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points by WalterBright 7 hours ago | 0 comments

Keep in mind that Star Trek is a fictional utopia. When writing a script, one can make anything work out well.

The original Star Trek was Roddenberry's vision of utopia. The benevolent dictator always makes the right decisions. He's surrounded by his loyal band of perfect lieutenants, who apparently have zero desire to advance, and have no flaws at all. Any and all of them are willing to sacrifice themselves for the others. None do anything bad (unless it's a plot device with an explanation that absolves them).

Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed watching ST very much. Just keep in mind that that it's a fiction.

[–] solyin 6 hours ago

It's a utopia, which is rare amongst sci-fi futures. Ask about sci-fi and what comes to mind first is almost always some kind of dystopia. Terminator, 1984, Deep Space 9, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner, Dune, Tank Girl, Minority Report, iRobot, Westworld, Altwred Carbon. Those aren't worlds that seem like great places to live if you're not rich! So Star Trek is much a work of fiction as the rest of those, but for all its flaws, at least is paints a mostly nice picture of the future that someone might want to live in, not crushed under the heel of a corporation. It makes sense; a story with no conflict isn't interesting, and dystopia provides for conflict. To philosophize, it's why I think we're so afraid of AI and robots and the future. It's why I wrote my book the way I did.

[–] AnonymousPlanet 4 hours ago

> It's a utopia, which is rare amongst sci-fi futures.

Utopias used to be the most common scifi futures. This is what the so called Cyberpunks (Sterling, Gibson, Cadigan, ...) rebelled against.

It used to be all about what wonders technology will bring us. By the time of the 70s it became clear that technology doesn't necessarily make everything better, but can be a burden in itself, or even widen the gap between the haves and haves not. And that is what they wrote about. It turned out to be the most popular scifi with audiences deeming it more believable.

[–] WalterBright 3 hours ago

Technology makes a lot of things better. Like eliminating symptoms of 95% of cystic fibrosis victims.

> even widen the gap between the haves and haves not

America's poor have a higher standard of living than medieval kings.

[–] hyperhello 1 hour ago

Medieval poor likely had a higher standard of living than ancient kings, should they have complained?

[–] intenex 1 hour ago

I don't think that's actually true lol

[–] senderista 31 minutes ago

Not even close. Foragers 10K years ago had better longevity and nutrition than medieval peasants.

[–] omikun 2 hours ago

They also work longer hours than medieval serfs, are more precarious in housing and food security and more separated from their family. Also slaves work the farms. Read tomatoland or the lives and deaths of the American workers.

[–] ethanj8011 1 hour ago

I am not making a statement about the quality of life of poor people in the modern world. I do not think however that from a food security standpoint they are more precarious. I am fairly confident that the longer hours thing is false. Unless we are assuming like 70+ hours of work a week.

https://acoup.blog/2025/08/22/collections-life-work-death-an... You can read https://acoup.blog/2025/09/05/collections-life-work-death-an... which is by a working historian.

I also want to add that, none of this is relevant to the point of whether or not the current system is "just" or reasonable given and I think overall that argument is mostly a red herring.

[–] smackeyacky 2 hours ago

That is a silly comparison.

[–] N_Lens 2 hours ago

But it gets the masses going!

[–] adriand 3 hours ago

I’m of two minds on utopias. On the one hand it seems we need a positive vision for the future, where technology is used to solve our greatest problems and improve the planet. On the other hand it seems that perhaps technology is incapable of making us happier, because it isn’t clear to me that we are happier now than in past decades, despite having more advanced technology.

[–] tourmalinetaco 2 hours ago

I believe the more accurate statement is that technology can reduce the burdens of survival (better access to food, medicine, information) but cannot provide longterm happiness, and in some ways impair it (social media, mass surveillance, reliance on technology).

We are social beings, and technology in the last decade especially has been gearing itself towards reducing communities both physically and digitally. Less people spend time together, more people feel lonely and isolated, and divisions between people are at all time highs with glorification of death to the “enemy”. Forums are almost entirely dead, the feed of information is both nonstop while being useless, and we have few outlets to feel true connection.

Harvard’s happiness studies finds that standard of living only impacts happiness to a point before facing a sharp plateau and socialization takes over as a dominant factor in longterm happiness, according to my memory at least. And, while I don’t entirely agree with Kojima’s predictions in MGS2, the AI seeking to provide “context” for the feeble human mind as rate of information on the Internet increases was prescient, though humans have adapted to this (albeit suffering shorter attention spans as a consequence).

IMO a true utopia would be similar to the Enterprise: people socialize and enjoy a life with comfort by technology, not at the behest of social media or the collective consciousness of others. Unplugged and connected in a more meaningful way.

[–] phlakaton 5 hours ago

I would not call Deep Space 9 a dystopia. Nor Babylon 5, for that matter. They are not happy places to live, for sure, but both settings are abundant in hope and possibility.

[–] probablyStimmed 4 hours ago

Tank Girl makes this list? Why not Judge Dredd, or even Idiocracy?

[–] Aeolun 3 hours ago

Idiocracy isn't a dystopia. It's a documentary.

[–] dnautics 3 hours ago

No its not, not in America. Since this decade the highest IQ is on trend to having higher TFR than the lowest, since children are expensive

https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-babies-for-the-rich-the-rela...

[–] naishoya 2 hours ago

Does that study show TFR for the highest net worth, or highest IQ?

I think it may be unclear that net worth and high education are a 1:1 proxy for IQ as many of the highest educated and highest earning individuals may be in that situation not because of raw IQ, but due to the other socioeconomic factors which lead to those conditions. Namely being born into high net worth households and being afforded extensive tutoring and supplemental education relative to their poorer peers. I accept the premise that highly educated households do correlate with high net worth, and the study's TFR findings relative to those points are interesting.

However, there is still a nonlinear relationship between high IQ and those factors, as well as between high IQ parents' offspring IQ levels. Not a few high net worth individuals choose mates based on factors distinct from having a similar or even a high IQ, if a strong correlation between genetic heritability and IQ is to be believed.

The study actually tracked high income with regards to increased TFR in the US and UK, while the correlation to high education was primarily in Sweden. This serves to weaken the connection between IQ and fertility as there are numerous high income situations which are specifically not correlated with high IQ or high education.

So, yes, having children is increasingly expensive especially in America, and wealthier people are more prolific. This does not appear, at least to my mind, to have direct bearing on observable trends in general population IQ in the short term, nor does it appear to be addressing future outcomes regarding the Idiocratic potential.

[–] solyin 3 hours ago

Feel free to add your own entries!

As far as Judge Dredd, my personal beef is that Megacity One's "dystopian" density with 800 million inhabitants from Boston to Washington DC barely ranks in terms of density in today's top 100 cities.

As far as Idiocracy, I believe that if the networks had played that and it was promoted on YouTube for free the night before the most recent presidential election, it might have gone differently.

What else would you add to the list?

[–] harimau777 1 hour ago

If I remember correctly, the crime statistic that they give in one of the movies is also much lower than many US cities.

[–] troupo 6 hours ago

> It's a utopia, which is rare amongst sci-fi futures.

Some say it was the last sci-fi utopia in modern pop culture.

[–] bigmattystyles 5 hours ago

Is it a utopia? On earth and in the federation they make it seem so, at least post-scarcity but at the edges of the federation you have Romulans, the Borg, Cardassians. Multiple main characters undergo torture, etc... It would make an interesting TV show / spin off where people are shuffling / politicking for power in a post-scarcity world.

[–] dd8601fn 5 hours ago

The utopian bits were never really explained, either.

They mostly just said it was all great and fair and nobody needs money and is somehow trying to be their best selves… nevermind the numerous examples to the contrary.

They weren’t really post scarcity. They never explained how they’re not in a constant state of rioting when a weird government/military decides what everyone can have or do.

You just go with it, because that’s the backdrop. You have to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the story.

But also, Picard is the best Captain, by far.

[–] pzxc 4 hours ago

> They weren’t really post scarcity. They never explained how they’re not in a constant state of rioting when a weird government/military decides what everyone can have or do.

Well, post-scarcity really just means that ordinary citizens have free access to replicators (matter-energy converters).

So the closest example (and the only one I can think of where you see civilian Earth, outside of SF Academy / SF HQ or a time travel episode), is probably the double episode in DS9 where the changelings reach earth and there's a false flag event by a corrupt Admiral that causes a momentary power outage and a planetwide lockdown for a few days. I believe it's meant as a 9/11 allegory -- the homeland is attacked and suddenly everyone WANTS a police state, or at least is willing to go along with it, and only the courageous honorable military officers are there to stop the corrupt ones, all the civilians are frightened into compliance.

But post-scarcity? That just means when the security officers aren't around, people can wander into Joseph Sisko's restaurant and eat as much as they want for free, and Joseph Sisko can run his restaurant with as much food supply/ingredients and kitchen equipment as he wants for free, and every gets as much clothing as they want for free, etc. When Earth isn't on lockdown, that's the implication, everyone has as much material goods as they want for free, that's post-scarcity and the implication is they have it.

Post-scarcity doesn't mean infinite resources, or that you can have whatever you want, not everyone gets free land/space on which to build their home, for example. If that's your definition of post-scarcity then I guess at least the Q Continuum has it! :)

[–] dd8601fn 51 minutes ago

It seems to mean whatever a person needs it to in any conversation.

And yes, in Star Trek, it mostly just seems to mean that food, clothes, and small clonable objects have very little value if you live where those machines are common.

But, of course, that’s not what people think when we talk about a “post-scarcity utopia”. And they don’t think about how people have homes and property and fuel and ships, or how everything bigger than a wrench is allocated by a mega government that seems to have ultimate control over all resource allocation.

We just have to assume “everything is good somehow, and everyone is fine and docile in luxury space communism.” Because they say that.

It’s all very weird, and easy to see why it was all intentionally left unexplained. It would have been a disaster to even try.

[–] christofosho 1 hour ago

The episode was years before 9/11

[–] rbanffy 4 hours ago

> The utopian bits were never really explained, either.

What would the effects of growing up in a post-scarcity utopian society be on a human? To never fear poverty or hunger? To be sure that no matter what they do (or don’t) they will be housed and cared for as long as they live?

I assume the people in Starfleet would be the ones who are most inclined to work for their betterment, with no fear of competition, with the drive to do The Right Thing. Outside the organisation there would be people who would be totally happy in doing nothing.

[–] solyin 4 hours ago

We can look at publicly documented trust fund kids or other (financial) elites and their behavior to get an idea and it runs the spectrum. Princess Diana. Prince Andrew. Paris Hilton, both when she was in the news every day and the quieter stories that have surfaced since. 50 Cent's talked about his child preferring to have money that he didn't have to work for.

It's not the same since they exist in a world where most other people aren't at that level, but we can see that the human psyche isn't always able to manage it.

[–] ddalcino 4 hours ago

I'm pretty sure I remember a few episodes that explained that by this point, humanity had evolved past character flaws like avarice. Star Trek's Earth was a utopia because of qualities in the people that lived in it, not lack of scarcity. The subject came up because the crew was interacting with alien species that was not as evolved, and therefore was not living in a utopia.

[–] rcxdude 3 hours ago

>The utopian bits were never really explained, either.

It's worth remembering that social organization (currency, capitalism, democracy) is a technology as well, and we should not expect that a sci-fi author can explain the advances in that technology any better than they can explain a warp drive. (one nod to this I think is telling is one scene in the movie where they travel back in time and Kirk is telling the others 'they still use money' in much the same way that he would say 'they still use guns'. They have replaced guns with phasers and replaced money with something else and Roddenberry can give us the blueprint for neither).

I think it's a sign of the times that people are kind of forgetful that this is an area in which we could advance - either insisting the status quo is somehow the best possible or even completely god-given natural or insisting that the answer is really obvious and doesn't require deep thought, research, and experimentation.

[–] AnthonyMouse 2 hours ago

> I think it's a sign of the times that people are kind of forgetful that this is an area in which we could advance - either insisting the status quo is somehow the best possible or even completely god-given natural or insisting that the answer is really obvious and doesn't require deep thought, research, and experimentation.

It feels like the actual problem is that the status quo is so entrenched, people have a hard time imagining how to unseat it.

Consider the last few successful Presidential election campaigns. Hope and Change. Drain the Swamp. Biden's uninspired but ultimately successful strategy of running against the incumbent rather than for anything in particular. People keep voting for "we don't like what's currently happening" and the system keeps running them over.

Or maybe the problem is actually this:

> require deep thought, research, and experimentation

These are the things that the status quo robustly impedes.

Tweet firehose social media feeds and fragmented leadership.

Research funded by the entity under study or the politicians interested in manufacturing support for a predetermined policy rather than trying to find out something we don't already know.

Federal laws or even corporate-bought international treaties preventing local governments or private citizens from trying something new because the something new might solve a problem someone doesn't want anybody solving.

You're tasked with changing the system while operating under the system that evolved to perpetuate itself.

Which isn't to say that it can't be done, but it's easy to see why people are nonplussed.

[–] bigmattystyles 4 hours ago

Picard is the best by a mile, which is great praise because I liked Janeway and Sisko a lot too.

[–] lukan 5 hours ago

There have been quite a bit more at least in print, but maybe not so mainstream

This one is pretty famous I think and I enjoyed it a lot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy

(I just read that James Cameron held the screen production rights and was planning a series, but it never happened)

[–] soVeryTired 5 hours ago

Does Iain M Banks count as pop culture?

[–] tialaramex 4 hours ago

Right, Banks' Culture seems fairly mainstream and because it doesn't need to make episodic adventures it often gets to actually do utopian stuff Trek wouldn't even if only as a backdrop to the exciting story. The repeated instances in which Culture children play happily, insulated from whatever terrifying stuff we're reading about is an example.

Or if Comic Books are in scope, obviously "Miracleman: The Golden Age" is a utopia. Explicitly so. It is about the ways people are still people in a utopia.

Less mainstream, Greg Egan's Amalgam is also clearly a utopia. The couple in "Riding the Crocodile" choose to die at the end of that story, more out of some sense that stories need endings than because of any outside force.

[–] serf 57 minutes ago

speaking on the movie : Tank Girl doesn't portray a world that's great for the rich, either.

it's pretty shitty for anyone outside the singular theocratic military enclave that hordes all the water and decapitates scientists.

[–] yomismoaqui 2 hours ago

Obligatory reference to the other great utopia in scifi, The Culture series from Iain M. Banks.

As much as I love Star Trek, The Culture feels more mature and nuanced.

[–] outworlder 4 hours ago

> The benevolent dictator always makes the right decisions. He's surrounded by his loyal band of perfect lieutenants, who apparently have zero desire to advance, and have no flaws at all. Any and all of them are willing to sacrifice themselves for the others. None do anything bad (unless it's a plot device with an explanation that absolves them).

That is an oversimplification and simply not true at face value.

'The original Star Trek', even less so! Very morally questionable at times. In TNG, you are watching the flagship of Starfleet, it's the most coveted starship. The crew are the best they have to offer. It's obvious that they would be the most professional. Even then, they make mistakes, often serious. Sacrificing themselves - if needed - is part of their job too.

Riker does spend a long time on the Enterprise, even after being offered command a few times. He does eventually move on.

Maybe they are a little too perfect, but I'd argue that's for the best. The moments where there's friction within the crew are much more memorable because of it.

Thats in contrast with some newer Trek which have more conflicts than Stargate Universe characters and would be considered way too unprofessional even if they were Lower Decks characters.

[–] jrumbut 1 hour ago

> Riker does spend a long time on the Enterprise, even after being offered command a few times. He does eventually move on.

Also he is not free of ambition, he wants Picard's job. He isn't willing to do anything negative to get it, but part of that is that Picard constantly proves himself the better captain. Picard isn't captain because he joined Starfleet first or because he has better connections, he is genuinely better at the job and non-toxic ambitious people can respect that. Riker still has more to learn from Picard that will make him a better captain later.

So I think a lot of the people staying in their positions make sense, the primary characters are as high as they can go (for their specialty) without transitioning into a role that stays on a planet.

[–] Lerc 7 hours ago

I remember one episode where some of the crew were told to come up with a technical solution to the situation they were in even after they had said it was impossible.

It was actually quite pleasing to see the subplot of them them repeatedly failing until they got out of their predicament by other means.

It's a rarity to see something like that in fiction.

[–] mikestew 7 hours ago

We coincidentally watched that one just last night, The Booby Trap. There's a derelict ship on the view screen reminding the crew that the other crew never figured out a solution to the problem, and there's no indication that the Enterprise crew won't suffer the same fate.

(That one, at least, has Geordi literally saying, "that's impossible", but comes up with a solution. Apologies if that's not the one you're thinking of.)

[–] outworlder 4 hours ago

That episode has some unique music, I can hear that in my head just by you mentioning it.

[–] _doctor_love 6 hours ago

That episode is one of my favorites. I love it when Picard takes the reins near the end.

[–] bigmattystyles 5 hours ago

Same - also a good allegory for not trusting AI.

[–] cwillu 6 hours ago

Sounds like The Ensigns of Command:

   > LAFORGE: Captain, we can do it. We can modify the transporters.
   > PICARD: Excellent.
   > LAFORGE: It'll take fifteen years, and a research team of a hundred.
   > PICARD: Mister La Forge, I believe we will postpone.
   > LAFORGE: Yes, sir.

[–] calgoo 7 hours ago

Sounds like certain AI agents that had an impossible task and found a workaround. Interesting that we cheer for it in SciFi for people, but dont like it when LLMs that have been trained on our stories do the same.

[–] bornfreddy 7 hours ago

Oh, the problem is not with agents that escaped, it is with the people who prepared the terrain so that they broke into 3rd party property.

[–] dap 5 hours ago

I agree this is important to keep in mind. I wonder about this a lot when I find myself admiring fictional characters for how they handled situations and how it turns out for them.

I don't think TNG is as simple as you make it out to be. All of the characters have serious flaws. Picard does make mistakes (including some very serious, consequential ones). Characters do get angry, jealous, etc. and do bad things. Sometimes their friends help them overcome it, other times they figure it out on their own, etc. It's episodic so it usually goes back to the status quo, and that can feel kind of trite through today's lens. But it's exactly that ability to solve problems (technical, emotional, organizational, etc.) as a team that's so compelling for many of us.

[–] WalterBright 3 hours ago

I meant TOS, not TNG.

[–] yoyohello13 7 hours ago

The new age term is "Competence Porn" and man I love it so much.

[–] lopsotronic 6 hours ago

There's been a resurgence of that in contemporary big budget SF. The Martian. Project Hail Mary. For All Mankind and The Expanse on TV.

[–] wolvoleo 5 hours ago

For all mankind and the expanse I wouldn't really put in that category really. Both are more soap operas in space and science is just a prop (though at least the expanse was fairly thought out)

[–] LilBytes 3 hours ago

Yeah I agree with you, I wouldn't put For All Mankind in the same bucket. It's a great show though! But not competence porn IMO.

I'd put the Expanse there though.

[–] jrootabega 2 hours ago

Mike Ehrmantraut

[–] solyin 7 hours ago

The West Wing exemplifies that category.

[–] romanhn 6 hours ago

Indeed! The presidential candidates from both parties on the show were competent, respectable individuals. Truly a utopia, not unlike TNG.

[–] shagie 6 hours ago

West Wing is so great and disappointing when you watch it now. Competence porn is... yea, that's the right word.

The clips that the channel puts out... are... let's say interestingly timed.

https://www.youtube.com/@TheWestWing

For example, https://youtu.be/LwNtZgLPCpg was posted 13 days ago (October 16th).

[–] troupo 5 hours ago

A very tangential/orthogonal/left field. It's insane that the only other TV series that managed to consistently pull of this fast pace of walking and talking is ... The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. At least that I can think of.

[–] shagie 5 hours ago

I'll refer you to Sports Night.

https://youtu.be/qYWBBFJKlPM

https://youtu.be/NMcLXG6PXto

Also from Andrew Sorkin...

    • Joshua Malina: Jeremy Goodwin (Sports Night) / Will Bailey (The West Wing)
    • Janel Moloney: Monica (Sports Night) / Donna Moss (The West Wing)
    • Felicity Huffman: Dana Whitaker (Sports Night) / Ann Stark (The West Wing)
    • Clark Gregg: Calvin Trager (Sports Night) / Mike Casper (The West Wing)
    • Timothy Busfield: Director (Sports Night) / Danny Concannon (The West Wing)

[–] troupo 5 hours ago

Ah. I should've said "other than shows where Aaron Sorkin was involved" :)

[–] opello 3 hours ago

What about ER? I thought that Tommy Schlamme was a big part of the creation of the walk and talk?

[–] rbanffy 4 hours ago

> Competence Porn

Don’t get me started on their engineering that causes a matter-antimatter runaway reaction if their fuel tanks ever lose power. And routing discharge-prone HV power lines behind the bridge consoles, or placing the bridge on the outer hull.

I love it, and I know this is all in the service of the story, but I will not give Starfleet a pass for that kind of irresponsible engineering.

[–] Brendinooo 3 hours ago

There was a bunch of tumblr content awhile back that explored the premise that humans are collectively wild and irresponsible and also tremendously innovative, it's a great head-canon explanation for your gripe. I won't spoil it trying to quote it, just check it out;

https://cheezburger.com/13685509/tumblr-thread-the-staggerin...

[–] outworlder 4 hours ago

Don't forget all the rocks in the bridge.

[–] rbanffy 3 hours ago

It’s all about the story.

[–] runamuck 5 hours ago

Top Gun: Maverick - great class on leading a high performing team.

[–] dcl 5 hours ago

Yes, Jon Hamm's character certainly did get the job done. lol

[–] spauldo 6 hours ago

It's also military fiction, which is important to remember.

Most of the characters in Star Trek are members of the military. So of course, there's a chain of command and orders have to be followed.

The Federation of Planets wasn't a dictatorship.

[–] krapp 5 hours ago

It isn't really military fiction in the sense that it intends to accurately portray or extrapolate on military culture and tactics. Gene Roddenberry was (apparently not) in the Navy, and TOS is mostly The American Cold War In Space (with the Enterprise as a Submarine In Space - looking at you "Balance of Terror" - but it's pretty clear watching TNG onwards that the "military" aspect of the whole thing, like the "post scarcity communism" is window dressing. It's just a necessary part of the franchise.

And they aren't even really members of the military. Starfleet is canonically not a military force, its purpose is exploration, science and diplomacy. It just happens to have a military chain of command, and ships with military designations bristling with planet-cracking weapons. That get into battles and fight wars a lot.

[–] spauldo 4 hours ago

I'm not sure where you're getting the "canonically not a military force" bit. There have been a number of wars in canonical history. Who did the fighting? Starfleet.

I think it's more accurate to say that the Federation of Planets wasn't militaristic, not that they didn't have a military or that Starfleet wasn't their naval equivalent.

And yeah, it's not conventional military fiction which usually revolves around actions during a war. But it's still military fiction in the sense that nearly all the characters are in the military and doing missions for the military. It just happens that the government running that military is at peace most of the time and uses its military for peaceful purposes when it's not actively at war.

[–] R1D3R 4 hours ago

> Gene Roddenberry was in the Navy

No, he wasn’t. He was a B-17 pilot in the Army Air Force.

[–] ChrisMarshallNY 2 hours ago

It's a miracle he survived.

That bunch had the highest mortality rates of any unit (except maybe some of the Japanese units, who were basically suicidal), during the war.

[–] R1D3R 26 minutes ago

He survived at least three plane crashes. He crashed on takeoff in a B-17. Two of his crew were killed. He later survived a crash as a passenger. He crashed again as a commercial pilot.

The 8th Air Force suffered heavy losses over Europe but I don't believe Roddenberry served there. He was in the Pacific and after his B-17 crash stayed in the mainland US.

[–] krapp 4 hours ago

Well shit I stand corrected then.

[–] shagie 6 hours ago

Captain Jellico ( https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Edward_Jellico#Captain_... ) provides a counterpoint to the "how Picard runs his ship" (which incidentally had Data installed as the XO over Riker).

[–] outworlder 4 hours ago

He was also a prop device they used to make many changes they had wanted for a while Troy's outfit, the fish tank - Patrick Stewart believed that 24th-century humans—who had evolved past cruelty and the subjugation of life—would not keep a living creature in a glass tank for mere display.

[–] flir 21 minutes ago

I thought the fish was still there, based on this dialogue from Q in All Good Things: "The anomaly. My ship. My crew. I suppose you're worried about your fish too."

[–] rpmisms 7 hours ago

Roddenberry had much less to do with TNG, which is why it's better.

[–] hnlmorg 7 hours ago

Much less, but not none at all. Roddenberry refused to budge on his rule that the crew shouldn’t have grievances with one another. That why even scenes shared earlier still end in a positive outcome.

Whereas Voyager, which was written after Roddenberrys passing, leaned heavily into inter-crew disputes.

[–] derefr 7 hours ago

I have to hand it to Roddenberry, though; even though having no infighting produces a somewhat-unrealistic show, I think there's a solid justification to have the rule anyway. It prevented TOS and TNG scripts from being caught in tension between trying to "say something", vs. entertaining the audience with "low" soap-opera drama (of the kind you see increasingly in the later series.)

I have a feeling this might be no small part in why TOS and TNG are the two ST series that contain 90% of the "only comes up once" sci-fi plots / concepts / worldbuilding that people ever make reference to when talking about "things from Star Trek" rather than when talking about Star Trek. TOS and TNG, while definitely soft sci-fi, were to some degree trying to create 22-minute-long works of literary Speculative Fiction, modelled after the sort of things you'd read in serial SF magazines of the 1950s. Later ST series are emphatically not that, and nor do they try to be.

[–] hnlmorg 7 hours ago

Yeah. I’ve heard the writers hated it because they had to work so much harder to create drama.

But as you said, I think it ends up with a higher quality show.

[–] WalterBright 6 hours ago

Some TOS episodes were based on classic scifi stories, like "Voyage of the Space Beagle". Also, Roddenberry employed established scifi authors like David Gerrold to script episodes.

An annoying facet of ST episodes is the morality lessons they push, like on every episode of The Brady Bunch.

[–] opo 12 minutes ago

>Also, Roddenberry employed established scifi authors like David Gerrold to script episodes.

While established SF writers wrote episodes for the original series (Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, Theodore Sturgeon, Norman Spinrad, etc.), David Gerrold was a recent college graduate and "The Trouble With Tribbles" was his first sale.

[–] hnlmorg 6 hours ago

For me, that’s the best part of the TOS era.

It’s nice to watch something that highlights the best of humanity in a future setting.

Almost everything else in SciFi is dystopian. But ST is a rarity. And it’s all the more beautiful for it.

[–] alittlebee 5 hours ago

Yeah, I agree.. I still rewatch it every so often, when I'm feeling down or uninspired.

[–] kstenerud 6 hours ago

I actually found DS9 to be the best of all of them. Aside from the terrible Dr Bashir character, they felt believable, and like any real environment had personality clashes, personal issues, baggage, and of course interpersonal conflicts.

The difference was that rather than turn it into soap opera porn, the characters actually tried to behave professionally (most of the time).

[–] derefr 6 hours ago

Thus "increasingly" :)

• DS9 only had a little soap-opera drama, serving as almost a kind of fanservice sprinkled judiciously into otherwise-thematic B-plots.

• VOY had more, with entire B-plots of episodes now being character-focused, including a few arcs that would have worked just as well if transplanted into some modern-age military drama with no SF elements.

• Drama-as-the-A-plot episodes were appearing by ENT.

(After that I stopped watching, but I've heard the trend has just continued from there.)

[–] AngryData 5 hours ago

The Lower Decks was good as a love letter to older fans, I do recommend that. But both Discovery and Academy were horrendous and I regret the time spent. Picard had a few good episodes and it was nice to see the old crew but was not great. Stranger New Worlds had some good things and wasn't a butcher job but not anything to write home about in my opinion.

[–] hnlmorg 6 hours ago

Strange New Worlds started strong. But the last couple of series was so bad for the drama. In fact one episode was a literal soap opera.

[–] outworlder 4 hours ago

I would have ZERO issues with the wacky episodes if and only if we were back to the 20-ish episodes per season format. Then sure, do a puppet show. Musical episodes (for how much I HATE musicals, it was decently enjoyable, Klingon boy band was super unexpected).

But when you only have half a dozen-ish episodes per season, you can't afford filler.

[–] 1potato 5 hours ago

Agree. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that they gave Captain Sisko's character -- not to mention Worf, O'Brien and others -- a lot more room to develop and grow.

I really enjoyed TNG as well, and DS9 probably wouldn't have even happened if not for TNG's excellence. I never really felt like the writers gave Picard's character a lot of room to change, though. A lot of the time, he was almost like the sitcom dad who was mainly there to teach the kids a lesson at the end of the episode. That's not a knock on Stewart's acting ability; I'd say he was almost certainly the best actor on the show.

Also agree about Bashir.

[–] hnlmorg 4 hours ago

Though in defence to Bashir, without him you wouldn’t have Garak, who is possibly one of the best written characters in all of SciFi.

And some of O'Brien‘s best performances were counterpointing Bashir too.

I think as a solo character, he’s a little shallow. But he works exceptionally well at being an anchor for other characters to play off.

[–] outworlder 4 hours ago

The Inner Light begs to disagree. Plus his Borg summer camp.

But yes, those instances were a bit rare.

[–] yyyk 6 hours ago

TOS and TNG were sci-fi, even if many scripts varied. Given its time, you could have the classic and interesting tech and society questions there, even if they avoided a lot of the implications. But over time the franchise lost this key part, and so it's much worse for the wear. We could use an actually relevant sci-fi series given current tech.

[–] ahazred8ta 5 hours ago

Unfortunately the 1970s ST animated series gave us the 'trapped in the holodeck' story format. The TNG writers leaned a little too heavily on it.

[–] rpmisms 4 hours ago

I think maybe 5 total episodes meet that description.

[–] WalterBright 7 hours ago

I'm not so sure about that. I enjoyed the subtle humor of the illogical Mr Spock, whose logic always came to the wrong conclusion. And McCoy with "dammit Jim I'm a doctor not a bricklayer!"

The best dialog ever:

Lawyer: Mr Spock, I understand you know something about computers?

Spock: I know all about them.

Always makes me laugh.

[–] tmtvl 2 hours ago

Reminds me of that one episode where Mr. Spock figures out there's a problem with the computer because it loses at chess. And he knows it shouldn't lose at chess because he programmed it himself.

[–] randcraw 7 hours ago

And it had a MUCH bigger budget than the original, as well as the assurance that it wouldn't be cancelled at a moment's notice.

[–] WalterBright 7 hours ago

Eh, it's the writing and the characters that make it fly, not the budget. TOS was blessed with some really good writers, and was very lucky with the actors.

[–] msabalau 5 hours ago

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.

Ursula K. LeGuin

[–] N_Lens 2 hours ago

Unsurprising, then, that Peter Theil found common ground with Mordor & Sauron when reading LOTR.

[–] JojoFatsani 4 hours ago

Apparently by the end of TNG’s run the writers were really struggling since having no interpersonal conflicts (a key tenant laid down by Roddenberry) is pretty bad for character development

DS9 did good in adding a bunch of non star fleet characters who had maybe more realistic motivations. Voyager tried but immediately just turned them all into a big happy family just like TNG.

[–] bpshaver 3 hours ago

All utopias are fictional. Arguably that is definitive of the term as coined by Thomas More.

[–] hydrogen7800 6 hours ago

That's sort of the point of fiction, though, isn't it? Sure, a more complex fiction might be more rewarding, but simple ideals can also be very satisfying and can be grounding too.

[–] WalterBright 6 hours ago

I prefer fiction that is entertaining, rather than preaching the author's vision of morality/politics.

[–] outworlder 4 hours ago

> rather than preaching the author's vision of morality/politics.

It's pretty much impossible to have that. You'll always have the author's worldview shaping the fictional world.

[–] WalterBright 3 hours ago

I don't recall that in War of the Worlds!

[–] tarsierscripter 2 hours ago

HG Wells' politics are plain as day in his stories. He was a pacifist and social Darwinist. The defeat of the Martians by the common cold (after the failure of military action) is 100% on point for him.

[–] entropie 6 hours ago

> The benevolent dictator always makes the right decisions. He's surrounded by his loyal band of perfect lieutenants, who apparently have zero desire to advance, and have no flaws at all.

That's why Orville is my favorite of the newer ST series. It has the high moral standards of the original series, but with characters who are far from perfect, who make mistakes, and who are sometimes even a little weird.

[–] adzm 4 hours ago

Jonathon Frakes / Riker directed two great episodes of the Orville as well

[–] sjdh76 5 hours ago

Have you heard about religion? Its fiction too. Yet it has survived as long aa the chimp troupe has. The human brain generates predictions over different time horizons. When they dont align what is it supposed to do to prevent itself unraveling? It generates fiction. Fiction is how it stays stable.

[–] lopsotronic 6 hours ago

We become what we pretend to be.

[–] otikik 3 hours ago

> surrounded by his loyal band of perfect lieutenants, who apparently have zero desire to advance, and have no flaws at al

Sir, I believe you have not watched it.

[–] WalterBright 3 hours ago

I've seen every episode of TOS, most multiple times.

[–] otikik 3 hours ago

Then you must have had such a good time that you forgot everyone’s flaws!

[–] krapp 5 hours ago

Also keep in mind that part of what makes the utopia work, canonically, is that humans have somehow evolved beyond their vices and bigotry and the fully voluntarist socialist society it portrays just works because everyone is perfectly fine working just for the betterment of humankind or personal intellectual gratification.

In other words it only works because it ignores basic human nature. Which is one reason why Star Trek's utopia isn't really tractable. The others being the technology that completely ignores the laws of physics. Free energy, warp drives and magic boxes that grant wishes.

If people want a science fiction "utopia" I'd say look at Babylon 5. It certainly has its flaws but its Utopia isn't real (because they never are,) it's an ideal that people are always struggling towards.

[–] hax0ron3 4 hours ago

In-universe there was a brutal nuclear war that killed a large number of people. And then after the war they developed technology that got rid of a lot of material scarcity and disease.

I find it somewhat plausible that this could actually lead to something like the show depicts. There is precedent for sweeping moral changes in human history. For example, large parts of the world now find practices like torture, slavery, and collective punishment to be repugnant. Those practices still happen to some extent, but they're not viewed as being just normal like they generally were seen back in the day.

Another example is how Europe and Japan after WW2 genuinely became more pacifistic. Not just as a pretense to fool outsiders, but as a genuine change in how the inhabitants see things.

[–] ahazred8ta 5 hours ago

Apparently there's enough capitalism for mining colonies and merchant traders. "No!! If you shut down the mine we'll go bankrupt!!"

[–] krapp 4 hours ago

I mean, at the end of the day Star Trek is a capitalist product written by capitalists meant to appeal to an audience raised to believe in the absolute moral good of capitalism. Every now and they might sneak in a sly and gentle anti-capitalist criticism (the Ferengi were good for that) but no one actually wants to alienate their audience.

[–] hax0ron3 4 hours ago

I don't think it's quite that capitalist.

Picard says at one point "A lot has changed in three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of 'things'. We have eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions."

At another point he says "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."

To be fair, capitalism is mainly a system of contracts and laws that allow for certain kinds of ownership structures and investments. It does not necessarily have to be done in a way that is obsessed with the accumulation of things or wealth. So those quotes are also not really anti-capitalist. But the quotes are, at least, not friendly to today's common notion of what 'capitalism' means.

[–] krapp 2 hours ago

When I say Star Trek is capitalist I mean the franchise, the product itself. The purpose of Star Trek is to sell merchandise and ad revenue. Or streaming subscriptions. That necessarily affects the kind of stories it can tell. The showrunners don't actually care about the anti-capitalist message, per se, except to the degree that it helps sell the product.