Before I have a nerd-gasm about Star Trek, I should say that I grew up watching all of the series and movies. I even built space ship models. I could rant forever about how the Star Trek universe, but most people know it already. Captains Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, or Archer, explore the Universe in shiny spaceships, furthering their knowledge of the universe. There’s alot of cheesiness in there, especial in the Kirk era, with Gangster and Nazi themed planets. The characters are all funny archetypes, and they spew ‘treknobable’ but I always found it fun.
Whats important about Start Trek is that its the opposite of the post- apocalyptic world. It is a dream of the an ideal perfect future, where humanity has evolved into what we would like to be. There is no greed, poverty, disease, or war. The human race turns our attention to putting our limitless potential to greater things. For a little back ground history about the Trekverse humanity had been though a series of bloody wars. Of these included the Eugenics Wars where bio engineered supermen tried to conquer the planet, and World War Three where a large portion of Earth’s population were wiped out by atomic weapons. Earth loomed dangerously close to becoming a wasteland, then something changed. A physicist invented ‘Warp Drive’, a faster than light method of propulsion and attracted the attention of alien explorers. The Vulcans turned out to be peaceful and shared their technology with Earth. Learning that we weren’t alone in the Universe, united and inspired humanity. We began to better ourselves, and decided to boldly go where no one had been before. After a few centuries five planets; Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar, and Alpha Centauri joined together in a peaceful alliance, called the United Federation of Planets.
When confronted with a vastly superior enemy, as is often the case, the good guys always win. Whether its trickster gods like Q, unstoppable races of cybernetic space zombies like the Borg, intergalactic conquering fascists, like the Dominion, or the proud warrior race of the Klingons, the human spirit overcomes all obstacles. After almost of century long cold war between the Klingon Empire and the Federation become allies. The Dominion, although very powerful, are defeated and a peace accord is signed. The Borg hive mind, is defeated when they are infiltrated with ideas like freedom, and individuality. Q, although a trickster, has been on our side the entire time. His pranks were trying to push us to be even greater. Many views of the future take our flaws to an extreme. Star Trek shows that although the flaws are there, our ability to over come them is greater. The human spirit is the greatest force in the galaxy. The original concept of the 1960’s series was that it showed people of different races, and backgrounds (and it Spock’s case species) working together. There was no racism amongst the crew which was made of whites, blacks, asians, and aliens. In one episode Kirk says to a little person who had been tormented by his peers for being different, “Alexander, where I come from, size, shape or color makes no difference.” We strive for knowledge, and betterment. Although I’m not entirely sure how the economy of the future works but its not based on money but personal improvement.
Will we ever achieve a Star Trek future. Maybe not. Disease and war will always be there, but our hope for the future will always be there too. Star Trek chooses to look toward the future with fingers crossed. Whereas other futures seem to think that our baser instincts will win out and cause us to destroy ourselves, Star Trek argues that are better natures won’t just allow us to survive, but allow us to soar, and enter the final frontier.
