Thread by @oodja

Listen up, nerds. We need to have a serious talk about Star Trek, optimism and the future.

I'm seeing a lot of people complaining about Star Trek: Discovery and Picard that the showrunners have deprived us of the essential optimistic future presented by the original series and The Next Generation in favor of a grimdark dystopian vision.

Star Trek's original inspirational message was that with Mankind seemingly on the edge of Mutual Assured Destruction (both in the 60's *and* the 80's), we were told that if we could only find a way to step back from this brink that our future would be unlimited.

Lots of Cold War science fiction was predicated on this promise. Living on the brink of nuclear annihilation was a kind of test for civilization- if we passed, or so the narrative went, we would inherit utopia.

Many of us grew up on this as if it were a religious belief. The madness that we had been born and raised into was a trial for all of Mankind and we had to work together to pass it. In this sense Star Trek was our holy dogma, the original series our Old Testament and TNG the New.

I believed this with all of my heart. I believed that science and rationalism would carry the day, and that when all was said and done there were more of us than there were of them. Like John Lennon said: You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...

And the crazy thing is, for a briefest of moments, it felt like it was ACTUALLY GOING TO HAPPEN. When the Berlin Wall came down, when Gorbachev opened up the Soviet Union, it was like all that Star Trek and Cold War-era sci-fi had prophesied was at long last coming to pass.

The world held its breath, and so did we...

...and history didn't end. The euphoria of the end of the Cold War was replaced by a hangover of nationalism and ethnic strife. After decades of saying "Never Again" the world stood silent as people around the world committed genocide.

Meanwhile the mutual assured destruction of the Cold War was replaced by new visions of doomsday- fascism, terrorism, ecological collapse. Whatever magical feeling of promise we had was already long gone by the time that the events of September 11th 2001 rolled around.

The galling thing is that 9/11 gave the world a second chance. Hey guys, the universe seemed to be saying, you fucked it up when the Cold War ended but here's another shot at coming together. Hell, it worked in the Watchmen graphic novel- maybe it'll work for real too.

But we fucked up that second shot as well. Instead of finding a new way to move forward as a global community we retreated even further into our nationalist shells and kicked off the 21st century as if we had learned absolutely nothing from 20th.

This, my fellow nerds, is the future we inherited: one of broken promises and shattered dreams. Pretending that we can still get the original Star Trek utopia if we just believe hard enough isn't just wishful thinking- it's a goddamned lie.

"I want my optimism back!" I hear people say. Well guess what? We all fucking do. But the utopia that the Star Trek of the 60's and 80's promised us is no longer valid. It is an alternate timeline now. We had our chance at that particular future and WE FUCKING BLEW IT.

This is not to say that we can't still have a better future, but the challenge is different for us. We don't get the messianic vision of paradise anymore because those opportunities came and went and were squandered.

If we want our utopia back, we're going to have to fight for it. Inch by fucking inch. Tooth and fucking nail. And guess what? It's going to suck.

This is the future that Star Trek has inherited. Starting with a utopian vision at this point is meaningless retro-futurist escapism. I did not fall in love with Star Trek as a child because it was escapist. I fell in love with Trek because IT SHOWED ME THE WAY.

Our way is the path of redemption. Our way is the path of fixing the planet. Our way is the path of rejecting the darkest impulses of our past and striving toward a more just future. Modern Star Trek is showing us the way to these things by telling us that THE STRUGGLE NEVER ENDS

Yes, Discovery and Picard have taken the bloom off the rose of Trek's original utopian promises, but the showrunners are not doing it to piss on Roddenberry's legacy but to remind us that these promises are CONDITIONAL. That even in the 23rd/24th centuries we must fight for them.

The promise is still there amongst the wreckage. The hope is still there amid the tragedy. If you can't see the underlying belief in humanity that girds Discovery and Picard then you are missing the struggle that defines New Trek.

To borrow a line from another fandom, "I have spoken."

If you've gotten this far, thanks for listening to me rant. These ideas have been percolating through my brain for quite some time and I finally felt I could express them adequately.

Live long and prosper, you nerds!