Maybe I’m just as blinkered and shortsighted as the leaders who always seem to fall into the trap of re-fighting the last war.
How do you mean, Jake?
Well, it’s always been difficult for me to understand how your generation has been able to tolerate having so much… tension and uncertainty in your lives. The threat of the Undine has dangled over you like some interdimensional Sword of Damocles for your entire lives. But your generation seems to have a very different take on the universe than mine does. You have more of a sense of serenity.
Mine isn’t the first generation that’s had to learn to live with some omnipresent Big Bad looming in the background. Look back through human history. In the middle of the twentieth century, the United States became the first of Earth’s nation-states to use atomic bombs against an adversary. Two whole cities, both full of innocent civilians, were razed by nuclear fire in a matter of moments. And for several decades afterward, every child on the planet had to become accustomed to the specter of nuclear annihilation, which might have come at any moment.
I’m not sure that the comparison of your generation to that one is entirely fair, René. Humanity still possessed a lot of ugly characteristics that we’ve since managed to shed. Racism and sexism, just to name two.
But are we really all that different now than people were four or five hundred years ago, Jake? You and I might agree that we’ve changed for the better as a species, at least broadly speaking. But a Zimmerman EMH hologram that’s spent years doing continuous waste-reclamation duty for Starfleet might have a considerably different perspective on the matter.
I see your point, René. But I still have to applaud your generation for having dealt so successfully with a threat as large and all-encompassing as the Undine.
I’m not sure thanks are in order, Jake. I think of most of my peers as merely doing whatever the circumstances demand of them. Rising to the occasion as much as they possibly can, just like any generation does. After all, human beings have always been amazingly adaptable, otherwise we never would have made it down from the trees. But it isn’t easy to deal with a reality in which any friend, parent, child, or authority figure in someone’s life might turn out to be an Undine spy transformed into human form via quasi-magical means. A bloodthirsty alien might lurk just beneath the skin of even a lover or a spouse, only a subtle twist of a DNA helix away from striking. And that lover or spouse might not even realize it! That knowledge has had a profound effect on everyone. So you should never make the mistake of thinking that everybody in my age cohort has managed to take this Undine business in stride.
I suppose not everyone can cover themselves in glory in an age of unbridled paranoia.
People are just people, Jake. They’re not saints, but they’re not demons either. I’ve seen classmates sequester themselves away in pixel-perfect holosuite simulations until they’ve lost all track of objective reality. People have starved to death that way. On another part of the spectrum, I’ve watched people routinely overindulge in whatever they decide to conjure out of their bottomless replicators in order to self-medicate their anxieties away. And I’ve seen people I’d believed to be rock-solid emotionally take up a phaser and dematerialize themselves because they believed they were really Undine “sleepers.”
I suppose I can understand how people can succumb to a constant, unrelenting background of stress, so I don’t want to be judgmental. After all, I have no more patience for those New Essentialist idiots who believe the Undine to be divine retribution for the Federation’s decadence than I do for the lotus-eaters who think denial is a viable weapon against the Undine. But I have to point out that most of these… emotional meltdowns constitute “fleeing behavior,” no doubt generated by the Undine’s capacity to force an excessive “fight or flight” response from far too many of us over long periods of time.
I’ve never believed in flight, my decision to stay out of Starfleet notwithstanding. Life is something that has to be faced head-on. All the holodecks and replicators in the quadrant can’t help you hide from it.
Interesting. You’ve just articulated a very go-getter attitude, René. It’s the kind of worldview that’s kept pushing Starfleet out into the Deep Dark Unknown for centuries now. And yet you’ve decided to make your life here instead.
On exotic, faraway Mars, you mean?
Don’t get me wrong. Mars certainly has an attractive literary and historical mystique about it. Once it even represented the pinnacle of human progress and expansion. But you have to admit that Mars isn’t exactly the tip of the spear in terms of present-day deep-space exploration.
True. But neither is Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.
Touché. Still, the comparison isn’t entirely fair.
Isn’t it? We both prefer the reliable comforts of hearth and home to the constantly shifting dangers of the final frontier, even though we’re both sons of famous Starfleet captains.
My dad commanded a space station that stayed put for the most part. Yours spent years commanding starships dedicated to pure exploration all across the galaxy, and even beyond.
All right, Jake. I suppose I’ll have to give you that one.
So why the preference for home and hearth?
Again, I suppose my response would overlap quite a bit with any answer you would give to the same question. There were, of course, all those issues of other people’s expectations that we’ve already touched on. I suppose I didn’t want to find myself going down a blind alley, the way my half-brother Wesley did.
It always comes back to those complicated “identity issues” again, doesn’t it?
And maybe also to something even more fundamental than that. I think as I began really wrestling with the career issues—the idea of my personal destiny, for lack of a better word—I began considering the entire arc of human progress itself.
That’s pretty daunting. It’s a hell of a lot more complicated than any one man’s career choices.
But it isn’t really, at least not at the “big picture” level.
I’m afraid you’ve lost me, René. When you say “arc of human progress,” I see an incredibly complicated tapestry woven from millions of threads that crisscross at every imaginable angle.
Then you’re standing too close to the tapestry, Jake. Back up a bit, so that every little purl and snag in the weave doesn’t distract you. Then squint, metaphorically speaking. You’ll see that the human species has never advanced in an orderly way. Not even the coming of Zefram Cochrane changed that, no matter how many miracles followed as direct consequences of First Contact. Human progress has always taken three steps forward and two back for as long as we’ve been sentient creatures, and probably for a fair chunk of deep time before that. And if we’re honest, we have to acknowledge that the same historical pattern applies today.
So you see human history as an alternating series of advances and consolidations.
I think that’s a succinct but fair way of putting it, yes. I was afraid for a moment that you were going to say “greatness always skips a generation” instead.
I’d never say that. I have the writer’s hubris, remember? So… your life here on Mars, and your career… those constitute a period of consolidation, as opposed to the advancement represented by your parents’ exploits as Starfleet officers?
I suppose that’s so, in a manner of speaking. But the life I lead here also signifies that I recognize tradition. And tradition was one of the things my parents’ generation always fought to preserve, no matter how far out into unexplored space their duties took them.
When humanity goes where no one has gone before, it’s to preserve everything we are and everything we’ve been.
You understand. Perhaps my decision to live on Mars is a tribute to the history of the Picard family. After all, some of my ancestors helped to settle this world when it was far less agreeable than it is now. One of them even built the replica of the Millennium Gate that’s still towering over the Endurance Crater today.
; I suppose those ancestors accomplished what they did in between earlier periods of… retrenchment.
That’s right, more or less. Look, not every generation can be lucky enough to usher in a whole new epoch.
And the generations that are probably look “lucky” only in retrospect.
Yes. The ancient Chinese had good reasons to consider “may you live in interesting times” a curse rather than a benediction.
Because it’s a lot more fun to read about other people’s “interesting times” than it is to be dragged through them yourself.
Exactly. But whether humans are charging beyond the current boundaries, or catching our collective breath while we try to make sense out of everything we’ve learned over the last generation or so, our traditions continue, just as they always have. Because if they don’t, then what’s the point in voyaging out into the unknown to wrestle all those far frontiers into submission in the first place? What’s the point of forging all those new interspecies relationships out among the stars?
And why bother fighting off hostiles like the Undine if we never stop to honor and appreciate what we’re fighting for?
As we finally reach the distant rows of conifers, I decide I really can’t disagree with anything René has said for the past few minutes. We find ourselves quickly surrounded by the slowly lengthening shadows of the elongated Martian pines and cypresses as the wan sun continues to settle ever lower in the carmine sky. The air temperature plummets under the cover of the spreading boughs, making our crossing of this narrow swatch of new-growth forest seem to take much longer than it actually does. Still, my eyes need a moment to readjust to the vista that awaits us as we emerge less than half a kilometer from our destination.
Beyond the ancient alluvial channel—typical terrain for the Margaritifer Terra region, it’s now the site of a gently meandering stream transited by a short pontoon bridge that takes us only moments to cross—lies an almost completely treeless zone that nevertheless supports a profusion of green. Just past the stream’s far bank lies the edge of a vineyard that extends to the newly revealed horizon, and a dusty red dirt road neatly bisects the innumerable tidy, manicured rows of grapevines. Bizarrely tall because of this small world’s low prevailing gravity, the plants stand like sentinels on the slender stakes that support them, viridian-green sentries guarding the rustic mansion I can see in the distance. On the gazebo beside the house hangs a freshly painted sign:
the picard winery, est. 2407.
Tradition.
Or rather, as René tells me, the resumption of an interrupted tradition. Specifically, a centuries-old institution of viniculture that had faltered decades earlier, following the untimely death of Robert Picard—a steadfastly traditional uncle whom René was far too young ever to have met.
As we pass beneath the gazebo and mount the steps to the house’s wide, wraparound porch, René says that the hard work of convincing the local authorities to allow him to change the name of this section of the Margaritifer Terra to “Champagnifer Planum” has already paid off. Once we’re in the kitchen, he decants a recent vintage of Chateau Picard and goes on to explain that despite the overall Earthlike conditions that centuries of terraforming have brought to Mars, the groundwater here remains heavily influenced by the atmospheric carbon dioxide that has suffused the Martian soils for aeons. Therefore all the water here has a fizzy, bubbly quality—which means that just about everything that this new Picard family vineyard produces will sparkle with carbonation.
“If we’re going to be in the business of making sparkling wine,” he explains, “then we might as well find a legitimate way to call it champagne.”
We clink glasses and discuss the future—specifically, the three children that he and his wife, Natasha Miana Riker-Troi, have had so far. I watch their dark-eyed images floating over the kitchen table’s holocube as René explains that his wife is out right now, picking the kids up from the school they attend in New Chicago.
Growing up here among the grapes, will those children grow restive and depart one day for the beckoning stars? Although René offers only an ambivalent shrug in answer to that unanswerable question, I feel certain that this next generation can hardly do otherwise, given the expectations that their extraordinary pedigrees will certainly thrust upon them (imagine being a grandchild of William Riker, Deanna Troi, Beverly Crusher, and Jean-Luc Picard).
I offer a toast to family and tradition, and I find myself in an almost celebratory mood as we finish our glasses, and then refill them. The amber liquid chases away the chill of the approaching evening, and I can almost make myself believe that the Undine are as ancient and harmless as dry dinosaur bones, something from the deep past that we’ve chosen to commemorate with a ceremonial libation. But that’s not good enough. I move on to imagine the Undine as a vanquished foe whose recent decisive defeat has given us permission to drink our fill and howl our triumph out to the cold Martian moons.
Of course, I know better than to be so presumptuous. After everything I have seen and heard since I began this project, I believe that I labor under no illusions. The Undine will be back. For all I know, I’m in the company of one right now.
Or perhaps René Picard is.
I push that unpleasant thought into a dark, soon-to-be-champagne-saturated corner of my mind. And I toast the next generation in the hopes that they’ll be the ones who finally bring the Undine menace to an end. Because it has to end someday. It has to.
Doesn’t it?
APPENDIX
STAR TREK ONLINE
THE PATH TO 2409
2379–2380
• Cardassia Prime plunges into an economic crisis following the Dominion War.
• The Female Changeling is sentenced to prison in Federation custody for war crimes committed during the Dominion War.
• Tal’aura declares herself Praetor of the Romulan Empire.
• Tal’aura clashes with Commander Donatra, who is in control of the Romulan military.
• Remans demand self-sufficiency, asking for control of a continent on Romulus or a planet with sufficient natural resources to maintain settlements. In response, Tal’aura cuts shipments to Remus.
• Ro Laren surrenders to Starfleet and stands trial on charges related to her desertion and defection to the Maquis.
2381
• Construction starts on the U.S.S. Stargazer-A at the San Francisco Fleet Yards.
• Remans and Romulans skirmish in the space between the two planets.
• The Unification movement allies with the Remans, seeing them as another exploited population. Leaders of the movement request aid from the Federation Council.
• Donatra leads a military uprising against Tal’aura, taking over several farming worlds and declaring herself Empress of the Imperial Romulan State, with its capital as Achernar Prime.
• A coalition of planets led by Bajor demands that members of the Cardassian government and military stand trial for war crimes committed during the occupation of Bajor and the Dominion War. The Cardassians refuse, and the coalition appeals to the Federation to join them in seeking justice.
2382
• The Klingons take advantage of the civil war in the Romulan Star Empire and stage lightning strikes into Romulan space, retaking Khitomer and the region surrounding it. The Federation Council criticizes the act, but the Klingons respond that they are simply reclaiming territory that was theirs by right.
• Admiral Owen Paris of Starfleet Research and Development orders that the Voyager EMH’s mobile emitter be taken to its facility on Galor IV for study.
• The Doctor files suit to block the transfer of the mobile emitter, arguing that he is a sentient being who acted as a member of Starfleet during Voyager’s time in the Delta Quadrant, and that the mobile emitter is necessary to his existence.
• Tal’aura reforms the Romulan Senate. The Senate promptly votes her powers to appoint senators and veto bills. Tal’aura packs the Senate with her supporters, bringing her into c
onflict with the Empire’s noble houses.
• Loss of farming planets to Donatra and the Imperial Romulan State threatens Romulus with famine.
• Tal’aura charges her proconsul, Fleet Commander Tomalak, with retaking the planets held by Donatra. Tomalak appoints Admiral Taris as his second-in-command and orders her to reorganize and mobilize Romulus’s remaining military forces.
• The Federation Council takes up Ambassador Spock’s request that it formally support Romulan-Vulcan unification. The council chooses not to vote on the matter, not wishing to take sides in an internal conflict. They are heavily influenced by T’Los of Vulcan, who argues that the result of the unification of the two races cannot be predetermined, while the probable course of the races remaining separate can be reasonably predicted. Therefore, her only logical choice is to protect the Vulcan way of life by opposing unification.
• Over the course of four months, 472 Cardassians on the Bajor coalition’s war crimes list disappear from Cardassia Prime.
• Released from Federation custody, Ro Laren returns to Bajor and accepts a position in the Bajorian militia. She is appointed head of security for Deep Space 9.
2383
• Spock returns to Romulus to lead the Unification movement there.
• Riots protesting food rationing and limits on replicator use in the Romulan capital are brutally put down. Tal’aura says that the rationing of food and energy is necessary to support the military’s campaign against Donatra and the breakaway Imperial Romulan State.
• In a narrow vote, the Federation Council decides not to formally censure the Klingon Empire for the invasion of Khitomer.
• The Romulan Senate votes to expand Tal’aura’s powers, giving her the ability to grant or remove noble titles and the right to declare war without Senate approval.
• Tal’aura’s forces, led by Fleet Commander Tomalak, attack Donatra’s Imperial Romulan State fleet at Xanitla. Tomalak’s forces are soundly defeated, and are dealt a further blow with Admiral Taris and the crews of the twelve ships under her command defecting to the Imperial side.
ONLINE THE NEEDS OF THE MANY Page 25
