Star Trek, the Crisis of Meaning & …. I can do better than that. Here is what they should have done

One of the things that I believe will precede the fall of Babylon, or our collapse in general, is a crisis of meaning. Specifically, this mean our myths and heroes are hollow or not taken seriously. This is fundamentally a spiritual crisis.

The Jedi Church may be laughable, but a society incapable of even that… that is terrifying. A society without heroes or myths is spiritually dead. It can still move, still function—but only on momentum, like a corpse that hasn’t yet realized it’s dead.

And related to this, is a crisis in telling stories. You can’t have a compelling story without meaning.

It is interesting to note, that of the Eminent Men and Women who appeared to Pres Woodruff, said they laid the foundation of liberty for us. Besides the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the majority were artists and authors. What we might call mythmakers.

 

The decline of Hollywood is not incidental; it is fraught with meaning. Our major myth-making institutions no longer produce stories that people can inhabit with confidence.

Star Trek, once defined by competence and moral aspiration, now oscillates between irony and institutional rot. Star Wars offers spectacle without direction. Marvel cycles power without belief. Whatever their technical merits, none of them offer even a plausible fictional way forward.

This is not merely an artistic failure. It is a philosophical one.

If a civilization’s elite cannot sustain a coherent fictional universe, it will not sustain a real one. A society that no longer believes its own myths collapses under its own weight, long before external pressures arrive.

Rather than rehearse a critique of modern religion or ideology, it is more revealing to look at Star Trek itself.

One author writes: (Star Trek: The Ultimate Dissident Review. )

“Star Trek is not about boldly going anywhere spiritually. It is about the managerial class dreaming of the universe as a bureaucracy with lasers.”

We could critique this at length, but why critique when we can explore possibilities?

So, in the wake of  Starfleet Academy – this was my solution to save Trek.

Star Trek: Terra Incognita is not nostalgia. It is an attempt to answer that question—by introducing a technological change that forces every institution, including the Federation itself, to confront what it actually believes. To give choice that matters, and to really go where no man has gone before.

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Star Trek: Terra Incognita

Episode 1:

All the major powers are preparing for war: Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Orions, etc. Armies are assembling along the Neutral Zone. Spokesmen who consider themselves Statemen are whipping their populations up for the conflict. The Ferengi Collective has nearly been conquered and is calling for help, which the Federation is not responding to.

But our main character is stuck on a distant station, far from anything anyone considers important. Just a small listening station, with just a skeleton crew.

Captain Karev has been stranded here since the Academy—for the crime of publically correcting an admiral. He is frustrated and simply stuck. His elderly Vulcan officer Tarnok encourages him, that even this is an important duty.

The only visitors for a long time have been a Klingon youth, Karesh, whose entire House has been destroyed by “honorable” nobles. He doesn’t believe in honor any more… but doesn’t know what to believe. The shuttle he escaped in is a deathtrap and he has nothing and no one. The only other visitor is a downcast Ferengi merchant, Glok.

News comes in that the Ferengi Collective has fallen and the capital Ferenginar has been captured. In a moment of sincerity, the captain tells Glok that if there isn’t much he can do, but if there is anything he can do to help, he would. Just ask. Glok appreciates the gesture.

Lt. Ral, has been bored, and has been conducting some experiments of her own in the shuttle bay.

(The shuttle bay is dim. Ral’s improvised rig hums. Karev and Tarnok enter briskly. Glok and Karesh stand near the wrecked Klingon shuttle.)

KAREV
Lieutenant—tell me you didn’t shut down our long-range comms.

RAL
Only kinda. Temporarily.
You needed to see this.

(She gestures. Telemetry snaps onto the display.)

TARNOK
The probe traveled seventy point eight light-years in zero point one two seconds.

(Beat.)

KAREV
Say that again.

TARNOK
It crossed the Neutral Zone.
Entered Romulan space.
And returned.

(Karev stiffens.)

KAREV
It crossed the Neutral Zone?

RAL
No warp signature.
Nothing to track.

(She looks up, serious.)

RAL (CONT.)
It moves at subspace signal speed. It uses a collapsing adiabatic quasi-tachyon field to…

KAREV
This isn’t faster warp.

RAL
It means warp is obsolete.

(Glok wanders over, drink in hand.)

GLOK
Fifty percent faster, you get a promotion. Good job!
Twice as fast, you get a chapter in history books. Congratulations!

(He studies the display.)

GLOK (CONT.)
This fast?
You vanish.

KAREV
Vanish how?

GLOK
Cleanly.
Files. Transfers. Accidents. You never existed. 

(A faint smile.)

GLOK (CONT.)
Governments preparing for war are very tidy.

(He glances at Tarnok.)

GLOK (CONT.)
Tell me I’m wrong.

TARNOK
At that velocity, distance ceases to function as a constraint. All existing strategic assumptions fail.

RAL
That’s the Andromeda Galaxy in about an hour.

KARESH
This ends treaties.
No borders. No warnings.
Only who moves first.

(Karev exhales.)

KAREV
We report it.

GLOK
Do you?

(Karev turns.)

KAREV (controlled)
That’s my duty.
You hand the problem upward… and it stops being yours.

GLOK
And that’s the comfort of it.

(Karev looks back at the display.)

KAREV
If I report this, Starfleet decides how it’s used.
If it’s abused, no one here answers for it.

(Beat.)

KAREV (CONT.)
And if I don’t…
I am responsible.

(Ral steps forward.)

RAL
I didn’t build this to win a war.
I built it so colonies could survive. So my family can finally reach a world of their own.
If we bury it, only the worst people will ever get to use it.

(That lands.)

TARNOK
Power unclaimed does not remain unused.
It merely changes hands.

(Karev absorbs that.)

KAREV
If I file a report, I’m safe.
If I don’t, I own the consequences.

(A long beat, silence)

KAREV (CONT.)
No reports.
No logs. This stays here.

(Glok raises his glass.)

GLOK
Every choice is expensive.

At least this one leaves you alive.

GLOK (CONT.)
Captain, you offered me a favor.

You said if there was any way to help my people, you would.

I want in.

KAREV

There’s no “in.”

This isn’t a business.

GLOK

Of course it is.

(Karev looks at him.)

GLOK (CONT.)

Not a small one.

Not a clean one.

(beat)

You’ve just destroyed the monopoly on distance.

That means no one gets to dictate terms anymore.

(beat — then, for the first time, something like excitement)

GLOK (CONT.)

This changes the board.

For the first time in a long time… the rules aren’t fixed.

KAREV
That’s not something I can give.

GLOK
You already did.
The moment you decided not to tell Starfleet.

(That lands harder than a threat.)

KAREV
This isn’t about profit.

GLOK
Good.
Then we’re clear.

 

(A console chirps. New sensor data.)

(Everyone tenses.)

KARESH
Captain…
time may not be on our side.

(Karev stares out into the stars.)

 

 

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Science Fiction at its best is an examination of the human condition, dealing with new issues, dealing with science. This would make galaxies as easy to visit as other stars. Political boundaries mean less when you can cross them this easily. The Federation can not continue to exist in the same form as before.

Karev realizes that he now possesses something powerful—and dangerous—but that he cannot give it back or step away from it. The moment has found him, whether he wants it or not.

He has built his career on credibility: on following the rules even when they cost him, on trusting that institutions, though imperfect, are the proper place for decisions to be made.

But Karev begins to see the distinction he has avoided: institutions do not merely make choices—they also distribute blame. And the Federation, for all its ideals, has learned how to preserve authority while avoiding responsibility.

Later in the season, Karev will meet another captain—one who left the Federation entirely to protect a scattered group of exiles, and who considers it the best decision of his life. That captain believes his choice was not a rejection of Starfleet’s principles, but a fulfillment of them—regardless of what his superiors thought.

That encounter forces Karev to confront a truth he has been resisting:

Power is not immoral by default.
Abdicating it does not make one virtuous.
It only ensures that someone else will wield it instead—someone less cautious, less constrained, and less accountable.

Karev does not immediately decide what to do with what he now holds.
But he understands something that cannot be unlearned:

He can no longer pretend the choice belongs to someone else.

And the Romulans noticed… something. They aren’t going to let that go.