Kiana had been in the wilderness alone. It was against protocol, and exactly what she needed. That’s what she told herself anyway. Lions came to nuzzle her belly, rumbling softly, perhaps due to that acute animal instinct for knowing when something was wrong. Usually they scattered when the Old man came around.
The first time was on the first day of the month, on the first hour past noon. Of course it was. He popped around a tree on those sand scattered Kalahari plains and waved. Kiana started, then bent over the hand-held UV monitor in both her mitts and muttered, “It’s not real.”
On the second day, at the appointed hour, he climbed into the sun-screened Jeep with her with a cheery “Hello!” Her grip tightened knuckle white on the steering wheel. “You’re not real,” she repeated, almost as a mantra. Her bright green eyes shunted her off onto a vision, flashing to the live-feed six weeks past, to the same man, now more emaciated than he’d been at their last contact, seemingly plied with ever-more tubes in every vein. She blinked, jerking to the side, but the man was gone, at least for now.
Twice more she saw him, at a distance paralleling her as she did her job, collecting genetic samples from the indigenous wildlife. It wasn’t normally dangerous work, but it was always better to work in teams. Especially on the Kalahari with its hundred-degree-plus temperatures, sparse grasses, pale sand pans and gnarled camel thorn trees clawing infrequently at the sky. On the sixth day, it almost cost her.
Kiana had sampled some weaver birds but hadn’t been paying enough attention to her surroundings. Which was how the cheetah had stumbled into her. They literally tripped over one another. Luckily Kiana rolled one way and the spotted cheetah the other. Her heart hammered at her ribs with startling ferocity. That was nothing compared to the snarl issuing from the big cat.
Its eyes were cloudy. It must have an older cat who stumbled carelessly into the noonday sun and been blinded. With all the other adverse effects of climate change it couldn’t have been helped. This was not helping her at all, though. Her limbs were still trying not to move. She didn’t seem to have much control over her shrill breathing, something the cheetah’s ears tuned in on with terrible accuracy.
That’s when the Old man stepped around her, waving both long arms and yelling, startling the cat enough that she could get off a shot with her tranq pistol. It took a couple of shots to flatten the agitated beast, but it was done.
The pistol thunked to the brittle yellow grass as the Old Man swung back to her with that familiar grin. “That’s why you shouldn’t be out here by yourself,” he said. “Baby? What’s wrong?”
“…please stop,” she whispered, her overflowing eyes burning. “…god, please stop…you can’t be here…”
“I don’t see why not. The cheetah seemed to agree with me.”
“B-but, Poppa, you’re gone. You’re…y-y-you’re…”
It all came spilling out, all the tears dammed for the past six weeks, all the suppressed emotions, stealing her breath, choking her. The Old Man returned from the truck with a paper bag for her to breath into. He held onto her with soothing words as she hunched over herself, hyperventilating for how long, an hour? All she was able to choke out in all that time was, “forgive me.”
“What for, baby?” he asked.
“I-I wasn’t there, Poppa. I-I didn’t come for the end.”
“The cancer was pretty far along this time. There wasn’t a lot anyone could do.”
As he’d done when she was younger and brought home every stray dog in the neighborhood, teary-eyed, he now dabbed her cheeks with a kerchief that was the same safari-brown as his sleeveless shirt and shorts. “It’s okay, Baby. Say what’s really bothering you.”
She could look at him now, into the smiling eyes that had raised her, the face now smoothed of all aches. “Is heaven real?” she asked.
“It’s better than heaven,” he shrugged. “Go on. You can do it.”
“I can’t.”
“What, the little girl who frolicked with lions? That’s not who I remember.”
“That’s just it. I didn’t want to remember you like that, all wasted away. I wanted you to be strong in my memory. I wanted to remember all the fishing trips with you and Momma. I wanted to remember that big hug you gave me when I came home from my mission.”
“You can still have that. Nothing wrong with that.”
“But I-I’m not ready.”
“I wasn’t. Nobody’s ever ready. That’s okay. I have faith in you, baby.”
“Does Momma hate me, for not coming home?”
He blew a raspberry out the side of his mouth. “Never. ‘Worried’ is more like it. You should give her a call.” Together they stood. “I’ve been allowed this one visit. I’ve probably overstayed it already. Why don’t I help you load that cat in the cage before I get back?”
This was done in no time at all. As she slammed the metal cage shut in the back of the Jeep, he tipped her chin up, chucking her on it. “I’m proud of you, baby.”
She ducked her head with a smile. A stiff breeze whipped through her bones and he was gone. In the depression in the grass where he’d stood, there remained a small red book of Psalms, the one he’d always carried with him for forty years. The one Momma swore she’d buried with him.
Before the security ‘bots arrived to investigate the backstage vandalism, Lianna and Gita agreed through sign that they’d both keep Gita’s true nature a secret. At first the ‘bots asked no questions about her, instead grilling Lianna about how her morning had gone, what led up to this, did she know who etched ‘WHORE’ into the blackboard, station property, blah blah. How would she know, she responded; it was like this when she got to the auditorium.
After an hour of collecting residue and heat tracings, they promised a full investigation and shooed her from the ‘incident scene.’ They were almost at the backstage portal when the ‘bot in charge, so she guessed from his steel blue plating and cap, finally asked Lianna, “To whom does this child belong?”
Only then did Lianna realize she had no alibi for Gita. Finally she said, “Her mother sent her to me to be cared for. It’s part of a special coming of age ritual.” Okay, at least the truth wouldn’t need to be revised later on. “Please excuse us, we’re going to the Slush Pit, I’d like to feed her.” She stepped out, Gita clutching her right hand, without a word passed between them.
The first question of course was what should she feed her? Seeing as she was a child, the choice seemed obvious. “Hey kid, how’d you like some ice cream?”
The Slush Pit on Deck 5 offered a bazaar hosting a variety of kiosks. Many offered slushies and other semi-liquid delights, in honor of the ice giant looming outside the ring of viewports, not unlike those on cruise ships of old, implanted into the bulkheads. A stepladder led down to a subdeck three meters lower than the rest of the deck, offering access to this alien cafeteria.
After she’d descended to the lower level, Lianna turned to make her choice. That’s when a skinny pair of legs clambered onto her shoulders, and Gita’s small hands balanced on the top of her head. Lianna chuckled and sauntered to the first ice cream parlor Gita jabbed a finger towards.
At Fries-Or-Frieza, the vendor’s eyes smiled in place of a mouth that wasn’t there and passed a menu to each of his guests. His body was stout under a standard apron, while his eyes were set in a flattened eraser head. His flesh seemed the color and texture of freshly opened play doh. Lianna and Gita had a seat while he slipped on sanitary gloves and mixed two mugs of banana splits topped with sprinkles and chocolate frosting.
While Lianna scooped a spoonful at a time to her lips, Gita dove face-first into her serving, nomming with a back-and-forth swirl of the head. “I think she likes it,” Lianna smiled. The vendor returned a moment later both with a towel, and two large fizzy drinks Lianna hadn’t ordered. He waved an appendage towards a diner across the bazaar with a bright pink neon sign proclaiming Miranda Loves You. Seated at an umbrella table just outside that diner, a dark-skinned woman raised a glass to them. Lianna glanced once at the drinks, then back to Miranda’s. Now the woman was gone.
The child was a bottomless pit. Next she pointed to a seafood café, simply titled Iva’s, with crustaceans floating lazily in backlit aquariums encircling the seating area. “Would the madams prefer a selection?” the waiter asked.
Suddenly Lianna drew a blank. What did one feed a growing naga baby? “Could you give us a minute?’ she asked. The waiter nodded and glided away. Once they were alone she whispered, “hey, is here anything I shouldn’t be feeding you?” Gita’s big round eyes brightened. Rummaging in her pack, she retrieved her smart-slate, tapping it randomly before passing it to Lianna. She skimmed through what seemed like pages of menu options. Apparently there was very little she couldn’t eat; certainly there were a lot of protein items available. She called the waiter back with a snap of her fingers. “Lobster, please.”
She wasn’t sure what to do with the massive crustaceans plopped on their table a quarter hour later. Gita attacked hers with the same gusto she’d assailed her ice cream. While she didn’t have a naga’s jaw power, Lianna dove in teeth first. The shell didn’t seem as palatable to her as Gita seemed to find it. Nevertheless they shared their meal over giggles.
The Professor would probably shit when he got the voucher for these meals. In any event she cleaned Gita’s face, then knelt down by her chair so she could clamber back onto Lianna’s shoulders. Clutching her legs for support, she’d ride her until they arrived at the docking bay.
What was new today was the podium posted not five meters to the right of the ramp running up to her ship. There had to be fifty patrons around it, silent, some with their hands clasped beneath their chins, as a man in a black one-piece jumpsuit bid them welcome. Lianna lingered in the arched hanger entry portal, both arms around Gita.
“My friends,” the man began, “the Earth is lost, and I have to be honest. We are in large part to blame. We ignored the signs, as plain as the nose on our faces. Instead we heeded the words of the well-endowed, speaking through their vessels, our chosen leaders. They denied the Earth was changing. Denied the evidence as our forests burned and our air turned stagnant.
“We allowed ourselves to be led by men of no moral character, because certain of our evangelical brethren claimed they were called of God. And because of this claim, we never questioned, no never.” A assenting murmur rumbled through the gathered assembly, tinted with anger. Lianna clutched Gita closer.
“We know where this took us. Our home world is a steamy hothouse barely able to support life, while our exalted benefactors orbit us in their beneficent space stations, drink their champagne and smirk down on the lower class. But I say unto you, we are not animals—we are not dirt! We are men, and we have found our own way unto the stars, despite the deprivations visited on us for the last twenty-five generations!”
A hundred fists pumped the air on a tide of rousing cheers. Somehow a smile had come to Lianna’s face. He wasn’t wrong, whoever he was, and even if Earth had never been her home, she was half-tempted to shout out herself. He wasn’t done, either.
“We have lost our way, and I say unto you, we will not lose ourselves in space! Our morals are firm, our race is pure. But we must be vigilant. Our species can remain pure only so long as we don’t intermingle with aliens.” The preacher’s neck craned around, his gaze shooting across the top of the assembly, straight towards Lianna.
“Uh-oh,” she muttered.
His gaze turned away, as though he hadn’t seen her; as if all other eyes in the docking bay were not focused on her. “We will be saved when we have driven the last aliens from our system,” his voice rising, spitting the word ‘aliens’ with distaste. “Just as we drove the animals from Zion.”
Lianna nodded in the sudden pause, her voice very quiet. “Zion. Yeah. I heard about that. I was told the history of that bloodbath, by someone who was there.”
The crowd remained quiet, betraying its interest. Lianna let the hammer drop. “Well, I should say someone whose ancestors survived that massacre. It was another Holocaust, one of those words we like to toss around when another people are slaughtered, and those who had the power to do something did NOT. There’s still a lot of collective guilt on Earth about that.
“Your religious tenets had something to do with that, too. You thought the ‘restoration of Zion’ would bring on the Last Days, whatever the hell that was. You succeeded in that. If its any comfort, the people you drove out of Zion—” it was her turn to spit out that name— “grieved with the rest of the planet when certain world leaders had enough of Zion’s nonsense and carpet bombed it out of existence.”
There were a lot of bowed heads now, few of them in prayer. Fewer still seemed able to look her way, except for Gita who smiled and nodded proudly up at her. Oh, as well as the preacher. “You seem well acquainted with Earth history, Doctor Jensen. At least of our shameful episodes. We don’t intend to repeat those mistakes.”
“No, you’re just going to quietly shame those visitors to our system to pack their bags,” Lianna said. “I had excellent teachers. They helped me realize, even being the surviving child on a doomed ship, that I wasn’t alone. Even though I was a stranger among them, I was welcomed with open arms. For that I’ll always be grateful.”
“I’m pleased for you. If it pleases you, my name is Pastor Ludden. These are the children of Faith. Just one other thing.” He nodded down. “What child is this?”
Gita’s little fingers clutched Lianna’s as she nestled closer to her side. Lianna smiled. “Her name is Gita. Her mother has entrusted her to me as a temporary guardian. If you’ll excuse me, I have to tuck her into bed.”
Another voice shouted across the hold, “I bet you do!”
Lianna had turned to the hatch, only a few meters away. But she swung back to face the crowd, a torrent of accusations flooding her mind. Fortunately Pastor Ludden shouted back, “Nick! Be silent!” Glancing across the congregation, he added, “we don’t want to have any more of our brethren deported, do we?”
Lianna bowed, guiding Gita to the ship with a hand on her shoulder. As she keyed the security code to the airlock, the pastor had one final question: “Doctor Jensen, who is the father?”
Lianna didn’t answer at first. She didn’t trust her gut reaction. When the question came again, she inhaled, exhaled and cleared her mind just as the Professor and Gita’s mother had taught her. Calm suffused her, even over the murmur of voices. She turned back.
“I don’t know. I didn’t think it was any of my business to interfere. Know what I mean?” There was silence at last as she tapped the last digit in the entry code. The doors hissed and whisked open. Lianna shooed Gita inside before anything else happened. She hoped the kid would like it here. Ernie met them in the pilothouse just inside the ship. “Very well said, Doctor. Fayd would be proud.”
“Thanks, Ernie,” Lianna grinned. “You’ll never guess what happened to me today. This is Gita.”
As an android, Ernie was incapable of emotion, but his lenses brightened considerably at the sight of the child. Antenna extended from a port in his left shoulder joint, followed by another on the right. Each antenna sprouted smaller probe filaments with shining bulbs on their tips. Both probes and antenna slapped back into his joints after a cursory exam. “I presume this is the reason you’ve cut your seminar short this fine morning?”
“Vandalism cut it short,” Lianna sighed.
“Dare I ask how this sweet child came into your custody?”
“Her mother sent her to me. Go ahead, show him, Gita.” When she
hesitated, Lianna knelt beside her. “Hey, it’s okay. You can trust Ernie. He took care of me when I was little.”
With a grin and a burst of hugs, Gita retrieved her padd once again, scrolling to the beginning entry. This she handed to Ernie, who emitted a synthesized “ooo.” He’d learned to do that, when such expressions seemed necessary.
“We will need to clear out a space for her to sleep in,” Ernie declared. “Are all her belongings in that rucksack?” Gita nodded. She had already reverted to her naga form, her trunk wound twice around Ernie’s base. She frowned, tapping a rounded dent in Ernie’s flank. “Oh, that? I received that mark from a claw hammer when we were on the Lost Ship. Lianna was hiding inside me from…dear me, you haven’t told her about that yet, have you?”
“I-I haven’t had a chance,” Lianna shook her head, “I just wanted to treat her to lunch, like Mom used to.”
“There will be time for that later. Why don’t we find you a room. Gita?”
Gita nodded, riding Ernie’s base as he circled the pilot’s deck. “Why don’t we clear out my cabin?” Lianna suggested. “I never sleep there anyway.”
“A most providential idea. Perhaps we might introduce her to the ladies, before it gets much later?”
“Not a bad idea. Hey, ladies!” With Gita beside her, Lianna waved as her two ameboid lovers wandered to the upper-level rail. Amba, an iridescent aquamarine even in the ship’s dim nighttime lighting, gazed down on the child. For once Lianna sensed no empathic reaction from her, no “Beloved”. Amba observed Gita through her button eyes, never stirring from her perch.
Neither of them was truly female. Their ‘gender’ was a choice based largely on their association with Lianna, as the first human to freely develop a relationship with them. Each of them had branched off from a larger colony inhabiting the mineral-rich interiors of their respective planets. Each had developed their own individuality, while still retaining a connection to their mother colony.
Stavros, a shimmering crimson beauty, had never been as reserved as Amba. She glided on light steps to the ladder joining upper and lower decks and slid on down. Not in the human fashion, however. Her legs clinched around the ladder. Then her lower body from the waist down dropped to the pilot house deck, while her middle section stretched like a crimson band of elastic. Gita’s eyes widened as Stavros’s feet touched the deck. And then her upper body eased down the ladder, both hands sliding down the sides.
She padded over to the child, who nestled closer to Lianna’s legs. Then she put on her best smile. Lianna knew Stavros had been sneaking off the ship at various space ports, secreted in the upper levels people watching. She’d especially taken an interest in the children skipping along beside their mothers. She knew about Lianna’s condition, and Lianna wondered how she’d receive their unexpected guest. “Baby, this is Stavros. Honey, Gita’s gonna be staying with us for a while. Is that cool with you guys?”
Was Amba tapping her feet on the upper deck? Stavros remained bent over her, her elastic hands braced on both knees. She stepped back, raising a hand palm up. Her gaze seemed to turn inward, just as her belly began to swell. A skinny pair of legs began to sprout from an aperture below her bump.
Apparently Stavros had studied the human birthing process, to a limited degree. A flat belly followed and then a small body slapped her feet to the deck, shaking a short mane of ameboid hair. This new being stood around a meter and a half in height, all skinny limbs. For all practical purposes a spitting image of Stavros. But smaller.
Gita grinned and skipped towards little Stavros. She took Gita’s hand and the pair of them scampered off to climb the rails of the ladder. Lianna threw her arms around Stavros. “That was so sweet!” Stavros cuddled her close. Hopefully Amba would come around. She had to, didn’t she?
Live albums can be fickle things. Usually, they’re intended as throwaway gifts to keep a band’s fans interested. Sometimes an album fails to capture the excitement of a live performance. Some just fall flat. 1985’s Arena by Duran Duran is one example, which edited out pretty much all of the audience reactions—which is half of why we buy a live record in the first place!
Sometimes, very rarely, a live album can be a game changer. Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night certainly qualifies in that area. Not to mention Frampton Comes Alive, which turned a relatively unknown guitarist named Peter Frampton into a rock god. While not a game changer, Here At Last…Bee Gees…Live was an immensely enjoyable two-record set.
Confession session: I hadn’t heard ANY of the Bee Gees 1960’s hits before this record was handed down to me. How could I, I was five years old in 1969. In the late 1960’s I was focused on the Beatles, and ONLY the Beatles. My earliest awareness of any musical world beyond the Fab Four was Neil Diamond’s single “Sweet Caroline”. To say I’d slept through the 1960’s would be an understatement.
My first awareness of the Bee Gees—brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb– was their 1970 single “Lonely Days”. That was one of only two songs that had an impact for them in the early 70’s. My brother David bought “Lonely Days”, while I fell for the second one, “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”, which came out a year later. The fact that they’d had eight hit singles in America before that kind of passed by me. It would be years before they remade themselves as ‘the Kings of Disco’; at least that’s what the media called them.
Shockingly, I still have that album. I had a purge in 1998. It was a very bad year. Basically, my wife and I were separated, temporarily. I was moving out of our apartment and back in with my dad. And I was thinking, why am I carrying all this shit around with me? I didn’t listen to half of it. I pruned my record collection down to a select few, and evidently this was one of them. It’d been passed down to me by David, and I’m glad he did. That’s what we’d do, pass our old records and comic books down to the next sibling. As the youngest I was the frequent recipient of these goodies.
This performance was recorded December 20, 1976, at the Forum in Los Angeles, California, the last concert on their 1976 tour to promote their latest LP, Children of the World. It was a guidebook to who they were as a band, before Saturday Night Fever broke in the fall of 1977. After that they were inescapable, what with their own songs dominating the charts, along with their youngest brother Andy Gibb becoming a pop star in his own right and half the planet covering their songs. You had to be there to know just how big they’d become.
People don’t always realize the Gibb brothers didn’t just write love songs or songs to dance to. A lot of their tunes were absolute heartbreakers. Because those songs were marginally successful, that was the pattern they followed in their early 1970’s LPs. “My World”, “Words”, “Love So Right”, and even “Lonely Days”, if you want to stretch a point, are examples of these.
Very little of these early 70’s material would be found here, probably because it wasn’t the Bee Gees’ better selling periods. Besides the two mentioned singles, only “Run To Me” and “Down The Road” were carried over from that period. After a brief split in 1968 and their reunion in 1970, the boys spent that period trying to find a new direction. Not until they embraced their funky side on Main Course would success come.
I’m afraid I’ve been spoiled. Since this album was the first place where I’d heard most of their early work, I find I prefer the live versions. Live performance was the perfect venue to showcase their strengths, in particular their harmonies and songwriting. Their older songs especially benefited from a live setting, being presented by an older, more seasoned band updating their 1960s sound for a 1970s audience. The horn section was a definite boost, especially on songs like “I Gotta Get A Message To You” and “To Love Somebody”. The audience interaction was always enthusiastic. This may also be the only time I’ve seen Robin a with mustache and beard; I don’t know when he grew that; on the road perhaps.
The show opens with a flourish of horns on “I Gotta Get A Message To You”, and this is the version I prefer. The audience is whistling throughout the performance. Robin and Barry share vocals; Robin taking the first and third verses, and Barry the second. This leads into their most recent heartbreaker, “Love So Right” another example of their gorgeous harmonies.
On “Edge of the Universe” Barry and Ronin’s voices harmonize gorgeously together, followed by “Come On Over”, where Robin is at his most vulnerable. It’s performed in a distinctly country style; it’d been a hit for Olivia Newton-John earlier that same year. Even a lesser-known song such as “Can’t Keep a Good Man Down” moves at a faster tempo, gifted with a killer funky solo three minutes in.
Barry opens the second side of the LP. “We’d like to enter into a medley of some of our older material.” They usually performed such a medley in the middle of their concerts in the 1970s, leading off with their first hit from 1967, “New York Mining Disaster 1941”. This may have been their only 60’s song I was familiar with. It was a haunting song in its original studio version. The acoustic version presented here is even more stark, just the three brothers harmonizing over guitars with a horn as a backdrop.
“Run To Me” and “World” combined seamlessly into one tune. Robin’s voice always had a vulnerable quality ideal to these songs, and he carries most of the tunes in this medley. Indeed, “Holiday”, “I Can’t See Nobody”, “I Started a Joke” and “Massachusetts” blend into each other without a hitch. Cheers rise at the beginning of every verse of “How Do You Mend a Broken Heart”.
“You Should Be Dancing” gets an extended treatment on Side 3, at 9 minutes 22 seconds, the longest track on the LP. The single version and “Jive Talkin’” were additions to the initial release of Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. (Subsequent pressings would substitute this live performance, but the CD reissue would restore the original version.) Barry’s falsetto was still a new thing at this point, and it’s put to fine use here. The middle section settles down into a driving drum beat backed by guitar and horns that must’ve got the audience on the floor. It closes with a bongo drum solo and a last flourish.
The very next tune was one of their weaker disco songs, “Boogie Child”. “Down The Road” from their 1974 album Mr. Natural was energized in this live version, with a much more aggressive vocal delivery. This performance would be pressed as the B-side to their phenomenally successful SNF single “Night Fever” two years later.
Just as a sidebar: I was there in the 70s. I remember the depression gripping America then; we’d just lost in Vietnam, with Watergate, the Arab oil embargo and rampant inflation piled on top of everything else. Some people despised disco, especially partisans of rock music. My view is, after all the troubles we’d endured in the 1970’s, disco was exactly what we needed at that moment to overcome our national malaise.
The fourth and final side presents three tracks from Main Course. “Winds of Change” gets a funky upgrade, leading off with the entire horn section. The song details a man bowed but not broken. “Sometimes a man breaks down, down, down, down, down/ and the good things he’s searching for/ are crushed into the ground”, the message being to not give in, to “feel the winds of change.”
This leads into “Nights on Broadway”, the powerful opening track on Main Course. This tops the original version. This may be the greatest example of shared vocals with Barry and Robin trading lyrics with Maurice adding his falsetto on the chorus. This leads into “Jive Talkin’”, and from there the piano leads into “Lonely Days”, building to a glorious finish. Barry closes with “Thank you! Merry Christmas and good night!”
It’s kind of sad to realize Barry is the only Gibb brother still alive. After the phenomenal success of Saturday Night Fever, apparently their manager Robert Stigwood thought it’d be a great idea to do a motion picture adaptation of the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, with the Bee Gees as the band and Peter Frampton as Billy Shears. Well, to paraphrase Epstein from Welcome Back, Kotter, “I’ve heard of people bombing, but that was a nuclear explosion!”
That’s okay, their follow-up album Spirits Having Flown was a smash. However, in the backlash against all things disco, their 1981 LP Living Eyes ended their chart success. Their next album wouldn’t be recorded for another eight years, by which time their loyal fans had gotten over their discophobia and the Bee Gees regained their well-earned respectability. Which I’d never lost.
[Note: this is the first chapter of a serialized project I’ll be working on periodically. I don’t know how long it’s going to take, and I’m not sold on the title. If anyone reading this would like to comment, those are welcome. I’d enjoy the feedback. So, on with the show…]
ONE:
“And that’s how we discovered these rocks were only the tip of a much larger organism.” Lianna Jensen punctuated that remark with a last swirl of chalk on the old-fashioned blackboard. It was quaint, of course, but it required no energy to function, and on a station on the far reaches of the Sol system, power came at a premium. Besides, it’s easy to clean.
“Subsequent probes have confirmed these early findings with the loss of but one probe.” Muted clapping echoed through the auditorium. It’s okay, Lianna reminded herself, forcing her legs not to tremble. It’s only a 200-seat venue, about half full. A handful of children were scattered among the red velvet seats, and they clapped the loudest.
The lavender skinsuit under her knee-length laboratory coat insulated Lianna from the station’s chill while absorbing every drop of perspiration, keeping her cool and cozy inside. Her shoulder length honey-blonde hair she’d tucked up in a bun in back. The reading glasses were an affectation suggested by the professor to soften her appearance before an audience probably as uncertain about her presentation as she was.
The station Commander stepped in from the auditorium’s left wing as the clapping ended. “I want to thank Dr. Jensen for this fascinating symposium on her recent discoveries of exobiological life. She’ll be back tomorrow, so bring your friends.”
The room responded by not responding. At all. They stood awkwardly on the stage a moment before the commander pressed on. “We’ll now open the floor for questions. Good luck, kid,” she muttered to Lianna as she left the stage.
A hand shot up, belonging to a little brunette girl, about six. “Were you scared when that monster grabbed you?”
Lianna smiled and knelt on the edge of the stage, almost nose to nose with her. “Yeah, I was scared shi—silly.” (Stop. Remember your audience.) “But I had an emergency transponder I could have used if things really got bad.” She ruffled her hair, which earned her a giggle. “Thanks, sweetheart.”
The girl grinned and bounced back to her seat. “Yes, sir, in the back.”
A skinny fellow with a buzzcut scalp stood up. “Yes, I got a question. What kind of sexual relations did you have with that alien slug?”
Fuck. Not another one of those. She dug deeper to draw in a calming breath, this time. Some of the other patrons shuffled in their seats, waiting on her. Her heart hammered faster, despite her outer calm. “Sir, that is an inappropriate remark,” the commander shouted, stepping forward. “Especially when we have young people with us today.”
“Come on, commander, everybody knows Dr. Jensen shags every odd ball freak she discovers. It’s the talk of every space port. Who knows how much alien trash she’s birthed across half the galaxy?”
Okay, Lianna lied. I’m ready. “Sir, my purpose is interstellar exploration on behalf of the Deep Space Observatory. The liaisons you’ve heard about are innuendo and fetishist dream logs. Considering our disparate biologies, I doubt anything would come of it if I—”
“So you are shagging aliens!”
“That’s not what happened! If you’d been listening you’d recall I almost died—”
“Excuse me. I have a question.”
That came from the back. Lianna couldn’t see who was speaking, except that she was tall and had a gorgeous black mane. Something in her exotic voice soothed her. “Yes, ma’am, what was your question?”
“This is directed at the toubab running off at the mouth. Why don’t you sit down and shut up? Some of us came to listen to what Dr. Jensen has to say!”
Lianna teared up at the round of applause that followed. She didn’t know how long it went on for, except that Buzzcut scowled and slunk out of the auditorium with his head down.
Thank Kali the commander called an end to the presentation for the day. While Lianna packed her props in a satchel and wiped the board, the people filed out a little at a time. She glanced once or twice toward the seats, expecting someone else to accost her. But no one else had stayed behind. Good. She’d had enough harassment for one day.
“You gonna be okay?” the commander asked. Lianna nodded. “I can assign a security detail to take you back to your ship.” She shook her head. “Okay. If you need anything…” and then she was gone.
The Professor and his bright ideas. After ten years alone in space he says, “I think now might be a good time to take stock of your accomplishments. Present your findings in a public setting. I have some friends at Uranus Orbital station who could set you up. No, it’ll be good for you, my dear. It’ll be a chance for you to brush up on your social skills. You know, you don’t interact with people very much. It’s my fault, you did grow up with a bunch of stuffy old scientists all around you.”
There was a reason for that. She was a bit of an animal once they took her off the Naga Sentry, her and all the other children left to fend for themselves for seven frustrating months. Who tells those stories anyway? Even if it was true that every spacefarer in every port thought she was some kind of—
No, the professor was right; he had to be. It’s just those fundamentalist Terran freaks at her last two symposiums questioning her morality. Maybe if there hadn’t been a smidgen of truth to their accusations…Sure. Me spread my alien seed around the solar system. Not much chance of that.
Lianna emptied her chest, breathed in a shallow breath. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t realized she’d arrived at the infirmary ahead of schedule. The Medibot floated to greet her before she could turn and leave.
“Doctor!” The ‘bot greeted her. Lianna sighed and sat on the stool indicated by her host. The cushion poofed under her bum, which was more comfortable than expected. Then the ‘bot addressed the door. “Consulting!”
The two-toned panels irised shut, presenting a façade of an inverse ying and yang in crimson and yellow. Lianna was grateful all the same. In this mode the infirmary stood isolated from the rest of the station. No one could barge in uninvited.
“Your lab work has all returned negative. You’re in relatively good health. However,” the ‘bot continued before she could push off and leave. “Your physical health is not the only issue. Your esophagus shows signs of forced intubation, which exerted pressure on your trachea. This trauma appears several years old. Some brain deterioration has resulted, not to the point where it can be an issue, but it does suggest your activities frequently entail unnecessary risks.”
“I, umm, I suppose that’s true,” Lianna nodded, staring at her feet. “Would you believe you’re not the first to point that out?”
“Yes. Insofar as the other matter we discussed…” Wait, was he pausing? “I’m sorry, Doctor. Our labs are consistent with the tests every other facility has conducted. There is no treatment for yourself or any of the Lost Children.”
“It’s okay. A girl could hope.”
“There is one last thing, a curious anomaly we detected in your muscle, epidermal…everywhere. There is a suffusion of cytoplasm, which appears to have bonded to your soft tissues.”
“I can explain,” Lianna said. “I…this goes back to that trauma you mentioned. I suffered some life-threatening injuries. You know about my shipmates?…Okay. Well, one of them donated a part of herself to heal me. I hadn’t realized how much she’d become a part of me, literally. You understand why I have issues with human relations.”
“Yes. I shouldn’t be telling you this,” the medic said, “but you’re not alone in this variety of relationship. There is a captain in the Antarian fleet who has had carnal relations with an Undian, also a amoeboid female. They argue, they disagree, but my sources tell me, by the end of a projected shift they are the best of friends. “
“I had no idea,” Lianna conceded. “So how come I’m getting all the harassment?”
“I’ve cited only one example. And subjectively speaking, while Antarians are a humanoid species, they are not considered human. So perhaps such human prejudices are not applied as liberally to them.”
“Yeah, and besides, who wants to fuck with an Antarian?”
Before she returned to the ship, there was one last ritual. It’d become a habit, as with so many visitors, to pop by the Portal. Officially its designation was UA-1A7, but visitors and crew referred to it by its vernacular name.
The station was based on one of the inner moons orbiting Uranus. The slush giant’s dusty rings glimmered from the energetic bursts periodically shot from the station’s polar beacon lights, more for its visitor’s amusement than any practical purpose.
Not all the Classic Moons were visible; in fact, the only reason the pole facing her was visible at all was due to the viewport’s scanner being set 27 settings below true visibility. Otherwise, the extreme closeup given of the rapid rotation of Uranus’ cloud layers would leave all and sundry in a perpetual state of nausea. There’s still plenty of moons to go around, well past the first twenty-seven discovered up to the early 21st Century.
The usual mob awaited in the docking bay, a conglomeration of middle-aged men and women, some young adults, all shuffling loosely around the air lock leading to her ship. Some lofted signs such as ‘You Must Have F.A.I.T.H.’ Exactly like that. All eyes focused on her as they parted like the Red Sea, but at least no one accosted her.
At least until that rotten egg splattered her cheek.
Lianna whirled to the sea of faces, but most of them seemed as surprised as her. Others gazed around themselves to see who’d done the deed. She wanted to shout, “All right, who’s responsible for this?”
She fought that instinct, as the Professor had taught her to, and put her back to them, standing as rigid as possible. Then she continued at a measured pace toward the air lock. Any moment now she expected a fusillade of rotten fruit. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. Without a word, against the heat rising in her chest, she entered her ship’s code for the hatch. With a hiss and the crank of metal, the hatch admitted her, Once that closed behind her, she exhaled.
After ten years in space, you’d think I’d have accumulated more mementos, Lianna thought. Apart from an orchid taken from Orchis 3, some dirty dishes on the pilot console, and an old portrait of her at seven, riding Ernie, the flight deck was relatively spartan. For now, her android companion Ernie detached himself from the charging port just off the docking hatch. She rushed to him and swept her arms around him—well, halfway around, anyway.
He offered the customary hug back with his stiff metal-barred arms. “Welcome home, miss Lianna,” he said, approximating a human voice. “I’m sorry the reception was not what you expected.” He raised a sani-wipe to her cheek and gently scrubbed it.
She clucked as she stepped down from his base. “If they only knew what I was holding back! Then they’d really shit bricks.”
“An interesting metaphor,” Ernie said, handing her a slate. “Which emotionally appropriate. The inspection was conducted in your absence. The ship passed magnificently, as always.”
She scanned the report almost as fast as Ernie would have memorized it. “That’s a bit of embellishment, isn’t it?”
“Informality suits you. I thought I’d practice.”
She tapped his shoulder socket with the slate before tossing it onto the pile of dishes. “I’m kinda tired. Are the girls asleep?”
“DO they sleep? I was told you may expect them in cargo lounge 2. Will you be changing first?”
She’d started to shrug off her lab coat, fingered the broad, important looking lapels, then slipped it back onto her shoulders. The molecular recyclers could always regurgitate another. Shaking her head, she trudged to the spiral step ladder and descended to the cargo deck.
It’d be inaccurate to call a converted cargo hold a ‘lounge’ but after her GFs had signed on, so to speak, she and Ernie converted a couple of spare cells into passable living quarters.
Oddly a red light shone down from the domed ceiling. And was it me, or did the walls seem—bloated? Sweet Kali–!
As soon as she realized the trap, Lianna smiled. It was already too late to retreat. A crimson tendril flopped against the sensor panel. The cargo door sealed shut with a prolonged squeal, meaning the air lock seals had engaged. She wasn’t going anywhere.
An amorphous pillar pushed between her thighs, and then her feet left the deck. She pointed her toes down, encountering only air. Half a meter of space separated the top of her head from the ceiling. The tip of the column expanded to cushion her bum.
The ‘bulge’ in both hulls oozed down, two semi-solid masses of aquamarine goo thick as honey, sandwiching Lianna between them. Engulfed to the shoulders, she moaned as both lab coat and the skin suit beneath it dissolved in a matter of minutes. Lianna surrendered to the pressure against her chest, the brush of rubbery textured membranes clinging to every bit of her bare skin.
Up until a few months ago, she hadn’t believed they were capable of dissolving her garments without harm to her. Maybe that was a choice on their part. Didn’t matter. She was safe with the only pair who really cared for her.
The red light suffusing the lounge initially obscured their translucent forms matted to the actual hull. Now their bodies molded to her in streams of ameboid tentacles. A crimson tongue peeled from the column between her legs. The tongue swelled, taking the form of a matted head nestled to her breast. Another pair of tongues, a translucent shade of jade this time, flexed into a powerful set of biceps, each tip extruding slender fingers. These arms clutched Lianna by the throat. Then she felt the weight of Amba’s head on the back of hers.
The scent of caramel marshmallow wafted up her nostrils, and she drank it in, as they drank her. She’d discovered them on different worlds but in similar habitats, both inhospitable to humanoid life. Each of them, Stavros and Amba, were actual detachments of a larger cellular body, inhabiting caverns deep within their respective planet’s crusts. She’d come to believe such celluloid colonies inhabited a variety of worlds, either unrecognized or undiscovered by previous explorers. She’d just been the lucky one they chose to reveal themselves to.
A loud hiss issued from the quivering mass as Lianna tugged her hands free of the gelatinous goo, to clutch the loving arms around her neck. A voice, half mocking, echoed in Lianna’s thoughts: welcome, beloved.
Lianna nodded, already half asleep. Stavros was nestling her red cheeks between Lianna’s breasts, silent as always and yet gently affectionate. She would float here all night, vulnerable and yet comforted in their gelling caress. “Hey, gals,” Lianna sighed as she slipped into dreamland, “is there something wrong with me?”
Normally the first thing Lianna noticed coming backstage of the auditorium hall was the overpowering reek of sterilized lilac, the residue of the cleanser sprayed over the hall after each day’s events. Even from the corridor outside the backstage door the scent seemed off today.
Lianna strode onto a stage facing empty seating. Her presentation wasn’t scheduled to begin until 9 a.m. station time, which was synched with Terran Greenwich time. As she turned to the display board, she almost fell on her behind. This was no longer a scent. It had been upgraded to a full-blown stench of burnt polymers with a strong undercurrent of mercury.
The blackboard had been defaced with several impact strikes, probably from a common prybar, with icicles radiating out from each strike. Dead center, carved into the board’s surface with a hot plasma torch, perhaps, in bold caps stood out one word: WHORE.
Lianna stared at that, just stared, her thoughts clouded. She stumbled back a couple of steps, back, into the soft touch at the back of her thigh.
She whirled, too quickly. Her feet slipped. A sharp sudden shock rocked her as her head banged into the blackboard. Her mind swirled as her stomach spat acid up her windpipe. Then a little dark-haired girl blinked back at her.
“Oh. Hi, there,” Lianna said, once her stomach settled. The child had waited patiently. Gods, she was gorgeous, her skin a beautiful shade of brown. ”Where did you come from?”
As though forgetting herself, the little one pulled a child-sized slate from the pouch slung over her right shoulder. She shrugged off the pouch, and after a few rapid taps, passed the slate to Lianna.
‘My name is Gita. I’ve been sent to offer you greetings from Patala.’
Lianna wet her lips, working the name over on her tongue, Patala which lay on another dimension plane, parallel to Terra, home to beings…”Hey, are you lost, sweetheart?’
She offered to pass back the slate, but no need. Gita’s fingers danced in a series of signs. “It is your time? I don’t understand. I mean I can see you’re of age, but what…?”
Lianna’s mouth started to drop. Gita grinned, taking the slate back now and tapping furiously. The slate erupted in a fanfare of trumpets before Gita handed it back.
It read, ‘My beautiful daughter Lianna, daughter of my spirit, I have sent you my birth daughter Gita. This is the Time when all Devis must go forth to explore the mortal realm. I commend her to you and designate you Guardian.’
“She wants me…?” Lianna squeaked. That was all she got out before she noticed Gita rising. She stared as Gita’s half-sari flopped to her waist, effectively hiding where creamy brown skin seamlessly blended into scales.
It wasn’t a very thick trunk, as befit her youth, no thicker than Lianna’s calves. Still it held a gorgeous sheen, forest green splattered with mottled patches. She kept rising until she swayed a meter above Lianna. The stage lights cast an iridescent halo around her dark raven hair.
Lianna couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried; maybe it was the night when both her parents died. The tears flowed freely now. “Oh my gods, “she whispered. “You’re beautiful.”
Her arms opened, and Gita settled her head to Lianna’s cheek. Her coils folded into Lianna’s lap as she held onto Gita oh so gently. The child cooed, breathing warmly on Lianna’s neck in their shared embrace, neither aware of their being watched…
–Image of Uranus & its rings courtesy of NASA & the James Webb Space Telescope, 2023
Let me tell you a story. I grew up reading comic books and oh, I could tell you stories, but only one is relevant to this blog. I’d just entered high school in the fall of 1979. My father, brother David and I had just moved into a house in University Place. While I’d always loved comics, I also bought into the thinking that they were immature, just for kids. I had a collection at this point of about 700 comics.
One day I let my brother Kenny into my room and said, have at it. He tore into them with glee, literally, ripping my collection to shreds. I’d kept a few hidden, just for sentimental reasons. At the time I thought that was what I was supposed to do, that I needed to grow up. For the next eight years I didn’t buy another comic book.
This book by David Hajdu made me mad. Not that it wasn’t enjoyable—it was—it was written almost in comic book style. It seemed appropriate to read this now, as we’re pulling the same shit all over again. In the early 50’s across the United States, states and municipalities were passing vsguely worded ordinances to ‘protect children’ and our morals. It wasn’t simply the politicians. Police, PTAs and the Catholic Church were rising up in scenes reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
Like Nazi Germany there were book burnings. Not just bannings, which is bad enough, but actual bonfires rising to the skies, under the old saw, ‘our morals are being corrupted!’ This began as early as 1948, only three years after the death of Hitler and his notorious band of hoodlums. The narrative demonstrates how easily masses of people can be manipulated by vague culture war polemics.
I saw some names I knew, like Bill Gaines, the head of EC Comics and the father of Mad Magazine. There were future sci-fi giants like Harry Harrison and Henry Kuttner, forced out of the comic business by the uproar capitalized on by Fredric Wertham and his book The Seduction of the Innocent. The introduction of the Comics Code Authority led to a bowdlerizing of comics that wasn’t overturned for 14 years.
The real irony of this was that none of these high-faluting critics of comic books had bothered to read what they were castigating, the same way none of these so-called Moms for Liberty bother to read LGBT themed or Black History books before throwing a hissy fit and pressuring librarians to ban them. 800 artists and writers never worked in comics again. The kids involved in these book burnings only realized this was wrong after the fact, and then they got mad.
“Though they were not traitors, the makers of crime, romance, and horror comics were propogandists of a sort, cultural insurgents. They expressed in their lurid panels, thereby helping to instill n their readers, a disregard for the niceties of proper society, a passion for wild ideas and fast action, a cynicism toward authority of all sorts, and a tolerance, if not an appetite, for images of prurience and violence. In short, the generation of comic-book creators whose work died with the Comics Code helped give birth to the popular culture of the postwar era.” [pg. 330, The Ten-Cent Plague]
Too bad for those cultural purists that you can’t kill ideas. You can suppress people, you can bury history but you can’t erase either people or true history. Even in the 1950’s, the seeds had already been sown, and Rock ‘n’ Roll was right around the corner.
Ironically in the fall of 1989 I had gone to a Doctor Who Day at Book King in Federal Way, Washington. Back when I was single, Book King had these get togethers for fans every weekend, and I attended as often as I could. Everyone was seated in this little room in the back of the bookstore, except instead of Doctor Who, the group was sharing a couple of episodes from the new season of TNG. This time around the show came out of the gate running and didn’t stop for the next three seasons.
One of the episodes they screened was “The Survivors”, which showed the embrace of bold ideas to go along with the always excellent f/x. They kept the plot twist close to the sleeve, positing a mystery: how did this lone elderly couple survive a planetary bombardment that eradicated all other life? Counselor Troi meanwhile was slowly driven mad by the incessant music of a tiny music box she had never heard before. In fact, no one had survived, including the wife of the older man—in reality a godlike being who in a moment of grief wiped out the invaders throughout the universe. For one of the few times in Trek history, this was a deity with a conscience who relieved the suffering he’d inflicted on Troi. Picard could do nothing but let him go to recreate the woman he loved, and to just leave him alone. And that’s one of the first episodes. It keeps going.
Season Three of the Original Series suffered from subpar writing, some of the worst of any Trek series. Gene Roddenberry had been bumped to executive producer, while Fred Freiberger became the new line producer. NBC had changed TOS’ time slot to 10 pm—on Fridays, a death slot for any series. Worst of all, the show had lost the sense of humor it was known for. By contrast, by its third season TNG had hit its stride. At least in my hometown, TNG was given a time slot of 7 pm on Saturday nights, and it never moved from that spot.
On September 25, 1989, the worm had turned. Rather than being The Original Series’ poor second cousin, in many ways The Next Generation surpassed it. Star Trek V had been a disappointment that summer. It was one of two movies I’d seen in one day in July of ’89. I’d had a very bad day; all I’ll say is that my brother and I had a falling out which ended with me stomping outside and smashing my windshield—with my bare fist. But enough of that for now.
The revolving door of scriptwriters that had plagued TNG’s first season, and the rewrites imposed by Gene Roddenberry were past. Briefly, Michael Piller was promoted to head of the writing staff, which brought a much-needed stability to the script process. Rick Berman became the chief of day-to-day operations. New costume designer Bob Blackman oversaw a redesign of outfits into real regimental uniforms a space service might issue, though not necessarily any more comfortable for the actors. Hence the birth of what fans refer to as ‘the Picard Maneuver’, where Patrick Stewart pulls his tunic down every time he has to stand up.
Blackman also rendered a one-piece version for the woman, which meant no more legs! A new title segment began this season showing an incoming montage from the Milky Way, instead of the departure angle used in the first two seasons. Best of all, Gates McFadden was back for good as Dr. Beverly Crusher.
This year we encountered aliens who really seemed …ALIEN. Tin Man. The Sheliak. A Douwd. What was also new was that the Enterprise-D encountered more people who were absolutely unreasonable; who were so locked into their own positions, they wouldn’t even consider the facts presented to them, even when said facts will endanger their lives. “The Ensigns of Command”, “The High Ground”, “The Wounded” and “Transfigurations” come to mind. The writing is sharper, the dialogue less formal and more natural; that was reflected in the return of Star Trek’s sense of humor. The crew often were not just put to the test, they were frequently put into life-threatening situations.
Every season has had its timey-wimey excursions (“We’ll Always Have Paris” and “Time Squared”, for example) where Time is out of sync. “Yesterday’s Enterprise” is a real mindwarp, bleeding seamlessly into a dark version of our universe, where the Federation is on the verge of collapse from a war with the Klingons. And no one is aware of what’s happened, except for Guinan. Even she can’t explain why, she only knows THIS-IS-WRONG! This is the one and only time we see the Enterprise-C, and the consequences of its falling through a time warp in the midst of battle would be catastrophic. Because this is an alternate timeline, they were able to bring back Tasha Yar, at least one version of her, and give her an ending with some dignity. The ramifications of this version’s death would roil through our timeline for seasons to come. Believe me, there is death and destruction enough here to satisfy the most die-hard pew-pew fan.
I’m embarrassed to re-read my old diary entries from this time. I seemed very petty and childish then. In 1990 I made it to two conventions, Rustycon 007 in January, and my third Norwescon, no. 12 in April 1990. My friends said I was a virgin when I came to my first sci-fi convention. Four cons in I guess I still was, considering they pinned a condom on the back of my stage pass. I was serving as a volunteer this time, though to be honest I remember very little of that. Rustycon had some good highlights. My friends were all there: Michael Scanlon, Chris and J. Steven York, and Jack and Fran Beslanwitch. The difference between the Sheraton where Norwescon was held and the Radisson, where we had Rustycon was the ambient noise level. There wasn’t a continuous drone of voices at the Radisson, only people’s quiet whispers. For a socially awkward person like me, that’s grand.
Apparently I’d gone to the dance, according to my diary, though odds are I sat in the back. Socially I was like Reginald Barclay. Mark Skullard had put together a fun panel on old Science Fiction radio programs. The lines in those shows were so melodramatic, the plots so preposterous even in the first couple of minutes we couldn’t help laughing. Here’s a shoutout to George Smith, who somehow showed up at nearly every panel I went to.
I met Rebecca Neason at this con, God rest her, at the Victorian SF/ Steampunk panel. She was a very sweet, social lady who kept getting tagged for panels when no one else would show up to empanel them. She was working on her first TNG novel, Guise of the Mind, which would be published in 1993. She and Donna Barr hosted a panel on Mythical Creatures. Apparently only the three of us were attending. Donna Barr has a very black sense of humor; she had me and Rebecca in near hysterics.
Curiously I don’t remember any TNG parodies at this year’s convention. Boy, at LAST year’s con we had a doozy, “Star Trek: Another Regeneration”. This was a taped radio program put together by two British chaps and sent over to Canada’s “The Ether Show”. (I hadn’t mentioned this in my last blog because I hadn’t found my diaries from that time period before.}
I squat on the floor of Room 1906 along with everyone who wasn’t seated on the bed. This had to be the best part of Norwescon 11 for me; this was a hilarious parody of “Farpoint”. Example: Riker has gone to the holodeck to fetch Data. The computer warned him this would be inadvisable, Commander Data was in the Atlantic Ocean simulation. Riker responds, “I don’t care, just let me in!” So it does, and “WHOOOSH!” The saucer section has also accidentally been separated from the ship, so Riker jams the two pieces together. “Make it fit!” he says, sooo, “SHRIIIEEEK!” until Data nonchalantly reports, “Reconnection complete, sir.”
The most badass character for season 3 has to be Jean Luc Picard. Diplomacy becomes a weapon in “The Ensigns of Command”, where he uses the same treaty the Sheliak have been beating him over the head with against them. “You enjoyed that,” Riker says, to which Picard retorts, “Damn right.” “Who Watches the Watchers?” is the story where the Prime Directive is not simply bent, it’s twisted out of shape. It’s the one where Picard is mistaken for a god. He takes an arrow to the shoulder, willingly, to prove his mortality.
He’s also cunning when he wants to be. While investigating a possible Romulan base in the Neutral Zone on the word of a high-ranking defector, the Enterprise-D finds herself surrounded by three Romulan warbirds. With a word to Worf, the tables turn after three Klingon warbirds decloak on the warbirds’ flanks. “Shall we die together?” Picard challenges. When the Argosian Prime Minister Nayrok finally asks for help after rebuffing Picard for the entire episode, Picard cites the Prime Directive and just leaves (“The Hunted”).
Picard’s role as Patriarch of the Enterprise-D has never been more clearly defined than in “The Bonding”, which reminds us there are children on board, and their lives are just as fragile when a loved one dies. As he reminds Jeremy Aster, “no one on the Enterprise is alone”. To save Jeremy from an alien who wants to take him away to live on the planet, Picard calls together all the crew members who understand loss all too well. For Wesley Crusher this is a brutal reminder of his father’s death, and he admits for the first time that he was angry at Picard for surviving. I know that feeling; that was the moment that Wesley became a real person to me.
The Patriarchal role suits him when Data takes the ultimate step to becoming human, by creating his own child, Lal (“The Offspring”). In another first, this is the first episode in Trek history to be directed by a cast member, in this case Jonathan Frakes. When another asshole admiral wants to take Lal away to study, he responds, “There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders. You acknowledge their sentience, but you ignore their personal liberties and freedom. Order a man to hand his child over to the state? Not while I am his captain.” Having had a child ripped from my family, I feel for them, and I love Picard for taking that stand.
By now his crew is so tight that with only a look, the bridge crew knows exactly what to do after aliens intrude on the bridge (“Allegiance”). Patrick Stewart’s hunger for more actions scenes bears fruit in both “Captain’s Holiday” and “The High Ground”, where he actually punches a terrorist on the bridge of the Enterprise. He becomes Worf’s cha’Dich, a ritual defender, when Kurn is attacked and injured in “Sins of the Father”. No, Picard is taking no shit this time around.
Worf may have been the cast member who experienced the most growth. Dare I say it, I think he became an actual character. I’ll explain. It was established in the first two seasons that he was a warrior, well versed in the ways of Klingons, a heritage he takes exceptional pride in. Beyond that, excepting two episodes, his role was not given the depth it deserved. In a sense he was a caricature much like Frank Burns in M.A.S.H. By its 5th season Frank had pretty much become a petty narrow-minded bigot, an overzealous ‘patriot’ with little to no depth.
So it was with Worf. He had been portrayed as a proud warrior, who frequently got his ass whupped by a stronger opponent. This season he became flesh and blood. Like Frank Burns, Worf is also burdened with prejudice–against Romulans, in this case. Given the chance to save a dying Romulan by giving a blood transfusion, Worf stubbornly refuses (“The Enemy”). To be fair, his prejudice is reciprocated by the Romulan as he dies. In “The Bonding”, out of guilt for an unavoidable tragedy, Worf attempts to bond with the orphaned Jeremy Aster. “Deja Q” proves he’s still king of the one-liners; when Q insists he’s human and shouts what do I have to do to convince you people, Worf replies, “Die.” In “Transfigurations” he plays the role of Lazarus raised from the dead by space Jesus.
With “Sins of the Father”, Worf’s story becomes epic. Treachery within the Klingon High Council brings a challenge Worf must answer to clear his father’s name. But the truth can’t come out; the traitor who betrayed the Klingons to the Romulans has friends on the High Council, which would lead to civil unrest. Only Worf’s discommendation temporarily prevents a Klingon civil war. We’re introduced not only to his brother Kurn but to the family of Duras, a name we’d come to despise in every Trek series to come.
The Ferengi make three appearances, primarily as irritants, moving closer to the comedic foils they’d master in DS9. No longer treated as a ‘major military threat’ to the Federation, they resort to deceit, and poison to narrow the field of bidders in “The Price”. If there’s any justice, a couple of those Ferengi are lost in the Delta Quadrant until their return in ST: Voyager. Michael Grodenchik debuts as Sovak, a pushy trader who deserves the punch in the face Picard delivers. (He would eventually play Quark’s dim brother Rom on DS9). “Menage A Troi” is a case of unrequited lust on the part of a demented Damon, although it finally gives Majel Barrett the opportunity to shine as the eternally flirty Lwaxana Troi. Ethan Philips makes his Trek debut there as Dr. Farek; we’d know him better in a later role, as Neelix on Voyager.
“Hollow Pursuits” introduces us to Reginald Barclay. Like him, I’m socially awkward, though I couldn’t articulate that in 1989. Reg is the guy who sits in the back of the room at parties, trying to blend in while seated next to a potted plant. That’s me. Maybe his escape into Holodiction is something else we have in common; don’t all us writers do that, though not in an actual physical expression? When the series originally came out on VHS, they were released as single episodes. The only tapes I collected were “The Royale” (season 2), “The Offspring” and “Hollow Pursuits”.
Reg was a challenge for Geordi to overcome his disdain and encourage Reg to put his mind to work in ‘the real world’. Troi also tries to guide him, up to the point that she meets the Goddess of Empathy. Then it’s “muzzle it!” The first time I saw this episode was at Jack & Fran’s house in Renton for a Writer’s Cramp meeting. We’re at the point where Picard himself accidentally calls Reg “Broccoli”. Data is saying, “Metathesis is the most common of pronunciation errors, sir, the reversal of vowels. ‘Boc’ to ‘Broc’—” At this point, Picard just glares, and as Data suddenly bends over a console, Fran said, “shut up, Data.” And that is usually the first response everybody gives when viewing that scene: “shut up, Data!”
Somehow I missed “Sarek” when it was originally broadcast. I didn’t find out about it until years later, after the series had ended. It was cool that they brought Mark Lenard back to the role, weaving another connection to the Original Series.
To close the season, they began a new tradition with the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers, and honestly, I don’t think TNG ever came up with a better one. This led one fan to scream at Piller from his car, “You ruined my summer!” “The Best of Both Worlds” begins with a disturbing graphic. Riker’s away team beams down to a colony in distress, supposedly in the middle of downtown, where all that greets us is a crater.
Twin plotlines parallel each other. The Borg are coming, and we are nowhere near prepared for them. Meanwhile Commander Riker questions his priorities as he turns down yet another command, and Picard has to call him on the carpet for it. The issue would be ludicrous in any real-world military service; Piller’s script addresses that here. Riker is a man grown comfortable, loyal, and apparently will settle for nothing less than the Enterprise. Although this was not how he wanted it. He also faces a foil in Commander Shelby, a cocky young woman whose ambition is only exceeded by her impetuousness. And she pointedly tells Riker, “You’re in my way.”
This is only the second time we’ve encountered the Borg, who remain a great unknown, hostile in purpose even while they’re devoid of intent. It is not spoilers now to declare this as the most distressing cliffhanger in Trek history, perhaps one of the greatest in television history. Picard steps forward on board the Borg cube as Locutus, his voice lifeless as he states, “Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service…us.” The camera pans around to Riker, who says, “Mr. Worf…fire.”
And then— ‘To Be Continued’??? ARRRRRGHHHH! In June 1990 we were all going, “What—WHAT?” That would be the longest summer for all Trek fans everywhere. In this one season this crew had become beloved, a part of the family, and we didn’t know if they were going to be blown apart or not. Will Picard survive—COULD he? This would be the nail-biter dogging us for the longest summer ever.
I’m a little disappointed here. I was led to believe there was some pornography involved, and I’ll be damned if I can find ANY pornographic material AT ALL!!!
Truth be told, I had two reasons to read Mr. Johnson’s excellent book. One, he’s a fellow author and I’m going to support him. Two, I was told by some jackass in Florida, the guv or some flake, that I wasn’t allowed to. So I said, pfff, that so? Try an’ stop me, Desantutts.
I think the reason AllBoysAren’tBlue is on conservatives’ hit list is that it’s truthful. That’s probably the same reason HuckleberryFinn, TheGrapesofWrath, TheDiaryofAnneFrank and so many more have been banned and are being banned this very second. A good book is truthful and shines an unpleasant light on the reality of our society. Though to be honest, AllBoysAren’tBlue is not unpleasant reading at all. Far from it.
This is a memoir for young adults; it’s probably too mature for preschoolers, but that’s not the point here. It’s about a young black man growing up, finding his queerness but frequently having to suppress himself. The author is not alone. The prevalent theme in his story is family. Back in the 1970’s my brothers used to say if someone messed with someone in our family, we could get about a hundred people together to settle this. We had a lot of more of us then; I don’t know if that’s true now.
George Johnson has always had the support of his family; brothers, cousins, parents. And especially his Nanny, his grandma, that older person every family relies on; the one who takes you to flea markets, teaches you stuff, encourages you in everything you do, and is always proud of you, no matter what. That’s what family is for, to tease you, rough-house, to fight with and to fight for you
There are a couple of cuss words, not to excess. I can get more profanity from a StarTrek movie. A couple of chapters made me uncomfortable, maybe because these were private things you don’t ordinarily share with the world. You’ll find out, if you have the courage to read it. My discomfort is not the point. What matters is representation, and I believe George Johnson has done a hellava job.
I’d written this a long time ago, obviously judging by the subject matter. I would’ve hoped we’d moved beyond genocide by now; clearly that’s not the case. I’d actually posted a video on YouTube back in 2012, and somehow, ten years later, some moderator decided to delete that video for ‘violent content’. I appealed that decision; however five minutes later they got back to me upholding their decision.
I’m very pissed off by this. None of the images chosen involved beatings, lynchings, rape or any else that might provoke violence. The images of people starving were meant to provoke a response; disgust, disbelief, awareness of what kind of crap is going on in this world. This piece is not meant to advocate violence; it’s a protest against state-sponsored violence.
Well, at the risk of being crude, fuck it. I’m putting it here. Render your own judgement.
darfur, Darfur
loll upon the tongue
join the dreaded list
ethiopia, bangladesh, somalia et al
the poor are always with us
the poor always die continuous
genocide, patricide
racial cleansing aside
how can it be
that there are so many ways to rephrase s singular sin
say it as it is
mass murderers
the armenians in 1915, a million and a half gone
the holocaust of the 1940s, six million to the ovens
I’ve gotta admit, I didn’t catch every episode of season 2 during its original broadcast. I’d pretty much kept up with every episode of the first season at least once, such was my loyalty to Star Trek. My viewing history for the sophomore season was much more spotty. I’d watch two or three stories in a row, skip one or two. For instance, the first story I sat down for was “Where Silence Has Lease”, a significantly darker, unnerving outing than virtually anything in the previous season. I missed both the season opener, “The Child”, and its closer, “Shades of Grey”. The last story I saw would be “Peak Performance”, the penultimate episode.
I can’t explain; it’s been 35 years. Perhaps I’d lost some interest after the disappointment of season 1. My Saturdays in 1988-89 were tied up in get-togethers with my writing friends, who were giving me much needed instruction. More to the point, I was beginning to put in the research necessary to make my scribblings worthwhile; to be honest, at this point, it stank. I had less time to binge TV. At age 24 I hadn’t really lived at this point. Hell, I’d never fallen in love, yet.
Changes were afoot at TNG. Because of an ongoing Writer’s Strike in 1988, the season was delayed; the first episode wouldn’t be syndicated until November 21st of that year. I had no idea what tensions were going on behind the scenes. The cast had settled comfortably into their roles; the writing had improved considerably. We were still saddled with stories that were not up to snuff (“The Royale”, “Up the Long Ladder”); some that just left us scratching our heads (“Where Silence Has Lease”, “Time Squared”); and at least one that was pulled out of their fannies (“Shades of Grey”). Also, the music scores still tended toward the bombastic.
Looking back a little older, a little more jaded, I can declare that at this point TNG was still guided by a 1960’s naivete of Gene Roddenberry. To wit, humanity had matured into an enlightened species. By definition the governing body of the franchise, The Federation, would also be guided by enlightened principles. Of course, even in The Original Series (TOS) there were hints that Paradise had its worms. They had their share of crazy starship captains and a bureaucracy unwilling to face up to unsavory situations that needed to be addressed.
Elements we’ve come to be familiar with in later years made their first appearances, often in the opening scenes of an episode. Worf’s calisthenics program debuted this year (“Where Silence Has Lease”) as does the officers’ nightly poker game (“The Measure of a Man”). And the Ferengi, that most deadly threat to the Federation in season 1, had been relegated to one appearance this season, and then only in the last 15 minutes of “Peak Performance”, the second to last episode of the season.
As an established series, TNG began to attract a lot of celebrity guest stars, and a few future stars. Joe Piscapo appeared as the Comic in “The Outrageous Okona”; Entertainment Tonight cohost John Tesh was disguised as one of the Klingons inflicting pain sticks on Worf in “The Icarus Factor”, while drummer Mick Fleetwood was even more recognizable as a fish-faced alien in “Manhunt”. One of Teri Hatcher’s early roles was as a transporter chief in “The Outrageous Okona”
There was also The BEARD. Despite what Q would say a year from now, I thought it suited Riker. It made him more distinguished yet somehow still likeable. I was comfortable with it from the start. It can’t help enhancing his irrepressible grin. After a full season of rotating engineers, Picard promoted inhouse from the available personnel, making Geordi LaForge the Chief Engineer for the rest of the series.
Ten Forward appeared in the opener, but that wasn’t the most interesting development. That fell to the casting of the bartender Guinan, a long time Trek fan known as Whoopi Goldberg. This wasn’t a role she needed to take. By 1988 Whoopi already had seven films under her belt, including her breakout role in The Color Purple (1985), which earned her anOscar nomination for Best Actress. This was something she wanted, that she was inspired to by original Trek actress Nichelle Nichols. Though her cameos were small, she acted as that impish elf dispensing wise sayings that the crew needed at any given time.
Unfortunately the worst change was in the medical field. It seems certain people on the production staff didn’t like how Gates McFadden’s character, Dr. Crusher, was being developed. Worse, they managed to convince Gene Roddenberry of that. All I knew was that Dr. Crusher was gone, and you don’t realize how much you appreciate someone until they’re gone. Crusher was traded in for Dr. Kate Pulaski, a Dr. McCoy retread who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—get Data’s name right. In fact, she seemed to have a problem appreciating that Data was a valuable crewman and an individual who required no justification. The fact that she was played by TOS veteran Diana Muldaur (“Return to Tomorrow”, “Is There in Truth No Beauty?”) didn’t help anyone warm up to her.
Curiously, the one thing Muldaur and Whoopi shared in common was that they were not listed in the main cast, not even as guest stars, but solely designated with a ‘Special Guest Appearance’ after the opening teaser.
THE CAST
This season’s scripts were very Data-centric, with five focused exclusively on our favorite android (“Elementary, Dear Data”, “The Outrageous Okona”, “The Schizoid Man”, “The Measure of a Man” and “Pen Pals”). He grew in his study of humanity and endured the slights of Dr. Pulaski with dignity. He retained his childlike nature while mentoring under Picard. Often he has the central role to play in the resolution of a conflict. Data (Brent Spiner) attended the birth of Troi’s son Ian (“The Child”), explored the nature of humor (“Okona”), assisted Picard in deciphering the Iconian language (“Contagion”); gambled the away team out of the casino and out of a badly written novel (“The Royale”); and experienced doubt in his abilities for the first time (“Peak Performance”).
If any crewman comes close to the number of episodes in focus, it’s William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes). Beard aside, here is a man who welcomes a challenge, whether it’s volunteering for an officer exchange program with the Klingons (“A Matter of Honor”) or bringing a broken-down wreck up to spec to challenge the Enterprise-D in a war game (“Peak Performance”). He faced every obstacle with zeal, ingenuity, and a great big grin. Not all challenges are so easy. Regulations compelled him to participate in a hearing that might cost Data his life (“The Measure of a Man”). For the second time Riker is offered his own command, and the man offering it is his estranged father, which in typical male fashion must be settled in a martial arts contest (“The Icarus Factor”). We also discover he’s a cook, albeit not very good one (though you could never tell Worf that). Could explain how he wolfs down gakk.
Patrick Stewart as Picard had pretty much become the captain we’d come to know and love for the rest of the series. He could be steady, firm, and hews closer to his principles, particularly the Prime Directive than James T. Kirk. We’re starting to get a little more background. For instance, in “Contagion” Picard indulges in his interest in stellar archaeology; while on a shuttle flight he divulges the incident from his misspent youth that forced him to have an artificial heart (“Samaritan Snare”).He even demonstrates a sardonic sense of humor (“The Outrageous Okona”).
Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) grew into adolescence without the support of his mother, under the collective mentoring of the TNG crew. He wasn’t quite the annoying know-it-all we came to despise the previous year. He deals with this separation, with the help of Guinan (“The Child”). He also suffers his first crush in “The Dauphin”, where we the viewer are treated to the first montage of a crew member seeking the advice of every member of the bridge crew, with often humorous results. After endangering the ship so much in season 1, in “Pen Pals” Wesley is given the responsibility of actually saving a planet.
His father-son relationship with Picard deepens as the captain loosens up on an extended shuttle ride, relating an episode of his reckless youth that led to his impalement on a Nausican knife, necessitating an artificial heart that needs replacing (“Samaritan Snare”). For the first time the senseless of death smacks Wes right to his face with the destruction of the starship Yamamoto (“Contagion”) and the deathly aged crew of the Lantree (“Unnatural Selection”).
Worf’s (Michael Dorn) appearance evolved into a fuller mane and the addition of his baldric sash. He’s still inflexible and unbending in his application of Klingon tradition. He’s now permanent security chief, and still king of the one-liners (to wit– “Comfortable chair”, from “The Emissary”). Or how about this exchange with Wesley in “The Dauphin” about Klingon mating rituals: “Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects. And claw at you.”
“What does the man do?” Wesley asks.
Worf replies: “He reads love poetry. (beat) He ducks a lot.”
This season we also get to further explore Klingon culture, as in the aforementioned “A Matter of Honor”. Worf tutors Commander Riker, who takes his lessons to heart, first by asserting his authority over a junior Klingon officer (by kicking his ass) and then assuming command of the ship to save the Enterprise. Riker’s plotline in “The Icarus Factor” was almost undermined by the subplot where Worf is out of sorts, almost out of joint, because it’s the anniversary of his rite of ascension. Fortunately Wesley finds out and the crew prepares a proper simulation on the holodeck…complete with pain sticks.
Two problems crop up for Worf in “The Emissary”. First, there is the main issue of a Klingon sleeper ship on an intercept course for several Federation colonies. A more personal problem is the emissary herself, K’Ehleyr, an old love of Worf’s who’s not ready to commit to marriage, especially once Worf jumps ahead and announces they’re one anyway. In later episodes, they will both have to deal with the consequences of their mating.
Finally, Troi got out of that frumpy jumpsuit she was confined in for the previous voyage. Her new jumpsuit was more flattering and form-fitting, one she’d wear for the next five seasons. Also out was the bun and in with a freer floating ‘do. The season’s opening story, “The Child”, was given to Troi, who runs with the material. This story, a script recycled from the abandoned Phase II series from the late 70’s, was adopted when the writers strike clawed into TNG’s production time. While Worf’s first thought is to terminate the child and Riker demands to know who was the father, Troi feels the first stirrings of life in her belly and announces, “I’m keeping this child.” And the lioness has spoken.
THE EPISODES
Again, I won’t be going over every episode…well, any more than I already have. This is a personal rather than a critical remembrance. These will just be highlights.
The first episode I screened for season 2 was in fact the second episode, “Where Silence Has Lease”, and …ohh-kaaay. That was disturbing. It could have passed as an original series Outer Limits story. The ship faces an amorphous alien antagonist running bizarre, unethical experiments without the slightest concern for his lab subjects—us. The next couple of weeks slipped in the opposite direction. First, in “Elementary, Dear Data”, Dr. Pulaski challenges Data to solve a real mystery in the Sherlock Holmes style. Geordi’s poor choice of words gives him a worthy opponent all right, a holographic version of Professor Moriarty, with all the 23rd century knowledge of the Enterprise. “The Outrageous Okona” was a bit of a comedy of errors; part Han Solo, part Capulets vs. Montagues.
“Unnatural Selection” tread similar ground to the original series episode “The Deadly Years”, though the repercussions for the ‘children’ of the Darwin lab will be more consequential and uncertain. “Loud As a Whisper” dealt sensitively with disability, even having insight enough to cast a deaf man, Howie Seago, in the guest starring role of ambassador Riva. “Time Squared” has no monsters, no alien antagonists: in the words of David Tennant’s Doctor, it’s pretty much wibbly wobbly timey-wimey.
“Contagion” was probably the most honest Trek story as far as our dependence on computers goes; and how screwed we’ll be if they fall apart. One hidden gem, for myself, was that the co-author (with Beth Woods) was none other than Steve Gerber. That name probably means nothing to many of you younglings, but I knew him from my comic books, the creator of Man-Thing and Howard the Duck. One a horror series, the other a satire of the 70’s. Here he’s at his most inventive, introducing the Iconians, ‘demons of air and light’. It’s both a race to beat the Romulans, and personal for Picard after the Yamamoto explodes in front of his eyes, taking another old friend. It’s also an excuse for him to take a more active role in the story, to exercise captain’s prerogative and lead the away mission himself, as only he has the archaeological knowledge to pursue this mission.
Now, “The Royale”. My family has loved this episode since we first watched it on a standalone VHS. My wife waits through the entire first season just for this repeat. Putting that aside…it’s best not to question it too much, just enjoy the funny bits. The crew beam aboard a fragment of a 21st century Earth craft. Beaming down to the planet, Riker, Data and Worf find themselves in a recreation of a second-rate novel, as well as a dead astronaut. Picard decides that the answers to the puzzle lie in the novel itself, which he sits down to read. It begins: “It was a dark and stormy night. (Sigh) Not a promising beginning.”
Troi volunteers, “It may get better.” (It doesn’t.)
In fairness to my beloved, this episode’s effects don’t hold up well. It’s no secret that the away team is standing on a dark soundstage with a blurry F/X ‘cloud’ fuzzing above them. This story was also dated only a couple years later when the unsolvable mathematical equation by Fermat mentioned in this story, was in fact deciphered by Princeton professor Andrew Wiles in 1993.
In “Pen Pals” , Data befriends a young alien girl on a planet on the verge of destruction. In so doing he not only becomes a ‘pen pal’ but a surrogate brother. Data also demonstrates a depth and caring I don’t think he recognized in himself. “Manhunt” is basically Lwaxana Troi on steroids. “Up the Long Ladder” couldn’t decide what story it wanted to be. Somehow the writers tried to wedge two stories into one script. We have a humorous story with space Irish on one colony, and on another colony is a sterile, scientifically advanced society. By sterile I mean ‘sterile’; every one in the second colony is (surprise!) a clone. What we have is a mess, touching on issues like resettlement, privacy, ethics. So Picard’s brilliant solution: let’s mash ‘em both together and hope it all works out.
“Shades of Grey”, the season’s closer, was Classic Trek’s first and only clip show. If it’s not the worst, at least it is the laziest written script in TNG’s history. We’re now left with two.
“The Measure of a Man” is our first certifiable classic of the TNG era. Data is confronted by the fact that as an android, in the eyes of Starfleet he has no rights. He doesn’t even have the right to resign his commission to prevent his dismantling so that cyberneticist Bruce Maddox can study him. Picard is having none of that and demands a hearing from Captain Phillipa Louvois, the same person who conducted his court-martial nine years before for losing the Stargazer.
Picard was almost beaten by his first officer’s presentation. Riker is morally beaten because he did his job too well, a job forced on him by regulations. It’s only through Guinan’s sly insights that Picard sees the real danger, which apparently came to pass in season 1 of ST: Picard. On the stand, Maddox’s lofty ideas are exposed as fantasy, implying the creation of a race of androids without agency, a prelude to slavery. Then Picard renders a classic speech in his closing argument. In part:
“Your honor, Starfleet was founded to seek out new life. Well, there it sits, waiting. You wanted a chance to make law. Well, here it is. Make it a good one.” At the beginning of her ruling Louvois refers to Data as ‘it’. Halfway through it she’s calling Data ‘he’. Though its early on in the series, Data had already demonstrated he was more than the sum of his parts. He also has the grace to invite a despondent Riker to the victory celebration.
Finally…until the story we’re about to cover, TNG did not have an enemy. As a force to be reckoned with, the Ferengi were a miserable failure. The Klingons and Romulans were formidable opponents, but the former were our allies in the 24th century. As for the latter, well, they’re just as deceitful and haughty as ever, but they’re still old school—or should I say ‘old series’. In “Q Who”, that rascally omnipotent entity Q committed the most evil act in all his appearances. He introduces us to the Borg.
The Borg were everything Gene Roddenberry would NOT identify as human. They are not evil; that would imply intention to inflict harm. They’re as incapable of feeling as a virus. Cybernetic monsters were not new to science fiction series. Prior to this, Doctor Who got 20 years of mileage out of the Cybermen, not to mention the Cylons from the original Battlestar Galactica. This was different. This was a dark page in the bright future Gene had painted for the previous 20 years.
Q (John De Lancie) had returned to the Enterprise-D, having been expelled from the Continuum, doubtless for his failure to intimidate humanity. After Picard insists humanity was ready for ANY challenge it might face ‘out there’, Q had a fit. With a snap of his fingers Q tosses the Enterprise thousands of light years into the heart of the Delta Quadrant. The first hints of Guinan’s past are given; she knows of the Borg, because they destroyed her people a hundred years ago. Very soon all of Picard’s ingenuity and diplomacy were rendered useless.
All the while Q pops in and out of the action, defining the Borg bit by bit, taking a sadistic delight in Picard’s growing discomfort. “You can’t outrun them, you can’t destroy them. If you damage them, the essence of what they are remains…They regenerate and keep coming…Eventually you will weaken…Your reserves will be gone…They are relentless.”
It is to his credit this one time that Picard asks this small minded omnipotent bastard to save his ship. This Q does. No apologies, no regrets for the lives lost, or for the fact that this one act has overturned the natural order by introducing a Force (there’s no other word for them) we were absolutely not prepared to face.
I have gone on without saying a lot about this episode, I know. I don’t need to explain the details for hardcore Trekkers. For those of you new to Star Trek, well, hopefully I haven’t dropped too many spoilers.
This would be the last season of any Star Trek series where Gene Roddenberry would be in the producer’s chair. Change has always been an essential part of Trek, but a lot of us didn’t feel TNG was essential viewing at the time. What we saw in the coming season was more than change, it was like a soft reboot. That will be another blog.
I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote this. Maybe it’s like those spontaneous pieces John Lennon wrote in the 60s that never made any sense. This is a relic from 1992. Enjoy.
I’ve been carrying this around since the late 80s. This was dedicated to the home I grew up in, at least the first home I had a great fondness for. With the excess time off I’ve had due to medical issues I came back to it, with a couple additions. I don’t know if they help or if its crap. I’m just going to throw it out there and let you decide.
Hello old friend, has it been so long
Since I went far away
Those days are still strong
I left very young, yes it’s been a few years
But for the days long past
I can’t shed any tears
Hey old friend, did the grass stain our pants?
It never spawned any weeds
Or a ‘puppy-doo’ dance
[Neighbors’ ladder sliding along side-boards
While my brothers laughed from the second floor window
And the neighbor raised a fist
GI Joes were not for adulation
But burying in the nearest storm drain]
We’d curl up at dawn on that vent in the floor
The grill marked me up
While the others got warm
[Shattered glass backed into unseen
‘cause I didn’t want to wear a shirt
Comic books in sickbed, Man of Steel with a golden key
Curled up on the couch
All four eyes glued to Spider-Man]
We always ran up the stairs, almost beat them to death
Papablues Scrapbook 