Stellar Cosmopolitans: Star Trek and a Federation of Species." Nerd Ecology: Defending the Earth with Unpopular Culture
Lioi, Anthony. "Stellar Cosmopolitans: Star Trek and a Federation of Species." Nerd Ecology: Defending the Earth with Unpopular Culture. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 65–96. Environmental Cultures. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 4 Oct. 2021. <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781474219730.ch-003>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 4 October 2021, 08:38 UTC. Copyright © Anthony Lioi 2016. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 2 Stellar Cosmopolitans: Star Trek and a Federation of Species In which I trace the plot of alliance in Star Trek through the figure of Mr. Spock, the nerd protagonist of a stellar cosmopolis. The movement fromLoser to Alliance constitutes a metanarrative endemic to nerd culture. As the “alien half-breed” of the original series, Spock inhabits the paradoxical role of the superior degenerate, a corruption of pure blood from an advanced civilization. At the same time, he is the machine, the personification of mathematical accuracy, redeemed from his isolation by friendship with the crew of the Enterprise. The ship thereby becomes a microcosm of the United Federation of Planets, a galactic and democratic state. Spock serves as the lynchpin of Trek’s cosmopolitan project, revaluing the nerd as the hero of trans-species friendship. By virtue of this trajectory, Spock invites resistance from the proponents of eugenics, whose avatar is Khan Noonian Singh, the mortal foe of the Enterprise. Khan stands for the tyranny of pure blood, and by rejecting him, Trek grounds its cosmopolitics in egalitarian pluralism, which gradually extends to Hortas and whales, Klingons and cyborgs.
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