Star Trek and the Changing Face of Eugenics

First airing February 16, 1967, the original series episode "Space Seed" introduced the genetic superman Khan Noonien Singh, who would appear twice more in the franchise (1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness).  Khan was described as a product of the Eugenics Wars, a still-nebulous concept in canon material that was supposed to take place somewhere in the 1990s.  In 1967, the term "eugenics" was broadly understood to have Nazi connotations, although it was a concept widely shared in the United States as well.  Eugenics was the idea that a "perfect" human could be engineered through selective breeding.  In Nazi hands it led to a genocidal purge of undesired ethnicities for a "pure" nation.  

Khan was presented as a monster incapable of reconciling his existence with those he found inferior, which was basically everyone else except the goons sent into the same exile as himself.  When Kirk finds his ship coasting in space and revives him, Khan attempts a coup of the Enterprise and is subsequently sent into a second exile, and an attempt at revenge.  

The extent of Khan's genetic engineering was physical as well as mental, so that he represented the idea of perfecting both by bypassing chance, willful education and fitness efforts.  In doing so, he developed a level of arrogance he couldn't see past, what Kirk eventually called two-dimensional thinking.  By taking his abilities for granted, Khan never considered that there was a chance anyone without his advantages could be his equal, much less superior.

In Star Trek lore, his existence and evident threat led the Federation to ban genetic engineering.  The franchise didn't seriously revisit the idea until the Deep Space Nine episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" in 1997, a full thirty years after "Space Seed."  In it we learn that Doctor Bashir, a member of the regular cast since the first episode of the series, has been genetically engineered the whole time.  To look at him (a complete inverse of Khan physically, a beanstalk of a man), you would certainly have never guessed, and since this was a fifth season episode, nothing the writers had planned until plotting that episode.  Bashir had always had a healthy ego from his introduction on, a recent graduate of Starfleet medical school who boasted of his high academic achievements and selection of the assignment to a station at the edge of Federation space meant as a challenge he didn't think he'd find elsewhere.  The episode explains how his parents chose to modify his genes after finding themselves with a sickly child of no apparent prospects.

Now, no one will ever argue Julian Bashir to be the second coming of Khan.  Starfleet ends up making a special exception for him (he would otherwise have lost his career), instead punishing his father for making the decision in the first place.  For the rest of the series, the only real effect of the revelation is two episodes where he spends time with other products of recent genetic engineering, misfits whose outcomes weren't nearly as fortunate as his own.

The next time the franchise revisits the concept is the trilogy of Enterprise episodes from 2004, "Borderland," "Cold Station 12," and "The Augments," in which we learn the ancestor of Data's creator, Arik Soong, was inspired by the original Khan project in his work, and in fact nurtured the genetic material left over from it and even raised some of the results to adulthood.  (In later episodes, the series finally answers the question of how Klingons in the original series had such smooth foreheads; the Empire attempted to reverse engineer this work, and it...backfired.)  When Soong is repeatedly stymied, he eventually decides to pursues robotics instead.

Which brings us to the modern era of Star Trek programming and the reason I'm writing this.  Genetic engineering has played a prominent role in three series from this period, Picard, Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy.  We'll start with Picard, as it most resembles the franchise's historic stance on eugenics.

The second season of Picard features another member of the Soong lineage, Adam Soong, whose efforts in this field of science are meant to create a daughter for himself.  By this time the Eugenics Wars are long over, Khan has been put into cryostasis and shot into space, WWIII has yet to occur, and of course the Soongs have begun their long journey toward the creation of Data, one of the main cast members of The Next Generation, an android with an innovative positronic net powering him.  Adam Soong, although a renowned member of the scientific community, keeps his greatest work to himself, and has failed a number of times at creating a daughter of unlimited viability, genetic flaws continually cropping up and leading to premature death or debilitating conditions.  When we catch up with him, his daughter Kore has no idea she was created in a lab, although she certainly knows she can't stray far from home, since her skin can't withstand UV rays.  Eventually she runs away from home, and the Soongs continually evolve their pursuits.  Adam and Arik Soong are clearly presented as villains, although Kore, like Bashir before her, is an unwitting victim and sympathetic protagonist.  

The same can be said for Strange New Worlds and Prodigy's contributions.  Strange New Worlds gives us Number One, Una Chin-Riley, who has been hiding her Illyrian heritage since Illyrians maintain a regular practice of genetic engineering.  Prodigy's lead character is Dal, and in the 2022 episode "Masquerade" we learn that he's entirely the product of genetic engineering.

At the end of its first season, Strange New Worlds positions Chin-Riley in the same kind of peril Bashir faced when finally exposed, just as Prodigy finds Starfleet forced to reconcile Dal's existence with its ban.  Chin-Riley's case is in the past, before Khan is even revived, while Dal's is after Bashir's.  It seems recent creators are increasingly interested in challenging the moral qualms of the whole concept.  So is this a problem?

I think so.  It's one thing to argue, as Bashir does, that he had no say in what happened to him.  After all, although he knowingly lied throughout his Starfleet career, he didn't think he was otherwise responsible for conditions that ended up violating the ban.  Dal's case is different.  Although a character in a show geared toward kids and constantly presented as someone who just wants to fit in (and therefore it would be tough to come to any other conclusion), it becomes problematic that he's yet another unwitting victim we're asked to accept.  As I write this, the second season of Strange New Worlds has yet to premiere, so there's no way to know if and how Chin-Riley's case is handled, but it seems equally unlikely that she will end up unabsolved, whether by Starfleet or her crew.

I'm not making an argument against modern Star Trek, or these characters.  What I'm saying, here, is that it's a curious development in a franchise that has long been a champion of reason, spending the entire original series questioning basically everything, even the most precious indulgences of the counterculture that has long since been assumed to most closely align with its utopian ideals.  The franchise has also become a beacon of acceptance, in increasingly overt ways, and yet...this might be a step too far.  What some would call inevitable scientific progress still represents a Doctor Bashir who asks his parents, finally, why he wasn't good enough for them as he originally was.  No subsequent depiction of genetic engineering in the franchise has voiced such a thought, nor the cautionary tale (which is the foundation of the franchise) of Khan and the generation of augments that followed him.

This is a dangerous road to travel.  My hope is that someone at the controls realizes this at some point.  We don't need a Khan to point this out.  We certainly don't need another Hitler.  Star Trek is always at its best when it depicts humanity's efforts to better itself.  Through more conventional means.  Moral means.

Star Trek Arcs XII: Section 31

One of Deep Space Nine’s shorter and yet most impactful arcs involved the introduction of Section 31, a secretive intelligence organization within Starfleet that played by its own rules and was alone convinced of the good it did.

In the sixth season episode “Inquisition,” Luther Sloan attempts to recruit Julian Bashir, who despite a long friendship with the former Cardassian spy Garak can’t bring himself to condone Section 31’s existence, which to this point had been largely unknown outside of its own circles.

In the seventh season episode “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” (in times of war the law falls silent) Bashir again runs into Sloan, realizing that Starfleet, in its increasing desperation during the Dominion War, has knowingly embraced Section 31’s questionable tactics. Fans as eagerly embraced this second spotlight as they had the first, both serving as pinnacle demonstrations of the morally gray areas so often associated with the series.

Late that season, Bashir confronts Sloan directly in “Extreme Measures” when he realizes Section 31 was responsible for a genocidal plague inflicted on the Founders that has inadvertently (?) also infected Odo.

Section 31 shows up in the fourth season of Enterprise, with the revelation that Malcolm Reed once worked for Section 31. Captain Archer takes a dim view on the revelation when Reed struggles to come clean in “Affliction”/“Divergence,” in which we meet his former handler Harris.

The idea is reprised on a far grander stage in Star Trek Into Darkness, in which we learn Admiral Marcus is also a part of Section 31, and thinks of nothing to use it in an attempt to launch all-out war with the Klingons.

Section 31 factors heavily into the serialized storytelling in the second season of Discovery, which features Agent Leland and new recruits Mirror Georgiou and Ash Tyler. There remains in development a full Section 31 spin-off which at one time was speculated to feature Georgiou and Tyler, although developments since that and the third season have perhaps complicated things.

With the movie appearance and heavy presence in and potential spin-off from Discovery, Section 31 has turned into as significant a development of modern Star Trek as anything else you could name. A certain step away from the original hopeful vision of the future Gene Roddenberry envisioned, Section 31 instead of a contradiction often serves to distinguish the enduring morals of the main characters. When Bashir or Kirk reject its tactics, we cheer them as heroes. When Mirror Georgiou embraces Section 31, we’re not surprised. When Tyler finds a temporary refuge in his crazy life, we can even begin to see it in a different light. In modern Star Trek, too, is the ability to see the good even in the bad (a legacy dating all the way back to “Balance of Terror”).

He Was a Particularly Troubled Romulan: Star Trek Post-9/11

"He was a particularly troubled Romulan."

That's what Spock says of Nero in Star Trek (2009).  The line always stuck out for me, but I never quite understood why until recently.  Spock, of course, is Vulcan, and Nero is Romulan, an offshoot of the Vulcans.  Further characterizing the Romulans was always a little difficult.  In the original TV series, they were presented as another Cold War analogy, like the Klingons, who had fought the Federation in the past but had retreated into reclusiveness.  In fact, the fact that Romulans descended from Vulcans wasn't even generally known until they emerged again, and they went back into isolation until The Next Generation, where they became a recurring threat, until the events of Star Trek Nemesis, in which a clone of Picard named Shinzon attempted another full-scale war against the Federation, but ended up suffering the loss of their home planet in the backstory of Star Trek. 

Characterizing Nero as "particularly troubled" is a telling detail.  Nero's response to the destruction of Romulus is to blame Spock, the older one still alive in Picard's day, and all of the Federation, and to once again declare open war.  He sets about a plan to what is in his mind equitable retaliatory action, affecting the destruction of the Vulcan home world and then the rest of the leading Federation worlds, starting with Earth.

And it made me wonder what exactly Nero represented.  Longtime fans tend to look down on the new films, claiming they lack the spirit of the franchise by putting too much focus on flashy special effects.  But that's simply not the case.

Since 9/11, Star Trek has had terrorism on the brain.  Star Trek: Enterprise famously launched within weeks of 9/11.  By the end of its second season, Enterprise launched a major story arc in direct response, an act of terrorism against Earth that led to a preventive mission against the aliens responsible. 

As you read above, the franchise was responsive to its times from the very beginning.  The Klingons and the Romulans were both reflective of the Soviet Union, an idea that culminated in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country with its breakup.  The Next Generation continued the tradition; the Troubles in Ireland were often reflected in its storytelling.  Deep Space Nine echoed the collapse of the imperial age with the end of the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor, reflecting back to the days of WWII but often evoking present times, if not the Troubles then the ongoing conflict in Israel.

Which brings us back to Star Trek.  What if Nero was a Palestinian analogy?  Or Islamic terrorists such as those who struck on 9/11?  I find it likely.  And then Star Trek Into Darkness doubled down on the idea. 
                                                                                                                                                                          

 

You'll recall the above promotional poster, meant to evoke Khan's early terrorism in the movie.  Khan himself might as well have depicted the perception that America's response to 9/11 ended up being excessive or misguided, to put it mildly.

 

Things worth considering.



Star Trek Into Darkness

Ever since the second Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan, was released, fans have been negatively comparing every single one even tenuously similar to it.  The entry was a hallmark, saved the franchise after an underwhelming reception to The Motion Picture a few years earlier, filled with action and resonating character work.  It was the first time the adventures of Kirk demanded a sequel, which it got with The Search for Spock, which spent much of its time reflecting on Khan's key moments.

Star Trek Into Darkness is the first time we get a movie that not only deliberately echoes Khan but arguably improves on it.  The big mystery every fan has been attempting to solve since the presence of Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch's villain was announced turns out to be exactly what they long suspected but the filmmakers struggled to deny (much like The Dark Knight Rises last year with Marion Cotillard's Talia disguised as Miranda Tate).  Cumberbatch indeed plays a character named John Harrison, but Harrison is secretly Khan, the genetic superman created sometime in Kirk's past three hundred years earlier (previously but now only roughly our own time), awoken to create havoc once more.

That I'm writing about this directly is because I want to write about what truly energizes Into Darkness.  Many observers said the 2009 reboot Star Trek lacked the social relevance that had previously been one of the defining elements of the franchise.  If that was indeed true, then this new film does everything possible to reverse that.  The 1966-1969 original series famously did everything it could to get around network restrictions concerning the topic of the Vietnam War, and now we're getting the 21st century equivalent.  Make no mistake: Into Darkness is about the Iraq War.

The story is all about trying to decide if the right thing to do really is always the right thing to do.  It begins with Kirk's (Chris Pine) efforts to rescue Spock (Zachary Quinto) from the maw of a volcano, breaking the Star Trek rule known as the prime directive about exposing primitive species to technology years ahead of their development and thus altering the course of their future in the process.  He becomes demoted as a result, subject to serving under Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) all over again.  Pike has always been Kirk's biggest supporter, but even he sees the basic flaw in his character, in that he never stops to question whether he's right.  It's always been assumed that Kirk always is.  Into Darkness is one of those times where we all stop to question whether that is really the case.  Famously in Star Trek: First Contact, we ask the same question of Captain Picard.

Actually, Into Darkness is a lot like First Contact, which itself was a lot like Wrath of Khan.  Picard in this instance, however, might find a better parallel in Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller), the war-hungry instigator who draws the parallels to Iraq.  In Star Trek terms, Iraq is the Klingons, the alien species who are just as identifiable to the franchise as Spock's Vulcans.  Marcus uses Khan for the same reasons it might be said that both generations of President Bush wanted to deal with Saddam Hussein, because that was a problem the United States created in the first place, and they felt it was necessary to finally deal with it.  The second Bush, the argument further goes, really went to Iraq to finish what his father started.  Some of that can be found in Oliver Stone's W., if you'd like another cinematic exploration.

Do you really have to worry about any of that?  Do you have to think about all those nasty politics that have been so divisive in our culture for at least the last decade?  Not if you don't want to.  Star Trek previously explored this territory, the post-9/11 landscape (Khan is also a terrorist who attacks London early in the film), in the Star Trek: Enterprise Xindi arc, and the nature of war in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Dominion arc.  Yet Klingons have been a reliable menace for decades.  Admiral Marcus calls them a foe Starfleet is destined to clash with, and indeed fans know that to be true.  The sixth movie, The Undiscovered Country, is all about finally confronting that reality, an assassination thriller about the heavy cost of peace.

There's plenty of action, plenty of humor, and if you want to see this Khan ham it up, there's even a scene for that impulse.  Yet some of the best moments echo the best moments of Wrath of Khan, and that may be what the most devoted fans take away from Into Darkness.  The fan backlash to Superman Returns six years ago accused it of being too derivative of the Christopher Reeve movies that preceded it.  There's a small risk of a similar feeling falling on Into Darkness, but it's alleviated by all those moving parts around it, keeping events lively and engaging.  It's relevant to viewers on just about every level.  This is no one-trick pony.  There's little risk that any one element will be the one that defines it.

The bottom line is, like the best movies, there will be a different interpretation to engage every viewer.  Filmmakers love to try and please all the demographics of age and sex, but Star Trek Into Darkness is the rare movie that will cross over any one version of its events, a common experience that speaks to the very heart of the spirit its franchise has always represented.  Someone else said that it boldly goes where other Star Treks have gone before.  That is an incredibly positive interpretation, and perhaps the best thing that could be said about it.