Una Chin Riley Matters

 Who is Una Chin-Riley? 

Why she matters.

 

I have been fascinated with science fiction since high school. I loved reading Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlien, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Larry Nevin, and a host of others who saw futures not yet realized. 

 

With the advent of television, I became hooked on Star Trek and later, Star Wars, which reminded me of the serial western movies I went to as a kid on my bike. I love most current TV sci-fi like Picard, Discovery, Foundation, and Silo, all streaming serials of different futures.

 

One of the recurring themes in these are societies built upon ideals of equality. Equalities of race, gender, species, brought to life with universal translators, fully integrated populations, and prime directives.

 

The Star Trek franchise has seen several sequels and prequels. Most recently, streaming on Paramount Plus, is Star Trek – Strange New Worlds. It is supposed to be a prequel to the original Star Trek but comes with much more modern looking technology and a much clearer embrace of the equality theme compared to Captain Kirk’s time on the screen. 

 

In the prequel, the Enterprise Captain is named Pike. His first officer is an Illryian woman, Una Chin-Riley. She is the quintessential first officer, telling Pike when he is about to go too far and providing a compelling role model for the command staff and crew. She is a mentor to younger officers. She has an unblemished 20 plus year career in Starfleet. 

 

Even though she is of a different species, Chin-Riley looks all the world like the humans she serves with aboard the Enterprise. In a previous episode she is outed as an Illryian, a fact she failed to mention on her application to join Starfleet. It turns out that Illryian’s are genetically modified humans, and the utopian United Federation of Planets has barred members of that species from serving in Starfleet. 

 

The basis for this discrimination goes back millennia to the Eugenics Wars that almost tore human civilization asunder as genetically modified humans tried to change human evolution by breeding out “undesirable” human characteristics through genetic manipulation enhanced by artificial intelligence. It does not escape to recognize the parallels to Hitler’s Master Race programs.

 

In the most recent episode I watched, Chin-Riley chooses to go to trial on the charges against her rather than accept a plea bargain that would keep her out of prison. Captain Pike hires an Illryian civil rights lawyer to defend his first officer. Starfleet prosecutors add additional charges that threaten to sweep in others on the Enterprise who might have known about her deception and failed to disclose it. 

 

The trial is a masterpiece, reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird and Inherit the Wind, that puts the clearly discriminatory basis for Chin-Riley’s prosecution on trial. 

 

In the end, the Illryian lawyer finds a Starfleet regulation that provided Una Chin-Riley and those who knew of her deception, a complete defense. By exposing the hardships and life-threatening experiences Chin-Riley had growing up and her desire to find a safe space in the Starfleet family set the stage for her self-disclosure of her species identity so she could finally live her life as she truly is, an Illryian. That completed the requirements of an asylum request that the Starfleet regulation required Captain Pike to grant.

 

After watching this simple yet complex television program, I marveled at how the writers and actors captured many of today’s conflicts about race, gender, sexual orientation, artificial intelligence, immigration status, and species while offering a simple solution. 

 

As a society built upon justice and equality, how can we not grant asylum and equal status to all on these shores asking to be part of the grand experiment in democracy our founders started centuries ago? Those who have lived oppression borne out of ignorance or bigotry, like our founders, deserve asylum just as those early immigrants did. We just celebrated our founding with a four-day holiday complete with fireworks, parades, family gatherings and fun. That celebration recognizes we are all equal in spirit and should reignite our national passion to make it so in reality. Star Trek just helped that process along by reminding us of our founders’ aspirations for us in their future generations. That is the way.

 

Waring Fincke is a retired attorney and guardian who lives in the Village of Kewaskum.