============================================================================
 Addendum                                   Issue# 10  -  27th February 2002
 URL: http://www.adden.tr.cx/
 Author : Steak, ready for transport...
================== Star Trek: A testament to the stars =====================

I am a star trek fan. I am in not anyway ashamed to admit it, I have been
for a long time, I spend some of my time drawing pictures of star ships,
making tricorders, and phasers. I look up blueprints, I find information
about transporters, I read about star trek history, captains, ships,
starbases, great wars etc etc I even know the registry numbers and class's
of all ships named enterprise of by heart:

NX-01 : NX class
NCC-1701 : Constitution Class
NCC-1701-A : Constitution Class (refit)
NCC-1701-B : Excelsior Class refit (refit)
NCC-1701-C : Ambassador Class
NCC-1701-D : Galaxy Class
NCC-1701-E : Sovergen Class

I am a Trekkie, no doubt about it, and before you ask, yes I know it's
not real, no not like the guy out of galaxy quest, but I know that its
a show, In fact it has long been a dream of mine to visit the sets and
actually stand on the bridge of the enterprise, well not really any more
as the Enterprise D's sets have all gone. Though I would love to visit the
E's Sets one day....

Now I have that out of the way. I really don't think that the reputation
that we trekkies get is fair. The media makes the stereotype of a Trekkie as
a costume sporting, convention attending, Jeri Ryan wanking dweeb. We are
not all like that, sure there are some of us like that, mostly in America,
but most of us are not in anyway like that

One of my fiends back in England once exclaimed (after his surprise that
somebody would have such a low intellect that they thought by calling us
"TREKKIES!!" it would in someway offend us) "How can you dis Star Trek?,
it's so intellectually sound!"

This is something that has stayed with me for quite a while now, Star Trek
is so complex, so diverse, so radical, it could easily be referred to as an
intellectual program. Well at least 'The Next Generation' episodes as they
are the only ones that are really decent. But the rest have there own little
niche in there as well.

Granted it takes a little bit of time to get into it, you have to learn some
of the history and some of the technologies, and the ships but once you have
then whole new worlds open up to you. Vast worlds full of wonder, surprise
and fun.

And then there’s the ships, never has the screen been blessed with anything
more beautiful than the ships created by the star trek experts, huge majestic
objects, so subtle so smooth, the most elegant lines and contours, there has
never been anything more visually stunning created. From the stark harsh
diagonals and almost 90 degree lines of the original constitution classes, to
the enormous proportions and the luxurious shapes of the excelsior class, to the
mean swift aerodynamic jaggeds of a sovereign class. Each is truly a work of
art,

If you watch it for a while you will start to apprecheate it for what it
really is, a beautiful show outlining the best possible civilization for us to
live in. A best case scenario if you will.

In a star trek universe, in the human (federation) part there is no money, none
whatsoever, as Jean Luc Picard put it in first contact, "We are no longer
fuelled by greed and financial gain, but for exploration and the good of
mankind" You don't even need money, anything you want you can replicate, food,
toys, equipment, gifts, chemicals or spare star ship parts, you want it you
can have it. Replicators work by taking matter (any matter, say, human waste)
and disassembling it at the molecular level, then rebuilding it from
scratch as something different (say that new heart that you need for that
bypass operation)

People go out on long voyages to distant star systems simply because
they want to. The desire for exploration burns in every one of us it is
something that we all strive for, every one has at one point looked up
at the stars and wondered to themselves "I wonder what’s up there?" this
is the spirit that sends you off to star fleet academy, to explore the stars
to seek out new life and new civilizations, to go boldly where no one has
gone before.

Children go to school because they want to learn, from an early age they are
tought that knowledge is good and something that should be acquired. Something
that we do not learn today, where we have Business Management, Industrial
Enterprises and Physical Education teaching our children to grow up to become
good little economists, we should run classes like Philosophy, Knowledge and
Happiness so our children grow up knowing contentment and feeling at peace
with themselves and others

Not having been fuelled by television (that also does not exist in the 24th
century) not having been shaped and molded by the media and popular
magazines they grow up, not as adolescent teenagers rebelling against parents
for no reason, not as offensive brats who don't know the word fork from fuck
but as individual heroes each person forfilling what he or she wants there life
to become.

They grow up well and go out into the world as stable individuals, happy in
the knowledge that they can do what they want. if they want to bum around all
day, they can. If they want to start up a carrot store they can, growing
carrots and passing them on to the market for free people will take them
for the benefit of having home-grown carrots which is better on the pallet
than replicated ones

If they want to dedicate there lives to writing books, they do. Because they
have no job that they have to do to survive, in today’s world people are so
exhausted from jobs, trying to grab as much money a possible, that they have
no time to write and philosophize, almost all of today’s incredible intellects
are repressed by the corporations that require you to work. Without having to
get money people do not have to work they can achieve there lives dream and be
more happy individuals, most people are not in anyway angry in the star trek
universe and this is because I feel that they have a chance to explore there
life’s dream.

I truly believe that for this to work we need a few things to be invented

One is replicators, once people have everything they want and can get anything
else that tickles there fancy then they can devote there life to what a
replicater can't give you: satisfaction

Another is automated robotic equipment to do all the shit jobs that nobody
wants the only reason that guy comes into your toilet at work to clean up
the piss that somebody did down the side of the bowl is because he gets
paid a lot of money to do it. Once machines take over jobs like that
then nobody will need to "feel like cleaning up" because they won't need to

Once people see the world from afar and realize there place in the universe,
realize that we are only just a small planet in an infinite universe then
perhaps people will solve there petty differences abolish such arrogant
practices as religion and turn there efforts to exploring the galaxy.

here’s hoping

Steak
============================================================================
 Addendum                                   Issue# 10  -  27th February 2002
 (C) Steak February 2002
============================================================================