In the updated world of Star Trek: The Next Generation, females are no longer only for opening hailing frequencies and "Kirking around." Now, there are sporadic appearances by female Starfleet admirals, we have seen two female chief medical officers aboard the Enterprise, and perhaps more than anything, an updated prologue in which Picard shifts Kirk's original message to " ... where no ONE has gone before" has Trekkies feeling comfortably pro-feminist and smugly post-modern.

Yet, the primary female protagonist in Next Generation, ship's counselor Deanna Troi (as portrayed by Marina Sirtis), has found herself subjected to rape — physically, mentally and emotionally — in at least FIVE different episodes. This paper will explore how, in terms of Donna Haraway's feminist classic "Manifesto for a Cyborg," the "feminist" ideology of Trek's Next Generation only coincidentally reflects the reality of Douglas Coupland's Generation X.

Deanna Troi, in the best Trek tradition of the legendary Spock, is identifiably a half-breed. As half-human and half-Betazoid, like a cyborg, she is a hybrid. Haraway hints that this kind of genetic mix is something intrinsic to us all, in saying "we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs." Ironically, cyborgs are asexual — as Haraway says, "The cyborg is a creature in a postgender world"; but then, rape is not a sexual crime, and Troi has been raped in a number of non-sexual ways.

There are five separate times that Troi is subjected to rape:

• In "Power Play," she is inhabited by an alien entity and, along with Data and O'Brien, takes over the Enterprise. Ironically, she is taken by the spirit of a male entity and this is the only episode in which she assumes command, even temporarily, of the vessel upon which she serves.
• In "The Child," Troi is impregnated in her sleep by a glowing white light. She has a baby — a boy, naturally — and she names it for her otherwise rarely-mentioned father, Ian.
• In "Violations," Troi is mentally invaded by the Ullian memory-taker Jev, who replaces Riker in a sexual memory of the counselor's, and she ends up in a coma. While the plot develops around her, Troi spends the episode unconscious. Ironically, this episode originally featured O'Brien as the victim, but the writers could not sell the idea of a male rape victim. In fact, this is the only Troi-centered show where the term "rape" is actually used.
• In "Night Terrors," Troi is beset by nightmares forced upon her by an outside influence. In The Star Trek: The Next Generation Compendium, this episode is described thus: "Though it's regarded as the clunker of the fourth season by many fans and those involved, this script ... does let Troi save the ship for once."
• Finally, in its most recent season, in "Face of the Enemy," Troi awakes to find her identity taken from her — she is now somehow a Romulan. She is allowed to play the role of one in a position of power, even outranking several impressively masculine Romulan command officers, but in reality she is only a pawn in a larger game.

Yet, outside the realm of critical thinking and logical approaches — these are best left to male figures like Data and LaForge — it seems the only way Troi can be featured on the show as anything other than a "Captain ... I sense anger" background character is as a victim. And as Haraway put it, "insistence on victimhood as the only ground for insight . . . has done enough damage." (Haraway 199) Damage to the feminine/feminist psyche — but surprisingly little damage to an influential show like Star Trek.

Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, often called a "visionary," once compared the first series with its Next Generation descendant by saying, "In the first Star Trek we dealt with the challenges of the sixties . . . they were racial harmony, female equality and political issues. This time we'll have to move further ahead." It seems then, Roddenberry believed that issues like female equality had already been adequately dealt with. This is not the case.

As one reviewer pointed out rather succinctly, in the original show, "the power and decision-making lay in the hands of white males. Men and women were 'equal' but as the women's movement had not yet gotten off the ground in 1966, consciousness in gender equalities had not yet been raised. In retrospect, it is easy to see that gender and racial quality in the first Star Trek series were not achieved. This is also the case in the new series ... Captain Picard and his 'number-one' advisor and second-in-command [are] white males ... If equality truly had been realized in the 24th century, as the show professes, there certainly would be more ... women in the top positions — they do make up a majority of the Earth's population."

Sirtis herself sees the feminist issue as unresolved: "The women on this show are very non-threatening. I don't think it's realistic. It's not realistic for the 20th century, so it's definitely not realistic for the 24th century. Ever since Denise [Crosby as Security Chief Tasha Yar] left the show [after the first season] the two women that are left are both doctors in the caring professions. You don't see women in power positions. You do see female admirals, but I have to say the fans don't really care about our guest stars. They care about the regulars and what they want to see are the regular women having more power."

And yet, Next Generation's writing staff chief Michael Piller recently told Cinefantastique magazine that, concerning Sirtis' character, "I don't really think that she's an underdeveloped character any more. I feel very good about Troi. She's a really sexy lady who provides an enormous amount of emotional support to our other continuing characters." (Altman 39)

Obviously, Piller believed this was a positive comment, when in reality it simply reflects Sirtis' frustration. She is viewed as a "caring, supporting character," and perhaps more importantly, first and foremost as "sexy" — as an earlier issue of Cinefantastique noted, "The busty Betazoid has been spared the tightly fitted Spandex tops that have pressed against the breasts of many a female crewmember. Sirtis' ample cleavage has become a regular staple of the show." (Altman 77)

So what's the deal with Roddenberry's so-called forward-looking vision, one in which feminist issues are implicitly no longer a concern?

As one critic put it:

"In the Star Trek universe, one approaches women with exceptional caution, frequently to contend with her for survival. Given the inevitability of her presence on a liberated vessel, one might try domesticating her; indeed the Enterprise's female crew, unlike the legion of bumptious feminine intruders, are generally placid lot, passively observing the action ... whatever the modus vivendi, it is strongly implied that life would be easier and the work at hand would proceed more efficiently in trustworthy male company."

More generally, as Haraway put it, " . . . certain dualisms have been persistent in Western traditions; they have all been systemic to the logics and practices of domination of women . . . [alternately], the self is the one who is not dominated." Troi, then, like most females in Roddenberry's universe, suffers from lack of self — the only way she can be featured is to be dominated.

What kind of character is Deanna Troi? While Sirtis has used a term like "cosmic cheerleader" to refer to both her character's personality and her costumes (or lack thereof), it is interesting to look at Haraway's definition of "cyborg" and how it applies to Troi. Haraway writes, "The cyborg is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence." (Haraway, 192) Given a rather loose definition of "perversity" (Troi is, recall, by definition a hybrid), this description rather nicely fits the nuances of her under-developed character.

And yet, one reviewer claims openly that "Star Trek's sexism and misogyny comprise its most thoroughly reactionary problem . . . nevertheless, a few competent and attractive women do appear." While Troi is certainly presented as competent in her duties, and Sirtis is certainly attractive, if the show is misogynistic one is left wondering why a character such as hers works at all. Perhaps it is the regular Trek fan base to which Sirtis earlier referred which determines how the show's characters are most often cast and/or miscast.

Before the premiere of "Encounter at Farpoint," Star Trek Convention promoter Adam Malin said "It's the baby boomers who will lead Star Trek into its third decade." He is wrong; in fact, it is the baby busters, the members of Generation X who have led Trek into its current successful incarnation. The baby busters of Coupland's novel are "underemployed, overeducated, intensely private and unpredictable . . . [with] nowhere to direct their anger, no one to assuage their fears, and no culture to replace their anomie . . . [they are] fanatically independent individuals, pathologically ambivalent about the future and brimming with unsatisfied longings for permanence, for love and for their own home."

They long for "Vaccinated Time Travel," in which they can travel safely to a better time, except be assured of all the proper vaccinations (arguably because they loathe risk-taking) and maintain a legislated nostalgia of "Now Denial" in which the professed belief is that the only time that may ever be interesting again is the future.

They are often members of a self-proclaimed "cult of aloneness," which professes a need for autonomy at all costs, often at the expense of any long-term relationship, and usually brought about by overly-high expectations of others.

Perhaps as a result of these expectations, they engage in "101-ism," which is "the tendency to pick apart, often in minute detail, all aspects of life using half-understood pop psychology as a tool." Engaged with a terminal wanderlust, they are struck by the almost religious urge to tele-parablize; that is, to espouse a morality of everyday life derived from prime-time television.

How perfectly, then, does Deanna Troi fit the profile of the baby buster! Perhaps her character remains popular in its somewhat abused context precisely because the demographically-powerful Generation X viewers can relate so strongly to her. She is, in and of herself, a modern-day tele-parable. Consider:

• She is underemployed.
  In two ways this is true: Sirtis as an actress is grossly underused in scripting; and Troi, the counselor, has stepped down from heiress to a high house on Betazed to work for Starfleet.
• She is intensely private.
  This is a necessary trait of all empaths, who are forced to constantly shield themselves from the thoughts of those around them. Compare as well that this is a reflection of a "cult of aloneness."
• She has shunned any long-term relationship.
  Both with Will Riker and with W. Thomas Riker, and with her betrothed from Betazed; given all these opportunities, it seems unlikely the counselor will ever really settle down.
• She has terminal wanderlust.
  She joined Starfleet, the futuristic equivalent of running away to sea; this is the very definition of wanderlust.
• She practices 101-ism.
  You might imagine that a 24th-century mental health professional would have several centuries experience on the Rogerian neanderthals of the late 1900's — but Deanna would fit very nicely into a typical Psychology 101 classroom at your favorite local Big Ten university.
• Finally, she faces overly-high expectations from others.
  Two words: Lwaxana Troi. The counselor's overbearing mother, incidentally, is also the focus of much appreciation by feminists viewing Trek; consider the following reviewer's perception: "[T]he Betazoid ambassador (played by the wonderfully insouciant Majel Barret) offers a vision of woman as powerful, intelligent, in control of her sexual desires and almost nearly omniscient in her telepathic abilities.

Unfortunately, Lwaxana is an anomaly in the Star Trek universe; the typical female — compare Beverly Crusher, Keiko O'Brien, Kate Pulaski, even Ro Laren — is in personality and perception, much more like her daughter Deanna. It is ironic to note that in the original series, Barrett — Roddenberry's wife — played the very definition of subservience in Christine Chapel. Only in the later series, and grimly, only after Roddenberry's death, has her Betazoid character blossomed into the above description.

You get the sense that Roddenberry never much liked Counselor Troi; she was completely antithetical to everything he knew. As he said of himself once, "I had learned early in school that the world was a cruel and difficult place, so I learned to cover myself. Perhaps I was consciously dishonest. Yes, I was, but I knew that a certain amount of dishonesty about such things covered you." Yet of Troi, he said "she belongs to a society where everyone's thoughts are read by everyone else, so they can't be dishonest."

How does this relate to Roddenberry's concept of feminism as reflected in the two generations of his Trek universe?

Roddenberry first claims that "I really do [consider myself a feminist] although I know many people who would laugh at that." Yet he also admits "You can get by in life by pretending ... things don't exist. Ignore them. " So it is easy to believe that Roddenberry considered himself a feminist when he lived his life believing you can ignore problems into going away.

What will never go away is the legion of Star Trek faithful now largely composed of members of Generation X. They are a dissatisfied lot, and they escape to what seems a better world in Roddenberry's future vision, but like Roddenberry, they are simply pretending. And when they see an attractive — in more than the physical sense — character like Deanna Troi, they (I admit, "we") must realize that we are looking in a mirror.

As Haraway said of her metaphorical cyborg, "The boundary between physical and non-physical is very imprecise." (Haraway 195) This is also true of our perception of "self" when we immerse ourselves in futuristic "Vaccinated Time Travel" and "Now Denial" by escaping to the virtual world of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek.

Deanna Troi is there waiting, representing all the anti-feminist, post-boomer travails we hope to escape. As Walt Kelly once said, excepting for the pronoun change, when we see Deanna Troi, we have met the enemy and she is us.