Assignment: Earth is one of my favoriteStar Trek episodes and I've even gone as far as to write a fan fiction story (X-Seven) using some of the characters from that Star Trek episode. It is easy for me to think of Gary Seven as an "Interventionist agent" in the sense of stories set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe.
I was recently reminded of the existence of The Special One, an episode of The Outer Limits, in which a "Mr. Zeno" arrives on Earth. Mr. Zeno, like Gary Seven, has a secret mission to complete on Earth.
the alien Mr. Zeno (left)
No! Not Again!
Isaac Asimov read many robot stories when he was a boy...and he was disappointed by the standard SciFi plot in which the mechanical man always did something bad: "Through the 1920s and 1930s...hordes of clanking, murderous robots continued to be reproduced story after story. I was an ardent science fiction reader in the 1930s and I became tired of the ever-repeated robot plot."
Asimov went on to write his own robot stories in which robots could be friends with humans and even guide Humanity towards a safe future. Luckily Asimov was not around to see the movie based on his robot stories regurgitate the robot rebellion meme.
Asimov and Sagan
Alien Invasions...yawn...
Just as Asimov disliked robot stories that were stuck in the standard "Frankenstein complex" plot, I dislike the standard alien invasion plot. Rule #1 for this often repeated SciFi plot is that the evil invading aliens are incompetent. We Earthlings, with our primitive technology, must successfully resist the invasion. Generally, after coming to Earth from across vast interstellar distances, the technologically advanced aliens do something incredibly stupid, dooming their invasion.
alien technology from Xenon
In The Special One, the invading aliens from planet Xenon have the technological means to convert the atmosphere of Earth from being only marginally habitable for Xenons, into an environment that would be more like Xenon. Mr. Zeno then foolishly gives that advanced technology to a school boy who turns the tables on the evil invaders. The boy uses the advanced technology provided by the aliens to make Earth an even less hospitable environment for the Xenons, thwarting their great plans to take over Earth and live here happily ever after.
The Special One is bad science (the aliens supposedly metabolize xenon, a nonreactive noble gas), bad science fiction and painful-to-watch television.
I'm intrigued by people who have made their living as a writer, jumping from one genre to another as opportunities arose. What might inspire someone who has a history of writing for television shows like Bonanza to try their hand at science fiction? I suppose there is not much difference between most science fiction on TV and shows that fall into other genres.
Gene Roddenberry
You can boil most plots from Hollywood down to a basic "good vs evil" core. Build up the "drama" by having the bad guy confidently stride towards victory, then in the last scene, allow the good guy to win. Then cue the voice over: "Tune in next week for more of the same..." If you happen to be writing an episode for a science fiction show this week, just be sure to throw in an alien invader or a robot.
Real Science Fiction
Thankfully, there have always been a few "real" science fiction writers who have been willing and able to think outside the box of Holywood's conventional dramatic formulae. Asimov brought us interesting robots and folks like Carl Sagan and Gene Roddenberry brought us interesting aliens who had motives beyond ravishing Earth and exterminating humans.
I've been trying to imagine the challenge of getting a science fiction story published in the 1940s. I tried to create a cover for Miners of Earth that might have helped sell the story, even though the cover art really has almost nothing to do with the story. The cover is a tease...allowing readers to imagine some horrible alien invader. While writing Miners of Earth, Thomas knew that there was a secret history of Earth. It is fun to imagine that a fantastic (and true) secret history of Earth would not sell as publishable science fiction simply because the story does not match the conventional biases of science fiction publishers and editors.
Exode
In the Exode Trilogy there is an opportunity for readers to adopt the perspective of R. Gohrlay and view the aliens as evil invaders, but I've been trying to leave the reader in doubt about the motives of the aliens who long ago came to Earth and created we humans. Why would the Huaoshy spend 10,000,000 years making us and then replace us with Prelands? Short answer: the Huaoshy just aren't that into us. The Prelands were designed and crafted to replace humans, to be an improvement over we primitive humans.
By examining his mother's memories, Thomas learned about the existence of the sprawling, billion-year-old intergalactic Genesaunt Civilization. What do the mysterious Huaoshy want? In his fiction, Thomas was able to exercise his imagination and invent an explanation for why an advanced form of life might come to care about the fate of primitive creatures like we humans.
A similar puzzle lurks within Exode. The Huaoshy honor an ethical principle that says they have no right to interfere with the natural course of life's development on worlds like Earth. However, in practice, because the aliens feared what might happen if some lifeform got out of control and became a danger to the Huaoshy, they put in place Genesaunt Civilization. Until humans came along, the Huaoshy had never faced a serious threat from another lifeform.
By spreading Genesaunt Civilization from galaxy to galaxy the Huaoshy had been able to spread their influence through the universe, guiding thousands of different lifeforms to a safe existence that did not threaten the Huaoshy. The Huaoshy are rather smug about their system since the evidence indicates that, left to develop on their own, most technological societies self-destruct, but within Genesaunt Civilization many technological species did manage to survive and peacefully merge with the Huaoshy. With the development and use of time travel technology on Earth, the Huaoshy feel threatened as never before. Suddenly they need to understand and regain control of Humanity.
Hilde
For his story Miners of Earth, what Thomas imagined was that even if we humans are primitive and even if we might be worthy of being replaced, there could be some aliens who would value us, or even, after spending millions of years watching us evolve, simply want to help us, possibly because they had grown fond of us. Thomas imagined "collectors" who would be forced by the Rules of Intervention to collect samples of interesting lifeforms and take them to "zoos" for safe keeping.
I've imagined that according to the ethical rules of the Huaoshy, they permit some aid to primitive lifeforms, but only as long as the primitives remain ignorant of any help that they receive.
As mentioned in my last blog post, I've started thinking about the discovery of genetic evidence on Earth that would reaveal a secret history of Interventionism. Specifically, I'm thinking about the presence of a small sub-population of Earthlings, including people like Andy and Hilde, who have unusual genomes that show clear evidence of genetic engineering.
By the end of Exode, the Overseers have given up and they are no longer trying to protect we Earthlings from realizing that we were created by intelligent design. However, there is fear among the Interventionists that we humans, if free of Overseer protection, are a real danger to ourselves.
In Miners of Earth, Thomas imagined that aliens might actively suppress certain types of cultural advances on Earth in an effort to prevent humans from developing advanced technologies that could become a danger to the ecosystem or our species survival. In his story, the "Clyte" are trying to gather evidence of such interference in the development of human civilization.
Before Gohrlay came along, the Overseers of Earth were planning to prevent development of a technological civilization on Earth until the time when the hermaphroditic Prelands were ready to replace we humans. This state of affairs created an opportunity for R. Gohrlay to become aware of such organized "suppression" and that significantly strengthened her determination to protect Humanity from the Huaoshy. Only slowly could R. Gohrlay come to realize and appreciate the reasons for that "suppression" and the true danger of giving powerful technologies to apes.
If much of the development of human culture on Earth during the past 20,000 years can be accounted for by the removal of Overseer-imposed "suppression", then how much human development was due to Interventionists like the Nereids? There was a long period during which R. Gohrlay had cleared away the Earth Overseers and the Nereids were free to visit Earth. Eventually, R. Gohrlay obtained spaceship and time travel technology. What kind of a relationship did she have with the Nereids and the Fru'wu?
I imagine that Gohrlay was very distrustful of all aliens, but eventually, during the end game, with Trysta on Earth in the 20th century, there was a working relationship between Trysta and the Nereids.
I've imagined that the Nereids would mostly influence events on Earth indirectly by supporting the Fru'wu and the Pla. However, what if the Nereids played the game of taking some humans from Earth and establishing a colony of humans on a planet in the Andromeda galaxy? They could then train some of these humans for return missions to Earth.
The Interventionist training bases of the Pla such as Lendhalen took advantage of the carefully crafted conditions that existed in the Koly star system. Using data about cultural conditions on Earth that were collected at Observer Base on the Moon, the pek were able to manufacture and provide a cultural environment on worlds like Hemmal that was similar to conditions on Earth. It is not clear that the Nereids would be able to maintain a similar system. Their "agents" might not really fit in on Earth.
Under the terms of the agreement between Trysta and Grean, Trysta must help make sure that the Nereids back off and allow only the Buld to continue having contacts with Earth. I've imagined an intense episode, just before the Buld spaceship reaches Earth, when the Nereid presence in the Solar System must be forcefully terminated. I've been trying to imagine how the Nereid Base of operations for Earth might escape detection until that time. I'm imagining a small group of humans who live somewhere on Earth, people who are all rather like Gary Seven: trained by the Nereids and devoted to the Interventionist cause.
It is tempting to select some actual fringe group and write them into the story, but I'm thinking that I should invent from scratch the location and nature of the small Interventionist community on Earth that is sponsored by the Nereids. Right now, I'm thinking that the "Nereid Interventionists" might have been established, maintained, disbanded and reconstituted many times during the past 20,000 years.
I've previously decided that there was a major shift in Earth Interventionism starting about 500 years ago, corresponding to the use of Lendhalen as the most important Pla-run base for training Interventionist agents for assignments on Earth. Also, there was a known Intervention into English history at that time.
Hilde
In keeping with that, I want to design a small community in Europe that could have an influence on cultural development in England during the early 1500s. Maybe there was a group of interventionists with connections to Marienthron (Mary's Throne) in Nimbschen, which is famous for its connection to one of the important women of the Protestant Reformation. It is fun to imagine a group of Interventionists reaching out to women across Europe and supporting social change. Both Trysta and Hilde might have had dealings with these "Nereid Interventionists" and in the end game Kach might not be happy to play a role in severing their connections to -and support from- the Nereids.
About a year ago I started thinking about a new science fiction story that would reveal how we humans were designed, created and scheduled for replacement during the past quarter million years. The first two characters that I had in mind met on Earth and were called Henry Montpellier and Hana Davgon. Of course, "Hank" Montpellier was just a cover name for a mysterious visitor from a distant planet and I later decided that his birth name was Parthney. The spelling of Hana's name has since morphed to "Davyon" and the story was given the name Exode.
I originally imagined calling Chapter One of Exode "Vermont" since that was where "Hank" had a dramatic scene with Hana and that was from where he teleported her away to a distant planet (now called Klyz).
My original plan was to follow Hana when she left Earth and allow readers to learn about Genesaunt civilization by way of her experiences. However, Henry Montpellier quickly captured my attention and before long I realized that Parthney would be the main character of Exode.
I can easily imagine Robert Lansing playing the role of secret agent James Bond, but it would be laughable to cast Parthney as a shrewd and tough agent. I've previously had some fun mocking Parthney in his role as an Interventionist agent. In fact, Parthney was sent off to Earth with the expectation that he would bumble around on Earth and be captured by the Overseers.
Garage Band Parthney
Picture a kid down the street who dropped out of high school and who spends his days playing music in his parent's garage with his buddies...that's a good first approximation of Parthney as a young man on Hemmal. Snicker all you like: I feel no obligation to equip Exode with a conventional science fiction hero.
On the planet of Parthney's birth there is no real concept of a "rock star". First of all, nobody on Hemmal has ever heard of Rock and Roll music. Second, there is only one other human on Hemmal and she's not a fan of Parthney's style of music. However, the young Parthney is something like the Hollywood stereotype rock star in that he seems to always have a pretty girl on his arm.
I do mean "seems". Parthney is in his 60s before he finally "gets the girl". Up until then, his sexual partners are an odd collection of robots, other assorted artificial lifeforms and a surgically altered member of the Buld Clan.
Parthney starts climbing out of his adolescence, not when he is kicked out of his parent's basement, but, rather, when he is kicked off of his home planet. Parthney never actually gets to meet his parents since he is a clone and his parents are long dead. His birth mother is Reginal, a pek.
What is Parthney's crime that gets him booted off Hemmal? Making fun of musical conventions of the Prelands. The Prelands take their music seriously and they view Hemmal as their world and they insist that the Buld behave like guests. While living on Hemmal, Parthney is known as a "false Buld", which means he is viewed a mutant member of the Buld Clan. In fact, Parthney's genetic background is more complex than that, but he is one of only two humans on the planet. The term "human" is a problem in this context: more specifically I should say "humans who are genetically similar to Earthlings".
Although, it must be said that the Buld are almost human...they have an extra pair of chromosomes not found in we Earthlings. And the Prelands are Human Version 2.0, the next in the long line of primates that have been designed and crafted by the pek. The Prelands were designed to replace we humans. Hemmal is a convenient planet where Parthney can be born and grow up speaking English.
Noÿs
When Parthney leaves Hemmal he is on his way to Earth. If Parthney can be said to have a mission in life it is this: he was created so that he could play a role in giving we Earthlings a chance to survive. Originally, it was our fate to become extinct and be replace by Prelands.
Our chance for survival was won by Parthney's mother, a time traveler from the far future of Earth. Just as the name "Gary Seven" is never mentioned in Exode, the name of Parthney's mother is also not included in the pages of Exode. However, I don't mind saying -here- that Parthney's genetic mother is Noÿs, a character from Asimov's time travel novel The End of Eternity.
As described in The Start of Eternity, Noÿs is living in the 20th century when the Huaoshy have their opportunity to put the positronicrobots out of the time travel business and regain control of Observer Base on the Moon.
The Ek'col
While writing The Start of Eternity I imagined that Noÿs and Harlan would live out their lives together in 20th century Earth. Later, while developing Exode, I decided that Harlan would be captured by the Overseers and Noÿs would go on to have two children fathered by Ekcolir/Deomede. Ekcolir and Deomede are the same person, they just exist in two different Realities.
Noÿs and Ekcolir have a son who they name Thomas. Parthney is genetically identical to Thomas. Parthney is interesting genetically because both Noÿs and Ekcolir have unusual genes. Noÿs is from 10,000,000 years in the future along the timeline of the Mallansohn Reality. Ekcolir is an Ek'col. The Ek'col are a variant of the human species that was designed specifically by the Huaoshy to be able to breed with Noÿs and produce a male descendant.
As discussed previously, there are some major biological differences between Noÿs and Earthlings of the 20th century. Noÿs is from a population of humans where there are no males, only females and hermaphrodites. During her negotiations with the Huaoshy, it was agreed that Noÿs would not remain on Earth past 1974. However, while using Huaoshy "Reality viewing" technology, Noÿs selected a Reality in which she saw her son welcoming a Buld spaceship to Earth in the year 2012.
In order for Noÿs to have a son, the Huaoshy created the Ek'col. There are several genetically distinct types of human in Exode:
1) Earthlings
2) the Overseers are a genetically modified variant of Homo neanderthalensis.
3) the Buld Clan; specialized for space travel
4) the Kac'hin
5) the Prelands; designed to replace we Earthlings
6) the Ek'col
Kach
The Ek'col were designed after the Huaoshy realized that positronic robots had invented time travel. The Buld and the Kac'hin already existed, but they were heavily utilized to help prepare Earth for the Buld Reality. All three of these human variants were provided with some of the genetic features of Prelands, most noticeably, they are hermaphroditic (although the Ek'col are not exclusively hermaphrodites). The Buld were designed to specialize in travel between stars using spaceships that travel just below the speed of light. The Kac'hin were designed to function as humanoid "puppets" that allow the Huaoshy to interact directly with humans (this is important in The Start of Eternity). Both the Buld and the Kac'hin have extra pairs of chromosomes compared to we Earthlings. However, mutant Buld and Kac'hin can be born who lack those extra chromosomes. During the past 15,000 years quite a few "false Buld" have been sent to Earth as Interventionist agents.
The Kac'hin were created on the planet Luk'ru in the Andromeda galaxy. Parthney, Kach, Boswei and Izhiun all get to interact with some hermaphroditic Kac'hin on Luk'ru. Kach is the only "false Kac'hin" in Exode.
Gwyned
Exode does not show the home world of the Ek'col, a planet which is populated mostly by hermaphrodites. The Ek'col were designed to have androdioecy. The Ek'col have a large collection of gene combinations derived from Noÿs. Also, the Ek'col have some phenotypic features that differ from those commonly found among we Earthlings. The most obvious anatomical difference is that that the Ek'col have 4 fewer teeth than we Earthlings.
Exode includes two Ek'col/human hybrids who are the children of Noÿs. Gwyned is the daughter of Deomede and Noÿs. Phenotypically female, she has no interest in males. Born in 1939 and growing up on Earth, Gwyned is not very happy.
When Gwyned is teleported off Earth and sent to Lendhalen, she is exposed to a powerful magnetic field that is designed to remove nanites from her body. She learns that she has lived her entire life on Earth with nanite symbionts in her body that have disguised the fact that she has unusually small finger nails and no toe nails. When Parthney arrives at Lendhalen he has the same experience. As the son of Ekcolir and Noÿs, Parthney is Gwyned's sister.
Parthney at Lendhalen
When Parthney first meets Gwyned at Lendhalen, she is working in her laboratory and wearing gloves that hide her hands. She notices that Parthney has finger nails like her own, but she hides from Parthney the fact that they both share this unusual anatomical feature.
Noÿs, from 10,000,000 years in the future, has no finger or toe nails and fewer teeth than we Earthlings. While interacting with humans in her distant past, her futuristic anatomy is disguised by by nanite symbionts that she carries in her body. The Ek'col were designed so as to make sure that hybrid children of Noÿs and an Ek'col male retain the ability to host the type of nanite that Noÿs brought with her from the future.
When Parthney reaches Klyz he is provided with new "Noÿs nanites" that allow him to function on Earth as an Interventionist agent without his unusual anatomy being noticed.
I recently saw the Star Trek: Aurora video which provides a nice demonstration of how far the technology for at-home CGI movie making has come. (Compare it to what was possible a few years ago.)
The plot of Star Trek: Aurora reminded me of how much I dislike Star Trek episodes with parallel universes (The Alternative Factor, Mirror, Mirror, The Tholian Web).
As a hard science fiction fan, I've struggled and come a long way
towards being able to suspend disbelief when scientific nonsense is
hoisted as a plot device within a Sci Fi story.
I've found ways to accommodate myself to faster-than-light space travel, telepathy and time travel, but parallel universes remain just beyond my grasp....particularly when I'm told that the "quantum flux structure" of one's RNA is involved in how the protagonist has moved between universes. My inability to suspend disbelief in such situations in no way detracts from how wonderful it is that one Sci Fi fan (Tim Vining) can now create a lovely CGI Star Trek-inspired episode.
___________________________________________________ POS TOS
In some cases it is easiest to describe the types of stories that did not interest me. As mentioned above, I have a personal problem with stories that involve "parallel universes", particularly when they drift into explorations of "good vs. evil". The Enemy Within, which pretended that the transporter could split animals into two near duplicate individuals, one "good" and meek and the other "evil" and aggressive, was, along with Mirror, Mirror, the answer to this question: What do you expect from a Hollywood script writer who is told to use a technological plot device to explore "good vs. evil"?
The Man Trap is an example of a Star Trek episode where we are subjected to a "monster of the week". I can accept that while out exploring the galaxy one might come across all kinds of strange creatures, but as a biologist I have a particularly hard time accepting the sorts of biologically-implausible creatures that Hollywood script writers invent. The fundamental problem is that I am not interested in horror as a genre. No surprise that I do not like The Enemy Within (by horror story author Richard Matheson)
Balance of Terror is an example of an episode where we must suffer through a war with Romulans or Klingons or some other proxy for "the bad guy". Endless space wars....going "where no man has gone before"? No, going where we always are forced to go by script writers who "cleverly" translate tired old Earthly conflicts into a new science fiction setting. Yawn. Sadly, the entire Star Trek: Aurora story is built on a mindless attack upon a defenseless cargo ship by a Romulan war ship. I enjoy Sci Fi for adventure, exploration and the fun of imagined science, not clanking plots extracted from Earth history and forced into the future.
Ten Interesting Episodes
Why go through this exercise of looking back at Star Trek episodes? I want to explore the extent to which my Exodemic stories have been influenced by watching Star Trek. Asimov suspected that most of his stories could be traced back to the work of other writers, particular the Sci Fi stories that he read in the "pulps" as a child. How much was I influenced by watching Star Trek as a child?
1. Assignment: Earth
This is one of several Star Trek episodes that involved time travel. However, what I like about Assignment: Earth has nothing to do with time travel. As discussed below, one of my favorite types of Star Trek story involves human interaction with aliens who have advanced technology.
We must ask: if the galaxy is full of planets where humanoid aliens long ago developed advanced technology (see #9, below), then did some of those aliens visit Earth long ago? If so, then Gary Seven can easily be imagined to be a human who was born on a distant planet and who functions as an Interventionist agent on Earth.
Isis and Gary Seven
What should we make of the "Isis" character who can shapeshift between human (April Tatro) and cat forms? It is fun to imagine that advanced artificial lifeforms might be composed of nanorobotic components (nanites) that can assemble themselves into any convenient form. So I imagine that Isis makes use of advanced alien technology and acts as a kind of supervisor for Gary Seven. It is not clear that Gary is aware of this.
By the Rules of Intervention, any changes to the historical course of events on Earth must be initiated by a human, but by stretching the rules a bit, Isis can travel to Earth with Gary...as long as she does not get caught. She disguises herself as a cat, except during a moment of weakness when she befuddles Earthling Roberta Lincoln (Teri Garr) by briefly taking on the form of a woman.
Maybe some day Assignment: Earth will finally be made into a television series. Related reading: X-Seven, Star Trek and X-Files crossover fanfiction.
Speaking of fanfiction, this is one of the Star Trek episodes that was written by Jean Lisette Aroeste. It is wonderful that a Star Trek fan could contribute to the series as a story author.
Also, speaking of time travel, this was one of the least offensive episodes of Star Trek that involved going back in time. However, if you insist on making this a time travel story, I'd make one change to this episode.
Drop the idea that when Spock goes back in time he starts acting like a "primitive" Vulcan of past ages.
Spock is half human... alone and stranded with Zarabeth (Mariette Hartley). If you want to have a Spock romance then just do it; don't introduce a lame time travel plot device that implied some sort of temporal panpsychism.
In The End of Eternity, Asimov imagined that it might be possible to focus a world's technological development on either time travel or space travel. If All Our Yesterdays was written today, a third option would be to imagine that the people of Sarpeidon developed some sort of computer-based advanced virtual reality technology. Rather than travel back in time, we can just as easily imagine that they upload their minds to a computerized virtual reality world.
Mr. Atoz
If you insist on the idea that Sarpeidon's star is about to explode and the Enterprise drops by at the last moment in order to rescue the inhabitants, then you could accomplish the mission, assuming that Zarabeth and Mr. Atoz and the entire population of the planet has been encoded on some fantastic sort of computer memory.
In Exode, I imagine that the Prelands devote significant effort to the design and perfection of mythical lives that they try to live out. In Exode, they do this with a minimum of technology (mostly nanites), but the people of Sarpeidon could easily be humans who were long ago taken to a world near the galactic center and given computer technology that allows for mind uploading to virtual realities.
Why is our galaxy full of planets that are populated by humans and humanoids? In Star Trek: The Next Generation it is discovered that our galaxy was "seeded" by an ancient humanoid species. In that episode it is concluded that those "ancient humanoids" are long gone, but it is more fun to imagine that their influence remains active and accounts for the presence of humans on ice worlds such as Sarpeidon and mysterious visitors to Earth like Gary Seven (#1, above). Related reading
Imagine that the humanoid inhabitants of Talos IV can trace their origins back to Earth, possibly 100,000 years in the past. The Talosians have been genetically modified and they look "alien", but it is fun to assume that they are descended from Earthlings.
Early in Earth's exploration of the galaxy, a crippled SS Columbia reachesTalos IV and Vina (played by Susan Oliver) is the only survivor of the ship's crew.
Vina is very ill and horribly disfigured by the time Columbia reaches Talos IV, but the people of Talos allow her to grow up happily within a virtual reality where she appears to be healthy.
Later, the Enterprise, at this time commanded by Christopher Pike, visits Talos IV. Pike is "invited" to stay as a companion with Vina, but he declines the invitation. Later, after Pike is injured and confined to a wheel chair, Spock takes him back to Talos IV so that he can live out his life with Vina, both of them seemingly free of their deformities within a happy virtual reality existence.
I don't think that Gene Roddenberry had the concept of a computer-generated virtual reality in 1966. He imagined that the Talosians had some sort of telepathic ability to make humans imagine that they were in locations that actually only existed only in their memories of past experiences.
I wish we could get in a time machine, go back to the 1960s and get Roddenberry to drop the idea of slave girls and adopt the concept of computerized virtual reality. There were a few science fiction authors such as Stanslaw Lem who had already written about virtual reality. Unfortunately, it is not clear that Roddenberry's knowledge of science fiction was much deeper than Hollywood fluff like Buck Rogers.
In All Our Yesterdays (#2, above), Mr. Atoz had robotic assistants. What Are Little Girls Made of? was another Star Trek episode with human-like robots. This was the first of three Star Trek episodes by Robert Bloch, two of which are discussed on this page (see #7 Catspaw, below).
This episode has similarities to the film Forbidden Planet. Imagine an ancient off-shoot of humanity that developed a sophisticated technology for creating robotic bodies that they could transfer their minds into. Those humans became extinct, but they left behind their technology.
It would be interesting to know how Roddenberry made casting decisions. Sherry Jackson was a likely candidate for Playboy magazine. The plot device of Kirk's ability to evoke emotional responses from robots was also included in Requiem for Methuselah (#10, below).
This is one of the Star Trek episodes that could have been cut to half the typical episode duration, but it was fun in how it depicted a humanoid starship captain (Balok) who seemingly just enjoyed cruising around the galaxy.
Kirk and Rand
There was so much time to kill in this episode that we even get to "enjoy" Dr. McCoy and Yeoman Rand trying to put Captain Kirk on a diet.
First, the tranya.
The image to the left shows Captain Kirk and Yeoman Rand in an early Star Trek publicity photo.
Kirk: "When I get my hands on the person who gave me a female
yeoman..."
McCoy: "What's the matter, don't you trust
yourself?"
After a tedious and long-drawn-out test of the intentions of the Enterprise crew, we finally meet the alien, Balok, and get a tour of the Fesarius. I like to imagine that there are actually millions of aliens living within the giant spaceship that initially confronts the Enterprise. In most Star Trek episodes we go and visit a distant planet, but it was strange when the Enterprise came across a generation ship that was transporting people between the stars. Look how easy it was for humans to develop warp drive. Why would anyone spend thousands of years traveling on a generation ship? In contrast, it was very satisfying to see the advanced technology of the Fesarius. Related reading
This is the last episode from Season One that is discussed here. This episode has similarities to the "Q" episodes that would come later in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.
In keeping withRoddenberry's formula for Hollywood success, Yeoman Ross (Venita Wolf) was yet another Playboy playmate (see Sherry Jackson (#4), above).
This episode is interesting because it depicts advanced and apparently disembodied aliens who give their young offspring, Trelane, a planet to play with. Trelane brings some of the Enterprise crew down to the planet to play, but eventually his parents notice the mischief he gets into.
This is the second episode by Robert Bloch that is discussed here (see #4, What Are Little Girls Made of?, above). This was the seventh episode of the second season and featured an iconic redshirt crew member, Jackson, who dies quickly at the beginning of the show. Actually, Jackson wears a yellow shirt :(
Korob and Sylvia are alien visitors from a distant galaxy. Playing out Clarke's 3rd Law, the aliens make use of an advanced device that allows them to seemingly have magical powers. However, while our galaxy swarms with humanoids, these creatures are fundamentally different and their telepathic powers give them the false impression that human nightmares and Hollywood horror movie tropes define human thought.
Korob eventually can't tolerate the tricks that Sylvia plays on the hapless humans and he tries to help them escape. Sylvia enjoys the experience of using a human body form, although she also temporarily takes the form of a cat.
Kirk on alien probe duty
Sylvia
In keeping with Star Trek tradition, Kirk is ready and able to indulge in some human-alien sex, particularly if it will allow Kirk to defeat the evil alien. Kirk enthusiastically volunteers to probe Sylvia (Antoinette Bower) ... at least before he gets a glimpse of her true physical form.
The image to the right shows the pipe cleaner model of Sylvia's true alien form. Ah, the glory days of pre-CGI special effects! I spent many years being puzzled over the lame animation of the death of Korob and Sylvia, it being a meaningless blur when seen in fuzzy black and white on a small television screen.
The Catspaw episode has similarities to By Any Other Name. By Any Other Name was built upon an alien invasion plot, while in Catspaw the aliens are simply explorers. I'll take inept exploration over a lame invasion.
This episode is just plain fun and it is interesting because of what it can tell us about the art of creating a good television show. The story of how this episode was created by Jerrold Friedman is almost as entertaining as the show itself.
McCoy: "The nearest thing I can figure out is they're born pregnant, which seems to be real time saver."
This is the only Star Trek episode with Klingons that I can tolerate, mainly because we do not have to try to take the Klingons seriously....all the fake political hand-wringing does not appear on the screen during this episode.
This is the last episode from season two that I discuss here. Sargon and his wife, Thalassa, have been disembodied minds for the past million years. Sargon suggests that in the distant past his people might have visited worlds like Earth, long before there was a modern human species.
I wish they could have come up with a better reason for why Sargon et al were trapped in their bottles, but it was apparently impossible, in the middle of the Cold War, to do other than say there had been a catastrophic war.
Sargon
In this episode, two aliens transfer their minds into the bodies of Kirk and astrobiologist Dr. Ann Mulhall (played by Diana Muldaur).
Director's instructions to Diana Muldaur: "Try to smile."
This is one of the Star Trek episodes where Spock (Leonard Nimoy) had to play a very nasty character (the evil alien, Henoch). Nimoy was very good at being a dick. Related reading
Along with All Our Yesterdays (#2, above), this was a third season Episode. This episode strikes me as the most interesting of those written by Jerome Bixby. Flint, born on Earth thousands of years in the past, was a seemingly immortal human. Some of the great historical figures from Earth's past were actually Flint, who would live in various locations, pretend to age, and then move on.
In the Space Age, after leaving Earth, Flint settled on the planet Holberg 917-G where he began the task of creating a robotic woman (Rayna) who could be his eternal mate.
Rayna and Flint
Kirk arrives and falls in love with Rayna, triggering a jealous conflict with Flint. Worse still, Kirk's romantic intentions have caused Rayna to develop powerful but confused emotions. Unable to accommodate her new feelings for Kirk and Flint, her artificial mind disintegrates.
At the end of this episode, McCoy reports that Flint is now dying. McCoy: "You see, Flint, in leaving Earth with all of its complex fields within which he was formed, sacrificed immortality." How might we accommodate out thinking to this mumbo jumbo? Imagine that various advanced alien species have been visiting Earth in the distant path. Might an Earthling become inadvertently infected by life-extending alien nanites, possibly nanites intended for an interventionist agent like Gary Seven (#1, above)? Related Reading: The Man from Earth
Conclusions.
Fun. Good Sci Fi plays with ideas. The Trouble With Tribbles (#8, above) is good fun, but it did not deal with an interesting Sci Fi topic.
It's green
Extragalactic Aliens. Most Star Trek stories play out among the stars of our galaxy. Two episodes explored visitors from another galaxy; Catspaw (#7, above) and By Any Other Name. In both stories, the aliens took on human form, which was their downfall. I enjoyed Catspaw more because it did not try to introduce a lame alien invasion plot. Both of these episodes had good doses of fun. How many alien invasions are stopped by drinking the aliens under the table? The silly Halloween theme of Catspaw is about as close to horror as I like to be. For my own stories, I've never been able to buy into the idea that our galaxy is full of humans and humanoids but other galaxies have different forms of life.
Humanoid Galaxy. Assignment: Earth and Requiem for Methuselah (#s 1 and 10, above) are easy for me to relate to my interest in stories that are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe. If aliens visited Earth long ago, why don't we have evidence of those visits? Or are we, unknowingly, the handiwork of alien visitors?
I can imagine that the other six episodes on my list are all stories about humanoids who originated on Earth long ago. The Squire of Gothos- 2,000,000 Return to Tomorrow - 1,000,000 What Are Little Girls Made Of? - 500,000 All Our Yesterdays - 250,000 The Menagerie - 125,000 The Corbonite Maneuver - 50,000
It is fun to imagine that Balok's ancestors were taken off of Earth 50,000 years ago: maybe they were related to Homo floresiensis. In Exode, the Buld clan members mostly live on space ships, not planets. Imagine the surprise of Earthlings if we eventually learn how to travel between the stars, only to find that there are hundreds of human-variants out there, humans having long ago been taken off of Earth then genetically and culturally modified.
To what extent can my interest in the Exodemic solution to the Fermi Paradox be traced back to watching Star Trek when I was young? I'm sure that I latched onto the suggestion from Return to Tomorrow that an older humanoid species could have spread humans around the galaxy. I was never a great fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but when I saw The Chase I was put off by the idea that a holographic message could be encoded in DNA molecules that had evolved over billions of years. According to this page, The Chase was inspired by Sagan's novel, Contact. When I started writing Exodemic I was certainly thinking a lot about the reasonableness of "ancient aliens" as depicted in Sagan's novel. However, Sagan never adequately explained how it might be possible for technologically advanced aliens to keep their hands off of worlds like Earth. Certainly the Huaoshy were not willing to take a hands-off policy towards Earth.
The Interventionist training bases of the Pla such as Lendhalen took advantage of the carefully crafted conditions that existed in the Koly star system. Using data about cultural conditions on Earth that were collected at Observer Base on the Moon, the pek were able to manufacture and provide a cultural environment on worlds like Hemmal that was similar to conditions on Earth. It is not clear that the Nereids would be able to maintain a similar system. Their "agents" might not really fit in on Earth.
It is tempting to select some actual fringe group and write them into the story, but I'm thinking that I should invent from scratch the location and nature of the small Interventionist community on Earth that is sponsored by the Nereids. Right now, I'm thinking that the "Nereid Interventionists" might have been established, maintained, disbanded and reconstituted many times during the past 20,000 years.
