Space: The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
The address of Captain Kirk over the opening credits of Star Trek are words of authority and leadership. This is a man who is respected and admired by all under his command. This man can be trusted implicitly, who knows what to do in any situation and whose nerve and unswerving guidance can be relied upon throughout the most dire of situations. This man will protect and guide. He will keep you safe. He will inspire. Good job too, because five years is one heck of a road trip.
Star Trek was first transmitted in 1966, but by 1969 the show had been cancelled after only three seasons with the network citing disappointing viewing figures. Throughout the seventies, it was syndicated to other networks across North America, where a more favourable viewing slot saw a huge increase in the fan base. So successful has the franchise become, that the outings of Captain Kirk’s crew are often suffixed with the label The Original Series, to differentiate from the many feature films and subsequent spin-off TV shows. A fictional world gave the writers some leniency to explore themes of politics, race and religion, subjects that would otherwise have been off limits for such mainstream TV of the day. At the time the series was being produced, the real world was in a time of considerable crisis. The Cold War showed no sign of thawing. More particularly, opposition to the increasingly desperate conflict in Vietnam, which was claiming the lives of thousands of US serviceman a month at its peak, was rapidly gaining ground. Star Trek was a vehicle which such conflict could be explored, without explicit reference.
Seventy nine episodes were made so this doesn’t really account for the full five years of the mission. What did the crew of the original Enterprise do on their days off? Running a yoga group for Bones? (Dammit Jim, straighten that back!) Mr Spock, what pursuit would serve as an antidote to all that logic and analysis? Knitting would be a good activity; suitably self-absorbing and a thick woollen jumper would be welcome in some of the less tepid places in far-flung outer space. Perhaps weave in a few pockets that the Starfleet uniforms seemed to lack. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find Captain Kirk had a Space Invaders machine in his quarters.
Back on Earth, a few decades after they were first seen by Kirk et al, the mobile phone was invented. Between the time that miniaturisation allowed the device to fit in your pocket, and the trend for larger screens meant they no longer fitted in your pocket, there was the clamshell model. I owned one of these. Every time it rang or I wanted to make a call, I would flip open the lid in a remarkably similar way to how Kirk activated his communicator. Now I’m not going to admit to pretending I was Captain James T. Kirk, of the Starship Enterprise each time I used the phone. Nor will I divulge that my computer password may have been NCC-1701 (as every Trekkie knows is the registration number of Kirk’s ship). But I will say this: In a time where leaders of nations obsess over how destructive their weapons are, when angry insults are exchanged with the threat of annihilating entire countries, where talk of building walls and promoting division are rarely out of the news, we can look to Captain Kirk and his crew and take inspiration from their ideals. There was no such division on board the bridge of the Enterprise. The crew overcame challenges and explored strange new worlds together with no reference to species, race or gender, because it wasn’t relevant. Star Trek is a vision of a future we can yet realise, where differences in culture may be celebrated and humankind works together to forge a better future. We need leaders like Captain Kirk. Sir, We Salute You!
– Anthony Brum
Please check out my space adventure for middle-grade/ 9-12 year olds- “Imbrium City: Rise of the New Defenders,” available on Kindle now.
Cadet Kiera Austin, young and extraordinarily gifted, is a student of the Stellaris Academy, in the lunar city of Imbrium. Resentful at the choice of her new partner, android Leo Silver, the pair are called to an emergency on a remote outpost of the Moon: a fire, that Kiera suspects was deliberate and is somehow linked with Leo’s past. Driven by a desire to find the truth, Kiera’s investigations arouse the attention of some powerful and very dangerous forces, who will stop at nothing in their pursuit to hunt the cadets down…
