Hûw Steer's Blog

Ad Luna #4: The Essay, Part 1 Ad Luna #6: The Essay, Part 4 – First...

Ad Luna #5: The Essay, Parts 2 & 3 – Definitions

(continuing my quest for the most complex post titles I can possibly write)

“Why parts 2 and 3?” I hear you cry. Well, because they’re probably the least interesting bits, and I want to get them out of the way as quickly as possible so we can get to the good stuff – hence this being posted on a Thursday. This is essentially more introduction: Chapter 2 is the ‘sources’ bit, where I had to explain all the sources I was going to use in the essay to tick boxes on the markscheme. Chapter 3 is all about what ‘science fiction’ actually is – or at least what I think it is, or at least how I defined it so that Lucian’s True History counted as SF so I could justify writing the essay.

Anyway, here they are. On Sunday, we’ll start with the proper stuff – First Contact.

2 – Sources

My main source for this essay is, of course, the True History itself. Written in the second century AD, the TH has been conventionally viewed as a satire on ancient travel narratives and histories like that of Herodotus (who Lucian names and shames as a liar). Lucian himself was from Samosata in Syria, writing in Greek and raised in the Hellenised culture of the Greek East. However, he was also a Roman citizen, travelling around, working and writing for the Roman Empire and, crucially, a Roman audience. J.P.V.D Balsdon states:

“Lucian was a member and a beneficiary of the empire, as were his Roman friends. Though he sometimes writes objectively of the Romans, he is the first Greek to refer to the Roman empire as ‘our empire’ and to its inhabitants as ‘we’.”

Other authors, such as Tim Whitmarsh, consider Lucian to be “‘culturally’ Greek”; his ‘Romanness’ is certainly a matter of debate. Lucian’s works, however, including the TH, were aimed at a Mediterranean culture dominated by Roman rulers and Roman identity. It is this essentially ‘Roman’ world that Lucian mirrors and critiques in the TH. Lucian’s characters are representatives of this Roman culture, just as Star Trek’s characters represent the US-dominated Western culture that their programme reflects. Though they might be referred to as ‘Greeks’ within the text, for the purposes of this essay these characters represent Roman society, and I will therefore refer to them as ‘Romans’ and their society as ‘Rome’ throughout this essay.

Somewhat confusingly, Lucian’s narrator, the TH’s protagonist, is also named Lucian, a fictionalised version of the author himself. To avoid confusion, and in keeping with this essay’s theme, I will henceforth refer to Lucian the character as ‘Jean-Lucian’.

My other principal source will be Star Trek, from the Original Series (TOS) of the 1960s to this year’s Discovery (DIS), all sharing a heritage of progressive cognitive estrangement. I will be comparing Lucian’s work primarily to The Next Generation (TNG) of the 1980s and 90s. This is partially because there is more of it than TOS – seven seasons versus three – and thus more material to compare, but mainly because TNG is simply better-quality. Its stories are more nuanced, its morals and messages better developed and addressed than those of TOS – in short, TNG is the best realisation of Roddenberry’s progressive vision of “the transformation and betterment of human civilisation and the human spirit”. I will, however, refer to TOS, as well as the prequel series Enterprise (ENT), which showcases many false starts and mistakes in the process of reaching utopia, presenting a world far closer to our own, and therefore Lucian’s, than TNG’s idealised future. I will also refer to the darker Deep Space Nine (DS9), whose imperialist Cardassians and misogynist Ferengi will be particularly useful for comparison to Lucian’s Romans.

I will also include comparisons to ancient sources – the historians and ethnographers who Lucian explicitly set out to parody in the TH. These authors will provide an undistorted version of Greco-Roman attitudes towards other cultures and worlds and thus be invaluable for contextualising Lucian’s own mirroring. Notable comparisons will include Herodotus, Strabo’s Geography, and Tacitus’ Germania. A final primary source will be the 1983 film First Contact, documenting the Leahy brothers’ 1933 expedition into the highlands of New Guinea, and their ‘first contact’ with the natives of that area. As one of the only filmed records of a real first contact scenario, the film will be invaluable in comparison to both the fictionalised contacts of Trek and the TH and to the real encounters with other cultures on which the SF was based.

My secondary sources are too numerous to list here in full, but I will cover the most important briefly. On classical attitudes to ‘othering’ I will rely on François Hartog’s The Mirror of Herodotus, an invaluable analysis of ancient presentations of foreign cultures as strange and otherworldly, and the alternative takes of Erich Gruen and J.P.V.D. Balsdon. Works on Lucian’s TH are numerous – I will be using Georgiadou & Larmour’s extended commentary, as well as Fredericks, Viglas, and Swanson’s articles on Lucian’s place in the SF genre. On SF in general I will rely on Adam Roberts’ histories of the genre, David Seed’s compendium of essays on SF as a critical genre, and Darko Suvin’s Metamorphoses of Science-Fiction, as well as Aldiss & Wingrove, for definitions of the genre itself. There are hundreds of critical essays on Trek, several of which I will use here, notably Margaret Rose on Trek’s approaches to hybridity. Altman and Gross’ Fifty-Year Mission has proven invaluable as a history of the franchise, told through direct interviews with cast, crew and creators, as have other such interviews and panels recorded on YouTube. Finally, Reddit’s /r/DaystromInstitute has provided many insights into Trek episodes, both in-universe and behind-the-scenes.

My final secondary source is myself. My previous dissertation linked Lucian’s work with modern SF, including Trek to a limited extent. In order to expand on my previous work I must refer to it – convenient, as it renders the task of explaining the definition of SF somewhat simpler.

Lucian, TH, 2.31

Balsdon, J.P.V.D, Romans and Aliens (Duckworth, 1979), p.187

Whitmarsh, Tim, Greek Literature and the Roman Empire (Oxford University Press, 2001), p.250

i.e. Jean-Luc Picard.

Cover, Rob, ‘Generating the Self: The biopolitics of security and selfhood in Star Trek: The Next Generation’, in Science Fiction Film and Television, volume 4 (2011), p.205

Hartog, François, The Mirror of Herodotus, trans. Janet Lloyd (University of California Press, 1988)

Gruen, Erich, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2011)

Georgiadou & Larmour, Lucian’s Science Fiction Novel ‘True Histories’ (Brill, 1998)

Fredericks, S.C, ‘Lucian’s True History as SF’ in Science Fiction studies, Vol.3, no.1 (March 1976)

Viglas, Katelis, ‘The Placement of Lucian’s Novel True History in the Genre of Science Fiction’ in Interlitteraria vol. 21 (2016), pp.158-71

Swanson, Roy Arthur, ‘The True, the False, and the Truly False: Lucian’s Philosophical Science Fiction’ in Science Fiction studies, Vol. 3, no.3 (November 1976), pp.227-239

Roberts, Adam, The History of Science-Fiction (Macmillan, 2005), and Science Fiction: The New Critical Idiom, second edition (Routledge, 2006)

Seed, David (ed.), A Companion to Science-Fiction (Blackwell, 2005)

Suvin, Darko, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (Yale University Press, 1979)

Aldiss, Brian & Wingrove, David, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (House of Stratus, 2001)

Rose, Margaret, ‘Cyborg Selves in Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: The Next Generation’ in Journal of Popular Culture, vol.48 (2015), pp.1193-1210

Altman, Mark, & Gross, Edward, The Fifty-Year Mission: The First 25 Years (Thomas Dunne, 2016) and The Next 25 Years (Thomas Dunne, 2016) – hereafter ’50-Year V1’ and ‘V2’

3 – Definitions

Before I begin my analysis I will briefly explain why the True History can be considered science-fiction. The TH, like the rest of Lucian’s works, has been conventionally read as satire rather than SF. I will not deny this: Lucian explicitly states in his introduction that he intends to lampoon the partially fictionalised works of authors like Ctesias and Herodotus, and Jean-Lucian’s encounter with Homer demonstrates Lucian’s satirising of his Odyssey. However, the TH can be more than satire without ceasing to be satirical. It is unique among narratives of the period in that it takes place entirely beyond the bounds of the known world. Even fantastical tales like The Wonders Beyond Thule and The Golden Ass take place (mostly) in real locations – Lucian, however, references reality without being bound by it. In my view it is clear that Lucian’s “fantastic voyages and utopistic hyperbole comport with the genre of science fiction”, an “extensive and varied” genre, with a complex critical history. For decades literary critics refused to categorise SF as ‘real’ literature, seeing it as little more than puerile fantasy. Not until relatively recently has SF been accepted into the literary canon, and therefore subjected to critical study and academic definition. Several different definitions have emerged, however; some have merit; some, in my view, are fundamentally flawed. The most relevant I will now discuss.

SF is not merely contingent on the presence of a journey into space, as Adam Roberts would have it. Though such journeys are ubiquitous in early and modern SF, ‘space opera’ is but a subgenre, and a critically unpopular one at that. Even SF stories that feature space travel are not necessarily about space travel. A more encompassing definition is that of Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove. SF, to them, is intrinsically connected to the beginnings of modern science and engagement with contemporary scientific knowledge; an attitude emerging in the Gothic period, with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein considered “the first real novel of science fiction”. I find this definition fundamentally unsatisfying – not least because Aldiss and Wingrove dismiss the TH as “pure fantasy” – as it is extremely limiting. The idea that SF should be in some way about a desire for knowledge, about exploration, whether of the self or of other worlds, is a good one, but considering the Gothic fascination with science to be the first example of that desire is frankly absurd. What of the early modern period, or indeed the Second Sophistic? Humans have always challenged the limits of knowledge; Lucian’s work is fundamentally such a “search for knowledge”, as are the early modern works of Francis Godwin and Cyrano de Bergerac. To consider Frankenstein the first work of SF is reductive in the extreme.

The best critical definition (in my view), and the one on which this essay relies, is that of Darko Suvin’s concept of ‘cognitive estrangement’. Through “an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment”, SF in Suvin’s view should force the reader to reflect on their own reality. SF presents a distorting mirror to the reader’s own world, set apart from reality by a unique ‘novum’, whose presence alters the fictional world in some significant way. Through considering the impact of the ‘novum’/‘nova’ on the distorted world, readers are then induced to consider their own reality. How does the new world differ – is it better, or worse? And how can we prevent our own world from becoming – or cause it to become – the same? The mirror is not only distorting, but critical. The definition is very broad, encompassing many types of imaginary voyages, but it neatly expresses a core function of SF: “the encounter with difference”. Lucian, in the TH, presents difference constantly, as does Trek. Each ‘episode’ of the TH has its own novum and accompanying similarities to the real ancient world. The people of the Moon are Greek-speaking and intelligent – but they are all male, living among monstrous animals in an alien environment. The Vine-Women parallel the myth of Daphne – but what if her metamorphosis was inflicted on other victims? SF is a genre all about ‘what-ifs’, alternate realities, and Lucian, throughout the TH, presents alternate worlds in order that his readers might consider their own convictions and prejudices.

I do not mean to imply a reductive argument in classifying the TH as SF, rather than following the standard interpretations of the text as simply satire – but I do not think my approach “unclassical”, and I hope to disprove any “sceptical disbelief that ancient writers could think in these terms.” Furthermore I am not alone; numerous authors, including Fredericks, Viglas and Swanson, have likewise argued that the TH is indeed a worthy SF text, perhaps even “the beginnings of Western Science Fiction”. “Lucian’s work is partially a pastiche (of histories and travel-writing) but as a whole it is original and inventive”; parody, but more than only parody. In its critical mirroring of the world of the Second Sophistic, the TH (and indeed all SF) is in a sense satirical, but on a much grander scale than conventional interpretations cover.

Lucian’s True History, therefore, is SF by Suvin’s definition, and SF of a similar kind to Star Trek. Both constantly present not just strange new worlds but worlds that are recognisable – similar enough to be relatable, but different in some crucial way, allowing their audiences to reflect on the real issues and ideas behind the distorting mirror. It is time I explored some of these worlds in detailed comparison.

Steer, p.10

Swanson, p.228

Seed, p.1

Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan (Jr.), ‘Science Fiction/Criticism’ in A Companion to Science Fiction, p.49

Roberts, History of Science-Fiction, p.vii

Mendlesohn, Farah, ‘Ian M. Banks: Excession’ in A Companion to Science Fiction, p.557

Steer, p.11

Aldiss & Wingrove, p.36

Aldiss & Wingrove, p.57

Seed, p.4

Steer, p.11

Georgiadou & Larmour, p.15