EPILOGUE
“To Them And Their Posterity ...”
So we come to the end of this first journey together.
I suspect we’ll be meeting again soon.
There are so many rich veins of wisdom contained in the legacy of Star Trek, so many more guidelines for living today, so much more I want to share with you.
For now, let me leave you with this question:
What does your future – your “undiscovered country,” as Shakespeare put it – look like?
In the last feature film to center around the original crew, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise are faced with what looks like the end of their journey:
The Klingon Empire, the mortal enemies of the United Federation of Planets, is forced by tragic circumstances to seek a truce with the Federation, and they sue for peace in the person of Gorkon, the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council.
Kirk and his ship are dispatched to escort Gorkon to a proposed peace conference on Earth … an assignment which forces Kirk to recall a deep personal loss:
Captain's log, stardate 9522.6. I've never trusted Klingons, and I never will.
I can never forgive them for the death of my boy. …
To me, our mission to escort the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council to a peace summit … is problematic, at best.
Spock says this could be a historic occasion, and I'd like to believe him. But how on earth can history get past people like me?
A shocking assassination, and the betrayal that precipitated it, are part of a diabolical plot to bring the Federation and the Empire once again to the brink of interstellar war.
Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy are convicted of murder in connection with the assassination and are sentenced to a fate worse than death - life at hard labor on Rura Penthe, a brutal penal planet known throughout the galaxy as “The Aliens’ Graveyard.”
Once they make their daring escape (you knew they would, didn’t you?), they rejoin Spock and crew aboard the Enterprise, and together they foil the plans of those who would disrupt the Federation-Klingon peace conference.
The culprits are captured, the conspirators are exposed, and the galaxy is brought a step closer to peace.
At the moment of resolution, Kirk addresses the conference attendees:
Some people think the future means the end of history.
Well, we haven’t run out of history just yet.
People can be very frightened of change.
I might make a comment here about the turbulent times during which this book was created. But then, it seems to me that throughout human history, ALL times have been turbulent times. War, disease, natural disasters of all kinds, disruption and upheaval in human affairs, have always placed challenges before us.
How shall we face and resolve the challenges of OUR time, and move forward together as a race?
How shall we learn to overcome our differences – indeed, to celebrate our differences – and, as Captain Kirk once said, “each learn to be delighted with who we are?”
Permit me, dear reader, to suggest a course of action:
First, let us embrace and build within ourselves the highest qualities demonstrated by the Captains and the crews of the Enterprise …
And then, once these ideals have become our way of living, have become the essence of who we are, let us dedicate ourselves to passing on the lessons we learn to those who will follow us on this journey aboard the third planet in our solar system.
It’s been described in many ways ... “each one teach one” … “pay it forward” … “leave a legacy” … but the core principle is the same:
The only mark we can make on this planet is the one we’ll leave behind.
Or, as stated in these final words from Starfleet’s greatest Captain, James Tiberius Kirk:
Captain's Log, U.S.S. Enterprise, stardate 9529.1.
This is the final cruise of the Starship Enterprise under my command.
This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew.
To them and their posterity will we commit our future.
They will continue the voyages we have begun, and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man ...
… where no one …
… has gone before.
Live long and prosper, my friend.