What Would Star Trek & United Federation of Planets Say About All Those California Fires? Galactic Guidance Needed?

Guest Post by Sarah Aminoff of Safe Tech International

Recreated vector image of the Flag of the United Federation of Planets according to DS9 episode "Tears of the Prophet" - Public Domain

What Would Star Trek & United Federation of Planets Say About All Those California Fires? Galactic Guidance Needed?

Can we turn to Star Trek for guidance on a current environmental crisis such as the CA Fires as viewed from space? Star Trek TV series aired on September 8, 1966, yet featured many future inventions we use today: flip phones, Bluetooth, 3D printing or voice activated computers, and was precedent for future inventions, so perhaps can shed some wisdom on the CA fires?

In our world, there are so many moving puzzle pieces of what could go wrong: Santa Ana 100 mph winds; the Santa Ynez water reservoir empty for a year; annual fire hydrant testing canceled for in December 24, 2024 due to fiscal challenges; around 100 fire trucks (half the fleet) sitting idly in a Los Angeles repair lot as fires ravaged the city; NBC news cites, “homes became the ignition source.” Additional theories about the LA fires' origins on social media include directed energy weapons, often referred to as DEWs. Other theories blame the extremes of the LA fire on smart meters and claim smart meters have “burned homes from the inside out.” So which theory is true?

To “literally” add fuel to the fire…. a week later Moss Landing battery lithium facility fire goes up in flames. Coincidence? Is this nature’s way of pointing to one of the culprits behind the LA fires?

CA fires…. “Highly logical or highly illogical”?

What would Commander Spock, Star Trek’s science officer say about the latest California lithium power facility fire at Moss Landing a week after the LA fires? The area around the Moss Landing is home to many small organic farms that provide vegetables to most of the United States and home to a keynote species, the sea otter (only 3,000 sea otters left in California).

Despite the toxic smoke produced by burning lithium batteries, “residents” have given the all-clear on the air, yet environmental concerns remain, view CBS article here, local town hall reporting health problems here.

This is the fourth fire at Moss Landing and it can’t be extinguished, so fire fighters are letting it burn. See Katie Singer’s blog Questioning lithium-ion batteries, fire risks & hydrating dry regions. “Here’s a question: How do lithium-ion batteries contribute to urban fires?”

“Like much of the world, Southern California is now dotted with lithium batteries at every telecom cell site (for backup in the event of a power outage); in every electric vehicle, e-bike and hoverboard; in every EV charger; in laptops, tablets and smartphones—and their chargers; in smart utility meters on grid-connected houses and buildings; in off-grid rooftop solar PV systems’ batteries; in battery energy storage systems (BESS) for large-scale solar facilities and wind facilities. That’s a lot of lithium-ion batteries.”

Los Angeles is also known as “Silicon Beach,” and named as the #1 Digital City in 2023. Are the LA extreme fires not just due to Santa Ana winds, but “modern living through chemistry” – where our electronics, cars and homes may be another ignition source?

Does LA, like Star Trek, have a deus ex machine technology orientation, where technology solutions are supposed to create a sustainable utopia?

Science or Sci-Fi? Not Enough Power or Water for the Smart Grid?

• CBS: Tesla Car Battery 'Spontaneously' Catches Fire on Calif. Freeway and 8 hours to put out

• NBC: 50,000 gallons of water to put out Tesla Semi Fire and reaching temperatures of 1,000 degrees.

• ChatGPT isn’t responsible for the fires but used a crazy amount of water Mashable.com.

• Financial Post: “As the smoke clears from devastating Los Angeles wildfires, efforts to clean up the affected areas are being complicated by burnt-out electric and hybrid vehicles and home-battery storage systems.

• The Los Angeles metro area has approximately 293,000 electric vehicles, the most out of any U.S. city and EV owners had a difficult time evacuating. Some cars were abandoned due to running out of electric charge.”

• Burning Teslas add toxic barriers to wildfire cleanup: Economic Times, also autoblog.com

A lot of the cars in the evacuation area were lithium batteries,” said Jacqui Irwin, a state assembly member representing the Pacific Palisades, one of the neighbourhoods hardest hit by the fires. “We’ve heard from firefighters that those lithium batteries burned fires near homes – like those with power walls – for much longer.” - Economic Times

Here’s an article about Vintage cars without technology that survived the CA fires

https://www.thedrive.com/news/all-these-vintage-cars-survived-california-fires-because-theyre-not-made-of-plastic (images at link)

Image and quote courtesy of: Jeanine Susan Deal (Facebook)

Trees?

“Jon Keeley, a fire scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said in an email: ‘It is not uncommon for wildfires that burn through urban areas to observe trees surviving while adjacent homes are incinerated. The primary reason is that trees have roots that bring water up to keep the foliage moist,’” according to Reuters.

Forensic Arborist Robert Brame has a different theory about fire anomalies: “Forty-seven homes in Santa Rosa turned to white ash, but trees still standing every street and in between houses…. the forest isn’t burning.” According to the LA times, there’s a forest fire vs. an urban conflagration disguised as wildfire: which is “in fact a structure-to-structure-to-structure ignition that carried the fire. The phenomenon in Paradise— the fire spreading from structure to structure, tree canopies intact — is not unique.” (A similar phenomenon in Santa Rosa, Lahaina as well as LA.)

On Social Media, Directed Energy Weapons?

In the Star Trek Universe, fires can be started with energy weapons with Phasers (an acronym for PHASed Energy Rectification). According to Phaser | Memory Alpha | Fandom “Phasers were the most common and standard directed energy weapon in the arsenal of Starfleet and several other powers. Most phasers were classified as particle weapons and fired directed energy nadion particles, [] Based on the intensity, field of fire, and a variety of adjustments, a wide variety of effects could be achieved such as the ability to stun, kill, or vaporize a target, as well as setting a shot's size to be narrow or wide.” -

Star Trek phasers and photon torpedoes were inspired by real-world scientific concepts.

“Can Star Trek really point us to the weapons of the future?”

The answer is yes, according to Lockheed Martin Laser Scientist and Trek fan (in this 2016 Smithsonian video.)

“Some of the technology from Star Trek is already coming to life in the Lockheed Martin lab. One high-energy laser beam, similar to the phaser from the series, can even track and destroy rockets.”

According to Natural Defense Press, “directed energy weapons are real and disruptive, include high-energy lasers, high-power radio frequency or microwave devices, and charged or neutral particle beam weapons.” Just like Star Trek

US Government Accountability Office also acknowledges directed energy weapons by the military. CBS news confirms military applications, to disable drones or missiles, but disputes the claim of that direct energy weapons were used for igniting wildfires.

“Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”

We could defer to Commander Spock, “Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” --SPOCK, Star Trek (2009). (This expression was first stated by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Sherlock Holmes.)

FEMA- Federal Emergency Management

FEMA shares social media graphics prevention tips for home fire safety, warning that fire is hot, is fast, and is dark and deadly.

Is this explanation sufficient for Vulcan Science Academy, Starfleet, or any student at an LA school, including the ones closed due to wildfire disruptions?

https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/home-fires/learn-about-fire/

FEMA warns, “if you see smoke get out right away.”

How does one avoid smoke if there is a lithium battery facility fire in your neighborhood, or one’s street is on fire in an urban conflagration?

Given LA fire devastation looked similar to an electrical-fire signature, Ed Fletcher from Calfire was informally interviewed to explain why California homes burned to ash. He replied, “If a neighborhood is engulfed in flames such as LA, especially if additional accelerants are in a house, such as a powerwall, or a vehicle with gasoline or batteries (such as an EV), it changes the nature of the fire.”

Sean Polacik (member of Southwest Ohio for Responsible Technology, and Automation Control Systems Technician) confirms EVs, and battery storage packs being highly flammable and reactive. “Yes...it could be hot enough to melt auto glass and aluminum engine blocks at those temperatures.”

Here’s the paper:

“Lithium-ion battery fires can reach temperatures around 500 degrees Celsius (932 degrees Fahrenheit) and can even reach up to 1110°C (2030°F). So, as a point source, locally to the ignition, a burning EV or power wall could easily turn anything around it to ash in confined spaces to contain the heat.” - Sean Polacik

Who needs directed energy weapons, if one’s got lithium, battery facilities, EVs, smart meters and powerwalls? Jane Stillwater writes: “Want some juicy conspiracy theories about the L.A. fires? Here they are. For instance, Gov. Newsom actually said with his mouth that he can build back better here "after the fires that WE started." And I'll never think about electric cars, smart meters, cell towers or anything else with lithium batteries ever again -

(Jane Stillwater references Deborah Tavares’s presentation: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep-758-w-deborah-tavares-fires-and-weaponization--63709872)

I will admit to struggling between what is science fiction, speculation and fact, and turn to not only Star Trek, but also Union of Concerned Scientists, and their wisdom about industry’s “disinformation playbook.”

In 1962, in her book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson challenged the paradigm: “modern chemistry leads to better living.” Is today’s better living through tech the same PR conundrum of believing reality other than what it is?

See also:

What would Captain Kirk say if Starlink interfered with the Prime Directive

NOTE: It is important to note that this article does not endorse any particular ideology or theory, but it is intended to help readers with critical media literacy around technology.

COMING SOON: I will weigh in about smart meter fire risk, CA fires and industry whistleblowers in the next article. Perhaps the biggest gap to overcome between humans now and those in Star Trek is not just technology but cognitive dissonance and ethics. Next article, “What would Captain Kirk and William Shatner say about the CA fires?” - Sarah Aminoff