The Carbon Creek episode (the first episode filmed for the second season of the very underrated Enterprise) is close my heart because that is the year of my birth. Please bear with me for an update to it.
For those of you who are not very familiar with the Star Trek fictional universe, you should make it so. Gene Roddenberry was literally a visionary and has shaped our reality now. The “flip” cellular telephone is a direct result of the original communicator from Star Trek (we aficionados call the first iteration TOS, shorthand for The Original Series). Additionally, many of our most prominent scientists were influenced by the program. Even Professor Stephen Hawking appeared, playing himself, in an episode of TNG (The Next Generation, in shorthand).
So, without further ado, let us see what Mestral has been up to since 1957, below the fold.
I have made it a habit not to say too much about myself since the other Vulcans departed Earth in 1957, but with the technology today I can be somewhat anonymous, and besides, no one would believe me anyway. I was only 79 of your years old when we were stranded here, so am just now coming into the wisdom that age imparts to one. Indeed, I still use your very formal style of the English language and one will not find contractions in my sentence structure. I have grown to prefer English to Vulcan, but most likely that is because I have not been able to speak Vulcan with anyone since 1957, in your manner of reckoning time, when the other Vulcans left. I have, however, prepared a comprehensive Vulcan/English dictionary that you are apt to discover in a few years. The advent of the “modern” computer allowed me to reproduce the Vulcan characters, along with their English transliterations, fairly easily. By the way, I produced that work using what is now an antique device called a Commodore 64 back in the 1980s.
Vulcans are not very apt to become ill, so I was able to avoid detection from medical personnel, but it became obvious to me very early that identification would be required for me to mingle in the intimate manner that I desired with humanity. Thus, I became, in 1959, the first example of what is now referred to as an “identity thief” because it was essential to have proper credentials. A human passed away in Carbon Creek that year, very young, and I assumed his name and identification number. It was easy at the time, since there were no photographic records, nor fingerprints, nor DNA records. By the way, he would be old by human standards now, so I must devise a new identity, since I look only around 48 earth years old and he would have been 75 or so. Fortunately, your government is inefficient enough that no one has ever inquired as to why I have not applied for Social Security. That is the ultimate “do not ask, do not tell” example. By the way, there are homosexual Vulcans, and they have been accepted for many of your centuries. Just like on Earth, the problem was to determine how lineage would be decided. You are progressing in this respect, and your solution is neither better nor worse than ours.
In any event, my ears were a problem. It is logical to assume that a sane person would not wear a stocking cap in summer, although the climate on Earth is colder than that on Vulcan, so I had to make what you humans refer to as a “leap of faith”. I contacted Dr. Albert Sabin (actually, his surname was Saperstein, but he changed it after moving the the United States) and assisted him with the development of the attenuated, live poliomyelitis vaccine. Such manipulation of simple viruses on Vulcan is actually a young schoolchild’s elementary science laboratory, but I was actually very impressed with the original discoveries that Dr. Salk and Dr. Sabin had made on their own, with help from their research staff. However, I speculate that if it had not been for one or two procedures that I brought to the attention of Professor Sabin that many of you would still suffer from muscle deterioration. I disagree with the Vulcan directive of noninteraction when it comes to childhood illness. Professor Sabin finally asked me about why I always wore a stocking cap, and I showed him.
After he reawakened, I asked him for his assistance to allow me to be less obvious in normal human social intercourse. He telephoned a trusted friend, a surgeon who will be unnamed, who was skilled in reconstructive work. Obviously, neither of them had any conception about Vulcan physiology, so I guided them through the difficult bits. Since many anesthetic agents used on humans are quite toxic to Vulcans, I used meditation and mental discipline to endure the pain of my ears being sculpted to resemble human ones. Both of those fine physicians now lie in the ground, and you humans would do well to remember a scourge being eliminated from your environment. Even without my help, Sabin would have worked out the solution, but I saw so many suffering children that I had to intervene.
With a human appearance and proper credentials, I was able to assist with other features of human development. I have attempted to stay away from the huge discoveries, but when I was working with Shockley and a few others, I felt obligated to suggest that the use of silicon would be useful in developing solid state electronic devices. Humans have a knack for taking the germ of an idea and developing it rapidly. On Vulcan, it took over 200 of your years to go from the first crude transistor to what your technology provides now. You did it in under 75. Congratulations to you.
In 1969, by your reckoning, you placed humans on your only natural satellite. Vulcan has no moon, so we had to reach further originally to go to space. I am still to this day amazed that you were able to use crude chemically-fueled craft to make that journey, and for the humans that rode in the craft to return to your planet alive and well. I did not contribute to this endeavor, because I thought that you were doing it all wrong (and still believe that) and that assisting with space travel would be too close the limit that my people have placed on assisting other civilizations. However, your people succeeded. Now you have gotten more clever and are using more advanced propulsion systems, but you have to figure out that first 100 kilometers, and chemical propellants are not the answer. I shall leave this to you.
In the half century of so that I have been observing your people, I have seen wonderful advances and horrible setbacks. You still rely on fossil fuels, well knowing that they are not sustainable and are very likely disrupting your environment, yet you toil to build solar and wind power systems that are. What a curious species you are!
You observe the deterioration of the Soviet Union (in my opinion, a good thing, although the United States handled that situation extremely poorly), yet buy cheap, and in may cases, dangerous goods from the People’s Republic of China, and use the currency buying those commodities to allow unsustainable borrowing. This is quite illogical.
Even as people in Haiti suffer, you send aid, but your own people suffer and die because they have no access to medical treatment. This, also, is quite illogical.
On Vulcan, we finally came to the logical conclusion that nationalism was a poor philosophy, and finally united the planet using logic as the foundation for a more perfect union. You can do the same here, although you seem to be too emotional for logic to be the foundation. However, I have seen in you that your very emotion, when used for good, can be used to make more rapid progress than our logic allowed. If your people have to rely on emotion, please pick compassion as the one to express. I speculate that it will rarely lead you astray.
I am getting a new identity in the next few weeks, one that is in keeping with my 48 year old appearance, even though I am much older as reckoned by you. I kept a couple of key items from our craft, and can use them to alter electronic records to make them agree with who I purport to be. It is actually a bit easier now than it was half of one of your centuries ago, since I have learnt to “hack”, to use the vernacular. Not for profit, but rather to allow me to observe without detection.
You might be interested to know that Vulcan has been observing your transmissions for over one of your centuries now. The original Marconi transmissions were received, and are in a museum there. Only a few light years away, your “TeeVee” signals on the crude analogue, and now the more refined, but still crude digital signals reach them more quickly that you would imagine. If my calculations are correct, the Vulcans are learning about the horror of George W. Bush just now. Thus, I suspect that they will not intend to contact humans for a long, long time.
Thus, it is only to me that the chronicles of the humans are recorded. I have acclimated to using your crude computers (actually just counting machines) and have made records of everything that I have experienced in a format that the Vulcans can decipher for eons. If you decide to obliterate yourselves (likely taking me with you), at least a record of your struggle will be preserved. One of the devices that I kept was a subspace transmitter, and I archive everything that I learn safely away from your volatile planet.
If I did not suppress my emotions, I would indicate that I have a love and hate relationship with humankind. You have the ability to be at once very advanced, and at the same time very primitive. Your species has my hope. Please live long and prosper, if you can.
Long life and prosperity,
Mestral
Well, that is the end to this fantasy. Please tell me what you think. I shall crosspost it to Kos much later today since I have to rest for a while. Muse got into my ear and I had to write.
Warmest regards,
Doc
3 comments
Author
a very convoluted essay?
Warmest regards,
Doc
Where are you?
One voice, one mind.