Space: 1999 - "Breakaway”
“As you know, our Moon has been blasted out of orbit. We have been completely cut off from planet Earth. As we are, we have power, environment, and therefore, the possibility of survival. If we should try to improvise a return to Earth, without travel plots, without full resources, it is my belief that we would fail. Therefore, in my judgment, we do not try.”
~Cmdr. John Koenig
SEPTEMBER 13, 1999. Moonbase Alpha, a lunar community of over 300 specialists from many nations, is the jumping-off point for the rest of the solar system. It is also responsible for oversight of a massive nuclear waste dumping operation, storing radioactive materials shipped up from Earth on the far side of the moon.
When an upcoming mission to the edge of the solar system is suddenly threatened by a mysterious illness afflicting its crew, Cmdr. John Koenig is sent to Moonbase Alpha to assume command and get things back on track. Arriving, he quickly learns from his old friend and mentor Victor Bergman – and then from the base’s chief medical officer, Dr. Helena Russell – that things are much worse than he’s been told. Men are dying, and it isn’t clear why.
The original nuclear waste site on the moon’s dark side has been emitting a magnetic field that has killed 11 men, including the two probe astronauts. It heralds a flare-up of the site, which burns itself out. But the main site is almost 150 times as large, and it is beginning to lose stability.
Koenig orders Alan Carter, captain of the base’s Eagle fleet, to deploy it to dismantle the larger site as quickly as possible – but there’s not enough time. The nuclear waste area erupts in a staggering explosion, propelling the moon out of Earth’s orbit and out into space. When the explosion burns out and the g-forces stabilize, Koenig and the rest of the Alpha complement find themselves on an unexpected – and uncontrollable - journey out of the solar system, into deep space.
They have plenty of power, and the base can provide shelter, food, water, and life support indefinitely; but they have no control over the moon’s speed or direction. They are at the mercy of the cosmos, with their destiny utterly uncertain.
Moonbase Alpha’s seemingly random tumble through the universe puts its inhabitants in a wide range of situations both wondrous and deadly, as they focus on locating some world where they can set down roots and start over. They come within range of a number of planets where they find themselves in peril, and encounter many unexpected dangers in deep space. Koenig leads them through it all, with Bergman and Russell advising him each step of the way, but ultimately the Alphans can only hope to stumble into good fortune – to find a planet they can reach that’s suitable for settlement and not poised to destroy them, or come across other space travelers who can take them from the moon to some less precarious fate.
And precarious it is: they have no control whatsoever over their course, no way to escape. They could (and often do) plunge right into mortal danger on any given day; their 20th century Earth tech is primitive, compared to every star-traveling species they encounter; even their own moon turns out to harbor perils heretofore unseen. Put simply, the Alphans are helplessly subject to the whims of the stars.
It’s this looming uncertainty factor that accounts for 1999’s many philosophical turns. The existential dread of Alpha’s predicament was unprecedented in a sci-fi TV series at the time it premiered, and has been matched only by the 2004 reboot of Battlestar: Galactica since. The aimless course of the moon through deep space causes the Alphans to start from scratch in many domains: Why has this happened to them? Is there meaning in any of it, and in whatever is to come? Does their fate ultimately matter? Where can they now locate some sense of purpose?
These questions, and many more, land squarely in the domain of philosophy; and in one philosophical domain in particular: stoicism.
The things we cannot change
It’s hard to imagine a more frustrating fate for a community of astronauts than to be flung, perhaps permanently, into a life of relative helplessness. The men and women of Alpha were, without exception, exceedingly capable and accomplished, or they’d never have drawn the lunar assignment. From the most senior engineer to the lowliest lab assistant, they were all the best at what they did; you don’t get to go live on the moon otherwise. That kind of individual is an agent of accomplishment, the type that knows what they want and moves heaven and earth to get it. That’s how you get to fly Eagles and walk on the moon.
Then, to be faced with an indifferent universe that isn’t remotely responsive to your best efforts – that would be tough, wouldn’t it? It’s easy to wonder how most people would do, faced with that reality.
Accepting what we can’t change – that's the core of stoicism, the Hellenistic philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Stoicism’s focus is on the pursuit of growth and happiness through a reasoned acceptance of the world as it truly is, rather than what we wish it to be, or what others might say it is. The idea is to pursue the most honest life possible, and to flourish in that space.
What can we control? According to stoicism, we can control our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions. What can we not control? The thoughts, emotions, and actions of other people. And, more importantly, the natural course of the universe – the events that happen all around us. To this, we ultimately submit.
But, of course, none of these are absolutes: none of us can completely control our own thoughts and emotions; and some people do control other people, to a limited degree, and some can control the course of natural events.
Jim Kirk lets his emotions get the better of him when the Organians shut down his face-off with the Klingon Commander Kor; and then he intervenes nicely to decontaminate the atmosphere of Ariannus, saving millions of its inhabitants.
Similarly, Koenig falters in facing down the humanoid aliens who make war on Alpha to keep humans off their world in “War Games” – yet, in taking action, in defiance of all his colleagues, he causes the planet Atheria to transition to a higher plane of existence, in “Collision Course”.
Even so, the general concept – that human beings should get control of their own thoughts and emotions as best they can and leave others to themselves, while taking responsibility for their own agency – that's an ideal mindset for the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha. There’s a great deal they can’t control; but they are a very special group of people, and each Alphan taking responsibility for what they can control – themselves – makes for a more meaningful existence in extremely difficult circumstances, and makes for a much stronger community.
A taxonomy of virtue
A reason-centered life is obviously the way to go, especially for scientists and astronauts; but there is more to stoicism than reason, and more is needed to survive the terrors of an aimless carom through the darkness of deep space than facts and logic.
The stoic ethical platform is something we build within ourselves, with reason our primary tool. The idea is to break free of emotions we harbor that can hinder or even control us. With that freedom comes virtue. And in stoic thinking, virtue is more than a personal trait; it’s a framework for many traits.
To begin, stoic virtue comes in four different flavors: wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. The idea here, in pursuit of the stoic approach to life, is to respond to the universe (including other people and the natural world) with virtue – the highest good. And virtue, to the stoic, is a kind of toolkit: within its four components, we have everything we need to respond effectively, even (especially!) when facing adversity.
Let’s take them one at a time.
Wisdom
Wisdom is, of course, the cornerstone of philosophy itself, not just stoicism. The word philosophy actually means love of wisdom.
And in the stoic virtue framework, wisdom is the tool used to evaluate ourselves, others, and the world around us. If stoicism is about reconciling what we can control and what we can’t, then assessments of what can and can’t be control are essential. Wisdom, stoics believe, is the moving part in that assessment.
“The chief task in life is simply this,” wrote the Greek philosopher Epictetus, “to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control.”
A secondary function of wisdom, per Diogenes Laërtius in Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, is the parsing of good and evil. Stoics employ wisdom to “define as the knowledge of things good and evil and of what is neither good nor evil; knowledge of what we ought to choose, what we ought to be aware of, and what is indifferent.”
And Epictetus focuses the idea a little tighter, placing the evaluation of good and evil squarely in the virtue frame:
“Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own.”
The practical components of stoic wisdom include good calculation, quick-wittedness, good sense, discretion, and resourcefulness. Those are helpful in human enterprises of all kinds, of course, but they are particularly well-suited to the task of asserting self-control, accurately assessing others and the surrounding world, and discerning what is good and what is evil.
They are also traits that inform the final function of stoic wisdom: action.
“Works, not words,” advised the Roman stoic Seneca. Wisdom is stoicism applied; wisdom informs agency in the world. “Between stimulus and response there is a space,” said the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. “In that space is our power to choose our response.”
Courage
Just as the stoics’ definition of wisdom explicitly serves their virtue framework, so does courage apply specifically to stoic imperatives.
In particular, stoic courage is that which is mustered to face the stoic’s internal battle. Epictetus fleshes out the metaphor in his Discourses:
“Don’t you know life is like a military campaign?” he wrote. “One must serve on watch, another in reconnaissance, another on the front line... So it is for us - each person’s life is a kind of battle, and a long and varied one too. You must keep watch like a soldier and do everything commanded... You have been stationed in a key post, not some lowly place, and not for a short time but for life.”
The battle, in this formulation, is a contest between the comfort of the status quo and service to one’s own judgment, facing change squarely when it is called for. It demands the courage of holding to one’s principles in the face of adversity; placing yourself at risk for another; to commit to truth, and to speak that truth.
To this end, Epictetus added, “Two words should be committed to memory and obeyed: persist and resist.”
Moderation
If the struggle for self-control is the stoic’s courageous battle, what is the best weapon? Per Aristotle, it’s “the golden mean” - the midpoint between excess and deficiency. Desire, whether grounded in the physical or the abstract, has at its root dissatisfaction and unease. The choice to practice moderation in all things, the stoics believe, blunts the dangers of excess and desire.
“Don’t set your heart on so many things, and you will get what you need,” is how Epictetus said it. Seneca: “You ask what is the proper limit to a person’s wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.”
In this formulation, essentials = abundance. If you have what you need, you’re good to go, and expending energy getting more than that is not only a waste of effort but potentially a danger. This emotional economy works in service of the stoic’s quest for self-control.
“‘If you seek tranquility, do less,’” wrote Marcus Aurelius in Meditations. “Do what’s essential - what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”
Justice
The stoic framework of virtue contains wisdom, for discerning what we can control and what we can’t; courage, to face the struggles that ensue when acceptance has taken hold; moderation, to make the struggles easier. That leaves justice – the motivation that drives them all.
Why adopt stoicism? Why commit to such a demanding, disciplined course? To what end does the stoic life aspire?
As far as Marcus Aurelius is concerned, it’s the pursuit of the common good – purifying yourself by purging futile effort, vain pursuits and unproductive behavior, then devoting the new, improved you to a new, improved community.
“...and a commitment to justice in your own acts,” he writes in Meditations, “which means, thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were born to do.” He describes justice as “the source of all the other virtues.”
Cicero rephrased it: “Justice is the crowning glory of the virtues... the principle which constitutes the bond of human society and of a virtual community of life.”
He went on to add details to his definition in On Moral Duties:
That no one do harm to another;
That one use common possessions as common; private as belonging to their owners;
We are not born for ourselves alone;
Men were brought into being for the sake of men, that we might do good to one another;
We ought to follow nature as a guide, to contribute our part to the common good;
Good faith, steadfastness, and truth.
Further, he created some reciprocal definitions. Injustice, for instance, he defined as anything that harms someone else. Longing to possess things others have, he pointed out, induces men to injure other men.
Finally, stoicism offers the concept of Sympatheia – the idea that the universe is one vast network of interdependence; we are part of everything, and everything is part of us. This might be the most Alphan of stoic concepts, as the journey of the moon through the stars demonstrates to the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha over and over again that their journey is one long procession of contacts, and their impact upon each one makes a big difference.
It’s here, then, within the stoic concept of virtue, that the Alphans find relief from the endless assault of angst their predicament presents. Their tragedy lays bare who they really are, and they are in perpetual confrontation with it. That the wonders and dangers of the void draw out the best in them, over and over, is promising, and speaks to the laudability of the stoic mindset. And it is through the stoic lens that we can most clearly see what makes them worthy of survival, and find meaning in their encounters with the unknown.
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