Re: Omega Glory

Phillip Thorne <pethorne@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

On 7 Jul 2008, nebusj-@xxxxxxxxx (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
Hm. No, I can't think of any first-season episodes which
would have even a modest connection to the Fourth Of July. That's
probably conscious, and maybe for the best. Having Kirk be a fan of
Abraham Lincoln worked reasonably well -- it's easy to suppose that
he'll be an icon and hero for many more centuries -- but dragging out
the United States Flag and the Constitution for 'The Omega Glory'
turned what had been a reasonably gripping episode into one that folks
point at and laugh about, long and hard, with youthful abandon.

Well, it's understandable if we posit that Kirk, the Man On The Spot,
was lucky enough to have minored in Historical Rhetoric and Famous
Documents at the Academy. Or had an independent study course in high
school. Or simply because *he came from Iowa*, and even 300 years in
the future, the U.S. Revolution is a major topic and schoolkids are
forced to memorize the Gettysburg Address and suchnot.

(When was Kirk's origin on Earth/NorthAm/U.S.-derivative established?
As late as "STIV," was it?)

I think that the only thing said about Kirk's homeworld from
before _The Voyage Home_ was in ``Tomorrow Is Yesterday'' when he
stated that he came from Alpha Centauri. For some inexplicable reason
that statement seems to have been generally discounted in Trek fan
folklore.


Any other starship officer (like Spock, or Capt. Tracey) might not
have been so lucky. And recall the recent speculation here that
starship captains are specifically trained to size up the
sociopolitical situation on an alien world? Well, maybe that's just
Kirk's forte. Tracey didn't quite seem to get it.

I hate to discount too much by saying that Tracey may just have
been nuts, since that's an altogether too powerful magic wand for
sweeping away every continuity glitch ever. I *would* think that
sociological training would be essential for being a good starship
captain, at least one who routinely has first contact missions, but it
doesn't bother me to think that this is a particular talent of Kirk's
rather than general background. Kirk does seem to grok the Weekian
customs in a way that, say, Janeway doesn't. (Picard does, though he
had the archeology thing written into his character background and
finally noticed around the fourth season.)


But imagine the possible parodies by substituting other, more obscure,
flags and documents! It's the (whatever Britain used before the Union
Flag) and the Magna Carta. It's the Italian tricolor and something
famous by Garibaldi.

Sounds like someone's never played Europa Universalis. The
current Union Jack dates to the Union with Ireland, in 1801. Before
that, to 1707, it didn't have the off-diagonal red lines. That flag
was used from the creation of the United Kingdom in 1707. Before
*that* Scotland used a blue flag with white diagonals, and England
a white flag with a red cross, so the Union was pretty much one laid
on the other.

The various Italian states used a host of complicated variants
that to my eye look like Official Seals pasted on mostly green
backgrounds. I have to admit I don't know offhand of important founding
documents of modern Italy.


(And IMHO, the "holies" weren't the most embarrassing bit. It was
Kirk's notion that people forced into the wilderness would eventually
resemble American Indians. Including their leather pants and
loincloths. But not the fashionable tatters of the womenfolk. Well,
this was still the era of "cowboys and Indians" on TV.)

Nah. The assumption that atom-bombed Americans would turn
into American TV Indians is a little wincing moment that feels a bit
racist even if we can't quite pin down how, possibly because the
Rampaging Yellow Menace plot is distracting us. That would be more
or less fine, or at least no more ridiculous than the Space Nazis or
Space Gangsters are.

It's the 'E Plebnista' and bringing out Old Glory that makes
the episode hilarious, and that makes up about one-fifth by volume of
all lazy Shatner Impersonations.


Remember Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development, used to
explain Backlot Worlds? Well, since Koom-Yang-World predates *Earth*
by at least 1000 years, then we have to assume that Earth itself is
one of the copies made by Unknown Powers. Assuming it's a matter of
intentional copies and not just a strange natural phenomenon that
spawns a duplicate periodically.

Maybe Sargon's World, 600,000 years ago, looked just like ours. Not
much evidence left on the surface to say, one way or the other.

Yeah, the implication is either that the Original Series is
*way* farther in the future than even 'The Squire of Gothos' seems to
suggest -- I *think* but I'm not sure the Blish adaptation had the
planet be a long-lost colony, much as Miri's World was in script --
or that Earth is a duplicate. You know, the American Revolution *was*
remarkable, as revolutions go, for having a more modest period of
terror and limited counter-revolution, and for the attempted purges
post-revolution mostly failing. (Compare the English Civil War, the
French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution, although those are more
analogous to one another than to the United State's Revolution.) Maybe
the country got help from nigh-omnipotent aliens with an agenda.

--
Joseph Nebus
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