That's Entertainment

Plisskie's latest holofilm was more of the typical faire: an epic about a Klingon hero, who's the last known survivor after a great plague.

A Klingon, Moros thought.  On Earth.  Right.  Hard to believe anyone bought this stuff, much less watched it.  But, he was just a script consultant.  Critiquing wasn't exactly in his job description.

Holofilms didn't require the live actors Plisskie used.  It gave his films a touch of 'realism', he said, something lacking in modern holocinema.  It was the first day of shooting.  In a chair at the edge of the set, basically one big holodeck, easily reconfigured for each scene, the main actor, a pleasant fellow named Wortagh, threatened to disembowel the makeup artists if they did something he didn't like.

In a break between takes, Plisskie and Moros were rewriting bits of dialogue, after the actor insisted (and Plisskie agreed) the character "wouldn't talk like that."  Standing at the edge of the set, as they scrutinized the script on a PADD, Moros had a thought.

"Pliss... how many Klingons are on Earth?"

The director looked up at him, from the PADD.  "About two percent of the population.  Why?"

"So tell me... Why, in all of these productions, is there a prominent Klingon who's a crewmember, or a friend or partner of the protagonist?  Your films are supposed to represent real life."

"They portray life as it should be... how we want it to be."

Moros wondered who he meant, by we.  "Why not show it as it really is?"

"Because people want to see Klingons.  They expect it.  They believe in it.  It appears natural."

"Natural.  Hmm.  Could have fooled me."

Plisskie slapped him on the shoulder.  "My friend, that's the idea."

They got back to work.  The Klingon was the only real person in the scene.  The extras, holoprogrammed police and Earth military officials, saluted the Klingon, a high-ranking, decorated member of Starfleet, on Earth for a vacation with his family.

Throughout filming, Moros kept thinking about the premise.  A Klingon, as the last man on Earth.  The actor played the role rather well, giving the character compassion, humor, and an unexplained, yet somehow believable love for all humans, which drove his quest to discover what happened to them, and reverse it if possible.  If audiences only knew.  When not in character, he was making threats against those humans he was supposedly trying to save... the same humans who gave him work and stroked his ego, repeatedly telling him how great he was, that everyone wanted to be like him.  Glorification.  Glorification of the Klingon.

Sometimes, the hypocrisy of this business got to be too much.  Today, it was really getting to be too much, for Moros.  These films... They were, in a word, dishonest.  They not only failed to reflect real life... what Klingons were really like, what they thought of humans, and for some, vice versa... they intentionally avoided reflecting real life.  Plisskie, like filmmakers of the past, had an agenda he was trying to push, in the name of entertainment.  Plisskie called it his social responsibility.  Yet no one handed him that responsibility.  He took it upon himself.  His fans – his viewers, numbering in the millions – believed everything he told them... everything he showed them.

How could anyone believe what they saw in these films?

Watching the pretend drama unfold took Moros back to an earlier time in his life... what started him in this business.  St. Louis University.

In the darkened auditorium, lights appeared.  On stage, five Klingons held a human woman, naked, hands tied behind her back, upside down, head in a toilet.  They lifted her up, feet bound at the ankles.  Water dripped from drenched blonde hair, amid smears of excrement on her face.  She gasped for air, before they plunged her in again.  This went on for a while.  Each time, one of the Klingons unfastened his drawers to urinate on her, or defecated in the toilet.  Each time they pulled her out, the Klingons shouted in unison in their native tongue, which translators rendered as "Humans are scum!" or "Death to humans!", or "We will overcome!"

A rapt audience of aliens and other humans watched, entranced.  There were occasional claps or cheers.

The show rounded out with them raping the woman openly, taking turns on stage, cutting her with knives until she bled, breaking her arms behind her back in the process.  The bones made audible snaps, twisted at unnatural angles, amplified by the auditorium's sound system.  Through it all, no one objected... not even the woman, who seemed high on some kind of pleasure-inducing drug, staring blankly at nothing.

When the lights went down, and came up over the audience, everyone applauded.

This was what they called modern art.

In a corner seat in a back row, Moros stared, horrified.  The Bolian next to him turned to him and asked, "Why aren't you clapping?", as the Bolian himself was doing.

Moros didn't answer.  He got up and walked out, as fast as his legs could go, out the door, to the nearest restroom.  Inside the stall closest to the door, he leaned over... keeping his head out of the toilet... and vomited.

And now, here he was... helping to perpetrate the illusion.  Perpetuating the hypocrisy.  Klingons who cared for humans.  Klingons in charge.  Out and out lies.  How did he go so far astray?

Thinking it over, he felt sick again.

Without a word, he handed the PADD to an assistant, turned and walked off the set... out the studio door, across the lot to his aircar, got in, and flew home.  There, he transmitted his resignation... no real reason given... went out on the deck behind his house, overlooking Lake Champlain, sat down with a glass of wine, and contemplated what he should do next.

It didn't take long to arrive at the decision.  He would make his own holofilms... films that showed what it was really like.