Star Trek and History (49 page)

The Cardassians are different in a third respect—no Hitler. There could have been no Nazism without Hitler; it was incapable of existing without him.
27
The Cardassian Empire, by contrast, has existed for centuries, meaning that its success was not contingent on a single charismatic leader. Dukat aspired to become that dominant figure, but Cardassians never revered him as the Germans did Hitler, and Cardassia's government continued afterward under Damar.

A final distinction relates to the Cardassian judicial system.
28
In “The Maquis, Part II,” Dukat describes this system during a conversation with Captain Sisko, the Federation commander of Deep Space Nine:

Dukat:
On Cardassia, the verdict is always known before the trial begins, and it's always the same.

Sisko:
In that case, why bother with a trial at all?

Dukat:
Because the people demand it. They enjoy watching justice triumph over evil every time. They find it comforting.

Sisko:
Isn't there ever a chance that you might try an innocent man by mistake?

Dukat:
Cardassians don't make mistakes.

Sisko does not find this perspective comforting, nor does O'Brien, his chief operations officer, who finds himself on the wrong side of the Cardassian legal system. He is arrested before he knows the charges, and he only learns what he is accused of at the start of the trial as per tradition in Cardassian jurisprudence. O'Brien discovers that he does not need to prepare a defense, because he is already guilty. The purpose of the trial is to establish how the state reached its conclusion, meaning that all crimes are solved and all criminals are punished. O'Brien does have an attorney, but the lawyer's purpose is to get him to confess to his crimes. At the start of the trial, the judge likewise urges O'Brien to confess. The trial is being broadcast on monitors around the planet—much like the all-pervading telescreens in Orwell's
1984
—and O'Brien's confession, according to the judge, would enlighten the people and educate the children.
29
Instead of complying, with the assistance of Odo, O'Brien is able to overturn the charges—a first in Cardassian jurisprudence (
DS9
, “Tribunal”).

The Nazis certainly used the legal system to establish control. For example, numerous laws codified the persecution of the Jews, including the 1935 Nuremberg Laws.
30
They were also not above orchestrating a show trial.
31
However, the Nazi regime was not known for show trials; its ideological enemy, the Soviet Union, was. Throughout the mid- to late 1930s, the USSR held a series of show trials designed to purge the Communist Party of potential rivals to Joseph Stalin on the pretense that they were enemies of the state. The defendants routinely confessed, mostly because they had been tortured.
32
Based on what is revealed during O'Brien's trial, the Cardassian court resembles the Soviet judicial system more than its Nazi counterpart.

Finally, writer and producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe observed that a parallel can be drawn between the decline of Cardassia during the start of its conflict with the Klingons and the rise of Dukat on one hand and the decline of Weimar Germany in the 1920s and the rise of Hitler on the other. Yet, he also likened this change to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, describing it as a military dictatorship being replaced with a civilian government that immediately experienced growing pains. Unlike contemporary Russia, which officially remains a democracy, Cardassia reverts to its militaristic ways when it joins the Founders, which Hewitt claimed the writers had planned from the beginning.
33

Nazi Germany clearly served as the primary historic template for the Cardassians, although they are not simply twenty-fourth-century Nazis.
Star Trek
writers also drew on other historic eras and regimes when creating this fictional species. These historical references augment the militant and fascist character traits that make the Cardassians a unique species, different from the many others in the
Star Trek
universe. This reliance on the past—to create a fictional future and to populate it with species that are simultaneously alien while still identifiably human—demonstrates the continuing significance of Earth culture and history in enriching
Star Trek.
The past has become the fictional future, in more ways than one.

Notes

1.
Although none provided an in-depth analysis, several scholars and journalists have characterized the Cardassians as villainous or described them as fascist. David Golumbia, “Black and White World: Race, Ideology, and Utopia in
Triton
and
Star Trek
,”
Cultural Critique
, no. 32 (Winter 1995–1996): 75–95; Teresa Malcolm, “
Deep Space Nine
,”
National Catholic Reporter
35, no. 31 (June 4, 1999): 13–14; and Harry F. Waters and Jeanne Gordon, “
Star Trek
Sets a Bold New Course,”
Newsweek
121, no. 1 (January 4, 1993): 40–41.

2.
Several authors have discussed the use of Nazis as fictional villains: Tony Barta, “Film Nazis: The Great Escape,” in
Screening the Past: Film and the Representation of History
, ed. Tony Barta (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998); Florentine Strzelczyk, “Our Future—Our Past: Fascism, Postmodernism, and
Starship Troopers
(1997),”
Modernism/Modernity
15, no. 1 (January 2008): 87–99; and Mike Alsford,
Heroes and Villains
(Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006).

3.
Ian Kershaw evaluated the major approaches to historical studies of Nazism in
The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation
(London: Arnold, 2000).

4.
The reference is to
Lebensraum
, better translated as “living space,” which Hitler spoke about on many occasions; it was the belief that a growing German population needed more land to live on, land that would be found in eastern Europe. For more on the concept and Hitler's uses of it, see Ian Kershaw,
Hitler: 1889–1936: Hubris
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1998); Ian Kershaw,
Hitler: 1936–1945: Nemesis
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2000); and Joachim Fest,
Hitler
(Boston: Harcourt, 1974).

5.
Many works explore the use of Shakespeare in
Star Trek
: Larry Kreitzer, “The Cultural Veneer of
Star Trek
,”
Journal of Popular Culture
30, no. 2 (Fall 1996): 1–28; Paul A. Cantor, “Shakespeare in the Original Klingon:
Star Trek
and the End of History,”
Perspectives on Political Science
29, no. 3 (Summer 2000): 158–166; Mary Buhl Dutta, “‘Very Bad Poetry, Captain': Shakespeare in
Star Trek
,”
Extrapolation
36, no. 1 (March 1995): 38–45; and Thomas Richards,
The Meaning of
Star Trek (New York: Doubleday, 1997).

6.
For a short political analysis of the Cardassian government, see Paul Christopher Manuel, “‘In Every Revolution, There Is One Man with a Vision': The Governments of the Future in Comparative Perspective,” in
Political Science Fiction
, eds. Donald M. Hassler and Clyde Wilcox (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997).

7.
Deep Space Nine
executive producer Ronald Moore referred to them as Nazis in Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Companion
(New York: Pocket Books, 2000), 234.

8.
Garak often refers to himself as a “simple tailor” and never directly admits his previous occupation as a spy, making him the
Star Trek
equivalent of many characters in John Le Carré's spy novels.

9.
Loyalty to the sovereign state is discussed in Rudolf Vierhaus,
Germany in the Age of Absolutism
, trans. Jonathan B. Knudsen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); and Gregg Kvistad,
The Rise and Demise of German Statism: Loyalty and Political Membership
(New York: Berghahn Books, 1999).

10.
Although the morals of their stories are opposite, the pervasiveness of militarism in many segments of German culture is well illustrated in two famous war novels: Erich Maria Remarque,
All Quiet on the Western Front
(New York: Random House, 1982), and Ernst Jünger,
Storm of Steel
(New York: Penguin, 2004).

11.
For an overview of this concept, see Jane Caplan,
Government without Administration: State and Civil Service in Weimar and Nazi Germany
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), and Richard Grunberger,
The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany, 1933–1945
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1995).

12.
For more on the Nazi cult of heroism, see Jay W. Baird,
To Die for Germany: Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990).

13.
Erdmann and Block, Star Trek, 22.

14.
For more information on the Gestapo, see Robert Gellately,
The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).

15.
In the
DS9
season three special features, writer and producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe referred to an Obsidian Order operative as a Gestapo agent.

16.
Jeremy Bentham discussed the relationship between state power and punishment, although Michel Foucault explored the idea in greater depth. Jeremy Bentham,
Panopticon
(London: T. Payne, 1791), and Michel Foucault,
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).

17.
For an overview of Nazi policy, see Peter Longerich,
Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), and for information about Jews in Nazi Germany, see Saul Friedländer,
Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Extermination, 1939–1945
(New York: Harper, 2008).

18.
Erdmann and Block, Star Trek, 100.

19.
For information on Nazi medicine: Robert Proctor,
Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), and Michael Kater,
Doctors under Hitler
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989).

20.
For information on collaboration during World War II, see Roni Stauber, ed.,
Collaboration with the Nazis: Public Discourse after the Holocaust
(New York: Routledge, 2011).

21.
For information on comfort women, see Yoshiaki Yoshimi,
Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military during World War II
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2000).

22.
For more on this representation of Bajorans, see Matthew Kapell, “Speakers for the Dead:
Star Trek
, the Holocaust, and the Representation of Atrocity,” in Star Trek
as Myth: Essays on Symbol and Archetype at the Final Frontier
, ed. Matthew Kapell (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2010).

23.
For more on religious sustenance and theology, see Donald L. Niewyk and Francis Nicosia,
The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2000).

24.
For more on Vichy France, see Robert O. Paxton,
Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).

25.
For more on the resistance, see Matthew Cobb,
The Resistance: The French Fight against the Nazis
(London: Simon & Schuster, 2009).

26.
Erdmann and Block, Star Trek, 307.

27.
Again, for more on Hitler, see Kershaw's and Fest's respective biographies.

28.
For a brief analysis of the Cardassian legal system, see Robert H. Chaires, “
Star Trek
as a Pedagogical Vehicle for Teaching Law and Justice,” in Star Trek
Visions of Law and Justice
, eds. Robert Chaires and Bradley Chilton (Dallas: Adios Press, 2003), and Paul R. Joseph, “Science Fiction,” in
Prime Time Law: Fictional Television as Legal Narrative
, eds. Robert M. Jarvis and Paul R. Joseph (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1998).

29.
Erdmann and Block, Star Trek, 150.

30.
For the text of the Nuremberg Laws, see Roderick Stackelberg and Sally A. Winkle,
The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts
(New York: Routledge, 2007).

31.
For information on the Katzenberger show trial, see Friedländer,
Nazi Germany and the Jews
.

32.
For more on Stalin and the show trials, see Simon Sebag Montefiore,
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
(New York: Vintage Books, 2003).

33.
Erdmann and Block, Star Trek, 274 and 427.

Negotiating the Legacy of
Star Trek
and Its Fans

Rick Worland

Almost from the moment its original NBC network run ended in 1969 after an only modestly successful three seasons,
Star Trek
steadily built popularity in multiple media incarnations until it became one of the most lucrative entertainment properties ever. Initially, the show's expanding success in rerun syndication fueled a passionate fan phenomenon revealed by the first
Star Trek
convention held in New York City in early 1972. So powerful was the show's legacy by the time Paramount engaged producer J.J. Abrams to reboot the movie franchise with a feature simply titled
Star Trek
(2009), its new caretakers had to steer a tricky path between attracting fresh audiences without perturbing veteran fans, cohorts whose experiences of
Star Trek
were now separated by as much as forty years.