Black Mirror USS Callister Season 4 Episode 1 Editor’s Rating 5 stars * * * * * « Previous Next » Photo: Netflix In 1973, writer Paula Smith published a short story titled ” A Trekkie’s Tale ” in the second issue of her Star Trek magazine Menagerie . Smith intended it as a semi-affectionate satire of fan fiction, writing from the perspective of a teenage girl named Mary Sue, who transparently positions herself as the hero of her own story. Declaring herself “the youngest lieutenant in the fleet,” the girl wins the respect and affections of Kirk and Spock with her effortless mastery of strategizing and combat, despite a lack of experience. In the decades since, the name Mary Sue has become a shorthand for any implausibly perfect character introduced as an obvious surrogate for the author. It’s generally the hallmark of amateurish, un-self-aware writing, but Black Mirror, true to form, sees malevolence in everything. At the core of the Mary Sue concept lies a sort of fictive fascism, the imposition of one’s will to such an absolute degree that it shapes the fabric of reality and colors the characters placed inside it. In Mary Sue stores, the entire…