I Imagine, Therefore I Am: Star Trek & the Importance of Shared Utopia

by Rita Sinorita Fierro, Ph.D

As Whoopi Goldberg said in a passionate and heartfelt commentary on The View, it’s hard to believe that with all the State violence of the past month, a high administration official, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor, would have the time to watch, let alone speak out against Starfleet Academy, the newest series from Star Trek. The politician was denouncing “wokeness” in a Tweet, but rather than intimidate, he simply reaffirmed the series’ identity. Gina Yashere and many, many others replied that the series was always woke. Its launch was met with met with harsh reviews in the 60s, when it first aired. The rage of the conservative press, stepped into fullest swing when it aired the first interracial kiss in 1968. It was the height of the Civil Rights Movement: three years after Malcolm X was killed, 8 months after Martin’s assassination, and only a year after the Supreme Court put an end to interracial marriage (1967, Loving v. Virginia). Star Trek has always been on the forefront of a society struggling to envision Utopia in the midst of State violence. Today’s launch of this new series is no exception.

Star Trek was progressive straight out the gate. The first pilot, "The Cage" (produced in 1965 but aired many years in later in 1988) was about the crew getting trapped on planet where mentally superior beings, the Talosians, intended to study humans and identify ways to have their own species survive. They fail when the crew prepares to take their own lives rather than submit to conditions that they rightly call slavery. Then the punchline: “It’s wrong to create a whole race of humans to live as slaves.” and the Talosians response: “We did not see this as possible, the history of your race has a unique hatred of captivity.” It wasn’t a subtle bow to the Civil Right Movement, it was a clear, open statement of support. The series would stay cutting edge even if, the second episode made some compromises.

Episode 2 would air with William Shatner as Captain Kirk, and a man, instead of a woman as first officer. Star Trek has faced with courage the violent identity politics of our evolving times, with its own peculiar style: a world, a galaxy, a universe where those differences no longer played such a crucial role, because humans simply had bigger fish to fry. It’s a not-too-implicit critique of the small-mindedness of conservative us vs. them rivalries. It almost doesn’t matter how high quality the plot of Starfleet Academy is, launched at this moment in time, it plays a similar role.

One thing that State violence does is dampen our ability to see a better world for ourselves. Fiction helps us keep that ability alive. With its view of Earth having overcome its challenges around diversity, race, and money, Star Trek helps us imagine a world that would still be full of tension and wonder even if today’s major problems were gone. Humanity would face new challenges, new ways to discover how to not let the worst of us prevail.

This role of fiction is super important, especially right now. There’s an essential spiritual principle: “What you focus on grows.” All my spiritual mentors have warned me over the years about the importance of my mental hygiene, when we feed the fear, it tends to consume all the good of life. Collective dystopias are dangerous to me, because we have the power to bring forth our fears, and we are dangerously close to the future of The Handmaid’s Tale. So it’s refreshing to exercise our power by watching a familiar utopia resurface, and our energy focus around it, for a change.

While Starfleet Academy is set in a future 3100, farther ahead than any of the other Star Trek series, the tone of the first series is quite different. The Original Series was set in a society that was post-scarcity, cooperative, and multi-species. Starfleet Academy by opposition, is not set in an ideal future in which everything is ok, happy, nor marvelous. It lands itself in a special time of re-building. 120 years after the Burn: an intergalactic catastrophe in which millions died, the Federation was drastically reduced from 348 worlds to 38.

Starfleet Academy has all the special effects and bells and whistles of our time with a different positive outlook of the Original Series: not the challenges we’ve overcome, but the courage in face of the new ones. In the Original Series, space exploration seemed more of a luxury than a necessity. Starfleet Academy does not hold this positivity, giving the impression that universal expansion is an inevitable reality, not a choice. Danger is a reality everyone has learned to make peace with. And in the face of danger, our courage strengthens.

What remains hopeful, even in this troubling context, where it’s clear that all the youth in this cohort have been impacted and marked by violence. Starfleet Academy is the context of world attempting to rebuild itself. Watching the energy and collective will of rebuilding is a healing salve right now.

As we live through a rising authoritarian government, it can provide some relief to think of who we will be on the other side, that this arc of history, too will end, and that coming together, we, too will be able to rebuild.

Yes, my invitation is to not use this series as an opportunity to ignore or anesthetize the grave realities of our time. Rather, it is an opportunity to remember the power of our collective vision and collective intent. An opportunity to see ourselves beyond the challenges of our time and rebuilding the confidence that we can, in fact win.

In the face of state violence, it’s hard to remember at times, there are many more of common folk than there are armed guards. And that when humans choose to be free, nothing can get in our way, not even the fear of death. It is also refreshing to remember that we need an education focused not just on strength, and skill acquisition, but also on ethics, practice, accountability, and repair. A place where privilege still exists and is reframed not as guilt, but as responsibility to notice, listen, and adapt, a place like Starfleet Academy.

How would we educate our youth if we were creating a society around shared well-being rather than scarcity and fear? What would Earth be like if domination were not its organizing principle?