We Need New Star Trek Now More Than Ever
A positive, inclusive future is what we’re going to have to hold on to
Editor’s Note: Yes, this is another “political” edition of Subspace Chatter — and although it shouldn’t be controversial, some sadly might see it as such. You’ve been warned, and head for the escape pods now.
As a matter of fact, we decided to risk the whole show on that premise. We believe that the often-ridiculed mass audience is sick of this world’s petty nationalism, and all its old ways and old hatreds. People are not only willing — but anxious — to think beyond those petty beliefs that have, for so long, kept mankind divided.”
— Gene Roddenberry, “Inside Star Trek”
This ought to be the time for more and new Star Trek.
It’s needed now, more than ever, what with what’s going on around us in the United States and around the world.
An avowed autocrat and virulent racist, misogynist and transphobe once again occupies what is arguably the most powerful office on the planet.
But not for quirks of the market and the vagaries of capitalism, Paramount would find an audience not only eager — but almost desperate — for fresh reminders that the future can be better, more diverse, inclusionary and free.
I’m certainly going to enjoy Star Trek: Section 31 — and look forward to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and eventually Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
But in this moment — in which the future that we fans have hoped and waited for seems impossibly far away — we fans certainly would flock to an entire oasis of Star Trek.
What Donald Trump and his allies here and abroad are dishing up is just anathema to everything Star Trek always has held dear.
Reread Gene Roddenberry’s words above.
Today our political leadership is trying to drown us in nationalism and feed us nothing but old ways and old hatreds.
Star Trek has always had something to say about xenophobia and political violence, racism, respect for gender identity, persecution of migrants and refugees, and more.
Watch episodes like “Terra Prime” from Star Trek: Enterprise, “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield” from original Star Trek, Star Trek The Next Generation’s “The Outcast,” as well as the entire story arcs about synthetic lifeforms and Romulan refugees from Star Trek: Picard.
The philosophy of Star Trek becomes very clear.
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As Roddenberry also famously said, “Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. …
“If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.”
That’s a very different vision — and dramatically different sort of world — than the one Donald Trump and his cronies are trying to bring about.
So the world needs to see much more of the Star Trek sort of philosophy if we are to come out the other side with a society that looks more like the one from our favorite franchise and less like the dystopian hellscape Trump’s offering.
It wasn’t that long ago that Paramount was streaming an overlapping — and seemingly near-constant — torrent of new Star Trek episodes and entire new series.
That unending cascade was certainly welcome at the time. But it is so much more needed now.
And I’m not the only one who feels like this.
A reporter recently caught up with Wilson Cruz from Star Trek: Discovery, who had this to say, “Coming together in order to solve problems and save the galaxy is probably an analogy we can use right now.”
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