Comment by throwatdem12311
4 days ago
> this is precisely the kind of thing that will help humanity outgrow the dark age of war
Just a reminder that even the Utopia of the 23rd century and beyond envisioned by Gene Roddenberry for Star Trek - the Federation and Starfleet are still at their core military institutions. Even war was very much still a thing in his utopic vision, despite the fact that scarcity basically no longer exists so what hell was everyone fighting over anyway?
Starfleet is only a few steps removed from the regime in Heinlen’s Starship Troopers. At least Heinlen didn’t pretend that they were enlightened post-imperialists. He was honest about what it was.
Wasn't war on Earth not the issue but war with other species in the galaxy the issue? Sure, there were some sympathizers trying to sabotage peace, but that's because they wanted to continue warring.
There is the Maquis which are basically insurrectionists/terrorists and Starfleet also has Section 31 for doing wet work.
Sisko poisoned a planet’s atmosphere, allowed political assassinations and even Picard did things that could be considered questionable once or twice, even Kirk.
Earth is peaceful because well…in a show about exploring space nobody really wants to see conflicts on Earth (there are a few exceptions where it worked though). And they have enough big guns and secret assassins to keep up appearances.
Earth is peaceful because they went through the horrors of WWIII already