Enterprise - A Tale of Three Good Episodes

"Superior ability, breeds superior ambition"

With Star Trek Discovery on the air I've been getting back into the franchise via Netflix. Enterprise the last series to be broadcast on network tv and set the earliest in the shows timeline gets a  lot of flack, and its honestly largely deserved. I can remember watching it when it first aired, I didn't hate the show, but I didn't have any strong feelings for it either. So I've been picking and choosing from series 3 and 4 the better series in that shows run.

I think I've discovered the closest Enterprise had to a gem, in series 4 it had a three part storyline revolving around Trek's blind spot genetic engineering. Star Trek is an incredibly optimistic show, that optimism is still there in Discovery, despite the overshadowing war storyline. This is especially true of scientific progress, the Federations technology is so advanced its essentially magic. The only major exception, genetic engineering. In fact Trek's hostility to the field is so notable its on par with World War III.

One of the franchises most well known villain, Kahn Noonien Singh is tied to the concept. His characters origins were in the Eugenics wars, when a group of genetically engineered people called Augments ruled the earth before being driven out after 30 million deaths. The way the shows have handled the debate over genetic modifications has rubbed some fans the wrong way, I think the lowest point was in DS9 -the series that generally handled big issues well no less- when the Doctor is discovered to have been genetically modified when a child with severe learning disabilities thanks to his parents wishes.

The way this is handled is pretty well odd, his father is sent to prison, which even if you agree with his stance on genetic modifications may seem reasonable since he broke the law. But where it gets murky is that they were going to punish the Doctor too, it was only thanks to his father agreeing to accept full responsibility for what he did that Star Fleet decide to let the Doctor alone. There is then a short speech about how its necessary to outlaw gene mods outright, because of the Eugenics wars, which was four hundred years in their past.

There is a bit more meat to the episode, the Doctor and his father clash over the procedures, the Doctor believed that he was given the treatments because his parents were ashamed of him, while his parents insist they were desperate to provide the best possible life for their son. And in later episodes we meet other characters who had also been genetically modified while children and they all had very severe side effects.

But it was still controversial especially how it was handled. So I was surprised while watching the Augment episodes of Enterprise to see some genuine nuance. The time the show is set in is much closer to the events of the Eugenics wars and World War III, so its casting a much larger shadow. The events of the episodes are largely unresolved threads from the Eugenics wars even. But the really interesting thing to me is the what the episodes imply, Archer the captain, is at one point seriously considering the arguments of Dr Soong the eugenicist whose been under arrest for essentially creating a colony of Augments. 

His father died from a inherited disease, genetic engineering may have saved his life. Archer seems receptive, but ultimately wary of the price. The issue isn't really with genetic modification as a scientific field with its own potential merits, in the episodes an alien species the Denobulans have been using the benefits of genetic research for years, and they are kind, cooperative and supportive. The problem is that thanks to way things went in the 1990s they just can't have cures for hereditary diseases without eventually getting a new master race trying to kill and conquer.

This was the issue in the DS9 episode too, but that was four hundred years later, and coupled with a knee jerk attempt to punish a man for something that was done to him, while he was a child. Its much more understandable here, especially when Star Fleet learn that a group of Augments they knew nothing about show up, murder a bunch of Klingons, hijack a battlecruiser and may have brought another war to earth. 

And another refreshing surprise was the reasons given for why the Augments always seem to turn out like tv villains. Socialisation, Soong raised the Augments as if he was their father, and that relationship was reciprocated. He treated them very well, but he also kept telling them how superior they were to normal humans, and how they must band together to survive. So, when they've come of age they don't really value life that isn't theirs. They aren't all sadists, one of the Augments, Malik, does some very brutal stuff, and the reactions of the other Augments shows they're not all fully on board with his plans, but they'll go along with it for the sake of the group.

This is something that I feel gets left out of the debate in the real world. Its not quite as in depth a look as in Gattaca, but it is an important thing to keep in mind. If we do ever push this field then its only a matter of time before we get to the point where we don't just prevent serious debilitating genetic disorders but "improving" on humanity, well this will be a serious issue. Think about it, of course someone bred to be superior will think of themselves as superior, and since Feudalism is now dead and the world has embraced the concept of meritocracy in one form or another, then it isn't much of a stretch to think that these Augmented people have severe entitlement issues.