TOS: what if, one day, we get past all of this? What if we get past all the wars, past our own prejudices, and support each other? What if we actually learn to work together?
TNG: and what if we keep going? What if we get past some more prejudices (surprise - we weren’t actually done with that one yet by a long shot, and we may never be actually. But we’ll keep trying)? And what if we get past our consumerism and manufactured scarcity? What if we give everyone what they need to survive and thrive without requiring anything of them in return? What would we become, when we don’t have to be anything? What do people do when they don’t have to?
DS9: and what if these ideals meet more complex situations? What if they meet complex cultural interactions, and the horrors of war? What if they meet people who disagree with them outright? What if we’re confronted with the way that building our ideal little world has isolated and abandoned some of our own people in the process? How can those ideals persist? And should they?
VOY: and what if you’re alone? Truly, utterly alone. With no backup coming, no reputation to carry you. What if it’s just you, one tiny little ship, and your ideals, in a vast quadrant that either doesn’t know them or opposes them entirely? Can Federation values persist? Can we stick to them and survive?
ENT: and what if we’re not even there yet? One day this path may be a major highway, but what if you’re the first one to take a step on this journey? Can we even get there?
DIS: and what if we’re just too far gone? What if you acted against those ideals, and did unspeakable, unforgivable, unredeemable things? What if the people who are supposed to support and represent those ideals the most lose their way, and weaponize them, and weaponize you? What if it’s all been lost? And the worst has happened? What if you find yourself in the aftermath of a war and disaster you can’t hope to understand? What if you aren’t just alone, but you’re alone and everyone here already knows you? Not just that, but they laugh at you when you try to make a difference? What if hope is lost? Can it ever come back? Sometimes today’s world makes me wonder. If we are more far gone than any of us imagined possible, can we still get back to the world that TOS and TNG promised?
SNW: and what if asking all these questions has taken us away from the mission? What if we’ve lost the plot? What if we take all those things that TOS and TNG were trying to do and update them to a modern world? Do they still fit? Is that form of hope, by itself, still relevant to a modern world?
PIC and most of the movies: and what if everyone tells you to step down, to yield to progress, but you aren’t done yet? Should you? Can you?
PRO: and what if you aren’t even there? What if it’s just the ideas and the means to carry them out? Is that enough? Is that enough for someone, even a child, even a group of traumatized and scared children, to adopt those ideals and carry them forward? Do they actually work without you forcing them? Do they have value devoid of cultural context?
LD: and what if you’re not the hero? What if you’re just some dude, just doing a job, just living a life in this world? Is it really all it’s cracked up to be? At the end of the day, can you still build community, and discover yourself, and grow?
Star Trek: no matter how dark things get, can we still hope?
