this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026

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162

Why do they turn Federation into a dystopia? (infosec.pub)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by Chemo@feddit.org to c/startrek@startrek.website

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I just don't get it. What is the freaking problem of those directors, trying to rewrite federation into some kind of dystopian tech fascism?

I was annoyed by the first Star Trek movie by JJ Abrams, with those police cops. I was alienated by those anti-android resentments in Picard. I stopped watching Discovery after the first episode, because the main protagonist was sent to some kind of labor prison for disobedience, where prisoners regularly die. I didn't think it could get any worse but just watching the first 10 minutes of Starfleet Academy makes me want to bury the whole franchise [edit: and stopped watching]. Some drumhead court-martial, lifelong prison sentence, violently separating a mother from her child and some goons beating up a prisoner. How in the hell is this the same federation of TNG, Voyager and DS9?

Star Trek is supposed to be the ONE fiction with a positive, utopian view on mankind and the future. I totally get the attraction of dystopian settings but for that I can read some Warhammer 40k novels. This really makes me furious.

Fortunately there is still Strange New Worlds.

Please spoiler me, when this bullshit in Starfleet Academy gets turned around in some twist, because otherwise I will just ignore the show.

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[–] RamenJunkie@midwest.social 9 points 5 days ago

I mean, that point about seperating a mother and child, kind of forms the entire basis of the show as its what drive Captain Ake to come head the new Starfleet Academy. She feels like complete shit that it happened and wants Starfleet to be better in its rebirth.

And technically, Academy IS a "dystpian setting" because they had the galaxy wide apocalypse event that was The Burn that obliterated every warp drive and collapsed everything but it sounds like you didn't watch Discovery so you may have missed that.

[–] Sertou@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Because from a literary and media standpoint, utopias are boring. The Federation has never been a utopia. It is a post scarcity society with utopian ideals, but with plenty of flaws to balance out those ideals. In the TOS era, those flaws included penal colonies, the death penalty, albeit for only one crime, contacting Talos IV and lots of infighting among member worlds.

Without conflict, there is no drama. Star Trek has long found conflict in pitting the Federation against less high-minded adversaries, the Klingons and Romulans, the Borg, the Cardassians and the Dominion, the Kazon, etc. That is fine but after 60 years it is also sort of played out.

To your point about Discovery, it's first season took place before the Federation's ideals were fully codified in policy - general order 1 had yet to become "the prime directive" for example.

TNG trek took place later and was closer to the utopian ideal. But still wasn't perfect. The Federation tried to force Data to undergo study as a guinea pig and tried to take his daughter from him for the same reason, they supported unaligned worlds against internal dissent and left untold numbers of Federation citizens to the mercy of the Cardassians in the interest of keeping the peace.

During the Dominion War, the Federation was fine with setting aside it's ideals as a matter of survival.

During the burn, the federation no longer had the resources to support it's high ideals so it shrank and degenerated. Now. It is on the ascendant again, able to right past wrongs.

[–] JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think there's still a lot of room to explore without abandoning the utopia setting. like we usually only see the spaceship stuff, but what about a more political drama taking place on member worlds, that kind of thing, i think it could be amazing.

also, as you say, it's been done for 60 years. Might as well do the same thing over again for a new generation that hasn't seen tos/tng/ds9. They don't know it yet, so it's not overused, and the TOS audience wouldn't be the target audience anyways. and could still explore new topics. the audience isn't the same, our world isn't the same, making the same show again would still not be boring as it be a completely different thing.

Both approaches can work imo and have a place, without the need to go more dystopia.

[–] Sertou@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

My point is that there never was a utopian setting. Utopias are perfect by definition and therefore boring. The Federation is something much more interesting than a utopia. It's an imperfect culture that aspires to better itself in the attempt to achieve utopian ideals. That it fails and tries again is part of what makes Star Trek interesting.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago (2 children)

It's been happening for a while; they keep wanting to make it "darker and edgier" which started with some episodes of TNG (The pegasus) and just kept getting worse (deep space 9).

During TOS, things were not exactly properly utopian either, but I haven't watched enough to comment properly.

[–] T156@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'd honestly go much further back and put it at The Measure of a Man.

A supposedly eutopian Federation should never have been in a position where it would need to go to trial over whether someone could be compelled to undergo a lethal medical procedure (Maddox admitted he wouldn't be able to reassemble Data after disassembly), nor be reclassified as property/salvage so they could not legally refuse.

They would never do it with any of the organic humanoids in their ranks, how is Data an exception?

It basically proves Chancellor Gorkon's words true. The Federation is an organic human(oid)s only club. If you're not one, then any rights you thought you had go away as soon as it's no longer convenient.

If Starfleet had wished to take Voyager's EMH and vivisect his matrix to figure out what made him sapient, nothing would have prevented them from legally doing so, and neither the Voyager nor the Doctor would have legal means of preventing it.

Rights being conditional hardly seems like the kind of thing that belongs in eutopia.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Fair observation, but from my perspective what differs between the Pegasus and Measure of a Man is that the problem in Pegasus was whole cloth institutional. I get what you are saying though, there were no existing legal frameworks for data to reside in that stopped him from even being considered in passing as property, which is bad. However, it seemed to be one guy that wanted to do that, and the trial was held to examine if that would be right or not, and to establish the legal precedent.

Wheras with the Pegasus, the investigation disappears into a hole and not touched since. Instead of punishing Pressman, he gets made Admiral.

https://youtu.be/9eEGmC9FeFU?t=178

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[–] skribe@piefed.social 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Undiscovered Country was considered too militant by Roddenberry. IIRC Nimoy agreed, but only decades later.

The problem for Star Trek is that utopias are hard to write (they're considered boring or to cerebral for TV) and are usually reliant on external forces for their conflict. TOS was full of episodes where 'the other' upset the utopian balance. While I love/prefer TOS, younger audiences tend to find the episodes unsatisfying, even twee.

Since TNG, conflict has come more and more from within Star Fleet/Federation rather than the monster/planet of the week. That inevitably leads down a darker/dystopian path.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago (2 children)

TOS was full of episodes where ‘the other’ upset the utopian balance. While I love/prefer TOS, younger audiences tend to find the episodes unsatisfying, even twee.

Since TNG, conflict has come more and more from within Star Fleet/Federation rather than the monster/planet of the week.

My favorite episodes are the ones where there is some sci-fi problem, and they try to fix the issue. Or they have to mediate some problem with some aliens based on some pragmatic problem. They get presented with some moral dilemmas, and act in a moral way, and go somewhere else.

There's no need to lie to romulans, bomb planets, etc.

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[–] FaeriesWearBoots@sopuli.xyz 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The whole separating the child from the mother is turned in the first episode, and that tension creates character motivation in both the child and the captain who carries it out. Who admits on screen later that episode that it was a huge mistake and it's why she leaves Starfleet for 20 years. At the period in time that the separation happens the federation has pretty much fallen apart because of the burn (due to some unexplained physics phenomenon warp technology failed over a hundred years earlier). So yeah it may seem like the federation was a utopia by our standards, but it was really a demonstration of a cooperative rather than competitive future (Communism v. Capitalism). And even in that future nothing is perfect, shit happens, you have to deal with it and do the hard work of building strong community.

One of the most central lessons of the whole franchise is sumed up in the kobyoshi maru, a test from the 22-2300s era of trek that is a literal unwinnable scenario. The lesson: it possible to make no mistakes and still lose. Pick yourself up and do your best.

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[–] ragingHungryPanda@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com 5 points 5 days ago (4 children)

have you seen the animated Lower Decks series? I love it.

but yeah, a lot for newer star trek stuff I don't think was written by people intending to follow the series

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