional
robot apocalypse was a bit much, but they
had to do something to protect themselves!
Like I said, this is all very much in keeping
with stories having similar themes from earlier
in the franchise.
In “The Measure of a Man,” Maddox admits
that his procedure to replicate Data may potentially
destroy him.
In “The Quality of Life,” Dr. Farallon
wipes the memories of exocomps who “malfunction”
after attaining sentience.
In the Voyager episode “Latent Image”
we learn that Captain Janeway has been altering
the Doctor’s memory without his consent
to keep him from becoming preoccupied with
a traumatic event that is making it difficult
for him to function.
The pattern is pretty clear: we create artificial
intelligence, we support it as long as we
can continue to exploit it, and when it becomes
too inconvenient, when we can’t use it any
more, we try to destroy it, or at least destroy
its personhood enough to make it useful to
us again.
Stories like these are more compelling, I
think, than ones centered on Kirk talking
computers to death, or the crew of the Enterprise
battling a hive-mind of relentless cyborgs,
because they represent Star Trek not just
warning us about something that could happen
in the future, but challenging us to be better
people right now.
Episodes like “The Measure of a Man” and
“The Quality of Life,” and the first season
of Picard, aren’t telling us to be afraid
of what technology can do to us, but of what
it could tempt us to do to ourselves.
The fear isn’t of being enslaved, but of
becoming the kind of people who can justify
enslaving others.
Artificial intelligence doesn’t actually
exist yet, at least not at anywhere near the
level of sophistication shown in Star Trek.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t have to for us
to know that we’re capable of the kind of
behavior depicted in those aforementioned
episodes.
We’re just as willing to exploit our fellow
humans, to deprive them of rights, to deny
their personhood, to turn away from their
oppression, if it serves our own interests.
Human history is filled with enslavement,
inequality, injustice, all of which were allowed
to exist — and are still allowed to exist
— because some of us are willing to accept
that our comfort comes at the cost of the
suffering of others.
That’s something else, I guess, that sets
Star Trek apart from other sci-fi franchises.
I mentioned the Terminator and Matrix series
earlier.
In both of those, we see what happens when
our machines rise up and attempt to destroy
us.
Star Trek, every once in a while, has been
thoughtful enough to ask us to consider that
maybe the robot uprising is justified.
Or, if not justified, understandable — and
not because of those evil robots . . . but
because of us.
Hey, folks!
Hope you enjoyed this episode.
I’m gonna let you know what the subject
of the next regulation Trek, Actually video
will be in a minute.
But first, I want to give shoutouts to some
of my newest Patreon patrons!
And they are:
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We’re well into our third season, having
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Okay.
My friends, we’ve waited for this a long
time, and the day has finally arrived.
The topic of the next regulation Trek Actually
video is one that was a mainstay in the Patreon
poll for many months last year.
It was a runner-up several times, but could
never quite pull out the victory.
Until now, that is.
The winner of the most recent poll, and the
subject of September’s video is: Did Captain
Janeway Actually Murder Tuvix?
The people have spoken.
And their voice will be heard.
That’s coming up in a few weeks.
I’ve got another comment response video
to do before that, maybe another “not actually”
video in addition to that one, who knows?
I haven’t decided.
We’ll see.
Thanks for watching, everybody.
Take care.
