Friday, January 23, 2009

Heavy-handed Social Metaphors That Were Never Used in Star Trek

An overpopulated planet of immortals where ABORTION is MANDATORY.

CAPTAIN PICARD in a desperate attempt to stop a PLANET BOMB must TORTURE a KLINGON to disarm it. The BOMB goes off anyway and PICARD must WRESTLE with his broken moral CODE.

The OBESE, ACNE-RIDDLED emperor of an alien planet is EMBARRASSED that his THIN, BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER does not conform to his SOCIETY'S STANDARD OF BEAUTY. SHE and RIKER have a THING.

A planet on which marriage BETWEEN THE SEXES is ILLEGAL and only HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGES are ALLOWED.

A VOYEUR PLANET where everyone is always on TV. The CREW of the ENTERPRISE almost starts a CIVIL WAR when they defend the privacy of the LAST UN-TELEVISED entity on BETA 3. SHE and RIKER have a THING.

The Q CONTINUUM INVADE and OCCUPY the EARTH and attempt to force the Federation into ENLIGHTENED GODHOOD. Only after the release of HORRIFIC PICTURES of the ABUSE of the CREW of the ENTERPRISE do the Continuum withdraw in shame.

A planet where all COMMERCE, WAR, and LOVE are performed in an an ONLINE GAME.
DATA must attain 95th LEVEL KNIGHTHOOD in order to DETERMINE the WHEREABOUTS of a FERENGI SPY. WESLEY has CYBERSEX with a TAUREN of UNKNOWN GENDER
and BRAGS to WORF that he has "LOST his VIRGINITY."

A planet of FREE and FREQUENT sexual relations. The CREW of the ENTERPRISE must negotiate a TRADE PACT with the alien leaders. GEORDI still STRIKES OUT.

This was written in tandem with my writing partner Remi T., or as I like to call him, "The Gooch." -joe

5 comments:

  1. There should be an asterisk next to the title to the effect that neither of us are sure NONE of these ham-handed metaphors have been used on Star Trek.

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  2. I especially like the planet bomb one.

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  3. You neglected to mention that in #4, Riker has a THING with one of the poor beknighted straight women on the planet. Which totally happened.

    Also, #8 totally happened, except without the trade pact. And with an even worse heavy-handed social metaphor. And it was a Wesley-centric Prime Directive episode. So yeah. (But Geordi totally STRUCK OUT.)

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  4. Thanks, Fred!

    Martin: After a discussion with my much-more-Trek-obsessed-than-I neighbor I'm pretty sure most of these have at least been touched on in either original-flavor or TNG Trek, but it was a fun excercise in genre tropes and capitalization.

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  5. I liked this so much I put it on our blog. NOW YOU WILL BE FAMOUS.

    http://oakglasses.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/really-andy-should-be-writing-this-post/

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