Astro-Anthropology, Vol. 2

[Davin]

Spoiler: The Assimilation Of MythShow

On Cultural Contamination 104 Cultural Trade: The Assimilation Of Myth Dr. David Walsh Starfleet Anthropological Society "No starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society." - Starfleet General Order 1 We all know these words. They have guided the explorers of the United Federation of Planets from James Kirk in the wild west days of our expansion to Kathryn Janeway on her sojourn through the Delta quadrant. They are as inviolable as any law laid down by any sentient throughout the span of time. Avoid cultural contamination to developing species, lest they slide into the niche of Sigma Iotia; defining themselves around another worlds history or mythology. But what happens after first contact? Is a race truly prepared to stave off 'cultural contamination' simply by virtue of breaking the warp barrier? The career of Johnathan Archer seems to suggest that the United Earth Starfleet was subject to influence by the ideas of their Vulcan patrons long before the Federation was even a dream. What if it had not been the T'plana Hath that detected Zephram Cochrane's famous test flight, but a Romulan scouting ship? Would we be subjects of the Galactic Terran Empire rather than citizens of the Federation? Would first contact with an argumentative Tellarite merchant have proven discouraging enough to make Earth abandon it's exploration of deep space? And most importantly, why do we think cultural contamination ends when space flight begins? Trading outposts like Sh'Vara station serve as prime examples of how cultures clash, blend, and contaminate each other even in this day and age. The sprawling complex houses countless individuals representing the full range of diversity in the Beta quadrant. Andorian freighter crews, Human merchants, Ferengi financiers, and Romulan refugees all cohabitate in the relative peace afforded by one of the oldest trading outposts still in service. Klingon opera battles Trill jazz for the attention of visitors to the lush foliage of the stations central arboretum, spanning the breadth of the primary concourse. Children frolick in the stone laid streets, and anyone daring enough to forgo a universal

On Cultural Contamination 105 translator will hear languages weaving together with thoughtless ease as their speakers stitch together words and phrases from a dozen different worlds. My guide to the station was Kephis, a Trill who spoke Federation standard with an Andorian flare. "Blame Shev," he said when I brought it up. I never learned just who this 'Shev' was, but I must have met half of the stations population through Kephis. From the mechanics in the stations darkened maintenance ways to the Eridanus Transport liaison in his penthouse office, Kephis introduces everyone with a jovial familiarity, usually with a snippet that flustered my new acquaintance. Kephis embodied life on the station perfectly, shifting from one dialect, one persona, to another with an unconscious ease as we maneuvered the social strata of Sh'Vara. However, as we neared my true goal my guide took a turn for the somber. By the time we reached the chapel the Trill was practically subdued. Just stepping inside the ersatz church was enough to make my head spin. I was immediately greeted by the figure of an Andorian Zeus standing atop one of the slain Klingon gods. This was the Nexus of my thesis, the place where the pure thought of myth wrestled with the notions of countless other cultures separated by inconceivable distances. Here, the figure of Bast stood at the gate of the Grand Treasury. A robed Betazoid cast in gold held the sacred rings above her head while two Bolian pilgrims paid their respects to Bacchus. I saw the faiths of untold worlds distilled to their purest roots and recast in the trappings of a greater interstellar zeitgeist. The spectre of cultural contamination, so reviled in pre-warp cultures, was nowhere to be found in this chapel to the glory of cultural convergence. Whether we vilify the distillation of the facets of culture that make us unique or celebrate those truths that span the cosmos and the parables that guide us all, know that even at warp speed no culture can outrun thought. Prude!: Repression In The 25th Century Saala Gorman Cultural Commentator You know the phrase: What happens on Risa

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Cultural Perspectives 381 Journey To The Underworld: Adramel IV Dr. David Walsh Starfleet Anthropological Society “Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.” - Aldous Huxley Dark, endless caverns. Rivers of scorching fire. Unrelenting, inescapable heat. A Bajoran Vadek might call it the Fire Caves of the Pah Wraiths, a Human Christian may call it Hell. But to the people of Adramel IV it is simply home. Whatever one may wish to call this place, my journey there began at Kadath Station, a research outpost turned spaceport. The weather outside the squat, environmentally sealed ziggurat was a searing 521°K (expressed in Federation degrees Celsius as a still-horrifying 247°), but within the building the heat was kept at a slightly more manageable 32°C. It was here that I met my local contact, a Dr. Chemosh Ie’Saleos, resident historian at Sobek University in the city of Diyu. Dr. Ie’Saleos was quick to inform me that he had chosen our rendezvous point, a somewhat nondescript stretch of hallway, quite on purpose; it was held to be the exact spot where in 2308 Geonaut Hastur Kt’leyak became the first of the Adrameli to see the stars. As fascinating as the history of the planet was, it was Dr. Ie’Saleos himself who held my attention. With his blue skin, wild mane of unkempt hair, and pair of small white horns my mind was drawn to descriptions of the Oni, a supernatural creature of traditional Japanese mythology. The match was not perfect, as Dr. Ie’Saleos’ slim frame hardly matched the brutish, hulking physique of traditional Oni, but the similarities proved hard to escape. My history lesson continued as we made our way through the stations concourse, as Dr. Ie’Saleos relayed the unusual circumstances of his people's first contact. Seated at the far

Cultural Perspectives 382 reaches of the ever contentious Cardassian border the Federation prohibited civilian prospecting of the planet in the hopes of preventing undue provocation. The Adrameli, of course knowing none of this when they began construction on Kadath, were understandably shocked when Captain Wileà Kovar of the U.S.S. Hurutam informed them that they were in violation of a treaty signed by two alien civilizations they had never know existed. Federation records of course tell us that Captain Kovar was equally surprised to be speaking with a species native to a Y-Class planet. Dr. Ie’Saleos’ speech ended just as we reached our point of descent, leaving me wondering just how much practice had gone into it. Topics shifted to the practical matter of reaching the surface from the Adrameli’s native depths, the inverse process clear to me as we boarded the mechanism of our descent. It reminded me of the San Francisco monorail tilted up to sit on its nose, poised to take us straight down rather that move us laterally. Boarding platforms were stacked for floors above and below, and as we boarded I could not help but see a glint of pride in my hosts icy white eyes. The descent, which I was told was 35 kilometers per hour but which felt quite a bit more rapid, proved every bit as informative as our walk, and though Dr. Ie’Saleos was more than happy to regale me with the engineering feats that made our transit possible I fear I lack the expertise to relate them in any worthwhile capacity. What I can say is that the trip was surprisingly smooth, if a bit claustrophobic given the lack of windows. I cannot say what I expected when the doors opened, but what I found was shocklingly mundane; just another transit terminal, much like the one I had left a dozen kilometers above if a few degrees warmer.

Cultural Perspectives 383 The true grand reveal came after another short walk, when my grinning companion opened the exterior door with a silent smirk. Beyond the steps stretched an obsidian chasm, extending kilometers in every direction, the gleaming volcanic glass reflecting the light of the distant lava flows that cascaded down the mountainous far walls of the colossal chamber. The ground, and indeed the ceiling as well, were littered with buildings of every height, some of which spanned the height of the expanse from stony ground to hard, black, starless sky. I found my mind again adrift in the mythologies of ancient earth, imagining for a moment a hooded boatman drifting up and down the dark waterway that bisected the chamber, asking two coins as fare along the river Styx. The fiery pits that fascinated the minds of classical Western thought on Earth were brought here on Adramel to undeniable life, within a true underworld. And with that came the eternal refrain of Vulcan exophilosophy, that princept of Infinite Diversity In Infinite Combinations. I stood here in an intersection of that diversity, where in my mind myth and mundanity collided. What, I wondered, might the poet Dante think were he in my place, standing on the cusp of his iconic Inferno? Truly I had found myself an able Virgil in Dr. Ie’Saleos, as he allowed me my time to adjust to the scenery. And the sights he showed me may well make for an epic of my own, from the fields of cultivated lichens to a study of the startling sexual dimorphism the Adrameli display. But while I unpack the hard data and sift the fact from the unending well of Adrameli historical fiction I find my mind returning again and again to my first trip to the underworld, an experience in cultural exploration that provided me a journey not just to a new and alien culture, but through the realms of mythology. If you don't mind the heat, maybe I'll see you in Hell.