Universes

Life on the Enterprise was clearly awesome.

I never liked the new Star Trek as much as I liked TNG (Sir Patrick Stewart FTW! Nothing goes with sci-fi as well as Shakespearian acting), but the universe still manages to make me smile. Perhaps the loveliest part of sci-fi, its most compelling charm, is that good sci-fi creates a world--however silly, campy, ludicrous or dark--much like fantasy, but sci-fi itself often specifically focuses on these ensemble casts like, say, the crew of the Enterprise.

And we love that, we human beings. We are such social creatures that a group dynamic steals our hearts away with amazing ease; I remember the histrionics college girls nation-wide had over the finale of Friends, let alone the famed devotion of fans of Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr. Who, various Marvel worlds, etc. What's so striking about this is the personal identification we take up with these characters and these landscapes. Often, we fangirls and boys indulge in an emotional identification with individual characters that provides easy fodder for stereotypical mockery. But why does this happen, beyond the fact that sci-fi draws in people who like the odd, the complex, the intricate? Why is it so personal, for so many of us?

Plummeting away from the harsh edges of reality into the exponentially expanding universes of science-fiction is an escape. It beckons to all kinds of people, but has a particular appeal for those who especially need escape--those who are different, alternative, who are smart enough and imaginative enough and sensitive enough to seek escape through fiction and narrative and constructed worlds. As any good liberal nerd knows, our geeky circles tend to be pro-gay and tolerant of difference. Beyond giant labels like sexual orientation, we tend to be tolerant of quirks and oddness and unusually intense obsessions, respectful of little-lauded expertise in something like theoretical engineering problems in Iron Man and their theoretical solutions.

Some of the classic themes in sci-fi include things like getting a large, diverse group of strong-willed people to work together, exploring far-off worlds and breaking away from pre-conceived notions of how the universe should look, all the while maintaining worlds big enough to let us delve into passions for design, physics, psychology, political commentary, and more. Watching unique individuals create a place for themselves in the world gives us a vicarious experience of such acceptance, and promotes a world where this kind of agency is possible. Beyond the camp and the fantasy, the absurdity or the darkness, there is something at work creating a world wherein unusual, often-marginalized people can feel at home.