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The recent flurry of posts on family formation, @PyotrVerkhovensky's post on Chesterton and MAGA, along with the proliferation of Penguin and Starfleet Academy memes in my feed has gotten me thinking about Star Trek again, and the role that aspiration plays in fiction, politics, and life in general.
What can a 24 year-old spin-off of a 60 year-old TV series teach us today's Culture War?
Star Trek is often presented as utopian, but it would be more accurate to describe it as post-post-apocalyptic. While the date and circumstances of "Post-Atomic Horror" have shifted over the decades, the idea that Trek's world is separated from ours by a massive catastrophic event that wiped out a significant portion of humanity has been present since Trek's inception. I find this interesting not, only from a lore perspective but in context of how the real-world has changed around it over the last six decades.
From the original series' premiere in 1966 through the end of the 20th century Star Trek had always been "linear" always moving forward into its own future. That is until "Star Trek: Enterprise". (STE) Enterprise jumped backwards in Trek's timeline to the early days of Starfleet.
In Trek's lore this is a frontier period full of unbounded optimism, but Enterprise premiered in September of 2001, and as those Americans here old enough to have first seen Fight Club in the theater or experience 9/11 as adults will recall, the early 2000s were not exactly an optimistic time. The dot com bubble had just burst, and the US was on a bit of a downs-slope both culturally and economically, the first cracks in the presumptions of progressivism had already appeared, and the quiet suggestion in Star Trek's backstory that "you can't get there from here" was starting to feel much louder. Enterprise sought to be a bridge, not just between the atomic wasteland and utopian vision of the original series, but between the progressive optimism of the late 20th century and the cultural "funk" of the year 2000. This is why, for me at least, Enterprise is simultaneously the most under-developed and under-rated iteration of Star Trek.
The series opens approximately 30 years after a drunken mad scientist living in the black hills converted a surplus nuclear missile into mankind's first FTL-capable spacecraft (*1). This triggers an intervention on the part of a paternalist Vulcan civilization to prevent this band of psychotic gun-monkeys from disrupting the delicate balance of power in our local galactic region. Earth now exists as sort of an indulged vassal of the Vulcans. A vassalage that while largely benign has begun to chafe. There is an increasing vocal faction of humans, most of whom who came of age post-Horror, who wish to see Earth set its own path and develop its own technology base. The situation is somewhat analogous to that of Japan in the 50s and 60s, economically vibrant but also still somewhat traumatized, the mass death and devastation of the Horror still very much within living memory. It is with this as background that the NX Program, a project to build and launch mankind's first proper Starships, is undertaken.
Our heroes are the captain and crew of the NX-1. All through the first season, there of this of their mission being this watershed moment that will determine whether Humanity sets its own path in galactic affairs or simply settles for having ended hunger, war, and disease. At best stagnating under the benevolent colonialism of the Vulcans, at worst losing some vital part of our collective soul.
Unlike the smugly enlightened Starfleet of the TNG era, the humans we meet in STE are clearly rooted in our modern world both aesthetically; The NX series ships follow NASA naming conventions (Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger), while their crews wear uniforms based on contemporary NASA astronaut uniforms. And more fundamentally; They have bitter political disputes and a bit of xenophobic streak. They can also be recklessly forthright when something gets their ire up. They have one ally, the Vulcans, and Archer burns them by revealing one of their covert listening posts operation to the wider galaxy. These humans are arrogant, violent, impulsive, illogical, and they're effectively betting the future of their entire species on a single ship. If the Enterprise gets destroyed or accidentally starts a war with the Klingon Empire that might just be the end of humanity's story right there.
Speaking of the Klingons, let's take a moment to talk about them...
The modern pop-culture image of Klingons as these weird Samurai space-orcs with bumpy foreheads talking endlessly about "honor" while they stab each other in the back mostly comes from Christopher Lloyd's Captain Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Kruge seems to be more of a pirate or privateer than a naval officer, operating on his own initiative rather than as part of a wider organization. While subsequent portrayals would try to walk this back, they were never quite able to shake that image. Even in Star Trek: Deep Space 9, a series that was usually pretty good about giving its aliens depth and nuance, the Klingons come across as a remarkably simplistic and socially primitive society. This is in substantial contrast to how they were presented in the original series.
While originally envisioned by Star Trek producer Gene L. Coon as a mash up of the Soviet, Ottoman, and Mongol Empires, ie a stand-in for every "Eastern Horde" that has threatened Western civilization throughout its history, the original series gives them a lot of background for what could have easily been a just another throw-away villain of the week. The Klingons of TOS are presented as a fully functional society with scientists, lawyers, and diplomats, as well as warriors. They engage in diplomacy and undertake organized campaigns as seen in their introductory episode Errand of Mercy, they make use of proxies as shown in the episodes like Day of the Dove and A Private Little War. They have deep cover operatives as shown in *The Trouble With Tribbles". We even get passing references to famous Klingon actors, popular songs, and mytho-historical figures. While aggressive and expansionistic the Klingons of TOS are a civilization that venerates its warriors rather than a civilization of warriors. A distinction that STE explicitly calls out in the Season 2 episode Judgment.
Though much of it is now considered non-canon, the Original Series expanded universe novels, fan-guides (presented as in-universe guidebooks), and TTRPG took this even further, fleshing out the Klingons' history, and religion. Even giving them an entire constructed language that would be spoken on-screen in subsequent Star Trek movies and spin-off series. These Klingons are not just mindless brutes slobbering Gahg, while their children may train for war as part of their basic schooling, they also enjoy theme-parks and schlocky teleplays. Klingon adults listen to opera and have nuanced conversations about history and philosophy over glasses of Blood Wine. These Klingons are warlike, but they aren't obsessed with war for war's sake. Rather their militarism is an expression of a broader multi-domain aggressiveness.
And it is through this aggressiveness that they perceive something crucial about the other races they come in contact with. There are "Eev" that is beings like themselves, possessed of individual agency and ambition (The Humans,, Vulcans, Romulans, and Andorrans, all falling into this category), and then there are "Kuve", zombies, servitors, livestock, contemptible creatures worthy only of being conquered or consumed. There are shades of the Bene Gesserit's Gom Jabbar test in this distinction complete with Klingon youth having to be "tested with pain sticks" before becoming a legal adult (Coon, Fontana, Ford, Et Al. had clearly read Dune).
It is with this as context that I would like to highlight a scene from the novel The Final Reflection by John Ford, published the same year that Star Trek III would cement the pop culture image of the Klingons. In this scene a Klingon envoy is meeting with a wealthy Earth tycoon, Maxwell Grandisson the Third (this was written before Star Trek IV dropped that line about people in the 24th century not using money into the lore without any thought about how it would work). This man, Grandisson, is the leader of a "Back to Earth" movement that wants to do away with all this expensive and dangerous colonization of other planets bullshit in favor of building a paradise on Earth and he is trying to convince the Klingons to back his political campaign on the basis that if he wins there will be no need for conflict between their two peoples. The Klingon response to his overtures is worth thinking on...
To me, this speaks to the core story/premise of Enterprise. At the start of the series Earth is well on it's way to becoming a post-scarcity society but humanity is also starting to lean toward the Khesterex side of things. A vassal to the Vulcans, a junior ally at best. The NX Program is the physical manifestation of a conscious decision not to sink into comfortable dependency. This isn't the end of the humanity's story where we live boringly ever after, it is the beginning of "To Boldly Go..."
...and it is by "boldly going where no man has gone before", by inserting themselves into the middle of galactic affairs as though they belong, that by the end of Season 3 Humanity has gone from an indulged vassal to regional player and full partner in a powerful 3-way alliance that would have never come about had this band of psychotic gun-monkeys not disrupted the status quo. It is a quintessentially "American" story in that it's both the story of a child culture supplanting its parent as Hegemon and deeply rooted in the frontier mythos. But it's also a more universally human story about how cultures rise, fall, and occasionally merge. At the start of the series the Vulcans are powerful but also stagnant. Too rigid to adapt to changing circumstances and too conservative to tolerate uncertainty or risk even when doing so is arguably necessary. Meanwhile Humanity is both staggeringly ignorant and boundlessly confident. A confidence buoyed in part by the fact that there is nothing anyone can threaten them with short of extinction that they haven't already done to themselves. By the end of the series the two have moderated each other and become the closest of allies. It's a story about finding that balance between realistically assessing your limitations but also having the sense of confidence, self-worth, and "fuck it we ball" attitude necessary to pursue greatness. A worthwhile message for not just for individuals but for entire cultures.
Which brings us to the Culture War angle.
A common critique I see leveled against conservative populists on this forum be is that they lack the intelligence and positive vision for the future necessary to attract "elite human capital". MAGA is obviously the central example here, defined as it is looking backwards to try and recapture a piece of what once was, but I've seen similar complaints leveled against Abe and the LDP in Japan, and as as characters like Javier Milei in Argentina. But something the critics don't seem to grasp is that positive vision or no, their messages resonate, they win elections, and their rallies draw passionate crowds because it's a better story than anything the other side has to offer. A question our resident anti-Populists are going to have to grapple with is what does "elite human capital" have to offer the base-model human other than growing social dysfunction and death via "managed decline"?
I still think we can get to a better future without a catastrophic hard reset but we can't do it with the sort of "Khesterex" thinking that seems to have become endemic to blue spaces. Grievance-mongering might stir up a crowd but gripes alone are not a solid foundation to build upon, nor are the likely to inspire anyone to greatness. If we are going to build a better future, we will need to get away from both the nostalgia of the right and the doubling down on failure that is the left. We need a unifying myth, and I feel like we might be in the early stages of figuring that out.
Well... that's an interesting post! As a fellow Star Trek nerd I'm conflicted on how to respond. You've made so many different, interesting points that I'm disoriented.
On the Enterprise series, personally I still hate it. I hate the opening theme song (trading the classy dramatic music of previous series for a cheesy pop song), I hate the way it retconned an earlier ship named Enterprise, I hate Scott Bakula as an actor, I hate how the showrunners were obviously running out of ideas, and I especially hate how they were trying to shoehorn in then-current year politicals about 9/11 into Star Trek. But I suppose it does have its place as the last of its era, and as something of a time capsule for early 2000s network TV.
I agree with you that Original Series Klingons deserve more respect. They get a lot of shit because of their appearance (which admittedly does look like a weird racial caricature of Turkish or Mongolian people, plus hilariously low-budget). But they're written as intelligent and respect-worthy adversaries. In many ways, not that different from Kirk. When they're first introduced Kirk is trying to blend in among a planet of pacifists, but the Klingons instantly sus him out as being different and more like themselves. They both share contempt for the pacifists, even when it's revealed that they're secretly a more advanced race. And the Klingons are very much a match for the Federation and a huge threat. Later series make them look cool, but act kinda goofy, just blundering around with swords and being stupid. "Samurai/vikings in space" turn out to be no match at all for hyper advanced humans.
Culture War angle: basically, I agree. But this is admittedly a spicy hot take. Most people take it for granted that the ideal utopian future is one of perpetual peace. But why should that be the case? We could openly embrace our identity as an Empire in the mold of the Roman Empire. End birthright citizenship, and make citizenship by blood only. Embrace war as a standard way of life. We will fight perpetual wars, to make ourselves stronger. Some die off, but the rest become even stronger. The reward of winning war is a continuous flow of resources and services, to make ourselves rich, instead of forcing us to have an underclass stuck doing dirty jobs that no one else wants, or an excess of unemployed unwanted men with no purpose in life. Trump's recent rhetoric on Venezuela seems to be a step in that direction- he says that he did it partially for security, but also partially just to take the oil and make us all richer. We'll see if that's actually the case, but I can appreciate the vision.
Starship Troopers explored this concept seriously as well (disregard the movie, which may be fun but has little to do with the book). In the book, the franchise is only extended to people who undertake hazardous and/or unpleasant duty on behalf of the human federation. A right to be able to do this is guaranteed, and they will even invent difficult tasks for someone with disabilities, but the point is to ensure real skin in the game for the franchise-holders. The book also discusses the concept of human expansion as a sort of evolutionary force.
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