FAST-US-7 (TRENAV2C) U.S. Popular Culture Papers
Characteristics of F. J. Turner's Frontier Theory
in Star Trek ™
Juha Arola, 2000
A FAST-US-7 (TRENAV2C) United States Popular Culture Paper
Department of Translation Studies, University of Tampere

Introduction

It is surprising how much the development of a human child and the progress of a nation have in common. The same way that one's formative years lay the foundation for the personality of the grown-up individual, the vicissitudes of a newly-fledged nation leave a lasting mark on the collective memory of the nation's population. As regards the 'childhood' of the United States, the influence of the frontier experience in shaping the national character of Americans was indisputable. The harsh conditions of the frontier called for certain qualities from the settlers if they were to survive, and these qualities can still be perceived in many facets of contemporary American society.

For those who live outside the United States, perhaps the most prominent of these facets is popular culture. Throughout the twentieth century, the U.S. has probably been the most prolific producer of popular culture products in the world. Whether the focus of examination is on movies, television, literature or music makes little difference — in all of these areas the American contribution dominates comparisons; in the film industry, the global reach of the Hollywood dream factory is undeniable, and a similar situation prevails on the smaller screen. The predominance of American popular culture makes one wonder which American movie or series has been the most influential?

Since popular culture is a matter of taste to the highest degree, it is likely that this question can never be answered. And yet, from the vast amount of material produced by Americans for the cinema and television, one phenomenon of unparalleled popularity can be singled out; a phenomenon that has fascinated millions of fanatic followers around the globe over three decades. A phenomenon that has served as a paragon for many other movies and television series. A phenomenon that has even set guidelines for contemporary space exploration. This phenomenon is, of course, Star Trek™.

First created by Gene Roddenberry in the early 1960's, Star Trek™ has since broken all the conventional boundaries of a television series, as perhaps best exemplified by Klingon, a language spoken by one of the alien races in the series. In the United States, there are universities teaching the Klingon language, and many masterpieces of world literature from Hamlet to the Holy Bible have been translated into Klingon. This isolated example suggests that Star Trek™ has surpassed the status of a television series and has become an institution. As a consequence, it has been given increasing scholarly attention. This paper will discuss how some of the Frontier Theory characteristics formulated by Frederick Jackson Turner are manifested in Star Trek™.

Space — the Final Frontier

But, before doing so, we should perhaps try to determine what the term 'frontier' actually refers to in the Star Trek™ context. This is not altogether unproblematic, for the concept 'frontier' is subject to constant change in any context, as the American frontier itself exemplified — the word 'frontier' carried very different geographical connotations from one decade to the next as 18th and 19th century America moved ever westwards. The U.S. map of 1890 below, for example, shows the population density in the United States in 1890, three years before Turner wrote his thesis.

Population Density of the United States in 1890
(providing a rough idea of different stages of frontier expansion toward the west)

The ever-advancing nature of the frontier is rather similar in Star Trek™ To date there have been nine Star Trek™ movies and four Star Trek™ television series, covering a time span of over a century. (To be accurate, there is also a fifth Star Trek™ series, The Animated Series (TAS), but being a children-oriented cartoon, it is usually not included in any 'serious' discussion on Star Trek™). The location of the frontier has changed to some extent in the course of the four Star Trek™ series — The Original Series (TOS), The Next Generation (TNG), Deep Space Nine (DS9) and Voyager (VGR) — and thus a single set of accurate coordinates cannot be given.

Nevertheless, the Galaxy Map below should give us at least some idea of the whereabouts of the frontier in StarTrek™; the orange circle in the Alpha Quadrant shows the approximate limit of explored space. Despite the fact that the map only presents a rough estimation of the frontier location, two observations can be made. On the one hand, the explored area of space is manifold compared to our contemporary knowledge of the Universe. And yet it is evident that the vast majority of space remains unexplored even in the 24th century. Consequently, the spacefarers of the Star Trek™ era need not fear that they would be left without the challenges of the frontier that their forefathers had experienced.

Map of the Star Trek Galaxy (Source: http://gershwin.utdallas.edu/~perdue/pics/galmap2.jpg )

Frontier Theory Characteristics

Having succeeded in placing the frontier with some precision, let us now take a closer look at some of the qualities that, according to Turner, were brought about by the American frontier and then discuss how they emerge in an entirely different environment five centuries later.

On the face of it, one might imagine that there would be little in common between the puritan settlers of the New World and the sophisticated star travellers of the 24th century. It is true that rifles have been replaced by phasers™ and the Sioux and the Pawnee have been supplanted by the Klingons™ and the Jem'Hadar, but these are only superficial differences. If we examine human nature, for instance, we can detect many attributes in the Star Trek™ characters that Turner assigned to pioneers on the western frontier.

Self-reliance

As the frontier advanced further and further west, the vanguard of settlers became increasingly aware that they were on their own. In the midst of untamed wilderness, surrounded by seemingly hostile savages, there was no one to turn to in time of need, and, as a consequence, the settlers had little choice but to develop a strong sense of self-reliance. The subsequent surges of settlers introduced stability and security to the frontier, but the experiences of the first wave of frontiersmen were to set up a lasting legacy for succeeding generations of Americans.

This legacy of self-reliance constitutes a central part of the Star Trek™ ideology. A starship assigned to the uncharted areas of space with a mission to "seek out and study new life forms and new civilizations" ( Gene Roddenberry's Biography ) cannot afford to rely on the help of others should something go wrong. Although it is almost certain that contacts with other life forms will take place, their willingness and ability to assist is not self-evident. The encountered species may be either hostile or too primitive to be able to provide any assistance. Moreover, even if the encountered species were willing and advanced enough to offer their assistance, it is highly unlikely that their technology would have been compatible with that of the Starfleet. Considering the number of variables, self-reliance is the only option.

Strictly speaking, it could be argued that Star Trek™ does not exhibit self-reliance in the purest sense of the word. If we associate self-reliance with solitude, there is some truth in the argument. The fearless farmer who left everything behind and plunged into the untamed American wilderness to claim a new homestead could not seek support from fellow crewmen or enjoy the luxuries of advanced transportation and communications technology to maintain contact with home. However, we should bear in mind that the American frontier was first settled by the Puritan Fathers of the Mayflower, who were a congenial and hierarchically-organized unit, not unlike a starship crew. Thus, unless we wish to undermine the accomplishments of the Mayflower arrivals, it should be acknowledged that self-reliance can be exhibited by groups and individuals alike.

Furthermore, there are factors that counterbalance the comforts of camaraderie in Star Trek™. One such factor is the dimensions. Although the proportions of the American continent must have seemed almost insurmountable to the European immigrants; they are dwarfed by the vast distances confronted by space travellers. Of the four Star Trek™ series, it is Voyager that most poignantly proves this point.

In the pilot episode, Caretaker I (ST:VOY 801), the Federation starship Voyager is searching for a missing Starfleet officer in the notorious Badlands when it encounters a shockwave that throws the ship and its crew into the Delta Quadrant (see Quadrant Map below).

Quadrant Map (source: http://www.lcarscom.net/quadrantmap.htm)

In spite of inventions like Warp drive™ and subspace radio, the Voyager crew will have to accept the fact that they are 70,000 light years away from home with no means of contacting their loved ones in the Alpha Quadrant. Considering the circumstances, one can hardly argue that self-reliance and other related frontier characteristics including innovativeness, openness to new experience and a strong sense of initiative will be put to the test in the extreme.

Strong sense of initiative and innovativeness

The vast majority of Star Trek™ episodes celebrate initiative and innovativeness. This is because most Star Trek™ episodes follow a distinct plot pattern: the episode begins with a prologue that shows some members of the crew engaged in an off-duty activity. The leisurely atmosphere is broken by a hail from the bridge, which briefly identifies the reason for the interruption. More often than not a problem or an outright threat is presented, and for the rest of the episode the crew is preoccupied in the attempt to solve the problem or eliminate the threat. The problems encountered can be moral or technical, but in either case a considerable amount of creativity is required of the crew.

Two examples may illustrate the unorthodox approaches employed. In Learning Curve ( ST:VOY 816), the bio-neural gel packs of the ship are suffering from an infection. Unfortunately, the gel packs lack the self-protective mechanism of humanoids to infection, fever. The situation is becoming increasingly precarious, for gel packs cannot be replicated and Voyager is 70,000 light years away from replenishments. However, Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres™ comes up with the idea of creating an artificial fever by emitting a ship-wide plasma burst.

Another brilliant example of iniative can be found in Phage (ST:VOY 805). The chef and part-time morale officer of Voyager, Neelix™, is attacked by an organ-harvesting alien race called the Vidiians, who bereave Neelix™ of his lungs. As an emergency procedure, the ship's Doctor (himself a hologram) decides to create holographic lungs for Neelix until a more permanent solution can be found.

As the two examples above indicate, the problems and threats posed in Star Trek™ are very different from those that troubled the pioneer farmer on the American frontier. However, in discussing the effects of the frontier on those who experience it, it is irrelevant whether one is worried about how to fix a broken wagon wheel in the middle of the Arizona desert or pondering how to replenish the rapidly decreasing dilithium resources of a starship at the outskirts of the Universe.

More important than the actual nature of the adversities encountered is the way how the individuals involved respond to them. And, in this respect the pioneer farmer and a Starfleet cadet are not that different. According to Turner, the frontier forced the former to develop an "inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients" (The Significance of the Frontier in American History), and the latter still carries the torch five centuries later.

Faith in technology

Along with self-reliance and inventiveness, another fundamental feature of contemporary Americans is their faith in technology. It may seem strange to assign the origins of this characteristic to the frontier, for we do not normally associate technology with wilderness. If we think of technology in the modern sense of the word, referring to computers and other highly sophisticated equipment, the juxtaposition indeed appears implausible. However, if we broaden the conventional conception of what is 'technology' to include all kinds of machines and devices that make life easier for us humans, it can be argued that the positive attitude towards technology exhibited by Americans derives from the frontier.

The first technological devices invented by the early frontiersmen were probably gadgets designed to facilitate the strenuous farm work, but encouraged by the experiences in agriculture, the settlers extended their experiments with technological appliances to many other sectors of society as well. Once the ball was set rolling, there was no stopping it. Hence, it is hardly a coincidence that some of the most revolutionary innovations in the history of mankind were made on American soil, including the aeroplane, the computer, the incandescent lamp, the laser, the telephone and the hydrogen bomb.

Being a product of American popular culture, it is not surprising that Star Trek™ cherishes the faith of Americans in technology. The high volume of technology in the series is partly due to the conventions of science fiction, but, even within the sci-fi genre Star Trek stands out as conspicuously technical. Some of the equipment has become such an integral part of the show that it would be virtually impossible to imagine Star Trek™ without it. These include the Warp Drive™, the transporter and the phaser™.

The Warp drive™, invented by scientist Zephram Cochrane in 2061, is an enormous asset in that it enables the Starfleet vessels to travel incomprehensible interstellar distances at supra-lightspeed. If the Star Trek™ spacecraft were confined by the limitations of 20th century aerospace technology, the series would probably lose a great deal of its appeal; the journey from one planet to another would take ages, and, as a result, the number of contacts with new life forms and civilizations would decrease radically. In fact, the crew would reach the age of retirement far sooner than the rim of our solar system.

Another essential representative of Star Trek™ technology — or Treknology, to use the clever spin-off term — is the transporter. It "converts objects or persons to energy, sends that energy to the destination, and reconstitutes the objects/persons back into matter" (Star Trek™ Continuum). The transporter is useful in that on encountering a planet that calls for closer examination, the Captain is able to send an "away team" to the planet's surface instead of having to look for a landing site for the huge starship.

Star Trek™ teems with technology, and thus the two instances above only form the tip of the iceberg. However, they illustrate well the overall attitude towards technology in the series; it is improbable that Starfleet personnel would be prepared to use the transporter on a daily basis if they did not have an unwavering trust in the technology involved. The fact that everyone seems to treat the dematerialization of their molecular structure and its subsequent rematerialization in another location as the most commonplace event could be interpreted as an implication that the series reflects an indiscriminate belief in the benefits of advanced technology.

On the other hand, there is also ample evidence suggesting that the show does acknowledge the risks involved in an excessive dependence on technology. Transporter accidents do sometimes happen, although they are extremely rare. However, when they do happen, the results are usually fatal, owing to the way the transporter works. And the transporter is only one of thousands of technological appliances aboard a starship that are subject to operational failures; the gel pack malfunctions discussed in earlier provide us with proof that technology is not infallible. Although the gel pack example was used to illustrate the inventiveness and initiative of the Voyager crew, it can also be seen as a reminder of the fragility of a high-tech unit. There is a myriad of minute microchips in a starship, and the malfunction of any one of these may be dangerous, for example if it occurs in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light years from home.

Mobility

One further frontier feature characteristic to both contemporary American society and Star Trek™ is mobility. The ease with which modern Americans migrate, mainly motivated by educational or occupational reasons, derives from the days of Westward expansion. It was not uncommon that having acquired the ownership of a homestead by inhabiting it for five years, the settler would sell the homestead and then move westward to claim another, free of charge. After a period of another five years, the settler was again able to sell and move, pushing the frontier forward in the process.

The arrangement which allowed the frontiersmen to claim a plot of land for free and sell it for profit was crucial in creating the myth establishing the United States as 'the land of opportunity'; the road to success was open to any man willing to work hard, however humble his origins. Thus, the legacy of mobility rooted in the Frontier was not only physical, but also social.

If we think of Star Trek™ in terms of mobility, it is safe to say that at least the physical variant of mobility is prominently present in the series. What could be a better instrument in satisfying the needs of one's itinerant spirit than a starship wandering among the stars, for in space there are few physical obstacles interfering one's desire "to go where no man has gone before" (Gene Roddenberry's Biography).

Although the primal impetus of exploring uncharted territories is somewhat less selfish than the prospect of profit-making which constituted a significant spur to some of the settlers of the American West, it can be argued that all of the four Star Trek™ series symbolize the ideals of freedom and independence involved in mobility. In Deep Space Nine, there seems to be a more sedentary locale for the events, but since the space station is equipped with several runabouts and one of the most powerful vessels in the known Universe — U.S.S. Defiant — the station's personnel have more than adequate means to study the surrounding space. The pivotal position of Deep Space Nine just outside the borders of Federation space (see Map of Galaxy) and the vicinity of the Bajoran Wormhole render the station an important port of call on the edges of civilization, not unlike the frontier outposts that provided the pioneers of American westward expansion the last opportunity to replenish their supplies before continuing their journey into the unknown.

Conclusion

Star Trek™ — without doubt one of the most famous phenomena of American popular culture — is inextricably linked to the American past, exploiting elements of what can be considered as the most influential experience in the history of the nation: the expanding western frontier of the 18th and 19th centuries. There is evidence to suggest that the links are not unintentional; first of all, as an American, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek™, was in all probability familiar with Turner's thesis. This suggestion is supported by Roddenberry's statement in which he expressed his desire to create a television series that would "take the Wagon Train to the stars" (Gene Roddenberry's Biography).

It seems that the pioneer farmer functioned as the primitive prototype for a starship captain. Moreover, Roddenberry was contemplating his visionary series in the early 1960's, at the same time when John F. Kennedy was frequently painting his own visions of the future in public — visions which introduced the idea of space as the New Frontier:

"But I tell you the New Frontier is here, whether we seek it or not. Beyond that frontier are the uncharted areas of science and space . . . I am asking you [Americans] to be pioneers on that New Frontier" (Address Accepting the Democratic Party Nomination for Presidency).
The significance of Kennedy's speeches to the creation of Star Trek™ remains open to debate, but one thing is certain; both Kennedy and Roddenberry are to blame for disproving Frederick Jackson Turner's proclamation that "four centuries from the discovery of America…the frontier has gone" (The Significance of the Frontier in American History ).

But, sitting on his porch gazing at the stars at the end of the 19th century, how could Turner have foreseen that he was actually looking at the final frontier? For him, the idea of a man in the moon must have seemed at least as distant as the vision of the future portrayed in Star Trek™ seems to us today. At the dawn of the 21st century, practically the whole Universe remains an undiscovered country for the human race. If we were to measure our achievements in space by comparing them to the journey of Columbus to the New World, it could be argued that we have hardly sailed out of the harbour. We know very little of even those planets closest to our own, let alone the stars outside our solar system.

It remains to be seen whether man will ever conquer the final fontier, and whether the vision of the future depicted in Star Trek™ will ever become reality, but the leading role of the United States in the current multinational enterprise to launch a space station into the Earth's orbit vindicates Turner's prediction that "the American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise." (The Significance of the Frontier in American History). This space station will understandably be stripped of the splendour of Deep Space Nine with its Promenade and Quark's bar, but it is a significant step in the attempt to bring science fiction closer to reality.

One might ask, would a nation without a Frontier experience be equipped to take that step?

Works cited

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Last Updated 20 April 2000