November 26, 2007

Miramanee, Kirk, and the Preservers

How did American Indians end up on a Star Trek world? And more important, why?

This posting tells what little is "officially" known of Miramanee's world. But the Star Trek novel Preserver expands significantly on the story of Miramanee's "Wise Ones." Star Trek novels aren't considered part of the canon, but as far as I'm concerned, they should be.

Preserver takes place in the The Next Generation era. James T. Kirk died in Star Trek: Generations but was, er, reconstructed. He joins Spock, McCoy, and Captain Picard's crew in battling Tiberius, emperor of the Mirror Universe.

[Spoiler alert]

According to Preserver, Captain Kirk discovered the first Preserver artifact: Miramanee's obelisk. By the time of the novel, the Federation has discovered another 117 obelisks, none of which they can figure out. Then Kirk stumbles across the 119th obelisk, which was manufactured only six years previously.

Far from vanishing billions of years ago, the Preservers are still alive. More to the point, they're still manipulating people and events. In addition to seeding worlds with humanoid life, they've created duplicate Earths (e.g., Miri's world in "Miri").

What Preserver says

Here's Preserver's description of the origin of Miramanee's world:The first obelisk has been discovered by Kirk on a Class-M planet, home to the descendants of a tribal community of humans abducted from the central plains of Earth's North America almost a thousand years earlier. Even at the time, McCoy recalled, he and Kirk and Spock had understood the significance of those people's original abduction. It had occurred just prior to the arrival of the most recent wave of Europeans to colonize North America in the sixteenth century--subsequently decimating the indigenous North American population. The colonial invasion of Earth's North American continent had cost entire cultures, traditions, and languages, all lost forever.

That was where the name "Preservers" had come from. For on the Class-M world, it had been the obelisk that had protected and maintained the original culture of the transplanted humans. At the time, the abduction event itself had seemed to McCoy to have been a benign intervention in the history of a troubled and warlike world--Earth.
But is the Preservers' intent really benign?McCoy thought it through. He could see the reason for Starfleet's concern. The evidence suggested that whoever or whatever the Preservers were, they had existed as a coherent society for more than two billion years--a time span longer than any known, extant, corporeal, sentient life-form that existed in the Alpha and Beta quadrants.

The proof was illustrated by the likely fate the tribal group on the Class-M planet would have suffered on Earth if they had not been abducted. The histories of a hundred different worlds contained examples of what happened during the initial stage of global exploration and expansion--when two cultures meet, the culture that is least technologically advanced seldom survives.

For all that Starfleet pressed for the ongoing exploration of the galaxy, it wasn't just McCoy who understood the unspoken question that accompanied each unexpected first contact: What would happen to the Federation when it finally met a more advanced culture that had no Prime Directive?
It's all about Kirk

Many of the Preservers' manipulations revolve around Captain Kirk. They may have intervened to give him command of the Enterprise early, and sent the Vulcans to meet Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight. Kirk and crew are stunned at the magnitude of these acts: the power to manufacture whole planets and arrange events eons in advance.

Our heroes even wonder if the Preservers created the Mirror Universe. As it turns out, no, but they anticipated its creation and used it in their plot. Again, the scope of their machinations is almost impossible to grasp.

Everything they've done has served to bring Kirk to a single time and place. Billions of years of scheming finally culminate in Kirk's meeting them and learning what they want.

What the Preservers believe

The Preservers disagree with the Federation's Prime Directive. Their philosophy is that moral beings must intercede to help each other. Their actions--spreading life and saving people from extinction--exemplify this credo.

They've chosen Kirk, who has never liked the Prime Directive, to convey their age-old beliefs. To be a new kind of "preserver." His career of aiding others stands as a rebuke to the Federation's hands-off policy. It signifies that the Federation must change its detached ways or suffer disastrous consequences.

This is a powerful conclusion because it ties together so many Trek threads: the many Earth-like races and worlds, Kirk's "luck" at being in the right place at the right time, and his ambivalence about the Prime Directive. And it all stems from one little story about a Native world. Because Kirk met and fell for Miramanee, the future of the galaxy has changed.

The Prime Directive in reality

Are Kirk and the Preservers right about the Prime Directive? You could apply this conundrum to America's history and see what you get. Are Indians better off because Europeans brought their arts and sciences and technology along with drink, disease, and death? Hard to say.

You could apply the conundrum to Iraq too. Are the Iraqi people better off with Saddam Hussein gone and their country in ruins? With the hope of democratic peace and the reality of civil war? Again, it's hard to say.

Preserver is a thought-provoker. Unfortunately, the nitty-gritty of its storytelling isn't quite as impressive as the big themes I've outlined. Still, it's a fine Star Trek novel.

Rob's rating:  8.0 of 10.

8 comments:

writerfella said...

Writerfella here --
Margaret Armen said she was much driven toward projectile vomitus once she read that particular 'novel.' Fortunately for writerfella, she loved "Brothers Of The Blood," where Picard meets the now-spacegoing People Of Miramanee and even gave him a flamboyant kiss at WesterCon 2005. So much for the STAR TREK novels, which are written for the market income rather than for the furtherance of ST itself...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'

Rob said...

From what I've heard of your proposed sequel to "The Paradise Syndrome," Preserver handled the subject better. In my humble opinion.

Margaret Armen should learn how to write Indians better. Her "Paradise Syndrome" is riddled with mistakes and stereotypes. The line about the Amerindians being "a mixture of Navajo, Mohican, and Delaware" is a real howler.

There's nothing inconsistent about furthering "Star Trek" and earning income from it. And since Gene Roddenberry, DC Fontana, David Gerrold, and William Shatner are among the ST novelists, I guess some ST novelists have decent motives. If these people are sellouts, so is everyone.

By the way, when was the last time you wrote a story without expecting to profit from it? Hmm?

writerfella said...

Writerfella here --
Since writerfella never will acquire nor read the ST novel, PRESERVER, such a work and its ostensible value are pointless. writerfella has stated heretofore that he only works in the STAR TREK universe and does not live there. And writerfella writes what more or less are pro bono articles and other such materials on continuous and regular bases, including posts on this blog, your other question is rendered pointless, as well.
Sometimes the points so made by certain persons can only be found atop that person's head...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'

Rob said...

You haven't read and won't read Preserver, but you arrogantly think you know best? That's Russ Bates in nutshell.

At least I base my opinions on what the critics say. You base yours on nothing.

Let me reiterate that William Shatner wrote Preserver. His concern for the Star Trek legacy is far deeper than Margaret Armen's. He's been associated with it for most of his acting life. It will be the thing he's remembered for for the rest of eternity.

Yet you think Armen cares more about Star Trek than Shatner does? Based on what...your fawning love of her "Paradise Syndrome" script? The fact that you can't look at her (or your) work critically says volumes about your mindset.

Really, your comments show a profound ignorance of the writing process in general and Star Trek reality in particular. Here's why:

Novels take something like 10 times as much time and effort as one-hour screenplays. And the ST novels have 10 times more research and depth than the original episodes did. Yet novelists earn only 1/10th as much as TV screenwriters--if they earn anything at all. (These numbers are only crude approximations, of course.)

But you think the ST novelists are doing it only for filthy lucre? While Roddenberry, Coon, Fontana, Justman, Gerrold, et al. had only lofty art in mind? Again, based on what, exactly?

When did your imaginary line between art and commerce come into existence? Were you thinking only of ST's beauty and honor and not your paycheck when you wrote your script? Was Rick Berman, the widely criticized producer of the later shows, thinking just like you? How about current producer J.J. Abrams?

Are you literally claiming that only the novelists have had commercial motives? And not the people doing the TV shows or movies? Even though Roddenberry, Fontana, and Gerrold wrote ST novels also?

How stupid and illogical can you get? I don't need to ask to know you can't and won't justify this worthless opinion. Instead you'll come up with your umpteenth way of saying, "I give up. Rob wins another debate."

If you've learned one thing about Trek since your salad days, it isn't obvious. You don't "visit" the ST world, you fantasize (your version of) it in your own mind. Like some old man in a rocking chair, you wheeze about the good ol' days as if that's all that matters.

Rob said...

I said write a story, not "pro bono articles and other such materials." You don't write fiction for the love of art and neither did Gene Roddenberry or Margaret Armen.

Incidentally, "The Paradise Syndrome" got a couple of votes for the worst episode of TOS and no votes for the best episode. That confirms my opinion that it's in the middle of the pack at best.

writerfella said...

Writerfella here --
writerfella does know one thing about critics and critiques: if you get mixed reviews, you had to have been doing something right. All good reviews or all bad reviews cannot be good news and only can be bad news...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'

writerfella said...

Writerfella here --
POSTSCRIPTUM: writerfela in the past did an adaptation of scenes from a famous play about Cherokees (title slips the mind right now) so that high school students could perform them at their level of budget and understanding. Plus, he adapted his 'Rite Of Encounter' for high school performances and was electrified when he saw the first such performance at Ft. Sill Indian School just before it was closed in 1979. Past that time, it has been performed scores of times in the US and in Canada by Native students, and writerfella allowed it at no fee or residual. The Writers Guild of America west was not pleased...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'

Rob said...

Well, the review I gave Preserver was somewhat mixed. I didn't dwell on its shortcomings, but I could've written a few paragraphs on them. I guess Shatner the author must be doing something right.