Star Trek and Starship Design

Saw Star Trek the other day and was suitably impressed, perhaps because I'm not a diehard Trekkie who can converse fluently in Klingon. Then again, the ability to speak Klingon is probably the basic qualifying feature of a normal Star Trek fan- to be given the appellation 'diehard Trekkie' one probably has to be able to deliver an informed discourse about the shared anthropological origins of the Romulan and Vulcan races.

But that's beside the point. The point is that it was enjoyable and accessible, a good all-round Sci-Fi movie that, while not epic or Oscar-winning, had a sufficiently balanced blend of action, emotion, melodrama, geek-speak, humour, and quantum physics mindf**k. Not the best of the best, but still time and money well spent.

On the other hand, my ultra-conservative senior, the Venerable Kelvin, preemptorily dismissed anything with the label 'Star Trek' as being a 'liberal douche-bag'.

Now as my political orientation is centrist/moderate, I won't be so quick to blast everything emanating from the Left- after all, these guys gave us some very good things, like the abolition of racism and the introduction of constitutional democracy, and are now trying to conserve the environment. (Though of course they tend to be woolly-headed day-dreamers who wax eternal lyrical about their various blissful social utopias, hypocritically frothing at the mouth about the bloodshed of religious wars while ignoring avowedly atheistic mass-murderers like Pol Pot and Chairmen Mao and Stalin, thinking that all men are good and loving and kind at heart, and hence automatically deserving of goodness and love and kindess, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.)

The point is, however, that I agree with Venerable Kelvin, not that to be a liberal is to be a douche-bag, but that Star Trek is a truly liberal enterprise (pun half-intended, sorry, sorry). I'm not going to praise or condemn liberalism. I'm just saying it comes out very strongly in Star Trek.

But that's blindingly obvious, one might say. Everything about Star Trek screams 'liberal'. The dialogue, the ideology of peaceful exploration, of tolerance of diversity, etc etc.

What is new about my argument is that I am approaching this from a technical perspective, more precisely, that of starship design. The starships of Sci-Fi universes tend to reflect the ideological values on which those universes were premised. The central thesis is that liberal Sci-Fi universes tend to be less realistic when designing ships of war, whilst relatively conservative ones have starships that are more likely to emerge intact from a major battle. And likewise for ships of peaceful civilised exchange- liberal universes have more stylised and aesthetically pleasing ships of peace, while truly conservative universes don't seem to have any ships for peaceful purposes, period. Anyway, because I'm a warship enthusiast (but not a real Conservative), I'll be focussing on warship design here.

Take the design of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), a Constitution-class Heavy Cruiser of the Federation Starfleet. It's mission statement involves first-contact with alien species, and exploratory, diplomatic and scientific undertakings, but also includes military engagement. (Especially if that said first contact with alien species goes horribly wrong.) And in this last, and perhaps most critical, mission role it is woefully misdesigned. A simple look at the starship itself suffices to demonstrate this.

The saucer-shape gives an extremely wide target profile, affording an enemy, say a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, maximum surface area to target with photon torpedoes. Exposed reactor core on the underside of the superstructure, much like an over-pronounced pair of testes just asking to be whacked by the afore-mentioned Klingon torpedoes. And most deplorable of all- the all crucial, all important engines are reduced to a pair of slim and thin nacelles connected to the main ship structure by a pair of slim and thin struts, and both are as woefully exposed to hostile fire as the reactor core. Brilliant.

The sole recompense of such a lunatic warship design is that the saucer hull allows the phaser batteries near-omnidirectional targetting and vast fields of fire, enabling most of the ship's weapons to be brought to bear on a target in almost any direction, or alternatively enabling a widely-dispersed enemy group to be fully engaged with ease. But still.

In stark contrast, here is an Imperial II-class Star Destroyer from the Star Wars universe. Given the Fascist (i.e. inhumane and bloodthirsty) nature of the Galactic Empire, it emerges as obvious that the Empire's ships were designed for conquest and destruction, and little else.

In this depiction, the sheer size of the Star Destroyer belies the inherent nature of the target profile it presents to the enemy- not much at all. Its dagger-like superstructure ensures that the enemy can target only a sleek and narrow wedge, not a full-blown saucer with sausages sticking out all over, like the USS Enterprise. The wedge shape also allows maximum firepower to be brought to bear on frontal engagements, whilst retaining formidable broadside cannonade capabilities as well. Only the rear is unprotected, and that's what the full wing of 72 TIE fighters and the squadrons of assault shuttles carried aboard are for. Its relatively compact design means that the engines and reactors are not overly exposed.

While one might point out that the bridge tower resembles the expose that is the USS Enterprise's engines, it must also be remembered that the bridge sits right in between the two spherical force-field generators, thereby enjoying maximum shield protection while allowing its commanders a clear view of the battle and hence good situational awareness. Fascists are good at war, and the Victory, Imperial, and Executor classes of Star Destroyers are reflections of this.

Finally we come to a Behemoth-class Battlecruiser of the Terran Confederacy in Starcraft.

The main engine drive is safe and secure in the main superstructure, while the auxilliary engines, while more exposed, are still connected to the hull by sturdy linkages, not puny little struts. The hammerhead shape of the forward section allows a wide frontal arc of laser battery fire whilst not over-exposing the ship to enemy fire. The bridge does not portrude awkwardly and is instead nestled on the hull, but then again that's perhaps because shield generators have not been discovered by the Terrans in this universe. The Confederacy is a centrist type of polity, not really interested in total war as the Galactic Empire of Star Wars is, but definitely not a liberal government either- witness its nuclear annihilation of the upstart planet of Korhal. This political standpoint is reflected in the balanced design of its premier capital ship, the Behemoth class.

Infinitum

One of the more esoteric, and hence interesting, aspects of studying history is the study of historiography.

The Oxford degree curriculum essentially presents historiography as the history of history (or histories), and that was my initial impression of the term. But in retrospect I think that a better description of historiography is the philosophy of history.

Because in dealing with the way history is written we ultimately base our analyses on the metaphysics of recording and systematizing the past into coherence.

Because ultimately one comes back to that all-consuming question: What is History?

And there are so many answers to this question, so many different theories attempting to define 'history'.

Take for example the crisis of Historismus, the German school of history. It was originally conceived by the Germans that all history should consist entirely and exclusively of the entirety of objective facts of reality, of events as they actually happened, as opposed to how they were perceived to happen by biased and prejudiced human actors.

The problem with this was threefold and rapidly became manifestly obvious.

First, if history is composed of all the facts of time, then we end up with an infinity of datum. A datum which is impossible to fully compile. Real history therefore cannot exclude any, not even one, record of fact, from the history of the first molecules to the history of the first caveman and the history of the first fishing rod and how it was actually used. As long as an historical account has neglected to include even the history of the smallest dust-mite, it is not truly history. According to the definition laid down by the German school, therefore, there has never been nor ever will be a true history as it is simply not possible to accrue all the infinite facts of reality under one record. There is thus no point in writing history that matches the standards of the German school. One would be better off trying to numerate all the hydrogen atoms in the universe.

Second, such true history is also impossible to achieve because no truly objective record of the past has ever or can ever be written*. The writing of history is itself inevitably subjected to the perceptions of those who write history. No historian can ever claim to have the complete objectivity demanded by the German school when writing history. No human being exists in vacuo, each and every one is informed and influenced by his or her experiences, emotions, languages, religious/moral creed and millions of other existential variables. Yet as long as there is the slighest iota of subjective judgement in a historical account, that account has to be rejected on the grounds that it is un-historical, even anti-historical. Again, the impossibility. Much as the cult of objectivity has gained an incredible level of credence in today's modern, 'professionalised' style of historical writing, it remains a sad truth that such eunuch-like objectivity** will never be attained, no matter how hard historians try. Total objectivity, whatever its considerable merits, is totally impossible to achieve. Again, there can be no writing of history, according to the standards of the German school.

Finally, such 'total history' in this sense lacks any meaning. The mere compilation of cold, hard, real facts means that all these facts are treated with equal importance. The only determinant of historical value is therefore physical veracity. And so the fact that caveman Ungaa-wangaa scratched his arse on the 11th of September is of the same historical significance as the fact that terrorists attacked New York city exactly 5,000 years later. There is thus no relative significance at all in true history; it is deprived of importance in its equal treatment of all the facts. There is thus neither order nor system, nor rhyme, nor rhythm, in this vast collection of facts. In attempting to curb the worst excesses of normative valuations, the German school repudiated positive value systems as well, and thence any sense of proportion or meaning. It essentially threw the baby out along with the bath-water.




Fascinating. Now that is historiography. That multitude of answers to that question, 'What is History?'

Although the account of Historismus presented here is of course not entirely accurate and suffers from those flaws necessitated by time and space constraints, I should think it provides enough to chew on mentally for quite some time. As indeed I myself am doing now instead of writing that essay on Cardinal Richelieu.







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*Sure, you can write 'simple' chronologies which just note what happened. E.g.: 'King X decreed that the tax should be raised to 10%'. Simple, clean, and easy as breakfast.

But some- in fact, most- events cannot be written in a way totally free of judgement.

Going back to the given example- why 'King X decreed that the tax should be raised to 10%'? Why not 'King X dictated that the tax should be raised to 10%'? Why not 'King X demanded that the tax...'? (It becomes obvious that each of these words carries widely divergent meanings- the King who decrees is associated with legitimacy, the King who dictates is probably a tyrant, the King who demands bears a hint of desperation if not exasperation about him.)

There are always choices in using words, and there is always subjectivity in making choices. In history, the choice of words is unavoidable, and thus, so too is subjectivity. There is no complete objectivity in history, even in the 'simplest' of chronologies.



**A delightful and delightfully German phrase used by the historian Johann Gustav Droysen, in reaction to the ideological austerity and selflessness implied by Leopold von Ranke's emphasis on critical rigour in the use of historical source material.

Another Crushing Defeat

Hard on the heels of Wenger's post-match inane, insane gibbering came another blow from another quarter.

The collections have been returned. In shreds.



Damn it, Broers! Have all my efforts this past term been in vain? Was the sacrifice of my favoured paper, International Relations, for naught?

Indeed, what can I learn from you, you who cannot even teach himself to write legibly?



But no, that is not the way. You marked fairly, and I must use the pain to strengthen myself.

Crushing Defeat

The final reduction of the once-supreme Arsenal was effected on the 5th of May 2009.

The delusion and blindness of Arsene Wenger had long descended into senility and insanity, his once-admirable faith in the promise of youth turned into an unholy obsession which perhaps bordered on paedophilic obscenity.

The rot became an infection, the infection a cancer, until the whole team on the eve of the Champions League game at Ashburton Grove was little more than a tottering sham, a pathetic excuse for an aspiring title-holder, the merest of shadows of its former self.

Thus passes the once-Invincible Arsenal into darkness, that team of footballing titans and heroes, who could call upon the legendary names of THIERRY HENRY, PATRICK VIERA, ROBERT PIRES, DENNIS BERGKAMP, TONY ADAMS, SOL CAMPBELL, FREDRIK LJUNBERG, MARC OVERMARS, EMMANUEL PETIT, MARTIN KEOWN, NWANKWO KANU, SYLVAIN WILTORD and RAY PARLOUR to strike fear deep into the black hearts of the cursed Mancunians.

Yet the Invincibles live Immortal in history. Their degenerate successors shall be forgotten for eternity.