With DS9’s ‘‘Past Tense,’’ Star Trek Predicted 2024 Perfectly
Almost 30 years ago, two-parter introduced life under late-stage capitalism
Star Trek’s often cited for the many technological wonders the franchise predicted.
From the origins of the mobile phone tracing back to the Starfleet communicators of the original series, to PADD devices giving rise to iPads and other tablet computers, and even the advent of artificial intelligence, Star Trek first imagined many of the gadgets that we take for granted today.
However, the franchise less often is given the same credit for its ability to foreshadow cultural and societal changes and trends.
Which is a shame, because 29 years ago one of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s most memorable time-travel episodes — the two-part “Past Tense” — almost uncannily foretold life in the year 2024.
Warning: This edition of Subspace Chatter will fully acknowledge the political leanings and implications of Star Trek, and of “Past Tense,” specifically.
If you're one of those misguided snowflakes who complain about Star Trek being “too woke,” or that we should somehow just leave Star Trek as being apolitical, this serves as your admonition to jump off now.
A pair of third-season episodes based on a story by Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe, “Past Tense” was the first story of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to not feature any scenes on the DS9 space station, except for the opening credits.
More importantly, a transporter malfunction causes three crew members of the Deep Space Nine space station to be dropped in San Francisco in the year 2024.
Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) realizes that they have been sent to the past mere days before what are now known in the Star Trek universe as the “Bell riots,” an event that will bring knowledge of the inhumane conditions within the “sanctuary districts” to a national audience, leading to an early flowering of social change.
With its political violence, wealth inequality and extreme poverty, the world “Past Tense” sketches looks eerily like our own 2024.
What it did was describe what late-stage capitalism would look like:
Late stage capitalism is a popular phrase that targets the inequities of modern-day capitalism. It describes the hypocrisy and absurdities of capitalism as it digs its own grave.
Or, put another way:
… late capitalism is characterised by a globalised, post-industrial economy, where everything – not just material resources and products but also immaterial dimensions, such as the arts and lifestyle activities – becomes commodified and consumable.
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Sounds familiar??
“Past Tense” is filled with average folks struggling just to get by for the necessities of life while a small, gilded class enjoys fine luxury, just as our very real society experiences today.
But if you still can’t see the similarities between Star Trek’s fictionalized 2024 and our own, consider the resemblance between the sanctuary districts of “Past Tense” and vision for lawless, virtually abandoned “tent cities” for homeless folks which is precisely Donald Trump’s plan for a second term.
Late-stage capitalism may be our present, but need not be the future:
For this reason, many who use the term late stage capitalism believe the next phase is socialism. Most agree the new system could include universal basic income. It would subsidize those who lost their jobs to technology. At the very least, the new system should include universal health care. The United States is the only developed country without it.
We may still get — in the words of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Pelia (Carol Kane) — a “no money, socialist utopia thing.”
Or, as Captain Sisko explains to Dr Bashir (Alexander Siddig) in “Past Tense”:
They made some ugly mistakes. But they also paved the way for a lot of things we now take for granted.
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