Star Dreck
Naming the starship NCC-1701 as USS Enterprise was ingenious. You would be hard pressed to find a vessel with a more resonant name than that of “The Big E,” whose adventures were legendary even outside of US and long after the second world war ended (not to mention her successor, “Big E,” the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier). Moreover, starship Enterprise, particularly its next generation, is quite literally an enterprise — an ideal (of) institution.
If that starship depicted Earth today, the episode would feature Picard and Riker fully engaged in Machiavellian politicking over the command on the bridge and waging a literal war with Geordi, who, after he moved to Engineering, would be trying to force his way back to the bridge with silent support of confused Worf.
Cargo bay in particular would see vicious phaser battles between ensigns A and ensigns B. All the while, starship Enterprise would be on a straight path into a black hole, because the last order given was to hold the course. Meanwhile, Data would fuel the conflict because, as would be revealed, he is the one who invented Borgs and sent that know-how to the past.
Of course, for more realism, the main cast, except perhaps Data, who would be few decades younger, would have to be before their eighties, the younger ones in their seventies. In any case, the episode would also feature Q, Guinan, and subsequently Wesley Crusher as the catalysts of a big reveal that an unknown particle field generated by the black hole is putting the whole crew into a strange kind of anachronistic trance.
On the other hand, Earth’s situation has more in common with circumstances of Battlestar Galactica. Only without Cylons or a specific destination, and with a crazy internal situation as described with that Enterprise analogy above.
Sadly, or luckily, Earth does not have a, “Warp. Engage!” functionality. One active ensign Wesley, as the highest ranking officer who’s at the time of crisis fit to issue commands despite his otherwise low rank, cannot save us. Furthermore, we cannot build such functionality, because it would need to be able to warp us from ourselves.
This ship has manual control. You must take up the paddle and help steer it away from perilous waters. Everyone who’s able to row has already built themselves some qualification. If you use those skills without asking anything in return, you don’t fight the rudder. However, no one can set the rudder in a correct direction and coordinate the rowers out of rapids while hoping for advantages or even to prove something.
Well, perhaps it’s best to think of our planet as an enormous raft. When we treat our situation as such, then our mother ship stops being Titanic and it changes from Enterprise to something more uplifting and natural. Something with an intimate and personal name. Such as, mother Earth.
So, I just state the obvious: awake and all hands on deck.
