The many are energized to stop the power of the few and the one
By Spocko
Star Trek often told stories about power.
The 1960’s weren’t that far away from World War II. Some of the lessons learned about fighting Nazi’s and fascists could to be reinforced, since over time people forget.
They also had stories of how new technology could upset the balance of power. I spotted a Writing Prompt on Reddit that inspired me to write a Star-Trek like story about technology, people and power. Here’s the prompt:
Researchers have developed a prototype for teleportation but it hasn’t been announced to the public. Being the 53rd tester, you hop in. But as the scientists pull the switch, you feel your body being ripped apart. Before you fade away, you see yourself come out, reassuring everyone it worked.
My science fiction story takes place in the near future:
Yes I am a Star Trek fan. A HUGE one. I’ve written as “Spocko” for over 20 years. When an announcement of the human teleportation trials came out my brother and I volunteered. Of course I had read why teleportation was created in Star Trek. To save money! Gene Roddenberry knew they couldn’t afford to make shuttlecraft sets and flying down to the planets every week slowed down the plot. Thus, the transporter was born. Here’s how they did the special effect for the cameras.
Since Gene had gotten so much right about the future from multiple races and genders working together to the creation of communicators, universal translators and tablet computers, we figured teleportation had to be next. Signing up was a no brainer.
The trial was funded by the United States government, out of the Department of Energy but it was run by a venture capitalist billionaire buddy of Elon Musk. That was cool since, like other Redditors, I’m a huge fan of Elon.
And without Uncle Sam’s red tape slowing things down everything moved incredibly fast. Raytheilion, the company created for the project, said they made more progress in 2 years than all the previous government efforts had in the past 20.
The day of the test I was reminded of something John Glenn said when asked how he felt before his first rocket flight.
‘I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of 2 million parts — all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.’
I was nervous, but excited, no lowest bid government contract here! I was number 53, but all of the volunteers were kept separate and we weren’t told how the other trials had gone. It was all standard double-blind study stuff.
When I went into the lab I saw two pods, lots of cameras and some VIPs that I assumed were investors.
The pods looked a bit like they were from the movie The Fly with a big glass door in the front.
When I got in the pod closest to me I found the inside was much smaller than the outside, it was like a reverse Tardis from Dr. Who.
The techs closed and sealed the door. It quickly filled with a decontamination mist. I was supposed to breathe it in, but I held my breath. I couldn’t see anything and it felt like I was spinning. There was a loud vacuum pumping sound, which made my skin feel like it was tearing off me. My ears popped and there was a blinding flash of light like in the ending of movie The Prestige.
When I opened my eyes it was dark. All I saw was a sliver of light outlining the door in front of me. I shouted and pounded on the door, but the pod was sound proof. I pushed my face up against the edge of the door and saw the monitor showing the whole room and the two pods.
The video feed from the camera pointed at my pod showed it was empty. The camera pointing at the other pod showed someone inside. It was my twin brother, whom I hadn’t seen since we started the trials. He came out smiling and saying something to the scientists and investors.
SON OF A BITCH! It was all a goddamn trick!
Instead of being teleported I had been spun around and was now standing behind a front-surfaced mirror reflecting the side of the pod making it look empty. It was a text-book “smoke and mirrors” trick.
After hearing some talking and what sounded like celebrating the lab got quiet. The two techs opened the door. They knew I hadn’t teleported, what they didn’t know was that I was conscious and had peered around the edge of the mirror, saw my twin in the other pod and had figured out the trick.
They opened the door and said “Sorry, Spocko, we aborted the test, we’ll try again later. Go get some rest.” I did my best to look disappointed and headed back to my dorm.
All science fiction fans know the Arthur C. Clarke quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” but what most people don’t know is the Randi corollary, attributed to the skeptic and magician James Randi, who noted that laymen and scientists were often tricked by fake psychics like Uri Geller, or con men who sold perpetual energy machines which were really clever magic tricks.
“Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.”
-The Randi Corollary
I should have known this was a scam. The VC wasn’t an engineer, he was a money guy and libertarian. Libertarians hate government oversight. With no oversight they just created some tricks to keep the government money flowing.
As they said on Battlestar Galactica, “All of this had happened before and will happen again.” Like Reagan’s Star Wars program, human teleportation was a scam designed to get money out of the Government.
I’m lying on my bed in my dorm room with my back to the “health monitoring camera” writing this on tiny scraps of paper. Maybe this can be smuggled out to some journalist before the staff figures out what I saw. If they believe me their life will be in danger. But more likely this will be dismissed as an attempt to get back at the funders after what happened to Gawker.
It will be called fake news. After all, I don’t have any evidence of my story. It would be my word against a powerful group of financially successful men.
If I point out all the other people shut up with perfectly legal NDAs who don’t want to talk I will look like a conspiracy theorist. Nobody is looking out for me, people will say, I knew what I was getting into. But I didn’t know they were lying to everyone! I figured someone would have busted them by now. I didn’t count on all the people getting rich on the deal to keep their mouths shut.
I thought a scientist whistleblower would have come forward by now. But I guess after they have seen how whistleblowers are attacked and destroyed it makes sense they would keep their head down.
I was a tech guy who believed in the “power of the market” to fix things. I used to joke about “Good enough for government work.” Right now I WISH there was some kind of government watchdog looking out for me…
—end–
And now here is the “bonk, bonk on the head” moral of the story, Star Trek style, because you can’t be obvious enough sometimes.
The reason that the government is involved in oversight and regulation of businesses and science isn’t to hamper entrepreneurs who want to make progress. It’s to protect us.
Centuries ago, we the people got together and decided to elected some folks to protect us. We accepted the military as protectors, but there are other ways to protect citizens than the military. We need protection from contaminated food, rigged drug tests, dangerous experiments and out of control ego maniacs.
We need regulations, regulators, and inspectors who aren’t beholden to the companies they inspect.
To put it in a classic Star Trek form:
- We need our institutions to serve the needs of the many, not the few or the one.
- We need a free press to show the world what happens when a system is broken, rigged or corrupt.
- We need a justice system that puts the rule of law above the rule of power and money.
In a few Star Trek original series stories there were beings with tremendous power who acted like children and abused their power.
In The Squire of Gothos in the third act “The Adults” came in and stopped Trelane, the powerful being. That scene was the Hollywood ending that we crave. They punished him and apologized to the crew for the damage he had done. (I love how Trelane whines when his parents take him away. “But why? I didn’t do anything wrong. I was winning, I was winning! You saw!” Sound like anyone you see on TV?)
Yes it’s Deus ex Machina, but the good news is that we can get some of that ending. We need to remember that the Democrats are The Adults, not the Republicans. The Republicans have shown time and time again they fail in their duty to protect the many and instead act to serve the needs of the few and the one–themselves.
In the show when powerful child-like beings were being stopped, they whined and cried. The powerful child-like beings didn’t apologize for any damage they have done because they don’t think they did anything wrong.
After the election there will be people on the left and newly elected Democrats who won’t want to punish the GOP for their role in enabling this dangerous child with power. They will let them resign and sail off onto Lobbying World.
They will want to act like Obama and look to the future and move on. But as we have learned, there must be punishment for power abuses and law breaking. And, if something wasn’t a law, but a norm that was ignored, we need to turn that into a law.
We need to include people who knew about the crimes, had the power to stop them, but didn’t.
Failure to act to protect the people, and allowing criminal acts to continue might be difficult to prove, but one of the things that we have learned during this time of widespread corruption is there are many law-breaking avenues to follow.
The right’s projection onto Hillary Clinton and Benghazi tells us a lot about what they are guilty of. Their attacks on George Soros, who and what he funds tells us what to look for on their side.
If we don’t investigate and prosecute the problem will never stop.
In the episode, Charlie X Kirk wanted to train Charlie to use his power, but the Thasians knew that Charlie couldn’t be trained to use his power wisely, “He will use it and he will destroy you and your kind or you will be forced to destroy him.” So they took Charlie away.
I believe in American’s ability to defeat powerful child-like men. If they can’t use the power given them wisely, they need to go away.
These people won’t give up power easily, they will throw tantrums, lie, bully, point fingers and cry. “I was winning!” and “You’ll reap the whirlwind if you take me out of power!” But we are The Adults in this story. Time’s up for these children.
LLAP,
Spocko
@spockosbrain