# Either Star Trek or Middle-earth is to be removed from history. Y'all choose **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** middle-earth\ **Created:** [June 10, 2013, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677 "2013-06-10T23:53:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/81 "2013-06-12T20:46:14Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Completely delusional fanboys worshiping an imaginary world that could never be? > > But then how to describe the Star Wars fans? [Romantic as opposed to Enlightenment/Rationalist,](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RomanticismVersusEnlightenment) that’s how. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/82 "2013-06-12T21:05:33Z")
Would getting rid of either get me more Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/83 "2013-06-12T21:09:05Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You’ve got that just backwards. Tolkein was merely doing a prose update of medieval heroic sagas. _ST_ – high-quality interstellar space opera on the little screen – was a **new** concept for its day. The number of qualifiers you need to add to Star Trek in order to arrive at a claim of novelty rather undercuts your argument. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/84 "2013-06-12T21:11:48Z")
Star Trek has influenced technological development. Bye, Prof. T. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/85 "2013-06-12T21:22:37Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > The number of qualifiers you need to add to Star Trek in order to arrive at a claim of novelty rather undercuts your argument. Well said. I’ve been a Trek fan much longer than a Tolkien fan (I only read LotR after the first movie came out, whereas thanks to syndication I probably watched Trek from kindergarten on), but it’s nowhere near as seminal in its genre as LoTR is. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/86 "2013-06-12T21:48:01Z")
Get rid of Star Trek and something else would come along eventually. There was already a ton of space-oriented Sci-Fi film and literature to build on before TOS. Get rid of Tolkien and you hamstring an entire genre, possibly even deal it a mortal blow. I suppose the Euro mythology was already there inviting something, but for many hundreds of years that something never really developed until Tolkien (& CS Lewis). So my preference is for keeping Middle Earth. My wife would disagree, of course. I introduced her to TOS so she would get more laughs out of The Big Bang Theory and she couldn’t stop watching. Evidently Shattner’s sex appeal spans generations as well as species. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/87 "2013-06-12T22:40:12Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Right, SF conventions before ST had attendance figures that mounted up into the dozens. Without the fan push of ST, they’d still be there, IMHO. Noreascon in '71 I think was fairly large, and Boskone in '70 was a bit larger than a few dozen. Not that bigger is always better. The hypothetical would still have Star Wars to push attendance in any case. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/88 "2013-06-12T22:43:16Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Well said. I’ve been a Trek fan much longer than a Tolkien fan (I only read LotR after the first movie came out, whereas thanks to syndication I probably watched Trek from kindergarten on), but it’s nowhere near as seminal in its genre as LoTR is. If the genre is all sf, true. If the genre was sf TV, no. I watched ST from the first show, which started when I was in high school, and no non-anthology sf show came even close to creating a believable world with some reasonable underlying technology. TOS was much lighter on the pull it out of your ass tech babble than the later shows. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/89 "2013-06-12T23:02:52Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > The number of qualifiers you need to add to Star Trek in order to arrive at a claim of novelty rather undercuts your argument. Those are not qualifiers, they are the defining traits. Read again. And I needn’t even have included “high-quality” or “interstellar,” **any** space opera (as a series, I don’t mean _Twilight Zone_ episodes) was practically new to the little screen. _(Lost in Space_ was space opera and interstellar, if not high-quality; but it was of origin contemporaneous with ST, and it was not seminal.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/90 "2013-06-12T23:20:59Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > And this is why Star Trek must die- it’s not science fiction. > Generations of kids are growing up learning bad, stupid, false science from Star Trek. Weellll . . . at least it rates a 2 on the [Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness). > [@](#): > > Example: a character is shown a machine for traveling into the past and asks, “How does it work?” > > **•In soft SF:** “You sit in this seat, set the date you want, and pull that lever.” > > **•In hard SF:** “A good question with an interesting answer. Please have a seat while I bring you up to speed on the latest ideas in quantum theory, after which I will spend a chapter detailing an elaborate, yet plausible-sounding connection between quantum states, the unified field theory, and the means by which the brain stores memory, all tied into theories from both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.” > > **•In really hard SF:** “It’s a ride. Obviously, time travel to the past is impossible, but this multi-axis motion ride will make you think you’re really there.” > > \ > > **1.Science In Genre Only:** The work is unambiguously set in the _literary_ genre of Science Fiction, but _scientific_ it is not. Applied Phlebotinum is the rule of the day, often of the Nonsensoleum kind, Green Rocks gain New Powers as the Plot Demands, and both Bellisario’s Maxim and the MST3K Mantra apply. Works like _Futurama, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann,_ The DC and Marvel universes, and _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ fall in this class. > > **2.World Of Phlebotinum:** The universe is full of Applied Phlebotinum with more to be found behind every star, but the Phlebotinum is dealt with in a fairly consistent fashion despite its lack of correspondence with reality and, in-world, is considered to lie within the realm of scientific inquiry. Works like EE Doc Smith’s _Lensman_ series, _Neon Genesis Evangelion, Star Trek: The Original Series,_ and _StarCraft_ fall in this category. > > **3.Physics Plus:** Stories in this class once again have multiple forms of Applied Phlebotinum, but in contrast to the prior class, the author aims to justify these creations with real and invented natural laws — and these creations and others from the same laws will turn up again and again in new contexts. Works like _Schlock Mercenary,_ David Weber’s _Honor Harrington_ series, David Brin’s _Uplift_ series, and the 2003-2009 _Battlestar Galactica_ fall in this class. > > **4.One Big Lie:** Authors of works in this class invent one (or, at most, a very few) counterfactual physical laws and writes a story that explores the implications of these principles. Most works in Alan Dean Foster’s _Humanx Commonwealth_ series, the Ad Astra board games and Robert A Heinlein’s _Farnhams Freehold_ fall in this category. > > This class also includes a subclass (4.5 on the scale) we call _One Small Fib,_ containing stories that include only a single counterfactual device (often FTL Travel), but for which the device is not a major element of the plot. Many Hal Clement novels (e.g. _Mission Of Gravity, Close to Critical_), _Freefall,_ and the _Alien_ series fall within the subclass. > > **5.Speculative Science:** Stories in which there is no “big lie” — the science of the tale is (or was) genuine speculative science or engineering, and the goal of the author to make as few errors with respect to known fact as possible. Early works in Larry Niven’s _Known Space_ series, the first two books in Robert L. Forward’s _Rocheworld_ series, _Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind,_ and Robert A Heinlein’s _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_ fall in this class. > > A subclass of this (5.5 on the scale) is _Futurology:_ stories which function almost like a prediction of the future, extrapolating from current technology rather than inventing major new technologies or discoveries. (Naturally, Zeerust is common in older entries.) _Gattaca,_ Planetes, _The Machine Stops_ by E. M. Forster, and the more Speculative Fiction works of Jules Verne fall in this subclass. > > **6.Real Life (aka Fiction in Genre Only):** A Shared Universe which spawned its own genre, known as “Non Fiction”. Despite the various problems noted at Reality Is Unrealistic, it is almost universally agreed that there is no other universe known so thoroughly worked out from established scientific principles. The Apollo Program, World War II, and Woodstock fall in this class. ---
**Author:** ![Suil\_Dubh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@Suil\_Dubh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suil_Dubh)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/91 "2013-06-12T23:22:26Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > I don’t know what that is, but it crashed my browser. Proof of some grand evil, I’m sure ;). It was just a link to a YouTube video, done by the animator Harry Partridge. But the fact that it crashed your browser does suggest interference from the Elder Gods. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/92 "2013-06-13T00:05:34Z")
This thread saddens me. Not so much the choice of Star Trek over Middle Earth, but the number of people saying “I’ve never read LotR and have no interest in doing so.” I can understand not loving it. I can understand intending to read it but never getting to it. But to have _no interest whatsoever_ is just… wrong. I’m not a big Tolkien nerd. I’m not even a big book nerd. But there are some things that have had such a big impact on our culture that to ignore them entirely seems almost perverse. I’d gladly read every book on some decent “top 100 ever” kind of list (I don’t have one in mind). I might not especially enjoy all of them, or even most of them. With some I’ll probably wonder what the fuss is about and call them overrated. I might not read 90 of them again. But at least I’d have given them a chance and experienced an important little slice of our culture. Incidentally, I find LotR quite difficult to put down, once you get a few chapters in. It’s not quite the slow and difficult read many seem to imagine it to be. Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious, I chose the second option, although I did recently return from watching Into Darkness and found it to be quite enjoyable. Not as good as the previous film though. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/93 "2013-06-13T00:38:37Z")
I love LOTR. Adore the world of Middle Earth. My life would be and would have been much poorer without it. I would miss Star Trek’s 2nd movie “The Wrath of Khan”. but I could live without it. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/94 "2013-06-13T07:47:54Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Tolkein is far far more important than Trek. He basically kick-started the entire Fantasy genre of the 20th Century. There was fantasy before LoTR, (E R Edison, Conan the Barbarian, and so on) but it was not particularly widespread nor popular. It was seen as a _children’s_ genre. > > Trek was innovative, and spawned a lot of imitators _on TV specifically_. But it wasn’t all that innovative in terms of the general SF genre. The Golden Age of science fiction was the 50’s. Books had already gone before where Trek was boldly going (If your question was “take out Tolkein or Asimov?” that would be a lot harder). Even in terms of TV science fiction it wasn’t the first among popular influential SF series’ - _The Twilight Zone_ precedes it by seven years, and _Doctor Who_ by three. > … > [@Miller](#): > > Star Trek is, at best, an entertaining confection that works best when you think about it least. Middle Earth is one of the great, enduring monuments of speculative fiction, whose stature only grows the more you study it. > … > [@Saltire](#): > > Toldien is, arguably, the second greatest writer of English literature (after Shakespeare, of course). His works are a finely-crafted gem of storytelling. > > I love Star Trek. But it was just the best of a large number of pretty-good futuristic franchises. I feel one of the others could rise to greatness and fill the void. But nothing can fill in for Middle Earth. > [@Mangetout](#): > > Much as I like Star Trek, I’ll vote for it to go, because as long as Forbidden Planet still existed, something else different, but very similar to Star Trek would probably have followed it anyway. Started to type stuff but they pretty much expressed all my thoughts on the subject. As much as I loved Star Trek, it was Tolkien’s work that really set off my love of fantasy which then led me to Science Fiction. Something else Trek-like would have taken its place … maybe some kind of war in the stars? ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/95 "2013-06-13T14:48:07Z")
I’ve spent way more happy hours playing games with a group of humans, elves and dwarves going on quests than I have playing games with a space captain, a space scientist and a space doctor flying from planet to planet. Sorry, Star Trek. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/96 "2013-06-13T14:53:27Z")
Looking around, I’ve found that one of Roddenberry’s main inspirations for Star Trek was Swift’s _Gulliver’s Travels_, which was also a significant influence on J.R.R. So, take out Jonathan Swift and modern imaginative storytelling gets seriously Lilliputted. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/97 "2013-06-13T15:05:46Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > And this is why Star Trek must die- it’s not science fiction. > Generations of kids are growing up learning bad, stupid, false science from Star Trek. > > Then there’s that Darmok nonsense. Ugh. What definition of “fiction” do you subscribe to? If scientific fact is your measuring stick, you’ve discounted almost every book by every SF author. ETA: ninja’d, I see ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/98 "2013-06-13T15:12:08Z")
I’m just glad that **Skald** was kind enough to add the ‘Why isn’t erasing LucasFilm an option?’ option. This is a very difficult decision to make. I have been a proponent of the “Star Trek inspired an entire generation of engineers and scientists” school of thought, if only to justify my fanboy tendencies. However, this was also the same generation that grew up watching the space race and knowing the names of all of the original Seven astronauts. So, it is possible that some other SF series would have come into existence sans Star Trek. Whether it would be virtually immortal in terms of TV/Movie franchises and still be an active property in the 2nd decade of the 21st century is hard to imagine. Star Trek filled a special place in many people’s hearts and minds of that era. We saw a future world that was beyond the nuclear spectre of death. An entire interstellar Federation comprised of multiple alien species who cooperated to create something that one species could not do so alone. During a time of bleak despair (and I do not overstate this, as I was there and at the age of 8 was pretty much ready for those darned Russians to H-bomb Atlanta any minute now) Star Trek gave us a hope that things might work out eventually. I read Professor Tolkien’s works when I was in my early teens. I learned how to write in Elvish runes and by that improved my penmanship. Even now, when people want something calligraphed, I can do so rather effortlessly. The study of those fictional languages also directed my course towards linguistics and the subsequent studies led to my degrees. That was what the professor wanted when he created these tales. They weren’t written for profit as much as they were born of Professor Tolkien’s desire to create a truly ‘English’ mythos. One based upon Scandinavian roots, apparently, but English nevertheless. And he did so spectacularly well. I would be a much different man without the influence of both of these mythoi. So, again, I thank **Skald the Rhymer** for the option to potentially remove the disease that is Lucas from our consensual reality. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/99 "2013-06-13T15:18:22Z")
> [@The Great Sun Jester](#): > > Get rid of Star Trek and something else would come along eventually. There was already a ton of space-oriented Sci-Fi film and literature to build on before TOS. > > Get rid of Tolkien and you hamstring an entire genre, possibly even deal it a mortal blow. I suppose the Euro mythology was already there inviting something, but for many hundreds of years that something never really developed until Tolkien (& CS Lewis). Again, that settles it. See post #19. Sorry if I sound bitter, but, you know what really makes me mad? When I go to the public library, and I browse in the “New Books” section looking specifically for those books with the “SF” label on their spines, and **every single one** I find there so labeled is fantasy! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677/100 "2013-06-13T15:21:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Again, that settles it. See post #19. > > Sorry if I sound bitter, but, you know what really makes me mad? When I go to the public library, and I browse in the “New Books” section looking specifically for those books with the “SF” label on their spines, and **every single one** I find there so labeled is fantasy! :mad: Some librarians (probably not the majority, though) claim SF is an abbreviation for “Speculative Fiction”, hoping to mitigate this inconsistancy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/either-star-trek-or-middle-earth-is-to-be-removed-from-history-yall-choose/660677.md?page=6)