Too many dystopias - the world needs utopian Star Trek

[T'Girl]

Nobody has ever argued for a Star Trek without conflict, or for perfect characters, or a perfect society

Actally many fans have doe just this. The term (irc) utopia was never mentioned in any of the series, this is a invention of some people within Trek fandom. You'll find threads frequently here where it is argued strongly that people in the future are better than us today, more culturally evolved, the term superor is occasioally used.

Supposedly, al conflict should come from players outside of Starfeet and the Federation.

Personally, I want to see regular joes from a every day society exploring he galaxy, not perfect supermen.

 

[fireproof78]

Drama is conflict.

Conflict exists in dystopias.

The moment that DS9 showed us a Federation with a darker side is the moment that the Federation became more interesting to me.

A balance is possible I suppose but personally, I'd like to see some complexity and darkness.

For me, DS9 actually made the Federation less interesting - in later season, such as the episode where Ezri Dax visits her family as if on a holiday - it seemed like space had been turned from "a humanitarian federated union of exotic planets" into "I took a flight from New York to Washington State on business". Starships being blown up in huge numbers made them seem less unique - more like WW2 fighter planes. In contrast, when the "Churchill" went down in Babylon 5, it sent shivers through my body - the episode Severed Dreams is still incredible. And that was a starship that hadn't even been featured in any other episode.

JJ Trek actually gets it right by injecting an element of James Cook-ian distance back into the Federation, by making Vulcan seem genuinely a foreign port with a unique society. Enterprise also tried, especially under Manny Coto.

Do we really need to see a society that is a mirror image of the continental United States?

What I'm getting at, others have said better:

I'm fed up with the dystopian cheese you're being forcefed in today's tv etc. It has become rather annoying since all the shows turned into "bad mood" tv.

I don't need to watch Ensign Borderline cut his/her/its wrists between missions. The positive view is an essential part of Star Trek.

That's exactly it. And the bad example to me is Stargate Universe, which was a clone of NuBSG.

I agree to BillJ too. "positive future" doesn't exclude drama or excitement

Whenever anybody asks me how I can enjoy sad, depressing movies I say "It brings me joy to be emotionally moved in any direction".

But the positive image of the human future is a big part of what makes Star Trek unique and a big part of the reason people still obsess over it.

My general point to everyone is:

Nobody has ever argued for a Star Trek without conflict, or for perfect characters, or a perfect society, but what we are saying is that science fiction can also be an avenue for the exploration of social ideas that haven't actually happened. The Federation need not be mired in every problem of our own time - part of the enjoyment of speculative fiction, is, after all, speculation! We can imagine better systems, better worlds - "people find it easier these days to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism" indeed! What is the point of social science fiction if it doesn't explore strange social ideas and experiment? TNG was imaginative, not unrealistic! Are we content to be less imaginative than Ming Dynasty China? Even they were not all super-conservative "things have happened this way for a thousand years" - they had social fiction about the overthrow of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, and flights of fancy like Journey to the West. But we in the 21st century are content to say "people don't change, the fundamentals of civilization and economics remain the same, so let all our drama reflect this". Why bother reading sci-fi then? I can read a history book, if all I want to see is what has happened before. GRRM's books are more or less the same as reading "The Siege of Constantinople" by Roger Crowley; so why did he bother writing fantasy? (I still enjoy it, but I'm saying, it hardly takes advantage of it's genre to run with imagination).

This wasn't directed at anyone in particular - it's not a reply but a general response to the idea that dystopias like Battlestar Galactica, Stargate: Universe, Game of Thrones and so on are somehow more mature or realistic. I don't think a work such as the Lord of the Rings is less mature because Aragorn doesn't have a tax policy - or that Star Trek is less complex for saying humanity had evolved socially. Actually I view them as two of the most mature and complicated works of fiction I've ever read - and I wager they will be remembered long after flash-in-the-pan dystopias have lost people's interest. I think to argue that they are less complex misunderstands the purpose of speculative literature or drama, or to judge it by rules it never had any interest in following to begin with.

Nobody has ever argued for a Star Trek without conflict, or for perfect characters, or a perfect society

Actally many fans have doe just this. The term (irc) utopia was never mentioned in any of the series, this is a invention of some people within Trek fandom. You'll find threads frequently here where it is argued strongly that people in the future are better than us today, more culturally evolved, the term superor is occasioally used.

Supposedly, al conflict should come from players outside of Starfeet and the Federation.

Personally, I want to see regular joes from a every day society exploring he galaxy, not perfect supermen.

Curious. I find some points in your post interesting.

First of all, you want "everyday joes" as characters, but not a "mirror of the US in the Federation." This begs the begs the question as to what an "everyday joe" looks like in the Federation. How do you define that?

Secondly, the larger part of science fiction is not always to predict the future, but also to comment on current trends. The "apocalyptic future" is easier to imagine because you have removed different societal elements that may make your story easier to tell, or allow you to rework it without much explanation. Money changed? Eh, nuclear war happened and things changed.

Social commentary functions well when the fictional society is close enough to a contemporary one for the commentary to make sense. Writers often imagine dystopias to use hyperbole to emphasis a flaw or comment on current society. That was GR's larger purpose in creating TOS as he did.

 

[Drone]

Not involving Trek in this discussion, but related to the OP. I'm not greatly familiar with the range of young adult speculative fiction, but based on the considerable success of the two recent film franchises and a few other popular series that I've glanced at in book stores, does it seem that proportionately this genre is more or less dystopian than "adult" science/social fiction? In either case, what do you think accounts for its prominence in YA fiction? Cynicism about the dysfunction of our governmental and social structures or more simply a recognition that such scenarios provide a thrilling and engaging means of creating a sympathetic and fascinating hero or heroine that teens find easy and plausible to identify with? More likely a bit of both?

 

[eyeresist]

^ Turn that into a separate thread.

 

[Tim Walker]

Drama is conflict.

Conflict exists in dystopias.

The moment that DS9 showed us a Federation with a darker side is the moment that the Federation became more interesting to me.

A balance is possible I suppose but personally, I'd like to see some complexity and darkness.

Totally agree.

I agree, too, but I think you're comparing with that "evolved humanity" from TNG that I was talking about, rather than what we were shown on TOS. TOS had vain and unbalanced scientists, admirals and commodores that were jerks, crewpeople who were racist/xenophobic, and so on - but STILL managed to show an optimistic future overall. Just because something can look up at a brighter future doesn't mean everything is *perfect*.

I would definitely rather see something that shows a positive future with likable characters. There can be drama there, as TOS showed us.

Yes, exactly.

What TOS had-at least out on the Final Frontier-was not utopia, but rather a strand of optimism.

TOS at its best found the right balance between conflict/drama and optimism.

Like, we aren't perfect, but we are trying to do the right thing.

 

[USS Triumphant]

^ Turn that into a separate thread.

Seconded. Copy this into a thread starter in the Science Fiction / Fantasy forum, and I'll go post in it.

 

[Galileo7]

Star Trek definitely would not work as a dreary dystopia. Maybe they could rein in on the utopian stuff, but turning tit into BSG or something is too far in the wrong direction.

And I like BSG, but Star Trek should not be BSG. Let Star Trek be Star Trek.

Agree.

Star Trek should always depict a future much, much better than Earth today, albeit never perfect.

 

[Amaraen]

I would not call it "utopia", but I understand what the author of the topic is saying and I agree.

There are still conflicts in Federation society, especially from without. Humans of the 23rd and 24th century however do not have the problems we do in the 21st. Namely greed is gone, which his huge. A lot of this of course comes from infinite energy and the elimination of scarcity. With this it is easy to imagine a much better world. We would no longer be fighting over resources and land. Think of how this would turn our entire society on its head. People would be much more enlightened, able to follow other pursuits than the accumulation of wealth (which would become completely pointless).

So we have a united society focused on better things: scientific discovery (for its own sake), exploration, art, culture, etc. Imagine how much better things would be if there was no profit motive: the news would be better, research would be reliable, politics would be honest, and so on. It is easy to imagine how people would generally become better over time, a cultural evolution.

I am hoping that the new Star Trek series returns us to that world. It is something to look forward to. And then we can see how these people interact with what they find amongst the stars.

PLEASE do not try to clone Game of Thrones.

 

[martok2112]

Lots of ideologies look great on paper, but sadly there's almost always someone who is willing, and sometimes able to exploit the parts of said ideology to his/her own advantage, and often at the expense and eventual subjugation of those who practiced it for its original purpose.

 

[eyeresist]

Star Trek definitely would not work as a dreary dystopia. Maybe they could rein in on the utopian stuff, but turning it into BSG or something is too far in the wrong direction.

And I like BSG, but Star Trek should not be BSG. Let Star Trek be Star Trek.

Agree.

Star Trek should always depict a future much, much better than Earth today, albeit never perfect.

The future presented doesn't have to better, but the attitude does. A minimum of cynicism and despair.

 

[fireproof78]

I would not call it "utopia", but I understand what the author of the topic is saying and I agree.

There are still conflicts in Federation society, especially from without. Humans of the 23rd and 24th century however do not have the problems we do in the 21st. Namely greed is gone, which his huge. A lot of this of course comes from infinite energy and the elimination of scarcity. With this it is easy to imagine a much better world. We would no longer be fighting over resources and land. Think of how this would turn our entire society on its head. People would be much more enlightened, able to follow other pursuits than the accumulation of wealth (which would become completely pointless).

So we have a united society focused on better things: scientific discovery (for its own sake), exploration, art, culture, etc. Imagine how much better things would be if there was no profit motive: the news would be better, research would be reliable, politics would be honest, and so on. It is easy to imagine how people would generally become better over time, a cultural evolution.

I am hoping that the new Star Trek series returns us to that world. It is something to look forward to. And then we can see how these people interact with what they find amongst the stars.

PLEASE do not try to clone Game of Thrones.

I agree with the overall premise of your post, with some discussion points.

First of all, one aspect of TOS that I like was there was some diversity and disagreement within Federation society. And not just the Tellarites and the Vulcans, but even among how Federation society was run. As bad as "Way to Eden" was done, Dr. Servin's larger point was that Federation society was doing harm to him, and he rejected it. Spock's comment about how some are uncomfortable with the pre-planned colonies and organization is uncomfortable or disagreeable for some. That's a facet that really could be explored more in a new show.

A second point-greed may have been eliminated from the larger society, but there are still elements who are pursuing it. Harry Mudd, Okana and Vash (TOS and TNG, respectively) are far more soldiers of fortune than the average Federation citizen. Which, to me, is fine. I think that the ability to go and treasure hunt in space would be an interesting development.

I generally agree that optimism about the human condition is part of the overall foundation of Star Trek. Regardless of the problems encountered, they can be dealt with.

I also agree that any reference or cloning of Game of Thrones should be avoided, as much as possible.

 

[BigJake]

Frankly as TNG-era Trek painted its way out of the corner that the "evolved humanity" conceit created for it, something interesting happened: it was increasingly hinted at that the "evolved humanity" stuff was a conceit of the Federation, potentially a fallacious belief in human exceptionalism that had arisen from a lucky historical run and a period of prosperity.

That's actually a completely believable blind spot for an advanced civilization, one that elements of it could well be counted on to exploit. ("Yes, we've 'evolved beyond greed,'" says the 24th century version of the Koch brothers as he sets about quietly suborning and exploiting planets in Federation space supposedly "protected" by the Prime Directive. "Isn't that wonderful? Nothing to see here.") I think it'd be interesting for Trek to play with this idea of "utopia" -- it just wouldn't be interesting for it to play it as a "true" feature of the setting (though the Federation ought to have some genuine virtues to boast of).

 

[Kor]

To cash in on recent trends, Trek should most definitely depict an angst-y teenage post-apocalyptic dystopia.... the Federation has fallen, an oppressive regime rules the quadrant, and it's up to a bunch of moody 17 to 20 year-olds in a salvaged Starship to make things better.

Kor

 

[Drone]

To cash in on recent trends, Trek should most definitely depict an angst-y teenage post-apocalyptic dystopia.... the Federation has fallen, an oppressive regime rules the quadrant, and it's up to a bunch of moody 17 to 20 year-olds in a salvaged Starship to make things better.

Kor

Sounds like we're back to this again.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAgODVbPq78

 

[fireproof78]

To cash in on recent trends, Trek should most definitely depict an angst-y teenage post-apocalyptic dystopia.... the Federation has fallen, an oppressive regime rules the quadrant, and it's up to a bunch of moody 17 to 20 year-olds in a salvaged Starship to make things better.

Kor

Sounds like we're back to this again.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAgODVbPq78

I prefer this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-pm8uxw1MM

 

[Drone]

I think you're right, overall. Getting even further away from my response to Kor's point, I think this one isn't half bad either.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6fgZP7jP4o

 

[T'Girl]

the "evolved humanity" stuff was a conceit of the Federation, potentially a fallacious belief in human exceptionalism that had arisen from a lucky historical run and a period of prosperity

The misconception of possessing a actually utopia, by a generally comfortable society. It's like in the movie First Contact, where Lily rubs Picard's nose in the fact that he really isn't evolved in the least.

the 24th century version of the Koch brothers

Or even worse, the future continuation of the ultimate evil, the "Clinton Foundation."

 

[Makarov]

Eh I don't really buy the whole theory that Picard's descriptions of humanity are out of touch with reality - Picard has to act as a diplomat and studies history/archaeology - if anyone would be aware of what earth is really like it would be Picard.

Compared to Lily's time period, Picard's earth is actually totally evolved relative to them. Any of those people would think Picard's earth is a utopia. Working to improve yourself instead of for survival, much less crime, improved medicine and stuff. Given that she had no experience with the borg, Lily was kind of talking out of her rear end there.

 

[hux]

They'd think Picard's Earth was technologically advanced. They'd know that if you took that technological comfort away from them, they'd be raping and pillaging just like horny Vikings.

The problem with Picard's speech is that it pretends that humanity has evolved into a different superior species rather than just developed a lot of very beneficial technology. This is frankly dumb, not to mention insulting to the apparent caveman he's patronising in the episode.

Picard is a career Starfleet man. I doubt he knows anything about a world beyond that.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ But he is also an experienced archaeologist. That would help broaden his horizons, so to speak.