Ok while I am on the topic of “unpopular Star Trek opinions” I’m going to go back to an old one. When I first heard the Klingons in the Discovery pilot say about the Federation and the most dangerous words being “we come in peace” I got chills.

I wrote an essay for university about that time. It covered more than just this ^^ but that was part of it. I also did a segment on the goa’uld from Stargate. It was correlating real world political ideologies, and actual historical implementations of those policies, with fictional groups/events in science-fiction. With the aim of the analysis to go to the core of sci-fi which is using it as a lens to explore facets of ourselves.

What makes the opinion so unpopular is because it is a conflict between the stated ideals of the Federation and how it actually is. My argument basically drew a comparison in universe with the Federation and the Borg (and out of universe with Americanisation/westernisation in terms of homogenisation of culture). In many ways the Federation does ‘assimilate’ the worlds it absorbs. That’s a simplistic generalised overview, obviously lot more to it.

The Federation claims to be Explorers but they are expansionists. They have their territory, and they have constant wars over defending it. It is really imperialism. Calling it peace doesn’t change that. Add to the fact that while Pike claims everyone votes it’s also very Earth-centric with the leaders of the Federation (and StarFleet as something of an enforcement arm in practicality) being majority human.

There is also a deep undercurrent of superiority/we know best. A bit of a colonial saviour complex. The best Trek in my opinion is when it is self-aware. I cheered in Strange New Worlds when Doctor M’Benga said they had left some prejudices behind, but on reaching the stars they had just adopted new ones.

It’s the eternal struggle. We all have work to do on ourselves, cultural prejudices/blinkers that we might not even realise we have. Constant battle to be better. More understanding, more open minded etc. and sci-fi as a lens to look at ourselves, is supposed to reflect that. So I don’t have a problem with Trek being how it is, in fact I think it is supposed to be like that, to provoke debate and reflection.

The unpopular part comes from the reflection. It is a cynical view of a Federation which is supposed to offer hope for a brighter future.