Star Trek prophecy

My name is LeeAnn and I am a Trekkie.

The series and phenomenon creator Gene Roddenberry imagined/predicted so many conveniences we now enjoy, earbuds, cellphones and more. However, one episode from the original series (1966-1969) has an eerie prophecy for 2021.

In The Cloud Minders, there is a battle between the wealthy Cloud Dwellers (think 1 percenters) and the working troglyte zenite miners (think the rest of us) on the plant Ardana’s surface. Unlike us though, the troglytes are extremely aggressive.

The Enterprise’s Dr. McCoy discovers that an invisible gas produced in the mines is causing this violent behavior .

And now to my point: Captain Kirk tries to encourage the miners to wear masks to shield themselves from harm. However, the miners refuse to believe there is a problem…sound familiar?

Near the end of the 51 minutes, First Officer Spock and Droxine, one of the cloud dwellers, have a conversation about how to convince the miners to wear masks.

“I don’t like (the term) filters or even masks,” Droxine says. “I like the word protector much better.”

Spock, logically replies, “It is less technical, less accurate, but perhaps more generally descriptive of the function.”

Get where I am going with this? Maybe the anti-maskers would prefer a new term?

Let’s all wear our “protectors” over our noses and mouths from now on. These have been proven to be very effective in eliminating the transmission of COVID-19.

— LeeAnn Dickson, Fort Bragg