Star Trek : Voyager

Sci-fi enjoying a second life on Netflix and aging well

 

With Netflix Canada recently posting all the Star Trek series, Trekkies have been enjoying some true 90's nostalgia with the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.  I was drawn back  to Voyager, and a recent episode in particular reminded me what I used to enjoy so much about this program.

Voyager follows the progress of a lone Federation ship trying to get home after being thrown across the Galaxy by a particularly inconsiderate but powerful alien. For it's time Voyager was noticeable straight-away for its' female captain, and notable other characters including a holographic doctor and a rescued Borg drone. Like most star treks of the 90's, the special effects and tone remain remarkably relevant even 20 years later. It's worth pointing out for example that the ipad-like devices that crewmen use on Federation ships were nowhere near to us in 1996. The nano-probes that often featured in Borg episodes remain a tantalising possibility in medicine. Star Trek was visionary in its inspiration for much future tech, not just high-level theory about worm-holes.

More pertinently, like most Star Trek productions, Voyager consistently tackled relevant and difficult  issues in society,  usually in a provocative and humane manner. It was the idealism, optimism and intelligence of Star Trek that drew in most viewers, and I suggest will continue to do so as the world undergoes further growing pains. Here's hoping to a future that one day contains something like the Federation, when we have conquered poverty, division, and left the likes of Putin and Trump long behind !  

In 'Critical Care' (season 5 episode 7), a little slower and more thoughtful episode,  the ship's holographic doctor is stolen ( or rather kidnapped ; he is a sophisticated A.I) . In perhaps a take on human trafficking, he is forced into service in a highly stratified society. As ever, Roberto Picardo puts in an entertaining performance as the opera singing and paradoxically emotional hologram. Soon realizing that this society rations medical care according to a computer algorithm that determines 'usefulness', the doctor aims to shake things up. The analogy to 90's America could not be more obvious. Hilary Clinton, the First Lady at the time, was trying (and failing)  to bolster health care for the less fortunate in society.The doctor seeks to equalize the situation in a more mundane way. Given duty on the top floor, where the elites use resources on youth restoring treatments, the doctor fudges patient records in order to sneak life-saving drugs downstairs. The theft and deception seem obviously justified. Should the American health care system now consider how many surgeons perform cosmetic surgery as opposed to life-saving treatments ?

At first it seems the doctor is making a difference. A promising youth is saved and a local doctor converted to the subterfuge. It isn't long however before the supervisor, an economizing bureaucrat, busts up the doctors schemes.  The promising youth of earlier dies, and it turns out the doctor is partly responsible. The rations allocated to the lower floor have now been exhausted. Has the doctor just made things worse?  The defence given by the supervisor is almost persuasive. A water engineer is responsible for providing thousands with drinking water ; surely, with limited resources,  their medical attention should take priority ?  At first, the idea of being reduced to a mere number ( a 'Treatment Coefficient' ) and treated accordingly seemed abhorrent, but the supervisor's defence sows some doubt. In true Star Trek fashion, Voyager offers no easy answers, only provokes thought and suggests these are issues worth considering. The death of the young man downstairs though, perhaps hints that we should treat everybody  equally because of our potential. If Star Trek was about anything, it was about potential, of both individuals and all intelligent life.

Eventually the Doctor concocts a plan to strong-arm the supervisor into allowing the care of lower status patients, but it's an unsatisfactory solution ; ethically dubious, and no long-term answer. Finally, inevitably rescued by Voyager ( dealing with their own slightly morally dubious interrogation of the Doctor's thief - is mild torture to rescue a valuable innocent justified ? ), the Doctor asks Torres the engineer to check his program. It turns out he is functioning perfectly, and his morally questionable action to harm an individual to save others seems to be an evolution of his A.I. More questions are raised ; how might A.I eventually evolve beyond its' original programming, and should a moral decision ever involve sacrificing an individual to save the majority ? Is it true indeed, that "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"? 

If you're a 'young-un' who never caught Voyager first time round, it's worth a look. It dodged the stumbling of the Next Generation in Season One, and did not degenerate into the drawn out war that made Deep Space Nine a bit of a drag in the end. Voyager was an  interesting vehicle for exploring some of the challenges of gobalization, clashing cultures and the rise of technology in society. Perhaps it's nostalgia from me, who watched this during my university years, but the series seems to be aging well.