Strange connections

No Science Fiction writer ever changed the world…

Or… perhaps they did, as a wonder through some strange connections on the internet will tell you…

Star Trek: Voyager was not the best Star Trek franchise show ever, and was struggling after its first three seasons. Needing to find a way to reinvigorate the show the writers came up with the idea of having a new character join the crew. A human who had been taken by the borg as a child, but is freed from the collective by the voyager crew. That character did indeed reinvigorate the show, though that may have been much to do with the inspired casting of Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine. Who went on to be one of the most successful and well loved characters across the whole franchise, which is why the character of Seven and Jeri were brought back to the franchise by the producers of the latest Trek show, Picard…

But going back to that first casting…

Not long after joining the cast Jeri moved to LA permanently, her marriage to husband Jack which had already been struggling collapsed and later that year they divorced. The details of the divorce were considered private at the time, as the divorce of a then mostly unknown TV actress and her then unknown husband were not of great interest to anyone but the couple and frankly were no ones business.

A few years pass. Seven of Nine was a huge success, Voyager is saved for four more seasons, fan boys and girls love the character and the actress. Even those trek fans who disliked Voyager (of which there were plenty) loved and continue to love Seven of Nine.

Several years later ex husband, Jack, with a really strong resume and a lot of money, announced a Senate campaign in the state of Illinois in 2004 as a republican candidate. His entry in the race is enough that many consider it a toss up between him and the democratic candidate. But in announcing his campaign he becomes a much more public figure, a public figure with a famous ex-wife. As such it was only a matter of time before a journalist pushed for their divorce records to be released… Neither Jeri nor Jack wanted them released, while they had split, they shared custody of there son and were still on reasonably good terms, but a legal case was brought by the newspaper in question and a judge ruled (somewhat controversially) in the newspapers favour and the records were released.

While there were multiple reasons cited, including the strain of Jeri’s acting jobs causing the couple to often be apart, the divorce was amicable in many respects. However one relatively minor factor in their split which was also cited was Jack’s desire to have sex in public locations… And as newspapers are want to do much was made of this…

Because of these revelations Jack Ryan eventually dropped out of the senate race and the GOP struggled to find a replacement which had the standing and charisma to take on the democratic candidate for the seat. So in the end this led to an overwhelming victory from the Democratic challenge.

That challenger was a then little known Illinois political figure called Barack Obama. Who, you may recall, later used the platform of his senate seat and experience of office, to launch a campaign for the presidency of the United States.

So, it is arguable that the entire Obama presidency existed because some writers in the 90’s decided what they needed to revitalise their scifi show was a Borg girl…