Enter the Nerdosphere

Ayushman Jamwal

Star Trek’s Captain James Tiberius Kirk

Science fiction, superheroes  voyages in space and encounters with intelligent life are concepts that have enthralled me from the time I began watching William Shatner as Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise in the 1990’s Star Trek television show. He was the prime western sci-fi icon in India for a minority of sci fi fans of my generation. As I grew up, I became a fan of Richard Dean Anderson’s Stargate, Edward James Olmos’ enigmatic performance as Captain Will Adama in Battlestar Galactica, and relished movies from the Star Wars series and the characters of Batman, Green Lantern and Judge Dredd. My love for this genre, gave me the reputation of a ‘geek’ or a ‘nerd’ amongst my friends primarily because of my lack of infatuation with ‘Friends’, ‘Scrubs’ and other ‘cool’ shows. I’ve always wondered why I was drawn to of sci-fi….what was so special and engaging about it. The answer dawned on me only as I became more aware of the world around me. I am not a fanatic who has Star Wars themed parties, or Star Trek night suits, I simply admire how the genre provides a spectacle of the future; how over time it has become a key medium in popular culture that vividly explores the empathetic and malevolent nature of man; and constantly questions the tenets of human society, religion and morality.

We fans may be ‘geeks’, but the genre offers us a lot that leaves us laughing, crying, enthralled, but most of all gives us a lot of food for thought. In my opinion, the greatest quality of this genre lies in how it’s a launch pad for parallels and counter-narratives for the philosophies and spiritual ideologies that have taken root in our society today.

Ramayana AD

Many including me believe that the Ramayana is a great and timeless story, full of lessons and morals that I have learned as a child. But, I also believe that the story of Star Wars is at par, even an apt heir to the story of the Ramayana. Even though science fiction, there is nothing scientific about the genre. It packs the same life lessons of love, honour, respect and duty as well as the emotional complexity and the moral dilemmas that make Ramayana so compelling. Going even beyond the epic, if Prince Ram vanquishing Ravana appealed to me as a child, Luke Skywalker’s selflessness not to fight Darth Vader, the main villain who happens to be his father, which eventually wins him over, appealed to me as an adult. That narrative screamed Gandhian philosophy to me, how the will to sacrifice was used not to destroy but to win over evil. Star Wars also talks of the concept of the ‘Force’. It essentially is a concept of a life force which permeates all and can be moulded into the ‘Light’ and the ‘Darkside’. It’s similar to the Rig Veda’s concept of ‘Brahm’, the life force and the pursuit of balance of good and evil, yin and yang, something all avatars of Lord Vishnu have pursued in mythology, a task carried out by the Order of the Jedi from the series.

Jedi Church in Britain

The concept of Jedi has in-fact become a full fledged and growing faith in the world, primarily in the United Kingdom where no major religion has any public hold. A 2001 UK census found that around 400,000 people claimed their belief system was Jedi, with churches dotted all over the country and many around the world. In fact, a British Member of Parliament for the constituency of Copeland Jamie Reed is a self proclaimed Jedi. Their Ying and Yang style philosophy of cosmic balance comes through in these simple verses,

Star Wars

Emotion, yet peace.

Ignorance, yet knowledge.

Passion, yet serenity.

Chaos, yet harmony.

Death, yet the Force.

Battlestar Galactica

Another enigmatic series is Battlestar Galactica, considered to be the one of the greatest television shows ever made. The entire series is George Orwell’s apocalyptic 1984 and story of the Jewish prophet Moses packed into one. It shows how mankind has moved away from earth and colonized more than one planet. Yet its pursuit for perfection and aspiration for God leads it to create a robotic race called Cylons which becomes self aware and launches a full scale attack. Only 40,000 survive the attack and drift through space being chased by the Cylons as the survivors find the original earth or ‘the promised land’. The show grapples with the question of what it is to be human, and shows civilization struggling to survive, to keep its rules intact in the face of extinction. It depicts the narrative with civilian-military clashes for power, the fight over resources, how the judiciary turns futile, how people delve deeper into religion for respite and sanity, and others condemn it.

Writer Isaac Asimov

The spiritual element in the show comes in where a cancer riddled teacher named Laura Roslin leads the survivors to earth guided by her faith, which is her source of hope as well as despair. The Cylon-Human conflict is far from the Terminator narrative to remove the human threat. The Cylons who are organically engineered robots, with the ability to procreate, see themselves as children of men, and a perfection of the race. They aren’t stoic machines, but super-humans with a fanatic belief. Yet, they are subject to same human condition. Within their ranks there are questions raised as some Cylons fall in love with the humans, bear children while others question their pursuit. The most iconic scene of that happens when a supernova explodes and a Cylon laments that in his pursuit to become human, he can no longer experience the power and glory of such an event due to the sensory shortcomings of being a human. The series is complex and beautifully written and presents a vivid reality with questions that have transcended the religious texts pushed the envelope of our understanding of ourselves. It constantly answers writer Isaac Asimov’s eternal questions for artificial intelligence – When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote… of a soul?

Judge Dredd

There are compelling character and ideological parallels and counters in the ‘Nerdosphere’ to those in renowned and hallowed texts around the world. For the Ramayana’s Raavan bent on enslaving the world, there are Raaz Al Gul and Christopher Nolan’s Joker bent on destroying it by consuming it with chaos, turning it against itself through fear, greed and suspicion. If Ram is the deliverer of freedom to the world from evil, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars delivers freedom to his galaxy by leading a rebellion to overthrow the Sith empire. If Buddhism advocates that enlightenment can truly be achieved by severing ties from desire, the Order of the Jedi advocates the source of

Green Lantern

illumination lies in “learning to let go of all that one fears of losing”. If Karan from the Mahabharata is iconic for forgoing morality for duty, Judge Dredd is iconic for living with that code when enforcing justice on the streets of Mega City. As Moses lead his people to freedom from Egypt, President Laura Roslin from Battlestar Galactica leads the human race to the promised land of Earth. If the power of will and hope can make anything come true, the Green Lantern sphere is a powerful representation of a universe protected and empowered by those virtues. If the story of Jesus teaches the value of selflessness, then every fictional hero in ‘Nerdosphere’ is a poignant parallel.

The genre nourishes the imagination exploring the human condition; its potential for greatness and evil; and its struggle with its values to achieve prosperity and survive. No other genre besides sci-fi/fantasy has comic books sales, global conventions and multiple spin-offs and movies. The proliferation of these franchises and the growth of some of its elements into a faith is testimony to its powerful narrative, potent ethos, grand spectacle. So next time your friend asks you if you’ve seen the latest sci-fi/fantasy flick, don’t write it off as something lame. Try it out, make that open your mind and you might find something intriguing, visionary, even inspiring.