The Uncomfortable Nature of Messy Reality

There is a questline at Hellfire Peninsula in TBC Classic that I dislike.

Of all the quests in TBC Classic, this is the one that I actively avoid. 

No, not because it raises questions about temptation and consequences, or the enemy of my enemy is my friend, or even an obnoxious number of Kill Ten Rats, but because it reminds me too much of real life. I would wish that it was about our better angels, but it isn't, and because of that I have a hard time dealing with the questline.

***

If you're like me, you've seen about all of the original Star Trek episodes over the years. And if you're also like me, you've probably also read the short stories that James Blish made of the original episodes, because you simply couldn't get enough of the stories. While there are some episodes that hit you right in the gut, such as City on the Edge of Forever or Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, the episode A Private Little War has resonated in my psyche over the years. 

Yes, some tropes were pretty stereotypical,
but the Original Series did make you think.
From memory-alpha.fandom.com.

 

The story unfolds when Kirk visits a Stone Age era society he once studied years ago. The person he'd once confided while he was an undercover observer in has now become chieftain, and as the story continues it is discovered that the Klingons are arming the competing tribe with flintlock rifles. The chieftain's wife observed Kirk and McCoy using their phasers, and decides to steal Kirk's and use it to get one up on the competing tribe. Things do not go well, and the chieftain's wife is killed. In the end, an arms race ensues, with Kirk's friend asking for flintlock rifles of their own to match those that the Klingons had been providing. Or as Kirk puts it, "Serpents, serpents for the Garden of Eden."

Even the best of intentions can oft fall astray, and no matter how much one tries, sometimes you just can't win.

If my observation of that episode sounds somewhat familiar, then you too may have come across the storyline that begins with the quest entitled 'Sedai'. 

***

Sedai's questline begins with Sedai's Draenei brother being concerned about him, as he'd gone to the Maghar Orcs seeking peace and hadn't returned. You investigate and discover a dead Draenei near the paths leading to the Maghar encampment. He'd been struck and killed from behind.

Returning to the Temple of Telhamat with the bad news, one of the Broken who'd befriended Sedai decides an eye-for-an-eye is good enough for him, and he sends you into the Maghar encampment to slaughter the Orcs. When you return, Sedai's brother is horrified at what you'd done, insisting that "This is not our way!" He then sends you out with a device to see if you can find the truth of the matter. 

With the device, you are able to see what happened: Sedai had gone to the Orcs, and they'd rejected him and escorted him out of their encampment, telling him to not come back. The Maghar have naturally been suspicious of outsiders, especially since so many of their brethren had fallen under the sway of the Burning Legion. Sedai turns to leave, and witnesses that the Orcs have been jumped by Fel Orcs. Sedai looks like he's about to help defend the Maghar when he is cut down by a Fel Orc assassin from behind.

The true villain in all of this are the Fel Orcs, who turned the Draenei/Broken and the Maghar Orcs against each other, but the thing is, like as in A Private Little War, there's nothing you can do. The two sides are willing to believe the worst in each other, and that suspicion makes them both ripe for manipulation by Illidan's forces. 

And that's what I hate about this questline: you know and can see how easily manipulated the two sides are, but like in reality, there's nothing you can do about it. Most of us don't have a pulpit to try to get people to see the other side in reality, so all we can do is watch the unfolding nature of events and feel helpless to do anything.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and the first decade of adulthood was in the 90s, so I got to see this messy reality in spades, with The Troubles being my most obvious example of this problem. Everybody knew that the true villain in the conflict in Northern Ireland was the lack of trust in each side, which extremists on both ends used to keep the conflict going. It was only when enough people --the common people who were the victims in the undeclared war-- finally said "Enough!" that real progress was finally made. 

I can love and respect what Blizz did with that questline, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I hate how it reflects on our own reality, where people can't see beyond sharp divides of black and white to finally meet somewhere in the middle, and how it reflects on me as well. No amount of gear or gold or whatever can change my mind on this, because all it does is sadden me at who we are and what we have become.

EtA: Fixed the flow of the Star Trek portion.

More Musings on a Vulcan's Passing

One of my first memories was of Star Trek.

My parents had a black and white television throughout the 70s, and in the afternoons the local independent television station would show all sorts of cartoons from 3 PM until 5 PM.* And at 5, like clockwork, the image of the starship Enterprise whooshed across the screen. My five year old self was riveted to the screen in much the same way the mini-Reds are to Star Wars Rebels and Marvel's Agents of SHIELD**. When the aliens appeared at the end of Part 1 of The Menagerie, I would have nightmares that they would somehow turn me into an automaton like Captain Pike had become. (Hey, I was young and couldn't follow the plot that well.)

Talosians, with their pulsing craniums,
still give me the creeps.

But more importantly than that, Star Trek served as my entry drug into Science Fiction and Fantasy, and none more so than Mr. Spock.

Leonard Nimoy's Spock was captivating. Sure, he seemed like a soulless computer at times, but underneath it all he did have the same emotions as the rest of us, only well hidden. He was part alien, misunderstood by a lot of his crewmates, and still forged friendships among them. After meeting Spock and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise, I simply couldn't watch anything resembling "aliens-as-monsters" which dominated what passed for SF on television.

As I grew older, I identified with Spock to a significant degree. I was the different, nerdy kid: I was smart, loved to read, liked things that weren't mainstream cool, and wanted to go to college to get a science degree. I used to order fan stuff from the old Intergalactic Trading Company catalog back in my high school years in the 80s, often walking to a local convenience store to purchase a cashiers check as I didn't have a checking account of my own, and the one item I wanted for my first car but never got was the sticker that said "Vulcan Science Academy".*** Screw Starfleet, I wanted to hang with the Vulcans.

From Cafepress.
There's even a thong with this design; some things you just can't unsee.

It was easy to transition that love of Spock to Leonard Nimoy himself. He directed what was the most popular Star Trek movie, The Voyage Home, and he also directed several other successful movies (such as Three Men and a Baby), demonstrating that yes you can have a life beyond Star Trek.

He also lived long enough to see Star Trek, and SF/F in general, become more mainstream than ever before.

And now he's gone.

The Feels.
I don't know who created this, but
I'll assign credit when I do.

I don't think that mainstream America quite knows what we lost. The Internet simply exploded in geek circles concerning Leonard's death with tributes from all corners of geekdom. More than once I saw a commenter on a website say something to the effect of "I came here because I knew people would understand," and believe me, I know the feeling.

This is different than Robin Williams' death. Robin was beloved by many because of his overall body of work, which transcended geekdom. Leonard's best work was rooted in geekdom, and he is defined by what he means to the geek community.

Leonard will be remembered forever by his stellar
work in Westerns.... Waitaminute....

Back in college in the late 80's, I was in a conversation with a couple of fellow students about movies. Good Morning Vietnam had been out that past year, and we'd all seen it and felt that Robin had been robbed at winning an Oscar. But conversation turned to other films, and when one of the girls challenged me on whether guys are only interested in macho "guy" movies, saying "when was the last time you cried at a movie?" I told her that I cried when Spock died in The Wrath of Khan.

Big mistake.

The derisive laughter I got told me exactly where Star Trek stood in the pecking order of interests among my "sophisticated" Honors peers. I couldn't have done worse if I'd have said that Hardbodies is a fine work performed by master thespians.**** To them, Star Trek and their fans were worthy of the mockery provided by Saturday Night Live when William Shatner hosted the show.

So yeah, when people talk about how others don't understand, yeah, I know. I've been there.

You tell 'em, Data.

I'm sad that Leonard has gone, leaving Bill, Walter, George, and Nichelle as the surviving original cast members. But at the same time, I realize that Leonard will live on in both his work and the lives he touched. The original Star Trek series is a geeky touchstone in the same way that the first Star Wars movie was; those who watched it were never the same again.

Redditor MrMorlonelycat captured this image of players
of Star Trek Online serendipitously paying their respects at Vulcan.
Cryptic Studios has announced a permanent memorial for Spock and
Leonard Nimoy will be added to the game in March 5th 2015's downtime.

It is too easy to look at the world around us and not be cynical. Star Trek offered a vision of a better future, something worth striving for. And Leonard Nimoy played no small part in helping that vision play out on the screen. For that, I can thank him, and I wish him well.

Live long and prosper, Spock.





*From 1 PM until 3 PM the station showed an afternoon movie --no national daytime talk shows existed until Phil Donohue made it big-- and among the "boring" dramas I found the occasional nugget of gold, such as Ulysses starring Kirk Douglas.

**And The Flash, and Doctor Who, etc. Even Constantine, which had gotten blah reviews, is much better than anything we had in the SF/F/Superhero genre in US television in the 70s and early 80s (with the exception of The Incredible Hulk). We live in a golden age of genre television, even if we have to put up with Jerry Springer and Honey Boo-Boo.

***I was never convinced that the car would last long enough to justify the sticker; it had more Bondo on it than metal. It also had a hole in the floor where the driver would put their left foot, so as a consequence I had to put my foot in an awkward position to avoid turning the car into a Flintstones' mobile.

****It's not; don't go looking for it to see for yourself. Trust. Me.


EtA: I removed the link to Intergalactic's website, since it seems like it hasn't been updated in ages. Also, apparently customer service has declined, based on the poor reviews I've seen online.