To seken straunge ... londes/To seek strange lands

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote,
[When April, with his sweet showers]

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
[The dryness of March has pierced to the root] 

...

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
[Then folk long to go on pilgrimages]

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
[And [pilgrims] (long) to seek strange strands (shores)]

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes....
[To distant shrines, known in sundry lands....]

I started reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales today---my brain wanted something chewy, and I found a side-by-side translation online.
 I've never read it, beyond those famous first lines. Seems wrong for a pilgrim not to be more familiar...

Immediately it reminded me of Star Trek, not Camino, and the show's mission "to seek out strange new worlds".
You hear a lot about Star Trek & Shakespeare, but a quick google doesn't match Trek & Chaucer. 

In Forty-Three Years, Today...

You may have seen that today is First Contact Day:

according to the movie Star Trek: First Contact, humans will meet life forms from another planet for the first time on April 5, 2063.

I'm really only a fan of the original series (Kirk & Co), but First Contact is a good stand-alone sci-fi movie--and weirdly suited to this time:
Humans on Earth have barely survived a human-made apocalypse (World War III), and a scrappy band are trying to launch a space ship with warp drive..

The movie is realistic about how bad things (we) could get, and also about how we keep reaching for the stars (literally and otherwise).

Aliens, help us help ourselves now!

❧❧❧

THIS IS NOT A MEDIEVAL TRANSPORTER

.

 It's not Chaucer either, of course. It's Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego (sound like Star Trek names) surviving Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace in the Book of Daniel: 3