<> *4@3 BABYLON 5 vs. STAR TREK *3]5@4 by Vivienne Raper © Krystal Enterprises UNLTD. *1]1 @1 Star Trek has been for a long time seen as THE cult spacetravelling Sci-fi series. It's fourth incarnation, Voyager has just hit British TV screens. There have been countless videos, books, memorabilia, even a Klingon Dictionary and Audio tape. There are literally thousands of Trekkies. In my opinion, however, ]3STAR TREK IS TOTAL CRASS!]1 This was not made plain to me, however, until I began to see the excellent Babylon 5. Babylon 5 is now into it's third season (I believe) and is getting better and better. And as it does, the formula of Star Trek slowly gets worse and worse. In a desperate search for fresh plot, Star Trek dredges up unbelievable, corny plot ideas which have been used again and again. Tell me, dearest readers, exactly how many spacial anomolies have the Star Trek crews encountered? Yet, the appearance of a new one rarely seems to surprise them. Never do they say: "Oh look, another spacial amomoly!". Someone, I'm sure will correct me on my spelling of the word, anomoly. This is another of Star Trek's oh so obvious flaws. In a desperate attempt to cover up the unbelievable, pathetic plots which stretch the laws of physics to their utmost limits, if they bother to embrace them at all, the crew of the Enterprise continuously garble meaningless, supposidely scientific junk at us. Half way in the middle of a crisis, some enlightened crew member will turn to another and slurge something akin to: ]5"We must reroute the upsilon beams via a cencidal junction in order to prevent the lateral baffles imploding"]1. To which the other, understanding this perfectly, unlike the hapless viewer replies ]5"There's a high risk involved, the cerebal cordons are not strong enough to take the strain of the conducive backthrust"]1. Neither can the viewer. On average, three quarters of each program is devoted to this mindless babble. For goodness sake, why don't you just talk Klingon and have done with it? It would make more sense, some of us have dictionaries and for that matter, pronunciation tapes! Yet, although Babylon 5 is also set in the future, in a time of wonderous technology, the communication between officers manages to be comprehendable and builds us into the tension of any situation. Instead of rerouting lateral baffles, they actually get on with the plot, which after all is the whole point. Star Trek I feel concentrates too much on family lives, and certainly too much on political correctness. Some episodes, especially of Star Trek: The Next Generation, do not have any connection with space, they could be set anywhere, anytime. The one which sticks in my mind, is an episode where Lwaxana Troi spends the whole time wrestling with her grief over the death of Kestra, her daughter. Soap opera in space is a good description. ]3YOU]1 might want to watch that, I certainly don't. I want to watch action, but of course, there isn't much of that, because besides for the hostile spacial anomolies, by the Next Generation, the Klingons are relatively peaceful, the Romulans have a Treaty with the Federation, and according to Deanna in one memorable statement, world poverty, famine and conflict on Earth itself has been wiped out. Everyone is luvvy-duvvy. a) That ain't gonna happen, and b) it makes for a darn boring series! Babylon 5 has the right idea, lots of fighting, conspiracy and action, people making alliances, hanging on the brink, a slowly evolving and involving plot, an ancient enemy. It may have telepaths, but it's view of the universe is somehow far, far closer to fact. The political correctness on Star Trek sticks out like a sore thumb. There has to be a woman, there has to be a coloured person, there has to be an alien, there has to be an disabled person. Moral messages blare out at us like trumpets. Everyone makes such a fuss about the first inter-racial kiss between Kirk and Uhura. In Babylon 5, Sheridan is very chummy with Delenn, but it comes out as being so sweet, so caring, so natural, it isn't hurled right in our face. There might be an alien, a coloured doctor, a woman, but they fit in so nicely and interact well together. They don't go waving their arms around, hurling their particular correctness in all the other characters faces like a label, a banner above their head. Surely that's how we want people to be, we want to accept people as they are, just treat them like everyone else. Surely the idea is to see Geordi as Geordi rather than running around saying: ]5"Hey, I know this guy is blind, but I'm being politically correct to him, watch me do it!"]1. We want to accept the characters as people, not as labels stuck in so the producers can say: ]5"Hey, we're being dead politically correct here and we're going to make sure everyone knows about it every thirty five seconds instead of about the real friendship and caring between real individuals."]1. Now we come onto the subject of aliens and replicators. The first Star Trek always amused me. Wherever they went, this beautiful human woman, distinguishable as an alien by a silly bump on her nose or forehead turns up, scantily clad and says, in strident American: ]5"Hi guys, I'm an alien!"]1. Responding to criticism of the fact all the alien's looked human, they came up with the common ancestor theory, which in my opinion stinks like a week old kipper. It's very sad and it's very arrogant to think everyone will look like us. The Babylon 5 aliens are much better, they look better, their cultures are better thought out and sensitive, they're in some cases mysterious, and in some cases just plain funny. They don't hurl political correctness in our face like Star Trek aliens (notably a female dominated culture which wanted to settle on Bajor), they don't all talk with strident American accents. They also have better spaceships. Yes, I belong to the camp who thinks that the Federation starships are one of the worst design concepts ever thought up. They may be scientifically accurate, but boy, do they look dreadful! Even the person who thought up Imperial Star Destroyers had more imagination than to come up with the Enterprise. The Enterprise is just one example of rather sad and unbelievable technology, and glaring plot gaps which exist in Star Trek. The most dramatic is the replicators. These devices replicate things seemingly from nowhere. They can replicate anything which has been programmed in (allegedly!), but apparently not armies, starships or clones of people, which to me seems a pretty obvious development. Everyone has a replicator in their home, but people buy drinks from Quarks. Why? Surely they could buy one drink, and replicate the rest, free of charge. Where does this stuff come from? Matter, perhaps. There must be a lot of it. Where's it stored? When they replicate drinks, they always come with mugs. Do they de-replicate the mugs when they've finished with them? If they didn't, the whole place could be filled with tea mugs. They could have millions of mugs orbiting or floating around in space. They could fill an entire spacestation with the things, in fact, an entire planet! Intergalactic landfill here we come. If not, an interesting plot development would be someone arriving somewhere and saying ]5"Oh no, we're entering the tea mug belt, watch out for orbiting decanters! The lateral baffles will have to be rerouted via a cordial interface"]1. That's of course if they don't run out of matter. The whole of creation could be converted into those white plastic cups you get from coffee dispensers. That would be a job for Q. The human race were bound to destroy themselves eventually, as he is overcome by a deluge of spacebound ringpulls. ]5 I have only one thing left to say on Star Trek. ]5"It's entering a subspace conduit at maximum warp, prepare to engage an Omega beam by transferring the compressed almoba crystals into a partially engaged trimudal interface. Oh yes, and mind the lateral baffles ]5while you're about it!"]1 @4 *3[Please note: This is the first article that Beyond the Frontier has received from a person of the opposite sex. Yes, Vivienne is my longest contact. I have been writing to her for almost 5 years! - Slade]