Have you ever thought about Picard carelessly risking the lives of children, the riots on Earth
a couple years from now, or whether Starfleet foots the bill for O'Brien's therapy sessions?
Maybe it's time you do. These are the questionable things we ignore in "Star Trek."
From the earliest days of "Star Trek," nearly every race we've met has resembled ourselves.
Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, and even the Borg. They're all just like us — except for
the make-up and prosthetics. Sure, some have forehead ridges, bumps,
and scales, but only on rare occasions have we seen genuinely unique aliens.
Some of the few exceptions to this relative uniformity include the Sheliak in "The Next
Generation" episode "The Ensigns of Command" and Species 10-C in "Star Trek: Discovery."
For a fictional universe where there is seemingly no end to intelligent life, it's truly remarkable
that nearly every race our characters have encountered is generally composed of carbon-based
humanoid bipeds. Beyond that, almost all of them can live in an oxygen atmosphere.
"Star Trek" tried to explain this in the Season 7 episode of "The Next Generation"
titled "The Chase." There, we learn that billions of years ago an ancient race of humanoid aliens
seeded countless worlds with their DNA, guiding the evolution of other species to their shape and
form. It was a half-hearted retcon that didn't make a lot of sense and wasn't even necessary
because viewers also realize that producing a weekly science fiction series like "Star Trek"
doesn't always grant the luxury of crafting expensive alien special effects. However, it
remains a bit difficult for the audience to ignore the question of why everyone looks so human.
Even non-Trekkies know that Vulcans are a logical and emotionless race of people,
Klingons are a race of mighty warriors, and Romulans are scheming villains.
Dedicated fans know that the Ferengi are greedy and motivated by profit while the Borg
only want to assimilate. However, in the real world, humans make up an inherently diverse
society with a variety of different attitudes, interests, personalities, and traditions. Yet
on "Star Trek," it often seems like every alien race is described in surprisingly singular terms.
"Of all the species we've made contact with, yours is the only one we can't define."
Sure, later "Star Trek" shows tried to expand the characterization of Vulcans,
Klingons, and Romulans by introducing factions among them with different beliefs and goals.
Still, those retcons don't change the fundamental depiction of these groups as a whole.
Beyond that, when "Star Trek" introduces a new planet or race of people, they are quick to
describe them in singular terms. The real-world explanation is that it's a simple shorthand to
deliver the meat of the story to audiences, which explains why viewers don't often question it.
Nevertheless, for a series built off of diversity, most of its alien races are anything but.
According to "Star Trek" lore, the United Federation of Planets was founded by four
alien races: humans, Vulcans, Tellarites, and Andorians. Over the centuries, the organization
has grown to include more than 150 distinct planetary governments and worlds. Despite this,
the overwhelming majority of crew members we see on Federation starships are human.
Sure, every series has a token alien or two on the bridge.
However, while there are ostensibly a handful of non-humans serving on many Federation ships,
we hardly ever see any of them, and it's almost always humans milling around the corridors.
It took until Season 3 of "Discovery," in fact, for a series to star an alien captain.
If the organization is supposed to represent the entire Federation,
we can't help but wonder why their ships all seem to be so human-centric. Once again,
this is almost certainly a budgetary issue, but when one stops for even a
moment to think about it, it makes you wonder if Starfleet has an inherent terrestrial bias.
Surprising sexism and misogyny
For a franchise that claims to be all about diversity, inclusion, and equal rights,
"Star Trek" has had some surprising moments of sexism and misogyny in its long history.
Despite having a high-ranking Black woman serving on the bridge — controversial in
its day — the original series too often made its women out to be helpless and incompetent.
This problem goes beyond the outmoded attitudes of the 1960s that seeped into "The Original Series"
and continues with the 1990s spinoffs. Even when "The Next Generation" tried
to make a statement on the objectification of women in the episode "The Perfect Mate,"
it turned into a message about respecting the traditions of other cultures,
subtly condoning the misogyny at the center of the story.
"Deep Space Nine" did better, as characters are rarely defined solely by their gender and female
crewmembers explore complex, layered stories of their own. But "Voyager" was another matter.
Despite having the franchise's first woman in the captain's chair,
the series was rife with subtle sexism. In the episode "Retrospect," they went so far
as to victim-blame Seven Of Nine after an apparent assault. Meanwhile, many fans on
Reddit felt that Neelix's relationship with the much younger and naive Kes bordered on abusive.
Holodecks were one of the first major new pieces of tech introduced to audiences in "Star Trek:
The Next Generation." As a holographic simulator room, the holodeck can create a convincing
lifelike environment. Users can visit anything from a 19th-century London street to the Valley
of Chula on Romulus. Employed for both leisure and training purposes, it allowed the series to
explore strange new worlds within the ship itself and offered up plenty of opportunities for drama.
"Aren't you taking Clive's death a little seriously?
After all, he was just a holo-suite character."
The problem is, nearly every time we see the holodeck, it's malfunctioning.
Whether it's the result of a random power surge, radiation from a nearby star,
or a crew member creating a supervillain with a set of cryptic instructions, it seems as if
nothing ever goes right on the holodeck. Even the slightest malfunction automatically shuts
off the system's safety protocols that prevent injury and death, taking the holodeck from an
innocent and leisurely respite room to an artificially intelligent kill box.
Starfleet never seemed interested in making it safer, either. On "Voyager" and "Deep
Space Nine," malfunctions on holodecks and holo-suites are still causing problems.
They are easily manipulated, too, allowing anyone with ill intent to turn them into
elaborate death traps. Considering how often things go wrong on the holodeck,
we should be questioning why anyone in Starfleet would ever set foot in one.
Even in the earliest days of "Star Trek," the crew of the Enterprise goes back and
forth through time like they are headed down the street for a cup of coffee.
In "The City on the Edge of Forever," the crew visits a planet with a living portal
that allows McCoy, Kirk, and Spock to travel back to 1930s New York.
After a mix-up and a fix-up, they depart and do nothing to warn other passing ships of the portal.
They don't even contact Starfleet to protect or research this valuable newfound gateway.
Time travel is featured heavily in the movie "Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home,"
where it appears even less consequential. All it takes is some mathematical calculations
and a "slingshot" around the sun and blammo — they're back in 1986. It can't be that simple
and painless, could it? "Star Trek: Picard" uses this method again in the series' second season,
but at least that is done to repair the timeline.
Eventually, Starfleet wises up and creates the Temporal Prime Directive.
However, time travel continues to be treated as if it were largely unremarkable.
"Time travel. Since my first day on the job as a Starfleet captain I swore I'd
never let myself get caught in one of these god-forsaken paradoxes."
Even the advent of the Department of Temporal Investigations doesn't seem
to do much to slow down the number of time travel incidents we see in the franchise.
Like transporters, the universal translator is an essential piece of "Star Trek" technology
that we are almost required to accept without question. Though it may not have been invented by
"Star Trek," the franchise certainly popularized the concept of a device that instantly translates
all communication. Unlike the telepathic field that converts languages in "Doctor Who,"
the universal translator is a technological device carried by every crew member.
It's also embedded in every ship's communication system, allowing characters — and the
audience — to understand each other, despite speaking their own native alien languages.
However, it's never made clear how they work, and the few times they've delved into those details,
it doesn't really add up. Is it a physical communicator with a speaker that translates
in real-time? Does it mute the person's voice? Do you hear them speaking in their language
with the translation overlapping, or do you see the person's mouth moving out of sync?
In early episodes, it's shown as a handheld device, while one "Deep Space Nine" episode
sees Ferengi characters describe the tech as small enough to be hidden deep inside their ears. And
yet, despite still knowing very little about how the universal translators work, they've continued
to be a key element in a number of stories. Every time the show tries to deal with it, it only
creates more questions, leaving us wishing they'd handwave it as vague science — because ultimately,
it's the kind of questionable aspect of "Star Trek" that is best left ignored.
When "Star Trek: The Next Generation" first launched in 1987,
it boasted several notable differences from its 1960s parent series. Instead of a young, dashing,
fist-first Captain Kirk, we met the diplomatic, contemplative, and stern Captain Picard.
Not only was there a new crew, but there was a new starship too. The updated Enterprise-D was bigger,
faster, and more powerful, but it included a surprising addition: families and children.
This new ship could also separate in times of battle,
with the saucer section — which housed hundreds of civilians, including children
of all ages and an entire school system — able to zip off under its own power.
More often than not, the Enterprise-D found itself in conflicts with the Klingons,
Romulans, or the Borg but never bothered to get the saucer section to safety. In fact,
during the show's entire seven-season run, it only successfully separates three times. Thankfully, it
does separate in the film "Generations" when the ship's warp core destroys the rest of the vessel.
With so many civilians on board, it would seem that the captain should immediately
separate the ship and get them to safety before entering a potentially dangerous situation.
Why Picard doesn't do that is anyone's guess.
"Commander Shelby, prepare to initiate your plan to separate
the saucer section when we find the borg."
When it launched in 1966, the 1990s must have seemed far enough out. After all,
radio was a dominant medium just decades ago,
so they might not have suspected television would last into the next millennium — let
alone take their little science fiction series along with it. As such, the writers of "Star
Trek" didn't hesitate to establish a fictional history of the rest of the 20th century and
beyond. This included a global conflict in the 1990s called the Eugenics Wars, during
which the genetically engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh ruled more than half the planet.
A third World War was said to have taken place in the early part of the 21st century,
while later series mention missions to Mars and civil unrest across the planet in 2024.
Even though some of that could still come to pass, much of the fictional history of "Star Trek" no
longer matches up with the real world. Newer shows like "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Star Trek: Picard,"
which see characters travel back to our present, have tried glossing over those details or
retconning events. Unfortunately for the series — but fortunately for us — the fact remains that
"Star Trek" can no longer reconcile the history of their fictional Earth with our real one.
Many episodes of "Star Trek" have included — or been built around — characters going through
traumatic events. These shocking incidents include Kirk being forced to let the woman he loves
die in "City on the Edge of Forever" and Picard's imprisonment by Cardassians
in "Chain of Command." However, in almost every instance,
the Enterprise's officers are back on duty right away as if nothing happened. They are
not given time to recover, and we rarely hear how they're dealing with what they've been through.
"The Next Generation" does dedicate an entire episode to Picard's recovery from
his assimilation by the Borg in "Family," but he is still in command of the Enterprise once he is
de-assimilated. In fairness, much of this is due to the episodic structure of the earlier shows,
which largely avoided longer serialized arcs. However, even on "Deep Space Nine,"
where serialization is standard, Chief O'Brien is regularly put through the wringer. He is tortured
by Cardassians, virtually imprisoned for two decades, and regularly suffers some of the worst
incidents the show presents. Yet each week he is back on duty as soon as he returns to the station.
You'd think by the 24th century, Starfleet would have more enlightened attitudes towards dealing
with workplace stress. You'd think they'd mandate recovery time or treatment to keep
their officers in peak mental shape. However, it seems like in the world of "Star Trek,"
you're mostly expected to be back to work immediately after undergoing severe trauma.
"Besides, you know the adage … captain goes down with his ship. Right?"
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