Hello all, Ric here again.
First up, major spoilers ahead for Strange New Worlds, so be warned.
This video is looking at the Illyrians as they were depicted in Star Trek and the books
due to their prominence in the recent Star Trek episode, and looking into the origin
of the lore in that tale.
In Enterprise, we meet the Illyrians briefly in the Delphic Expanse in the episode “Damage”
which sees the Enterprise resort to theft in order to continue its mission to save Earth
from the Xindi.
It was a dark moment for the crew, but they were without alternatives, but when the Illyrians
were introduced this is what they looked like.
So the reveal of Commander Una Chin-Riley being an Illyrian is a clearly a retcon then?
Well, not so much as it is drawn from apocrypha, like many things we are seeing in new era
Trek.
In the early days, the Illyrians would practice eugenics by identifying desired genomes in
mates and using that as a basis for evolving their society.
This is already rather cold but skirts around the issue of full on genetic engineering.
In the books, Una was born on Illyria as a result of such selective breeding and is a
factor given for her superior performance, alongside her drive to give one hundred and
ten percent.
She was accepted into Starfleet because the Illyrian approach to genetics bordered just
the “correct” side of augmentation and was tolerated by the Federation.
So her being Illyrian was an origin established and maintained in several books, including
“Captain to Captain” which was a favourite of mine.
I’m pretty certain that the apocryphal mentions of her being Illyrian predate the species’
appearance in Enterprise.
The shows have taken the apocryphal genetic fascination of the Illyrians and tweaked that
approach to just downright become genetic modification, although it’s probable that
their culture practiced both during its development as their technology progressed.
The explanation for the altering in appearances between 2153 and the 2250s can thus be attributed
to their extensive augmentation.
Una describes that the Illyrians used genetic modification to adapt their bodies to suit
an environment as opposed to adapting the environment to suit them and see no issues
with it.
We saw images of augmented Illyrians with webbed hands and a variety of eye modifications
for unknown purposes while Una herself has an immune system that literally burns out
infection, flushing her system in an event that would otherwise be fatal.
It is also shown that she does possess increased strength, which seems to be a standard for
augments.
As of the 23rd century, the Illyrians have splintered into smaller factions, including
the focus of “Ghosts of Illyria”, which was seeking to revert their genome to a natural
state so that they could petition for Federation membership.
The general stigma of genetic augmentation is something that has originated primarily
from the human’s history with genetics in Star Trek and the rise of the Khan Noonien
Singh dynasty and the subsequent Eugenics wars.
These wars happened in the 90s in apocrypha, but it looks like Trek might be seeking to
sweep that under the rug so they can keep it “in the future” as it were, tying it
in as a precursor to World War 3.
Then a reminder to be careful was brought up with Arik Soong and his augments in 2154,
followed by the unintended Klingon viral outbreak to which human DNA was a partial cure.
It’s worth noting however, that this trepidation with augmentation is something that others
have found strange with the Federation, such as fellow member planets, the Denobulans while
others most remain neutral.
It even takes the Federation a long while to begin to use genetic modification in a
simple medical capacity, frowning upon anything further even by the late 24th century as we
saw with Julian Bashir.
There is a slight caveat where they have introduced an initiative of disguises using genetic manipulation,
but this is a temporary measure that doesn’t seem to last.
I need to do a video on this in its entirety at a later date.
It was said that “superior ability breeds superior ambition”, and in the case of Khan
and Soong’s augments, we see the malevolent approach to such ambition, but ambition by
itself is not a bad thing as it pushes people to climb higher and do more.
In Una, I think we see that drive in her, however, like Julian Bashir, she hid her full
potential for fear of the stigma attached and risks being kicked out of Starfleet for
it.
I’m hoping this gets revisited at some point because there is a genuine discussion to be
had here as it was in Deep Space Nine.
Can the Federation overlook her origin, after all Vulcans are faster, stronger, more disciplined
and often smarter than humans and they are allowed to serve in any role.
But then the Illyrian’s edge is not natural and you can ask, “Does it then entice further
augmentation?”
to see the UFP acknowledge and condone such modification.
Well done Strange New Worlds, you got me thinking about the issue.
So that was pretty much a video on… what…
The Illyrians?
A canon update?
A test to see how many ways I end up pronouncing Illyrian?
Whatever, a made a Star Trek video on a topic I wanted to talk about as quick as it was.
Like I say this is a spoiler section, so feel free to voice your opinions below and because
this is YouTube, I hate having to ask, but please keep it civil yeah?
Thanks for watching and I’ll see you later, goodbye!