Before I discovered Star Trek, the past held more intrigue for me than the future did. What was it like to be alive when The Beatles were still releasing new music? Was Woodstock the immersive experience that it seemed to be? My parents were already married and had a child by the time the British invasion came around, and besides, they were Elvis fans who didn’t care for music that wasn’t made in America.
However, they were both Star Trek fans, and when I discovered the show on my own in my late teens, I once asked my mom what she liked best about it (besides her crush, William Shatner), and she said, “It gives me hope for a better future.” Now, all these years later, I truly understand what she meant.
Hope for a way forward
Sometimes it feels like we’re living in one of the dark universes from the Star Trek franchise, where humanity got it wrong and never moved past people clinging to archaic attitudes and ideas that promote hatred, xenophobia, and disunity. To quote Dr. McCoy in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, “It’s a miracle these people ever got out of the 20th century!”
In 1987, when Star Trek: The Next Generation became the new sci-fi leader and the franchise blossomed anew on television with such shows as Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, their messages about accepting differences, working together, and discarding outdated beliefs gave new hope to viewers like me.
Hope as a buffer during times of grief
There is simply no way to prepare for some losses, especially those that permanently change your life. Sometimes, it feels so huge, and it’s easy to get lost in a nebula of sorrow and depression. When I lost my mom in 2023, I drowned myself in Star Trek television shows, books, and podcasts.
Revisiting old episodes and original series movies gave me plenty of comfort in the days and months that followed. Movies like The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country reminded me, as they might have done for others, that grief and hope can exist in the same space, and that the latter provides a buffer for the former.
Hope for humanity as a species
Sometimes, it feels like all we humans do is ruin the planet. Pollution, landfills, and toxins in both the air and the oceans continue to grow, and where would we go from here if we tax our planet’s climate beyond what it can handle? It’s a frightening thought, but Star Trek shows us that we can find solutions to these problems if we work together.
Ultimately, Star Trek is about hope—for humanity, for the future, and unity. For myself and likely countless others, the characters, stories, and lessons always give me a reason to look forward to the future instead of dwelling on the past.
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