Table of Contents

Overture: The Starship Leaves the Dock

Act I: A Parade of the Unlikely and the Improbable

The Dramatis Personae Enter the Stage

Scene 1. Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?

Rocks that Brood, Clouds that Ponder--Sentience in Star Trek

Scene 2. The Q-uantum Choice

You Can Have Either Sex or Immortality

Scene 3. Tin Soldiers and Glass Ballerinas

How Likely Are Androids, Cyborgs or Shapeshifters?

Scene 4. Can You Play the Tuba with Holographic Lungs?

The Perils of Cryochambers and Holodecks

Act II: Interspecies Cross-talk

The Musical Score Develops

Scene 5. Fallout from Transporter Fissions

Unchained Doppelgängers and Monsters from the Id

Scene 6. Cold Fusions

Symbionts and Parasites Search for Hosts

Scene 7. Remote Control

Projections and Invasions by Empaths, Telepaths and Espers

Scene 8. Rosetta Stones and Black Monoliths

Can a Universal Translator Function?

Act III: Family Matters

The Libretto Unfolds

Scene 9. Send Viruses, Guns and Latinum

New Worlds and the Prime Directive

Scene 10. All is Fair in Love, War and Starfleet Entrance Exams

From Mendel's Sweetpeas to Tailored Lifeforms

Scene 11. Is Every Day a Good Day to Die?

Marooned in monochromatic societies

Coda: The Infinite Frontier