Saturday, January 5, 2013

Day 12 - Idic

Whereas other "Days" of the Twelve Trek Days of Christmas are easy to define - we have done gifts of audio dramas and fan films, etc, how can I give you IDIC? Well, remember those audio dramas do not come from me, my contribution has been to point you towards those who are giving their work away for free all the time! In the same way, although I try to be as good a person as I can, what I am doing today is pointing you to examples of IDIC in the real world.

But first, let's get back to basics: what is IDIC? As any Star Trek fan will tell you, in Star Trek canon, it is an acronym for the Vulcan philosophy of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. As the more skeptical science fiction historian will point out, it was seen by the cast of The Original Series as a marketing ploy by Gene Roddenberry to merchandise copies of the pendant used in the TV series through his Lincoln Enterprises. As with many things though, it has grown to be more over the years, Star Trek fandom took the philosophy to heart.

Trekkers Against Bullying (Fb) is a social media campaign and website that seeks to publicise incidents of bullying, their prosecution and the groundswell of feeling against it. By identifying Star Trek with the campaign, it seeks to show that there is no place for it in our fandom and that we support the fight against it personally and as a social group.

Star Trek fan productions have used the power to create their own dramas to add LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) relationships into a future Utopian Star Trek society. The fan film series, Star Trek: Hidden Frontier would have to be the highest profile however gay subplots are common in most fan productions of all media. Whether you support this way of life or not, Star Trek's IDIC philosophy suggests that you should respect people's choice of "diversity", in a way creating a middle-ground where you do not have to accept the choice as your own but by the same token do not attack it. This, in a way, defuses the confrontationist stances that come about when people have to take sides.



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