I just don’t get it. What is the freaking problem of those directors, trying to rewrite federation into some kind of dystopian tech fascism?
I was annoyed by the first Star Trek movie by JJ Abrams, with those police cops. I was alienated by those anti-android resentments in Picard. I stopped watching Discovery after the first episode, because the main protagonist was sent to some kind of labor prison for disobedience, where prisoners regularly die. I didn’t think it could get any worse but just watching the first 10 minutes of Starfleet Academy makes me want to bury the whole franchise [edit: and stopped watching]. Some drumhead court-martial, lifelong prison sentence, violently separating a mother from her child and some goons beating up a prisoner. How in the hell is this the same federation of TNG, Voyager and DS9?
Star Trek is supposed to be the ONE fiction with a positive, utopian view on mankind and the future. I totally get the attraction of dystopian settings but for that I can read some Warhammer 40k novels. This really makes me furious.
Fortunately there is still Strange New Worlds.
Please spoiler me, when this bullshit in Starfleet Academy gets turned around in some twist, because otherwise I will just ignore the show.
I stopped watching Discovery after the first episode
watching the first 10 minutes of Starfleet Academy makes me want to bury the whole franchise
These are shows that historically have taken a couple of seasons to grow their beard, and you’re judging them on (parts of) their pilots? Maybe you’re just not as much into Star Trek as you think.
I was alienated by those anti-android resentments in Picard
Funnily enough, this isn’t actually anything new. The Federation has historically harboured sentiments against sapient androids and holograms, not intentionally, of course, but more that they don’t believe that they are people. Just look at the treatment the Doctor/Mark I EMH, Data, and the ExoComps received. The Doctor had fight to regain the rights to works he made, and had the Voyager crew factory resetting him whenever he had a human problem, Data had to fight to be recognised as enough of a person to avoid being dismantled, and then had to do again to avoid having his daughter taken. The ExoComps’ sapience was initially taken as malfunctions, and they were lobotomised, to be used as bombs. The Borg nearly got a genocidal virus unleashed upon them, by the Federation, and Picard specifically got into trouble for not deploying it.
To paraphrase Chancellor Gorkon, the Federation is a human(oid)s only club. Everyone else gets pushed to the wayside.
How in the hell is this the same federation of TNG, Voyager and DS9?
It is also the same Federation that saw no qualms about using multiple genocidal weapons against their enemies. The moment they were threatened even slightly, out comes the big G.
Sure, Wolf 359 had a considerable death toll, and one of the Federation core worlds was threatened, but the automatic reaction shouldn’t have been attempt genocide at the first opportunity. DS9 at least made an attempt to show that they were breaking the rules of engagement by putting down self-replicating subspace mines.
Similarly, the Dominion War. The Federation response to realising a rogue organisation had unleashed a virus designed to wipe out one of the main species of the Dominion seems to have been to sit pretty and wait for them to be forced to the negotiation table, rather than work towards a cure, and try to send it over ASAP. If it wasn’t for the DS9 crew going out of their way to make a cure, one might never have existed, leaving them to die. It would be unimaginable, if, during the Federation-Klingon war, the Federation had simply sat back, and told the Klingon Empire “good luck” in response to both Narendra-3, and the Praxis incidents, instead of offering aid. Nor did they just sit back and tell the Romulan Empire to go away when their main star blew up.
Voyager at least gets a little pass since they were working on their own, and didn’t have the support of the rest of the Federation backing them up, but ethically, it’s still not a good look for them to promote Captain Janeway for her work in assisting Admiral Janeway in deploying the neurolytic pathogen that we know ultimately wiped out the Collective.
Star Trek is supposed to be the ONE fiction with a positive, utopian view on mankind and the future. I totally get the attraction of dystopian settings but for that I can read some Warhammer 40k novels. This really makes me furious.
I would be a little curious about where that came from. The Federation is better, but it thinks of itself as a perfect utopia, when TNG shows it to be more due to hubris on the part of the Federation, and that they not only have some ways to go, but have to spend work to stay there.
In my opinion, the difference between the Federation as it is now, and the way it was back then is that the flaws are more front and centre now.
Whereas previously, it seemed to be treated as more of a case of it being the actions of a lot of bad eggs within the Federation. Starfleet famously has issues with the admiralty trying to order reprehensible things. Similarly, for DS9, where it’s left ambiguous whether Section 31 is a rogue organisation made of people who think that the Federation is “too soft”, and thus needs people to do the dirty work behind the scenes. The actual flaws within the Federation, like the mess about what rights to personhood androids and holograms had, were mostly skated over.
Compare that to now, where we see a bunch of Admirals convene to decide to blow up Kling/Qo’noS. In older shows, it would have just been one admiral giving the order, and the decision would laid solely at their feet, rather than something that would be attribute more to Starfleet, or the Federation in general.
Whereas previously, it seemed to be treated as more of a case of it being the actions of a lot of bad eggs within the Federation.
That`s a good observation.
have you seen the animated Lower Decks series? I love it.
but yeah, a lot for newer star trek stuff I don’t think was written by people intending to follow the series
lower decks and prodigy were way better than the other ones.
man I’ve been out of the loop for too long, I don’t even remember prodigy. I’ll have to get caught up!
Right! Totally forgot about Lower Decks. Awesome!
If you pretend Star Trek stopped after First Contact, it’s a lot better. I really don’t understand why they keep trying to make new trek, or who is watching it. Who is it for? It’s too fast, too action-y. Too many camera angles. The writing and acting feels like teen drama. Where is the professionalism, the decorum, the reserved nature of Starfleet? And what little humor there should be, should be dry.
Some drumhead court-martial, lifelong prison sentence, violently separating a mother from her child and some goons beating up a prisoner
The key point here is that it is portrayed as horrible. Ake resigned in protest and only came back for the opportunity to make amends. The scene is there to show how far the Federation has fallen, in order to set up the task of rebuilding it.
Starfleet Academy has a justification for how shitty the world is, and IMHO it’s approaching it correctly. There was a galactic disaster that almost completely destroyed the federation, so SFA is literally post-apocalyptic. But it’s using that setting to tell a hopeful and positive story.
The core message of the show is that you can rebuild a just society even after it’s gone so far down the shitter. You can choose to do better, to be better. This is culturally relevant.
Already some amazing points here, but I will add one thing:
No matter how utopian your empire becomes, those who grow up in utopia do not have their guard up watching for evil in every corner. The Star Wars flipping back and forth from Republic to Empire over the millennia makes sense.
The federation existed for barely a millennia in its first incarnation. A fall of a galactic empire makes sense. Rebuilding it makes for good story.
Especially, and I can’t stress this enough, when it is a parallel to the world we live in. Trek has always been a way to mirror events and teach moral lessons… But most of all, hope.
The Star Wars flipping back and forth from Republic to Empire over the millennia makes sense.
Star Wars society is a constant shithole. I don’t think the slaves of Tatooine care about if the senate or the emperor rules.
A fall of a galactic empire makes sense.
It does, but this is not the plot of a single show but a constant theme in most of the new series.
Great points all around. “Hope and Kindness” may seem like obvious cliche lessons, but one could argue that in today’s political climate they are as important as TOS calling out societal racism.
The federation existed for barely a millennia in its first incarnation.
A millennium is still a good long time, in fairness. There are entire countries that haven’t even come near to that.
That discounts that star fleet has to be on watch against outside threats. This is the balance for their utopia.
I think it’s extremely disingenuous to equate “bad things happening sometimes” with “dystopia.”
The point of everything you mentioned (except for the police in '09, which you don’t actually seem to have an issue with aside from the fact that they exist?) is that these things can be overcome, which is precisely the opposite of a dystopian setting.
To be fair I also have a problem with the fact the police exist
You realize that for millenia, philosophers fantasized about the concept of a police force that existed just to enforce laws, and not just be military guards?
The issue is not the concept of police. It is the leadership and the police unions.
I certainly am not a fan of policework as it is currently, commonly conducted, but I have a hard time imagining a society that has laws, but doesn’t have a dedicated system to uphold those laws that involves some kind of police.
A neighbourhood watch would be way cooler. Daddy Kirk’s neighbour pulling up next to little Kirk and going “Whatcha doing with dad’s car, kiddo?” would be way more Trek but wouldn’t satisfy JJ’s craving for pointless action sequences.
It’s an interesting idea, but it also tiptoes right up to the line of “neighbours spying on each other on behalf of the state” - not great!
LPT just buy a Ring doorbell instead
Who has time in this day & age for all of their civic duties, amirite?
Join your smarter neighbors today! Farm out that friendly 24/7 vigilance to a “dutiful”, “well-trained”, “totally incorruptible”, perfectly “safe”, 100% “benign algorithm” that simply “stores all data” to keep “everyone” safe!
Join us, citizen.
While you still have the choice to. 😶🌫️
🎶🎵🥳🙇🏽♂️🥳🤫
Yes, it’s Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™! The high-tech “community safety”™ sensation that’s sweeping the “nation”! Only $249.95 at participating stores! Get yours today!
Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly, children under 10, and unwitting enemies of The State should avoid prolonged exposure to Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™.
Caution: Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ contains “AI”™, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, engaged with, or looked at.
Do not use Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ on new or old construction.
Discontinue use of Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ if any of the following occurs:
-
itching
-
vertigo
-
dizziness
-
tingling in extremities
-
loss of balance coordination
-
slurred speech temporary blindness
-
profuse sweating or heart palpitations
-
inability to comply
If Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ may stick to certain colors of skin.
When not in use, Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ should be ignored entirely and kept completely free of particulate matter. Failure to do so relieves the makers of Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™, MAGAt GrIFTS, LLC, and its parent company, Glottal Plugs Unlimited, of any and all liability.
Ingredients of Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ include an untested morass pf profit-squanched code which fell to Earth in multiple steaming piles across the techbroverse, presumably from adult diapers.
Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ has been shipped to our troops in numerous “at-risk” “nations” and is being dropped by our warplanes on others.
Do not taunt Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™.
Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ comes with a lifetime warranty. Yours.
Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™! Accept no substitutes!
-
If we want to be way more Trek, going by all the times that the shuttles got stolen, it should instead have been a scene of his stepfather going “my car!” upon seeing an empty, open garage, and then doing basically nothing about it.
Police have only existed for about 2% of the history of human civilization, and yet you cannot imagine a future without them. You’ll accept physics-breaking technologies like transporters and warp drives. But a world without cops? That’s a bridge too far.
If you can offer a compelling argument about how those other 98% were more fair and just, and can outline exactly what that better system was, I’m all ears.
Our modern police grew out of slave catchers. That’s the root of the institution. Traditional law enforcement methods were more fair and just because they kept law enforcement within the actual communities. In Medieval cities, it was common for every able-bodied male to have to spend a certain number of nights per year working in the town guard. It was your civic duty, just like jury service is today. There were no cops on the streets of ancient Rome.
Policing in the US right now isn’t local. Cops rarely actually live in the cities they work in. Ideally police would work in their own communities so that they have a firm connection to them. However, police had laws written that prevent cities from only hiring residents to work their police forces. That’s why in many American cities police feel more like an occupying army than an actual expression of the people’s legal authority. They don’t feel like they’re part of the community, because they literally aren’t part of the community. Police don’t like to live where they work.
Making law enforcement a full-time profession was a terrible mistake. It creates a barrier between citizens and the people that are supposed to be their public servants. Sure, some specialties, like crime scene investigator or detective, require a professional approach. But average beat cops should be replaced with citizens serving short-term roles as community guards.
Honestly, if you’ve seen how police respond to calls, I would trust the average citizen with a weekend quick course under their belt a lot more to respond to a 9/11 call than a police officer. Such temporary officers wouldn’t get infected with the us-vs-them “warrior policing” mindset that has so damaged the American police profession. It’s hard to smash an innocent person’s skull against the pavement when that person is your next door neighbor who you have to look in the eye every day.
Making beat-cops a full time job was one of the greatest mistakes we ever made. And it is one we have the power to correct.
Abolishing the police does not mean embracing anarchy and abandoning law enforcement. There many ways of enforcing the law other than mob justice or a professional police class.
So you’re just advocating for a different system of policing, which does not at all contradict what I originally said. Cool.
No. You’re just making the illogical error of assuming “police” and “law enforcement” are synonyms. Nuance matters.
Preach it, citizen.
… Oh. You meant in Star Trek.
Both is good
I’d also like to highlight that the Federation is never described in-universe as a Utopia (the only example that comes to mind is Pelia sarcastically describing Earth specifically as a “no money, socialist utopia”).
Since the TOS days the messaging has always kinda been that “Utopia” is about the journey more than the destination.
Yeah, someone summed it up very well elsewhere in the thread: “utopia” describes an ideal to strive toward, but is inherently unachievable, if only because you will never find two people who have the same utopic vision.
Unless “utopia” includes some sort of system for forcing everyone to think alike… 🤔
Tbh Starfleet Academy makes a U turn on that decision the minute after, explaining that because of the war/burn they were jerks but they regret it and try to make amends bla bla bla.
Academy gave me this utopia feeling, but in 2026 it made me more depressed than hopeful as I finally realized that I will never find a Starfleet Academy on our world, aka a bunch of peoples working together to make humanity a better whatever if their skin is pink or they believe in the giant flying spaghetti monster.
Thank you. That gives me hope I can enjoy the show. But I still don’t get the necessity to turn the federation into a dystopian shithole even for a short time.
I didn’t discover Star Trek until I was an adult. When I was a kid, the series that made Me want to be part of a galactic community was Ben 10. I’m really hoping one day they make a Plumbers prequel spinoff for adults. Every year the chance of such a wonder grows fainter. I was only inspired by the similar visions of coexistence in Star Trek as an adult, around the same time I was already becoming an astral adventurer and having My own Starfleet experiences.
I have good news for you. I’m a goddess from beyond reality in a polyamorous relationship with a sharkplane and a ghost. I’m friends with Shadow the Hedgehog and Spider-Woman. How is all this possible? It’s because I decided consensus reality is bourgeois and went and found some other weirdos who agree with Me. We’re called anarcho-antirealists, or soulists if you want a short name. We have our own PieFed instance called MULTIVERSE, and a manifesto at https://soulism.net/. I journey across the astral plane and Discord finding fantasy creatures and aliens to heal and befriend. I’m living the life I dreamed about since I was a kid watching Ben 10, and you can too.
Ew
Let them do their thing, you don’t have to publicly state your disgust. Just block and move on if you don’t want to see it.
Unhealthy shit is unhealthy.
I generally agree with your sentiment, but only for things that are not harmful.
Disappearing into a world of make believe is not healthy, let’s not pretend it is.
Did you see any mention in my comment of pretending it is healthy?
Do you think voicing disgust is going to help them?
Do you think unpromptedly telling them their whole worldview is unhealthy is going to help them, or do you think it is going to push them further into it?
Im more “worried” about them trying to recruit more people
I have said my piece.
Then you should start with that :D
Not a big fan of Star Trek I see.
Not a big trekie, but I never trusted the “Earth is a giant utopia and everything is perfect” story
Like, I’m sure there’s a class of people most of Starfleet is made up of like Picard, but not everyone on earth owns a fucking vineyard.
I always thought The Expanse was probably how it really was. No one “has to work” because there’s not enough work. So the majority of the population gets a little UBI and blows it on drugs and alcohol to numb the emptiness
Like, do they even show “current earth” that much in Star Trek? Or is it just wealthy Starfleet members talking about how awesome their lives were?
I dunno, it’s just an unbelievable story. If it’s really supposed to be a perfect utopia, it’s just unbelievable writing.
I always figured that some folks are writing, reading, arting, or farming, and then theres dudes using the replicator to make dank space weed or the holodeck to get blowie joeys from helen of troy.
I legitimately don’t know:
But would just every random human have access to a replicator 24/7?
Like, that would be a tally in the Utopia column, but even then, the amount of waste and trash produced would be a problem.
Even in an absolutely ideal situation like that, it would end like The Good Place where getting anything you want burns out your dopamine system.
I dunno. Like I said I’m not a Star Trek expert, I just don’t trust a bunch of rich people working for the one world government telling us the 99.99% of humans we never see are living perfect lives.
It’s fictional so it could be real if the writers want it to be. But it’s a lot more realistic if not everything was as perfect as we’re told, or even Starfleet officers believe.
Waste and trash also aren’t an issue because of the aforementioned replicators. Waste and trash become the food. Energy is cheap, next to free, and about as clean as can be.
Why would you live in squalor when you can just as easily push a button and teleport the trash and grime into the nothing?
Education is cheap and easy because we have both plenty of educated people, and sentient AI. Same for medicine.It’s one of the few pieces of media that has traditionally outright agreed with the spirit of what you’re saying. There’s no need to shit on its message that if we find the cause to work together, we have it within us to develop fully automated luxury gay space communism because we’re more alike than we are different, and an exploration of those differences will bring us together.
The difference between a post scarcity society and the good place is that it’s not that there’s no problems, it’s that there’s no significant material problems. And it’s not like the entire galaxy was like that.
Cynicism becoming conflated with realism is boring.
At it’s heart, the expanse was explicitly not post scarcity, so comparing it’s treatment of inequality with one where those problems have been solved is silly. It’s like saying the expanse is unrealistic because their spaceships are too fast, and Apollo 13 is a more realistic portrayal.Food too. A lot of problems with malnutrition and food deserts would be solved very quickly if you had a machine that could churn out perfectly nutritionally balanced meals.
Not worrying about potentially starving to death would free up a lot for people to go and do what they want to do, and to decline bad work environments.
If you didn’t have to worry about food, or bills, why would you stick to your rubbish job, instead of doing something you actually wanted to do?
And significantly, if you needed someone to actually do a job that wasn’t made obsolete by the removal of material scarcity you’d need to find a way to make it meaningfully enticing to them. Material scarcity is the driver for so much suckage that it’s almost mind boggling how much would change if we even made a significant dent on it.
Star Trek is written from the perspective of post-scarcity. There is unlimited free energy, replicators that can create virtually any object from base materials, and an abolishment of money (there is no need for it in post-scarcity, as money is ostensibly just a way to distribute resources).
Rowan J Coleman explores the practical ramifications of that in a 3 part series here, if you’re interested.
It’s definitely easy to poke holes in the logic and suspend disbelief for so long. At the end of the day it’s an idea that if all basic human needs are taken care of then what would we do?
The replicator is also the trash collector and dish washer. When you’re done with your food you just put the left overs back into the replicator and when you “relieve yourself” it goes back into the replicator. Want new furniture? Replicator. Want new clothes? Replicator. So on so forth.
The only thing that is in short supply is energy, so there have been occasional mention of energy rations or credits that can be traded for services. There are still some resource limitations and you have to work or be productive and contributing member of society to gain access. But if you wish to sit around until you get bed sores then you can do that, you will probably be ignored and be an outsider and get visits from healthcare workers.
And yet wine snobs still insist on working at a vineyard so they can have non-replicated wine, because it “tastes better”.
Truly, I wish I had their problems.
Yeah exactly, it’s about what goes in, not what comes out.
Thing is, replicator food works from standard sets. Think of it like getting McDonalds. You get Maccas in the U.K.? Tastes like McD’s in Japan or Korea or India. It gets tiresome. Hence why they have Neelix, Guinan, or Quark running bars, kitchens, or lounges to put the human (Well… you know what I mean.) touch on things.
So yeah, deffo wish my biggest problem was my unlimited sauvignon blanc was only 8/10 so I decided to take up winemaking as a hobby to try and one up it.
Plus, you get the prestige of having actually made and perfected it yourself.
That means a bit, especially since the Federation places value on authenticity.
It’s the difference between going to ICA and getting a bottle of wine, compared to fermenting some yourself in a wardrobe, or buying a bottle straight from the vineyard.
Perhaps you should start watching trek instead of commenting on it from a distance, you know, so you know what you are taking about.
The federation (in the TNG era which i would count as the most beloved and accepted by fans) is a post scarcity society, the populations indeed do have full and free access to replication technology, which also solves the waste problem you suggest since replicated goods can also be reclaimed by the devices. Make whatever you need, use it, vanish the leftovers when youre done.
So indeed people are beyond our concepts of material need and property. Individuals may also indulge in commerce if they are of the mercantile inclination, nobody cares, but any citizen can acquire any material resource required or desired in their lives regardless, and for free.
Buddy, if you think someone who’s watched all of Star Trek once is an “expert” than it’s more likely I know a lot more about it than you…
I just understand some people have all this shit memorized, and you are overconfident in your knowledge of the show.
Which is something that goes beyond Star Trek, often the people who know the most say they don’t know everything, and the people who say they know it all. Just aren’t aware of how much there is to know.
Have fun being overconfident tho.
But would just every random human have access to a replicator 24/7?
They’re cheap and easy devices. Almost every living space on a starship has one, as does every colony. The Enterprise originally shows up to deliver and install a batch of replicators for an entire colony in “The Survivors”.
Like, that would be a tally in the Utopia column, but even then, the amount of waste and trash produced would be a problem.
Not really. Replicators are two-way devices. If you don’t want something any more, you put it back, and it’ll convert it the other way.
If you were ever worried about rubbish, you could plonk a replicator down, and just use it as an infinite hole to throw your rubbish into, until it went down to a desirable level.
Even in an absolutely ideal situation like that, it would end like The Good Place where getting anything you want burns out your dopamine system.
You have that, but unlike in The Good Place, it’s not forced. You can spend all your time having fun, but eventually you would get bored, and want a challenge, and there are a great many challenges, between colonisation, and scientific achievements. There’s no Janet to ask for all the answers.
There’s also a social element. Culturally, the Federation values authenticity. Going to Vulcan to see a sunset is more value than seeing a hologram of a Vulcan sunset, much like how a photograph today means less than going to the same location it was taken, and seeing it for yourself.
Like I said I’m not a Star Trek expert, I just don’t trust a bunch of rich people working for the one world government telling us the 99.99% of humans we never see are living perfect lives.
It’s funny you say that, since they did abolish financial wealth in Star Trek, since at least the second show, for humans. Everyone gets the basics, and the rest depends entirely on who’s offering.
Going to do authentic pre-23rd century Cajun restaurant doesn’t cost buckets of money. Everyone can book and go there, anytime. It’s first-come, first-served. There’s no way to skip the queue, other than someone else pulling out, of asking them to give you their slot.
But it’s a lot more realistic if not everything was as perfect as we’re told, or even Starfleet officers believe.
At the same time, it is quite far into the future, and they have spent a lot of time and hard work cracking at their issues, with alien assistance.
Earth had to be basically rebuilt from the ground up, after all, and it’s over 200 years past that. Technology makes a lot of the issues facing us today, trivial. If we had their replicators, for example, we would solve a huge amount of issues today. Part of the issue of hunger, for example, is logistical. A single device that can create almost endless perfectly nutritious food, and remove waste, would be hugely beneficial to solving it from that angle. Or even their shuttles, if we could just ferry aid directly to the location without concerns over how long it would take to get there, or risks of it being waylaid.
For reference’s sake, they’re about as far from us, as the USA is from its original colonies, and a lot has changed since they revolted and became a country.
I get you. Utopia does’t seem very probable. But it was nice to have at least one single franchise that commits to it.
but not everyone on earth owns a fucking vineyard
That’s the very reason I don’t like the Picard show as well. No one is supposed to own a vineyardfor themselves in Star Trek Earth. DS9 did a good depiction of life on earth with Benjamin Siskos dad who just loves cooking and provides a restaurant for everyone.
In the 24th century, wine isn’t a lucrative business venture. It’s an ancient cultural tradition. Chateau Picard is a heritage location placed by the government in the custody of the Picard family, as long as they continue to teach the ancient art of winemaking. It’s not for them, it’s for everyone.
I haven’t seen Picard.
placed by the government in the custody of the Picard family
Is that something included in Picard? Cause it seems like a significant departure from the rest of the idea of the series. The government of the federation doesn’t allow people to do things at it’s whims, it facilitates people’s freedom to do what they want to better themselves.
His family has had vineyards for generations. Why wouldn’t they be allowed to? Space isnt exactly a luxury since they have dozens of worlds you can move to and have your own.
Keep in mind the “Gay Space Communism” isnt the soviet dictatorship kind where everyone is allotted their resources and you’re only allowed to do what the state says. Its a post-scarcity world where people can follow passions and personal drive just because they want to. (As long as you learn calculus) Something explicitly stated multiple times in the series.
They have the luxury of the philosophy of improving one’s self and the environment for others.
A utopia will never exist because a utopia implies that everyone and everything is perfect, but this will never happen because human instinct and diversity won’t allow it and everyone’s definition of perfection is different. In Star Trek this utopia was started after WW3 followed by massive genocide followed by people just trying to survive. So there was a hard reset for humanity.
For Picard’s vineyard, it’s a family legacy and heirloom, so he gets a pass. But if you want your own vineyard and there’s enough land then you get one.
Here’s where Star Trek kind of falls apart, someone has to mine the raw resources that can’t be replicated or do menial tasks that no one would want to do even 200 years from now. How does that work? If the work you do still equates to social ranking and resource allocation then does the steel worker also get prime real estate next to the president of the federation?
I love Star Trek but it’s just a dream that will never exist, the idea of Star Trek could never exist just based on the simple fact of the fans can’t even agree on what it is. To me it’s Sci-fi adventures in a world where people can be open about who they are but also none threatened or threatening about it, where everyone works together to accomplish a goal, where doing what you love is payment enough.
Well written. Earth’s utopia seems to exist (or not) as is relevant to the plot at hand. But if there is one thing Star Trek drills into it’s messaging over and over and over again, it’s that the work, the brutally difficult work to get one centimeter closer to that “impossible” utopia is what motivates starfleet.
For Picard’s vineyard, it’s a family legacy and heirloom, so he gets a pass.
And so do all of his descendants who inherit it in perpetuality
An unchanging social structure with no means for mobility.
Either your family was rich enough to own land centuries ago, or you never will be.
Utopia!
/s
But if you want your own vineyard and there’s enough land then you get one.
And then your descendants always get it because it’s a family legacy and heirloom…
So even if there’s “open land” it’s going to run out eventually.
So your argument is that you can’t have a utopia if you can inherit your parents belongings?
I would also argue that the accumulation of goods and hoarding resources would not be tolerated. So if you’re rich before the fall you’re probably not now. But my assumption is that if you can justify owning lots of land by something other than greed then you probably won’t keep/get it.
Yes land would be a finite resource and would be closely regulated.
Star Trek is a dream that will never come true because it assumes that all humans would be rational and reasonable. That’s just inconceivable.
I also think “normal non working” people on earth are closer to The Expanse depiction rather than perfect utopia.
Nothing is perfect, I like calling that a “normaltopia”. The federation might not always succeed at being an utopia but at fucking least they are trying.
A lot of stuff is insinuated. Such as there’s no overpopulation issue on Earth due in part to WW3 which decimated it globally and in part due to a lot of groups leaving to create their own colonies, with their own local rules.
Far as I remember, which may be wrong, people on Trek Earth live more freely and more spread out. The Picard vineyard is an example of doing something because you want to and at the same time, continuation of the family tradition.
But freedom doesn’t mean automatic success. Humans are still humans. We have our emotions and a state of mind which changes with the weather.
Trek Earth guarantees a standard of living, but it cannot guarantee happiness.
@Chemo
> Why do they turn Federation into a dystopia?I had the same niggle, but I’m hoping it’s a way of setting up a redemption arc.
Like when they replaced Captain Georgiou with Emperor Georgiou. She had to learn the value of the Federation’s way of doing things. But they also learned a thing or 2 from her.
Because from a literary and media standpoint, utopias are boring. The Federation has never been a utopia. It is a post scarcity society with utopian ideals, but with plenty of flaws to balance out those ideals. In the TOS era, those flaws included penal colonies, the death penalty, albeit for only one crime, contacting Talos IV and lots of infighting among member worlds.
Without conflict, there is no drama. Star Trek has long found conflict in pitting the Federation against less high-minded adversaries, the Klingons and Romulans, the Borg, the Cardassians and the Dominion, the Kazon, etc. That is fine but after 60 years it is also sort of played out.
To your point about Discovery, it’s first season took place before the Federation’s ideals were fully codified in policy - general order 1 had yet to become “the prime directive” for example.
TNG trek took place later and was closer to the utopian ideal. But still wasn’t perfect. The Federation tried to force Data to undergo study as a guinea pig and tried to take his daughter from him for the same reason, they supported unaligned worlds against internal dissent and left untold numbers of Federation citizens to the mercy of the Cardassians in the interest of keeping the peace.
During the Dominion War, the Federation was fine with setting aside it’s ideals as a matter of survival.
During the burn, the federation no longer had the resources to support it’s high ideals so it shrank and degenerated. Now. It is on the ascendant again, able to right past wrongs.
I think there’s still a lot of room to explore without abandoning the utopia setting. like we usually only see the spaceship stuff, but what about a more political drama taking place on member worlds, that kind of thing, i think it could be amazing.
also, as you say, it’s been done for 60 years. Might as well do the same thing over again for a new generation that hasn’t seen tos/tng/ds9. They don’t know it yet, so it’s not overused, and the TOS audience wouldn’t be the target audience anyways. and could still explore new topics. the audience isn’t the same, our world isn’t the same, making the same show again would still not be boring as it be a completely different thing.
Both approaches can work imo and have a place, without the need to go more dystopia.
My point is that there never was a utopian setting. Utopia’s are perfect by definition and therefore boring. The Federation is something much more interesting than a utopia. It’s an imperfect culture that aspires to better itself in the attempt to achieve utopian ideals. That it fails and tries again is part of what makes Star Trek interesting.
So, you jumped on the conclusion that you don’t like any recent Star Trek series, even though you didn’t even try listening more than ten minutes of the first episode of each—while remaining fully biased, yet you insist on criticizing every decision based one whatever you assume all these new series are about, and shit on them, hoping to reinforce your opinion about them.
This is what you sound like: “Huh, so, I opened the book, read the first sentence of the preface, didn’t hook me, so fuck it didn’t read it at all, but let me tell you all how this book is so bad and doesn’t explain anything about what they claim to do, and how they should stick to writing then exactly how they did 60 years ago, just like my grandma used to…”
Do you truly want the answers you claim to seek?
Then how about you actually attentively listen to those entire series in full. You’d be surprised how they might give you more answers than you could possibly imagine.
Stop wasting our time. You want to criticize the new series, at least have the decency to actually watch them first.
So, you jumped on the conclusion that you don’t like any recent Star Trek series
Not at all. I love Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds.
yet you insist on criticizing every decision
I am not criticizing “a decision”, I am criticizing a trend.
so fuck it didn’t read it at all
Which would be very wise, because otherwise I would waste even more of my time.
Do you truly want the answers you claim to seek?
Yes, because that would help me to decide if I am just wasting my time, continuing with the show. But don’t bother. Other, kinder people have already been much more helpful then you.
Hopefully this spoiler will help:
Your concern is precisely the primary theme of the show.How in the hell is this the same federation of TNG, Voyager and DS9?
Clearly it isn’t. Why should it be? It’s the far future. Giant prison colony, shock collars, cruelty, punishment with no semblance of a fair trial on screen; clearly the Federation are the bad guys now, or at least adjacent to them. I was prepared to accept that premise. Could be interesting… but no, they immediately shove that concept under the carpet and pretend it doesn’t matter because this one person involved feels really bad about it. It was all just another convenient plot device with no meaning, and they moved right on without stopping to think about it. It’s utterly lazy writing, the kind where they go with whatever half-baked idea they come up with first whether or not it makes any sense for the characters and story. I say that with confidence because I’ve seen so much of it before. In this case the character they betrayed was literally Star Trek itself, but they’re doing it all the time in smaller ways.
Anyway I’m off to rewatch DS9 instead.
