The Passage of Time

Firstly, the elephant in the room. There have been a few Fridays since my last post. As it turns out, I can't force these posts and instead I need to let my thoughts percolate until they're ready to go. Who knew that deadlines are hard for me? (Turns out, literally everybody knew that...) Anyway, let's jump right into today's theme - potential.

Since I last wrote, I've watched a couple episodes. In fact, I've recently gotten a few episodes into season two having just finished "Minefield" (Season 2 Episode 3). As the first season ended and the second began, the trend of self-awareness that has been increasing since the premier has continued to, well, increase. It seems that Captain Archer is just beginning to recognize that his actions have both short and long term consequences that he had previously at best been unaware of and at worst decided to ignore. There are a couple of key bits of information that hint at this transformation.

One glimpse of this occurs in the episode "Desert Crossing." In this particular episode, Archer and Tripp are invited to a feast at a desert camp because Enterprise helped the leader of the camp with a spaceship problem. It turns out that the leader of the camp is a rebel on that planet who was hoping to recruit the "amazing warrior" Archer into helping him win his war. The reason that he thinks this is because he has heard stories of Archer getting involved with other conflicts - in particular busting some Suliban out of an internment camp a couple episodes previous in "Detained". The rebel leader asks a very real question. Why was Archer willing to help one group while denying help to another? This is especially relevant because it is implied that Archer considers both causes to be "just." It seems as if this is the first time that Archer realizes that his actions, in this case his liberation of the Suliban, might have consequences beyond the immediate threat. He sees for one of the first times that changing the rules based on his whims make it difficult to be ethically consistent in the future. It will not be the last time. It is interesting to note that all of this good stuff happens in the first 15 minutes of the episode - the rest of the episode was dedicated to Archer and Tripp making an impromptu and poorly planned traverse on foot through a desert. Can't have too many leadership realizations in one episode I guess...

Then we come to the season 1 finale and the season 2 premier - "Shockwave" parts 1 and 2. To summarize those episodes, while attempting to visit a mining colony, an Enterprise shuttlecraft accidentally ignites the atmosphere of the planet and vaporizes 3600 people. Archer becomes a despondent mess, and due to the accident the Vulcans and Starfleet decide to end the exploration mission for "10-20 years." As it turns out, the Suliban who were engaged in a temporal cold war sabotaged the shuttlecraft so that it would malfunction. Archer is told this because he is pulled through time by a time cop to get all of the information. Unfortunately, the time cop ended up being wrong and Archer was stuck 800 years in the future, which resulted in the concept of the Federation never happening. By the end of part 2, everything of course was fixed and all good.

Now, I know that for some of you that was a lot of "Star Trek - ese," but bear with me. Up until this point, Archer (and thus the Enterprise as well) has been predominately driven by what feels right in the present tense. There is not a whole lot of emphasis on delayed gratification, or on the greater good. That attitude makes a lot of sense too. When faced with the shear newness of everything they are encountering (as Enterprise is the first long range interstellar exploration vessel, Captain Archer wouldn't have even served on another similar ship prior to command), the only way to move forward is to focus nearly exclusively on the moments and people immediately around you. When you juxtapose this with the idea that the crew of the Enterprise is Starfleet or The Federation as a toddler, you can see the similarities. Very young children don't have a very developed sense of delayed gratification or of the "greater good" simply because the entire world is too new. They are still trying to figure out what their place in such a world is and even what this new world even is. But Archer, just like a toddler, is beginning to understand the universe and his role as captain of the Enterprise just a little bit better as he experiences it. He is beginning to be able to look beyond the immediate present and see that something else is there. He doesn't yet know what that something else is, but he is starting to sense its presence.

So what does all this have to do with recognizing potential? For my purposes, I'll define "recognizing potential" as the ability to see beyond the immediate present and into the ill-defined future. Some people can recognize potential in others. Fewer still can recognize potential in themselves. When one does though, the actions of the present become steps on a path to unleash that potential. In Enterprise, Crewman Daniels exemplifies this clear vision. He is the aforementioned time cop from 800 years in the future. He sees the potential that exists within Archer (to be fair he sees it because it is literally the past for him so it becomes less so "belief" about Archer and more so about "knowedge", but for this metaphor I think it will work). He reminds Archer that the captain still has much to learn, and that he is capable of learning those things. We could all use a bit of a Crewman Daniels in our lives in this capacity - someone (even if it is ourselves) that believes beyond a shadow of a doubt that we can become more than we currently are. That we have potential.

In his final speech at the end of Shockwave part 2, Archer talks about humans propensity to fail, and our ability to learn from those failures. I would imagine that nearly everybody who has seen a toddler or an infant learn something new can appreciate the metaphor. John Dewey would likely be pretty excited too...

Until next time, happy failures!

-Chris

P.S. A friend of mine alerted me to an upcoming new Star Trek series. It's an animated series that sounds like it will be a cross between Rick and Morty and Star Trek. It will be set before the events of Picard but after everything else. I'm absolutely, 100% adding this to my viewing. Same rules as Discovery and Picard. If episodes come out after I would have chronologically watched them, then I backtrack, watch the one new episode, and then jump back in to where I was. More info can be found here:

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/star-trek-lower-decks-season-1-release-date-trailer-cast-canon