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Video Games
Ask a hundred Trekkies why they love the Star Trek franchise, and we estimate no fewer than 99 will likely cite the franchise's forward-thinking, all-inclusive, incredibly optimistic vision of the future. But one of the most peculiar aspects of the Star Trek world -- specifically during the consecutive shows Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek Voyager -- is how Gene Roddenberry and fellow Trek creators envisioned the arts, social technologies and recreational pastimes of the era.
The world of Star Trek has always been a bit of a futuristic utopia, a place where we are told there is no poverty, and solutions are reached by the most logical, respectful and noble means possible (within Federation territories, at least). So what does pop culture look like some 300 years from now in a world this seemingly perfect and advanced?
Although modern culture has a huge appetite for film, television, popular music, gaming and social media, what the crews of TNG, DS9 and Voyager do in their downtime often looks very different. Examining what the people of the Star Trek universe enjoy (sticking to these three shows, which are set in the furthest future) -- and what pastimes fallen into obscurity -- offers a fascinating look at how it envisions the pop culture of the future, the diversions it thinks a utopian world would cherish -- and the ones it believes we may leave behind in the march to the 24th century. —DEVON MALONEY
Above: VIDEO GAMES
Role in modern culture: Video games are an increasingly powerful force in entertainment, not just in terms of the billions of hours we spend on them, but the money. The recently released Grand Theft Auto 5 not only cost a rumored $265 million dollars to make, a number that rivals the budgets for top-tier movies, but earned $800 million dollars – more than the worldwide gross for nearly every 2013 film -- in the first 24 hours it was on sale.
Role in Star Trek culture: Almost none. (Or a lot, depending on how you look at it.)
There is a notable gaming episode in The Next Generation, involving a game (known simply as "The Game," not to be confused with The Game), which is played on a device that vaguely resembled a two-sided Google Glass. After being introduced to Commander Riker by an alien sex friend, the Game becomes fantastically popular on the ship, thanks to its enticing mix of Atari-level graphics and the apparent orgasms it delivers to users when they successfully toss red hockey pucks into undulating purple trumpets.
It’s more than a mere fad, however; it’s actually a highly addictive experience that somehow reprograms the brain to Manchurian Candidate levels by "activating the reticular formation" and "increasing synaptic activity in the frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex," which basically makes people react like they’ve been injected with heroin. (If you can guess the subtle metaphor involved here, congratulations: You are conscious.)
Yes, video games are often designed around goals and reward systems that are designed to make them addictive to users (I’m looking at you, Candy Crush -- my sin, my soul), but the Game also brainwashes the crew not only to keep playing it, but also force every person around them to play it too before collectively compelling them to hand the Enterprise over to Riker’s vacation fling.
The video games of the future: dangerously addictive Google Glass puzzle programs that radically alter your personality, and are only slightly more complex than Pong.
However! One could argue that holodeck programs are actually a better representation of the future of video games, given the increasingly immersive qualities of games like Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto 5, not to mention technologies like the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Oddly, however, the actual holodeck seems to be used primarily for simulations of physical sports, training exercises, and recreated environments like bars and forests – not experiences that fall within the realm of "video game" (although the definition of that term is still a matter of debate).
Regardless, Picard’s holodeck recreations of noir detective stories and Data’s Sherlock Holmes mystery program operate in subjective mode -- which allows users to interact with and influence events – and would very likely qualify as video games.
But these too are used to illustrate fears of gaming technology as often as they do its potential; on various occasions, users become trapped inside the Holodeck ("A Fistful of Datas"), are harmed or killed when safety protocols are disengaged ("The Big Goodbye"), tragically fall in love with too-realistic simulated women ("11001001"), and retreat entirely into the holodeck environment ("Hollow Pursuits," "It’s Only a Paper Moon"), neglecting their actual lives. Did you know that at one point Captain Janeway fell in love with a holodeck man and then deleted his wife? She did!
At least one Holodeck character – Moriarty – even developed intelligence so advanced that it allowed him take the ship hostage ("Elementary, My Dear Data"). In short, these fantastically advanced gaming environments have a tendency to become too real, intruding into the lives of their users in ways that are disruptive, emotionally damaging, and sometimes even lethal, echoing many of the fears that surround the medium today. —LAURA HUDSON
