Is Star Trek a Utopian Vision of the Future?

The crew of the USS Enterprise. Photo courtesy of Starloggers.com ©

Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek has been called by some “a utopian vision of the future.” It’s not hard to see why. The century that the Enterprise and its crew find themselves in, is better than those days of yesterday that were filled with nuclear war, racial strife, and the eugenics war mentioned in the season one episode “Space Seed.” In Star Trek’s current century, any conflict that could possibly arise is dealt with in a diplomatic matter. The final outcome should be peace, not war. And yet, despite the best efforts of the Enterprise and the United Federation of Planets to establish harmonious relationships with other species we see that this is not always the case, even in space. More often than not, the Enterprise finds itself fighting off alien races who, being either more advanced or more primitive, want the same goal: to fight with the members of the Enterprise, sometimes even to the death.

1. Balance of Terror

Mark Lenard and company as the Romulans. Photo courtesy of StarTrek.com ©

In the Star Trek episode “Balance of Terror”, the Enterprise finds itself “fighting to prevent a fight.”. The episode begins with strange news; after contacting Earth Outposts 2 and 3 just outside the Neutral Zone (outposts set up on asteroids), Uhura reports…