A Federation Star Trek vessel hovers in the troposphere of an ocean planet. It is one of those aerodynamic, modern-looking ones that tend to show up for a cameo in the expensive effects-heavy season finales, only in this instance, the “saucer” is an enormous, open-topped garden. It is on a long slope which begins at the back of the disk and rakes downwards in rocky crags, pathways and waterfalls towards a shoreline at the ship’s bow. Through transparent aluminium, the inhabitants look beyond their own idyllic sea-horizon to the stormy waters of the world below and peer curiously at some twilight city engulfed in mist and monstrous waves.
The garden itself is verdant with botanical wonders from across the galaxy, and I spend some time exploring the novel flora as I hike up the great incline. At the centre-back, approximately where the bridge might have been, there was a great, fairground-like pendulum swinging forwards and back, a great platform apparently attached to and pivoting around nothing. Knowing the Captain entertained visitors here, I make my way onboard it found myself exhilarated by its motions, although it makes it difficult to have a meaningful conversation. At one point I felt as if I had been launched into infinity, frozen somewhere in which time appeared to stand still and I was surrounded by geometric forms reminiscent of early 90s wallpaper. When I was yanked back to the now when the pendulum retreated, I returned to my conversation with the skipper, who was an older gentleman who spoke in gnomish phrases. But I soon tire of his patter, especially after I started to get serious swinger vibes from him, so I took my leave to explore the rest of the ship.
The back corridors were full of bars and nightclubs full of in interspecies debauchery; semi-robotic humanoids with hexagons for faces hooked up with beige girls with insectoid eyes. After making my way through many such rooms, I found my way at the bottom of a large metallic shaft that tangled upwards like a climbing wall as far as the eye could see. Like a video game, the elements that would help my ascent were helpfully marked out in red, and although it was exhausting I finally reached the top I opened a hatch and found myself in some kind of gunship moving its way through vividly coloured skyscrapers.
*
My toes and fingers fuse into claws and I leap towards my wife like Nosferatu. At the top of Easter Road in Edinburgh, an overpowering incandescent light shines from the top of Leith walk casting long shadows over the Duplo toys that drive up and down the road. I am unsure if this brilliance represents the dawn of a new age or the warmth of an irretrievable past.