To
the Good People of Star Trek:
First of all, let me just say: thank
you; thank you for bringing Star Trek back to television, and for making
in Discovery two of the best seasons
of television ever. I am sure I am but
one of many people who have written to congratulate you on your excellent work,
but I do hope one more letter of praise will not be too much. I have quite enjoyed watching you work with
the material you have inherited; you have been faithful to what has come before
without letting it limit your creativity.
Kudos on creating great new characters like Saru and Stamets (my two
favorites), and on brilliantly fleshing out old characters like Christopher
Pike, Harry Mudd, and the family Sarek (but where does Sybok fit in to this
story, I wonder?). And as for Captain
Gabriel Lorca, even though he did turn out to be a murderous Terran, he is
still my third favorite Starfleet captain, after Picard and Archer. Please tell me his Prime Universe counterpart
is still alive somewhere and is waiting in the wings to return…
But, I digress. I wanted to write this letter, not only to
say thank you, but also to make a specific request. Now we all know Star Trek has always striven to be diverse in its representation of
mankind and other species, but there is one area where the show has generally
ignored not just a specific minority, but the majority: we have so far seen
people (as the old song goes) red and yellow, black and white; straight and
gay; we’ve seen the blind, the deaf, the augmented and the artificial—but 55
years after Mr. Roddenberry made “The Cage,” we have yet to see a single
example of a citizen of the Federation—much less a Starfleet officer—who is identifiably
a practitioner of some one or other of humanity’s many religions. Isn’t it about time Star Trek added a
diversity of creed to its diversity of race, color, sex, and orientation?
Now, on this very point, I must once
again congratulate you; for in “New Eden” this last season you came as close as
anyone ever has come to showing us that religion is still part of the human
scene in the 23rd-century world of Star Trek, both in giving
us Terralysium and in what you revealed about the background of Captain Pike
(on that point, a question: when he says of a cousin of his “She only ever gave
a straight answer in church,” is that an idiom, or is he being literal?). However, the good people of Terralysium do
not really count as an example of what I am asking you to show us, for the
following reasons: 1. They may practice a religion, but it is not any of the
religions we would know, but their own syncretistic creation. 2. These people
are not members of the post-First Contact 23rd -century society of
the Federation, but the isolated, largely non-technological descendents of
refugees from Earth’s World War III.
The very diversity of the founders
of Terralysium reflects how the religious makeup of America has changed. Even my own limited experience, living in
small towns in states bordering the Mississippi River, confirms it. I have in my time met Roman Catholics,
Eastern Orthodox Catholics, Protestants (lots
of Protestants), non-denominational Christians, Muslims, Jews, Baha’is,
Wiccans—and yes, even a few atheists and agnostics. Even here in the small town south, we humans
are a religiously diverse lot; on a global scale this is even more true. Demographics show us that the vast majority
of humans are religious, and—outside Europe and certain parts of the
Anglophonic world—becoming more so (you can Google the work of Philip Jenkins
for the details). I respectfully submit
that future episodes are an excellent opportunity for Discovery to reflect that.
There have been a few hints over the
years that religion is a present if unseen aspect of life in the Federation,
but they have always veered away from anything very direct (please forgive me
if I geek out for a moment and try to show off my limited Trek erudition):
1.
Dr. Phlox lived on Earth "several years"
prior to setting forth with Enterprise in April 2151 ( ENT
“Home” 4.3; cf. the premiere episode “Broken Bow” and Captain Archer’s starlog
57 minutes in for the date). During those years, he “made it a point to
study a number of [Earth’s religions, including Hinduism]…spent two weeks at a
Tibetan monastery…[and] attended mass at St. Peter’s Square” (“Cold Front” ENT
1.11). So by about the 2140's or later, apparently several human
religions have survived First Contact, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and
Catholicism. This is the clearest evidence I know of on the subject.
2. 216
years later, in “Data’s Day” (TNG
4.11) Data notes that “events occurring today include…a celebration of the
Hindu Festival of Lights,” strongly suggesting the presence of practicing
Hindus onboard the Enterprise in 2367.
Also, he judges it “Overall, an ordinary day,” suggesting that religious
festivals are quite common on the Enterprise—we’ve just never seen them.
3. Then,
in 2375, in “Penumbra” (DS9 7.17),
Kasidy Yates remarks to Benjamin Sisko about his plans to have a certain
admiral conduct their wedding that her mother “would prefer her daughter to be
married by a minister; but, an admiral is the next best thing.” Apparently “ministers” are still a thing, and
it matters to Mrs. Yates
4. Between these events, in the same era as Discovery’s first 2 seasons, Captain Kirk,
while conducting a wedding in the Enterprise’s chapel (to be carried on all
viewing screens), speaks of “our many beliefs” (“Balance of Terror” TOS 1.14).
That,
with the exception of Discovery‘s contributions, is pretty much it. Funeral scenes and mentions of Christmas
don’t really tell us much.
There was also a Star Trek novel called Guises of the Mind (author: Rebecca
Neason), in which the Enterprise-D ferries a group of Catholic nuns to a planet
where they plan to minister to orphans.
It is the only work I know of, even outside canon, that shows us an
earth religion alive in the 24th-century Federation. It is quite well done, and shows us how the
presence of religion in a Trek story
need not be antithetical at all to the show’s ethos.
Now, my preference would be for
Amanda Grayson to be revealed as Jewish (although she has chosen the Vulcan
way). It would fit well with Leonard
Nimoy’s own background and his incorporation of certain elements of his Jewish
heritage into Vulcan culture (such as the famed Vulcan salute, which was
derived from…but you know all this).
However, a half-Jewish Spock might be too much. But it need not involve changing any existing
character, or incorporating some token religious person into the show. All we need is one scene where some
Federation citizen, or even someone in Starfleet, says that they are fasting
because it is Lent, or Ramadan; or
explains that people never see them on Saturday because it’s the Sabbath; or…
You get the picture. I do think the presence of earth religions in
an interstellar Federation really is one of the great unexplored dimensions of Star Trek’s potential. It is for me a burning question: we know
earth’s religions survived First Contact, but what became of them in the next
two centuries? Terralysium and a
religiously literate Christopher Pike could be just the beginning.
Live
Long and Prosper,
Charles Brent Oliver
