Why Star Trek is Relevant to Real Life

by Elaine Baxter

Although most Star Trek fans would cite their hobby as being a form of escapism, there is no denying that as a television fantasy, I believe that it has a lot to say about reality.

First of all there is the area most attributed to being escapism and fantasy - Star Trek's science. Most people know that Star Trek has a team of 'real scientists' who try to ensure that the technology, biology and so on appearing on the shows is at least believable, but it is relatively unknown how much of Star Trek's science is more an optimistic and perhaps exaggerated view of the future based on theoretical possibilities, than a load of made-up nonsense.

Consult any physics textbook to discover words like wormhole, symbiont, plasma (as in the conduits) and Heisenberg (whose uncertainty principle is compensated for on starships). Okay, so dilithium crystals don't exist, but you can see where the words come from. An article in the last issue explains how warp drive values are based on mathematical logarithms again Star Trek uses an extension of something real.

And then of course, there is the moral side of Star Trek. The Star Trek universe is not all about technology, but also people, moral issues and humanity. Whether or not aliens really do exist, Star Trek teaches us about racial tolerance and aspects of humanity can be portrayed using fictional creatures.

From dated Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes in which an unsubtle anti-drugs message is put across, to stories about oppression such as Star Trek: Insurrection or about playing God as in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Latent Image" and spirituality such as in Star Trek: Voyager's "Sacred Ground"; Star Trek's creators use the stories as fables with an underlying important message.

Also, the characters in Star Trek, whether alien or not, are easy to relate to and in most cases, aspire to imitate. I find it very poignant that the Enterprise's counsellor, i.e. the most psychologically stable character (theoretically) on ST:TNG has an emotional dependence on chocolate which most women will find true to their hearts!

Even though Star Trek is a fictional world, it has a lot to say in ours. This is seen in the enthusiasm which it creates in the field of space exploration and the values which it teaches us. Gene Roddenberry's dream for the future makes us think about our society at the moment, and Star Trek's success lies in its appeal as an extension of our imaginations which allows us to discover ourselves.