Ship of the Imagination, the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701: A “Star Trek” review series

 

Cover of the ninth set of "Star Trek" story adaptations by science fiction legend James Blish.

“We’re going to explore the cosmos in a ship of the imagination, unfettered by ordinary limits on speed and size, drawn by the music of cosmic harmonies …”

— Carl Sagan, “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,” episode 1, “The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean”

This will be a quirky occasional series of “Star Trek” reviews/meditations/tangents. There are times when I need to write but circumstances are so distracting that I have trouble focusing on fiction — I can spin sentences out but I can’t enter “the fictiive dream” in the phrase of novelist John Gardner. But maybe at those times I can write about some of my favorite geeky subjects, like, say, “Star Trek.”

So, the high concept here is that I’m reconstructing the fictional history of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 — The Original Ship if you will. This is not authoritative and will include a lot of suppositions by me. It will also include a lot of digressions where I talk about other fictional works, history, science, pop culture and whatnot. Hope it’s fun.

If you know my fantasy writing it might surprise you how big a “Star Trek” nut I am. But I’m as fond of science fiction as I am of fantasy, and “Star Trek” has a lot of both elements. It tries to keep a toe-hold on science and rationality but quite often it’s as fantastical as anything in Tolkien.

I remember watching “Star Trek” reruns from such an early age that almost all of it went over my head. Originally I just liked seeing the spaceships. In fact I’d go off to play with blocks or something until a musical cue told me I’d see the Enterprise again. But in time the situations started blowing my mind. A disease that turns you into crystals! The ship trapped by an energy web! A monster that disguises itself as people you trust before sucking all the salt from your body! A war fought by computers where if you’re declared a casualty you have to step into a terrifying disintegration booth!

Gradually the characters starting seeming cool. I loved Uhura’s poise, Sulu’s eagerness, Spock’s calm, McCoy’s gruff compassion. I think later I learned to appreciate Scotty’s passion for his work and his ship, Chapel’s calm competence even as she pined for Spock, Chekov’s determination to do well despite making mistakes and getting clobbered by the universe again and again. Kirk seemed too perfect to relate to at first but I’ve warmed up to the character as I’ve gotten older and felt the weight of more responsibilities.

Why the narrow focus on the “first” U.S.S. Enterprise? Trek fans sometimes talk about “their” “Star Trek,” the series that first got them interested in the franchise. For me it’s actually a weird mix of The Original Series, The Animated Series, and some of the novels and lore that existed in the days between The Original Series and 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I love a lot of what came afterward but the stuff of my personal “Golden Age of Science Fiction” was TOS and TAS and the apocrypha that accumulated around them.

By narrowing the discussion to a “history” of the NCC-1701 (“no bloody A, B, C, or D” as Scotty might say) I get to focus on a manageable but varied set of productions. These are: TOS, TAS, the first three original cast movies, and the new series “Strange New Worlds.” I’ll also consider “Star Trek: Discovery” season 2, as it gives the Enterprise a lot of screen time.  And I’ll refer a bit to the “reboot” movies because despite taking place in another timeline I think they can illuminate the original characters. I’ll also cover some related works but not in an exhaustive way.

Why focus on the ship? I think the Enterprise — all of them, but particularly the “classic” one — is emblematic of a particular kind of science fiction, the kind that tries to evoke a sense of wonder in the possibilities of the universe and of life and existence. For all I know a faster-than-light vessel like the Enterprise can never exist; there are plenty of physicists  who would say so, often with great regret. But that’s not really the point. It’s less a serious proposal for a vehicle and more a storytelling vehicle, a contrivance that can get our characters into new adventures and mysteries and wonders and terrors.

In this it’s akin to “Doctor Who’s” TARDIS or Carl Sagan’s (and later Neil deGrasse Tyson’s) Ships of the Imagination from the two “Cosmos” science popularization series. Indeed, trimmed to its essential function the Enterprise is like the mysterious doorway that accompanies Rod Serling’s narration in some episodes of the original “Twilight Zone” — it’s our ticket to wild speculations.

Warp drive, duotronic computers, transporters, vliewscreens, shuttlecrafts — as interesting as they can be in the end they’re just a kind of plating on a “ship of the imagination,” a ship whose real purpose is to give us wild tales of the wide universe.

Let’s see what’s out there.

Next: Enterprise predecessors Part 1 — Clark Ashton Smith’s tales of the starship Alcyone.