Picard is Still Trapped in the Nexus

This is a theory I have held for a while:  Captain Jean-Luc Picard is still trapped in the Nexus from Star Trek: Generations and everything we’ve seen afterward has been a part of his ideal reality.

Background on the Nexus can be found on the always amazing Memory Alpha site.

My Argument

In Star Trek: Generations, Picard was taken by the Nexus before a shockwave destroyed the planet and everyone else on it.  It was said that the Nexus allows whoever is in it will live out their fantasies.  This was initially projected as a family life for Jean-Luc, but that’s not who he is.  He has to save the day.

Instead, he teams up with the iconic Jim Kirk and prevents the disaster from happening in a “redo” type of adventure.  How many of us would want a redo on our biggest failures, especially the one that took all of our closest friends’ lives?

In Star Trek: First Contact, the movie immediately after that, he deals with his unresolved issues with the Borg while playing an integral part in Earth’s history in the galaxy.

Star Trek: Insurrection finds him on a planet that stabilizes and prolongs the aging process, which helps him deal with his thoughts on mortality and companionship, two issues that would rightly affect an unmarried man in his fifties/sixties.

Star Trek: Nemesis is actually one of the better examples.  It literally puts Jean-Luc face-to-face with a younger version (clone) of himself, forcing him to again come to terms with his past and his life choices.

I’m Not Alone

While doing my research for this post, I found a great article on Reddit by WilliamtheV that helps articulate this theory further.  Check it out, because as he wrote: “The Nexus gave Picard what he wanted. A world where his actions have consequences, but he still got to live out his dream life.“

Is Even STAR TREK Capable of Overcoming Racism?

I intended on writing a post about how Star Trek is the ony Sci-Fi I can think of that has a positive standpoint on us and our future, but recent events reminded me of our very human faults.  

Star Trek boasts no hunger and no poverty, but is even this utopia able to eradicate racism?

Sadly, no.  Not on a basely human level, anyway.  

Earth, itself, seems to be alright.  Some episodes of DS9 point to major class upheavals in the 2020s, but the human-specific racial issues take place before then and are alive in thier awareness, which is important when trying to avoid repeating the horrors of our collective past. 

But that doesn’t mean that racism is solved.  We, as humans, just needed some other to marginalize and discriminate against.  

“‘Speciesism’ is the idea that being human is a good enough reason for human animals to have greater moral rights than non-human animals. …a prejudice or bias in favour of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species.” – BBC 

Spock is the most obvious example, being bi-racial (bi-speciel? bi-special?) in heritage.  Oh how we laughed and laughed as the good country doctor spun some good old country racism at the half-breed.  

Although he was the most repeated (and most passive) victim of offense, Spock was by no means alone.  Cardassians are called spoon-heads and Klingons are often referred to as smelly and loud.  

Humans have a need to categorize and differentiate.  It is what set up our language and systems of contextual understanding.  

This doesn’t mean that we need to label other as lesser, but we still do it. 

Memory Alpha has more on racism in STAR TREK.

Why Pavel Chekov Deserves to Outlive His Crewmates

Star Trek: Renegades is a web series on Kickstarter that is due to start up soon and features many familiar faces.  The one that caught my eye as the most odd was Admiral Pavel Chekov.  To be clear, this series is set ten years after the events of Star Trek: Voyager, which is a century after Chekov’s Enterprise went on its five year mission.

So why does the accident-prone punching bag of the franchise live to be 143 years old?

Because he deserves it.

As an ensign, he’s been shot, beaten, slapped into unconsciousness, converted into a baseball-sized cube, possessed, blinded, tempted by deadly robot sex slaves, and driven insane.

Chekov Shot

Chekov Beaten

Chekov Insane

After being promoted to lieutenant, his hands were burnt from a console feedback.

Chekov Unconscious

As commander, he was infested with mind-controlling ear worms and treated for severe head trauma after falling off of the deck of a battleship while traveling into the past to save whales.

Chekov Beaten (Again)

Ear Worms

Head Trauma

Pavel Chekov watched Jim Kirk “die” saving the Enterprise B from the Nexus, then heard that Kirk returned 80 years later to die saving the Enterprise D.  Spock got himself stuck in some parallel dimension escaping from a Romulan mining ship.  Scotty trapped himself in a transporter for seventy years, but is now dead.  McCoy’s gone.  We don’t know about Sulu and Uhura for sure, but they are most likely dead.

Yet through all of this, Pavel Chekov was loyal to Starfleet, its mission, and his crewmates.  He had earned their respect and friendship and, to be honest, I can’t imagine a better person from the original cast to have the last word.

Admiral Chekov