Star Trek at 60, Part Two: When Star Trek Became a Universe

Star Trek became bigger by refusing to repeat itself: new captains, new moral tests and a universe suddenly large enough for every kind of story.

Star Trek at 60: Part 2

• Series: Star Trek at 60 — Part 2 of 3.
• Period covered: 1987–2005.
• Format: Spoiler-free anniversary feature.

PART TWO: THE NEXT GENERATION — WHEN STAR TREK BECAME A UNIVERSE

PART TWO
1987–2005: THE ERA WHEN STAR TREK BECAME A UNIVERSE

There may be no more terrifying assignment in television than this:

Replace Captain Kirk.

That was effectively the challenge confronting Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987.

New century.

New Enterprise.

New captain.

New crew.

And millions of fans perfectly prepared to explain why all of this was a terrible idea.

Then Patrick Stewart walked onto the bridge.

JEAN-LUC PICARD: THE CAPTAIN AS STATESMAN

Where Kirk might leap across the tactical console and personally punch the alien responsible, Jean-Luc Picard was rather more likely to request a conference, examine the archaeological evidence, quote Shakespeare and then explain exactly why your civilisation’s legal position was indefensible.

And somehow it was magnificent.

Picard was a captain built around diplomacy.

He listened.

He reasoned.

He believed civilisation meant behaving civilly even when doing so was difficult.

But never mistake diplomacy for weakness.

When Picard finally raised his voice, entire quadrants appeared to reconsider their life choices.

The USS Enterprise-D reflected him.

Huge.

Comfortable.

Diplomatic.

A vessel capable of carrying families and laboratories rather than functioning merely as a military platform.

Trek had matured.

The future no longer looked like a frontier patrol.

It looked like civilisation.

THE BORG: STAR TREK INVENTS NIGHTMARE FUEL

Then the Borg arrived.

And suddenly negotiation became considerably more complicated.

The Borg are arguably Star Trek’s greatest conceptual enemy because they attack the very thing Trek values most:

individual identity.

The Federation says difference makes us stronger.

The Borg say difference is irrelevant.

The Federation seeks understanding.

The Borg seek assimilation.

The Federation says:

We can coexist.

The Borg reply:

You don’t really have a choice.

Their transformation of Picard into Locutus in “The Best of Both Worlds” remains one of Trek’s defining traumas.

And Star Trek: First Contact gave the Collective an unforgettable focal point in the Borg Queen.

The Borg weren’t frightening because they hated humanity.

They didn’t hate anybody.

That was worse.

You were simply material.

Resistance?

Well.

You know.

WORF AND THE GREAT KLINGON TRANSFORMATION

One of The Next Generation’s smartest decisions was sitting quietly at tactical.

Lieutenant Worf.

A Klingon in Starfleet.

The descendants of Kirk’s great adversaries were no longer simply villains.

Through Worf, Trek explored honour, cultural belonging, immigration, family, politics and the difference between romanticising a culture and actually living inside it.

Worf often believed in Klingon ideals more strongly than Klingons themselves.

His journey through The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine transformed the Klingons from generic enemies into one of science fiction’s most developed fictional cultures.

Star Trek didn’t merely defeat an enemy.

It got to know them.

DEEP SPACE NINE: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN UTOPIA GOES TO WAR?

Then Trek did something radical.

It stopped moving.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine placed its characters aboard a former Cardassian space station beside Bajor and the newly discovered wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant.

And at its centre stood Benjamin Sisko.

Not Picard.

Not Kirk.

Sisko.

Father.

Widower.

Commander.

Captain.

Emissary.

And eventually wartime leader.

Avery Brooks gave Trek a commanding figure of enormous emotional and dramatic range.

DS9 asked the question Trek had often avoided:

What happens to Federation principles when following them might cost you the Federation?

Enter the Dominion War.

Enter Section 31.

Enter moral compromise.

Enter “In the Pale Moonlight.”

Sisko was prepared to travel into grey territory Picard desperately tried to avoid.

And yet DS9 never abandoned Trek’s ideals.

It tested them.

Hard.

THE CARDASSIANS: WHEN THE ENEMY HAS A FACE

The Cardassians became central to this darker Trek.

Introduced during The Next Generation, they evolved into an authoritarian civilisation whose occupation of Bajor created some of the franchise’s most politically complex storytelling.

Through figures such as Gul Dukat, Trek explored occupation, collaboration, nationalism, resistance and the terrifying ability of oppressors to rewrite their own histories.

Dukat remains compelling because he desperately wants to think of himself as the hero.

The truly dangerous villain rarely introduces himself by saying:

“Good evening. I’m evil.”

He says:

“You misunderstand what I did.”

QUARK, FERENGI AND TREK’S SECRET WEAPON

Deep Space Nine also performed one of Trek’s greatest rehabilitation jobs.

The Ferengi.

Introduced in The Next Generation as an intended major enemy, they were approximately as terrifying as a malfunctioning replicator.

Then DS9 gave us Quark.

Suddenly Ferengi society became a glorious vehicle for satire about capitalism, sexism, commerce and greed.

The Rules of Acquisition became simultaneously ridiculous and disturbingly plausible.

And if somebody reading this article immediately knows Rule 34 is not the internet version — congratulations.

You have passed the Trekkie test.

CAPTAIN KATHRYN JANEWAY: GETTING THEM HOME

In 1995, Star Trek: Voyager stranded a Starfleet vessel approximately 70,000 light-years from home.

Captain Kathryn Janeway had one overriding objective:

Get her crew back.

Voyager gave Trek its first woman as the central captain of a Star Trek series.

Janeway combined scientific curiosity, maternal protectiveness and the kind of command resolve required when your nearest friendly starbase is several decades away.

Coffee helped.

A lot.

Officially, Voyager faced a potential 70-year journey home.

Unofficially, Janeway apparently decided the Delta Quadrant would surrender before she did.

Voyager also reimagined the Borg through Seven of Nine, reversing assimilation.

Rather than asking how humans become Borg, Seven’s journey asked:

How does a Borg become human again?

It was pure Star Trek.

Identity reclaimed one choice at a time.

ENTERPRISE: BEFORE THERE WAS A FEDERATION

Then Trek went backwards.

Star Trek: Enterprise introduced Captain Jonathan Archer and humanity’s first serious steps into deep space aboard the NX-01 Enterprise.

No Federation.

No Prime Directive.

No mature Starfleet rulebook.

Humans were learning as they went.

Sometimes badly.

Archer wasn’t commanding the Federation.

He was helping create the relationships that would eventually make the Federation possible. Official Trek history describes the NX-01 mission as contributing to the first cooperation among Humans, Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites — the species that would become Federation founders.

Enterprise therefore occupies an important place in the mythology.

It’s about civilisation before the instructions were written.

And yes.

It had been a long road.

You knew we had to do it.

THE CAPTAINS’ TABLE

Sixty years of Trek has created no shortage of arguments over who belongs in the centre chair.

Christopher Pike

The captain who came first — and, through Strange New Worlds, finally received the expansive character study Jeffrey Hunter’s original version never had.

James T. Kirk

The explorer. The tactician. The man willing to risk himself before his crew.

Jean-Luc Picard

The diplomat. Philosopher. Archaeologist. Defender of civilisation.

Benjamin Sisko

The builder, father, Emissary and wartime commander.

Kathryn Janeway

The scientist-captain who held an isolated crew together across an impossible journey.

Jonathan Archer

The pioneer who helped build the diplomatic foundations of the Federation.

And later:

Gabriel Lorca

A captain whose methods concealed considerably more than an unusually dark ready room.

Saru

A leader whose journey from a prey species conditioned by fear to commanding officer became one of Discovery’s most satisfying arcs.

Michael Burnham

The mutineer who eventually became captain of the Discovery — an extraordinary trajectory from disgrace to command.

Each represents a different interpretation of leadership.

Which is why asking Trekkies “Who’s the best captain?” is an excellent way to turn a peaceful dinner into the Khitomer Conference.

STAR TREK ON THE BIG SCREEN

Meanwhile, the films kept changing the scale.

The original cast bowed out through The Undiscovered Country, an elegant Cold War allegory about peace with the Klingons.

Kirk then crossed paths — eventually and somewhat fatally — with Picard in Star Trek Generations.

The Next Generation crew faced the Borg in First Contact, travelled through Insurrection and confronted Shinzon in Nemesis.

Then came 2009.

J.J. Abrams didn’t erase original Star Trek.

He branched it.

The Kelvin Timeline allowed Chris Pine’s Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Spock, Karl Urban’s McCoy and a new cast to reinterpret legendary characters while Leonard Nimoy’s original Spock provided the bridge between realities.

It was an elegant solution to an impossible franchise problem.

Canon remained intact.

A parallel timeline opened.

Somewhere, Temporal Investigations presumably developed a migraine.

WHEN UNIVERSES COLLIDE

And Trek’s ability to cross universes became even stranger in comics.

Star Trek Meets Doctor Who

Yes.

It happened.

Officially.

In IDW’s eight-issue Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation², published in 2012, the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams encounter Picard and the Enterprise-D.

And because merely meeting wasn’t sufficiently nerdy, the story allied:

The Borg.

with

The Cybermen.

Picard and the Doctor therefore faced two of science fiction’s greatest cybernetic assimilation nightmares simultaneously.

Somewhere in the universe, a continuity editor began crying.

There was even a delightful earlier-era element involving the Fourth Doctor and Kirk.

Doctor Who and Star Trek make surprisingly natural companions.

Both franchises believe curiosity matters.

Both constantly ask what makes somebody human.

Both have spent decades explaining why changing history is extremely dangerous immediately before changing history.

STAR TREK MEETS PLANET OF THE APES

Then came another wonderfully improbable meeting:

Star Trek/Planet of the Apes: The Primate Directive.

The original Enterprise crew crossed into the universe of the classic Planet of the Apes films.

Kirk.

Spock.

Apes.

Klingons.

Yes, somebody really approved this.

And thank goodness they did.

Crossovers like these reveal something important about Star Trek fandom.

Canon matters enormously.

Until somebody offers us the possibility of Picard meeting the Doctor.

Then suddenly we’re willing to discuss jurisdiction.

THE ENTERPRISE IS MORE THAN A SHIP

Across the decades, the name Enterprise became a lineage.

NX-01.

NCC-1701.

1701-A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

And beyond.

Each Enterprise carries history.

Which is why the resurrection of the Enterprise-D in the final season of Star Trek: Picard triggered such an emotional reaction.

It wasn’t merely a vessel returning.

It was a homecoming.

Picard.

Riker.

Data.

Worf.

Geordi.

Beverly.

Troi.

One last time.

One bridge.

One crew.

And for millions of viewers, suddenly it was 1987 again.

The Enterprise is where Star Trek stores our memories.

FINAL PART 3 COMING SOON

Which era of Star Trek first made the final frontier feel like home?