Defining Alien Names, From Cardassian to Vulcan

In the 1990s, American pop culture did not have many references to my parents’ native India. James Bond went to India, once. Indiana Jones, too. But those movies were already a decade old. Star Trek would occasionally drop an Indian name or cameo. Narendra III. Khan Noonien Singh. Lal. Vijay Amritraj, the tennis player, was almost lost to the whale probe. But that movie, too, was a decade old.

And so when Deep Space Nine began airing, my father got a chuckle out of the Jem’Hadar.

What did these dour alien soldiers, so desperately in need of moisturizer, have to do with India? As far as I could tell, nothing. In fact, my mother was more excited to see Salli Elise Richardson play Commander Sisko’s love interest, after mistaking her for an Indian actress. Then my father explained it to me: In the old days, jemadars were junior officers in the British Indian Army.

To me, this unlocked an entirely new dimension of Star Trek. It was a universe under the universe, literally subspace. I always took Star Trek to be a fully formed creation, transmitted wholesale from Hollywood to my living room. I never quite appreciated that writers and producers were making it up as they went along, day after day, looking for inspiration wherever it may be found.

Star Trek’s alien empires were not named by punching random keys on the keyboard. But neither was there a single-minded, Tolkien-esque effort to map the galaxy.