“Explosive Effect” Of Computer Web
Predicted By Roddenberry In 1976
Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, told Explorer Bill in January 1976 that he believed “a wonderful future lies ahead for mankind.” This was the essence of his message to a sellout, overflow crowd of students and others January at the Wittenberg University Union in the evening of January 23, 1976 in Springfield, Ohio. Roddenberry stopped in Ohio en route to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. to present a model of the Star Ship Enterprise.
It is the same message he had been sending to the youth of ‘America through his TV series Star Trek for nearly 10 years then, and this may account for much of the immense popularity of his television series. “Nothing can compete with the adventure and challenge we humans have ahead of us,” Roddenberry said.
The question he is most asked on his personal appearance tours, Roddenberry said is “why does Star Trek receive such incredible support from its fans?” Scholars have written papers to earn their Doctor of Philosophy degrees in efforts to answer this question, he replies. But one reason he cited Thursday night is that Star Trek characters are authentic hero images. They believe that there are things worth dying for, if necessary.”
People are hungry for such images to admire and emulate in this day of national leaders who retire in disgrace from public office or private positions because of faulty morality and public disclosure of their misdeeds. “This old idea of personal integrity” is one that “people want back again,” Roddenberry said. The Star Trek series “was our effort to prove something about TV audiences--that they can think beyond the petty prejudices that afflict mankind. We were trying to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom when it accepts diversity.”
Another question Roddenberry is frequently asked is, “What do Star Trek fans have in common? He said the answer is “a youth of the mind.” Roddenberry’s talk at Wittenberg dealt with topics other than Star Trek. One of these he said was “the explosive effect of electronic communications “which is happening right now.” This is the latest of three great evolutionary steps” in the history of life on earth, and noted that one of the first was the appearance of the first living cell and the second was the emergency of conscious intelligence.
“Computers are capable of doing in seconds what organic human brains can take hours and days to do. We have increased our thinking power a thousand fold. We are beginning to build thinking machines. We will eventually use computers as part of our thinking apparatus,” he predicted, explaining that such a device for computer-assisted thinking might even be implanted somewhere in the body, such as pacemakers are for the human heart today.
Star Trek’s originator, amplifying his remark about man’s forthcoming evolution, said it will involve a union of machines and human flesh. “I don’t mean the Six Million Dollar man, he said, there’s a limited utility in being able to knock something down with your fist.” But we are beginning to incorporate man-made appliances and machines into our bodies, and one of the earliest examples of this was eyeglasses. Space suits of today are an ‘improved skin’ for new environments such as outer space and the surface of the moon.
The mechanical and electronic improvement of biological man will see fallible natural organs of the body replaced with more reliable synthetic organs. “Why should our hearts, kidneys and lungs wear out if we can replace them with machines,” he asked. “How long will we continue to retain our present physical bodies?” Assuming for the sake of speculation the UFOs are really the ships of visitors from other worlds, Roddenberry said NASA space scientists say that the occupants of UFOs are probably a form of machine life.
Such intelligent extraterrestrial machines might not look like the common conception of robots as seen on TV or drawn by science fiction artists, but may be “incredibly lovely and graceful.” would have the obvious advantage of simply turning themselves off during voyages through space lasting decades or centuries, he said, and such voyages would seem to them to be instantaneous. “Is this our future?” he asked. “Is it good or bad?”
Science fiction, such as Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “Childhood’s End,” provides some of the answers to these questions. Stressing the importance of science fiction as a medium for the philosophic examination of humankind, Roddenberry said, “It is a remarkable device for looking at the human animal.”
Explorer Bill, at the time science columnist and news reporter for the Springfield Daily News, spent an hour interviewing Roddenberry in a room adjoining the packed auditorium while his audience was watching a Star Trek film of “blooper outtakes” from the filming of various episodes. Roddenberry told me he admired Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “Childhood’s End” as a wonderful, optimistic look at mankind’s future. A newcomer to the lecture circuit, he told me he was reluctant to accept speaking engagements until he was encouraged by Clarke, who told him how fine an opportunity such tours are to meet people, experience first hand their reaction to his work, and to interact with them intellectually.
Roddenberry said the next stop on his tour, scheduled for Friday, was the University of Maryland in the Washington, D.C. area, where he also had a luncheon date with an official of the Smithsonian Institution’s aviation museum. Roddenberry’s trip to the Washington area was to be present as an 11-foot model of Star Trek’s “USS Enterprise,” the starship of “Commander Kirk,” was placed on display at the museum, alongside Charles Lindberg’s “Spirit of St. Louis,” Apollo spacecraft and other famous aerospace ships.
An estimated 1,000 persons jammed into the largest room available in the Wittenberg Union to hear Roddenberry. Some sat on the floor, some sat on tables at the rear of the room and others stood. About 100 persons had to be turned away at the door, a Wittenberg official said. One of the most successful dramatic series ever to appear on television, Star Trek was showing as a rerun on more than 140 U.S. stations and in 42 foreign markets, said he was sometimes “frightened by the way some of the more rabid fans worship Star Trek, its cast and its originators.”
Roddenberry delighted his Wittenberg audience by announcing that a Star Trek movie will be filmed beginning in July and he said it is hoped this will be available for release in theaters by the end of the year. The series may also may return to television, but not as a once-a-week production, which he said is too exhausting for him to wish to resume. Instead, he wanted to do a series of 90-minute TV movies shown on a network several times a season, alternating with other shows. (Instead, of course, a series of Star Trek movies were made with great success.)
