The Politics of Hyperspace...

© June 23, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Star Wars and Star Trek:

The latter preceded the former,

Both involved world governments,

And Galaxy-spanning empires,

Superluminal speeds enabling them,

And Deux Ex Machina plot twists,

 

May 25, 1977,

George Lucas gave us

Star Wars,

The original script,

“A New Hope”

Stole the nation’s imagination,

Like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,”

There were costumes and imitation,

Matinee prices at $2.00,

Gasoline at $0.30 per gallon,

As fans watched it over and over again,

Memorizing each line and lyrics,

The plot started in the fourth chapter,

In the aftermath of a fallen republic,

Star systems, and planets,

Under the boot heel of a malevolent fascist,

Once known as Senator Palpatine,

Now god-emperor,

Elected after his disfigurement,

In a battle with Mace Windu,

Causing the fall of Anakin Skywalker,

And the rise of Darth Vader,

 

Puppeteer of a factional, fake rebellion,

Pumping fear into the Galactic Senate,

Promising “I alone can fix it,”

Orchestrated “order 66,”

Turning clones against the guardians of the republic,

Ending his Jedi opposition,

As a viable option to contest him,

 

In dark, mechanical armor,

The man who was once known as Anakin Skywalker

Existed,

Labored breathing after battling his friend,

Obi-Wan Kenobi,

On the volcanic planet Mustafar,

[Literally], half the man he was,

Succumbing to the siren lies from the dark side of the Force,

 

Scarred beyond recognition,

Or love,

He made the best of losing Padme,

And his twins Luke, and Leia, hidden from him,

Nazi helmet, and lightsaber,

He would destroy the order he once was a member,

“The chosen one” turned against them,

By Palpatine’s lies and deception,

He would replace his self-loathing and regrets with strutting,

His cape billowing and flowing:

He will be feared if he cannot be loved.

 

September 8, 1966,

The debut of a diverse cast,

Skewing the vision piped in,

By “Lost in Space,” “The Invaders”

That the exploration of space would only be white,

Inspiration to Dr. Ronald E. McNair,

First black astronaut from an HBCU,

From North Carolina A&T,

And MIT for his Ph.D. in Laser Physics,

Aggie Pride took flight,

On the Space Shuttle Challenger,

I would meet him after his maiden flight,

Sadly on its second voyage, his and his crew’s demise,

 

Star Trek,

[Was] pitched by Gene Roddenberry,

As “wagon train to the stars,”

Following “cowboy diplomacy,”

Hints that the Federation,

Was keen on colonization,

A selling point for Viacom executives,

Real estate became whole planets,

Territories measured by parsecs,

 

But:

They were more like hippies with starships,

They put on plays, poetry readings, and concerts,

They were STEAM before STEM came in existence,

Their weapons defensive,

Their goals exploration, and understanding,

Surviving a Third World War,

Colonel Green eugenics post-apocalypse,

Xindi bloodshed,

It puts things collectively in perspective for a species:

They shed the prejudices that separated them,

And made near self-annihilation possible,

 

The Emmy winning,

“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,”

Fifteenth of twenty-four in the third and last season of the Original Series,

Lokai, a political refugee from the planet Cheron,

Half black on one side, and white on the other,

Pursued by a constable from the dominant caste, Bele,

One the mirror image of the other,

Finding each of their people slaughtered one another,

They beamed down to finish the extermination,

 

Forlorn, Lt. Uhura asks if their hate is all they ever had. Kirk ruefully says no...but it is all they have left.

 

The episode premiered nine months after the assassination,

Of its number one fan: Dr. Martin Luther King,

Apropos as that one year later,

1969 was the hippie anthem “Dawning of the Age of Aquarius,”

By the Fifth Dimension,

 

Star Wars and Star [Trek] were both visions and warning:

Superluminal speeds are unlikely,

Nor are Deux Ex Machina Vulcans,

Nor benevolent wielders of “Force lightning,”

Descending to save us,

From runaway greenhouse gases,

From plastics decaying twenty-to-five-hundred years consumed by tortoise and dolphins,

From billionaires offshoring assets and gaslighting,

From social media making all of us the product,

From “mutually assured destruction” nuclear madness,

Utopia is hard, but its opposite only requires time, apathy, and Entropy,

Let’s not be like planet Cheron:

Let’s save [US]!