I mostly created it because I wanted to write something about Star Trek (which I will below). Perhaps if anyone's interested I'll continue to post on here. Anyways...
If you know me you probably know I like Star Trek quite a bit. When that last movie came out (you know the one where Kirk didn't die and Spock ripped off Wrath of Khan) alot of fans said that it wasn't true to the spirit of Gene Roddenberry's creation, that it missed the appeal of Star Trek. A while later me and my brothers were discussing what we would have wanted ideally for the modern continuation of the franchise and my brother said some that amounted to, "Maybe it just should have ended, there was anything that special about star trek anyways." All this got me thinking, was there anything special about Star Trek? What exactly is it's "spirit", it's appeal? That's why I'm writing this post. To put down in words why Star Trek is special, at least for me.
In many ways my brother was right, the stories told in Star Trek are not exactly one of a kind. Space travel, intergalactic wars, cyborgs who want to transform humanity, time travel, all are common sci-fi story devices and all pop up quite frequently in Trek. I've often said that the main appeal of Star Trek for me was it's characters. But while Trek lore does contain many interesting and complex characters, many of them are archetypes, and besides, in any story the main attraction is generally the characters, as they're the ones you're going on a journey with. So why is Trek different for me? Why am I more invested in it than say X-Files (sorry that's a bit dated, and no I'm not bashing X-Files)? Well, the one thing that makes Trek stand apart from other sci-fi properties is it's positive outlook for the future. Contrast the dystopian/apocalyptic futures shown in the Matrix or Terminator franchises, where the world is run by machines, with Star Trek's United Federation of Planets, who use technology to the benefit of mankind. Or look at Blade Runner, where the replicants are hunted down and treated sub-human, and compare that to Trek where the android Data is treated with dignity like any other Star Fleet officer and actually helped and encouraged on his quest to gain humanity. Science Fiction is full of dark pessimistic views of the future, but Star Trek offers hope for mankind and this was Gene Roddenberry's intention, he wanted to show what humanity could become if only we would learn from yesterday's mistakes to work for a better tomorrow.
The most striking comparison I can think of between Star Trek and another sci-fi property is with Alan Moore's acclaimed comic Watchmen. In Watchmen, former vigilante Ozymandias attempts to bring peace to the world by faking an alien attack on New York city, sacrificing innocent lives in the hope that mankind will unite against a common threat and overcome their differences. Contrast this to Star Trek, where human scientist Zefram Cochrane invents warp drive and makes the first warp flight which is detected by a Vulcan ship, leading earth to have first contact with an alien race. This event eventually leads the people of earth to unite under one unified world government. In Watchmen people overcome their differences because of a faked alien threat, one which killed thousands of innocent people, while in Star Trek, because of one man's ingenuity, the people of earth meet a peaceful alien race and become aware of a larger world beyond their own. This revelation leads them to realize that we're all just one race in a universe of many.
You might ask why I, as a conservative Catholic, would find this kind of hippie/peaceful coexistence mentality appealing. I think that as conservatives who believe that war is an often necessary evil we forget that it is an evil, and something to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. The Church has always encouraged peaceful solutions to the world's problems. In fact it was while reading the Catechism that I stumbled across a certain paragraph that inspired me to write this article:
"Injustice, excessive economic or social inequalities, envy, distrust, and pride raging among men and nations constantly threaten peace and cause wars. Everything done to overcome these disorders contributes to building up peace and avoiding war:So, for me, that's the appeal of Star Trek. It presents a future where mankind has overcome it's differences and people work together for a better tomorrow. While this notion might seem naive, after all we are living in what my father calls a "post Garden of Eden world", it doesn't mean we shouldn't also work toward a brighter tomorrow, and it certainly doesn't mean that stories like Star Trek can't exist to inspire us, to lift our eyes to the stars and show us that the human adventure is only beginning...
(Catachism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 2317)Insofar as men are sinners, the threat of war hangs over them and will so continue until Christ comes again; but insofar as they can vanquish sin by coming together in charity, violence itself will be vanquished and these words will be fulfilled: “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”"
