Mini-Blog Uniform #1: Immortality in Star Trek

Shorts:
Immortality in the ST Universe

[Shorts will just be more of a ramble on a point, and less dissecting. A larger post will be posted later this week.]

If time travel is possible in the ST universe, of course immortality can be. In DS9, there was the cellular regeneration and entertainment chamber, which teaches cells new “mitochondrial tricks”. Eight hours a day was enough to make sure you stayed alive for as long as you continued the usage. TNG and VOY both involved members of the Q Continuum, immortal beings that were able to alter the fabric of reality (with one Q in particular, for the lolz). The Companion in the TOS episode “Metamorphosis” kept Cochrane immortal and was immortal itself, until it gave that up to merge with Nancy Hedford. In another TOS episode, the Greek gods continued to be immortal, but let their bodies be taken apart by the wind to the point they could no long reform.

Now, immortality has been a constant staple in sci-fi and fantasy (vampires anyone). Anyone can look at recent shows and tell you this idea isn’t going away anytime soon. You’re probably asking, how is this sociological?

You have to bring in the element of fear humans have of death. Religions state we have eternal live through the soul, or that we are reincarnated into other animals and people. Others think there’s nothing at all when you die, so why worry? Much like space, death is an unknown variable. Even people who die and are brought back have very different experiences. Let alone, recent studies have shown that such experiences could just be a “final dream” of sorts.

Through sci-fi, we calm our fears. There are places where you can go be immortal, or there are beings out there that will live past the lifetimes of all of us. So, there’s no need to worry, as long as we find it.

But...we’ll be dead by then anyway. And unless you get shot to a cool planet, you aren’t coming back in any universe.
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I’ve been sort of swamped with school, so I apologize for the sporadic posting. I have a lot of math homework @_@.
Anyway, feel free to post your thoughts on immortality in sci-fi in the comments. It's always good to have a discussion.