Don’t you ever wonder why so many Federation starships in Star Trek suffer weirdly-timed meltdowns? Sure, it’s television, but shouldn’t there be a real reason for all the shenanigans? For all that really weird engineering?
There is. And that reason is simple–humans are ridiculous. And wonderful. But also ridiculous.
It started as a harmless headcanon on Tumblr by prokopetz:
Which was magnified by a perfect shout-out to Back to the Future:
Then roachpatrol swooped in to explain why no one else wants the Chief Engineer spot on the Enterprise:
underscorex helpfully provided some context, pointing out humanity’s greatest strength/weakness:
Then the Vulcans explained to the Klingons why humans are given a weird free pass to run things:
To help elucidate the point, dragon-in-a-fez brought evidence from both Deep Space 9 and the USS Pegasus:
The sheer horror of MacGuyver was expounded upon:
And Captain Picard’s flawless (read: incredibly flawed but beautiful) plan in First Contact was put into perspective:
And there you have it. The reason why everything works the way it does on Star Trek. Because we’re constantly plugging warp cores into each other just to go have a fight with our alternate universe counterparts. It’s not our fault–it’s how humans get things done. We go where no sane person has gone before!
[Via Imgur]
In Spock’s World, this is pretty much K’s’t’lk’s argument for why the Vulcans should not drop out of the Federation.
Also, I’m not the person to write it, but I think there’s gotta be a Stargate riff in this vein that’s worth making. Didn’t Carter get a reputation for Weird Science tricks that had no excuse for working, but worked anyway?
Zephram Cochrane: “I know we just had this nuclear war that devastated our science and government infrastructure, and I’m drunk, but let’s bolt a cockpit and two warp engines on this nuclear missile and see if we can go faster than lightspeed. That would be so FUCKING AWESOME!”
I actually do want to live in this future. I wish this were canon. This is even more hopeful and optimistic than Gene’s TNG Utopia in a way. This future is bright and awesome and full of fun.
It sounds so much fun when you have stuff like:
That button I wasn’t supposed to press? I pressed it. There are giant terror-squid which devour souls in the basement now, but the good news is the ink they squirt cures cancer and lets you fly! So, win?
Star Trek example:
Galactic community: So we’ve discovered warp drive destroys the universe and we all have to go slow now.
Human response: How about if we have the engines tilt up a little and see if that fixes it?
Galactic Community: That cannot possibly work, don’t be ridiculous.
Humans: Hey, look at our new Intrepid class, we tilted the engines slightly and like problem solved!
Or:
GC: Oh no, a giant cylinder is destroying Earth, what will we do?
Kirk: I’m gonna take this stolen Klingon Kia that we barely know how to fly and was dispensing poison food up until last week, and I’m gonna time travel into the past convince some whales to come back with us, abduct a marine biologist, and let the two crew drunks change the course of history by giving out futuristic tech. So no worries, right?
It’s a pity the Voyager episode “Treshold” has been made non-canon, because it’s actually a perfect example of this:
‘So hey, we figured out a way to go really really fast that defies the laws of physics. Let’s try it out on one of our bridge officers!’
And then they broke evolution.
In other words, humans in space are teenage boys.
If it’s OK with everyone else in this thread, I’m just gonna make some popcorn and wait for Keith DeCandido and Christopher L. Bennett to show up.
This article is a thing of infinitessimal beauty in its illogical logic streams. Makes more sense than V’ger, honestly….
In the Trek universe, after World War III, all that survives of the James Bond franchise (and I mean the actual James Bond franchise, not Julian Bashir’s holoprograms) are the scenes taking place in the Q lab. Humans recovering from a catastrophic war discovered these scenes and mistakenly assumed them to be documentaries.
Thus, all Federation science functions like a Q lab… inspired, ultimately successful, but quite daft and leaving the observer wondering what possessed someone to pursue some experiments in the first place.
I like this, it’s the tech version of Sisko managing to instruct an utterly alien form of life in the finer points of thinking in a whole new dimension using Earth’s most boring sport, while managing to get free therapy in the process.
I read the title and thought “this sounds like a waste of time”.
And it is awesome.
Sorry to derail the conversation and post somewhat off-topic (but Star Trek related, I assure you!)….
I just watched the third episode of the tv show ‘Timeless’ tonight. No prior info about this show or anything. Oh, wow. There was a guy on there from a SINGLE episode of STNG playing a similar character.
It’s a cool and clever time travel show. I came to tor.com to see what people are saying about the show and was dismayed to find no coverage. One example of the cleverness is the actor they brought from Next Generation Star Trek and how they use him. I’m being intentionally vague because recognizing him is such a delight when you watch the show. Apparently he’s also in the first one or two episodes as well as the third, but that’s all I’ll say. It would nice to see a post about this new TV show. Fingers crossed NBC keeps it on the air!
Please resume other scholarly discussion of Star Trek…
seth
“A chronometric-flux toaster that toast bread after you’ve eaten it. ” — I’m going to laugh about this for days!
And then someone stole it for RED DWARF.
Great article. It struck me part way through that it also offers a brilliantly simple explanation for Doctor Who. Specifically, why The Doctor hangs around Earth so much, and why all alien races seem to have a thing about our otherwise insignificant little planet: to humans he’s basically us, only much better; to everyone else, including the Time Lords, he’s the most dangerous thing in the universe and we are like juvenile versions of him.
And don’t get me started on Galaxy Quest…
Related, this is why I never got bothered by stories (like, to pick the most obvious example, Star Wars) where the all-destroying superweapon has one crucial and obvious flaw. I am not bothered by this because I know a little about the history of human-built all-destroying superweapons, and the only non-credible bit about “We found one crucial flaw in the Death Star design” is that no one in the briefing room said “Wait, only one?” The Royal Navy built HMS Dreadnought, a revolutionary new battleship that instantly made all other warships obsolete, and put the bridge (where the captain sees out from) immediately behind the funnel (which produces lots of thick smoke that you can’t see through). And then they realised their mistake for the next batch and corrected it, and then made the same mistake again for the batch after that. Humans are just bad at industrial design.
My own headcanon is that the Death Star project started as a design study into creating a cheap, versatile replacement for the TIE Fighter and then the Imperial Office of Defence Procurement just kept changing the spec to add more features.
That is not actually too far from what happened to German tank design in WWII…first rule, never give Hitler the blueprints.
zwol @1
“You blow up one star..”
Han Solo might be the best engineer in the Star Wars universe, simply for making the statement “There’s always a way to blow these things up, right?” He immediately knows the flaw must exist, whereas umpteen First Order engineers putting their heads together never cite it in their risk analysis. Chief Bast gets props, but only for thinking there was a slightly better chance of uncovering an engineering flaw in post-analysis than presuming the Rebels believe a handful of x-wings can shoot down a Death Star. And I’ll bet he had to flip a coin.
@16 – don’t forget General Tagge :)
My take on why humans are central in Star Trek is that humans are the “youngest” species, still striving to find their place. The other races are “older” and have mostly “grown up”. It is only thru sheer exuberance that humanity has managed to rise to the heights it has; not the smartest, not the fastest, nor the strongest. Just the most willing to push the limits and ignore the stuffy old people’s rules. Yeah, sometimes the results are catastrophic and you wrap your Mustang around a tree, but sometimes its epic like that road trip you and your friends took to Myrtle Beach over spring break in your senior year.
I’ve always thought of the founding races in Star Trek as family members we all have or know –
Vulcans – your fussy aunt. You know, the one with plastic covers on the furniture, who keeps a candy dish full of hard candy that has long since melded together into a hard glob. She’s nice enough, but doesn’t get your jokes and thinks you’re still 5 years old. She never married and collects salt and pepper shakers. You see her once a year at Thanksgiving. She brings green bean casserole every year.
Romulans – your other aunt. The one who backpacked Europe in the 60’s and came home full of stories and whispered secrets. She wears funny clothes and your mom won’t let you stay over at her house because she might corrupt you. Her and your fussy aunt used to be inseparable but haven’t spoken for 40 years because of a stolen boyfriend, who she dumped 3 months later.
Klingons – your uncle Mark. He drinks a 12 pack every night after work and gets into random fights over which football team is better. He’s been married 5 times and has never connected the dots, somehow blaming the women for his troubles. Sad thing is he used to be your favorite uncle until he turned into a complete a**hole who went thru life looking for a fight.
Andorians – your cousin Tommy. He’s from the big city up north and has a funny accent. He’s a little hotheaded at times but seems like a guy you could drink a beer with, as long as you don’t mention the Yankees.
Tellurites – your uncle Mark’s kid by his 2nd wife. You met him once at Christmas. He was belligerent, boorish, and wore a Yankees baseball cap at the dinner table. He and Tommy didn’t get along.
I clicked the link, with expectations of some sort of quasi-scholarly article. What I got was soooooo much better!
Loved – Klingons: …Can we be part of your Federation?
@1 – To push the Stargate example a bit further – don’t forget that some of Sam Carter’s best ideas come from Jack O’Neill one-liners. This seems entirely consistent with the thesis…
@21: “This seems entirely consistent with the thesis…” You mean the part on how MacGyver is the equivalent of Vulcan vintage human horror television? It seems Richard Dean Anderson’s characters are destined to become memetic badasses for alien cultures…
I’m reminded of the scene in “Trials and Tribble-ations” where the DS9 crew are on the original Enterprise and Chief O’Brien has just opened a service-access hatch:
“I’m afraid to touch anything. It’s all cross-circuited and patched together – I can’t make head nor tails of it.”
@6: I need to get some popcorn and reread all this. So much fun!
Humans – Team F*#K this! Hold my beer. Funny in this context. So frustrating when you’re left holding the beer too often.
@18, ragnarredbeard This assessment is sheer genius and should be read in conjunction with the main article. Also, I think Enterprise supports your theory about why the humans are so central in the Federation. They’re the only species without a long history and tons of baggage.
@14. One of the old Star Wars RPG books had a list of Rebel Alliance slang/code. My favourite was “Star Destroyer: 2700 design flaws waiting to be exploited.”
A friend posted this Tumblr thread on FB yesterday and it does explain ST remarkably well. I loved the bit about the VSA and the Klingons.
A similar concept shows up in John Ringo’s Troy Rising series. One human points out that if it’s crazy/stupid and it works, then it’s not all that crazy/stupid. A galactic AI says that humans are the only species in the known galaxy with that saying, or even that concept. Everyone else stops at crazy, we use crazy as a starting point and head straight to flipping insane.
@18 ragnarredbeard, to continue the list.
Ferengi – Your grandpa’s nephew. He’s a tax accountant and is obsessed with his own stock portfolio, to the point of talking you out of your own investments just to ensure he’s limiting the competition as much as possible. His suit is tailored but always seems to look greasy when you stand next to him. You know other family members talk about him behind his back, but never say much to his face. You wonder about this until you see him empty his pockets and realize he’s been carrying a .380 in one and an ice pick in the other.
Cardassians – Your other uncle, Clive. The one who served four tours with the Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. A complete and total harda**. He hated the people there for “religious reasons.” But you find you can’t help but like him because his home bar is stocked with more varieties of Cabernet than you even knew existed and he has art pieces on his wall that – he confides in you after an evening drinking together – he helped smuggle out of Baghdad. He and Mark glare at each other over the dinner table when your family gets together and you know that if no one else was around, the room would be in shambles within 5 minutes, both of them dripping blood on the carpet.
@5 It seems to me that a disproportionate fraction of inventors/ discoverers are young men. And without much caution…
I have nothing to say because I’m too busy laughing my ass off. This is brilliant………..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@27 youngheart80
Thank you for the additions. They are spot on.
This confirmed a lot of my suspicions! A rewatch of TNG episodes led me to wonder how many times the Federation flagship either picked up technical problems from other space vessels, or caused them through the transporter, scans, or power transfers. How they managed to convince so many ambassadors to board – given their terrible track record on diplomatic missions – is beyond me.
It occurs to me that this isn’t how much of humanity does things. We may be projecting a bit much.
a1ay @14-
I’m sure you mean HMS Dreadnought had the fire control top/ foremast behind the forward stack (where the mast was also heated by the gases), not the bridge.
You know, I´ve had this deep philosophical thought all those years, that all the different aliens from sci-fi franchises help humanity to define itself. Who we are. As a species. What do we value most – Vulcan-like logic or Klingon-like honor, etc. And I thought: But we’re sort of… a bit of everything, really, but nothing special…
I was wrong. This is the truth about humanity: we are crazy!
I love this idea and pretty much everything about this article and comments. :)
(Also, I just had a thought: how fun would it be if humans in Star Trek (or any sci-fi) met aliens that are just as crazy. Would we hate them? Would we become best friends? Would they want us to become part of their Federation?)
@29 krad: But @6 and I were waiting with popcorn…
I don’t often see the “Favorites” feature being used here, but we’re up to 27 now, lol. Nice job, Emily.
To quote Voltaire:
Isn’t this also basically David Brin’s take on humanity in his Uplift Series? Insignificant, no Patron, primitive tech, and we manage to uplift two Earth species regardless.
#32 – @sps49:
Yes and no. The truth is that if it’s crazy and/or stupid, 99% of the time it doesn’t work. But there are people who always try the crazy / stupid regardless. (We usually call them Darwin Award nominees.) It’s that glorious 1% that we celebrate. Most of our advances are built on the shoulders of giants, but every now and then someone gets there by driving a motorcycle off a ramp and jumping off onto a trampoline with rockets strapped to their back while the rest of us hold their beer.
*giggles*
Oh thank you, thank you for this. This is hilarious and I love it forever.
@36 Technically it’s 3 species, though the third one decided we need someone to watch us so that we didn’t do anything too stupid, and selected a different more powerful patron with eons of history and a mailed fist to match.
The Mote in God’s Eye says the same thing about humans. It provides a great fun house mirror view of humanity this way: Our first encounter with another intelligent race is with Moties. They live in rigid casts of warriors and drones ruled over by ruthless mob bosses. Their existence is a constant struggle to eat, breed, and fight which inevitably leads to complete societal collapse in cycles repeated for hundreds of thousands of years. (Whole chunks of their planet are glazed over from thousands of nuclear wars.) The only way society advances is that occasionally a “Crazy Eddie” comes along who believes things can be different and tries something crazy. After encountering humans, one of the Moties concludes (in disgust) that we are an entire race of “Crazy Eddies”, weak, reckless, impractical, and naively hopeful.
I still want the coffee maker. Now.
The humans lead the Federation because they are capable of the Vulcans’ logic, the Andorians’ deviousness, the Tellarites’ stubbornness, with the Klingons’ bloodlust and the Romulans’ organization thrown in the mix.
It’s human-centered because, well, it’s about human characters flying around in what amounts to a submarine in space. What I’ve noticed is how utterly on their own starships usually are, cut off from supplies and repairs, they can’t call for help half the time, is it any wonder their crews occasionally go a little batty?
I’ve always liked Quark’s response to Nog, who’s enamored of Starfleet and the Federation, about hew-mans in Deep Space Nine. They may be nice and polite on the surface, but take away their replicators and technology…
Quark was there watching in horror as the hoo-mans stopped swilling root beer and got down to business weaponizing the enemies’ spy system (then again, he’s probably the only Ferengi to get the drop on a Jem’Hadar, so that boy is Not Right either).
@32 No, we’re not all like that, but there’s a distinct tendency to want to do it our own way, a tendency which society spends our educational period emphasizing and actively cultivating and then the rest of our lives trying to mitigate with practicality. 80/20 rule as applied to human personalities. I have a tool that will do 80% of what you need and everyone else is already using it so you can have it now and for practically free. No, the 20% it doesn’t do is suddenly what’s important, even if it was fairly minor.
Or in shorter form “I don’t have time to read the directions. They’re never any good anyway.”
Why humans? It’s like when Q was questioning Picard in his ready room, discussing why the human race should be tolerated among the universe. Picard read a quote from Shakespeare. Q said, “Surely you don’t see yourselves as God?” Picard responds that he sees humanity becoming *like* gods, and then realizes THAT’S what troubles the Q Continuum: the insatiable drive and curiosity that humans and humanity possess, the ability to learn and adapt, to someday surpass even the Q.
This made me laugh out loud several times! Given that I usually take my Star Trek waaaay too seriously, that’s an incredible accomplishment. :-)
I thought the reason was Human actors were all Roddenberry had to work with.
I think this is pretty much canon now, via Enterprise. Just pay attention to what the others say about the humans.
Shran, for instance: “Never push the pink-skins onto the thin ice.” And, lo and behold, they fly their puny litte tub into the middle of a massive fleet battle between powers whose smallest and oldest serving warships still massively outmatch…and then proceed to actually end the fighting.
Another instance would be Phlox talking about how the Denobulans used genetic engineering to great positive effect and how absolutely horrified he is about how we used it (“Let’s just make a perfect human by turning all our characteristics up to eleven, what’s the worst that could happen?“)
@47 “We had our genes custom built to go to 11”
It’s interesting how much scifi revolves around the basic premise of:
Aliens: An immense star system destroying threat has been eating the galaxy, we’ve fought it with technology you couldn’t comprehend if you gave you comic book explanations for 6 million years and lost constantly, we just came to warn you that you’re next, despite the fact you live in what we would consider grass huts and and are at a societal level that we don’t really even have discussion of in our ancient history text books mentions of other books they considered to be ancient history texts, cause we’re jerks that way. Just thought you might want to go through a period of prayer and reflection before you solar system is destroyed, K?
Us: What’s that thing?
Aliens: Uh, this is what you might call a socket wrench, based on what I know of what you laughingly call technology.
Us: Cool, can I haz it?
Aliens: Sure kid, I feel sorry for you, knock yourself out. Go unbolt something.
Aliens fleet is backed up to earth by the bad thing.
Aliens: WTF? Where the hell did you get an entire fleet of super-dreadnaughts? And WTH is that weapon that just burned a hole through the alien fleet?!
Humans: We fiddled with you socket wrench, accidentally blew a hole in Kansas, discovered a new particle or two, narrowly avoided destroying the universe and realized there was some cool things you could do. After we destroy this six million year old threat, we need to talk about your system of government and the way you do research.
Aliens: Find the guy that gave them the wrench, promote him, give him a medal, then kill him.
If Macguyver is Vulcan vintage horror, what’s Mythbusters?
@50 Klingon Engineering Doctorate material.
This sounds like another exercise in human egotism and illusions.
Thank You,
I have people staring at me, for laughing inappropriately, but Thank You
The reason why Humans are central in STAR TREK and other science fiction shows is a mixture of budget realities, the glorification of Humanity and Human arrogance.
When we finally meet somebody else there will be stories about them. In the meantime, it’s hard to find actors that aren’t human.
@49, thing is our monkey heritage makes such a course of events surprisingly believable.
It’s almost four years later and I’m STILL laughing at “our assignment was to repair a phaser emitter and my one human classmate built a chronometric-flux toaster that toasts bread after you’ve eaten it.”
Whenever I need a laugh, I come back to that one.