House of Eratosthenes

This blog, which nobody reads anyway, makes occasional and vague references to the contrast between the two famous starship captains James Tiberius Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard. Perhaps this requires some explanation.

Picard was designated as the successor to Kirk. This worked out great, commercially, not quite so well in the practice of developing the central message of Star Trek. One of the habits Picard had that was particularly irritating to “real” fans of Star Trek, like me, was his infernal habit of negotiating things. Of course, that is a starship captain’s job; it is the job of Star Trek to advance an agenda of talking problems out, preventing their descension into armed conflict. Kirk did this too. Star Trek, from Day One, supported a value system that involved finding common ground and preventing bloodshed over cultural conflicts.

My resentment toward the Bald One had to do with his proclivity for settling upon a strategy of diplomacy unilaterally. Beneath the hairless scalp, he would get an itch between his ears that a lowering-of-the-shields would be the only thing needed to get the discussions underway. In effect, a willingness to talk the differences out, was bound to be returned, boomerang-style, regardless of the alien culture encountered. If I lower the ship’s defense shield, there’s no way that nasty alien would fire on us. No way. What, are they nuts???

And of course it must work, because the Enterprise-D emerged intact every time.

Well for many among us, this didn’t fit in Star Trek lore. In reply to the “are they nuts” question, above, sometimes the answer is: Hell, yes. It’s the final frontier. We’re combing a galaxy; it’s a big thing; of course there’s nutty stuff in it. Kirk took this into account. When he negotiated, his hostiles weren’t so willing to negotiate (although, their command of the English language was quite remarkable) — and so a good chunk of the story had to do with how it became possible to negotiate. And when I say “a good chunk” I mean, pretty much, all of it. One minute for the situation to develop, one minute to beam to the planet’s surface, two minutes for the nameless guy in the red shirt to die hideously, and a minute-and-a-half at the very end for McCoy to make a smartass remark to Spock just before the credits rolled. It’s fair to say every second sandwiched in between, minus commercials, some 45 minutes or more, had to do with why, and how, the belligerent alients were persuaded to talk things out instead of vaporizing the Enterprise out of existence. Usually, the belligerents were transformed into diplomats because of some kind of mutually-assured destruction. The actual talks, were nothing. Zero minutes for those. The story has to do with how the talks came about.

In the Next Generation, the belligerent aliens began negotiating because they were inspired by Picard’s example.

What a bunch of crap that is.

Star Trek is about plunging into the final frontier, and meeting “strange, new worlds” with a method of problem-solving that works everywhere. In Kirk’s time that meant knowing when to hold’em and knowing when to fold’em. This resonates with grown-ups; that does work everywhere. In Picard’s time, the message was that willingness to negotiate works everywhere. It’s contagious. Sorry, that’s just not necessarily so.

Picard would be defeated handily by his opposite. That would be the Looney Tunes Tazmanian Devil, a creature that possesses no high-mindedness, no diplomacy, no sense of strategy, at all whatsoever. He’d swallow Picard whole and spit out the Starfleet logo gold communicator chest-pin and four rank pips, with a loud burp. Why? Because diplomacy is an exchange that can’t be started until both sides agree to it. This was realized in the old episodes with Kirk, but it’s lost in the newer ones with Picard.

Kirk’s way really would work everywhere in the galaxy. In fact, Kirk once actually did take on the Tazmanian Devil. It was a giant lizard-like creature and Kirk built a cannon out of bamboo and blew that sucker away. Kirk 1, Taz 0.

This is a lesson the Bush administration could do some thinking about in negotiating with that “I’m a dinner jacket” guy over in Iran. This is not getting any coverage at all, to speak of; it is terribly important; and it’s just not going well.

Dinner Jacket is Taz, and we’re Picard. All the willingness to negotiate is on our side. Dinner Jacket lives in a world of chest-beating, might-makes-right, etc. Essentially, we’re negotiating with him when he hasn’t agreed to the negotiation process. His message to us, from what I gather, is “you guys just stand there and keep on talking, I’m going to go enrich some uranium.”

Iran’s president said Thursday his regime is ready for talks over its nuclear capabilities, but he sent mixed signals on how much is open for negotiation and suggested Tehran has the upper hand in its showdown with the West.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated Iran’s position that uranium enrichment is an untouchable national right, a clear jab at the West two days after Iran received a package of economic and technological incentives to suspend the program.

But he also offered some signs of flexibility without specifically mentioning the proposal. In a speech at an industrial city, he said Iran would hold dialogue on “mutual concerns” with foreign powers � including the United States � if they took place “free from threats.”

Therein lies the problem with diplomacy. It is an exchange that places a premium value on refined strategy and positive results, but the diplomat with the least-refined strategy obtains the most positive results.

What’s that over there? It’s a pile of Tazmanian-Devil dung with four rank pips stuck in it.

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Picard vs. The Tazmanian DevilFriday, June 9th, 2006

Picard vs. The Tazmanian Devil
Friday, June 9th, 2006