The Good Romulan

Love Is Stronger Than Death - Paul Tillich

Due to what I can only assume is a terrible misuse of network executive mishandling of justice, the local channel that has been showing TNG has unexpectedly stopped showing Trek, and instead showing several episodes of MASH instead. Therefore, we have been making do with my DVD of Voyager season 1, one episode each weeknight.

Yesterday was "The Cloud" ("There's coffee in that nebula!"), which has lots of wonderful dialogue, including a clever joke by Neelix on the many anomolies they find. Tonight's episode was "Eye of the Needle," which I only had a vauge recollection of a wormhole because I hadn't seen it in a long time.

My loyal readership (hi, Betsy!) is quite aware that I am a nerd, so I have no problem admitting that I love Voyager - the characters, the exploration, everything - and this episode was quite emotional because, even though I obviously knew that they weren't going to get home through the wormhole, the crew saw things much differently. And then, knowing they were still facing a 70 year journey, they just wanted to pass on messages via the Romulan scientist to their loved ones back home.

The Romulan scientist was himself something of an anomoly because, while the Romulans usually portrayed in the Trekverse are warlike (don't even THINK about going in, near, around, by, above, below, or anywhere even slightly close to the Neutral Zone!), this particular scientist (I just looked up his name, Telek R'Mor) was willing to help the Voyager crew, who were, as representatives of Starfleet and the Federation, his enemies. What was even more unusual was that Telek R'Mor had a family, missed his daughter who he hadn't seen, and was completely loyal to the Romulan empire and his own government - and those qualities didn't contradict one another. He was a good Romulan and a good person and he and the Voyager crew related to one another as fellow sentient beings who understood being lonely out in space and missing loved ones back home.

The original plan was for the crew to evacuate to the Romulan ship back in the Alpha quadrant, but then (spoiler alert!) it's discovered that Telek R'Mor is from 20 years in the past, so the crew can't get home, but Janeway is able to give him the flash drive with their messages to Starfleet, which he promises to deliver in 20 years.

It's the culmination of intergallactic goodwill, tolerance, being able to reach out to others with friendship instead of war - and then Tuvok looks up Telek R'Mor on the computer database and finds that he died 4 years previously and was thus unable to send the messages. It's heartbreaking to watch, but it reinforced something that I have always loved about Trek and Voyager in particular: the characters are all very likable, good, kind, decent people who value and respect one another and it's a world where doing the right thing is almost taken for granted.

To me, Trek represents the ideal world we should all be striving for, especially since this world (and American culture in particular) glorifies violence and callous disregard for others, where many people think that owning a gun is more important than others' right to basic healthcare, where morality seems to mean "Is this person exactly like me in looks, thoughts, and beliefs?" instead of "Am I treating this person with the decency and respect with which I would like to be treated?" - in this world, it's nice to have an alternative, to see what the best of humanity could be if we tried.

The "good Romulan," who is different, yet has the same hopes and dreams as us (and how often do people separate ourselves into Us and Them?), could be seen as a metaphor for enlightened thinking and how we treat each other. So much war, hatred, intolerance, and prejudice asises simply because Group A has decided that Group B is different, strange, evil. Perhaps some members of Group B committed a horrible act, but to demonize every member of Group B only perpetuates the cycle of violence. And the ones who will suffer most are the good and kind members of Group B who are looked upon with suspicion for only that reason.

The dualistic dichotomy of Us vs Them will only lead to destruction of everyone. If there is only Us, then the "good Romulan" is not an anomoly or an oxymoron, but an inevitability.