During the tenure of Capt. Christopher Pike, the first officer of the USS Enterprise was a woman referred to by all as Number One. We always presumed this designation to refer to her rank, but in fact we now know – thanks to her revival on the new Trek entry Strange New Worlds – that it’s her actual name: Una.
And those of us who read the Trek novels also know that she is not from Earth. She is Illyrian, a member of a group of humanoids scattered among a few far-flung colonies who are persona non grata within the Federation, because they are genetically engineered – and that’s verboten.
Why so harsh, so un-inclusive? It sounds very un-Federation-like, doesn’t it? Isn’t the Federation made up of cultures who have advanced beyond prejudice and racism?
It is, but remember that Earth once almost fell to a cabal of genetically-engineered supermen (re: Khan), rendering all genetically-engineered beings suspect. Julian Bashir of Deep Space 9 is such a person.
And so, we learn in season one of Strange New Worlds, is Number One. And the season cliffhanger is that Starfleet arrests her, removes her from the Enterprise, and marches her off to prison.
Before that happens, however, we learn why her people are okay with re-engineering their genes, in a conversation she has with Pike and ***:
“All my life I’ve hated Augments,” says *** (referring to genetically-engineered people), who is a descendant of Khan Noonian Singh, “hated what people thought of me because I was related to them. Understanding why they were outlawed in the Federation. The damage they did. They almost destroyed Earth.”
“The Augments, yes,” Una replies, “but not us. My people were never motivated by domination. Illyrians seek collaboration with nature. By bio-engineering our bodies, we adapt to naturally-existing habitats. Instead of terraforming planets, we modify ourselves. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“If that’s what you believe, why do you hide it?” Pike asks. “Why hide it from me?” A particularly valid question, as they are very close.
“I’ve been hiding it from a lot of people,” she replies. “All I ever wanted, since I first saw the stars, was to join Starfleet.”
“I know.”
“You’re the one who gave me that dream. And the fact that strawberries are my comfort food.”
“Captain, I’m an Illyrian. Not from [the nearby Illyrian colony], from far away. Starfleet policy is clear: by not disclosing my genetic augmentation – worse, by enlisting in Starfleet – I've committed a Federation offense.”
She tries to resign, and Pike refuses to accept, and we wind up with the cliffhanger that will be resolved when the second season airs in 2023.
Let’s think about this. We saw the dangers of genetically-enhanced human beings in the whole Khan debacle, and again on Enterprise in a season-four story arc that showed a group of young Augments wreaking havoc, driven by the same sense of superiority that motivated Khan and his people. We can understand, then, why the Federation feels the way it does.
We can also understand, because we know the character, that Number One is correct when she states that neither she nor her people are afflicted by the same social dominance impulses suffered by Khan and other Augments. They themselves are not engineered for superiority; they are engineered for adaptability.
The entire concept of adapting oneself to a new environment, rather than adapting that environment to oneself, is worthy of deep discussion. As inhabitants of a planet being unwittingly re-engineered, we can see the problem of changing a planet versus changing people is one of tremendous scope. Number One’s people are onto something here, from a practical standpoint.
We can also make the argument that theirs is the more moral course. To re-engineer an entire world to suit the needs of one species means truncating the possibilities of that world, if left to itself. It’s akin to the early American colonists remaking the continent in their own image, destroying habitat after habitat, wiping out species right and left, leading us to our current predicament.
By the time we reach the stars, we’ll have both technologies down pat: we’ll have completely mastered our own genes, and we’ll have the knowledge to rebuild worlds. The latter will undoubtedly take much longer (decades, they tell us in Aliens, and that may be seriously low-balling it), and the former will undoubtedly be much cheaper.
But there’s more to it than logistics. The moral implications are profound; the Federation fears Augments because they run roughshod over “lesser” beings, taking over completely.
Isn’t terraforming doing the same thing?
Re-engineering people to suit the planet, rather than the other way around, flips this equation upside down. Not only is it the more morally justifiable choice, but it represents the path of greater, more authentic conviction and commitment.
Imagine the Federation learning from the Illyrians and reversing its policy. Imagine it abandoning terraforming and adopting genetic modification of new populations instead.
At that point, you’ve really gone all in on Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations...
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