Written by Kelly Whyte. Find Kelly on RPGTrader, itch.io, and DriveThruRPG.
I was a late convert to Star Trek. I started with Deep Space 9 (DS9) before branching out into the other ‘mid-Trek’ series, including The Next Generation (TNG) and Voyager, and occasionally into New Trek, like Discovery or Lower Decks. There’s a lot of Trek, and while I vigorously fight being labelled a Trekkie, I probably should give in to the inevitable at this stage.
TNG is, for better or for worse, the definitive Star Trek series. It is dominant in the public consciousness, rivalled only by the original series, and almost all subsequent entries have been, in one way or another, a rebuttal to or continuation of TNG. DS9 was the dark underbelly of TNG’s utopia, Voyager transplanted the ethos of TNG to the frontier, even Enterprise tied itself to TNG with its infamous ending. Despite this, there’s been an aspect of TNG, a well-known and often mocked aspect, that tends to be overlooked when we talk about the setting’s utopia.
Ode to Spot
Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.
I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.
A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.
O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.
[Editors note: Embedding the video was not working, so please follow this link to get the full experience of Data’s rendition!]
The performing arts occupy a prominent position in TNG. Pick an episode at random and there’s a decent chance that you’ll see the crew rehearsing a play, performing a concert, or reciting poetry. Frame of Mind blurs the lines between fiction and reality as Riker descends into the world of a play he’s rehearsing. Data’s poetry night is the intro of the suspense episode Schism. Riker’s struggles to play the fictional song Night Bird on his trombone are part of the episode Second Chances; his struggles with the Chet Baker song Night Bird are sadly undocumented.
Despite the ubiquity, it’s only occasionally that these performances command the A-, or even the B-plot of an episode.The works portrayed tend toward the classics (Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, Beethoven, Bach, etc.) for the simple reason that they’re in the public domain. Don’t worry, hold your high-school English class flashbacks; it’s not the content I find aspirational but the crew.
None of the TNG bridge crew were ever professional performers, for whatever utility the word ‘professional’ has in a post-scarcity utopia. Yet most of them take turns performing whatever talents they have and the reaction of their crewmates is almost uniformly positive. It is not uniformly uncritical however; in Schism, for instance, Geordi outlines to Data where his poetry comes up short and how he might improve, Crusher pushes Riker hard in rehearsing his part in Frame of Mind, and Picard’s critique is invited as Data seeks to understand Prospero in Emergence. The feedback is never given unkindly, but honestly when it is invited.
For us poor fools not yet living under fully automated luxury gay space communism, this strikes me as an aspirational situation. One where we’re not mere ‘consumers’ or critics, but active participants in the arts. So many things in the modern world hold us back from being creative; time, expense, lack of opportunity. These are difficult barriers to remove.
But there is perhaps one that’s in our control, and that’s how we treat those who do take the plunge and show us their art. I’m not suggesting we become mealy mouthed in our critiques, or give harmful tropes a free pass. But rather that we strive to be worthy members of a community that encourages people, regular people, to make, show, and grow their own art.
In the ttrpg space, we’re quite lucky in that our tables are theatres, each of us having the opportunity to be performer, author, audience and designer. To make creative choices, take creative risks, no matter how small. We are moved from consumer to creator, in playful collaboration with other creatives. No matter how proscriptive the system, there will inevitably be some space for the people around the table to create.
In subsequent Trek series, these performances are often absent. DS9 had visiting performers, but it’s rare that the bridge crew put themselves out there. Voyager has some, but there is a mean streak to them, such as when they plot a yellow alert to get out of the Doctor sharing his photography. It suits Voyager’s concept of a divided crew, with its incomplete integration of the Maquis members, or as another reminder of the stresses the stranded crew are under.
Lower Decks is perhaps when performances are at their next most prominent after TNG, though even then they’re often fodder for jokes at the performer’s expense. Captain Freeman’s scat jazz performances or Lieutenant Bingston’s one-man shows are punchlines, in-universe they are treated tests of endurance and the character’s facade of civility rather than artistic expressions. Entire episodes of Lower Decks are still dedicated to characters’ artistic expression, most notably the Crisis Point episodes, but these tend towards just the small group of main characters, the community element is largely absent.
While each of these series may have made the right choice for their own stories and tone, they are nevertheless stepping away from the aspirational and towards our mundane reality. We move away from a community of free self-expression and improvement back towards one that mocks and cringes at the imperfect efforts of those around us. TNG remains unique, the only time so far we have seen such an artistic community exist in the Trek universe. Despite its rarity, I personally prefer to think this is the way things are in the broader Trek universe, at least in this period.
Certainly, the other series have means of the characters expressing themselves; Pike and Sisko do so through cooking, O’Brian and Bashir explore holodeck programs together, and one of the best episodes of DS9 has the crew bonding as a team over baseball. I don’t mean to discount those or suggest they have no importance for the characters or the audience. But TNG’s focus on the performing arts is the one that best exemplifies a vision for a place for creative community in humanity’s future.
Transporters and warp drives might be out of our reach for the time being. But we relate to the arts, to performing, and to the people who perform are already within our control. For all of us who enjoy Trek and want to see its utopian vision become a reality, this is a step we can all take.
