Jul 17, 2022
Trans representation in Star Trek.
In 2022, trans characters in Star Trek have become part of the fabric of humanity’s shared future in space. In addition to Adira and Gray Tal in Discovery, we’ve been treated to the villainess Captain Angel in Strange New Worlds and even an explicitly non-binary character, the...
Apr 5, 2022
… it wasn’t the Vulcans who made first contact?
April 5, 2063. In Star Trek’s imagined history, it was on this date that humanity made first contact with an alien race. The event led to societal transformation on a global scale and ushered in a bright future. But what if it wasn’t the Vulcans who happened to...
Jul 9, 2020
Trekonomics, with Manu Saadia.
“The economics of the future are somewhat different,” Captain Jean-Luc Picard tells Lily Sloane in Star Trek: First Contact. “You see, money doesn’t exist in the 24th century.” But the “primitive” 21st-century human is instinctively appalled: “No money? You mean you don’t...
May 14, 2020
Voyager’s “Critical Care” and the current global pandemic.
A healthcare system struggling with inadequate resources. Patients
dying, untreated, as politicians and administrators grapple with a
humanitarian crisis. In some ways, the Star Trek: Voyager episode
“Critical Care” seems eerily prescient. Originally...
Mar 6, 2020
The Eugenics Wars, with Greg Cox.
For a high-tech futuristic utopia, the United Federation of Planets
can seem surprisingly cautious when it comes to new technologies.
Time and again, Star Trek has played out the science fiction staple
of technology run amok. In some cases, the response we have seen
has been a kind of...