Star Trek’s biggest oversights
Don’t mistake me - Star Trek was far, far ahead of its time.
I could go on about the peacefully united human civilisation, dedicated to research, exploration and defence - an optimistic future for our species.
Or the incredible detail that went into the world, the ships, the technology, the politics.
Or the diverse cast of characters, exploring complex moral and social issues with subtlety, tact and grace.
(I’m talking about old Star Trek here, obviously. The new stuff is superficially diverse, but otherwise failing on every other count.)
There are two ways old Trek messed up, though.
The first is teleporter technology. If it worked by altering the space-coordinates of material objects, there’d be no problem. Having it work by disassembling people at the source, the reassembling them at the destination, raises an endless list of problems.
Philosophical problems - arguably, this kills the original and creates a clone.
Story problems - how does anyone ever die in the future? Why not store their teleportation signature (something Starfleet ships do anyway) and print out copies if you need them?
Hell, why not make entire armies of duplicates?
Oh, and the holodeck is dumb too, now I think about it. A simulator that, when it glitches, makes the simulation come to life? That like a toaster that, when it glitches, creates diamonds and Bitcoin.
Let’s all lump that under “underutilised technology”.
The second problem?
The too-human aliens.
I’m not talking about how Vulcans and Klingons look human with some prosthetics. They had to work with the limitations of the time. One of the reasons daleks are such a genius creation is they’re completely non-human, but made on a shoestring budget.
I don’t mind that Vulcans are humans with pointy ears.
My issue is they act too human. Regardless of how they look, they’re far too relatable. How could an alien race end up with the same psychology as humans, just with slightly less emotions?
“But of course all intelligent creatures will think in similar ways!”
Bullmanure - different brains, shaped by different environments, needs and biology, will think differently.
Even if you disagree, read a history book once and a while. There’s more differences between modern Western humans and, say, ancient shamanic peoples, than between all the species in Star Trek’s galaxy.
Any alien should be at least as alien as the most foreign human.
Gene Roddenberry and the early Trek writers needed Call of the Gods. It shows easy ways to make aliens alien - whether those aliens are eldritch horrors, fantasy gods, fae, AI or any other non-human.
It also shows you how to make your audience care about them, despite being so unrelatable.
Oh well.
At least you can avoid those same mistakes - whether you’re writing a fantasy epic or running a humble D&D campaign - when you get it here: