Star Trek actors encourage fans to act to create a real Star Trek future

A panel held on Star Trek Day brought a cry for action to light

Star Trek as a franchise has always been a place of hope. In the future experienced on these series, wars on Earth don’t exist neither does hunger, poverty, or racism. Everyone is included because everyone belongs as each series proved the world was big enough for everyone. And a panel with the cast from Star Trek: Enterprise on Star Trek Day brought a challenge to fans worldwide to put action to these dreams for the future.

John Billingsley, who portrayed Dr. Phlox on Enterprise, believes it’s important to “act on the ground every day to make a difference in the world as it exists.” The actor has always questioned if Star Trek can show us how to create a Utopian future, and if that’s the case, what steps do we need to take to get there?

"I would like to continue to remind people to connect the vision that they take away from Star Trek with their own need to act on the ground every day to make a difference in the world as it exists. If you believe in the future that Star Trek represents, what are you doing? Because the one thing that has always been my question is can Star Trek tell us how? How do we get to the place where we put nationalism and racism and intolerance and greed  and selfishness aside and put the needs of humanity first? And in the end, each of us have an individual decision to make about how we do it in our own lives."

Though things aren’t perfect in the Star Trek universe, they are vastly improved over life as we know it now on Earth. Beyond the technology and interstellar travel, there is acceptance. If there was on thing that wasn’t tolerated onboard a Starfleet vessel, it was prejudice of any kind.

In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode, Balance of Terror, Captain Kirk made it very clear that bigotry wasn’t welcome when he told Lt. Stiles to “leave any bigotry in your quarters. There’s no room for it on the bridge.” He, like many other officers aboard Starfleet vessels, would never tolerate intolerance. That was the world they lived in, and that’s the world Gene Roddenberry saw for our future.

It’d doubtful that our own Utopia will rise tomorrow, but as Scott Bakula said “err on the side of hope that we will rise above.” So if not now, eventually.