"Darmok" is Not About Linguistics

When it comes to television shows, even more than choosing a personal favorite episode, I enjoy trying to determine a show's quintessential episode. Which episode would you show to someone who has never seen the show? – if you want to make a fun game out of it. Although that question doesn't work as well with serialized shows, since you usually need to start at the beginning to have proper context. So, I prefer to think in terms of defining the episode that best represents the show: its Platonic ideal. Maybe a better question is, If you could only keep one episode to watch forever, to remind you what made you a fan in the first place, which would it be?

My first fandom was Star Trek, which has by now had many series. I could choose a quintessential episode for each one, but a while back I decided to think hard about the entire history of the franchise to come up with one ideal Star Trek episode, both for a new viewer to get an idea of the show at its best, as well as one I personally would want to watch anytime I want to experience that feeling. For me, that episode is Star Trek: The Next Generation's fifth season episode, Darmok.

It's a popular episode that often ranks high on fan-favorite lists, but why do I consider it quintessential to the entire franchise? To me, Star Trek is about cultural connection. We're seeking out strange new worlds and new civilizations, not to conquer or colonize, but to peacefully establish connections, to share something of ourselves and receive something of them. An exchange of cultures, enlarging and enriching our civilizational bubble in the universe, not through colonization or exploitation, but (ideally) through mutually respectful communication that leads to understanding and friendship.

Darmok is about attempting this kind of connection and struggling with the communication part. Not a common problem on Star Trek, because of the "universal translator," a Federation technology sufficiently hand-wavy as to be indistinguishable from magic. However, in this episode, as the Enterprise crew makes first contact with the Tamarians, the universal translator proves insufficient. The Tamarians, you see, speak only in phrases that reference specific people, places, and events that only Tamarians know about.

(You know what, if you haven't seen Darmok, you should go watch it before you read this. Go ahead. I promise it's really good.)

Now, it may be due to Patrick Stewart's astonished tone when he finally figures out that the Tamarians speak "in metaphor!" or it might be because of the scenes where Data and Troi, with help from the Enterprise computer, deduce the same thing, but this episode seems to be widely regarded by many fans as a science fiction story about linguistics. Unfortunately, that belief has led a lot of other fans, especially ones who know about linguistics, to point out technical flaws in the way the Tamarian language functions or in the ways the Federation characters struggle to understand it. 

And yet, it remains a fan favorite. Why? I don't think it's because people love bogus linguistics, any more than I think Alanis Morrissette's biggest hit owes its popularity to her many improper uses of the word "ironic." I think it's because Darmok is about something more universal than any translator. (I'm sorry, that sentence was really cheesy. The next one is, too, but please don't leave yet.) To me, it's not an episode about solving a language problem, but about exploring the vital importance – to communication, culture, history, diplomacy – of storytelling.

The episode's flawed ideas about alien linguistics don't bother me because I find them to be beside the point. In fact, if there were one part of the episode I would trim or even eliminate, it would be the scenes where Data and Troi try to solve the mystery of how the Tamarians' language works. If anything, these scenes amount to too much hand-holding by the writers to justify why the universal translator couldn't facilitate the level of comprehension Trek fans are accustomed to seeing. But the problem they're solving isn't a failure of the universal translator; after all, clearly the translator technology is giving Data and Troi all the vocabulary and syntax they need in order to glean that the Tamarians are speaking in metaphor. What's missing is context.

So, the problem isn't linguistic at all; it's cultural. The Enterprise crew lacks the historical and mythological knowledge of the Tamarians' culture to understand their references. Figuring this out might be presented as a breakthrough for Troi and Data, but all they've really done is define the problem. They know how the language is structured, but they don't know the stories behind the words. Even if they could look up every proper noun the Tamarians say to them, the exact meaning would be hard to know without knowing why the person or place or historical event is important – what it means to them.

What is the only solution? To learn the stories from the Tamarians themselves. In order to understand the Tamarians' language, the Federation will have to truly get to know the Tamarians as a people, find out what matters to them, how they see themselves and the world around them, what their priorities are. The episode also makes clear that to communicate will involve sharing our own (the Federation's) culture and stories in return. 

Most importantly, to communicate with a Tamarian is to tell a new story – through interaction, through shared experience – a story you create together.

And all of the above is exactly what Picard does, down on the planet with Captain Dathon, trying to survive their fight with an invisible beast. It's significant that due to blocked contact with the ship he doesn't have the benefit of Data and Troi's insights into the language problem. He has to figure it out on his own, by observing Dathon's actions and by working together with him against a deadly threat. To his credit, Picard figures out the metaphor thing pretty easily, and then he is able to understand Dathon's story about Darmok and Jalad well enough to realize how important stories are to the Tamarians – just as he knows they are to humans. Picard chooses to reciprocate by offering a story from Earth mythology, and it's a profound moment of cultural understanding between two alien races who have only just met.

You know, on further reflection, I don't think I would cut out the scenes of Data and Troi problem-solving, because they work so beautifully as a foil for what Picard is doing on the planet. They're trying to learn how to communicate with Tamarians by asking Google the computer for cultural context, while Picard is out there figuring it out through blood, sweat, and direct interaction with a Tamarian. The fact that the Tamarians chose a location for this scenario that doesn't allow Picard to speak to his crew is crucial to the theme. There are no shortcuts. For communication and understanding to be possible, he has to stop relying on his technology and share this real-world experience with Dathon. The understanding will be hard-won, but it will be so much deeper than you can get from a computer. Dathon dies, but not before he and Picard have truly gotten to know each other on some level – not only through their actions, but through trading stories. Human (and alien) connection.

In the end, when Picard runs onto the bridge to salvage the crew's failing diplomacy, he does so by telling the story of Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel. The Tamarians accept this as an addition not only to their history, but to their language. It's clear that this story will forever be used to tell a slightly different version of the Darmok story, one where friendship is achieved only at the cost of one of the participants' lives. Though tragic, it's clear that, for the Tamarians, Dathon's death does not diminish the value of the cultural connection that has been forged in the process.

Storytelling is an overused word, but storytelling is everything. It's how we understand our own history. It's how cultures learn to understand each other beyond simple vocabulary or rote translation without context. The deeper understanding provided by stories is the basis of Tamarian communication, and they value it so much they're willing to sacrifice one of their own in order to achieve that understanding with another civilization. If that's not quintessential Star Trek, I don't know what is.