Philosophical Musings of a Book Nerd

This book is based on one of the better Star Trek episodes that I had seen, though I am not really a big fan of the series. For some reason there seems to be competition between the lovers of Star Wars and the lovers of Star Trek, and me I would generally fall into the Star Wars category simply because nobody seems to include Doctor Who in the competition. I like Star Wars much better that Star Trek, but I like Doctor Who much better than both of them combined. I will outline what I generally dislike about Star Trek shortly, but for now I simply want to cover the book.

In the Star Trek universe there are multiple dimensions, and one of them is sort of the opposite to the dimension in which the series is set. The original series had an episode where the crew of the Enterprise met their counterparts and fought, and then later on there was a similar episode in Deep Space Nine. There was no such episode in the Next Generation, so this book seemed to have been written to fill in the gap, however as with the nature of all literary spin offs, continuity with the series is open to debate.

I guess the idea behind these episodes is the idea of confronting and dealing with our dark side. Many of us believe that we have a dark side, a side of us that is intensely selfish, and self-destructive. We seek only what fulfils our desires to the detriment of those around us. However, in many cases, it is still us, and some of us have learnt to master these evil desires (while others of us succumb to them). The question I ask is, if this universe is a universe of our dark sides, what about those who are evil in this universe. In the opposing universe, are they actually good, or are they even more evil than they are here. There is also the question of whether anybody can be so evil that there is no possibility of them becoming worse. The answer to the first question simply lies with the writer, while the second question I would have to say yes. If pure evil is the complete absence of good, then there is a point where somebody simply has no good qualities whatsoever, and at that point, it is simply not possible to become worse. It is like light and darkness (an analogy the Bible loves to use). Darkness is the absence of light, and therefore when we reach total darkness, there is no light and as such it cannot get any darker. Cold is similar as cold is the absence of heat, and absolute zero is the point at which there is no heat whatsoever.

There are a number of issues I have with the Star Trek universe and will only briefly cover them here. The first is that it is very idealistic, in fact a little too idealistic, and I say this because people will never behave like that, they are always interested in their own self-fulfilment. Further, despite the fact that humanity has become enlightened, they sure don't act like an enlightened people. There is still intrigue and power struggles. The concept of money is obsolete, but I ask myself if there is no money and no need for money, then where is the motivation to do well. Take the USSR for example, when people are not given an incentive to excel, then people will not attempt to excel. There is a suggestion that the motivation is self-fulfilment, but that seems way too nebulous to me. Finally, they claim that they solved a bulk of the world's problems by eliminating religion. This, I don't think will ever happen simply because people desire religion, and it is only a small handful (usually those at the top) that are responsible for the bad name religion has. Oh, and then there is this idea of forcing other civilisations to accept your morality, when in reality much (but not all) morality is subjective.