4. Humanity’s past and future
Both scripts are interested in how the 23rd/24th‑century Federation judges 20th‑century humanity, but they reach almost opposite conclusions. In “Space Seed,” Kirk condemns Khan’s authoritarian philosophy yet still grants him a kind of romantic exile on Ceti Alpha V, implying that even a tyrant from Earth’s past deserves a chance to build something new.
TNG takes a more didactic, utopian tack: Picard bluntly tells Offenhouse that material wealth is meaningless in the 24th century and that humanity has “grown out of” that kind of greed, using the character as a foil to showcase Federation post‑scarcity ethics. Where TOS sees Earth’s past as dangerous but weirdly alluring, TNG treats it as something fundamentally outgrown, good mostly for contrast and a bit of gentle ridicule.