The Primagen thinks the appeal of Star Trek is the fantasy of being Jean Luc Picard, and he's not the only one. It is one appeal, I mean who doesn't want a good book and some tea, but it isn't the primary appeal for me, and I know other fans agree. The real juice of Trek is the righteous future it imagines.
Star Trek is about diversity. Not everyone identifies with Picard. I feel much closer to Data and Troi. A big inspiration for me is Benjamin Sisko who runs Deep Space Nine. Deep Space Nine, the show, takes place after a genocide. The port was built by occupying slavers. There are episodes depicting an alternate dimension where the station hadn't been freed. DS9 sits atop a resource, a wormhole to splendor and misery, to unknown terror and endless exploration.
Star Trek is about diplomacy. It's about contact between alien cultures. Sometimes first contact, sometimes last, sometimes ongoing. In most cases Trek follows a ship, moving from place to place, meeting new peoples, and having interations with people who have different wants, needs, expectations, and experiences. In DS9 the station is a port so the diverse cultures come to us. Sisko doesn't need to explore the galaxy to find new and interesting diplomatic encounters, they come find him where he lives.
Star Trek is about interpersonal journies and relationships. One's position within society and the labor force are not relevant to one's comfort or privilege in Star Trek. Aboard the Enterprise, William T. Riker --with the middle initial to evoke Kirk-- chooses repeatedly not to become a starship captain; his priorities are not his job or his rank. Data is everyday studying those around him to better assess his place in the world. Worf, having grown up isolated and different from his peers has journeyed out in search of a way to operate in the world that fits into the complex puzzle of what he's been told he's supposed to be.
Star Trek is about everyone. There are no pay raises in Star Trek because there is no pay. Whatever you need, you can get provided for you. Firengi are trapped in an endless cycle of bills, backstabbing, rent, and exploitation because their system doesn't provide for people. Housing is a human right. Everyone would have housing if the land wasn't stolen and sat upon by rent seekers. No one has medical bills in Star Trek, because what good is a society that doesn't take care of its sick and unwell? The price of not caring for people is far higher than making sure everyone has the best care possible.
Star Trek is about building the future. These social safety nets are posssible, they're being done in different places in different ways across the globe, though fascist forces do their best to disrupt them and make them as inconvenient as possible to achieve. Firengi want to sit on all the resources and charge rent. Capitalism cannot coexist with a humane society. That is what Gene Roddenberry found, and it continues to ring true.
Star Trek is about tech. Behind beautiful props, is what they represent. Technology designed to be humane, beautiful, educational, connective, and to provide the material needs of everyone. Translators, diagnostics, communicators, food makers, holodeck fantasies.
Star Trek is about nonviolence. Picard abhors violence. He sees it as a sickness upon the galaxy. He is willing to put his own life on the line if it means stopping violence before it starts. While he will fire a torpedo to keep the thousands of souls aboard his ship alive, he will exhaust every option he can imagine first. That is why he is Captain.
Star Trek is about working conditions. In the world of Trek, people do the kind of work they want to do. In the future Star Trek paints, we've built and automated the infrastructure to make that possible. The real professional fantasy of Star Trek is not that starship captaincy is so grand, it's that whoever you are, whatever your skillset and background, can find a place to do meaningful work for the benefit of the galaxy that fulfills your your need problem solve, while never being forced to work outside your limits. If you find yourself doing labour that's uncomfortable or dangerous, you get together with those in your department and find a solution! Workers in Star Trek are improving their own working conditions, and the conditions of everyone, all the time.
Star trek is about freedom. If you want to work in medicine, in the world of Trek you can go to school for that, take as long as you need, for free. Need a vacation? Take one. Need a change of environment? Transfer. Will you be given command of a starship that holds thousands of souls? If you have a powerful record of service, and there's an opening, yes. Can you take classes, get a license, and get your own ship from a library all for free? Yes. I don't know if it's canon, I don't care it fits the fantasy.
Star Trek is about how we use technology. People don't hate AI because the automation will take their jobs, they hate AI because we are building a world where AI automates everything for the wealthy and the rest of us starve.* The problem is as much with needing a job to survive as it is with the job being taken away. Capitalism is killing us, it's why fascist nazi control methods are rising. People who yesterday thought everything was going to work out for them today realize the only power they had was in numbers and they've been isolated.
I'm not special. I'm not going to be Captain Picard. I want my basic human needs met. I want food, water, and shelter and that's why I love Star Trek, because even when they fail, they try to provide for everyone, which is the opposite of what capitalism does.
* There are countless reasons people hate AI: It's bad at things, it makes lifeless uncanny-valley posts all over the internet, automated articles are poisoning the information food chain, it's stealing all our data to put in a blender and spit out hallucianations, the list is endless. My focus is on how it relates to job-loss here.
PS. The Primeagen seems like a relatively kind man. I think he has some confusion about the appeal of Trek, I think he's taken in some red scare impressions that holds his imagination back in this domain, and I thought framing this as a some kind of beef piece was funny. We have some political disagreements but I don't think he's some malicious actor. I don't know him. No real beef here. Just a thing he said made me think up this article. I would not have written it this way if I didn't think he'd be a good sport about it. Don't go trolling anyone because some internet person wrote an article please. Be better than that. He makes cool stuff and is entertaining though I would not call his chat a welcoming place for socialists I wouldn't call it hositle either. Meet people where they're at and meet them with kindness.