The team building today’s Star Trek content reads the internet — a lot. Each week brings a host of episodic reviews from top industry critics and fans alike, dozens of new discussion topics on Reddit and other websites, and of course, a waterfall of feedback across social media platforms, offering praise and criticism from multiple angles.
Several elements from the first three episodes of Star Trek: Picard have spawned questions in fan communities — such as “Why does Commodore Oh, a Vulcan, need to wear sunglasses?” and “Why are there people swearing in Star Trek?” — leading to passionate (and sometimes disparaging) discussions about the show to date.
Picard showrunner Michael Chabon has seen it all, and took to Instagram today to address several of those sometimes-controversial questions head-on.
NOTE: The questions and answers below are from Chabon’s Instagram post; this is not an interview.
What’s the deal with Commodore Oh’s sunglasses? Everyone knows Vulcans have evolved an ‘inner eyelid’ to protect them from the intense glare of their homeworld’s three suns!
CHABON: Hmm. What, therefore, might we logically infer?
Is Raffi vaping? Please tell me Raffi is not vaping.
CHABON: Raffi is using a traditional Orion “flashpipe” known as a hargl, employed for centuries on that world to sublimate the fleshy tendrils of an intoxicant plant known as the horx, or “snakeleaf.”
Okay, but sunglasses and horgls, and, like, Jurati uses earbuds. Even if people still use those things in 2399, shouldn’t they all be more, well, futuristic?
CHABON: You know what? We actually thought about this a lot. When you are making a show that’s set in the future, you have to ask yourself constantly how people will be meeting daily needs and performing everyday tasks.
One guiding principle is that some fundamental objects and tools evolve an ideal form — efficient, economical, comfortable, durable, practical, effective, useful — and afterward change very little, except as subject to fashion , which itself is often retrospective.
[Ed. note: Chabon offers books, wine bottles, and knives as examples.]
Certainly any human civilization in which all the objects and appurtenances of everyday life were brand new, of recent invention, and thoroughly contemporary in design, would be fairly unprecedented.
But what about Rio’s tobacco habit? One thing we know for sure about the future of Star Trek is that humans have at least come to their senses about this particularly unhealthy and obnoxious practice.
CHABON: Yes, but here’s the thing about Rios: he studiously maintains a lot of seemingly outmoded habits, practices, and pursuits, many (but by no means all) of them connected to his ancient Latin American heritage.
…would you believe synth-igars?
Smoking. Vaping. Snakeweed. Alcohol abuse. Swear words! That Admiral lady used the F-word! Chabon, what the f–
CHABON: Listen. No human society will every be perfect, because no human will ever be perfect. The most we can do — and as Star Trek ever reminds us, must do — is aspire to perfection, and work to make it so. Norkon forden perfectunun, as a wise Yang once said.
Until that impossible day, shit is going to continue to happen, And when it does, humans are going to want to swear. The absence of swear words in Star Trek was never a matter of Federation principle, it was a matter of FCC rules.
Writers of previous eras had no choice. They were censored. Swearing is one of humanity’s most ancient, sensible, and reliable consolations. Personally, I would consider any society that discouraged, banned, or abandoned the use of curse works to be a fucking dystopia.
Uh-huh. Well, if Romulans loathe synthetic life so much, why did that one Romulan admiral on TNG tell Data he knew of “a host of Romulan cyberneticists who would love to be this close to you”?
CHABON: Um… being a ‘Romulan cyberneticist’ is kind of like being a ‘Nazi doctor.’ “I do not find that concept particularly appealing,” Data sagely replies to his Romulan companion.
“Nor should you,” is the telling reply.
How can Raffi get away with referring to Jean-Luc Picard as “JL”? The Picard we knew would never have allowed a subordinate to take a liberty like that!
CHABON: True. But this is not the Picard we knew.
And the hard, thankless, desperate refugee aid work that he and Raffi did together thrust them into a strange (non-sexual) intimacy, on those forsaken colony worlds were they would often be the only Starfleet officers — the only humans — around.
An intimacy that made the old ceremonies and formalities seem less relevant, for a time. The first time she called him “JL,” he probably thought about reprimanding her. But something — the welcomeness of connection, in some lonely outpost — inclined him to just let it go. (Also, because Raffi.)
That’s all for now; thanks for caring so insanely much. See you around the Alpha Quadrant!
What do you think about Chabon’s feedback? Do they satisfy your questioning minds, or do you find his explanations lacking? Sound off in the comments below!
Star Trek: Picard returns this week with “Absolute Candor,” debuting Thursday on CBS All Access in the US, CTV Sci-Fi Channel and Crave in Canada, and on Friday globally on Amazon Prime Video.