Star Trek Voyager: Natural Law...

[fajrdrako]

The other day I watched the Star Trek Voyager episode "Natural Law" with my friend Sandi, and I found it thought-provoking enough to discuss with maaseru and walkingowl so I thought I'd mention it here.

I watched Star Trek Voyager for at least part of its first year on the air, but it annoyed me, and I soon stopped watching. I don't think I ever saw anything after the first year at all.¹ This was the first time I ever saw Seven of Nine. If I may say so - what an utterly boring character! Perhaps she has more personality in other episodes?

Anyway, the things I found interesting.... A little explanation of the plot first²: In this story, Seven of Nine and Chakotay fall through a force field onto a planet in an area that is segregated for an indiginous population, the Ventu. They have a primitive technology - clothes, fire, face-paint, things like that, and every sign of curiosity and high intelligence - but no spoken language. They looked basically human, but I saw no indication that they had vocal chords. They didn't speak or make any noises. They used sign language to communicate. They imitate Chakotay and Seven of Nine in gestures and looks but they don't attempt to speak.

It turns out that the rest of the planet has a civilization as technically developed as the Federation, or not far off, and they can and do talk vocally. The Ventu were separated by this force field imposed by aliens who thought the mainstream society of the planet would exploit and destroy the Ventu civilisation. As soon as Janeway removes the force field, the cultural interference (with some benign intent) begins. Janeway restores the force field and goes away, leaving the planet pretty much as it used to be. Good Federation housekeeping, Prime Directive and all. But...

1. I was thinking about human history as we know it. It seems to me that communication by spoken language (emphasis here on the 'spoken') has been the prerequisite for every known civilisation. Could civilisation evolve without spoken language? In this Star Trek story it hadn't done so, and I didn't know if they meant to imply it could not, or to imply it would, given time. And what's the reality? Did human history happen the way it did by chance, or does spoken vocal language make a difference to socialization in a way other forms of communication do not? Could human history have happened differently? If it could have, why has it not - among other primate groups, for example? Have there ever been homo sapiens civilizations, or even isolated cultural groups, where spoken language was not a factor? I don't mean subcultures, or major groups within a culture, like schools for the deaf or monks who take vows of silence - as far as I know, they exist within larger, speaking civilizations already developed.



2. The issue in the episode is that the aliens in the past thought the peaceful, environmentally-friendly Ventu needed to be protected from the mainstream civilisation, so they isolated them. This protection struck me as being a prison for them. They were living in it prosperously, but they didn't seem to be growing and evolving. And in the episode, as Janeway and the mainlanders argue about what to do with and for the Ventu, no one even suggests asking the Ventu what they want. That struck me as being very officious - they might prefer to be outside their prison, regardless of the risks. Or they might prefer to keep their safe isolation - though it seems abominable to be that they weren't at least given the key to the force field. Shouldn't they have the right to self-determination regarding their own fate? Was it assumed they wouldn't understand the consequences? Isn't that denying them an opportunity to change - if they wanted change?

¹ I did once write a Chakotay/Paris slash story, which was fun. I didn't like Paris, and used the story as a chance to attack him creatively.

² I missed the first few scenes so there might have been more explanation that I didn't get.

Comments

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

I remember this episode, it relied heavily on the myth of the Noble Savage's life being so much better than civilized modern man's life, if it's the ep I think it is. WHile I adore ST in all its shapes & forms & well-meaningness, I still really hate that self-loving officiousness that often crept into the show from TNG on.

I've noticed that, anthropoligically, when a tribe or group is given the right to self-determination, they tend to fling themselves whole-heartedly into the modern world and all it offers, for better or worse. I'm not saying there isn't often a terrible downside. Bad stuff happens; you'll see tribal people being taken advantage of by governments & corporations and lives destroyed when the modern world encroaches on a tribe's world, which is a terrible downside that I wish could be avoided, but that doesn't deter the people themselves from trying to buy cell phones, bicycles, jeeps, pre-made clothing, makeup (Avon is very big on the Amazon river), and modern cooking apparatus like camp stoves, anything to give them an edge over their old life. They like modern medicine, too, traveling miles for a chance at it. The women really like modern birth control: I think people don't realize how common it is for women to die in childbirth in non-modern, tribal situations. Or for that matter, how many people die from the infection following a toothache or an animal scratch. And civilized people wring their hands over the sad loss of another tribal language even as the tribe itself is intent upon learning the main language of the local modern people who are encroaching on their territory. Later generations will look back and try to revive the old language and the old ways, but the generation going through modernization will toss away the old for the new with few regrets. We talk about getting back to nature, but it's only for a visit, *we* wouldn't want to live there. And neither do tribal people, apparently.

I think when people look at tribal people living "primitively" (whatever that means), they act like they're looking through a telescope at a previous age of man, like the people are from another era, caught in amber. But we are all equally descended from our ancestors, all of the same generation and as far from ancestral times as any one of the rest of us is. The trick is to keep the good stuff from the past and meld it with the good stuff that modern life gives us, so that everyone can benefit.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Good comments. I am personally not a back-to nature type person; I don't see the appeal of camping in a tent (I agree with Ianto there!) or living in the country - give me a big noisy city any day, with access to theatre and libraries and grocery stores.

So it seems to me that the idyllic situation of the Ventu really wasn't very idyllic even if they were comfortably pacifist among themselves. Medical issues, social issues - and the moral issue: does anyone else have the right to make their choices for them? does anyone have the right to deny them knowledge?

I don't think it would have bothered me except that the assumption of the show was so clear it was doing the 'right thing'. I could have handled it better as an interim solution, or as one of several imperfect courses of action. Just shutting them away and carrying on seems way too unnatural to me - like setting them up in a zoo without observers.

I also have no faith in any group to be perfect - seems to me that there might be any number of factors within their community to destroy them: famine, disease, violence, climate change, inbreeding, dying of boredom....

Of course it's all more complicated in the real world and we have no technology to shut anyone away behind force fields for any reason. Just as well.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

as for wanting to return to tribal ways: some groups apperently do want to, the Bushmen in Botswana just won a case against the government (http://www.survival-international.org/news.php?id=2128)that would allow them to reposess their tribal lands (with the intent to live on it like their traditions, not to build a factory on it or something like that).

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

I think it's FABULOUS that they won their case! But this is along the lines of my entry's final line: "The trick is to keep the good stuff from the past and meld it with the good stuff that modern life gives us, so that everyone can benefit." The Bushmen aren't going to build a factory, but they are still going to be a part of the modern world on their own terms. They certainly negotiated the courts beautifully. I found it interesting that "the judges also said that the government is not obliged to provide services to Bushmen in the reserve." -- I suspect the reason services was an issue was because the Bushman might have wanted at least some of those some of those services.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think the important thing here is the factor of self-determination.

[idiotgrrl.livejournal.com]

A truly isolated group shut away from all outside contact would develop other problems over several generations, simply because everyone was related to everybody else, without exception, in many, many ways.

One is bad or simply odd recessives cropping up, until the entire tribe had six fingers or profound deafness, etc.

The other is that even though sexual desires were as strong as ever, this very isolation would make taking an interest in a fellow tribe member somewhat on the order of kissing your sister. Literally.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes. The TV show was vague about the population of the Vantu (I think we saw 5 or 6 of them altogether), or the size of their land, but I would think there would be problems within a century or so, let alone millennia. Both population problems and habitate problems. What would happen when/if they outgrew the sustainability of the land?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

And for a P.S....

The other is that even though sexual desires were as strong as ever, this very isolation would make taking an interest in a fellow tribe member somewhat on the order of kissing your sister. Literally.

This makes me think of the world's panda population.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

alternative forms of cummunication and their drawbacks and unlikelyhoods:

- Sign language. This is the most likely alternative since people allready use it anyway and deaf people usage of it shows that it is a fully functional language. Drawbacks is communication over distances and on terrain that limits sight. But I have not much problem with believing an alternative history where signing is the main form of communication. (I have no problem believing a transference into writing like we did).

- Communication by smell. This is unlikely for the way we physically are now but imagine a different path evolutionary, like the bees and the ants and the dogs who can give very specified messages. It takes more imagination but hey, alternative evolution wouldn't be fun if we wouldn't allow us these freedoms.

- Allowing us even more freedom, usage of methods so far only known of deep see creatures like octopus. They can change their body color and signal both adversary as fellow octopus. The full depth of their communication is not yet clear, but it seems quite sophisticated.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly, some deep sea creatures like whales and dolphins communicate with sonar. I guess this could be as a form of sound, and therefore like using vocal chords, but it's a different mechanism, probably with very different neurological effects.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

a theory (http://www.infres.enst.fr/confs/evolang/actes/_actes74.html)why we (humans) have the vocal abilities we have (and not our brother and sister primates) involves an other ability we have, namely diving. This is then connected to the idea that we spent a significant portion of our evolution either at water's edge or in it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Diving - shudder! I'd rather not think too much about that.

[mildmannered.livejournal.com]

Ugh, this is why I gave up Trek at Voyager. Yes, signed languages occur naturally and work just as well as spoken ones; the use of signed languages wouldn't hold a culture back from technology just as the use of spoken languages wouldn't necessarily lead to technology.

(Of all the sciences, linguistics is the one that Trek does WORST, imho.)

As for the weird quasicolonial politics of the ep ... sounds like time to reread the last bit of Macedon and Peg's Talking Stick/Circle (http://members.aol.com/MacedonPg/index.html") story, The Rose and the Yew Tree, wherein the authors take Janeways' Federation prejudices and turn them inside out.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Ugh, this is why I gave up Trek at Voyager.

Well, acutally, I'd given up on Star Trek Voyager back in first season, but it was because of the characters, not the plots. I'd like the premise of the series - a Federation ship lost in space, with the crew half renegades and rebels. Finally, a Star Trek world where everyone wouldn't be towing the company line! But they did. Chakotay (initially my favourite) was as boringly bourgeois as anyone else. So I bailed.

Of all the sciences, linguistics is the one that Trek does WORST, imho.

Generally speaking, yes, I agree, although I did like the "Darmok" episode of Star Trek where they gave the universal translators a challenge and tried something different.

I've always wanted to see an episode where the universal translators, in their approximate attempt to translate untranslatable ideas, messed up so badly that chaos ensued.

ounds like time to reread the last bit of Macedon and Peg's Talking Stick/Circle story, The Rose and the Yew Tree, wherein the authors take Janeways' Federation prejudices and turn them inside out.

That sounds wonderful! I couldn't get your link to work but I tracked it down on Google (took about two seconds) and bookmarked it to read later.

[mildmannered.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, we all love Darmok. But from a scientific point of view it's a mess. Here (http://tenser.typepad.com/tenser_said_the_tensor/2006/12/darmok.html)'s a good explanation of why.

I loved DS9 the best. Which, I guess, is why I love Battlestar Galactica so much. It's DS9 with the gloves off.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

from a scientific point of view it's a mess.

Actually, it's a bit of a mess if you think about it seriously for a few minutes. But it was still an episode what was more interesting than most.

Battlestar Galactica ... DS9 with the gloves off.

What a wonderful description! I'll have to think about it. DS9 lost me with the episodes on Bajoran religion and I never really gravitated back; I also had a bit of a grudge against Cisko and couldn't tolerate the Ferengi. Besides that... there were characters, scenes and situations I loved. The Star Trek I have fondest memories of was The Next Generation, almost entirely because of Patrick Stewart, and somewhat because of Data.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

This was the first time I ever saw Seven of Nine. If I may say so - what an utterly boring character! Perhaps she has more personality in other episodes?

Seven of Nine was given a steady progression of character change from her first scene until the show's end. It was not to everyone's taste. The character was also not to everyone's taste. (I have heard fans refer to her as "Barbie of Borg.")

Two things stand out, for me, about Seven.

She, like Data and Spock, represent a certain specific Star Trek character, almost a stock character of the Star Trek universe. I had already come to a certain realization about Spock, and all Vulcans, before I ran across this t-shirt slogan: "Spock wasn't a Vulcan, he was an autistic with pointed ears." This was on a website built by a mother whose son is autistic, and clearly was meant to be an affirmation of self-respect....

Then again, the other thing about Seven: On a weblog devoted to autistic pride, Seven of Nine was trashed as the ultimate symbol of "oh please can't someone make me neurotypical." The very path of character transformation that Seven followed from her accidental and totally unexpected rescue from the Borg was seen as a progressive cop-out. Seven as first discovered, after being separated from the Collective, represented to this writer an independent, individual autistic -- in a good way.

Just telling you what I know about Seven. Myself, I fall somewhere between the extremes of "she's totally sexist and boring" and "she's a cop-out to autistic diversity." And, being autistic myself, could be what I've just written has come across as overly blunt or harsh or pedantic, which I didn't intend. I'm only conveying data. Interesting data, I hope!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's an interesting take on Seven - both ways! I can hardly pretend to get a handle on a character in one episode, and it's not as if I think any of the Voyager characters had a lot of personality. What I saw didn't incline me to want to see more - even though I did happen to see the episode of Star Trek Voyager that aired the next week, under almost identical circumstances. I thought both episodes seemed very artificial.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

I think that I was drawn to Voyager for its potential, because I agree, it certainly was less than satisfying, too many times. Interesting that Ron Moore says, in some of the Battlestar Galactica commentaries, that his time as story-editor for various Star Trek entities was marked by a directive to have only situation-driven storylines. No "character-driven" stories were accepted. Kind of explains why I was always so frustrated with ST:TNG, not to mention Voyager.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I was drawn to Voyager for its potential

Yes. It had a lot of potential. The basic idea was good. But I never did like the show. Most disappointing.

No "character-driven" stories were accepted.

That explains a lot. It explains why no one had any character to drive!