Beam him up.
So long, Scotty. You couldnae push it any farther but really, 85 is a good long run. Go boldly.
I’m not sure really whether I’m a Trekkie per se. I have never gone to a convention. I do not have a pair of Vulcan ears stowed anywhere and I don’t speak (much) Klingon. But I do like Star Trek, at least in part because it palliates my longing for people to be nicer than they in fact are.
You see, in the Star Trek universe, people still fight. They quarrel, have misunderstandings, bicker. But they also, eventually, talk about their issues. They discuss things in a mature, mostly rational and intelligent manner and solve the problem, whatever it is. This is how, as a bullied child, I imagined adult life to be — well intentioned people genuinely striving to resolve whatever the problem was, rather than cruel antagonists actually working to make others more miserable. I really believed that the adult world was a sort of paradise populated by kind, rational people. Of course, somewhere along the line I became a grown up and it’s not quite like that. But in Star Trek it is. Their philosophies embrace diversity, rationalism, respect, perserverence — a kind of liberal thinking paradise.
Of course, I also like Star Trek because they get to say things like: “The hyperspace conversion module is functioning at 110% efficiency” or “These discorporeal entities exist in a subspace strata outside of what we experience as normal space-time.” I mean, who could resist it?
