Three stages of bigotry displayed in Enterprise

[CoffeeCat]

After a fresh rewatch of the series I noticed three stages of bigotry displayed by 3 different characters. These are my observations and theories that were notes in my writing journal so do with them what you will. I'm posting them only to help spark ideas for other fanfic writers.

1) Irrational/primal fear of the unknown.
Trip is a character who displays fear of the unknown, but it's almost always overridden by his curiousity. And I stress *almost*. His friendship with "big brother" Archer is the exception. Unfortunatly it was never explained in canon why Archer could have so much influence on his opinion about Vulcans except that he worked closely with him on the warp 5 project and was probably subjected to being Archer's shoulder-to-cry-on whenever he couldn't get his way. It is my opinion that Phlox hooked him up with T'Pol, not just because he was having trouble sleeping, but because making a serious connection with someone who wasn't human would keep him from slipping into the Archer-level bigotry due to the Xindi killing his sister.

2) Mistrust and Anger.
This is the type displayed mostly by Captain Archer (and sometimes Trip) when a someone begins to rationalize their fear of that which is different. It was brought out in Trip when he was "puppeting" Archer in the decon chamber in "Broken Bow" and again under the influence of psychotropic spores in "Strange New World" (and interestingly enough, the same person that taught him the paranoia was also the one who knew exactly how to talk him down). This is the stage you get to when you think you're getting screwed over by an alien. It can lead to problems that range from a Captain unwittingly endangering his crew to nationalist buffoonery. Sadly, this is the state of mind that helped the United States elect the orange-wonder into office and it's the "between" stage that leads to...

3) Blind Hatred based on lies/Supremacy/Terra Prime/Isolationists
Ugh. It baffles me how anyone can reach this stage (or even the previous one) but it happens. This is when a person thinks their "kind" is pure and innocent and the targeted "victim" of everything that is not them because everyone else is tainted by impurity/satan/evil. These people are cult-like (or literally cults) that tend to over-simplify complex problems. Everything is black and white, us vs. them, good vs. evil. I think the closest Trek has ever come to displaying this kind of thinking in its most extreme form is in the character Paxton from "Demons" and "Terra Prime". This kind of backwards behavior is the kind that lead to witches being burned, the trail of tears, the existance of the Westboro Baptist Church, & the KKK (to name a few examples). I think I should note that there is a very fine line between this stage and the last one. A Character like Degra would fall right on it.

[panyasan]

It would be interesting to have a back story behind all this. First, you have World War III and Vulcans helping the Humans to get back on their feet.
Then we have the period in which ENT plays.

What struck me that the whole idea of "distrust of Vulcans" is not an idea from buttom up (people getting tired of the help of Vulcans), but more top down. It seems to me that the media and the people in power at that time wanted control and wanted to created their own power base in the galaxy.
For this, they need to create distance between them and the Vulcan. Also, to united a people, there is nothing that works better than an enemy.
So just give the Vulcan a bad reputation, emphasize how they are so different from us and how we must create our own Starfleet.

I think it's a good thing that the Humans created their own place in the galaxy. But not all the methods used, were free of bigotry.

[CoffeeCat]

Interesting. I think ideologically, the Vulcans at the beginning of the series were right where they should be: Give the their technology up to the noobs? Hell no. Not until they grow up!

I agree. The only thing that made the Vulcans seem wrong is the fact that tptb (media, ppl @ top) made them appear really bitchy about it.

So when you get a group of people who have been isolated from the rest of the galexy since literally the beginning of time, they have a collective (phase 1) primal fear of the unknown.

Tptb start feeding them propaganda, like Archer had spoon fed it to Trip. Leading them to enter the mistrust and anger stage.

Then BOOM, the Xindi attack and the fringe groups amp up the propaganda until suddenly you have Terra Prime stealing DNA and making an "abomination" to scare the living crap out of everyone. They start preaching isolationism and actively recruiting until you end up with fucking Donald Trump dry humping a nuke right into north korea. ( sorry, i had to)

So my thoughts are that Season V might've began with the amassing of a war fleet and the building of barriers, maybe even the election of a dictator.

[Transwarp]

On the other hand... maybe the season one Vulcans really *were* being unreasonable and obnoxious. Maybe they really were actively working to suppress and delay Earth's technological development, and to keep Earth dependant on Vulcan. Maybe some of Archer's issues and feelings toward the Vulcans were accurate and justified. Remember, this was before the Kirshara was found in season four. The Vulcans were operating under an incomplete and inaccurate understanding of the philosophy and words of Surak. Also, V'Las (a Romulan puppet) was still leading the Vulcan High Command. Who knows how many of Vulcan's policies towards Earth were inspired and directed from Romulus?

[CoffeeCat]

Maybe. That is a valid theory.
Unfortunate we were never told what their actual word for word policies were and I don't think either of our theories are what B&B were thinking @ the beginning of the series: I think they were really just trying to make Archer edgy and angsty and just ended up making everyone look ridiculous.

I tend to lean towards a mixture of both ideas, actually.
Yes, V'Las was in charge at the time, and the Romulans did most likely exert an influence.

But Archer made no effort to learn the truth, did he? He was oversimplifying the problem and making blind accusations agaist "your people" at T'Pol and Soval without calling out the individuals in charge. In his anger, he acted like it was all the Vulcans and not a handful of idiots at the top of the food chain.

[panyasan]

I tend to lean towards a mixture of both ideas, actually.
Yes, V'Las was in charge at the time, and the Romulans did most likely exert an influence.

I have the same idea. Starfleet was a great idea, however, the idea became more important than an individual. In creating an enemy (Vulcans) and bringing the message over and over again (probably helped by a press who forgot that their first duty is to ask the tough questions) the idea of Starfleet was pushed by the leaders. Not that they were all so devoted to exploration of the universe, but also as tool to gain power on Earth.

The same power play you see on Vulcan.

A theory could be is that TnT didn't fit the narrative of Starfleet being created out of idealism and perfect Earth leaders, because their relationship was not accepted in the beginning for lots of reasons, some of them political as seen above.

This would explain why a strange story has been made up about Trip killing himself and TnT breaking up.

[CoffeeCat]

I have the same idea. Starfleet was a great idea, however, the idea became more important than an individual. In creating an enemy (Vulcans) and bringing the message over and over again (probably helped by a press who forgot that their first duty is to ask the tough questions) the idea of Starfleet was pushed by the leaders. Not that they were all so devoted to exploration of the universe, but also as tool to gain power on Earth.

Yup. And from what I've seen in RL, power plays on earth can get REALLY ugly. What Archer was trying to negotiate was a trade agreement. Where there is trade, there is money involved, jobs gained and lost, the threat of economic depression, the threat of slavery, feudalism, and all kinds of crazy stuff. How do the people of earth know they aren't going to have their crappy jobs moved off world to a slave colony run by Tellerites, for example? Is the trade fair? Who wins? Are they getting their currency debased?

The same power play you see on Vulcan

I'd like to think Vulcan is more civil about it tho.

A theory could be is that TnT didn't fit the narrative of Starfleet being created out of idealism and perfect Earth leaders, because their relationship was not accepted in the beginning for lots of reasons, some of them political as seen above.

This would explain why a strange story has been made up about Trip killing himself and TnT breaking up.

I always imagine that Trip faked his death and then lived out the rest of his life as a Vulcan with T'Pol.

Anyway, I got an interesting plot bun from this conversation: what if, after Paxton died, his followers managed to have their way: they destroy Starfleet HQ, assassinated the PM, and then set up their coup around the planet, chasing all aliens off world, along with Enterprise and Columbia, Leaving Archer and Hernendez unable to return..

[panyasan]

Yup. And from what I've seen in RL, power plays on earth can get REALLY ugly. What Archer was trying to negotiate was a trade agreement. Where there is trade, there is money involved, jobs gained and lost, the threat of economic depression, the threat of slavery, feudalism, and all kinds of crazy stuff. How do the people of earth know they aren't going to have their crappy jobs moved off world to a slave colony run by Tellerites, for example? Is the trade fair? Who wins? Are they getting their currency debased?

The same power play you see on Vulcan.

I'd like to think Vulcan is more civil about it tho.

You're probalby right.

Anyway, I got an interesting plot bun from this conversation: what if, after Paxton died, his followers managed to have their way: they destroy Starfleet HQ, assassinated the PM, and then set up their coup around the planet, chasing all aliens off world, along with Enterprise and Columbia, Leaving Archer and Hernendez unable to return..

I didn't see that plotbunny coming. But interesting, good stuff.... Keep the ideas flowing...

[CoffeeCat]

Well my inner Janeway is saying "do it."

[panyasan]

Hubs is playing a Star Trek game on his phone in his spare time. Sometimes I hear not an inner Janeway, but a very vocal Janeway loud and clear.