January Meme: Thoughts about Saru (from Star Trek: Discovery)

The various incarnations of Star Trek have included at least one alien (as in non-human) character among their regulars ever since Spock turned out to be so pivotal to TOS‘ success. Some of these characters provided outside povs or worked as bridge characters between different cultures; several, though not all of them were used to explore the alien culture which produced them. (Spock, obviously, but also Worf – arguably TNG was the single individual Trek show who in terms of on screen canon did most to develop the Klingons from evil enemy race to the space Vikings with their own mythology, customs, and political history they became -, whereas Dr. Phlox on Enterprise and Neelix on Voyager were prominent ensemble characters, but their respective people never got that much attention. (Enterprise‘s big contribution to the ST verse in terms of deepening/developing an alien race were the Andorians via recurring guest star Shran, whereas Voyager did the outsider pov angle with both the Doctor and Seven of Nine, not Neelix, and went for established people like the Vulcans, the Klingons or even the Borg rather than the Talaxians when it came to featuring/exploring more of their culture.) DS9, by its very setting on a Space Station, was something of an exception in that there were fewer human than non-human characters around, but even so, Bajorans were getting explored primarily, though not exclusively via Kira’s storylines, Ferengi via Quark (and family), and so forth.

Star Trek: Discovery has Saru, who isn’t the only alien on the bridge but by far the most prominent one and indeed a main character on the show. His people, the Kelpians, are new to the ST-verse, i.e. they’re getting established through him, which means that in this, he’s in a similar position to Spock on TOS. Otherwise, though, his narrative function (as of Discovery‘s first season, and of course subsequent seasons can change this) strikes me as very different, not least because Discovery is the first ST show in which the Captain is not the leading character; Michael Burnham is, which means that the alien character is not the lead’s subordinate (no matter how friendly they are), but at different points her rival, equal or superior, which already makes for a different dynamic before we bring the personalities into it.

Then there are the first basic traits of Kelpians the audience learns about, the baseline from which the individual personality gets developed, if you will. With Vulcans, via Spock, it was the Vulcan insistence on logic over emotion (which makes inevitably the majority of Spock’s dramatic scenes those where this is challenged), Klingons are a warrior culture (so a great many of Worf’s dramatic scenes are those where he has to figure out how to reconcile his idea of his culture – with Worf’s, there’s the additional complication that due to having been raised by humans, he in many ways is more Klingon than Klingon precisely because he never lived in the Empire beyond his early childhood – with also being a Federation officer ), with the Ferengi, it’s greed (so again, the Ferengi characters are put in situations where this is challenged), etc. With Kelpians, it’s fear.

( Spoilers for the first season abound )