Quatermass and the Risks of Space Imperialism

Richard Fell and the BBC, The Quatermass Experiment (2005)

It’s a narrative as old as science fiction: the intrepid space explorers venture into the mysterious beyond, desperate to discover what’s out there. They venture further into space than the Apollo missions, further than the ISS, further than any humans have ever traveled from Earth before. When they return, they’re feted as heroes to the eager, waiting homelanders. But we quickly discover that they can’t travel that far from home without getting cosmos on them.

When the BBC re-staged their classic science drama The Quatermass Experiment over fifty years after the original, it was undoubtedly a spectacular feast. Producers broadcast the performance live, with on-stage effects (nothing digital) and garffed lines intact. Besides recreating the original experience, though, it also provides an important insight into post-colonial guilt. Watching this performance, one gets the impression that its producers believe its characters have something to answer for. And that something is official.

Professor Bernard Quatermass, of the British Experimental Rocket Group, fears the worst when his astronauts go incommunicado for hours. But they reconnect when the rocket begins its return approach. The capsule crash-lands in a field in Surrey and, to Quatermass’ horror, only one astronaut emerges. He rushes weak, delirious Victor Caroon back to headquarters for treatment. Once there, Caroon shows signs that his experience millions of miles from home has transformed him into something new.

The BBC staged the original Quatermass Experiment in thirty-minute episodes, also broadcast live. Producers reused Nigel Kneal’s original 1953 scripts, lightly updated for current science (only two of Kneal’s six original kinescopes survive). But they make an immediate change by casting Jason Flemyng as a much younger Quatermass. His angular features, looking like he was hand-carved from cedar with a chainsaw, distinguish him from previous, mostly middle-aged versions of Quatermass, emphasized by his rumpled suits.

Back at HQ, Dr. Gordon Briscoe (Devid Tennant) can’t explain changes in Caroon’s physiology. It’s like somebody erased Caroon and recreated him from memory. To everyone’s surprise, that memory starts getting fuzzier, as Caroon becomes aggressive and voracious. Journalists begin asking questions: is it safe to allow somebody so touched by outer space to roam freely on Earth? How has space colonialism changed the colonist? And is the homeland safe with the colonialists in it?

Here’s where my Spidey Sense started tingling. Kneal’s über-British characters, mostly (but not entirely) White, laud the great explorer abstractly, but turn squeamish at allowing him to wander native soil freely. Throughout history, British culture has lauded colonists, like John Smith or Robert Clive, yet made them feel unwelcome when they attempted to return to Britain. It’s like, you can’t travel the Empire without getting Imperialism’s stains on you. And you’ll inevitably change the homeland.

Briscoe (David Tennant) and Quatermass (Jason Flemyng) struggle to explain th
changes coming over Caroon (Andrew Tiernan), in The Quatermass Experiment

Quatermass isn’t conscious of himself as a colonist. He praises the ideas of pure science, and excuses his excesses by claiming his justifications were morally neutral. But, in maintaining the ethost of 1953, as Britain’s last meaningful stabs at colonialism were winding down, Quatermass doesn’t find a universe governed by abstract scientific principles; he finds a universe teeming with life, much of it wildly different from humanity. Victor Caroon has brought some home with him.

What happens next could be interpreted two ways. Either the colonized races, brought back to the Imperial homeland, rampage over our sacred White traditions and threaten to demolish staid British unity; or the chief colonist realizes he’s changed his homeland’s moral fabric forever, and he must abandon neutrality to restore stability. Either way, it’s difficult to separate the hybrid Caroon has become, and the steps Quatermass must take to save Earth, from British imperial history.

In other words, it’s impossible to venture out into the unknown, without bringing the unknown home. American science fiction, like Star Trek, still frequently incorporates mythology of frontier and Manifest Destiny: it’s humanity’s sovereign responsibility to occupy the universe, establishing settlements and broadening our reach. Perhaps only Britain, with its inherited guilt from centuries of imperial expansion, could recognize the moral sand trap this creates for humanity. Imperialism, the BBC acknowledges, permanently changes the homeland.

Quatermass must grapple with science’s moral implications, particularly when science expands the boundaries of human accomplishment. Nothing human beings do is morally neutral, especially not in a universe abundant with life. It reflects Britain’s imperial history that he is able to realize the ways space colonialism transform the homeland. His response could, potentially, admit of racist interpretation, depending on your lens. It could also mean he acknowledges his choices will face judgement from future history.