“Star Trek’s creator employed the show’s stories, allegorically, to further his optimistic premise that “there will be no Armageddon for mankind” and that “the future is bright.” His ideas and the future he created convinced me that, sociologically speaking, he was the most advanced thinker I had ever met. Genius had touched him.”

I think Mr. Roddenberry was a firm believer in the individual and our species and I think this view comes through overall in the various Star Treks.

There is no guarantee our species will reach the maturity he envisioned or something much greater.

It was Ghandi I think that said, “We must each be the change we want to see in the World.”

As entertaining as it is, and even granting its appeal, the Federation in Star Trek is little more than the dream of a successful, long-term actualization of pure Socialism / Communism, with Starfleet being its instrument of enforcement. Essentially, the idea has existed since Roman times, but the program is the united Earth’s Federation. But, like the idelogy itself, which owes much of its justification to Darwinism and would not likely or successfully admit so many “religious beliefs” in practice as depicted on Star Trek, it can’t be actualized in its pure and originally-intended forms and winds up riddled with contradictions – for instance, the second season Picard offering to pay for dinner while the series pilot not only denounces physical money but denies its existence in the 23rd century, effectively making it impossible for anyone to “pay” for anything.

Bottom line, in part because limited resources is the reality of the Earth, there are more “have nots” than there are “haves” in this world, so the dreams and ideals of the “have-nots” is assumed and accepted by default to be the definition of progress and enlightenment. One’s equality, though, is another’s prison and the taking away of everything that makes life meaningful for those that have actually put the education and team work that everyone encourages to use to support themselves and lead rewarding, successful lives. We’re all supposed to stay in school and what-not, and yet, what are we told to work for: A world in which it doesn’t matter save for the ideal that everyone should be motivated by anything OTHER than need or material possession.

I like “Star Trek: TMP,” but I think it falters for the same reason that Roddenberry’s intended vision for “Star Trek” never quite made it, which is that it’s fundamentally ill-supported by vague idealism without the courage to admit what it would take to reach that kind of utopian existence – namely, a command and control of all resources and types on the part of a few to be shared with many which, in reality, usually requires what Roddenberry abhorred and what came to define Communism as much as it ever did Fascism: MILITARY MIGHT AND VIOLENT CONFLICT OR THE THREAT OF IT. Thus, it’s unconvincing taking itself seriously and, as we all know, the series immediately began emulating “what is” more than what a few think it should be, i.e., a naval fleet and the realities of a world and a universe in which ambition, struggle and heroism have higher stakes and stand for more than just personal accomplishment and satisfaction.