"The Melora Problem," opening thoughts

I am amazed at the depth of issues the Star Trek writers can sometimes tackle in one episode. In the "disability community," people often lament the rarity of disability themes in television shows. Star Trek sometimes tackles issues associated with life as a person with a disability amazingly well. One of my favorite such episodes is "Melora," from season 2 of Deep Space Nine. It is quite a complex episode; and for this reason, I will stretch my discussion over several posts.

In the opening scene, Dax, Obrien, and Julian are discussing the expected arrival of a new ensign, Melora Pazlar. Melora is a member of a low-gravity species and has requested a wheelchair in order to navigate the station and modifications to her quarters so that she can enjoy a low-gravity environment during her off-duty hours.

Julian, having supervised preparations for Melora's arrival, is enthusiastic. He responds to Dax and OBrien's questions about practical challenges, revealing that he has not only researched ways to make things work for her but that he has researched Melora herself. The station has not been completely modified with ramps; and Dax proposes using the transporter to help her navigate. Julian replies, "Once her basic needs are met, she refuses any assistance." This will theme will be revisited throughout the episode.

He goes on to ask whether the modifications to her quarters have been completed. In this discussion, we begin to see the internal conflict that Julian is experiencing. On one hand, he is proud of himself for working so hard to accommodate her--in fact, he has gone above and beyond her requests, and this will create tension. On the other hand, he is curious about what she is like in her natural environment; and he assumes he and his friends will have the opportunity to see--after all, she will have to test the modifications. His curiosity is evident as he says, "That'll be something to see ... when we turn off the gravity and she flies around."

When Melora tries out the chair, she finds that it is modified. Expressing frustration, she explains that she has been practicing on the model she requested for the past month. Julian offers to replicate her requested model; and she refuses, saying that she will adapt. The tension between them is quite evident.

In just these first three minutes or so, Star Trek writers have managed to depict some of the most difficult aspects of life with a disability. In an effort to cope with anxieties about whether I will be able to manage in a particular environment, people sometimes go above and beyond what I ask of them. This can have quite unintended consequences and can even create dangerous situations. At times, people try to explain this behavior by saying, "You are blind and you don't know what you will encounter." In the face of such responses, I must gently explain to them that as a person who has lived with blindness all my life, I am accustomed to preparing for the unknown and too much assistance can impede that process. My best example has to do with approaching a flight of stairs. People often put their arm out in front of me as I approach a flight of stairs, as if I might hurtle down it unaware. However, my reaction at encountering their arm unexpectedly could more likely cause me to fall than could the encounter with stairs, which I would detect with a cane or be aware of because my dog guide stopped at the top.

As we will discover, Melora struggles with the challenge of setting boundaries regarding her assignments and her perceptions of people's attitudes concerning her abilities. Her struggle is typical of struggles that I experience.

People are also very curious about numerous aspects of my life. Managing my private space is very challenging. Sometimes I do better at it than others. I will examine this in further detail in later posts. (I said this episode is very complex.)

issues of difference: a unique twist

One of the interesting themes explored in Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, is the ongoing societal and personal impact of the use of genetic resequencing. This idea was first introduced in The Original Series but was not really explored again in The Next Generation. In Deep Space Nine, we learn rather late in the series, when Dr. Louis Zimmerman comes to profile Julian Bashir for potential use as a model for an emergency medical hologram, that Julian underwent genetic resequencing as a child. This should have disqualified him from serving in Starfleet; but he has withheld the information and managed to live a normal life in spite of his enhanced abilities.

The truth about Julian's past is discovered when his parents encounter the holographic Julian and interact with him, not realizing he is a hologram. Eventually, his parents agree to serve a sentence in prison for having him genetically altered in exchange for his being allowed to continue serving in Starfleet.

In subsequent episodes, we see that Julian's relationships change as knowledge of his genetic enhancement becomes public. Some of his friends become bitter toward him and expect things of him that are unfair. He has no support system for coping with these things.

In the episode, "Statistical Probabilities," Dr. Bashir has the opportunity to work with four people who have been genetically engineered in the hope of helping them to become able to participate productively in society. Having been genetically altered as a child himself, he is able to empathize with their predicament to some degree. He shares his feelings about his first encounter with the group with his friends from the senior staff over dinner. The conversation has unforeseen effects on him.

Julian: All I kept thinking was "there but for the grace of God go I."

Dax: How do you mean?

Julian: My parents found a decent doctor
to perform the DNA resequencing on me. These four weren't so lucky. They all suffered unintended side effects. By the time they were five or six years old, their parents had to come forward and admit that they'd broken the law so their children could get treatment.

Sisko: Sounds like they waited too long.

Julian: There wasn't much the doctors at the Institute could do for them -- cases like theirs are so rare there's no standard treatment.

Kira: I can't imagine it was a very challenging environment for them.

Julian: That's exactly what Doctor Loews felt when she first came to the Institute. She got permission to separate them from the other
residents so she could work with them.

Odo: Why did she bring them here?

Julian: She thought they might respond to meeting someone who was like them, but was living a normal life. She's hoping that someday they'll be able to live on their own and
be productive.

O'Brien: I hope they don't end up being too productive -- it'd make the rest of us look bad.

Worf: It is no laughing matter. If
people like them are allowed to compete freely, parents would feel pressured to have their children enhanced so that they could keep up.

Odo: That's precisely what prompted the ban on DNA resequencing in the
first place.

Julian: Giving them a chance to contribute doesn't mean sanctioning what was done to them. They didn't ask to have their DNA tampered with -- they were just children when it happened. Why should they be excluded when their parents are
the ones who broke the law?

Sisko: You're right. It's not quite
fair. But even so it seemed a good way to discourage genetic tampering.
O'Brien:
Besides, we're not talking about excluding them, we're talking about putting certain limits on what they're allowed to do.

Julian: Like joining Starfleet.

Worf: Exactly.

Julian: Are you saying I shouldn't be allowed to wear this uniform?

Worf: You... are an exception.

No matter how many times I watch this episode, the last line of this dialogue always hits me like a surprise dart. "You are an exception." People have stereotypical expectations of various groups that I fall into. They may or may not realize that I fit into the category they are stereotyping at the time of discussion. (You would be amazed how many people tell me they "forget" I am blind--because I do not fit their stereotypical idea of whatever it means to "act blind.") When I point out, in some manner, that I fit the group, and I question the stereotype, the person often says, "You are an exception."

As a member of the group--and a person who is rather intimately familiar with the group and its needs, I am not so often an exception. Instead, what has happened is that I have caused the person's stereotypes to come into conflict with reality. But it is more comfortable to insist that I am an exception than to change one's understanding of reality.

In the end, Julian is (over the course of another episode) only able to help one of the four individuals. She goes on to seek out her own life; and he continues to struggle with his own adjustment process. This is never really resolved in the series. It is explored a bit further in the relaunch novel, Twist of Faith. Like a disability, being genetically altered is something a person continues to grapple with all his life. I appreciate that the writers revisited it from one scenario to another. It is an interesting way to examine issues of difference from a new perspective.

healthy grief

In season 2 of Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, Commander Benjamin Sisko continues to wrestle with his feelings about Jennifer's death. In the beginning of episode 9, he says, "Yesterday was thte fourth anniversary of the massacre at Wolf 359, the fourth anniversary of Jennifer's death. I'm not sure what bothers me more, the date itself or the fact that it almost passed unnoticed."

Sisko's experience of the unnoticed anniversary is a normal part of healthy grief. The unnoticed anniversary allows him to participate actively in other aspects of life and even, in time, to develop interest in another woman. His first interest is not so well placed; but that, too, is a normal part of life.

There are some griefs that we treat as sacred. We disallow ourselves from coming to a point in life where the anniversaries can be unnoticed. In some cases this is unhealthy. In others it is respectful. It allows us to protect ourselves and others against repeated acts of violence, provided that our rituals of remembrance are healthy and promote healing.

This is an especially important thing to keep in mind on the anniversary of the acts committed on September 11, 2001. It is important that we use this day to remember the losses our country experienced on that day and to teach children about the impact of those events. It is also important that we use healthy, peaceful rituals in this process.

coping with the nonlinear

In the second episode of Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, Captain Benjamin Sisko encounters a race of noncorporeal beings who inhabit a stable wormhole leading between the Alpha and Gamma quadrants. The noncorporeal beings do not understand the concept of time; and Sisko tries to explain to them that humans experience life in a "linear existence." He explains that once an experience is finished, it becomes part of the past and that humans use past experiences to prepare them for future experiences.

The beings, who will come to be known as the Prophets by the Bajorans living on the planet nearby, appear to him in the form of people from his life; and he explains things to them as they revisit memories from his life. One memory is visited repeatedly: the crisis on a ship at a battle with the Borg at which his wife, Jennifer, was killed. The Prophets ask, "Why do you exist here?" In later visits to the memory, this is a statement: "You exist here."

As Sisko comes to terms with the effect of this event on his life, he realizes that he never moved beyond the experience emotionally. One of the Prophets says, "Nothing in your past prepared you for this experience. ... It is not linear."

Sisko's encounter with the Prophets has a powerful impact on his life. He learns that he must choose to move on to the rest of his life, that he must choose a linear existence even when he is not prepared for it. The encounter also serves as a point of understanding that allows him to build relationship with the Prophets.

Like Sisko, we all expect to live a linear existence. We use experiences from our past to make choices about how to live in the future. But sometimes we experience things for which nothing in our past has prepared us.

How do you cope in these times? I choose my faith. God is not linear. That is something that comforts me.

why I like Star Trek

As a seminary student, I got into the habit of watching episodes of Star Trek Voyager when I was under stress. I told my roommate that Star Trek made me think. She probably thought I was making a fine excuse for my Voyager addiction. What fun I had when my leadership class spent a class period analyzing the group dynamics and communication skills from an episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation, in which Captain Jean-Luc Picard is stranded on a planet alone with an alien and no universal translator.

Star Trek does make me think. I am, of course, accustomed to looking for lessons in story--that is what pastors and Bible teachers do. It is also what good writers do: use story to communicate things that are important or help people think about things that are too big for everyday conversation.

Here is a place for the reflections that come from those stories--because in reality watching and reading Star Trek, for me, is not just a way to escape stress. It is a way to give myself space to think.