Star Trek and History (47 page)

Like Kahless, Charlemagne gave various orders for his empire that had lasting impact on the society that grew up after his reign. They were published in what are called Capitularies, and with them he reformed all parts of life in his empire. Some of his laws lasted until the twentieth century. Capitularies concerned the organization of the church, the army, and the economics at imperial palaces.

Kahless also left artifacts, or what medieval Europeans might have even termed relics: his crown (
DS9
, “The Sword of Kahless”), a grail (
VOY
, “Day of Honor”), the Knife of Kirom (
TNG
, “Rightful Heir”), his shroud (
VOY
, “One Small Step”), and his sword and the sword's shroud (
DS9
, “The Sword of Kahless”). Kahless's artifacts look very much like the Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire. These are the insignia of office for emperors, some holy relics, such as some pieces of the True Cross, and also the clothing the emperor would wear for his coronation—down to his shoes, stockings, and gloves. The oldest pieces in the regalia are the Imperial Bible, St. Stephen's Purse, and the Saber of Charlemagne. Later on the Imperial Crown, the Imperial Cross, the Holy Lance, the Imperial Sword, and the Imperial Scepter or the Imperial Orb were added to the Imperial Regalia.

The creation of legends about Charlemagne started during his lifetime. Einhard wrote the biography
Vita Karoli Magni
(Life of Charlemagne) in 814, and he made a lot of overstatements. In the ninth century the monk Notker the Stammerer wrote a book of anecdotes about Charlemagne. In later versions of the book, different stories were added, including the entire story of the brave warrior Roland. In both Notker's and Einhard's writing, Charlemagne is presented as a majestic king, who is a brave warrior. He is magnanimous and lordly. In conflict with Islam he became a protagonist for Christianity and the savior of the Occident. Charlemagne was an idol for his knights. In the year 1000, his sepulcher was found in the Aachen cathedral. From that time on with culminations under Frederick Barbarossa and Charles IV, he became more and more a symbol of the empire, a prototype for all emperors.
13

Contemporary television shows and movies have to be understood all over the world to be successful, with characters that create associations for people from various cultures. Klingons are a product of this media universality. Elements of their culture remind viewers of the European Middle Ages, but other elements borrow from nations and tribes from all over the world. They resonate with feudal societies in different regions and periods of history.

The Klingons seem to be from a different time. In some ways they are counterparts to the modern societies of the West, but in others they seem to be barbarians. With their honor and warfare, they prompt the viewer to look back to some aspects of the past that were admirable and to others that seem laughably barbaric. Looking at Klingons we see a culture that is foreign and distant, and we also remember that we too were barbarians, once upon a time.

Notes

1.
Lincoln Geraghty,
Living with
Star Trek:
American Culture and the
Star Trek
Universe
(New York: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 51.

2.
Marc Okrand,
The Klingon Dictionary. English-Klingon, Klingon-English
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992).

3.
Georges Duby,
The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1981.

4.
Marc Bloch,
Feudal Society, Volume 2: Social Classes and Political Organization
, trans. L. A. Manyon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 302–303.

5.
Ibid., 307.

6.
Werner Hechberger,
Adel, Ministerialität und Rittertum im Mittelalter
(Munich: Oldenberg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004).

7.
Kay Peter Jankrift,
Mit Gott und schwarzer Magie. Medizin im Mittelalter
(Stuttgart: Konrad Theiss Verlag, 2005).

8.
Norbert Ohler,
Sterben und Tod im Mittelalter
(Dusseldorf: Patmos, 1990).

9.
R. Simek, “Walhall,” in
Lexikon des Mittelalters
8 (Munich: Artemis Verlag, 2002).

10.
Heinz Thomas Wahl, “Allgemein und Deutsches Reich,” in
Lexikon des Mittelalters
8 (Munich: Artemis Verlag, 2002).

11.
Georges Duby,
Le dimanche de Bouvines, 27 juillet 1214
(Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1973).

12.
Mario Kramp, “Krönungen und Könige in der Nachfolge Karls des Großen. Eine Geschichte und ihre Bilder,” in
Krönungen. Könige in Aachen—Geschichte und Mythos
, ed. Mario Kramp (Mainz: Phillipp von Zabern, 2000).

13.
František Graus,
Lebendige Vergangenheit. Überlieferung im Mittelalter und in den Vorstellungen vom Mittalalter
(Cologne Vienna: Böhlau, 1975).

Amy Carney

In the midst of directing the final battle against a joint Federation-Klingon-Romulan enemy, the nameless Female Founder, a leading figure in a militant species known as the Dominion, learns that her allies, the Cardassians, have betrayed her. Not only has a resistance movement led by a former Cardassian head of state, Gul Damar, sabotaged their war efforts, but the Cardassian fleet has turned against them. In a fit of rage over this betrayal, the normally placid Founder declares, “I want the Cardassians exterminated.” Weyoun, her most loyal underling, immediately seeks to implement her command, but he does ask a simple question: “Which ones?” The Founder replies, “All of them—the entire people.” While not wanting to deny his master anything, Weyoun pragmatically states, “That will take some time.” However, his comment does not deter her, and she reconfirms her genocidal intent: “Then I suggest you begin at once” (
DS9
, “What You Leave Behind”).

Death is a common motif in
Star Trek
, and genocide is an often-used plot device in the third series,
Deep Space Nine.
Yet, this particular demand for the extermination of an entire species is not without irony. The Cardassians are the defining villains of this series, but now the perpetrators have become the victims, and eight hundred million Cardassians perish as a result. This fate would have been nothing more than fictional comeuppance if there were not an additional factor. Throughout its every incarnation,
Star Trek
has relied heavily on human history when creating a fictional future. Past peoples have served as templates for
Star Trek
villains, the most well-established archetypal connection being the Soviets and the Klingons. However, the ideal of the Nazi villain has also been used when creating enemy species. A number of
Star Trek
races, such as the aforementioned Founders, exhibit identifiably fascist characteristics, but none more so than the Cardassians.
1
The similarities between Germany, especially during the Third Reich, and the Cardassian Empire, which is primarily portrayed in
Deep Space Nine
, demonstrate some of the cultural beliefs that people in the United States have about this era of history as well as what defines a fictional villain.

As many movies and television shows demonstrate, characters based on Nazis are easily recognizable as the “bad guys,” whether or not they accurately reflect real Nazis. Audiences have been conditioned by decades of imagery in film and on television to recognize certain villainous types as Nazis.
2
Star Trek
is no exception in using this motif. The Cardassian-Nazi connection hardly represents the first time that the Nazis, or characters who remind the audience of Nazis, appear in this future universe. For instance, in the original series episode “Patterns of Force,” Kirk, Spock, and McCoy visit the planet Ekos, where they discover that a Federation historian, John Gill, has intervened in the conflicts of an indigenous society. Acting with what he believed were good intentions, Gill introduced a Nazi-style government, naively hoping that it could bring order to Ekos. This perception of the Nazi regime as a well-structured system reflected a view of Nazism then prevalent among postwar historians.
3
By the time Kirk and his crew arrive at the planet, the reverse of Gill's intentions had become reality; racism and militarism have become the norm among Ekosians. As is typical in the original series, the trio of heroes set matters right by the end of the episode, and due to their intervention, Ekos embarks on a less violent way of life.

Another notable example occurs in
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
In a scene that evokes the classic film
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
, a lively conversation takes place over a meal, only instead of confronting the issue of race in America, the issue is interspecies relations between the human-based Federation and the Klingon Empire. Near the end of dinner, the militant Klingon general Chang passionately argues for the plight of his people: “‘To be or not to be?' That is the question which preoccupies our people, Captain Kirk. We need breathing room.” Instead of identifying the scene in
Hamlet
from which Shakespeare's most famous quote comes, Kirk addresses the latter half of his nemesis's assertion by dryly quipping, “Earth. Hitler. 1938.”
4
Slightly nonplussed by his statement, Chang replies, “I beg your pardon?” The only response he receives is a pregnant silence. This uncomfortable pause ends when Gorkon, the Klingon chancellor, diplomatically ends the conversation: “Well . . . I see we have a long way to go.”
5

These particular cases represent two of many instances in which Nazi imagery and direct references to the Third Reich serve to further the plot of an individual episode or scene within a movie. Similar allusions also occur in
Enterprise
and
Voyager.
Yet, the opposite is true for
Deep Space Nine.
The Cardassians are never directly labeled Nazis, nor is their significance limited to a few random episodes. Instead, their history and culture are constructed over many episodes, and through this progression a pattern emerges that demonstrates the many connections between Nazi Germany and the Cardassian Empire.

The Cardassians were first introduced in several episodes of
The Next Generation
, but they were more prominently featured in
Deep Space Nine.
The Cardassian people once prided themselves on having a rich cultural and spiritual life, one exemplified by archeological and literary achievements. That fruitful period in history was brought to an end by warfare, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, depleted food supplies, and left Cardassia culturally bereft as many historical artifacts were plundered to pay for the carnage. Cardassia only emerged from the turmoil when the military took control. During the period that followed, there was peace, people were fed, and a rebuilding program made Cardassia strong again (
TNG
, “Chain of Command”).

Military leaders effectively governed Cardassia for centuries, in spite of the presence of a nominal political authority, the Detapa Council.
6
The Central Command (the military) and the Obsidian Order (the secret police/intelligence agency) did not report to the Detapa Council, but instead they ran their affairs quite independent of it, and each other (
DS9
, “Defiant”). In particular, the independence of the Central Command led to the establishment of an expansionist Cardassian Empire that conquered neighboring planets and fought a war with the Federation in the mid-twenty-fourth century (
TNG
, “The Wounded”).

The most prominent Cardassian conquest was Bajor, annexed and occupied for forty years (
TNG
, “Ensign Ro”). Cardassian occupiers ruthlessly exploited the planet and its people, deporting most Bajorans to refugee and work camps as forced labor, including to process ore in a mining facility on the Terok Nor space station. Cardassian brutality led to a resistance movement. These fighters constantly exasperated occupation officials, but the occupation of Bajor only came to an end when Cardassia chose to withdraw from the planet and the station in 2369 (
DS9
, “Emissary” and “Necessary Evil”).

The end of the occupation of Bajor was not the end of Cardassia's imperial ambitions or military culture. Cardassian relations with the Bajorans and the Federation were tenuous at best, as many Cardassians—among them Gul Dukat, the former commander of Terok Nor—wished to reclaim all that they had lost, including the station now called Deep Space Nine. Such ambitions became secondary when the Obsidian Order joined its Romulan counterpart in a foolish mission to destroy their joint enemy, the Founders.
7
The failure of this scheme brought an end to the Obsidian Order (
DS9
, “The Die Is Cast” and “The Way of the Warrior”). Its demise allowed a civilian resistance movement to gain control of the Cardassian government. This switch from military to civilian control lacked stability, which led to war with the Klingons. Stepping into the power vacuum, Gul Dukat allied Cardassia with the very enemy it had recently tried to destroy: the Founders (
DS9
, “By Inferno's Light”).

Aligned with their former enemies, the Cardassians went to war against the Klingons, the Federation, and the Romulans. During this two-year war, Cardassia and its people suffered heavily. Gul Damar, Dukat's successor, discovered that his planet's supposed allies considered the Cardassians their vassals, not their peers. His disillusionment with the war and the condition of his people convinced him to lead an underground liberation movement, one that ironically needed the help of Kira Nerys, a former Bajoran resistance fighter (
DS9
, “The Changing Face of Evil” and “When It Rains . . .”). Angered by Cardassian resistance, the Founders turned on their Cardassian allies and attempted to exterminate them. Although the Founders ultimately lost the war, they destroyed Cardassia and nearly annihilated its people and culture (
DS9
, “What You Leave Behind”).