All this Kurtzman/Section 31 stuff reminds me that not enough people have seen (or understood, I guess) Star Trek:Deep Space Nine.
Because it gets described as “it made the Federation a morally gray society instead of a utopia!” or “it fought back against Roddenberry’s vision for the Federation and Star Trek!” and it’s like… did you watch the same show?
DS9 didn’t think the federation was any less of a utopia, than TNG or TOS or VOY, it said EVEN IN A UTOPIA, THERE WILL BE CHALLENGES, THERE WILL BE USURPERS, THERE WILL BE SNAKES IN THE GARDEN: THAT IS WHY WE MUST FIGHT!
Homefront/Paradise lost are about how even in a utopia, authoritarians will sell fear and get people to give up their freedoms. Fascists will burn the Reichstag to create a crisis they can exploit.
Doctor Bashir, I Presume showed that for a society without money, people still worry about success, and their legacy, and they’ll do horrible things to their children to make sure they can be that legacy. And the episode CLEARLY DISAPPROVES OF THIS! The man responsible realizes the error of his ways and submits to punishment to save his son.
I don’t want to list examples all day, I have other stuff to do, but DS9 very much didn’t say “utopias aren’t real, every so-called utopia has evil somewhere in the foundations”, it said that utopias are something you have to fight to maintain. You can’t take the easy answers, listen to the fascists promising safety, and avoid examining the faults of your society. Sorry. But the good news is that you can, you can win, and you aren’t alone.
DS9 was aiming for more of a “realistic utopia” than other Treks, it’s true, but despite that realism it still said a utopia was possible. It used that realism to show that a better world must still be fought for. And it warned against anyone selling easy solutions to those battles.
Because as has been pointed out recently, fascists don’t sell eternal war and oppression to the in-group: they promise safety and power and belonging and prosperity. They’re gonna oppress them to save us.
DS9 said those men are not to be trusted, and must be opposed. It won’t be easy, there will be struggles, but they will be stopped. The world will get better. We can do this, together.
I don’t know about you, but I find that more optimistic than if they hadn’t, and just said The Federation is Perfect Forever.
TNG takes utopia for granted so much, it barely notices it.
DS9 is a love letter to paradise. It wants the Federation to be heaven, and to make that happen, it shows us all the ways it isn’t, or threatens not to be. It implores us to not take it for granted and shows us what will happen if we do.
It’s not a “haha, the Federation is bad, too” gotcha; it’s a “do you want this? work for it. do you have this? make sure you keep it. do you love this? try to make it even better”.
DS9 is a gardener overlooking a beautiful garden and telling us stories of slugs, drought, and how much upkeep it takes to keep the garden as beautiful as it is. It’s a parent telling us of their child’s difficult puberty and instructing other parents to first, love unconditionally, and second, be prepared to spend late nights talking with their child about their problems because no amount of love can change the fact that life is often complicated but that doesn’t mean the love isn’t required anyway. DS9 is a lover coming back after a nasty fight, hurt but not disillusioned, to sit down and talk about what went wrong because the relationship is good and matters to them and they believe it’s healthy enough that troubles can be talked about and resolved.
DS9 is fucking perfect and I will fight anyone to the death who tries to paint it as the edgy Trek that opened the door for kablam pew pew Trek.