The Star Trek Conspiracy - Page 2

On November 20 2012 02:30 itsjustatank wrote:
In the Star Trek universe, humanity has developed a number of technological advances:

1. Limitless energy — humans have learned how to manipulate matter and anti-matter in such a way that they can harness usable energy
   
2. Limitless food — humans have developed a way to synthesize food from basic elements using replicators; in addition, these replicators can also construct non-food items
   
3. Faster-than-light space travel — warp technology has allowed humanity to expand beyond the confines of the Solar System and seek out new worlds for human expansion
   

Humans have also gone through a number of significant social changes as well:

1. Global governance — prior to the events of the movie First Contact, and after the global thermonuclear exchange of the third world war, the nation-states of the world had already banded together to form the United Earth.
   
2. Interstellar governance — this is the Federation, a unified governance structure for a number of civilizations spanning a number of worlds, with San Francisco being the capitol.
   

Pretty utopian, you might say, but there are probably reasons why things are the way they are in Star Trek. The Federation fleet is articulated as being primarily for scientific and exploratory purposes, but these are mere sideshows. The Federation fleet is a military structure, and like any military is tasked with handling use of force.

This is because of the fact that while the internecine conflicts seemingly made inevitable by the anarchic structure of nation-states with no overarching global governance structure that can regulate the affairs of states in the modern world has been eliminated by the establishment of such a structure centuries later, and with similar governance established between the worlds and species of the Federation, threats from without (and within) remain ever-present in the Star Trek universe:

1. Klingons
   
2. Xindi
   
3. Borg
   
4. Gorn
   
5. A probe that wanted to hear whale song but almost ended up destroying all life on Earth
   
6. Ricardo Montalban
   
7. Romulans
   
8. Cardassians
   
9. The Dominion
   
10. The Maquis
    
11. The Q Continuum
    
12. The Breen
    
13. Time Travelers
    

Mix these threats in with the overarching idea that the soft-power arm of the Federation is, in effect, a colonial activity meant to seek out new worlds for human control, and we are headed for some CONFLICT!

It is this conflict, and the threat of conflict, which remains to threaten what would be a utopian society in just about anyone's books if the society stood alone.

This is why there are red shirts, and this is why they die.

On November 20 2012 02:32 Subversive wrote:
I'd also like to add that there aren't endless fatalities in Star Trek TNG, DS9 or Voyager. It's a very Original series thing.