Revelation as Reality: Star Trek Deep Space Nine's "Far Beyond the Stars" and Black Prophetic Visions

Star Trek Literature and Deep Space Nine

A few years ago, I found myself watching and re-watching "Far Beyond the Stars" and exploring it as a therapeutic intervention against Blackpain after reading about the near-daily occurrences of police brutality against Black bodies. Through the medium of science fiction television, an emergent personal ritual of watching this episode allowed me to achieve some form of catharsis, to scream, to rage, to cry. Of course, as a devout "Trekkie," I had seen the episode when it initially aired in 1998, and multiple times after the series made its way to Netflix. ⁵ In constructing this essay, I sought out texts that attended to race, religion, and Star Trek in general and Deep Space Nine in particular.

Certainly, the literature regarding Star Trek is continually growing; however, much of the work that explores Star Trek and religion focuses primarily on the OS and The Next Generation. However, there are essays and book chapters that attend to Deep Space Nine and religion. ⁶ Peter Linford's "Deeds of Power: Respect for Religion in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" articulates the different approach this series took to religious belief. ⁷ However, this essay is more of a critique of the series' approach to religious belief than an exploration of the effects of such presentations for the viewers. Further, essays that attend to religion in Deep Space Nine often elide the implications of the franchise's first African American lead also functioning as a savior/prophetic figure. Also, these essays do not explore the intersections of Afrofuturistic thought, religion, and Star Trek in general or Deep Space Nine in particular. For example, Murray Leeder attends only to religion as presented and critiqued in Star Trek: The Original Series and The Next Generation? Jeffrey Lamp's essay, "The Sisko, the Christ," explores Benjamin Sisko's role as the Emissary to the Prophets as analogous to a messianic figure, but the essay does not present any analysis of Sisko as a descendant of African American functioning as a savior figure. ⁹ A promising treatment of the possibilities offered via Deep Space Nine in general and "Far Beyond the Stars" in particular is found in the fifth chapter of Roberta Pearson and Maire Messenger Davies's Star Trek and American Television. ¹⁰ This chapter focuses on the world-building inherent in "Far Beyond the Stars," particularly the alternate world created by Benny Russell that the viewer knows as the Star Trek universe. The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate how Star Trek functions as a "narrative trendsetter." In this case, "Far Beyond the Stars" functions as a narrative critique of racism and White supremacy.

Akin to this piece is Micheal Charles Pounds's treatment of the episode "Explorers. ¹¹ Pounds's essay seeks to situate the episode "Explorers" as reversing Eurocentric narratives. According to Pounds, "After 'Explorers,' the Star Trek experience is revised and identification expanded by acknowledgment that its African origins are real and indispensable to appreciating the spirit of adventure and exploration that is the franchise touchstone and our shared legacy." ¹²

The Dreamer and the Dream

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9) was itself quite a departure from what had come to be understood as the traditional mold of Star Trek. Instead of featuring a voyaging starship called Enterprise captained by a single, White-identified male and a supporting diverse crew with spotless morality, this particular iteration of Trek was led by an African American male captain who had a son, a female first officer (who was a former terrorist), and a host of culturally diverse and morally ambiguous people on a backwater space station. The first episode of Deep Space Nine, titled "Emissary," begins with Commander Benjamin Sisko, then the first officer of the U.S.S. Saratoga, losing his wife in the Battle of Wolf 359, a catastrophic and apocalyptic encounter between Starfleet and the implacable, cybernetic race called the Borg. After the battle, Sisko, now a widower raising a son, is posted to the newly acquired space station Deep Space Nine. An alien people called the Cardassians, who had occupied the nearby planet Bajor and brutally oppressed the planet's inhabitants for fifty years, had stripped and abandoned the station, leaving it for the Federation and Starfleet to take over. ¹³ It is at this posting that Sisko encounters aliens known as the Prophets. The Prophets are non-corporeal entities that exist outside of normal space-time and live within a wormhole that connects the Alpha Quadrant to the distant Gamma Quadrant. The Bajorans—the inhabitants of the planet Bajor, a highly spiritual humanoid race—worship these Prophets. By the end of the series premiere, the Prophets have designated Sisko as their Emissary. By extension, the Bajorans come to revere Sisko as the Emissary of the Prophets. This is a position that Sisko initially rejects, reflecting the secularized skepticism of Starfleet, the Federation, and, by extension, the larger Star Trek mythos. While the series in its first few seasons takes pains to show that Sisko is not at all comfortable with the title and role of Emissary to the Prophets, over the course of the series—and definitely by the fifth and sixth seasons of the series—he embraces his identity as part of his destiny. ¹⁴ It is Sisko's relationship to the Prophets that functions as background to the season 6 episode, "Far Beyond The Stars."

In writer Mark Scott Zircee's proposed draft, this particular episode was supposed to focus on Jake Sisko, Benjamin's son. In the original proposal, Jake would have traveled through time to the past. Star Trek producer Ira Steven Behr initially turned down the script, and then later suggested that the episode focus on the elder Sisko and deal with racism. Writers Zircee, Behr, and Hans Beimler worked together to produce the final script. While it may appear problematic that the script was written by White men, the showrunners decided to ask actor Avery Brooks, who portrays Benjamin Sisko, to direct the episode. As the production commentary on Memory Alpha note, "usually, when an actor directs, their character has a very small role." ¹⁵ Not only did Brooks direct the episode, his character played the prominent role in the episode. According to Behr, it would have been inappropriate to have a White director for a narrative that centers on Black experiences of racism and White supremacy. ¹⁶

In the episode, Captain Benjamin Sisko is feeling the weight of the Federation's two-year old war with the Dominion. ¹⁷ As he's talking to his father, who is visiting the station, Benjamin sees a man dressed in 1950s attire walk in front of his office. Soon, he begins not only seeing images from the 1950s, he finds himself in the 1950s. Further, he is no longer Captain Benjamin Sisko. Instead, he is Benny Russell, a science fiction writer living in New York City. From that point forward, the story takes place in 1950s New York as though that setting constitutes "the real world."

Benny writes for a sci-fi magazine called Incredible Tales. The first scenes of Benny in the office set the episode's direct and unflinching tone concerning racism in the 1950s. The magazine's editor, Douglas Pabst, tells the assembled writers (all White with the exception of Benny, and all male with the exception of Kay Hunter) that the readers want to know what the writers look like, so there will be a photo shoot. Pabst further tells Kay and Benny that they "can sleep late." Apparently, the public would not be able to deal with a Black or woman science fiction writer, a point that Pabst's foil Herbert Rossof makes in sarcastic fashion. We see from the outset the ordinary atrocities of White supremacy and how they wear down upon Black bodies, dramatized when Benny argues that Black people like poet Langston Hughes have been writing, but he is rebuffed by Pabst's dismissive "that is literature for Negroes and liberals." Later, when the staff artist hands out conceptual art pieces that are used to frame stories, Benny becomes entranced by a drawing of a space station and takes it home. After an encounter with racist street cops, Benny goes uptown to Harlem and encounters a street preacher who points at him and tells him that "the Lord, God of the spirits of the Prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place. Praise the Lord. Open their eyes. Help them to see." The Preacher calls Benny by name—even though the Preacher should not know Benny personally. The encounter ends with the Preacher telling Benny "Go now and write the truth that's in your heart. The truth that shall set them free!" This initial encounter with the Preacher is not all unlike the Prophet Muhammad's encounter with the Archangel Gabriel (Jibril) or Moses's encounter with Yahweh in the burning bush (Exodus 3). In this moment, Benny receives the "call to adventure," the experience that will take him out of "regular" or "profane" time and thrust him into sacred time. The street preacher is exhorting Benny Russell to write an apocalypse, a revelation of that which is to come.

Eventually, Benny writes a story called "Deep Space Nine." Despite everyone in the office loving the story, Pabst refuses to publish it because the story's protagonist—named "Benjamin Sisko"—is a Black man who commands the space station. To the editor's thinking, no one will accept a story in which the captain of a space station is a Black man. Pabst goes so far as to claim that such a story is not only "not believable," it might also cause a race riot. While this might appear absurd to viewers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, this claim is an example of the lengths to which White supremacist perspectives go in order to thwart Black imaginaries. Although Rossof defends Benny's story—albeit, more from personal antipathy towards Pabst than from an actual desire for social justice—the rest of the office sits in sympathetic silence. It would appear that the editor is correct, as shown when Benny tells streetwise Jimmy that he's writing about Black people in space, and Jimmy derisively dismisses him and the story—in fact, it is the only time the word "nigger," has ever been uttered in a Star Trek series. ¹⁸

Benny's girlfriend, Cassie, is more concerned that the two of them settle into a quiet life in which she runs a restaurant and Benny could write for The Amsterdam News, a Black-owned newspaper. Another encounter with the Preacher spurs Benny to write six more stories about Deep Space Nine and Captain Sisko. ¹⁹ This encounter with the Preacher underscores the religious parallels of this episode even more sharply. Benny tells the Preacher that he doesn't understand what the Preacher wants of him. The Preacher responds with, "To follow the path of the Prophets. Walk with the Prophets, Brother Benny. Show us the way." The episode shows us that science fiction has prophetic possibilities, that the words that Benny is exhorted to write can "lead us out of the darkness [and] onto the path of righteousness." Science fiction as prophetic imagination has the potential to show us better worlds—in this case, the Preacher urges Benny to use that imagination to show humanity an existence free of the darkness of global White supremacy.

In order to get his first story published, Benny agrees to a compromise and makes the entire story a "dream." However, this compromise is not enough. Mr. Stone, the unseen owner of the magazine (who represents the intangible forces of oppression and structural iniquity and inequality) pulps the entire magazine's run and fires Benny. Benny has a nervous breakdown in the office. He tells those around him that they cannot destroy an idea and that those people in the story exist.

"You can pulp a story, but you cannot destroy an idea! Don't you understand, that's ancient knowledge. You cannot destroy an idea! That future, I created it, and it's real! Don't you understand? It is REAL! I created it and IT'S REAL!"20

Benny collapses into a heap. When Benny wakes up in an ambulance, he realizes that he is wearing a Starfleet uniform. The Preacher has now appeared beside him and tells him that he can now rest easy, that he has walked in the path of the Prophets, for which "there can be no greater glory." Benny asks, "Who am I?" to which the Preacher responds, "Don't you know? You are the Dreamer, and the Dream." Benny looks out the windows of the ambulance and sees stars streaking by, which is the signature visual effect during Star Trek episodes that represents to the viewer a starship at warp speed. It is at that point that the episode shifts permanently back to Captain Sisko and "our" universe. Sisko awakens in Deep Space Nine's infirmary, where the doctor tells him that he has been unconscious for only a few minutes. Only a short time has passed during the period in which Sisko was living the life of Benny Russell, though in "our" universe, Sisko had merely experienced some "unusual synaptic potentials." ²¹ In the episode's final scene, Sisko talks with his father and vows to continue fighting the Dominion, and his father Joseph surprisingly quotes the Bible:

Joseph:. . .The question is, what are you going to do? Sisko:

The only thing I can do. Stay here and finish the job I started. (a beat)

And if I fail. . . Joseph:

"I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith." Sisko (looking at his father in surprise): "I've never known you to quote the Bible."22

The elder Sisko quoting from the Bible (2 Tim 4:7) in the supposedly humanistic twenty-fourth century is itself instructive. It is the refutation of the assumption that religion would have no place in the Federation. We never saw Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Enterprise in The Next Generation series, quote from the Bible, or espouse any form of religious faith or belief. Indeed, as noted above, he seems to labor under the assumption that humankind has freed itself from such beliefs. When Benjamin notes that he has not known his father to quote from the Bible, Joseph replies, "I'm full of surprises." The surprise here is that the humanistic universe imagined by Gene Roddenberry that allegedly would have no place for such things as the Bible, prophetic utterances, and religious faith, has now expanded. The Bajoran prophets and their interaction with Benjamin Sisko create subversion in that a Black man is not just the commander of an important space station, he is also the savior figure for a planet and for an entire quadrant of the galaxy. If science fiction readers in the 1950s could not imagine a Black man as a commander of a space station, then they certainly could not imagine a Black man as a conduit for entities that, for all intents and purposes, are gods.

The episode ends with Sisko musing, "somewhere, far beyond all those distant stars, Benny Russell is dreaming of us." ²³ There is much to unpack here. Both Benny Russell and Benjamin Sisko are prophets who, through the realm and conventions of science fiction, inform and influence each other's prophetic visions.

Black Prophetic Vision

To characterize Benjamin Sisko and Benny Russell as prophets, we must jump back and forth through time. The alien "Prophets" that Sisko met in the series premiere and who urged Russell to "write the words" do not exist in linear time. In that first episode, titled "Emissary," Sisko has to explain the human experience of linear time and its unpredictability to the Prophets, because they have the ability to interact with the corporeal universe outside of time. Benjamin Sisko's journey in this episode obviously mirrors Benny Russell's journey. However, I contend that, as Sisko notes at the end of the episode, "Benny Russell is dreaming of us." If we take Sisko's vision as real, then the temporal and physical distance between Sisko and Russell collapses. Indeed, had showrunner Ira Steven Behr gotten his way regarding the series finale, the viewer would have seen this collapse of space and time. At the 2018 Star Trek Las Vegas convention, Behr revealed how he wanted to end the series. On the panel dedicated to "Far Beyond the Stars," Behr said that he wanted to end the series with Benny Russell walking around a soundstage at Paramount Studios, where his creation, "Deep Space Nine" was being filmed. Rick Berman, the other showrunner for DS9, rejected the idea. ²⁴

Benny Russell writing the words that will lead the people out of darkness are akin to proclaiming the word of the Lord to the Egyptian pharaoh or to the Roman Empire. In this case, however, this proclamation is to the subjects of oppression, not the oppressors themselves. The subversive nature within this story of "Far Beyond the Stars" lies in that the prophetic word is not to White people or even directly about them. Certainly, White supremacy frames the narrative—and is presented as an analogue to the rapacious nature of the Dominion—but White supremacy is not supreme. White supremacy and the Dominion may exist in linear time, but they frame their quests for dominance in time—and such quests can be thwarted. They may be able to destroy ships, and they may be able to destroy stories, but they cannot destroy the idea of freedom that built those ships and wrote those stories.

Russell's inspiration to take a drawing of a space station and build an entire galactic Federation that emphasizes mutual understanding and cooperation and is free from racism, hatred, and so forth is constitutive of Black science fiction writing. Black science fiction writers have long used the medium as a way of critiquing the oppressive structures that deal death and misery to Black peoples. It would not be surprising that a Black science fiction writer in the 1950s might create a future world in which racism no longer immediately governs the lives of Black people. In the case of Benny Russell, he re-frames the implacable, insatiable desire for domination that comprises White supremacy in the form of the Dominion. The racist cops who harass him outside of his office are, in their DS9 roles, agents of the Dominion and its ally, Cardassia. If we think of Black imagination as active resistance to the death dealing forces of White supremacy, then I read Russell's creation of Deep Space Nine as defiance—he is saying, in effect, "We Black people will not only survive and flourish well into the twenty-fourth century, but we will also rise to command the most important outpost in the Federation as well as one of the most powerful ships in the quadrant." Like Afrofuturists in "our" world, Russell uses the medium of science fiction to re-frame the lives of Black people in his world. For example, instead of a being a struggling restaurant waitress in the 1950s, in the twenty-fourth century Cassie becomes Kasidy Yates, a fearless freighter captain. Jimmy, the wayward youth cut down by the soulless minions of White supremacy, is now Sisko's son Jake, who, in the world created by Russell, is a successful writer in his own right.

Here, it is interesting to note that Benny Russell's realities fall out of linear time. Indeed, Russell's creation of the Prophets is science fictional revision of God. If the Deep Space Nine that we see is a reflection of Benny Russell's utopian visions given to him by the Prophets, their power to reach through time and influence Russell's writing spurs the viewer to call into question the nature of God in relationship to the taken-for-granted world. Additionally, Russell's vision of the United Federation of Planets, an Earth free of racism, poverty, and war, and of Benjamin Sisko as a world-saving prophet, is seeing "a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev 21:1). He sees a revelation of a world-to-come, not as a punishment to the current world, but as a corrective to the current world's racism and White supremacy.

For Black people to write themselves into a future is to adopt and adapt an eschatological hope that does not rely on an otherworldly afterlife. While the future of which Benny Russell dreams is neither a religious heaven nor an unblemished utopia, Russell nevertheless functions as St. John the Divine, the traditional author of Revelation, who is receiving and relating a revelation at the end of oppression. As such, when the "spirit" in the form of the Preacher urges Benny to "write the words that will lead us out of darkness," Benny is, like St. John, outlining a vision of the future in which the descendants of the oppressed receive vindication. Here, the "new Heaven and new Earth" are humans of all races pushing out into the stars and transforming Earth into a virtual paradise.

Russell as presenting Deep Space Nine as a gospel of liberation that stands as fulfillment of Black liberation theologian James Cone's theological project. ²⁵ When the Prophet speaks to Benny and urges him to "write the words. . .that will lead us out of darkness," I see the Prophet as the indwelling, inspiring spirit that empowers the oppressed person to engage in prophetic utterances. Further, when the Prophet (who in the "real" world of the Federation is Benjamin Sisko's father) tells Russell first that hope and despair are often hand in hand, and then that there is no greater glory than to walk in the path of the Prophets, I read these statements as science fictional representations of divine wisdom. This is the prophetic imagination in action. The dreamer understands that their work is itself part of the dream. As biblical scholar Walter Bruggemann noted in the introduction to The Prophetic Imagination, "I suspect that whatever is 'prophetic' must be more cunning and more nuanced and perhaps more ironic." ²⁶ Here, Bruggemann is talking about the work of prophecy in an increasingly secularized world. It cannot take on a thoroughly oppositional approach to the "world"; rather, the prophet must approach the world imaginatively. I would add that the prophet must also approach the world with passion. The re-presentation of divine wisdom through human voices must be driven by a kind of passion that allows for cunning, ironic approaches to the world. The work of the dreamer is cunning in that it is subversive. Benny Russell uses the medium of science fiction to subvert White supremacy, to throw its racist imaginary into turmoil. The United Federation of Planets, Deep Space Nine, and the multiracial, multicultural crew are the indictments against the White supremacist imaginary and show an eschatology in which the White supremacist imaginary has finally been rendered inert.

Blackpain and the Futures We Create

The scene in "Far Beyond the Stars" in which Sisko/Russell "breaks down" is often criticized as being "overplayed" or, in the case of the A.V. Club review, "half-crazed poetry, the sort of broken heart madness that Brooks is so good at." ²⁷ These critiques are often subtle dismissals of the pain at the core of Black experiences in this nation. Further, while many of the reviews and analyses of this particular episode acknowledge the torturous history of race in this country, they do not adequately connect that pain, that Blackpain to Brooks's reading of that scene. Simply put, critiques of Brooks's performance—particularly the breakdown—emanate from a White culture that cannot fathom Blackpain. ²⁸ Avery Brooks's performance throughout the entire episode and the climactic breakdown in particular are a powerful dramatization of the Blackpain that has framed Black life in America. Brooks's acting choice itself is a shout against the death dealing and nihilistic forces of White supremacy. This is Black productive imagination in action as it speaks truths to power through dramatic acting. Once again, I read Brooks's performance as prophetic in itself. The breakdown at the climax of "Far Beyond the Stars" is prophetic in that it "calls out" the racism in a society that claims to be threatened by Black imagination and can only respond by inflicting pain upon Black bodies.

This particular scene in the episode characterizes what Star Trek in particular was able to do. This episode was a critique of racism via the medium of science fiction. As a form of American mythology, Star Trek was able to critique and affirm the American experiment. It is Brooks's experience of directing and acting in the lead that frames this essay's argument about a Black imaginary. In discussing his directing and acting in this episode, Brooks said:

If we had changed the people's clothes, this story could be about right now. What's insidious about racism is that it is unconscious. Even among these very bright and enlightened characters—a group that includes a woman writer who has to use a man's name to get her work published, and who is married to a brown man with a British accent in 1953—it's perfectly reasonable to coexist with someone like Pabst. It's in the culture, it's the way people think. So that was the approach we took. I never talked about racism. I just showed how these intelligent people think, and it all came out of them.29

It is that unconscious expression of racism that could not imagine a future in which a Benjamin Sisko could be the captain of a space station. As Brooks notes, that unconscious racism is so deeply rooted that otherwise "intelligent" people will consider a Black man crazy if he can "see" a future in which Black and White people aren't ruled by racism. In the episode, after Benny has come back with six sequels to the initial Deep Space Nine story, the editor Douglas Pabst asks him "Have you lost your mind?!?" to which Benny replies, "Lately, I've been asking myself the same question." Black imagination as disruptive imagination may likely be "crazy," but it is crazy insofar as it works against a status quo that serves a White supremacist imaginary.

The story that Benny Russell wrote involved characters set in a universe that we "know" to have been created by Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s. However, for Benny Russell's characters and story to work, he would have had to create and outline for the reader the underlying political structures and history of the United Federation of Planets. By the internal logic of the episode, it was not Gene Roddenberry who created Star Trek; rather, it was Benny Russell, who (in Sisko's words during the episode's coda), "was dreaming of us." Once again, returning to the prophetic imagination, the writers and actors may be asking, "What if Star Trek had been created by a Black person?" This science fictional imagination acts as a meta-narrative, daring the viewer to see a fictional universe that we "know" to have been created by a White male through a different lens. This is a return to Womack's articulation of Afrofuturism in which a cultural worker sees Black experiences either absent or misrepresented and sets out to do something about it. ³⁰ Thus, Afrofuturism as we see it in "Far Beyond the Stars" functions as a deep corrective to the overwhelming Whiteness at work, even in the supposedly multicultural Star Trek fictional universe.

I contend that what we need to be able to contribute to Black theological and religious conversation is more dreaming. What are the worlds of which we dream? Are they the worlds in which only words and phrases like "systemic evil" and "microagression" and "neoliberal" reign supreme, overdetermining our every intellectual move and turning our waking moments into nightmares? Or can we dream of worlds in which raced, sexed, and classed human bodies are artifacts of a less enlightened past? When I say that we need more dreaming, I am thinking of those of us who find ourselves drawn to science fiction and find ourselves referring to those worlds envisioned in the works of Octavia Butler, Janelle Monae, George Clinton, and the like. I think that a narrative such as the one found in "Far Beyond the Stars" casts dreaming as a subversion of what we call reality. To dream, as Benny Russell does, of Deep Space Nine and Captain Benjamin Sisko, and to write down those dreams is to follow the voice of the Prophets and present narratives that lead us out of the darkness of the White supremacist imaginary.

Further, the Black imaginary at work in this episode draws on the role of the Prophet as a reim-agining of deities. As mentioned above, the series features non-corporeal entities that exist outside of linear time yet interact in time with Captain Sisko. In this particular episode, the Prophets are represented by the figure of the Black street preacher who appears at several points to exhort Benny to continue writing the words. I contend here that this episode may yield a reimagining of "God" in which the motivating spirit or non-corporeal entity urges humanity towards shaping change. As mentioned in the synopsis of the episode, Captain Sisko is close to despair, wondering if he should leave Starfleet. His experience as Benny Russell, in a vision given to him by the Prophets, gives him the strength to continue his role in the war against the Dominion and empowers him to function as an agent of change.

Black imagination as shaping God and God shaping Black imagination is that prophetic moment in which we, like Benny Russell, tell the world that what is created is real, and White supremacy cannot destroy that. Black imaginations, like the Blackness from whence they come, are as disruptive as they are prophetic. The futures we create participate in the life of God-as-world. We live and we develop our Blackness in community. We do not submit to terror. Rather, we create these futures, "far beyond all those distant stars," these futures in which Black lives not only matter, but they rise, and they are real.